SPEAK

BOOK REVIEW

"Speak" is one of Laurie Halse Anderson´s four award-winning novels and was initial published in 1999 by the penguin group, USA.
Anderson resides in Mexico with her beloved husband, Scot Larrabee. She has four children and one creature with fangs, her German Shepard. When not writing, Anderson enjoys gardening, knitting and running. Many of her fans and friends read about her experiences in and out of the literature world on her blog.
Speak is a novel about an 14 year old girl, named Melinda Sordino, who got raped at a school party. Laurie Halse Anderson told, that the character of Melinda came to her in nightmare.

In the summer before her freshman year of high school, Melinda Sordino calls the police and they break up a local party, resulting in arrests. Mr. Freeman helps her and she begins to express her pain through art. When her former best friend, Rachel, begins dating Andy, who raped her, Melinda feels obligated to show her story. The response is intense hostility, but eventually Rachel admit the truth and dumps Andy.

Melinda really needs help, but nobody knows that because she doesn’t speak. Melinda gets in trouble a few times, first when she stats to skip school.

In this story Melinda has a difficult time to go through. All the other high school kids belonged to a club or something, but Melinda didn’t. Melinda became a social outcast and she also felt outcasted in normal life.

As the school year comes to a close, Melinda returns to bring the things she left inside her together. Andy confronts her, telling her that she lied about the assault, saying that he did not hurt her and that she asked for it. He suggests that jealousy of his relationship with Rachel was her motivation for "lying" about the rape, and he attempts to assault her again, despite her physical attempt to stop him. This is a major turning point for Melinda because while telling Andy "no" before the first assault she was too intoxicated for it to come out forcefully. The lacrosse team, including Melinda's former friend Nicole, hears her scream in the closet and comes to her aid.

As the student body hears the story and realizes the truth about what happened at the party, Melinda goes from social pariah to something of a hero.

I really like the fact that Melinda overcomes her fear and that she was able to do that all by herself.
A also like that the book is written really realistic and in modern speak.

DESCRIBING THE MAIN CHARAKTER

Not only the others see Melinda as an outcast, she sees herself as an outcast too. In the book she talks several times about the fact that she hasn’t got anybody to talk with or a friend. She also talks about that the she isn’t well dressed and the others, like the Marthas, which are really special dressed.

Melinda isn’t very self-confident and she doesn’t know how to show the other herself. I think one important sentence in the book is this: “It's easier not to say anything. Shut your trap, button your lip, can it. All that crap you hear on TV about communication and expressing feelings is a lie. Nobody really wants to hear what you have to say.” I think Anderson wants to express with this sentence that she also thinks that the other doesn’t want to know why she doesn’t speak anymore. In her opinion nobody likes her, but this is definitely wrong. For example it is shown in the story that her art teacher Mr. Freeman really likes her and also Ivy an old friend of her likes her a lot.

In school she has only a few person to talk with. Sometimes she talks with her lab partner or Ivy.
She also hasn’t got a close relationship to her parents, they are really busy. The only way they talk to each other is a piece of paper at the fridge.
At the beginning of the book Melinda meets Heather, but soon she tells her that she doesn’t want to be a friend of Melinda.
Mr. Freeman, her art teacher, helps Melinda by his own way. He wants that she expresses her pain with art.

The others doesn’t like her because she called the cops at the party. But I think o lot of them like Melinda, they don’t talk to Melinda because nobody do it.

I think that there wasn’t any change till the scene when Andy Evans tries to hurt her again, but Melinda was able to defend herself. At this time, I think, she became stronger and finally, because of this situation, she gets strong enough to talk about her rape.
After this scene she changed herself enormous. That’s the only thing which isn’t really realistic, because nobody is able to overcome this from one second to the other.
The best example for changing her is in my opinion art. In the book is shown how her trees develop. She compares herself with Picasso when she thought about all the parts she has to go through till she overcomes.

Globalization

Are there any Austrian multinationals? Find some information on the three biggest!

Vienna, April 2003 – More than 1,000 international companies have set up their Central and Eastern European headquarters or business hubs in Austria, underlining the country’s leadership in business outreach to the CEE region. These include prominent multinationals such as Alcatel, Beiersdorf, Bosch, Coca-Cola, Flextronics, Generali, Henkel, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Master Foods, McDonalds, Miele, SIG Combibloc and Siemens.

