X: Wrestlers to Hollywood Stars

X: Wrestlers to Hollywood Stars

In “Dwayne Johnson and why wrestlers make ideal Hollywood stars”, Sam Moore (2021)  primarily explains why some WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) wrestlers can become successful Hollywood stars and describes the characters of those stars, especially this trio: mainly Dwayne Johnson also known as The Rock, John Cena and Dave Bautista. The roles these men play in their movies defies perceptions as to what they can do with their masculinity. They are brave to act in ways that  contrast with their tough characters as wrestlers, which creates their new personas. Johnson, for example, can perform comedically in his movies, being publicly recognised as “Santa with muscles”.  In addition to the aspect of humour, Moore mentions that performance on the ring could be “a perfect rehearsal room for Hollywood stardom”, supported by  film critic Christina Newland. Bryan Alvarez, an exceptional wrestling journalist, added that these muscle-bound sportsmen perform in  the ring as given characters, often differing from their real ones.  As Alvarez describes how Johnson learnt how to perform from wrestling, his being amidst audiences’ eyes improved his own style by testing his manners towards the crowd, then learning from their feedback. According to Moore’s article, characteristics and experiences in the rings of these wrestlers mainly fit them to be Hollywood stars.

Reference 

Moore, S. (2021, July 28). Dwayne Johnson and why wrestlers make ideal Hollywood stars. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210727-dwayne-johnson-and- why-wrestlers-make-great-hollywood-stars 

Emma: Nothing We Cannot Do

from BBC News

In “Could Covid vaccine be taken as a pill?”, Maddy Savage (2021) reports that in Sweden, there are attempts to develop COVID vaccine in the form of a dry-powder vaccine that can be taken viaan inhaler or a pill to protect people against COVID-19 in the future. According to the news article, Iconovo, a company, and ISR, an immunology research start-up, have been working together to produce and test  the effectiveness of their dry-powder vaccine on the Beta (South African) and Alpha (UK) variants of Covid-19 in mice only. The chemical substance that the company uses to produce the dry-powder vaccine is different from the current liquid COVID vaccines produced by Pfizer, Moderna and Astra Zeneca. While the dry-powder vaccine consists of manufactured Covid-19 virus proteins, the liquid COVID vaccines contain RNA or DNA that is genetic code for the proteins of the COVID-19 virus. As a result, the Swedish company claimed that the dry-powder vaccine has some advantages over the current liquid COVID vaccines, because it can withstand temperatures of up to 40C so that it can be easily distributed without storage in refrigerators and it can also be used easily by patients without healthcare providers. In addition to what Iconovo and ISR are working on, Ziccum is  another company in the country that has been testing a technology to produce future vaccines in forms of air-dried or liquid that can provide full effectiveness of protection.

Reference 

Savage, M. (2021). Could Covid vaccine be taken as a pill?. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57553602

Best: (gone) Gap-to-be!

In "Four reasons why Gap is closing its shops in the UK”, Beth Timmins (2021) reports on four crucial factors contributing to a closure of many Gap stores in the UK and Ireland, even though the brand has been a popular choice for everyday basic clothing there. The first is lack of adaptability. According to Kate Hardcastle (2021), a consumer and retail expert, the company only sells the same patterns of clothes and the price is not as affordable compared to competitors like Primark. On top of that, Richard Lim (2021) also asserts that Gap’s online shopping platforms have less effectiveness than other competitors. Secondly, the huge discounts provided can also be a problem. “Discounting is a zero-sum game and they trained shoppers to buy on reductions, which was creating a rod for their own back," Natalie Berg (2021) says. Ms Berg also blames the brand for offering enormous discounts, 50%-70%, too often, and thus she thinks it can lead to a decrease in the clothing’s value. Thirdly, there is no unique point. Mr Lim suggests that Gap’s clothing has become too plain and has left uniqueness behind. Diane Wehrle (2021) agrees with that too: “Gap lost out because it was not a new and exciting concept anymore". The last reason is oversupply of unnecessary physical shops. Ms Berg suggests that brick-and-mortar stores should be adapted to provide more value which the online ones cannot provide.

