Advertisement Can be Deceiving

Advertising can Influence Consumers to Buy What They Don’t Need

            I admit that advertising can influence consumers to buy what they don’t need. In my case, I do really love gadgets. I always try to get a new gadget that is still hot in the market. Sometimes, when I’m already getting bored of the gadget, I won’t use it again. It’s just my curiosity to try a new gadget that drives me to buy it. But after a month, I start to neglect it.

            The first gadget I bought at that time was iPod nano. Well, you know it’s an mp3 player that has a stylish design. But, do I really need it? I mean, if I want to play mp3 or music files, I think my cell phone is more than enough. But, because of the hypnotize from the advertisement, I tend to buy it. Not a long time after I bought my iPod nano, a new model came out. This time it was iPod Touch, which was served us with a lot of new features such as touch screen, Wi-Fi, etc. And then, I saw the advertisement on TV.

            I admit that advertising can influence consumers to buy what they don’t need. Just like what I’ve done. I had an iPod nano, but I want the iPod Touch. If we try to think further, what is the basic function of the iPod? It’s just to play mp3/music files right? But, again, because of the great advertisement of iPod Touch, it hypnotized me to buy it. The new features looked really cool and I just felt like I wanted to hold it in my hand. And then I bought it. It made me being a consumerism.

            The first few weeks, I was really satisfied with the iPod. This was really a cool gadget. But several weeks later, I started getting bored to it. It’s already the time that I would neglect this thing. I just used it for about a month and I already got bored. I realized that I’ve just been hypnotized by the ads and now I regret it. I thought I could use the money for a better purpose.

            Because of the advertising, we could waste our money to buy the product instead of primary needs. According to my experience, when I have a great sum of money in my hand, it’s really dangerous for me. Why? Because when I look at the ads, I started to think to use the money to buy the product on the TV. Not long ago, when I had a great sum of money in my hand actually to pay college fees, I was almost hypnotized to buy playstation3 because of the ads. Can you imagine if I use that money to buy playstation3? I won’t be here in class for today...

            Well, in the end, it depends on the people to protect themselves from such desires to buy things they don’t need. If you can carefully select the things that you really need to buy, you will not be regretting it. I know it’d be hard to avoid the desires to buy things from the ads, but if we’ve already become a consumerism person, it would lead us to being poor.

How to Break a Bad Habit Like Smoking (Effective Writing)

How to Break a Bad Habit Like Smoking

            Is it hard to break your bad habit? Have you even tried to break it? Well, if you haven’t tried anything, you should start it from now. A bad habit comes from our daily activities. We do it again and again so that it becomes a habit. Of course it’s the bad one, the name itself is self-explanatory. For example like smoking. You aware that smoking is not good for your health, but you keep on doing it.

            First thing first, you have to understand how bad your habit is. You have to learn what effect could come if you keep on doing the bad habit. Once you realize that your habit is not good, you will start to abandon it. A bad habit only brings temporary happiness, while the bad effect will last longer. When you are smoking, you only feel the joy. But several years later, you might be suffered from serious diseases because of smoking. The effects of smoking are greater risk of heart disease, stroke, and lung cancer

            Secondly, when you suddenly want to do the habit, you have to change your focus in mind. Try to think of other positive things that could attract you rather than smoking. For example, if you are alone and you don’t know what to do. Then, you start to think about smoking. You have to do something else that will benefit you more than smoking. Maybe you can do sport, or you can study and doing your homework.

Last but not least, a good community will help you. Making friends won’t hurt you. On the other hand, they can give you a hand in the right time when you need it. It would be better to spend your time by socializing with your friends. When you are hanging around with your friends, you can minimize your bad habit because you don’t want to look annoyed in front of your friends, right? Well, of course with your non-smoking friends.

            So, it is up to you whether you want to change your bad habit or not. It depends on how strong your will is. Well, there is nothing impossible if you try harder and never complain.

Outline

I.                    Intro

What is a bad habit especially smoking and how to break it.

II.                  Body

A.      Understanding the effects of the bad habit especially smoking

-          Greater risk of heart disease

-          Stroke

-          Lung Cancer

B.      Mind set – Avoid smoking

-          Focus on other things that could attract you and forget about smoking

-          Try to do something rather than nothing

C.      Keep in touch with friends

-          Being with friends, you’ll minimize your bad habit since you don’t want to look annoyed.

