A thousand pounds

A young man was finishing a meal at a restaurant. A young woman wearing dark glasses approached with a parcel under her arm. She sat down at the man’s table and whispered: ”How would you like to earn a thousand pounds?”

The man had not noticed her until she began speaking since he was eager to finish his delicious fish soup. He picked up a white napkin from the table and wiped the corners of his mouth. ”Yes of course” the man shouted out sarcastically. 

The woman gave him an angry look, clenched her jaw, fake smiled and then said: ”I’ll see you soon I hope” at the same time as she handed him a closed envelope. She stood up, nodded towards the man and slowly walked out of the restaurant without looking back.

The man quickly rounded up his visit at the restaurant and walked out with his jacket in one hand and the envelope in the other. Just outside of the restaurant he nervously opened the envelope. It was a list with things he was supposed to do to earn the money. He read it out loud ”Number one- throw ALL of your clothes in a dust-bin, number two- walk naked trough the city to the harbor, number three- meet me at the harbor 10 pm sharp, and don’t be late.” Only this and I’ll be rich? This must be the best day of my life, thought the man. 

A girl standing a couple of meters away looked at him and giggled. The man gave her a creepy look and said: ”I’m going to be rich”. 

It occurred to the man that it all was strange, the woman randomly choosing him to give the list to, the part about him walking naked, the harbor and a thousand pounds, but he was way too excited to get the money to think about the possibility that he could be fooled with. 

After only a minute of searching he found a dust-bin where he instantly threw all his clothes without a doubt. After burying his clothes in the dust-bin he looked at a big clock at the wall next to him and realized he only had fifteen minutes to get to the harbor. He started running. Luckily for the man there were not a lot of people out since it was late in the evening. After a couple of minutes running he saw some of his friends, they were talking and laughing loudly until they saw him. In only an instance they all went quiet. The man felt ashamed for a second but quickly remembered al the money he was going to get and kept running whilst waving at his friends. After he had ran around a corner his friends all started laughing hysterically whilst questioning themselves for ever being friends with a man like him. 

When he finally arrived he saw the woman standing in front of two big black cars. He was sweating, even though it was pretty cold and he wasn’t wearing anything at all. She waved happily and made a gesture that told him to come closer. He did as she pleased, as he had done the entire night. She examined him slowly from his toes to his head then said: ”You did great” she made a brief break and then she said ”For that you shall be rewarded”. The man smiled and said ”Yes, thank you, where’s the parcel?”. She turned around and looked at one of the black cars, one of the windows slowly rolled down and inside sat a man with dark glasses and a black suit. He reached the same parcel that the woman had carried earlier out the window. The woman grabbed it and gently gave it to the man, who was still naked. She said ”goodbye” and then started to giggle. The man in the car giggled as well and rolled his window up. Both of the cars drove away and the man was left with nothing but the parcel. 

He sat down on a bench and slowly opened the parcel, his heart was beating fast. When he finally could lay his eyes on what was on the inside of the parcel it was nothing that delighted him. Inside were no money, no check, no cash, no pay card or nothing even similar to money. Instead there was a book with the name ”a thousand pounds”. 

/ A short story written by me for "Spyken English"

Al, the end or not the end, of humanity

Introduction-

The world is developing faster and faster and now it´s even possible to have self driven cars, face recognition, industrial robots, missile guidance and tumor detection. These are all complex real world problems that are solved all thanks to Artificial Intelligence. 

But with all good things comes bad and in this case that is the danger of AI. There are a lot of bad and frightening things about it and here the bad things outdo the good things, that´s why I claim that AI is in fact the end of humanity.

2. Firstly, there is a big possibility that the development of Al will destroy millions of jobs. That is since the robots will be able to do a lot of jobs quicker and more efficient than a lot of us humans would ever be able to do. The companies would not have to pay them any salaries either which is one of the top reasons that most companies would replace their employees with robots within an instance.

This would mean that a lot more people all around the world would get unemployed and there would not be any other jobs for them to do either since so many of the jobs would have been replaced by robots. An example for that is all the taxi- and truck drivers who would get unemployed if self driven cars were to be used more extensive.

