Riad #9

People have pointed out that we were raising kids such as our parents had done.It is partly correct because generation after generation,some principles,standard behavior,the manner how kids have to handle with the challenges which come out during their entire lives never change.However,I realized that there are impressive differences between I and my three sons.When I was 22 years old,the age of the boys now,I was living in the swinging sixties. That extremely predictable and boring world of the past had been put off;sexual liberty,rock and roll and the felling that nothing could be forbitten were the most.We wanted to save the world;we spent hours in a bar’s table drinking beer and discussing politics and leftists writers as Gramci,Luckas,Deutcher etc…Now I know that we were naive even why we didn’t swallow those authors quite well,but I remember that time with fondness.Boys nowadays hate politics,classical writers are not their bussiness.They are interessed in studying hard to arrange a good place to work and make money to buy fancy clothes and impress girls at the ‘balada’.I don’t know witch is the best bevavior,but as the french says eachone has his own necessity.

Riad – Portfolio #3

When Karl Marks said that ‘religions are the opium of the society’,he wasn’t referring to God but to the several supertitions and beliefs created by the mankind so as to control and to intimidate the common people.Since the pre-history,the fear of the unknown has been making people accept all kinds of abuse . For instance, in the beginning,people worshiped acidents in nature such as the sun,a tree, an animal. However, when society became more complex,people changed their gods to gods with a meaning as god of the sea,god of fertility,god of war etc…At the same time,a new class of parasites came out:the priests,who use their apparent contact with God to demean believers with all sort of demands such as asking for money ,goods and sometimes even for their lives as in the Maia civilization.Nowadays,most religions practice monotheism, a sofisticated way to give power to a few to the detriment of the huge majority.Under monotheism priests have been struggling against all kinds of progress.For example,the church didn’t swallow the galileu’s theory that the earth turns around the sun until recently,despite all sorts of evidence. Today,the church condemms the use of condoms to prevent sexual illnesses and to avoid an undesirable pregnancy:they are living in the past,however the worse part being its tendency to frighten people talking about sins that take place only in their dirty minds,threatening them with fire from hell if they don’t do what they want.That is why religions are part of the dark side of the human behavior

Ana #8 – Supernatural

The placebo effect is taken in great skepticism among people.Scientist and doctors have been trying to prove its miracle mechanism even though they haven’t yet been proved by the current science. Several illnesses and health problems solved have been attributed by this powerful sugar pill, but there still are contradictions of what causes it.
The Latin word, placebo, means “I shall please,” which denotes a positive meaning. This placebo treatment is mostly known as a sham medical intervention that leads the patient to believe in its effectiveness and, mysteriously sometimes the illness is cured. For example, a study of gastric or duodenal ulcers found that placebo treatments, in many cases, were as effective as active drugs: Of the 1692 patients treated in 31 trials, 76% of the 916 treated with the drug were healed, and 48% of the 776 treated with placebo were also healed. On the other hand, in 2001, a published study showed no evidence of important placebo effects, except in the treatment of subjective outcome, such as pain. Despite the contradictions, there are two main theories about how placebo effect takes place. First, it is believed that what occurs is a positive belief from the patient in which the treatment works and he will be healed; as a result the patient tends to be biased and he really feels better,which shows an important role of the brain in the treatment of illnesses.

The second theory is that the positive effect caused by the placebo treatment is simply a conditioned response of the patient to the treatment. This conditioned response is a proven result of Pavlov’s experiment, where he rang a bell before giving food to a dog several times and after some time, when he just rang the bell the dog would salivate because he would associate the bell’s ring with receiving food, although there was no food stimulus whatsoever. Similarly, from conversations with the doctor, articles read, comments of other people, or any previous experience, the patient is led to believe that something is going to happen and it triggers his nervous system response.
In contrast, there are many religious people who believe that the placebo effect is nothing more or less than God’s invisible hand choosing their lives outcome. Meanwhile, other people think that placebo effect does not exist, and it’s simply a natural progression of the disease. In spite of all beliefs, what cannot be denied is that the placebo effect really occurs and it’s better to believe on it, so we may have this chance to be cured. As Shakespeare stated: “there are more things in heaven and earth, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Ana #3 – Leaving Responsibilities to the Last Minute

Having a penchant for leaving tasks to the last moment is normal behavior to the majority of the people. Such practice happens mostly because they consider the work they were assigned boring so they put off doing it. But it doesn’t always mean that leaving work for later is always a negative behavior or that the person who is doing it is lazy and irresponsible.

