My Vision for 2018

December 31, 2017
By Yostina Wasef
0 Comments

Quote: "Be the change you wish to see in the world" - Mahatma Gandhi

As the year ends, we wish each other happy New Year and hope that the new year would be better for the entire world and so I thought I would share with you my vision for 2018, these are the things I hope will be achieved this year.

I vision terrorism completely gone as if it never was; I see it completely wiped out from existence.

I vision wars ending and countries that have tension between them like Palestine and Israel, Saudi Arabia and Iran, South and North Korea, United States and Russia to be best friends.

I vision all the help given to poor countries in Africa and the world be helping them make a real economic rise and not just providing for the urgent current food and shelter needs.

I vision everyone more loving and tolerant and accepting to one another even their enemy. I’m sorry did I say “enemy”? I meant fellow human.

I vision everyone at least living comfortably and not struggling to provide for themselves and their families.

I’m sure we all want those things I just mentioned above and I believe it’s possible, we just have to start with ourselves like Gandhi said: “Be the change you wish to see in the world” so if we want love and acceptance, we must be loving and accepting to one another first even if the other is doing something our religion or culture or political view does not agree with. If we want compassion, we must be compassionate first. If we want respect, we must be respectful of other people and their beliefs first. If we want kindness, we must be kind first…etc. I believe these are the building blocks of world peace, we cannot expect peace if we do not BE these things first and not just by words but also by thought and feeling; we must think of each other lovingly.

There are two world events happening this year: The FIFA World Cup in Russia, and The PyeongChang Winter Olympic and Paralympic games in South Korea. Both of these two events, despite being sports events, they are mainly promotions of peace and many countries participate in them including countries that are at war or have tension between them. We will start with PyeongChang Winter Olympic and Paralympic games on February 9^th which made Peace its theme and I’m excited to see the opening ceremony to see how they would express peace in their performances. I really hope these two events encourage us to start a peace wave that will reach the entire world.

In the end, I will leave you with this beautiful video about PyeongChang Olympics that literally made me shed tears. It’s a must watch J

Personal opinion

Watch out for this manipulative selling technique

November 29, 2017
By Yostina Wasef
0 Comments

Image by Yomare on Pixabay

I’m sure you’ve seen in one place or another someone offering a free guide to finding clients or a free video to know how to do this or that or whatever. I have fallen prey for these for far too many times before I realized that I was being manipulated and tricked. I would always feel disappointed at the end of that free stuff, whatever it was, because they would ask you to buy something that has the information you TOUGHT you would get in that free stuff and while the price was reasonable in many cases, I didn’t have a way to pay online for anything, so I never followed through on any of these and through repetition of these incidents, I realized that the technique is all the same and I was being manipulated.

First, they throw the bait by telling you something like “get my free guide on marketing ‘Top marketing tips from the top marketing experts’ ” or “watch my free video to know how to increase traffic to your blog” …etc. They make you think that you will find what you came for in that free stuff they’re offering.

Then, they will hook you emotionally by telling a story because stories are known throughout the ages to connect emotionally with people and keep them hooked, a good story that is, and it’s usually their own story to how they arrived at the place they are right now.

They keep babbling on an on until at the end of that free stuff they offered, they will ask you to buy their product or service so that you could “complete” moving towards what you want. By buying from them, you obtain that missing piece that they left out from the free stuff which you came for at the first place and thought you would get by reading or watching it.

They lied to you by telling you will get something for free but you discover that it was a dirty marketing technique that manipulated you into getting their marketing material, the free stuff, and used it to sell you their product that has the information you TOUGHT you will get in the free stuff, because it was titled in a way that would make you think so. That is downright manipulative because it’s falsely promising people of something only to find that they need to buy something else to get it and the free stuff was just a marketing technique, only an introduction. This technique is called cross selling, watch out for it.

It feels fishy that they resort to something like this to sell you their product. It makes me feel like they are desperate and that they are not doing very well and that’s why they resorted to such a manipulative technique. I would rather be sold something clearly without tricking and manipulating. Or at least they should tell people that it’s an introduction not the whole thing they want.

I wrote this post because I don’t like being manipulated and I’m sure nobody does so I wanted everyone to be aware of it if they are not already.

Personal opinion

What if everything was free?

November 25, 2017
By Yostina Wasef
0 Comments

Photo by Les Anderson on Unsplash

Imagine if there was no money and everything was free, how would life be like?

No one would be hungry because everyone can get food for free and so, there would be no children dying from hunger in Africa and all around the world.

There would be no poor people because wealth will not be measured based on money anymore. Everyone will be able to get what they need and want without any problem.

There will be far less anxiety and stress about income and whether we will be able to provide for our families or not. There would be far less diseases too because of less stress. It is known that the increase of number of diseases in our time is due to our increased stress.