Reference 

Timmins, B (2021, July 1). Four reasons why Gap is closing its shops in the UK. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57677156

Att: IMF upgrades UK economic forecast

           According to Andrew Walker(2021) in “IMF upgrades UK economic forecast”, the IMF, International Monetary Fund, said the world is increasingly divided into two divisions, a rich division and a poor division. The first factor is capability to access  covid  vaccines. The IMF’s report says that the rich division, consisting of developed countries, has increasing economic growth. In rich countries, 40% of the population is fully vaccinated. For example, for the UK, one of the developed countries, the forecast revision of economic growth in 2021 is 7%, which is 1% higher than the global average. The UK's Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said the next focus of the UK is protecting and creating jobs. On the other hand in developing countries, less than 20% of the population is fully vaccinated and very few people are vaccinated in low income countries.  The report says those will still face infection and death by covid 19. Although economic growth of rich countries in 2021 is increasing, the global economy is still unchanged because the rest of the world is decreasing. Another factor which divides the world is how the government supports economic recovery. The IMF says international action must prioritize equitably deploying vaccines worldwide because a country with a low inflection level cannot maintain economic recovery rate if viruses still break out anywhere. Moreover, inflation in most countries is decreasing to ranges before the pandemic until next year. If people and businesses still lift the prices and wages it will continue further.

Reference 

Walker, A. (2021, July 28). IMF upgrades UK economic forecast. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57987091

Peter: Science Illuminates the Ancestors of Christ in England

The prophet Nathan in 
a stained glass window 

In "Canterbury Cathedral stained glass is among world's oldest", Pallab Ghosh (2021) explains that evidence from a new dating technology has revised the age of  some of the stained glass windows in Canterbury Cathedral to a date before the notorious murder there in 1170 of Archbishop Thomas Becket by four knights who believed themselves, perhaps mistakenly according to some historians, to have been acting on the orders of King Henry II. This earlier dating means that those windows “would have witnessed all of British history” from the king’s argument with his archbishop on, as Ghosh quotes Léonie Seliger, who contributed to the research as the cathedral’s stained glass conservator.  Ghosh also quotes art historian Madeline Caviness, for whom the discovery “jolted her out of a ‘Covid numbness’” when she learned that the new research had confirmed her prediction made in the 1980s that stylistic features of some of of the figures in the series of stained glass windows known as the Ancestors of Christ suggested that they were earlier than the others. The revised theory of the art history is that some of the window panels, dated to before it by a new, non-destructive dating technique using the same spectroscopic analysis that reveals the chemical makeup up of stars revealed the truth, were recovered after a fire had destroyed the cathedral in 1174 and were stored until they joined the new pieces still believed to have been created for the rebuilt cathedral by 13th century masters of stained glass. 

Reference 

Canterbury Cathedral today

Ghosh, P. (2021, July 27). Canterbury Cathedral stained glass is among world's oldest. BBC.  https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57768815 

You can see my planning notes, on which I spent 61 minutes, and the Google Doc I worked in, where my first draft took exactly 30 minutes to write. I then went over it a couple times to edit.

Skillful 4: Reading & Writing, page 102 - Critical thinking, E

Critical thinking

In their critical thinking exercise that concludes "Born Criminal?" Warwick and Rogers (2018, pp. 101-102) invite us to discuss two questions that test our understanding of ideas in the reading by explaining why we agree or disagree and by extending them beyond what the reading tells us.   

You have already had 4:00 minutes to very quickly get ideas on both topics. 

Now, you have another 10:00 minutes to write your response to question 1. That will be followed by a further 8:00 minutes to respond to question 2 in a separate comment. 

____________________________________ 

1.

• Do you agree that criminals live up to the label given to them by society? 
• Why or why not? 
• Examples or other evidence from your own knowledge and experience would be useful support  here. 

You have 10:00 minutes to write a response to this question. I suggest you divide your time roughly as:

• planning = 0:00 - 1:00 more minute if you like
• writing = 7:00 - 8:00 minutes to quickly turn your preplanning into sentences organized in paragraphs
• editing = 2:00 minutes.

__________________________

2.

• Some argue that siblings who live together are not always brought up in the same environment. What might be different?
• Imaginary (not real) examples might be useful support here. But real examples would also be helpful. 

You have 8:00 minutes to write a response to this question. I suggest you divide your time roughly as:

• planning = 0:00 - 1:00 more minute if you like
• writing = 5:00 - 6:00 minutes to quickly turn your preplanning into sentences organized in paragraphs
• editing = 2:00 minutes.

