Royal beatings IOC

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8-6lAsuwFuOMWk1WXcxWFZLTnM/view?usp=sharing

IOC - boys and girls

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8-6lAsuwFuOaTA5MkZYTWtfSHRWUmdQRThQZGNmUE1HQUFz/view?usp=sharing

This is Water - David Foster Wallace

Task:
In his essay 'This is Water' David Foster Wallace suggests that true freedom acquired through education is the ability to be adjusted, conscious, and sympathetic. 

• How does he develop this thesis? What examples or evidence does he use? How does this theory extend or relate to our inquiry question? -How can literature develop empathy and emotional intelligence?

In his piece of writing,  'This is Water', Wallace introduces his essay with the idea of fish questioning:  "What the hell is water?", in order to provide creative stimuli for the readers. Wallace wants his readers to register the supposed simplicity that lies within the question ; how absurd it sounds once said out loud. More importantly he strived for readers to question what has brought us to this state of devaluing extremely relevant questions on the major components of our everyday life. His aim , however, is to raise consciousness on the actual complexity and depth within the concept of something as common as water. Using this rather simple example, he hints towards the bigger picture ; our lives. 

Wallace emphasises that his essay doesn't concern itself with the questioning of what comes after death, rather what happens before. He develops his thesis of "true freedom acquired through education is the ability to be adjusted, conscious, and sympathetic." in various ways. Pointing out that he's not the "wise old fish" which stands for someone who is an expert in their profession and more or less provides all the answers ; Wallace takes away that responsibility and the expectations the audience would have as they read his essay. He merely suggests his ideas and interpretations on how we could live our lives differently. Here, Wallace questions the validity of what people have to be doing by the age of 30 to 50 and how it leads us to interact differently with our environment. By being adjusted, Wallace means to say that one can mentally adjust themselves to any particular situation and chose to approach it with a different mind set. An example would be the mentioned one of being in the super market , starved and exhausted after a long hard day at work. Normally the individual would easily be irritated and start forming negative thoughts towards everyone and everything around them, shunning some for being loud and others for choosing to be in traffic at the same time. Here, Wallace explores one of the most common experiences that an adult may go through in their working career ; he challenges the concept of thinking negatively without questioning its origin. Perhaps every one around you could be just as annoyed by you and everyone or every thing else. People chose to let out their steam caused by self pity by producing even more negative thoughts towards everyone, without giving them any credit and possibly thinking of a valid reason as to why they behave as such. To try and become more aware of the people and their personal struggles around us, is to become more conscious and thus ; sympathetic in the sense that we begin to feel for those people and come up with reasonable circumstances that have lead them to the same location or situation as us.

The whole idea/purpose of the essay is to inflict within the readers a new way of thinking. It doesn't force, threaten or try to factually bombard us. It merely opens up into Wallace's creative mind, widening our understanding of the world and its possibilities.The readers are brought in touch with an uncommon but more the brilliant way of viewing ourselves and everything around us.  His essay answers the inquiry question by enabling readers to develop emotional intelligence ; read people's emotions and interpret them positively. To adopt a more critical way of thinking and perhaps question many other concepts. Lastly, Wallace's essay brings attention to our ability to take control of our emotions in a variety of situations that we can not control or avoid. He suggests that it is better to manipulate ones own thoughts through adjustment and consciousness to make the best of every situation. 

Alice Munro - Literature reflection

Literature is a relevant aspect of people who wish to be educated in the language department. It can not be avoided as it frames and builds the base of any language. Through stories, songs, tales, novels, poems, letters etc, we have created more sophisticated ways to use language. It is an extremely diverse field of an infinite amount of sources that record humanity; our experiences in many different forms, imaginary stories to tell, inspirational inventions to keep track of etc. The benefit of mastering Literature is to be acutely aware of a language's core. One can't study a language without its literal aspects and expect to fully comprehend its depth and components. In essence, Literature is what brings you closer to a language by being able to identify the strategy that lies behind a well written novel, let alone being able to recognise one. It is a skill that allows you to analyse people and their body language, understanding their feelings and emotions and being able to predict certain events.

