Assignment 8

ROAD TRIP TO ANCHORAGE 

I'm so excited to get to tell my readers about this road trip I did with my friends to Anchorage, Alaska. We started our trip from Fairbanks, so it was a six-hour car ride. From the beginning we planned to visit Chena River State Recreation Area to go hiking and eat lunch. We had rented a minibus to be able to rest on the way. It was spacious for five people. The purpose of our trip was to enjoy each other and to get to know some new places. The views were amazing at the Recreation Area, there was a subsided lake and a large forest. While eating our lunch, sandwiches and crisps, we noticed a kayak shop where it was possible to rent them. It was an exciting experience and I could recommend for everyone to try it. 

After kayaking, the sun shined brightly behind grey-ish clouds. It wasn't a rainy day though. Returning the kayaks, we kept on going. We turned on the music and sang along the songs from my playlist. At first, I was suspicious of this road trip as it wasn't a route I would have chosen. There wasn't anything super special to see but with the right company you could make fun of everything. 

The next and the last stop was in Anchorage's Alaska Zoo, which I was really curious to visit. Especially seeing a polar bear intrigued me. We chatted a lot about the animals' conditions in zoos in general and decided to revise Alaska Zoo's feedback. I found out the zoo was nonprofit and their mission was to promote conservation of Arctic species. It warmed my heart and knew I could visit the zoo with a good conscience. Arriving to the zoo it was already dusk. We had arrived to our destination and were all tired from a long day. Despite my doubts, it was a great trip and would definitely do it again!

Assignment 7

Assignment 6

3 HAIKUS

Autumn

It's already fall,

the wind's blowing leaves again,

it's magnificent

Music

Nights full of music,

sparkle and happiness are 

nights full of magic

New Year's Eve

New Year beginning,

time for fireworks, laughter,

and midnight kisses 

Assignment 5

A chimpanzee recognizes the face as well as a human does

The skill may be inherited from mutual ancestors.

A human recognizes the face sooner and in a different way from other shapes. This has earlier been thought to only be a quality of ours but it has now turned out that also chimpanzees observe faces humanlikely efficient. 

The matter became clear when the Japanese Masaki Tomonaga ja Tomoko Imura taught 3 female chimps to look for example cars, bananas and faces among other pictures. 

Upside down the face does not show up

For human the face recognition is based on perceiving the big picture quickly and that seems to apply for chimps as well. 

Just like humans, chimpanzees did perceive faces considerably worse when turning the picture upside down. Also covering eyes, nose and mouth slowed down performance. Instead changing the picture into black and white didn't disrupt recognizing a face. 

The chimpanzees found faces as quickly as bananas from a bunch of pictures, which gave the researchers a headache. However, the quick noticing of a fruit wasn't about the same kind of perceiving the big picture as in face recognition. 

When the pictures were replaced into black and white, the bananas became invisible as if they disappeared. Easy recognition of the fruit was due to the yellow color.  

Human beats makaki 

Surprisingly chimps spotted human faces as sensitively as their own species' face. The phenomenon could hardly be explained only by that test animals have been socializing a lot with their caretakers. They recognized the Japanese macaque's faces poorly even though this spieces of monkeys live right next to their cages. The chimpanzees reacted more quickly to human babies' faces than to the macaques's faces even without meeting the babies before.
Was it either about the human or the members of the same species, the chimps spotted faces better from pictures taken in front of the faces than the faces which were pictured from the side. This refers to that eye contact is one thing of which brings the face into chimps' consciousness. Similar to this has been observed on human.
"These results are worth taking into consideration while thinking about the improvement of social intelligence. Both of the species might utilize the information passed by faces in their social lives in a similar way," Tomonag, who works in Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, estimates in his research bulletin.
The research was published by Scientific Reports.

Assignment 4

1 - h)
2 - j)
3 - i)
4 - a)
5 - c)
6 - e)
7 - g)
8 - d)
9 - b)
10 - f)

Collocations
1. Guess
2. Scenario
3. Treat
4. Glance
5. Detailed
6. Behavior
7. Boundaries
8. False

Exploring a dictionary page
1. The stressed syllable in these words is -ro
2. Coronet
3. singular: /ko:/   plural: /ko:z/
4. Coronation
5. Culture, identity, image, planning, strategy, structure
6. No
7. Cornflakes are made of small flat dried pieces of maize
8. Cornish 'pasty
9. Cornrow
10. Coronary, corral

Assignment 2

A blessing in disguise

It was a day I will never forget. My friend urged me to go see a fortuneteller. I never believed someone could really foretell someone's future by rolling the dice or palm reading. It was hard and challenging for me to trust a stranger but I wanted to give it a go. Before booking an appointment I started to get curious, so I wanted to dig in and learn more about fortune-telling. After finding a lot of information and tips on what to ask the fortuneteller, I headed right away to make an appointment. 

At the fortuneteller I wanted to know if something would change my life somehow. I wanted to find happiness and believed being filthy rich would fill that hole of unhappiness in me.  I was told I would get my chance of becoming wealthy soon. A few days later I realized that nothing out of normal hadn't happened. I stormed my way back to demand my money back and to accuse the fortuneteller of tricking me. I slammed the door open and rushed in. The fortuneteller was acting infuriatingly calm but I wasn't there to listen to her excuses. She anyway got my attention by pointing out that her forecast had penciled as she had predicted. I regretted the way I had made my entrance so I asked the fortuneteller if we could wipe the slate clean. I went outside and this time rang the doorbell. Just a few seconds later the door opened and after apologizing to her I left for a walk back home. 

Arriving to a park I saw something shiny on the corner. I reached to it and figured out it was a thick, leathery wallet full of cash. Why could I not keep it, finders keepers, I thought. Then a thought came into my mind. She was right, I did get my chance to be rich after all. Thinking of what had happened with the fortuneteller I decided to return the property to its owner. He was so grateful and generous to give me 20 euros.

I felt great for making someone else's day better. It was a feeling I hadn't experienced before, I was on cloud nine. Jumping for joy I accidentally kicked off my shoe and sighed, what a day. I would never question fortunetellers ever again and learned that happiness is what I have to find in me, not in fortunes. 

Assignment 1

My recipe for a great text

1 big bowl

2 teaspoons courage

1 cup opinions
1 1/2 cups interest

3/4 cup interesting topics 

1 tablespoon perspective

a pinch of orderliness

Make sure you have most of the ingredients before starting but if you happen to forget some of them, you could always add them along later. Start by pouring a cup of your own opinions and 2 teaspoons courage into the bowl to make the text describe you and your line of thought. It's very important to mix 1 1/2 cups of interest to make this taste great. Add interesting topics and perspective, then let the mixture chill in the fridge at least for a day. The longer the better as it will absorb all the ingredients in itself with time. The next day, pour in a pinch of orderliness and taste it to know if there is something missing. If it needs more boost, try adding more of the ingredients listed above or spices of your own!