The perfect cartoon. Is Dilbert a person?

I saw this in The Nation this morning. If you're writing about what a person is, you might enjoy it. 

For more of this, see the Dilbert website at http://www.dilbert.com/strips/ 

How long should it be? How difficult was it?

This is just a quick break from reviewing your essays. 

One person, who is also a human being, has said that his essay "is a bit long" (Yoann, personal communication, September 29, 2008). 

What do you think? How long should an essay, or a paragraph, be? 

In his email, Yoann also noted that it "is not the easiest topic to which I have been confronted," which is exactly what I thought. I wasn't joking when I said that question 3. was the most difficult. 

Steven Pinker - on language and thought, and dictionaries

This YouTube video presents Steven Pinker, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, and one of the best known and best researchers today in the area of language and social psychology, giving a brief summary of some results from his latest book, The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature, published in 2007 by Viking Press. 

The entire lecture is interesting, but I especially enjoyed his opening remarks about different approaches to understanding how languages evolve - he is a bit rude to the very "respected" L'Académie française. 

I want to rewrite my thesis statement!

Good afternoon everyone, I would like to sent the old work that's the thesis statement of the writing eassy question3. Becasue of I did it very quickly and didn't not review it, and so I have improved the thesis statement in the question3 and posted on the Web Blog in oder that I want my class mates to consider it and I prefer you "Peter" to comment me. Thank you

Human can invent anything like Robots, and make them to do everything like human; however, Robots can not be used the word "Person" same as humans becasue only humans are able to learn everything from their mistake in order to imporve it better, human can also know about conciousness that make human's different from animals and Robots.

Rewrite
Humans can use the word “person” because only they are able to do anything, which mean we are aware of whom and what wear. In other words we are conscious, reasonable, and identifiable of who or what we are.

and thank you for any ideas; anyway cannibal can be person, right.

Krich's respone writing to "disorder"

I prefer question 2, I don’t know how to call disorder but I called toilet disorder. Most people lose confident when they have to use public rest room in everywhere. One of My friend, who is toilet disorder, he doesn’t to use toilet in school. He have to present his project in front of the class. Before his turn he wants to take a pee but he scare toilet in school. After, he present just a few minutes. He can’t patient he was start dancing more and more, and then everybody saw some water flow from his legs. Moreover, I use to be this experience too. At that they I went to junior high school. I want to use toilet but when I entry toilet it’s so dirty. I can’t do everything. I wait until time up. I went home at once. However, toilet disorder out of my life since I start to study senior high school.

BALL's respone writing to "Approaches to Psychological Therapy"

I have decided to answer the first question. I prefer to talk about "Individual Psychology", which is the theory of Alfred Adler. Fist of all, the theory believes that human development is different of each person and environment. In addition, motivate force come from people, who want to overcome inferiority complex themselves in order to be acknowledged from society. Moreover, the Individual Psychology tell that every human has inferiority complex since they were born. For example, person, who is weak, can not help himself and has to depend on other people. Overlapping of people in society is cause of trying to overcome of inferiority complex, which happens from comparisons with other people such as body, knowledge, ability and social status. As a result of motivate force, every people have to do anything, and struggle for better way so that they can be confident and feel proud. For another point, everyone has different ways to overcome inferiority complex, which depend on lifestyle of each person. Adler believed that the goal of human usually establish from imaginative novel, fiction, and moral precept. People also like to imitate the characters in any story. Then, they may hypnosis themselves in order to look like characters in the story. If person can distinguish what is real or imagine, they might not have mental illness problem. We can use the Individual Psychology to describe the mental problem.

Does anyone need extra time?

The provisional thesis statement on those 3 topics is very difficult to compose. Because i don't know what is a best definition for those word, actually i even don't know what make it best description for some very simple words like them. I read all references mentioned but still have no idea what is the best description. Can the thesis statement conclude that none of them is best or all of them are good ? I'm in a dilemma. What is the worse between not choosing anyone or choosing but don't have enough supporting reasons.

Tuk's response writing: The psychological disorder that interests me

According to tensions in modern lifestyle, people are getting more and more stressful than the old day. As a result, there are many new mental illness discovered everyday and some of them seem to be too strange to be true. The psychological disorder that interest me is "octophobia". Can you guess the meaning of octophobia from the typology? It is clearly means afraid of eight figure. Octophobia , like other kind of phobia, is created by the unconcious mind as a protective mechanism, but sometime it can be mulfunction, then effects one to extreamly afraid of something. Further, the number of people who suffered from this disorder are increasing recently.


