FRIENDSHIP

      A dictionary contains a definition of friendship somewhere in the F’s between the words “fear” and “Friday.” An encyclopedia supplies interesting facts on friendship. But all the definitions and facts do not convey what friendship is really all about. It cannot be understood through words or exaggerations. The only way to understand friendship is through experience. It is an experience that involves all the senses.

      Friendship can be seen. It is seen in an old couple sitting in the park holding hands. It is the way they touch, a touch as light as a leaf floating in the autumn air, a touch so strong that years of living could not pull them apart. Friendship is seen in a child freely sharing the last cookie. It is the small arm over the shoulder of another as they walk on the playground. Seeing friendship is not casual. It is watching for subtlety, but friendship is there for eyes that can see.

      Friendship can be heard. It is heard in the words of two friends who squeezed in lunch together on an extremely busy day. It is the way they talk to each other, not the words. Their tone is unique. Friendship can be heard by those willing to listen.

      Friendship is felt in a touch. It is a pat on the back from a teammate, a high five between classes, the slimy, wet kiss from the family dog. It’s a touch that reassures that someone is there, someone who cares. The touch communicates more than words or gestures. It is instantly understood and speaks volumes beyond the point of contact, to the heart.

      Friendship has a taste. It tastes like homemade bread, the ingredients all measured and planned, then carefully mixed and kneaded, then the quiet waiting as the dough rises. Hot from the oven, the bread tastes more than the sum of its ingredients. There is something else there, perhaps the thoughts of the baker as her hands knead the dough, or her patience as she waits for the dough to rise. Unseen and unmeasured, this is the ingredient that makes the difference. Warm, fresh from the oven with a little butter, the difference you taste is friendship.

      Friendship has a smell. It smells like the slightly burnt cookies your brother made especially for you. It smells like your home when stepping into it after being away for a long time. It smells like a sandbox or a sweaty gym. Friendship has a variety of smells. Taken for granted at the moment, they define the memory of friendship.

      Finally, more than the other senses, friendship is an experience of the heart. It is the language of the heart—a language without words, vowels, or consonants; a language that, whether seen, felt, heard, or tasted, is understood by the heart. Like air fills the lungs, friendship fills the heart, allowing us to experience the best life has to offer: a friend.

Video Reflection 4: The Hangover

The Hangover is a 2009 American comedy film directed by Todd Phillips and written by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. The film stars Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Heather Graham, Justin Bartha and Jeffrey Tambor. The Hangover tells the story of Phil Wenneck, Stu Price and Alan Garner, who travel to Las Vegas, Nevada for a bachelor party to celebrate Doug Billings' impending marriage to Tracy Garner. However, after being drugged with roofies, Phil, Stu and Alan have no memory of the previous night's events and must find Doug before the wedding can occur.

Lucas and Moore wrote the script after executive producer Chris Bender's friend disappeared and had a large bill after being sent to a strip club. Lucas and Moore sold it to the studio for $2 million, Philips and Jeremy Garelick rewrote the script to include a tiger as well as a subplot involving a baby and a police cruiser, and also including boxer Mike Tyson. Filming took place in Nevada for 15 days, and during filming, the three main actors established a friendship between them.

The Hangover was released on June 5, 2009, becoming a critical and commercial success. It became the tenth highest-grossing film of 2009, with a worldwide gross of over US$467 million. Critics praised the film's comedic approach but criticized it for its vulgarity. The film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, and received multiple other accolades. A sequel, The Hangover Part II, was released in 2011.

Video Reflection 4: Inception

Inception is a 2010 science fiction action heist film which was written, co-produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan. The film features an international ensemble cast starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Dileep Rao, Tom Berenger, and Michael Caine. DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, a specialised corporate spy and thief. His work consists of secretly extracting valuable commercial information from the unconscious minds of his targets while they are asleep and dreaming. Wanted for murder and unable to visit his children, Cobb is offered a chance to regain his old life as payment for a task considered to be impossible: "inception", the implantation of an original idea into a target's subconscious.

Development began roughly nine years before Inception was released. In 2001, Nolan wrote an 80-page treatment about dream stealers, and presented the idea to Warner Bros. The story was originally envisioned as a horror film inspired by concepts of lucid dreaming and dream incubation. Feeling he needed to have more experience with large-scale films, Nolan opted to work on Batman Begins (2005), The Prestige (2006), and The Dark Knight (2008). He spent six months polishing the script for Inception before Warner Bros. purchased it in February 2009. Filming spanned six countries and four continents, beginning in Tokyo on June 19, 2009, and finishing in Canada in late November of the same year.

Inception was officially budgeted at $160 million, a cost that was split between Warner Bros and Legendary Pictures. Nolan's reputation and success with The Dark Knight helped secure the film's $100 million in advertising expenditure, with most of the publicity involving viral marketing. Inception premiered in London on July 8, 2010, and was released in both conventional and IMAX theaters on July 16, 2010. A box office success, Inception has grossed over $800 million worldwide and is currently one of the highest-grossing films of all time. The home video market also had strong results, with $68 million in DVD sales.

Inception received wide critical acclaim, with numerous critics praising it for its originality, cast, score, and visual effects. The film received eight Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score and Best Art Direction and won the awards for Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing and Best Cinematography.

Video Reflection 3

In this video the narrator is a professor  who is fighting  against pancreatic cancer. He is giving his last lecture in Carnegie Mellon University about his experiences and life. The reason for choosing this video is that when I listened this video  two weeks ago I was very excited because he gives vital lessons about life. He says that he has several months to live and he has three little kids. At the beginning, I thought that he would speak about death after that I realised that the speech is not about death he is talking about life’s  joyfulness and worthless of things to which we give a lot of importance throughout our lives. He talks about his childhood dreams such as being a football player and being a member of Disneyland. The section of the video which effected me most is the statement of him “It’s just a thing!.” Lastly, at the end of the video he says that to be succesful in your life you should always say the truth and you should know how to apologise and explains the reason for his speech, his three little children. 

