21 January, 2007
Teen Life Introduction
Hi, my name is Joshua but you can call me Josh. I’m in 8th grade and I’ll be 14 at the end of this month (January). I was born and raised in Melbourne Australia where I lived until I was 10. I then moved to an International Community (Kuala Lumpur) where I have lived since then. My life in Australia was great. Most of my family lived there and I went to a great school with my best friend. My family and I would travel around very often in Australia, to country towns for weekends and driving up to Sydney, the Gold Coast, or Rockhampton on holidays. In that sense my life here is pretty similar since many weekends I do take 2-4 hour drives to close by towns where much of my extended family live. At school my electives are Library Aide and Mandrin which I have been learning since my first year at my school in Melbourne. I played basketball in Melbourne and now where I live I play tennis which I thoroughly enjoy. I travel to Australia and back to KL twice a year to see my family and friends there.
I live in a huge house right now which is very different to my house in Melbourne in terms of size. My life here is very luxurious but because of school it can be very stressful. My weekday schedule pretty much goes like this; I wake up and get picked up by then school bus. I arrive at school soon after and spend around 7 hours there. The school bus takes me home and I start my homework straightaway. I usually watch “Friends” on my computer and do my homework until I go to bed. I have tennis once a week and often have my friends over or go to their houses. When I am not at school or sleeping you would most likely find me on my computer. I really enjoy my life here, with the delicious food, tropical climate, and cheap technology.
For this Teen Life project I have been asked to think of global issues that are concerning me. An issue that has been troubling me is global warming. Global warming is worrying to me because above my home country, Australia, is the biggest hole in our ozone layer. Australia is the world leader in skin cancer and this is very troubling.
Another global issue that concerns me is poverty. Malaysia is an undeveloped nation so you defiantly see a difference in the living situations between here and Australia. Where I live now there are pretty wealthy people and some not so wealthy people so you can defiantly see a contrast in the living environments of the people of this country. Malaysia is not that bad off actually, if you think of remote places is Africa mainly there are millions of people who even lack access to clean water. Most of these people die of malnutrition and disease and this could easily be prevented. With a little bit of money wells could be made for them so they may have clean water and although they do receive some treatment for disease this could be prevented if they had better living situations.
Well this is me and my major concerns about the world. I hope you learned something about me and are concerned about the same or similar issues.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:46
Hi! My name is Paula and I’m from Colegio Jorge Washington in Cartagena. I’m also concerned about global warming because it damages the planet a lot. Many wildlife is being destroyed like polar bears because their habitat is melting. I hadn’t thought of skin cancer but that is also very interesting because it also affects humans.
January 24th, 2007 at 5:32
Hey Paula. I’m Josh from Malaysia. I hadn’t thought about the wildlife and their environment, that is a good point. Also, as the ice caps melt the sea level will increase and create floods. The changes in temperature will cause heat waves and natural disasters such as tornadoes and hurricans.