THE SCOOP
Sonoma State American Language Institute (SSALI)
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The Three Main Passions in My Life
by MuhannadA lot of people today have passions for a lot of thing. The passions could be their families, friends and religion. Furthermore, the passions sometimes control people’s lives. In my life, there are three passions which are part of my life. The three passions are: my family, photographs, and my friends.
First, my family is my main passion. I am very lucky because I have a good family. Many people around the world do not have family. My family helps me a lot. When I was a child, my parents were trying to teach me how to respect the other people, good behaviors and to be organized. Moreover, they help me in my school to get good grades. When I graduated from university, they encouraged me to complete my study outside my country. They always hope a good future life for me.
Second, is my photograph hobby. My camera means a lot to me. It is like my friend. I started to use the camera when I was 15 years old. The first camera that I had was a small compact camera. I was very happy with taking pictures. After that, I realized that the compact camera does not give me what I want exactly. Then, I decided to buy a professional camera. With my camera I can say what I want through the pictures. The pictures sometimes have deep feeling. It can be effect on the person who watches it. For example, when you want to send a message to the people about how the poor people live, you can just stand in front of them and talk, but you can do that with one picture that shows how the poor people live.
Finally, my friends are important. I do not think anybody can live without friends even if they do not have real friends their friends could be animals or things. In my life, I have a lot of friends. We usually go together to everything. We meet every week and talk about a lot of things and have a dinner or lunch. I also still remember our trips. I spent a lot of fun time with them. Right now, I miss my friends because I live far away from my country, but the good thing is I communicate with them by chatting programs and I can send my pictures to share with them.
Briefly, these are the passions that are important in my life: my family, my camera and my friends. I cannot imagine myself without any one of them.
What I Have Lived For
by Hyun jung(Jane) koh
If people don’t have passion, life must be boring. Everyone has different goals and reasons for life. It could be family, friends, work or sports. Normally relationships are a good passion for people’s life and that is why people get marry and make friendships. These rules also make my life. I have a desire to make a happy family, to be successful in work and I’m passionate for baseball.
First, the most important thing in my life is a family. I love my parents and sister. When I get in trouble or I’m under the weather, they make me up. Family gives a lot of love, cheers and happiness without any reason. They might be the only people who take care of me without expecting compensation. I always want to be a great daughter for my parents and it makes me challenging. I never think about disappointing my family deeply. This is what I thought, and it is a good passion for my life.
Second, I have a desire to be a successful career woman. I wish I could speak English fluently because I want to work at the international bank. If I were a native speaker, I wouldn’t spend much time studying English. However, I’m not an American and I need to learn English which will bring me many opportunities to get a job. As long as I have this goal, my life will be fruitful. I can keep industrious by myself.
Last, watching baseball is hobby and interest of mine. Sometimes I need a rest to make me refreshed. I love my family and my goal which is being a successful career woman, but sometimes these cause a lot of stress. It makes me depressed and I feel so tired so I need to get rid of my stress and take it easy. Watching baseball is totally satisfying and it gives me plenty of pleasure. I feel lively and energetic when I’m watching baseball especially with beer. For this reason, I can’t live without baseball.
In conclusion, I have three passions which are having a good family, being a success in work and watching baseball. That is why I’ve been living. I hope I keep in mind it and enjoy my life. I’m pretty sure I’m ready.
Memories When I Was a Bad Boy
by Salman AlotaishanSometimes kids act vey wrongly when they are young, because they do not think about the consciousness, First memory I took my brother’s favorite toy and I hid it under my bed. Second memory I remember is playing with the Iron and leaving it on and almost burned the house.
I remember that I took my brother’s favorite toy because I loved it so much and my parents already bought me one but I broke it, so I took his remote control car and played with it a lot and broke it too!, after my brother saw it broken he said who broke it and I told him I am very sorry, but he was not satisfied. So he told my father and my father cut my allowance for the month and bought him another remote control car with my allowance for that month. And I was very sad, but I learned to not play with my brother’s toys anymore.
