Ramzi’s Academics in Eighth Grade

In Malaysia there are some foods that are unique but are sometimes still present in tropical locations. Some of these unique foods are:

-Durian: Malay it is said the same. Usually taste sweet, soft, has a strong smell and kind of slimy.
-Rambutan: Malay it is said the same. Usually taste sweet and juicy.
-Mangosteen: Malay it is said Manggis. Usually taste sweet and has a white colour.
-Starfruit: Malay it is said Belimbing. Usually taste sweet, sour and dry.
-Guava: In Malay it is said Jambu. Usually taste like an apple but with less flavour and juicy.
-Roti Canai: Bread with some sauce like curry or sugar.
-Satay: is like a shiskabab. A stick with usually chicken or beef on it.
-Laksa: it is like noddle shop but with much more flavouring.

To me I personal feel that school is quite exciting and fun. The only reason I moaned and groaned about it is the home work and projects received. The home work whether it’s hard or easy is still a drag to do but it helps you review everything you learn in class. The projects are alright since you only get them once in a while but to get home work every day is not that fun. At school I get to meet all my friends again and learn from my teachers learning’s and my friends mistake. I get to relax and exercise in Physical Education. Another main reason I prefer the weekends instead of school is the idea of waking early in the morning to arrive to school on time. Other than the time I have to wake up and the home work, I quite enjoy the time I spend at school especially if I have fun activities and new classes on that day.

Hello I am Ramzi and I really sorry to say that I feel that we can’t make a difference in the entire world but every little bit counts and if every one does their part I might just be wrong. It is probably going to be very hard to bring the world out of its current figure but it doesn’t hurt to try. Most people are too lazy to do anything about it or belief that there can be nothing done about the worlds problems. While others just want to get on with there life and deal with their own problems. I am like one of those people. I do care about the environment and the worlds crime and health when I am relaxing but when school work or some other assignment comes the thought is shoved a side.  Also I always tell myself that I am just one person and I can’t do anything but if you start to help your individual community, others will follow you and you might even save your entire country. You won’t be able to turn the whole world around but it’s alright to try, try, and try!!! Every person has good inside of them and want to do wounders to the world but the world is such a vast location to change everyone opinions and views. While getting rid of gas powered vehicles may help the world a lot more the lost of profit from car companies and the thought of replacing all gas powered vehicles with electrical is hopeless. Now I know not being able to change the world is quite sad but there is still hope to make the world last a longer time.

Hello, my name is Ramzi. I am in grade 8 and I just turned thirteen a few months ago. I was born in Malaysia on November 6, 1993. I have been to only three countries which are Malaysia, China and the United States of America. I went to school in both China and Malaysia but not in U.S.A. From Kindergarden to grade six I was in ISB (International School of Beijing) while from Grade seven to now I have been in an International school in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. In Beijing, China I first started playing the trumpet for one year, American football in grade 5 and I started playing basketball from grade one in “Dribbling Dragons” till Grade three. I then kept playing basketball in my current school in 7th and 8th grade. Usually in China I woke up at 6 to get to school on time since it was quite far away. After school I ate some of the food my chief used to make which I use to think were nasty but after living in Malaysia I kind of miss his cooking. I’d then relax and maybe watch T.V. before doing my home work. After my home work was done I would play with my cat or watch T.V. My life right now hasn’t change much from Beijing except that when I got home from school I would do my home work first thing and get it out of my mind before eating, showering or relaxing.

I am the youngest out of seven people in my family. I have two older brothers, two older sisters, my mom, my dad and me. My brothers are working at the ages 25 and 22 in China and U.S., my sister are 15 and 20. One of my sisters is in collage in Europe while my other sister is here with me and my parents. My entire family is spread through out the in entire world. I get to meet all my brother and sisters altogether every year or so. I really miss them when they are gone but when they come back it is a lot of fun because we can talk about anything and we get points of views from adults, teenagers and kids. It is especially fun and funky when my brothers are present.

My hobbies are playing basketball, baseball, football and basically every other sports. I also enjoy playing outside with my bike or just to walk. I love how when I jog or bike you get exercise and at the same time have the pleasure of looking at all the beautiful sights. Playing with my cat is another hobby of mine. My cat (clawdine) is like a part of my family so I care about her a lot as if she was one of my sisters. Another hobby of mine that I just love is cooking. I don’t know why but I love to try new things and experiment with foods and other spices. I can make quite a few dishes and I am learning a lot more from my mom. Last but lot least is that I love playing with electronically gadgets like my phone, Xbox, T.V., computer, and DVD player. I can’t image a life without these things, I use these appliances every day usually when ever I can’t go out when it’s raining or if I’m board and to lazy to go out.

