Blog Assignment #7

When I openned Arak Anthrology at page number 33, I thought I was reading my own words. The way the author, Megan Ramirez, introduced her essay was very identical: “After finally arriving to my room, I head over to my laptop and rapidly open it up, as if I am a child opening a Christmas present. I am relieved to finally see those eight blue and white letters at the top left-hand corner of the web page indicating that I have entered the social networking world of Facebook”. (33)

 It is very possible that anyone can see your profile, our teachers, parents, people we don’t want to see our profiles. Anyone can access our private profiles and photos, as Megan Ramirez wrote: “Private is not so private anymore”(33).  Even if you have restricted profile it does not mean you are secure from strangers, these social networking websites are very insecure although many did not care about it.

However,  as I read through essay “The Publication of Your Personal Profile” I found out many facts that it is wrong if we just leave our personal life in front of whole networking society. From many facts the author supported her essay, the one I found out very edificatory. “Miss New Jersey, Amy Polumbo, was nearly forced out of her position because she was being blackmailed by someone who possessed questionable pictures that she posted on her Facebook”(35). It means that these private photos you post can be seen by anyone and these private information of us could be used against us.

Thus, we should be more careful when posting our private information to the internet and insecure social websites.

Works Cited:
1)Ramirez,Megan. "The Publication of Your Personal Profile." The Arak Anthology 2009-2010 :33,35. Department of English, University of Delaware.
2)Springer, John. "Miss New Jersey on Alleged Blackmail Plot." Todayshow.com. MSNBC 9 July 2007. Web. 15 April 2008.

Blog assignment 6

I found very interesting essay about student-athletes by Zachary Tuthill and decided to work on it.
The first thing that catches attention is sufficiency of resources the author used. He described different examples of student-athletes by using their own words in quotation marks or paraphrasing them. For example, in second paragraph of his essay he used resource from ESPN.com to quote student-athlete Matt Leinart: “School’s done for me-I’m here to concentrate on football”, which gives us an opportunity to enjoy Matt Leinart’s view of the life and his desire.
Also, Zachary used paraphrasing method to describe student-athlete’s way of life and how do they manage their time to achieve success in both sides: academic and sports. For example, in his Athletes part he paraphrased David Castillo’s words: “He understood the sacrifice required to be a student-athlete and said he was one-hundred percent committed to football and school, finding little time to merely hang out with his friends”.
Zachary Tuthill used many resources to complete his work, for example, he used book sources, web sources, such as articles from the internet; also, he personally interviewed student-athlete from the University of Delaware. To my mind, the meaning of the essay completely relied on sources he found and cited. He used these sources to describe how student-athletes overcome difficulties and achieve success, without them his essay would have been just a probable discussion of student-athlete’s life.



Works cited:
1)Tuthill, Zachary. "Running Up Hill: The struggle of Student Athletes." Arak Anthology 2009-2010: 41. Department of English, University of Delaware.
2)"Leinart Dancing Through Final Semester at USC." ESPN.com: College Football. ESPN,26 August 2005. Web. 3 May 2008.
3) Anyaso, Hillary Hurd. "The Wide World of College Sports." Diverse Issues in Higher Education April 2006: 4+. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 26 April 2008.

The winners and the losers? Or the good and the evil?

We are good and they are evil. Our political motives are clear, but they are hiding something- this is the most common view of the government of some country.

People tend to think that there are winners and losers. But to my mind, it is not a good description. There are good and bad people, but who is the winner and who is the loser? We could tell it by reading the history of some other country by the wars they had, by the glory of the kings and the disintegration of the great empires such as the Roman empire. The description of the winner and the losers could be given from the example of the Second World War, we could tell that United states of America and The Soviet Union were the winners and the Nazi Germany was the loser, it is also written in all history documents in the world. But it is my belief that the peace won not the great countries by killing many people, by their military forces, winners were the people maintaining the peace, and they were everywhere in the world, so it is hard to tell who won.

Every country is the winner to its people, it is a symbol of greatness and everyone, I believe, love their country and are the patriots. In every country’s history books they described themselves as the winners and as the good side. Thus, everyone believe that his or her country is the winner.

Blog Assignment 4: Cultural differences or just simple shyness?

Friendship open doors to every heart in this world. Life without friends is meaningless. Happiness, laugh, jokes brings peace to everyone and makes our life brighter.

As for international students, they do face rough going while living in other countries. Diffrence between cultures cause misunderstandings between people.  For example, anecdotes and jokes.

 

You can't judge me. You're white. You don't understand my culture.                    

Another example is anocdotes about blondes:

The assistant asked the blonde if she would like her pizza cut into six pieces or twelve. "Six please" she said, "I could never eat twelve!"

