Blog 19: My Final Project.

        On Wednesday morning I decided to visit The Union Square Farmers Market and it was a beautiful weather, cold but sunny. At home I decided to buy sweet potatoes, cilantro, garbanzo beans, and peanut butter in order to make Sweet-Potatoe and Peanut Stew.
        There were lots of produce, smelly cheeses, pies and cookies sold at the market. I bought a hot apple cider, to warm myself up and had a big carrot raisin cookie for lunch, which were both breath taking. Everything looked really great and fresh, and the smell of pears, which I actually could sense, was weird to experience, because I don't feel the same freshness when I walk into a grocery store.

          
        When I walked around the market, I got sweet potatoes and cilantro. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to buy peanut butter or garbanzo beans, so later I stopped by a local organic store and they made me a fresh peanut butter and had to get garbanzo beans in a can. But the most surprising thing was that, on my way home I was passing by the produce store, so I thought of going in and comparing the smell of cilantro... Big difference.

      
        I got home frozen, from a day of walking around the market, park and the Union Square Christmas Village. So the preparation of the meal began by peeling potatoes and cooking them. Later, adding the peanut butter to the roasted garbanzo beans and spices, and it was ready. It was a meal that was fast to prepare, easy and really good.
      
P.s.

        Me and my friend shared our carrot raisin cookies with pigeons and some squirrels, they were really friendly and not even least frightened of us. We had to stop feeding them, because a park officer came and told us to stop, still, I felt bad because it's winter time, and they are hungry.

        The prices of the products in the farmers market might be a little more expensive than in a local grocery store, but truly, you can taste the difference in food. We had a great time and a delicious meal, it was enjoyable for both of us. 

Blog 18

Summary: In the article, "The $2 camisole: How cheap is ruining our lives",by Mary Elizabeth Williams she talks about cheap prices and their quality. Black Friday is an oppertunity to buy stuff for an incredible low price. According to her, people have a mania to spent money on low cost supplies. Buying them for low prices can bounce off on the quality of the product. But some stores put a higher price on a low quality items. It seems the cheaper the product, the worse quality it is, but not everyone can afford a really expencive pair of glasses. The cheap quality makes us buy more and also spent more, because our stuff breaks easily.

Thesis: I agree with the author because I'm tired of throwing out my stuff after it breaks 2-3 weeks after the purchase.

Reason 1:The quality of the product is bad
Example: I bought a piece of jewlery from a tattoo shop, I payed a nice price for it, and it looked solid. Month later, I lost a piece at work.

Reason 2:Problems with phones
Example: My phone is not even a year old and it gets stuck. The sales person guaranteed the best service for a low price. Well the price that I payed, I have the results.

Blog 14: Ideas for Improving My Performance in the CATW

Strategy for my next CATW, based on the example of theannotations of a student who read the same reading, I underlined same sentances, that were the most meaningful to the reading, as the student in the example. But I think I should underline more, and ask myself questions, so later I will understand the reading faster, when I would want to go back and have a fast glance at the passage. Other thing, which is important, I should connect the sentences together so they compose a passage that is understandable to a reader. Plan out a map so I will follow it and prevent different ideas to be all over the paper.

Blog 13: "How to Do One Thing at a Time"

