The Definitve Characteristic of a human being

It took me a long time to decide which topic I wanted to choose. Should I choose the characteristic of a human being or of humanity? Finally I decided to write about what human beings makes them different from other things. Even if  it seems to be a smaller topic, because it's only about one person, there are still a lot of things to talk about.

What is the characteristic of a human being is the question? What makes a human different and special compared to other creatures?

The first factor, on which you can see if it's a human or something else, is the biological and physical characteristic. When you look over that, you'll recoginze that there are a couple of more inner properties and I'll try to talk about them.

Humans have a highly developed brain because they usually get a good education about many things in life. That is why, other creatures will never know as much as human beings, because they don't go to school, they don't have the chance to learn, why things are as they are. Other creatures don't care about a lot of events because they don't know that there is a reason why, for example, the weather changes from time to time.
Because we know a lot, we are used to think in a more complex way. On the contrary, animals think in a much simpler way so they don't have to worry about things on we have to worry. That makes it easier for them and so we can say that they are "learning by doing'' instead of thinking through all the steps they want to do.
Because human beings made huge progresses since the last centuries we know a lot. Animals didn't evolve them self during the last years. The progress in the animal world will always stay on the same level however humans evolve from year to year.

I think that one of the biggest feature is, the fact, that humans think before they're acting. Animals are much more intuitive. They don't think before they are showing emotions, everything is more instinctual.
People pay in general more attention to do not hurt somebody's feelings with what they are saying or doing. They are more emotional.

The fact that people always think before they are acting can be intelligent.But it can also become as an obstacle, when people are never really spontenous. When somebody has always a plan for everything, this person risk to stand in his own way and miss the wonderful feeling about being free or doing what they want to.

An other thing is that in my opinion animals stay more in their habits or that they don't have such a huge variation in their life compared to human beings.
So humans are in general more interested in getting new experiences compared to animals. I think it's normal because humans have more possibilities.
Example: For traveling, we can take the plane. This option allows us to travel to foreign coutries to collect new experiences. Animals don't have the stimulus because they don't have the possiblities so they don't even know that these things exist.

An other factor is that humans need a social life. There aren't many people, who are happy when they are alone. Animals only care about their nearest related people. Some male animals don't even help raise their young.
I think that it's at least never happening that animals make deap friendships and humans can't actually live without relationships. 
Researches tell us that we need to get love in any kind of ways to be happy. When animals need love is it more physically. A dog would never buy his partner flowers just to show him that he loves him.

When we think about all these different standpoints, it seems that there is a huge differance between humans and animals. It's true, but even people are completely different,  in my opinion there is one very big factor, on which you can see that human beings and animals are connected.

When there is an emergency situation, the facade of a human with his good behavior, planned acts and polite way disappears. In German we say: '' Wenn die Panik ausbricht, werden Menschen zu Tieren''.
It means that when there is a panic situation, humans transforme into animals.
What does that mean?
I would like to say that wee can see in all these movies where an emergency situation is as in ''Titanic'' and even in our dailylife, we can see that people can be very selfish. When it is about life or death, everybody fights for them self and even leaves sometimes other people back just to survive and save themself. It is like in the wildlife.

I think it's nice to see that two different creatures can be so different but that we recognize that we still have things in comment. It is a fact that all the creatures from earth are connected because one thing will never change, we live all on the same world.

[CE] Somalia famine response dubbed inadequate

Water and Food, two things which are normal for us, are the most important problems in Somalia. People, included me, forget often how precious water is. When we watch videos like those it reminds us to think about it and that the world has to find a solution to try to save the people who are in trouble.

How can it be that on the one side of the world people waste water and food and on the other side that people have to die because they have nothing to drink or to eat?

I think one of the worst factors about this is that people have to protest to draw attention to themselves. We have to reach that water and food get distribute all over the world because when there is a place, where people can waste water, it's a sign that we have enough to share it and to try to give it to people who don't have enough to survive.

