A LIFE REVEALED

In 1985, during the war between Soviet Union and Afghanistan, there were many girls who lost their family and started to stay in refugee camps but one of them was special. Şarbat Gula (in the picture) was a student in a school in one of these camps and when she was 13, a photographer Steve McCurry had a chance to take a photo of her. This photo was broadcast in one of  the National Geographic journals in 1985 titled ''Afghan Girl.'' Then Şarbat Gula became the symbol of Afghan refugees around the world and her photo became the most known picture in the publication world. Since Afghanistan was a hard place to explore for the Eastern media members, Gula had not been reached and known for more than 15 years. No matter how hard Steve McCurry tried and how much money he sacrificed to find her again, he wasn't able to do it until 2002. In 2002, the National Geographic team went to Afghanistan to find Gula who turned back to her home country after the war was over.  After hard efforts, they found her in a poor village of Afghanistan and her being the same person in the photo was proved by the technology of biometry which measured her eye iris. Having been taken a photo of herself only once in her life, she remembered that day clearly and Steve wanted to take one more photo of her after nearly 20 years. However, Gula was married and her husband was irritated with this situation. Given a good amount of money he let Steve take his wife's photo. Over again her second photo was broadcast in the National Geographic journal in April of 2002 and a documentary was done about her life.

NIGHT RIDE ACROSS THE CAUCASUS

Loreena McKennitt is a Canadian singer whose name I heard two or more years ago from my cousin. He told me that this woman is a very famous and talented singer around the world. The voice of her is already appreciated by the world. She uses Italian, Turkish, Greek, Spanish themes in her songs and her style is called Celtic music of Western European people.  According to some rumors, her ancestors were from North Caucasia and this claim may be supported by her song named ''Night Ride Across The Caucasus''. I want to talk about this song. This song is my favorite of hers because no matter how long it is, I don't get bored of it listening. This rhythm is so relaxing and satisfying that especially in the moment of getting into sleep, I just feel it by heart. The violins and the soft rhythm of the drum make the song attractive to a wide range of music listeners. In the lyrics of this song, she tells about the horse riders which probably implies Caucasian people's interest in riding. She also mentions silent forests, huge seas, sleeping hills which are the prettified features of this region and the cathedrals, dancing, musics forming the culture. I also advice you to listen the other songs of her, for example 'between the shadows' and 'LaSerenissima' are my other favorites. To sum up, Loreena McKennitt immediately comes in our minds when we are talking about Celt music and her each song is worth listening.

STAY PURE, STAY NATIONAL

Each nation wants to protect its national values such as its official language. It is the case in Turkey as well, because Turkish is one of the languages affected by foreign languages every day, so Turkish people and government are seeking effective solutions to prevent this degeneration. Some of the most effective solutions found so far can be divided into three categories which are creating laws, increasing public awareness and forcing media to use pure national language. The first solution which is creating laws is the responsibility of government. The government can create laws both awarding people who use pure official language in their fields of work and punishing people preferring to use unknown, foreign words like people who choose to name their shops with English words. The second solution can be increasing public awareness. In this case we can use songs or TV shows. Especially children can learn anything they hear in songs or popular TV shows. For example, Tarkan's songs. He was awarded for using important words and idioms of Turkish in his songs by TÜRK DİL KURUMU. Finally, media is very very important for language. Media can present a new technology, a new place, event or something else and when it presents the new thing with unknown words and continues to use this foreign name, people use its foreign name permanently and Turkish gains one more foreign word, but if media uses a Turkish word which is not common or new, then people start to use it in their daily lives. In other words media can play a fundamental role in language issues. In conclusion, language is one of the keystones of a nation, it needs to be protected. Therefore, if people practise these solvings Turkish can stay pure.

POLITICS

Politics is the collective decisions on authority and law as decided by a group or assembly. It has been always used for the wealth of people and with good intentions throughout the history. Has it been really always used like this or is this a big fat lie? I agree with the latter. In today's society, every single decision is for themselves of the countries. For example, America invaded Iraq with the purpose of forming democracy there. Yes, a lot of people around the world accept the situation like this, or none of the ''big democratic countries'' comes and says 'no! you want to use the petroleum there, you can't invade this poor country!' This is the same in the rest of the world. For example in Caucasus, the republic of Georgia and the region of Abkhazia was fighting with each other and thanks to angelic Russia the war is over. Hovewer, the people living there-my relatives- (my ancestors were from there), were separated. If we think that situation, it's like this: You have been living with these people together for centuries, you have neighbors from them and now they become enemies of you and you should kill them because big America and Russia want you to do so. My uncles live there and as I learned from them people there are united with each other and they do not a war to occur or something reminding war. They want independence from Georgia and that is a part of common divide and govern policy of big countries. These big democratic civilizations(!) want to inoculate people that benefits they take are more important than their neighbors or values so that they can make a war in this region to govern them more easily and they use 'politics' to justify their these devilish goals. To summarize, the word 'politics' is not a sympathetic word to hear for me any more because it associates with war in today's world order.

Being An International Student and Studying In Your Own Country

Being an international student and studying in your own country bring about completely different experiences to a person. First of all, an international student gains much more experience than a national student. He/she faces with so many kinds of situations from the worst to the best. For example, an international student experiences a culture shock whereas a national student does not, but an international student can have the chance to know other cultures better. While studying, a national student can not have this chance because he/she should be struggling with his/her homeworks and exams. An international student also have more opportunities like knowing the system of other countries, having experiences in different parts of the world and in different companies by doing internship. Secondly, international students can use their practical skills better in their lives. For instance, they use their English in their daily routine, so they improve this skill with time easily while a national student does not have a condition to communicate in English in his/her own country. By using their practical skills like this, they also gain more self-confidence which is necessary for a person to broaden himself/herself.  The more you have self-confidence, the more probability to succeed. However, these all do not mean that being an international student has only benefits. It also has some disadvantages like cost and culture shock. Every international student experiences any level of culture shock but if they can't recover from it, it would reflect on their success and no student in the world wants to fail. Also, studying in abroad is not suitable for students of any level of economical class. It is expensive and costs like thousands dollars while a national student(no matter it a little bit depends on the city in which he/she studies) can go with some money not like thousands dollars. In conclusion, being an international student and a national student mean totally different concepts.

being a student in METU

Every student in Turkey wants to study in a university like METU because it has good qualified staff, chosen students and a wide reputation. I was one of these students but I was lucky because I had the chance to study here. When I first came to METU, like all the other freshmen I was a little bit disappointed because with a mentality of a newcomer to university, I was expecting somethings more entertaining rather than studying and quality in education. However, as time passed, I realized that METU is a big but a non-renewable chance for me. So unlike my friends in other universities, METU gave me a hand to think the future.. Also, my friends here are very qualified people, they have goals and disciplines in their lives. I have so many teachers to take as a model, I have many facilities like a huge library, student organizations which have a variety of things, sport courses, DEVRIM, a enormous campus side, a systematic order of the school etc. which please me much. Besides these facilities, METU has so many dormitories -some of which are in distant areas but comfortable- in campus so the students can catch their lectures easily. Also, there is a ring system which is sometimes not available but it meets the needs of the students and it is free of charge which is just the right thing for a university. In addition, we have chances to go abroad and study there with some programs like erasmus and comenius and there are some erasmus students studying here in METU and communicating with them in English is also necessary for the students here. I liked my department because I was expecting more strict courses and teachers but thanks God I found a lovely department having a strong cooperation inside and loved my teachers who has just the intention to teach not to try to train us in a hard way. In summary, I can recommend to study in METU to any kind of student.

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