The impact of the Internet

“When I took office, only high energy physicists had ever heard of what is called the Worldwide Web.... Now even my cat has its own page.” This was stated by former U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1996. 15 years ago, Internet was already common and universal. The first generation surprisingly, was launched back in the 1960s. It was invented by the U.S. Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) to maintain communications during the cold war. Later, the APRA linked the network with university and researchers’ computers to help with researches. Afterwards, the ARPA realized the network was growing faster and quicker than they expected; thus, in 1983, the U.S. released the internet to the public. 

Nowadays almost everyone uses the internet; nevertheless, not many people know how the internet works. Every computer is assigned with an Internet Protocol (IP) address. When the link is clicked, the browser sends a request to the website and the website sends the data package back to the computer. Consequently, the browser defines the data and displays the website image. The whole process happens in less than a minute. Thanks to the Internet, we can instantaneously access to different websites.

The internet helps us with information researches; before the internet was invented, students had to spend hours in the library researching; now they can stay at home and access to the online library. 50 years ago, people had to wait days for a letter, now it is easier to communicate with people around the world by using emails. Nowadays staying in touch with friends around the world is easier because of the internet.  In addition, the Internet has changed people shopping habits. Now they can buy almost anything online without going to stores, free from constrain of time and place. They can easy to access to the products’ information. Furthermore, now most banks have home banking service allowing people to direct debits, to check their account and pay the bill online; without having to go to the bank wasting time. The Internet has brought innumerable conveniences into our lives.

People often focus on the convenience and neglect the negative aspects of the Internet. For instance: When you do online shopping, you may never receive the item you ordered from the online store, because it could be a fraudulent site. In addition, criminals can effortlessly access to your personal details or simply hack into your bank number or password. Danger may also come across children or teenagers. Many sexual assault cases happen because children can talk to strangers easily and without realizing the danger on the internet. Internet frauds are becoming more and more prevalent.

To prevent being hacked or other problems that may happen on the internet, when shopping on online stores, ascertain the shop is a legal and credible website. Secondly, it is important not to reveal passwords or bank account numbers over the internet. Last, don’t meet with strangers, despite how friendly they seem to be on the internet. Use the Internet carefully and it will become a safe and convenient place to surf.

Taekwondo Problem and Solving

A shocking event that led the doom of being eliminated from the Olympics to Taekwondo was something that Herb Perez, the team leader of USA during the Beijing 2008 Olympics, said after he was furious about the poor judging that happened to Steven Lopez, one of the athletes on his team. He spilled out the shocking news. In June, WTF asked the team heads to sign an agreement to not to file any protest that would lead Taekwondo to get kicked out of the Olympics.

WTF wanted to do this was that before the Beijing Olympics, Taekwondo was already on the edge of getting eliminated due to its unfairness of its scoring system. Before this, International Olympic Committee (IOC) already suspected that Taekwondo was a sport which wasn’t ready for Olympics yet; due to its unsuccessful organization and its mismanagement.

The problem in Taekwondo was the deception that happened because of it unclearness in its scoring system. Due to the rules that were not specific enough. It was up to the judges to determine if they wanted to give points to the athlete’s kick. Due to this matter, much bribery happened in Taekwondo. Judges and referees were bribed to give points easier or harder to either side. Attempting to fix this problem, the WTF followed the other sports in the Olympics. They replaced the protective gear to electronic protective gear, trying to prevent the deception. However, many people thought it was an impudence judgement. An outrageous event happened, which adduced it really was a rash judgement. 

In the Guangzhou Asia games, 2010, BBC stated Yang, Shu-chun, a representative of Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) was “a promising gold metal”. However she was disqualified after the first round for, what Taiwanese think an unreasonable reason. Yang was leading 9:0 after the first round, when the second round started, the referee announced Yang’s Vietnamese opponent, Thi, Hau-vu won. The judges and referees did not let Yang or her coach explain or ask any questions. This left them and Taiwan with absolutely no clue of what just happened.  