Why 8? I wonder what makes the figure 8 looks so fearful. In contrast, I think it is the most beautiful figure because of its perfectly symmetry and that smooth curve line. I also doubt how victims of octophobia pass the mathematics class or even do other kind of business. What's going on with this world!!

James response to "Which psychological disorder interest me"

Nowadays in modern medical theory, there are two kinds of major illness in human, physical and psychological. However, Buddhadasa bhikkhu, one of the most influence buddhist monk, once said that there are actually three kinds and another one is spiritual illness. However, it's quite hard to tell the difference between psychological and spiritual illness in his opinion. One i can think of is psychological disorder may caused by some malfunctions in human's body system related to psychological i.g. brain, hormone system or neurosystem but spiritual illness results from some malfunctions in human's understanding of life i.g. a belief that your race is better (racism) or money can buy you happiness (consumerism) or your belief is only right. This illness is the most dificult to remedy and the cause of every severe violences in our world. For example, wars usually happen because of some conflict in belief or belongings.

I've gone too far from the topic. However, what i gonna say is everybody has their spiritual illness and sometimes this cause them to haver psychological illness.

Back to my topic, Schizophrenia interests me. However, what i'm interested is not symtoms or remedies but causes. I once heard that the causes of this disorder is not be known yet. There are just some assumptions about how it happen. I have my own theory.

According to buddist knowledge, humans' sense, the way to get information about thing around them, has 6 component not just 5 as commonly known. It conprises visual contact(by eye), auditory contact(by ear), olfactory contact(by nose), gustatory contact(by tongee), physical contact (by body contact) and ,last but not least, mental contact (by mind). The first five contact require external sources of infomation but the last one, mental contact, does or doesn't require the external sources. It can work by its internal information generated by itself and espescially it can generate artificial sources of informatin for other five contact, one form of illusion. For example, dreaming is one example that your mental contact create other artificial contact when people dream although they sleep in the dark room ,they can see, hear, smell, touch ,listen or even think something never existing in that room. Hypnosis or even meditation, when you feel deeply focus on one thing, also cause some of this illusions which can be controlled by hypnotizer in hypnosis or by yourself in meditation . However, In psychological, the delusions created by the mental contact are uncontrollable. How does someone's mental contact creat this sort of illusion ? It takes very long time to tell; are you still eager to know?

Soojin's response to "person who has a psychological disorder"

I choose second question. Actually my cousin is sufferd from Asperger's Disorder. I don't know about this disorder, but I heard that it is a type of pervasive developmental disorder. He can't adapt in his school, always want to be along, and had a problem to make friends. Now he quit his school and study by himself. He is very smart and has a high IQ. He is just fourteen years old but he studies mathmatic in high school. He likes reading books and studying mathmatic. His family tried to make him to adapt his school and worried about him. But, now, even though he can't make a friend, he is happy to study by himself. His family decide to make him free and support his talent. My cousin needs some help to be understood by others. Because someone who can't understand this disorder hurt him. Though he has a disorder, I envy him because he is very smart.

Yoann's response writing to " Approaches to Psychological Therapy "

I have chosen to answer the first question and I want to talk a little about schizophrenia. This illlness interests me because I have seen a movie one month ago which dealt with this disorder. The movie is " A beautiful mind " by Ron Howard. It is about John Forbes Nash Jr's life. He was a great Mathematician who studied at Priceston's university in 1947 and who made huge progress in economical mathematics. This movie has been adapted from his own biography. Nash was brillant but he was also schizophrenic and he couldn't make the difference between what was reality and what came from his mind. Through this film I could have guessed how difficult it is for a schizophrenic to try to understand the difference between reality and imagination. Actually person with schizophrenia strongly believe in things or people who come directly from their imagination and they can't bear at first that other people don't believe them. Moreover their treatment by medicines causes them a lot of side effects and if they try to stop it they have to start afresh because hallucinations reappears. We can also see, in that movie, the difficulty of bearing the other's glances, the dificulty of feeling " abnormal ", and we can feel how stronger you need to be to be cured from this illness as you can keep seeing hallucinations all your life. So you need to learn to live with them and to persuade yourself that they are only hallucinations.