Second story is, I was playing with the cloth’s iron and acting like it’s a race car and going around the ironing table, after that I had an idea that if the iron is hot it might slide around better, so I plugged in the iron and I started to slide it even more. Once it got hot enough it started to burn the table, so I ran to my mother and told her about the iron and she got to the iron and shut it off, and took my hand and slapped it and told me that I almost burned the house, after that, I got grounded from watching TV or do anything entertaining like playing with toys or anything.
After that I became a good boy and I didn’t do any trouble to my parents and I understood how to be more responsible. And the moral of the story is, always be respectful of other’s belongings and don’t play with the house tools. And always listen to your parents.
Creativity, Hard Work and Go the Extra Mile
by CamiloIf you like to be a passionate person you should to develop three main characteristics. Creativity to solve problems, try to work hard even if you do not like and go the extra mile. Sometimes, this way of life is unusual.
First off all, you should use the opportunity to face problems with creativity. Normally we have some blocks to think creatively. It is hard to explain what exactly creativity means but many researchers say that is the action to bring order to your thoughts.
Sometimes in the daily life we have a lots of problems. In work, at university or our houses. Desperately we try to find a good way to solve our worries and we act without thinking. Usually we find the answer thinking in a traditional way. We are in the box. What about if we use our creativity to try new ways to face the problems?
“The chief enemy of creativity is good sense”, said the artist Pablo Picasso. Many people think that the creativity is only for musicians or artists in general but they could be wrong. Humans use their creativity all the time, trying to solve problems. The big question is: how do I increase my creativity? Maybe you can be inspired by films, books music or everything to imply innovation.
Furthermore, if you like to be successful in your life you must work hard. More than you expect. For example: If you like to earn more money in your current work you should work hard to make the change. One way to increase your earnings could be to study other languages or to try to specialize in one topic that your work needs. It is up to you.
Work harder and more than you normally do. It is not easy. Sometimes it is the long way. So many people invest years trying to increase their knowledge to make a good future. “A dream does not become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work”, explained, Colin Powell, retired general in the United States Army.
Finally, I think that a characteristic to show that you are a passionate person is when you try to go the extra mile. It means to try to do more work than you generally must to do. For example if you are learning a musical instrument you have to invest many hours practicing. You run the extra mile if you practice more hours than the normal average.
You can put this model toward other activities in your life: your home, work, study and even in relationships.
I strongly believe that creativity, hard work and the concept of going the extra mile are characteristics of a passionate person and give you resources to a better life.
My Passions
by Salman
I have many things that I am passionate about, but I will tell you three of them; First, I love to laugh and to take things lightly. second, I love gadgets, for example, I like ipad or smart phones and technology in general Third, I love traveling.
First, I have a strong passion about being happy. because I think if you are serious all the time you will get stressed out and will not be healthy for you; In my humble opinion I would say you only live once, so have fun and try to take it easy on yourself. because if you are a happy person you will live a better life. I have read an article about happy people versus unhappy people, because they did research about it and the results illustrated that: unhappy people usually have heart problems against the happy people that do not have any problems with their body, or mind.
My Second passion I have is my love for technology and gadgets; you might ask why; it has always been a thing to me to see new gadgets and what the technology has reached, and it has always been interesting about where we reached in development, and would technology impact our daily life, furthermore, what does the future brings; I heard that Google is Developing new technology called Google Glasses; They are A special glasses that you can schedule your appointments and many things like browsing your emails and searching things you can look up in google what are “Google glasses”
The third and final thing that i am passionate about is traveling because it is so interesting and very good for yourself because you learn new cultures and you can see new things that you have never seen and get to interact with people from other countries and learn the simple things that they do. For example, like do they prefer tea over coffee or vice versa, and what kind of food is traditional for them and what are the things they like or do not like about their country or city. I think it is very interesting to learn new things from different countries, like I learned that for korean people you never write a person’s name with a red pen because they write dead people’s names in red; therefore, they do not like their names in red.
These are my passions. And I will try my best to travel the world and learn as many things as I can and see where the technology would take us; you never know what tomorrow brings. And always remember to have fun in your life and do not be serious all the time.
