It is time to get out. (Paper # 10)

In general, Brazilians’ youth only leave home when they get married or when they get their financial independence. So, men get out home around 30 years old and the women do with about 25 years old.

For American or even European it could sound a bit weird or absurd, but there is a reasonable explanation to support this behavior. On the contrary of students of US or Europe, Brazilians in the beginning of their career face a very tough market with low salaries and few opportunities which postpone plans of getting out home. As a result, they stay living with their parents until they stabilize financially, meanwhile they save funds to make feasible the moving with the aiming of acquiring house, furniture and car. By the way, oddly Brazilians do not adopt the American system of roommates which could reduce the cost of living alone as they would share all the expenses with the others.

An exception is seen in Piracicaba, Countryside of São Paulo State, where students of São Paulo University share houses in order to divide the its expenses and the experiences up. Normally, parents stay far away of all the new life and see their children only once a week. In the end, consequently, mostly of student do not come back home and if they do they do not come back to their father’s home.

Therefore, traditionally Brazilians do not go away without a concrete reason, staying at home to save money aiming their plans. The fact is that some people simply take this argue as an excuse and stay at home forever.

Janaina – paper #10

In my opinion, parents role is to offer a good basis for their children to have an independent and successful life. There are different ways to achieve the same result and, wich one should be used, depends on the the culture, life style and personality of the family members. I believe that people has some natural born behaviors that are independent of raising, and the family must adapt their raising techniques to them. That´s why even at the same family sometimes is necessary to use different ways to raise the children. In my family for example, me and my brother are treated very differently because of our opposite behaviors. If I ask my father for some money, he won’t think twice about giving me. If my brother asks exactly the same amount, my father will make a lot of questions and probably will give him less money than what he had asked for. That would happen because my father knows that I only ask if there no other way to solve my problem, and that, in opposite, my brother asks everytime he has an opportunity to earn money easily.

It doesn’t matter where the person lives or what religion does he follow. Americans can raise their children very closely and overprotected, and Latins can raise their children to be independent since early. The important is to identify what kind of raising technique each person demands, and apply it. There no right or wrong way, neither better or worse. Each case must be considered individually by the parents to find the best way to achieve the same result, that is the independence and success of their children.

The role of the parents – Eduardo

Different cultures have their own point o view about what is the best role of the parents to raised their children. In brazilian culture is very important to give condictions to children to grow independent but to give emotional support and keep a very close relationship is also important. It is part of the culture and both can coexist.

The principal role of parents is related to the education they give to children. And the education does not mean only a good school. A good school is part of a good education but education must have to be given at home. This home education is related to show how to respect the others, how to live in society, what is right and what is wrong. It means to give condictions to built a strong personality and a good caracter. Parents are also supposed to give emotional security to their children and show how to act in difficult situations.

Nowadays in brazilian society this kind of education is not easy to find. Some parents just don´t know how to raise, how to give education because some values, just like religion, relationship and the role of the family are changing and some parents think that is easy to raise and give education but it is not. To give a good education is igual to give real love. This is the most important role of parents.

Paper #9 Live to work or work to live? rev.1

We need money to live because our society is organized in a way that if we do not have it, we are out. We can not deny the fact that if we do not work, we will not live with the minimum to live: food and home. Therefore, I think the question is the level of importance people give to things in life. 

For instance, if money is the most important thing, we will work as hard as possible to make and to save it as much as possible. Hence, it will not be a great problem if it is not a glamorous job or if we have to work for many hours; if the money is worthy, that is what it matters. However, if we desire a balance between work and recreation, we are supposed to have the opportunity to choose better what we want to do, focused on both, salary and life out of the office. In this case, we can choose a career not only because of the salary, but the time we will have for ourselves and the money to maintain this balance. There are also those ones who are not materialistic, they work only for the basic needs, as they see the world under a different point of view, for instance, they don’t give importance to status and if they do not have a new car or a big house. For them, work with what they like is part of their lives.

When I was twenty I had been working at the commercial department of a company, also having music classes and making part of USP choir. Moreover, I had made part of a band as a singer, which used to do regular presentations. Unfortunately, at a certain point, I had to make a decision as for me it was becoming hard to deal with my work at company and my career as a singer. Thus, due to parents pressure and the possibility of not earning the enough to live, I gave up my musical career. I deeply regret living in a society in which money dictates the rules. I do believe that we are not free to choose what we really want because we have always to take the money into account on whatever we decide to do in terms of working. Consequently, I have been trying to balance work and recreation so as to maintain my sanity. I work to live.

One comment

Live to work or work to live?

We need money to live because our society is organized in a way that if we do not have it, we are out. We cannot deny the fact that if we do not work, we will not live with the minimum conditions to live: food and home. Therefore, the question is the level of importance people give to things (avoid the use of this meaningless word) in life.

