Journal 12

Ellsworth, P. , & Gross, S. (1994). Hardening of the attitudes: Americans' views on the death penalty. Journal of Social Issues,50(2), 19-52.

Phoebe Ellsworth, the Frank Murphy Distinguished University Professor of Law and Psychology, has conducted pioneering scholarship in the field of psychology and law. Samuel R. Gross, the Thomas and Mabel Long Professor of Law, graduated from Columbia College in 1968 and earned a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1973. The article discusses how Americans react with the controvesial issue-the death penalty. Through the study over 20 years almost people think that the death penalty is more depends on emotion than information or rational argument. It is useful for me since this relate to my research question about the two both sides opinion of the death penalty. Therefore, I can combine information from  the journal and compare to my answer for this issue.

            When I thought about some topics for research paper, there were many questions I want to do research such as business, society, health, and education. Therefore, it's difficult to choose one topic. Then I try to think about questions relating to some topics: tax, penalty, or shopping culture of American. I’m interesting in controversial topics because I think there is a lot of information I can find on the internet as well as in some books. Thus I chose gambling because it harms to society. However, I changed my mind when searching information on Wikipedia. I found much more information about the death penalty which still has lots of controversy, so I make some questions about the topic. For example, What are two sides of death penalty? or Should death penalty be changed? By using Wikipedia, I’ve already found out about a useful example for it.

Advice

When I was young, I received almost advice which was from my parents. However, I still too young to understand the importance of their useful advice. Thus I usually did not follow it. When I was older, I got lots of helpful advice from my family, my teachers, and my friends, even some are younger than me. Each one has dissimilar experience in different fields.Therefore, I think their advice is useful, but sometimes it make me confuse because of their different advice for the same matter. Then I will follow my feeling to consider what I should do or follow some of the advice.
I think I'm not really a good adviser, but fortunately I usually a good listener. Hence my friends often talk to me about their problem to feel better. Sometimes, I give them some advice after considering carefully their problem. The most important that is the reason for their talking heart to heart with me is my keeping their secret, so they trust me.

By the way, If you have some hitch difficulty or problem, feel free to approach and talk to me. I'm a good listener 'as long as I have enough time to listen' ^.^

American food

American food makes me immediately associate it with fast food such as hamburger, French fries, and protein smoothies. I can easily find a fast food restaurant here with several different brand names such as Mc Donald, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Jack in the Box, In-N-Out, Carl’s Jr. Although fast food is not a heathy food, I still like it because it’s convenient and easy to find anywhere. Besides that, I also love American barbeque, it’s delicious and I have a lot of fun when make a barbeque with my friends.
People in my countries eat rice as main meal. However, there are many American food restaurants have developed there such as KFC, Pizza Hut, and Domino. Therefore, Vietnamese youngsters tend to eat out rather than to eat at home. They usually eat at the restaurants at night or on the weekend, especially many prefer to celebrate their birthday parties there.

"Half full or half emty"

 “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty” said Winston Churchill. I think this quote means the way each person react to the situation in life. It mentions two kinds of attitudes. For the same case, these people look difficulties in optimism while other thinks in pessimism. For example, an optimist person looks a half water of glass as “half full” whereas a pessimist looks it as “half empty.” For the same thing, the way these two kinds of people think is completely different. Therefore, a dismal person cannot find the way to solve any problem, and thinks it’s very very hard to overcome. Whilst a hopeful individual think they can find a good solution to solve the difficulty. In addition, the negative people focus on their difficult situations instead of finding solutions for the problems. Conversely, the optimists do on the contrary way.

However, it’s not the best if people just look everything in positiveness since they are more disappointed when results is not like what they want it is. Thinking in optimism is good but people should afraid of not good potential consequences. Thus we can recommend our relatives and my friends who are over optimistic should doubt whether they can achieve their ambition. On the other hand, we should advise the pessimistic people tend to think they can reach their goal or solve their trouble as long as they try their best.

Birds of a Feather

“Bird of a feather flock together” is the saying which can express the friendship of Dien, my best friend and me. Although we are different in some ways, we have several similarities. She and I met each other the first time when we studied at third grade of primary school, but we became close friends at sixth grade. Since she has been my best friend, we found that we have the same hobbies such as travelling, listening to music, reading books, and watching movies. After we became good friends of each one, we have a new hobby which is hanging out and talking heart to heart with each other. On the weekend, she and I can spend a whole day at coffee shops or parks near my house for chatting about anything else. At the end of each small topic, we usually have the same opinions J. When I have something fun or I’m in bad mood, I usually share my feeling with her. She always listen to how I felt, and I do the same thing when she has problems. Besides that, she and I study the same major, accounting. We often share, exchange documents and study together although we learned at different universities. However, we have some differences in eating. I like to put chili or hot sauce in my dishes whereas she can’t eat spicy food. Because we are similar in many things, we easily understand the feelings of each one. Thus I feel better after talking with her when I have a problem in my life. She is the best friend I have! ♥

If animals could talk, what would they say???

If animals could talk, I would like to ask them how they think and how their lives are. I would talk to my little dog to understand what he wants and how he sees the world around. In addition, I want to know the meaning of their sound, their facial gesture, and their body language. I think some kinds of animals would say that people should not eat them. Furthermore, they might express how they are angry with people because of environmental damage from human’s activities. Then, they could carry negotiation with people to live in peace. Imagine that they could sing and celebrate some parties or events of human; it would be so interesting. :)