The question is, where can we start to help those people?
Actually, I don't know because the saying goes that people have to get independant so our part is to create them a base their and help them until they can get along in their own way.

[FREE] My homecountry, Luxembourg

I decided to write something about Luxembourg for my free post this week because many people don't know a lot about this country because it's so small.

First of all I will explain you a bit about the boring things like where it is located, how many people in the country live and stuff like that...

Luxembourg is located between Germany, France and Belgium. The Population is about 511 000 from the country and the Density is 501,3/ sq mi.
We have a Grand Duke and a Prime Minister, called Jean-Claude Juncker.
People in Luxembourg live in a different time zone so the time difference is about 9 hours. For example when it's 12pm in Alameda than it's 9pm in Luxembourg. Our currency is Euro.

When people always ask me, what the biggest difference between the US and Luxembourg is, it's always hard to answer because there are so many differences. Food, laws, school, weather, attitude of the people and much more are different from the things in California.

For teenagers/young adults:
-you have to be at least 18 to get your driving license ( you can drive with 17, but your guardian has to sit next to you)
-you can start drinking alcohol and smoking when you are 16 years old
-you can stop school when you are 15 and start to work ( but the most people stay in school, go to university and work during holidays to earn money)

Food:
Like in America, the food we eat in Luxembourg is varied. Different is that the choice of the products is much bigger here.
For example the chain : Ben and Jerry's
We have Ben and Jerry's in Luxembourg but only about 5 flavors and here you have all kind of ice-cream. Actually, I was so impressed about that.
You can describe it like everything is bigger, more varied and a bit more sugared.
A thing, I was also impressed about, is that water is for free here in restaurants:) In Luxembourg you have to pay for each bottle or glas.

I recognized that the attitude of the people is also different when I compare both countries.
In my country, people are more closed when you meet them the first time so it's hard to get into contact with other people at the beginning. They are shier than the people in the United States so it's never happing that people ask each other how they are doing in shops. But after you meet people a few times, they start to be very open and so you get very deap friendships.
Because the country is so small you can imagine that there is much more gossip than in a big city.

There are a lot of more differences between the two countries. To many to write them all down:)

[RE] 'September the 11th' from Sarina Ngo

I choose to take Sarina's post about 9/11/01 because I think it's a very interesting topic and I could really understand her feelings.

''Before I never really knew what happened on that tragic day because I was only five years old.''

I can remember the day when the tragedy happened. I stayed in my grandparents home because my parents were absent for a few weeks. They had just returned on 9/11/ to Germany from their vacation in New York City. I can remember that my mother was sitting in front of the TV and she cried the whole time. I couldn't understand and was to young to realize that they were standing two days before the horrific event in front of the World Trade Center.

Now I'm older and I can imagine how my parents must felt when they heard that there was a terrorist attack at the place where they just came back from.

Sarina is absolutely right when she says killing won't solve problems. It creates even more problems and that's exactely what Osama Bin Laden wanted to reach. But what's the result about making a country problems? It only puts the World in terror and it provokes that people revenge them but in the end there's only thousands of dead people, a back and forth and no conclusion.
It's getting worse and worse.

The best thing would be when the whole world would stick together, find compromises, solve problems by talking to each other but it's not possible because the cultures are too different... Although it's not possible we should try to get on with each other because we live in the same world so we have to get on well with each other to prevent tragedies like 9/11/.

It's not realistic to try to find compromises for the whole world because the opinions about life, religions and other things are too different. Every country has to make their own rules and to try to get along in their country. That's the only way how people can prevent big fights between countries and cultures. Even if I think it's horrible how men treat women in Afghanistan and I wanted best to help them, I do not have the right to interfere in their opinions about life because I would not agree with them when they wanted to change MY opinion about life.