NAT's response writing

In Korean culture, for long time ago, people who suffer from mental illness often deny that they have a problem. Nowaday, Korea people are generally open to psychological therapy. In my opinion, people in many countries in the world tend to have psychological therapy because social averge is accept that it's acceptable for peolple who suffer from abnornal psychology to have therapy. It encourages people to manage their mentally ill before it causes a serious problem to them. In addition, it's a good idea to learn your mental and to know how to overcome your mentally problems. Situation in 21st century, there are many competetions in people life such as competetion in work to get promotion, students study hard in order to gain university , or getting higher rating on TV show. The more competetions, the more mentally illness. Therefore, people who concern much about their health tend to not only get physical healthy, but also get mentally healthy. I personally believe that not only Korean people are generally open to psychology therapy, but also people in many countries accept to have psychology therapy. In the future, people would have enough knowledge to know and to overcome their mentally ill. Moreover, they could help their relatives to manage abnormal psychology.

Pat's response writing to "Approaches to Psychological Therapy"

I would like to write about the second question, that ask, do I know anybody who has psychological disorder? Yes, I do. My mom had kind of panic disorder but it was almost 10 years ago. At the present, the disorder is not completely gone, she still has to take drugs but very seldom. She was kind of person that easy to get angry, hot-tempered and anxious. She thinks too much and never let any thing goes its way, for example if there is something that makes her disappointed, she'll keep thinking about it over and over again for long time. That kind of her personality is not good for her mind and her health and I guess that cause my mom this kind of disorder. She had trouble sleeping at night, sometimes in the middle of the night she woke up and without warning, her heart shook badly then she fainted. Sometimes it's just happen, like when she was driving, she kept complaining that she had a terrible headache. she said she couldn't stand it no more so she stopped at a hospital, just right after she stepped out of the car, she threw up and then after that she became unconscious. I and my brother had to go and get nurses for bringing our mom in to the hospital. After many years that she tried find the place that could help her, finally she went to Bumrungrat hospital, it took many years for her to get better. The doctor gave her some drugs, but I don't know what kind of drugs, and talked to her. I think, drugs did help a lot and also herself, she did adjust a lot like, try to be calm and try to let go of the things more than before.

Is Gemma right? Should we stop eating meat?

James asked me to post the questions about Stephen Law's dialogue on the Blog, so here they are. I guess James's idea was that this would be a good place to continue sharing our responses to the ideas that Law presents in "Carving the Roast Beast", and I agree that that is a good idea. We don't have a lot of time in class, and continuing the discussion here also allows us to practice writing for fluency. I look forward to your responses. 

The questions I asked you to discuss in groups this morning were:

• What is Gemma’s main argument in the first section of Law's dialogue? 
  There is also a minor argument. What is that? 
  Which argument does Gemma mention first? Why? 
• How do her parents respond to Gemma's main argument against eating animals? 
  
• How strong do you think Gemma’s argument is? Do you agree with her? If not, what is the weakness in her argument?
  
• How does the first section end? 
  
• And what does Law do in the next section? (What is the title?)
  
• And the next? (What is the title?)
  
• What do you think of Gemma’s arguments so far? Do you agree with Gemma, or are her arguments wrong? 
  

As you finish reading the dialogue this evening, you might also like consider the same sorts of questions as you read. 

• What opposing arguments do the members of Gemma's family present? 
• How successfully does Gemma answer each of their opposing arguments? 

And finally, has Law convinced you? Is eating meat immoral? If you are not convinced, why not? What is your opposing argument that shows Gemma to be wrong? 

Please feel welcome to respond by posting comments sharing your ideas on any of the above questions, or anything else that occurred to you as you read the dialogue. 

James reponse to what is abnormal

(Starry Night, Van Gogh, Saint-Rémy, France: June, 1889)

I will answer the question 4 first. As a result of AEP first assignment , I know that Vincent Van Gogh had Psychological Disorder in more detail. It his biography ,Vincent illness is caused by Epilepsy, dipsomania and schizophrenia. I think the first two problem may result in last one which is a kind of severe mental disorder. However, No one knew that Vincent had this problem until he had cut his ear after conflicting with his friend, Gauguin. He suffered from sleeplessness and hallucination. Although, I believe this problem at last cause him to shot himself, they may also have some influences in his most famous work " The starry night" which we painted while we lived in asylum. During his life time, only one of his paintings was sold but now all of them may worth more than billion dollars. Almost all of his master pieces collection painted after he had had mental illness. (thank Pat, your blog influences me to attach a picture)(Ward in the hospital in Arles, Van Gogh,Arles: April, 1889)

For the 3 question, I know one person who may has Cattaphobia (named by myself for severely afraid of Cat). I think this phobia don't affect much in living except losing chance to eat famous food where there are cats in the restaurants.