____________________

A useful strategy - as usual 

Imagine you are writing for someone who has not read the question you have chosen to answer or the article that the question follows up. Your aim is to clearly communicate your response to that reader, so it might help to paraphrase the chosen question at the start of your response to it. 

This is also a useful strategy in exams such as IELTS and TOEFL, where it's important that your independent writing response makes sense independently of the question to which it must respond.  

_________________________________

Reference

• Warwick, L. & Rogers, L. (2018). Skillful 4: Reading & Writing, Student's Book Pack (2nd. ed.). London: Macmillan Education

Naam: Knowing about the book you have read is the way to know who you are

When I was a child, I liked to read literature and Manga. When I was a teenager, I read a lot of books that related to Buddhism and philosophy. Today, I am an adult and I read about emotional management. Three kinds of books can show my different personal interests at different ages. 

When I was a child, I had a favorite corner at the library, which was next to the literature section. At that time, I didn’t know about Manga yet so the only entertainment that I could find at school was reading. I also liked smelling the paper of the book before I read it. Once I knew about Manga, I was addicted to it. However, my mom didn’t like me buying it because she thought I wasted money. When I bought a new Manga, I went to my bedroom and tried to finish it as soon as possible; then kept it under the bed. If you took out the mattress and looked inside the bed frame, you would see tons of Mangas that filled the space with tons of books and it was well organized. During school break I would set up a big table in my garage and open a rental Manga shop for kids in the neighbourhood to rent out. I had set a small japanese table zone for them to read in the garage too. That was a fun and memorable moment. Bytheway, I earned a lot. If I was doing it every year, I could be a millionaire. However, when I became an adult, I donated all my beloved Manga to my school’s library.

After I finished high school, I stopped purchasing Manga. My interest shifted to novels and books  that related to Buddhism’s aspect. At that time, I watched a lot of movies too, so the dvd rental house was my second home and the book store was an inferior place. Even though I watched movies all day and night, I also read a lot of books about Buddhism. I like Jiddu Krishnamurti. After I had read his book, I tried to read more philosophy books. At that age, I questioned my own emotions and also others’. I tried to find a way that I could understand others better. Reading philosophy that related to Buddhist belief helped a lot to understand human nature and society. Another memorable book that I loved in those days was Sophie’s World. It is different from other novels that I had read before. It contains a lot of history about philosophy. The story of Sophie, and how she discovered herself and the mystery in philosophy’s world grabbed my attention. I finished the thick book in two days as I remember. 

A few weeks ago before the class started, I walked around Kinokuniya bookstore to find a book to read. My aim was to search for a book about our emotions and I found one which is named “Emotional Agility”. What does agility mean? That was the thing I asked when I saw the cover. The book is written by Susan David. At the beginning I was eager to read it in the English version. However, when I read a few pages, I decided to buy the Thai version instead since  there was a lot of vocabulary that I didn't understand and I might not finish it so I changed my mind. Why today am I interested in emotions today? Because I try to understand my own emotions and manage them. I try to find a way to balance my own emotions. I want to have good mental health since work and news today make me a lot more stressed in life. I haven't finished the book yet, but Susan is a psychologist, so I trust her. The book is about how to understand your negative emotions and accept them and also tells us a better way to understand and deal with them without suppressing our emotions or forcing  ourselves to think positive when we are not in the mood. Once I had read it, I think the idea of the book is a bit related to what Buddhism believes. I think that age may be a reason that could shift the kind of book that I read, however, the books I have read are still related in some way.                       

From my personal experience, I read books that attract me. When I was a kid, I read things to entertain myself, my small world was open. Once I had grown up, I tried to understand what life is. I studied what makes humans question life. Today, I step in my own world just to understand who I really am. Could I be a better person? Who understands their own selves and lives life better the next day? Sometimes reading helps you find the way out of what you have been questioning.  

Beer: The Machine That Changed the World

Preparing for my master degree on project management abroad, I asked the director of my course to suggest a pre-reading list so I could familiarize myself with the subject. “The Machine That Changed the World” by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones and Daniel Roos is the book that he recommended to me. After three chapters of this book, I find the book quite technical and I do not like it because of the engineering subject, the academic style, and the statistics.

