"7-year-old Girls with Breasts"

Elizabeth Braw, author of "7-year-old Girls with breast" explains that there has been an increase in early puberty causing children as old as 7 to have breast and mature testicles. From what I have seen hitting puberty at an early age can have some negative effects on children because it changes their attitude, leads to bullying and also children are not prepare to be sexually active.

Early puberty can cause a change in children's attitude and behavior. I saw on the show "Malcolm in the middle" one of Malcolm's friend Cynthia had develop big breast for her age over vacation. She was so embarrass by this situation that she started wearing large sweaters and hoodies to hide them and prevent any of her classmates form seeing them. Her horrible experience cause her to change her attitude and started being mean and rude to people. According to the article "people judge children by how old they look". In this case Cynthia change her whole demeanor to prevent people form judging her, since she looks different form the other girls in her class room. Due to early puberty people are going to be judgmental toward how you look and everything you do.

Reaching puberty early could also lead to bullying in school. When I was little I watched this episode of "Ned's declassified" where Jennifer one of the main character accidentally destroyed a girl's science project by stepping on it. The girl called Jennifer a tall freak because the girl was really short. The whole day Jennifer tried to make her self look shorter because she thought she was too tall. As the article says " Girls who mature earlier are more likely to abuse drugs, have low academic achievement and a higher rate of depression". Hearing those comments made by the girl cause Jennifer to feel insecure about her height which is something she should not be worrying about. Early puberty is going to add another problem of being a teenager.

Children that hit puberty early are not prepare to be sexually active. I have seen some commercial of the show " 16 and pregnant" it showcases the lives of teenage girls dealing with the hard work of being pregnant at such a young age. Many of the girls still go to school and now they are not only going to have to worry about school ,but also the responsibility to take care of a baby when they are still too young to be mothers. As the article states " boys and girls with adult organs don't reason like adults". Some of these girls do not have the knowledge on how to have safe sex and the consequences it could have, such as getting an STD or even getting pregnant. If children get puberty early they are not going to know what to do when they are sexually active and the consequences it could lead to.

Though early puberty might cause some problems in children's lives. I feel that everyone should be happy the way they are because everybody hits puberty at different ages and there is really nothing we could do because nobody know when it's going to arrive.

Are Illegal Immigrants Good for the U.S. Economy?

Walter Ewing, the author of "Are Illegal Immigrants Good for the U.S. Economy?",  explains that undocumented immigrants are helping our economy grow, but the immigration system is preventing our economy from fully prospering. From what I know immigrants can bring a lot benefits to the U.S. because they will contribute to the economy and also bring knowledge and skills.

My family has benefited this country ever since we came here from Colombia in February of 2002. We continue to pay our taxes even  though we do not receive any kind of benefits. All of our family are really close, So each and every weekend i call my family back home. But in order to called them we have to buy pay phone cards because it is really expensive if we called without one. We also have to send money to help my grandmother pay for her medication, who has been battling Parkinson's for a while now. In many ways we have contributed for the grows of this countries economy. As the article says " undocumented immigrants also spend billions of dollars each year, which supports our economy and help create new jobs". Without undocumented immigrants the U.S would not be able to get as much money as they can help the broken economy.

Immigrants come to this country with different knowledge and skills that could really be useful to this country. I saw on the news this story about a boy whose dream ever since he was little was to be part of the military. He worked really hard in school getting the highest scores on his classes. He was even the leader of his school military drill team and brought his team victories against others schools, many of his fellow class mates and teacher thought he was a great leader. Even though he was more than qualified to serve the military. He wasn't able because he was undocumented. According to the article " workers who are not part of an underground economy and don't live in fear of deportation are better to acquire new job skills and move up the career ladder". Many immigrants like this boy could be helping the U.S. by bringing skills and knowledge from different places and not able to gain their status is hurting this country.

Undocumented immigrants bring many benefits to the U.S and the benefits would be even greater if they were able to get a legal status. The U.S is made up of immigrants and denying undocumented immigrants would be really wasting some useful skills and powerful minds.

"Is Music a Good Tool for Health?" revision

In the article,"Is Music a Good Tool for Health?" Elizabeth Scott, explains that music can have some benefits on people body and mind. Research shows that music has help cancer patients, children with attention problems and can have some affects on people's state of mind. she ends by says that because of these benefits music therapy has grown in popularity. In my experience music can bring many benefit to anyone because playing it can make you and everyone around happier, people can use it to express their feelings and it relives stress.

One of my friends from high school who was in the jazz band had a bad day once because he lose his job. He was feeling really sad so he went to the corner of our school and started playing the trumpet. In a few minutes people started surrounding him and giving him money. In just a hour he had earn much more money, than he had gotten on the job he lose. As Scott said in the article " music affects the body and mind in many powerful ways". In a moment of sadness my friend stated to express him self with music and thanks to his love of music everything started to look better for him. As it paid off at the end because everyone was enjoying what he was playing and he found something he could do and really enjoys doing.

I was born in Colombia, barranquilla a city that likes to listen to music during something call " los carnavales", which is a celebration done every year,where people dance party and listen to music. During that time everyone if felling happy, going out with their friends and enjoying the celebration. As the article said " music can also be used to bring a more positive state of mind, helping to keep depressing and anxiety under control". Coming form a background that likes to listen to music I can say music can make people happy and keep problems that might be causing people stress.

In conclusion, music is a great way to lift the mood of anyone, whether you are playing it or just listing to it.

