The HCOS WeeklyFourteenth Edition

ALLAH: The Malaysian DillemaAn Interview ArticleBy Adley Soames

What does Allah mean? Most North Americans believe Allah is the Mus-lim God, which is incorrect. In the words of Isaiah M.: “Allah has been used to refer to God by all Abra-hamic religion for centuries, even during pre-Islamic times”. So Allah is not a specific God; Allah is a word meaning God. It is used in many parts of the world including Africa, the Middle East and South East Asia. Allah can mean a Chris-tian God, Hindu God, Sikh God, Muslim God or any God, it just means God.

Alright, Allah isn’t specifically Is-lamic; it just a word meaning God used in various languages, what makes this important? In order for

me to get to my point, I need to ex-plain that in Malaysia, the word Al-lah is used by both Muslims and Christians to describe God. Many Muslims are happy to share the word Allah with Christians, but the Malaysian court of appeal decided that ‘Allah’ was unfit for Christian usage and is currently working on outlawing the word Allah for all but Muslim use. This will mean that all Christian Bibles using the word Allah instead of God will be made illegal. This will also mean that Christian Malaysians will be forced to adopt a new term for Al-lah. If you are a Christian, consider how you would feel if the word

‘God’ was illegal.

Isaiah M., who is a Christian Malaysian, says: “Constitutionally,

it’s about freedom of worship, guaranteed during the formation of this country. Such persecution shows religious tensions and dis-crimination that will affect the

state of this country. Personally, my people have been using “Allah” in worship to God, even before the formation of this country. It means the world to them, because it means God. Taking this word away from their vocabulary is similar to taking away their rights to freedom of speech and freedom to practice religion.”

Isaiah talks about human rights and freedom to practice religion. He explains that his people have been saying Allah before the Malaysian government even exist-ed. What right does the govern-ment have over this matter?

“Malaysia won’t succeed if the non-Muslims do not have the same o p p o r tu n i t i e s ,” s a i d B a ra c k Obama, during his speech at Uni-versity of Malaya. Obama’s speech was aimed at equality and unity, explaining that Malaysia cannot

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Bible Passage of

the Week

By Megan Ferguson

Well this week I’ve decided that it’s not going to be a verse of the week, but a passage/chapter of the week. Look everyone! I’ve broken the rules!

"Before he had finished praying, Rebekah came out with her jar on her shoulder. She was the daugh-ter of Bethuel son of Milkah, who was the wife of Abraham’s brother Nahor... The servant hurried to meet her and said, “Please give me a little water from your jar.”

“Drink, my lord,” she said, and quickly lowered the jar to her hands and gave him a drink.

A!er she had given him a drink,

she said, “I’ll draw water for your camels too, until they have had enough to drink.” So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough, ran back to the well to draw more water, and drew enough for all his camels. “-Genesis 24:15, 17-20

Now this doesn't seem like a big deal, I mean all she did was give him some water for him and his camels. But camels can drink 100L in one go. The man most likely had about 10 camels! Which means Re-bekah would have worked for about 2 hours solid. It was hard work that would have made her sore, achy and sweaty. All for some stranger she didn't know! She is a great example of being a servant.

Why is it important to have a ser-vant’s attitude, you ask? Well, in this passage, Rebekah demonstrat-ed loving-kindness, selflessness, hospitality, and determination among many other excellent char-acter qualities. She wasn’t obliged to give Elizer water, let alone water his camels – that is a HUGE job!

God had a great plan for her life, and having those qualities already in her helped a great deal. We should learn to have these quali-ties as well because every great thing starts from something little. We can’t be a leader if we don’t have the heart to be a servant first. Having a servant’s attitude doesn’t mean you have to be on your toes

ALL the time and take away other people’s jobs, though. There is a happy medium somewhere, so it is your duty to start working towards that goal and find the happy medi-um!

survive by creating reasons to dis-c r i m i n a t e a g a i n s t e t h n i c minorities.

How can Malaysians overcome this situation? “Mutual understanding and respect; if none of these exist anymore, Malaysia has a one way ticked to its ruins.” –Isaiah M.

These are the religious tensions in Malaysia; these tensions have grown to a point where they are no longer between religions, but be-tween people; these tensions will l e a d t o v i o l e n c e a n d discrimination.

Extra thanks to Isaiah M. for being interviewed and Jennica Wlodar-czyk for editing.

