Sunday, March 1, 2009

No many Friends at CESL, but Having One is Great!!!

I am divided about telling my experiences at CESL and the people I have met. It is like so, I have just met them, but I have not experienced some kind of friendship. This is due to the amount of tasks I have been enrolled. So far I have been so busy that my time has also become too short. However, I have just gotten the chance to meet one friend who has been so helpful since I got here the first day. He has given me a lot help by showing me how to use programs in my computer, signing in Facebook and other websites that I need for my paper work. My friend has been very handy. I remember the third day I was here, I was scheduled to perform a IBT test in Carterville. It was Saturday, February 17th. And I missed a ride someone offered to give me, because I woke up late that day. I ran down to find a taxi, I did not have a cell phone, I look around in panic and any taxi passed by, I was hoping and praying to get one. Few minutes later, I remembered that this friend (God always bless him) offered me help at anytime so I went knocking on his door, by 7:45am, he immediately attended me and we started calling for a taxi ride. This was a very stressful moment. But what a relieved by having this friend that mornin. After thinking about this bad moment I also started thinking about how much important has been to meet an angel, because I consider this friend an angel. That was a very important test for me that I would have not been able to perform without his help. So as time has passed by, I still talk to my new wise friend, not too frequently because he is busy with his girlfriend and classes at CESL but we have started having such a great friendship along with our talks, when we sometimes go shopping or we walk from the university. Unfortunately, my friend will leave soon to his country, and of course I will miss him a lot. But through this writing I want to tell him thank you buddy for everything. On the other hand, as this program, at CESL, has kept us so busy it is hard to tell that we can get more friends but it is really worthy to have at least one, and for life time. Moreover, I am so happy to be part of the CESL alumni because in my personal opinion we do have good teachers. I like the way they teach classes. Besides I admire them because of the time they take by preparing classes and checking the amount of assignments we get every day. This performance from them has just committed me to respond with the best achievement. I have really learned a lot of new things. So in general the experience has been great but just from the academic part because I have not even pictures to show here due to my lack of time to share with others. It is not sad, I will get some when I get the chance.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

A Worldwide Window To Peer In.

Carlos Malcon Matute Castillo.
Writer’s Workshop.
Mr. Laverett.
A Worldwide Window To Peer In.
I am a brand new user of Facebook. I have just started less than twenty days ago thanks to the instruction of a friend who motivated me to get into this amazing way of communication. Even though I am struggling through this facility, I have also found more issues that favor the network than the cons of using it. I am so happy from seeing again my old friends from school, university and jobs. So, there is no way I would be against the use of Facebook because it has made my life entertaining; besides, it has allowed me to contact most of my friends who have been prompted by others and dropped me some good lines that have embraced more friendship among them. They also seemed interested in contact me again after several years of not seing each other.
Nevertheless, it is up to every individual to decide what is the intention of using Facebook. And so, this is a main source to be considered for people’s opinions and point of view. Personally, I am for the use of Facebook, in many ways, because I do consider that risk would come up, anyway. But as long as we set in mind what would happen to the information we display worldwide it should not be getting us into any trouble.
In fact, in my case, the idea is to meet my old good and new friends in order to make stronger my relationship with them. This is the reason I am for the use of Facebook. Since I have gotten acquainted with it in this short period it has made me happy because I have only to read about people I know and from the others that I have been recommended from my former pals. Needless to say, that as I have reached the Facebook my only target is to see what is happening to my dear friends and I don't go beyond what I am exposed to. Other reasons I am for this website are because the information floods quickly, and I am able to get the gist, right away, from whom or what I am concerned. So, my pursuit is to keep in touch, set a friendship and get stronger on friendship. So far, I am not going beyond this intention. I am a busy person, and I do not want to waste my time.
Moreover, Facebook has not only allowed us to enjoy friendships but also to reach people and even to meet them, in their places. I wish I could have time now. As a result, we can all get excited about this idea of meeting others through the network or personally. Furthermore, these people offer a strong distance company, I have perceived, as I have seen pictures from them, their families or jobs. It also seems to me that it is a polite and educated way to contact people rather than being overwhelmed the net with nasty and insane issues.
The Facebook facility is also a way to keep immersed with a foreign language. As in my case, I have learned a lot of new things from the colloquial talking of some of my American friends. It is also encouraging because it has kept me using English at all times. In addition, by using this website, in particular, it allowed me to ladder up the knowledge of language I have. On top of that, I have the only intention of setting contact with my friends. We never know what future will come through, friends around us are making their dreams come true. And a good time of sharing could be expected for us.
As a conclusion there always be more positive issues to count by using Facebook but we do have to set in mind what is our real pursuit of using this amazing facility that is now narrowing people’s relationship and allowing them to meet and share good memories from the distance somehow.

