Robin Heyoubin: Religion

Actually, I don’t believe any religion, but my grandmother does. The religion she believes in is Buddhism. One of the Buddhas in Buddhism called “ Kuan Yin ” is the “God” in my grandmother’s heart. “ Kuan Yin ” is a very kind female Buddha, who always helps the poor and good-hearted people. Since I learned to talk, my grandmother has always educated me to be a good-hearted person, and then, “Kuan Yin” will take care of me and give me a hand if I am not lazy.

I want to be a good-hearted person because I believe in my grandmother that “Kuan Yin” always help good-hearted people and punish evil ones. A good-hearted person who always thinks about his impact of behavior on others is easy to make friends with. Furthermore, they can get along well with others and build a wide network in society which is a significant key to success. Therefore the standard that I get along with others is never to do any thing to others, what I don’t want others to do to me. I care about people’s feelings and respect people, and then I make good friends follow my standard. A good-hearted person who often helps others may obtain consequent help from others when he/she is in trouble. I try my best to help people who are in trouble because I am afraid that nobody would like to help me, even “Kuan Yin”, when I am in trouble. Fortunately, I have lots of good friends who would like to help me. Maybe I am a good-hearted person so that “Kuan Yin” always looks after me.

Nobody，even “Kuan Yin” can help you if you are lazy. My grandmother worshipped “Kuan Yin” on the first day and fifteenth day in each month. Her prayers were always about me; she wished me to grow up quickly and healthily, be a good person and be successful. However, as a child, I thought it was unnecessary to work hard for success because of the help from “Kuan Yin”. I misunderstood “Kuan Yin”; furthermore, I misunderstood my grandmother ‘s love. After few failures in my exam in grade two, my grandmother told me good marks never came without working hard and nobody can help me if I am lazy, so I realized if you have never sown, you will reap nothing.

My grandmother is a typical good-hearted person. I believe in her, and she is my religion. She has taught me to become a good-hearted and hardworking person; she influences my life by her love.

Valeriy Demidov: Travel

Since my childhood, I have been involved in different kinds of trips, tours, excursions and travels. I have got a lot of knowledge and experience, and, of course, it changed my attitude to the life and my life itself. Therefore I may say: Travelling in Russia and abroad has significantly changed my life and mentality.

The story of my travels begins with trips to the country in my childhood. My parents and grandparents really liked to spend their holidays and vacations in the country going camping. They started to take my brother and me for these adventures when we were 4-5 years old. We walked through the forest and meadows, swam in lakes and rivers, took sunbaths and caught fish, and we also got to like this type of entertainment and rest. Later, when we became adults, we went to our lovely wild places with our friends to feel ourselves free and independent of civilization. We learned how to take care for ourselves, take a decision in an emergency situation and be own masters of environmental support. At my work for Mordovian State University I often made business trips to Moscow and other cities because I am quick off the mark. During a working day, I was able to deliver lectures to my students and carry out learning sessions with them, arrange schedule for the next day with my colleagues, buy a ticket on the night train and do my packing. After the night-day-night trip to Moscow and squaring the matter with reports on scientific grants, I was a little tired and didn’t sleep enough, but I continued my classes in an ordinary timetable. Sometimes, I needed this experience to break my daily routine and get new mates, communication and impressions; then I felt myself renewed. Thus I become experienced in effective managing my time and arranging official matters, communication with managers and strangers.

It is very interesting to get knowledge about history and culture, life and traditions of various peoples and nations not from books or magazines, but directly. I also took part in scientific conferences in various famous cities of Russia as Moscow, Saint-Petersburg, Samara, and in famous cities of other countries as Berlin in Germany, and Venice and Trieste in Italy. As a rule, after the conference meetings we went on excursions to the remarkable places of the towns and got to know a lot of new historical and cultural facts and details. Besides new knowledge and extended scope, my trips to other countries taught me the following lessons. Trips abroad give you the possibility to change the environment and the tide of life for a short period. Many people dream about travels to other countries and famous cities, but they don’t have time, capabilities or money to realize their reveries. For this reason it may be great if your work include some travel. Ten months ago my wife and I immigrated to Canada. It was our well-considered decision to change our country and our life, but in a different way we may interpret it as a long-time travel and adventure, sometimes difficult and interesting undoubtedly. During these ten months we have gained knowledge and experience of several years. We understand very well it is necessary to go on in our own way without fear that something will come amiss, then we can achieve success.

In conclusion I may say all my travels have changed me significantly, and I can’t live now without travel, trips, tours etc. Maybe these changes and my attitude to life are not advantageous in point of view of middlebrow, but I prefer to be little beaten but experienced and knowledgeable person.

Omaira Valencia V.: Crime

Community safety is a priority in order to accomplish high quality of life. Consequently, it is important to consider the causes of crime, because if society provides the appropriate answer, it could decrease. Crime has two major causes: economic and social causes. And three minor causes, policing and justice, urban planning and substance abuse. In my opinion, social causes are more significant than the others.

