Television Strengthens Communication among Friends and Family

Television or shortly known as TV is considered as one of the best inventions ever made. It does a lot of things for us by playing as a very important tool for communication. It provides us information of different nature; issues in the society, sports, weather reports, and entertainment. However most people say that TV destroys communication among family and friends. Personally, I disagree with the statement above for a number of reasons.

First, watching TV during meals with family members is one of the best ways to spend time with our loved ones. While watching, we get to laugh at funny things being shown on TV. For instance, when we went back to Korea, my parents, older sister and I spent most of our time watching TV together. We did this while eating snacks and it was really fun. It made me feel that my family gets to laugh at simple things just like what was shown in the comedy we were watching that time. Furthermore, we also get to share our opinions in some of the shows. For example, when the news about the bombings in South Korea came out, we had our family discussion. Most of us agreed that it was done by the North Korean government to make their new leader look like someone who is fierce. In this way, it’s a plan they devised to warn us.  It’s just really fun when situations like this happen because I feel like my parents also gives me time to speak up my mind. In this way, families tend to have open conversation or communication with the help of TV.

Second, TV gives us information on what’s happening locally or globally. It makes us aware of the things that take place in our society. In this way, we can relay the information to our friends and family especially in cases that concern our safety. To illustrate, there was a time when I heard the news about a strong typhoon coming to the Philippines. Some of my friends didn’t know about it so I tried spreading the news. The following day, it was announced that we didn’t have class because of the typhoon. As a result, my friends thanked me because they knew about it earlier so they listened to further announcements about the typhoon. More importantly, they didn’t have to struggle going to school and getting wet. Another example was the news on teenage girls being raped and killed. It was widely spread in the city that such things takes place. When I saw this on the news, I told my friends about this. It turned out that they didn’t know anything about it again. For this reason, they were extra careful on what they do and where they go. This was possible because of the information I saw on TV.

Last, but definitely not the least, is that TV links countries. The different programs that we see on TV about various countries provide us information on the ways of life of these people. In this way, we learn things that we can apply in real-life situations. For example, I saw on TV that wearing black clothes isn’t appreciated in Hong Kong. When I got the chance to visit the country, I told my mom and my sister about it so they didn’t bring black clothes with them as a sign of respecting the country’s culture. In addition, when my friends were about to visit the same country, they asked me about things that they have to know about the people and the country itself so I told them about it. This way, their trip to Hong Kong was a lot enjoyable. This was all possible because of watching TV.

The introduction of TV is one of the best events to date not only because it provides us information, but also because it is a useful tool of strengthening communication among people.

Love yourself

http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/02/29/movies/29pene.html

Do you love someone? Or are you in love with someone? But before you love somebody, do you love yourself? There are many people in love, but in fact, they are in love without loving themselves.  Today, I want to talk about love yourself before you love someone.

            At school, we watched a movie named “Penelope”. The story is all about a girl, and her face was like a pig because of the curse. To break the curse, according to Penelope, she has to meet a guy with blue blood. But actually, you have to love yourself to break the curse. When I watched the movie, I was thinking like the movie was telling us 2 things.

Always love yourself. In the movie, Penelope didn’t love herself. Even the mother, she was trying to hide Penelope from other people because of her appearance. Because of that, she was not, or she couldn’t love herself. For me, your decision is important than others decision. It’s your own life. Time waits for no one. Why don’t you start love yourself starting now?

Fight against the society.  Penelope was known as a pig monster in society. If it happened to me, I think I might be SUPER depressed. But Penelope, she didn’t get sad, or depressed, but act like she didn’t care. I really liked her attitude. Don’t be sad because of what people are saying, but be brave!

            

Steve Jobs

In light with the passing of a great man, Steve Jobs, founder and former CEO of Apple, my school showed us a video of Mr. Jobs talking to an audience during the commencement rites of a university. At the beginning, I thought that I would be forced to listen to a boring speech about things I don’t care about again; I thought, “Who wants to hear stories about another person’s life”? But as soon as the talk started, I figured myself that I was wrong.

