Do governments have a duty of care to their citizens and as such should they provide free access to books in the form of libraries?

'We know that a library is so much more than a building full of books… a book is so much more than pages full of words.…

Do governments have a duty of care to their citizens and as such should they provide free access to books in the form of libraries?

My answer is: Yes.

I stringly agree with the point of that governments have a duty of care to their citizens and as such should they provide free access to books in the form of libraries. Books are such amazing things that you can learn every piece of information you want. And libraries are the places that provide books, to let people think creatively, reason critically, learn enthusiastically, and live ethically. Internet is a effective way to search information, but from the books, you can get unique ideas and thinks. All in all, I can't think of a reason that the government should close down the store of wisdom: Libraries. Without libraries, people may lost connection to the world. Without libraries, poor children will never have any chance to learn. Without libraries, the whole world will change due to the miss of wisdom and educate.

I also felt chill when I heard this message. The government has no reason to shut down a place like this. "There is no friend as loyal as a book. " -- by Ernest Hemingway. Why the government are getting rid of humans' loyal friends? Any way, I hope that governments support the libraries more than destroing them. I hope, one day, I can see that every one has a smily face in and out the library.

Me in 3 Objects

This is a dictionary, or more accurately, an electronic dictionary. It has a hard black cover and nice screen and little keys inside. It translates many other languages, including English. My mother bought it for me when I graduated from 5th grade in Chinese elementary school. She thought if I had any problems with English in the school, I could help myself with the dictionary. I used it a lot in 6th grade because this was my first year in ISKL. In ISKL, people use English everywhere. Teaching, learning, reading, listening, talking, and the books, the bulletins are all in English. This is totally different from my previously school (A Chinese school in Shanghai, China). They only had English in English text books. Even in the English class, people were still speaking Chinese. I was absolutely strange about this place but I got used to it pretty soon. I started to borrow the books form the library. I always gave it a long "holiday" and fully charged its battery. Now it became my best friend on reading books, I love my dictionary!

This is a flash drive, but some people call it thumb drive, too. Like its name, thumb drive are just as small as someone's thumb but it can also has a great volume of information storage. I have a special emotion and memory with thumb drives, since I was small, when I first know what a computer is, when I saw my mom using a thumb drive, I decided I have to get a thumb drive for myself. Now, I've been using 5 thumb drive. The funny thing is, all of my thumb-drives cannot live for very long. The first and second were small-capabilities, one was 128MB and one was 256MB. They are the two who are still alive except the second one is a bit too "old". The third one is covered with leather, 2GB, enough for my daily usage, but when 6 months later since I came to ISKL, something happened. One Friday, I accidentally left the thumbdrive in the pocket of the school short and I just went for computer. That night I washed the short without noticing my thumbdrive was inside. Before washing, my dad even asked me "Do you left any thing in the short like money or phone?" And I answered with confidence "No, of course NOT!" Then I started to wash, in the middle I felt there was something hard in my pocket and I took it out and -- my thumb drive!!! I screamed out loud and my parents all went to see what's happening. My dad was criticizing me for not careful and my mom got the hair-drier tried to dry it. And the miracle was, it was completely out of dangerous. It didn't die and the info. was not still there. I was so happy until two weeks later, when I was trying to do a project in Humanities, the computer suddenly shows [The Computer Cannot Open the File]. At first I thought the computer was error and I unplugged and replugged it, but the computer than shows [The Drive Did Not Format] and I started to worry about this. The result was, it is completely out of use. I was so sad! Not only because the thumb drive, but also the file inside it, I needed it for my project! After this evidence, I learned one thing: Never put your electronic devices into the pocket of your shorts that is going to be washed. After infinity Sorrys, my dad finally gave me another 2GB one, it was red and has rubber protecting the core, you can also make it a bracelet. At first it worked very well and I liked it very much. But one day after a after-school-activity, when I got on the school bus, I realized that it was gone, there was no sign and it just gone. The second day, I tried my best to find it but it was useless, oh my god, that was my forth one! I was almost mad with them! I was scared to take any other of them to the school. After the summer holiday, I re-picked up some of my confidence and promised to protect the thumb drive well if I can get another one, my parents agreed. So this is my fifth one, the one I am still using, it is the same type as the red one but this one is white. Now I've used it for a month and it is still brand-new. That's all about my flashdrives and one most important thing, I like my thumb drive very, very much!

