From Tain

Hi you who open this letter!

The year is 2099 and I, Tain, live on the Island of Wing which in a couple of hours will be under water. I will no longer exist. Such a sad story, don’t you think? I write this letter because this is my last chance to make a change among people when it comes to global warming. I suppose this letter will be by sea for a while after I’ve written this. I will just take a guess and say that on the day you open this the year is 2110, eleven years from now. Too bad I will never know if my guess is right. If I am, it would be a big coincidence, wouldn’t it? 

As I said, our Island soon’s going to be under water and all the adults and children just sailed away and left us old people her to drown. They are on their way to the giant cities built high above the rising seas! Hopefully Mother Earth’s still alive when someone reads this. According to my researches as a scientist the earth’s facing a grave problem. Even if we totally stop sending out greenhouse gases in the atmosphere it’s to late to stop the ice-caps melting in the north. Hopefully the new cites will make it through and start to take care of our wonderful earth. What I would like to say to you is; if nothing has been done when you read this you will have to take a big initiative and start to change people! You will die and so will our earth if nothing changes! I’m dying and a young cleaver girl, Mara, just left this Island. I’ve prayed to God and done everything I can do, but I’m not sure if she’s going to survive if no one stops this terrifying crime. Extinction is already a huge problem our society is facing and soon all species will be extinct and this including the human being. I write this because this special girl has to live, she has to have a future ahead of here. It would be selfish if I didn’t help her. I know the chances that this letter will make any change are kind of small, but I will never lose hope. When I think about what we’re doing to our earth I get numb. Now it’s up to you, stop what we are doing! Die or live? I would’ve chosen to live. 

From Tain 

Betty Botter - Tongue Twister

The Passion Flower Massacre - Creative Connector

Matilda doesn't realize that she’s dangerously involved in a religious cult, and she’s being brainwashed and drugged in preparation for a mass suicide, planned by the leader Peter who’s mentally ill. He's going to burn all of them alive, because he believes it will save their souls for God. Matilda gets out alive but gets badly injured and she almost dies of third-degree burns and internal injuries, from which she never completely recovers from.  Her mom, the little old woman, is planning to kill Peter as revenge right after he gets out from prison. Matilda’s mom takes care of Peter the last couple of months in prison. When he finally gets out she takes him for a ride in her extraordinary car and she kills them both by driving down a cliff. She finally gets her revenge.

I can connect this book with the TV-serie Revenge where Amanda Clarke who has a fake name, Emily Thorne, plans to murder the president who killed her father in a planned terrorist attack. Afterwards he blames Amanda’s father, David Clarke, for the attack. Her father was a good man and she desperately tries to reveal Victoria and Conrad Greyson. The married couple have made a reputation for her father as a terrorist and now Amanda’s out for revenge.

Word Finder v.6

sludge- slam

gorge- ravin

ancient- antika

rigid- styv

anchor- ankare

spine- ryggrad

translucent- genomskinlig

plucking- plockning

pothole- grop

adequate- tillräcklig

flustered- nervös

inadequate- otillräcklig

spherical- sfärisk (klotrund)

fervour- iver

beamed- strålande

perplexed- förvirrad

ajar- på glänt

Summary v.5

Matilda's friends have been gone for only one week and Matilda already feels lonely. Not just has George stopped talking to her and started to avoid her, she has also been moved from the fields she usually works on.

One day, one of the lilies, Maggie, says to Matilda she's going to join her and work up in the greenhouses on the hill. The work up there is so much funnier and Matilda loves it, but, she is no longer aloud to have tea with the other farmers. Instead she and Maggie sit in the sun and they eat the most delicious cake Matilda has ever eaten. 

Even though she's pleased and comfortable with Maggie she can feel something's wrong when she gets back to the others. She remembers she fell asleep in the sun and dreamt a weird dream about Jesus instantly after drinking that delicious tea. Just a coincidence she thinks but George doesn't agree at all. He tells her a story about a girl, Jamima, who also worked up on the hill. "She became weird after a while", he says, "and one day she just disapeared", he continues. He tells Matilda all the farmers thinks she became one of them. The lilies manipulated and brainwashed Jamima and now Matilda's their next victim.

The Passion Flower Massacre - Character tracer

This week I've been assigned the task to describe one person in the book who I think is interesting. I have chosen to do some research about the main character Matilda, so, I'm going to tell you about what we know so far.

Mathilda is like every other normal teenager at her age. She just turned eighteen and wants to experience the world. She suffers from a bad case of depression because she lost her brother a couple of years ago. The loss has made her parents become very self centered and they barely pays her any attention but at the same time they are very overprotective. Matilda just want to get the hell out of her so called home and never ever again come back.

I think many people perceive Matilda as a very insecure person, she never says what she thinks a so on. But we who gets to know her better then the others at the farm can quickly understand that she's kind of cocky on the inside. On page 36 I see this very clear because we can read her thoughts. When she gets to pick gooseberries a hole day all alone she doesn't say anything about it to those who assigned her the task. She would rather like to pick strawberries with her pals but she keeps quiet because she wants to look good in others eyes.