What I Have Lived For
by Krzysztof LewandowskiEveryone has passions or something that is very important for us during the life. Having passions, priorities or beliefs help us to make progress in developing of our personalities, and can help us survive the most dangerous and difficult moments in our lives. My three priorities are having a faith, having wisdom of life, and to be honest; give me a joy, satisfaction and hope.
First, only really faith in God gives me hope that after death I will have life in heaven. Moreover, the faith helps me survive difficulties that every human being has plenty of in life. The faith is something which gives me strength and hope to overcome my own and earthly difficulties. Without the faith, my life will have been without a sense.
Second, it is very important to have wisdom of life because thanks for her I am able recognize many things in my life. I think about the things and situations that I am not able to learn even at the best universities. This kind of wisdom gives me a great experience in contact with people, who in this temporary world are not always honest and biased in favor of me. Moreover, the wisdom of life allows me to avoid the kind of people who only pretend to be my friend. I am very grateful to my parents because they thought me about wisdom of life, and gave me the ability to use it in my own life.
Third, being honest in this crazy world is not easy, but it can give satisfaction and feeling that I live or did something according to my principles. To be honest I know that I would never hurt others. I am aware that being honest could be not acceptable by many people who do not want to live honestly; however, I do not get discouraged by it.
These are my three principles that I live by, and I am not going to change them.
My Passions
by Zhipeng ZengAn important passion for me has to be strong, profound, or important. Emotion is the most powerful and strong thing we have. Sometimes, passion makes people happy, but it can make people sad. Also, emotion is basic that supports people to do anything they want. There are three passions that are mine love with my girlfriend, my friendship with my best friends, and my family.
I enjoy being in love. Love makes my life be greater, happiness, and hopeful. When I met my girlfriend, I had a big different feeling for her. The feeling was my eyes are open, I can see something I never saw before I met her. I felt she is so important for me. I cannot explain where is it come from, but I can know the love was so strong, and I felt so happy and ecstasy. I think love is the most powerful and strong emotion.
Second, I really like to spend a lot of time with my best friends. I don’t have so many friends like other people do. But, all my friends are my best friends. We have better relationship between each other, and the newest one of my friends has been my friend for over six years. Friendship is very helpful when I have bad feeling, or when I get in trouble. I always think friendship is the most important passion in my life.
The last major emotion for me is family love. Parents are who gave me life, and who gave me a chance to visit the world, to meet my girlfriend, and to meet my best friends. Parents stay in front of you to protect you, or they will stay behind you to watch you enjoy your life. They will help you when you have any problem in any time. The love of parents never leaves my mind.
These are the most important passions that I care about in my whole life. I love my girlfriend so deep, I like my best friends so much, and I love my parents all the time.
My Three Passions
by TayHave you ever had a passion for anything? The passions make people very active, happy, and loving. My three favorites passions, are to play a game, eat food, and take a trip to some other countries.
First, when I play a game, that makes me very ecstatic, on the other hand the video game makes people very unhealthy and feel badly. Playing a game is good for me, but some people who can not control themselves to play a game that make people unhappy and loneliness. For example, the games are very attractive to young children who have to have a relationship with friends and study. For those reasons, I believe people who have to control themselves also to have more relationship with other people.
In addition, eating good food makes me quite happy and ecstatic. There are a lot of good foods in the world. Likewise, what kind of food makes you happy and passionate? The eating good food can make you quit passionate when you are sad or down.
Furthermore, going on a trip makes people passionate in daily life, and when I go on a trip, I will become very attractive and passionate to do everything. Nevertheless, some people cannot have a passion in the trip because some people can’t be interested about going on trip. However, most people who go on a trip make people very attractive and passionate.
In conclusion, I strongly believe that my favorite passions make me ecstatic, active, attractive and happy to be alive.
MY PASSION
bySulaiman alrebdi
I have three passions, first about religion, second for my family, and for friends, all these are important to me, and the meaning of my life.
First, I have passion about religion because it gives meaning to life, in Islam there is freedom and democracy, I think it’s a solution for every time and place.
solution for politics and economics, about justice between the weak and the strong, about the preservation of rights, about respect of other religions .
Second, I have passion about family. They support me in my life, in study, in choices for my life, and they care about my future. Because all that I love them, and I miss them every moment, and I feel suffering every day.