  Firstly, the book is based on an engineering subject - the motor industry to be specific. It talks about the revolution of global car production in the nineteenth century. Ford dominated the motor industry with ‘Mass Production’ while Toyota competed against the pioneer with ‘Lean Production’. It is difficult for me to understand and differentiate these two production methods because I have zero knowledge in engineering. My current job is in human rights, and at work, I take care of projects to promote and to protect human rights starting from budgeting, implementing, and reporting. When we go on missions, we meet and help people who have been violated in their human rights. I feel that  dealing with people is easier than trying to understand motor production.

Secondly, the book is written in an academic style because it is adapted from MIT’s global study. If you carefully review the contents page, you will see the structure of a thesis which is introduction (the industry), literature review (the origins of lean production), data and methodology (the elements of lean production), results (diffusing lean production), and discussion (epilogue). The language used is also academic English with terms and jargon from the engineering field. I graduated from the Faculty of Arts with an English major in 2012. Since I left university, I went directly to the career world and have not read anything academic for a long time. It took me a while to brush up my reading skills and to settle into academic mode. 

Last but not least, the book contains statistics that illustrate the picture of both types of production in the industry. There are many graphs and tables that explain important information, for example, production rate, market share, and income. This may help other readers to understand the subject better, but not me. I am not very good at mathematics and I always avoided it from high school to university. Funnily enough, I have been assigned to audit the financial report from the organisation that received a grant from my office. It turned out very well because of my tentative skill and help from Excel.

Despite the fact that I do not like it, I am going to finish this book before my semester starts this coming September. I may not understand the motor industry, but I will get the principal concept of project management. This is a tool that can apply to any industry in the world.

Att: The most valuable resource

The most valuable resource

        

Have you ever had problems with your time management? In January 2021, I started a new career as a policy researcher, which I never had experienced before. I had to learn lots of new things such as government structure,  academic research paper or research methodology. Everything that I had to do takes lots of time, so I cannot deliver my work in time. This made me stressed and feel guilty, so I had to find a way to solve this problem. One day while I was cleaning my bookshelf and clearing out old books, I was sparked by an old green book named “Eat that Frog!” After I read the introduction I know this is a tool that could help me solve my work problem. This book, written by Brian Tracy, tells me how to manage time and work by changing my thoughts and way of work. One idea which I love most from this book is: If I want to succeed in my life, I have to  focus on the  most important mission of myself and do that with intent. When I can do this, I will have more time and my life will be more valuable.

I enjoyed reading this book because of the style that Tracy wrote in. He starts each chapter by asking questions or problems people normally face when they work. It hooked me and made me flow through each chapter easily. He also writes the content in a simple way, so I can understand, evaluate and reflect on it by myself. Keeping a simple writing style reminds me of how I manage my work. I am always overthinking and making work complicated. Not only work management but also my preparation before starting my task is over nice. I make lots of conditions to start my daily work. For example, my working desk has to be clean, everything on my desk has to be organized or I have to use this pen only. So I waste lots of time before I start my work. After I adjust this habit, I find that life is so simple. This book also has lots of techniques which I can apply to my life. For example, Tracy suggests the question that I have to ask myself for every moment while working is why the company chose me, not other people. The answer is the value of me for this job. It is my main responsibility, so that can get me on track to spend my time on the right thing. And the strong point of this book is it has a final part which summarizes the book. This part helps me to remember techniques of work or life management in this book. And I can use this method while I read other books by reflecting on key messages or ideas at the end of each chapter to recall its information.  

After reading this book my life has changed. I have more time to do what I want to do. The book not only tells how to make you focus, it also teaches me by its writing style. Drawing people's attention by asking questions, a  simple style of writing, techniques which can apply to myself, and reflecting the experience are the reasons that make me like this book. For me, time’s value is relative value. If I can manage my time, I can live my life. 

Phum: At night, I become a monster

At Night, I become a monster

We have to admit that every country has their own advantage of making novel, while western really love to create some sci-fi (Even lord of the ring myth is still has their own theory of magic) Indian has their own unreasonable myth of gods that sometime inspire the new era of novel writing ,Thailand loves to make the daily life of the countryside and Japanese always bring our vision inside the heart of city. I am the people who live in the city, so any objection that I will not love the Japanese novel.

Since I was in high school, I really love the quiet place to read the novel, having a few friends, and the loneliness of the written life inside every book will attract me easily and in 2019, it became clearly.

