“‘Whenever You feel like criticising anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages.’” 

The very first page that got me struck with interest in reading the book, “The Great Gatsby.” This line also happened to be the very first line of the book, and it is a great opening sentence. Later in the page, the book stated 

“Only Gatsby, …, was exempt from my reaction – Gatsby, who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.” This very sentence is what collected my interest. The difference between his beliefs which he had had all his life, and the fact that there was somebody excluded from this list created a sense that something special was about to happen. This contrast tells you that something is about to happen to have him.

This lecture also reminded me of how I have lived my life in the past. I have always judged people and criticise others whenever I was younger, but when this happened the opposite way to me, I realised how wrong it is to do so. I have been taught this lesson as well as a kid, but never realised until the moment when I received all this criticism in my face, and now I have completely changed my opinion. The way this is written reminded me, grabbed my attention, and then brought up the point where you realise something incredible will happen in this book. This way, he grabbed the attention in a way that got me to keep reading. 

The setting of the book was in the United States, where the story plays in East and West Egg throughout most of the book, and it is based on the 1925 during what was called ‘Jazz Age’ in which jazz music and dance emerged. The era ended with the outbreak of the Great Depression in 1929. It was a period of carefree hedonism, freedom, wealth, and youthful exuberance. 

Chapter one focuses on the introduction of multiple of the characters with a total of 5 of them being introduced including that of the main character Nick Carraway. The introduction of Daisy and Tom Buchanan being especially interesting, where also the setting of the scene is described neatly. A metaphor was used in order to the audience around the house where the two very wealthy people lived. It was presented as if something was running across the house and garden, to describe the colour and the surroundings. The introduction of Tom Buchanan especially was interesting as well, as the way the author described him made it seem as though the main character did not like him, but it is obvious he has admiration for him as well. The way he was presented as a huge muscular man also create a rough feel to him, but then he writes it as if it is a compliment. The connections made between the characters 

Even though I cannot make the connection between the book and the film, this first chapter alone has got me interested in watching the movie at some point. The quick movement between scenes and moments and the slowed story which is explained in detail is very balanced out, as it managed to maintain interest while explaining in a lot of details, which a lot of books tend to lack. 

I would definitely recommend it so far, as it is not only a very interesting book, but also as a student like me, it is a great way to increase your vocabulary, as especially the first chapter includes a high amount of challenging vocabulary. I would also suggest reading on, even if it is too challenging, as the vocabulary gets easier to understand later in the story, as it only gets better.

My brother, my dad and I drove 18 hours to Spielberg in Austria to go watch a formula 1 race where we got the opportunity of a lifetime.

We got the opportunity to go into the paddock during free practice 2, and later on into the garage of the Red Bull racing team where Max verstappen drives , who we’ve followed for years. The manager who showed us around walked to Max Verstappen and tapped him on the shoulder. He was already all geared up. He wore a dark blue racing suit, with special racing shoes in red. He had multiple sponsors on his kit, like Aston Martin and Tag Heuer. He gave us a hand, and I noticed that he had a very firm handshake, probably due to all the training. Driving an f1 car will feel like carrying 6 times your own bodyweight while driving. We took a photo with him. they say he is one of the tallest drivers, but he was shorter than me. He was very kind, starting a conversation, but only for a short while. When you see him in real life he is so much more human than he looks on TV. He just seemed like a normal 21 year old following his dream. 

Afterwards he went back to the car, put his helmet on, and talked to his manager. he always nodded in reply, the same for when he said no. He never said his answer straight up, unless he had to give specific information. He then entered the car. The sound it made inside the garage is almost like a bomb going off. You had to cover your ears or they were going to blow out. A Screaming noise, very low pitched. You could hear that it was fast, even when it stood still. We got to watch from the garage, until he crashed it in. We had to leave the garage. The race was 2 days later, and he ended up winning. All the dutch fans in orange cheering, it was even louder than the cars. Knowing he was in that car was an amazing feeling, having seen him in real life. Afterwards, we then had another 18 hour drive back home.

