Blog Entry 17

The food unit has been reflected more or less in the stories "The allegory of the Cave", “Truman Show", The Matrix, “Red pill or blue pill”. Writing constantly responses and essays that were based on those stories and movies, I learned a lot of things that are going to be useful in my life. That we are always given choices in our life, and it’s up to us how we want to make our life, to go the right path or the wrong one, to look forward for a brighter future and opportunities or stay in the same place.  For example the food, which is an important factor in our life, can be healthy and harmful at the same time. We are the ones who have to decide what it is better for our families and us. Either we don’t care about our health and purchase all the products from supermarkets where most of the food has additives, or we choose to live a healthy life and protect our families by buying organic products that are sold in store like “Farmers Market”.


 From the series “The Meatrix” I got to read more about the issues of the food that nowadays is highly processed and contains numerous food additives, plus I learned about the animal welfare and the antibiotics that are making the animals grow faster. It is very sad about what’s happening in the world. It seems to me like the more technology is getting into our lives, the less quality we are giving to ourselves.

I believe that after so much practice, like commenting on Dr.X’s students blog entries plus the CAT practice that we have done in class, I feel more confident about writing the CAT at this moment. But, I feel that I still have to work on developing more my ideas and make them clear for the reader. Maybe by giving more examples from my personal experience that would be related to the topic. Therefore I still hope to do well on the cat and get a good grade.

Entry Blog 16

In America there’s a big company called The Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A) that controls the quality, the freshness and the safeness of the food from all over America. There job is to make sure that all the food companies are respecting the rules, and are offering to their costumers a fresh and a not expired product. The F.D.A. has agents whose mission is to check all the food that is being imported in our country and as well before is exported to our country.  Although this may be true, but thinking realistically this is not enough to protect a nation, as well as some restaurants and food companies from not consuming or serving the none fresh food. In that case, only a few of the companies remain to serve food that is safe to have it.

Those days store owners or restaurant owners are too concern about their business to do well, then about their customers. The only think that some of them want is to make money, and don’t care about anything else. Only a few of the owners are really thinking about the safety of the food that they are going to sell.  Most of the times, we can find fresh food in those supermarket, restaurants and small stores that are in business for a long time, and they are well known in the neighborhood.

I had a terrible experience with one of my favorite restaurants. I used to enjoy going to “La Favela” because I loved their food, plus I had a good friend who worked there, but one day all desire of going their finished. Whenever I was going to “La Favela I was always having their special of the day, so once I went for 3 days in raw and in those days they had the same special. All that was because they didn’t sell much of it before, so they kept putting it on special. That made me wonder how that could happen, and when I asked my friend she said that their business was not going well anymore so they had to sell the same food for a few days in raw.  I felt unsafe with their food, because I didn’t know how fresh it was and it will be so then I stopped going there.

If people really want to have a good quality food they should go to an expensive restaurant, or as I have mentioned earlier, to a well known restaurant in the neighborhood. That will give them a good service, a nice environment and serve them a safe food.

The restaurant I work at is located in Upper East Side, and is in business for twenty years. It is well known for the best quality of its deserts, panini’s and food in general. The Upper East Side residents are always safe about the freshness, and the tourists plus the new costumers always tend to come back again. The specials of the day are actually changing every day, the products are always fresh and high quality. The only problem is that it’s expensive and not a lot of people can afford going there.

Summing up, I think we should always ask ourselves, what kind of produces we are consuming, are they healthy enough for our families and where we are buying them?. In that case, we will be more aware about the supermarkets where we are usually buying food, and our favorite restaurants . That way we will live a healthy life and have a strong immune system.