Since no one will be worried about where their income is coming from, everyone will be doing what they truly love and in the process they may help, benefit, and entertain other people and so, no one will be worried about getting a wrong job that’s not suitable for them just for the good pay which leads to decreased competitiveness and more compassion towards each other.

There will be no one who feels the need to lie to you and brain wash you with fancy words to buy their product because they need to make the sale otherwise, they may not get their paycheck.

Clean green energy will be available for everyone and so there will be no more pollution, global warming, and catastrophic climate change.

However, bad things might also happen such as:

People might get greedy and whoever comes first takes more than what they need and leave nothing to other people leading to another kind of poverty.

Guns and weapons may be obtained and manufactured freely without limits BUT, maybe we should limit it to military and police personnel only. However, free exchange of guns and weapons and the exchange of the material to manufacture them among countries may make one country attack another just because it has the weapons and the power to.

Some of the less desired but necessary work might not get done like washing the dishes in a restaurant, collecting garbage…etc. But then I think there might be people who will actually like these kind of jobs or maybe we will do it ourselves and be responsible for it.

People may become more lazy and less productive and so we may not advance as rapid as we are doing today BUT still, I believe that everyone is created with a certain passion or many passions to go after in which they will serve the world with, so even if we become lazy, it won’t last much because the freedom and the relaxed mind we obtained will allow us to be creative like never before.

In the end, everything may be used in a good way that benefits all and in bad way that destroys all. I wonder if we truly cancel money and make everything free, will we be wise enough to use it in a good way or will we abuse it and find ways in which we use it to make things worse?

What else do you think will happen if we do this? Whether it’s a bad thing or a good thing?

How-to

How to get fluent in a language

October 19, 2017
By Yostina Wasef
0 Comments

Image by Pexels on Pixabay

In every language there are six areas: listening, reading, writing, speaking, vocabulary, and grammar. We need to work on all of those areas simultaneously in order to be fluent in a language. Here I’m sharing advice from my own experience about learning languages. I became fluent in English just by watching TV series and movies, and I am now learning Korean on my own as well. So let’s jump right into it.

The six main areas:

1- Listening:

When we were little, we spent two years listening to people around us talk and tried to make sense of what they were saying till we started talking and finally learned our mother tongue. We learned mainly through listening. Like so, when learning a language, listening in my opinion is the most important element so I suggest listening There are several options to use as listening material: watching movies or TV shows, listening to songs, watching or listening to news, or listening to audio podcast or anything that’s spoken.

The key thing when you listen, or watch, is that you shouldn’t focus on hearing every single word that’s being said, instead just let yourself enjoy what you’re watching or listening and be fully engaged and emotionally invested in it, your brain will absorb the language and before long you will find yourself repeating and imitating what you heard which will be enough to speak fluently. Don’t underestimate that, that’s how I became fluent in English; I let myself enjoy and be fully emotionally invested in the movie or the series that I was watching and I found myself repeating in my mind what I heard and started imitating it and in time I picked up a lot of words and even grammar J

2- Reading:

Reading is similar to listening as it’s another way you can see how that language is used. When you’re a beginner, you want to start with something simple that doesn’t have a lot of text to read like maybe cartoon stories. You can read: cartoon stories, news articles about what your interests, or blogs.

The key thing when reading is as in listening: don’t get hanged up on every word you don’t know, just keep going as long you get the general idea of what is being talked bout. Mark only the words that are repeated a lot in a specialized search notebook to search their meaning later. Just read and get your eyes accustomed to the language.

You can use Hi Native app to ask about what you don’t know. Hi native smart phone application is an application where you ask any question about the language you’re learning and you get answers from native speakers, you can also post pictures of anything you see and want to know its meaning, it’s a very convenient language learning app.

Hi native android

Hi native Iphone

3- Writing:

For writing, I really like journaling in the language you’re learning. There is a really cool website called lang-8 where you post your writing and get corrections from native speakers.

When you write, you will come across words you don’t know, just write them in your mother tongue and if you find yourself repeating those words in a lot of journal entries, add it in your search notebook to search them later.

Also you can text chat a foreign friend, you can practice what you learned and it also counts as speaking practice since writing and speaking are not that different. You can meet people and make friends through a website like lang-8 or an app like Hi native, or through Facebook language exchange groups. If you search Facebook, you will find those groups J

4- Speaking:

Practice speaking with a native speaker friend through lang-8, hi native, or Facebook exchange groups. As I mentioned in my previous point, writing can count as speaking and sometimes cancels the need for practicing speaking if you’re really good at imitating how people speak and can really imitate the pronunciation correctly, but it’s more favorable if you practice speaking though.