Women's literature, quite literally, is Literature that centrals around women and their experiences within the "male dominated world." Many ponder on the fact that there is no "mens literature". This is simply because men are largely to be found to be dominant characters in every piece of literature ;  also to be found in women's literature. Women's literature can vary greatly , ranging from very focused pieces that directly address the issue of sexism in different areas , but can also be found in a story were those issues are subtly hidden beneath the ordinary lives of the characters , or expressed through a theme . It not only serves to raise consciousness on women being oppressed, ignored, left behind and degraded in every possible way. In reality, what most women and female authors want , is to simply star as a main character in a novel or poem. They wish to create their own world wherein they can express themselves without the biased male influence holding them back. Of course many pieces will have bias within them due to the absence of a male character , yet this type of behaviour is clearly evident within many pieces written primarily by males. It is important for people to be familiar with women's literature and pick up on the differences of writing style ; on how women prioritise female characters, describe events and experiences differently. This is of substance as it provides insight into all possible ways in which literature can be expressed, since it is assumed that everyone is familiar with many literature pieces that've been written by male authors.


Alice munro ; famous for her condensed but exquisite short stories, doesn't identify as a feminist writer but has, without a doubt, contributed to the gender equality issue within Literature. Her stories tend to target women of all kinds and their exposure to the world , as viewed by Munro. What is interesting to pick up on is the fact that the majority of her male characters serve as the villains of the story that seem to carry all the fault there is to have in the world on their shoulders. She displays this with discreet remarks here and there, subtle changes in the story and sometimes very straight forward.  Her work provides a voice to many silenced women from many generations and the brilliance lies within the simplicity of those stories that somehow manage to capture the heart of every reader that can relate. She has mastered the skill to turn ordinary life experiences into radiant pieces of work that enhance the beauty that can be found in every so ordinary seeming life. Her themes and values exhibited through her stories were relatively significant during the 1950s till the 1990s as that is where the second wave of feminism took place , a more organised and strategic female force that demanded equality in every aspect there was. Society's expectations of how a woman should behave were shunned and munro's stories reinforced those needs.

I mostly enjoyed the way in which Munro managed to notice the beauty that lies behind every persons struggle in life, whether it be a man or a woman's and express that through characters that appear to have existed forever, their characteristics so common they might as well be real. That, to me, was her key to success. It has definitely expanded my taste in literature as I generally don't enjoy short stories, let alone the ones that capture ordinary activities. Many of those often made me cringe at their pathetic attempt to turn those stories into something worth my while , but Munro actually captured the core of every one of her stories, creating master pieces.

I have chosen option one of our CAP activity. The task requires me to build the stages of a successful short story.
 The theme: Trust

Some background information: 
The following short story will concern itself with the life of a young woman, Amy, and the conflict she is faced with.  The plot of the story circles around Amy having found sickening pictures of tortured people with missing limbs and in revolting conditions in her boss's office. Towards the end of the story, a turn of events will take place and present every character in a different light.Clearly she links these images with her Boss's often aggressive personality that she has to bear with in order to keep her job.

Your Future

Grade twelve is just around the corner, and before we know it we'll be collecting our Diploma and it'll all be over. All of a sudden your friends are gone, peppered over the planet like sprinkles and all you'll have left is memories and their snapchat screenshots. We all tend to picture ourselves with them, forever. Unfortunately no matter how close we are, the differences within us define us and determine our paths which leads to the ultimate separation. This, however, is not the end of it. Your passion or dream of the future, whatever it may be, plants the seed of ambition and independence. You will find yourself, as time passes, less and less indulging in the privilege of having thirty "close best friends forever , surpassing infinity , till the world ends etc). Thats a load of ______ and we all know it deep down there. People don't have the capacity and empathy to genuinely care and stay interested with that many people at our age. At the moment we're ever changing, ever evolving mass of undetermined mystery. Essentially this means that people end up realising they've no interest in you anymore, instead they find themselves spending more and more time with the person they backstabbed daily with you a couple months ago. Of course it stings but have you ever considered the possibility of someone out there having been your victim of neglect and unexplained desertion?

Realising that your life, your capabilities are not in need of anyones unprofessional opinion truly frees the mind. Technically, no one can actually tell you the way you ought to live your life , what to spend your money on, how to dress. Often we take those opinions to fill the empty gaps of individuality within ourselves and thats where it gets tricky. In order to free yourself of the ever draining and consuming need to find approval from someone else to feel "content" with yourself , you need to find yourself. Discover your personal original preferences and opinions on everything, devoid of any external filters. It doesn't matter if your mentality is genuinely parallel with that of someone who may or may not influence you. It matters that you feel at ease while determining who you are as a person. Flaws are not to be eliminated, they're there to stay. This process is essential to the development of ourselves and if you don't invest into this, you may find yourself in a place you despise, working a job you are utterly bored with and associating yourself with people who always seem above you, no matter what you accomplish.
And perhaps that is the truth of it.