III.                Conclusion

The key to change our habit is located in our heart. It depends on how strong our will is.

Percy Jackson (Literature analysis)

Literature, Percy Jackson Chapter 11-20

Percy, Anabeth, and Tyson were saved by Clarisse from the hydra attack, and after that they joined with Clarisse in her ship, CSS Birmingham. However, Clarisse always denied Annabeth proposal to join forces, she claimed that she could do everything in her own. That Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson were only on her way. While on the ship, Percy had a kind of weird dream again about Grover. In his dream, he was shown the location of the Golden Fleece.  On their journey to the sea of monster, they had to face Charybdis and Scylla first. Percy told Clarisse to sail around them, but Clarisse’s head just as hard as rock. She wouldn’t listen to what Percy said. Because of that, they were sucked in a whirlpool which was made by Charybdis. Not only they took the wrong path, but also there was a mechanical problem on the ship. Tyson offered to repair the mechanical problem. While Tyson repairing the engine problem, the situation on the ship got worse. Percy, Annabeth, and Clarisse were told to go out from the ship because it was going to blow up. When the ship was blown, they managed to survive. However, they didn’t certain whether Tyson was dead or not.

After Percy and Annabeth woke up in the rowboat, they feel regret and uneasy about Tyson. They had made a wrong perception about Tyson up until now. Percy Asked Annabeth about the prophecy. Percy heard from Annabeth that the child of the three main Gods (Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades) who will reach 16 could be a good or a bad thing for Olympus. They would be blessed by a great power on that time. They managed to get survive into an island. Not long before they landed, they found a weird place, it’s a spa. Without thinking further, they came to the spa. They learned that the owner of that spa was C.C, a beautiful woman who has a strange charisma. They got deceived by C.C appearance. C.C asked Percy to drink a kind of strawberry milkshake drink to change his appearance. But after drinking that thing, Percy was changed into a guinea pig. When Annabeth found out the truth, she tried to save Percy. Annabeth give the multivitamin to Percy, and he turned to normal again. They managed to escape using the Queen Anne’s Revenge.

On their journey, Annabeth told Percy everything about Cyclops. She hated Cyclops because it was related with Thalia’s death. At night, Percy had a weird dream again. But this time it’s not about Grover. He dreamt about Kronos who gave him some kind of warnings. After that Annabeth woke Percy up. Annabeth asked Percy that she wanted to hear the sirens. Percy put a candle wax to cover his ears. He tied Annabeth to a pole. When Annabeth had already gone, Percy pulled Annabeth back to the ship. Later, he found what is Annabeth desired. Annabeth feel shy when Percy knew that she always think that she’s better than anyone. Finally, they reached the Cyclops Island.

When they’re already landed, they saw a golden fleece. It was hanging on the tree in the middle of the island. They thought that there was nothing dangerous around it. There were only sheeps around it, but later on they realized that the sheeps were actually a kind of piranhas. They surely would eat up everything except Cyclops. When they look back, they saw another lifeboat which was Clarisse’s. They decided to reach it. And then, they found Grover with Clarisse. Percy and Annabeth made a plan to get the Golden Fleece, but Clarisse against it. Because of her, Polyphemus found out that Grover was not a female Cyclops, but he was a satyr. After that, He got really angry and wanted to cook Grover. He decided to marry Clarisse instead. Polyphemus took Grover and Clarisse to his hideout, and Percy and Annabeth sneaked from behind. They had a fight with the Polyphemus in the cave. Annabeth got seriously injured.

They all ran from the cave, trying to escape as Polyphemus chased them behind. In the middle of their fight, Percy took his sword and he was about to stab polyphemus eyes. But suddenly a shadow of Tyson made him feel hard to stab that Cyclops. Polyphemus began to trick Percy by begging him mercy. When Percy fell on his trap, he began to attack Percy. But suddenly Tyson came. He threw a big rock to Polyphemus as he wanted to eat Percy. Percy got really surprised that his younger brother still alive. While Polyphemus still unconscious, Percy asked Tyson to get the fleece. Since Tyson was a Cyclops, he can easily face the sheeps. When Tyson managed to get the fleece, and then annabeth was cured, they went back to the ship.  They thought that they already free, that Polyphemus wouldn’t chase them. But they’re wrong.

