What if the world lost oxygen for 5 seconds?

Oxygen is one of the essential things for our existence. Five seconds is really short time, almost negligible. But what would happen if there was no oxygen for these negligible five seconds? There are some interesting answer.

• Everyone at the beach would immediately get sunburns because oxygen in the air protects our skin against UV light. Even though there would be no beach, no sand and no water according to following points.
• The daytime sky would get dark because it’s oxygen that bounces light. Without oxygen the sky would be almost black.
• The Earth’s crust would crumble because oxygen makes up 45% of the Earth’s crust.
• Everyone’s inner ear would explode because without oxygen we would lose about 21% of the air pressure. So it would be worse than like to climb Mountain Everest in a second.
• Every building made of concrete would turn into dust because oxygen is important binding material.
• Every living cell would explode in a haze of hydrogen gas.
• Water is 1/3 oxygen. Without it hydrogen would turn into gas and expand in volume. Thank to this the oceans would evaporate and float into space.

But what if the amount of oxygen doubled? Paper airplanes would fly further, our cars would get better gas mileage, we would be happier, more alert, and our cognition and physical performance would improve. But, there would be giant insects because its size is determined by the proportion of oxygen in the atmosphere. So, everything in moderation, right? 

Chrast

If you come to Chrast by bus, it will bring you to the square with the church of Holy Trinity in the middle, where all kinds of Masses take place.

Along this chateau garden you can walk through an old linden tree alley which leads around to the natural theatre. Nowadays, this theatre is ruined, but it still offers extraordinary view. When you cross the forest in which the theatre is sitGigas, the biggest hand-written book in the world, was written there. And as a legend says it was written with help of the devil by an anonymous mink in one day. I absolutely recommend to visit this small town which you definitely recognize thank to its high yellow waterworks tower that creates a typical skyline.

 

There is a beautiful chateau as well. The ctly serves as a museum and municipality is located there as well. When you cross a gravelled quadrangle and go through a baroque arcade, you will find a gorgeous and well-maintained chateau garden full of colourful flowers and very old and patulous trees. Local gardeners are proud of this garden because a very special and rare kind of rose grows there.

Du Weldenvarden

My happiest realm belongs to the extensive forest Du Weldenvarden. This enchanting, inscrutable and mysterious piece of land full of magic and supernatural creatures is a place where I would love to spend the rest of my life. In deep shadows of this forest are hidden Elves – the immemorial and wisdom race. The elves could sing plants into growing into different shapes and patterns. Every house in Ellesmera, the ancient city hidden in the deepest part of the forest just between the most immense trees, was sung from a tree. This means that in winsome Du Weldenvarden everything is natural. Sunshine thrust its way through spreading tree crowns and these little rays of light illuminate diverse plants and creatures living in this forest. A bare eye can’t see even the smallest part of the forest because it’s so dense that it makes it almost impenetrable. It hides an incredible number of secrets. It’s the wildest and the most peaceful place at the same time. It would be breath-taking experience to spend some time in this forest in harmony with nature.

Fewer people should be encouraged to go to the university

Nowadays, most people go to the university because it is expected from them. This fact has created a new attitude to the university education – it’s no longer a privilege, now it’s a duty. But is it right to force all people to go to the university?

Some people may admit that all of us have a right to experience university education and have an access to the knowledge provided by universities. Moreover, they believe that graduates have a better opportunity to find well-paid jobs. But there are many reasons why we should reduce a number of people studying at universities.

To start with, universities can’t take every student who applies because there are only a limited number of places. And this means that university education should be provided only to the most suitable people for this type of education. Secondly, vocational courses can produce better employees because they teach the specific skills necessary for a particular job. And it’s logical for employers to employ people with professional experience instead of those who have only theoretical knowledge. Finally, students are sometimes forced through the university although it’s not right for them.  And if they don't fulfill all university requirements, they throw away three or more years of their lives and then without any degree have to start looking for a not so lucrative job.