In that year, I participated in the Book Festival Week at Impact Muengthong Thani, there’s one novel that really distracts me, “When the last wish of the dead pass onto me” the story tells about the student that accidentally accepted the Grim Reaper career as a part-time job with a lot of wishes of the dead to be fulfilled. It’s giving me a vibe of Adam Silvera’s “They Both Die At the End” two of protagonist, walking in the boulevard, talking about life and death that can be executed over the fingertips, inserting with the daily life of Japanese students. And that’s what I liked since.

After that I really love to find the book that can adapt the fantasy world into the reality, the writer that I love and follow most is Yoru Sumino, who can blend the dystopian reality and fantasy together, there's a lot of good story such as “ Let there be the secret” is about the group of high school students who can roughly read each other mind with the mark over their head(Exclamation mark, question mark, the mark that can shape into emoji) and the latest one” At night, I become a monster” Telling about the student who can transform himself into a monster and accidentally meet his classmate at the midnight in the school.

The story will slowly unfold the mystery of his classmate, why did she love to spend her time at night, why did she can befriend with that monster thing so easily, and also bring us into the world of the Coming of age, how can the teenager keep their feeling of pressure, about the grade, or maybe socially. This novel can give me a good warmth of despair. Sometimes it is great to isolate themselves out of the real world, that’s very easy for the monster of the night, but not for the little girl

My upcoming is “ It’s blue. It hurts. It fragile” the Sumino’s first two books are about the high school, next step of adolescence is the university, the artificial world for those adolescents who must practice before being adults. Sometimes reading this is such like a review of my life into novel, You and me can be every person in the chapter, the bullying brads, the logical leader, the introvert geeks, all of it will depends on ourselves that who are you to take part in the book.

Emma: The Book of Happiness

Although I have read many self-help books to get some advice on how to live a happy life, the last book of the same category that I enjoyed reading, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life written by Héctor García and Francesc Miralles, opened up a new perspective on having a satisfying life and inspired me to explore Eastern philosophy. 

For starters, I have got a new principle, ikigai, from the book that has guided me to find satisfaction and happiness in my life recently. According to the writers, ikigai is a Japanese philosophy that helps Japanese find a purpose in life. Even though ikigai does not have an exact translation into English, the Japanese word has a variation on its meaning such as the reasons that make you want to get up every day, the value of life, or the reason for being. Personally, I like the meaning of ikigai that means the reason for being as it helps me value what I have now, who I am at the present time, and what I am going to contribute to society. However, before reading about ikigai, I used to define my happiness in life as success in my career only, because I had learned that doing what you love will bring you happiness. It sounds good to follow the concept, doesn’t it? However, what if you could not get a job that you love to do for the reason that something that was out of your control happened? Over the course of my career, I was able to work in the industry that I wanted, but I used to feel dissatisfied at the job many times, as I did not know my purposes for doing the jobs and how that impacted the society and the country. I used to work in the banking industry where I would spend most of my time finding new clients to give loans because the end goal of my job was to generate much revenue for the bank and, in the end, I could receive big bonuses and get promotions. I think that was an extrinsic motivation which does not fit with who I am. Moreover, because I would really focus on my job at the bank, I also failed to realize that there were many things beyond the bank and the banking industry. Outside my job, I am interested in cooking, gardening, history, sociology, philosophy and much more. After finishing reading about ikigai, I approached my definition of happiness and satisfaction in a new way: I prefer to live my life by balancing my work and out-side the work to fulfill and satisfy all of my interests and that means I will invest my time and money to gain new experience. 

Second, because of ikigai, I started learning more about Eastern philosophy as I think that such philosophy is simple and practical. Before learning about the Japanese philosophy of ikigai, I used to seek much  advice on how to be happy at work and in life from mainstream thinkers and publishers such as Adam Grant, a famous American writer on career advice, Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley and Harvard University. Although the recommendations are excellent, I think they are not applicable in some contexts, especially in my context. For example, I read and followed an advice that having multiple careers will make you happier than having a single career, as it will allow you to follow and fulfil your passions outside your main career. The article gives an example of a man who got a full-time job as an investment banker, but he pursued his passion for jazz music by having a second career as a music producer. The advice is  good, but I think there are few people who can make it come true. With this advice in mind, I really focused on building my second career that I wish I could achieve in the future. However, I ended up feeling unhappy and never attained it, as it told me that I had to look forward into the future. The moment when I look forward into the future, I start ignoring what I have and what I am doing at the present. In contrast, Eastern philosophy such as ikigai and Buddhism emphasizes being in the present. Therefore, with that in mind, I began to find and do my best on the job that I have now and that helped me be happier than I was in the past. 