I have to answer in short or go to sleep very late which will cause i go to class late tomorrow. However, I'd like to share my idea about whether fear or other feeling is logical or illogical process. Can robot fear? I think it can if we program it to fear. However,it's up to the definition of fear. I understand that fear is the reaction to something that can cause us pain physically and mentally.

But now i think i have to go to sleep now. i will continue this later if i have time.

Kookai's response to "What is abnormal?"

I prefer to answer in question 1 and 2 in page 176

In question 1, I think that there are different between phobia and normal fear. The normal fear will fear in things which most people feel being normal. For example, some people snake, centipede, gecko, mouse and so on. They may response to fearful things in many ways. Some people may go away from their fearful things. Another may try to avoid from their fearful things. Other may encounter with their fearful things in order to reduce their fear. This fear may happen with other people and they can control their fear. Therefore, they think that this fear is normal fear. For Phobia, I think that the patients will fear which have different from normal fear. For example, darkness, high places, enclosed spaces and so on. They may not know what the cause of fear is. When they encounter with their fearful things, maybe they can not control theirselves. They may have different reacts to their fearful things. Therefore, their good choice is that avoid from things which they fear.

In question 2, I fear gecko. I do not know when I start to fear it. It looks so terrible and disgustful. I try to avoid from it whenever I see it in everywhere. I do not like its sound because it bring me to image to itself. If it was possible, I would not see it.

Soojin's response to "What is abnormal?"

Sorry, I am late for posting it. I would like to choose number 2 and 4. Like most classmates and Peter, I really hate flog and mouse. Expecially I fear a mice tail. It is very disgusting. Some my freind have a pet, hamster so they sometimes show me their hamster. But I hate hamster which is a kind of mice and has a disgusting tail. My best friend didn't understand me. Why do I hate the mice? Because when I was a midde school student, my teacher said about a mice story. She said that in 1970, there were a lot of mice in Korea. The government campaigned to people catch a lot of mice. So my teacher who was young on that time tried catch the mice. But a mouse was too fast to be catched. When she tried to catch it, one mouse ran away with peelig off its tail. I imagined this stroy when I was hearing my teacher's stroy. Now I still hate the mice tail. I can't deal with this fear. If I see a mouse, I can't move and run. I just shout sometimes cry.



My another choice is number 4. I know one famous person who suffered from a psychological disorder. He is Michael fred Phelps who gained six gold medals and two copper medals in beijing Olympic. He is sufferd from ADHD(attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). He started to learn swimming to cure ADHD. Now he is very famous in Olympic swimmer. He is the best in the world.

Pat's response to "What is abnormal?"

In question 1. I guess, the differences between phobia and normal fear are phobia effect patient's life a lot, they might not be able to live normally in some cases and it's also not easy for them to control themselves. Normal fear, I guess it's the fear the average people have and it doesn't effect life too much. I also think that normal fears are from what we've learned and mostly it is reasonable, like afraid of darkness because we don't see what is in the dark so that might make us imagine about something horrible, like criminal, ghost etc. However, they can control it, not like phobia patients might have other symptoms,such as heart shaking, dizzy or fainted.
In question 4. I've heard the news about one famous person long time ago. She is a singer, a model etc. I think, she had anorexia.



Many years ago there were lots of model that had the kind of psychological disorder and also many ladies that would like to be like a model had it too. Nowadays magazines and televisions try to change social value that ladies does not have to be very thin to be beautiful but just not too fat, firm and healthy can be beautiful too.

BALL's respone to "What is Abnormal?"

I'd like to answer the question 1 and 2 respectively. In my view point, people who are normal fear due to natural instinct of survival different from a phobia. For example, while you are walking on the bridge and you are holding your bag. Suddenly, the bag slip from your hand into the river you try to grab it, but it has fall into the river and you don’t jump down into the river because you fear that is a cause of the natural instinct of survival. In contrast, the phobia is a symptom which is unreasonable fear and they can not control their fear. For instance, some persons fear when they confront with something such as eggs, mongo, and so on. Moreover, I often met to psychologist since I studied in bachelor’s degree at university. I met to her and told her about my symptom. She told me this symptom was not extraordinary; everyone could be same as you if they repeated to do something a lot. My symptom was strain as a result of reading books too much. Finally, she taught me about behavior therapy which helped me a lot!