For instance, if money is the most important thing (again…), we will work as hard as possible to make and save it as much as possible. Hence, it will not be a great problem if it is not a glamorous job or if we have to work for many hours; if the money is worth it, that is what matters. However, if we desire a balance between work and pleasure, we are supposed to have the opportunity to choose better what we want to do, focused on both salary and life out of the office. In this case, we can choose a career not only because of the salary, but the time we will have for ourselves and the money to maintain this balance.

There are also those ones who are not materialistic, they work only for the basic needs, as they see the world under a different point of view, for instance, they don’t give importance to status and if they do not have a new car or a big house. For them, work with what they like is part of their lives. When I was twenty, I used to work at the commercial department of a company, also having music classes and making part of USP choir. Moreover, I had made part of a band as a singer, which used to do regular presentations. Unfortunately, at a certain point, I had to make a decision (to do what?) as for me it was becoming hard to deal with my work at the company and my career as a singer. Thus, due to parental pressure and the possibility of not earning enough to live, I gave up on my music career. I deeply regret living in a society in which money dictates the rules. We are not free to choose what we really want because we always have to take money into account on whatever we decide to do in terms of work. Consequently, I have been trying to balance work and recreation so as to maintain my sanity. I work to live.

Roberta,

Great response. The only comment I have about content is that sometimes you seem to be sitting on the fence not knowing which side to take on the issue. You dwell on the topics of necessity to work versus pleasure. When we are writing an argumentative paper in English, we tend to pick one side and defend it throughout the paper. I don’t think you should rewrite this piece, but I would like you to print both my comments and your original draft so that you can compare the grammar mistakes I have corrected throughout the paper.

Rick

     by rick042570 November 24, 2008 at 11:03 pm

 

 

Paper#9 Live to work or work to live?

November 26, 2008

We need money to live because our society is organized in a way that if we do not have it, we are out. We cannot deny the fact that if we do not work, we will not live with the minimum conditions to live: food and home. Therefore, the question is what is important to us in our life.

For instance, if money is the main concern, we will work as hard as possible to make and save it as much as possible. Hence, it will not be a great problem if it is not a glamorous job or if we have to work for many hours; if the money is worth it, that is what matters. However, if we desire a balance between work and pleasure, we are supposed to have the opportunity to choose better what we want to do, focused on both salary and life out of the office. In this case, we can choose a career not only because of the salary, but the time we will have for ourselves and the money to maintain this balance.

There are also those ones who are not materialistic, they work only for the basic needs, as they see the world under a different point of view, for instance, they don’t give importance to status and if they do not have a new car or a big house. For them, work with what they like is part of their lives. When I was twenty, I used to work at the commercial department of a company, also having music classes and making part of USP choir. Moreover, I had made part of a band as a singer, which used to do regular presentations. Unfortunately, at a certain point, I had to make a decision: as for me it was becoming hard to deal with my work at the company and my career as a singer, I had to choose between them. Thus, due to parental pressure and the possibility of not earning enough to live, I gave up on my music career. I deeply regret living in a society in which money dictates the rules. We are not free to choose what we really want because we always have to take money into account on whatever we decide to do in terms of work. Consequently, I have been trying to balance work and recreation so as to maintain my sanity.  I work to live. If  I had condition to proceed with the music career, I would live to work. Therefore, depending on the meaning that the work has in our life we decide to live to work or work to live.

 

Work to live

I belive in the following setence: Work to live, because I’m sure that anyone in our society always wants more, for instance, we want a bigger house, a goog travel, a better car, a new clothe, and so forth. In fact the true is that all of us want a confortable life. Due this, it is necessary to work hard in order to make more and more money. So that, I think to be happy it is nacessary to have a minimum of money, on the contrary, nowadays, in my opinion, is impossible to have a good life, especially because our society is materialistic and we always live underpression, at home, at work or with friends. Everybody talks about money and conquests, so nobody wants to be behind.

Moreover, every day when I go to my job and see people on the street getting a bus or trying to get the bus for 2, 3 hours, I think and coment with my husband – Are they happy ou does that people want more? I don’t know the certain answer, but I really know that I’m happy because a have money to do what I want. I know that  poor people is able to be content, but, in fact, I affirm that richiers are happier. Money is not the only happiness, but, of course, makes the life easier.

I believe in people that contribute with the comunity by in voluteer work, but all people needs to do something good for himself, maybe a travel, a new house, shopping, and to reach any of this examples it is necessary to have money. Which mother doesn’t want to give the best to her sun? Voluteer is beautiful, great, but it is a another type of satisfaction. Is a voluteer worker totaly content? I really don’t know, maybe is a temporary satisfaction. The happiness is much more, therefore to reach it you need to balance work, life, family, friends, time, quality and money.