The most popular multinationals in Austria are Rauch, Omicron, Doppelmayr.

Now I want to explain what there assignment is.

• Rauch is famous for it’s fruit juice, I think there most popular drink is “Red Bull”.
• Omicron is a technical company, which produces “Laserdiodensysteme” and “Laserapplikationen”
• Doppelmayr: This is a worldwide company which builds cable cars and elevators. It’s products are even copied in Asia


Are there groups that are against globalisation? Why?

A few groups which are against globalisation exist.
The biggest one is “Anti-Globalisation”.
They cause it with the fact that little undertakings won’t survive. There are going to be only a few big corporations.


How can you as a consumer support Fair Trade?

For supporting “Fair Trade” you should buy things which were produced by people who get enough money for work. For example don’t buy things which were produced in India. In India it’s very often produces from kids and no one should support child labour.


How is employment in Austria affected by globalisation? Are other areas affected too?

A few peoples say that the globalization reduces the Inflation, because since the globalization is growing that fast, the Inflation got smaller. But for Austria the textile industry is nearly dead. Almost all concerns closed because other counties are able to produce cheaper than Austria.


Your opinion on globalization

On my opinion globalization is a very important thing and it’s good, but there are also bad things about it. I also think globalization keeps the world together.
Because I think that if there would be no globalization one country would be the best, because it gets enough money for researching new things, and poor countries wouldn’t. That’s my main reason for globalization.

Correction (writing task)

Hello, my name is Ines Peter. Hoping for a good day, I want to welcome you.
We start our tour at the bus station “Drummer Street”. First I want to show you “Whipple Museum” and give you some background information. “Whipple Museum” is a history of science museum and it’s open from Monday to Friday from 12:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The admission is free.

I think that’s enough information for now.
During the walk I want to give you some information about Cambridge. Cambridge is first founded in 1630, but the important history started in 1902, when Americans occupy Cambrige.
We have reached Nowning Street now. As soon as we get to the museum, you will get the time to eat something in the eatery nearby. After that little stop we walk along “Prembroke Street” to “Corpus Christi College”, which was founded in 1352. If you’re interested, there is a nice court in the middle that I could show you. Beside the college there is a very good restaurant, despite the small prices.

In the afternoon, let’s say 2 p.m., we will meet again.

Hello, welcome back. Now let’s go on the market, for doing some shopping.
I can see your bags, let’s move on to “Trinity College” which is very famous. It’s very old and inside it’s amazing, but we haven’t got enough time to look at this gorgeous house.

Now we walk along “Jesus Lane” to our next stop “Wesley House” which houses the Methodist university.
It’s a fact that John Paul II was studying theology at this place.
Follow me to the last stop, the biggest shopping centre in Cambridge.
It houses every shop you can think of. Get our money out, there are enough shops for everyone, guys.
Please come back to this place in two and a half hours. We are going to finish our tour then.
Welcome back! We need about ten minutes to get back to the bus station.
Here we are.

I hope you will have a great holiday in Cambridge and I want to thank for this great day.

A virtual tour threw the "Rheintal"

The “Rheintal” is a valley in Austria or to be more exact it is a valley in Vorarlberg, which is a part of Austria. The “Rheintal” is named by a river which runs through this valley.

I want to start our virtual tour in Feldkirch, the biggest city in the “Rheintal”. There are a lot of shopping streets and there is also the cathedral which is the largest church in Vorarlberg. Also very famous are the “Katzenturm” and the “Schattenburg”, they are built about the 15^th century. I really like the “Schattenburg”, now there is a restaurant in it and I’m of the opinion that there is a really good restaurant with an enchanting ambience.
Beside the “Katzenturm” there is a bus stop. We have to get into bus 60 towards Götzis. At the bus stop which is named “Weiler Gemeindeamt” we have to get out. We have to get into the bus 63 towards Fraxern.
Fraxern is the place where I live. Fraxern is renowned for their cherries. Fraxern is a beautiful place to go for a walk. There are a lot of footpath. We can walk to “Maiensäß” which needs about one and a half hour from the last bus stop.
If we get hungry there are two restaurants and one pizzeria, you can eat quite good there.
Now we have to get in the bus 62 towards Weiler and then we have to change in bus 60 towards Götzis and now we go by train towards Bregenz and we get out at the station Hohenems.
There are a lot of interesting places like the palace or the Jewish museum or the Jewish cemetery.
We finish our tour at the open-air pool “Rheinauen”. Which is nearby the river “Rhein”.