Blog Entry 15

“The Meatrix” represents some short video series about the reality of the animals industry, the living and rising of the animals and the afterward effects towards the population. That movie has been made after the original movie “The Matrix”, where the nation lives in a blind world where everything seems perfect but fake at the same time. We are still living in a Matrix, because people consume too much of the food that looks good and tasty, but they have no idea where it comes from. In other words is it really healthy, as the way it looks or is it dangerous and they might poison themselves and their family? Nowadays most of the food is not as tasteful and healthy as it looks. People should stop buying that kind of food because it has additives, on the contrary they should shop in stores where they know that most of it is healthy and homemade. That would be stores like food co-wops or farmers market.

In those days, in big cities like New York the population goes food shopping in big stores, because it’s fast, convenient, the food looks always fresh and good, we can get anything desirable, at anytime and we have those type of stores located in all five boroughs. That would be the big supermarkets like Key Food, Trade Fair and etc... Most of us go shopping there, and then wonder themselves, how they got to become obese, gain weight or weaken their immune system. It is very simple, because the food is unhealthy and anything we consume from there it harms us.

The costumers have no idea how the food is being processed, and then delivered to us. It all comes from factory farms. Those animals are not allowed to go outside and graze on open land. They live in a small place as close as possible to each other. That’s why they get diseases’ that are treated with low doses of antibiotics.  Also for productivity they are given hormones.

In contrary when buying food from Farmers Market, we can taste a much bigger difference than the one in Key Food, because there we can find delicious home-style foods, farm fresh products and we can be assured that all animals are raised humanely or "the old-fashioned way."  They are raised with no antibiotics or growth hormones.

In conclusion, the nation should wake up and realize with what kind of food they are feeding themselves and their family. It would be better if we would be able to spend more money on food, but get a better quality of food, an “organic” one. Shopping in stores like Farmers Market would stop the continue problem of obesity.

Blog Entry 14

The makers of The Meatrix used The Matrix as the basis because of the similarities between them. The animals that live in those farms represent us, the nation, who seems to be living in a perfect world. When from the other side it’s all a lie, because poor animals don’t know of a better living. I think day by day their living condition get worse because, people want to make more money out of them and at the same time not to spend too much on raising them.  So that can affect their food, the place where they live, and from here the quality of the food becomes unhealthy for the nation. As the animals are locked in the Meatrix , the same humans are locked in the Matrix as well.

Blog Entry 13

The movie “Matrix” is about a virtual world where humans are grown in pods and are connected by cybernetic implants to an artificial reality called the Matrix. Neo is chosen to be part of the Matrix, because he is different from others. He was offered by one of the Matrix members, named Morpheus, to choose between two pills, the red or the blue one. The red pill represented the truth or how far down the rabbit hole goes and the blue pill meant no change, to stay in his current existence. Neo decided to go with the truth, with the red pill. From there he is taught to become one of them, “a superhuman”. At the end Neo becomes a hero. By trusting himself and his ability’s he save’s Morpheus and the world.  If I had to choose between the red and the blue pill, I would have chosen the red pill. Because I would like to know the truth and what is really happening around us, who is surrounding us, then living in a lie and not be aware of what’s going on in the world.

Apparently if Neo hadn’t chosen the red pill  he would have never found the reality about himself and about the real world. It is very important for us to know the truth because, this way we will be more careful about our surroundings and we won’t have a wrong believe about something.

For example, I have my family far away from me, and once something terrible happened there, my grandfather passed away. My parent’s haven’t told me that bad news for a long time and when they finally spoke to me, I was very upset about the news and very disappointed with them .Whenever I asked my parents about my grandfather, they would always lie telling me he was around. I would rather prefer knowing the truth, then being deceived all the time

Another reason why I agree with Neo’s choice is, because everyone at some point is tempted to go out there and visit a different world. Seeing a world full of technology and super power it might answer a lot of questions that most of us have, especially after reading so many science fiction books and fiction movies. 

 In conclusion, the “Matrix” movie opened our eyes to many things that we wouldn’t think about before. It made us realize that we are always offered choices in life, now it depends on us how much we want to know the truth and move on, or stay in the same position and ignore the reality.