What Are the Benefits of Being Bilingual?
Shawn Wang
In this global village, we will suffer from a large number of challenges and competitions form other countries. What should we do? Pretend to ignore it? Or reply on our parents forever? I think these two resolutions are absolutely wrong. In my opinion, the basic ability for me is to be bilingual, especially, because I am from an island country. There are two reasons why I think it is important. The reasons are getting a good job and communicating with people who come from different countries.
In this global village, learning a second language has became the basic ability for everyone. So that is why, employers, in my country, consider the condition that people who can speak a second language to be the most important standard. That is to say, employers think young people don’t have enough ability to take the job. So, how can we overcome this situation? It is very obvious that we have to learn more knowledge and the most important thing is being an bilingual. The reason is that if you can speak a second language, there will be no abstraction for you to communicate with those people from different country. Furthermore, you will have more opportunities to be promoted in your company.
Communication is the second benefit of being bilingual and no one can doubt that English is the language that people should learn first. There are two reasons that I consider English the most important. Firstly, We always can see plenty of news or knowledge from the internet or television. And lots of them are being translated to English. Secondly, we can't avoid communicating with people who come from different countries such as when I stay with my home family, I must speaking English all the time, or when I study in SSALI, I should speak English to other people. In conclusion, you can't expect others to understand your language and neither do them.
As a consequence, for the purpose of getting good job and communicating, we should try to learn a second language to enhance our basic competition; however, in my opinion, being bilingual will be not enough in the future, so we must learn and study hard to get ready for the future. Not only English but other popular languages such as Japanese, Spanish etc are also important.
Should We Use Cell Phones When Driving?
Krzysztof Lewandowski
We live in a very modern world. Different achievements of modern technology can help us to make our daily life easier, but sometimes these things are used inappropriately, and in consequence, it could be dangerous. In my opinion, as well as the majority of specialists, people should not use cell phones when driving for two reasons. Predominantly, it can be the reason of a lot of accidents and of high cost for all society.
First, it has been proven by specialists that talking on the cell phone during driving reduces driver’s concentration and ability to fast reaction. The driver can’t concentrate enough on the traffic, lights, and other motorists, pedestrians or cyclists. The driver can’t control his car sufficiently and its surroundings because he or she is talking on a cell phone. According to police and different organizations, which care about safe driving, it is impossible to drive well and use a cell phone at the same time. Fortunately, in many countries and regions like California, using cell phones during driving is prohibited, and drivers who break this law pay a penalty. Moreover, driver distraction by mobile phones and other electronic devices cause 25 percent of car accidents in the United States. This survey was conducted by the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA). GHSA has analyzed more than 350 scientific papers published since 2000. They show that half of the drivers using cell phones are not able to maintain sufficient vigilance during driving. Accidents, which result from such a distraction, cause both minor injuries and death. Especially dangerous is texting while driving.
Second, accidents caused by drivers using cell phones during driving, are a huge cost for all society to pay. If drivers, who use cell phones during driving, realized how dangerous it is, they would never do this. In these kinds of accidents a lot of people die; many victims who survived are permanently disabled; not to mention about psychological damage. Every year national or state budget pays millions of dollars for treatment of victims of car accidents, the culprit, and other traffic participants. Moreover, it is impossible to count moral and psychological losses among victim’s families.
To summarize, the problem of using cell phones during driving is very extensive. However, we have irrefutable evidence that drivers who use cell phones during driving are very dangerous; they are culprits of a lot of accidents, very often fatal; and they generate a lot of moral, psychological and financial costs for all society. Nobody, through inappropriate use of different devices like cell phones during driving, should endanger or kill other people. The different authorities can improve the law on this issue, but everything depends on responsible drivers who should turn off their cell phones and turn on their own brains during driving.
Using Twitter to Improve Your English
Camilo Garcia
If you have a Twitter account you can use it for many purposes in your trip to understand another language. You can increase your vocabulary, ask questions about daily life to your partners, and it can help you stay connected with your family.
Twitter is not other social networking service like a Facebook or technological services like a sms, email or chat. It has many differences even different forms to use.
