EmilyD

My Autobiography
My name is Emily. I was born on March 11, 1990 in Woodstock, New Brunswick. I have two biological brothers, Danny and Devon, and I have a stepbrother named Corey and a stepsister named Stephanie. My younger brothers are 16 and 13. My stepbrother is 22 and my stepsister is 26. My sister lives in St. John with her boyfriend and her daughter, my neice who i absolutely adore. My mom and dad got divorced when I was 7, and they both got together with other people. My mom met a man named Jim and they are currently engaged. My dad met a woman named Maggie and they were married in March of last year. I lived with my mom after the divorce, for three years, but then I moved in with my dad for a year and a half. I moved in with my mom until 4 years ago, when i moved back with my dad for the last time. I spent two years living in Fredericton, during 4th and 7th grade. My best friend is also my cousin, Kate. I'm very close to her and her brother and sister, and my aunt Elaine. I have a very large family. There are 7 aunts and uncles on my mom's side, plus their respective spouses. Between them, there are 27 first cousins and 3 second cousins. On my dad's side, there are 3 aunts and uncles, plus there respective spouses. Between them, there are 8 cousins. I live with my dad and my stepmom and my dog, Ben. My email address is

On Friday, we had a guest speaker who came from the Toybox Charity. She talked to us about street Children and the injustices they endure. It was definitely an eye-opener, and it made me really appreciate all that I have. The children have been forced or pulled to the streets for various reasons and they starve, are beaten, and are often killed. Some children are forced to the streets by being orphaned, while some are lured by the thought of freedom. Once on the streets, they try to make a living to survive, but their efforts are endlessly hindered by police officers and various store owners, who will beat the children and take their goods. It is a horrible situation and I hope we can do something in class to help those children. Dear Miss Menchu, I think that you're efforts to help Indian peasants are very wonderful. You have accomplished many things in your years and you deserve many congratulations. I am very sorry to hear about your unfortunate childhood and I'm sure youve become a better person for it. Emily
 * Journal #1**
 * Journal #2**

I have been reading a few articles on injustice involving youth, particularly about a few that caught my eye. This article is about an incident that happened in 1884, so it is fairly old, but it is still quite relevant. It has been researched extensively, and it is about Louie Sam, an aboriginal boy who, at the age of 14, was hung. In 1884, a mob of 100 American men stormed across the Washington-British Columbia border and kidnapped Sam from a constable and hung him in a nearby tree. The men were dressed in their wive's frocks and were wearing aboriginal ceremonial paint. They were loking for Louie Sam, from the sto:lo band, because he was accused of the murder of James Bell. James Bell was a shopkeeper who was murdered, his shop was burned down and $100 worth of gold coins was stolen from him. This tragedy is a defining moment for the Sto:lo First Nation. Canadian authority strongly suggests that Sam was innocent, claiming that the two lead members of the lynch mob, William Osterman and David Hawkerness, were responsible for the death of James Bell. Both men were white, which suggests that this was a racial injustice.
 * Journal #3**

The other article I read was about street children in Kenya. They, like othe street children, face similar problems as those in other parts of the world. These children face abuse, money extortion, and sexual abuse from adults and even police officers, simply because they have no responsible adults to take care of them. They are arrested often simply because they are street children. Once arrested, they are hassled through the law system and indefinitely placed in centers called "approved schools", juvenile detention systems, and sometimes adults prisons where they are abused more and more. Upwards of 40 000 street children live on Kenya today. I think it is horrible that all these children live on the streets with the police being horrible. Police are there to protect, not abuse.


 * Journal #4**
 * V. Bullying from the perpetrator’s point of view**

This article is about a woman recounting her experiences as a bully. She tells how she was bullied by two girls, and then she made friends with some other girls and started to bully one of her old friends. I am fortunate never to have been really bullied in a way that has shaped the person I am now, or even to have memories of being bullied. However, since this article is focused on female bullying, it reminded me of a book I once read of the same topic. It stated that in general, women tend to focus more on the emotional side of abuse, as opposed to the physical side. As this story told, this particular girl’s story mirrored what I read in the book. This girl ostracized her friend, and did everything in her power to lower her self esteem, which is often the goal with bullying between females.


 * II. Homophobic Bullying**

This article is about homophobic bullying. It happens to a guy when he is in tenth grade in 1995. He switches to public school and he broke up with his girlfriend to go out with a guy from another town. He only told four people, and they told other people. From that day on, he was verbally harassed and physically abused, and even his family was harassed. He had to stop going to his locker and the bathroom so as not to be found alone. This article reminded me of something that happened to a friend of mine earlier this year. He is gay and he was assaulted by another student just for being gay. He had to go to the hospital and make an emergency orthodontic appointment. Fortunately, he didn’t need to stay at the hospital for a long time. This was a severe injustice, and the student who caused it was punished. These two incidents are similar, except for the fact that our school has a really good support system for gays and lesbians.


