Should Thailand have death cleanup firm?

What I listened to / read

It was a busy day with a lot of appointments throughout the day, Once I had a free time, I then suddenly thought that I am so lonely and do not have any lover now. I then search for something to let me out of this negative. During listening the radio, I then starred at the news in The Washington Post titled "Cleaning up after the Dead" by Anna Fifield. I think it is good for everyone to raise up for taking care yourself.

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What it says

Anna shared the situation of solitary man had been died for long time without anyone kept eye on him. Once the landlord noticed his dead. he/she asked for "the lonely-death-cleanup-industry" which had been set up ubiquitously country. Anna described how do they work and the cost that the apartment owner need to pay including a purifying ritual. She also shared that it was the influence of social change of Japanese society from whole family life to isolated living, and thee effect of aging society because of too interested career in the young generation.

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My response 

Recently, the way that parents and school teach children have been changed a lot. they teaches to be more attentive into career and be success in working life more than caring about fulfillment of basic social structure such as family. Frankly speaking, human have the roles to widespread their species and races, and also establishment and maintenance the social complexity. However, those roles has shifted into working life rather than basic function of society.

As mentioned in news, I agree with the post of Anna and also thought Japan does not only the country confronting with aging society, but Thai also faced with this occurrence as well. Ministry of public health together with the office of statistics announced that Thai population pyramid was altered into the contracting stage of pyramid. In other words, it indicates that birth rate is lower than death rate and the ratio between older and younger is higher meaning The aging society in Thai.

We can see that Thai new generation are worried about their work such as finding a high profit job, position promotion and so on. they have a little time to take care of the other part of life. These issue can be predicted that Thai will live alone without any family and offspring together with them. they then will pass away solitary and the task after dead will be held by landlord and owner. Hence, establishment of death cleanup industry should be done to help these problem and ensure that next tenant could live comfortably.

SHINee singer Jonghyun: K-pop boy band superstar dies

What I read

I found a shocking news on BBC News. The topic is "SHINee singer Jonghyun: K-POP boy band superstar dies" So I decided to share with my teacher and classmates.

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What it says

Jonghyun, a K-POP singer and accomplished dancer in SHINee band, committed suicide because of Major depressive disorder (MDD). 

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My response 

I was shocked with this news because he has been so famous since I was young and I have seen his many fans. Thus, I do understand the feeling of Jonghyun's fanclub. Their hearts have broken down. They have lost their idol. This news is so regretful.

Ghost of boy 'seen at Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire'

What I read

I found the interesting news on BBC News. Its topic is "Ghost of boy'seen at Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire".

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What it says

It says about the castles voted for the spooky place in UK. People said they had felt something spooky such as feeling like being pushed, having cold sensations, hearing muffed voices, seeing unexplained light from the castle, hearing a scream but found no one there, encountering ghostly figures, hearing children's laugh.

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My response 

In my view, I think ghosts can be everywhere not just in UK. And ghosts in each country may be different because of their cultures such as in Thailand, the ghosts are like Thai classical dancer.
I think I have seen the ghost just once, I think It's a ghost but I'm not so sure, it is a girl's black shadow passing through the window, at that time, I was getting an insomnia while being on the bed. But when I saw that shadow, I tried hard to sleep and told myself I must sleep now! It's the only one choice!

Fake new make real harm

What I listened to / read

      I have found a very remarkable topic "How fake news make the real harm". It's really interest me because it's a one of our world's problem. Everyone use social media to contract friends and families , we're also share news or stories but we've no suspecting or doubt about its truth. 

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What it says

       Stephanie Busari met one of the Chibok kidnapped girls who escaped from Boko Haram terrorists successfully.  While the official government of Nigeria and influential persons told her that it's hoax crime .Theses leaded to confusing and delaying efforts to rescue the kidnapped girls.  Stephanie try to explain our social role and responsibilities to verify before sharing information.

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My response 

     We let the influence of social media impact to our life ,  but we have never realized the effect of it. Last week , I saw a video on Youtube. This video showed me how people judged others. The story is about the old rich lady who own the market. She has 2 bodyguards and they always wear in black. This make people think she's heartless and cruel. Even though we don't know the truth , we decide from her outside .

