Treat People The Way You Want To Be Treated :)

What do I do?

There I was standing in the middle of the hallway, looking quite dumb with my mouth gaping and my eyes wide. In front of me was a girl my age crying into her hands, her eyes red as fire. I could tell that more than sadness, anger blazed in her heart and that would not go away unless I did something. I wanted to help, but I did not know what to do.

The girl's name was Kathy and she was a shy, quiet girl, who always was kind to everyone. She was always to herself and she had moved to this school a month ago. Her only friend, Mary, was the first friend she met that year and now Mary had hurt her with the words, "You are so totally ugly! No one will ever like you!" Mary had nicknamed Kathy "Ugly Duckling" and when ever Kathy passed by she would say, "Hey, Ugly Duckling!" The whole time Mary was thinking that Kathy did not mind and that it was all a joke. Even when Mary laughed after that, Kathy took it seriously. Was this bullying? The girl had been insulted in a "friendly" way by her only friend in her new school. Now, she was curled up in a ball, wailing, next to her bag. Her best friend did not know how it hurt her, how it pierced through her heart like a bloody arrow... But bullying can be that way: harsh, sad, and the bully oblivious that she is a doing something wrong.

I felt like a dying duck, just staring at her. No one was in the hallway and Kathy was lonely. She glanced up at me with swollen eyes. I knew I should have done something that second, something that would turn this terrible day of hers around. But, it was none of my business, right? What if people who were friends with Mary start to not like me? Mary had a gang of friends, what if Mary and her gang started to bully me on purpose? The bell rang. Suddenly kids were everywhere and Kathy was lost in the crowd. My heart was filled with sadness and for the rest of the week I regretted not helping her that moment, because she would remember that day forever.

All through the week I just... did not feel right. Even though I was not the one who insulted Kathy, I was somewhat responsible. In a silent way I was supporting a bully. To this day I remember that moment and I wish I could have sat down with Kathy and watch her face light up with happiness, as I try to cheer her up, or, even better, went and told Mary how Kathy was hurt and that it was not a very nice joke. I could have made a difference, but I stood there selfishly thinking about my well-being, when all I had to do was be a friend to Kathy. From then on, I feel that if I stand up for every kid who is bullied I will be correcting the sin that I did to Kathy and saving a heartbroken kid from being mentally scarred. 

This morning, as I walked down the hallway and watched as kids from around the globe talked and laughed together in satisfying harmony, I thought about what ISKL (International School of Kuala Lumpur), my school, could do to make it more welcoming and happier, so that bullying would not exist. 

We at ISKL can comfort the person being bullied and we could tell the teacher about the bullying. ISKL students could stand up for the person being bullied and, thus, stand up for all those kids being bullied across every school.  ISKL can be the best school and we could be role models to students from ever corner of the world and show them that bullying is a crime and should be ceased, immediately and as soon as it starts. Us, students at ISKL, should treat each other the way we would want to be treated. We as a community can communicate effectively, think creatively, reason critically, collaborate constructively, learn enthusiastically, live ethically, and stop any kind of bullying, big or small, in our school. 

I walked happily into the classroom. I knew we, ISKL, could accomplish this.

STOP BULLYING!
http://www.cknw.com/EndBullying.aspx

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/love-in-time-homeschooling/201003/mean-girls-and-homeschooling-moms

Run Away Horse

Fear and courage are linked with a bridge. To reach courage, the haven of accomplishment, this bridge must be crossed. But crossing this bridge is a hard and painful task. You would have to jump over the holes of failure and disappointment. Courage lies in the smallest things you accomplish and the award for overpowering the tyrant of fear is immense; it is something that you can never take advantage of, never use to hurt anybody, it is something that comes with generosity, honesty, and kindness. And it is a memory for a lifetime that you learn from and never forget about, just when I discovered my courage.

My courage began with fear. I clutched at my mom's warm jacket and kicked at the arms that were trying to grab me.

"I don't want to!" I screeched so high that even the horses looked at me annoyed. The horses... Oh, how they scared me and riding one was just too much for me to take. What if I broke an arm? My friend, who was eight-years old, just like me, used to ride horses, until one bucked her off and she was left with a broken arm, an unpleasant memory, and an unforgiving attitude to all horses. I was afraid and I had come terrified to the grasslands where the Mongolian horses grazed. My parents had said how enjoyable the site-seeing vacation would be and how it would be a wonderful opportunity if I rode a Mongolian horse. But it would be a life scar if I broke something.