There are a group of people who don’t do well under pressure and can’t do their work as well as if they were sitting down relaxing, having a lot of time to work on that project. They feel that their productivity level dwindles and the lack of time for having things done just stresses them out. For these people, who don’t know how to cope with tasks so well under stress, deadlines and little time to get things done, the best solution is to do is to have the work done as fast as they can so it’s not a problem for them afterward. Additionally, these people’s worries may interfere with their flow of ideas, making them unable to come up with new, creative ideas.

Mark Sarkozi, 42 years old, doesn’t cope well with stress and little time, and realizing that, he frequently sets up clever plans to avoid putting off assignments when he has a tight schedule and says this new habit has brought positive results not only to his work but also in managing his personal life time as well.

In contrast, amazingly, working under pressure for some people makes their work better. People who fall into this category have this ability to stand out, making them cope with disadvantages wonderfully and not mislead their productivity. Moreover, these people not only can keep up with their projects under pressure, but also feel more driven and concentrated on their activity when they are subjected to these rough conditions. Considering this “work-good-under-pressure” group of people, no one would want to spend more time working if they spend less time and the quality of his work is just the same.

Thus, we must recognize that our type of reaction and behavior when we are faced with deadlines to meet so as to organize ourselves to perform the best job quality we can. These resolutions would definitely avoid extra headaches and unsatisfactory time spent working, saving time and also increasing productivity.

Karla #9 Looking For The Best Way To Cope with Stress

Professional dancers should grasp that they must cope with stress, specially to have a quality life while their professional career. Sometimes, dancers come down with tendinitis touching off a serious illness because they don’t have a break time or even a day off. Professional dancers have never strive to take some rest out of they need to shore up technique building up the resistance, until ending up their career.

Such as an excellent dancer, Karen Lynn, 23, had stemmed from NY Ballet Company. On March 18th 2004, while the New York Ballet’s CEO Joe Lanteri had been evaluating an audition for freshmen dancers, Karen had came in the enormous room by leaps and bounds, glaring at Joe and jury, bringing up an excruciating decision that she would abandon her career as a   main dancer, in order to look for coping with stress and to have a healthy life. Consequently, she had coming down with a fibromyalgia in her shoulders, also a dreadful tendinitis in her back and legs. Due to this, she had taken cortisone’s high dosage to stamp out a terrible pain on her body before every performance to show up great on stage. Furthermore, she wasn’t willing to dance or rehearsal to the next performance anymore out of that damage distress.

Until that time, there had no other professional dancer who had the guts to stir up a lot of infamous practice for dancers. Also, even they had been harmful the dance co had never allowed dancers to recover illness. However, dancers haven’t looked ahead to take on better way to work cause they realize that dance co takes over in dancers career. In fact, dancers have been afraid of co entourage may snatch away their chance to turn out a famous dancer.

Actually, the best way to cope with stress is talking at least, one hour per day just doing what they want to do as, going to the movies, visiting family or reading a book. Professional dancers have never strived to take a day off; dancers must change their minds in order to build up their confidence!

Ana #3 – Leaving Responsibilities to the Last Minute

Having a penchant for leaving tasks to the last moment is a normal behavior to the majority of people. This is mostly because they consider the work they were assigned boring so they procrastinate it. But it doesn’t always mean that leaving the work for later is always a negative behavior or that the person who is doing it is lazy and irresponsible.

There are a group of people that don’t do well under pressure and can’t make their work as good as if they were sat down relaxing having a lot of time to work on that project. They feel that their productivity falls down and the lack of time for having things done just stress them out. For these people, who don’t know how to cope with tasks so well under stress, deadlines and  little time to have things done, the best thing to do is to have the work done as fast as they can so it’s not a problem for them afterward. Additionally, these people worries may interfere with their flow of ideas, turning out to make their ability to come up with new, creative ideas a disaster.