     The kidnapped girls was ignored from their government and some who believe that it's a hoax.

Even if Boko Haram sent the girls' clip ,many people think it's not real. It make me feel disappointed . When we go on our Twitter , Facebook or others social media , we have to ask ourselves  "Is it true? " and "What benefit 'll they get from that ? " . I strongly agree with Stephanie's opinion because this can stop cyberbullying.  

    There're some basic suggestion to self-check before sharing news or information . Firstly, you have to read the domain and URL and make sure that's believable . Next , Look at the comment , Most of Stories's headline often will be written with the intention of being misleading . But if a lot of comments call out the article for being fake , it probably. Lastly, You have to check who said them. Then you can verify a quick Google searching to make sure that the author is creditable. 

No more Michelin's stars for Bra's eatery

What I listened to / read

   While I'm watching "Brunt" , a movie about Chef who attempt to get Michelin's three- star , I just though of some Thai street food cuisine has just got this award. Then , I went on BBC News , searched about the Michelin's star and found an interesting topic named "French chef Bras gives up Michelin stars"

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What it says

   "ํEvery meal that goes out could be inspected" Mr. Bras said.  Mr. Bras is a French chef of Sebastien Bra's Le Suquet restaurant who held Michelin's three - star rating for 18 years . He decided to give up his top's rating after getting a huge pressure of being inspected every year.  He is not the first luxury restaurant chef who bow out his eatery of the stars.

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My response 

      A few week ago, I heard about some Thai eateries received the Michelin's stars . One of interesting cuisine is "Jay-Fai cuisine" which is Thai - street food restaurant. Even though , there no any luxury seats , graven teak tables or air conditioners , the prices of food in is very high.  Jay-Fai , owner and chef ,served her customer with premium grade of seafood and materials. "The price is reasonable and her food is great and that's why my cuisine got this award", she said. 

      At first , I thought Michelin's star is great.There're many benefits to our tourism and economy because this award can persuade foreigners to travel and try Thai food.  Moreover, This award can indicate the skill and deftness of the chef. 

      After reading Mr. Bra's feeling ,  My mind was change. I've never thought about the huge pressure and serious inspection those chef has to face. I imagined myself as an owner of big well-known bakery . Every piece of bread could be evaluated and I don't know when. This lead me feel uncomfortable and unhappy with my work. I prefer the small bakery where I can design and bake my bread freely.

        Working under pressure is good  , this make people more patient and forceful . But, it can lead people feel stressed and then give up .As I'm a senior in university , pressure from studying drives me work harder but it's also make me feel dispirited many times.  The best way to apply pressure to your work is balancing it. Let pressure drives you focus on work but don't let it ruins your feeling.

         

      

Is it time to deep-sleep?

What I listened to / read

It is a day of us to use a lot of brain power and strengthen, but do you really confirm that you got a good sleep last night? the clip named "The brain benefits of deep sleep-- and how to get more of it" by Dan Gartenburg from TED.com will tell you why do we care about it?

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What it says

Dan told us that human need a good sleep to improve brain performances ,in term of long-term memory and personalities, biological marker of youth and reduce the risk from Alzheimer's, cardiovascular diseases, stroke and diabetes. However, there are a research showed that human had slept less than the past for a half and sleep signal also found to be similar to light sleep, rapid eye movement and waking time which have a low frequency and amplitude than deep sleep. So Dan and colleagues tried to develop the deep-sleep stimulation technology by adding delta sound into accessory to improve sleep quality.

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My response 

Throughout life time of human, we use one-third of time to sleep to relax and recover the body and mind from daytime. However, new generations and workers reduce sleep time to do overtime time job or party and hanging-out. Once they go to the bed, they also sleep as light sleep or only rapid eye movement during close their eyelids which are equal to still awake. Naturally, the body could recover and repair itself once you are sleep into deep-sleep stage only. if not, the body will still awake and work leading to reduce brain performance since it worked overload and increase the risk of  pathogenesis of earlier mentioned diseases from cellular stresses during body working. So, we need to go into that stage, but how?

