Diving Deep Going Far

This is last round of our third year. However we had a different learning style in this round which we had an independent work. We started to learn how to manage our own time and our own learning. In addition to that, we also had a book learning which we chose one book and learned about it. 

The book that I chose called “Diving Deep Going Far”. Reading the back cover of this book has interested me because I never read this kind of book before and I rarely see a novel that is related to Cambodia. It is a novel that was written to show women empowerment in Cambodia. It conveys the struggling of women in Cambodia, a country that has a particular tradition role for men and women. This book has written in different point of view from different person. Some chapters are written from the point of view of Nary and some are written from the point of view of the other people. 

This book has evoked me a lot on how those women in the society being suffered. Also, one of the main challenges is that they are living as as a people that the society or family want them to be, not who they want themselves to be. It surprised me how this story ended. I don’t want to spoil what would happen, so you have to purchase this book and read it to know! 

I would highly recommend this book to everyone and I also think that it is important to read this book because it raises the awareness of women empowerment. This book has taught me a lot and I got a lot of inspiration from this marvellous book , “Diving Deep, Going Far” as well and I hope you do too!

How To Happily Forgive When Someone Who Hurts You?

People experienced different sufferings. However, those suffering might not be forgotten. But I believe everyone on earth born with a power. The power of “forgiveness”.

Please do forgive, regardless of as if they deserve your forgiveness or not. However, you come to the right place! Reading these following steps will let you know how would you happily forgive someone who hurts you:

 

Step 1: Calm Down and Smile

When someone hurts you immediately, your feeling is burning and rising up at that moment. Remember that it doesn’t benefit you, so all you have to do is take a deep breath and happily smile. Did you know that scientists prove that a smile make people feel better? With a simplest smile on your face, bring your day amusement and sunshine.

 

Step 2: Release Those Stress Thoughts and Think of Your Happiness

When you smile and take a breathe, you’re releasing those stress and while you’re trying to calm, think about something that makes you happy. When you start to think about those positivities, your brain will contain all those sweetness instead of pressure. Accept the truth and that’s what make your life strong and beautiful.

 

Step 3: Think About What Would Be Better If You Forgive Instead of Holding Those Stress

Next, you have to wisely understand the advantages of forgive and the disadvantages of not forgiving. Remember that when you forgive, you ignore those problems and you got less anxiety. If you don’t forgive, those connection won’t grow and these problems always keep going.

 

Step 4: Just Let Those Go

Here’s the tough challenge: Just Let Things Go. But, don’t worry! You have to let those go and started something that is important to you. Stop blaming anyone, stop blaming the past and appreciate the present. Letting those go also express your responsibility, be thankful for it.

 

Step 5: Move On And Spread Love

Last but not least, move on and spread love. Spread love is a spiritual growth that everyone should have. After you follow the steps above, you finally forgive someone! Congratulations! Here’s the last extra step. Spread love. A two simplest word which connect the communication better. You already ignore those pain, so start to be kind and do good to them even though you don’t trust them. Do not revenge on what they’re doing. Like a quote says “Weak people revenge. Strong people forgive. Intelligent people ignore”.

 

I want to let the world remember to always remember that no one never makes mistake, so you’re strong enough to FORGIVE.

Reference:

 

https://www.drwaynedyer.com/blog/how-to-forgive-someone-in-15-steps/

Does Having Uneducated Parents Affects My Life As Well As Others ?

Having an uneducated mother or father might give some children’s struggle. It also gives a hard time for children to learn more by themselves due to the facts that their parents couldn’t help them with homework or school work. It happens to me as well. My mom was raised in a poor family that my grandparents couldn’t afford the education that she had to finish studying at 1st grade. Will this affect my education as well?

Education is the most powerful weapon, therefore it obviously brings a few disadvantages of having one of the uneducated parents. The first struggling with this problem is helping with homework. When I came back from school and did my homework, there were some exercises that I couldn’t solve. There was no one that I could ask for help except my mom because my dad was at work. She tried her best to help me with my homework. She couldn’t help me since she didn’t get through all of these lessons. That’s why it gave me a hard time by learning everything by myself. But remember that the fact that she did not go to school does not mean she would not want her children to.

Interestingly, education also affects my family’s income. Again, some family might actually relate to this story as well. Learningenglish.voanews mentioned that “A young person from the highest income background is 77 percent more likely to attend one of these schools than someone from the lowest income background.” It proves that education is very powerful. Until one day our family almost starving by had no rice. However, their sweats were dropping while they don’t want me to face this situation in the future. I really appreciate and couldn’t think of anything that I could do for them back. That’s why it brings you to an English proverb called “Work smarter not harder.”