291 words

Correction of the 1. Test

Dear Alice,

Yes, of course I remember Jason.
You wrote in your letter that Jason takes drugs, but you have thought about the dangers? For sure drugs can make you lively and giggly, but there are also many negativ effects.
If you take an overdose, you can die! Also think about the facts like the accidents you can have or what will you do if you get addicted?
Do you know any of the theories that exlplain drug abuse? There are three of these theories in your letter, for example there is the “evil pusher” theory , I think Jason is going to be an evil pusher for you. Taking drugs isn’t harmless.
I think you really like Jason, but when you think about his future , what do you see? If Jason gets addicted, there won’t be a future for him. He will live in poverty and squalor. There won’t be a chance for him to find a job and so he will die very young.
Alice, please listen to my advice! If you are going to try drugs, you are going to ruin your whole life, Forget Jason and think about yourself!

Yours Ines

The Mosquito Coast

Dear Lucas,

Now the story has found an ending. It had been a horrible time since I left the USA.

First we went to the jungle of Hunduras, because my father didn’t want to live like the others. We lived in a very small village with another family There my father had built a “Fat Boy”. Do you remember “Little Boy”?

When he had finished “Fat Boy” he wanted to show the indians what ice is and wanted to tell them what it is good for.

One day father stired me up before the sun had risen up.The reason was that he wanted to climb on a big mountain to show the Zambus what ice is.

My dad thought that the Zambus had treated white men like prisoners, but they didn’t. The white men treated the Zambus like prisoners and they also wanted to kill us.

The night after we got back home my fahter stir me up and told me that they were planing to stay with us and feed of us like mosquitos feed of our blood. We managed to leave, but everything exploded.

We went with Mr Haddy, a really nice man, to his village. But dad didn’t want to stay there. We went to a small, muddy, smelly lake. There we lived like savages. At first we had nothing, but everyday father and I went to the coast and brought back bits of rope, wood and other stupid things.

After a while father had built a houseboat for us. When it started raining Mr Haddy gave us some petrol to leave the place where we were.

Some time later we reached a village which was named Guampu. There father had been killed by someone.

I really don’t know what I should think about this time in Honduras. A part of me died with father but I sill fear him. I sometimes seem to hear him crying. I don’t know what I should do without him but I have to manage my life. For sure father didn’t wanted me to give up.

Yours Charlie

Policeman: Did you see the person who killed your father?

Charlie: No, I didn’t see anything because it was very dark that night. I only heard a shot.

Policeman: What happened before you heard the shot?

Charlie: Father went into this little village. As my mother asked me were father was, the church exploded. We wanted to save us, but father screamed threw the darkness and told us to stay at the place where we were.

Policeman: What happened after this?

Charlie: When father was climbing up the side of our houseboat, we wanted to hit his head with a heavy pice of wood. But as father pulled himself up on to the boat, we heard the sound of a shot from the other bank of the river. Father fell heavily back into the pipanto.

Policeman: Is there anything that could be important for our establishment?

Charlie: I don’t really know. I think my father went into the village to steal petrol. I was at Emiliy’s house when suddenly all the lights turned off. After this I hurried up to get back to my mother. When I arrived, an explosion shook the air and flames jumped out of the church.

My pursuit of happiness

What makes me really happy is the time with my boyfriend.

We don’t really see each other very often, because we are both going to school and don’t really have a lot of time. Therefore we really enjoy the time together.

I have known him for one and a half years and so far it has been the best time of my life.

I hope that we are going to spend the rest of our life together, because I really love him.

Now I want to tell you the day I met him the first time:

It was last year in summer…

My brother and I went to the “Samariterbund Feldkirch”.

When I got out of the car I saw him the first time. I couldn’t get him out of my mind afterwards. I really didn’t know what he thought about me, but for me it was love at first sight.

My first thought was that he didn’t like me, because he didn’t talk to me, he even ignored me.

When I got home I didn’t know a lot about him, which made me very unhappy and I didn’t know what I had to do.

I’m a big pessimist, so I assumed that I wouldn’t see him ever again.

But everything has changed...