This is where ideas, thoughts and texts of Foreign Languages: English & Spanish's students are to be found.
Comments and suggestions are more than welcome.
Although world peace seems to be unreachable,
especially for a longer period, people around the world wish to live in a
peaceful place that hasn’t even heard the term “war”. To support people’s idea
of peace, the United Nations General Assembly decided to establish the
International Day of Peace in 1981. The main goal of this creation was to
celebrate peace and absence of war. Even in the warzones people still accept
this Day as a reason to ceasefire. Another goal was to commemorate the Day with
the use of education and knowledge of the problems thatoccur through the world .
At first, the Day was meant to be every third
Thursday of September. In 2002 the date was changed and fixed at 21st
day of September. To initiate the day, the Japanese Peace Bell – a gift made
from coins donated by children from around the world (excluding Africa) that
was donated by Japan to the United Nations – is being rung by the UN’s leaders.
The bell itself is one of 50 identical copies of a bell destroyed by a nuclear
bomb in Hiroshima in 1945. Its symbolism is to show people the human cost of
war.
In the morning of 11th September
2001, Kofi Annan the Secretary General of UN gave a speech at the opening of
the UN General Assembly. He reminded us that this was the 20th
anniversary of “a day of world-wide peace and goodwill”. Unfortunately he
wasn’t aware of what was about to happen in a few hours in the same city he
gave the speech at. The famous Twin Towers of New York City collapsed after being
attacked by terrorists.
We as human beings hope that one day we’ll
reach world peace. At the same time we understand that it’s not likely to
happen but as they say hope dies last.
Daniel Tarka, Erasmus student from Poland, and Laura Silva, students at the course in Technical English III, LpRI
Students from LpRI, Technical English III, with whom I have been having classes, will make their contributions to our blog with texts about international days, which I have selected to be discussed in class and developed further in writing.
Please have a look at them and leave your comments.
One of the biggest problems of the modern
world is inequality. Of course, it’s nothing new, as through the ages of
development of humanity and society, there have always been the right and the
“righter”. Is there a solution for it then? Not an easy one and perhaps it’s
quite optimistic to believe that men are able and willing to cooperate on this
particular matter, but it’s worth trying.
Our lives are shaped from their beginning
and, in most cases, there is not much we can do about it. Firstly, when a child
is born it’s being brought up in a certain family, with a certain level of
wealth. This factor already affects one’s future and causes inequality, as
parents’ poverty may cause child’s lack of ambition or turning into the wrong
side of the law. Fortunately, it’s not a rule and some children fight it ambitiously,
what doesn’t change the fact that there’s no such thing as an equal start.
People can achieve equality, but, from the moment they are born, some have to
work and try harder to achieve their goals. It’s just the way it is.
What can be changed is people’s opinion of
other men. Why should poverty or lack of education make them a worse person?
It’s a kind of a vicious circle: one’s parents are poor so in effect one can’t
get a proper education. One can’t get a proper education, that results in having
troubles with finding a well-paid job. And, finally, this, logically thinking,
causes one’s lack of income which may affect his or her offspring. The only way
to change one’s life is to fight for a better future and strive to achieve success, whatever that means. For some it would be
getting to college as the first one of their family, for others finding a
better job than their parents’ and yet for others it would be becoming a
millionaire. As people differ, so do their principles and goals, and that is why
there’s no simple solution, good-for-all. The only thing that can be
recommended to everyone is to believe in oneself and pick two types of goals. Those that are reachable and those more abstract
but still, with a lot of hard work, possible to achieve.
Probably, too much involvement of
governments, such as unemployment benefits may cause laziness of some but
others will take the opportunity to invest in their own future.
What cannot be changed is the problem of
being born “in the wrong place”, that is in a place with less possibilities and
a tougher way to success. It can take years and years until there can be a
change, that’s why various people decide to emigrate, which isn’t always a bad
idea – in some cases it’s inevitable.
Unfortunately, as mentioned before, it’s not
easy at all to reach worldwide equality. Actually, it seems nearly impossible
but everyone should do what they can towards this, very important, goal. It’s
hard to be an optimist but without a positive attitude everything seems tougher.
Daniel Tarka, Erasmus student from Poland at the course in Technical English III, LpRI
