520R - Journal #5

Grameen Bank

Before the text we read in the academic reading class, I didn’t know Grameen Bank. That’s why, I did some research on it. I read some articles and searched its website. I am really fascinated by Grammen Bank’s work. Therefore, I want to share it with you.

Muhammad Yunus who is the founder of Grameen Bank was teaching at a university in Bangladesh. When his country became independent, he decided to help to rebuild his county. The situation was very bad in the country, and people were almost dying of hunger. One day, he met a woman who was making bamboo stools. She told him that she was earning two pennies U.S. each day. She also said that she didn’t have enough money to buy bamboos for the stools, so she had to buy them from a trader, and the trader made her to sell the bamboo stools at that price that he wanted. That’s why, the woman could not earn enough money for herself and her family. She needed only 20 cents to buy bamboos. Yunus was shocked when he heard this, and couldn’t believe that people were suffering for 20 cents. Then, he decided to find other people that needed that kind of money. He lend hem the money they needed. There were 42 people, and the total money they needed was 27 dollars. This incident took him to create Grameen Bank.

Grameen Bank is a bank that exceeds banking facilities to the poor. It provides credits to the poor without collateral, and creates opportunities for self-employment. The banking system is based on trust; there are no legal procedures. This bank is targeted more to the woman, because Muhammad Yunus believes that the output is greater if they give loans to women. He thinks that women are more concerned about their family, their children and their situation. All loans have to be paid back weekly, but sometimes it can spread over a year if they can’t pay back. The bank’s mission is to fight poverty. It helps the poor to develop their socio-economic conditions.

Grameen Bank evaluates its member’s socio-economic conditions every year. The bank searches if the families live in a house, if family members drink pure water, if all children in the family go to school, if they have clothes for every day use, warm clothes for winter, if they can eat meals three times a day, and if they can take care of their health. Today, Grameen Bank has 7.6 million borrowers and gives services in 83,000 villages. This year, the bank will give more than half a billion dollars as loans. 65 percent of the borrowers managed to improve their socio-economic conditions. Muhammad Yunus states that poverty is not created by the poor. It is created by the institutions and policies. We have to change the policies and institutions to fight the poverty. Charity is no help for the poor. It only makes poverty to continue. We have to create institutions to help them. As a result, Muhammad Yunus believes that the Grammen type programs can improve the socio-economic conditions of poor. In this way we can fight against poverty. His biggest aim is to create a poverty-free world.

I hope this will come true one day, and the big difference between people's socio-economic conditions will disappear. There are about 1.3 billion people in the world who suffer from extreme poverty,so it is not easy to solve this problem. I am happy that Muhammad Yunus shows everybody that we can break through the wall of poverty, and that the poor can be successful.

520R - Journal #4

Computer Games and Children

I think in the future, children won’t know how enjoyable it is to play outside for hours. Nowadays, one of the greatest entertainments for children is playing computer games.

I read some articles about the negative effects of computer games on children. One of the articles showed that boys play computer games 13 hours a week, and girls 5 hours a week. Another research showed that the two most preferred categories of computer games are fantasy violence games and sports games which involve violent subthemes. In addition, the articles stated that children who frequently play computer games have serious psychological, social and physical problems. They have communication difficulties with their parents and their friends. Those children behave in an aggressive way and they become less sensitive. They are also unsuccessful at school.

I read a boy’s story. He was 15 years old, and he was playing Worlds of Warcraft 10 to 12 hours every day. His parents tried to put limit to control him, but he couldn’t stop playing. He had to go to psychotherapies for a long time until he could quit playing computer games. Then, he replaced computer games by social activities.

Moreover, the Wall Street Journal reported that several companies are now designing computer games for preschoolers. You can see that those companies don’t care about children. I’m sure they know all the negative effects of computer games, but the only important thing for them is money.

In conclusion, I think that computer playing habit is a serious problem. Parents have an important role to play. They should be more attentive to their children. They should try to show that there are more enjoyable activities they can do.

