Election Day

So today is Election Day-- AAHH! Who will win? 

My parents went out to the nearby church in plan to vote. When they arrived, they never had a chance to hear that they weren't allowed to talk, so of course they did, and the man went up to them and told them they couldn't. afterwards, they obeyed the rules and carried on their voting process without talking. Then, as they were about to put it in the ballot box, they were stopped by the man who explained that their vote would be taken into questioning based on what happened earlier. My parents found this very peculiar. Peculiar enough, in fact, that they went to a government building in downtown Linn County to report what happened. While they were there they met a woman who they explained the situation to. She burst into tears and told them that this was unfair, because she and her son were talking the whole time and nothing happened to them. This was when my parents definitely knew something was up. They told the govt official who said there was not much they could do so at this point the vote might be counted or not. As a family we were all upset and we knew exactly the reason why that man took my parents to vote. It was because of our background and he knew exactly who my parents were votig for. 

It's quite saddening knowing hardships like these still exist. When things like these happen, we are often snapped into the reality that America is far from a democracy when specific peoples' voting rights are not counted, all because of their background. 

Learning a new language

Learning new languages are extremely beneficial when it comes to travelling, your social life, your knowledge, and your future career. Languages open doors to new opportunities and experiences. These are one of the many reasons why we should all learn (and stick with) a new language.
Unfortunately, most of us are American, and with being an American teenager, you should know that the American education system is flawed in many ways, one of them being the lack of teaching languages at an early age.
The problem with teaching languages at the age they begin to teach us (AKA freshmen year in our district) is that our brains have become too developed to pick up a language easily, and it will take us many more years than it would have to learn the language and even become fluent in it. Four years of language in high school is simply not enough to become fluent in a language. It takes many, many years and quite a bit of dedication. Anyway, I'm getting off topic.
Recently, I've become very interested in learning many languages, however a language I am most interested in is Arabic. I really wanted to take a class, but was unable to because the school I currently attend doesn't teach it. So I figured since I already have a lot of background knowledge in the language because of growing up with our mosque's sunday school, speaking a dialect of Arabic, and currently living with an exchange student who's native language is Arabic. I decided to take up the language myself. I've been doing this by using many websites that will teach you Arabic, asking parents and my exchange sister for help, conversing with native speakers via my mosque and the internet, and watching movies, listening to music, and reading in Arabic. I must definitely admit, learning a language is very tough but very rewarding. I feel as though I am learning new things everyday and I like to think about where I will end up in a year. Of course, learning a language on my own is certainly more difficult than taking an hour everyday class with an educated teacher for help, but learning on my own does have it's benefits.
I encourage all of you to take up a language. There are many great sites online to learn just about any language-- even wacky ones like Flemish, Belarusian, and Azeri. Who even knew those were languages? Even getting better at the language you are learning currently, such as Chinese, Spanish, German, or Russian, you can find good sources online to aid you in your quest to unlocking the world of a new language, just find them!
Almost the rest of the world outside America speak two or more languages, so why aren't we?

Paradise Now: Movie Review

Over the weekend, I was able to make the time to watch this movie, Paradise Now, directed by Hany Abu-Assad, which is currently on Youtube. Paradise Now is a movie about two Palestinian freedom fighters who will defend their country to the grave, which is exactly what they decide to do.

Within their group of men who specialize in acts of terror against Israelis, they both volunteer to be suicide bombers, without telling their family. 

Said, one of the two suicide bombers, tends to be a very serious man with a very loving family, a beautiful mysterious new girl in town that he takes an interest in, and a humiliating past that he feels he needs to make up for. He does this by volunteering to become a suicide bomber. His friend, Khaled is filled with more humor than Said, and tends to be very impulsive. But who wouldn't if they decided to become an actual suicide bomber? 

Anywho, when the time comes, their plan goes horribly wrong, and they are almost caught by the Israeli police. Khaled and Said run off, separating themselves from each other. Khaled finds the group he was previously with while Said strays off and loses them after they frantically decide they have to leave to find Said. And so it goes for almost the rest of the movie Said going from place to place trying to find his group while his group is trying to find him, all the while he has a bomb attached around his chest. 

Abu-Assad described the film along the lines of something like this: "The film is an artistic point of view of that political issue. The politicians want to see it as black and white, good and evil, and art wants to see it as a human thing." I completely agreed with this description, because in reality, this issue it quite possibly a very messy one, and most of us have firm views on it, when in reality the opinions we hold on the conflict are much more complicated than we would assume, whether we believe in peace, or one country or the other needing to defend itself, and we must take into account the human stance on it rather than the political. 

I also really liked this movie because it was not necessarily on one side or the other, but it merely gave a fictional insight on the life of someone who had to go through this problem and want so desperately to fight for what they believed in. I would give this film a 4.5/5, because it was a good portrayal of the inside life, and the ending shocked me to where I was thinking about it for days afterwards.