Welcome to the BigCola blog! Tervetuloa BigCola blogiin!
This
blog is updated regularly by students of the 8th and 9th grade students
of Pikkola school who have chosen the optional course English in-depth.
Tätä blogia ylläpitävät säännöllisesti Pikkolan 8. ja 9. luokan oppilaat, jotka ovat englannin syventävällä valinnaiskurssilla.
On
this course, we focus on all aspects of the English language. So if you
want to learn a lot of new English words, to speak English more
fluently, to write your own texts in English and, in general, to
challenge yourself in the English, this course might be for YOU. Feel
free to browse through this blog and see some examples of the things
we've done on this course. The course is recommended to students who
have a grade of 8, 9 or 10 in English. Hope to see many of you on this
course!
Tällä
kurssilla keskitytään englannin kielen kaikkiin osa-alueisiin. Jos
haluat oppia paljon uusia englanninkielisiä sanoja, puhumaan englantia
sujuvammin, kirjoittamaan omia englanninkielisiä tekstejä ja ylipäätään
haastaa itsesi englannin saralla, tämä kurssi on tarkoitettu SINULLE.
Selaile tätä blogia nähdäksesi esimerkkejä tehtävistä, joita olemme
kurssilla tehneet. Kurssia suositellaan oppilaille, joiden englannin
arvosana on 8, 9 tai 10. Toivottavasti näemme monet teistä englannin
syventävällä kurssilla!
Mieti alleviivatuille sanoille suomennokset tai selitykset.
Twitter is an online social
networking service. It’s also called a microblog.
A Twitter message is called ‘a
tweet’. The length of one tweet is 140 characters.
The word ‘twitterature’ comes
from two words: Twitter and literature.
Here are three examples of twitterature or twitter poetry (= a poem with
140 characters or less). Think Finnish translations for the underlined words.
“He played his music / I wrote the songs / in love / we were invincible”
(64 characters)
“Love the sea / fear the tide
/ footprints and words / till none of me remains” (71 characters)
“I love thee / But I fear the sea / No longer will I fight / ‘Cos I
can’t find the light” (80 characters)
Now, write your own “Twaiku” (= Twitter poem) or piece of Twitterature about friendship or love in your notebook. If you want, you
can use the words given below.
Having spent the last few entries writing about work and jobs, it's
time for the thing that (sometimes) comes after work - money. We
discussed some very surprising facts about money. Did you know that you
have to earn 2800 euros per month to be included in the richest 1% of
the world's population? Everyone here thought that was a staggering
fact. The downside is that about 40% of the people in the world live
with less than 2,50 dollars per day (that's 75 dollars or 55 euros per
month).
But can money buy happiness? That was our topic
when we watched the interesting documentary film The Queen of
Versailles. Here's what the BigCola pupils thought.
Can money buy happiness?
Humans have used money for a long time. At first
it was squirrel skins or something alike or people simply bartered their goods.
Today we use paper bills and coins as currency. Despite the fact that we have
used all kinds of things as payment people have always liked to buy good
looking jewellery or beautiful clothes but does it make you happy when you buy
them.
I think that for poor people money can definitely
buy happiness because they haven’t been on luxurous vacations or bought things
that they’ve always wanted because they couldn’t afford it. Some people can’t
even afford to buy food to their family and if they would get a little extra
money they would be very happy to stay alive and not die of starvation. For
rich people I think it’s quite different. They’ve always gotten whatever they
want whenever they want and they have always been able to eat their stomach
full. At a later age they will not get joy from new things and their life will
sometimes be less happy than the poor people’s lives.
Some people think that money can never buy
happiness because we don’t really need fancy stuff to make us happy. Instead
interacting with people, laughing with your friends and having a good time will
make you happy. I agree with them but I also think that for someone buying
something can bring happiness.
All in all I think that it’s possible for many
who are not so rich and probably for many rich people as well to buy happiness.