      In an article "How to Do One Thing at a Time", written by Nancy Jones, she introduces us to our reality. Jones writes about our habits of multitasking, and shows us examples of studies that prove to fail of being a multitasker. Students at a Stanford University were split into two groups, one that had to do 3 things at the same time, the other had 10 minutes for each task. Guess who did better? The group that had 10 minutes for each task did better. "A tremendous amount of evidence shows that the brain does better when it's performing tasks in sequence rather than all at one"(Nass).
      Multitasking seems efficient for many people, they feel as if doing many things at the same time, they accomplish more. I guess our brains are not that advanced as we would like them to be, because talking on the phone and driving or texting and walking on the street, makes us focus on one of the tasks more than on the other.
      It is against the law to hold a cellphone and drive a car, there were many accidents caused by that. The reason is, the driver was probably focused on holding the phone and talking rather than steering the wheel and paying attention to the traffic. My dad got into an accident because he forgot his bluetooth, but had to make a call. He was not injured, but the car was and his insurance went up. But do the bluetooth devices help? Maybe a little, but some people get too involved into their conversations.
      I have seen people, mostly teenagers, who were engaged in texting that they forgot they are on the street. Once, this guy was on his phone and texting. When he got to the street and started crossing it on red light, a car came but it stopped just in time. The guy got so scared by the honk that he dropped his phone on the ground and i shattered into pieces. It made me laugh so hard, my dad thought I was crazy.
      From my experiences and observations, I am sure that multitasking is not possible. It's either we do those things not 100% right, or we might cause an accident. We can't walk and text or drive and be on the phone, because we are putting ourselves and people around us in danger.

Blog 12: Michael Pollan's advice on how to eat healthier

Cold Stone PB&C (Gotta Have It size, 24 fl oz)

                                                2,010 calories
                                                131 g fat (68 g saturated)
                                                153 g sugar

      Michael Pollan gave a lot of good advices in his book called In Defense of Food. I did not read the actual book but I read a fragment of it. The way that fragment was written, it made me laugh a little, because I felt as if Pollan was making fun of the food that we consume now when he wrote "Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food". He also has great tips and points, which are helpful to keep a healthy diet and weight, when he writes about eating slowly with company, and consuming lots of vegetables.
      Everything that Pollan, wrote makes sense to me because it's what dietics in U.S. are encouraging people to do, for example, drink V8 because it has couple of daily servings of veggies hidden by the taste of fruits. The thing that I agree the most with the author is the fact, that people in U.S. don't eat enough of produce during the day, sometimes its caused because they can't afford it, I'm not even mentioning the organic produce. What might be hard to accomplish is being able to do gardening, especially in New York City because not everyone has access to the ground, some of us live on 3rd, 10th, or 25th floor. I wish, I could do some gardening on my own but my present lifestyle enables me because I live on the 3rd floor and there is no possible way to garden on fire escape. Of course we tried to have some flowers at least, but they either didn't have enough sun or squirrels and birds were digging them out, Once we even had a nest with pigeon's eggs. It was a complete fail, so me and my Mom gave up on any kind of planting.

Don’t

Blog 11: "Let Them Eat Fat"

      In "Let Them Eat Fat" Critser discisses fast food consumption in America. He explains how people in his lower-middle-income area stop by places, like McDonald's, for a quick bite, late at night. The fast food companies attract customers by letting them supersize their meal for less than a dolar. But with the supersizion, comes a bigger amount of calories that are being consumed. That concerns dietics in U.S. because more teenagers are getting obese by the arrival of huge meals and physical activity amonge them drops by almost a half.
      One thing this article reminds me of is me and my friends because we used to eat McDonald's late at night. Later, we would complain about our weight or high cholesterol level at age of seventeen.
      The article mentioned poor people in low-middle-income areas, I don't think we are poor, we just found it more convienient because it was open 24/7. There were no other stores or restaurants open at 3 a.m. to get a warm meal. It was an easy access and tasted, could say, well. They always had nice advertisments, telling us to get more and more food.
      I am interested in dietition and I have been observing people around me, since I opened my eyes. Teens don't really watch what they are eating, and I used to be the same. I was in my doctor's office when I stood on the scale an it showed that I was 160 lbs. heavy. That hit me hard and I decided to lose weight by eating healthier and excersizing. That's when I realized there is more thicker teenagers than those who are thin.
      I think that the reason for teenagers being obese is not only because fast food is cheap, but because fast food industry makes themselves easy to access. They are mostly open 24/7, they have drive thrus, and there is so many of them all over the place. It's also true they are cheap and you can get a lot of food with as much as $5, but the dark and hidden secret are the calories and fats. And those are not the good and healthy ingredients, but the bad ones, which are the cause of so called "love handles".

