12 Haziran 2013 Çarşamba

REFLECTION ARTICLE 1

                                    SHOW ME THE WAY TO GO HOME


Traditions that most people do not have in their lives in these days were some key factors to a better life when they were applied. To exemplify, in Turkish culture, family as a phenomenon used to be seen as a little version of the government. Therefore, families were very important. Also, they used to be bigger when compared to today. For example, two cousins used to live in the same house, so did the siblings and grandmother etc. Therefore, houses in the past were much bigger than those of today. In this way, there used not to be such questions like “I want my and my sister’s room to be separated.” That means the problems and cases were different than today. In addition, when we compare this tradition with the other cultures, we can see a lot of differences between our traditions. To exemplify, in Turkey, parents are more likely to save their children from the hardships of the World. In contrast, in most of the European countries , parents tend to be much more relaxed when it comes to growing their kids up. This situation leads to some situations. For example,  in the United States of America, kids’ tendency to be a member of a gangster is more likely when compared to Turkey. Therefore, the rate of crimes in the United States of America are much more than that of Turkey. This situation may not be the same in some ways. For example, in a country, the children of a family may miss their parents and siblings or home in the same way as the other country.  That’s because missing the parents is a common sense between all the cultures in the world. All in all, despite the differences between the cultures, there are some common senses, so we cannot generalize some feelings in different traditions.

JOURNAL ENTRY 4

                                             THE EFFECT OF COLORS ON HUMANS

            Have you ever thought the reason why you chose the color of the cloth that you are now wearing? Actually, the reason of this situation lies behind your mood. To exemplify, if you feel clumsy or if you are in a bad mood, you are probably wearing dark clothes. Also, if you feel alive and energetic, you will probably wear the clothes whose colors are  light and vivid.

            In addition to our mood, the general qualifications of us shape the way we are wearing. Also, the colors of the clothes that we are wearing have effect on what color we are wearing. For example, most people who wear pink generally are the ones who are dreamer. Actually, most of the things I wear are pink and I am a kind of person who has so many dreams. Besides, wearing brown means being shy and introverted. One of my friends likes wearing Brown a lot and she is avery shy girl. Therefore, I believe in the color effects on humans.

            Additionally, the colors of rooms are effective on the way we feel. To illustrate, experts generally advise people not to paint their rooms’ walls because red makes us easily get angry. Yellow also has a that kind of effect. In contrast to red and yellow, light colors  such as light pink, light green etc. makes us feel better when compared to dark and clumsy colors.


            To sum up, colors have so much effect on us ;and therefore, we had better pay attention to the color of the cloth we are wearing and the color of the room we are staying at. Otherwise, we would become much angrier or much more stressful than we actually are.

JOURNAL ENTRY 3

FREEDOM : TO WHAT EXTENT ?

In today’s world, there is almost no-one who has never heard the word ‘FREEDOM’. Freedom, when we look up for its meaning in dictionary, is “the absence of necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action”,yet its actual meaning -what we call ‘connotative meaning’ in linguistics- varies from person to person. That’s because freedom is one of the main concerns of all human lives, and its meaning is a very controversial issue.
The controversions over the extent of freedom changes from person to person. While some people think freedom means being free to share their ideas,some people perceive it as being able to do whatever they want. Also,some people think that being tolerant to other people’s ideas means being free. For example;when I was at high school,one of my favourite teachers told us in the lesson a saying that “I do not agree with you,but I will defend your right of sharing your ideas all the time.” Since then,I began to realize that we all need to respect to each other, and in order for us to learn to do this,we should learn how to look at the life from different perspectives, no matter how hard it is to do so. It is hard because people have the feeling of devoting themselves to one opinion, idea, belief .. etc. and defending their ideas all the time. This is a qualification that everyone in this world has. This is the reason why we always see people having argument, sometimes compromises, yet most of the time fights with each other. The reason why people have fights with each other is that they have the tendency to make the people around them look at the life from the same perspective as theirs. Therefore, when they are not able to make people accept their ideas,they start to have an argument,disagreements,conflicts,frictions and then fights..

 Then,what if we pay attention not to hurt each other or try compromising instead of fighting? We have to do this immediately because the world is becoming more unbearable each passing day. Also,the biggest impact is on us and we can save ourselves only by looking for ways of compromises. All in all, freedom –for me- is being tolerant to each other;therefore,being able to share all ideas anywhere and at any time. Thus, people should look for the ways of extending the restrictions that prevent people from sharing their ideas.