Wayne Teller
In the world there’s many different kind of
people. There’s rich, poor and somewhere between them. You really can’t tell
whose are happy and whose not. Does happiness really depend on money?
I think that money can’t buy happiness. Money
can buy things what you need to stay alive or makes you happy temporary. What
really make people happy are other people and the things you do. Some rich
people who have friends and family can say that they are happy, but that
doesn’t maybe have anything to do with money. You don’t make friends with
money, but with your own personality and just being who you are. People who don’t
have a lot of money can be much happier than some really rich people. In the
end, money is just an object wich you can buy another objects.
Jane Lauper
We watched a movie last week in class. It was about a
family that had lots of money but lost almost everything because of America’s
stock market went down.
In my opinion you can be happy without money. Of
course you need money to buy food and necessary clothes and stuff. But you
don’t need like a million euros or dollars to be happy, but with that money you
are in a quite safe situation for taxes and those things.
Here in Finland there are lots of people that have average
incoming. That’s about 3200 euros per month. In Finland you are marked as
‘’poor’’ if your incoming is 1600 or lower. But, can those ‘’poor’’ people live
a happy life? I think they can. If a poor family’s children like to play
football, he can play it because it’s not such an expensive hobby.
Some of the rich people may think that poor people
can’t live a happy life because of little money. Rich children’s parents can
buy them almost everything and they can play any sport they want, expensive or
cheap.
So in my opinion being a poor in some cases doesn’t
make life bad. In those African countries that people need to almost fight for
water and food the life is not happy. But here in Finland and other countries
that don’t have starvation, the people can live a happy life even if you were
poor or rich.
Max Corvin
I think that money can’t buy happiness. It doesn’t
matter if you are rich or poor you can still be happy or sad, but rich people
don’t have to worry about money and poor people are maybe worrying about money.
I think that if you don’t have money you should think other things that are
good in your life right now. Some people think that they can’t do anything if they
don’t have that much money. If rich people would be put for a week to live in
poor people’s life maybe they would understand that they do not need everything
in the world and would start to save that use.
Iris Hill
Last week we watched a documentary in class. It
was about David Siegel’s family and company. David Siegel owns the world’s
largest timeshare company and his businesses went really good, until the stock
market crash came. He lost almost everything and his family was confused and
didn’t know how to live without all the cleaners and babysitters.
Can money buy happiness? I think that you can
have happiness without money, but you can buy those little and big things with
money, and they make you happy. But if your whole world is about money, then
you should think that what has gone wrong. Nowadays there are lots of people who
have many unpaid bills and loans because they can’t control their shopping
addict, and that’s not normal anymore.
There are also many people who think that money
can really buy happiness, except the Siegel family. They have a massive house,
lots of toys, electricity, clothes, own plane and other stuff, and they seem
quite happy with all the items. But when they lost almost everything, they
didn’t know how to live normally anymore.
So, I think that if you can live without your
own plane, 8000 m2 house and all the expensive bags, clothes and games, your
life can be much happier with a normal amount of money and items.
Nora Lakeside
We watched a movie about money and rich people.
Story told about women, who didn´t know how to spend her money. I think that movie
was quite boring. Story told us how to not spent money and how it look when you
spent money wrong way. It was fun and boring to watch rich people life.
I think the movie was boring, nut some people
can learn many things from it. They can learn that if you rich you not always
happy and you can´t always buy anything. I think that you can’t buy happiness,
but you can buy things that make you happy. Sometimes only clothes or food can
make person happy. But to me happiness is being with family and friends. You
can’t buy real friends or family.
If you watch from other point of view they can
buy anything and live happy life how they want, but they don’t always have
happy family life and many good friends. Usually they say themselves, that they
would like more to live normal life than rich life. Some people think, that
rich people think only about money and they´re stupid.
