Overseas Call Centers

According to Hertmann and Blass, it is true that some companies have call centers that are located in foreign countries. In fact, an international company which I used to work in Japan has a regional consolidated call center in Singapore. Although there is a big cost-cutting benefit, the managements of international companies should not relocate their call centers to other countries because it could deprive people's employment opportunities in origin countries.
When I started to work at the company, there was the call center in the same building, which supported the employees to solve various kinds of computer problems. However, one day, the management decided to consolidate the several call centers in Asia into one and relocated it to Singapore so that many co-workers lost their jobs. At that time, Japanese economy was shrinking very much and it was exactly one of the most serious economic problems that an outflow of jobs to foreign countries that leads to unemployment.
Consequently, even though companies cannot help trying to make a profit as much as they can, it is also important to consider the long-term influence of the economic growth of the origin countries.

Do your kids watch TV way too much?

The fact that American children watch an average of 21 hours and 42 minutes of television each week is quite shocking because it takes too much valuable time away from children. American parents must limit the time of TV-watching and must choose the programmes to watch for their kids to prevent them from bad influenced of television programmes.

Television watching can be useful sometimes, but usually it is not, because when a kid wastes too much of his time on TV, he will have very less time to do other useful activity such as reading, doing exercise, and interacting with friends and family members. The consequences can be quite severe, the kid could fail subjects in school because of the lacking of studying hour at home, he might also have terrible social life, and he can not be a healthy kid because he has no time to go play outdoor. Most of all, if kids watch everything on TV they will be influenced by violence and inappropriate behaviors such as using drugs and drinking alcohol.

Limiting the time children spend on TV and choosing the programmes they watch considerably are two important solutions parents have to use. Children will spend appropriate time per day watching TV, so they have time to do other stuffs and still can enjoy their favorite shows. They will also watch only programmes that suit their age, selecting by parents, so they will not copy inappropriate behavior from TV.

Animals' Artwoks

Nowadays, artworks, that nonhuman primates in captivity (such as orangutans) make, are usually sold and shown publicly. People should be aware that buying those artworks is equal to helping persons who capture those animals gain more profit. Consequently, there will be more animals that capable of making piece of art captured by humans who want to harvest from them. Therefore, government must make law to prohibit selling artworks that come from encaged animals. Many animals that can produce art are conserved animal, some of them are endangered such as orangutan. Although sciencetists and zoo biologists do some researches in this topic, some people just harvest from those poor animals. They can be trained to draw, and of course many people are excited and want to buy what they call art without thinking that if they keep buying, those animals will have to draw something for their entire life. They are not artists. They want to live their life in woods. They are also not pets. It’s true that we can tame them, but that is not their natural instinct, unlike dogs that we can train them to play dead or to catch a throwing stick. Moreover, the numbers of animals, that will be captive because of the profit they can give to human, will rise. Thus, government must not allow people to sell any pieces of art that animals produce.

Why not a formal art training school?

The fact that some pieces of art created by nonhuman primates are often sold and exhibited which is mentioned in quest 3, strikes me that we should set up an institute that trains talented primates in art. There are several advantages in establishing such a school which are shown as follow.

First, the staffs who work in this institute would have relatively higher expertise in training art to nonhuman primates. Therefore, this institute trains not only nonhuman primates but also human experts in this field. Second, generally art is performed by human and almost limited to human who have been trained in art. If we try to train nonhuman primate in art, we would have new form of art. It might extend the concept of art to the extent that we have never dreamed of before. Finally, by comparing the process of studying art in human and nonhuman primates, scientists might be able to draw new knowledge about the evolutionary process that set these primate species apart.

For these reasons, it is a good idea to create such an institute or school devoted mainly to training nonhuman primates in art. There might be great deal of breakthrough knowledge that will be discovered in this kind of research.

Unholy Animal Slaughters?

According to Hartmann and Blass, the religion of Santeria allows animal sacrifices today (2007, p. 219). In fact, killing animals for religious reasons has been common for thousands of years: the Greeks and Romans did it, the Jews did it, and many shamanic religions still do it.

I don't know much about Santeria, and I don't much like the idea of killing animals for religion. However, governments must not make laws to stop people killing animals for religious reasons, even if the animals are endangered. People kill animals for many reasons, the most common being to eat them, such as lamb shank with white beans, and even the filthy Big Mac. Other reasons are for fun, such as bull fighting, and because they are seen as pests, which is why we often kill cockroaches, rats, and even kangaroos (in Australia, kangaroos are sometimes so numerous that they really are pests to human agriculture, so farmers cull them.)

It's hard to see why any of these reasons would be better or worse than any other, with the possible exception of killing for sport, but even there, most arguments against that would also seem to apply to all the other reasons that human's kill animals, including to eat them. THis is the main reason why I think we cannot consistently argue that it's wrong to kill animals for religious reasons, or even just for fun. If we do, then that reason will probably also apply to killing animals for food.

But if you think I'm wrong, please present your case for thinking that it's OK to kill animals for some reasons, such as to eat them, but not to kill them for other reasons, such as superstitious religious beliefs which are always false (for every religion), or even for fun.

Note: if you have studied in my class before, you might remember that we read Stephen Law's essay "Carving the Roast Beast", in which he presents a very strong argument that it is morally wrong to kill animals for food (2007, p. 124 - 140). I disagree with Law, but his arguments are strong, and they might be relevant to my idea here. In fact, now that I think about, I want to make my main idea a bit stronger: governments must not make laws to ban the killing of animals for any reason that does not directly harm other human beings.