Later on, Zhao Lei, the technical referee of China stated that Yang had worn extra sensors on her heel, which meant that he was accusing Yang of cheating. Yang’s coach protested that Yang had passed the pre-match check, therefore if she did cheat; it was the judge who approved her equipment that was up to blame.

Many people think that Zhao was accusing Yang something that she did not commit was because of Wu, Jiang-yu. Wu is the representative from China that was in Yang’s weight division was the only opponent that had little chance to win Yang. If Wu won the go medal, it could benefit Zhao’s way to being the head of the Chinese Taekwondo Association. This made him even more suspicious of lying; getting Yang eliminated just to make sure Wu could win the gold medal.

The Korean government stated this judging controversy had nothing to do with Korea. The conflict should be between Taiwan and China, not Korea. They hope that Taiwanese don’t band their goods and stop burning their national flag. The Chinese declared that they already have enough medals. They would not use thus kind of dirty deception just to win another god medal. Therefore, Taiwan and China clearly do not have an agreement; Taiwan is going to sue China on the Court of Arbitration for Sports.

Although this story hasn’t ended yet, people are waiting for the WTF to end these judge controversies, the bribery and the problem that Taekwondo is not ready for the Olympics yet. Regardless, many people are overwhelmed that Taekwondo is still in for the 2012 Olympics, many changes are waited to be done.

the major problems of Taekwondo (Steven Lopez & Yang, Shu-chun)

A shocking event that led the doom of being eliminated from the Olympics to Taekwondo was something that Herb Perez, the team leader of USA during the Beijing 2008 Olympics, said after he was furious about the poor judging that happened to Steven Lopez, one of the athletes on his team. He spilled out the shocking news. In June, WTF asked the team heads to sign an agreement to not to file any protest that would lead Taekwondo to get kicked out of the Olympics. WTF wanted to do this was that before the Beijing Olympics, Taekwondo was already on the edge of getting eliminated due to its unfairness of its scoring system. The news immediately spread out and everyone couldn’t help wondering whether Taekwondo should be eliminated from the Olympics or not.

The reason was why cheating was really easy in Taekwondo was because the rules were not specific enough and it was up to the judges to determine if they wanted to give points to the athlete’s kick. Due to this matter, much bribery happened in Taekwondo. Judges and referees were bribed to give points easier or harder to either side. To solve this problem, WTF changed all the gear to electronic gear; attempt to make the scoring fairer. However, as a result of this, an outrageous event happened. Which made everyone wonder even if WTF has changed the gear, how fair is Taekwondo?

 Another judging controversy happened in the Guangzhou Asia games in 2010. BBC stated Yang, Shu-chun; a representative of Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) was “a promising gold metal”. However she was disqualified after the first round for, what Taiwanese think an unreasonable reason. Yang was leading 9:0 after the first round, when the second round started, the referee announced Yang’s Vietnamese opponent, Thi, Hau-vu won. The judges and referees did not let Yang or her coach explain or ask any questions. This left them and Taiwan with absolutely no clue of what just happened.  

Later on, Zhao Lei, the technical referee of China stated that Yang had worn extra sensors on her heel, which meant that he was accusing Yang of cheating. Yang’s coach protested that Yang had passed the pre-match check, therefore if she did cheat; it was the judge who approved her equipment that was up to blame.

Many people think that Zhao was accusing Yang something that she did not commit was because of Wu, Jiang-yu. Wu is the representative from China that was in Yang’s weight division was the only opponent that had little chance to win Yang. If Wu won the go medal, it could benefit Zhao’s way to being the head of the Chinese Taekwondo Association. This made him even more suspicious of lying; getting Yang eliminated just to make sure Wu could win the gold medal.

The Korean government stated this judging controversy had nothing to do with Korea. The conflict should be between Taiwan and China, not Korea. They hope that Taiwanese don’t band their goods and stop burning their national flag. The Chinese declared that they already have enough medals. They would not use thus kind of dirty deception just to win another god medal. Therefore, Taiwan and China clearly do not have an agreement; Taiwan is going to sue China on the Court of Arbitration for Sports.

