Nick-22- Age restriction: for or against?

  NO BABIES? ARE YOU CRAZY!!?

Today I learned that in Canada they have got age restricted communities. These communities prohibit people below the age of 19   from living with them. We read an article about a family who lives in a restricted community; they have been charged by a 200 dollar per week fine because they have a baby. I think this is completely absurd. All of us were babies to begin with, how can we deny other people the right to have children and live wherever they want as long as they are not disturbing other people's lives?

Whether you are a Christian, a Muslim, an atheist or a Buddhist children are considered holy in your belief. They are pure, cute and they symbolize our beginning. All of us were little babies when we came to this World, how can we reject to be with other babies!? Of course I don't think that everyone should have children and they should live with children all the time, but try to push them away from their neighbourhood? it is just not good.

I don't think that people should be charged just because they have children. Creating a family is what humans do and it's only natural for us to have children. Old people should know this better than we,the younger generation, do!!

Nick-21-Teacher's problems

                    BEING NASSER

My blog will be about a certain teacher who has to deal with certain students who are allowed to use computers in class. I will put myself in this teacher's shoes and try to solve his problems. caution is advised because this teacher's drama may damage your psychology!! 

Let's think about what Nasser has to suffer everyday; A class full of students who text,talk and surf on the Internet at the same time. he tries to be patient but naturally his students abuse his good-willed tactics. Since he is not yelling around or smashing their cell phones, they keep on doing what they want to do even through class. What should he do? start being strict and use extreme measures in order to make sure that no one is idling in his class? or maybe he should go easy on them and hope that they will understand in time?

I think it depends on the circumstances. He can be a bad teacher if you piss him off, but as long as you don't frustrate him he will be the best teacher on earth. Being an extremely angry teacher may cause students to alienate themselves from class and being an extremely nice teacher may cause students to take advantage this nice attitude; but being the teacher between these two qualities is the perfect place to be in my opinion.

But how can Nasser be the perfect teacher? he can be a little more angry because currently he is heading towards being the extremely nice teacher. He can use more effective methods on his students and he can take some of their sources of entertainment from them. This doesn't mean that he must be an angry teacher, just he can show that he has got the reins in his hands and no one will challenge him in terms of class management. I am not familiar with the teaching methods and Nasser knows them pretty good so I don't think that he should change those methods. 

In a nutshell, I think that Nasser is already a good teacher, but to achieve complete control over students he should be a little bit more serious. As one of his students I beg him not to be extremely angry and not to be offended by this blog in any way and I hope that this will help anyone who reads it!!

Elaine-2-In the teacher's shoes

I was asked to pretend to be a teacher and deal with my students being distracted by devices. So, let's do it!?

___________________________________________________________________________________

Hi! My name is Elaine, but you can call me Miss Hira. I'm a teacher of digital game programming and today I'm gonna tell you a story that happened last week. Well, as usual, I gave my students 30 minutes to develop an idea of a new environment to be used in a logic game. In the mean time, I was in front of my computer analyzing the following activity.

All of a sudden, I heard some giggles. I decided to ignore them. Erm, giggles again! Uh, I only looked at them and kept doing what I was doing. Then, the giggles were louder!! Oh, boy! What those students were doing? Let's see: Willy was texting on his cellphone; Nicky was you-tubing some party's video; Jessy, chatting on Facebook while Vikky was concentrating on his camera. Oh my goodness! I just couldn't stand that! I started yelling at them so angry and annoyed... (OK, I confess: I did swear too) that the class went to a complete silence! Or almost complete, if it wasn't the whimper of Anny.

Gosh, what had I done? But they were wrong, right? They did deserve it, didn't they?
(PAUSE)
Oh, well... yeah, I think I exaggerated, eh!

But look at my situation: I was so upset because none of them had remembered my birthday (that it was that day) and moreover, they were not even doing their task at least not to bother me talking with my sister on Fac.... (opsy, I admit! I was also logged in!)

Suddenly, Youngy entered in the classroom with a beautiful cake (Willy had sent him a text message to do so), Nikky played the "Happy Birthday" song from the You Tube video while Vikky was taking some pictures of that moment. When I looked at my screen I had just received a very nice message from Jessy!

Such a surprise! I was not expecting that! They definitely melted my heart. Uh, Anny was still crying! I shouldn't have yelled at them like I did.  And, of course, despite being my birthday, the direction gave me a pep talk about the misbehavior! In the end, everybody shared the cake and we had a sweet end! ;)


________________________________________________________________________________


Conclusion of the story: I am just glad that I have Nasser as my teacher and not me!