As you can see, I had a very rough idea in mind when I began this response, but it is certainly not a carefully planned and organized academic writing. Perhaps I should have kept if shorter, but Hartmann and Blass allow us to write for 10 - 15 minutes in a response writing, so that's what I've done.

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References

Hartmann, P., & Blass, L. (2007). Quest 3 Reading and Writing, (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Law, S. (2007). The Xmas Files. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson.

You don't need to add a list of references in a less formal response writing, but it's not a bad idea to practice doing it.

children as a computer game player

The statistical survey shows that the percentages of computer game player who are under ten year old are thirty percent. To stop the increasing number of children who are a computer game player, parents should find another activities such as sport for their children instead of letting them playing computer game.
When children have other activities to do, they will forget computer. For example, parents may bring children to a swimming pool, for their children don’t pay attention to the computer. These activities are more useful than playing computer game. First, they will learn how to live in the society because most of the activities require children to play with other people by using natural communication such as speaking and body language. In addition, children who spend more time with computer game cannot solve the problem in the real situation. They don’t have experience with the problem that they face in real society. For example, if they have a problem with friends, they don’t know how to deal with this situation, and that may be their problem in the future when they grow up. Second, Children will be stronger if it is a sport activity. Also, they will not getting fat. Third, children may have a chance to success in one of the activity that they’ve done. For example, if they spend their time with drawing, their ability to draw will increase that they can have a competition and get a prize. In conclusion, younger children should not be allowed to play computer game too much. Instead, they should do the other activities that they can get benefits from them.

Cigarette Advertisements with cartoons in its should not be allowed

Those cigarette manufactures is using a cartoon character in their advertisements must stop this kind of advertisement because it affects the children in the bad way.
Mostly children love cartoons, and of course when they see the cartoon advertisement of cigarette they will be attracted. Children are innocent and easily to imitate whatever they see or watch. For example: when my cousin was younger than now he watched superman and wanted to fly same as superman so he jumped from the tree about 2,5 meters high to the ground and almost got broken leg but he was fortunate so he just got a sprain ankle. In the same way, if children see this kind of advertisement they may imitate what they see without consciousness. In addition, when we get older our interests in cartoon are less then when we were children or no more interest in cartoon for some adults. Why do these cigarette manufactures use cartoons in their advertisement when their target customer is adult, not children.
In short, children are very easy to imitate whatever they observe so cigarette advertisement with cartoons in its is not good at all for children because cartoon is what children are interested in the most.

A television must not be installed in the children's bedroom

From the fact that American children spend an average of 21 hours and 42 minutes watching television per week. Surprisingly, it shows that childrend watch television about 3 hours per day. How they manage their time to do anything eles? Although, it is the popular activity to do at home, but it has many bad effects to their health and behaviour. Therefore parents must not install a televistion in the children's bedroom in order to reduce spending time on watching TV.

Today, many children have TV on their bedrooms. When they are in their private room, they can do anything that they want. If TV is installed in the bedrooom, they can watch it all the time. TV can be just as addictive as any substance. No matter it is interested or not.

It is a good idea to move TV out of their bedroom and install it only in the living room. Firstly, parents can control the amount of time which thier children should spend on it. For example, parent can fix the schedule of watching TV at 7pm to 9pm after they finish the homework. Secondly, children cannot spend excessive time on TV and don't become addict because they cannot have a chance to watch alone at night. Moreover, it will encourage them to do other activities besides wasting time in their bedroom because they don't have thier own TV and need to join with thier parents.

Oops - even Oxford University scholars make mistakes

As I mentioned briefly on Friday, as you finished reading vol. II of Pride and Prejudice, you might have liked to see if you could spot the mistake that Fiona Stafford makes in that volume (Austen, Stafford & Kinsley, 2004). I don't think it's a serious mistake, but it did surprise me.

I like the Oxford World Classics editions of the great works of English literature, which, as we would expect from anything bearing the Oxford University Press name, are very well edited and produced, which makes it all the more surprising that Stafford's mistake was not only made, but not picked up in proofing. This afternoon, I bought a new copy of the edition we are using, which was reissued in 2008, and the mistake has not been corrected.

I have no complaints at all about Austen's writing, and Kinsley's editing seems excellent. Stafford's introduction is also well worth reading. It is insightful and suggests some productive ways of approaching the novel. I personally did not find some of her explanatory notes that useful, although others did give useful information, and it is in one of these notes that the mistake occurs. In fact, I only noticed it very recently when, out of curiosity, I read a note that I'd previously ignored. I've since checked all the rest and have not found any more errors.

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References

Austen, J., Stafford, F., & Kinsley, J. (2004). Pride and Prejudice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Is a doctor a healer ?

According to my essay " Is euthanasia a proper part of a doctor's role as healer", I gave the definition of healer as a person who stops a difficult situation, physical pain, and emotional suffering. My idea is that doctor plays an appropriate role as a healer in euthanasia because he helps terminally ill patients to avoid their severe pain even though he knows the result in that these patients will die.
There are some cases in euthanasia that patient is not the one who have a terminal illness.
The first one is the case of Daniel James . He used to be a rugby player; however he had an accident in the rugby game that cause paralysis from his chest down. Thus, he asked doctor to help him die. (from Paralyzed player killed himself)
The second case is Sir Edward Downes and his wife. He ask the doctor to kill him and his wife. Although Sir Edward is not suffer from terminal illness, his wife has a secondary cancer in her liver and pancreas. They need to die together after stay together for 45 years. (From The independent)
Do you think the doctor who assisted suicide in these two cases can be called a healer because he help to relieve emotional suffering of the patients from my definition?