Chapel Reflection

By Jubilee Chiu

Over the last few sessions of Chapel, Mr. Nelson talked about slowing down from all the things you busy yourself with in life, and making time for God. Whether it’s your job, schoolwork, hobbies, keeping up with friends, or even serving in your church that takes up a lot of your time, you need to re-evaluate your life and find a bal-ance. Clear your schedule of things you don’t NEED, but don’t fill that empty spot with nothingness. In-stead, work on reading the Bible, praying, and waiting on God. Too much of anything becomes some-thing negative, even happiness – it clouds your vision from the bigger picture.

You may think that it’s not a big deal, but you are WRONG! This is satan’s way of tricking us into be-lieving that being busy is good, that we’re being “productive”. In reality, we are busying ourselves with life and growing farther and farther apart from God. What hap-pened to being best friends with God?! You don’t see people claim-ing to be best friends with some-one but talking to them twice a week, at church, and that’s it. Friendship doesn’t work that way, and without God we are nothing. So what are we really doing with our lives? I hope you’ll choose to slow down, and build your rela-tionship with the Father.

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A Place For To Showcase YOUR Writing!

Literature Corner

Poetry/Writing

Competition

An Event Reportby Jennica Wlodarczyk

Head over to the Ning commons, because there's an exciting writing competition going on! This compe-tition, hosted by Mrs. Pippa Davies and an unnamed array of judges, is going on from April 9th to June 1st, and is open to all HCOS, HCS, and ACOS students grade 3 and up. Submit by simply copying your writing into the comment box un-der the event, or by copying a link to your work in the comment box. Any types of creative writing are able to be submitted in either writ-ten or orally presented form. The top three winners will each receive an Amazon prize. First place wins $40, second place wins $25, and third place wins $20. There are only ten members in the competi-tion right now, and not all have submitted work yet. Your chances of being read by the judges and winning a prize are still high. Check it out, and may the best writing win!

Jerry the Spider

A Short StoryBy Jazzannah Green

“What a lovely day!”The sun glinted off the walls of this enormous hall, lighting up the beige and tan colours. This wasn’t a too shabby place to live, com-pared to some of my relatives. I saw a fly land on the ground, and I slowly creeped towards it, I was close, so, close...There! I got it.

I wrapped it up busily, and stuck it on my back, for lunch later. I car-ried on with my morning walk. A little bit later, I came upon one of the huge beings that ruled this place! I believe this one, was the one the other beings called ‘Jaz-zannah’, or the smaller ones called her ‘Zannah.’ Interesting, how they named each other. One could have multiple names, like the biggest ones.

I decided to interact with it, and began to try and get closer to it.“Hello!” I shouted, but it didn’t seem to hear me.Hmm.I crawled up one of its legs, -they only had two! Imagine that! And they didn’t seem to be able to pro-duce any web, either. As I moved up, the being looked down, and I waved my front leg. “Finally! Hello! My name is-”

I was interrupted by a loud pierc-ing scream, and my life flashed in front my eyes, crawling out of my egg sack, my first web, catching my first gnat and fly, and then nothing.

His lifeless body was brushed to the ground without care, already forgotten. He would never be able to say goodbye, to his wife or his kids.

His life was over.Jerry was dead.

The Distinct Glow

A PoemBy Jaleesa Taylor

We blend into the crowdWe wear just what they wearWe never speak above a whisperNever would we dare

We all sing the same tuneWe’re all about the “one”We’d rather be just common starsThan shine out like the sun

At no time play with fireBeing common is the bestBut what happens when we’re forcedTo re-evaluate this quest?

Will we find that life is tiresome?But a monotonous task?Will we realize that we’veConcealed ourselves behind a mask?

We’re not meant to be disguisedNot designed to fit the moldGod desires us to live our livesBoth confident and bold

When we shine our light for HimTo let everybody know

The facade the world wants us to ownCannot suppress our Glow

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Interview with Genevieve WardBy Jennica Wlodarczyk

1. Genevieve, hello and welcome to this edition of the HCOS Weekly. Could you give the read-ers a brief spiel on your family life, goals for the future, and your-self in general?Greetings all readers – and thanks very much, Jenn, for inviting me to do this interview!

Okay, as anyone who knows me well has probably realized, brief written spiels are not my forte…but I’ll try my best. I’ll start with family, since that’s probably the easiest (see, this is like taking a test – begin with the easiest ques-tions, and then just start guessing). I have three siblings (two brothers, one sister), my mom and dad, two cats, a dog, and two guinea pigs – yes, I know pets aren’t technically part of the family, but they make my list look so much more impres-sive.

