Sunday, November 29, 2009

Larissa: Shopping

Nowadays, the world is rushing extremely in the true senses. Technical progress has resulted in deep flooding of market with a plenty of various goods. The meaning of “shopping” has penetrated into the bottom of human’s consciousness, making us plunge in a lot of unreasonable customs; moreover, shopping has become a social phenomenon, a certain core of wide investigations by psychologists and obviously producers. What is an impact pushing the crowd to buy, I would say, to clean out the stocks; in addition, which sort of shopping do persons prefer between common shopping as strolling along the infinitive shelves of the stores and online service inner the endless nets of the internet. The buys as online, as real shopping could be appraised both as measure of social adaptability and as particular personal attitude to common social activity.

Modern society made the humankind accept shopping as the mainstream, one of the most important sides of routine life due to the ubiquitous stereotypes exposed from the blue screens of TV-sets. Shopping has become a common way for self-affirmation of the persons with lack of self-confidence. In dependence on particular features of personality, such as temper, emotionality, sociability, shopping is obviously the way of spending leisure-time as well. Thus, at present, real cultural wealth has changed with aimless loitering among the endless shelves of the stores. However, it’s remarkable that a number of customers notice positive cheerful charge, walking together with the friends, having long sprightly conversations. Moreover, shopping is the most convenient action in cases concerning both visible quality of the goods, such as perception of texture, taste, size, color, scent, and opportunity to compare analogous goods of wide exposed brands with other items having similar characteristics and cheaper prices.

From the other side, there is an opposite method of buying, so-called “on-line” one. This method is favorable for timid and bashful people, who prefer to be in isolation and estrangement from the today’s society. These inadaptable people are apt to operate with flying life from their computers and have some specific features of their personality. On the other hand, the online buys are unique method without losing free time, that’s very important for people immersed in business, which are very determined and relevant to dump their vital space with the useless and needless belongings. Evidently, there are several disadvantages of this way, such as impossibility to estimate the real appearance, quality, technical characteristics of a preferable item.

As for myself, I prefer to estimate the features of items with my own perceptions, to feel a texture, smell a delicate scent, fit an appropriate size, and compare a saturation of color. After ordering on-line several items, I found out that buying the pig in a poke isn’t reasonable deed. However, the men seem to be willing to purchase everything on-line, without wasting time, in comparing with the women who prefer to walk, talk, accept new impressions and let their imagination carry them away from daily reality.

Shayesteh, Jason, Sharon: Violence and Children

A high-school student killed nine other students in his class with a machine-gun. Later, he admitted that he killed his classmates just because they derided him, and he just killed them as Rambo killed those bad people in the movie “The First Blood”. This kind of news comes from the media again and again. Do the media know its role in increasing children violence? The media contributes to violent behavior of children in some ways.




The media affects children because it reflects the violence of society. The media amplifies the violence to attract the audience. For instance, when the media produces fantastic criminal episodes, children feel that will be “cool” and amazing. A victory is exciting in the war scenes and kids like to be a winner or a hero. In addition, the media provide children violent scenes of the world. For example, the violent cartoons are filled with aggressive action drawn the children. While the virtual hero of cartoons solves the problems with physical force, kids are fascinated by those violent stories. As a result they think they should have the experiences in their lives.

The media teaches children violence. It doesn’t matter how old children are. Scientists are warning the children’s viewing violence will cause violence. When they show the guns, children know about guns. Children cannot judge, and they don’t know which way is better and just swallow it. Kids like to be heroes who are in their minds; therefore, the media provides a lot of the models for children to imitate. In a study psychologists traced the children behavior for thirteen years. They found children who watch more violent TV shows will get more aggressive. Children learn the styles of speaking or behavior of figures in the TV shows. However, the influences of the roles on children are integrated including what they say and what they do.



To sum up, violence is so pervasive in our society and children learn to behave violently from media reflecting the violence of society. Our kids are surrounded by all kinds of media nowadays, and they are not able to avoid the impact of the media. The media shouldn’t make some kind of rating system such as the V-chip to block its violence? Parents also have the responsibility for educating their children how to choose the suitable programs, and how to recognize the reality.

Arash Salimi: Immigration

Many people have been immigrating in order to obtain more success and comfort. Despite the


fact that all immigrants face lots of obstacles from the first moment, they will triumph

hardships with some effort ultimately. For instance, in the 1800’s, England faced a financial

collapse; as a result, many people like Susana Moody decided to immigrate to Canada to have a

better life. When they settled in strange new land, they started to face many challenges for a long period of time. At last, Susana and her family overcame every hardship and made a successful and happy life. Susana Moody’s story of hardships reminds us of the obstacles that all immigrants have to face in order to succeed in their new country.



