Monday, July 03, 2006

Lifeblog post


Lifeblog post
Originally uploaded by oocoskun.
Bora annesiyle HHgreg movie teather da film izliyor.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Saturday, March 04, 2006

Overweight?

Many people, all around the world are becoming overweight. This problem is especially common in the United States. Many people in the United States are overweight because of their habits of often eating fast food, and sedentary lifestyles as a result of technology. Compare to other countries for example Turkey; in the United States we can see the people’s overweight problem more often. One of the most important reasons of that is Americans comfortable life, provided by technological developments. Another important reason of that is American’s consumption of junk food such as gravies, dressings, ketchups, mayonnaises more than Turkish people.
In the United States, it is very common to eat at fast food restaurants. There are many fast food restaurants like Burger Kings, Mc Donald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Wendy’s and so on. We can see these restaurants very often. When I came to the United States I was surprised about the diversity and quantity of the fast food restaurants. Almost every 1 or 2 miles I was seeing the group of these restaurants. Now, they still survive and we can understand that fast food is one of the eating habits of Americans. Of course in Turkey there are fast food restaurants but there are not as many as in the United States. Turkish people often cook at home instead of going to the fast food restaurants.

Even if Americans do not go out, most of the time they consume easy to prepare food or canned food. They are also consuming lot of junk food such as dressings, sauces, and gravies that have many calories. Consuming these unhealthy and fatty foods causes Americans to become overweight. The Turkish people eat more healthy food than American people. They prefer to consume fresh food such as vegetables and fruits as substitute meat. For example, in Turkey, people usually use oil, vinegar, or lemon for their salad instead of regular salad dressings that are holding a great deal of calories. However, Americans usually have for their salad with dressings. Consuming healthy nutrition would make differences between being healthy person and overweight person.
Technology is the one of the important reason for Americans of being overweight. Technology is growing very quickly in United States and it makes life easier. Phones, cars, dryers, and the Internet could be good examples for it. When we use technology, we do not need to make effort as much as we used to do it. For example, before having dishwasher, we were washing them by the hands. While we were washing the dishes we were doing much more effort than we are doing now. Another example is dryers; after washing the clothes, we put them in the dryer, before we hanged them on string. Cars would be also a good example for the technology. It makes our life so easy. In United States we can’t see the public transformation like busses, train, and subway very often. Almost all Americans have their own car and they prefer to drive than to walk or to use transportation if any. They drive from their house to everywhere without any effort.
Actually, now we even don’t need to walk from parking place to the store to buy something, we can do that on the Internet or by phone without any movement. Now many restaurants in United States have delivery service such as, Papa John’s. You can call them and they can bring your house what you order. Internet also avoids exercise. We can buy many things on the Internet, books, flowers, foods so on. Of course we can see some of these examples in Turkey but if I compare American people to Turkish people, I would say that Turkish people have more action in their life. For example most of Turkish families do not have dryers. They still make effort to get the clothes dry. Moreover, because of traffic jam, gas expenses, and parking lot problems Turkish People usually do not drive their cars very often like Americans drive. For example, in Turkey many small markets close to our house. Most of Turkish people walk to local market for buying newspaper and bread every morning. In the United States If we need to buy something we have to drive because we don’t have any close place that we can walk. If we would like to walk, even it is hard to find sidewalks. These things seem very little detail but I think that if we get them together it would make a lot of sense.
Americans’ eating habits are very different from those of Turkish people. I can give an example by my own experience about breakfast style of Americans and Turkish people. In United States, many people have breakfast with French toast, pancakes, ham, bacon, eggs, cinnamon rolls that are covering a lot of fat and calories. However, in Turkey, people usually have more healthy food at breakfast such as cheese, tomato, olives, jelly, butter and eggs.
For instance, when I came to the United States, I gain 12 pounds in 4 weeks because of consuming fast food instead of vegetables, having unhealthy foods such as chips, using ketchups, mayonnaises, sauces, gravies. Before I left Turkey most of time I was consuming a lot of vegetables, salads without any dressing, a lot of fruits and water. I was cooking at home healthy food instead buying cookies, chips or ordering fast food. When I arrive to the United States I started to gain weight because of changing the way of my eating habits. I started to have salad with dressing, eat my meal with using different kind sauces and gravies, drinking sodas and having higher calorie food like biscuits and gravies, pancakes, cinnamon rolls. In addition, I get used to easy life quickly and instead of cooking at home, I went to fast food restaurants very often. Another reason of why I gained so much weight was not doing any exercises or not doing any effort because of the comfortable and easy life provided by technology.
In Turkey, to get to my job first of all I was walking to bus station, after took the bus, I was walking to subway and then after took the subway I was walking to my work which is .5 mile far away. There was no chance to go there without walking. Many people go to their jobs like me in Turkey. Now, I am taking my car from garage and I am driving wherever I go. I do not make any effort to go my school or shopping or my friends house.