Polyphemus said that Tyson was a traitor, and he threw many boulders to us and one of the boulders hit us and make our ship drown to the water. When Polyphemus thought that he had already won, Tyson called Rainbow, hippocampus that had saved him before. With the help of hippocampuses, they managed to survive from the island. They rode the hippocampuses and escaped from the island with fleece on their hand.

The hippocampuses brought them to Miami and it was all the hippocampus could do for them. After several small talks and discussions they realized that there was only one day left to save Thalia’s tree. After several fights between Annabeth and Clarisse, finally Clarisse told them about the prophecy. When Percy known about it, he let Clarisse to take the fleece back to the camp so that she could finish her quest. After Clarisse gone, Luke came and asked them about where the Golden Fleece is. When they were in Princess Andromeda discussing about the Golden Fleece, Percy got an idea. He throws a gold drachma to the pool so that he can make a contact with the people in the half blood camp. And somehow he could trick Luke to reveal his own motives. He revealed himself that he’s the one who poisoned thalia’s tree.

When Luke tried to chase Clarisse, Percy tried to stop him by fighting him one on one. It turned out that Percy totally lost. Luke is very tough to be beaten up. After some small talks, Percy found out that Luke was chasing the Golden Fleece to make Kronos recovery faster and the reason why he poisoned the thalia’s three. It was to take the other demigods on his side. Suddenly Chiron was coming with other centaurs to save Percy and the others. The centaurs fought Luke and the sailors and they managed to take control of the ship. And then the ship reached the downtown street of Miami. After that Chiron planned to take Percy and his friends back to the camp. Along the way to the camp, Percy asked Chiron about the prophecy. During the conversation, Percy found out the reason why Chiron was not fully trusted by others and why he’s accused as the one who poisoned Thalia’s tree, it was because he’s the son of Kronos.

Finally they are on the half blood camp. Everything just went back to normal like there was nothing happened before. The Thalia’s tree had already recovered because of the Golden Fleece. Chiron held another chariot race again. Percy, Annabeth and Tyson were in the same team. When night came, Hermes came again. He gave something to Percy. It was a mail for Percy from Poseidon, his legitimate father. Percy opened it, and the content was just two words, “Brace Yourself”. Percy didn’t really get what it means. The next morning, Percy, Annabeth and Tyson had the chariot race. Because of teamwork they managed to win the race. In the end, Percy really proud of his brother, Tyson.

After all of the hardships, everything had back to normal. Percy’s mom told him that he could stay at the camp until next year. On the other hand, Tyson was invited into Poseidon Palace for an internship. Percy dreamt about Kronos again and it’s something really disturbing. In the following day, Grover woke him up and told him that something serious had happened. It was about the Golden Fleece. The Golden Fleece had done something greater than just healing. It’s Talia, alive in human body not in tree form again.

Note:

1.       C.C : a beautiful woman who has a kind of strange charisma. She was the owner of the Spa.

2.       Sheep of Cyclops island : a sheep who acts like piranha. They eat everything that is not cyclops

Random Acts of Kindness

Random Acts of Kindness

Random act of kindness is an action performed by a person or persons wishing to either assist or cheer up an individual because they want to make other people smile or happy. There is no exact reason why people do it. For me, it is a good thing to do since I believe that doing good things to other people will bring you happiness. Because in my religion, we are taught to be a good person who always care for others. And I believe that someday a good thing will come to me too. In this assignment, I will tell you about  three random acts of kindness that I have done.

Back then, as I was driving home my car from the market on a particularly cold and windy day, I met this poor beggar. She’s an old lady with messy appearance and patches clothes. Suddenly my heart throbbed; I wondered to myself “Does she not have any families?” She looked so dirty like she never takes a bath for a whole year. Then I tried to reach her, without thinking any longer, I grabbed some money from my pocket and I give it to her. Well, I knew it’s not much, but I hoped it would be useful for her. She smiled and then she said thanks to me. I felt really happy, and I never thought before that such amount of money was really precious for other people.