Although this story hasn’t ended yet, people are waiting for the WTF to end these judge controversies. Many people are overwhelmed that Taekwondo is still in for the 2012 Olympics. However, it still has many problems waiting for the WTF to solve, the bribery and judging controversy and many more.

Elephant-summary

The elephants in the Pilanesberg National Park in South Africa had entered puberty. It caused them to increase aggression which made them go on a killing-spree, slaying almost 40 rhinoceros. The park officers did want this to happen; therefore they brought more male elephants into the park, which solved their problem.

Although this story has a satisfying ending, however due to the loss of habitat to citification and urbanization, the populations of elephants have been dramatically reducing in Africa. If the population carries on dropping, the elephants will become an extinct species.

Elephants are the biggest land animals. They can swim long distance and walk without a sound. They travel 6,000miles a year searing for food, and can live up to 60 years. Elephants open new habitats for other animals and help trees to scatter their seeds. They have no natural enemies that are except for Human been.

The reasons poaches hunt down elephants are because of elephants’ ivory tusks. Although there are laws being instituted recently, the number of illegal poaching has not decreased, in fact, it has increased. The weapons are more available due to the world war two, which makes the poach rangers more difficult to prevent poaches from killing elephants. Price paid has increase during the years, Smugglers ship raw ivory to factories where it is used in Chinese medicines or are carved into sculptures.

The governments of the Africa countries have attempt to combat the poaches and control the dropping population of elephants by granting the ownership of an area of wild animals to the nearest communities, however this solution has not been very successful. The other solution is to educate the poor villages in Africa and increase more public services.

To save the elephants, and other dropping-population-species, the world has to unite and work together.

Russell Williams

        Even the officers who were working on Russell Williams’ case were extremely shocked of Williams’ crimes. Many professional are trying to find out the gruesome double-life Williams lived, and also the motive to his crimes. At first Williams had a fetish towards women’s underwear. Then he began breaking into people’s houses to steal underwear and taking photos of him in them. He filmed his every move and crime. Two of his biggest crime was the murder of Marie-France Comeau and Jessica Lloyed. In the fall of 2009, he met Marie-France Comeau, a 37-year-old flight attendant. Williams looked up her address in her personal profile and snuck into her house. He spent hours raping and torturing her. He filmed the process and even took pictures of her body after he had murdered her. January 2010, Williams broke into Lloyed’s house and began documenting his every move. He tied up Lloyed’s hands and raped her repeatedly. During the torturing and raping, William’s had promised her that he would set her free, but at the end he still murdered her.

        The most terrifying part of William’s crimes was his achievements and good reputations. He was an eight wing commander, the top job at the country’s largest most important air base. Many of his subordinates were motivated of his positive attitude. He was happily married for 18 years, loved to fish and golf and fly airplanes. He was extremely organized. He cataloged each photo and film which was saved in the computer he shared with his wife.

        William has pleaded to 88 offences which includes two charges of first-degree murder. The official sentence for is a parole of 25 years. He will be 72 by then.

Taekwondo- unfinished

The origin of Taekwondo could be traced back to South Korea two thousand years ago. Two main styles are found in Taekwondo: Kukkiwon, which is developed from World Taekwondo Federation (WTF), has higher popularity and is recognized in the Olympic Games. Sparring, a system derived from Kukkiwon, is a combat which requires players to use strategies to defeat the opponent. This is what athletes use to compete in Olympic Games. The less popular style comes from International Taekwondo Federation (ITF). WTF and ITF follow different standards, yet they share the similarity in their ranking system.

The ranking in Taekwondo is divided into two stages, junior and senior. Junior is divided into ten “geups” (junior levels in Korean). Beginners start at Geup 10 and move backwards. Most of the time, Taekwondo schools use color belts to identify the geups. When you pass Geup 1, you move onto the senior stage, which is the black belt. In addition, the senior stage is divided into nine “dans” (senior levels in Korean). You move upwards from the first Dan to the ninth Dan. The Dan level is often indicated with the number of strips on the black belt.

