What if

Has it ever occurred to you what would happen if we jumped at once? And by "we" I mean ALL THE PEOPLE on the planet Earth.
Well, I've recently happened to watch the video that answered this small brain-teaser. Before I simply answer the question, let's look at the number of all the people currently living on Earth...there are more than 7 billion of us now. Even though it seems like a huge number, if we put it into another perspective it does not seem as huge after all. For example, if we took all the people and put them in one place with the population density of NYC, we would all fit into the area of the state of Texas. What's even more surprising and shocking, if we all stood shoulder to shoulder (right next to one another), we could fit into the area of Los Angeles! Cool huh?! The area of merely 500 square miles would contain the entire world's population.. man, that must be a cool sight to be held!!
Ok, so then we would jump..what would happen?! It was kind of disappointing for me to find out that NOT MUCH really.. even though it's unbelievable that such a massive crowd jumping at the exact same moment wouldn't cause an earthquake or anything, it does make sense. Comparing to the mass of our planet, our weight (and yes, even our weight times 7 billion) is negligible and nominal.
Still, our jump may not cause anything significant, but there would be some repercussions. As we would jump, we would push the planet under our feet away from us a TINY amount.. Sadly, after the jump, we  return to where we started and so does the Earth... so concerning the planet's position, we don't really change anything..
Ugh, the Earth is just unbreakable!!!

Tower of London

London, as one of the world's leading tourism destinations, is home to an array of famous tourist attractions and landmarks, and one of the world's most visited cities in terms of international visits. There are countless places that you can visit in London; one of them would be the Tower of London.
It is a historic castle situated on the bank of the River Thames in central London. Its history is very rich, that's what makes it a perfect and interesting place for foreigners to visit. Moreover, the Tower of London has been home to the crown jewels ever since the reign of Henry III which is another tempting attraction which is definitely worth seeing.

'If the ravens leave the Tower, the kingdom will fall...'

Being the all-in historic castle (and a former prison), there is a legend surrounding the complex. Legend says that the Tower and the whole kingdom will fall if the six resident ravens ever leave the fortress.  According to the stories, it was Charles II. who first insisted that the ravens of the Tower should be protected.

Despite several complaints coming from astronomer John Flamsteed concerning the fact that the ravens impeded the business of his observatory in the White Tower, they stayed.

Even though the ravens have their wings trimmed, some of them occasionally go absent. Interestingly, all the ravens have their names- e.g. raven George..he ate television aerials so he had to be dismissed. :/

Should animal testing be banned?

The issue of animal testing is definitely very controversial and highly discussed, so it is not easy to choose which side to be on because there are good arguments on both sides. However, I have to say that after reading many articles and arguments from both - proponents and opponents - I'm a proponent of animal testing.
Not that like the idea of animals being locked up in labs, but I figured that this is just a sacrifice we have to make in order to develop new medicaments and vaccinatinons. The main reason why animals are crucial for researches is that the tests need to be carried out on whole-body systems so that we can see the reactions of individual parts of the body. If we performed the tests only on cells in a petri dish, there is no way for us to see how the body reacts since there is none! Also, given that animals are very biologically similar to humans, they are susceptible to similar diseases, therefore the benefits for humankind can be enormous!!
Speaking about the horrible stories that you might have read somewhere about the conditions that animals live in, I think that as terrible as they sound, they're a bit exaggerated because in most countries there is a law that protects animals from any mistreatment and the tests themselves are highly regulated.

Science, bitch!!

Irony. That's what first popped in my head when I read the heading of an article about which I'm going to say a few words now. We all know that smoking (tabacco) is bad and it causes cancer. Nevertheless, the scientists from Melbourne have discovered that tabacco is not all that bad after all, and just as its leaves are harmful, its blossoms are very very useful.. and by 'very' I mean that they can actually cure cancer IRONICALLY caused by smoking leaves from the exact same plant!

The scientists have discovered a certain molecule that can be found in tabacco blossoms and is capable of fighting carcinogenic cells, therefore probably capable of curing cancer. This newly discovered molecule was named NaD1. The way it works is real simple. The molecule traces the cancinogenic cell, encircles it and then (simply put) sucks all of its bad cancer content so there is nothing left to menace the body!

