Joe's English Journal

I awoke early in the morning, at the top of my tree I could admire the whole landscape. I thought to myself where in this beautiful forest should I hunt today? Which bark with the sun’s rays beaming down on it should I stain with the blood of my prey? What did I fancy today? A worm, a mole or a mouse? You see I can pick and choose what I want because nothing can escape my grasp when I am in pursuit.Or maybe I will have a quiet day and stay on my tree; admire my kingdom. My subjects’  lives are in my hands. The day is quickly running out and my hunger grows. I have decided that I will go on the hunt.

I take pride in the hunt and every hunt is successful, the outcome always the same… death. The thing I enjoy most about the hunt  is the feeling I get when I soar through the sky and the wind goes up my feathers; nothing makes me feel stronger. I am the omega and alpha in this forest and there is nothing stronger, faster or more deadly.

I decided to leave my nest at around midday. I think of all the places that are running full of potential victims of mine. I think of the lake. Many creatures go there to drink; they are vulnerable there, a perfect time to strike. The lake isn’t far from my tree so it won’t take long for me to reach my destination again. The feeling of the wind puts a smile on my face. When I arrive at the lake I take a position on a tree that has a field of view of the whole lake. I can analyse the whole lake, and find something which I can sink my talons in. I wait for about five minutes until something catches my attention. A lonely mouse has wandered down to the lake to have a drink; a perfect specimen for my decimation of him. I stare at the lonely soul for a while, such a small mouse I could break him so easily and that is exactly what I’m going to do.

I glide from the tree and strike the mouse instantly, causing a gash with the poor little mouses’ blood flowing out of it like a fresh spring. I knew the first strike was enough for the kill, but it would be a slow death for my victim if I left him to bleed, out so I put him out of his misery. Before I finished this little mouse off I listened, I heard fighting for its life breathing heavily, trying to clutch on to life but death is immanent and the poor little mouse last breath will be coming shortly. I place my feet on its neck and squeeze, I feel its bone crunch and the life leaving its body. I hear the break and one last squeal… and then silence. The hunt has been successful, I have achieved my objective and yet another one of my subjects has fallen beneath me. As I take chunks out of the little mouse I can taste accomplishment, I am the master of the hunt. You see a creature like me can pick and choose how much I eat, it is not a fight for survival for me, survival is more like a hobby and if I hunger again I shall just go on the hunt again. So I leave the corpse of the mouse and head back to my tree and nest, it grows dark and I grow tired.

I arrive at my tree I lay down, staring into the moon admiring it. I think to myself the moon is like how I am to this forest. It sits in the night sky watching the earth, it is the biggest thing in the sky just like I am the biggest in this forest.  Just like me if it wanted something it is big enough to take what it wants. The moon rules the night sky just like I rule this forest. It is late now I reminisce on my day, another day another hunt and another success. It will be the same tomorrow and the day after, in this forest I am apex and I will stay that till the days I grow old and die.

In the modern society in which we live, torture is seen as something inhumane and unethical. But there have been many arguments that torture can in fact be necessary in certain circumstances. Say if someone has hostages and these hostages lives are at risk but you have the culprit that kidnapped these innocent people but the culprit will not tell you where he is keeping these hostages. I believe that in a situation such as this, torture is a viable option in to finding out where these people are and saving their lives.

Interrogation is also a time consuming process. Sometimes you will just run out of time by just simply sitting in a room and asking questions and waiting for answers you may never get. An article written in the Huffington post by a man called Sam Harris also talks about how torture should not be seen as just a sadistic way of interrogation. Harris goes on to talk about Abu Ghraib, which was an American overseas detention centre. During the Iraq war in 2003 the USA used torture methods on some off the detainees at this prison. They wanted to find out where the leaders of their opposition were hiding so they could put an end to the war. But the radicals that the USA had in captivity were simply not just going to give up the names of their superiors just like that. In order to get the answers that the USA wanted other means of interrogation had to be used. The USA did use some means of torture to these people they had in custody. This caused uproar between several human rights groups such as amnesty international and many of the US public because the methods used did violate some human rights, but my question is how many human rights would have the people that the USA were looking for broke? The answer is that these people would have broken far more than just the few that the USA broke in order to prevent this. By torturing just a few people to get answers the USA prevented a lot more deaths in the Iraq war.

My point is that I believe torture is necessary in order to save people’s lives, just like the USA did in 2003 at Abu Ghraib. If we go back to my story about the hostages why would you not want a guaranteed way of getting answers rather than a time consuming and sometimes reward less process. Why would you want to give someone doing inhumane things human rights? Or think of it like this what if one of those hostages was someone you love. Whether it be you mother or father or child or partner it does not matter, you would not want harm to fall upon them so you would want them to be saved. How are they going to be saved in time if the person who had taken them hostage won’t tell you, I am sure you would want that person tortured to find out where your loved ones are. If you look at situations like this then you will see that torture can in fact saved lives, torture can get answers a lot quicker but torture should only be used in situations where lives are at stake. Torture should only be used in situations like my story not for things for petty crimes such as theft. To conclude torture is useful for getting results and answers of people, but should only be used to save lives.