As a scientist, there are a lot of research showing that high quality of sleep consisted of signal with high frequency and amplitude and also the movement like a dynamic of delta wave. This wave characteristic is different from the other three brain waves including waking time light sleep and rapid eye movement of REM. those brain waves displayed the low frequency and amplitude which are correlated the sensitive stage which sensitized to pain, exhausted and other negative feeling. if  those signals appear for long time, there are a research suggesting that it would increase the risk of those diseases and play an important role to increase aging rate of human. it sound like a shock story for adolescence and worker especially woman.

Fortunately, there a lot of way to take us into deep-sleep, but the important key is change your behaviors. Looking on the meal, light diet in evening are important for body to reduce metabolism and let the brain prepare to generate delta wave. Drinking some beverages is a good choice to improve delta wave regeneration like almond milk, hot chocolate or even diluted hot free-sugar green tea since they are had been proved to improve sleep quality. Exercise is also good way to improve dynamic of brain wave. In youtube or any social media, you can find a lot of clip recording the delta waves which can stimulate brain to release the similar characteristic wave to prepare you to deep-sleep. Nevertheless, you are still facing up with sleep apnea, you should to visit the doctor to use the signal clearance technology to clear short sound wave which interrupt your sleep time, and amplify the delta wave. In my thought, those tips can easily make you have a high-quality sleep time enough to fight the next morning. Have a nice deep sleep. 

An unhealthy correlation

What I listened to / read

When I came across "Irish abortion referendum: Vote to be held in May", in the Health section of the BBC News, my immediate reactions suggested it was worth blogging. 

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What it says

The article says that a referendum will be held in May on whether Ireland should end its its almost total constitutional ban on abortion, which results in thousands of Irish women travelling to England and Wales to get the safe, legal abortions that they are denied by the laws of their own country. 

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My response 

The reason for Ireland's near total ban on abortion is perhaps understandable, but it is also wrong. The reason is that people think a foetus is in fact a human being. It is certainly alive, but that cannot be a good reason to kill it, since the pigs and ducks we eat are also alive until we kill them to turn them into tasty pork or cassoulet. As daily eating habits prove, very few human beings actually believe that there is anything sacred about life. But perhaps there is something sacred about human life?

That sounds a bit more plausible, but it's too vague to be helpful, being in need of clarification. The useful question to ask is: What makes human life so special? To avoid charges of prejudice, this question needs to be widened a little to: What makes any life so special that it would be wrong to kill it?

I can think of no answer to this question that would not apply as strongly to a foetus as it does to a pig about to be turned into bacon. A human foetus is not intelligent. It has no more emotional life, social ties or any other quality than a pig has, so any reason given for not killing the foetus must also demand strict vegetarianism.

Actually, I think the clue to the reason some nations still have antiquated abortion laws in 2017 can be seen in the map, which can be read like a graph to show the strong correlation between religion and morally bad law. The most religious nations have the worst abortion laws, supporting the idea enshrined in the excellent US Constitution that religion should be kept out of politics. While they might have good teaching for individual believers, religions cannot be trusted as a foundation for morally good laws for nations, as we see in Ireland, where the Catholic religion has long interfered in public policy to the great harm of women in that country.

Notes on blogging for IELTS

What I read

I read all of your blog posts from the past week. In fact, I read everything you post on our class blog, both the posts and comments on them. 

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What it says

The body of written work is great, and as I read it, a couple of things came several times to mind, which is what prompted me to write this blog post. These things vary from minor formatting details to more important points that are highly relevant to an IELTS test. 

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My response

1. Keeping up with the discussions 

New blog posts

At the top of the right-hand column, there is a box to "Follow the IELTS class blog by email". I suggest you enter your aualc.net email there and submit it. You have to pass a capcha test and confirm your email address, but it means you will get an update on new blog posts by classmates.