If an Asian student tries to translate american anecdotes about blondes to his own language it won't be that much funny as it is in America. First, it is difficult to Asians to laugh at blondes. They don't used to laugh at them and they do not understand why do americans laugh at blondes. Secondly, people from different countries cannot understand jive talks of some other country. And it cause misunderstandings.

As for Liu, he prefered Chinese atmosphere rather than living with an American family, McKnight family. Liu can laugh and enjoy his time without worrying that he might say something wrong. However, as I said before, friendship open doors to every heart. If Liu tried harder to make friends and tried to be closer with Mcnight family maybe by cooking Chinese food, he might have stayed in Chicago with Mcnights. Nevertheless, Liu couldn't overcome difficulties and he needed support. And approval came from Chinese people.

Part 2:

Slip v move smoothly, easily or quietly
Tempt v  take foolish or unnecessary risks
Shabby adj mean or unworthy

Blog assignment 3: Symbol of Peace

  Symbol of Peace

People of Mongolia consider shaking hands as a symbol of peace. You can see people shaking hands at every corner, every minute in daily life of Mongolia.

Mongolian people shake hands every day, every minute when they meet new friend, to respect an old man or just to greet an old friend. Also, we shake hands when we stepped on someone’s foot or accidentally pushed someone, or when we are appreciating someone. I heard many Mongolians laughing about misunderstandings they faced in foreign countries, when they shook hands of complete strangers. "I accidentally stepped on his foot, I said I was sorry and shook his hand. Stranger was quite shocked, he didn't understand that I was nice"-one of my friends told me. Also, when you see someone looking awry at you it doesn’t mean that this person doesn’t like you. In Mongolia you could meet many people who are in depression. According to this situation, the stranger doesn’t mean any harm to you and he wasn’t looking exactly at you. It was an accident, and the stranger was thinking about his own problems.

As I said before, it is very common to shake hands by apologizing to a person. If some of your Mongolian friends shake your hand it means: "Peace, brother. I didn't mean to hurt you" or just "Peace". If complete stranger shakes your hands do not panic, he is your new friend. And Mongolians do everything they able to do to help and to protect friends.

Blog assignment 2 (option 1)

Life is a game, and we are actors in it.
-Anonymous

To my mind this quote is absolutely true. Our life is like theater and we are actors, we have our own extraordinary roles. In your play you are a leading role and people surround you,are supporting roles.

Thus I can imagine that I'm playing lead role on the stage, I can play anyone I want to, and it would depend on my choice. I can be kind and nice, aggresive and sad at the same time, as if I have masks in my closet and every day I can cover the true me by different "mask-faces". To impress someone you just met, you must be good looking, nice and intelligent. So what are you supposed to do? Of course, you cover your face by an intelligent mask and then talk to that person. You can turn right and be polite, and then turn left and be rude.

On the other hand, you don't have to do it, if you are already an individual. Can you really be honest with yourself? Do you really know who you are? Who is real you?
Answers to these questions are hidden deep in your heart, even now; when you are reading them you don't feel very confident. I don't know much about pcychology, but I'm sure that practise makes us good at something. If you are not an individual then create it. Ask deep and tough questions and try to be honest with yourself. And you are one step closer to your true personality.

As for me, I can say proudly that I'm an individual. I'm playing my role on my stage, but I don't cover my face by mask, it just depends on how I feel the day. And when I meet someone, I'm just me, the girl like others.

Response to "Mother Tongue"

People all over the world face situation that had faced Amy Tan. And I'm not the exception.

I never spoke english at home, we use our national language. If english was my primary language and my family lived in english-speaking country, I assume that English I would have spoken at home had had a positive influence on me.

I lived in Moscow with my family. My russian became fluent, better than my parents. Sometimes when they were speaking to russian people, I was ashamed of them. At school we used jive talks and sometimes when I used it at home, my parents couldn't understand me. But few years later, I realized that speaking foreign language is not for speaking it like native speakers, but to be clear, so other people will understand you.

My mother is a poetess and a writer. I mentioned that my russian became better than hers. But I was wrong. She translated the novel "William the Conqueror" from russian to mongolian language. And it became best-seller. I realized that even if her pronunciation wasn't very good, her grammar and understanding the language, feeling its beauty was better than mine.
Now, I'm not ashamed of my parents, but proud of them.

When we came back to Mongolia, I transfered to Russian Embassy School in Ulaanbaatar. 80% of students were mongolians. First few months I was in a complicated situation, because I couldn't understand what they were talking. I felt uncomfortable among classmates. But soon, I made friends and they helped me to use mongolian jive talks. I noticed that slang was coming from the streets.

In my opinion, if your language is "broken" it is not the problem to be ashamed of. It is helping you to communicate with other people. People who are good, for example, in Spanish might have "broken" French. Also, we shouldn't use slang and jive talks everytime. People might see us as an uneducated and a rude person.