"I don't want to!" I screeched again. This time I could almost see the anger in the horses' eyes as they all glared at me.

"You will never get another chance to!" my parents exclaimed.

And before I could argue any longer the Mongolian man had plopped me on the back of a dark brown horse. I shivered in the cold Mongolian winter and studied the horse that I thought held my life. He was not like the rest of the big, brown-eyed horses. His hair was all over the place, his eyes were bright with giddiness, and if I put my hand on his chest I could feel it heaving and his heart racing. He stomped his hooves impatiently on the ground, leaving a deep dent in the mud. What if I fell down and he used those sharp hooves to trample me? My teeth started to chatter and it was not because of the cold.

"My name is Arban and I will be your guide today. Now come, let me show you the beautiful land of Mongolia," he had an accent and unclear English, but I managed to make out what he was saying.

He led the way and slowly, one by one, the horses followed. First my confident, care-free brother, Sunkulp, on a black horse walked behind Arban. Sunkulp was showing off, not even holding the horse's reins, with his hands on the back of his head and a content smile on his face. Sunkulp's eyes looked closed, but I knew that they were really half-open, watching me struggle to sit upright on my horse. I knew once the tour was over he would boast about how balanced he was on his horse and how I was close to falling off. Next my mom followed, giving me a reassuring smile, but even she was not very comfortable on the horse. Then my dad came, looking wildly about taking in all the scenery and turning his head to the different sounds so many times, that by the time my horse started tagging along behind his horse, I was kind of giddy from watching him.

My horse's hooves hit the ground fast and hard. He was moving at a much faster pace and I knew this horse should have been ridden by a trained professional. His eyes darted from side to side, his head swung right to left and back, and his nostrils flared.

It felt like I was flying. For a few seconds I did not realize what was happening. One moment I was looking at my dad's black horse, the next moment the wind blew in my face and my horse was running away from the guide. He was crossing the grasslands and going off the trail that he was supposed to go on. The Mongolian wilderness that lay in the distance was getting closer and closer with each heartbeat. Tears were dotting my eyes and my head began to hurt. I glanced desperately around, where were my parents? Everything was so blurry and the only sound that I could hear was my own heart beating in my ears. Blood rushed to my face, even when it was so cold.

I could hear shouting far away, "Someone save the girl!" I could tell it was the Mongolian man speaking, for it was coated in a thick accent.

My thoughts were racing and my breath was coming out in rasps. I had to focus, what would stop this horse? The horse tried bucking me off and sweat dripped from my forehead at trying to stay on, as the wilderness seemed to be coming to envelope me into darkness, danger, and the unknown. In my head I was hating this horse with fury. This horse was going to be the cause of me getting lost or hurt and it was all his fault. It was not my fault that he started running, foolishly, into the wilderness when his job was to follow the guide! Now I was stuck in this dreaded mess that this dreaded horse made! What was I supposed to do?

I realized that the heels of my boots were digging into the horse's side and my hands were gripping his hair roughly. Ripping the boots off my legs and letting them crash to the ground and releasing my nails from the horse's hair was enough to make him stop. I gasped as I saw the mark that my boots had left on the horse's skin. It was red and if my feet had been piercing any harder, than the horse would have probably started bleeding. I was very close to injuring him. When I stroked his rough head, he nuzzled the palm of my hand. Courage and realization flooded into me and I was enlightened.

The reason the horse had been going so fast and running away from the guide was because he was in pain, confused, and was trying to get me off. I was hurting it. It was my fault, not the horse's. I had ignorantly blamed the horse just because I had thought it was a dumb animal. I had thought it's job was to follow the guide, but doesn't it have a right to be free, like us? Why does it have to spend its life lugging us around on its back? I pulled at it with reins and tugged at it's hair, when really it was a beautiful animal that deserved to run on its own, when it wanted to. I had thought that this horse was wild and untamed, when in real fact it was just trying to survive, to stop the pain, which was just a natural reaction. I was wrong. The human race is wrong to use these animals for riding when we do not need to. We have cars, trains, and planes, we do not need this transportation. Then what is this joy we get from riding animals? Don't they get rights too? They are living things just like us, they are not inanimate objects, so, why do we treat them that way?

Courage is not only conquering your fear, but learning from it. Courage is the ability to understand something pure that others are scared to. Courage is part of life, because no one is born courageous, you climb to reach that point. Courage is like a path with many milestones that you must face. Courage is worth more than any materialistic prize, because with courage comes knowledge.