Krich's response to "What is abnormal?"

I prefer to reply question which ask that “What are you afraid of?”. Normally, people will afraid of some things that are dangerous or ugly such as snake, cockroach or something like that but my personality I afraid of my mother voice only in morning. That sound is irrational and odd because we have to stay with our mother since we were born. However, I start this fear since I was student in high school. At that she was so serious about my future because I had to take Entrance examinations to study continuously in university. She attempts me to get up early and read a book every time. Most time I was sleeping on my bed and I was dreaming. It came again and again until I was bore. I had to get up and read a book every time which she wanted. It is around two years and half I was accepted by faculty of engineering Mahasarakram University and Royal Cadet School. After that I was so happy because I had not heard her voice at morning again. Although a couple months later that sound came back again, it changed its goal to my brother who was studying in high school. I am patient to hear that sound about three months. Then I went to university and live in dormitory with my friend. I am free from that sound until today.

Sweet's response to "What is abnormal?"

I would like to answer question 2 and 3 on page 176 of Quest 2. For question 2, I don't know why I really afraid of a snake and I can' remember that when I first had this fear. I think maybe when I was 6 years old because a snake crawled to the balcony of my house while I were eating with my brother. We didn't know what we should do, so we immediatly closed and locked the door in order that it couldn't creep to my house. We all afraid of it; therefore, we didn' stare at it and we went to the bedroom. Half an hour later we went back to the balcony, fortunately, it then disappeared. It' s so scary for us. One year later, my friend thrown a snake doll which made from rubber in front of me, I was frightened very much and I was so angry with him, then I didn't talk with him for half a year. Consequently, I crid every time when I had seen just a picture of snake and I can't deal with this problem. At present, my fear of snakes has been decreasing. I think it is because I've never seen a snake for a long while. If I see it again , I will perhaps fear it more than in the past.

For the other question, I think my best friend, Pooky, may suffer from social phobias. This is because whenever she have a presentation in front of the class, she always feel worried and anxious about it and she usually embarrass herself in a public place. Therefore, although she was well-prepared for her presentation, she could not do it well and sometimes she cried after finish presenting. In my opinion, she may suffer this kind of phobias with a low level, so she don't have to see a psychologist.

Peter's response to "What is Abnormal?"

These are some of my ideas about the discussion questions in exercise C. on page 176 of Quest 2. I guess that the first question, about the difference between a phobia and a normal fear, follows up the importance of being clear about the meanings of the words, and this is also something that some people thought was important in answering the question about the van Gogh painting. 

I think a phobia is a fear that has no rational basis. Well, perhaps sometimes there can be a rational basis, but that is not the cause of the fear. For example, I think my fear of heights does have some rational foundation - if I fall off a high place, it will be bad for me, but in fact, I feel the same fear even when there is no possibility of my falling off, although I'm only afraid of heights if there could be a possibility of falling. If there are walls and windows to keep me in, I don't feel any fear, even when very high and when standing next to the window. But at a much lower height with no protecting wall, even if I'm not near the edge, I feel a lot of fear, and my body reacts with very clear and uncontrollable physical symptoms (I knew I'd be able to fit that word in here somewhere). 

On the other hand, my batrachophobia, from the Greek batrachos (βάτραχος) for "frog", is completely irrational. I can't think of any good reason for it at all, but from an earyly age I was scared of frogs and toads. This was a bit inconvenient, because I grew up on a farm, and there were lots of frogs and toads around. I was also extremely worried that other people, especially my classmates in school, would find out and laugh at me. I think this phobia had very real effects on my life. Thankfully, as I grew older, it became less strong, and although I still don't much like frogs, they no longer inpire such fear, and I don't suffer the same physical symptoms of sweating and the body's other fight-or-flight responses. Oddly, I'm not scared of snakes. I am cautious, but when I was a child I was able to approach and kill the poisonous snakes around my home, and if I knew a snake was not dangerous, I could happily pick it up and play with it. Most of my friends might not have been scared of frogs, but they were scared of snakes! 

I think I've just spent about twenty minutes on this response, so if you would like to go a bit over the suggested fifteen minutes in your own Blog post in response to the questions on page 176, please feel welcome to do that. 