Discussion leader

1. Put on your red hat and imagine you are Matilda. What would you do and how would it feel like to be eighteen right now?

2. Put on you black hat and mention at least one thing that's negative with working at the farm where Matilda is working.

3. Now imagine you are one of all those "beautiful people" at the far. Put on your red hat one again and tell the group what you would have done if you were one of them. Would you be nice or strict? Would you want people to think you were weird or would you open up a little bit more than they have done so far?

Saint Lucia's Day

Saint Lucia’s Day is a church feast which is observed 13th of December. St. Lucia’s day is celebrated most commonly in Italy and in Scandinavia but they do not do the same things when they celebrate Saint Lucia’s Day. In 

Saint Lucia comes as a young woman. She’s wearing lights in her hair and comes with sweets. Sometimes, a procession is headed by one girl who comes wearing a crown of candles or lights, while other girls and boys in the procession only hold one candle each. In Sweden the girl who is the head of the procession is called Lucia. The other girls, only holding one candle, are called terns, tärnor in swedish. Sometimes there are boys in the procession too and they are called star boys, stjärngossar in swedish. 

Today most cities in Sweden appoint a Lucia every year. Schools select a Lucia and her maids among the students and a national Lucia is selected on national television from regional winners. The regional Lucias wilbl visit shopping malls, old people's homes and churches, singing and handing out gingersnap cookies. (pepparkakor)

Hamlet

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is visited by the ghost of his father and told that his uncle Claudius, who is now King, was responsible for his murder. Hamlet is torn about trying to avenge him, and ends up pretending to be insane. He hires actors to do a play about a man who kills his brother to become king to see Claudius' reaction. Hamlet confirms that Claudius was responsible, ends up being abusive to his mother Gertrude for shacking up with the murderer of his father, and murders his girlfriend Ophelia's dad thinking that it's Claudius. Ophelia goes insane from having her boyfriend kill her dad and dies. Her brother Laertes is pissed and is convinced by Claudius to kill Hamlet. The two duel, and both are injured. Gertrude accidentally drinks the poison that Claudius had prepared for Hamlet and dies. Hamlet manages to kill Claudius before finally dying. 

Him

He asked her, ”Would you marry me”?

"No", she replied. 

Emptiness. 

Silence.

Tears.

She said, ”I don’t want to marry you, I need to marry you. There’s nothing else in this world I would like to do more than marry you.” 

Once again he went down on one knee, and asked her. 

She kissed him, tender than ever. 

It was real chemistry.

Love words

Hi bestie! You’re not going to believe what I’m going to tell you. So be prepared! I have fallen head over heels in love. I can’t wait to see you and tell you everything about my sweetheart. We’ve already been out a couple of times, one time we went to his place afterwards, so cozy! We were up all night laying in his bed, kissing and talking. The next couple of nights I couldn’t get a wink of sleep. He came up to me yesterday in school and asked me if I would like to watch a movie this weekend. Can’t wait to kiss his pretty face! Just the thought of him makes me fall in love over and over again. I haven’t sounded this ridiculous in my hole life, but you do understand me, don’t you? Hope he doesn’t ditch me now though. I would be such a mess.  

Hope I see you soon sweetie!

Hugs and kisses, your pumpkin. 

YMCA Family Center

I’ve watched a documentary about homeless people. It was about an organization where they help homeless families. They have spent more than 1 million dollars for this place where 50 homeless family can live. In August 18 they had over 100 families who lived there. They take care of families so they have a place to stay! It has happened more than a thousand times that a family has showed up and they hadn’t enough place for them so they had to say no. They had to make other arrangements, talk to motels and hotels. Most of the families have kids, one of the parents have lost his or hers job and obviously they had to sell their house because they hadn’t enough income. Certainly one parents income wasn’t enough to support one family. All the kids love the YMCA Family Center since they can play with other kids in the kids club. Approximately 1.5 million children are homeless each year. 

I was scared how it was gonna be like here, said one of the children who now lives at the YMCA Family Center. Now she is cheerful every time she goes to the kids club to meet all the other kids. 

The parents to the kids often say they don’t want to tell their kids the truth, that they actually are homeless. To raise a family with nothing, not even a home or enough money to buy anything to their kids, takes immeasurable strength. At the Family Center they get some help to get back on the road, maybe get a job or so. 
But most of the parents still believe that the best way to get trough every day is to smile. 


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My work experience

I had my work experience at a Södra Esplanaden, near Domkyrkan. It’s not a company, actually everyone who is working there are self-employment workers. That means they work by them selfs, not in a company. They called it a creative studio, where they are working with very different things. Designers, illustrators, photographers,web developers, public relations consultants and project managers to copywriters, journalists and editors are examples of what people are working as at Södra Esplanaden. There are just one company where three people work together. Just one of all thirty persons are hired!

The person who was hired there, was also my mentor and her name was AnnaJohanna. On the first day I helped her a bit with different things like finding a list with potential lecturers. I also did a lot of other stuff.

