Valedictorian Speech

A Valedictorian speech should be full of inspiring and persuasive messages. It is a great opportunity to be named Valedictorian. So, the speech should also be prepared in that way. In my speech, I would thank all the people who helped me along the way. I would give some advice, telling students to use their time wisely, respect others and be honest. I think you wouldn't tell little stories about each of the students in a Valedictorian speech. You would tell little funny jokes about graduation to add some humour in the speech.

If I was Valedictorian, I would give some of my greatest memories that are shared with the school. I would give some advice about the future and thank all the people that helped me through school. I would also include some funny stories that happened in school. If I was not Valedictorian, I would like to hear a speech that is not too long but is memorable. The speech also should have some humorous stories.

Ecological Footprint

I calculated my Ecological Footprint. If everyone on the earth would live like me then we would need 2.9 earths to support our lifestyle. My footprint is 5.2 Global Hectares. The average Ecological footprint in Canada is 8.8 Global Hectares per person. My footprint is much less than that compared to the average Canadian. The worst things that I do to pollute the environment are wasting too much water and not turning off electric devices when I am not using them. So, I think my footprint is like this because I am doing many things that pollute the environment.

There are many ways that I can choose to make this footprint smaller. I think that if I try harder not to waste or to use polluting things, then I can make my footprint smaller. There are some things that I am going to do to make a difference with Global Warming. I will turn off electronic devices when I am not using them. I will plant more trees to save the environment from pollution. I will try to recycle more things than I do now. I think these actions will make some difference with Global Warming.

My Favorite Categories of Film

There are three major types of film categories that I like. My favorite film category is comedy. I like it because it changes your mind and makes you happy and laugh. I also like watching adventure and mystery movies or documentary movies. Well, I do not watch lots of movies so I I do not have much experience with them. However, I really enjoyed watching the movie King Kong. I liked its amazing story of adventure and the way the movie was shot. I liked the acting of every character in that movie. I learned how wild a beast can go if it does not get what it wants. If a beast gets the thing that is wanted then he does not do any harm. But if people steal his posession from him, then he can go really mad while he struggles to get it back.

The Newspaper Story Sources

The websites that I used for the newspaper story of Mount Pinatubo's Eruption:

About: Geography. Mount Pinatubo Eruption. Matt T. Rosenberg.
9 Mar. 2001. 25 Apr. 2007 <http://geography.about.com/library/weekly/aa030901a.htm>

Wikipedia. Mount Pinatubo. 23 Apr. 2007.
25 Apr. 2007 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Pinatubo>

GeoResources. Mount Pinatubo Volcano.
25 Apr. 2007 <http://www.georesources.co.uk/pinatubo.htm>

Current Events

I found an article from the BBC News website and it was published on Wednesday, April 18, 2007. The title of the article is "Drillers target earthquake zone". It was published by Jonathan Amos. It says that researchers are going to drill down into an earthquake zone at the Nankai Trough off the coast of Japan. This project will cost hundreds of millions of dollars over the next 10 years. It is being coordinated by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Programme. One of main goals of this project is to understand why earthquakes and tsunamis occur, by pulling up samples of the earth's core and putting down sensors to monitor changes. This drilling project promises to be one of the most important scientific challenges of the next 10 years.

The major fire is another current event which has taken place in Fort McMurray, Alberta. I found this article in Mrs. Book's blog website. The article was published on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 in the newspaper Fort McMurray Today. The title of the article is "Fire devastates apartment complex". It is written by Larissa Liepins and Paula Ogonoski. The fire was detected in a four-storey apartment building downtown, early in the morning on Tuesday. Approximately 300 residents had come out from the building onto the street. The fire alarm had started at around 5:30 a.m. There is no evidence of injuries or deaths. Twenty-five fire fighters had come there to handle the situation. The fire had taken place upon the roof of the building and started to come down from there. Noone knows what caused the fire so it is under investigation.

Spring Break 2007

I hoped to have a nice and exciting spring break this year. However, my spring break is not going to be so interesting. I will be spending most of my time at staying home. I will be doing homework assignments, reading some books, watching movies and going out with friends for shopping. So, I will be mostly spending my ten days break at home which is not going to be so fun. I wished I could go somewhere and enjoy this school break.