"20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" is one of the famous science fiction by Jules Verne. This book is talking about in the year of 1866, there was a "Sea Monster" attacking the ships in the sea and the US government decided to form a assemble to capture the mysterious "Creature". A French marine biologist Professor Pierre Aronnax, his loyal assistant Conseil and a Canadian fisher master Ned Land were invited to join the assemble and they all agreed. They traveled a long time and finally found the creature. During the battle, three of them fell into the sea. They noticed that they were just on the creature and its made of hard metal, it's not a marine creature but a submarine named Nautilus. They also met the submarine's creator & captain Captain Nemo. They followed Captain Nemo and traveled almost the whole world with the submarine the Nautilus. I love this book, I read it more than 10 times and the books seems to be so old because I always flip the page.

My Name

Yijia Yan, this is my name. "A serious and good man." No fancy words or deep meanings, ordinary just like a drop of water in the ocean. The name made me think about the number "1". There were 5 ones at the my time of birth and it makes me to throw my full effort every time to get the best, the first place. The color gray, is another thing I always think about. The name is very normal just like the color grey, so ordinary that no one were going to mention.

Yijia Yan, a simple name in China, but there was a great story behind it. My name "mission" didn't start until my mom has been pregnant for 8 months. Before that, my dad always used the excuses like "I have got business." or "I'm busy." or something else to avoid it. Is making my name really that hard? Since then all my grand parents, and also my dad went to the library searching for the words that have deep meaning for my name. But at last, the words were either too deep, or too hard to write. Finally, my mom gave me the birth on October the first which was China's national day. It suppose to be a happy day but unfortunately, I still didn't have a name. That's when my dad gets hot-headed, the nurse was pressing on dad to think a name to fill up by birth certification. All in a sudden, the lightning of wisdom flashed through my dad's brain. "Yan Guoqing" (Celebration of nation), it sounds like an old dirty tractor booming with black smoke but dad thought that would be a good name for me. I cried so hard ← a little confused here. do you mean as a baby I cried so hard??when I heard that name and successfully kicked that name out. Then, the real lightning finally flashed across my dad and he gave me the name "Yijia". That's how I get my name. When I became bigger, I asked dad for the meaning. "Both my and your mom's name have got an one inside, the capital one in my name was too hard to write so I just gave you the one with only one draw," Dad replied, "And also I want you to be a good man, so I gave you "Jia" for good. Simple, but nice." Yijia Yan, "Be a good man", simple, but nice.

Yijia Yan, a tricky name, most of people can't pronounce it well and some used it as a tool to tease me. I am not a vegetarian but I don't like ducks, especially salted ducks. Why? Because I was a "salted duck"! Because of the pronunciation of my name, I started to be teased in my elementary school. One day, a guy in my class who likes joking gave me a "nickname": "salted duck" because that's really close to the sound of my name. At first, I didn't care about these people but gradually, more people started to call me "salted duck" and that really annoyed me. I wanted to fight back but it seems there were no weakness about their name. That made me thought my name was the worst one in the world, I wanted to change a name, whatever another one, but when mom and dad asked me what I want to be called, I suddenly got no idea. So I kept my name and still now. Once upon a time, I almost fought with someone. That was one day in G3 at lunch break, the one guy who I don' really like started to calling my nickname once and once around me annoying like a mosquito and I was just kept quite and do my own work. But he didn't stop, he kept buzzing around, finally I was at the max point and when I was just going to explode, teacher came in. In that time teachers were like the kings and all the students were like the slaves, no one wanted to get into some troubles even they hated the teacher so much. So both of us sat down quietly and started reading books acting like nothing just happened. Teacher didn't not know and "war" and every one was safe. The next day the guy apologized to me initiatively and I also forgave him. I gradually got used to my nickname and I didn't care about them anymore. My nickname kept till the end of grade 5, when we were going to be separated. The classmates said sorry for calling my name and said they did it as a joke. Yeh, joke. But it really made me sad when I was young. Maybe that's why now I am so patient and calm when people pronounce my name funny like "Asia" or "Yijei".

Yijia Yan, that is my name. It’s ordinary, it’s hard to pronounce and it may let others tease me. But, it contains the best wishes from my parents, it leads me towards success and the most important is that it tells me how to behave myself. Yijia Yan, a simple but nice name, is just perfect to me.

My Spring Break Adventures

During the spring break, my family (Not Exactly because my dad was still in working) had a awesome trip to Penang for 4 days. We stayed at Sunway hotel. Although 4 hours of car trip from KL to Penang was quiet long, but at the end, I thought this trip was a perfect and awesome adventure.