References
Paralyzed player killed himself (2008, December 10). BBC News. Retrieved November 25 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/hereford/worcs/7774802.stm

Brown, J.(2009, July 15). The independent world. Retrieved November 25 from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/after-54-years-together-they-decided-to-die-together-1746472.html

I don't understand what is going on on pride and prejudice page 77

Despite the fact that Peter already explained the sentence in the class today, I still don't understand the scene in pride and prejudice page 77-78. Can anyone give me some explanation?

1) What is wrong with Mr. Bennet's speech on page 77? Why does Mary become disconcerted? Is it just only she want to sing more but Mr. Bennet oppose her intention or anything else?

2) After Mr. Collins' remark, what happens next? Does Mary stop singing and another girl sing instead?

3) What is the result of Mr. Collins' speech? It just only lightens up the situation or it implies anything else? Why does Mrs Bennet appreciate his speech? When the author says that Mr. Bennet is amused, does it mean that his speech is just only funny and has nothing more?

4) How about Elizabeth's reaction to this speech? In page 78 paragraph 2, does it mean that she feel frustrated with the behavior of her families members, including Mr. Collins?

liu

Changing Student Behaviour: What would you do?

Once we get past the nauseating title and the fairly stupid first paragraph, "Teachers instilling good morals in pupils", published in today's Nation, has some interesting content.

In her article, Wannapa Phetdee describes the efforts of a Malaysian and a Thai teacher to improve the behaviour of students at their schools. Although both accounts are worth some reflection, it was the work of Jamaliyah bt Shaik Abdullah from Malaysia that interested me more. In particular, her attention to changing very specific behaviour that was seen as undesirable in students at her school caught my eye. Like many, and unlike many who believe the opposite, Jamaliyah believes that "sharing understanding with students is better and more effective than punishing them" (Phetdee, 2009, ¶ 8). However, for Jamaliyah this is not some general nonsense so vague as to be perfectly meaningless. She did some research to get solid facts about very specific behaviours before implementing a detailed program to change those behaviours, and then checked to see if it actually worked or not. What she did was use video and other techniques to create a dialogue with students, and then measure the results over a period of months. As the article notes, the rate of students arriving at class late dropped dramatically over a three month period, from 333 instances in January this year to only 88 in February.

Happily, lateness is not a big problem in our class, but it is sometimes a problem at AUA, even amongst AEP students. Some questions that you might like to respond to in a comment are:

• What would you suggest to solve the problem of late arrival by AUA students?
• Would you favour a Jamaliyah like approach, or a punishment based approach? Why?
  How would you react to each type of solution?
• What specific proposal would you suggest to get students in class on time? Why?
• How about in other situations, where lateness is a problem? Say, parents arriving late to pick up their children from a class or activity?
• What factors are important in coming to a solution? What can we do? And what can't we do? (Cutting off the heads of offenders, whilst likely to be effective, is probably not acceptable. Parents would complain.)

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References

Phetdee, W. (2009, November 23). Teachers instilling good morals in pupils. The Nation. Retrieved November 23, 2009 from http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/11/23/national/national_30117127.php

Most Plainly Unplain

One of the book reviews in this week's edition of The Economist is of a collection of essays by 33 modern writers exploring their fondness for Jane Austen. As we would expect, Pride and Prejudice get a high mention, which is why I thought you might be interested in reading "No Plain Jane".

Apart from the fact that everyone, from housewives to scholars, from garbage collectors to engineers has loved her books for the past two hundred years, the article make the point that Jane Austen's readers love to reread her books. And it also suggests the reason for this: every time we read an Austen novel again, we appreciate yet more the depth and subtlety of Austen's writing, and we like them even more than before. I have to admit that since I first read Pride and Prejudice some thirty years ago, I've read it many times since. It never bores me, but improves every time I reread it. The only danger is that I have to take care to read our daily 15 pages immediately before class, else I won't be clear about exactly what is in those particular 15 pages and make the mistake of referring to something that you haven't read yet.

Another point made in the article is that "after 200 years, it is still possible to have new insights" (2009, ¶ 6), which reminded me of our discussion this morning, where we saw that complex questions can not always be settled easily, thereby necessitating much discussion, all of which can help us gain a better understanding of the issues involved as we approach an answer to our questions. And of course, not only in law but even in science, exactly the same thing happens. Newton's ideas were compelling for a long time, but then new results necessitated further discussion about the nature of mass, force and gravity in our universe. And the ultimate nature of our universe is today a matter of intense argument amongst physicists. They might all be wrong, or one group might be right about what composes us and everything else, from electrons to galaxies, but the matter is so complex that there is room for a lot more discussion.

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References

No plain Jane. (2009, November 19). The Economist. Retrieved November 20 from http://www.economist.com/books/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14902478

Isn't Garro a Hero?

Peers,

I cannot still resist thinking my idea, Garro is also a hero for Melik, because he can be qualified as a hero with the definition which I found below.

According to Macmillan English Dictionary, one of definitions of hero is "someone who you admire for their intelligence, abilities, or personal qualities."

We can read that Garro is satisfied with his life because he has seven children and enough valuable assets. (Line 33-34) Considering this point, we could say he is one of admirable people for Melik who has an ability to succeed in his life. That is why Melik seriously listened to Garro's advice (he said "Yes, sir" every time after Garro gave advice) even though Melik found later that those advice were wrong.

In addition, I think Garro was very worried about his nephew's traveling alone because he is still young. (we can assume Melik might be a teenager from the line 11; "You are no longer a child") For this reason, Garro tried to make Melik be more careful with telling every possible dangerous situation he could imagine during a travel. That is another reason why his advice sounds very exaggerated.