I wish I had planned to go Calgary with my family to spend this spring break. I heard that it is a very good destination for ecotourism. It has lots of different places to visit. It is also known as a good city for shopping. I have never been there so I really wanted to go in this break but I could not manage. I hope I will be able to plan to go there in next summer.

I left a comment on Aisha's feelings about essays blog.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism is considered a common problem in every school, which has become a big issue today. To use another person's idea or a part of their work and pretend that it is your own is plagiarism. In other words, plagiarism is when a person copies something from the Internet, from another's work or steals someone's ideas and tells people that it is their work. Work that can be considered plagiarism includes coping written work, music, spoken text and visual text from any sources.

Plagiarism is not allowed in the school because the school is a place where you learn something. Everybody can copy their assignments from sources like the Internet or from someone else's work. It is very easy to get good marks this way. However, when someone plagiarizes there is no meaning in studying, doing work or learning anything (or even coming to school). You get marks on other's thoughts. This is not a good thing to do because by choosing this way of doing your homework and assignments, you do not learn anything.

I never have plagiarized in any of my classes, so I do not have much experience. I have seen many students doing this and then losing marks for copying or sometimes doing the same assignments again. I know that every teacher knows how well you write something and what kind of words you can use. If you have copied your answers from the Internet, teachers can easily know by reading it because usually Internet sources are written at high English levels and everybody writes in a different way. So, I prefer to work by myself and get marks on what I have written rather than losing marks and making a bad impression on someone.

My Feelings about Essays

Essays are one of the things that make me feel so nervous when I hear the word. I feel scared at first, but when I starting writing, it is just like you are writing normal paragraphs. I think that writing an essay is not that hard if you follow the structure carefully. I feel scared about writing it because I am afraid of losing my marks as I have in the past. Sometimes, I feel angry because if it is a hard topic then I have to work really hard to get it done and make it longer. Sometimes I also hate essays because they take a long time to write, and after doing that much hard work I don't get good marks on it.

There are some common problems in which I lose my marks. One of my biggest problems is writing grammatically incorrect sentences. I also feel confused on concluding paragraphs. After writing an introductory paragraph, it gives me a little bit of trouble to make a conclusion paragraph in different words. I also have trouble making complicated sentences. I write more simple sentences in my essay, so it doesn’t look as good. My transition sentences are also not that good. I would like to work on those mistakes.

My Experience as an ESL Student

My experience as being an ESL student has been quiet good. When I came to Canada and went to school, I was feeling so scared because of my English. My first day of Canadian school was not so good because I could not understand anything or could not talk to anyone. Many students were being nice and friendly to me but also some of the students were making fun of my English. What I was speaking was not understandable. Sometimes I used to give wrong answers and because of that and I was feeling so unhappy when I saw everybody speaking English well.

Then I started to go to ESL classes and I saw there were many students who just came from other countries and their English was like mine. Then I realized that it was not just me who could not speak English. My friends who came to Canada many years before told me that at one time, their English was like mine and it got better with time. So it gave courage to me and I learned that no one gets perfect without working hard and that's how you learn something when you don't know. I started to speak English with my best effort and all of my shyness went away for English. I found that learning a new language was not that easy but it was also not that hard that I could not do it. So, there are many things that require you to work harder but it teaches you a lot by doing it.

Kindness

Kindness shows good manners. Being kind with someone helps them to feel happy and nice. One of my first experiences with kindness was when I was about ten years old. I was going to buy my favourite food at the store with my money. Suddenly I saw some poor people and small children who looked like they were really hungry and hadn't eaten in so many days. I thought I could eat my favourite food some other day and I should help these poor people. I went into the store and bought some food for them. I gave the food to them and they thanked me for it. I was a bit sad that I couldn't get my favourite food but when I saw them eating it, I couldn't imagine their pleasure and how happy they were. After that, all of my unhappiness went away and I felt good about my self. I was so happy that I had helped someone by sacrificing my money and my food. When I told my parents about it, they applauded my sacrifice. So that's how I had been kind to someone.

I also learned that the truth in choosing to be kind is one of the greatest, best, most beautiful and most loving things that we can ever do. I want to continue committing acts of kindness by saying hello to people in the school hallways and sharing a smile with them. I also want to clean a neighbor's walk once a week. That's my plan for spreading kindness.