Of course, this is just a theory and there are many tests to be carried out before it's safe to say that we have found an effective cancer treatment, but still. Preliminary studies that have already been run and they've turned out promising. Way to go!!

The Oscars

Even though I don't watch any TV programs, I made an exception for the 86th annual Academy Awards. This year's host Ellen DeGeneres certainly rose to the occasion and managed to guide us throughout the evening with the typical 'ellen' humor starting with a hilarious opening monologue which I consider the peak of the whole evening. I love the way she uses sarcasm without actually really hurting and offending anyone!! Especially the part when she was talking to Jennifer Lawrence, pointing out the accident from last year when she fell on her way up on the stage as a winner for her memorable performance in Silver Linings Playbook.
Of course, there is a bunch of other moments worth mentioning!! Like the EPIC photo Ellen took just in the middle of the show in order to break Twitter which she did because she's AMAZING haha!! For like 15 minutes Twitter broke down. Ellen, you rock!!
Or!!! She ordered a pizza for hungry celebrities! The pizza delivery guy was quite shocked. I watched the Ellen show the day after the Oscars and she invited him as a guest. He was speaking about the amazing experience which he had no idea was coming!! He thought he was just delivering a pizza for some people backstage and then when he arrived at the spot, Ellen just grabbed him and all of a sudden he popped up in the hall with all the celebrities he knew from TV! Quite a shock, I can imagine.
Given that I was also satisfied with the winners ( although I hoped Leo would win :/ ), I consider this year's Oscars a success.

Gran Torino

Gran Torino is a movie I truly love for many reasons. One of them is definitely Clint Eastwood who directed and more importantly starred it as the main character Walt Kowalski - an old grumpy demobbed Korean war veteran whose most prized possession is his car 1972 Gran Torino. Walt is the man who likes things the way they are mainly because he has his own prejudices and he doesn't like change. It's a perfect movie to write about for this week's post because it's filled with abundance of cultural diversity and clash. There are many I would say layers when speaking of those differences though - there are cultural differences concerning identity, especially religion and age; this is the reason of disputes that Walt and the Father have, concerning mostly unresolved issues of Walt's departed wife. Their cultures are stark in contrast and that makes for many difficult conversations.

The story starts at the funeral of Walt's wife. Her last wish was for Father Janovich to convince Walt to go to confession and he is determined to keep that promise which of course isn't easy since Walt isn't really the kind of person who would be interested in his eternal salvation. This conflict of religion is resolved toward the end of the movie when the Father Janovich and Walt find some common ground. 

As the story goes on, another conflict comes along. A kid from Walt's neighborhood attempts to steal his beloved car. This is a cultural conflict because the kid is not an American (he is Asian) and that gives Walt an excuse ho hold it against him. 

Obviously I can't describe the whole story here, so you'd better go and watch it yourself.

Lastly, to this day I remember the last scene from the movie where the lawyer reads Walt's will and where we learn that he leaves his car to Thao - the same Asian kid who tried to steal it once. I love those words, both funny and touching.

The picture that I've chosen to describe is taken from the very popular TV show Breaking Bad. There are none of the main characters displayed in the picture; actually, the guy on the left and the woman in the middle are not known to the viewer at all whereas the junkie on the right is one of the closest friends of Jesse - the main character.
The show itself is about the chemistry teacher who finds himself in a difficult position in life - he finds out that he's got cancer and that there is no money neither for his expensive and nerveless treatment nor for his family financial security for the future.
This particular scene is from the episode 9 season 5 and as you can see, the guy on the right (called Skinny Pete) is being mugged of his batch of meth he was selling. It is a great example of the mentality of these addicted people. They will do whatever it takes to get the drug; they will rip off or even kill their best friend because they just can't resist. Because have you ever heard about that junkie who was satisfied with just ONE more taste of the good stuff?? Neither have I...

Online consumer bahavior

As I was browsing the Internet today, I came across this interesting statistics that caught my attention. According to it, the number of online population and therefore the number of online consumers is growing each year. In 2011 the global online population numbered 2 071 million people and three years later, in 2014, the number amounted to 2 321 while the biggest growth was chalked up in Asia, Asia Pacific and Oceania with the difference of 111 million people.

Speaking about the online shopper demographics, women are in the lead which I was expecting. What I was not expecting was the slight difference of only 2 percent between men and women.

