Espen Barth Eide- a visit from the Minister of Foreign Affairs

Today the Minister of Foreign Affairs came to visit our school, Sandvika. Two hundred students and teachers gathered in the gymnasium to hear what he had to say. He spoke about many different subjects concerning foreign affairs, all of which were very interesting.  A subject he really elaborated on was the conflict in Syria. At the end of the lecture there were many questions regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria, as well as his personal opinion on the conflict. He was a good speaker and engaged his audience, making it easier for you as a listener to approach the situation. He was well opinionated, but you could see clear ties to his labour party background, and to his post as Minister of Defence.          

Espen specifically emphasized the importance of foreign politics, and how it affects us in the long run. Politics on a domestic level are not nearly as decisive for our place in the international society as foreign politics. A relevant point of view presented by Espen Barth Eide, was the alleged fact that; foreign politics lay the premises and foundation for domestic politics. Without strong relations and alliances between Norway and the world around us, we would in no way be able to uphold and improve our already prosperous living, economy and democracy. According to Espen Barth Eide; a change in government would mean less foreign politics overall. Is this what Norway needs?

Redemtion Day

In the suburbs of Los Angeles lives a lonely mum to three kids. She is unemployed, struggles to pay her bills and pickings are very slim on the job front. Through a law suit that backfires on her, she manages to get a job at the small firm of her lawyer. She has no suitable résumé, and is therefore given a simple pro-bono case, regarding a family in Hinkley. In Hinkley, a desert town in California, lies a compressor station for cold water owned by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company(PG&E), and Erin finds out they have polluted the local groundwater heavily. The polluted water is highly toxic, but the local community lives in ignorance of the connection of the pollution and their health issues. Erin spends late nights digging for evidence to make PG&E pay for their crime, and after many months of hard work, she reaches her goal. This is how the movie goes, a movie based on a true story. In reality it didn´t go down exactly like this, but the most important part stays the same. Erin Brockowich made an immense effort and performance taking down PG&E, and forcing them to pay 330 million dollars to the affected of their pollution.

More than 600 people were given a considerable compensation for their health issues, much due to the initiative of Erin Brockowich. It is not easy describing how much of a difference she made to the people of Hinkley, but the movie can make anyone shed a tear of joy when seeing Erin tell her clients about the money they will receive. The movie may obviously be a bit more dramatic than the reality, but the result remains the same.

Redemption day is the day of Erin Brockowich starting her work for Edward Masry. All the people whom´s everyday she helped redeem to a hopefully healthy living.

The man who God himself turned his back on

“The Butterfly Circus” is a short movie about a limbless man played by Nick Vujicic. The moral of the movie speaks loud and clearly; “The greater the struggle, the more glorious the triumph!” In this short movie Nick is portrayed as a sad man, born without limbs, who struggles to overcome his disabilities. Both the movie and Nick’s story form real life, truly fulfills a potential that most people wouldn’t even consider to exist, if not proven wrong.

Though this short movie was incredibly touching, Nick Vujicic’s commercial spoke a just as important message; “You win and you lose, but is losing failure?” I couldn’t agree more with this quote, and I think it is a lot more applicable to whoever it might be. Of the highs and lows, it is the highs that matter, and if you find yourself in a dump, you keep trying until you get where you want to be. It is not your potential itself that matters; it is what you do with your potential. Nick Vujicic didn’t emphasize this exact view on the topic, but it was an immediate relation I made after seeing his commercial for the World Cup in South Africa. If a healthy and athletic man climbed a mountain no one would bat an eye, but if man in a wheelchair did the same, it would truly be something for the media. This is a fairly extreme example, but it goes to show just how right Nick Vujicic is. 