One of the worst parts about Artificial Intelligence is also one of the best ones. That is that computers and robots can be programed into doing almost anything. The greatness of this is that it can help us improve our lives and make a lot of things easier, such as working in industries, fighting cancer and guiding missiles during wars.

But this can also be used to manipulate computer systems and make the wrong people get access to information they are not supposed to have access to. The part about missile guidance is also something that can be used against the good. For example in wars the missile guidance most likely will be used from both parties fighting. This in its turn will probably lead to more death since the missiles will be even more precise than they are today. So the development of this wont only be a positive thing.

3. The future with AI is very uncertain. There is no proof that it will only lead to good things or the other way around. But a lot of people say that it possibly could destroy humanity completely. So going further with this would be reckless and the opposite of what would be right. We do not quite know what will happen if a machine exceeds the human intelligence, and therefor we cannot know if it will help us or destroy us. The uncertainty of this is a risk not worth taking. And if we take it and the results are not what we hoped for there will be no turning back, and our chances of becoming what we once were will be completely gone.

Even if AI would help improve all of our lives extremely much, the risks of it are not worth it. Improving AI even further will lead to less job opportunities and therefor a lot of more unemployment all around the world. It will also lead us into an uncertain future since we are not aware of the concequeces of developing AI further. 

Now we should all be more aware of what the consequences for AI might be and not only listen to all the great things we hear about it. And all of us should work for a better future together, a future not including AI.

Traditions

NP engelska text om traditioner i USA jämfört med Sverige

Two of my favourite traditions are Christmas and birthdays. Christmas has made it to my top list since you eat really nice food, like meatballs, saucages, eggs and herring. You also get Christmas presents and get to spend time with your family and relatives which I really enjoy. 

I like birthdays a lot as well, not only my own birthday, but everyones birthdays. I think they are great fun and on your own birthday you feel very important and appreciated, you get gifts and perhaps you throw a party for your friends or family.

Traditions are important to me because I get to see my relatives on many of them and they contain fun activities that brings me joy.

Many of the traditions around the world are religious and a lot of people think it is very important to celebrate them to honor their religion in different ways. I on the other hand only celebrate cause it brings me joy in different ways, but there are many different reasons to why people celebrate customs and traditions. 

I think we should carry on celebrating Christmas since it is a very old and nice tradition that should not be removed. I also think we should continue celebrating Halloween because it truly is a fun and special tradition. Less important to carry on would be Valborg. I do not think it is very fun and it does not bring me equally as much joy as some other traditions does. I also do not think that cinnamonroll day, pancake day and waffle day are very important and it would not matter to me if they disappeared. I do enjoy eating the certain things on each of their special days, but I think it is stupid to have days for such nonsense when there are much more important things to celebrate. Things like memorial days for people who has made a positive difference. For example Martin Luther King day.

I have heard of traditions celebrated in other parts of the world that I really would like to participate in. One of them is Holi. Holi is an Indian tradition that celebrates the arrival of the spring. People go outside and throw powdered color at eachother. It all ends up with everyone looking like rainbows or flower bouqets from head to toes. It might be the happiest tradition that I have ever heard of. 

I would also like to participate in Thanksgiving at some point of my life. It is a tradition celebrated in America where your entire family comes together to eat turkey and potatoes, amongst other things. It is a day to remember how thankful you should be of everything you have such as your family, friends or well being. I would like to celebrate it since it raises awareness of how lucky you are and I want my whole family to know how much I appreciate them. 

In Sweden we celebrate Midsummer. It is a tradition where you wear a flowercrown on your head, dance weird dances around a high pole dressed in flowers and eat traditional food, almost exactly the same as on christmas. A lot of people that does not celebrate midsummer does not understand it and thinks it is a really weird tradition. I do not blame them, but I can not say that I do not enjoy it.

Kajsa & Wilma- USA movie

This movie was originally made when I was in 8th grade, 2015/2016 but I did not post it until now.

Filmen

John Lennon is dead, news report

Crash movie- Christine

Christine

Personality: Christine is a very calm and relaxed woman and she has a good sense of humor. She is very nice to the people who are nice to her, but if someone treats her the wrong way she will not accept it. She is also very strong and stands up for what is right. 