Elaine-1-ads

Advertisements: they are part of our lives

It's early morning, you wake up and open the newspaper to be up-to-date with the news while you have your breakfast. As you flip the pages, you are shot by all kinds of advertisement. Well, now you are off to work. You take your car and, in the meantime, you listen to the radio. But every frequency you try, you just find ads. Not to mention the vision pollution of the billboards. You arrive at work and open your e-mail. It is full of junk mail! In your lunch time, all of the restaurants are trying to call your attention. After work, you just want to rest at home, so you turn on the TV while you have dinner. Now, you have a shower of commercials trying to sell you things. So you decide to switch the channel to a culinary program. Oh no, in the middle of the dish preparation, guess what?! It is interrupted by someone in the studio trying to sell you the newest powerful camera ever invented. Suddenly, the phone rings: "Hello, Sir.! Would you like to open an account in our bank? We have good conditions and rates..."
 

A similar situation to that described above is lived by a lot of people nowadays. Our lives are almost led by advertisements. What you eat, what you wear, what you do... Everything is influenced  by what the advertisers say you should do/be. In some ways, you might think that there is no choice but to do what the media says. It happens  due to the brainwashing that this huge industry is doing all the time in your life. As it was said, it is business. It is their job. They won't stop doing it. But we all have our own free will and freedom to choose what we want for our lives. We must have a filter to see what is suitable and healthy for us. If we bought everything that is advertised and said that is  the best for us, we would definitely not be in a very good condition as they have promised.

Are the advertisements good or bad for our lives? This answer depends on you. It depends on how you deal with it in your daily routine. If you are a sensible person and use the filter in your favor, you can take advantage of this plenty of advertisements that is thrown at you every day. Otherwise, you will become a slave of this system. You will lose a lot of money on useless things you buy for yourself  and get frustrated about bad choices you have made. On the other hand, we are lucky to have a great variety of products, to have possibilities of choice. After all, we are the owner of our lives and we still have our free will to decide what is the best for us!

Victor - 2 - Ads

The Invasion of Ads!

I believe that nowadays our society has a culture of consumerism because of the ads. There are more ads that have bad influence in the culture of the society. They affect people education, the way they behave in home or society, and in their quality of life as well.

For instance, I always see people striving to get the new gadgets even if they can't afford them or even if they have little time with the last gadget. And they are always investing in updating such stuffs while the fact is that they can go without it, getting the new technology doesn't mean you have a better quality of life. In that way the ads are very persuasive.

Another field the ads aim is young people. The ads manage a lot of stereotypes which causes kids and youngsters lose their identity gradually, making them forget their entities, affecting their thoughts and education.

People may not be aware of the power of ads but let me say that it is scientifically proven that they are even capable of provoking chemical changes in your body. Once I read that there was an experiment in a restaurant that playing  a kind of music helped to trigger  the need of consuming sweet things in human body. During that period the sale of ice cream increased 30%. Another time I read that an episode of a famous cartoon causes stress on many Japanese children and it had to be banned.

I'm against ads because the culture of the companies who sponsor the ads aims to induce people to consume as much as they can, and there is not enough laws to control what they show. There're no more good ads that really help people.

Jessica - 6 - Ads

Impact of ads in our life 

                                              

The advertisement has a big impact in our live, which is worrying, because it can affect our lives negatively and  positively. Ads can manipulate our mind and comportment in different aspects, there are many ads that practically hypnotize the viewers.                          

                                                          

The people change their habits, comportment, or style just because some advertisement is saying that your body, your hair or you can be better if you do or not determinate things that it is saying. Another example is when they say that you need a new car, a new cellphone, this type of ad created into this people a sensation of anxiety and dissatisfaction if they do not have this product. 

     

                                           

Another negative point is about how these advertisements completely escape from reality, affecting specially the kids, so we should limited this kind of ads from kids. The honesty of the information that is linked to the advertisement should be strictly enforced. 

Nowadays, people expend money that they do not have with things that they do not need, just because some advertisement had influence in their mind. In nowadays, we have more things than any generation before us and therefore we are not happier. In fact, we are more unfortunate than the generations that preceded us. 

  

Ana-3-Ads

 What role do Ads play in your life ?

Ads are everywhere in our life, there's clearly no question about it . They come to you, trying to catch your attention in different parts of your everyday routine. As soon as you decide to catch up with the news about the world around you, you open your daily newspaper and start reading it, there they are: newspaper ads. When you are commuting to work, taking the bus or driving your car, you can see the signs around you, on billboards. Even inside the buses now, actually, there are ads that promote help centers, clinics or products. Trying to access your e-mail at work, you see the junk ads stuck in there, promising to help you win an electronic device. You get home, attempting to relax, stretch out on the couch, turn the tv on, and you see more of informecials than the actual tv shows or movies.

It might even pass by you unnoticed, but it seems like there is no more filter when it comes to the ads that keep popping out around us, but the question is: is it only an annoying and unnecessary part of our day or it could actually inform and even entertain us in a certain way ?

At different times it may seem annoying and inconvenient having to put up with different video ads before watching the actual videos we were there to watch, or lying down in bed to watch a favourite tv show and  then infomercials start coming to the screen, insisting that their products are something that you miss in your house or life, but, if you think about it, it can actually bring something new to your life, something more, that you were actually missing, and it could be the solution for some of your problems, or it can inform you about something new that has just come in, or you can help someone that was looking for a specific help or product, passing forward informations that you got to know about after getting new informations, watching a video or reading about a new product on the newspaper.