I feel though that my favorite sport would have to be basketball. I have loved this game since I have first played it and since my brothers and sisters thought it to me. I enjoy how you have to use both your legs and arms in this game and how much focus you need. My favorite actor is Will Smith for sure. I mainly feel that he is my favorite actor because he reminds me of my brothers and how funny my brothers and Will Smith are. I love all the movies he’s in. I also like Jim Carry, Adam Sandler and Vin Diesel. I like listening to all types of music whether it is fast or slow, jazz or rock. When listening to music I don’t take the time to see who the artist is I just sit back and listen to the beat and rhythm of the song. I especially like the artist Akon, Simple plan, Black Eye Peas and Foo Fighters.

When I grow up I want to be an engineer because I love creating new models of buildings and roads. I feel that I would be good for this type of jobs because I love doing projects and using my hands to create a masterpiece. I also want to be an engineer because I enjoy math and science which is useful in engineering. Projects have always been an exciting part of my school work especially if the involves models or creative thinking.

An issue that can change the entire world that I find interesting is pollution around the world. I am most concerned about this because pollution comes in many ways like cars and factories. Pollution can also cause the O-Zone layer to break apart along with destroying people’s health. I feel that this is a major issue because if some how a lot of people started using electric cars there would still be pollution from factories and other vehicles. So pollution is an issue that is going to be impossible to cure if we all don’t act now, especially when there are more babies in the world making more cars for people and construction for roads and houses. Pollution is also a difficult issue to solve because there will be no way for factories to just stop working or for all vehicles to turn to scrap metal.

In our class we had to either create a movie of Anne’s voice or a monument in her honor. The paragraphs below are about images, symbols, sounds and how they are used in the presentation along with how they influence and appeal to viewers. The paragraphs also talk about ESLR’s used, our overall grade and what each member of our group had done.

The symbols we had used were a train, chimney, radio, diary, bare wire, bar code, Star of David, Gates to camps and
Iwo Jima.

The train represents how all the Jews were taken away from there families by force and sent to a miserable camp where they were to die. Most of the Jews that were transported died before even reaching the camps which turned this symbol from just transportation to death to actual death.

The chimney was a sad symbol because it represents how the Nazi’s burned all the Jews. It was a way of eliminating Jews. Of course it was no the only means of extermination but to us it was the most brutal.

The radio was like our modern television or computer, it was in fact they only way of knowing about the outside world for Anne. Since she was stuck in the secret annex with no way to escape to the outside world she had to relay on this old but effective way of communication to learn about the war and the outside world.

Anne’s diary is a major symbol which represents the hope people have for their life, family and the world. It also shows that every one needs someone who they could express their feelings too. Even though she had all the essential things like food and water she didn’t have anyone who she could talk and who would listen to a teenager since everyone living there was a bit moody.

The bare wire was a sign of containment and a sign of no escape. Since the borders of concentration camps were either lined with walls, bare wire or fences. I thought that the barb wire was the most effective item to display to show restraint.

The bar codes were written on each prisoner for labeling, it represents how their identity and individually were taken away as soon as they arrived in the camps. The Star of David is a symbol that represents the Jews, but we had used this star with our own custom animation to help make the symbol represent the prisoners of Jews. Every one who was a Jew had to wear they particular star to distinguish their race.

Gates to the camps were the imaginary border line from life and death. Even on the outside world you will be dragged into the inside of the gates. Most likely the people who were dragged into the gates would probably never get out. The camps had given little food so the only way for them to not starve to death is to communicate or get through the grates.

The last symbol is the
Iwo Jima this symbol is a statue that represents the victory in World War Two. There are many statues of this which represents the amount of countries that were affected and the number of countries who tried to stop this horrible event.

The symbols will be influential on people because when ever they see the sign they will remember the power point which is much easier to memorize then a bunch of words. Symbols are also more appealing to viewers like images so it would grab their entire intention.

The images that we had used were basically about Anne Frank and the Holocaust. Anne Frank pictures were about her form a baby too about 17 years old because she didn’t live any longer. Some of the pictures were also of the secret Annex. The picture of the holocaust had included the before and after pictures of the war. I choose these pictures to make people viewing it more emotional. I thought that the starving children were a good picture for this. Images are influential because you get to see with your own eyes what the results of some actions are. It is also more appealing to people to see visuals because they are visual learners.