Blog Entry 12

Looking back at what I have done since the beginning of the semester, I can positively say that I got better in writing and organizing an essay.

 I remember before I used to always struggle with this problem and make mistakes whenever I was supposed to write an essay, because I didn’t understand how a correct essay should be written. Now, with the teacher’s help, plus the new system to me typing almost everything on the computer, I learned how to write it in a correct format.

In this class I got to learn how to listen and understand better the point in a movie, and not only in a movie but when reading an important passage in a newspaper or a book.

For example we saw a very interesting and old movie with Jim Carrie called “The Truman show”. Based on that movie we responded to a significant topic using the correct structure. And then followed another movie “The Matrix” witch I had watched years ago but never understood the real point of it.  Reading my classmates comments on the movie, I learned new things about the movie also how to respond and write correctly upon it.

 In conclusion,I think that if I will be writing more and more essay's and at the same time follow the structure, I will be able to write great essay's by the end of this class. Practicing will be the key to success.

Blog Entry 11

The passage "The Dangers of Reality TV" written by Timothy Sexton is about the reality television effects on the teenagers.Timothy states that some of the issues that TV sends out are " the importance of competition, the value of image over ability ".

One of the most important factor in reality television is the fact that the better looking one and not the smarter one will win the game in almost all the cases. With the reality TV, education becomes of lesser value because there's no need of knowledge to make money on those TV shows. Most of the maker's of reality TV is the reflection of the society nowadays, but in fact this is not true because just those in power think so.

 In this passage Timothy Sexton states Reality TV presents danger and bad influence for young fans. And that only the attractive and with no education people get the highest scores on a game or are actually the winners. When the smarter but not so good looking go back home with empty pockets.

 I do agree with Sexton because I know that there are smart people with a degree and a good job that are going out there on a stage just for fun.

 The filling of getting on the stage and being watched by million of people it is not that easy, you actually have to be strong to face that and smart enough to speak wisely while being filmed, because sometimes there are shows that are transmitted direct on the television.

 It is not trrue that only beautiful people get on the show, because it is not hard to hae a make up done by a proffesional and the person becomes a beauty right away.

Blog Entry 10

Claim:     In the beginning Neo didn't know how much power and influence he had towards the humanity. He realizes later that he was a hero, after he sacrifices himself to the world.

Reasons: The fact that Morpheus offered him two choices in life, between going forward and find the reality about who he really was or live in a fake world, Neo's choice was to move forward. That already makes him a hero, plus he saved Morpheus life by sacrificing his own

Evidence:If Neo was afraid and didn't trust himself, he would have never found what was the right place for him in this world. But confidence and trust helped him pass through everything, get to know who he was and helped to save the humanity.

Blog Entry 9

I found the Matrix discussion telecommute very interesting. After i watched the movie I still was unclear about Neo's choice regarding the red or blue pill, and his position towards the world. But, after reading through telecommute the other one's comments, I got the message of it. When they were asked what would they would choose if they would be in Neo's position,would they choose the blue or the red pill, each one of  the students came out having different points of view. Reading through them made me think about my own life. Am I going the right way, or I should make some changes to it.

Blog Entry 8

The Truman show is a movie made by Christopher, which is the producer of it. It is a reality based movie where Truman, the main character is being filmed 24 hours a day without knowing it. He is being filmed since his birth, day by day. He lives in a town named Seahaven , where everything seems beautiful.

 He has a well-behaved wife that works as a nurse, who never has any reasons of arguing, he is working as a salesman for an insurance company. Together they make an ideal couple. And Truman has a great personality he is very communicative, as he greets his neighbors every morning “Good morning, and in case that I don’t see you, good evening and good night” all this ends up on a day when Truman notices that everything is too perfect around him. That’s when he discovers that his life is being recorded and that everything is a lie around him, nothing is real.