Why and how you can increase your vocabulary using Twitter?. It is a good question. First of all, Twitter is a conversation in real time. It means that you need some vocabulary to follow what happened. If you do not have a special word you never can use Twitter in a good way. For that reason you have the obligation to learn new vocabulary.
If you use Twitter you can follow only the information that you like. For example, if you like soccer you should profile like @Fifamedia or magazines like @fourfourtwo. If you want to understand everything that they write you have to look some words that you do not understand.
Besides Twitter can help us to understand and practice English. For example, I like a musician called Diane Birch (@DianeBirch). When I followed your profile I can not understand anything but I worked to understand. One day I decided to talk with her and I was wondering because she talked with my in Twitter. One reason more to develop good skills in English.
You can follow special accounts to learn English. For example @bbcle they shares all day high quality publications or games to learn English.
However, learn English is not the only way to use Twitter. You can use to connect with friends in SSALI. Do you know if your friends have a Twitter account?. Had you forgotten your homework and do not have the telephone number of one of your classmates?. Twitter can help you. Ask her o him in your Twitter account. It is easy, fast and you can do it when you need.
Even, you can use to connect with your family. Ask them to share information in Twitter. You can publish photos and your family can see what around you in real time.
Many people think that use social media is like waste time. I do not think so. If you use you can understand how interesting and useful in your daily life. You can ask, using for funny, stay connect with your family even learn other languages.
I think that use Twitter is one resource to develop good skills in English.
Bilingual
Zhipeng, Zeng
Language is the most important skill in the world. Since a child will begin to study speak in one year old, so we can see the position of language in our life. Now, the world is developing so fast. One language is not enough for people to live, so a lot of counties have second language class in the school. Who have two languages is call bilingual. Now, let’s talk about why it is important to have two languages, and what the benefits of bilingual.
First, we talk about why bilingual is important for people. In physically, study second language will help our brain think fast, make our mind have good reaction for language, and it also improve our communication with others. For example, a person who have two languages, when he try to fix a problem or think an ideal, he will fast than others who just have one language. That happened because when people study and use two languages, our mind have to do the transfer between the two languages, even is hard when we study it. But, our mind is keep to improve the speed of thinking. So, that will be the good basic for us to think other things. That is how it important for people in physically.
Next, let’s think about the benefits for have two languages. As we know, the most popular language is English, and we can use it in anywhere in the world. So, English fix our problem that is how to make a communication with different counties and different cultures. Because most people can speak English, so when we travel to somewhere, make a business in different culture, and when we discuss some international situation between two governments, to understand what people want to show is very important. So, English fix this problem. People can use English to talk about anything if the one who you are talking to knows English.
Bilingual is a good choice to have, some parents let their children start to study second language the children just few years old. Because if the children study early, they can grow up their brain early, that will very helpful for their future life. Have two languages is become the basic skill for people, and it has a lot of benefits. To study second language is the most important thing I want to do now.
International Students
Tae Hyun Kim
America has a lot of students who are from other countries and want to live in America. They really like to study in America which has good universities and good environments for students, but the first time to come to America is very difficult. Also, the first impression of America is hard and uncomfortable to live in. America can make people lonely, and they can get homesick very easily. So, there are two solutions to correct these problems: make American friends, and take trips to good places.
First, most international students are very shy, that will make them to be uncomfortable in the USA. So, they have to change mine, and make American friends that will help you to not be shy. For example, when I came to study in the USA, it was quite hard and difficult to make American friends because I was different with them and I was quite shy; even I didn’t know their cultures or languages. However, I changed my mind because I wanted to make a lot of friends that are American and international students, and I was thinking about my future friends that will be international friends. Therefore, people who have to change to make American friends or change their personality to not be shy.
Second, America has a lot of good places to travel, which have good views and help people to be happy and feel comfortable. Usually, the good trips make people feel quite nice, so when the international students come to study in the USA that will be their first time to come to the USA, which mean, America is quite a strange place for them and that will not help to them to live comfortably in the USA. However, the students should go to trip to good places and be happy if the students are not comfortable here.
Finally, the making American friends and taking to trip to good places make international students quite comfortable and happy to live in USA also that will be good experiences for them who are first come to study or live in America.