December

December is the only month of the winter I like. I usually hate it when it’s snow outside and minus fifteen degrees, but in this month I can handle it. December is a month I’d think I’d enjoy the whole time, but the truth is that in fact the only time of the month I really love it is the few days before Christmas Eve and until New Years Eve. Most of the time before my weeks is spent on working 4-5 days a week, a lot of homework and of course my midterm exams. I get really tired of all of this, and it’s really hard to make time for everything. But despite all of this, I only have good memories from December; it’s a month I’m looking forward to every year. The atmosphere is goo and very cozy, with Christmas decorations and lights put up everywhere. My favorite thing to do, except eating dinner and open gifts Christmas Eve, is actually going around in Oslo and buys Christmas presents to my family and friends. First of all I love walking around in Oslo in December, you see a lot of different people, some super stressed and others just happy walking around looking for gifts. Someone is ice skating too in the middle of Oslo. Second of all I just love the way it makes me feel shopping for gifts for others. I love spending money at my friends and family, and buy them something they’ll be glad for. Basically December is a month to make others happy, and not only think about yourself. For example buy = Oslo from someone on the street, will make them happy and maybe help them be able to buy them something nice for themselves.
Christmas and December is one of my favorite time of the year, it’s a wonderful month. And I’m not looking forward to January and the cold months after..

Rikke

English in the Japanese world

I worked with the texts on the pages 40, 46 and 253, and the way i worked them was reading each one two-three times, and meanwhile taking notes. I worked mostly with Martha, but also with Anna and Tuva. The texts are about Japanese Manga and Anime, English in the South Asia and Japanese English. Out of the text I've learned about how Manga and Anime, have affected all the cartoons and such as in the Western world. For example Digimon and Pokemon are cartoons which I've seen on TV here in Norway, so I think it's exciting to know that it has reached to Norway so far up north as well.

Another thing i thought about while reading the text "The triumph of Japanese English", is how fascinating it is that some Japanese is better in English than some of the native speakers! It seems like a lot of them are studying really hard to learn to communicate with others, so that's great.

My opinion of this assignment is that it was a good use of time. The class is called "International English" so it's proper to use our time to study how the English language is in Japan since it's a great and well-known country, and I'm sure that if I'll work in Japan some time for a reason, I'll be glad i had this lesson.

The Kite Runner - the start

I've just started reading the famous book "The Kite Runner". For me it's well-known as an extraordinary book, and I've been wanting to read it after i read "A Thousand Splendid Suns" a couple of years ago.

In the start we meet a man who gets a phonecall from a friend of his past. He doesn't seem very happy about this call, and he starts to think back at his childhood after hanging up.

He starts to tell his story from the start.. He tells about his house, which for many was the most beautiful house in Kabul, and the life he lived there with his father. He and his father were Sunni muslims. They had a man working for them, Ali, and he had a son, Hassan, who is Amir(the main character's name) friend. Hassan and his father are Shia muslims.

One thing out of many they have in common is that neither of them have a mother around. Amir's mother died after giving birth to him, and Hassan's mother ran off with travelling singers and dancers less than a week after his birth. This bother Hassan a lot, especially since his mother was well-known for beeing kind of easy(...)

Hassan and his father Ali live in a little shack just outside of Amir's big house.

This is pretty much as far as I've read so far, looking forward to read more in this book!

Rikke

Facebook

After reading the article "Facebook hits exams result by 20 per cent" I began to think about how much time I actually spend on the worldwide phenomenon "Facebook". I truly believe that young people, like myself , who use facebook often, maybe use more time on Facebook than their homework etc. At least much more time that they should. A lot of people prioritize Facebook over school work such as for example studying for a test, and of course then they get lower grades than those who don't spend a lot of their time on the web. But I don't think that if you use Facebook you automatically get lower grades, it's all about how you chose to use it! And i believe that no one can blame Facebook if they don't achieve what they want, the only one you can blame is your self.

Rikke

"we want you!"

Erin Brockovich - the movie

I've chosen to write a little about the movie "Erin Brockovich", because I found it very interesting since it's based on a true story. The movie is about a single mother struggeling to make a living for her children and herself. After a trial that went wrong for her, she managed to get a job at the law firm, which worked on her case. After working there a while she discovered something interesting about an energy company called Pacific Gas and Electric company. Without any experience or education Erin is one of the leading persons in this big trial against the company.

This story tells a little about how one person can make a difference, in a world so big. Erin had a lot of adversity on her way, but she never gave up, fighting for the right to those who had been mistreated by this company. She sacrificed a lot during her way to justice, she was much away from her children and new boyfriend, who was kind enough to take care of them while she was gone. But her story tells us that nothing is impossible as long as you just keep believing and fighting for what you want, and even a woman with no education can fight a big company as that down.

- Rikke

Me and my expectations

Hi! My name is Rikke Malmstrøm Hole and I’m 17 years old. This year will be my second year going to Sandvika high school, and one of my subjects is International English. I live at Høvik, nearby the sea, and I’ve lived here my whole life. The previous schools i’ve gone to is Høvik verk and Ramstad, and after this Sandvika was my first choice. In my spare time I’m mostly with friends, boyfriend and I also like to workout at a gym called Elixia. In my weekends I work at Sandvika Storsenter, which is the biggest shoppingmall in Scandinavia, and i go out with friends. I love to travel, and I've been to for example France, Spain, Italy, Florida, Poland, Netherlands etc. A place i would really like to go is some place in Africa, maybe Tanzania or something. The one thing i would loove to do is to skydive, thats one of my greatest goals for my life.

My expectations for this year and especially is to be better in English, and learn about how it’s used in different countries and how others use English in their daily lives. I hope Ann, my teacher, will try as much as she can to make the subject interesting, but I think this is also much my fellow students an my responsibility as well.

Last Friday, one of the short films we saw was called “Butterfly Circus”, and it was about a very handicapped man without legs and arms. The topic in this film I think is to never lose hope if you perhaps have a handicap like his, or if there’s something else which can hold you down. You just have to make the best out of what you’ve got, and never believe you can’t do something because in many cases you can! Like for example this man could swim, and that’s pretty incredible I think.

- Rikke
Here you can see two photos, one of Sandvika High school, and the other one of Sarbuvollen, the beach nearby where i live.