Consequently, Christopher the crazy producer, had spent almost half of his life trying to make a perfect world where there doesn’t exist problems, stress, fight or robberies, as it usually happens in real life, a world where everything is perfect . Although this might be true, but I don’t agree with the producer, because he is not a God that can rule or judge someone’s life. We are all human beings that have to learn through experience what respect, failure, and success means.

Following this, Christopher shouldn’t have filmed Truman without his permission; it is not right to foolish somebody in such a cruel way.  The producer should’ve become known as normal people do, through hard work and practice, but not using poor man’s living instead, just for the name of fame and advertisement.

I wouldn’t want to experience living the way Truman did. Just thinking about being watched by millions of people on what you doing every day, it scares me away. Even if sometimes I wish I had recorded all my childhood, my trips and the important events I still wouldn’t agree to be filmed 24 hours.  I am positive that there are many different ways to record your life, and at the same time live a full and real life.

 

Blog Entry 7

    I find this class challenging and definitely more difficult than then the previous class ESL 099. In the beginning of the semester I was a bit scared when I saw that everything is computerized and plus the professor speaking so fast regarding the homework and the work in class that has to be done. It was hard for me to understand the assignments and do everything on the computer because I have never done so before. But now i find it interesting, I realized that it makes me be more organized with my homework’s. Because if I have started in class an assignment or I have some ideas about other homework’s that have to be done I can always type them on the computer put them as drafts and anytime I want to complete them I can always go back and do that. 

    I think the issue’s that I have in English is writing an argument essay because I can always start with a good introduction but when I get to write the body and come up with arguments I block out and don’t know what to write especially if I am unfamiliar with the theme or I don’t really understand it.  Also I have troubles with commas, I can’t really make the difference when there’s a new sentence and when the sentence continues.

   The CAT-W essay was okay for me, I should have been more considerate about the 90 min in which we had to write the essay. I spent a lot of time getting my ideas together and write a good introduction and that left me with writing a not so good body and conclusion. I also have to practice in writing an essay in a short period of time. Because all the time I come from work directly to school and when there’s an essay to be done in class I can never do it, I can’t get my ideas together and then I just take my time and finish the assignment on a day off, at home. These are the issues that I have to improve, and I believe I will be better by practicing and completing the required assignments on time.

Blog Entry 6

    “The Allegory of the cave”  written by a Greek philosopher Plato is a fictional dialogue between Plato’s brother Glaucon and his professor Socrates. In this dialogue Socrates describes some prisoners who have been living in an underground cave chained up all their live. They couldn’t talk neither see each other faces.  All they could see was the wall in front of them on which appeared enormous shadows which they thought were real. They didn’t know that behind them was a fire and between the fire and the prisoners was a walkway through where people carried things and animals that were projected on their wall. After some time one of the prisoners is freed. He goes out and experiences the new world. Then he decides to go back to the cave and share his excitement with his fellow prisoners, but unfortunately for them he is just another enormous shadow and echo reflected on the wall.

In my opinion, if a person stays chained up and doesn't realize  at the right moment when it is time to release from those chains, that will keep him away  from experiencing the reality of what is happening around him. Plus, when going out there and seeing the world in a different way than he imagined, it would scare him away and make him go back from where he belonged.

 A human being lives just one time on earth, that's why we don't have to be afraid of challenging ourselves when facing new experiences, meeting new people, making new friends and taking taught, but right choices at the time. An example would be the people living in my country, Moldova. As it is a small country with not so many opportunities, a lot of people who live there are very close minded and think that whatever they have there it is the best and there's nowhere better living than in Moldova. But I don't agree with them because there are a lot of young talented people like singers, dancers, painters etc..whose work is recognized just in Moldova, sometimes not even there because of the corruption and those who wish a better life have to face the reality and  make some changes without being afraid of doing so. I think people need to make an effort and go around the world to learn new things, explore the living of a new country and get to know who they really are and what they are capable of.