The second act, as I came home, I stopped by to the nearest “Padang” restaurant, and I bought some rice box with chicken. Then I drove my car again, wishing that I would meet another beggar. I think that it would be great if I could do random act of kindness to those who really need it. In this case, I thought beggars were the best choice. As I drove, I had to stop because the traffic light was red. I stopped my car for a while, and suddenly a disable middle aged man approached me. He extended his hand, asking for some money. Since I’ve already prepared a rice box, I grabbed the rice box in my backseat and then I gave it to him. He really looked happy, and a big smile illustrated in his face. He said thanks a lot, and he prayed to God that I would be a successful person in the future. I smiled and then I left him to continue my journey to find another target of my random acts of kindness.

The last beggar I found on the road was near my home. I still have one left of rice box. As I crossed a bridge near my home, I found a woman carrying her baby. Well, just like another beggar, she looked messy, dirty, and she used patches clothes too. I stopped for a moment, I opened the window and then I called her. I didn’t directly call her, but I just move my hand in a way that she would understand it. Then she approached me. I asked her whether she and her baby already have lunch or not. She said that she have not eaten any rice since this morning. Without asking any further, I gave her the last rice box. At first, she asked me what the content of the box is. Then, I said to her that this was a box of lunch. She surprised, and then she asked again if this box was for her. She looked really happy. She said thanks and I just smiled to her. I drove again, and finally I was at home and started to write down my three random acts of kindness in my room.

My Campus

My Campus

            I am an English Department student. I study at UPH, Lippo Karawaci. Every day is always the same. As soon as I enter the gate, a man wearing a white uniform and a dark blue trouser is checking my bag. It is to make sure that I don’t bring anything suspicious. After he checked my bag, then I may pass. My classroom located in B Building. So after the front gate I take some path leading to B Building. In the front desk at B Building, a security woman greets me. Sometimes for the girls, she is looked annoying. She will check if the girls using a proper clothes or not.

            When I enter B Building, the first thing I can see is people selling snacks. I can feel the cold air from the air conditioner when I take a breath. Then I head towards the main entrance full of students who are queuing for the elevator. I take some time there, waiting the elevator to be available for me. After several minutes, I get my turns too. As soon as I Enter the elevator, I push the “5” button, because my classroom is in the 5^th floor. Another person presses the “3”, so before we get to the 5^th floor, we stop at the 3^rd floor first.

            As I get to the 5^th floor, I can see empty scenery along the hall. Probably because I am late, all of the students are already in their own classroom. Sometimes when I am alone, the freezing air from the AC chills me. I looked back several times to make sure that’s nobody around. I walk away quickly to my classroom. Well, at least in my classroom I can feel more lively. That’s what I always think. My classroom is not too far from the elevator, so I can reach it in no time.

            After several steps, I can see a door with a “525” written on it. Ok, this is my classroom. I can peer through the glass material on the door. Looks like my teacher is giving her lectures for today. I knock on the door, and I open it. I give a smile to the teacher, and I walk through to find my chair. I can see a small grumble in my teacher’s face. Well, it’s because I am late. My classroom is not too big. It fits for a whole class. The students who are sitting in the front row always pay attention seriously. While the back row always noisy with chat here and there. Well, I guess I’m in the right place. This is my lovely classroom.

           

Bad Experience

Experience is The Best Teacher

            Few years ago when I was a kid, my mother asked me to go to a department store with her. I was around three years old at that time. I felt very happy because I would go to a department store and maybe I could buy some new toys. I didn’t think that at that time I would have some unforgettable experience, a bloody one.

            As we arrived at the department store, my mom held my hand so that I wouldn’t get lost. We stopped by at some stores just for sight-seeing. After we had enough sight-seeing in the first floor, my mother decided to go to the second floor. On the second floor, we could find clothes for adults and children. We used the escalator to reach the second floor. When we had already reached the second floor, suddenly my mom’s friend passed by. My mom greeted her and they had a chit-chat together.