There’s always a solution to a problem and that’s the way we work smarter not harder. Regardless of gaining income from education, there’s also another way that my parents could work. People are born with unique talents and the lesson that I learned from my mother is that instead of reluctant and give up by having no education, she uses her talents instead.

Struggling by not entering school is a major problem, however believing that there’s always a solution to a problem is the right thought. Even though my mom didn’t get the right to education, she chooses the right way where she could fulfill her dream and her daughters’ life. I hope that the reader will understanding this struggling as well as thinking about this critically.

I am from…

“I Am From” Poem Template

Adapted by Levi Romero

Inspired by “Where I’m From” by George Ella Lyon

 

I am from a flour mill machine from  a selling table

I am from the sweet flour, productive work

I am from the emerald scallion

The vegetable and sauce whose long gone limbs I remember as if they were my own.

I’m from kind-hearted and a long road full of advices from parents and grandparents

I’m from Compact Discs and microphone and from television.

I’m from Keep Moving! and Don’t Compare yourself to Others! and Five Senses Khmer Song

I’m from protective mosquito net and helmet

I’m from Battambang and rural area and eggs and variety of Khmer soup

From an educated person who survived at Khmer Rouge regime, mouth zipped and has to do whatever they told. He has to be adaptive. He had passed an obstacle course from black zombies. The bird was released in January 1979.  

I’m from his freedom which is part of who I am today. He meets his belove and created me. I’m from every single sweat and blood and those becoming my hero in my heart forever that can never be dissolved in memory.

I’m from Chhem and Phorn family tree.

 

By Dyna  Chhem

Date Jan/15/2019

Social Justice – Literacy

There will be different themes in every round of English Literacy essentials. This round ’s theme is “Social Justice”. Social Justice is a concept that is related to the different types of justice between individual and society such as wealth, rank, etc. For the first few weeks, we focused on the topic of “Pollution”. We did some research about how pollution disproportionately affects people who are poor and members of racial and ethnic minorities and how members of ethnic minorities got affected by pollution than others. We also have words of the week which are:

An environment is very important not only for me but also for society. We did the writing about pollution in our community as well. I wrote about pollution in my province which is Kampong Cham province. It is located in the center of Cambodia. Here’s what I wrote about my community:

Pollution and Environmental Justice in Kampong Cham

Kampong Cham has a very beautiful city that everyone always think about, but people ignore one crucial problem about this province. Most of the provinces in Cambodia produce a lot of pollution, including Kampong Cham. The source of pollution mostly comes from human activities and they might not be getting enough education about the serious effect of pollution. The town and rural areas are covered with trash that only has been thrown, but not picked. Nothing will be fine if people keep repeating what they are doing right now.

Pollution in Kampong Cham mostly spreads over rural areas around districts. The city in this province might have less pollution than the rural area because there are a lot of factories surrounding the rural area. As I knew before in the province, there’s no landfill or damp, in fact, a few people started the idea of throwing the trash near Sala Chen market which causes others to throw at this place too. One of the big problems is throwing the garbage that concentrated near the station where they sell food, which leads the pollution from the garbage spread to the food. Therefore, it could affect people’s health through the food that they ate and it could lead to a serious health problem. This is one of the pollution sources that have been spread to the whole city.

In addition, there is a factory that located in Cherng Prey district. The workers produced more and more pollution through the air to the neighborhood. Obviously, there is an air pollution that produced from the smoke of the factory. Sometimes, I think it is kind of unfair when people who stay close to the factory got affected. I haven’t heard any solution for this yet, but I hope there will be one.

Moreover, Mekong River is also a source where pollution existed. There are a lot of people selling their products near riverside especially Food Selling. After they ate, people leave their trashes all over the river bank. Not only this, people who live close to Mekong River also threw their huge amount of garbages into the river. The pollution from the trashes spread to the freshwater species and it also affects the fisherman(s)  as they’re going to eat those species. No one realizes these situations that had happened into the province and country.

Nothing surprise saying that transportation is one of the pollution sources that existed in this crowded city. As I visit my community, a lot of pollution of smoke from cars and motorbikes spread to the city population. There are a lot of wealthy people that use cars and motorbikes, which is so rare that they use bikes in this generation. Air pollution is all over, it really needs solution!

Both city and rural area are affected by pollution. In the city, the main sources of pollution are the Mekong river, Sala Chen market, and transportation. In rural areas, the main sources of pollution are from the factories. People wouldn’t think it is a very important problem that needs a solution. In my opinion, this situation is unjust for people who live close to those places. For some reason, people who throw the garbages, just because they weren’t the one who gets affected if they’re not living near that places. I would say some of them are rich as well.

Finally, the growth of this province is starting. Everyone starting to have a campaign where they’re trying to reduce the trash. I think the provincial office is also trying to create a secure environmental justice for Kampong Cham. I’m glad that students putting their effort once a week to pick the trash from their community area, which helps Kampong Cham a lot.