Consequently, although Garro seems not to be a typical "hero" we usually imagine instantly, his characteristics in the story qualify for being a hero, especially for Melik. Yesterday, I got an idea from my peers that everyone can be a hero. I think Garro is one of "everyone".

Does anti-psychotic drugs is a good treatment?

As I was lokking on the BBC News, I saw an article "Dementia drug use 'killing many'" that make me want to know more about this article.


Nowadays, many doctor always treat their dementia's patients by using anti-psychotic drugs although those patients do not have a serious problem. There is a report reviews that anti-psychotic drug's can cause the death of the patients. This report also shows that using anti-psychotic drugs in needless 150,000 cases can cause 1,800 deaths. For this reason, the goverment of England begins to reduce using anti-psychotic drugs and try to use counselling instead of use drugs.



Using anti-psychotic drugs is not the good way for cure or treat psychotic's patients. There are many effective types of counselling now. As I'm interesting in psychology and study in this field for four year in my university, I'm always believe that couselling is a better way to treat a psychotic's patients than using drugs. Every drugs have a side-effect. I'm very glad that there is a report about this topic to prompt the goverment or doctor to reduce using this drugs and find another effective way to treat this kind of patients.


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References


Dementia drug use 'killing many'. (2009, November 12). BBC News. Retrieved November 12, 2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8356423.stm

Good news from battle front

The article "Dog lost in Afghan battle returns" in BBC made me happy and sad at the same time.

It reports that a female sniffer dog called Sabi who has joined the Australian army in Afghanistan and has lost 14 months during the attack in in Uruzgan province in September 2008 was found by a US soldier. The fact that the dog is in good condition indicate that during her missing someones must have taken care of her.

After reading this article I feel happy about Sabi who can return unscathed from the war. Moreover, despite a scarcity of food and the difficulty of living in war time, some people were still kind to a lost dog. This reflects the mercy that lies in human hearts. However, the fact that due to political conflict, people need to kill each other also make me sad. If the one that has lost during the ambush was a soldier I wonder if he could have come back uninjured. People usually value human life the most, compared with other animal life; however, in wartime the main targets of attack are human.
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References
Dog lost in Afghan battle returns. (2009, November 12). BBC News. Retrieved November 12, 2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8356224.stm

Progress of Lung Cancer Treatment

The article 'Drug shrinks lung cancer tumour' on the BBC provided me delightful information about a new lung cancer treatment.

According to the article, the Imperial College London team have found out the new drug which could make chemotherapy more effective as a treatment, especially for a fatal type of lung cancer. To illustrate, the drug could prevent cancer cells from resisting to chemotherapy. This is impressive because chemotherapy, sometimes supplemented with radiotherapy, is a common option for patients who suffer from this type of cancer. Since the cancer usually spreads so quickly, surgery is not an usual option. The team expect to examine the drug with patients who have the inoperable form of the disease.

My attention was strongly drawn by the news since my grandmother suffered from lung cancer and had a surgery two years ago. Even though the surgery succeeded, there is still some possibility of the recurrence of the illness. My entire family always anxious about her and hope my grandmother's having a healthy long life. The article states that we should wait for the results of clinical trials; however, I would really expect the great scientific medical achievement which exactly could help my important family.
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References
Drug 'shrinks lung cancer tumour'. (2009, November 10). BBC News. Retrieved November 12, 2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8350220.stm

Meat Consumption is a cause of green house gas emissions.

As I was looking through the magazine section of the BBC News website this afternoon, I came across an article, “The methane makers”, which I found very interesting because it is about the climate change, an importance topic that is discussed widely these days.

This article is focusing on the emissions of green house gas that is expelled by cow. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), livestock farming caused the world the green house gas emissions 5% more than all the transportations combined could cause in 2006, and cow expelled the most methane, which has even larger effect in climate change than carbon dioxide, among other farm animals.
Mostly, the emissions associated with cow is from “the clearing of forests for pasture or for the production of soya for animal feed” (“The methane makers”, 2009, Belching, ¶ 2). Cow itself emits methane, too, from belching. A western cow emits methane 120kg per year, while a non-western cow emits only a half of that. Nevertheless, there are much more non-western cows in the planet, thus the western cows emits less methane in general.

Before i read this article, if someone told me cow's belching can cause climate change I would probably laugh at his face. However, this article shoved the fact right into my face, 120kg of methane per year for a cow, 1000 times more than a man, is quite a large amount of green house gas, I feel sorry for the world already. Though, this article is not all about cow's belching. The biggest problem of meat consumption, for the world, still is the clearing of the forest, for producing foods for cows that is, and that fact didn't make me surprise. The most surprising fact for me would be that cows all over the world have the responsibilities for the global warming more than every vehicles in the world combined! So, I shall state right here that we should stop global warming by collecting cow's belch and turn it into some kind of useful energy, instead of wasting our times blaming it all on some automobile manufacturers.





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References


Bell, D. (2009, 28 October). The methane makers. In BBC News. Retrieved November 12, 2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8329612.stm

The new idea for nurse education

The BBC article, “Nursing to become graduate entry”, interested me about the new development for nurse education because I am a health professional, and I think this change would be good for the community health system.

In the report, the Nursing and Midwifery Council is improving new standards for nurse education in the UK which contain at least three years of training for new nurses from 2013 to gain a degree. The new standards will help new nurses to gain more experience as trainees. Health Minister for England pointed out that nurses are very important factor to give the high quality healthcare, and this move will serve decision-making skills for them. This development was not created to limit the nursing profession, but it can help new nurses’ skills including knowledge, analytical skill and experience to work. The Royal College of Nursing is worried that nurses are being “undue pressured” (“Nursing to become graduate entry”, 2009, Undue pressured, ¶ 2), and concern about meeting a target, but the organization response that this development will make patient care service better.