When i was a child i used to believe that there are people living on the certain stars from the skies. All that believe came from my grandma, where I was spending my three months summer break every year, besides other holidays and anniversaries. After the horrible day when my beloved grandfather passed away, followed by one of my grandma's brother, my grandmother started inventing stories  where people who don't live on earth anymore have a beautiful and peaceful life on the stars. She was always showing me the stars that formed together the shape of a bear that was their new house. Whenever I missed my grandfather, even if I wasn't at my grandmothers place, I would always look up at the sky and feel relieved. Later on, I found out that my grandma's stories were not real and i felt disappointed. It wasn't easy to get myself over that everything she told me was unreal.

Life is interesting and fun and we have to explore the best we can. If we'll stay just in one place and do just one thing all our life we will never find who we really are and what's the purpose of living on the earth. We'll be living in a dream that will never become real.

Blog Entry 5

“The Allegory of the cave”  written by a Greek philosopher Plato is a fictional dialogue between Plato’s brother Glaucon and his professor Socrates. In this dialogue Socrates describes some prisoners who have been living in an underground cave chained up all their live. They couldn’t talk neither see each other faces.  All they could see was the wall in front of them on which appeared enormous shadows which they thought were real. They didn’t know that behind them was a fire and between the fire and the prisoners was a walkway through where people carried things and animals that were projected on their wall.

After some time one of the prisoners is freed. He goes out and experiences the new world. Then he decides to go back to the cave and share his excitement with his fellow prisoners, but unfortunately for them he is just another enormous shadow and echo reflected on the wall.

Blog Entry 4

    In the passage ''Hype'' the author Kalle Lasn is describing how advertisement had increased steadily in the past years that people’s eyes and brains can’t get rest from those posters that follow them everywhere they go.
    Nowadays there are an estimated of a new 12 billion display ads, 3 million radio commercials, and 200,000 TV commercials that are being posted every day in North America. Because of the amount of the new ads that are created every day, they can’t be posted in the places where they are supposed to be like buses, billboards, stadiums, in that case people get to see ads anywhere their eyes are rolling. Apparently there are ads that are shown on the screens that are attached to supermarket carts, at the gas pumps, in a washroom stall, advertising is impossible to avoid. I agree with the author that anywhere we turn we are always surrounded by the advertisements, and undoubtedly, nowadays everything is possible even screens attached to the supermarket carts.
    Since the moment I wake up early in the morning and turn on the TV to see the news or the weather for the day, I realize that I’m captured by the TV commercials and other advertisements.  First pictures that appear on the TV screen are the advertisements that are shown for about 5 to10 min.  That gives me the impression that I ‘would never get to see this weather news. Then, while preparing breakfast unconsciously I start reading promotions of a different product that are drawn or written on food and drinks that I’m having in the morning. I strongly believe that I’m not the only one that is struggling with that problem, that there are other fellows that would like to watch their morning news without being distracted by the annoying commercials.
    On the way to the subway station there would be millions of other advertisements that I cants pass by not looking or listening to them. For example, there are cars from witch somebody is promoting an event while driving through the city, they are colored and designed in a way to attract people’s attention, plus the loud radio that comes on top of it. In addition to this, while riding the train continuously I see shop posters, restaurants name, different promotions or discounted stores. They are posted on the streets and up on the buildings at the same level with the train rails in order for the people to see them. I think it’s too much information for us especially when starting a new day.  That’s why I agree with the author when she states that commercial pollution floods our brain at the rate of about three thousand messages per day.
   One of the author passages states that kids watch Pepsi and Sinkers ads in the classroom and I do believe that but I would also add that  all these advertisements have a bad affect on them, especially the TV commercials. It influences the children that are not under the parents supervise. Sometimes parents are not taking this problem in serious and let their kids watch advertisement that shows toys that are moving, or fast foods, soda’s and candy's. At an early age children can’t make the difference of what’s real and what’s not, obviously after watching those advertisements they think that toys can move for real and junk food is the best tasteful food for them. As a result obesity becomes a problem among young kids.
   As long as the human being sees the successful result on its publicity, he will never stop and look back at the bad influence that has on kids and in general on population. The advertisement will go on and on and it will become even more developed than is nowadays.