The Morality of Illegal DVDs and Computer Software

Illegal DVDs are certainly popular, not just in Thailand, where, according to Tienchai Pinvises, executive director of the Motion Picture Association, Thailand, illegal sales account for more than half of all sales of DVDs (Pratruangkrai, 2008). 

I live on Silom Road, and every afternoon and evening, the streets are full of people selling illegal CDs and DVDs of music, sex and movies. And there are a lot more people buying them. In fact, millions of people buy these illegal products. Computer software is another popular area for these sorts of crimes: millions of people around the world happily buy and use illegal versions of Microsoft and other companies software. 

Are these millions of shoppers and computer users doing something immoral?
More important: do they think their behaviour is immoral? 

Both the sellers and buyers are stealing and profiting from other people's work, so it would seem to be immoral as well as illegal. 

Does this mean that millions of people believe that it is OK to behave immorally? 

Or do you think that those people convince themselves that it is not really immoral for some reason?  

Do people do things that they know to be immoral, or do they believe their acts are not really immoral for some reason?  

What do you think? Can we happily do what we know is wrong, or do we try to make up an excuse before we do it? Does having an excuse make it right? 

__________ 

References

• Pratruangkrai, P. (2006, May 6). DVD, VCD piracy is worsening, in the Nation [Electronic version]. Retrieved September 18, 2008 from http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2006/05/06/business/business_30003348.php 
  

Dictionaries: do and don't, should and shouldn't

What do you use a dictionary for? What don't you use one for?
What should a dictionary do? What shouldn't it do?
What can a dictionary do? What can't it do?
How do you decide what is a good dictionary?

According to Jessica Stevens,

Many people keep an English dictionary as a reference point for finding out what a word means or how a word is spelt. Some dictionaries are designed to be suitable for these basic purposes and the individual word entries are kept relatively minimal for ease and speed of use. (2008, 1. Introduction)

But as Stevens also notes, other dictionaries give a lot more information, and aim to "to give as accurate a picture as possible of the entire lexicon [words in a language]" (2008, 1. Introduction, ¶ 3).

How do you use your dictionary? What other uses could you get out of your dictionary?
Do you think it is a good dictionary? Why? Why not?
What makes a dictionary a good one for you?

Later in her worksheet, in section 7, "Information or instruction?", Stevens raises questions about what words should, and perhaps should not, be included in a dictionary.
Should words such as nigger, which is very offensive to many people, be included? Why? Why not?
Who should decide what words should or should not be included? Should governments or official bodies have any say, as is the case with the Académie française, which says which words may and may not be included in the official dictionary of French? The Oxford English Dictionary, on the other hand, is not an official body and is not run by a Ministry of Culture or anything like it. As Stevens also tells us, the OED has sometimes even had to defend itself in the British courts to include words!

What are your ideas on the questions raised here and in Steven's worksheet?
You don't need to read all of Steven's worksheet, but it's probably a good idea to read sections 1. and 7. and perhaps skim quickly through the rest. You can't do the exercises where she tells you to look words up unless you have a subscription to the OED Online, but I don't think that will be a problem.
This is a response writing activity, so when you're ready, just start writing and continue to write for about 15 minutes without stopping.

__________

References

• Stevens, J. (2008). Worksheets for A level English Language. OED Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved September 16, 2008, from http://oed.com/learning/a-level/lessons.html
  

Apple's Academic Interest

My academic interest might began when I was in high school. At that time, I started to read books. I tried to read all books which I was interested to. I really like to read books especially Thai novel. When I read books, I am wondering how author can explain things so clear. I want to be like any other author who can discribe their imagination through books. I expect that AEP can help me to reach my dream to be an author.

J's first Academic interest

I guess that my Academic interest began when I was in Primary school. I don’t remember exactly but I was the one who read book whenever I had time. I was also interested in writing so I dreamed to be a author. To be a author, I tried to read more books as many as I could, sometimes I read the book what I didn’t like. Masterpiece such as Tolstoi, Shakespeare, Goethe and Cartoon books, I tried to read all kind of book . I believed it helped me. In addition, I got good score in many competitions ,so I had no doubt becoming a author. However, one day I realized that I had no talent to accomplish my dream. Therefore, I gave up my dream and my major which was Korean literature. It was long time ago, I don't regret now. The resson why I don't is that I know it is very difficult to create something new with pen.