5- Vocabulary:

If you had a gathering with a group of friends, what would you talk about? Learn the vocabulary involved in that talk. Pick words you want to learn and search, learn, and memorize them. See how your daily routine goes and search the words and phrases you need to talk about it. You will forget the words that you don’t need and don’t practice, so learn only the words you need. Also learn words in their context and memorize the word in a sentence because it will stick better this way.

You can create an excel file for your vocabulary and categorize your words into sheets within that excel file. You can then upload that file to your Google drive and access it anywhere. Alternatively, you can use Google translate phrasebook feature which collects all your collected words into one place and you can also search it and access it anytime anywhere.

Make flashcards of your words using an application like Textgram that allows you to add text to images and you can create a flashcard using its clear canvas option. Add a sample sentence to show the word in context as well then upload your flashcard images to a word learning tool like memrise where you can create your own set of words to learn, it will help you memorize them in a fun and a game like manner. Another app similar to memrise is quizlet which has a sound feature that allows you to listen to native speaker pronounce the word.

When you learn a language that has a different looking alphabet from your mother tongue, avoid romanization completely because romanization will slow your progress in reading. For example, I’m learning Korean using English; in Korean there is a letter that looks like this: ‘ㅐ’ it looks like the English letter ‘H’ right? So if I use romanization, my brain won’t be trained to translate the Korean letter ‘ㅐ’ to its corresponding sound, it will think it has an ‘H’ sound, so don’t romanize.

6- Grammar:

Grammar is probably the hardest part of any language isn’t it? The best advice that I have to learn grammar is to not really be too focused on it. If you listen and read a lot, you will learn it. In high school, my English teacher asked us to pay attention as he was about to explain a new complex grammar rule and when he did, I thought so myself “No, I know this grammar, we studied it before” but my colleagues were finding it difficult and awkward since it was new. I kept wondering how did I come to know it and it came to me that I actually picked it up while watching TV J

That said there are some languages where you really need grammar to be able to speak like Korean for example. To help memorize grammar, try to apply it once you learn it whether in journaling, speaking, or chatting with your friend.

Also a really great way to organize grammar that you learned is to create a grammar book on any software that has a ‘find’ function like Microsoft Word or Excel and keep adding grammar rules to it. You can review it anytime and also you can search it to find a rule that you may have forgotten.

To find grammar study material, you can search websites and collect information from here and there and you can also buy textbooks. A great website that has a lot of languages is Innovative language. Some language websites under this website provide free grammar learning.

A rule of thumb, you want to focus on listening and reading as your number one priority because these are the input methods which are going to teach you vocabulary and grammar. Speaking and writing are the output methods with which you are going to practice your language. If you input a lot of knowledge, you have no choice but to output it as words and expressions J

Learning Styles:

Knowing your learning style is going to help you decide what’s the best learning tool for you. Not every tool or method of study is suitable for everyone because the way our brains process information is different from one person to another.

There are three main learning styles: visual, auditory, and dynamic or tactile. You can be a mix of two or a mix of all three. Here is a test to figure out which one you are. Your highest percentage is your dominant style. If there is a slight difference between your two highest styles then your dominant style is both like me, I’m visual-auditory, I scored 45% visual – 40% auditory – 15% tactile.

Learning style	Best learning tools
Visual	Pictures, flashcards, videos, and anything that needs vision
Auditory	Podcasts, music, and any kind of sound
Dynamic or tactile	Games, practicing speaking or writing

Design a study plan:

In order to make a study plan, you need to decide whether you’re going to build it based on the time you have or based on your goals. In my opinion, the best way is to build it based on the time you have because this will spare you the bad feelings you will get when you don’t study as much as you wish. Define how much time you are willing to commit to learning each day and stick to it even if it was five minutes, just stick to it. Here are a few key points to consider when designing your plan:

Each day focus on one of the six areas or two at maximum.
Take time to collect your learning material: making flashcards, collecting song lyrics, collecting websites…etc.
Make a search notebook or a digital memo of the things you don’t know and set a special time to search them either daily or weekly depending on your time.
Set a day regularly either weekly or monthly to review and practice what you know so far. Maybe practice speaking or watching a movie. Also having someone to practice with can double your learning speed.
When practicing, you are going to make mistakes, embarrassing ones, but that is just part of learning because if you don’t make mistakes, no one will see them and so no one will correct them for you and you will not learn as fast as you wish for.
The most important thing is to stay flexible which brings me to my next point.

You’re going to fail following the plan and that’s okay:

Let’s be realistic, you’re not always going to be able to follow the plan to the letter; you either going to be busy, sick, something unexpected happened, or just plain lazy. That’s fine, be gentle to yourself and just pick yourself up and go back to your plan. Don’t try to punish yourself and make up for the time you didn’t follow it unless you really have time and you feel like doing it otherwise, you’re doing more harm than good because this feeling of “I have to do this” creates pressure and pressure holds back progress and fun and we want learning to be fun J

Useful Tools, Applications, and Websites:

I hope this post provided you with some helpful doable advice on learning languages. Good luck J

Do you have other language study advice? If you do please do share them in the comments or on social media, I would love to hear them.