Blog Entry 3

   As stated in the passage “Hype” by Kale Lasn nowadays the population is surrounded by advertisements since the moment we wake up in the morning to late night hours.
   Advertisements floods our brain at the rate of about three thousand messages per day . Eventually, people haven’t realized yet that because of the amount and the speed, they are being posted and shown at the most uncommon places. An example would be, the supermarkets carts that have installed interactive screens in order to entertain the customer while shopping.
  Sadly, there’s no solution from stopping the increase of the advertisements and as the author Lasn states “There’s nowhere to run”.

Blog Entry 2

• What did you get from thinking about annotations with the class?

I think that everyone should use annotation when reading because it helps understand better the passage, get the main idea and also in case when you have to go back to the passage and look for some more information annotation will help you find it faster and easier.

• What did you get from writing annotations for "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" with your partner?

Annotating the passage with my partner we got the main idea in the sentence    ’’ The greater our concentration, the better our thoughts’’  also we found important examples witch prove that Google is making us scatterbrained and shallow and doesn’t let us think deeper.

• What did you learn about the reading by annotating it?

 I learned new words that I didn’t know until reading and annotating that passage also I got the main idea and examples that justify it.

• How may annotating make you a better writer ?

Annotation will help us become better writers by organizing our ideas, so when we write something we can create a structure and have a focus on what we write about.

Blog Entry 1

    In the passage ''Hype'' the author Kalle Lasn is describing how advertisement had increased steadily in the past years that people’s eyes and brains can’t get rest from those posters that follow them everywhere they go.

     Nowadays there are an estimated of a new 12 billion display ads, 3 million radio commercials, and 200,000 TV commercials that are being posted every day in North America. Because of the amount of the new ads that are created every day,  they can’t be posted in the places where they are supposed to be like buses, billboards, stadiums, in that case people get to see ads anywhere their eyes are rolling. Apparently there are ads that are shown on the screens that are attached to supermarket carts, at the gas pumps, in a washroom stall, advertising is impossible to avoid.

    Since the moment I wake up early in the morning and turn on the TV to see the news or the weather for the day, I realize that I’m captured by the TV commercials and other advertisements.  First pictures that appear on the TV screen are the advertisements that are shown for about 5 to10 min.  That gives me the impression that I ‘would never get to see this weather news. Then, while preparing breakfast unconsciously I start reading promotions of a different product that are drawn or written on food and drinks that I’m having in the morning.

    On the way to the subway station there would be millions of other advertisements that I cants pass by not looking or listening to them. For example, there are cars from witch somebody is promoting an event while driving through the city, they are colored and designed in a way to attract people’s attention, plus the loud radio that comes on top of it. In addition to this, while riding the train continuously I see shop posters, restaurants name, different promotions or discounted stores. They are posted on the streets and up on the buildings at the same level with the train rails in order for the people to see them. I think it’s too much information for us especially when starting a new day.  That’s why I agree with the author when she states that commercial pollution floods our brain at the rate of about three thousand messages per day.

    Also advertisements have a bad affect on kids, especially the TV commercials. It influences the children that  are not under the parents supervise. Sometimes parents are not taking this problem in serious and let their kids watch advertisement that shows toys that are moving, or fast foods, soda’s and candy's. At an early age children can’t make the difference of what’s real and what’s not, obviously after watching those advertisements they think that toys can move for real and junk food is the best tasteful food for them. As a result obesity becomes a problem among young kids.

    As long as the human being sees the successful result on its publicity, he will never stop and look back at the bad influence that has on kids and in general on population. The advertisement will go on and on and it will become even more developed than is nowadays.