So people are different and they make their own
decisions. Everyone isn’t rich, but usually they have more quality time with
friends and family than rich. Rich have to do work all the time, but normal
person can do more things with family and friends. Other people would like to
be rich, but I think that I would like to be normal person and have family and
friends. I would never like to live in castle. Everyone make their own
decision. You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy things that make you happy
or make you closer to your happiness.
Elisabeth Jenkins
Money is very important thing if you really want to
live. Without money, you can’t eat, drink, or live under the roof. But if you
have it too much, and you don’t control it anymore, it can literally destroy
your life. It’s great if you have enough money to feed your family and buy
stuff, but everyone should keep it under control, like we saw in a documentary
called Queen of Versailles.
I think money can buy temporary happiness, because
every time I buy something nice, I become happier than usual for a moment. But
I don’t think you can buy happiness if you are a billionaire or a millionaire,
because happiness isn’t really a thing you can just buy.
If I had 1 000 000 euros, I would worry too much about
everything and be paranoid that someone just wants to be my friend because of
my money. I would become much happier, if I donated part of the money in
charity, than if I just bought everything nice to myself. But still, it doesn’t
matter if you are poor or rich, you can still be happy or sad. Money does not
define your personality.
So I think that you can’t buy enduring happiness with
your money. In the documentary I didn’t see happy faces at the end, so it was
just temporary. I think they would have better life with less money.
Ida Cole
Many people think that money CAN just buy you
happiness, but I really disagree on that. Money doesn’t just instantly make you
happy and you can’t either just buy happiness, except if what you buy gives you
the happiness. Some people can become really happy if they buy something like a
new car or a new house, but some people are also really happy if they just have
food on the table, a pleasant job and a family, in my opinion you shouldn’t
need things like a nice car or a nice house and a lot of money to be happy, I
think you can be really happy if you just have some good friends, a home, a
family and food on the table and I’m really happy to have all of those.
Oskar Gant
This is a very difficult question, is it true or
false? What do you want to do in your life? Spend a lot of money or spend
memorable time with people you love?
It’s true, that you can buy whatever you want with
money. But are you happy then? Because in the end of your life, it doesn’t
matter how much money or stuff you have. It’s much more important how much
memories you have. In my opinion I think that with money you can buy momentary
happiness, but there must be something weightier than materialism. For example
if you’re a millionaire but you live alone without friends or family, you just
have your money. Are you happy when you die? Because other people might have a
big family and lots of friends, but they don’t have as much money as you have.
I prefer to be that second one.
Other people have of course different opinions. A rich
one can think that she or he has as much as possible money to use, like in a
document called Queen of Versailles. Someone might be so dependent on shopping,
that it is impossible to start to save money.
But a millionaire can be happy with the money, and a
not rich one can be happy without so much money. It doesn’t all depend on
money, luckily there is still a lot of free things in the world!
Kathy Spoon
I’m sure that very several people think that with
money you can buy happiness. But is it true? When you have money, you can buy
all things what you need, want and you only get momentary happiness from your
purchases. You can buy expensive brand clothes for example Louis Vuitton’s bags
and Chanel’s shoes. The bare truth is: Happiness won’t last your whole life.
People can manage when they don’t have that much
money. Many people’s wage isn’t maybe that good as someone else but they can
still be happy. You don’t need houses which is worth of millions and 200 000
euro’s car to be a happy person. Of course there are people (usually
millionaires) who think that money is all what they need and they don’t even
want anything else to their lives. Even very poor people can be happy if they
have family and friends.
My opinion is that money won’t make you happy. Your
family, friends, job, hobbies and relatives should be enough to make you happy.
If you are healthy and free, you should be happy about it. If you’re not happy
at the time, figure out some different experience and make your life a little
bit different. Do something nice with your friends, decorate your house again
or just be with people who you love.
So, you don’t need money to be a happy person. Enjoy
your life as it is now and don't worry your money things. Tell your love ones
that you love them, it makes your day better. Just remember, money is not that
thing what make you happy.
