Hania B.

Today me and my mom were talking about children books and toys and she said that nowadays it is much easier to find beautiful or inventive ones. I agreed but I am also of the view that there are much more useless or ugly things too. It probably appears in most areas of mass-produced goods that the choice consumers have is getting bigger and bigger each day. It is happening so fast that it is hard to imagine how will a shopping mall (or an online shopping site) look in 30 years. I honestly do not believe that any of the most known companies will reduce the variety of products they have on offer. There will be more and more options and we will have to make more and more insignificant choices but I doubt that it will make us happier. On the other hand, as my mom said, there appeared some valuable things which were not available a few years ago. But someday it might be impossible to find them among all the worthless items.

A few days ago my sister told me about a new trend on YouTube which is that people share videos of themselves describing they everyday life while having a meal. Most of them say that it is made for those who eat alone so they could play such video while eating and feel as if they did it with someone else. The idea seems well meaning but I find it a bit disturbing that the screen of your laptop/smartphone actually means nothing. It just feels very weird to act as if people you never met were like friends or family to you. Another thing is that some people on the internet overshare their lifes. I wonder if they really feel that they need it or if it makes them feel better - it is one of the modern world phenomena I can not understand. I would probably feel extremely uncomfortable knowing that somebody is watching a recording of me having lunch. The sense of shame is becoming less and less noticeable in today's world and although there are cases in which it is great, I am not sure if...

Last week I read a crime story written by J. K. Rowling - the author of the Harry Potter series. I read all the Harry Potter books when I was younger, this summer her other novel titled “The Casual Vacancy”, and when I compared these three examples of her writing, it surprised me how different they were - not only the plot and the reality in which it took place (which are quite obvious) but also the language, the way of conducting dialogues and creation of the characters. If I did not know who wrote them, I would never guess it was the same person. It often happens that if an author writes one successful book then they keep writing the continuation of it or write similar ones, maybe because they start feeling as if it was their “safe zone”. I think that if a writer wants to stay on top, that have to change and experiment. However, lately I’ve had an impression that the ‘mainstream’ book market is becoming less and less diversified and many authors base their storylines on the same sche...

The Christmas fever has started a few weeks ago and every year I have an impression that the number of decorations and ‘Christmas stuff’ advertised everywhere and available at all kinds of shops is bigger than the previous year. I do not want to complain about the Christmas spirit but actually I find it quite depressing that people buy so many things just to put out them for two weeks in a year, and in many cases just throw away every year. Is it all really necessary to feel the holiday atmosphere? The waste that is produced in that period of the year is surprisingly big and probably the most unfounded. Many ecological organisations focus on for example trying to prohibit the sale of live carps in Christmas time, but I did not notice much attention paid to the matter of being flooded in gifts and products in four layers of plastic, holiday-themed packaging. I know it is not what keeps everybody’s heads and probably it is not the most important thing at Christmas but it would be nice if...

Yesterday I read in the news that in Singapore teachers will no longer give grades. It was quite surprising, considering that in most international tests their students get the highest results. However, they decided that their students should not focus on grades. Also in Finland, the schooling system is going to be changed. These changes are quite radical but it is great that in these countries the government is thinking about the future and did realize that education is actually what creates it. However, my second thought on this topic was not so optimistic because I realized that in Poland the situation is quite the opposite. I often feel as if the government was trying to lower the education level (maybe because it is easier to rule stupid people). It will probably take ages  to get to where for example Finland or Singapore are now or will get soon. I do not only mean the results we have (in comparison to other countries these are not the worst), but also the emotions the school...

Last week I saw a documentary about how consuming dairy influences our organisms. It referred to many scientific studies and researches. After watching it I wanted to check the sources because some of the information seemed quite unbelievable. The results of the studies quoted in the documentary were real and confirmed by many scientists, but I also came across various studies that proved the opposite. Is it possible that American and British scientists got completely different results of a similar research? Some people claim that the results of a study are directly related to its sponsors. This idea is quite disturbing, considering that numerous studies on cancer, heart diseases, diabetes etc. are sponsored by food companies, while food is very likely to be linked to all these diseases. However, nowadays all researches are paid for by ‘biased’companies or people. Does this mean that we should not believe any of them? It is terrifying that the society is so easy to manipulat...

The only answer I can give to this question is that people support and vote for radical right-wing politicians because they think that they are somehow better than some other option. There are so many different factors and situation that probably every person who supports such political views has actually a little bit different reason to do so. However, I think a lot about it because I personally often do not agree with opinions those politicians present and it makes me wonder why do they differ. Is it a result of the way of upbringing and the impact of society or does it ‘come from you’ and is something natural? On one hand it is hard to believe that we can ‘be born with some kind of morality’, but on the other I feel that my views are not imposed in any way but are natural for me and it is quite difficult to imagine that for someone else they could be not. In my opinion the problem with answering this question, and with politics in general, is that nobody can actually understand or i...