Discussion on a post

When you first comment on a post that interests you, you want to follow the subsequent discussion, so it's a good idea to check the "Notify me" box. When  your classmates subsequently add to the discussion, you will get an email advice, which allows to check whether you want reply to the new comment.

• Short slide show on turning on "Notify me"
   

2. Formatting 

First, a couple of notes on format, that is, on what things look like. 

It is easier for readers if each post has the same appearance, if the fonts are the same type, size and colour, and if the same headings divide each post, which also reminds writers of our purposes. The most important suggestion following from this is that you: 

• write in the blog. Don't write in MS Word or some other program and then copy and paste your work into the blog. Do your blogging in your new blog post. 
• You can close and reopen as many times as like until you are happy with your work and ready to click the orange "Publish" button. 
• This avoids the problem of strange fonts and other things that distract readers. 

Another minor formatting point relates to paragraph formatting. 

• In academic and other formal writing, it is usual indent the first line of each paragraph. Whilst this is easy to do in sophisticated word processing programs such as MS Word and Google Docs, it is not easy to do in blogs. Consequently, blogs and similar writing do not normally indent the first lines of paragraphs. And we don't want to. 
• It is enough to press the "Enter" key twice to leave a space between paragraphs. 
• It is not a good idea to get into the bad habit of using space-space-space to move text around. Don't do this.
   
• Academic and similar work is normally left aligned. That is, the lines of a paragraph are even on the left side only, as you can see in this blog post. 

There are a couple of times when you will want to copy and paste from your chosen source, which bring me to the next, and more important, point.
 

3. Rules for copy and paste 

When we write, we do sometimes want to copy and paste something. I  suggest, for example, that you copy and paste in the title of the reading or  listening you have chosen to blog on. And it would be dangerous to try to write in a link rather than to copy and paste it. This sort of copying and pasting is not a problem, although it is good style to write the title of an article in "quotation marks," and as I suggest, also make it a bold link to your chosen source. 

However,  the purpose of writing the summary part of your blog post is to check your own understanding of the ideas by writing them in your own words, so you are unlikely to want to copy and paste the exact words from your source. Further, since your response is what you think, not what someone else thinks, there is normally no need to do more research than the reading or listening you are responding to. 

The danger with copying and pasting is plagiarism. This means "taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own" (Oxford Dictionaries). In other words, plagiarism is stealing, and thieves are punished. One reason for a zero band being given in an IELTS writing test, for example, is when the test taker "writes a totally memorized response" to either writing task 1 or 2 (Writing Task 1 & Writing Task 2). This is because the totally memorized response is not the test taker's own ideas and words answering the question but those of someone else, which is a form of plagiarism. Every good university in the world strictly follows the same policy: the best result of plagiarism is a zero grade. 

But we do want to copy and paste sometimes, and there is a correct way to do this in our writing. The non-negotiable rules are: 

• always put copied and pasted words in "quotation marks." You must tell readers when you quote someone else's words from a source. Every single time. 
• always tell readers where you copied from. Every single time. If you copy someone else's words, honesty requires that you tell your readers where those words came from. 
• To sum up, it is perfectly alright to copy and paste from a source, but you must always put copied and pasted words in quotation marks and your readers must always know from where those copied and pasted words came.
   
• For us, it is generally better not to copy and paste, but to express ideas in your own words. This shows that you have understood the words you read, and can use the idea in a summary or analysis. However, if you really like the way someone else said something, you can copy a short group of words - that is often done in academic work, and is acceptable provided it follows the above rules. 
• A useful strategy here is to write your summary looking only at short notes, not at your original reading or listening. 

4. Time, fluency, playing around 

Our blogging is to practice fluency. It's an opportunity to try out new language, both vocabulary and grammar, in a relaxed way. Fluency is important in the IELTS test, where you have limited time to turn your ideas into smooth, well-organized sentences and paragraphs. I suggest you limit the summary part, which is probably the most challenging part to write well in 100 words or less, to a maximum of 20 minutes. The response part of your blog post is very flexible. I suggest you start writing and keep writing for about 20 minutes, or a little longer if you like. 

And try out the blog tools. If you make an awful mess, you can always delete and start again.