I gained courage that day. I had the courage, the open-mindedness, to understand these intelligent animals and see them for who they really are. Animals are not supposed to be used for betterment of human life, they should be treated equally with love. I surpassed my fear and replaced it with a kindness towards all animals. Now, I have joined PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) and have supported numerous campaigns and generous charities for animals. My ignorance that day was the ignorance of our world today, just like my 8-year old friend. We must inform people that not all animals are what we see them as. This discrimination we can diminish. We can give animals the rights that they deserve. We can all be courageous.

Mongolian wilderness
http://www.private-guides.com/guide-in-mongolia/pipi-430/index.php

PETA logo
http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/4793514-peta-tells-monks-stop-unchristian-chicken-breeding/image/44150195-peta-logo

This Mongolian horse is much like the one I rode.
http://danny.oz.au/travel/mongolia/khovsgol-lake.html

How did early humans use art to express their prehistoric culture?

Art is not just a mere mark on a cave, or paper, or material, it's a mark on history. It can be anything that depicts your emotions. It could be a piece of writing, a drawing, or a painting. Today we use paper and pencil and blogs on computers to express our feelings. But how did prehistoric people show expression? They had no paper or pencil or computer. All they had was the environment, the plants, the animals, and each other, so they made use of what they had. They used the inner walls of the caves as a canvas and crushed minerals and plants to create colors, which showed that they had a vast knowledge of plants, dyes, colors, wax, oil, charcoal, and composition. They invented crude paint brushes made out of fur, moss, and human hair and made carving tools out of rock. With all these tools prehistoric men and women created sculptures and cave paintings. Even a simple cave painting of a hunting scene can be a glimpse of the past. A basic hand print on a cave wall can determine just how big or small these early humans were and how we evolved and how they used their fingers as tools to do tasks and communicate.Some paintings depict hunting and death scenes which tell us that people, long ago, had an understanding of life and death and had respect for nature and other fellow beings. Dwellings in caves enforce the fact that these humans were adaptable to even the hardest of environment and changes. Over time they became smart and strong and innovative and were able to adjust to different changes, as there brain and physical form developed.
 

Prehistoric art tools

                                                                                

Cave paintings are not just primitive scribbles on cave walls, they have a much deeper meaning. They are snapshots of life before filled with hidden meanings and riddles that we, as the current holders of the future, should solve and make sense out of. Each cave painting was important to the different tribes or groups of prehistoric people and each painting was made precisely by the artist to reflect his thoughts and the culture of his society. There are paintings in France and Spain that represent a hunt scene. Analyzing these paintings help us figure out what tools prehistoric people used to hunt with, what animals they hunted, what their diet was, what animals existed then, and how the prehistoric people worked in groups and communities. Scientists think that back then paintings were said to have special powers and that artists were spiritual beings. Some scientists believe cave paintings were painted to worship or please the gods, so many of the cave paintings looked magical. The paintings in the Ajanta Ellora caves in India depict everyday life, family values, and what clothes and jewelry people wore at that time. We can study the  cave paintings in Ajanta Ellora caves and learn about the men long ago and their life style, beliefs, heroes, and religion. The paintings of the Minoan civilizations on the island of Crete, from the 27th century, show natural disasters such as volcanoes and earthquakes. Egyptian tomb paintings show the different gods that the Egyptians worshiped. Cave sculptures can represent the different tribes or could have been used in traditional celebrations like the clay sculptures in France.

Egyptians gods

Through the ages people have used art to express their feelings and prehistoric people have done this successfully. If they had not painted on the cave walls or sculpted statues out of rock and mud, we would not have had known about the prehistoric history of man, of how they evolved over time into what we are today, or of how they survived without the technology and conveniences that we have now. We would not have known what prehistoric people thought or believed in. We would not have known what animals lived at that time. We would not have known the culture of our ancestors. Without emotion, art, creativity, and culture we would not have come this far today. The prehistoric people through their art have left an everlasting impression, so that mankind can trace back to their ancestors and move forward by learning from the past. 

 

http://www.buddhisminindia.com/ajanta-ellora.html

http://www.millenniumschools.net.au/stannies/?id=2881&month=70

http://www.mythencyclopedia.com/Tr-Wa/Underworld.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtuBiWHlOjA

http://isklrewired.blogspot.com/