Looks: Christine is dark-skinned, has long brown hair, but she usually wears it in a pony and she is skinny. 

Life story/ racism and prejudice in her life: Christine is married to a guy named Cameron, he is also dark-skinned and they probably share almost the same life story.

Christines life story is very characterized by her skin color so since she is dark-skinned racism has haunted her for all of her life. She must have gone through a lot of situations where her skin color put her in uncomfortable situations and in a lot of problems. Since she has been treated so bad a lot of times she is quite used to it and does not let it go by easily. So she argues with everyone who treats her bad because of her skin-color. 

What she learned through the film: Through the film Christine learned that the fight of her human rights are not always in order and that her life as and not white woman is extremely hard compared to a white woman. This she learned when an officer investigated her excessively much, in private areas when she and her husband got pulled over by police, though they had done nothing wrong. When the officer did this she got very upset, sad and most of all angry with her husband who did not defend her. 

She also learned that some of the people who are extremely racist might only be to make themselves feel better, just like some bullies do. This is the case of the officer who laid his hands on Christine without actual permission. He did so because Christine and her husband was dark-skinned and he wanted to show his power as a cop. Later when Christine was in a bad car accident the same police officer found her and pulled her out of the car, which saved her life. This was because the officer felt guilt for what he previously had done and now he wanted to make it up to her. That showed that he actually had some sympathy and compassion. This did not mean she completely forgave him, and it did not mean he was not racist at all.

Thought about Christine: I think Christine is a very clever and nice person. I also like the fact that she is so confident, even though she haas been put through so much, and has the guts to stand up for whats right in situations where a lot of people would not. 

BRANDED w.4- Discussion leader

White hat- Information, facts

In the book there is a group of sisters that are all authors. One of them has written the book Withering Heights that Glens class read in school. She comes from Haworth and there are a lot of things named after her, like a bridge and a waterfall. What is her name?

Emily Brontë

Yellow hat- Optimism, something positive

After the trip to Haworth Glen felt more safe being at home. He felt like he could go out and do things a lot more without the constant need of worrying. How could this improve his life and make it easier? (179)

Black hat- negative

Minnie Cooper decided to quit her job since she finally realized that it didn´t do her any good. She did it on a very short notice and had no backup plan. What could go wrong in her life after that? (178)

Red hat- Feelings/emotions

Glen/Dale went back to get Minnie Cooper safe when she was stuck in the cold with almost no clothes to keep her warm. He found her and they got into a small house or cottage and Glen made sure they both got some heath. Without Glens help Minnie would´ve never survived. How do you think she felt? (167-177)

Green hat- Creativity

When it´s christmas eve a song comes on that reminds Anna about Gav. She starts crying and scares Kayleigh. What should the family do about Gav? Should they try to forget him and everything that has happened so they can live a normal life again or should they keep worrying about him? (179-180)

Blue hat- Thinking process

When Minnie woke up the day after getting saved by Dale she was very thankful and forgot all about her actual mission before the accident happened. She no longer wanted to expose and put Dales family in the spotlight. How was it possible for Minnie to change her opinion that drastically? 

banter- skämt

deflect- avleda

scribbling- klotter

cairn- röse, stenkummel

telltale signs- varningstecken

inadequacy- olämplighet

staggering- raglande, vinglig

cleft- klyfta, skreva

snigger- fnissa

flounce- rusa

shivering- rysa, darra

barmy- knäpp, tokig

prat- tönt, fåne

obliterate- stryka ut, utplåna, ta bort

Intermittently- stötvis, med jämna mellanrum

biased- partisk, ensidig

blizzard- snöstorm

padlock- hänglås

murmur- mumla

cubicles- bås, sovhytt

I tried to deflect him, but he kept asking me all of these questions.

He was acting very strange but no one saw the telltale signs early enough to stop him from doing those terrible things.

The teacher didn´t know how to pronounce the word and the whole class sniggered.

When he got out of the water you could see he was shivering.

Only a barmy would say those things.

When the teacher tried to solve the problem he was very biased and there was no democracy.

If there´s a blizzard outside, I recommend you to stay inside.