In conclusion, I am happy that I could find the book on ikigai which introduced me to the principle of finding happiness in life and motivated me to learn and give value to Eastern philosophy.

Best: Hygge & Me

I honestly have to say I am not a bookworm and bookshops are the only place which I have been avoiding to go.  However, there is a book called The little book of Hygge: The Danish Way to Live Well which interested me and finally I could finish reading it within a week after receiving it. Of course, I did not buy this book by myself, yet a lovely friend of mine bought me the book as a birthday present last year. Later on, I realized that the reasons why I liked the book is due to the design and also the content in the book matching my preferences and showing some of my personality. 

To begin with my favourites, most of which are definitely food and sweets, but there are some others as well. The first impression of this book is obviously the cover even though I do not turn any pages. Blue and cream on the cover are the best combination, making the book easy on the eye, but still classy. I once dreamed of having my ideal house in those colours as well since both are favourite colours. Next, the book mentions Danes' clothing, stating that the casual one is the most picked style. Likewise, my style goes along with them too as I prefer to wear jeans, t-shirts and trainers, and sometimes flip-flops if it rains here in Bangkok. I used to wear girly dresses and cute skirts when I was younger, but it did not work well on me; I could feel it. Finally, the most important part, it is about food which is actually my true happiness. It is mentioned in the book that Danes do love eating, not only meat but also sweets. Like me, when I am stressed or not in a good mood, I always  turn to eating, especially Japanese and Thai cuisines. On top of that, I fancy sweets like cakes, bubble milk tea and pain au chocolat, and thus my life would be totally boring without them.

Turning now to my personality, it can be said that most of the time I am an introvert. To clarify, I have a few close friends, but all quality ones I can assure. Interestingly, with regards to the book, Danes also like being with their loved ones and family, which is the same as me, too. Furthermore, the book tells me about senses of hygge, one of which is feeling safe when living with someone. It is me who needs protection all the time,  and therefore I love being with my family and my close friends as I can feel safe and warm. I personally think that the most important thing for being my close friend is honesty.The friendship will be ended very soon if there is no such thing. Also, this can actually apply into every relationship. Lastly, I like one of the keys of happiness for Danes, which is to enjoy the moments. Literally, I totally think in that way since I have been living with the present, not either past or future. Happiness can happen everywhere and every time to everyone, starting with self-love and then spreading to your loved ones.

All in all, I did enjoy reading this book and it never got me bored from the cover until the last page. I would say it is the only book I have finished reading recently because, other than the design, not only does the book show my personal preferences, but also my personality as well.

X: Non-boring informative book

X: Non-boring informative book

There is a wide range of books worldwide. Some people like to read fiction and enjoy imaginary settings while others prefer non-fiction and real events. Also, sometimes those chosen books can tell the characters of readers. One of the non-fiction books which interest me is Easy Email Writing composed by M.L. Thanisa Chumpol, a lecturer at the Asian Institute of Technology. The author wrote it in a simple way as its name suggests, but it’s informative. For me, its content includes necessary information regarding how to write an email from the first page until the end. Therefore, I enjoyed reading this book because it is genuinely useful for me as an independent English learner and a graduate student.

First of all, as an independent English learner, I chose this book to improve my English because its style meets my preferences. I am fond of the book’s features which motivate me to read such an informative book. It can absolutely be called a reader-friendly pocket book because of its size, design, and how the writer organises the information. Apart from learning English in classes, I am eager to develop my English skills by reading self-study books for ESL learners. However, I often get bored with those books easily, but not with this one. I was able to digest and remember its content quickly due to the infographics and practices behind each chapter. As mentioned above, I am able to expand my English knowledge by reading favoured English books.

In addition to being an independent learner, I definitely believe that the book content is handy for me to use when I have a graduate study life. I will be a full-time master’s degree student in business this year. This is my first time studying in higher education abroad, which makes me worry about adjusting to a new environment. I am of the opinion that having good communication skills can help me overcome the fear. According to email being a common way of communication used between students and academic staff, especially during the pandemic, I realise the importance of concise email writing. We, for example, can send a short and clear enquiry to teachers in order to receive accurate answers from them within a single email. This also saves time and prevents misunderstanding. Ready-to-use email phrases and structures in various situations in Easy Email Writing boost my confidence in writing an email. As a graduate student, I realise that email writing plays an important role in successful academic life. 

