A Trip to Grand Rapids

All parents know that letting go of your children can be hard – maybe even the hardest thing that a person will do in his or her lifetime. After watching them grow up, knowing their sorrows and delights, it must be a depressing moment when you first realize that your children don’t need you anymore, that you can’t protect them from the big, bad, world any longer. And maybe your children don’t even want you to. The process is necessary; the roads must split to some degree for your children to have a good life.

This is the major theme in the short story “A Trip to Grand Rapids”, where the main character Roger is in a dilemma regarding his two daughters. [Læs mere…]

Walking while black

The article “Walking while black: Michael Brown, black men and white police officers” was published in the newspaper the St. Louis American on August 13, 2014. The writer of the article is Ishmael Sistrunk, who is a young black man and a columnist for the newspaper the St. Louis American. The newspaper is an African-American newspaper, which continuously have been published articles since 1928.[1]

The main theme of the article is racism. Ishmael Sistrunk writes that although slavery ended about 150 years ago, the politicians as well as the police still only treat young black men as second-class citizens. The fact that the United States got their first black president Obama in 2009 and he even was re-elected should almost imply that racism and prejudice among Americans are no longer to find. But that is far from reality. It may have resulted in the exact opposite. According to the author, President Barack Obama’s election brought racism to the forefront. This is because many Americans have simply refused to cooperate with him as commander in chief as he impossibly knows how to lead “their” nation. [Læs mere…]

Remarks by the First Lady

Who do you think has the greatest influence on your education? When nothing goes as it should and you are close to failing, then who is to blame for this? Is this your teachers’ fault? Or maybe your principal’s fault? Is it because of problems at home? Or could it possibly be you? The first lady Michelle Obama strongly believes in this, which is reflected as she held her speech at the Bell Multicultural High School, Columbia Heights Education Campus. [Læs mere…]

The price of materialism

As time goes by the American dream is becoming more and more materialistic. I believe that the Americans have always been materialistic to a greater or lesser extent, but I’m sure when I say that the world has never been as materialistic as it is today. If we take a look back in time people of course aspired of having a well-paying job so they could live in a nice house in the suburb and own one or sometimes two nice cars. That would be more than enough and more than satisfying. Today everything is different. Not that we don’t longer aspire these things. We just aspire so much more that it sometimes can get sad and terrifying what or who we have become. [Læs mere…]

The Sentry

1. Read the text carefully. You may have to read it twice or even three times to fully understand all aspects of it.

2. Prepare a brief summary of the main points of the story (app 2 min).

The text is about a 10-year-old boy named Bojan. His father was assigned a sentry mastiff called Kaiser, who would stay with them. Bojan had never had a dog and he had therefore looked forward to meeting the dog, but he was very disappointed when he saw “the behemoth”. Although Kaiser was limited by the yard, the dog still dominated the neighborhood. Many in the neighborhood were scared of the dog and the people complained, but always indirectly with reluctance. When Bojan was near the dog he got the feeling of being uncovered. He tried to avoid Kaiser, but they always crossed paths. When Bojan was 11 years, he found his own way to “tame” the dog. It started one day when Bojan pointed an empty gun at Kaiser and fired and finally the dog would obey. The dog began to whine and more often than not, the dog pissed itself. [Læs mere…]