There were two doors and they were locked together with a padlock.

After I was shot I fell to the ground and everybody's voices just sounded like murmur.

During the lesson the students were bored and some of them did scribbling in their books.

BRANDED w.3 summarizer

Minnie waited for Anna outside the prison whilst she was visiting Gav, but since Anna came out later than all the other visitors she noticed that there was only one car left in the parking lot and that when she started to drive, it followed her. She went on a small road that led to a dead end, turned around and continued driving and even after that the car followed her. When she saw it again on the ferry she was sure that it was a journalist stalking her to figure out where Anna and her family had gone. 

She let down the tires on the car so she would be able to flee.

After this the whole family were very paranoid. 

Whenever Glen saw a white Polo, which was the car that had followed his mom, or just a white car he looked inside the car to see if the person in the drivers seat looked suspicious and then stopped to let the car pass him.

Glen went to the club to get some new friends but most of all to get Sally´s attention and he got it. They danced together, and then he got to follow her and her friends to the chill out room for some drinks. After a while they all started to laugh at him when he asked Sally why she sat with Victor when she had just told everyone that the two of them were there together. They mocked him and it turned into a fight, which ended with Glen getting kicked out of the club.

Glen and his class went to Haworth where he used to live on a school trip. He was afraid that someone might recognize him and told his parents and Rolf, but they all said that it would just draw more attention to him if he didn´t go at all. 

Nobody recognized him until they were going to cross the street and the lollipop lady stood there. She knew almost every kid at the school and especially Glen/Dale after the incident with Gav. 

After they had crossed the street Glen thought he had made it without her noticing, but then Hawthorne asked him why that lady gave him such an angry look whilst passing her. Glen freaked out but acted like it was nothing.

The lady didn´t know what school he went to but she knew that his class were living in a motel in town at the moment. She called the journalist Minnie Cooper that she had talked to about the family earlier.

BRANDED w.2 character tracer

Rolf is Glens/Danes counsellor. He´s about thirty years old, bald and wears jogging kit. 

Rolf is a very trustworthy person and Glen feels like he can say anything to him and be sure it won´t go any further, even though it took him a while to come to that point. 

He can tell him anything about his life, his thoughts and his concerns, and Rolf doesn´t laugh or tell him that theres something wrong with him even though a lot of people probably would say there is at that point.

Rolf seems to be a very calm and relaxed person since he just sits there to listen at what Glen has to say, he doesn´t make any input until afterwards and he lets Glen speak until he feels like he´s got it all out and the he responds. Doing that makes Glen feel that he actually cares about what he´s saying. 

He gives the feeling of safety, relaxation and comfort. Glen even expresses that talking to him feels like listening to the sea, which is a very relaxing and comforting sound to most people.

There are not a lot of things that could possibly make him angry or send him up the wall as Glen says.

He also seems to be smart, well educated and a lot of a thinker. He asked a lot of good questions for Glen to answer, questions that even made him think and reconsider his way of seeing things. This meant that he in some way understood Glens situation which not a lot of people would do since it´s a very rare situation. 

Every time Glen was finished talking he just sat there for a while to process what he had just heard and then said what he wanted to say, which were very interesting and smart thoughts. 

Having a profession like a counsellor or therapist you have to be very present, professional, serious and caring, which Rolf really is. 

He is very involved in the conversation and makes sure Glen´s thoughts are handled the right way. 

He is very serious when he answers Glen and he takes everything he says seriously instead of just letting it pass, which some people would´ve done.

All of these traits make him a very good counsellor which means he is very good at what he´s doing and can really make people feel better and have a good impact on peoples lives. 

Mojo- Growth mindset

Season 1/Episode 4

1 What are neurons and how do we make connections between our neurons?

Neurons are tiny bits in your brain. Whenever they connect they send out electrical signals back and forth. Id it wasn´t for these neurons we wouldn´t be capable to doing anything at all. Whenever we do a movement or have a thought these neurons connect.

To make new connections we have to try new things and challenge ourselves.

2 Think of an example where you made some new connections in your brain. What were you doing?

Everyday in school I learn new exciting things and at those times i make new connections.

