Sunday, April 19, 2009

"He Who Pays the Piper Calls the Tune" by Ersin (Turkey)

One day Hodja Nasreddin was going to the bazaar. Some of the children ordered pipes from Hodja. Hodja said to them, “Yes, sure.” But just one of them gave him money for this order. Hodja came to the village at night. All of the children who had ordered pipes were waiting for Hodja. When Hodja came to the village, the children came up to Hodja and asked for their orders. Hodja drew a pipe out of his pocket and gave it to the child who had paid his money in advance. The others asked for their pipes, “Where are our pipes?” Hodja gave a short and concise answer to them, “He who pays the piper calls the tune.”

Thursday, April 16, 2009

"Samera's Reward" by Tariq (K.S.A.)

There was an architect Samera, and he was intelligent. The president of his country told him to design his new house. Samera designed a smart model for the new president’s house, and when he designed, he made one block if you push it, the house would collapse. After Samera had finished the house, he was with the president on the new house roof, and told him about the secret. In addition, the president asked him if there is any one know that secret. Samera answered that there is no one know about this secret except him and the president. Suddenly, the president pushed Samera from the roof and Samera got killed, so the people always said “Samera Reward.”

Friday, April 10, 2009

"There Is a Free Meal at UCF" by Christina (China)

Although it is usually said that there is no free meal in the world, as a foreign student who studies English as a second language at CMMS, there are some methods to learn English FOR FREE!

As a part of my Academic Presentations class, I went to several lectures at UCF. Those lectures can be found on the UCF website under the section of “Campus Events.” Some of the lectures are open to all the UCF students or even those who are not students, but there are some where you may need to sign up. For example, I am interested in the American point of view of Chinese culture, so I participated in a lecture held by UCF alumni, “A Highly Civilized Country--3000 Years of Inventing China.” The professor is a Chinese historian and has spent over 20 years in China to study the culture there.

The lecture lasted an hour and covered one third of the five-thousand-year Chinese history. He spoke at a pretty fast speed with a bunch of unfamiliar vocabulary words for me in politics and economics. Yet, his PowerPoint slides and some other visual aids like handouts helped me a lot to understand his lecture even better.

However, my favorite part of the lecture was when the audience asked him some questions about the new president’s attitude towards the two counties, the United States and China. It was a really lively talk. I felt that all the audience was involved in the lecture and enjoyed what he had said.

It was a good way to practice my listening because the speaker was not a teacher who taught English as a second language. In addition, I realized that English was actually a tool to understand the cultural in a different way. After the lecture, there were some snacks for the speaker and the audience, so they could continue the topic in a friendly environment. That was really a free meal!

Learning English at CMMS in the classrooms is not the only way to improve your English skill. Those native English speakers are just a few steps outside the classroom around the campus. That is the real place where the language is used, and to take part in the real world with using English is why we study English so hard here. Try to move out of the classroom and you will find more opportunities to improve your English!

"The Peasant's Dream" by Elchin (Azerbaijan)

Once upon a time, there was a peasant who lived in a village. He had only a small hut and a hen. One time the villager who was poor and jobless decided to sell his eggs in a bazaar. He collected all of the eggs and went on his way to the bazaar. He arrived there, and he put the eggs in front of him to sell. For one moment he began to dream of the future. He was talking to himself, “After selling the eggs, I will buy a kid (goat). Then I will feed it. It will grow up. After it grows up, I will sell it and buy a calf. I will raise cattle and begin to trade in livestock. Then I will become a rich merchant. The king will hear about me, and he will request that I marry his daughter, but I will decline his suggestion. When he goes down on his knee and begs me to do it, I will kick him with my foot on his chin.” When the peasant kicked, he wrecked all of the eggs. He returned without any benefit.

American moral: Don’t count all your chickens before they are hatched.

Azerbaijan moral: Don’t say opp! Before jumping over a ditch (or hole), “opp!” is what you say before you jump over something.

"The Grasshopper and the Ant" by Lea (Brazil)

Once an ant worked hard from sunrise to sunset building his burrow and accumulating supplies for the long winter that approached.

The grasshopper saw that and he thought, “That idiot! We can sing some songs and dance awhile.”

And the whole time he spent laughing heartily, singing and dancing. Then all summer the grasshopper spent having a wonderful time while the ant continued working harder and harder.

When the winter arrived, while the ant was warm and well-fed, the grasshopper had neither shelter nor food and went to the ant’s house and asked, “Can I have some wheat or any food? Without it, I will starve.”

“You danced last summer,” said the ants in disgust. “You can continue to dance.” And they gave him no food. Then he died.

Moral: Work hard! Be sensible and responsible because there is a time to work and a time to play.

"Eukaryotic vs. Prokaryotic Cells: A Scientific Exercise in Comparison/Contrast" by Latifa (Algeria)

The cell is the structural and functional unit of all known living organisms and the smallest as well. There are two types of cells: Eukaryotic, animal cells and prokaryotic, bacteria. The human body is full of eukaryotic cells, aggregated in tissues and specialized as well giving a large variety of organs and specialized as well giving a large variety of organs with a particular function. The prokaryotic cells particularly proliferate in group of cells that are usually named a colony. There exist some similarities and dissimilarities between these two kids of cells.

In fact, when pointing to the similarities, both prokaryotic and eukaryotic are living organisms. They share a membrane. A kind of protecting coat that envelopes the cell. The membrane separates the interior from the exterior and regulates what moves in and out, such as microscopic rubbish. Inside this membrane, we have a salty cytoplasm that makes up most of the cell volume. Cytoplasm is like a liquid where many internal organits are kept in place. It allows some specific movements of molecules from the central factory which is of course the nucleus to the frontier of the cell protected by the membrane. The last and also most important similarity is that both eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells possess DNA, hereditary material of genes, and RNA, containing the information necessary to build various proteins, such as enzymes.

However, knowing that these two cells exist differently and evolve in different bio-environments, therefore, we can easily integrate the fact that they are dissimilar in some points. First of all, prokaryotic cells are usually independent, being that everyone cell provides its own nutrition supporting itself to survive and evolve in the environment. In contrast, the Eukaryotic cells are often found in multi-cellular organisms. They have to be part of an organ which is also involved in an organism giving us a whole functional structure. For example, cardiac cells build up the heart tissue structure which is involved in the human being organism. An eukaryotic cell put in bacterial environment will soon decline and die. Secondly, most prokaryotes have a rigid cell wall reinforcing their structure. This wall is particularly helpful regarding all the dangers the cell encounters in its hostile environment. Like toxins and viruses. In eukaryotic cells, we do have a cell wall exceptionally in plants. Another point is that the eukaryotic cells are about ten times the size of typical prokaryotes and can be as much as 1000 times greater in volume. The last and most important aspect that makes these two living worlds so dissimilar is in fact their DNA organization. The eukaryotic type is organized in one or more linear molecules called chromosomes. The chromosomal DNA is stored in the cell’s nucleus, separated from the cytoplasm by a membrane. However, prokaryotic chromosome is usually a circular internal molecule without a real membrane.

Evidences of dissimilarity between these two kinds of cells make studies among them more interesting and even more useful, especially because of the large variety of functionalities related to each one. Both eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells are subject to numerous types of research in bimolecular laboratories throughout the world. The desire is to find out the equation of life that they still keep hidden somewhere between the nucleus and the structure of their microscopic bodies.