Simply Sary: The Net is the Real World 3.3

1st evaluation Simply Sary: The Net is the Real World 3.3: "The article The net is the real world shows us that the net brings out the realness in people if your not careful and especially with peopl..."

rambler: CAT # 3

2nd evaluation rambler: CAT # 3: " Sticks and Stones may break my bones and hurt me but words will evidently kill you hold true as this article would suggest. As in the o..."

Blog 10: "Where the Whale Be At?: The Place of Race and Racism in the Discussion of Environmentalism"

      Terry J. Cole wrote an interesting essay, including an important question, "So why should People of Color be concern about the environment?". He described how White people came from a different land, leaving their ancestors behind, and took over the New Land. It was described as misunderstanding the connection of the nature between People of Color and White People. Another point was made by how Black people don't have the same opportunity and access to healthy food, and that they live in areas where toxins are abandoned. Cole even researched the medical conditions of different races, he wrote that Black people have higher chance of getting many disease than the White people, mostly is caused by where they live.
   
      I agree with Cole's opinion about People of Color living in communities that are more exposed to toxic waste. I think it is mostly caused by the increasing price of rent in the areas with fresher air and cleaner environment. But my question is, should only People of Color be concern about the environment? 
      I say no, everyone should be concern about the environment because where we live, later on bounces of on our health. People in most parts of Manhattan have better access to the fruits and vegetables supplies, cleaner environment and more park space. This could be also the cause of the education level, jobs, income, and where people can afford to live. A person with low income will not rent out an apartment in Manhattan because the rent is too high. So what he/she will do, is search for an apartment where he/she can afford. Most likely it will be an environment close to a factory or far away from privileges, for ex. market place or public transportation. As the article, An Outer Borough Drought by Courtney Gross, says, "But out of Manhattan, greens get elusive. In the South Bronx, residents have about half of that supermarket space". It is true, and might be based on the average income of that community, but according to me it's because renting the space to open up a market might be too expensive, and to supply it with fresh fruits and vegetables could be too much of a cost.
      Where we live and how we eat, shouldn't be based on the color of our skin but on education and how much we earn. It's logical that if we have a low pay job we won't be able to live in a nice, clean neighborhood, and a super market close to our house, where we can supply ourselves with as much healthy food as possible. So what I think is, stop with the pity, get to work, and don't blame the color of your skin for how much you earn. It's America, everyone is EQUAL.  

Blog 9: Summary of The Meatrix

The Meatrix: The Pig named Leo, met a character called Moopheus. Moopheus want to show Leao what The Meatrix is, but only when he picks either blue pill, staying in fantasy world, or red pill, learning the truth about The Meatrix. Leo picks the red pill and is automatically transformed into a big factory farm, where animals are packed tightly in cages. Moopheus tells the story of how factory farming was invented, mainly to transform family farms into big factories where animals were fed with antibiotics, hormones, and were kept in an inhumante environment, and the land around those farms gets polluted.
The Meatrix Revolting: Now Leo is in the Real World with Moopheus tells how in the past 2 years, 10 million minds were freed from The Meatrix and how people are starting to buy healthier animal products.But the battle is not over, when they get to the Fantasy World at first Leo is blinded by the perfect farm. Later he puts on the glasses and sees the Real Farm. The cows are unhappy and packed tight together, their tails are cut off. When the Agents of the Meatrix come to the farm, they give an rBGH shot, which is an artificial growth hormones that causes health problems.The young cows are separated from their birth mother and are fed with milk, partially made from cow's blood, which spreads Mad Cow Disease. Leo can't take this anymore and the fight starts between Agents and Moopheus, Chickity, and Leo, but Moorpheus is being kidnapped by the Agents.
The Meatrix Revolting II 1/2: Moopheus is taken to a Happy Farm factory where animals are being cut into pieces. The Agent shows him how humans work, with an incredible speed, sometimes they cut off their fingers, but it still goes with the rest of the food. The meat that is being processed is not clean enough because of the speed and the manure gets into the meat and causes E. coli(Escherichia coli) to spread. Finally, Leo and Chickity rescue Moopheus from the Happy Farm factory... CUT THE CRAP!

