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Lit. Poems

"Nazi Character Poem"

Nazis

Strong, cruel, and brutal

Who love their Führer

Who feel anger towards the Jews and communists

Who need approval from Hitler

Who share their fear by inflicting it upon others

Who would like to see a blonde-haired, blue-eyed world

Who dream of a Jew free world

Who end up committing horrible crimes against Jews

"Life(as Liesel), and Death(as Death) Diamante"

Liesel

Strong, happy

Reading, stealing, schumuzeling

Bright, full of life, lonely, full of death

Working, watching, travelling, working

Tired, fast

Death

~Swimmer/WriterGirl

I Shall Eat Thee in the Ocean/Sea.

Sharks are marine animals that mostly live in the ocean, although there are a couple of species that do live in rivers(bull sharks, spear tooth sharks, and a few others). Sharks could be considered the ultimate hunters of the ocean, with a variety of attributes that make them deadly. One of their most obvious attributes is their teeth. At the most sharks can have at least five rows of teeth! Why? Because throughout their lives they lose more teeth than you can imagine just trying to get prey. The shape of the tooth varies from specie to specie. Take for example a Shortfin Mako shark tooth is narrow simple, whilst the tiger tooth shark is wider with little ridges.

Another aspect that makes sharks so terrifying is their skeletons. Yes, that’s right their skeletons. Unlike humans, a shark’s skeleton is made of cartilage, more flexible, lighter and softer version of bone, that allows them to turn and twist faster in the water. One more attribute that is a little more obscure is their skin, which is like sand paper. If you brushed up against a shark hard enough you would actually scrape off some of your skin. The rough and tough skin helps a shark prevent any injury to themselves, making it harder to hurt the shark, and easier for the shark to hurt it’s victim. Another deadly aspect is their sense of hearing. Their hearing is so intense that they can hear things moving from almost a half a mile away. One more aspect similar to a shark’s keen hearing is a nerve called a lateral line which runs up and down the whole of their body, letting them feel vibrations. And that’s not all! They also have a keen sense of smell, and this sense of smell is probably their strongest. They can smell blood from many, many feet away. With all of these senses combing(and don’t forget eyesight, they have excellent eye sight) it’s near impossible to escape from a shark attack! They are indeed one of the most dangerous creatures in the ocean, and one you would definitely want to stay away from(don’t worry, they won’t come hunting for you unless they mistake you another marine creature, or you’re bleeding profusely, in the case that you are and there’s a shark around well…).

About the pictures(click on pictures for source):

1st picture: A shortfin Mako Shark, one of the fastest and sleekest sharks around also called the "perfect" shark because of their sleek, smooth and fast bodies. Their teeth are as described above: narrow and pointy.

2nd picture: A great white shark. Probably the most well known shark around. These giants can grow up to twenty four feet and is probably the top predatory shark.

3rd picture: A thresher Shark. As you can see this specie of shark has a special, whiplike almost the length of it's whole body. With the tail, they can carry extremely high amounts of momentum, so much that they are capable of jumping out of the water!

4th picture: A leopard shark. The leopard shark is probably one of the boldest skinned sharks that you can recognize immediately. In the wild their skin patterns help camouflage them.

Attack of the sea boogers(a.k.a. marine mucilages)

The link is over here.

Who: Marine biologists studying the Mediterranean.

What: Giant mucus like blobs made of microscopic organisms that are dead and also alive organisms. The mucus starts out as "marine snow", just a small amount of microscopic organisms that are dead and alive. Later, other organisms join on, adding more and more until it grows to a giant mucus blob. These blobs can grow as large as a hundred twenty four miles long, and are extremely bacteria filled and dangerous to humans. The carry deadly e.coli and many other dangerous bacteria. This mucilage is a naturally occurring usually during the summer, causing only small problems like covering swimmers in sticky gel, but nowadays, due to global warming and warmer sea water, the mucilage has continued to grow during winter also, adding to the amount of summer sea mucilage. The mucilage is causing many problems with the habitats of fish and sea creatures. Some often become stuck in these globs suffocated to death, others may have their gills clogged up with this substance and die. And one of the largest problems is, that large heavy blankets of this substance will float down onto the sea floor covering up and smothering out all life there.