Mark Sarkozi, 42 years old, is an example of these group, and realizing that, he frequently sets up clever plans to avoid putting off assignments when he has a tight schedule and says this action has brought positive results not only on his work but also in managing his personal life time as well.

In contrast, amazingly, working under pressure for some people makes their work better. The people who fall into this category have this stand out ability that makes them cope with disadvantages wonderfully and doesn’t mislead their productivity. More over, these people  not only can keep up with their projects under pressure but also they feel more driven and concentrated on their activity when they are subjected to these rough conditions. Considering that, no one would want to spend more time working if they spend less and the quality of his work is just the same.

Thus, we must recognize our type of reaction and behavior when we are faced with deadlines to meet, so we can organize ourselves to perform the best job quality we can. These resolutions would definitely avoid extra headaches and unsatisfactory spent-time working, save time and also increase productivity.

Ana – Portfolio #1

Some person, unaware, can depict Lisa as a normal looking woman. However, her pale face floods mystery and sensuality, which brings me a frenzied thrill down my spine. Her prominent cheek bones and small delicate mouth add up to her sparkly light brown close-set eyes, make her expression ambiguous and staggering. Her thin, curly, brown hair portrays her to be somewhat fragile. I just stared at her for some minutes, amazed at her incomprehensible appearance. As time goes by, I experience the sensation that her oval face matches in unison with her sharp nose and also every little inch of Lisa’s face. Not too long afterward, and I get upset with my incapacity of unveiling her feelings throughout that astounding physiognomy. Then, so fast and unexpectedly, she disappears in the haze.

Laura – Topic 13

I believe that thinking over my childhood and the values and beliefs envolved in my up bringing helps me became a better mother. I’m trying to raise my son repeating and avoiding my own history. We all should reflect about our up bringing with critical eyes in an attempt to apply the good part of our parents’ parental modal. My mother always came up with increadible activities for our weekends together like the time she t my brothers and I how to make waffles. She also had the ability to transform a really simple meal in the most tastefull joyfull experience we ever had by picking up ethnic restaurants to take us. We would experience these diferent flavours while she would tell us about the culture. I try to bring that joy to my sons life but I don’t know if I would ever be able to live up to her.

Débora #5 – Description (Updated – Does it have potential to be a Portfolio?)

I´m a 32 year old woman with blond, chin-length hair. It´s not as straight as I wish, but it´s fine. I have hazel eyes, turning from blue to green and sometimes to gray depending on my mood.
My pink cheeks always gives away my mood, which is not always so pleasing. Pimples come and go. I wish I could have a full mouth like Angelina Jolie, but I´m happy with my regular lips. I´m not slim neither fat, just call me average. I´m working on it, because nobody deserves a flabby and fat body, right? Like peole say, “You weren´t born like this.”

Riad #8

When Karl Marks said ‘Religions are the opium of the society’,he wasn’t referring to god but to the several supertitions and beliefs created by the mankind to make tools to control and to intimidate the common people. Since the pre-history the fear of the unknown has been doing people accept all kind of abuses;at the beginning they worship acidents of the nature as the sun ,a tree,an animal ,however , when the society became more complex they changed to gods with a meaning:god of the sea,god of fertility,god of the war etc…at the same time a new class appared ,the priests, who are using their apparent contact with gods to overcome people.The evolution has been continued,nowadays religions, almost of them,preacteres the monotheism.Priests have been struggling against all kind of progress,par example, they didn’t accept the Galileu’s theory that the earth turns around the sun until recently despite all sorts of evidences;today they condemm condoms to prevent sexual ilness and to avoid an undesirable pregnancy:they are living in the past ,but the worse part is the tendency to frighten people talking about sins that there are only in their dirty minds and threatening them with the fire of the hell.That’s why they hate the joy of life and the human happiness.Religions are the dark side of the human behavior.