1.       My utopian city is named Ikanos Greek for capable. This means that my city is self-sufficient and able to live without help from neighboring cities. To me a perfect city would not fall when others fall and never experience problems that we had nothing to do with it.

2.       Utopia: An ideally perfect place, especially in its social, political, and moral aspects.  http://www.thefreedictionary.com/utopia

My utopia would ideally be a very small city, 2000 people roughly. The main city area would be four large buildings each holding 500 apartments with varying size. Each member of the community would be assigned one depending on what size their family was. The bottom floor of these apartments is commercial; anything from a grocery store to a bowling alley could open there.  The space between the buildings would be a large park and on the outside of the buildings there would farms that would supply the city with food and also prevent the city from growing. On the roofs of the buildings there would be solar panels that supply the city with the needed electricity and rain catchers that would have back up water in case the water pipes shut off.

The idea behind this utopia is a city that is completely self-sustaining, meaning that the city would still thrive even if there are problems in the rest of the world. People would live in peace; there would no need to fight about things because each person lives the same way. I would create this utopia because it is what people dream of, basically a little peaceful world in itself where no one needs to worry about global problems.

3.    This utopian society that I made stands apart from every other society in the world because it is completely self sustaining, basically if the whole world is crumbling around it this city can stand strong, alone. We need this type of city in the world because there needs to be some form of balance around in the hectic world of today, to have a last resort if the rest of the world goes downhill.

4. Rules of Iknaos:

Do not steal from others

Only buy as much food as you need 

All city lights must be off after 11pm to 7:30 am 

Stores must be open every day except sunday from 9 until 7, no exceptions 

No killing 

No fighting on city land

Every family will be assigned one home, they cannot be rented out to others 

No one is allowed to enter farm except for those who have the job as a farmer

In the apartments to conserve water, water (from the tap) may not be left running for more than 5 minutes, 10 for a shower

No destruction of city property, including plants 

If these rules are not obeyed, the person who committed the crime will have to visit the city court, with ticket in hand, in the next week or the charge will be doubled

Part One 
One of my favourite adventures I would have to say was going to Cultus Lake water-park with my friend Maddie, which coincidentally, is also about water-slides! It was an amazing experience, in fact it was the first time I had ever been to a water-park that size!

  Out of all the giant 3-story-tall water slides my favourite was light blue. It was fast, long and you always got splashed in the face whenever you hit a curve, which is amazing on those scorching hot days of mid-July. The best part of that particular water slide was that everyone could fit on the one giant tube they gave us, picture that: me Maddie and about four fifteen year-olds (Maddie's older sister and her friends) all sitting on the tube waiting for the staff to let us go. It was a pretty funny sight. When we went down the slide, everyone was screaming as the tube slide from one side to the other of the zigzag water slide, creeping higher and higher each time we hit a "zig" or a "zag". Just trying not to let go or you would fall right on the person on the other side of the tube. Even though that experience was crazy, nothing, even falling on the person could be nearly as bad as crashing through a fence like Dave and Morley's neighbour did.

Part Two
I found that the funniest story was "The Waterslide". I find that it is more fast paced and has many more funny jokes. "The Waterslide" was more detailed, I could really visualize what was going on. It felt like I was really in Dave an Morley's backyard. Thought "The Turlington's Dog" was quite funny, it lacked the detail that It would need to make in hilarious. It might also be because I am younger, but I can relate more to "The Waterslide" because it was mainly about kids. Overall I would have to pick "The Waterslide" as my favourite.

Another little detail: my favourite Vinyl Cafe ever would have to be "Dave the Dog Walker"
Here is the link to the podcast:

The article that I picked was about the Colorado wildfires threatening Denver's water supply. I believe that the water supply is definitely an issue, it could potentially mean that that the city of Denver would be getting contaminated water or no water at all. The main issue that scientists see about the wildfire being close to the reservoir is that during a storm, water would run down the mountains, getting contaminated by the ash from the fire which could jeopardize the cleanliness of the water reservoir. People could tackle this problem is by putting a barrier around the reservoir,  to prevent any waste from getting in to the drinking water, and collecting the contaminated runoff separate ans sending it to get treated separately. That way one of our most precious resources will stay safe and clean.

Real life and stories are not so far apart all the time, even if they sound incredibly fictional every story is linked to something that has happened. All Summer in a Day is about a young girl named Margot who lives on Venus where the sun only comes out once every seven years and only for a few hours. Margot is depressed, she used to live on Earth where the sun comes out at least once every few days, but now on Venus she misses the suns light and warmth. On the day that the sun is supposed to her class bullied her because she was different and locked her in a closet. Because of her classes behavior, she missed time the when the sun was out. Bulling makes people miss out on things that you would otherwise experience. Phoebe Prince was bullied so much that she killed herself, a real life example of what bulling can do to people and a non fiction version of All Summer In a Day. The reason these two stories are alike is that both Phoebe and Margot got bullied, in the end Margot didn't kill herself but I'm sure she felt horrible on the inside.