[HW] In a darkened room

I was sitting in that room... I couldn't even remember if I'm in a room or not. The only thing I saw was that black color around me.
I opened my eyes wide but something was different. Usually it's getting bright when I open my eyes but I stayed in darkness.
I tried to get up off the floor. Standing up was never so complicated because I couldn't find my balance. I was searching to touch a wall but there was nothing. I was standing in the middle of nowhere. The only thing I knew is that I needed to find something to save me. But how could I find it when I was kind of blind? I didn't even know if the object I searched was still in that darkened room.

The only thing I could remember was that my cell phone was in my pocket, when I recognized that this black car was following me on my way back home. I didn't know what happened after they pulled me into the car...


When I came back to consciousness, I was it that room and I could only hope that my cell phone was somewhere in that room to save me.

I bent down and start to crawl on my knees like an infant, but I was helpless like an infant! It felt like the darkness had a higher position than me. Every little thing I could hear scarred me. Things, I wouldn't even recognize when they were there in a lighted room because with light I were not scarred.

I went slowly back to the wall which gave me a little feeling of safekeeping, with my back against the wall. Even I couldn't see the walls around me I had the feeling that they were coming closer and closer. Faster and faster. I had got headache and tried to push them away with my hands but they were always in front of me. I screamed just to try to break these dark walls in front of me but when I stopped, the echo of my screaming even scarred me more and let me slump down on the floor.

The air was stifling. I was breathing heavily and even that scarred me. The only thing I wanted was to find my Cell phone to call somebody who could help me. This pressure, that only I could save me was horrible. I was desperated...

Suddently I stood up and start to run inside the room. I shmashed with all my power against a wall and fell to the ground. I was rolling on the floor, in the deep... I could feel the heat.

I was never a person, who gave up quickly but in that situation, the only thing wich felt right was to throw my head against the wall, as hard as possible...

[CE] Greece's Economic Problems

 

Greece's Economic Problem is something to take very seriously because it's a problem that affects countries all over the world. When the Government doesn't have enough money to pay for the costs of the country, banks go bankrupt and people from other countries, who invested money in a Greek bank, will lose their money, even they didn't do something wrong or aren't a citizen of the country.

I can understand that Europe starts to get very angry with Greece because the other European countries can not see any attempts to find a solution from Greece. They keep on spending more money than they have and expect that we keep on paying for them. 

Europe wants to see progress, like raising taxes to get more money for the government, or reducing spending.  One of the most important things is that Greece has to start to be financially independent. Other European countries can not pay for them all of the time. The resources of Europe are also limited so Greece has to become independent for the future. 

I think it's time that Europe places a little bit more pressure on Greece to show them that they really have to change something. That's exactly what they want to try with the meeting in October. Europe wants to see Greece's plans for the future about their economic problems.

The Government starts to get into trouble because even the people from the country start to protest and are unhappy. 

In my opinion Europe should help them and try to create them a base but also let them find solutions for their own future problems.

[FREE] About Me

Hi- My name is Claire Aguilar and I'm an exchange student from Luxembourg, staying here in the United States for six months. My English is not so good because people in my country start very late to learn this language. So please excuse me, when I make a lot of mistakes :)

What about me?
I'm a fifteen-year-old girl and like I said my regular home is in Luxembourg where I live with my sister, Caroline, and my parents, Marc and Sabine. Caroline is 18 years old and will graduate next  summer. She will go to Munich to study Medicine. My father works as a manager in a bank and my mother teaches German at a private school in the capital.

In my free time I like to dance, ski, go running, meet friends, listen to music, go babysitting and to travel. As teenagers are allowed to work when they are fifteen years old, I worked in a Cafe on Saturdays.
I speak four languages: Luxembourgish, German, French and English, and at the moment I'm learning Spanish at Alameda High.

Because my interests are in Medicine and Mathematics, I would like to study one of these subjects at a University after high school.

Why did I decide to become an exchange student?
I like to collect new experiences from different countries and an exchange is a perfect way to practice a foreign language. My goal is to speak more fluently English and get new friends from California :)

Stay tuned for my next Blog posts :)

Claire