Penang is famous of many kinds of delicious snacks, my favorite is "cendol" which is a kind of ice drinking. It's the most popular and common dessert. It is usually made of ice shave, red beans, green tube-like jelly (pandan leaves + rice flour) and palm sugar sauce. I love this dessert because it's so tasty! The palm sugar and the red beans were so sweet, the pandan jelly were smooth and perfume, plus the cold ice shave, it was awesome! I even couldn't stop eating the cendol! I could tell, this is the best dessert ever.

Malaysia is in the torrid zone which makes Malaysia full of tropical products like fruits, vegetables and also including spices. Yes! There is a famous tropical spice garden in Penang which has over 500 different kinds of spices, and I had just visited it. Just passed the gate, you can smell the perfume that from the plants. Before my mom and I could officially visit the spice garden, the ticket-guy told us to cover our skin with a special mosquito repellent, it actually smells good, like lemon or something. After that, the ticket-guy told us to follow a tour guide, Now, our spice trip had finally started. We were not the only followers of the guide, there were several foreigners, too. The guide first taught us about the lemongrass and led us smell it, and the perfume is the same as the mosquito repellent, maybe the repellent is made of lemongrass. Then, we stopped at the "Spices Globe", but frankly speaking, my mind wasn't on the globe, but the spice plate right below the globe. There were cinnamon, pepper (First time I knew pepper is a kind of spice) , aniseed, clove and 5 types of gingers. These spices are very common in China, even today the Chinese are still using it, but when I ask mom, mom said that she didn't know any plants that in the plate except the most general ginger... Another interesting fact that I learned from the guide is when the mosquito bites you, if you have no any reactions, that means you are unhealthy because your defense system is not working. Well, if this theory is correct, that means I seemed pretty healthy now because after a mosquito bites me, my skin will stick up a bit... To make long story short, the adventure of the tropical spice garden was really great!!!

Penang Hill, one of the famous places in Penang. The mountain is 830m high, not very high, but it's much cooler than on the ground. Mom and I planned to visit it at the first day of trip, both of us were very exciting and we hoped a lot, especially the cable car through from the bottom of the mountain to the top. But, we were wrong! The funicular train hasn't fixed yet. The ticket-guy said that the train will be fixed at May, if you are unable to take the train, the only way you can get to the top is walking on your foot for 5km, and even not straight road but twisted mountain path. We decided we were not gonna walking 5km, so at last, we left the Penang Hill sadly, and I really hope the funicular train will be fixed before next time we come to Penang Hill.

The trip was finally over even though this trip and Penang was really fantastic. But, I took lots of photos during the trip, I hope I can remember the whole trip while I watching these pictures. Good-bye, Penang!

My New Settlement

Topography
Peninsula
I would look for a peninsula for my new settlement because the peninsula is near the sea, it must have plentiful of sea sources such as fishes, shells, sea birds... And people could hunt them for food. The peninsula is more than 3 sides reach the sea, it is also easy for traveling, people can make boats and ships to visit family and go to another land and go trading with other people. This is very helpful for advancing economy and religion. Another good thing is that the peninsula is still connecting with the mainland. Then it can advance with main land together.

Plains
I will also look for a plain for my settlement. Plain is a big and flat area that almost only grass grows on it, so we could use the plain as the farm and grow crops on it. Then we will have a stable food supply! The people can having food that are not import from other country.

Water
Ocean
I will look for a place that have a ocean around it because the ocean is so important to humans! First, ocean provides food: shells, fishes, crabs... all of them you can find in ocean. Second, the ocean around the whole planet so that we can travel by boat or ship in water to visit family, travel to anywhere you want, and also trade with other people. It helps a lot on economy and religion. The ocean gives humans a lot but we can't drink sea water, because it's salty and bitter, drink sea water only can make you need more water.

Spring
I said that the ocean water cannot drink, but spring can. The spring can be a healthy drinking because it already filtered by the layers of ground, and it also have the minerals in the ground. It also can be used for farming (irrigate the crops). Don't worry the spring will gone after using it, when it's raining, the rain will go into deep of the ground and fill in the spring, but we still cannot use spring too much because if we use too much spring, the ground will crash because there's nothing to support the ground, the sea water will also coming and make the spring salty and unable to drink.