In conclusion, only people with specific skills and a certain talent are suitable for studying at the university. And if you don’t belong to this group, don’t worry. You can take a vocational course and it’s possible that you’ll find a well-paid job sooner than a graduate from the university. All in all, I definitely agree with the idea that fewer people should be encouraged to go to the university.

Lost sleep - lost neurons

I’ve read the article about the loss of sleep. I think that it involves almost every student, so I decided to share this article. I can say that I sleep less than 6 hours per day during a regular working week and I think that it’s a quite average situation. Every night, when I go to the bed at one o’clock with the thought that I’m getting up at half past six in the morning, I’m promising myself that I can make it up at the weekend. Now I now that it’s wrong! As the article says – the brain isn’t as forgiving as we hoped. Basically, the article says that some researchers proved that lost sleep could mean los neurons and I think that no one can argue that neurons are quite important in our brain. It’s not certain if our brain can recover from neuron loss, and if it even matters, but I personally think that we don’t have as many neurons to kill them by not going to sleep. Moreover, it’s commonly known that if you take a good sleep, you’ll be fresher and your mind will be clear and bright. What I carry off this article? Sleep at least 8 hours per day and don’t study instead because it’s not worthy nor helpful!

If interested in this article, you can find it here: https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/scicurious/lost-sleep-could-mean-lost-neurons

Beloved TV

Even now I remember the day when I finally saved up as much money as I needed form my own TV. I was so excited because I was saving a really long time. And when I had finally enough money for it, I was the happiest person in the world. I also remember the time spent in front of this TV and what and how many series I was watching. However, I'm not watching this TV anymore these days. I still have this old, huge TV covered with dust at home, but I haven't turned it on for several years... I think it doesn't even have a cable anymore and I don't even know when it disappeared. I simply don't need this TV any longer. And why? Well, I can't say that I'm not watching any series or films, but I usually watch them via Internet. This way is more comfortable and there are no stupid advertisements that prolong the film from two hours to three. Moreover, I rather spend my free time by doing more valuable things than watching TV. I rather go out with my friends, spend this time with my boyfriend, o for a walk or do my hobbies. All these activities are more valuable to me than spending time in front of the TV and to be honest it’s also much healthier… ;)

Lost in culture...

I’ve chosen the film called Lost in Translation because it had a pretty good evaluation and was recommended by our teacher as well. I have to admit that it wasn’t exactly a cup of my tea, but there were some scenes worth watching.

One scene I can remember perfectly depicts one of the cultural differences that I noticed. In this scene a Japanese director is giving instructions to Bob. He explains how to look and speak to the camera and whereas the director is talking for at least a minute, the interpreter translates it in one sentence. I think that this scene gives us the first cultural difference – the language, which differs from nation to nation and sometimes it’s even impossible to translate the information.

Secondly, the movie is full of stereotypes about Japan and other Asian countries. I’ve seen a karaoke party, oriental parks, endless night life and entertaining and a technological development. I think that Japanese are even prouder of the technological development than other nations.

And finally, I could see a difference in behaviour as well. I can say that Japanese are “welcoming nation” – they’re shaking hands, they’re giving a bow all the time and they introduce themselves properly. I think that it’s important to know how to behave in different country, because what’s normal in your culture can be offending in another one. So be careful! 

Dancing

I choose the picture that is really close to me. As you can see it’s about dancing. You can see few people dancing in the rain on the street and there is a plenty of other people watching and cheering them on. I like this picture because it expresses a lot truthful things about dancing. Firstly, it doesn’t matter who you are or where you are. You can be a different nationality and still you can understand each another, you can be black or white or whatever – it doesn’t matter because the only thing that is valuable is how good you are and how much you enjoy dancing. Moreover, it’s not important where you are. You can dance everywhere – on the dance floor, on the street, in nature, in a train, in a shower – simply everywhere where music is playing.

Secondly, you don’t even need to be a dancer to enjoy dancing. As you can see people standing around dancing people are cheering them on, they’re moving as well and they look really happy even it’s raining – when dancing no one cares about being wet or whatever – you’re just dancing or watching it and nothing is more important at that moment.