I agree with this idea because nurses are health professional who need special skills. It is necessary to gain the extra training to have a real practical work. Trainees will face with the real situation in the hospital by working with other health teams. Nurses have great roles in healthcare system like doctors. This career requires experience especially in particular fields such as pediatric nurse and ICU ward. While I was studying in the university, faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, I had a chance to obtain the work experience at hospitals, manufactories and drugstores. I can apply the knowledge to use at work which I cannot obtain from the university. Now, some universities expand the pharmacy course from five years to six years by adding one more year for training. It sounds very long to study, but it helps students to have more practice and improve clinical knowledge.
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References
Nursing to become graduate entry. (2009, November 12). BBC News. Retrieved November 12, 2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8355388.stm

A Dark Side of Progress?

I was wondering about what it is about when I saw the title of this article “China ‘running illegal prisons” in BBC News.

The article said that there are many illegal prisons in Beijing, China. It’s called black jail. China Government doesn’t admit this but there are some reports from the people who were kept in prison. This happens to the ordinary people suddenly. It’s something like kidnap because people are caught in the street and taken to the black jail without reason. They can be confined for months and treated badly such as beating, raping. Human Rights Watch interviewed 38 victim of this case and they said that “I asked why they were detaining me, and as a group [the guards] came in and punched and kicked me and said they wanted to kill me” (“China ‘running illegal prisons”, 2009, ‘punched and kicked’ ¶ 4). There is also a case that a 20 years old lady was raped in the black jail. “The national government department is supposed to help” these people to solve this problem and indemnify them but when these people are detained by the plainclothes security officers. (¶ 7)

What is happening on the world today? How come don’t many worse things stop happening? What’s going on? I’m expecting to see the solution of China government for this problem. This reminds me about what my uncle told to me a few days ago that “you can’t live in the society that trust is not existent”. I’m waiting to see how the China government rebuilt trust in citizens.

References

Michael Bristow (12 November, 2009). China running illegal prisons. BBC News. Retrieved November 12, 2009 from

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8356095.stm

More qualifications for becoming a nurse in England

The article "http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8355388.stm" on the BBC news tells the changing the requirement for becoming nurse in England.

According to the article, the Department of Health in English has announced that all new nurses from 2013 will be required to spend at least three years' training to degree level. They said that it would help nurses to treat complex patients more safety and effectively. The main point of this changing is that it gives nurse' students opportunities of community health experiences, instead of giving only a combination of theoretical and practical work in current training. For this changing, Dr. Peter Carter who is general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) descibes this movement as "an important and historic development". Besides, Michael Summers, who is vice-chairman of the Patients Association, said "I don't think anybody could really complain about nursing being taught to a high level," with showing his agreement. ("Nursing to become graduate entry",2009,Clinical knowledge,¶8)

Although those experts welcome the move, I don't think this movement encaurages all nueses in England. Actually, I have a sister who is a nurse and I know how hard to be a nurse in Japan. I don't know how the situation of nurses is different between England and Japan, but I concerned that it might cause a shortage of nurses because of the restrict. Even though, Dr. Carter says, "the move was not designed to restrict entry to the nursing profession."("Nursing to become graduate entry",2009,Clinical knowledge,¶4), it's sure this change requires students to spend extra years to be a nurse. It means they can't earn their living as well as nurses. Who supports the their lives at that term? The Department of Health in English should consider those situations before they carry out the program.

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References
Nursing to become graduate entry.(2009,November 12). BBC News. Retrieved November 12,2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8355388.stm

Poor nutrition 'stunting growth

The health article from BBC news,"Poor nutrition 'stunting growth'", attracts my attention and make me feel interest.

The urgent problem nowadays is poor nutrition that happens among children in developing countries. The unicef points out the statistic that one third of under 5 year old children are dead because of lacking of food.The number of children who are underweight has increased for the reason that poor diet in younger age stops these children from growing.In addition, then stunted growth is not only the result from lacking of food, but also the result from poor quality of food. The unicef chief,Ann Veneman, gave her opinion that the problem will be more dangerous that it cause an illness and decrease the physical ability. So,the unicef suggests the way to solve this problem by "promoing breastfeeding"("Poor nutrition 'stunting growth'", 2009, Dangerous, ¶ 4)and "providing access to food supplements"("Poor nutrition 'stunting growth'", 2009, Dangerous, ¶ 5). Because of the unicef and its partner's progression in 150 countries, the number of underweight childdren in developing country has decreased by one sixth.However, only 63 out of 117 countries succeed in halving the problem.

Malnutrition does not mean solely that children don't have enough food.In spite of enough food, some people in rich countries have not enough nutrients that they will be no longer growth. Perhaps, they have a bad eating habit. For example, a boy eats dessert, which is full of carbohydrate and fat, without eating vegetable or fruit.So, this boy has a chance to be malnutrition. From this reason,the problem doesn't happen only in developing countries. People in developed countries may stop growing due to poor nutrition. As mentioned, stunting growth is not some countries' problem. So every countries should pay attention to their people, for the proportion of undernutrition people will become less than nowadays. The effective soluion of this problem is done by giving the education to people and supporting access nutritional supplement by the government and organization.