Vegetation
Mangroves
The mangroves are the most important vegetation I think. Because first, they can produce oxygen, they filter the CO2 to the oxygen which all humans need to survive. Second, the mangroves can produce food. Human can't eat mangroves but humans can eat the the animals that live in the mangroves like: crabs, lizards, birds... Third, mangroves can prevent flooding and tsunami. The mangroves grows cross together like a wall to protect flooding and tsunami perfectly, and their roots grows in ground very deep like anchor so that the soil will never lose when flooding.

Forests
The forests are also important factor that humans, same as the mangroves, the forests can also produce oxygen, produce food (well, the animals that living in the forest are little different than the animals that living in the mangroves: tigers, boars...) . But, there are still some difference between the forests and mangroves: the forests can provide wood, humans can make tools, boats, baskets from the wood. Humans can make fire with wood.

My Cristmas Holiday

After a round exciting studying and funning in the school, the Christmas holiday is coming. But, the holiday wasn’t as good as it in my mind.

It’s so cold in China, every day was 0-5 degrees. Walking on the way home, there’re only few people on the street, even the people on the street were wearing heavy and thick clothes, gloves and masks. Walking on the bridge, I saw there’s a thick layer of white ice cover the water. Back home, I switch on two heavy coats, one fat winter-coat outside and two long jeans underneath.

Next day morning, I woke up until the sun goes in the middle of the sky, but I still stay in the bed, the bed was so warm and soft and comfortable! I really want to stay in the bed forever.

But in next two weeks, I play badminton with my grandma everyday in a park, it always make me sweat like and I always have no energy to even walking! But, it doesn’t make me lose my fat, because after my sports, I would be the fat and lazy “coach potato”: eating snack, drinking juice and lay on the bed for watching TV…

Ok, this is all of my holiday, how was yours?

Is My Country A Civilization ?

STABLE FOOD SUPPLY

China has enough food to every people. The farm produced vegetable and meat to people. Now in china, scientists invented a new way to plant crops: no-earth planting, this is actually put the plants in a special kind of liquid, the liquid provide the plants all the nutrition they need, and often the crops will have more fruits and taste more delicious than the normal planting.

SOCIAL STRUCTURE

In China, the people who have the most Right is the President and the government officials. They make laws and make people follow the laws to let the society in order. Those people lived in the most magnificent houses and they are the richest people. next is common class, the people who work in the company and factories,  they live in the big fine houses. The last level is farmers, fisherman. They work in farm and rivers to farming and fishing to provide food. They live in the simple and crude houses on the edge of the city.

GOVERNMENT

In my country, The PRC state council, namely the Central People's government, is the highest state authority's execution organ, is the highest state administrative organ, by various premier, vice-premier, the state councilor, each minister, and chairmen, the people who have most Right is the president: Wen Jiabao, next to the president is the prime president: Li Keqiang, Hui Liangyu, Wang Qishan...

RELIGION

China is a multi-religion country. There are 5 biggest religion that people believe: Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Christianity. Buddhism had been in China for 2000  years ago. Taoism started in China, it had been in China for 1700 years ago. Islam spread into China at 7th century, Islam is Hui and Uygur minority's beliefs, these minority has about 18 million people. Catholicism spread into China at 7th century, too. Christianity spread into China at about 19th century, and spread massively after the Opium War.These different religions also take many festival to China: Chinese new year, Christmas, etc. Different religion also make China more interesting.  

TECHNOLOGY

First, I must thanks the transportation, it makes people's journey easily, faster and even more comfortable: subway, airplane, cars... and so on. Second is Internet, by surfing the internet, we can look picture, article, listen music, play music, even you can chatting with people who is in another country! The internet just like a magic box, we can got anythings we want and do anythings we want! The Three-Gorge Dam is the biggest hydroelectric power station, it provided so much electricity power to every house.

 
THE ARTS

A famous form of art of China is called paper-cuts, you fold a round paper in to a small triangle, use scissors to cut shapes on the paper, and, you finished! It looks like so beautiful and it's easy to make. Another important art is Dragon dance, dragon dance is many people hide in a dragon clothes and run and jump, it looks like a real dragon, often people dragon dance when there is a festival like Chinese new year. Oh, I almost forget another form of Chinese arts: Wash. It's a Chinese own drawing skill, artist always draw the things just near them like flowers and chicks, but, the drawing just like the true things.

WRITING

The Chinese writing is the most important thing of The Chinese culture The Chinese letters are actually very hard to write, but there are some basic unit to write like: heng, shu, pie, na and dian.