Individuals in Groups

In the article,"Individuals in Groups" Carol Travis explains that people tend to behave and act different when they're on their own. Experiments have shown that people who were alone acted quicker when presented with a dangerous situation, than people who were in a group. Psychologists call it "diffusion of responsibility" or "social loafing". She ends by saying that when individuals are in a group, they react less to danger or an accident because they think that someone else is going to take care of it. From what I've seen people act different when they're in a group because they want to follow what everyone else is doing and when someone is alone they are in charge of what to do.

 When I was in eight grade a group of my friends decided it was a good idea to throw a stink bomb in the middle of math class and that was just awful everyone had to get out of the class room. Before we left the room one of them threw the plastic back out of the window so that the teacher wouldn't find it. Needless to say our teacher got mad and was asking everyone who was responsible because he was going to get detention. A couple of my friends and I knew who did it , but nobody told the teacher because we didn't want him to get in trouble. This show that when people are in groups they do things that they would probably won't dare to do if they were alone and if it's a group of  friends you try to support them even if the idea is stupid. This is an example when the author said "group observing the same danger, they hold back. The reason has more to do with the nature of groups than the nature of individuals". In this case it was us not telling the teacher who was responsible and preventing our friend from getting in trouble.

 I was getting off the bus the other day and a big gust of wind came by and push an old lady down to the floor. I was the only person around so I immediately went to help her and see if she was okay, she was fine and  I helped her get up. I think that if I had found my self in the same situation with more people around there I wouldn't have probably reacted as quickly as I did. As the author said "The more people in a group, the lazier each individual in it becomes". This would have been an example of "social loafing" because if there were more people there I would of imminently assume someone was going to help her and think there wouldn't be any reason to get five people to help a person. If there's someone that need help and I'm alone I would feel more responsible to what going to happen to that person and be more willingly to help anyone, than if I was in group.

In conclusion, individuals in group tend to support each other especially if they're in a group of friends and dare to do more things than if they were alone.

I Know the Truth essay

In the article, “I Know the Truth, So Don't Bother Me with Facts", Jeffrey Kluger explains that it's hard to change someone’s belief because when they are presented with a contradiction they try to stick with what they know. In a study presented in the article only a few people change their mind after hearing the facts. He ends by saying that it might be our own ego that's preventing us to change our belief. I agree that even in the face of facts people will always stick with their own opinions.

            First of all, I believe that people would cling to what they know because of their ego. As the author stated, “some of that may be simple ego- none of us like being told we’re wrong.” I think almost everyone could relate with this including myself. This reminds me of the time when they showed a video of a kid being taking away by a hawk. After a while they showed it was fake I told my dad, but he didn’t believe me he kept saying it had to be true because it was on the news and that there is no way it could be fake. As much as I tried to convince him it wasn’t real, he jus didn’t want to believe me. This shows that people are stubborn and would rather ignore the facts than admit they could possibly be wrong.

            Moreover, I believe people tend to let emotion get in the way of facts. According to the article “even when people do take the time to learn the facts, the effort does no good”. This reminds me of an episode of the T.V show “How I Met your Mother”. When someone told Marshall that his wife got on her bosses limo Marshall immediately assume she was cheating on him. So he when to the bosses house and punched him in the face. Lilly’s boss explained that nothing had happened, but he punched him anyway because he was too mad to accept the facts. In brief, emotions can sometimes clutter our mind and make us not listen to anyone.

            In the end, sometimes we let our emotion and ego get in the way of what’s really going on. We never like to admit when we are wrong, even when the truth is being told right at us and have adapted to a mentality where we cannot easily accept things. We forget that we are all human and that we do make mistakes, we cannot always be right because we do not know everything in life.

I Know the Truth summary

In the article, “I Know the Truth, So Don't Bother Me with Facts", Jeffrey Kluger explains that it's hard to change someone’s belief because when they are presented with a contradiction they try to stick with what they know. In a study presented in the article only a few people change their mind after hearing the facts. He ends by saying that it might be our own ego that's preventing us to change our belief.

Hype Revision

In the article, “Hype” the author explains that nowadays people can find advertisements everywhere at any given time. The author said this because commercial advertisements have increased in a big way without people noticing. The author concludes by saying that there is no way to run from these advertisements. After reading this article, I completely agree with the author that there is too much advertisement and it’s almost impossible not to come across one.

            To begin, I believe that advertisements have gotten a little out of hand because there isn’t a day when you’re not going to see one. As the article states, “no longer are ads confined to the usual places” buses, bill boards, stadiums”. For instance, when I’m on Facebook or watching videos online there seem to always be an ad. And especially when you’re watching YouTube videos, I hate when ads appear and you are forced to watch the whole thing in order to continue to your video. To me, this show that there are just too many ads even when you are trying to enjoy a music videos these ads would pop up and annoy any one.

            Further more, I believe that ads can influence people to spend lots of money. According to the article, “kids watch Pepsi and snickers ads in classroom” It shows how kids are being targeted by ads when they offer toys in kid’s meal. It said that kids start to nag their parents until they convince them to buy them a kid’s meals. Ads target children because they know that kids can persuade their parents to buy them anything they want. In brief, this shows that ads can have an influence in what consumers buy and that they know how to get people to buy these things.

            In conclusion, advertisements are found everywhere from TV commercials to the tedious internet pop ups, to the streets and they’re never going to go away. Everywhere we look we are coming across some type of ad targeting people from any age to try and force us to buy their product and the only thing we could do is to ignore most of them.