Monday, February 23, 2009

A Shadow from the past.

Carlos Malcon Matute Castillo.
Writing Workshop.

A Good Memory From My Past.


One of the most exciting moments that has made me feel really nervous, has been my National Enthone. This is an enthone from Honduras that has a choir and seven stanzas with eight verses into each. It happens that in my country everyone of us before leaving elementary school, high schools or universities has to learn the national enthone by using singing, directing and memorizing explanations. It is hard for everybody to go through, this type of testing, even though on the last part of the university graduation. This enthone tells about the Honduran history from before the discovery performed by Christopher Columbus and many other Spanish people. It also tell us about how were the indians, how the central americans tried the union of five nations, the arrival of the Spanish people, the conquers, the French Revolution, the fights between Indians and the spanish, the time of slavary and how we got the indepence from Spain. Besides, how Los Criollos (Spanish people borned in Honduras)got rid of the spanish rules. Eventhough we use to take long hours of seminars of training on this learning is still hard to face the teachers who use to come up asking tricky questions about history that is into the enthone. The worse part comes when individually or in couples, they, the teachers, inquire us to sing and direct. I remember that day when I graduated from high school. I was beyond nervous, I felt I needed a horse tranquilizer to get rid of that feeling. Nevertheless, one of my classmates was assigned to be my partner for the singing and directing part on the enthone. We practiced a half an hour and before facing the three teachers who were going to evaluate us. And... by the time we got the call, my friend wanted to go to the bathroom. I said, you are not going now, we have to make it happen. So, we entered the cold room and started singing the assigned stanza. We sang, but while I was singing. I felt I was holding my breathing and finally when we finished our part of evaluation and we got a great score, we left the place with my friend, and she told me she forgot what she wanted. I said, i needed a glass of water because my throat was so dried. My hands were sweating and watered because of this nervous experience. At the end of the year, one of the most excited to undergo with graduate students, teachers make a big issue out of this. Students, all of the graduated do have to undergo this test that allows them to perform finals. This also means that if they do not aprove the National Enthone exam, they are not allow to perform other testing to graduate. That is why the experience is excited. But is not that tough at all, if someone fails, there one possibility to take a recovery exam. It happened to one of my friend, she failed from the first time but she made up on the latter. Yeah..... thanks God is over for me, i do not longer have to go through that. It is over for me. I hope the government will take this evaluation away from schools and universities.

Monday, February 16, 2009

Love, Love and Love.

Love, Love, and Love.
Carlos Malcon Matute Castillo.
Writing Workshop.

Love is one of the most beautiful issues to talk, especially when this means to happen. Everyone of us has experimented love from parents, brothers, sisters, friendship for example.But there is a kind of love that go beyond the means as for instance the love a couple undergo. This kind of love is thoroughly different not only because it could happen with someone we have seen along with childhood, school days, or university, but also with someone we have never seen before. No matter what? or how? Love happens because individuals meet, feel, or agreed certain certain kind of matches such as physical attraction, nice treatment coming from one or from both, the things they like, the time they spend together, it is been said "that closeness creates love and some attachment to people." In Honduras we say "if the heart beats as one" that means love is about to happen. The list would become endless if we continues talking about love. Nevertheless, personally, I am a man who would like to find someone who is loyal, tender, honest, someone who cares about others, someone who has project to achieve in life, someone who would really love me as would do, no matter what, ethnic group, distance, creed, social status, someone who would love the way I am. If I meet these situation in a woman then I will ask her for a date, later on I would propose her and lastly, marriage would come to happen by mutual agreement.Among other traits, I would also like a woman with outgoing personality. I wouldn't mind about appearance, not much. Because when we talk about "appearances" most man expect a beautiful woman. But this is a temporary physical state, indeed. Moreover, we most consider the inner beauty because this a long last and valuable characteristic of a human been. I my personal life I have in been in love, truly, twice. Both women where different in many ways, the first, was not to physically beautiful at all, but several valuable inner traits made me think that was a match. The latter, was so beautiful, physically, but shallow in the back. As I dealed with them in different times, and spaces, I found out that they demanded almost same things such a looking to be attended, they like me to call them as much a I could, be the one who was mostly interested. I spent good time with them we went out, we work together we planned things for others. Unfortunately, I never reached to the point of marriage. It was hard to get them to this point and so,for mutual agreement we split it and good friendship came up. As we become have become good friends I have experimented more care from them, they talk to me, now even more and advice me about going with girls. On the top of that, they try to hook me up for one of their friends, but unfortunately, I am this far from home. I would have had been nice if that would had happened while I was in my country. Even though, this is a girl, I knew from before, and try to get into love affairs by showing my flags, nothing happened, I didn't feel anything, that would mean to come to happen. I have just received a phone call from her saying "she loves me." I was melting and shining like a candle in the dark when I heard it. But what can I do this farm, but just love, love, and love until I get back home.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