Generally, it takes 52 years to achieve the highest Dan in Taekwondo. Juniors need to prepare for at least two months until they can participate in the exam. The exams for juniors are held in the Taekwondo Schools (or their local Taekwondo schools). The master will judge the students’ skill to determine if they are able to move to a higher level. For seniors, the interval to take the test from the first Dan to the second Dan is one year. The interval increases one year progressively. For instance, from the second Dan to the third Dan needs two years to prepare. However, seniors need to be 22 years old before they are qualified to participate in the third Dan exam. This explains why there are seldom ninth Dan masters in the world.

In the 2008 Olympics, the Taekwondo representative from Cuba, Ángel Matos kicked the referee in the head during the competition. He was angry at the referee for disqualifying him because he was taking longer than one minute when he got injured to recover. The consequences for Ángel Matos’ act was that Taekwondo was up for debate either it was an appropriate sport for the Olympic Games.

Therefore the most shocking event that led the doom of being eliminated from the Olympics to Taekwondo was something that Herb Perez, the team leader of USA was furious about the poor judging that happened to Steven Lopez, one of the athletes on his team. He spilled out the shocking news. In June, WTF asked the team heads to sign an agreement to not to file any protest that would lead Taekwondo to get kicked out of the Olympics.

 The news spread out and everyone couldn’t help wondering whether Taekwondo should be eliminated from the Olympics or not. Another reason was that cheating was really easy in Taekwondo because the rules were not specific enough and it was up to the judges to determine if they wanted to give points to the athlete’s kick.

Although Taekwondo is still in for the 2012 Olympics but it is still on the edge of getting kicked out. The WTF has been trying to fix the rules to avoid this problem. The most significant change is that they have changed the protecting gear to electronic protecting gear. Electronic protecting gear has devices built inside which will determine if the kick is worth points or not. Thus it will be more fair and less arguments.

Taekwondo is an extremely popular sport in Taiwan. There are several reasons for this. Tracing back to the twenty century, when Chiang Kai-shek fled to Taiwan with many solders and people, he also brought Taekwondo into Taiwan hoping it would be useful when in a war. The other reason is that Taekwondo is originated from Korea; since the two countries are only around seven thousand miles away from each other, it was easily spread to Taiwan. The biggest reason and is that in 1992 Barcelona Olympics, the Taekwondo representative, Chen Yi-an had won first place. To Taiwan, it was a national wide glory. For the impact was more and more Taekwondo schools were open; in addition, Taekwondo became the most popular martial arts in Taiwan.

Autobiography

I am an out-going person, which is the explanation to why I always have friends surrounding me. Friends often come to me for guidance; I always try my best effort to help them. Down-to-earth is a phrase that can exactly condense my whole personality. I despite people who are hypocritical, they are the ones that will stab you in the back when you depend on them. The only people that I depend on are my family.

I have a loving family. My little sister is in grade 5 and my older brother is in grade 12. I am very close with my brother. We talk to each other about everything, our troubles, our relationships, our grades. We know each other really well by all these years. My dad is a computer engineer. He works really late and most of the time we don’t get to eat dinner with him. My mom is a diplomat, which is the reason why I get to explore many different countries and different culture.

I had lived in Ottawa for eight years. Most of my childhood was spent in Ottawa. I went back to Taiwan when I was ten years old. Although the schools and teachers taught different things, I eventually caught up with school work. During the four years in Taiwan, I have also been doing Taekwondo. At first, it was just a hobby of mine; but I gain more and more interest in it, then one day, my master asked me if I wanted to compete. I have been competing in many competitions since then. I have won the city champion many times; I have also represented my city to compete in the nationals, but I unfortunately didn’t win. Therefore it was a great experience. This summer, my mother gave me a choice whether to stay in Taiwan or follow her to Vancouver, because my grades are good and I had great enthusiasm in Taekwondo. Therefore, I wanted to explore the world and increase my world view even more, so I decided to come to Vancouver with my mother.