We had only used one sound because if we had added more the effects might have taken more of the excitement away from the visuals which to us is the most important. We had chosen this particular song because it had a smooth and easy flow of rhythm which makes it very effective for this type of power point. The smooth violent sound made it a lot sadder and more influential on all the viewers. Sound effects give written and visual presentations more appealing to people and influences them to take action.

Text didn’t play a major role in this power point presentation but if we hadn’t used it, it might not have been as effective, the reason being that text helps the viewers know what you are trying to say, what you are trying to build up, and also to let the viewers get ready for the next images.

I overall think that the three major aspect (symbols, images, sounds and text) when put all together can be very influential and appealing to viewers especially if it is a major problem happening right now.

The most important aspect of this essay is the main messages that it unleashes to the world which aren’t in word form. Symbols are the most important things to help people remember and stop awful event like this to ever happen again. To see which symbol is overall the best you have to know every ones role in the power point, the war and the book or Anne Frank. To our group the most powerful symbol is bar code because it talks about how the Jews weren’t treated like a human but more like a product, while I feel that the most powerful and meaningful image is the picture of the children that were starving and how you could se their misery and their ribs.

The biggest ESLR to me and my group is effective communicator because we are warning the outside world of the past disasters and though they can’t change history they can change their actions and the present.

We made a PowerPoint presentation but we made it look like an iMovie because that was the original assignment so we demonstrated our creative talents to convey ideas and we incorporated technology as a tool for communication because were trying to bring over a message about Anne Frank. We listened respectfully and asked questions to achieve insight, not just to the teacher but also to each other. When ever we had questions or comments we would always express them. We demonstrated the skill of effective collaboration by dividing up the work and by helping each other complete our parts of the project when ever they needed help. We had to collaborate with each other to achieve group goals because that was one of the major points of this project, to make us collaborate and work with each other. We had to understand the written, oral and visual information in our project to make the project sensible. We also demonstrated awareness for the role of the audience in the sense that we didn’t used to explicit images and texts from WWII so that if by any chance WWII victims would see this PowerPoint they won’t get hurt or offended also we had chosen some cruel and nasty pictures to show our class how to change the future actions we take.

Some other bullet points we did that weren’t an effective communicator is we build meaning and understanding by using prior knowledge and new information because we did it about Anne Frank and the WWII so we had to do some research and we had to learn about WWII and Anne Frank to successfully complete this project. We demonstrated the skills and ability to work both independently and collaboratively by doing most of the work together at school and everything what we couldn’t finish we did at home. We also used a variety of sources like the internet and books to get our information from and we used technology to creatively and efficiently complete our project. We demonstrated responsibility in active decision making and awareness for the right of others and interacted respectfully with people of diverse cultures by looking at our content and audience during active decision making and interacting respectfully with ourselves (members in our team).We accepted responsibility for our own learning by taking on the tasks we (members of our team) had given us, took creative risks in developing untried ideas by doing a PowerPoint rather than an iMovie or a memorial and we demonstrated competency in goal setting, time management and organizational skills by setting our personal goals within the group, managing our time in and out of school and organizational skills by organizing this project.

In this project, we divided our job into three so that everyone has to do something. Firstly, Ramzi found images, made first draft of the power point, described the symbol of each pictures and reflected the ESLR’s in this project. He was the hardest worker in this group, and I think he worked as a leader to finish this project. Secondly,
Milos found the music, and made the power point look like a movie. He was technologically advanced and helped us so much. He was very supportive, as well. Then, I found images and wrote, “Who did what” part of this essay. I think I worked well, and was corporative. Overall, we did such a great job, and we always worked together very hard.

At the end of all our work we had not just created a power point that will just play one day and that’s the end but it will stay with the entire class for years to come. We had created a piece of the war that we will never forget or let ever happen again. My group and I had thought overall that the finish product was a great success. The entire group had felt that our final grade would be excellent, the reason being that we had thought hard and long for the perfect songs to be able to place in our power point. We would give our grade for the entire final project a B or a B+.

I thought in the beginning we would not be able to accomplish this task but in the end it was worked out nicely. The entire process of setting this entire project was quite simple because if you had planned and organized every ones tasks you can easily accomplish the project with commitment. In the beginning we had decide dot make a power point. Then we had found all the sounds and images we were going to use. After that we had made a story board and we had planned all the images, text and sounds we were going to use for each slide show. At last we created the power point. Once we had finished the power point we had split the responsibility of the written part of the essay. Through out the entire procedure we were organized which allowed us to do every thing fast and efficiently.