Journal Entry

Character notes (ACTIVITY I)

Bernard	Friends with Alia            Dislikes Ender            Ender broke his arm           Wants to be better than Ender
Alia	Bridge between Bernard and Ender            Bernard’s friend            Practices with Ender at the battle room            Is bilingual (told Ender salaam)
Petra Arkanian	Girl            Salamander Army            Teaches Ender how to aim and do tricks
Rose the Nose	Leader of Rat Army            Ender's second leader            Jewish            Graduated battle school
Dink	Toon leader            His friend            Took over rose the noses position after
Mazer	Teaches Ender at the end of the book            Is Ender's mentor
Ender	Protagonist            A third            Sister: valentine            Brother: peter            Beat up Stilton            Six years old
Bonzo	Leader of salamander army            Dislikes Ender            Thinks that Ender was a waste of a trade

Journal Entry (ACITIVTY II)

Dear diary,

            I am so sorry, I did not write yesterday. I was so busy. I had to do a lot of research for my English assignment; we were supposed to write a paragraph on our family’s ancestral backgrounds. I was really interested to write this paragraph as it got me thinking of other cultures and religions; what if I was Jewish or Sri Lankan it would be a totally different experience to write about. Since I was wondering what it would be like to be from a different cultural background I started to think of the time that I had to go on the job shadowing trip for careers. I went to the hospital to work with a physiotherapist.

Since physiotherapists have a very hands on job and do a lot of interacting. I was able to meet many people and excitedly all were from different backgrounds. I met this lady who has an Italian background and I learned that besides the food: pizza, pastas, and different kinds of desserts being a part of their culture, being religious is as well. About 90% of Italians are Roman Catholics and the national flag represents hope, faith, and charity. I remember we were talking about my cultural background (Sikhism) and how there is still a cast system even though all generations didn’t say anything against it until now. I started to tell the lady that how my family has started to accept interracial marriages, you know the one between my older brother and his wife. But, what was interesting was that her family has always accepted interracial relationships as her parents are from two different parts of Europe and she is also in an interracial marriage as she is married to guy from a Jamaican background. We had a very deep and interesting conversation and I learned so much that I decided to come home and tell my family all about our conversation and taught my family a bunch of facts from the Italian culture.

I got to say that living in Brampton you don’t meet a lot of people from different cultural backgrounds especially from Italian backgrounds. I also learned that judging a book by its cover is not acceptable especially now because it is very stereotypical and now interracial relationships are a normal thing. However, I guess I understand where the people who judge others they may have been taught to think like that or they do not understand. You know what I find funny, that when I start to talk about something I am very passionate about I tend to start to go in depth on how I feel and drag on about the topic. Anyways, so when I was talking to the lady I learned that she didn’t like it when people judged her or when they asked very stereotypical based questions like: is pizza really from Italy? Are you really Italian? You look Mexican! The lady made a really hilarious joke that at least on the bright side she said that she could make really delicious ethnic Italian food. After meeting the lady I was in a very  good and happy mood, I think when I talk to people and I learn more I appreciate it and at the end I get a smile on my face. For me it is very easy to talk to people as I am a very understanding and an attentive listener but the most important reason to why it is easy for me is because of my experience that I have had with pain and tragedy that make me want no one to feel left out and everyone should be listened to and I am a very soft-spoken person. Oh my god! I have to stop writing as my mom is calling me to come eat dinner, so overall I love interacting with people from different cultures/countries as I am very interactive and I enjoy learning. I promise to write tomorrow. Bye! J

                                                                                                                        JASLEEN SIDHU J