Immigrants have to triumph emotional hardships. First of all, they will miss their families, native

countries and previous lives. Like Susana who missed England, her sisters and her earlier life as a

member of wealthy family; She felt so lonely because there was nobody whom she could turn to

except Thomas, her husband. Secondly, throughout hard times and when facing hardships, an immigrant may become disappointed and depressed. For instance, I became despair when I could not get admitted to university right away after being only 1 month in Canada which seemed somehow illogical like Susana who became hopeless during struggling with hardships.



Furthermore, immigrants will meet material challenges. Firstly, finding a job is the most crucial

and also the most challenging part. For example, I have not been able to find a job although I have been seeking for a long time. As for the Moodies, Canada was not industrialized in the early 1800’s; consequently, there were almost no job opportunities here. As a result, Thomas, Susana’s husband, could not have a job as soon as he wanted to cover their daily expenses, so he, who was a loyalist, had no choice, but to join the army in order to make a living. In addition, the level of life or the life style might be changed and lowered. For example, Susana’s life was transformed completely. In her earlier life, Susana was a wealthy girl who had seen only the gentle aspect of life, but in Canada she had to struggle with hard life conditions in order to survive.



Many people emigrate from their land to make a better life. They will face lots of

hardships at first which should be overcome. One type of such challenges is emotional challenges like missing family, previous life and native country, or being disappointed throughout meeting hard times. Another one is material problems like getting a job, or having the life style changed or transformed. Ultimately, with some efforts, all immigrants can survive difficulties and make a happy life

Arash Salimi: Shopping

People should respond to their various needs in order to survive, so they buy whatever they need. Basically, there are two different ways for shopping: online shopping and in-store shopping. Some people consider shopping as a social issue and prefer to purchase needed items by themselves. On the other hand, there are some others who favor virtual shopping. Despite the fact that in-store shopping is more common, I would like to shop online.
Simulated shopping has some advantages for individuals. First and foremost, it can store a great deal of time for busy people. To illustrate, purchasing goods takes a lot of the parent’s time, especially the working ones. They have no extra time to spend in malls deciding what they need and browsing for it. In addition, students who live away from their home are so busy that sometimes cannot even take adequate rest, and online shopping helps them a lot.

Moreover, there are some benefits for society. First of all, simulated purchasing cause people not to come out for every simple need. As a consequence, there would be less traffic and air pollution. Furthermore, newly arrived merchandises can be easier known and found with internet shopping. For instance, someone who is looking for newest Nokia mobile phone can find it easily by browsing the net for some minutes.
To sum up, people should buy what they need whether online or in store. Virtual shopping has some benefits for both individuals like saving time and for society like decreasing traffic and air pollution. Despite the fact that in-store shopping is more common, online shopping is a more convenient and economic way for supplying needs.

Mona Momtaz: Children and Violence

Nowadays,violence is very pervasive in the world. Children’s violence is increasing rapidly. Some people think the media contributes to the children’s violence, but some people consider outside environment leads to children’s violence. In my opinion, not only the media but also family and society can affect children’s violent behaviors.


The family has a negative effect on children. Firstly, parents can affect their children’s violent behaviors. Some parents do not pay attention to their actions. They set bad examples to their children. For example, when parents have arguments, they often use violence against each other, and some parents treat people impolitely; they usually use S words or F words. As a result, children copy and follow their parents’ actions and languages. Secondly, values of family also can impact on children and make them violent. Children receive ideas from the family. If the family gives wrong instructions to children, they will mislead children. For example, if a family thinks stealing is not bad thing, so the children will become thieves. Moreover, Family doesn’t help children learn some knowledge. Children can’t judge what is wrong and what is right. They engage in violent behaviors easily.

Sometimes, society contributes to criminal behaviors in children. People have influence on each other. If children’s friends have some violent behaviors, the children have the same problems. Children want to show their power by violence. For instance, children compete for status in the hierarchy of peer groups, which makes some of them masters and the rest subordinates. In addition, children can learn violent behaviors from public place. When they are at school, they speak coarse words, talk about violent programs, and hear some murder stories. They are excited to mock violent behavior. When children are in streets, maybe they see some people fighting, or shooting. They don’t consider the negative results. They are interested in following those activities.

In general, children’s violent behaviors exist in our lives. Every person and some organizations should be concerned about it. We have a responsibility to protect children. We should reduce and control the violent behaviors.