In universities' FLE departments, literature courses should be compulsory as they are very important for students. FLE department students will be teachers in the near future, and as it is taught in educational sciences lessons, one of the most critical features of effective teachers is general culture which is mostly provided by literature. Literature is not about only reading a poem or a novel and make comments about them or memorizing some poets or authors, their birthdays or their lives... It's about understanding what they are saying and using them in our lives, it's about having different points of view and widening our horizons. So we can not do this by reading on our own as some people suggest.
Those people who doesn't want to take these lessons also say that they don't like these lessons, they find them boring and hard.. I think this idea is nonsense as nobody told them that university will always be enjoyable and easy. Everything has a price and if we want something, we should pay for it just like we have to endure these difficulties and work hard if we want to be successful as teachers.

Euthanasia

Euthanasia is morally and ..... incorrect, thus it should be forbidden. Euthanasia is doctor-controlled-killing process, and I think there's nothing that can make killing legal and acceptable.
Some people say that euthanasia should be legal because there can be some people who can not find enough money to continue the treatment of their ill relatives(because of high cost of hospital and medicines) and instead of not being able to help them or watching them suffer and die slowly, they prefer them die in a painless way. Do you really think that this is right? I think this is just laziness... There are charities that give economical support to people in such situations, and governments usually give some financial help.
Another thing is that, they say "another reason is that the family suffers". Just because the families suffer and they get upset and tired from taking care of an ill person doesn't mean that it's necessary to kill them. This reason is very selfish as it's the families' and relatives' duty, responsibility to take care of them, anyway.
The last reason is that they say there's no chance of recovery. At this point I want to ask whether these people have ever read a newspaper or watched news, because there are thousands of people who recoverd from a so-called-incurable illness. And there's no way to know for sure who's going to die or live. So it's meaningless to kill someone with the help of doctors and medicines and making it legal as there's no reasonable explanation to make it right.

It's a fact that we travel a lot in our lives for different reasons, for pleasure or business or school or etc. And for our travel, one of the things about which we think hard is the question "How we should go there?". Bus and plane are the most given answers to this questions, but which one is better?
Both bus and plane has their own advantages and disadvantages. For example plane is faster, helps us save time, it's more comfortable, enables us to sleep and doesn't cause backache. It is also safer in terms of having an accident. On the other hand, the plane tickets are always more expensive, and as not all the cities has suitable weather conditions all the time, there can be delays, also for a person with acrophobia, all the journey can turn into a nightmare.
What about bus travel? As everybody knows it takes longer but you can do many things in that time. Maybe it's not very comfortable but there's no hierarchy like first class part and others and it's more candid. But it's hard to find tickets in holidays and on weekends. And you may not be able to sleep because of the irresponsible person sitting on the seat in front of you who lays his seat on you.
As I've just mentioned, both planes and busses have pros and cons, so the choice is yours. :)

Sometimes while playing Second Life, we can get bored and look for a good place to visit.Today, I have found two great places for such situations. One of them is a place covered with the pure white of the snow and has all the beauties of winter. There are a couple of artificial waterfalls that completes the gorgeousness. It also has a library that you can benefit from and in which you can find many kinds of things, books organized according to their categories. on the other hand, the other place that I found is full of green, it's spring time I think and green grasses and flowers are all around. you can enjoy the sunny, warm weather there and wander around in the loveliness of the nature. Also the lake with a couple of houses around is a good place to relax. So, in different aspects, they both are good and eligible.

When I was at sixth grade, my sister was at eighth grade and she had lots of courses so I had to wait my sister after school to go home together, and sometimes I attended her classes while waiting, thus I knew almost all of her friends. And there was someone in her class who was very funny and used to make me laugh all the time I spoke to him. And he was very clever, I remember him helping me with the tasks that I couldn’t dealt with for a couple of times. Anyway at the end of that year, in the high school entrance exam, although it was expected that he would get a great degree, he failed because of one brainless kid who was sitting behind him in the exam and cheated and copied the math test from him, which meant that both of their math scores didn’t calculated and hence he wasn’t able to attend an Anatolian High School. But he was so strong-minded that he studied very hard and succeed in the university entrance exam and realized his dream of studying medicine by attending the best university on this branch, Hacettepe. But this was not even half of the difficulties he’d been through. After one year in the university, he was diagnosed with Lymphoma. He had to defer his enrolment and his life for two years for his treatment. After that two arduous years, full of many kinds of difficulties, he was successful again by surviving this illness and now he is moving on where he left off… This is the life story that makes me believe that impossible is nothing and he is the one to make me proud of myself for having such a determined, just and honest person in my life.

A couple of days ago, our neighbor, Selin, told me about a really strange event she witnessed in the wedding ceremony of her cousin. Here is the story : it was a wonderful wedding, she started, everyone was enjoying the great music and atmosphere and everything was good till that moment when that noise was heard. An argument broke out between groom and photographer. At first nobody understood what was happening. And then, they went on the ceremony. But Selin wondered what they were fighting about and as she was a good friend of the photographer, and asked him about it. The photographer told her that he had taken some pictures of the groom and a girl hugging and kissing each other and showed them to the groom telling that the bride would also learn about this. “He treated me not to show them to anyone and that’s why we fought” he said to Selin. While they were talking about this, they couldn’t notice that the bride was listening to them until she walked in tears and wanted to see those pictures. And she slapped the groom. It was shocking. At the end of these shocking event, the ceremony was over and they couldn’t get married.

