Yara Ibrahim - Grade 12 English

  "Turns out that freedom, the ability to make up and change your mind, is the friend of natural happiness"      Dan Gilbert talks about happiness as it comes with making choices. Making choices doesn't literally mean having to choose, but he explains it in a way that is interpreted by having to live on with something that was manipulated and chosen for you, or something that you were able to contemplate whether or not you want it. He later on speaks about an experiment that was done on Harvard photography students. Some of these students were given the choice to take home one of their photographs and not look back at the other one. Whereas the other half, were given a reversible option in which they had the option to go back and change which one they can go home with.      In my opinion, that actually does make sense. In a way, that is why some people are indecisive and find making any decision extremely hard since they always find a possibility of ha...

  Lollipop moment: A moment where someone said something or did something that you feel fundamentally made your life better.      Leadership is being defined as something that exists to change the world. There for people who do things that not everyone is able to do. During the TedTalk, Drew speaks about how he has done something when he was in his university, but because of how much he didn't think that something was going to make an affect, he didn't even remember doing it. As he was leaving university, he was stopped by a girl and was telling him about how he told her something that made her want to continue with university in addition to matching her with her future husband.       Googling what skills a leader should have: creativity, relationship building, decision making, critical thinking, etc. These skills are seen in many people's personalities which shows that a person may be a leader without actually knowing it. Proving what Drew Dudley...

  Grit        Angela Lee talks about something I've always believed in. That is that the students who are doing better in school than others, doesn't necessarily mean they are smarter. I've always believed in that because the students who do better in school are the ones that are only able to memorize, rather than actually understand. They are not trying to better themselves with knowledge that they can seek by themselves. They take the knowledge from their teachers and just apply it on tests.           Not that I wasn't one of these students, I very much were. I sued to study just for the sake of passing, nit worrying about if I'll remember the things I've learned after applying it on the tests and quizzes. However, as I've grown and realized that I was passing school in a very wrong way, I changed that habit. A very big part of changing that habit was changing school systems. Everytime I talked with anyone about school systems, th...

  The Danger of a Single Story       This TedTalk is about a girl from Nigeria, who has lived there up until she had to leave home to study abroad in the US. She talks about how she used to judge her new house boy because the only image she had of him was that he was poor. Then, when she went to college in the US, her roommate judged her based off of the idea that she is from Nigeria. However, as she got to know her, the roommate then realized that they have a lot of similarities.      Relating why she was telling these stories, she focuses on the fact that a single/ one sided story  isn't going to lead to anything throughout the whole TedTalk. In my opinion, it is exactly like a story with different perspectives. Listening to only one side of a story, is as useless as having just one pair of a shoe. For example. the roommate was only listening to what she was hearing from the people around her, and seeing on social media. These were all a si...

Vulnerability  The Power of Vulnerability - Bréne Brown      What does it mean to be vulnerable? Having to think about this while watching the TedTalk has made me think differently about what it means to be vulnerable. In today's world being vulnerable may be seen as a weakness, which I actually view it like that as well. It is actually one of my personal qualities that I'd like to change. However Bréne Brown disagrees with that as she tries to encourage people to show their vulnerabilities and stop trying to control and predict their life so that it is molded into a perfect story.     I agree with all the things she has talked about in her TedTalk, not only because she has presented herself in such a confident way, but also because she is talking about the topic while she is relating to it. I believe that her relating to it is actually her showing her vulnerability; letting her imperfections be seen.  One other thing that I strongly agree with is...

Who was Socrates? What is the Socratic method? Socrates was a philosopher known as "the father of philosophy". He was known to teach, yet he only taught 3 students because it was in the old ages. Socrates didn't write anything down and all the information we know now are from the students he taught before. Socrates was a classical Greek philosopher credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, and as being the first moral philosopher, of the Western ethical tradition of thought. Socrates wasn't only known for philosophy but known for Greek Western Philosophy. He was also the first moral philosopher.  Socrates didn't give up philosophy even after he was given a death sentence. He was hated by everyone in his town because of his sayings. He believed that only the people who believe they don't know are the intelligent ones. " The only true wisdom is in knowing that you know nothing" -- a quote that Socrates used to tell Plato and the 2 ...

 Rules        " The Giver" is a a book and a movie. The story is based on a community that has many rules; some relevant and some aren't. In the story The Elders are the ones responsible for changing or cancelling the rules. The rule goes through the committee and it becomes studied by The Elders who should then eventually change it. For example, in the book they say that the rule where children can't drive bikes before the age of 9, wanted to be cancelled. The rule was passed in the committee, and even though it takes so much time that the people forget about it, it does get cancelled or changed eventually. in real life, though, the government of each country is responsible for changing the rules. In many countries the citizens are the ones who have the most impact on changing the rules, yet in the fewer countries, the citizens have a very low voice on making the rules. For example, in Saudi Arabia abayas have been a very big past of the Saudi culture, yet...

    "STUDENTS ARE GROWING UP ON A DIGITAL PLAYGROUND AND NO ONE IS ON RECESS DUTY."   What does this quote mean to you? For me this quote means that every student is starting to revolve around social media. At school every student is starting to play on their phones or laptops, some of them are actually starting to download video games on their laptops to play with them. "No one is on recess duty" shows that teachers are having easier times being at recess duty, since all students stopped playing in playgrounds but instead on their phones. At the earlier times teachers hated being on recess duty because they had to control the students and help them to not get hurt. I think educators need to try and help out students and tell them the real benefits of being a live and having time to spend on playgrounds. As a student, I think I have to stop using my phone as many times as I do now and start having fun outdoors. 

