War Horse Summary

The war horse story setting started in Devon, England in the year of 1914. The Narracott family consists of three person that is Ted Narracott(Father), Rosie Narracott(Mother) and Albert Narracott(Albie, the main character). Ted Narracott went to an auction to buy a horse and he paid 30 guineas for the horse for cropland. It’s too high that he ended up not paying the landlord, Lyons. The horse was trained by Albie and he called him Joey. Joey was a half thoroughbred colt. Just because they’re in a war, everything was hard. Then Albie’s father, Ted sold Joey to captain Nicholls.

The first journey is when Captain Nicholls brings Joey to a war. He was killed by guns that killed most of the horses, except Joey and Topthorn. Topthorn is Major Stewart’s mount, always be the fastest in the training drills. However, this time Captain Nicholls won in the training drills.  After that, Joey and Topthorn are chosen to pull an ambulance, but Topthorn refuses to accept the collar. Then Joey comes over and show Topthorn that it’s okay and everything is going to be fine. The horse was taken cared by Gunther and Michael. When the unit are told to move out, Gunther, the older one was asked to stay and Michael, just 14 and it’s told to join the military. When the unit was going, Gunther took Joey and Topthorn and pull Michael to run away.  The ride and hide in the windmill. Before the wake up to continue the Journey they were caught and executed.

The Horses are left behind, the next morning Emilie finds the horse and starts to take a good care of them. Emilie is sick and live with her grandfather since her parents were killed. Emilie’s birthday is the day when her grandfather allowed her to ride Joey. Just when she rides Joey, the Germans come to the farm and took Joey and Topthorn. The horse are taken and put into the care of Friendrich who quickly become attached. When the other horses that were asked to pull a machine gun tank, one of the horse died and asked Topthorn to change the die horse place, but the topthorn was injured and Joey sacrifice himself to pull the tank.

Then the scene changes back to Joey, Topthorn, Friedrich and the Germans. As they walk along the trenches, Friedrich went to the side and Topthorn lies down and dies. Then suddenly the Germans that march, run to the other direction because in the movie we see a tank which going to Friedrich and Joey’s side. Friedrich run away but Joey was trapped between the tanks. Then Joey that in the first movie tries to jump across the German trench. Joey is now in no man’s land that is straightly jumps to the British lines and pulling the wire fence until he totally tangled in it.

Joey unable to move until the next morning the British and Germans are amazed to see Joey in the middle of no man’s land. The British soldier pull out his handkerchief to help Joey, but the German soldier fires a warning shot to him. As the German soldier gets near to Joey, he realize that he have brought the wire cutters and gloves to cut the wires. They worked together to set Joey free and two of the soldiers want Joey. They toss a coin and the British Soldier wins. The British soldier brings Joey to the British lines and to the hospital where Albie still blind. Joey was injured due to when he was tangled at the wire fence. There is no vet and the only way is to kill Joey. Just then, Albie called him with the whistle that he taught Joey just before the war. Joey comes toward Albie and confirmed that Joey is Albie’s horse.

The war has ended, but Albie is not allowed to take the horse back to England. Joey is going to be sold along with the rest of the horses that is not owned by officers. Albie’s comrades have collected all the money they have collected, so Albie can buy his horse back But as the bid goes up, Albie is losing. Then Emilie’s Grandfather shows up and he pays 100pounds, and if the bids goes up again, he will sell his farm just to get that horse. It’s because that Emilie has died and the only memories left of Emilie is Joey. As Albie and Emilie’s grandfather talked, Emilie’s grandfather decided to give him back the horse as that is Emilie would have wanted. The ending was that Albie is riding Joey back home where he meets his mother and his father.

Reflection on Debates and Argumentative Essays

In this unit, we learn about debates and argumentative essays. In the argumentative essay, I think I did well on the formats, because my format is well structured and it is clear enough that people can differentiate the format I’m using. The thesis statement was also good; I stated it clearly and use 2 reasons. The format that I actually use is the introduction-pro-pro-con-conclusion, because for me it’s easier to make the essay and the thesis statement. The bibliography I made is also tidy and good enough. The improvement I need to make is the grammars and my words on the essay. But if I can improve them like right now, I can get better score.

If the debate I can make good topics and the explanation that I'm telling was also good. But I am not that confident enough to tell it and I'm kind of shaking when I'm in front on the class, Ms H and Mrs Clegg.  I’m the group that agrees with the topic. The topic for debate is “Globalization will lead to a better future”. So after all I need to improve my confidence and also the explanation.

Are we there yet?

“Are we there yet?”, words that we hear everyday in our life because of traffic. Traffic happens because of the usage of private cars that everyday increases. Yet, people don’t realize what is the cause. The traffic makes cars stop and waste lots of fuel and pollute the air. We should realize that there are many alternatives than using our own private car, like we can use Public Transportation. Public transportation may not be as good as the public transportation in developed countries, But because of the problems we have, public transportation must be developed because by reducing the car usage we will reduce the traffic and pollution. Using public transportation can reduce traffic because in Jakarta, 30% of people use public transportation and the other 70% uses their own car or motorcycle. If you see on streets the percentage is correct and most people use their own car or motorcycles to the places they want to go. One of the resources even stated that Jakarta is one of the most populated city with 346.92 traffic per-day. Jakarta also is estimated to lose $1 billion yearly due to traffic. The money that we can use to repair streets, making shelters, community colleges are used due to traffic. Most of the estimation websites said that, there are around 1.5 million vehicles (Cars, Motorcycles etc) on Jakarta’s streets each day but the road capacity is for only 1 million vehicles. Less than 8 percent of those vehicles are for public transportation, the disturbing fact is that one large public bus filled with passengers would remove 30 privately owned cars from the road. The growth rate of Jakarta roads is 0.9% a year, but vehicle growth is 9%, so by 2014 there will too much traffic unless something is done.Another reason is that less cars means less pollution. These days, people don’t realize that pollution creates global warming. The issue of global warming is getting worse day by day. The air pollution in Jakarta is really high, it reaches the 89.91 on the estimation experts website. In this city, the researches estimate that due to travelling to work/school, per passenger is produces yearly 3,766.56kg of CO₂. It is needed 43.91 trees for each passenger to produce enough oxygen to cover the pollution each person has made. Can you imagine how much oxygen from trees is needed to cover 237,424,363 people in Indonesia?Some people claim that “Public transportation is not comfortable enough”. For me, yes it is, but the government is trying to fix the public transportation so it can be more comfortable and people will eventually start to use the public transportation rather than using their own cars. The public transportation can be comfortable if we as citizens keep everything clean and throw rubbish in the right place. However, not only the citizens can keep the public transportation clean, also the government. The government will repair the facilities that will satisfy us.

Although there are some objections about using public transportation, the facts above show that public transportation is not that bad after all. We need to start thinking about the future, if we don’t start to reduce the car usage, what will happen to the next generation? We also actually already know about the consequences. Therefore, use public transportation for healthy and safe environment.