            When my mom had a conversation with her friend, I saw another kids playing around the escalator. They put their hand on the hand’s place of the escalator until it almost reached the end. I felt excited and I wanted to play it too. My mom warned me not to do that because it was quite dangerous. But I couldn’t hold it anymore, I wanted to play like the others too. When my mom focused on her friend, I soon put my hand on the black rubber things on the escalator. At first I felt really fun because when my hand would slip at the edge I put my hand off. My adrenaline reached its limit.  Suddenly because I was too excited with the game, I forgot to put off my hand when it reached the edge. My hand slipped because my hand was very small at that time. I was surprise and it was really damn hurt. I cried as loud as I can so that my mom would notice it. As soon as my mom saw me, she ran to me and pulled my left hand out from the escalator. But the force of the escalator machine was just too strong. Many people saw us and they tried to help us.

            Luckily, not a long time from that accident, a security guy appeared. He turned off the escalator and now my mom and I could pull of my left hand. My left hand was seriously injured. I lost some of my hand outer skin. There was blood all over my left hand. I cried aloud. My mom got panicked as she saw a lot of blood coming through my hand. Then, the security guy gave us a box of band-aid. It was really a terrible experience I’d ever had. I regret that I didn’t listen to my mom. She had warned me before but I was just too stubborn. I wished I could turn back time.

Journal 1

I started to learn English when I was in Primary 3. At that time, I was quite confused because I didn’t have any basic knowledge about English. Even though I was so blind in English, I find it fun to learn English. Maybe because the teacher was also very kind and she always supported me. She also gave me a recommended place to take an English course.

            In my school, all of my classmates were also newbies in English. It made me a bit happy, because I thought I was not the only one that left behind. The classroom atmosphere at that time was just so so. There was not much decoration and other eye-catchy stuffs. I was having fun when I studied because the lesson was really interactive. It’s not only about hearing the teacher’s speech, but also sometimes there were some kind of games.

            In the early days, I used to learn in different styles. When the teacher taught me about the Basic English Grammar, I thought it was more like behavioristic paradigm. Because at that time, I focused on publicly observable responses. The lesson can be objectively perceived, recorded, and measured. In cognitive way, my teacher was kind of scary. But that motivated me to learn harder because I didn’t want to get scolded. Meanwhile, in constructivist perspectives, I interacted with my teachers and friends by communicating in English.

            At that time, my teacher’s teaching method was a bit old school. She taught me in a strict way. She used a kind of psychology method to affect the students. In one way, I tended to learn harder because I didn’t want to get scolded. On the other hand, It gave me a negative effect too. I became passive because I was too scared to even ask a simple question to the teacher.

Journal 2

Just like I told you before in my first journal, I’ve learned English since I was in primary 3. At that time I was a bit frustrated because suddenly I have to catch up with my friends who have already learned it since primary 1. In fact, I didn’t find any difficulties when learning English. In some cases, I find that learning English is very fun. As I learned English, I think sometimes I can guess what is the meaning of some particular words without even looking at the dictionary. And I thought that my listening skills have improved. Even when I don’t know the words yet, but I can predict the which letters should I use when the teacher dictated me. Maybe that was the language acquisition I got because I was getting used to English.

Well, about my English class, I think I have various types of classes. They’re not only focused more on the forms of language, but also the functions of language. For example, when I was in my primary school, the teacher taught me more about the basic English grammar. It’s like no day without tenses. She taught me about the tenses step by step. When I was in my senior high school, the lesson was more interactive. It’s not only about doing works that are given by the teacher, but we are asked to be more active in class discussion. Therefore, the students used English as the medium of communication among them. Sometimes, we held a presentation and of course we used English as the medium. And then some students would ask a question, and we tried to answer it in English.

I used to take an English course besides my English class at school. In my English course, the teachers were native speakers. In some point, I could understand what they’re talking about. Even though at that time, I felt like their pronunciations were a bit different because of their accent, but I could understand what they’re talking about. So, Little by little, I tried to imitate their accent. How they pronounce words, accent and other stuffs that are native like. It really helped me and I found that my English become more fluent. Not only in speaking, but also in listening.