Noom’s Academic Interests

My academic Interest is begun when I studied in primary school. At that time, I dreamed to have my own business so Business was the main subject that I want to learn in university but after I studied at high school. My interesting was change to law. I want to be a justice. It will make me looks powerful and looks so cool. as a result, after finished high school; I attended law school at Ramkhamhaeng University and after graduated from Ramkhamhaeng, I’ve a good chance to work with international firm. At this place, I worked as a lawyer associate which is about business law not litigation. This is made my dream come true. I got a good experience about business and I also know how to set up my own company. Now my dream to have my own business is real. In addition, I plan to study for master of law in aboard and I may try to get a work experience there and come back to develop my company.

Ball’s Academic Interests

I decided to take the AEP courses because there are lots of activities in learning English skills. Even though the AEP courses are not directly in preparing English test program, it can make me to get in using English skills including reading, writing, listening and speaking skills. Moreover I can bring the AEP course to apply in academic test.

Krich's Academic Interests

Krich’s Academic Interests
I suppose that my academic began since I join university. At that time I did not know academic is an important language in my life because we use normal language in society and contract with other people. However, I think it is very important when I have to write my thesis before I will graduate.

Soojin's Academic Interests

My academic intersts is related to my major in my university. My major is sociology in my Korean University, Yonsei. Expecially I'm interested in women's right in Asia.
I focus in women whose right is in dager sufferd from religion and men. I really worried about it
and I would like to help them in my future. In University, I reseach about Asian women's right and how we can solve the problems. When I graduate my university, I would like to go to law
school in Korea. I would like to be a lawer who work for women's right.

Sweet's Academic Interests

After I graduated from Chulalongkorn University in my major of statistics,I worked at Bangkok Insurance Public Limited Company in the department of marketing for about 1 year. I really like this position; therefore, I would like to have more knowledge about this field. I plan to study abroad next year, in Australia, and the main reason that why I want to change my major from statistics to marketing is that marketing is so interesting for me and I love to work in the occupation related to many people. Moreover, I believe that if I graduate from the university in the country which normally use English language, I will have more opportunity to have a good career such as working in a famous multicutural company because English is very important for any kind of business. All of these is the significant reasons that I would like stydy abroad in my interested field.

Pat's Academic Interests

My academic interests started when I was about 10 years old. It was the time that my parents decided to move me to new school which is more famous and they have better academic, at least my parents believe so. However, I had to repeat the class because my GPA was terrible. I accepted that and I was so glad that I would be studying in the same class as my cousin. Unfortunately, it was not as happy as I thought, my cousin and her father became so mean to me, just right in beginning of the semester. She gave me very hard time at school, embarrassed me with insulting that my study is terrible. Her father did not allow me to be friend with his daughter. He told the teacher to separate me from his daughter because I might make his daughter's study result fail down, that was his thought. That was too much pressure for a 10 years old girl. I cried everyday after school. My mom encouraged me, told me to fight in the right way, so I fought and showed them I'm not like what they think I am, I am better than that. I tried studying hard everyday. Finally, my result for that term was the highest in the class. ^_^

Thanks them two , they've taught me a lot. They made me believe that if I really try, I can achieve it, and also let me know that even in the worst situation, there is still some good if you just try to look for it.

Since then I concentrate more on studying. English is my favorite subject, I do it pretty good at school, that's one of the reason why I like it. Also,I like it because it is not so tense like Math and Science. I wish I could be an expert in many languages, but only English and German, I'm still not good enough.

Tuk's Academic interests

My academic interests are space science, human relationship and cosmetics. The first issue is space science or Astrophysics, to be more specify. What is got my attention in this topic is that I love the way physics, just a simple rule of it, can explain many phenomenas on the sky above. It is so fun and amazing to know that some boring laws or theories in text books do work.Although we need an advance mathematics to solve complex equation to explain some phenomenas, it is worth to do that. Moreover, there are many mysterious in our universe that we human cannot solve and I think I love it

kookai 's Acadamic Interests

I graduated in Master Degree at Mahidol university in a fild of Enveironmental Engineering. My research was "Lead removal from battery industry wastewater using ground egg shells". I interested in removal the waste from the natural wastes such as bagrasses, egg shells and so on. I think that it is the best choice by using natural wastes more than raw materials. They still help us reduce using raw materials so much. For example, I used egg shells to removal lead from the batterry industry wastewater instead to use raw material. Its resulted rather so well, but it is still to need more studying to improve method. Moreover, I used to conduct research about " ethanol" when I studied in Bachelor's Degree.