 * IV. Cyber Bullying**

Cyber bullying is one of the newest forms of bullying that has emerged along with the internet. Two girls were charged after an incident where a threat was made over the internet towards another girl. The two girls, aged 14 and 13, threatened a girl with murder. 15 other students were investigated but only the two girls were charged. Both girls were charged with 15 counts of threatening each and also charged with conspiracy to commit murder. One of the girls is also charged with assault with an undisclosed weapon. With the up rise of the internet and technology, today’s youth have the means to communicate 24/7, which would make it easier to verbally abuse or threaten other people, without even looking them in the face. This is definitely something that our parents wouldn’t have experienced, because the internet and message boards didn’t exist with their generation.


 * I. General Bullying**

This article is about a student who started secondary school by pushing a girl who pushed her, thinking it was a joke, and then was physically and emotionally abused by a group of girls and eventually was bullied by a boy. Rumors were circulated; and she was stalked, and called repeatedly. This girl’s parents tried to help her and they made many efforts with the school to stop the bullying, to no avail. The school didn’t believe them and blamed the girl. Some of the girls who abused this girl were expelled and punished for other things, but not once did the school believe that this girl was innocent. This was an injustice that happened to a girl and the school system should have taken the time to hear both side’s accounts and settled the matter from there, but they only heard one side and punished one. It was unfair and the school should have at least apologized. It is very disturbing to see something like this happen in a school system.

This incident involves a young Muslim student who is spit on, assaulted, and called a Terrorist. The girl’s hijab is pulled off her head, and pushing and shoving follow the incident to the extent that teachers have to break up the fight. The girl wants to go home, where she feels safe to practice her religion, without being assaulted. Incidents such as this show just how intolerant people still are. Society has made progress towards a more tolerant, liberal culture, but there is still a long way to go. I am completely disturbed by this. No one should be afraid to go to school because someone might hurt them. I am not personally affiliated with any religions, but I think that everyone has the right and free will to practice whatever religion they so choose, without being disrespected for it.
 * III. Religious Bullying**

Discussion Question #1 In Canada, women have basically all the same rights as men. They are allowed to do anything and everything men are, but some things aren’t completely socially accepted, such as women working in a place where mainly men work. But for the most part, men and women have equal rights.
 * Wednesday, April 18, 2007**

I think that being suspended for a whole year because this kid tried to do his project. I agree that there should be a zero-tolerance policy for weapons, but this was just a toy he wanted to bring to show his class. If he was playing with it or threatening people or something like that, it would be a different story. The gun was in his book bag and he shouldn’t be punished. I think that there should not be a zero tolerance policy, instead they should look at every individual case and judge based on the offense. This isn’t fair to the kid at all, and you know there’s something wrong with American society when you can’t even bring something for show and tell, even if it looks like it could be a weapon.
 * Friday, April 20, 2007**


 * 1) Conflict Diamonds May 9, 2007**


 * when Jusu Lahia was 15 years old, he was wounded by an exploding rocket-propelled grenade
 * Thousands of victims of a war fought for control of one of the world's most precious commodities: a fortune in raw diamonds that have made their way from the deadly jungles of Sierra Leone onto the rings and necklaces of happy lovers the world over.
 * Over the course of the decade-long war, the rebels have mutilated some 20,000 people, hacking off their arms, legs, lips, and ears with machetes and axes.
 * The international diamond industry's trading centers in Europe funded this horror by buying up to $125 million worth of diamonds a year from the RUF, according to U.N. estimates
 * Local citizens were left to fend for themselves against bloodthirsty and drugged child soldiers
 * most of the RUF'S goods were smuggled out of Sierra Leone and sold into the mainstream from neighboring countries.
 * Despite many meetings, the panel failed to reach a consensus on how to end the trade in blood diamonds
 * Throughout the 1990s, children like Jusu Lahia armed themselves with diamond-purchased AK-47s and, under the nose of the United Nations, helped the rebels sell the gems to terrorists
 * People had their hands chopped off by RUF units and were sent wandering hopelessly to spread the message of terror
 * It is no stretch to say that Sierra Leone disintegrated during the 1990s into a murderous sinkhole of death and torture, all of it fueled by the sale of diamonds to respectable merchants throughout the world.