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References

Poor nutrition 'stunting growth'. (2009, November 11).BBC News. Retrieved November 12,2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8353594.stm

'Hi-tech' and 'Holy'

I found an interesting headline of "Hi-tech holy water calms flu fear" on the BBC news website yesterday.
According to the article, due to fear of spreading swine flu infection, a new invention of automatic holy water dispensers, which is controlled by infra-red light sensor like auto water taps in traditional water font shape, is getting popular among catholic churches in Italy, while traditional holy water fonts are suspended to use. Furthermore, the inventor "Mr Maerabese says he is receiving hundreds of emails from all over the world requesting information about the product."("Hi-tech holy water calms flu fear", 2009, Global interest, ¶2)
Even though the article doesn't mention if holy water fonds spread swine flu actually, it shows that people's fear of infection can allow hi-tech to enter even the religious field. It seems that Religion is not almighty for people to believe in but hi-tech is more reliable. Moreover, it seems that people prefer new and unusual things than conservative ones after all.
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References
Hi-tech holy water calms flu fear. (2009, November 11). BBC News. Retrived Nobember 12, 2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8356019.stm

Fighting Piracy

BBC news published an article, "Microsoft disconnects Xbox gamers", that may affect gamers who are now consuming pirated games.

Microsoft bans gamers who modified their Xbox360 console game to play pirated game from accessing the internet. The players, who have been banned, cannot connect their console to the internet that means they can't play online games and cannot access to other services from Microsoft Xbox Live, but they still can play games offline. Microsoft suggested that about 0.03 percent of gamers modified their console to play illegal games however it's not all of them are banned. Although Xbox360 console have Digital Rights Management technologies to detect illegal software, Players can modified their Xbox360 by installing an additional chip or device that enable users to play pirated games. Microsoft claims that they can check whether if machine is modified or not, and then ban the users when they log in to Xbox Live service. And they also suggested that pirated games cause damages to games industries not less than £750m a year

Piracy is a serious issue in software development industries. Nowadays, they are many preventives to this situation, however they are many developers or hackers inventing new technologies or devices against the preventives as well. What Microsoft is doing now is only one step to fight the piracy. It seems that it is not quite effective enough because all of the Xbox games can be played offline, online playing is just an additional feature of some games. But I've recently heard that some players, who get banned, don't just have problems accessing to the internet but they claimed that they can't use embedded hard disk in Xbox360 as well. Hard disk in Xbox360 is used for installing game from discs, So the performance of the machine of playing games this way is better than playing game from disc directly. For instance, loading time is shorter, Heat generated from machine is less. Even Microsoft doesn't officially announce this approach yet, But It's also a good one. It can reduce the new players who want to modify their console. War between software developers and hackers seems to never end. The important thing is that we have to encourage people that piracy is a crime and hope they will not support the pirated software anymore.

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References

Microsoft disconnects Xbox gamers. (2009, November 11). BBC News. Retrieved November 12,2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8354166.stm

Speaking of Mindless Minds

The short BBC News article, "Unlocking the mysteries of speech", caught my eye as I was browsing the BBC headlines a couple of days ago.

The article doesn't give any particularly stunning new insights into how human beings acquire language, but it does quote at some length Professor Simon Kirby, chair of language evolution at Edinburgh University. In fact, it was the title of Kirby's chair that really caught my interest. The one new piece of information in the article the account of an experiment, which sounds a bit like the game popular with children called Chinese Whispers. The experiment shows how language evolves mindlessly over a surprisingly short time. According to Kirby, it takes only nine generations to end up with a result that "looks like a real language," with the expected sort of "essential defining characteristics" ("Unlocking the mysteries of speech", 2009, Fascinating, ¶ 2), in particular, with parts that work as elements to be combined following the rules of the evolved grammar. As Kirby points out, this supports the idea that just as we, human beings, evolved to look as though we were amazingly well designed by a perfectly mindless evolutionary process with no design intention at all, so too did our languages evolve in a similarly automatic and mindless manner, albeit it sufficiently complex minds.

As you've probably guessed, it was the similarity between the explanations for the evolution of every living thing on our planet, which theory neatly removes any need for a designer, and the explanation of how languages arise in a similarly mindless fashion that interested me. In fact, it reminded me of current work by leading philosophers of mind, such as Daniel Dennett, cognitive psychologists and neuro-scientists who are working towards a theory of the mind that can explain how our minds arise from the purely physical and chemical events that occur inside our brains. Just as evolution did away with the need to make up any intelligent designer, so too can our brilliantly minds, and sophisticated language use, be fully explained in terms of things that are perfectly mindless.

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References

Unlocking the mysteries of speech. (2009, November 10). BBC News. Retrieved November 12, 2009 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8352525.stm

When I came to Thailand for the first time, my father, who already had lived for 1 year, advised that you shouldn't go outside during the night time. At first I did so because everywhere was unfamiliar for me, I couldn't speak Thai and didn't know anyone. But 3 months later, I didn't feel Bangkok was a dangerous place unless going to lonely looming places. I watched out carefully and tried not to get into trouble all the time, and I never got it.

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Liu's discussion about advice from friends or family members

I usually ask advice from my family members and my friends whenever I plan to start doing any new thing . Because I think that it is better to have a lot of comment from many people who might have experience in the thing that I am going to do. For example when I think about quitting my job, I have asked many people most of which are people who already quitted their jobs. I want to know that what they plan to do next and they manage their lives during this long vacation.

However one thing that is not so good about asking a lot of people is that sometimes plenty of advices contradict each other and I need to spend a lot of time deciding which advice I should follow and usually I need to prepare the answer for someone whose advice I choose not to follow.

My older friend's suggestion

I used to travel foreign countries,such as India, Cambodia, Neparl, and Thailand, by myself when I was university student. My first country of travelling is Thailand because one of my older friend recommended me to start travelling there. Actually, this advise from my friend changed my life in good way. Because I had never traveled foreign by myself, everything from the traveling was new to me. After that, I came to believe that I can travel anywhere by myself and I came to want to stay and work in foreign country which I like. Ten years has past, now I'm staying and working in Thailand. I'm very satisfied with life here. I think that if my friend did not suggest travelling here, I would not be here and I would worked in Japan with feeling bored and stressed.