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Another connection that I see is between All Summer In A Day and the song "mean" by Taylor Swift. The song explains what it feels like to be bullied and that you can always get back up if someone knocks you down. It said that a bullied person can someday be successful and a bully will always just be mean. I find that the song describes Margot's life perfectly, which is quite sad. People are always knocking her down and telling her that she is so weird. I believe that the song really reaches people who have been bullied because it is so close to the truth. When I was reading All Summer In a Day I could see a prefect connection between the two.

     Here is a clip of the song:
 

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When I read All Summer in a Day I was thinking to myself that Vancouver gets a lot of rain, which can get depressing in the winter, but what is the world record for the most consecutive days of rain? It turns out that the world record is 247 days in Kaneohe Ranch, Oahu, Hawaii. I couldn't imagine living with that much rain, even when it rains for only three consecutive days here, the whole city looks depressed. I can definitely picture how that amount of rain can make Margot depressed, it would to anyone who knows anything but that. In some ways I almost find it funny that Hawaii, a tropical chain of islands could actually have that much rain. But I bet that the town of Kaneohe Ranch didn't think it was that funny...

     Here is a link to the news article that I got this information from:

     www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/2006-01-15-kaneohe-rainfall_x.htm

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People discriminate aganst people for many reasons, most of the reasons aren't good reasons, people just discriminate to make themselves feel better. Humans do this to solidify what they think should be the social hierarchy, when people discriminate others they push themselves towards the top by pushing others down to the bottom of the pyramid, to set apart who they think are the weaker ones. Another reason why people discriminate against others is that they dont understand people and therefor they think that they are better than them. One example or this type of discrimination is slavery, people didnt understand others so the thought they were better than them and started controlling them. I believe  that discrimination is a bad thing and it makes people feel less like the people who they are and more like the people that they think they should be in order to fit in. People like that are stuck thinking that changing who they are will help them not be discriminated against, even though they loose touch with who they really are. 

Willa Pepin                                                                                                    September 14th 2012

Alice, I think and The Andromeda Strain

 

Alice MacLeod sat in the musty old alternative school classroom, her cousin Frank sleeping on the desk to the left of her. Her teacher, Mr. Richards, stood at the front of the room, droning on about peer groups. Alice thought to herself "this is supposed to be science class" and sighed.

After Mr. Richards finished his speech and just before he walked out of the class, he reminded the students that there is a guest speaker coming to talk to them that afternoon. Everyone groaned, including Alice, the thought of another person come in and talking about how he or she could "help" the students made Alice wish that she was like Frank, fast asleep.

After lunch, the class piled back into the classroom. Mr. Richards stood at the front of the class again, only this time with more excitement. Once the class had sat down he called the speaker in. Alice reached into her backpack and grabbed a journal and a pen in preparation to critique today's speaker, as one would have to if they were to pursue a career as a critic. Moments later, in walked a frail old man, a cane grasped in his right hand and a very peculiar necklace around his neck. As he reached the make-shift music stand podium, he sighed and begun to speak.

"Hello" he said "my name is Dr. Mark Hall M.D., member of the Wildfire Scientific Team"
Those words seemed to bring back great pain and fear to him but he continued.
"I am here to talk about the first, and hopefully last, biological crisis the world had ever experienced, it was called the Andromeda Strain."
Everyone in the class sat straight up eyes pinned on Dr. Hall.
"Many years ago," he spoke " a project called Scoop was launched. Its goal was to bring back evidence of extraterrestrial life." he paused "Well it sure did."
At this point the entire class was on the edge of their seats with anticipation.
"One morning in the town of Piedmont, Arizona one of the Scoop satellites crashed exposing the world to the deadliest life forms it had ever seen. It was up to a team of four (including me) to get the extraterrestrial life form under control. We did, and just in the nick of time, I may add." He stopped, trying to figure out what he would say next.
"The main reason I came to talk to you students today was not the explain all about the biological crisis, it was to explain that in times of stress, no one matters more than your friends and peers." He pointed to the class. "Never underestimate the power of friends, they could just maybe help you save the world one day," he said with a chuckle.
Mr. Richards grinned.
 
As he continued to talk, Alice opened up her journal and wrote in big bold letters: NEW LIFE GOAL, BECOME A SCIENTIST. With that she shut her journal and continued to listen to Dr. Hall.