Janaina – paper # 9

A Brazilian works during above 40 years, so it´s much more pleasant and easy to live if he works on something that fullfills him in diferent areas. Choosing a career is a very important moment at anyone´s life and there are lots of points to be considered: the studies, the salary, the work itself and the market are only some of them. People who choose their professions based only at one point tend to suffer in another. Musicians who decide to invest in this career only by the love for it´s daily functions usually aren´t happy with their salaries. On the other hand, some very rich and recognized business administrators spend their days cursing their choice because it´s very painful to do the same boring things everyday.

There´s not a perfect career or something that can´t please no one. Otherwise, there would be no reason to choose and everybody would work on the same thing. It´s all about considering the different points and matching them with the person´s values, plans and life style to decide what is worth trying. The important here is to be conscient of the consequences of each choice and be ready to face them, and if it doesn´t work, be open minded to new possibilities. Of course we don´t live in Paradise where people are completely satisfied 24 x 7, but it´s possible to find a balance between work, pleasure and money to spend all these 40 years saying  “I´m happy” without thinking twice. I think people are getting more conscious about it day by day and realizing that, if you do something you like and you do it well, it doesn´t matter what are you doing – you will be successfull. The condition today is to be extraordinary in anything you decide to do, because the world is full of unsatisfied people doing their jobs in a poor way.

Work to live (and survive)

Many people think that their wishes are the only important requirement to choose a career. Unfortunately, they do not realize that the real life is not a fairy tale. There are other conditions we must observe before choosing our role in the society.

If you mind with money or not, it is fundamental tool to survive in our savage capitalist word. Even if non-materialist people must have a little money to survive and extra money to make most of their wishes come true. Therefore, everyone shall consider the financial conditions when choosing a career, otherwise they will probably be regretted by the time they need money in life.

Young people tends do whatever they want to and usually don’t care with future. A friend of mine, for example, quit his career as a prominent lawyer to be a musician and a waiter in London. Of course, everything seems to be amazing while he is young and doesn’t have a family and a life to care. However, I can imagine him 25 years later. By the time he gets old, with no family, money or healthy, I wonder he might realize that he should have considered the disadvantages of moving to another country to do what he thought it would make him happy, such as lack of a good career, no family, friends and money. I really hope he will regret in time to come back to his real life.

I do believe that professional satisfaction is an important value to be considered when you choose a career. But I also think that money is as important as it.

It is necessary to choose a career that combine both personal satisfaction and financial independence; and none of this two requirements shall be considered by itself. In my opinion, happy and successful persons are the ones who love what they do and also earn money with that.

Unfortunately or not, money doesn’t bring (or even buy) happiness, but it certainly helps to find it.

Work – Eduardo paper 9

The discussion about work has a lot of different points o view. Work is one of the most important things human being have to do in their lifes because makes people feel good with themselfs, makes people grow-up thinking about how important they are for other prople and for society in general.

The point is that in this times its very difficult to separete work, as a professional carear, from personal life. That´s why we have problems like workaholic people, and some are unhappy. And also, is very difficult to understand the difference between being happy and make money, or not, considering that to work is the normal way to make money. People makes mistakes when they think that a person that don´t have much money is a  looser in a society. Happines has nothing to do with making much money, but has a lot to do with working with something you really love. That´s why choosing a professional carrear is very difficult, especially for young people and this choices can chance life forever. I remenber how difficult was to me to make a choice about a professional carear. Fortunatly I found a job in a newspaper, working with advertising,  that experience put me in a direction and them I choose the correct university course. But I know many people that choose the wrong professional way. They did it under pressure of their parents or about a view of the market that was carring a lot of people in a especific carear, just as advertising, for exemple. And I also remember trying a musician carear at the same time with advertising. I knew that would be very difficult but I tryed. Nowadays it seems impossible to look for a dream. People have fear because they are under pressure to be a winner rich person them look inside themselfs and try to understand what they really like, what they really are.

The most important think, what really matter in the end is happines. Personal happines includes professional carear, personal life, satisfaction with people around and pleasure to be who you really are.

Portfolio – Claudio Lima

The Influence of the Environment – Portfolio

Children who are raised in poor areas in latin America are influenced by the environment that they live in, tending to be more violent and to commit more crimes due to the lack of opportunities.

This event occurs basically because of the deficiency of the State to be present in such districts, investing and granting the bare minimum for them to live with dignity, such as, drinkable water, electricity, basic sanitation or even brick houses. Also, there are a completely lack of education, culture, sports, health and social assistance. In general, the funds collected in America Latina from the taxes are consumed by corruptors or spent on other regions where the visibility to electors is higher.

The teenagers who live in these regions do not have any kind of perspective to reach higher positions in their careers and run away from offers that come from the criminal system. Most of these opportunities that reach them come from the drug dealers and other criminals who are willing to compense them with sizable paychecks in consideration to their workforce.