Beeing young in Norway and my expectations for this school year

16-years-old, second year of high school and a fresh start. Last year, my first year at Sandvika high school, was quite a big transition from middle school. I had a lot longer way to school, the teachers were all new, but the most significant change from middle school was perhaps what was expected of me as a student. In order consistently get good grades; a much greater amount of work had to be put in. Throughout last year I adapted to this way of working, and therefor feel a lot more comfortable entering this school year. A severe difference from last year is that I’ve chosen the majority of my subjects for this year, and this is a great motivation.

Outside of school I do a lot of sports, play video games and I have a girlfriend. Sadly, I injured my shoulder playing a soccer match in March this year, and two months later had surgery. The recovery time for my injury is long and extensive, so I am prevented from participating in sports for another 4 months. It is really frustrating at times, mainly because exercising is a big part of my every day, but also because my social network lies within these sports. Nevertheless, I try to remember how lucky I am to live in such a prosperous country as Norway, and receive qualified treatment for my injury. It is easy to forget this, you become ignorant to everything outside of this little bubble, and it feels good to be reminded sometimes of how lucky I am.

The Hollywood body

http://www.anabolicdietblog.com/

This blog is about an average caucasian male, blogging about his progress in a diet called the "Anabolic diet". He has been blogging for over three years, so this post will be mainly be about the recent posts. The language is fairly informal, and sentences and paragraphs are short. The blog was originally made for updating the authors progress in the anabolic diet, but it has exceeded that. For three years he has tried out different ways of getting into shape, but his goal was always the same. He wants a hollywood movie star body, and is trying to figure out the ideal diet for obtaining such a body as fast as possible. He updates it daily, and it is a personal blog where his opinions and thoughts are very present. It is an easy way to gain readers, because many dream of reaching that same goal, and seeing the diet in progress is exciting.

Different genders, different expectations

During the decades laws have changed and conditions have been arranged for lesser differences between men and women. However, our attitudes and expectations towards the genders have remained the same in a bigger degree, no doubt. Some people claim they don´t let their gender expectations affect their decisions, for example in work situations. Sadly, the truth is that they are affected quite a bit. We can also observe how boys and girls choose different paths of education and work.

Boys and girls are forced to make decisive choices from early on in their lives. When choosing what high school you want to apply for, you in a way limit your possibilities for later in life. It is not very typical for girls to educate themselves as contractors, and this is much due to the expectations that are dwelling over our heads.

The work towards gender equality has come far in Norway, but there are for example several scenarios of promotions, where women have been systematically turned down. Statistics show that men dominate the leader positions the industry of commerce, and this illustrates the different expectations between men and women. If a man was to choose between hiring a man and a woman with similar records and merits, it is still more likely that he would hire the man.

“I agree to these terms”

The internet offers an immense amount of information and possibilities for you. What many people have failed to realize is that their activity on the internet leaves them very vulnerable to exploit. When you upload something to the internet, it is likely to be copied into several other sites within minutes, so you can never be sure of where your digital footprints are.

It is becoming more and more common for websites to force you to plot in your personal information to gain access to their sites. It seems like such an insignificant detail, that we don’t care to consider how it may affect us. Surely we expect from most websites to not exploit our personal information, but there are some that will take benefit from it, and they know exactly how to get away with it. By deliberately making you agree to endlessly long “Terms of service” they can easily fool you into letting them use your personal details.

Another risk when signing up for an internet service or community lies within the presence of the information itself. There are those who know how to gain access to whatever it may be that is on the internet, and if your personal details are spread all over the place, there really isn’t too much you can do about it. “Hackers” as they are popularly called, have caused massive breaches in confidential internet sources, and some of these incidents have had very serious consequences. In 2011 Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple ind. was in hospital due to cancer. A group of hackers gained access to Apples facebook account, and announced that Steve Jobs had passed. Steve Jobs was in fact still alive, though he died not long after, but the false rumors that he had died, caused the Apple stock to drop considerably.

Even though a lot of what is mentioned seems like natural precautions, people, and especially youth, waive their private details around in ignorance. The most probable reason to this is that we are not well enough aware of the dangers that are masked behind the vast amount of compelling proposals floating around the internet.