 * 2) Fair Trade Coffee May 9, 2007**


 * Most of those premiums never reach the coffee farmer, but rather stay in the hands of the exporter. This creates a disincentive for farmers to increase their quality, as they do not receive the direct benefits of increased investment in producing better coffee.
 * Coffee is an extremely powerful commodity; the global commodity chain for coffee involves a string of producers, middlemen, exporters, importers, roasters, and retailers before reaching the consumer.
 * Conditions for coffee workers on large plantations vary widely, but most are paid the equivalent to sweatshop wages and toil under abysmal working conditions. In Guatemala for example, coffee pickers have to pick a 100-pound quota in order to get the minimum wage of less than $3/day.
 * Because of this situation, many coffee workers bring their children to help them in the fields in order to pick the daily quota. These child workers are not officially employed and therefore not subject to labor protections. While children in most rural families work at an earlier age than urban children, a February 4 investigative report by ABC-affiliate KGO television in San Francisco revealed children as young as 6 or 8 years old at work in the fields.
 * Working conditions on these plantations are harsh; as migrant farm workers, many workers sleep in temporary shelters with rows of bunk beds. Many times they cook, wash and bathe from the same water source.


 * 3) Letter**

Dear Mr. Allen,

I am an 11th grade student at Woodstock High School, and I and writing to you with concerns about the issue of conflict diamonds in Canada. Everyday, families are separated, children are killed or brainwashed to kill others for the sake of getting a cheaper price for diamonds. Some 20 000 citizens have been mutilated, having arms legs, lips, and ears with machetes and axes to scare other citizens. Thousands are shot and killed everyday, all just to keep the blood diamonds in circulation.

Diamonds are a big industry. People spend millions and billions every year buying jewels for their loved ones, oblivious to the fact that man people die to bring them this luxury. People generally know nothing about conflict diamonds. They don’t know that people lose their lives over diamonds. They don’t know that children are brainwashed to become slaves to help the rebels keep the blood diamonds in circulation, and they don’t know that no one tried to do anything about it for years, because it “wasn’t their problem”.

Fortunately, there is more awareness about where our diamonds come from, and there is the option to get conflict free. I don’t think that’s good enough, I want all diamonds to be conflict free. I want everyone to work to get to a point where people don’t have to die, where children aren’t drugged and brainwashed, and to the point where those in Sierra Leone, can feel safe living where they are and don’t feel the need to move their families to stay alive. Diamonds are a privilege and a luxury, not a need or a necessity.

This is a big job, and requires a lot of fine tuning to make sure everyone benefits and no one has to die for something we can easily live without. There should be a law against conflict diamonds, and people should work together to make sure that all diamonds are conflict free. We could start by seeing that all diamonds in New Brunswick are conflict free by law, and just expand on that. It’s not much to ask that people don’t die for your engagement ring, and if people knew where the conflict diamonds came from, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind spending a little extra to guarantee that their diamonds were conflict free.

Thank You, Emily

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

I think the plan that they set up was a great idea, and I think that these kids are great for trying to better themselves. Gangs are a big issue, and for these kids to try by themselves to fix such a big issue is very admirable. I can just imagine how hard it would be to have to talk to different gang members to try and break the cycle. These people take a lot of crap for all the good that they do, too, so it’s great that they still stick with it, because many people wouldn’t have the courage to stay with something that they took crap for.

Wednesday, May 24, 2007

1) Bullying is a common occurrence in society. In our society, it has become socially accepted to mock those who are weaker, whether it’s right or wrong. People bully others because it makes them feel better about themselves to point out someone else’s faults and failings. 2) Bullying can never be justified because it is considered a form of abuse. There is no excuse for bullying someone, and when bullying happens, it lowers the self- esteem of another person, which isn’t right. 3) If someone is bullying someone and I am around, I will confront the person who is bullying and make them stop. There is no excuse for bullying and everyone should stand up to bullies. 4) If people all stood up to bullies then there would be no excuse for bullying. Bullies bully to get power and if people don’t let them have that power, then bullying should decrease at the very least.

The war in Iraq has caused more problems than solutions. Iraq is suffering, and so is the US. American government has put so much into the war that the education is suffering, poverty is getting worse and worse, and citizens have lost almost all freedom. Iraq is next to losing its title as a country because its leadership and administration is collapsing under US rule. It’s bad enough that the war started with a lie to begin with, but it’s been 5 or 6 years and all the Bush administration can do is beat around the bush. If they can’t help Iraq. Then the least they can do is get out and let Iraq try to recover.
 * May 28, 2007**