The Working Man

All day the Sun is shining

Like an old man working the midday shift

Each day the man continues his dull work with

The setting of the sun signifying

Yet another banal day

Aeons of time has passed

But he is still indentured for another eternity

What callous man would do such an act?

Who can live with such atrocities?

This is our future

This is the utopian world promised to us

By our ancestors

This is the World we all live in

The Hell that we all call home

A place where one man’s happiness

Comes at the cost of another's

A community where malevolence is cherished

Heroes condemned.

The Fun Side of the Island-Found Poem

The Fun Side of the Island

Found poem from William Golding's Lord of the Flies

P.114-118, 194-197

Surrounded by chasms of empty air
No where to hide
Water sinking among the rocks
Revealing,
Pink tables of granite

One flat rock
Spread like a table
The water rising
Boiling over the table rock with a roar
No sense of passage
Only this minute long rise and fall

No fresh water
A rotten place
With enormous red blocks
Large as a mill wheel
Heaved into the sea

A Savage
Painted out of recognition
Sniggering and laughing
Stabbing his spear
Pushing and glaring
Breathing heavily and fighting fiercely
All just playing a game

Poem, images and music by:
Peidong Huang

Found Poem

From Lord of the Flies by Golding p.7-15


All around, the jungle, and heat
Beneath was grass,
Decaying coconuts and saplings
This is an island
That's the sea
There aren't any grown ups at all
The shore fledged with palms
Green feathers in the air
Out there the white surf
Shimmering water and ocean blue
The efflorescence tropical weed and coral
A school of glittering fish hither and thither
Beyond, more enchantment
A great platform, uncompromising,
Thrusting up through forest to a point at infinity
A long deep incredible pool of dark green, pink granite,
Water warmer than blood, a huge bath
Golden light danced and shattered
Mirages wrestled with the brilliance of the lagoon

What I Learned

The English Patient has taught me many life lessons and skills as I was reading through the book and doing our inquiry question. For example, when Hana decide to help Almasy even after his Hungarian lineage was revealed taught me that someone's nationality does not define who they are as a person and other examples include learning how to write emails and creating pecha kuchas. I believe such skills are beneficial in life because in a multicultural nation like Canada, we run into these problems on a daily basis and learning how to solve these problems will make our lives easier in the long run. I believe that the content and phantom skills I learned while doing this inquiry project will definitely go towards shaping my future.

Our Results

When our groups met for the first time this weekend. We agreed on an ambitious plan to find and donate books for Admiral Seymour Elementary School. When I arrived at school today it is clear that our bold plan had worked. The box of donated books had reached to over twenty books in the past few days. In addition, the books being contributed were a wide array of books ranging from kindergarten books all the way to grade seven. As a result, we decided that we would take these books to the school starting next week. We all agreed that next week would be the best time since that will give everyone the opportunity to donate. I hope that our books will be a success and cannot wait to see the reaction on their faces.

Post #7: Community

Reading the book further, I realized that the English Patient is like an elder in a community. The English patient is the focal point of the small community formed by Hana, Kip and Caravaggio. Each of them depends on the English patient to bring them together and it's obvious that none of them are sure what to do if the English patient was to pass away. However, it's also clear that they depend of each other. I think that the book is telling us the importance of community and that we should cherish what we currently have. Since, the book accentuates the importance of community, it suggests that we trust and look for help in others as a way to be successful.

Entry #6: Inquiry Question Part 2

Last week, our group decided on our inquiry question. The process was long and tedious, but we did in the end decide on the topic of altruism. This week, we decided to work on the community part of our project. Similar to choosing our inquiry question, deciding on what to do also sparked a debate among us. Many ideas were thrown out, ranging from protesting to fundraising. In the end, we decided to do a form of fundraising. Our group would go out over the weekend and help fundraiser for the Vancouver Sun Children's Fund. We determined that we would go around and collect stationaries from different stores. We hope that by helping other less fortunate individuals, we can make the world a better place. I am looking forward to the weekend that I will be having.