The Meatrix's 360-degree interactive tour of a factory farm(Response): Thank God I'm Vegeterian!!! Those short films called The Meatrix provided a lot of disturbing information about meat industry that I didn't know. One thing that really got under my skin is processing the meat, those poor cows are taken to the slaughterhouses after they can't produce enough milk. Since the factories want to produce as much meat as possible, the meat is not processed the way it should, some of the bacterias are still in the system. The speed of the tape that meat is transfered and cut is an unsafe environment for the workers, they get their fingers cut off and that is still being processed, packed and sold to people, the meat consumers who unknowingly buy and eat that meat and maybe someone's  fingers, honestly... That's gross.

Blog 8: The Net Is The Real World

      Tyler Clementi took his life away because two students, one of them was his roomate, Dharun Ravi, recorded something that should have been kept private. Dharu Ravi and Molly Wei invaded tyler's personal space by activating a Webcam in his dormroom. Cyberbullying is common in our society, and with the technology and access to internet, even from a cellphone, it's easy to record something and later expose it to the world's eyes. The cause for some cases of suicide and mental health problems could be prevented, if we just knew how not to abuse the access to internet.       John Suler wrote in his online book that people are capable of many things using internet, that would never do in real world. Disinhibition ia an online bullying, which a lot of people are exposed to everyday. If people would stay out of other's lives, there would be no boys like Tyler, jumping off the bridge.
      Some websites, like YouTube, have filters to prevent wrong videos from being revealed. But we have cameras, cellphones and bluetooths, which can come in handy for some cyberbullies. I know a story similar to Tyler's, but there was no suicide, yet. It was in high school, when my friend had a crush on a guy from my class. She was a freshman and we were juniors, he was 2 years older thatn her. He didn't really like her, but his guy-friends asked him to keep flirting with her. One day, they had a bet, to ask her for a naked picture of herself, stupid girl, she took that photo. Next thing I know, I get a text message with her face and breasts on my screen. I was the outcast and I still got the picture, that means, the entire school saw it. From everyone's phones, some how the picture ended up on Facebook and the girl had no life.  She dropped out of high school, and from what her Mom sais, she's in North Carolina, in a mental hospital.
      People affected by cyberbullying don't always commit suicide, some of us are mentaly stronger than others. It doesn't change the fact that invading someone's privacy won't hurt them in some way. It ended bad for Tyler and it wasn't that great for my friend, either. Stopping our urge to mess up someone's life by awefull pictures or videos being posted online can really make a change.

no Id: ARTIFACTS 1

I like Vladimir's Blog, because I agree with his point of view.no Id: ARTIFACTS 1: " Many times, people capture animals for different reasons; they believe animals could help them to make money. People use the skin ..."

CLASS BLOG: Now in our modern days almost everything is artifi...

I like this Blog because the picture and the idea of a fake beach is amazing. CLASS BLOG: Now in our modern days almost everything is artifi...: "Now in our modern days almost everything is artificials from foods to places such as beaches. One of the artificial beach that was created w..."

Exapmle #3: H.R. Giger Bar

A bar used to be a room with a bar, bartender, some furniture, and of course... people who are drinking. Not anymore, technology and the crazy ideas that people have changed the structures of buildings that are now designed.  Here we have an example of H.R. Giger's  Bar that looks as if we would be inside of human's body. The roof is made out of spine-like pieces, and the seats are matching to the rest of the bar's styling. I found this picture on google and it's breathtaking, the construction of every spine cord... It's not something that is seen on the streets on daily bases and it's amazing.