The week after, we did some argumentative writing of the topic that’s we’re passionate about that related to our exploration (project-based learning) or the topic that related to SDGs. First of all, we were taught how to write a thesis statement. So What is a Thesis Statement?

  • Thesis Statement is...

Starting the introduction with thesis statement would be very helpful for the reader to understand our main point. Writing an argumentative would be very fun and an important experience for me. I’m looking forward to seeing my argumentative essay done!

 

 

Etymology & Comprehension

Learning about Etymology might be very helpful for us whenever we do some reading. It might provide clarification for us for the words that we don’t understand. Greek and Latin Root words are one of the subjects that I’m learning about. Root words might be very helpful and essential for every student to break down the words that they are unfamiliar with.  It is one of the strategies for me to learn about Root. The reason I say that is because, sometimes it was hard for me to know what the words really mean, but the root words help me to unlock those key.

So far I’ve learnt six units about Greek and Latin root words, but one of the favorite units is Bio, Photo, Phil (Life, Light, Love). Each example words of these root words are very deep. In addition, I like those root words, because it is about life. I’m fascinated about reading someone’s life which is Biography or Autobiography. Not only this, I love photography because I would love to express my feeling through it. Last but not least, I love philanthropist and philosophy. These words always stay in my mind; being a philanthropist with a positive philosophy! That is why I have a passion for each of these root words. 

On the other hand, our facilitator Hannah is also working on our reading comprehension. There are seven different articles that I’ve been reading so far. They are:

  • William Shakespeare

Amongst those articles, Gandi is one of my favorite articles. He becomes one of my favorite inspirations after I read it. Gandhi is very thoughtful, empathy and very motivation. His morals and philosophies of non-violence assistence spread over the world. Everyone was very upset after losing him. If you don’t know who he is this is him:

Moreover, I also did some writing which one of the examples is Mini Personal Narrative. The goal is to talk about something that is about the past and memorable to ourselves. The paragraph is maximum 3 paragraph long. I wrote about my great-grandfather who passed away on 9/9/2018. He deserves this writing from me and he does deserve sharing about his life as an amazing great-grandpa for others. Here’s what I wrote:

My Biggest Inspiration

Who doesn’t feel lucky when they know that their great-grandparents still alive? I still have great-grandparents. I would never expect that I have a very happiness family! But one day on September, 9th, 2018……………

The smile had come, I’m so excited to meet my great-grandparents. I was a little 5 years old girl that was carrying by my parents walking toward my great-grandparents house. It was located in a small village in Banteay Meanchey that used to be part of Siem Reap. It was a rural area that was covered by a clear blue sky and golden rice field. My great-grandparents living in a wooden house that was surrounded by a lot of fruited-trees. When I was five years old, they were 75. My great-grandpa is the wise guy with grey hair . He is energetic, empathy, kind, proactive, and a patient guy, which everyone loves him. About my great-grandma, she is sweet, beautiful and adaptive. Well, it’s not a surprise saying that everyone in the village love them. When I was first arriving their house, I saw their adorable cows and pigs under the house. The moment of me feeding the cows with grass is still remaining in my brain and it will stay forever. My dad was filming me as well. I was smiling at the camera and started to walk up to the house. Every time I saw a buddhist book, my great-grandfather always popping up in my mind first. There’s no way I could forgot the day that I was introduced to buddhism history book. Great-grandpa, do you know? When I think about you, I always think about the advice, care, and the forgiveness that you give to me and everyone else. You’ve shown me a lot of unconditional love since I was young until I become a teenage. You provide me a peaceful world.

Until the day has come…

Tears drop, the sound of crying, smelling the incense smoke that was flying in the air. Why did my great-grandfather sleep and don’t get up? Now you’re keeping great-grandma alone! I know, you will sleep peacefully. He is now staying up high, listening to angels singing. The last time I saw you was on April 2018, and today, it is the 7th day that you’ve gone. I wish I was there before your last breath. I wish you were giving me a warm hug, seeing your beautiful smile again. So far, you’ve been such my amazing great-grandpa ever.  I can’t explain how much you really mean to me. I promise I will remember and keep every advice you’ve told me and I promise I will keep it forever and ever! I’m so precious and glad to be your great-granddaughter. For the pleasants, values and everything you have given me throughout the years, that’s why it is very worth it for me to write and share it to everyone about my unique great-grandfather!

May your soul rest in peace!

1935-2018

Finally, I learnt something new from literacy. I believe that it is one of the major subjects that everyone should learn. Last but not least, I strongly support this quote by Dr. Seuss “The more that you READ, the more THINGS you will KNOW. The MORE you LEARN, the more PLACES you’ll GO!”