                                                                         Sameness        Sameness has a meaning of lack of variety, the quality of being the same; having the same uniform. Having sameness in one's school is to have people dressing up the same son they can impress each other and act like they are all the same. An example of a haircut that really identifies sameness in haircuts is the  High Fade plus Loose Pompadour hairstyle. I think people are afraid to be different than each other and show who they really are, maybe its because they think people are going to judge them or something.  For girls, they're all starting to cut their hair short and make it wavy so they can all look the same.

              When faced with adversity people might change their morals.  She also say that a person is allowed to change their morals depending on the situation. For me, I believe that a person can leave their morals/ethics behind depending on the situation. For example,  if there is a big test that is really important and someone beside me is taking the same test and I could clearly see their answers, I might take look and cheat on a question or two. Usually, I don't always cheat, yet because of the situation that can be considered as an exception. Although, some people say that if someone changes their morals depending on the situation then they have weak ethics, I personally disagree.   

             The video talked about how life was hard for Mohed Altrad, and that he was never able to give up.  Mohed was born in a dessert in Syria. His parents died when he was at a young age. He always dreamed of going to school, yet his grandmother that was raising him refused to let that happen. All he could do was look at the classroom from far away or from a hole in the wall. One time, the teacher caught Mohed spying at the class, she felt bad so she let him in the class. He got bullied because of jealousy, which led him into setting a goal for himself,  don't let anyone push you around anymore. After that with a couple of years he bought a company, which led him into accomplishing a lot of dreams. This company is said to be one of the greatest companies. He also has kids. He doesn't have an exact date of birth, so because of that his kids celebrate his birthday every year at March nineth. The fact that Mohed didn't give up at a...

            This quote is about how you view situation and how you control you ethics in certain situations.  Ethics are  moral principles that govern a person's behaviors or the conducting of an activity. By that you can get that the meaning of ethics are a person's behaviors in certain activities, in  other words ethics are also your morals. Your ethics are the aspects that help you look at situations with different kinds of lenses depending on your usual morals. In the quote when they said "the lens you use to see the situation"the lens is your ethics. In the short stories "The Most Dangerous Game" and "Lamb of the Slaughter" the main characters had to use their ethics in certain situations that are important. In the "Lamb of the Slaughter" the main character, Mary, didn't stick to her morals/ethics and killed her husband. In "The Most Dangerous Game" Rainsford , thought about how he could use his ethics and morals an...

Hi MIn-Ji I’ll miss you so much eventhough we didn’t hangout a lot. I hope you have a great trip and enjoy it. Good luck :)

                                                                              Move      Move is the best word that could describe my 2018 because I moved from a country to country, school to school and I also changed my friends. Although one thing that was going on well throughout the course of they year is that I got so close to much closer to my friends. Since, my parents started seeing me older and the same. thing happened to my friends as well, we got along more than the past years. If I would've changed one thing it would be not to transfer to another country, because its hard to find friends that you can get a long.  

                                                                     Syrian Refugees      Refugees are people who have been order to leave their country to escape war. Around 11 million Syrians  have left their homes because of the war that happened in the year 2011, now the 6th year of war there are around 13.5 million Syrians around the world that are refugees..These refugees immigrate to countries like Turkey, Egypt, Lebanon and Iraq. In my opinion, this is a very hard task for them to do because first of all the Syrians don't have enough money to immigrate due to the result of war, and second of all its hard in general for people to leave their homes on such a short notice. Plus, it is even harder because it is not a choice for them, they either leave or die. Their are still a lot of p...

                                                                  Where is the Love?         "Where is the love" is a song that came out at the year 2003, and it's still famous till now. This famous song is about human rights and how it has a relation with an individual with people in the society. The song also got too many attention because it was following the 911 attacks. Where is the love got so many awards because it was raising the attention of segregation and terror attacks. This song is still a popular hit because whenever a terrorist  attack or war that is about segregation comes up, people remind each other about this song and its context.

Autobiography:  Personal Anecdotes Task:  Respond  to at least  3  of the prompts below.  To determine if the anecdote is memoir-worthy, ask yourself: Was this a  key  moment or experience in my life?  Will this anecdote shed more light—for me and others—on the kind of person I was, or am? Prompts: One of the  funniest  things that ever happened to me… One of the  weirdest  things that ever happened to me… One of the  saddest  things that ever happened to me… When I left all my friends and transferred to a new country.  One of the  most embarrassing  things that ever happened to me… Was in grade 2 when a coco pop looked like I pooped my pants. One of the  scariest  things that ever happened to me… One of the  most surprising  things that ever happened to me… One of the  most exciting  things that ever h...

                                                                          FOMO     Fomo is a word that indicates to the fear of missing out. The term was created by a Harvard MBA named Patrick J. Mc.Ginnis. For me I never had a time were I FOMO, however I do know people who felt like that wether it was  because  of their friends or family.

                                                        The Civil Rights Movement        Civil Rights are the rights of citizens to freedom and equality (to the colored). The Civil Rights movement was decades ago and it was about getting the colored (blacks) citizens have the same rights as the white. and the blacks fought for that.  The "separated but equal mentality" is that black and white people are segregated  yet are treated the same and have the same rights. I think it is important to learn about these historical events so that I know how the past world changed and how hero's like Martin Luther King Jr.  and Rose parks changed the history of the world. Their struggle actually makes me feel thankful that I wasn't there to feel the pain. A lot of people might relate to this legendary movement that changed...

                                                          Something I've learned     Throughout my living years I've learned a lot of stuff throughout experience and stories said by other people. One  of the  things that I have learned is listening to what others have to say. I always used to not care about what other people had to say, I though I was the right one in whatever situation. Yet, when I started listening to other people's ideas/thoughts I acknowledged a different perspective on listening. I started having beliefs that rely on what people have to say and benefit to their sayings.