How Big Are We Getting To?

Carlos Malcon Matute Castillo.
EAP2 A. Writer’s Workshop.
Mr. Leveret.
How Big Are We Getting To?
The idea from some people about not having children does come along with some reflections they have made by experiencing in the surrounding some difficulties such as global warming, lack of food, spaces to live, ecosystem breakdown and weather, among others. As Cara Swam, author of the article: ”Global Overpopulation” considers that food production has slowed down and consumption has increased creating more health problems in the poorest areas of the world. However, women, nowadays as they have become more independent and productive, have started having babies in later ages than before, and indeed, the family has been more planned as the women are taking some precautions by using contraception pills and spending more time at school in order to ensure what would be called a good life. Nevertheless this attitude from women has not yet stopped growing population, this continuous increasing in big amounts.
The world might take away some of the number of benefits we are enjoying now, if the population continuously grows as fast as it is growing now. That is why many people are watching all over the environment, making sure they still keep in good shape and safe. Moreover, the growth of population, as birth control it refers, has become one of the biggest worries, for governments, since this also carries less production of foods, less spaces for accommodation, health problems, poor maintenance of the natural resources, and all kind of things humans need to run life, as for instance. Indeed, it is not easy to handle a strong opinion about overpopulation, in my concern, because the decision of not having babies or having more, must, in most cases obey to religion, cultural traditions and personal pressures from particular societies.
The number of people in the world numbers now at several billion, and what surprises the must, according from Cara Swam, is that five babies are born every one second, and this increases the population by three humans every second, while only two people die in the same amount of time. Just having this information makes me think about how many people we will be in this world in about ten or twenty years. I do picture those overpopulated countries such as China and India will also continuo dwarfing most countries in the world. It looks like we will be too many, and some of the natural resources, water, plants and petrol, will not be enough to share with others because the consumption of them will become higher than we thought before. Besides, this high consumptions will demand more production that we might not be able to fulfill.
Nevertheless, to avoid certain inconveniences, in the near future, we should keep watching the surroundings in order to keep them in shape and safe. What it also means to keep a balance between humans and the resources we still have. I know, this is not an easy task to achieve when particular interests from country to country vary. And so, this also means to have a common agreement among all nations from all over the world in order to set a very conscious program that would allow the population to pursue a common goal which would be, in this case, “Save the planet from pollution, animal extinguishing, depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, etc.”
In fact, the need is not only creating conscious programs among the population as a prevention to protect the world from overpopulation, as birth rates rise up, but also, is to take into account what we have now in order to run it fairly, the world, with balance provide enough foods, accommodation, good health, etc. to continue living by having, also, fair distribution of the resources. In contrast, controlling the overpopulation is not easy, since there are many issues involved, such as particular decisions religion, cultural traditions, country needs, etc. In addition, the current demands from the society in which people are more interested in spending more time at school to get more professional preparation and indeed more money to survive.
And so, how do we want to enjoy what we have in the world, if we might not have started controlling the balance of the population so far? This would be a matter of communities’ enrollment by keeping safe the environment and surrounding as it provides us food, air, water, etc. There are so many things we can do, but, it all depends on what every one of us wants as our heritage to our future generations. And so the idea of no having children would change.