Test Test

Hi this is Tuk.

That's it.

NAT's Academic Interrests

This is my first time to post at AUA's blog. I am interested in a fundametal sciences. I likes to read non-fiction books because they give me many informations that I have never khown before. Next year, I plans to study at USA. Plasma physics and Nuclear fusion are my interests and I wants to know much about that fields. USA is a good place to gain my khowledge because there are many university that work on plasma physics. On the other hand, My english is not good enough and I trust AUA to help me to improve my english skills. Well, I will try my best at AUA.

Peter's Academic Interests

I guess that my academic interests began when I started high school at age twelve. I don't think I had any interest in anything academic when I was in primary school, and was a pretty ordinary student. However, when I started studying science in my first year in high school, I loved it. It was definite. It was exact. It was clear. It was real. And I was really good at it, which was a nice surprise. 

I grew up on a farm, and had always enjoyed growing different sorts of plants, and my first interest in science was biology, but that soon gave way to chemistry. I think because chemistry was more precise and dramatic than biology. In biology, there were not as many impressive experiments or quick results to be had as there were in chemistry. Also, I soon realised that biology was very largely a product of chemistry: all of organic chemistry and life science in general depended on chemicals. For example, DNA, the basis of evolution, is a chemical. The reactions that power life are all chemical reactions. The fixing of energy from the sun by photosynthesis is a chemical reaction. 

Perhaps not surprisingly, my interests continued to change, and by my fourth year of high school, it was physics and mathematics that most excited me, and in my final years, sat the leaving exams in mathematics, physics and chemistry. I also sat for English, economics and histoty, but they did not interest me very much. However, my phsics teacher had got me interested in the deeper philosophical questions behind both physics and mathematics, so I started reading philosophy when I was around fifteen years of age. 

After high school, I began a science degree with majors in mathematics and physics, but I continued to read philosophy, and ended up changing to the faculty of Arts, graduating with a major in philosophy.  Along with that I continued to study pure mathematics, which went well with the logic courses I took in philosophy, and I also studied a couple of classical languages. 

These days, I continue to read philosophy, though mainly in ethics and epistemology rather than metaphysics or logic. However, via epistemology and metaphysics I have come back to a stronger  interest in biology, especially the theory of evolution and the genetic or other material determinants of human nature, which also leads to an interest in a several related areas of psychology.  These interests are reflected in a couple of my favourite magazines: New Scientist and Scientific American. 

Welcome to Reading and Writing 4, term 6, 2008

Welcome to everyone in the AEP level 4 reading and writing class this term. And first, why are you here, reading this? (Although it might be true, "because Peter told me to" is not the best answer.)

As we noted in our discussion on Monday morning, there are two different sorts of writing activities in Quest. There are the formal, academic writing assignments in Part 5 of each chapter, and there are also what Quest calls "response writing" exercises, such as Ex. G on page 157. Your first academic writing assignment is the one I gave out this morning, which asks you to give your opinion about whether or not the picture on page 165 of Quest is a good choice to use on the opening page of chapter 6, "Abnormal Psychology". This class Blog is where we can practice response writing on a more regular basis. That's why you're here. That's why you've been sent an invitation to join this Blog. And that's why we'll be coming here regularly. 

If you're new to Blogging, don't worry. If it seems a bit confusing, that's not unusual. As we use it, you will become familiar and comfortable with it, and you will be able to try out the different features that are available. And if you have any questions, please ask. 

If you have time now, you might like to browse through some of the posts and comments from previous students. 

That's enough for now. Tomorrow I will edit this entry a little. 

Thank you

Thank you everyone for working so hard to make this an enjoyable and rewarding term for me. I hope you have found it challenging and worthwhile. I know I've given a lot of work, but you handled it very well, and if you look back over the record of your written work, and consider how much we have also read, you should be able to see real improvement from the paragraph I asked you to write  on the first day of class. I can certainly see real progress in your writing and reading skills. 

I've also learnt a lot during the term, including how to do a couple of things better next time. For example, I will introduce readings such as the Levitt essay a little more slowly and with more detailed and specific support to help you get started on it. 

If you would like to comment on anything that we have done, or not done, please feel welcome to leave a comment, suggestion, or even a complaint.