Example #2: Angels and Demons

The book Angels and Demons written by Dan Brown has modern/scientific and religious examples. The facts that at the beginning of the book, Mr.Langdon is taken to a scientific campus called CERN, which is apparently filled with many scientists from all over the world. Later they find out that an anti-matter was stolen. There is a lot of technological equipment involved and described which I don't know if it exists, but it sure does sounds... like it does. This book is an example of human's mind and its evolvement mixed with today's advancement of technology.

Example #1: The Bar Code Tattoo

When I think of modern life, first thing that comes to my mind is the book "The Bar Code Tattoo". It's about a teenage girl named Kayla who is trying to escape from Global-1 and Tatto Gen. A futuristic organization that was enforcing people, 18 years and older, to get a barcode on their wrists. The barcode contained all their personal information, and it also was used as a credit card. What people didn't know was that the Global-1 was taking a sample of their blood and testing it for any kind of diseases. When they found a trace of cancer or history of depression in their DNA, people were losing jobs, health insurance. It mostly lead to suicides, because people tried to cut it or burn it off their wrists. 

Brave New World:

Brave New World:

Bunniiii

Blog 7: I am a Cyborg.

 My day starts with taking advantage of technology, I don't have a build-in clock in my head, I need an alarm clock to wake me up. Thankfully, we don't live in caves anymore because I would have to make my coffee above the fire, seems kind of funny when I'm imagining it right now, I use a coffee maker which is set on specific time. I'm always on my cell phone, mostly texting either my Mom, Dad, my sister or my friends, I need it to contact my family or find out my schedule for work. Without it, I would be cut off from social life, I think that's my biggest addiction, next to that is my addiction to my Kindle. It's my life, I love reading books and some of them are really heavy. My Kindle has internet access and an Oxford dictionary, which helps me defining words that I don't understand. I can go on Facebook or check my mail on Kindle, and it's practical if I don't have an access to my laptop. When It's hard to admit, being an addict, especially Cyborg addict. I guess it's natural to be a Cyborg because most of the people are, it's comfortable and saves time. It might not be a good thing, because what if out of no where the electricity would run out, and there would be no power to charge the electronic devices? I would be helpless, then I would have to start writing letters instead of text messages, unbelievable.             

Brainstorming about Technology

Tool-(Dictionary) device or implement. (Thesaurus) instrument used to shape, form, finish.
Technology-(Dictionary) the application of scientific knowledge for practical purpose. (Thesaurus) electronics, science.
Cyborg-(Dictionary) a fictional or hypothetical person whose physical abilities are extended beyond normal human limitations by mechanical elements built into the body. (Thesaurus) robot.

      The words Tool, Technology, and Cyborg are similar in a way, they all have similar definition which brings them to science and knowledge. People need Tools to become more advanced in their studies. With the right tools the Technology will improve and evolve. And Cyborg is just a fantasy that was made with the tools and high advanced technology.
      Everyday I use some kind of technological device that improve my life:

• Alarm clock
• Cell Phone
• Computer
• Internet
• Metro Card
• Kindle
• Ipod
• Television
• Credit Card

      I wake up by the clock that is set in my cell phone, to get me up at a reasonable time. Before leaving my house I need to check my e-mail and the weather channel, my school is too far to walk, so I take the subway or the bus. While I'm riding the bus, I listen to an Ipod to shut of the noises from the street and read books on my eBook, which helps me avoid the bored, sleepy stares on my way to the destination. I don't usually carry money around, it just doesn't stay in my wallet for long, that's why I rather pay with the credit card. When I get home from school, I watch TV and usually do my homework on my laptop, internet  is the best human invention ever, you can find all types of information and gossip. If right now, someone would tell me to lead a life without those electronic devices, my life would be.... miserable.