Marco Lopes, a resident of Paraisopólis, a huge slum in the middle of São Paulo City, was 17 years old when he decided to apply for several jobs without finishing elementary school. After one year waiting for a response, he realized that he was refused by those companies who had received his resumé. Without any money to help out at home and pay for his own expenses, he accepted a job as a drug dealer to earn twice the amount that he would earn in a legal job offered by his best friend.

Therefore, the lack of governmental investment in poor areas affects teenagers’ life directly by not offering them opportunities in the market. These teens frequently fall for the seducing offers from the criminal system. A huge investment in education, culture and sports could modify this scenario and give better life to those who want to stay off the illegal side.

 

The Science Fair – Portfolio

The most important event in my elementary school life was “The Science Fair,” in which we, students, were to present to the teachers and relatives the result of our experiments. It was 1992 and two months before the big day, when the Fair would happen, the idea about what to present in this event came to my mind. It would be about Global Warming. Certainly, I was influenced by the theme that was in vogue at that time: environment and ecology, probably because the ECO-1992, an event in Rio de Janeiro sponsored by the UN that gathered the most important politicians in the world in order to discuss the further steps in ecology.

Once with my subject chosen, I had to form a group by convincing my mates about the experiment that I would like to show in the fair. Actually, it was a really easy job for the reason that most of the boys were lazy and they did not care about the event. And also, my relative successes in the previous fairs were a good reason for them to join my group and get a good grade.

After a while, I decided to implement my ideas, asking the school for a rectangle aquarium that would support all the other materials. Inside the aquarium, I had planned to put a glass which would be filled with some kind of flammable fuel and the other some plants. The research would show how the issue of the carbon gas could affect the plants’ life; however, I was confident that I would succeed and I decided not to try the experience beforehand.

When the big day came, I got early in the morning to get a good stand at school and so I started building the experiment in order to explain how the gas would affect the environment. My next step was to set fire on the glass where flammable liquid was been inserted, which was, in fact, a wrong move. At that exact moment, I heard a huge explosion in the class and the noise of a glass breaking. The fog covered the class and everyone ran away after wiping out the fire.

At the end, I had nothing to present and the entire group got a zero. With no doubt, it was a stupid idea and I got ashamed for the situation. The fact is that I should have built up the invention at home and get the school totally prepared. This experience showed me how important it is to be prepared when I face a significant meeting and also how important it is form group with determined and intelligent people willing to help and form a real group.

 

Renato – Portfolio # 1

PAPER 1

When I was a child, I used to collect dead insects inside a shoe box hidden in the basement. One day, my mother found my private “cemetery”, becoming very worried about such behavior.

 

She asked me the reason why I kept all this dead animals in the box, but I was so embarrassed that I couldn’t say a word. She started to observe my behavior, but we never talked about it again. On that day, she probably thought that I could turn out to be a potential serial killer when I got older.

 

I don’t know if she still remembers this episode or if she still thinks I could be a murderer. All I know is that I have never killed anyone, at least so far. Actually, I am very afraid of dead people, blood and any other issue related to death, such as hospital, cemetery, and even if dead people’s pictures.

 

Some attitudes may be understood in a wrong way. That unusual behavior was much more a reflection of feeling lonely than a psychotic desire of killing people. It was the way I had found to keep some “friends” with me, collecting them in a box.

 

I am not saying I was a freak child due to this fact. Everyone has a “crazy side”. I have never met a normal people and actually I don’t want to. Of course there are some levels of abnormality, but sometimes unusual behavior does not mean to yourself what it means to others.

 

In my situation, my mother probably thought that I would become a freak, but I can assure that I prefer much more to have the live friends I have today.

 

 

PAPER 2

 

The rules of the corporate world have gotten too flexible. Nowadays, many companies give too much benefits and freedom to their employees, such as a flexible time and fringe benefits, like cars, nursing, food stamps and insurance etc.

 

I don’t think fringe benefits are a fundamental mechanism to retain the good staff. People want money and nothing else increases more the productivity than a well-paid job. On the opposite, I do believe that such modern culture of excessive benefits will be worse to everyone, especially for the company.

 

In my job, for example, there are a lot of colleagues who abuse of their rights. Due to the flexible time, some of them just don’t appear in the morning, arguing any weak excuse, such as a son with flu, traffic jam or even if a personal meeting. Others use their healthy insurance to benefit their mother-in-law, wife, parents and the whole sick family. Of course, the employers has to pay for all of them, although they don’t even know or care for them.

 

I do believe that human beings are not prepared for this modern way of working. It is natural behavior of the human being to act in a selfish way, doing things on their own behalf and without conscious of limits.  This conclusion is applicable not only for employees, but also for the employers. In this sense, everyone in the corporate world must be submitted to and follow clear rules; otherwise, they tend to abuse of their freedom and shall behave the way they want to.