This week we talked about internet addiction in the class, but what about cell phone addiction? These days I've noticed that many people around me can't take their eyes off on their cell phones. Some of them talk to their lovers, some of them can't stop texting with their friends, and some of them play games! Of course it's very normal to do such things with mobile phones but if they are doing this continuously, then there's a problem. For instance, during a get-together among friends, it's more than just possible to see %70 of them to use their phones at the same time and not to talk about something together during that reunion. Or an example from my own experience, while you are sitting together with a friend of yours who is also an addict, she may not be able to notice that you are gone for a couple of minutes as she is so busy with her game!
And what about those businessmen? They are nothing without their phones! I'm sure they feel lost when they forget their cell phones at home or something. Also it's very likely for every kid that can talk to ask for a mobile phone from their parents. And I think in the very very near future, all those kids will have one, unfortunately...
And the reason? I guess we just don't know how to communicate anymore because we have so much things to do on our owns, and we don't think that we need such things. We've just forgotten how to talk, how to touch, what to feel. And it's all thanks to(!) the technology.

How To Build A House

We built houses in Second Life today and here’s how we did it. First of all, we created little boxes and put them into the space where we were told to use. Then by changing their sizes in different dimensions, we turned them into floor and walls. After that, we changed their places in order to make the skeleton of the house. When we were able to create four walls and a floor in the right order, we created the roof of our house and decided to paint the walls of our house. Finally we chose a color to paint the walls and when we put some furnitures in it, our house was ready to use :)

Fog is everywhere. It’s up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows. And it’s down the river, rolling defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog is on the Essex marshes. It is on the Kentish heights. Fog is creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; it is lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships. It droops on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog is in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards. Fog is in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, it is down in his close cabin. And fog is cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little 'prentice boy on deck. There are fortunate people on the bridges who are peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds.

Categorization

As METU students, we all are going to the same university but we are different from each other, so we can be classified in many ways: For example our personalities are not completely alike I mean we have different pleasures, tastes, religious or political views, different goals, interests hence we participate in different social groups; we belong to different departments thus we are taking different courses; we’re coming from different cities even from different countries, not all of us live in the same places; some live in dormitories, some share a house with their friends or families… And all of these show that we belong to different categories according to different aspects.

There's No Place Like Home

After living in Ankara for 37 days , finally I’m home again. It’s only for 4 days, but still, this is enough for me to be happy. Because - to tell the truth- I was fed up with Ankara, the weather of it, which is extremely cold when compared with Antakya, the noise of the city, the polluted, impure air, the cloudy sky, in which it’s impossible to watch the stars and put the tiring day out of your mind, not being able to watch the sunset in the sea -as there is no sea-, the terrible meals, and the absence of the heartfelt, frank people in the streets and so on… But now, in the view of the sea, I'm eating my fish that my sister caught in the early hours of today, I’m able to enjoy not only all of these but being with my family and friends as well. I can get pleasure from the neighbours' good wishes with their joyous faces, my mom's tasty meals, and the traditional foods that can only be found in here, the fresh fruits that I can have from their trees, the sunny weather, the natural beauty in which one can see the gorgeous combination of the green and blue, lying on the sand, watching the sky all night long... Thank god, I'm home :))

There are many people using Second Life and each has their own reasons. According to the interviews I made with people using Second Life, I can divide those people into three categories: one of them consists of people who use it just to hang out and spend time. The second group is made of people who say that they are using it as their friends advised them and as they are told that it's fun. On the other hand, there are also people who takes this game more serious and try to make friends from other countries in order to learn other people's cultures, lifestyles, languages also, so that they can find an opportunity to improve themselves in one aspect.

SecondLife Snapshot

This place I visited in secondlife is one of the places I liked most, because it has the beauty and purity of the nature.

On the left, there are islets with no settlements but in the middle of the picture you can see the place of my dreams, away from the city, isolated and located on the sea, with a wooden house that is big enough to live with the people you love most, surrounded by the trees which form the green background. Near the house, you can see a game place. And when you go a little further, there is the bridge that connects the island to the mainland. The sea's clean image combined with the blue sky is completed by the beauty of the reflection of sunshine.. Maybe this place lacks the entertainments of the city life like cinema or shopping malls, I think it is the best place to relax :)

There are many people in our lives, some of whom we just get along well, some of whom we don't like at all, some of whom we can't even remember when we met or talked to... And there are also some people in our lives that we can't think about a life without them, because they are the most important people in our lives. In my life, this most important person is my sister.

She is tall enough to make other people say that she won't be able to find a suitable boyfriend anymore if she gets taller even for a few more centimeters. She is slim, dresses like a model, and with the fabulous smile on her face which I wish to see forever, the curly hair, beautiful enormous eyes that look ordinary but tells a lot about her when you look in the same way as I do, and the beautiful spot on her nose which makes many people think that she is from India, she is the person I adore :).

The way she talks to people -even the ones she barely knows- is so candid, thus I always consider her as one of the most friendly people I have ever known. She is a good listener and advisor, which is good enough for me to share everything about me with her. And she always tries to do the best she can do to help people and I think this is the reason why she is studying medicine :).
In fact there are many other features of hers but these are the ones that makes her different from the other people I know, makes her my idol!

Introduction

Hi everyone,
I'm Seda Can and my hometown is Hatay. I graduated from Nihal - Turgut Anlar Anatolian Teacher Training High School last year and now I'm studying foreign language education in METU, which was not my ambition before the university enterance exam, but the best I could do.. So I'm here now :))
Anyway, in here I'm living in a dormitory and away from my family for the first time, so I'm having some difficulties about it, but I'm sure that I will get used to it.
Just like everyone, I love walking, reading, hanging out with friends and etc. but listening to music, singing and watching tv series occupy the biggest part of my life.
In my opinion, now that we are being trained to be teachers, we should be able to understand what we read and also write anything we are asked to. So I hope this "Advanced Reading And Writing" lesson will make us improve ourselves on these issues.

My SecondLife username is Seda Silverfall
TappedIn username is SedaC