Pollution

Have you ever thought about how you pollute the Mother Nature? For instance, according to research of Wikipedia; a British family produces 300 kilos of waste in a year. That means we lose sand which is approximately Cyprus side every year. However, despite reading it at the moment; nobody will care about the world, about the future. Nobody thinks that there is a tiny line between the destruction of our world from the humanity, and also this line is recycling.

The pollution is a serious problem and we can make the earth breathing by being careful. Nevertheless we have to know the kinds of pollution.

1. Air Pollution

2. Water Pollution

3. Earth Pollution

Initially, air pollution is the most important kind of pollution and this will be discussed in this essay. Because people can live without food for a week, they can live without water about two minutes; however, nobody can live without air for a minute. That is why air pollution should be taken seriously. Alas, the air which we are breathing every day is just a mix of pesticides, exhaust smoke and some harmful compounds with carbon. That can be a reason for consequential diseases in the future. For prevent these situations, recycle should be done at the first place. Because when individuals try to produce new stuff, the factories mix the air with carbon dioxide. But the recycling makes the factories less usable so the air mixes with less carbon dioxide. Secondly, many can prefer public service vehicles like bus or minibus to the private cars. Thus, air can be kept in clean. And lastly, people can plant trees to prevent the air pollution. According to a newspaper, if a person plant five trees every year, the air will be getting clearer and cleaner.

Taking all of them into consideration, it is clear that we have an important problem. However, that is not an unsolvable thing. If we take it serious, we can succeed .And I believe the humanity by my heart that we can save the world from pollution and we can make it more liveable.

THE DESIRE TO GIVE UP SMOKING

Smoking dates way back in early times. It was used for medical purposes, but Europeans adopted the drug and decided to advertise it,day by day. Smoking have become a natural habitat for people recently. Because of this big change, governments have adopt a lot of measures such as conferences, grostesque pictures on the packets, price increase of the cigarettes, but these precautions usually aren’t effective for give up the cigarettes. Although people know that cigarette is harmful on their bodies, they continue smoking. For break up cigarette, you should want really. Unless you want to give up cigarette, none of the measure from the outside aren’t effective.
You can try all of the tactics of back out of cigarette. Because of your choosing about whether to start smoking or not, giving up the cigarette is your choice, too. As long as you don’t want to forsake smoking, you don’t interest with grotesque pictures of cancerous tumours and the health effects of tobacco on the packets. Only you decide to forsake smoking and success it just one day like Allen Carr. Allan Carr was dependent on cigarette but one day he wanted give up and that time he turned over a new leaf without cigarette. In that, this is the most important thing for forsake smoking.
Governments and authorities try to help to people about the give cigarette with their measures. For example; Australian government completely banned logos and branding on packets of cigarettes and changed colour of packets with olive green. Another example; in Turkey, government authorities have banned smoking in indoor places. They think that these are effective for give up.
Although government authorities think that these precautions are useful, people smoking more than prior. Moreover, tobacco companies raise their advertisement against the government’s measure. So, these measures aren’t considered by people. They still smoking. In that, as long as people don’t want to give up, any of the measure from outside can’t convince. These are worthless. One person who want to smoke don’t give thought to neither pictures of the cigarette packets nor allocution of the conference.
Finally, governments should abdicate introducing bans on smoking attractive. Their precautions are just in the abstract. They should know that they can’t make people leave cigarettes with law or pictures. Instead of this, they should boost them psychologically and they should take a strong interest one by one. Of course, this application have to free. On the other hand, they have to ban producing the cigarettes and completely.

How to Prepare for Exams

Exams are the key points of lessons at school. They are nightmares for most of the students. Because of this, you should prepare for them very well. Preparing is a long term study and it consists of three stages.

Preparing for exams starts in the lesson. Firstly, you should be careful about attendance and not miss the courses. Not to have a problem with your teacher and not to disturb your friends, you should come to class on time. Not to come to class, do not try to find an excuse or something to avoid going to lesson. Secondly, listen to your teacher carefully during the lesson. Ask questions while listening if you do not understand something related to the topic. Just focus on the lesson, do not talk to your friends about something irrelevant to the lesson. Thirdly, take notes during the lesson. While taking notes, do not write everything. Write your notes in plain, they should be understandable. If you miss any courses or a part of a lesson, get information and notes from your friends.

Second part of preparing for exams is related to arrangement before studying. Firstly, be ready mentally. Believe in yourself and do not be pessimistic or desperate. Be determined to study. Have self-confidence and think that you are not different from the others. Secondly, find a suitable place to study. The place should be quiet. Also, the place should be comfortable and not disturb you in terms of everything. Third, prepare your materials before studying. Take everything necessary with you. Arrange a timetable and do everything one after the other.

Last part of preparing for exam is about making rules and obeying them during studying. First, avoid the things that causes you lose your attention. Do not take your mobile phone with you, for example. Do not listen to music or watch TV while studying. Secondly, use your time efficiently. Arrange an effective timetable and stick to it while studying. Instead of having breaks whenever you feel like it, have your breaks according to timetable. Do not eat or drink anything while studying. Third, try to do your best every time. Think positively and be optimistic. Do not give up studying before finishing the necessary things. When you finish, review them for ten minutes and stop studying.

In conclusion, preparing for exams is difficult term. You should do everything one after the other. This term is composed of three stages; in the lesson, before studying and during studying. You should always be planned and do everything on time.