In The Air The e-zine for online secondary English students at the Fraser Valley Distance Education School Winter/Spring 2005 PowerPoint Project (Click to view this Java presentation; it may take a few minutes to load.) By Tanya B.

Poetry Short Prose Paragraphs Essays Projects Readings Graphics Please use a 800x600 screen. Optimized for Internet Explorer and Mozilla. PowerPoint Essay Project Describing Nature A Concluding Paragraph Making a Pizza A Christmas Carol Poem A Macbeth Project Back Issue: Winter '03/04 Back Issue: Spring '04 Back Issue: Summer '04 Back Issue: Fall '04

Describing My Favourite Nature Spot By A.J.M.     aaaa I was apprehensive about the descent I was soon to take. It was a brisk day. The air would bite you if you took off your gloves. It froze your breath the second it left your mouth. The wind whisked by me. It would talk to me, telling me to move or it would bite me. The sky was steel gray, as if it had turned its back on me. It was an unwelcoming feeling of loneliness; ignoring me, depriving me of sunlight and warmth. The mountains looked down upon me as I shivered. They loomed in the horizon, blocking my view of anything else. The mountains were long and had flat tops. They looked like bleachers full of trees and snow, all mocking me and pushing me to go down the mountain. They were ready to view my descent. I knew that if I didn’t go, the snow would lose its patience and push me over. I looked down the narrow alley like valley that I was about to ski and shuddered. There were moguls on the hillside like mumps, threatening to cover me in the same disease by causing me to fall. Rocks shot out of the snow like tombstones marking their previous victims. There were thousands of trees, populating the mountain slope like people in a busy city. The trees which had no leaves on them, had their hungry hands out, desperate for warmth. They looked dead, but none of them would pass up an opportunity to snatch a skier. They were roadblocks, stopping me from accomplishing my goal of getting down the mountain. I could see the cuts in the snow from other skiers. Each cut was a story. Some of the stories told you about tremendous victory and others spoke of terrible defeat. Each story took different turns. Every one of them was an adventure. I could see the run go flat at the bottom of the slope. It was a refuge from the punishment I could receive from the mountain. It was like a welcoming sign of a motel in a rainstorm at night. Before waiting caused me to take the easier run, I jumped down. The intensity made this place what it is.

The Mobile Phone: The Much Maligned Marvel The concluding paragraph from her essay By Kelsey I. aaa... Mobile phones provide countless benefits to today’s society. Their technology provides new opportunities and capabilities that were never possible before. Unfortunately, like all technology, mobile phones can be harmful if they are misused. But this is the only exception to their safety benefits. All concerns and problems the public has with mobile phones are all due to the abuse or irresponsible use of them, not their intended use. For example, talking on a cell phone while driving is a choice, not a necessity. If it affects driving performance it is the driver’s responsibility to not use the cell phone while driving. Even the possible health risks would be because of abuse. Slight health risks are only a possibility if mobile phones are constantly overused, or if they are not regulated by the FCC (which they are). Mobile phones should not be banned just because some people use them irresponsibly and abuse their technology. The benefits mobile phones offer are too valuable to let unwise people take away from us. Mobile phones provide today’s society with convenience, unrestricted communication, and even safety. As long as society continues to use them with common sense and wisdom, mobile phones will remain one of the most valuable technological advancements of this century.