JOURNAL ENTRY 2

                                    A NICE THERAPICAL EFFECT: MUSIC

Remember yourself when you’re listening to music. How do you feel when you listen to a lively music or an emotional music? Does it shape the way you feel? These two situations actually show how big the effect of music is on people. Also, the scientific experiments indicate that music has a great deal of effect on mankind. To illustrate, a scientific research has shown that music has an effect even on the pace of our heartbeat and it also ordinates our metabolism. Therefore, we may reach to the conclusion that in order to feel healthy and energetic, we should change the types of music we listen. In other words, if we want to get relaxed, we should try listening to vivid songs like pop or R&B. Also, when we are in a bad mood, listening to slow and emotional musics makes us feel worse.
In addition, the effect of music on people has been used by some people to help people improve or maintain their health. Also,in history music has been related to psychology and used with psychology. For example, Apollo was the god of music and medicine in history. Also, the famous philosopher, Plato said that music affected the emotions and could influence the character of an individual. Likewise, Aristotle tought that music affects the soul and described music as a force that purified the emotions. Moreover, as early as 400 B.C., Hippocrates, played music for his mental patients. In the thirteenth century, Arab hospitals contained music-rooms for the benefit of the patients. Similarly, in the United States, Native American medicine men often employed chants and dances as a method of healing patients.
So, how is music able to do this although it is not alive like a humanbeing? The answer is again in the researches. They also show that the neurons in human brain is affected by the sound waves of the music that a person listens to. That is, the region, called the nucleus accumbens, determines how much we value the song. If we love the song, our brain sends some messages that has an effect even on our eyes. Therefore, we can reach to the conclusion that we need to pay attention to what we listen due to the effect of music on our health.

All in all, if a person pays attention to his/her health, s/he should also pay attention to even what s/he listens. That’s why they can harm their bodies if they listen to a type of music that has a bad effect on his/her body.

9 Mart 2013 Cumartesi

TOLERANCE - JOURNAL ENTRY 1

One of the most important qualifications that each person should have is tolerance .  Most of the problems that we face today result from the lack of tolerance to each other. Despite this, we can solve these problems . To illustrate , when someone steals your money,  instead of getting annoyed and shouting at him/her , you may look for the reasons behind this situation . It might seem difficult  to do, but you may find many reasons lying behind this like illness , poverty or having problems with family. Although most people know that everyone should be tolerant , they have difficulties in realizing tolerance in their lives. What would you do if someone swear to you , even when there is no conflict between you?  Swearing to him/her back will  – of course - not be a solution to that. Moreover , it may cause more troubles like a fight. Hence,  you should at first try to keep your patience and  to look for a solution  to this. That’s why it is easy to do a favor to somebody who has done a favor to you. Although it is hard, doing a favor to someone who has done a bad behavior to you is a better solution. Also,  this solution has a lot of advantages not only to you but also to the country we live in. To exemplify, when you show your tolerance to the people, they can easily get how to show their tolerance to other people. This situation may last forever when you think in an optimistic way. Besides,  the fact that you show your tolerance will make people have very good opinions about you. So,  you will have a lot of friends who love you so much especially because of your good behaviors. This means that you will have “real”  friends and their number will increase day by day. In spite of these advantages, there are still many people who think that they should not keep silent when they come across a bad behavior. For them, they are defending themselves ,  yet this is not a defend according to me. For me , this is just a selfishness because they only think about themselves , not about the problems the others face.  All in all , we should be tolerant to everyone and we should show our tolerance both for ourselves and for this world.

23 Ocak 2013 Çarşamba

REVISED JOURNALS


Journal Entry 2 –Being a METU Student (REVISED)

 
From my viewpoint, being a Metu student makes people imaginative ,creative and critical owing to the fact that it has its own education system which is different from the classic Turkish education system. For example ,there are always questions around the class like 'Why,What is the reason behind it?' during the lessons.Therefore,this pushes the students into thinking and inquiring about any subject all the time and I think that it makes us "real people”.

In addition to this, life in Metu has some harships such as different kinds of assignments.Even though it might look an awful thing at first,it is really advantageous because students all around the world need to be improved and this happens only by such assignments as drama, presentations or activities like "DJ of the week".

Besides,there are lots of students coming from different cities and countries and each of them has his/her own lifestyle. That’s because all the students respect to each other although it is really hard especially in today's world. So, it is one more thing that makes us 'real' people. All in all, Metu helps its students discover their abilities and improve themselves both individually and socially.

 
MY IDEAL UNIVERSITY (REVISED)
 
   Today, although there are lots of universities all around the world ,for me, most of them aren't able to educate their students well enough  to find good solutions to the problems that they face.We can easily see this by watching TV,surfing on the internet or just looking around us because there are many people having graduated from different kinds of universities but they're not even able to know what's going on around them or they don't even try to find good ways to improve the countries yhat they live in. I think that this is a very big problem which can be solved by educating people "truly". Also, this will be possible with "real" universities. For me, Metu is one of these universities because it not only educates its students of their departments but also helps them look at their lives from different perspectives and makes them understand what real life is.As a result of this,those who have graduated from such universities like Metu become aware of the facts.Finally, a good university should educate mentally and emotionally mature generations. That means providing good solutions both to its country and to the world.