The deep roots of crime are social problems. They have two aspects that impact children and adolescence. One aspect is ineffective parenting and intrafamilial violence. Single-parent families and lonely children are causative factors to future criminal behaviour. Children who are victims of violence in their own families have more possibilities to become offenders later. Other aspect is ineffective socialization, because intolerance and lack of respect of others bring inadequate way to express the rejection of the world which they live

The relation between economic problems and crime is complex. There is not a direct link between poverty and crime; however poor neighbourhoods are very unsafe. In addition, in those places, unemployed people have predisposition to gather with friends who have undesirable behaviour and get in trouble.

Finally, there are three causes, less significant in statistics, but still important: Policing and Justice, urban planning and substance abuse. Policing refers to relation between populations vs. number of persons in Police department. Equally important is Justice, which should be effective, because some offenders often are unpunished and relapsing into crim. Also, City preservations are relevant. It refers to maintaining good condition in streets and places in order to avoid mugging and pick-pocketing. Finally, alcohol and drugs are significant factor because they could induce antisocial behaviour.

In summary, crime has complex and multiple roots. Some causes have more impact, such as social problems and economic problems. Other causes have less significant statistic, such as policing and justice, Urban Planning and substance abuse. Nevertheless, all causes have influence and society must face and struggle against them. In my opinion, social causes are more significant than others and they certainly need more attention of the social order

Omaira Valencia V. : Communication

Successful communication is a cornerstone of all relationships, even in marriage. Lack of communication is the cause of 50% of divorces in The USA. For that reason, Debora Tannem’s book offers us some insight into the problem and helps us to understand an important aspect of a big problem in our society. According to Debora Tannen males and females, as well as husbands and wives have different approaches to conversation in three main aspects: Socialization, Listening, and Conversationalist’s job.

Women and men, so husbands and wives, have different methods of socialization in organizational structure and interactive norms. All of these differences have their roots in early days. First, the organizational structure among boys is hierarchical, so they like to perform as a team and look forward to the best position. Unlike boys, the organizational structure among girls is parallel, and they like few close friends whether there are the winners or the losers. Secondly, the interactive norms between boys are based less on talking but more on doing things together. Moreover, boys avoid listening, because they understand that listening is a passive role that undermines their self-confidence. For girls talking is the basis of friendship and they enjoy being listened to. Other aspect of the interactive norms is about their expectations. Wives expect that their husbands to stand like a new version of their best childhood friends and consequently to cement their relation on talking. In contrast, men don’t assume the importance of conversation and don’t miss it when it isn’t there.

Listening requires physical and topical alignment. The impression of not listening between woman and men is due to misalignments which appear in the body language. Whereas men don’t keep the same position along the conversation, women talk to each other face to face. Switching topic is another aspect that gives women the impression that men aren’t listening. Whereas women tend to talk a length about the same topic, men like jump from one topic to another. Both aspects don’t mean that men aren’t listening, but it is simply a different way to face a conversation.

Finally, women and men have different assumptions about the conversationalist’s job. On the one hand, women need to talk about their troubles because they needs support and agreement. For men, talking is necessary in order to find a solution, so they offer different points of view about the topic. Over more, for some North American men, the conversation is faced as a competition, and they use “agonistic” formats which mean tending to argue and eager to win an argument. In other words, the conversation in which woman needed to find a support, become a discussion or sterile debate. But on the other hand, for men, the conversation with women is not easier. Women tend to overlap and finish each others sentences which are perceived by men as “belittling and unsupportive”.

In conclusion, I agree with the author, who writes that the differences in the conversational styles of men and women need sociolinguistic approach in order to give solutions without blame no either man or women. Understanding and seeing the differences as a cross-cultural differences rather than right or wrong, help them to clarify the expectations, so husbands and wives may build and rebuild their relationship every day.

Ryan Chung: Military Service

In my homeland Korea, there is a law. Males have to go to the army when they are twenty years old. If you were Korean, would you like this law? My dad had to serve in the army for two years. I think this law is not necessary. If I could change one thing about Korea, I would change the military law for two reasons.
The military life is very hard. One problem is the amount of sleep you have. You have to wake up very early, around 7am, and stay up late. That means you only have a limited time to sleep. Also, you have to sleep out in the cold. You only get a sleeping bag and a small shelter. You would freeze to death. Not only is the sleep a problem, training is also difficult. You have to go through hard obstacles such as climbing a big hill, and crawling under a net in the mud everyday. There is no time to just relax. Also, food might be a problem. It might taste horrible like getting out the food from garbage. It might not be enough to fill you up and not healthy. You need to have some food from each food category to stay healthy which might not be in the food you get when you join the army.
Time is wasted in the military service. You have to serve in the army for at least two years. That is a long time being wasted. Every year is important to the life of a teenager. Many events can happen. Also, you have to skip university. Then, you have to catch up the school work even knowing it is going to be very hard. You can forget information from high school for the past two years. Also, you graduate late. If you were supposed to graduate in the year of 2008, you have to graduate in the year of 2010.
I believe that even if Korean boys have to serve in the army, they should change the law to serve in the army for one year, not two. However, there are some good lessons you learn in the army. You learn self defense if you are in trouble. Also, you can learn to stay fit and healthy.