Now, myself...I feel like it’s difficult to answer this without giving away all my hobbies, which are coming later (delayed spoiler alert), but I’ll try my best. Basically, I like reading poetry better than writing it, live

under the delusional belief that there is a Relient K song for abso-lutely every situation in life, still find endless entertainment in climbing trees (shh, don’t tell any-one, it’s not a very dignified pursuit for a teenager who’s supposed to be mature), and I cannot, for the life of me, understand the rules of basketball or football. I don’t really know how that helped sum me up, other than suggesting that I’m a delusional-tree-climbing-poetry-admirer, who doesn’t understand popular American sports. (Oops, that was a brief spiel on myself that actually offered no relevant information on myself)

Now, goals for the future…in no particular order of importance, at this point my goals would include writing a novel, doing some world-travelling, going to university/col-lege just for the sake of learning stuff (I suppose I’ll try and work to-wards some sort of a career, too xD), having lots of adventures, and learning another language. I think it’s a reasonably typical list.

2. If you could invite three people to lunch from the world of fiction, which three would you choose?Eugenides, Peaceable Sherwood, and Victoria Austin – although, to be honest, I could probably have 50 more such luncheons with fic-tional characters, and think of dif-ferent characters I’d like to invite each time. xD

3. What is your favourite thing about living in your town?It’s a reasonably small town, which is something I love about it – you can’t go to any grocery store with-

out knowing/recognizing a bunch of the other customers, and usual-ly some of the staff. Plus it’s by the ocean. :D

4. What are some of your hobbies?Haha, the best way I can describe my hobbies is that I love to dabble in a whole bunch of things. My main hobbies would be music (pi-ano, violin, and bass guitar – a wide variety of musical genres, as you can guess), reading (poetry, novels, nonfiction, scientific arti-cles, and basically anything I can get my hands on), writing (prose, life reflections, random journal-like entries, sections of novels, the odd newspaper article – okay, very odd, etc), sports (soccer, running, and horseback riding – actually, anything to do with horses), and art (usually pencil drawings, black and white).

5. Have you ever sung Disney songs in public places?…maaaaybe. Actually, probably not, because I don’t have a fabu-lous voice, and therefore I rarely grace the world with its less-than-splendiferous sounds. Family/close friends are different…they can deal with my voice. xD

6. What is your favourite TV show (if you have one)?Doctor Who or Sherlock at the mo-ment – yes, I know, it’s a very main-stream answer (well, kind of main-stream in a not-mainstream way, which is funny), but they’re both really good shows.

7. Who is one of the most influen-tial people in your life?Both of my parents have been

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hugely influential in my life (I know that’s cliché, it’s okay) in how they work to follow and glorify God in their lives, as well as in a lot of oth-er areas – the wisdom I’ve gained from them, the examples they’ve set in how they love each other and my siblings and I…I’m really blessed to have such an awesome family, even if I don’t tell them so very o"en. xD

8. Do you like strawberry jam?*Confession time*

I…don’t like strawberry jam. D:

(I know, somewhere a proper British person just spat out their tea and is now questioning the reli-ability of my claims to British her-itage)

It’s shocking, but to be honest I’m just not a jam person, and I’m afraid that includes strawberry jam.

9. What is your favourite pet’s name?I’m actually not extremely happy with any of them right now for vari-ous reasons (except for the guinea pigs, who are harmless xD), so I’m going to cheat and say the horse I ride at a nearby barn/stables – he’s not mine, but I’d love it if he was. His name’s Oscar, and he’s a ridicu-lously adorable black-and-white paint who’s really grumpy, and pre-tends to hate it when people cod-dle/pet/love him. We get along well. :’D

10. Thanks again for willing to be interviewed! Last question: do you like jellyfish?First off: you’re very welcome, thanks again for choosing me as an interviewing candidate! Hope ev-eryone who read this has enjoyed learning random details about my

life in a non-stalkerish way. :’D

S e c o n d : H A H A H A H A , o h goodness…XD

Okay, for those of you who don’t know, I wrote a ridiculously long rant about jellyfish in regards to an innocent question Jenn once asked about whether or not I’d seen a live one before…for the sake of time and space, I’ll sum it all up in that jellyfish are bad and would probably eat you if they had teeth, so it’s best to avoid them.

Random Facts

For Your WarehouseOf Useless Knowledge

By Genevieve Ward

The word “overmorrow” means “the day a"er tomorrow”

Ever heard of the “Wilhelm Scream”? It’s a well-known film and television stock sound effect that has been used in over 200 movies, beginning in 1951. Some notable films containing this dis-tinctive scream are Star Wars, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Indi-ana Jones.

Art competitions were held as part of the Olympic Games between 1912 and 1948.

The world’s first handheld mobile phone, sold in 1984, cost $3,995 at the time.

