Empire of The Sun

Empire of The Sun is a a fantastic movie about a young British boy, James "Jamie" Graham living in Shanghai, China with his wealthy parents in the 1940s. Throughout this movie Jamie struggles to find his patriotism when Japan invades the country and World War II begins.

James' strife starts when we first meet his character singing in a church choir. Being an English child living in a Chinese world, he seems to be fascinated with Japanese aviation and takes on patriotism in that country. Another example of Jamie's patriotism with Japan is when they invade the country, he tells the troops that he surrenders.

His next form of patriotism comes in when Jamie meets Basie, an American who befriends him.
The two characters develop a relationship and Basie becomes almost like a "father figure" to young James. Their relationship grows even stronger when they are forced to live in a concentration camp, and Basie and the rest of the Americans adopt Jamie into their bunk. From there on he almost adopts the American way, of stealing things for Basie.

Finally, toward the end of the film, when the Americans come over and drop the atomic bomb on the country James starts to find himself. He turns down Basie and the Americans and wanders on his own. The dropping of the atomic bomb is like a wakeup call for James and he realizes how much he misses his parents. Luckily, they come to him in a children's holding place. From the ending, you can tell, his family is all he ever wanted. He finds himself as a British child living in China during the 1940s back where he started.

In conclusion Empire Of The Sun, is an awesome movie that deals with a young British child trying to find his patriotism in China. In the movie, viewers witness the different obstacles Jamie faces to get where he needs to be.

Reflection On Service Learning

Last week for Service learning The Elderly Care group talked about our schedule. Meaning what days we'll visit the library, and what days we'll visit the eldery. During the discussion there was a lot of confusion and frustration of how this was going to work. Even up to now we're aren't exactly sure how things are going to go but we have an idea. Mr. Todd, even told us we aren't going to do exactly what we need to in this time so we are just getting our feet wet with what we need to do in the Fall. These days we're all about meeting the people we're going to be working with and hopefully training if teaching for teaching them English.

Schoolwide Service

On Thursday, in Mr. Todd's class the group I'm in discussed what exactly we were going to do with the elderly. We came to conclusion that we were definately be teaching them better English, and two of my peers will be teaching some people Chinese.
To go further with our idea, we went down to the library next door, because they have ESL classes on Thursday and some other days around our time. We talked with a women who worked there and she told us it seemed like a good idea but she wasn't sure if she could get into contact with the guy who works in the department. Mr. Todd found a way, and the man agreed it was a wonderful idea as well.
Now, for the students in his group our job is to write letters to some important people who would come in handy. In the letter we try to get some hook ups they might have and any source of useable information. In doing that, we're still looking around the community to find places we can go and where we may be needed. I look forward to Friday's meeting to see just where we stand and how far we accomplished!

Service Learning; Primary Elections

Yesterday, I did 10 of my independent service learning hours by working with the Commitee of Seventy. Jada, Morgan and myself were the only kids there, but I can say we handled it pretty well. When Morgan and I first arrived, we were put in a room with the phones and lap top computers placed right in front of us. Without a second to waste, the phones began to ring off the hook. I was a bit nervous to answer because it was my first time, and I didn't know how to react toward a situation. Throughout the day, the phone calls came and came, and the questions weren't particulary easy to answer by myself so I recieved help from the older and much more experienced people in the room. About halfway through the day, Morgan, Jada and I were moved to another station because more volunteers came in and everyone deserved an equal chance. We were put on another computer to correct some of the mistakes made on the incident forms. From this whole experience I had only TWO rude people, and the rest were pretty fair. I shared a laugh with a couple of people, and I liked at the end of the call I was able to help answer someone's questions. From this experience I was able to meet a ton of new people and experience the work and patience it takes to sit and listen to ones questions. The most memorable thing I will remember from this is the guy who filed a complaint because someone left blood all around the bathroom at the voting poll! Yesterday I said I probably wouldn't do it again, but in fact I would. I'm looking forward to doing it again in November.