520R - Journal #3

Basic Cell Phone Etiquette Rules People Break

We have been using cell phones for a long time, but we still haven’t figured out how to use cell phones in public !

There are many basic cell phone rules of etiquette which people still can’t seem to follow. Talking too loudly, holding inappropriate conversations in public, interrupting conversations, checking phone at the movies, texting while driving, texting small talk, disturbing people in live performances, libraries, and loud and annoying ringtones are some of them.
I can’t understand why people need to shout while they’re talking on their cell phone. They disturb and annoy everyone. They also forget that they’re in public and not in their private space. They talk about their private things which everyone hears.

Cell phones also interrupt our conversation. Suddenly, the person who you are talking with answers a call and you wait for a long time until he/she ends his/her conversation on the cell phone. This is really frustrating.

You can still hear cell phones ringing in libraries, in live performances, in movie theaters, etc. There are people who can’t quit checking their calls and text messages in movie theatres. The light of the cell phone is really interruptive in the dark movie theatre.

Cell phones cause a lot of car accidents every year, but drivers insist on texting while driving. Texting by cell phone has also created a knew kind of language which is called text speaking. I think that text speaking is laziness and it can sometimes be rude.

As you can see, there are so many cell phone rules of etiquette which people don’t follow. I hope one day, we will learn where and how to use cell phones.

520R - Journal #2

The Creative Brain

Author: Ned Herrmann

Ordinary people think creative people are awesome. In fact, everybody has creative abilities but people block their creativity by themselves because they don’t want to take risks and do something wrong.

All human beings are able to be creative, it’s innate. We don’t need to be a genius. Just a solution to a mundane problem can be creative. Our creativity can always be reaccessed.

There are three keys to creativity: Understand the creative process and its parts and how the four steps of knowing occur at each part. Understand what obstructs each step at each part. Try to increase creative awareness all the time.

Creativity’s source is brain. Creativity involves both invention and action. Ideas can come very fast but action can take a long time. Ideas can come out of only one part of the brain but action needs mental capabilities in all parts of our brain. Action can involve some different steps while ideas can come in a second.

Graham Wallas described four stages for creativity process. The first stage is preparation stage where we define the problem, search for solutions. The second stage is incubation stage. We just leave the problem and let our minds rest. The third stage is illumination stage. At this stage ideas arise. The last stage is verification. At this stage we search whether the idea achieves to solve the problem or not.

The key to living creatively is passion. Children’s passion and curiosity is the source of their creativity. We can re-learn a lot of things from children. Passionate people are enthusiastic, energetic and much more creative.

About me...

Hello,

I'm Sinem and I come from Turkey. I'm 23 years old. I studied Advertising and PR at university in Turkey. I'm very happy to be in Vancouver and at UBC.
See you,

Sinem

520R - Journal #1

Everyone Can Be Creative

Most of the people think creativity is the work of genius. But creativity is part of human’s nature and everyone can be creative. I read an article which experts discussed creativity . The article is “Let Your Creativity Soar”. The main idea of the article is that everybody can be creative.

This article interested me because I studied advertising and public relations at university. My major was concernd with creativity. Professors at university taught us that creativity comes when you really try to be creative. You need to work on. When you believe that you can be creative , when you diverse your knowledge and when you’re aware of your social environment you’ll see that you can be creative. The more interesting and diverse the things around you , the more interesting and creative your ideas become. There’re some techniques which helps you to be creative. For example, brainstorming is a good technique. We did brainstorming about every topic, brands, advertisements, current events etc. at university. It really helped to develop our perspective and of course creativity.

The experts who wrote the article say that many people are afraid of new ideas. They think they have no time for creativity. But creative process in individuals is orderly every moment in time. They need to pay attention to their thoughts and capture them. There are also some exercises to boost creativity. Creativity is teachable. Nirmal Verma who is a celebrated Indian writer says “Creativity is a matter of regular hard work and not inspiration. There's nothing glorifying about it. It's 99 per cent perspiration."

Creativity is not a talent. I believe tahat everyone has potential to be creative . They should try. They’ll feel happier, more independent and they will be self- reliant.