A twisty 95-mile-long underground river runs beneath Mexico; howev-er, in a straight line, the system would only span about 6 miles.

The first e-mail was sent in 1971.

The longest a person has gone without sleep is 11 days.

Female tarantulas can live for 20 years.

A R u b i k ’s C u b e c a n m a k e 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 differ-ent combinations.

Eeyore from “Winnie the Pooh” and Optimus Prime from “Trans-formers” are voiced by the same actor, Peter Cullen

It is illegal to hunt whales in Utah. Utah is landlocked.

Twinkies were originally made with banana cream filling, but a banana shortage during World War II caused vanilla to become the standard flavouring.

Didaskaleinophobia is the fear of going to school.

A Column

Submitted by Micah Penner

This is a Corinthian Greek Ionic Ro-man Classical Marble column, lo-cated by the seaside of Israel.

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Interview withMicah Penner

By Jennica Wlodarczyk

1. Hello Micah! As an introduction to this interview, tell us a little bit about yourself.I like bacon.

2. If you had any type of super-power, what would it be and how would you use it?Bacon.

3. What do you spend most of your time doing?Bacon.

4. What are some of your hobbies?Bacon.

5. What is one thing you could not live without?Bacon.

6. Assuming that everything will work out smoothly career-wise in your life, where do you plan to be in thirty years?Eating Bacon.

7. What was one of the greatest moments in your life?When I first ate Bacon.

8. Do you like the smell of steak?Bacon is better.

9. What is your favourite movie, and why does it hold the place of being your favourite?Bacon.

10. Thank you again for taking the time to complete this interview. As one final question, what is your favourite animal?Bacon.

Cymera App

Camera & Photo Editing AppRecommended by Pippa Davies

By Melody Brocke

With twenty different filters, amaz-ing light effects, and over eight hundred hair, makeup, and sticker options, Cymera gives you control over your photos. Although de-signed for portraits, you can edit just about any photo the way you want.

It offers multiple effects, such as a timer, antishake, and seven differ-ent lenses to take your pictures with. It's quick and easy to learn to use, and will it give you a new ap-preciation for your phone's built in camera. And the best part? It's free.

Download it today!Available for Android, Apple and Google Play.

YEARBOOK Invite

Dear HCOS Parents and Students,

On behalf of HCOS, I'd like to invite your child(ren) (grades 8-12) to take part in our first ever yearbook! Our Yearbook team will be using an amazing online yearbook mak-er called Mixbook to compile the Yearbook for HCOS 2013-14. There will be class portraits, pictures of special events (school trips and grad), school clubs, pages showing past contests, and more. We will be featuring photos from the Compar-ative Civilizations 12 trip to Europe, CHEC 2014, Global Citizen-ship Program 11/12, Grad 2014, and other events, so photos will be most appreciated.

If you would like your child(ren) to be a part of our yearbook, please email me (Jubilee) from the Yearbook Committee at ju-bileechiu1@yahoo.ca with your child(ten)'s full name and grade, along with a headshot. The dead-line is June 20, 2014. We are re-questing those who have photos from the Comparitive Civilzations 11/12 Trip and CHEC 2014 conven-tion to email (or link) it to ju-bileechiu1@yahoo.ca ASAP. Emails will be sent in the future request-ing parents and students to email us photos from school events/trips as well.

Everyone will get a free digital copy of the yearbook. Physical copies are available as well, and you can purchase them from the link we will be sending you.

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CHEC: Gollum Simon - by Joshua Wlodarczyk

CHEC: Jesse, Simon and Timmy - by Joshua Wlodarczyk

Super Comics: CHEC Special

Tale of the Comic: Three guys were at the top of a cliff, and were promised that they would land in whatever they wanted. As Jesse charged towards the edge, he shouted "I WANT TO LAND IN DOL-LARS!" Unfortunately, Canadian dollars are terribly hard, and Jesse had to be rushed to the ER and get his poor legs amputated. However,

because he was now extremely rich, he got epic cyborg legs attached by the top notch doctors. Next up, Si-mon! As he too prepared to jump, he considered how Jesse ended up bruised so he came up with a better idea. He hollered "I WANT TO LAND IN HUNDRED DOLLAR BILLS!" And that is what he landed in - Simon walked away a rich man as well,

but slightly less bruised. Last up, Timmy. He thought to himself, "Ooh, should I get a Lamborghini or a Fer-rari? Ehh, I'll go with the flow." Tim-my ran as fast as his legs could take him, but just as he reached the edge, he tripped over a rock and shrieked, "OH POOP!"

FIN

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WEEKLY

LOL