In class we looked at 3 different quotes which can be looked at from a travelling perspective. Everybody got 1 and then we passed it around.

Quote 1

“Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter” Izaak Walton

Reply: For me this quote reminded me of something I was talking about with my parents during the holiday. I was asking why we weren’t allowed to bring friends along, and they said this is because it would be too much, since we are already with 6 and they would have to rent an extra room in hotels, and an extra seat on the plane. They said I was allowed to go with friends to for example holland, or to the ardennes. I was wondering because I was bored of always going with the same people, and it made it feel like it took so much longer. But you want a holiday to feel short but special, not long and boring.

Quote 2

“We dream of a perfect wave, the perfect job, the perfect house, the perfect love, and when we get there, we dream of something else, and they journey goes on” Rob Machado

Reply: I know that a lot of people have a problem similar to this with holidays. For example once you have a holiday in France, you want to go further and you might go to Spain. once you went to Spain you want to go to the Azores. And once you went there you want to go to the United States. And once you have gone there you want to go to Brazil. You always want to go further or to a better place then where you have been before. I know my parents have this, so that is why I see it like this.

Quote 3

“Success is a journey, not a destination. The doing is often more important than the outcome” Arthur Ashe

Reply: To me it sounded like when you are going on a holiday, and you had very high hopes. But once you went there it was nothing like what you expected but when you were there you had a lot of fun. It is the experience that is important, not what you expected or what you thought of it afterwards. As long as you had fun it was a good experience.

This is a story I wrote in 2018 that I wanted to post. I was still in a lower class at the time so there might be some mistakes in the writing of the story. It was a task which had to be about the use of plastic in the world, and it could be any kind of text we liked, and we had 1hour 30min to complete it, and I decided to write a story.

We were in a car on our way to the beach, because leatherback turtles were found and are expected to have eaten plastic and have it stuck around their body. Leatherback turtles are one of the biggest sea turtle kind. They can grow up to 2.4 meters long. 

I asked,“does anyone know how big these are.” 

We were with 3 of us in the car. Even though it was more like a bus to fit the turtles in.  The others in the ‘car’ are called James and Faith. I am the youngest of the three. I am 17 years old. James is 22 and Faith is 20. We all met each other at the turtle centre. James owns the place but since we are only with 3  he has to come along to help us out. Usually about 50 people join this group. We don’t get paid either, since it is voluntary work. I was just on holiday but wanted to do something there, so I decided to go and work for a sea turtle saving group called SEE turtles.

James said,”They are about 1 year and one of them is about 2 years old, so they are not very big yet. But they’ll grow while they’re at our place dude.”

For some weird reason that I never understood he always said dude after he finished talking, and occasionally also in the middle of his sentence, even though it didn’t make sence. We were finally at the beach and I could straight away see the turtles. 

Faith said,”it is very dangerous for them to be so close to the shore. I hope they’re still alright. Anyone can come right up to them.”

Faith is the caring person of the group. Whenever anything happens she is the one to go to. She’ll always be there for you when you need to. But she’s also very shy

She doesn’t talk to anyone who she has never heard of or seen before. So she does talk to us and to her family. But me and James always have to talk to the people who want to adopt an animal who is in danger.

We got out of the car and we went towards the turtles. They were stranded on the shore. You could see they were scared. One of them couldn’t move their legs because there was plastic around his front fins. When we walked up to them . They seemed to not to be too big.

James said, “We’ll all go to a different one, Garret dude, you go to one closest to us. I’ll take the big one furthest away and Faith you take the one on the right, dudette”  

I had to laugh when he said dudette. we all went towards the turtles

When we were back together, I asked, “should we straight away bring them to the car or first see if we can set them free.”

Faith said,”I’ll first check if they are okay and if they ate plastic, but to do so we will have to take them with us ,so we’ll just have to try lifting them up one by one. We’ll use the mats for them to lay on.” 

James said, “that’s not a good idea dude, they are too heavy to lift with the three of us, we should go and ask people on the shore to help us lift them up. We’ll need at least 1 or 2 more people to help lift them up Dude.”