Use this year to not only eliminate people who do not have your best interest at heart , but also to let go of a lot of things that are still clinging on to you. You want to close off and exit this chapter of your life with peace at heart, ready for new kinds of heartache.  That massive fight you had with your best friend , left unresolved, the grudge you've been holding against someone who bullied you, the bitter feelings towards your parents for not making high school the best four years of your life. Evaluate the situation and attempt to approach the conflicts you've had and offer your peace and forgiveness. Even if you think you're beyond that, you never know how the other person is off. Humble yourself by giving in to whatever still bothers you and know that whatever reaction you receive, you were the mature one and tried your best. This also isn't a bad time to apologise to some people and thank some others for whatever you're grateful for.

All in all , this is your last year, your last opportunity to make some major decisions that will carve your path into the future. You won't be "feeling it" every day but you'll have to study, work, research and memorise anyway. Learn to force yourself through all the little pesky obstacles in order to achieve the bigger picture. A completed puzzle wont be one if you start to leave out pieces here and there which you couldn't find. Hopefully this has somewhat caused you to re-evaluate your life for your own good and maybe make some changes.

Were yet to be discovered for our ability to turn crap into gold so do not lose hope. 

summer post #1

This summer is the calm before the storm, aka my last year of school and the IB diploma. (yay)

While all my friends who visit regular schools are out and about traveling the world or watching the entire series of Game of thrones in three days,  I'm stuck behind my desk hoping for my school work to magically appear done to perfection, neatly placed on my desk. And since that's not happening,  I'm left with the constant self battle of procrastination and ambition. Also , as an IB student, there's no such thing as procrastination and getting away with it in the long term, alas I actually ended up studying ; "wasting" my precious summer time. 

Then again I did spend three short weeks in London which was a drop on the hot stone, literally. I'd never been there before so I was pretty exited to get off that plane asap as I had simply refused to visit that nasty bathroom for seven hours straight and 3 ginger ales later with the loud flush and people trying to break that glorified curtain out of the frame,  perfectly aware of the presence of someone else. I mostly end up not eating anything on planes because their food tastes worse than Ikea's food ; rather I detect hints of plastic and jelly .  Needless to say I wanted to rip someone's head off as I emerged into the atmosphere outside the airport and felt the all too familiar feeling of heat creeping up on me, my hoodie and wool fed sweatpants sticking on me (I kinda prepared for rain and wind???).  I frantically started walking around looking for the hidden cameras and heaters but apparently there weren't any. 

London was absolutely beautiful and I was surprised to see that the majority of the people were either from the UAE , India and Korea. No londoner's in sight. (they're all here).

Naturally , for any person that's Arab or has arabs in their family , Hyde park became my second home and basically resembled the people you'd find in Abu Dhabi, just without the malls. And people pretty much did the same thing, which was to find a place to sit and rest from a big meal they just had or the 3 meters they had to walk to get there, placing their Harrods bags on the dirty grass and having shisha in the middle of a forrest in London. Iconic. 

I was pleasantly surprised at the cultural diversity , observing people from literally every religion and country I could think of. An entire street was dedicated to muslims/arabs with arab restaurants and shops which was very pleasant to encounter . I feasted my eyes on all these different people who wore extravagant clothes and treated Oxford Street like a fashion show ; I was one of the critics in the rows with my thick black sunglasses, making it fairly easy to scan people for long periods of time. Trust me, once you get there , you realise how deprived your eyes and mind are. 

I became appreciative of the luxuries that we experience in the UAE and that are not available in Europe. If you don't want to get stabbed and actually have some running water you better keep 50 cents in your pockets because public bathrooms will cost you. 

I can't remember having eaten anything English , but their Italian food was hands down phenomenal. 

The one thing , however, which I enjoyed the most was Camden Street. Think of a place that has every single thing you could ever think of , that you can't just get anywhere else. That A8 canvas of a pug claiming the pug life chose him that you've dreamed of forever, or shirts that have "winter is coming" printed on them, I mean come on. I wish I could've visited that street more and I recommend anyone to visit it , simply because you'll find everything you've ever needed there. 

Hope everyone's had a great summer!