One day they had a lecture about how it is to be a self-employment worker, how they work and stuff like that. I was going to take some photographs and document it on my PRAO-blog which I made on the first day with one of the web developers. We made it on Wordpress so it was very instructive.

My schedule was kind of flexible. To be a self-employment worker means you can come and go as you want, you don’t have a boss. So it was kind of the same thing for me. If I didn’t have anything to do, I went home earlier. Some days I had many things to do so I stayed longer than I was supposed to do.

One day I met up with the photographer, Meredith. The meeting with her was the most interesting and instructive thing I learned at the Esplanade. She learned me so much stuff about my camera and we also looked at some very good photographers. Why the meeting was so instructive is because I’m very into photographing. I also photographed some events they had at the Esplanade.

I did very different things on my time there but this was a small piece of everything I did.

link to my PRAO-blog (on swedish)

My dream job

Storybird - My dream job

How I use my cellphone

I use my cellphone everywhere and anytime, except when I’m asleep of course. Almost every time I unlock my phone I check Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and maybe some blogs or answer or read texts. I often use it when I’m bored and I’m often bored when I’m sitting and waiting for a bus or maybe when it’s commercials in the pause on the TV. I text very often, more than I talk in my phone. I text my friends and family when I test and yeah that’s kind of it. Often when I’m doing my homework and get stuck I check my phone and sometimes it helps but sometimes it really don’t. The phone is so small so I can have it with me all the time and that’s a really great thing with it. But the best thing about it is that you can check everything on it, like English words you don’t know or use google anywhere. 

If you have fallen in love with your best friend's sister

Q I’ve fallen in love with my best friend’s sister. She’s only 13 1/2 and I’m almost 18! It’s so embarrassing. Please tell me what to do! My mate would kill me if he knew!

Just deal with it. She is too young for you. It will never work. If you are so in love that you are depressed maybe you should talk to your friend about it but I don’t think he will take it so well. It’s kind of obvious, he will get mad at you, because she’s his sister for gods sake, and you are more than four years older! If you think about the future, maybe when you are done with being a youth and want to start a family, she will still go to high school and if she falls in love with you I really think you will ruin her childhood and her opportunities to have a big career.  

Maybe if you are so deeply in love and you think it worth to risk your friendship, talk to someone who you can trust. And maybe after that, talk to your crush so she knows about your feelings. Then you can make a decision together, if you think it’s worth it.

English dialog

You can listen to mine and Rebecka's dialog HERE

Friendship

A good friend should be really nice to me and also accept me for who I am. My friends have to accept my opinions but also to express hers or his opinions to me. It’s also important to be honest to me and to tell me to be honest too. He or she should not take me for granted. If he or she thinks something is wrong about me I really want to know so I can change that. 
I want to have friends whom I can laugh together with but also whom I can cry with. It will be a lot easier if we have the same humour. I don’t care if we don’t spend so much time together all the time, I just want to know if they are going to be there for me when bad or hard things happen. 
Our friendship has to be strong and we should be able to fight without losing each other because of that. Like I said before it’s really important to express your opinion. That's more important than to always stick together. It has to be a give-and-take relationship. For example if I help them with something they should be there for me if I need help sometime and not use me just because they have a problem they can’t handle. They have to treat me like they want me to treat them. 

With my best friends I want to be able to share every thought I have in my mind and to know they won’t share it to anyone else. It’s much more important I can trust my best friends than friends I don't see and talk to so much.  

© copyright Maria Lindeblad

Lockie Leonard's diary

Dear diary!
It's Monday and this has been the worst day ever! I didn't make it in time to the windfarm and I think Dot is really disappointed on me. I feel like a complete idiot! How can I know she is my girlfriend anymore? If there is going to be this much trouble this whole year I think I'm going to die. I really have to talk to Dot before she finds someone else! But this with Dot isn't the hole story today. I promised mum to put up the sign today but I didn't make it in time so she put it up instead and she gave me a disappointed look afterward. Oh, this day really sucks! I hate myself so bad. I have also let Egg down today. We were going to have a speech for everyone who thought the poison in the river was wrong. But I forgot the speech and I didn't even make it to the meeting. I feel like a terrible friend, son and boyfriend. But this is not all that has happened lately. I have been so rude to Philip all the time. He was trying to help me with my love life and I wasn't thankful at all! I really feel like a dog. But maybe also a pig if I think about it..

I really have to sleep now. Philip is already snoring next to me.
Tomorrow I'll tell you every disaster that has happened to me again!
Sleep well.

Words from the film

Nouns (substantiv)

enigma - gåta

herd - besättningen

telly - tv

frontier - gränsen

fury - raseri
pal - bästavän
chopsticks - ätpinnar
hunk - sexig kille

Verbs

deplore - beklaga
defience - definiera
jolly - glad
relish - njuta
bash- klå upp, slå

Adjectives

keen - angelägen
to chaff - reta
seclueded - avskilt
juvenile - ung, barnslig

Adverbs
marginally - i kanten