Reference.
Swam, C.(2000,Sept.1) Global Overpopulation. Suit 101.com. Retrieved January 21st,2009

Response assignment.

Carlos Malcon Matute Castillo
Writer’s workshop
Mr. Leveret.
The Population Decline in Russia.

The article written by Husein Mansho deals with “The Population Decline in Russia” There are three issues that are called to my attention, and they refer on the first hand to the lowest amount of people Russia is keeping; according to the statistic this author presented, Russian population will decline to 99 million by 2050. On the latter, the country itself is growing through the Islamic world and not from themselves. Thirdly, Mansho believes that the declining of population will help Russians to get a better life from the wealth of petroleum.
It is pretty sad to hear about these issues from one of the biggest nations in the world. In my opinion if this population continues going down, at that high speed, it seems to me that the whole country will be populated by the people who hoped to come to live in Russia as for example the people from the Islamic world in order to help with the nations growth. I have nothing against the idea but it also seems to me that rules of immigration will soon need to be changed to create some similar rules as the Arabian countries have established for their incoming people, in relation to population control and the politics of the good life they expect to have by using these people only for work with the petroleum they have in Russia. In my opinion people in Russia would get a better life, but they need to start working with the population they have before most of them leave the country.
Reference.
Mansho, H. (2009. February 4th.). The Population Decline in Russia. Retrieved February 9, 2009, from

Monday, February 9, 2009

Britain is Getting Small

Carlos Malcon Matute Castillo.
EAP2-A. Writer's Workshop.
Mr. Laveret.

Britain is Getting Small

According to the article "UK Population will be biggest in EU" written by Shan Ross, the British population will become the largest in Europe by 2060. If this is about going to become true, it looks as if this country will dwarf some European Countries, such as Germany, for instance. And some other difficult situations, will come up soon, such as payment for the pensions, including health care costs, the limit of working age, which indeed will have to be raised, climate change, and the distributions of resources, which might be hard to face for the population as it growth speeds up.

After reading, this article, in contrast, the article, made me think about some questions that relate to the problem, for example: To avoid this projection of overpopulation growth, what would if be necessary to do? if the government and other related people want to do something, what should they do? What priorities should be taken into account to control the birth rate? How will the government manage retirement for aged people? Is there, already, any balance, between birth rate and death rate? It looks like the Britain is also getting the highest birth rate out the twelve percent that correspond to the rest of the European countries (Tyler, p.20). And, on the other hand, some other questions should be stated to deal with this upcoming situation. Moreover, the argument should not only be around, birth control rate, and retirement projection of the whole population, but also on environment, pollution, food, work availability, and the resources the country should keep in order to contribute to the population development.
Dealing with overpopulation has been hard for me because, from what I have read, it looks as if there aren’t enough points of view to stand for or to become against the best prevention or solution. Nevertheless, the reading I have just done only states expectations on how much overpopulation will be , and on the problems that Britain will face. As a result, in my concern, this kind of reading is only prompting reflections about what is going on, instead of also starting to propose, seriously, on how to create the best solutions to keep a better life in that country. Besides, if I would be asked, about what to do and considering the point from the article, from Ross, that says, "At the present there are four people of working age for each person aged 65 of over," I would recommend starting to control the birth rate, because there is a need to reach a balance. On the other hand, British people should start considing the population they have, at working age, will not be able to support retiree people, and pension will not longer be expected, as timebomb (Ross).
In fact, it is been written in the article, by Ross, that the amount of women in the workforce has increased. I would also analyze what is the population, that is mostly contributing to the high growth? Because, I know, Britain has a lot immigrants from other worldwide countries who come in order to find and establish an accurate balance, of any kind, to contribute to the development by distributing, fairly, pension payment, food, natural resources, and healthcare, among others.

By writing articles on overpopulation, it is not only a matter of just prompting consciousness or just telling what is going on about the issue of high population upcoming, in each country, as Britain or any other countries that are currently undergoing this situation, but also, in my personal opinion it is a matter of starting to write and search for the best solution that would overcome the high population growth or would state a balance.


Reference:

Ross, Sh. (2008, August 27). UK population will be biggest in EU. The Scotman. Pg. 7. Retrieved on January 23, 2009, from Nexis-Lexis.
Tyler, G. (1994) Environment: Problems and Solutions. Belmont, California.Pg.20