We managed to find people to help us lift them up and bring them to the car. We straight away went back to the rescue centre. We walked in and the first thing you see is a reception. People could come into the building and adopt a sea turtle. This meant they could choose the names and they get to release the turtles. We went back and we managed to get the people behind the reception who only work 2 days in the week to help us lift them to the centre where we kept them. We all separated them and we took of all the plastic on their body. Then one by one we scanned them and we realised that one of them, which was the one I was going to take care of had buoyancy disorder which mean that the turtle has eaten something that makes him float to the top of the water when swimming which is dangerous because they can get hit by ships and fishing nets easier. Faith called a specialised doctor who operates them to have a look at him, and see what he could do.

While the docter was on the way I asked James, “is there any way I can adopt the turtle I take care of.”

He said, “you can, but you will have to pay for it like other people at the reception dude.” 

So I walked down because I had to wait for the doctor, but while doing this I went to the reception and payed them the money. I decided to call the turtle eco because I found that it fit with him. I adopted the turtle who had Buoyancy because that means we had to take care of him longer and I had to take care if him anyway so it didn’t make a difference. But I found this turtle special, it is the first turtle I found with Buoyancy, and I found it cool to find a turtle with it but I of course felt bad for it as well. 5 minutes later the doctor came and took care of all the turtles. He said that it would take a bit more time for eco to get better. 

A month later the other two turtles who were called Buddy and Cora got released, but Eco had to stay with us, he just got better but he still has to get back used to living in the wild. It went really fast with Buddy and Cora. They grew a lot in a short time. The families who adopted them came and got to release them. The turtles straight away jumped in the water and swam away. I spend a lot of time teaching Eco how to take care of himself in the wild. For some reason he also liked to swim after objects I threw in the water and brings it back. But it is funny that he doesn’t do this with plastic, he already swims far away from it. I’ve never seen a turtle that so easily sees the difference between food, a toy and plastic. He is just like a dog with his sticks. Another month later Eco was getting released. I petted him on his right fin and on his head. Usually turtles would trie to bite but Eco didn’t we went onto the same boat as for Buddy and Cora. On our way where we wanted to release them there was quite a lot of thrash so we first tried to get all the thrash which was mainly plastic out of the water. We also found a sick bird which are also animals we take care for. Mainly sea turtles and birds but rarely we also get seals. Then I released him. Eco first swam after the boat which showed what a connection we shared after a very short time.

I said, “hey James, you think it would be a good idea to first go around the area and try to clean as much plastic out of the water as possible.”

James nodded. Then he said,”dude.” 

I was laughing. He doesn’t only say dude at the end of his sentence but to girls he said dudette and he also said dude and dudette after he nodded and probably also after he nodded no. We went around the area and we cleaned the area. I was asking myself why people think it is a good idea to throw trash on the ground. Plastic is even worse. It doesn’t only get to the water easily but it also takes a long time to desolve. I think it is the dumbest thing to throw away. 

After 2 months more of working there I was already staying in the country for to long enough, and I still needed to finish school so I was going to have to rush. I went back to England and on my way back I was thinking of all the fun I had on this holiday. With the new friends I made, with Faith and James. I was grateful for the opportunity, which was visiting this awesome place.

Sources I used when writing this:

• https://www.seewinter.com/plastic-problem-inside-sea-turtles/ 
• https://seaworld.org/animal-info/animal-infobooks/sea-turtles/habitat-and-distribution 
• https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lederschildpad

This is a lifestory that I wrote about my grandfather 3 years ago. At this time I was not in the highest level of english, so there may be some mistakes in this text. There are some dutch quotes in there, but they are explained in english afterwards.

When Arris was 1 year old, the war in the Netherlands started between the Netherlands and Germany. Arris lived in Katwijk which is near the sea, which is where the Germans built their bunkers to keep the English or the Americans out of the country. He ended up having to move to different houses 2 times because the Germans would destroy their houses. There was also a rule that people would have to be inside by 8pm and if they wouldn’t, they would get killed, just got  left on the flour and had to be helped afterwards in the morning.

