Raaannnnttt.

Some people work towards something all their lives. Some people work towards something most of their lives. Some people work towards nothing everyday of their life, and still manage to receive the same reward in the end. I am referring to graduation. I believe some people in school try, while others fail. Three weeks before the end of the year, and you are striving. The failures who just had this amazing realization, which that if they attend these last couple weeks they can pass! And they can graduate! The depressing thing is for the achievers are watching the failures, and thinking how the hell can they do that? The failures will graduate, or at least pass this course. The achievers of course will also pass. What happens when the failures enter life? They will have to realize that you have to go to work to get paid. Which the payment from work goes to living(eating, rent, and etc.) . The work ethic and school laziness of children today is demeaning to our society. There is this seventeen year old child in my school who gets breakfast in bed every morning. I am ashamed to be classified along with the other people at my age. I have been working since I was thirteen years old. I attend school everyday, and get decent grades.
Kids are too spoiled in this era, and our economy will fail due to them.

All Time Top Three Restaurants

Criteria:
I decide and base my decisions on my personal preference, and where I have eaten. Every time I eat at a restaurant I try to act as a critic. My boyfriend says I am to picky, but I do not care I just like good food. :)
I base my grading on taste of food, presentation, services, atmosphere, and timely food delivery

1. Gare Du Norde Cafe - A exquisite small restaurant with the most delicious chocolate mousse ever. The waiter was hilarious. Even though we were in Paris he was singing Nickelback, which made us laugh. This restaurant is just off the the Gare Du Norde metro stop. We were hungry one night and went on an adventure, which lead us to heavenily food. Come on it is Paris, the atmosphere is already amazing enough!

2. Dream Cafe - A hippie inspired tranquil restaurant in Penticton. This is probably the only good one here. The service is very nice, and down to earth people all around. They even have live shows for free to go along with your meal on specific nights. The meals are proportioned nicely and come with fruit with each dish. They also have amazing vegetarian options, which I adore.

Tie for 3rd!

3. Kadoya Japanese Restaurant - A petite Japanese restaurant downtown Vancouver. The service is good. The sushi is amazingly delicious, and to boot the menu is inexpensive! Every time I go to Vancouver I go dine there.

3. Akari Japanese Restaurant - A quite large Japanese restaurant in Coquitlam. It has extremely delectable. The waitresses are the sweetest women ever. Their bento boxes are the best option, since it comes with everything that you would love to treat yourself to. It also comes beautifully presented, and the green tea is yummy!

Poem - A Thousand Splendid Suns

Kabul by Saib-e-Tabrizi

Ah! How beautiful is Kabul encircled by her arid mountains

And Rose, of the trails of thorns she envies

Her gusts of powdered soil, slightly sting my eyes

But I love her, for knowing and loving are born of this same dust

My song exhalts her dazzling tulips

And at the beauty of her trees, I blush

How sparkling the water flows from Pul-I Bastaan!

May Allah protect such beauty from the evil eye of man!

Khizr chose the path to Kabul in order to reach Paradise

For her mountains brought him close to the delights of heaven

From the fort with sprawling walls, A Dragon of protection

Each stone is there more precious than the treasure of Shayagan

Every street of Kabul is enthralling to the eye

Through the bazaars, caravans of Egypt pass

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs

And the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls

Her laughter of mornings has the gaiety of flowers

Her nights of darkness, the reflections of lustrous hair

Her melodious nightingales, with passion sing their songs

Ardent tunes, as leaves enflamed, cascading from their throats

And I, I sing in the gardens of Jahanara, of Sharbara

And even the trumpets of heaven envy their green pastures

Response:

The poem Kabul reflects the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns in many ways. In the poem Saib-e-Tabrizi speaks of how beautiful Kabul is even through the hard ship and treachery the city has sustained. How Tabrizi portrays the city is insightful. He writes that it should not be seen by the evil eye of a man, and how 'one could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs and the splendid thousand suns that hide behind her walls'. Mariam is like the city in this book. Rasheed protects her from the evil eyes of men, and does not allow her to exit the home without him. She is beautiful but no one can ever see. Multiple beatings from infertility and abandonment cause her to wear down, but she will always be the beautiful child that she once was. In this novel Mariam and Laila go through hardships, but when Laila leaves she is as beautiful as a flower, and as free as a bird. No matter how many times you try to crush Kabul, and destroy it's the people, and the pure beauty of the city that will always keep the memories of how it once was alive. You can abuse the land around you, but you can always remember what always brought you back. To this day Afghanistan is still a war zone, but it is a beautiful one. When there is no firing you can embrace the pure beauty of where you stand. When Laila gets away from Afghanistan she can remember the heart ache of Kabul and the joy the city held. She wants to be the one to help rebuild that joy so others can bask in it.