Another good side of these ''unwanted'' ads is that sometimes they can actually entertain you, since there are very smart, funny and comic commercials out there.You can actually be entertainned by various commercials seen on tv and the Internet nowadays.

Nick-20- ads good or bad?

                      ADs: KILLERS OR SAVIOURS?

I think before making a decision about whether ads are good or bad for us, we must know what ads are. According to Wikipedia, Advertising is a form of communication for marketing and is used to encourage or persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners; sometimes a specific group) to continue or take some new action. I believe this definition is correct but insufficient, because ads do more than merely encouraging people, they manipulate them. You may not know it, but ads effect almost every part of your life. they make you buy material that you don't have to buy, they make you dress according to the fashion, they use your emotions and past experiences in order to excite you so that you will buy whatever they are advertising.

Think about your smartphone for instance. You buy the most recent model available because the ads suggest that the newer models are better for you and you have to buy them in order to be more efficent. But actually a phone is just for calling people and no matter which phone you own, you can always call anyone around the world as long as you have the sufficient dollars for the call. I mean, nobody needs that many features on a phone to call someone else.

Moreover, in some cases the damage ads cause is more than just financial aspects. For example, for the people who are going through rehabilitation, different brands of alcoholic beverage commercials are dangerous. They are always on TV and people who try to quit drinking are tempted by those ads, because drinks are showed in such a way that they seem harmless and attractive.

But not all ads are bad, some of them actually entertain people and don't seek to manipulate their minds. There aren't many ads of this kind but still they can be found if you know how to look for them. For example coca-cola usually makes this kind of ads, with smart ideas and good implications they manage to raise their sales without using any method of controlling other people.

  

In a nutshell, the majority of the ads today are created in order to make us do things we don't tend to do and benefit those companies who have created the ads. We can deny the fact that we are influcenced by ads as much as we like but they will still keep on controlling our minds and actions, so I believe that the ads are bad for us and they should be limited in order to have a completely healthy society.

The price of inequality.

The price of inequality - How is your country paying for it?

Inequality is a huge issue for many countries. There are different levels of inequality. Inequality can  be about cultural knowledge, about social position or economic situation. This is the main problem that does affect every country. It doesn't matter how developed they are. The more developed  the country is, the bigger the gap between rich and poor people would be .

Lately this issue has been more and more discussed among governments. Sooner or later they will realize that inequality is the cause of recession. While the governments are not willing to face the real cause of the problem, which is the gap that causes inequality, in the near future their economy will collapse and all system probably go bankrupt.

This issue doesn't have a simple solution, but many thinkers have been discussing the possible causes of the gap. Recently, one of the most respected writers about social and economic issues, Joseph Stliglitz, wrote a book which clearly depicts the source of the problem.

He has written many books in the recent years and "The price of inequality" has shown us how the economy in the United States is facing a serious problem which can lead the country to a recession one more time.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolate question and all the other countries, who have been trading with United States feel some sort of a domino effect. AS for Brazil, we can say that the economy is strongly affected by US recession. Due to the economic difficult situations all around the world and especially in the US, many companies in Brazil are facing economic problems, which causes unemployment. Without job and money, many people who used to be considered middle class have lost this status. This is the main cause of the gap that does exist in Brazil nowadays. As  our internal economy suffers conssistently through the worldwide recession,  the multinational companies gain stronger ground, which weakens the domestic  economy, causing more and more inequality.

In a nutshell, inequality has many different causes and affect countries in many ways. This is not an easy issue to the deal with, and all the efforts that governments have done in this field have not been succesful. While they don't cope with the source of the problem, which is the bad distribution of weatlh, we can not have any progress. Better distribution of wealth could be the only way to start solving this problem.

Nick-19-Maximum Wealth

              TODAY'S OXYGEN: MONEY

 I believe that people should make only as much money as they can spend because  the society would suffer otherwise. On the one hand, some people would make lots of money while on the other hand, lots of people can't make any. There should be a limit to prevent people from making large amounts of money that they can't spend. If a single person makes billions of dollars and can't spend that during his or her whole life, then what is the meaning of that money?

With a law that prohibits people from making billions of dollars, we would create a balance in our society. The extra money would contribute to a better life for everyone and it would remove the discrimination according to financial status. People would be able to interact without having the fear of being discriminated because of who they are. The terms "poor" and "rich" wouldn't carry the same weight that they are carrying now.

Moreover, this law would save us from questions such as the one above. With a limited amount of wealth, sooner or later everyone would have  the same amount of money, thus removing it's control over people. Because we depend on money, we can't see the World around us as we should. We judge people with prejudice and because we prefer not to talk to people who are richer/poorer than us, we are missing chances to meet great people. 

In a nutshell, I believe that with a limititation of wealth, we would be able to remove the barriers that are separating us and we would be controlling 'money', not the other way around!