And finally, dancing is an activity that creates a specific group of people who share something special and no one else can understand to this community.

What to say at the end? …I’m a dancer, I love it and I’m proud of it!

“Use of time before 15 page essay due in 12 hours"

I went through hundreds of graphs this afternoon, but finally I realized that the first graph that I saw is the most interesting one and I can say that it's the most truthful one as well. I found the graph called “Use of time before 15 page essay due in 12 hours” and I think that it’s the same for at least 90% students these days.

As you can see above the graph shows seven activities that we actually do during writing our assignments. Firstly, I would like to describe the smallest parts of the chart. Surprisingly, writing of the essay takes us only 2% of the time, then we usually make the margins really small in order to make particular pages small enough and this takes about 5% of our time. After our pages are as small as possible we start to make a cover page because this activity is the least boring one. It takes us about 2% of time.  After the cover page is done we spend about 8% of the time inserting huge quote boxes and then we skim our research notes for about 3% of the time. These at least a little valuable activities take us 20% of our time which is 2 hours and 15 minutes. So, what are we doing during the other almost 10 hours? Most of this time we spend on Facebook and then we are crying because we’re going to fail our class.

Well, do you recognize yourself in this graph or not?

Priorities

When I heard the topic of my blog "Priorities," I was horrified because that's something that I have struggled with for years. Even now I can’t say what priorities I actually have, but I’m quite sure about my most important priority and that’s love. It’s not long time ago when I realized that without the person that I love I can’t exist. I need the support and the security that there is someone who will be there for me every time I will need and who will love me and take care of me when bad times come. Of course it’s mutual because I need someone I can take care of as well. I love making person, who I care about, feel happy and I’m here to support him and help him if he’s in trouble. I can’t imagine that there would be no one I could be there for. And this is valid to my family and friends as well, so I guess that it’s my priority number two because I would go to the end of the world for them, if they want me to. I think that having family makes us feel more secure and capable to cope with hostile world and I really need this kind of support.

English party

We were supposed to have an English party in order to practice English. There was almost no time for it because it was right before Christmas and moreover, we had some tests as well, so we had to have only a small party containing two people – me and Tom. We had a great time because we decided to go to Ačko where we could have a drink for inspiration. Because we had an English party, we tried to order our drinks using English, but barman wasn’t much happy about it. Firstly, we talked about some topics from Debatebase. First topic was “if junk food should be banned from schools” but finally we have agreed that sometimes it is our only chance to eat because of poor meals in our canteen. Then we talked about the topic “if homework should be banned” which was quite a long discussion. During this discussion we realised that we have a lot to do for our tests and other lessons, so we have agreed on postponing our party and we had no time to meet again because of our homework and preparation for exams. So we realised that having too much homework can cause a lack of time for their fulfilment.

Evaluation of the course

As I see it, this course is one of the best at this university. Lessons are well-prepared and always entertaining. We are discussing topics that are interesting and related to current situations (for example during the Christmas’ lesson we talked about Christmas topics), our teacher is trying to make our lesson interesting and funny, so he sings songs with us and plays videos in order to improve our pronunciation which I really appreciate. In my point of view I have learnt a lot during these lessons. I have improved my pronunciation and I understand grammar that we have discussed because it was explained in an understandable way. I also liked most of homework because it was made in modern and also enjoyable way (for example blog or songs).

I have only two little negative objections – I would like to focus more to listening skills and it would be good if you could write at least one or two comments to our articles in order to get a feedback. 

Finally, I really appreciate obliging and forthcoming approach of Mgr. Vít because I think that it is the best way how to teach.

Snowman's Minisaga

Snowman found a flower. He smelled it and sneezed, so his carrot nose blew off. He tried to find it but a reindeer was faster. The snowman shed a tear. Suddenly reindeer put the nose back to happy snowman’s face. He sneezed again holding his nose this time, so his head blew off instead.