Journal #1 A Thousand Splendid Suns

Passages:

''Mostly, they live in the richer parts of Kabul. I'll take you there. You'll see. But they're here too, Mariam, in this very neighborhood, these soft men. There;s a teacher living down the street, Hakim is his name, and I see his wife Fariba all the time walking the streets alone with nothing on her head but a scard. It embarrasses me, frankly, to see a man who's lost control of his wife''
He fixed Mariam with a hard glare.
''But I'm a different breed of man, Mariam. Where I come from, one wrong look, one improper word, and blood is spilled. Where I come from, a woman's face is her husband's business only. I want you to remember that. Do you understand?''
(pg. 63)

''What I meant was, what do they want?'' Mariam asked. ''These communists, what is that they believe?''
Rasheed chortled and shook his head, but Mariam thought she saw uncertainty in the way he cross his arms, the way his eyes shifted. ''You know nothing, do you? You're like a child. Your brain is empty. There is no information in it''
''I ask because---''
''Chup Ko. Shut up.''
Mariam did
(Pg.89)

''OI should have known that you'd corrupt her,'' Rasheed spat at Mariam. He swung the belt, testing it against his own thigh. The buckle jingled loudly.
''Stop it, bas!'' the girl said. ''Rasheed, you can't do this.''
''Go bacck to the room.''
Mariam backpedaled again.
''No!Don't do this!''
''Now!''
Rasheed raised the belt again this time came at Mariam
(pg 218)




Rasheed is a disgusting, piece of scum on the earth's surface.

When you look at the world you think of diversity, poverty, inequality, suffering, though on the other side you see wealth, and happiness. In parts of the world like the middle east the wealth is divided not even close to equal. 'A Thousand Splendid Suns' is set in Afghanistan where treachery and havoc has reaped the country for decades. First the Soviets, the Majuhadeen, Fights breaking out over war lords opposing other war lords, and then the Taliban. Rasheed is a shoe maker who lives in Kabul and disliked the Soviets since they were all about equality, and women being equal. They allowed females to attend school or work outside of the home. When the Taliban took control of Kabul, Afghanistan there were very strict laws. The laws they put in for males were not that bad, though for women they were harsh and unjust. Women were not allowed to be treated at 'male' hospitals which all of them but one in a large city accepted females which had no funding, or medicine. Women had to wear burqas which covered their bodies fully including faces, and could not go anywhere without a male relative 'supervising'

Though inequality and despicable instances have happened through the spread of time only now when we have the united nations attempting to hold peace throughout the world but some is still not obtainable. Leaders of today's society are either corrupt, power hungry, brutal, or incompetent. Growing racism and hatred will never be put into extinction.

