In the last few weeks we were doing a project on culture relating to a cultural book, which we were reading. I chose the story “the Serpents children” by Laurence Yep and I wanted to display my understanding of the story in connection to the author in a fiction story. While I was researching about Laurence Yep it always said that all his books are about outsider or so called aliens. Therefore, I thought I would write a story about real aliens. However, I started off as a story, but then I found it hard to put a lot of information in a science fiction story. At the end I had magazine article which was supposed to be a story. To make the project fid its format, I then formatted it into a magazine article, which turned out really good.

In my opinion, my project was a success. Even if I was not that proud at the beginning for my article it turned out really good when I transformed it into a magazine article. Form this project I learned that there will be always outsiders. In the beginning of my magazine I said that the earth was almost one big country because everybody was excepting each other, but then the aliens came and suddenly there was difference again. In conclusion, there will always be outsiders, but people have to except each other and can learn from each other.

This week Grade 9 and 10 went to Hei Shui, a town near to Tibet, and experienced a lot of Tibetan cultural. To me it was not as much of a new cultural contact because I have been in Lhasa, Tibet last summer. However, for some people it was very different and also difficult to get taught a bit of the religion.

On the first day of the trip, we were visiting the Sichuan-Earthquake Museum. The museum was placed in the middle of the earthquake center where the destruction started 12^th May 2008. To show what destruction the earthquake caused some houses where left and it was visible that this was a deaths machine form Mother Nature. This was really a shock for me to watch the damage, especially the broken houses. I was never really aware how deadly earthquakes could be because I have never experienced the felling of the earth shaking. Also when we were walking around the broken and collapsed houses, I had a strange felling because I knew people died in these houses. For the night we stayed in the Qiang village where people of the Qiang minority lived for 2000 years. I really enjoyed the natural and ancient style of the village. This was a big impact of a different cultural experienced since we slept in ancient Qiang houses. Also the ancient village really reminded me of my holidays in Morocco because the structure and the type the people were living was similar to the Moroccan houses and people.

On the next day, we were leaving the village early to drive to Hei Shui. After we had a typical Tibetan lunch we visit a Monastery on the top of a mountain. By having a shaky ride up the mountain in small vans, I could already feel the simple, but probably interesting life of the monks living there. We were allowed to go inside the monastery and get guided by the Buddhist Master in this area. I was amazed by the colorful and creative drawings on the roof and the walls. I think there was over 200 hundred of the Sakiyamonia Buddha in little holes in the wall. I learned a lot from the life of the monks and their religion. For example, I never knew that there was more than oe Buddha and that there are differ ones for different regions. Additionally, when I looked down on the village I could see the construction and the dust coming from the streets and it made me aware what contrast the village was to the monastery and the life on top of the mountain.

On the last day in Hei shui we were visiting the Hei Shui Glacier, 4800 meters above the sea level. Already the drive up to the cable car was very interesting. The van was stopping at different lakes and we were flipping stones on the lake. This really reminded me of Germany and the nature in Germany. After we reached the top of the glacier with the gondola I could already feel the lack of oxygen. I could barely run without stopping after every five meters to gasp for air.

After these experiences I think it was a cultural as well as natural experience for everybody. Even if I already went to Tibet I learned a lot of new thinks about the Tibetan and Buddhist culture.

Special thanks to Siring and Abu, our gudes on the trip who helped and explained.

Currently we are discovering the different parts of independent learning and what it means for different people. For me independent learning means learning on my own and develop my own ideas by collecting information to connect them to one whole theme. It means to force yourself to manage to finish your work in time. A lot of the student’s independent learning means procrastination because they make excuses to finish the work later. Therefore, independent learning has to be practiced and be developed step by step.
In my old school in Germany independent learning was very rare because we mostly did work sheets and very few posters or projects. This radical changed when I came to china. I had to take control of my own learning immediately without any practice or support. It was really hard for me to change the type of learning so I was frustrated a lot of times. However I did not have a choice so I developed the way of learning. I slowly I could take control of my learning which means I could hand in my work by deadlines and study for test without any help from my parents.

Additionally, we are learning how to create good research questions about culture. Because I was interested in the different learning strategies in different countries my questions is about questions is going to be about the independent learning in the countries. As I already mentioned above the techniques in Germany were different than here with the American school system. Therefore this also partly influenced my question.However I am still developing my idea.

Currently we are reading different books about culture. I am reading the novel, The Serpent’s Children written by Laurence Yep, born 1948 in San Francisco’s Chinatown, and it displaces some of the culture or the life of the author. Laurence Yep is a child of a Chinese immigrant who came at the age of ten to America. Even if Laurence Yep was born in America all his ancestors came from china and therefore, a lot of his books are about Chinese culture. Especially, his book called, the Serpent’s Children, tells the story of a Chinese clan or village in the 19th century during a time of violence famine and threats of the Manchurian government.

Yep still feels connected to his father’s culture. He also did not visit an American school until High school and never experienced a lot of the American culture in his childhood.
The book, The Serpent’s Children, takes places during the time of the first opium wars and his great grandfather experienced this war. So he has his own relation to that war. This book is the first part of three about the Young family and tells the story of a family over the generations and finally leaving to America. This is basically what happened with Laurence Yep’s family.
Most of Laurence Yep’s books tell the story of an outsider, which tells a lot about his life. Since Yep had different experiences of being an outsider his books are really connected to him. One of his outsider experiences was that he grew up in an African-American neighbourhood. Until High school he wasn’t really an outsider because he just went to Chinese schools, but after that he felt like an “alien”, which he describes in his autobiography.  Laurence Yep was basically an outsider for most of his life and this is also probably the reason why teenagers enjoy reading his books because today a lot of people feel like aliens. Also he started writing his first novel at the age of 23 so he still has the teenager experience not so long ago.

The school year is almost finished and therefore we had to do a final presentation on our understanding of the play Romeo and Juliet. I did minor character analyses of Tybalt and Benvolio. However, before I could even start with my presentation there were some technical difficulties with projector and I was nervous if my presentation is going to work as planned. In my opinion I chose a good way of presenting my information because I could show the picture of the two people and then zoom into their bodies or some other funny effects. I think this made it a lot more interesting than PowerPoint. However, I made two spelling mistakes, which I could have prevented if I would have revised it more carefully. Also I think my presentation was a bid confusing because it would zoom in and out, which could have made the audience could dizzy. On the other hand, I spoke clearly and loud enough so the audience could understand me. In conclusion, I think I did a good job to display my understanding of the play “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare.

In Language Arts class we finally have finished to read the play of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. To proof our understanding of the play Ms. Taynton said that we have to present our understanding in different ways. I was thinking about how I am going to present it and I wanted to make a Stop Motion movie about one scene of the play. However, I thought it is going to be too hard to express my understanding of the play, so I chose to write about two minor characters of the play because it is really interesting to see how important minor characters are according to the story of the play. Straight away I knew I wanted to write about Tybalt and Benvolio because in my opinion they are opposites of each other. After I finished my information list I was not sure how to present it in front of the class and I was struggling coming up with an idea how to present the references of the play. Therefore, I chose Prezi because it is more interesting to look at it than PowerPoint. Also I can put the real text of the play into it and then swipe over to proof my thoughts.
However, I am scared not to finish it in time because we have so much to finish in the exam week as well as learning for the exams. So I have to plan my time really carfully.