Also whenever I try a new movement or learn to do something new with my body, like when I learned to bike orwhen I learned different movements in handball.

What can you do this week to make some new connections? Set one specific goal.

I wan´t to learn some new words while reading so therefor i will read a book or something similar to that.

Extra task 2: Translate these sentences from the first episode.a Nothing made sense any longer.

Inget är logiskt längre.b Mojo had a devastating thought.

Mojo hade en förödande tanke.c The only reasonable thing to do was to pack his things and leave for ever.

Den enda tänkbara saken att göra var att packa hans saker och sticka för alltid.d I have no choice.

Jag har inget val.e You're either born smart or you're not.

Du är antingen född smart eller så är du det inte.f It's ridiculous!

Det är löjligt.g They discovered an incredible secret.

De upptäckte en otrolig hemlighet.

Season 1/Episode 51.What does it feel like when something is too challenging? Is it wrong that we feel this way?
It feels bad and you get very sad and lose all the motivation you had to do it. It also feels like you´re stupid and don´t understand anything.
2.What kind of attitude should we take on when facing a challenge, and why is that important?
We should be very positive and have a good attitude. If you enter a hard project thinking you won´t make it and that you only will screw things up it won´t go well. But if you enter it thinking that it will go great and that you´re very good at it and so on it will go a lot better.
It´s important because if you tell yourself that you´re bad at it and that it will never work your self-esteem will sink to the bottom and you won´t ever believe in yourself and in the fact that you'regrat at different things. 

3.When taking on a challenge, it's okay to ask for help or to take a break to reflect, like Mojo did! Does this mean we aren't growing our brain anymore?

No it does´t, because if we ask for help from a friend that helps us, that might teach us something. If our friend knows something I don´t and tells me about it, then I learn it. And every time I learn something my neurons are connecting and my brain is growing.

Season 2/ Episode 1

1 What is a dip? 

A dip is when you are going to do a project and you start off very motivated and excited but then after a while you get stuck. When you get stuck and the motivation and excitement disappear you are in the dip.

2 Where/what situations might we encounter a dip in? 

When I write on a project and at the beginning I have a good flow and I know what I´m doing. But after a while I can´t find anymore information and I don´t know how to continue the writing to make it good. Then I´m in the Dip stage.

3 What kind of emotions accompany a dip, and how can we

stay positive?

Some of the emotions that might appear when we are in the dip are sadness, anger and you might feel hopeless.

To stay positive you have to keep trying to make things work and get back on the right path. 

To do that you might have to restart some things. For example if you are writing on a project and you get stuck you find some new sources and maybe rewrite some things to make it easier to keep going.

Season 2/Episode 2

1.What should you do when you make a mistake? 

You should stop to reflect on what went wrong. If you can see what you did wrong and how you can make it better the next time your neurons will connect and your brain will grow.2.What will happen if you continue to repeat this process? Try using the word "neuron" in your explanation! 

If you continue to use this process your brain will grow. Because every time you stop to reflect on your mistakes your neurons connect and makes the brain grow.3.So how do we escape the dip?

To escape the dip, which is the stage you´re in when you don´t know what to do, you have to see what´s wrong. Instead of just getting frustrated and sad over the fact that you can´t move forward you have to stop, think about what went wrong and make it right again. Maybe you have to restart or just make a small fix.

1.How does it feel to escape the dip? Can you have more than one dip? 

It feels great to escape the dip. It´s a great relief and you get very happy. You also get new motivation to continue the project instead of giving up. 

Of course there is a possibility of being in a dip more than once. But when you´ve figured out how to get out of the dip once, it gets easier to do it the second time.
2.Often we want to be the best at what we are doing. Instead of comparing our success with others, what kind of attitude can we have? 

Instead of seeing why we aren´t the best we should se what was good with our project. 

What did I do good this time? What has improved since the last time I did this? What do I have to be proud of? And how can I keep getting better?
3.In the video, Mojomus Edison says that failing is "learning new ways to improve." What does that mean?

It means that when you do something bad or make a mistake it shows you how you can do it better. Because when you fail you know that what you did wasn't good and that you should´t do it again so instead you do something different the next time. That means you've improved since you´re not making the same mistake twice.