Tokyo

From the minute I saw the waitress, and I knew it was going to be a bad dining experience. As a table of three we were seated at the back of the petite restaurant. The waitress looked as if she had the intelligence of a 12 year old, and looked as if she had just came down from another high time. She placed the menus in front of us, and I open it up. I looked down at the pages scrolling threw when I noticed hair in my menu, so I thought to myself 'wow I hope the food is better!'. Since I recently came back from Vancouver and ate at my favourite sushi spot, I did not want to ruin the delicious sushi memory with bare minimum enjoyment. I was searching for a non-carnivore dish as I do not eat meat and saw 'Anade Teriyaki' which is tofu teriyaki. I remembered my father getting a teriyaki item before at another restaurant and it looked delicious, so I proceeded to order the tofu teriyaki. My boyfriend and his friend ordered other meals. As we proceeded to wait for a long time for our dinners the waitress brought us green tea that took about 20 minutes to brew, which I drink at home and know it only takes about 5 minutes. My tofu came on a plant with a tiny dizzle of sauce on it on a miniature plate, and before I could ask where the rest of it was the waitress was gone. I was starving so I started nibbling on it, as we waited about 45 minutes for the other food to arrive. When it all came I questioned where my food was and the waitress said 'you just ordered the appetizer and I said 'no I ordered the teriyaki and she took my tofu and said 'it will just be a second she can whip it up quick' so I though oh gosh. About 10minutes later I received Anade Don, and not teriyaki I thought what the heck I am so hungry! All that the bowl contained was two little pieces of fried tofu with some bean sprouts on top of rice. It was bland and pretty bad, my boyfriend said that his was not that great but he was hungry, since he is also not the one to complain. I was quite aggravated due to the despicable service and let down meal. Through out the whole meal we saw the waitress about 3 times, once to take our order, once for the tea, and once for the food. We were there about an hour and a half due to long waits. Though the restaurant was not busy it was still unimpressive service and food. We went up to go pay the bill and I explained to the waitress that my food was not good, and she replied 'if it was not good you should have told me' and I responded 'you never came to the table for me to tell you', in the end she told me that if it was not that good I should not have eaten it and charged us full price. In conclusion the Tokyo restaurant is a waste of money and disappointment which should be avoided. Try Lee's overseas and Isshin on main before wasting your money at Tokyo, or even better if in Vancouver try Kadoya on Davie St. it is the best sushi and good prices!

Perils of Indifference

1. Horrible events that happen while people are aware but ignorant about it.

2. The ending of 'The Lottery' is similar to a movie I recently watched, the movie's name is 'Hot Fuzz'. At the beginning of the movie the main character who is a excelled police officer, his name is St.Nicholas Engel. He lives in London, United Kingdom and is informed that he will be moving to a constable position in the small town in the country called Sandford, which has a very low crime rate. Everyone at first is very kind and the town has a quaint perfect appearance. Sandford wins the 'Perfect town' award consistently every year. Later in the movie a series of so called 'accidents' are portrayed, though all of them are actually first degree murders. The officers of the police force are dimwitted, and have no questions to these 'accidents' since the head chief is an accomplice. In Sandford the main older towns people had a cult, that the main purpose was to dispose of miscrents in an accidental theatre. St. Engel finally finds out after much suspicion that it is this cult, which even tries to murder him in the end for knowing to much information. St. Engel gets away with the help of his literally stupid friend, that happens to be the head chief's son. The towns people are convicted in the duration of the finale and sent off to prison with Engel becoming the police's head chief.

3. Elie Wiesels's speech relates to 'The Lottery' because during the Holocaust some of the German population, who were not directly involved with the dispicable deaths of the 'different' but did not do anything to stop them. In 'The Lottery' all the town peoples are friendly to one another and kind to the victim, in the end nobody tries to stop the stoning, and participates in the throwing on rocks. People's actions on other human beings are disgusting and need to be reformed for the world to be sustained for a long time.

Ignorance Is Bliss

When I read an article that touches my beliefs, hopes, thoughts, or outlooks on life I connect to it. Personally for me I am a big history buff, who also opposes Bush's views on Iraq and Afghanistan wars, so when I read a journal written by a Canadian solider in Afghanistan it may change my views slightly on that particular subject. On the other side of the scale I have read multiple articles on global warming, pollution, and the ozone layer being destroyed. Some people believe it is a load of garbage, yet some believe it is a very concrete problem. I some what agree that global warming is happening, but the biggest thing is pollution, that I will insist that we all can help. Pollution is a gastronomical and very controversial issue, that you do not really even have to read an article about you just have to look around, and ask yourself what is that huge ''overcast'' over China that never goes away? The ''overcast'' that protrudes sunlight from shining, and floats up to the North, which is Canada. Some Canadians may just say 'it is not us! It is a China or India problem', but the truth is Canadians use the most energy per capita in the whole world. At times I ask myself am I just getting sucked into the media, and believing idiotic propaganda to save the government some money, then I just think who cares after a while is is really hard to reuse a plastic bag once in a while or re-use containers? Every article that I read which affects me in any way I try to even do the littlest thing to help. I try to be a compassionate person, and volunteer or do what ever I can, but sometimes there is nothing you can do.