To conclude, I, as an independent English learner and a master’s degree student, receive the benefits of reading English Email Writing. I am able to improve my English skills myself while reading a preferable book style and also receive helpful tools to write an email during studying at university. If you read this book, you may find the enjoyment of reading an informative work like me.

Wan: Enola Holmes

Enola Holmes: The Case of 
the Missing Marquess

“Who exactly am I?” I'm always curious.  I used to think of myself as a courageous, ambitious, and bright person, but things have changed, and maturing into a teenager is challenging. Furthermore, I like to read narrative books, which means that I am a bookworm. Therefore, in August of 2020, I watched a film called Enola Holmes, which originated from a novel and it has changed my life.

First of all, Enola, the younger sister of the renowned detective Sherlock, is lively, brilliant, clever, as well as kind, helpful, and empathic. The book begins with Enola's mother disappearing on her fourteenth birthday, forcing her to seek her mother out on her own using fascinating ideas. Thus, the journey is challenging, that is to say, an exciting mystery is waiting and these are likely to show Enola's ability to be like her brother, Sherlock Holmes. Because of Enola’s character, I wondered how to be like her.

The following day, I produced a list of my strengths and weaknesses, as well as my personal aims. To begin, about my strengths, I stated that I am creative, optimistic, and friendly. Next is about my weaknesses: I mentioned that I am an  impatient, anxious and cowardly person. The reason why I wrote these is so that I will transform my flaws into motivation. It led to my aim of taking the IELTS exam and scoring 6.0 for the first time. While reading this, I fell in love with this phrase: “The choice is always yours. Whatever society may claim, it cannot control you,” which Sherlock said to Enola, and it influences her to be brave and focus on her goal of looking for a loved one, her mother. Apart from that, I brought this speech to push me to keep working. Without a doubt, in December in 2020, I earned a 6.0 on my first try and it was awesome. Because I used to be a terrible English student in elementary school, I was terrified to speak in front of large groups of people.My teacher criticized me for my accent. As a result of this book, it changed my mind and I became a better person.

In conclusion, Enola Holmes is my favorite fiction novel. When I am tired or unhappy, I will read this because she is strong, even when confronted with fear. It taught me how to be brave and I believe that in the future, when I will be a producer, my dream career, I will be strong enough for whatever happens.

Peter: The Grapes of Joy

The Bacchanal
of the Andrians
Titian, 1523 - 1526

Until a couple of weeks ago, when I was shopping for a book by one of my favourite modern philosophers, I had never heard of Edward Slingerland. Google, however, thought I might like him, so after I had paid for Derek Parfit’s exploration of the foundations of moral philosophy, its AI thoughtfully suggested Slingerland’s book published in May this year. The title, Drunk, tempted me to ignore it, but the subtitle caught my interest: How We Sipped, Danced and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization. The reviews from other writers and publications that I know and trust were impressive, so I decided to give Slingerland a chance to impress me as well. I’m glad I did. Reading Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization over about 24 hours, I enjoyed the author’s solid academic approach as he argued for a reassessment of the benefits and harms of our species' love affair with alcohol and other intoxicating drugs, from the historical and cultural background he provided to the connections he made with social and scientific concepts, which in many cases coincided with my own interests and my personal  family history.

Although adopting a relaxed, sometimes informal, style of writing, Edward Slingerland is a serious academic of considerable erudition. From the very first pages, he regularly cites a wide range of sources to support his controversial thesis that drugs generally, but alcohol in particular, played a crucial role in our species' ascent to civilizations that today dominate the planet. He cites ancient Greek and Egyptian sources, modern research on the effects of alcohol on the brain, mediaeval Nordic custom, recent research in archeology, classical Chinese texts, sociology, and much else. I was not surprised to discover that at exactly 75% of the way through the book’s 313 pages, it came to an end at page 240: the remaining 73 pages, 25% of the book, are filled with the references for the sources he had cited and notes. That’s a little unusual in a popular book for a general audience, but it’s not at all unusual for an academic work. Edward Slingerland’s academic rigour powerfully supports his arguments at each step towards establishing his novel thesis. 

