English Lang. & Lit. Blog | Tómas Egilsson

Immigration to America is not anything new as populations from across the world have been moving to America for 4 centuries now. Most have simply been looking for better lives elsewhere, as their home countries might have been struck with war, an outbreak of disease, or simply wanted more freedom, which of course is the first thing that the U.S promises its citizens. So, when you read the article “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, you are surprised to hear that there are people who discriminate against immigrants simply for not knowing how to speak “proper” English. This creates inequality in the population, and looking at some of the examples in this text, contradicts the very freedom that they as citizens have been promised. Tan describes her mother as a very smart person. “She reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall Street Week, converses daily with her stockbroker, reads all Shirley MacLaine’s books with ease,” these are all things that I feel describe an educated and intelligent p...

The article “How to Pay for a Baby” by Kool A.D. uses lots of slang and expletives in order to disguise itself as a lousy advice article on how to handle to the financial aspect of having children, when in reality it is an entertaining, and sophisticated criticism of American capitalism. The article starts with the phrase “I’mma keep it 100 with y’all,”. Already a use of slang, and diction that you would not expect from an article with this title. So, with this we start to assume that this is simply a crappy article. While the author has us in this state of mind, he slips a little clue into the second sentence as to what the real purpose of the article is, testing whether you’re paying attention. Speaking about how costly babies are as they grow up, he mentions their “susceptibilities to advertising tactics” therefore becoming more expensive. Now, in the second paragraph, there is evidence of entertainment as A.D. says “most likely you’re bad at planning ahead and thinking things thr...

The “something new” that I will try this year is something that is pretty much required now in order to succeed in DP. I’ve never been a very organized person, mostly relying on my memory when it comes to deadlines and homework, which will become very hard now with a much larger work load. So, simply writing down all homework, and the due date for it will be a relatively new experience for me. In terms of a personal goal, I would say having a mix of both going to the gym and going to football practices will be something that I have not really tried before. I’ve always felt that the practices were enough exercise (especially since I’ve had at least 3 a week up until now), but that is changing now meaning I needed to find something else to fulfil my healthy requirements. So, having that mix will be an important goal for me this year.             A big part of English class is being able to analyze texts and well, everything t...

Hi, my name is T ómas Egilsson, and welcome to my blog. I am 16 years old, from Seltjarnarnes, Iceland,  and study at Raha International School. I have few strong interests, and lots of milder ones. I´ll only focus on the main ones today. I am a huge Liverpool fan, and follow football and the English Premier League religiously. I rarely ever miss a match, unless I simply don ’t have time. I was able to go to Anfield, for a Liverpool vs Stoke match, which we won (notice the use of “we” when speaking about Liverpool) 4-1. Other than football, I enjoy films quite a bit. My personal project was a collection of 24 film reviews all packed into one big book. Comedies are my favorite genre, closely followed by a good thriller. I play a lot of video games (but that’ll most likely change with DP), and I will beat you at FIFA. As years have gone by, I have learned about the importance of family. My 27-year old brother is my best friend (Sorry Rainier and Madhav) and every year I become ...