Marie Rivers
Money can make your life better in some ways, but it´s
hard to say can you buy true love or happiness with money. The thing in money,
what can make you happier is financial freedom. If you don´t have to be always
worried about that you have enough money to pay bills and buy food and clothes
it´s much easier to be. Other good thing in wealth is that you don’t have to be
working so much for money if you don’t want. That gives you time and freedom to
do other things like travel or something like that. Of course it´s sometimes
nice to buy expensive luxury things too if you have money, but I don’t think
it´s the thing in money what makes you happy, if it does.
It´s got to remember that big wealth gives you big responsibility and wealth
can stress you.
It can make you materialistic and make you close your eyes for the real things,
like friends and family.
Thomas Walt
Some people think that money can buy happiness. Some
people think that money can buy momentary happiness and the others think that
money can’t buy happiness. When you have some pairs of expensive shoes or some
expensive clothes or something else expensive, does it make you happy? Of
course when you have a lot of money you can buy everything you want and need,
but many people can survive with a little less money. When you get an average
wage, you have usually money to buy everything what you need but don’t always
have everything what you want. You can be happy without money, but you have to
glad of some other things.
I think that money can’t buy happiness. I think
that money can maybe buy some momentary happiness for example when you buy some
new cloth. But I think that many people are happy some days but then they
forget it. My opinion is that happiness comes from the other things for example
family and friends. Money can never make you happy for rest of your life.
If you are millionaire you can maybe be happy.
You can carry out your dreams, if you need lots of money to carry your dream
out. Millionaires life is maybe little easier when they don’t need to worry
about the money things. But if is thought that thing from another opinion the
poor people can live easy and with no worries. Some people have maybe different
dream that the carry it out don’t need any money. Everyone can live happiness
with no money.
This thing compressed is that everybody in this
world can live happiness without money. But if you have money, you can also be
happy. You have to find happiness somewhere different thing. Love your live and
don’t worry your money things.
Paulina Rock
Very many people think that with money you can buy
happiness. But is it true? With money you can get everything what you want.
Even if you had ten pairs of Prada and Gucci shoes is it enough to make you
really happy? Some people have addiction to buy everything what they see and
they think that all that material would make them happy. But that is just part
time happiness. After a while they go and buy another pair of shoes because the
first ones didn’t make them happy enough. And this goes on and on.
In my opinion money isn’t the thing that should give
you the biggest happiness. It should be your friends, relatives, family and
other important things. When you die it isn’t important how many pairs of shoes
you own. The most important thing is the time you’ve spent with your love ones.
All the precious memories and experiences are the ones that remind people of
you. With money you can’t buy friends or good memories you have to be yourself
to have them.
If you are a millionaire you can think that money can
buy happiness. But if you get an average wage you know that you can’t have
everything what you want but you still can deal with the money you have. You
don’t have to be a millionaire to be happy. Still a millionaire can be happy
about other things too even if they have a lot of money.
With money you can’t buy true happiness. But if you
have it, enjoy it but remember to cherish it. Nothing lasts forever so remember
to concentrate on things that are important to you.
Kate Ronney
In a documentary called Queen Of Versailles we saw a
family, which was a very very rich family. They had a lot of stuff in their
home, they bought new stuff everyday, because they were use to it. Almost
everytime when they were shopping, they bought new toys for kids. Every time.
The kids were spoiled and they had a nanny. The nanny spent time with the kids
more than their mom did. Money brought some kind of happiness for this family.
They had very big dreams and one of them was the biggest house in the America.
They started to build the house and at the same time their dreams was growing
and they were so proud of the biggest house in the America.
The rooms were huge, Jacqueline Siegel has bigger room
for only her shoes that many other Americans’s have their whole house. David
Siegel has many businesses and they sold a lot of resorts and made money from
that. But when the stock market crashed, they very really in trouble. David had
borrowed money. And now we are talking about a large amount of money, millions.