In my opinion, children learn their first language from their environments. They acquire it naturally by imitating, and repeating again and again. Usually, they learn it from their nuclear family. The parents, who are always be there for them every day, are the main source of their language acquisition. The first thing that children do is imitating how their parents speak. So, that they acquire it directly from the parents. And they become to getting use to it because they always repeat the same words again and again. Children motoric systems somehow are more sensitive than adults. That’s why they can learn language faster in terms of speaking (fluent) rather than adults. But of course, adults are more advance in grammar.

Journal 5

According to the book in this chapter, there are five kinds of learning styles. They are Field independence/Dependence (FI/D), Left and Right Brain Functioning, Ambiguity Tolerance, Reflectivity and Impulsivity, Visual and Auditory Styles. In my case, I believe that my left brain functioning and visual styles are my dominances. It is simply because in terms of thinking, I think I’m more into intellectual rather than intuitive and I respond more to verbal instructions and explanations rather than illustrated or symbolic instructions. And also in learning activities, I find that it’s easier for me to study when I can visualize the lesson. I love when the teacher gives us a kind of presentation and I don’t know why I feel like I’m more understandable If I see the presentation slide rather than listening to the explanation. Well, for me this two styles are the most dominant learning styles that really affect me.

            I think the most distracting tendency inside me is my laziness. Why? It is because when I want to do something (eg. Homework or assignment) and then I don’t get enough motivation to do it, and the due date of the assignment is near, I will get really depressed because I haven’t done anything. So, I need to do some specific things to motivate myself to suppress my laziness. First of all, I need to divide my daily activities into such a balance condition. Time to play and time to work/study have to be put in balance. Because if It’s not in a balance state, I will get exhausted due to the overtime in doing one activity. So, it’s like I need to have enough rest after doing some self-study. And then I need to be proportional in managing my play time. Therefore, when I study I can do it fully concentrated because I have got enough rest and refreshing time.

            By looking from the Learning Styles Checklist on page 136, I realize that I need to emphasize more in terms of trying out new words and structures. Even though I know how important it is, sometimes I find it hard to start it. That’s why I need to get more motivation to improve my English. In my opinion, sometimes by watching western movies, it motivates me to learn English. Because I want to understand about what the actors are talking about. Also in listening to the music, sometimes I search the lyrics on the internet, and if there are some words that I don’t know the meaning about, I’ll look for it in the dictionary. That’s how I improve my English.

            On the table 5.2, I usually use the point number one (I don’t mind if people laugh at me when I speak). This is really helpful because if I shy automatically I won’t continue learning English. But, when I make mistakes I’ll try to correct it the next time I have the chance to speak. In point 3, I also think that I feel very confident in my ability to succeed in learning English. This optimism brings me a good motivation to keep learning English. I think in the near future I need to continue learning language outside of the classroom. I realize that this is also important because if we only use English in the classroom, how long will it take to get fluent in English? So, as far as I can I try to keep practicing even outside the classroom by using English in a situation outside classroom that has a possibility for me to use it. I also need to analyze more details in my speaking and grammar, so that I’ll understand exactly what is said and what is written.

            So far, the communication strategies that have been used by me are Build self-confidence, develop intrinsic motivation, and practice intuition. In this term, my self-confidence is like a shield that protects me and keeps me continuing my English study. Once I lose my self-confidence, I don’t thing I can improve my English. It’s like when you try to speak and then you’ve made several mistakes, you’ll get shy. This shyness is actually a thing that you need to suppress. That’s why I think building self-confidence is really important. The other strategies are to develop intrinsic motivation. By having a great deal of motivation in learning English, it encourages me to keep studying even outside the classroom. This brings a good benefit for me, because I always try to emphasize my English no matter where I am as long as it’s possible. I will have a lot of practices which are very good to improve my English. Another strategy is about practice intuition. For example, when I read a book and then there are some vocabularies that I don’t get the meaning, I’ll try to use my intuition to guess the meaning, of course by considering the information given on the passage.

            Based on my experience about my previous teacher, I think all of them using a various kinds of strategies. For example, my senior high school English Teacher always gave a presentation using a visually equipments (projector, etc). It helps me a lot in learning, because I can see clearly what I’m learning about. Another example, my primary teacher taught me how to be discipline in arranging my own study. Both of them were using the different methods, but I think it’s really effective. They also encourage me with a good motivation so that I won’t stop learning English.