The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne is about a young German boy named Bruno. His father is in charge of a death camp in Poland at the time of the Holocaust. This posting forces the family to move from their old house in Berlin to a derelict, shabby house somewhere near Warsaw. Bruno sees Jews living on the other side of a barbed wire fence and processes things as a nine-year-old would. “ Why can’t I play with the boys on the other side of the fence?” “ Why are they all wearing grey striped pajamas?” “Why are they trapped behind a fence in the first place?” While trying to make sense of the changes around him, Bruno meets Shmuel, a young Jew. Everyday they talk, and the two become fast friends.

The book is written almost in the form of a diary by Bruno. The author uses the voice of the nine-year old protagonist very effectively – this made the book more interesting for me.

The ending of the book had a deep impact on me. At the end, Bruno along with Shmuel, sneaks into the camp using a disguise and decides to do a bit of exploring. In his disguise, Bruno is mistaken for a Jew, and along with Shmuel and a hundred other Jews, is forced to march to a gas chamber. They are locked up inside, and Bruno is naïve enough to think that the German officers are doing this to prevent everyone from catching a cold. Unknown to him, these are the last minutes of his life, and Bruno declares his friendship to Shmuel before they are both gassed.  This was really touching since Bruno had been educated to think that Germans were the Aryan (superior) race, and that all other races were inferior, especially Jews. This book really made me feel sad about how cruel the Nazis were.

The genocide that was committed against Jews between 1939 and 1945 is often referred to as the Holocaust. An approximate 6 to 12 million Jews, as well as others, such as homosexuals and Gypsies were killed in the Holocaust. The facts I found on the Internet were horrifying. Children, sometimes no older than five, were killed first because they were too young to work. Women were also killed first because they couldn’t work. Men were worked to death, and in 1944, French Jews were forced to construct German beach defenses in preparation for D-Day. A German officer described the clean up ritual of the gas chambers: “ Those who had not been immediately killed by the gas were staring at me like zombies, their skin deathly white with pink and green spots. They were bleeding from their ears and foaming at their mouths. It was a horrible sight.” Many German officers, sickened by Hitler’s laws of anti-Semitism, planned coups to overthrow the Reich. Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who had been wounded in Tunisia, engineered one of the most famous coups. In Poland in 1939, Stauffenberg had witnessed SS officers shooting Jewish women in the streets. He was sickened by the sight, and staged a coup that failed. Stauffenberg ‘s story was made into a movie called Valkyrie, with Tom Cruise as Stauffenberg, which is one of my all-time favorite movies.

My SCUBA Diving Adventure

“So I can really learn SCUBA diving?”

I was at the bowling alley in Plaza Senayan and my 10th birthday party had just ended. I was getting ready to go home when my dad pulled me aside and said “Do you remember what I promised you when you were 8?”
I furrowed my eyebrows. I couldn’t remember the major events that had happened two weeks ago, much less two years ago. But then the memory came back to me like a long lost story. I was sitting down on the couch reading a book. It was a normal day for me except that my parents were getting ready for their first SCUBA diving lesson. When I had heard about it, I started whining.
“Why can’t I go?” I asked my dad.
“Because you’re not old enough.” he replied. “Law requires all SCUBA diving students to be at least 10.I promise on your 10th birthday I will set up SCUBA diving lessons for you.” The memory ended and my mind shifted to the present and I said “Yeah, I remember. What about it?”
“Well, it’s your 10th birthday, isn’t it?” Suddenly I got really excited.
“Did you call him?”
“I’ll call him now.” Him was Joi, my dad’s diving instructor. I was elated. I was going to learn SCUBA diving!

The first lessons were in Joi’s dive shop. I learnt basic hand signals to communicate with other divers underwater and I also learnt the name and function of every piece of equipment a diver needed to have. The next lessons were pool dives. We went to a huge Olympic-sized swimming pool and did practice dives. The dives were truly exhilarating, because when you’re down there, you feel fifty kilos lighter than you should be and for one blissful hour I was gliding across the pool with not a care in the world. More pool dives followed and although they were fun, I longed to venture out into the ocean and see nature’s underwater miracles.