The reasons why online shoppers shop on the Internet are in my opinion very reasonable and I can identify myself with the most of them - the items 'low prices', 'shopping convenience' and 'easy to buy' and 'time saving' would be my top four. On the other hand, here are the reasons why people would rather go to the actual shop than buy anything online: 33% men and 38% women feel the need to touch the real product before they make a purchase. Shipping costs and privacy concerns put off up to 30% men and 33% women. Worries caused by possible refund or returning of a product discourage 27% men and 25% women of all the online shoppers.

Finally, there is a section that came as quite a surprise to me and that is online retail spending shares. Women shoppers lead in the most of goods categories out of which the most surprising for me is definitely 'video games and console' whereas men outnumber women in purchases of electronics and events and movie tickets. 

Here is the statistics, take a look :)

What a girl wants...

My priorities in life have changed many times as I grew up. When I was a little girl I don't think I even had a ladder of priorities. Lately I've been thinking mostly about the things I would not want my future partner/husband to lack.
Apart from the obvious qualities such as loyalty, faithfulness and honesty there is a great sense of humor and mutual interests. I know a few couples where there is a husband and he is such a crosspatch(!).ughh..I'm sure that I would not be able to put up with that! On the other hand, funny at all costs is not a win either. I'm sure I will need a person by my side who can be serious and able to talk about important stuff as well as have fun.
Mutual interests is definitely a very important element in partnership. They can involve sports, games or just going for a walk once in a while. Not only does it help bond the mates but also it is a great way of relaxation. I have this idea that my future partner and I will be sitting on a couch, sipping coffee and watching films that we will have watched so many times that we will know all the lines by heart but it won't matter to us because it will just feel so great! I can't wait!!!
I would rather not mention my requirements about the looks haha.. I know that I'm not perfect myself so I'm not waiting for some dreamy prince that does no wrong. How could I ever feel equal to him?!

JAC3 under review

JAC3 has been one of a few courses that I really looked forward to this semester. Given that I've always considered JAC the most difficult and hardest subject to pass, it is surprising how much I enjoyed it! For this I have Mr. Vít to thank. I do not really have much to criticize about his part of the course since his classes are both interesting and fun and on the other hand educational and requiring self-study.
The only thing that comes to my mind is the textbook we've been using. For some reason I cannot see what is so great about it that makes it the main source for our studies. It think there are many other much better textbooks out there that could be used instead of Objective. Of course I realize this is something that is not fully up to the teacher to decide and one student's opinion cannot outweigh others' but.. e.g. in my opinion Destination is a much better textbook in terms of grammar, vocabulary and helpful exercises.
What I like the best about Mr. Vít teaching style is that it never gets boring. Even though there is a lot grammar stuff that nobody likes to learn, he managed to make it interesting and truly encouraged us to try harder and somehow radiated the right teaching spirit:)

English party.. sorf of

I was at my very first English party. Well.. it was not as much of a party as it was a get-together with a friend of mine for a coffee. However, we were planning on having this "party" with other friends but they did not show up at school at the day the date was set and since we both commute to school from quite far we decided to have a party without them.
As it said, we went for a coffee. For those who don't know, the whole point of having a English party is to have a conversation with your friends in English. So, we did spend the whole time together speaking English with each other in order to improve and hone our speaking skills and train our critical thinking. To achieve that, not only did we have a small talk and gossip as we usually do (jk haha) but we tried having a serious discussion about current events, problems and other serious stuff that we usually don't have a chance to talk about.
Surprisingly, that turned out to be even more fun than we could have hoped for! Even though in most cases we did not agree with each other and people sitting at the tables around us must have thought that we were fighting, we pointed out some really interested facts and exchanged ideas so I think it was a real asset to my English skills.
After a while of sitting and sipping coffee we both forgot that were speaking other than our mother tongue and it just felt natural ever since. I am so going to bring this up next time I see my friends and hopefully we will do it again sometime soon!

Mini-saga: Don't do drugs

"Hey, you know what? Let me have a puff!"

"Are sure you can handle it?"

"What do you take me for?! I've smoked tons of weed before!"

"I don't know man..."

"Oh, common!"

"You took a puff an hour ago and we've already had this conversation ten times in a row."

...

"Hey, let me have a puff!"