ChiengMai Trip

I and my friends went to Chieng Mai 7 days when I was in the first year at the university. We took a train at HaoLumPong, a train station in Bangkok and we sit in the economy class. The trip from Bangkok to Chiengmai spent about 20 hours. The seat in that train are made from wood. The weather is very hot because there were no air conditioner. All the passengers in the train were my friend at the university. So we can talk, play, and shout without annoying another people. When the train started to run, we ate some food that we brought from the train station. Then, we looked outside the train to see the field which we have never seen in Bangkok. After that, we felt boring. So some of my friends suggested us to play card. That activity made us forget the time. Ten hours later, I felt sleepy and I slept on my friend's shoulder. We arrived Chiengmai

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References

and enter your source reference citations here (If your post doesn't cite any sources, delete this entire section)

Pin's long trip

I remembered one of my long trip last two year. I went to France with my mom and my co-workers at the Pfizer company. This trip was great because it's free for me including flight tickets, accommodation and meal because it was the incentive trip which my company offer for all of employers. It took time on the plan about fifteen hours with Thai airways. Unfortunately, I and my mom got the seats at the end of the aeroplane so, I feel it was very long travel more than 20 hours. I can't sleep because the plan not smooth and sometimes fluctuated. While, my mom had a good sleep because she is so tried. Other passengers are almost my co-workers, hence I was fun and talked to my friends along this trip.

My long train trip.

I have been gone to Hua-Hin by train whem I was in third year with my friend. This was the first time to me to travel by train. I took the free train and the train did not have an air condition. It have only seats. During my trip, at first I always talk with my friends and buy some food from the sellor who get in the train to sell some food when the train stop in the station. For me, it hard to talk with my freinds because while the train is running it always have a loud sound but I'm still try to talk with my friend by speak louder. When the time past I often take a nap or sleep as same as any other passengers. This trip was my first trip and it was very interesting for me.

An's longest trip

It was a trip that I went to Laos by bus to get my 3 months visa for staying in Thailand. This was the first time for me to go by bus and by myself, without my parents. First, I was worried about what i could do if somethings bad may happen to me, but later all it's was a good trip.
i left home at 9 pm and arrived Thai Embassy in Lao at 9 am on the next day. It's was horrible for me to wait for my visa application, i didn't know how to fill the application form and where to apply it, I was so confuse. So i just observed tyhe people around and followed what they do. finally i completed it.
Another thing was about the bua, the bus which i went to Laos by was quite good but for the bus which i came back so worse. I was about to cry in the bus.
I had my second time to Laos, but it's much better.

Advice from family.

I was an independent girl. I always decide everything in my life by my own. However, I never deny people who cares about me, when they give me advices, I listen. Especially, when those advices come from my parents, my cousins (I don't have older sisters/brothers), or my other relatives. I know they have much more experiences than I have and their intentions are always good. My parents are involved in most of important decisions in my life, such as what major I should take in the University and what university I should go to. But of course, I won't just follow everything they say without thinking first. At the end of the day, I'm still the one who making decision and not them.

Leaving Home

When I have to go abroad for studying or traveling. Many people living there or having been there usually give me a lot of useful advices such as how to find an accommodation, how do I travel in that country, etc. There are many things that I don't know about the country that I'll travel to. It's a lot harder to settle down there first time without proper information. I think these useful advices giving to me are very crucial because I can start things off much faster and I get used to it easier which mean I don't take too much time to adopt myself to new environment and also feel a lot more comfortable and also I can enjoy my life there without worrying to much about things or problems.

A Train Trip in Australia

My family live in the country, about 700 kms from Sydney, where I went to university. And when I travelled to and from the North Coast of New South Wales to Sydney, I usually took the train. Most people preferred a tour bus, but I could never understand that. True, the bus was a bit faster than the train, but it was more expensive, and not nearly as comfortable; at least, that's what I thought. I enjoyed the twelve hour train trip. It was at night, and even if I didn't take a sleeper, the seats were OK, but best of all was taht on the train, you could get up and walk around. There was a dining car where you could get a meal or sit over a coffee for a bit, and you could walk up and walk up and down the cars. The tour buses, by comparison, seemed to me to be cramped and and restrictive. You pretty much had to stay in your seat and a tasteless sandwich in a cardboard box just couldn't compete with a nice, fresh cooked meal from teh dining car. My favourite meal was breakfast. I used to have bacon and eggs around 5:00 AM, a couple of hours before the train pulled into the local station near my family home.
ANother advantage that trains have over buses is that they are much safer. Trains occasionally have accidents, but very rarely; buses, on the other hand, are as likely to be involved in accidents as any other traffic. The long train trip can be a bit boring, but that didn't worry me a lot. I could usually sleep for most of the night, and I always had a book with me. SOmetimes I invited a friend back to visit my home, and that always made the journey go much faster.

AEP Course Objectives

The AEP Course at AUA has much in common with the new iBT TOEFL exam. As anyone who has recently taken it can tell you, one major difference with its past is that unlike the old paper based exam, there are no longer any grammar questions in TOEFL - not even one.

What do you think about this change? Write your response in a comment below.

• What might the reasons for this change be? Do you agree with them?
• Does this change make TOEFL better or worse? Why?
• Do you think that it make the test more or less difficult?
• How is it relevant to what we do in AEP? Do you agree with my comment above about AUA's AEP course?
• This is a response writing activity, so you can make any other comment that comes to mind on the topic.