Personal opinion

On the love of animals for better humanity

October 13, 2017
By Yostina Wasef
0 Comments

I wish we all treat our pets like family members. Photo by Lydia Torrey on Unsplash

I love animals and will always keep the cause of animal welfare in my heart and so I have few things I want to say about having pets and helping animals.

I do have some strong opinions here so please keep in mind that they are just MY opinions, I’m not lecturing anyone.

Pets are family members:

I view pets as family members that should be treated the way we treat infants and toddlers, you never abandon your infant or toddler and move away do you? Unfortunately, a lot of people treat their pets as an extra that can be discarded anytime; just because pets don’t talk and express their feelings with words doesn’t mean that they don’t really love us and consider us as their parents, they express their feelings with their cute and lovely actions and those who are experienced pet owners will know exactly what I’m talking about.

Pets to me are at the same priority as kids. I am saddened that whenever a natural disaster like a hurricane happens, the evacuations do not include pets. Why? They are also family members.

I also don’t like when dogs are hired in dangerous jobs. I know they have a better capability at detecting if something is wrong but it’s not their job to protect humans from what another human is doing using some human’s invention. I’m talking about guns, bombs…etc. All these were man made, why do we endanger another species to protect us rather than stop making these things at the first place? Or at least restrict ownership of it to the military and police?

I DO NOT like Euthanasia:

I do not support Euthanasia except for two cases: in case of rabies or some other dangerous infectious disease or if it’s going to be for food, otherwise we do not have the right to take a soul without that soul’s consent, it’s the same as murder to me. When an animal is living with a painful condition, it’s tempting to think that you are doing mercy to it by euthanizing it BUT as long as that animal did not leave the planet, it has decided to stay and to adapt to the situation so if we euthanize, we are going against its will.

Dilemma of Egypt’s stray dogs and cats:

Egypt has a lot of stray dogs and cats and a lot of Egyptians have this belief that as long as there are still people in need, we should not yet pay attention to animals and help them, instead, we should use the money spent on helping them to help people first.

I of course disagree with that belief and I believe there will always be people in need because humans create their own reality, so as long as there are people who think their well-being is dependent on something outside of them, there will always be people in need. Then should we not ever help animals? Of course not.

This leaves the stray dogs and cats of Egypt in trouble because no one wants to help them or donate to the shelters that help them. And on the other hand, the animals sometimes cause noise in the streets and people complain about it but how does the government handle the situation? The veterinarians of the ministry of agriculture go out to either shoot them or poison them.

The shelters of Egypt then race against the clock to try to save these poor souls. Some are saved and some receive help too late. This poison, I don’t know its name, affects anyone through breathing it and some people who were trying to save the animals got affected by it and died.

In my opinion: humans, by religions, are given higher value because we were given the responsibility to take care of nature, not to be the number one priority; it DOES NOT mean that humans are more important than animals. We are like parents to nature and all other creatures; we were given the privilege to take care of it and to seek the good of ourselves as well as all the other creatures on the planet. Will you make yourself the number one priority before your children? I don’t think so. That’s why I think we should strongly help animals before humans because humans are built to help themselves, they can pull themselves out of any situation especially that when animals need help, they often need help staying alive, that’s all they ask.

ESMA:

ESMA, Egyptian Society for Mercy to Animals, is the largest animal shelter in Egypt. They have a dog shelter and a cat shelter. They are in constant need of donations because as I said before not many Egyptians donate to animal shelters. They accept donations and adoption requests from all over the world; they pay for the expenses of that. They have a Facebook page here if you would like to help and support them.

They also go by a no euthanasia policy and a good example of following that policy is the story of Pinky who was found nearly dead and was paralyzed but managed to make it with the help of ESMA. Read her touching story here.

In conclusion I think that helping animals will help us become more humane because animals can’t tell us what’s wrong with them if they’re sick, but if we try our best we will practice our empathy skills to try to figure out what’s wrong with them and therefore we will become better empathic humans.

Pages

My Vision for 2018

Watch out for this manipulative selling technique

What if everything was free?

How to get fluent in a language

The six main areas:

1- Listening:

2- Reading:

3- Writing:

4- Speaking:

5- Vocabulary:

6- Grammar:

Learning Styles:

Design a study plan:

You’re going to fail following the plan and that’s okay:

Useful Tools, Applications, and Websites:

On the love of animals for better humanity

Pets are family members:

I DO NOT like Euthanasia:

Dilemma of Egypt’s stray dogs and cats:

ESMA:

About me

My Favorite Post

Why I fell in Love with Korea [Korea.net Article]

Popular Posts

recent posts

Blog Archive

Follow me

Socialize!