Dear Isabelle Kerr

I am writing to you today to inform you that I agree with the points you have written in your article ‘Bare Vexed’. I too believe ‘something appalling has happened’ to the English language. These new additions, such as ‘twerking’ and ‘selfie’, to the English Dictionary are an embarrassment to say the least. Just like you, I feel this puts a bad name on our generation.

We are both a part of this generation; a generation which has contributed these vulgar words to our once beautiful language. Our generation will now just be seen as a vain and uneducated generation compared to the ones before us. This is because of these words being put into the dictionary. I do not believe slang words such as ‘twerking’ should be seen as legitimate additions to the English language. Why should our generation’s slang be added to the dictionary when many other generation’s slang has not been added? Although many people may argue that Shakespeare (a major contributor to modern English language) made up his own words, he is considered to be a genius and his words have stood the test of time. Shakespeare’s language has beautiful meanings. In all of his work he made up about 1,700 words such as ‘sanctimonious’, and ‘monumental’. Words such as these are a lot more ‘auspicious’ than ‘twerking’.

Being someone like you, Isabelle, I love the English language, and I want more from my generation. I am not happy with the contributions that my generation has made to this language. The one thing that people in our generation complain about is being judged negatively by the older generations. But how can we complain if the only words we contribute to the English language promote sex, violence and social networks – it is not a good look.

That is why i am very angry about these new additions. I do not want to be associated with a generation which, in my opinion and i believe yours, is destroying something I love dearly. I think the words which have been added should be removed. It is not only embarrassing for our generation but the English language as well.

Another reason why I am writing this letter to you is not only to complain about these disgraces of words, but also to thank you. I want to thank you because by writing your article you have shown older generations that not all of us are utter imbeciles. You have shown that not all of our generation are illiterate, that we to love this language and hate what is happening to it. I hope that by reading your article, the older generations and even our generation can be enlightened in the fact that it is not right. ‘twerking’ and ‘selfie’ need to be removed from the dictionary; it is the right thing to do.

Once again, I would like to thank you. You have let me know that I am not the only one who is outraged by what filth has been added to the dictionary. I hope your opinions rub off on other people so these words can be removed and prevent words like this being added again.

Yours sincerely,

Joe Moncur  

From Visions
Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374)
Being one day at my window all alone,
So manie strange things happened me to see,
As much as it grieveth me to thinke thereon.
At my right hand a hynde appear’d to mee,
So faire as mote the greatest god delite;
Two eager dogs did her pursue in chace.
Of which the one was blacke, the other white:
With deadly force so in their cruell race
They pincht the haunches of that gentle beast,
That at the last, and in short time, I spide,
Under a rocke, where she alas, opprest,
Fell to the ground, and there untimely dide.
Cruell death vanquishing so noble beautie
Oft makes me wayle so hard a desire.
(Trans. Edmund Spenser)

1.The metaphor i have chosen in this poem is ‘so fair as mote the greatest god delites’ this means that this girl is beautiful and that god has blessed her with such beauty.
2.The meaning of this poem is that people of our time are very bad, this poem is about a young beautiful girl who was attacked by two men and she died i think the author is trying to get the message across that we have to change.
3.The volta happens at the end, because throughout this poem the author is saying how beautiful this women is and at the end it turns out that she has been murdered.
4.this girl is pretty
but this girl has been murdered
so we have to change.

1. What rhyming scheme do I use in this sonnet?
2. What is iampic pentamitor and how do I use it in my sonnet?
3. What effect did my Volta give to you?
4. What feeling did my son key give to you?
5. What is the feeling of this poem eg sad, happy, angry?
6. Did this poem relate to you?

I do not know where to start about you
I think you are perfect in every way
Without you I would not know what to do
I really don’t want you to go please stay

Because I remember all of the times
We use to have, because I enjoyed them
When your not there my happiness declines
You said I’m unique not like other men

That there is one girl that I truly love
And without this girl I could not live man
But it’s sad cos I can see you up above
You should all know I’m talking bout my nan

And I really have lasted for so long
Because I have accepted you have gone.

Would any of you in this room believe if I tell you that every day thousands of innocent children die of malaria, yes you would, so why won’t you believe me if I told you even more died of aids.

In the film hotel Rwanda and the scene where Paul discovers all of the dead bodies in the road, this scene causes a lot of suspense because of several factors. The non digetic sound in this scene is one of the main causes of its intense atmosphere, sounds like the knife when Paul sees the body killed by a machete gives it a horror film like feel, this noise helps with the shock and realization of what has happened.

Also the music in the scene gives it great suspense, the music is constant and it gives you the feeling that you should watch your back. But the digetic sound in this scene is also a suspense creator, it leads you to believe that everything will be ok and it kind of drowns out the music so you are not focused on it.

Also the camera shots in the scene also give it a lot of suspense, especially the shot where Paul actually falls out of the shot and falls onto the bodies. then the camera does a close up on his his face and you hear a sort of knife chatter and it then changes to another close up but this time of a dead girls face that has been killed by a machete.

The main purpose in this scene that the director to cause suspense and then introduce the horror factor. I think the director has reached his goal, because of his techniques and that he kept everything to himself and did not use dramatic irony. And throughout the whole scene we only know what Paul knows and he does deliver the horror factor with finding out what has happened to the people. And it also gives you a idea of how bad things were in Rwanda at that time when the mist clears and you see at least over one hundred bodies lying on the floor.