Roong's academic interests.

My academic interests are mostly in legal field, of course, because my major is law. I intened to get my ThaiBar next year and go for L.L.M. the year after. However, I recently focusing on ................................ !!!!
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Chie

My academic interest is economics. I am interested in how the world economy is going. Nowadays, starting in US, the world economy is getting down all over the world. On the other hand China, India and some other country's economy is growing. What elements does relate to these phenomenon? It must have close relationship. Furthermore, is it possible not to have poverty from the earth in the future.

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liu's academic interest

My academic interest is about economics, politics, technology and history. I think these subjects have very close connection. They could help me understand more about what is going on in the world and in my country. The academic subject that I enjoy reading most is history. One thing I like about history is that it is very similar to a tale or a novel. It does not only tell me what had happened in the past but it also gives me the pleasure as well as a novel.

Mimi's academic interest

The areas of study that I'm interested in are psychology and health. I have studied psychology when I'm in university. I studied about human behavior and used to read a journal about psychology but now when I graduated I don't read the journal at all. Besides psychology, I'm also interested in the health, science and innovation because these fields of study are related to my life. If I know some useful information about them, it will be good for me.

Peter's Academic Interests

My academic interests have changed a little over time, but fairly consistently in a couple of directions. Today, I continue to read philosophy, mainly ethics and epistemology, but also other areas of philosophy. When I was at university, one of my major areas of interest was logic, studying people like Frege, Cantor, Godel, and so on. I think that I liked the absolute (?) certainty that was possible in logic, which was even more certain than mathematics. At university, I also continued to study mathematics for three years.
Maths had been my favourite subject in the last couple of years of high school, having replaced physics, which had supplanted chemistry, which had taken over from biology. I also enjoyed English in high school, but found it far more difficult than the sciences and mathematics. Writing sentences wasn't difficult, but writing good sentences, and joining them all up effectively was very difficult.

Q's Academic Interests

I'm interested in Information Technology and related fields. Nowadays, people use many techonology devices and tools such as computers, mobile phone or internet in there everyday life even everday bussiness. So I want to broaden my IT skills so that I can use this knowledge to implement new technology or improve current ones to help people to live there life easier. I'm especially interested in Database technology. I woked as a Database Administrator (DBA) before I decided to go to continue my further study in this field in university in Australia.

Taka's Academic interests

Hello,everyone. I'm Taka from Japan. I came to Thailand to study MBA program because I'd like to be a bridge person who create new business between Japan and Thailand. Anyways, my major was physics but I almost forgot about that subject because it was so long time ago. Please don't ask me about physics. It's so complicate subject to explain.
My interests are economy and business in Thailand. I'd like to know circumstances of business in this country because I think it could help my study here. In order to get to know about that, I read Bangkok Post these days, but not everyday.

Ing's Academic Interests

I graduated from faculty of Food Science 1 year ago. However, nowadays my academic interest is economics. I have changed my mind after I talked with my professor at my university. She suggested me to study in the different area for adapting with Food Science. Although I like study and learn food science a lot that I usually do research and updates the news about food science, I agree with my teacher when I think of my future. Employers need to hire the employees who have knowledge more than one area.
One subject that I have never thought about is Engineering. The first reason is that I do not like Physics. I used to fail in Physics exam. The second one is that engineer need to understand the shape clearly especially in Mathematics area at which I am not good.

Pin's academic interests

My name is Pin. I am a pharmacist. I have graduated from Bachelor of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chulalongkorn University in Thailand. I am interested in this subject because I want to learn about health and medicine. After I graduated, I found that I eager to study more about Cosmetic Sciences because I am interested in cosmetic and perfume. Therefore, I decided to go to study aboard next year in Europe. I want to do research and develop new product in the field of cosmetic. I would like to improve my skill to create my own products. Now, I always read Sciences magazines and books involving herbs, new medicines, illness and cosmetic.

An's academic Interest

My academic interest is religion, especially Christianity. There is a reason for this, i was born and grew up in a Christian family so i have been taught about the gospel, the principles of God and many things else about my religion. i usually read the books which are about God's principles, life of a Christian ( actually I'm not a holly girl even though i have been studied much about the principle).... However, I'm also interested in biology, especially when i was in high school. it's was a subject i liked the most.
I think my academic interest maybe change by the time...

Welcome to AEP Reading and Writing 6

Welcome to term 7 of 2009, and to the level 6 AEP Reading and Writing class.

If you have already had a look through Quest 3 reading and Writing [Quest], you will have noticed that every chapter includes two types of writing exercise: a response writing activity and an academic writing assignment. For example, in chapter 5, "The Nature of Poetry", the response writing is exercise F. on page 183, and the academic writing is Part 5, on pages 188 to 192 (Hartmann & Blass, 2007). Hartmann and Blass think that both sorts of writing are important; since I agree with them, we will be doing both on a regular basis. In fact, we will aim to do both a little more often than the one of each per chapter that Quest asks for.

The academic writing exercises are fairly straight forward, and we will do the preparation necessary for those as we come to them. This blog is where we will do the less formal response writings. In case you are new to blogging, don't worry. Once you've joined our class blog and written your first post, it will be easy. The instructions that Hartmann and Blass provide in exercise F. on page 183 give a fairly clear idea of what response writing is all about, as well as how to do it, although we might change that a little for some of our response writings.

Just as we will be writing more than is included in the chapters of Quest, so too will we be reading outside of Quest. And having read something, we want to share our ideas about it, so that will also be a source of topics to write about, both here and in academic writing assignments.

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References

Hartmann, P. & Blass, L. (2007). Quest 3 Reading and Writing (2nd. ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.