Turkish people are making more effort and consuming more healthy food than Americans consume. Actually, as I mentioned above, the overweight problem of Americans is based on the technological development and improvements. Fast food and easy to prepare food are technological developments in America and they affect their lives in terms have providing easy and comfortable life style. Of course having comfortable life is very good idea but at the same time it destroy many people’s health.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Violence and Media

Violence on TV, in the movies, in video and computer games is increasing all around the world. Unfortunately, violence in the media has a many effects on the young people. Some people try to act what they see on the media and it affects their behavior negatively.
Television is very important in our society. In the United States, many people addictive to the TV. I believe that it is hard to find any house without television in the US. Many people watch TV very often and they think that violence makes television more interesting and exciting. Producers know that and they try to make their programs interesting and full of action with violent. In my opinion, the problem is that children do not know exactly how to deal with that violence. When children watch the programs or the movies which are full of action with violent, they try to copy the actions what they see on the TV. They think that they will be like the TV heroes that they love so much. For example when they see their heroes fighting with someone they think that it is very normal to fight with people. I believe that it is very dangerous for the children because it gives damage children's personalities.
Video games also have violent. I believe that playing these kinds of games affect to children harmfully. When you play a game like that, you have to react fast, and you have to kill as many persons as you can. You have to destroy something, and finally, you have to survive. Obviously, there is no doubt that it has a certain negative influence on children. Children easily become addicted to video games. If children play video games continuously, they become to be aggressive, and argumentative. In addition, their attention period decreases because they are used to seeing action all the time. In video games, they have their own world where they allowed doing everything they want. Even if it is only a game, kids start to live with the characters that are in the games. They cannot able to see which is real which is not, they cannot tell between reality and fantasy. They feel like they are hero and they can do whatever they want in the real life. I think in some video games that, there is too much violence. It influences teenagers negatively, and teaching them the wrong values.
These kids also have some problems at school. Before teenagers play video games, they played some sports and read books. Now instead of those activities, they have computers. They get addicted to these games very fast. Sometimes they forget to do their homework and other things. For example, they can spend a whole day playing a video game in which they shoot and kill some monsters or enemies. They enter a new unreal world and they forget everything.
If there are no violence in the media, everyone would have to learn only from real experience and the world can have less violent.. Parents should teach their children that there are good things and bad things, and they should help them to know what is wrong. Now, many parents try to control monitor what their children watch on TV. Sometimes it is very difficult because many parents work and they have to leave their children alone. Many people know that, since television was invented, the world has changed a lot because of this violence programs and movies. Media violence shows to children to see violence as a normal thing.
I think that video games, movies, and television include too much violence. Children who watch and play these games can affect by very aggressive content. Even though, they like to play strategy games where they figure out how to kill someone, they do not realize that they are becoming aggressive. Those video games teaching the wrong values and sometimes children give a very evil reaction. Since increasing violence has become a part of our culture today, we have to think about its influence on children.

Ozgur Coskun
DenizOzgur.com

Thursday, February 02, 2006

E.S.L.

Have you tried to learn any another language? When I arrive in the US, my biggest problem was language differences between here and Turkey. I have been in difficult situations many times because I could not speak English very well. I have two memories from that time I can never forget.
One time, I went to Wal-Mart for printing my film. When I got there, I recognized that I had one more frame of film left. I saw one man who was around 70 years old. He was working there and giving shopping carts to people. Before I gave the film for printing, I decided to ask him if he could take my picture. He smiled and said “sure.” He put on his Wal-Mart uniform and posed. I was surprised because I was trying to give him my camera to take my picture but he was waiting for me to take his picture. Suddenly, I understood that I had told him “Can I take your picture?” instead of “Can you take my picture?” but I didn’t tell him that I asked wrongly because he had already posed and also seemed so happy. Finally, I took his picture. It was so funny. The picture is still in my album and people who see his picture ask me “Who is that guy?” and I explain to them what happened on that day.