They didn’t get their dream house ready, because they didn’t have enough money
for that. The bank told them to sell the house, but there wasn’t anyone who
wanted to buy it. David was very depressed because he didn’t know should he
sell a piece of his business, because the bankruptcy was very near. They sold
one of their businesses.
I think that money can make you happy for a little
while, because you can buy some awesome, lovely new things, like what ever you
want. But usually it gets out of hand if you have too much money. You can’t
think about poor people, maybe you don’t care about them anymore. If you lose
your money, how can you live without it, if you’re so hooked on it and buying
things?
Some people don’t want so much money, they don’t need
it. The most important thing is that they get their food on the table and they
can buy the bills. It’s enough for them and they are happy. They think that
it’s more important to have good relationships with their friends and family.
People are happiest when they have someone to love to and someone who loves
them.
Some people think that they can have everything, if
they have just enough money. I don’t think they’re thinking right, ‘cause this
kind of people live for only themselves, not for everyone else’s good.
So the most important thing is that you can live, you
are not starve to death, you have clothes and you can sometimes buy something
you like, you have people around you and you are a real, caring person. That
will make you happy, not money.
Mary Rabine
We watched a documentary about the life of David A.
Siegel and his wife, and I was asked to do an essay based on that documentary
of the subject “can money buy happiness? “.
David met his wife at a model competition. They have
30 years of age difference and David is filthy rich. David said that he also
helped George W. Bush to become a president. Although there is no evidence to
prove this “fact” legit because he refused to talk about it; it may have not
been fully legal.
David’s parents were well known in Las Vegas Casino.
Every time they went there they were offered front seat tickets to Elvis
Presley show etc. David was the owner of WestGate hotel and the biggest living
house in Unites States. The living house territory was huge enough to fit the
whole Disneyland center in there. It was also bigger than the White House!
On the year 2008 there was a huge economic crisis in
the US. Enormous amount of people lost their job and company leaders were
giving their best to save their company from becoming bankrupt. Even David had
to cut his budget and start saving money, although his wife was still shopping
and wasting a lot of money on stuff they didn’t actually even need. David
eventually had to fire 6000 workers and lose WestGate due to unpaid taxes. He
tried to find money to save it but it was hopeless.
I personally think that money can buy temporary
happiness which won’t last for long. I think David would have managed way
better if he would have just been less greedy and if he would have used money
in a smarter way instead of just throwing it in the air. I bet everyone that
heard of him or saw him were thinking that his some kind of a important person
but actually he’s just a silly guy with a lot of money and who ended up with a
bunch of children and no money.
Money can and will buy you happiness, but with it will
come great greed and addiction to more money.
Hello there, once again! Now that
the autumn holiday has gone, it's time to continue with the blog. We'll
continue with the same theme - almost, at least - as last time. So this time
we're going to tell you about our dream jobs. We'll be back with something different next week.
My number one dream job is a
hairdresser. I love to do different things to people hair. I cut my friends'
hair and I dye them too. It's fun and in this job you can be creative. Usually
many customers became as a friend and it's really nice to talk with them.
I've wanted to be a hairdresser
since I was 11 years old. I was very sure, that I'm gonna be a hairdresser, but
now I'm totally sure! I was in work practice in hair saloon in May 2013. It was
quite an experience to me because I knew well the person who owns this hair
saloon and she really needed to dye her hair, so she asked me to do that. It
was hard at first but she told me how to do it and now I can dye my own hair
and my friends' hair with the best professional technique. In October I'm going
to go there again and someday I'm gonna make my dream come true.
Sometimes I wish I could be a
psychologist because I'd like to help people with their problems and I'd love
to listen them and do my very best, so I probably could help them with their
problems, fears, and other sad things. Maybe it's not the right career for me
because it might turn that way that my costumers have to listen to me crying
because I'll feel sorry for them.
Mary Rabine
When I was five I wanted to be a
florist. In the age of ten I wanted to be a pediatrician. Now when I think I
would like my job to have something to do with law or bank industry.