I particularly enjoyed his references to ancient cultures, which are not only subjects that interest me today, but that took me back to my days at university. I do not know whether Slingerland also studied the classical languages of Greece and Rome, but he certainly knows his Greek and Latin literature. As he was citing Homer, Plato, Aristotle and other Greeks  to help his thesis, it was a pleasant surprise to see how often he used details that I remembered from my own reading of those texts. His details about the drinking of wine in Plato’s Symposium, for example, reminded me of when I first read that work some decades ago at Sydney University, where it was welcome news to discover that Socrates was famous not only for his ability to seriously annoy powerful politicians and rich people but also for his ability to drink more than everyone else and remain sober. When I was in my late teens and enjoying student life, the ability to consume wine was an important aspect of social life at the college in which I lived, which was modelled on the more ancient colleges of Oxford, and which also copied the Oxford habit of wine with meals, and often after meals. Looking back, my own experience at university supports Slingerland’s assertion that alcohol played an essential role in culture. That was certainly the case at Sydney University in the late 1970s and early 80s. I was never much into the popular pub culture, but a glass of wine was usually welcome. 

I was prepared for Slingerland to quote the classics of the West, but I was thrilled by his doing the same for the classics of Chinese literature. One of the languages I studied at university was Chinese, mainly classical Chinese, so it was a pleasant surprise to discover that Slingerland had done the same in his student days. Just as he used Homer and Virgil, so too did he highlight with specific quotes from Confucian classics and the more ancient classics that Confucius admired how wine had played a central role in the development of Chinese community, culture and civilisation over the course of thousands of years. He seems to have preferred the poet Tao Yuan Ming more than my own favourites from the later T’ang Dynasty, but again, the references made a novel use of sources I was already familiar with, and again reminded me of my days at Sydney University with the antique Professor Davis, the lonely aisles of Sydney University’s Oriental Library (Chinese had not then become so popular as it soon would), the fun of reading Li Bai and Tu Fu, and of learning calligraphy with Professor Liu.  

Celebrating the grape harvest at
New Italy, Australia in the 1890s

But perhaps what I most related to were Slingerland’s depictions of Southern European culture, especially that of Italy. He often uses the example of the role that wine plays in modern Italian culture. My own family is of Italian descent, hence my last name, Filicietti, and although it was my great-grandparents who came over from Italy in 1880, the succeeding generations have maintained some Italian customs. Slingerland points out that there is increasing evidence that the agricultural revolution 12,000 years ago began not with a desire to grow wheat for food, but to make beer, or to grow grapes not to eat but to make wine. His grape story is straight out of my family history. One of their most prized possessions on the very long boat trip from Italy to Australia was the cuttings from their grape vines back home that my great-grandparents brought with them. And on arriving in the Australian bush, almost the first thing they did after clearing some land was to plant their grapes to make wine. And as Slingerland notes, it is traditional in Italian culture for parents to introduce their children to wine from an early age. My memory is a little fuzzy (not because I was drunk, but because it was half a century ago), but I think my parents started letting myself and my brothers and sisters have sips of wine at dinner from the age of around ten. As Slingerland describes it for Southern European cultures, wine was a normal part of our family dinners, and often lunch if it was a special occasion. But as he also notes, it was very rare for anyone to actually get drunk. I can remember my father being drunk only four or five times, but only ever on the sort of special occasions that Slingerland describes, where it was accepted social practice that would not extend to normal days. 

Reading Slingerland’s book opened my eyes to a new perspective on the role of alcohol as being not only fun but, despite its very real dangers, contributing greatly to the success of humans over the last 12,000 years or more. He also helped me remember happy days from university, where I had fun both socializing with friends over a bottle of wine and studying the subjects that entranced me, including my major, philosophy, which I learned only in the publisher’s note about the author at the very end of the book is also Slingerland’s main academic area. I was not surprised to discover that he is a philosopher. His restoration of the reputation of the deadly but fun drug alcohol will doubtless upset some as much as Socrates ever upset the conservatives 2,400 years ago until the law courts of democratic Athens put him to death. I’m now looking forward to reading Slingerland’s earlier book; it appears that Google’s AI knows what I will enjoy at least as well as I do.

At 1,306 words, this exceeds the suggested word limit. Had I written this before I prepared the question, I would have given a more generous word limit. You can also check the Google Doc where I wrote before copying and pasting in here and my planning notes in pdf format.