Survival of The Smartest

The world have changed a lot in the last years and it has never been easier to buy food. There are supermarkets and grocery stores in every street and in every corner you turn. These types of stores provide you with everything you need from fresh meat to diet food; it is all right there in front of you. Most families shop for groceries weekly, they have too. Maybe because the dog food  ran out or they need more ingredients to prepare tomorrow's lunch.We always find a reason to visit the store. However most of the times we do not even pay that much attention to the product itself. We are easily deceived by illustrative pictures of farms and farmers which induces us to think that the product is indeed fresh. If I wanted to buy a jar of butter I would eventually look for the one that costs less. We never get to look at the nutrition facts label. Even though we know we should be eating healthy food we evaluate each product by their price and appearance.

2010 mcdonald's. all rights reserved

 Yesterday on my way home I drove by a Burger King restaurant and bought a spicy chicken sandwich and a small sized French fries. I was really hungry and all I wanted at the moment was a tasty food that would not take a lot of time preparing and would not cost me a lot of money since I only had 5 dollars in my pocket.

The truth is that people no longer care about where their food comes from or how it is produced. We just care about the price and the taste. The food demand increases every day and the food companies have to find their ways  to provide the country with enough supplies. How can you feed a country with over 309 million people? what does it take to produce thus amount of food so that every family will be efficiently provided with enough food every day? 

What a cruelty

It is somewhat funny how occidental people tend to rush on the Japanese because they hunt dolphins and whales. Are we not doing the same with chickens and cows? these animals are hold by meat companies from the day they are dropped off until the day that they are slaughtered. Chickens have been redesigned so that they will grow bigger and faster and because of that they can no longer walk. We raise these animals just to kill and eat them at the end. Most people do not actually know where the meat they eat everyday comes from. The question is: we do not know or we do not want to know? I do not think that the companies should take all the blame for our ignorance. Do you ever ask yourself where all these food you eat everyday comes from? I never did and probably neither did you. The big companies do not want us to know the truth about the food's origins indeed but we could not care less.

http://gal.darkervision.com/2008/01/

I do not know if humans have the right to kill other animals. I do not know if there is another way to do things. But I am pretty sure that it will be extremely hard for me to eat chicken again.

Word It Up

Initiate Struggle

It had always been hard for me to express my feelings. Convert my opinions and ideas into words felt like the most difficult challenge I had been through.

Depressed Boy on Wall by DepressionProject

Growing up I was always the quiet little boy of the group. The children in my neighborhood used to get together in front of Merinito Plaza and have the longest discussions about the most diverse subjects. Even though I had endless comments to add to the argument; I rarely opened my mouth. Blaming it on my timidity, I believed it was a temporary thing. However as time went on and I got older, the same expression issues remained. I remember once in Third Grade the teacher asked us to write a short essay about what we had done over the past weekend. While my classmates were writing about how much fun they had had at the local fair or how spectacular it was to visit the zoo with their older siblings, I made a drawing of my Dad and my Uncle fishing. That was the only way I found to describe the mental pictures I was having. Obviously my grade was not so high on that specific assignment. Indeed, that weekend I did go fishing on Luzia Island with my Dad and my uncle Felix. I sure enjoyed the journey but how could I put my excitement in words. That was always the big issue.                    

Will school help me?

My Teachers would always say “Joao, don't worry about it, you are still a child and you are not a professional writer."
In Middle school they would give us suggestions and examples of how a well written essay should look like. We would read all kind of books from Romantic Novels to Old English Poems. In High school they supplied us with strategies and techniques that could help us improve our writing. Nevertheless I was not writing nor speaking fluently. Getting to college you realize that everything they have taught you in the previews years is not enough which means that you are not actually ready to the college writing not so ever. In fact I believe I have written more in these two first weeks of college than in my whole senior year of high school.

Reaching for

So what if they asked me to write the same short essay about last weekend's journey. Would I be able to express myself effectively?
Well, after reading chapter 3 of Axelrod and Cooper's Concise to Writing I became aware of the steps I should take if I were willing to write a profile. I learned that description is extremely important in writing and that if I wanted the readers to get my point I would have to provide specific details of the place. I was there, I witnessed everything but the readers were not; they do not know how deep is the ocean or how grassy are the mountains in Luzia Island unless I tell them so. As a writer I must be able to put into words the description of everything I had seen and how I felt about them. According to what I read on Description of People and Places (Axelrod and Cooper 2010, 72) the evocation of the senses is a great way to describe people or places. If I wanted to write a sentence describing the feelings and sensations of the walk I took across the island it would be somewhat similar to…

Sunset on the Malaysian island of Borneo. Angela7dreams photo. CY.C-B

 "The noise of the gusty wind touching the loose stones conjoined with the breathtaking sunset made me shiver as I climbed the sloppy mountain…"




  

Self-Injection

Why do we write?

why do we read?

Everybody has their own reasons In my case I read because it helps me escape from the world and its cruelty It takes me away from any problem I'm facing at the moment. The reason why I write is because that's is the easiest way I find to let others know how wonderful my imaginary world is. I can reach perfection with my imagination and writing is the best way to share it.

When you start writing it feels like the first day of school, you know you will be okay but still the scariness takes control over you. At least that is the way I feel when I'm about to start writing an essay. I always find it difficult to write what I think or how I feel about something because every time I reread my words I end up eventually shortening it out or changing some ideas. It's like I'm seeking for perfection but still can't find my way through there. Maybe the books I've read are the real causes of this feeling, you can't possibly feel satisfied with your description of love after you read Diana Gabaldon's Outlander or Nicholas Sparks' Dear John. That's how I'm influenced by what I read, even though I think a line about a specific theme is good, deep down I know that someone has written one better and has gone a step farther than I.

The books you read not only influences your opinion about certain subjects but it can gets to the point that It will change your way of thinking. Writing gives you the power to control other people's mind in some way, Its like a football game in which the writer is playing attack and the reader is defending. As a writer you have to find your means to penetrate your ideas into the readers mind, and to do so you need to know your audience. It is essential for a writer to determine exactly to what type of audience his book appeals.

It's not easy to write everybody knows that, the difference between a person who finds it arduous and painful and someone who enjoys doing it, is in the effort. If you are willing to be successful you have to try hard and do your best, go beyond your limits or what you've set as your limit, surpass it it.

" In a very real sense, the writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself..."

-Alfred Kazin

People usually write about what they know and think, they express their opinion through writing but sometimes you only get to know how you really feel about something after you have written about it. And that's how writing helps you get to know yourself. It's really hard to put our feeling and ideas in words, because most of the times our ideas and feelings are not so lucid. Practicing your writing and reading other people's writing until you feel comfortable sharing your feelings is the right path to take.


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"You are what you read...You only read what interests you and what interests you is what makes you who you are"

-Joao Ballesteros