My dream finally came true when Joi announced that we were going on an ocean dive at Kotok Island, just one of the thousands of islands that make Indonesia’s vast archipelago. The boat ride to the island took an hour, and when we arrived I was eager to get into the ocean, which from the pier looked like a calm blue sheet, stretching into the infinite horizon beyond. First I donned my wetsuit. This garment kept me warm in the sometimes cold waters of the ocean. Next I attached my air tank to my BCD or Buoyancy Control Device. I then attached air hoses, air pressure gauges and compasses to the top of my air tank. These were critical pieces of equipment, since they told me how much air was in my tank, where I was and they allowed me to breathe underwater. The last things I put on were my dive boots, fins and mask which helped me to swim and look at underwater life. I waddled to the edge of the pier and looked down. My dad, my friend Adri and Joi were behind me. I stepped off and plunged into the ocean. I panicked at first, but then I relaxed. I started to swim to the buoy that marked our descending point. Three splashes behind me told me that the others were in. I reached the buoy and waited for the others to catch up. When they arrived, I started descending using a rope attached to the buoy. When the rope ended, I let go and swam around the reef. Hundreds of fish swarmed around me. They came in different colors and varieties. It was fascinating to watch them. I lay down on the sand and stared eye-to-eye with a huge fish. After more exploring, I relaxed and leaned on the ropes. Joi motioned for the others to come to him. He was holding a starfish which was pentagon shaped and was the color of roof tiles. This is perhaps a game of catch that I will never forget. We threw the starfish to one another, until the air in our tanks was low. We ascended to the surface and I looked around and instantly knew that that there were more dives to come.And when they came, I would be ready.

Vocabulary Definitions

Seizure-noun- when your muscles contract but do not expand, resulting in a painful and sometimes fatal immobilization.

Knead-verb -to prepare dough for baking items like pizza and bread.

Swarming-noun- a large number of people or things moving together.

Venture-noun-when you go on a journey, uncertain of what's going to happen.

Illuminating-verb-to light up some thing, or to have a brilliant idea.

Hispanic-adjective-someone from Central or South America

Jittering-noun-small irregular movements usually associated with electricity. Also means nervousness as in "When I get up on stage, I get jittery."

Trepidation-noun-a feeling of dread, fear of what's going to happen in the future.

Dignity-noun-the quality of being worthy of respect and honor; behavior or speech that shows appreciation of the formality of a situation.

Virility-noun-the quality of being masculine.

n= noun

v=verb

Moby Dick is a century old classic by Herman Melville. The book is about a young boy named Ishmael who longs to go to sea and signs up for a voyage on the whaling ship Pequod. It seems like an ordinary trip until the ship’s captain, Ahab, announces his true plan. He wants revenge on the malevolent white whale that maimed him. Ishmael’s dream voyage becomes a terrifying fight for survival as they chase white Moby Dick across the world.
The one thing I liked about Herman Melville’s writing style is that it’s easy to understand the book. If you’re reading a book about war, it’s sometimes hard to understand the book because you’ve never experienced war, you don’t know what it’s like. Herman was on a real whaling ship before he became a writer so he made it easy to understand but at the same time “unputdownable”.
My favorite part of the book was when Herman described the gruesome process of extracting oil from a whale’s blubber. Since we don’t use whale oil anymore, I was interested in how the sailors of the 19th century earned their living. I learnt that very little of the whale- which is usually a sperm whale because it’s blubber has the finest oil- was wasted. The only things that were really thrown back into the sea were bones and other useless items like the whale’s teeth. Every other part had some useful purpose. For example spermaceti, a white, frothy liquid found in a sperm whale’s head, was used to make candles for cathedrals and it was also used as boot polish!
Moby Dick might have been Herman Melville’s greatest novel, but it destroyed his literary career. Critics hated the book, and Herman suffered from depression for the rest of his life. Born in August 1819, Herman was forced to work to support his family after the family business collapsed and his father died. He got a job on the whaler Acushnet. The captain was a cruel man and treated his men brutally, so Herman deserted the ship in the Marquesas Islands and lived with a local band of Typee villagers for a month. When he got home he had an incredible story to tell, thus his first book Typee which was a hit with the readers of New England. From 1849 to 1850 he was at the peak of his success, but after that his popularity began to decline. He wrote two novels, Moby Dick and Pierre before resigning from his job as a New York docks customs officer and lived quietly until his death in 1891. Only during the interwar years (1918-1939) did Herman Melville earn his place among history’s most famous authors.

Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan

Conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan is a non-fiction book by Robin Doak. The book tells the story of these two wars and answers many questions about them. How did the wars start? When did the wars start? Why is the US even at war? The book lists the important battles and events, from the Persian Gulf War to today. It also lists the timelines of the Middle Eastern wars. I learnt that although 82% of the US supported US military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, now less than 50% percent think the US is winning. I agree with them.
The Iraq conflict started when, on August 2 1990, Saddam Hussein, leader of Iraq, invaded his neighbor, Kuwait. Saddam wanted control of the nation’s profitable oil fields. Saddam declared Kuwait part of Iraq. Days after the invasion, the US began deploying troops to Saudi Arabia. This was to prevent an Iraqi invasion there and to try to scare Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. The deployment – Operation Desert Storm - was a multinational mission. 39 countries contributed to the coalition of troops. After the coalition troops gathered, the UN issued Saddam a warning: leave Kuwait by January 15 or suffer the consequences. Saddam refused. On January 17, coalition troops waged war on Iraq. On February 27 1991, Kuwait city was declared secure. It had taken just 100 hour to drive Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.
The conflict in Iraq didn’t end there. Operation Iraqi Freedom started on March 20 2003. Many world leaders disagreed with Bush’s idea of once more going to war with Iraq but Bush ignored them because he thought that Saddam was hiding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and he wanted to find and destroy them. Although Saddam was caught and executed later, it wasn’t any easier to stabilize the young democracy of Iraq. Insurgents continue to attack coalition forces through terrorist tactics such as kidnappings, roadside bombings etc. In 2004, American rock trio Green Day published an album called American Idiot. The album criticized Bush for invading Iraq and causing thousands of deaths. This album is my favorite Green Day album. Today, more than six years on, U.S troops still are in Iraq and the country’s security situation is still dangerous in many parts of the country.
September 11, 2001 was a normal day for America. The day quickly turned to horror when nineteen terrorists hijacked four airplanes and flew them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Days after 9/11, the US debated on what to do. Many were in favor of an immediate attack on Afghanistan, the country harboring Osama bin Laden, the man believed to be behind the 9/11 attacks. Others believed that now was not the time for war. On September 20, Bush demanded that the Taliban government in Afghanistan to surrender bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda leaders to the US. The Taliban refused, saying that they wanted proof that the Saudi Arabian was behind 9/11. On October 7, 2001 the US attacked Afghanistan. Operation Enduring Freedom began with a massive air bombardment of Taliban targets. On November 13, US forces overran the capital, Kabul, and drove the Taliban and Al-Qaeda out of power. They hid in the mountains which the US is still combing to find them.However, the situation in Afghanistan has not improved. There is an insurgency similar to Iraq, led by the Taliban that attacks coalition forces and makes the country dangerous and unstable.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been raging on for several years. Muslims are being discriminated everywhere because many people think that to be a Muslim is to be a terrorist. Shah Rukh Khan, a famous Indian actor, was detained by immigration authorities in New York because he was Muslim. I think that these wars aren’t doing any good. Terrorist attacks across the globe still continue. I think America should withdraw its troops from the region and stop bloodshed.

I would like to tell you about a book called Fire Ice by Clive Cussler. Fire Ice is from the National Underwater and Marine Agency (N.U.M.A.) series or files, as Mr. Cussler likes to call them. Hero of the series is the courageous adventurer Kurt Austin. He heads the N.U.M.A. Special Assignments team. Kurt may look like an ordinary oceanographer but he capable of really walloping the power- hungry maniacs he meets on a regular basis.  Kurt’s sidekick is Jose (Joe) Zavala, a cool Mexican- American with quite an attitude. Joe loves making dry, humorless comments everywhere, even when he and Austin are in near death situations.

My favorite part of the book was when Austin and Joe were climbing up a ladder on a ship in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly Austin turns around and fires his revolver at Joe, but the bullet doesn’t hit him. Instead, it hits a Russian Cossack warrior who was holding a saber, ready to kill Joe. Austin lowered the gun and said to a perplexed Zavala “ That Cossack was about to cut you down to size.” I found this remark hilarious and I couldn’t stop laughing for two minutes afterwards.

A note about the author, Clive Cussler. Clive Cussler began writing in 1965 when his wife took a job working nights for the local police department where they lived in California. After making dinner for the kids and putting them to bed he had no one to talk to and nothing to do so he decided to start writing. His most famous creation is marine engineer, government agent and adventurer, Dirk Pitt. Dirk Cussler, Clive Cussler’s son, is the namesake for Dirk Pitt. He has assisted his father with writing the latest novels in the immensely popular Dirk Pitt series. Cussler's novels are examples of techno-thrillers where Cussler uses fantastic spectacles and far-fetched plots – like the plots of James Bond or Indiana Jones movies. As a real-life underwater explorer, Cussler has discovered more than sixty shipwreck sites and has written non-fiction books about his findings, which I might start reading next. He is also the founder of the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA), a non-profit organization with the same name as the fictional government agency that employs Dirk Pitt. Dirk Cussler also plays an integral part in NUMA  - he is the President and his father is the Chairman, which I thought was pretty cool.

Important finds by Cussler's N.U.M.A. include the Carpathia, the ship famed for being the first to come to the aid of the Titanic survivors; the Mary Celeste, the famed ghost ship that was found abandoned with cargo intact, and the Manassas, the first ironclad of the civil war.

I discovered from Clive Cussler’s website that he is a Fellow of both the Explorers Club of New York and the Royal Geographic Society in London. He has also been honored with the Lowell Thomas Award for outstanding underwater exploration. Cussler's books are published in more than 40 languages in more than 100 countries with a readership of more than 125 million avid fans and I am one of the most avid ones!

I and Me Grammar Sentences

1. My friend and I went to the store.

2. Leonardo and I are mortal enemies.

3. Tessa and I are friends.

4. Me and Aditya went to the movies.

5. Me and my brother played at Timezone.

6. Me and my mother are fans of Green Day.