My ambition in ninth grade is to be on the principal list- which is average 90 and above. Although it is a strenuous goal, but I as long as I can catch up on English and Social studies, my goal is not too far away. Finding what I want to study in university is my long time goal in Vancouver. Vancouver is a very splendid place to find out what my interest, because Vancouver is like a small the version of the whole world with the different people and culture.

The Talk

“Quei-yun! “ Mom called me, “We need to talk.” I walked slowly and unwillingly out of my room. I started to have butterflies in my stomach; my heart was beating fast as it was coming out of my chest. My hands were sweating as I walked out of my room.

 The first thought that ran into my head was, “did she find out that I cheated on the test?”

“NO. She couldn’t have. Even the teacher didn’t notice.”

“It’s possible! You haven’t got such good grades for a long time!”

“That doesn’t explain a thing.”

“Yes, it does. No one can improve in so short of time.”

The angel and the devil in my mind were tearing my head apart.

“The test was three days ago, she wouldn’t have waited so long to reveal your lie.”

The devil stated.

“Hey! “The angel shouted, “You shouldn’t have even done that in the first place.”

“What’s done is done; and everyone cheats once or twice in their lifetime! Tell me someone who hasn’t before!” the devil sneered.

“GUYS! “ I yelled out loud. My eyes were bulging and my whole body was sweating. I was on the edge of emotional breakdown. I had to hold my head to prevent it from exploding.

My mom was startled, “Why are you yelling?” That pulled me back to reality. I noticed I was in the middle of the living room, with my whole family gazing at me with an unnerving silence. I managed to squeeze out a tiny smile.

“I want to talk to you about your allowance.”My mom eventually said.

I was a bit relieved; I stretched out my neck and ask impatiently “What about it?”

“I think you’re wasting too much money lately. So…I’m thinking of decreasing your allowance.”

I don’t know which is worse: finding out I cheated or decreasing my allowance.

Observing and accOrding details- bOOk title- A Light in th Attic

The title of this book is A Light in the Attic. Poems and drawings are by Shel Silverstein, the publisher is HarperCollins. Illustration on the cover is a face. The eyes are drawn with simple circles; the nose is traced with dots. On the top of the face, there is an attic that has a short chimney. A person is peeking out of the open window in the very front of the attic. Under the attic, the faces hair is like messy straw. Stars are surrounding the face with the title of the book on the very side. On the other side of the jacket, is a black and white picture of the author’s face. He is wearing a heavy coat with fur on the hood. His hair is all shaved off, he has very white teeth and he has wrinkles around his eyes.

 Beneath the jacket, there is a signature of the author written in the color, gold. A short paragraph about this book and a poem is in the inner side of the jacket. There are 168 pages in total.

A light in th Attic is a book that would catch my eye in a book store. My first impression is : it has a artistic surrounding feeling.

The Adventure That I Will Never Forget

“WAKE UP!”I heard my mom yell. I looked out the window and couldn’t see a thing; it was 5 a.m. in the morning!

Mom told us we were going to Whistler- one of the most famous resort towns in Canada during summer. I was so excited. I volunteered to help my mom with the GPS, and I helped my mom prepare lunch. We left the house around 6:30 am.

I always enjoy the scenery on the Sea-to-Sky highway.  The unlimited blue skyline and the wisps of clouds give me a soft and comfortable feeling-like heaven.

It was almost noon when we arrived. The lunch we had on the car saved us some time. We heard the market in the upper village is a must-go-place, so we decided to go. The market was full of people; it was crowded. There wasn’t anything that we were interested in, so we left not long after.