       Steve Jobs talked about three stories about his life. The stories were about how bad events in his life led to great ones. He said that our time is limited, so we should not waste it by living other people’s lives. That we should not care about what other people say because it is not their lives that we’re living. The stories he told illustrated how his lows resulted to the highs of his life. For example, when he drooped out of college, many people thought that it was the worst decision that he did. However, according to him, dropping out of his classes allowed him to chose only the things that he wanted to learn which helped him build one of the most admired companies of today, Apple.            

       His message really struck a place in my heart. For a person who is still unsure of what she will be doing in the future or is unsure whether she is taking the correct paths in life. His speech reassured me that I should trust my decisions. That no matter how bad they may be today, it is still up to me to turn those bad decisions into good ones that will help me in the future. Job’s speech also made me realize that it is not how you perform at school or how good your grades are, and that what’s most important is how you take those things you learn at school and apply them in real life.

        Listening him talk, it dawned to me that it is really up to me. That whatever decisions I make now will definitely affect what I will be in the future. That even though I think that it is still too early for me to think about my future plans, it is never too early to decide on what you want to be in the future because the little things you do today will determine what kind of life you will be living five, ten, or twenty years from now.

WHAT IS A BLOG????

We are now living in the information age; people of today would find it difficult to live without technology. New things are replacing the old, and the once considered an innovation could be considered obsolete in just a blink of an eye. One necessity of today is the Internet. Nowadays, one cannot live without logging in to a search engine or a social networking site. The Internet has been a place where many new things that empower people are born; Online weblogs or blogs as they are more popularly known is one. A blog is simply a piece of code over the Internet. These codes are turned into words, pictures, or videos about just about anything. However, the most special thing about blogs is that ordinary people write them. Blogs are a way for many to show the world their own perspective of the world we are all living in.

For many, blogs have many advantages. First, it allows people to start conversations. Conversations about anything, and these talk groups can have members as small as 2 or as big as a million. The main importance of blogs nowadays is that it turns news into a conversation. It involves many people in the criticism of news and events, in and out of their home countries. This behavior towards blogs is very important since the media has been losing its touch in the present. Originally, the purpose of the media is to be the fourth estate or the watchdog for the people. However, because of capitalism, many media companies or personalities are putting their own agenda in the news. It is also possible for the government itself to regulate news. As a result, the public is kept in the dark, and politicians can do anything they want. Blogs give the power back to the people. They use blogs to inform themselves of what’s happening without the intervention of anyone. It connects insights and opinions from different people from different parts of the world that makes blogs a center of information about almost any topic in the current time or in history.  Aside from this, blogs can actually save people’s lives. Blogs can be a tool where people release their frustrations, pain, and stress without the need of actually talking to people face to face. Blogs empowers people to speak about what they what, however they want it to be, without any prejudice from other people or fear towards the people that might be affected of the writer’s words. Blogs also gives a real image of what is happening in the world. For example, blogs about the Iraq War are better sources of information about the war than the actual news itself. This is because blog writers say what needs to be said; unlike the media, which is very sensitive when it comes to their image or reputation. In the case of one blog writer in the US, according to him, since the Democrats control the US media, the opponent party uses blogs, in order to share their insight or information to other people.

On the other hand, many are also skeptical about blogs, especially journalists. According to them, articles found in online weblogs cannot be considered journalism because it shows only the point of view of the writer instead of showing both sides. Journalists also dispute information coming from blogs since most of the time, bloggers do not take the time to check whether the information they have is real or faux. They also say that real journalists go to the frontlines, risking their lives, just for the sake of the public. Bloggers, however, can settle for hearsays and treat these false truths as truths.

            For me, blogs are a big step for people. Whether they are good or bad, it is a way for people to say what they want. Blogs remove the gaps between people. It removes differences in race, gender, or status. It allows people to voice out whatever they want, and anyone can gain access to these with just a click of the mouse. Blogs empower, and personally, I think that this reason is enough for me to say that blogs are good, and that they should stay.