My other funny experience happened at the Texas Roadhouse, which is on Rockville Road. I was on my first date with a girl. We went to the steakhouse and we had a great dinner and chat. We were trying to understand each other because my English was not good enough to understand and talk to him. Most of the time, we were using our body language, but anyway everything was ok until I went to the restroom. I walked to the restroom area and started to stare at the doors because one of them says “gal” and the other one says “guy.” I know man-woman, girl-boy, lady-gentleman but I didn’t know guy or gal. I had never seen these before. In Turkey, restroom doors have signs with men’s and women’s shoes or hats on them. This time they wrote gal and guy! I had no idea about their meaning. After I looked and waited a little while I decided to try one of the doors because I knew that he was watching me. I tried and I was wrong. I was in the woman’s restroom. Suddenly I went back and I entered to the other door. I was so embarrassed because he saw me. Actually, I made fun of myself more than he made fun of me and I told that it was going to be our secret.
I am pretty sure that many people have a problem like me on their first visit to the United States. I had a really hard time when I came here because I could not speak English well. I believe that it is difficult to live here if you don’t know enough English.

Ozgur Coskun

DenizOzgur.com

Hitchhiking

I grow up in little village Yarimca next to Izmit, which is fifty miles far from Istanbul. In turkey most of the people uses public transportation. Since lots of people uses public transportation, it is much cheaper compare to drive your own car. We had a family car but since gas prices four times more expensive than the U.S. we usually try to use it with a group of people. For instance if my Father wants to go to Izmit, he would prefer bus, unless we all want to go there together. Also there are trains and ferries we can take.
I did not have regular income at that time. Most of the time I took buses or trains to get around. Maybe that is the reason I miss public transportation sometimes. Some people prefer hitchhiking. I personally don’t like it especially in U.S. but honestly I did several times when I was a teenager with my friends. It was fun at that time. Meeting other people, talking with them and get the destination you want to go. It is faster than bus or train. More important it is free. When you think gas prices outrageously high, some times hitchhiking was the best alternative when I was teenager.

When I was sixteen years old I liked to hang out with my friends, like every body. One day my friend and I went to Izmit to see another friend. On the way back we decided to use our hitchhiking luck, while we were waiting for the bus. A car stopped and we got in. We introduce each other and start to talk about ourselves. He was a sergeant in the Turkish army. He was going back from Ankara to Istanbul from weekend trip. He saw his fiancé and he was sad to leave her in Ankara. He was really tired driving long ours, which was the reason he stopped and have us in his car.
When we came to our destination Yarimca, I offer him cup of tea. He except it and had a cup of tea with us in our neighborhood café house. I was happy to make a friend and give him some uplift to keep him awake. He left to Istanbul and we go back to our houses.
Couple days later I saw his picture on the national newspaper put by his parent. I read the article. After he left us he had a fatal accident with his car and he died. I was really sorry for him even thought I met him just for couple hours.
I’m not hitchhiking now but whenever I see a hitchhiker I remember him.

Ozgur Coskun
DenizOzgur.com

Saturday, January 28, 2006

My Name

What is in a name? Does my name serve any importance in representing me? Five letters and two syllables make up my name. Which part of me does that represent? I believe that a person’s name does contribute in their identity or character. Ozgur is the first name given to me by my parents. It means a lot to me. Because of the repetition of its use over time, it always belongs to me. It is only time and reappearance that creates familiarity with in me.

After I came to U.S. I had big time problems with my name. People were looking at me questions on their face after I told them my name. For this reason, if I did changed my name to something similar Oscar. It did not cause a lot of difficulty with those around me because they are already familiar with the name Ozgur and they accepted easily my new name Oscar. Whenever my new friends call me old friends did not surprised. Now I have a problem explaining my new names spelling because I still use the old spelling.

The meanings of people’s names though, are related to their self and personality. One of the main reasons why I think that a name does represent a person is because the parents choose a name at the time of a baby’s birth. We do not even select our own names but still our names connected to us and I believe it represents our characteristics. My name meaning in English is freedom. I always the rebel in our family and care about my own freedom more then any body in our friend hood.
I think our names can change with every shift of our beliefs. Your name is who you are; it takes very big part in your identity.

Ozgur Coskun
DenizOzgur.com




Watch the Movie