We headed to a trail afterwards. The trees along the trail were so tall that they covered the sunlight. While we were walking and talking, suddenly, something black and big caught my eye-it was a fat and furry bear standing in our way. I was so excited; I held my mom’s hand so tight that it hurt her. The black bear was crossing the road like there were no human beings around, it walked slowly and unhurriedly. I wanted to take pictures of it, but I didn’t want to frighten the bear so I gave up. We stared at the bear for a while until it left, and we finished the trail.

When we were about to go home, we saw a sign saying “horse riding available.” Although the fee was quite expensive, my mom thought it was great that I wanted to try new things out. We hopped on a horse and waited for our coach to teach us how to control the horse. To my surprise, my horse bent down and kept eating grass. I was horrified; I didn’t know what to do. The coach came by and told me how to control my horse. It took me a few times to get hold of the horse. When our one-hour-trail-ride was over, my bottom hurt a lot, and my legs were so sore. I couldn’t walk properly.

The adventure was full of surprises and “first times”. It is a trip I’ll never forget. 

The Adventure That Surprised Me

“WAKE UP!”I heard my mom yell. I looked out the window and couldn’t see a thing; it was 5 a.m. in the morning!

Mom told us we were going to Whistler- one of the most famous resort towns in the world during summer. I was so excited; I volunteered to help my mom with the the GPS. The reason I love when my mom drives on the Sea-to-Sky highway is that you can see the beautiful sea and the sunny and the clear sky.

It was almost noon, when we got to whistler. The lunch we had on the car saved us from wasting time. We heard the market in the upper village was a-must-go-place, so we decided to go to the market. On our way to the upper village, we saw a bear! I was so excited; I held my mom’s hand too tight it hurt her. The black bear was crossing the road like there was no human been around, it walk slowly and unhurried. I wanted to take pictures of it, but I didn’t want to frighten the bear so I gave up.

I was excited when I saw there was horse riding available. Although the fee was quite expensive, Mom thought it is great that I want to try new things out, so she rode with me. We hopped on a horse and waited for our coach to teach us how to control the horse. When our one-hour-trail-ride was over, my bum hurt a lot, and my legs were so sore, I couldn’t walk properly. The adventure was full of surprises and “first times”. It is a trip I’ll never forget.

The Mystery of the Tolland Man

Surprised and terrified, was exactly how the Hoigaard brothers felt when they found now known the most famous bog body. There were digging for peat near the village of Tolland in Aarhus, Denmark in May 1950.

The Tolland man had a skin cap, a smooth hide belt and a rope around his neck, there was also an iron ring. His heart and other organs were healthy and his wisdom teeth had grown, which means he was about 20 years old when he died. The consensus is that the Tolland man was a sacrifice to worship the Goddess of Spring or a traitor.

In my opinion, I think the Tolland man was a slave which was sacrificed. Because, the seeds in the soup he ate weren’t easy to find, they must had been gathered deliberately, which means, the day the he was hang probably had been a special occasion. Back in the Iron Age, people buried iron rings in bogs as an offer to the Spring Goddess, so he was likely to be a sacrifice. There was also another body that was found in bogs around the same time, and had eaten the same soup . So it is clear that the Tolland man was a sacrifice.

Although there is a lot of evidence that explain he was sacrificed, the mystery of the Tolland man still remains…

The Mystery of The Tolland Man - rough copy

Surprised and terrified was exactly how the Hoigaard brothers felt when they found now know the most famous bog body in May 1950 when they were digging for peat near the village of Tollund in Aarhus, Denmark.

The Tollund man had a skin cap, a smooth hide belt and a rope around his neck. His heart and other organs were healthy and his wisdom teeth had grown, which means he was about 20 years old when he died. The consensus is that the Tollund man was hung up by the German tribes as a sacrifice to worship the Goddess of Spring but he had no scars of damages to his neck so it not likely that he was hung.

In my opinion, I think the Tollund man was a slave and was going to be sacrificed. When they were about to hang him up, he ran away then accidently fell into a bog and drowned. This explains why he had the rope around his neck with no scars or any damages, as well as other evidence that give the reason he might have been hung up, for instance, how healthy and young he was when he died.