I could never be a teacher
because I just don't like the idea of it. I kind of like the idea of of beeing
an engineer, but for that I should study math and physics which are two subjects
I don't really care so much about. I also couldn't be a doctor nowdays because
I don't like math and physics and I don't want to take responsibility of people
dying.
Kate Ronney
When I was little, my dream job
was be a hairdresser. I admired my two cousins because they are amazing at
their jobs and they are both so skillful. The other one of my cousins has an
own hairdresser and I love that place.
I have been there one day in
seventh grade and one week in eighth grade when we had TET. Nowadays I don't
want to be anymore a hairdresser so much. I don't know yet what I am going to
do in my future. Maybe a pediatrician, maybe some person in catering business,
but who knows?
Marie Rivers
I’ve always liked videogames and
learning stuff about computers and consoles. I have thought about programming
something myself someday, but I haven’t started anything yet. That is why I
would like to learn how to do it and then create something and maybe do it for
living.
So my dream jobs would probably
be a game programmer or a games creative designer or something alike. Although
it doesn’t have to do with games, I can also imagine myself doing some sorts of
programs. Another thing I have always liked
is learning new things especially in science and technology. Every time a new
science magazine comes with the mail I like to read it because I find it very
interesting. History is also quite compelling.
So other awesome jobs I can
imagine myself doing are a researcher and a scientist. Although history is interesting
I don’t know if I would like to work in the area.
Wayne Teller
When I was little I wanted to be
a hairdresser. I thought that it would be an amazing job but I didn't know why.
Now I think that I never could be a hairdresser because I was in TET at the
hairdresser's and i don't anymore like it because you have to be very exact
when you cut people's hair and you have to be very patient and positive the
whole day. When I was little I thought that I never could be a doctor but now
when i'm a little bit older, a doctor would be one option. I think that I could
be a beautician, too. I have not decided my job of my life yet, but luckily I
have a lot of time to decide it.
Paulina Rock
When I was seven years old, I was
sure that I want to be a teacher when I grow up. Now I'm thinking that I
couldn't be a teacher. At this moment I don't know what I want to do. Maybe a
doctor would be interesting job, but sometimes I'm little bit afraid of sick
people. I think that isn't a good thing if I'm a doctor. Now I really don't
know what would be my dream job, but I just hope, I will get an idea soon!
Kathy Spoon
My dream job would probably be
some engineering job. For example at car fixing companies etc. I have worked 3
summers now in a metal company in kangasala, and i love that job too because it
includes so many activites. For me to be a doctor, chef, police, ambulance or
a cashier would be impossible.. Those jobs just don't suit me. But yeah, i
prefer a job that needs some thinking and hard work at the same time AND which
isn't boring like i said before: A job where you don't do the same thing over
and over again. That will just get you depressed. So yeah.. i think that would
be my dream job.
Eltz Viper
I could never be anything that
involves office work. I hate being indoors and doing stuff alone. I also have a
problem with schedules. I don't like working FOR someone, thats why music is my
passion because in a band you work WITH people, not for them.
Pete Rusky
My dream job is a motocross
rider. I like motorbikes and sometimes I watch supercross. Nick Gaustad would
be my manager and bike fixer. Some day I'll take a part in a competition with
my own bike.
Max Corvin
When I was little, I wanted to be
a firefighter, just like my dad. But I think that's not my dream job anymore. I
really don't know what I want to be when I grow up, but I would like to work
with people. So, I want a social job, I don't like to work alone. Maybe some
kind of travel guide? That would be cool, because I could travel a lot and
speak other languanges!
Nora Lakeside
My dream job would have something
to do with science and math. The workplace would have workers from different
countries and cultures, so I could speak English with them. I would like to
achieve things in my job. I would like to invent new medicines for some
dangerous diseases.
My other dream job would be some
kind of translator. I could speak and learn many different languages.