When the war started he was only 1 year old, and the war ended when he was 6. He said the thing he best remembered is “De hongerwinter, door al die mensen die grouw naar buiten liepen, op 1944 en 1945”. This means the most memorable experience for him was the famine. All the people that would walk outside seeking for food. He also said “en dat ik neef had zien doodgeschoten geworden. Ik heb in ieder geval een soldaat die met een fiets naar je huis gingen en die moest om 8 uur naar binnen, en hij ging naar ze poort en werd gewoon doodgeschoten”. This means that his cousin was shot because he went outside his gate after 8 pm. He saw the soldiers bike towards his house and he could see them shout him. But he didn’t see him lying down because he was 8 blocks away from his house, he could see it because he lived in the corner of the street so he had a good view of the rest of the houses so he could see it happen from far away. He also said that nothing happened to his cousin because everyone was scared. And if people would go out to get him they would also get shot so they abandoned him till the morning. The main problem during the war is that everyone is scared and that you could feel it, even at Arris’s age. 

After the war they ended up living at the sea again. The place was all out broken, nothing was still fine, he said “Na de oorlog was het, dat iedereen heel hard moesten werken, alles was kapot, wij moesten verhuizen”. This means that after the war everyone had to work hard, the whole country was broken, as a result, we had to move to a comparable house at the same location. “Wij woonden toen nog aan de voet van een duinen gebied met veel bunkers en daar gingen wij spelen en de bunker brak en hij is gestorven onder het zand, een vriend van mij was binnen en, kruidvaten zoeken en uitsteken, en nog in dezelfde straat en die had ze onderarm eraf gebeurd”. This means that they lived at the sea where there had a lot of bunkers where him and his friends would play, one of Arris’s friends went in the bunker next to the one Arris and his other friends were in, but that bunker broke and he died under the stone. He and his friends would also go and search for firework esc weapons that would explode if you turn them on fire, one of friends lost his underarm because of them.

Within his family and friends, a lot of things happened. His cousin got shot and killed just because he left the gate after it was 8 pm. He got shot and only got helped after they were allowed to get out of their houses again, Arris couldn’t see what happened perfectly because it was 8 blocks away from his house, but he could see it happen and Arris did see his cousin fall down on the flour. Also, his friend died after he got stuck, and as a result he crushed underneath a broken down bunker which broke while his friend was in it, him together with his friends were in another bunker. His other friends lost his arm because of the explosive sticks which they played with. During the war one of the biggest problems is trust. Even within family there is almost no trust between each other, for instance, Arris’s dad had a radio but nobody in their house knew about it because he was scared the nsb’ers were going to know and take it away, and they had a secret escape route in case something happened but Arris and his family didn’t know about it until after the war. But his dad hid it because he didn’t want anybody to let the nsb’ers know. So there was always a low trust.

Arris said: “ondanks alles wat je meemaakt in je jeugd meemaakt, dat zul je niet vergeten, maar je zal er door wel meer aan andere dingen, je wordt er ook dankbaarder door, het leven is niet zomaar. Ik wil gewoon als een aardig mens aan wie je alles kan vragen, en die er was als ik nog was is hoe ik onthouden zou willen zijn”. This means despite there being lots of terrible events in your youth, of which non will be forgotten, you will learn from those struggles, you will become thankful for everything that happens to you, life is not just something, you have to appreciate your life and everything within it. He also said that when other people remember him he wants to be seen as a kind-hearted person, who you can always go to when you are sad or when you don’t feel happy. And who you can ask anything that you’d like to ask them. That is how he wants to be remembered. 

Hello everyone, My name is Christian and I am a student at the Antwerp International School. I live in Belgium, but I am originally from the Netherlands, where I was born and lived for 8 years.

This blog is for my English language and literature class, meaning most blogs will be based on class assignments. There will most likely be book reviews but also other kinds of tasks about our current unit which is Journeys, and I might post other texts on here as well. These texts might be tasks or about places I’ve been.