When: The amount of mucilage has been steadily growing throughout the years, since the sea has been becoming warmer.

Where: Mostly in the Mediterranean, although this can happen in any sea. The mediterranean with it mildly moving waters, allows the dead and living organisms to bond more easily. Whereas had the organic matter been in another rougher ocean, it would have been ripped apart and not been able to bond.

Why: The mucilage increase is because of global warming. Slowly the seas temperature has been increasing, which is good for this mucilage because it allows it to bond more easily.

What do I think:

This is disgusting, that fact that people have let global warming come so far as to affect the world like this and just the fact that its a giant booger like thing in the middle of the sea. Who wants to swim through that on their lovely vacation to the Mediteranean, and then end up with ruined hair and disgusting wet suit, like Serena Fonda Umani? If we don't find some way to get rid of these mucilages, than the environment will be in serious danger. Not only the environment, though, we will be too, due to the fact that these mucilages hold serious amounts of diseases like e. coli. Global warming is getting way more serious now.

~Swimmer/writer girl

My lovely images:

• http://bluegrassish.com/category/monster-monday/
• http://thatswhenireachformyrevolver.wordpress.com/2009/
• http://explorations.ucsd.edu/Voyager/Voyager_QA/2008/Sep/QA2/
• http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/10/photogalleries/ocean-mucus-sea-pictures/photo5.html

Math+Research Project= (the blog below)

In1988, there were around 200,000 child soldiers in the world.
Twelve years later, in 2000, there were around 300,000 child soldiers in the world, and seemingly the population has increased, and is probably increasing as we speak at the rate of 90,000 every 10 years or 9,000 every 1 year which is pretty insane. If the amount of child soldier keeps growing at this rate by 2011 the amount of child soldiers will be 480,000.

An equation to find the amount of child soldiers in a year is 9,000x + 300,000, x being the number of years since 2000. If child soldiery still continues ten years from 2011 then there will be at least 570,000 child soldiers. The amount of child soldier there are now is pretty high. I hope it does not increase any higher than it is.

~swimmer/writerGirl

Child soldiers

Hi,
In class we're researching different topics for our research task. My topic, that i chose is child soldiers in Africa.
At first I had no idea what this was. I thought maybe they were using children as cooks, and giving them other house keeping type jobs, like cleaning or serving food.
But when i finally read up on the topic i was horrified.

It turned out, when they said child soldiers, they truly meant child soldier, that went out in a battle field killing people, with guns. And they not only did that, it actually gets worse. The children are also used as suicide bombers, human shields to distract enemies, and for the females: sex slaves, and wives. Yes, wives, teenage girls are wives to men at least ten years older than them. If they refused to do so, they would be shot and killed. The children are either kidnapped from their home, or forced to enlist in the army. Some of the children's families were threatened and they and they were eventually forced to join. Rebel organizations target poor families to threaten. After a massacre in Algeria, in which many children soldiers took part in, some kids were found playing the game of catch with a decapitated girl's head. All of the abuse the children are facing will definitely affect their minds, and will scar them for life. But thankfully, there are others going out to Africa to help these children, and rescue them, then send them to a rehabilitation center. After that they learn to live a normal live, even as scarred as they are. But Africa is not the only place with child soldiers. I didn't research upon that much, but child soldiers are also used in Afghanistan, and Germany during World War Two. In Afghanistan, they sent young children out to mine fields, in order to clean the field of mines.
I really hope soon, that people become aware of this and attempt to stop child soldiers. It's a serious matter, and it may be worse than we think it is.
~Swimmer/WriterGirl

Picture: http://theamateurartcollector.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/intro_child_soldier.jpg

Podcast: forensic chemist

Here's an exciting interview with local forensic chemist Mary Jameson: Forensic Chemist