Drawbacks of modern life

Nowadays, people always try to work hard in order to have a better life. Though our living standard has been improved dramatically, our quality of life is not as good as it is in the past in many ways.
First of all, many people cannot efficiently allocate their time for relaxing and working. In order to meet higher daily expense and to avoid unemployment, people have to work harder than they did in the past. Moreover, to many individuals, their job is no longer a way of earning a living but gives them a strong sense of personal fulfillment, which turns them into workaholics. The more time people spend on working, the less leisure they have. It causes an imbalance between working and relaxing, which makes it difficult for people to enjoy their happy lives to the full.
Secondly, the majority of people become more and more materialistic. Nowadays, people tend to measure success and social status by the properties we own. Therefore, with a view to gaining respect from others, people always set themselves many material goals such as buying a modern car or a new house, etc. Even when they already possess those luxuries, they long for better ones. They are always obsessed with their goals and let materialism little by little dominate them.
Lastly, family life seems not as happy and cozy as in the past. People now are inclined to giving more priorities to their business meetings rather than their family gatherings. In addition, their ultimate goals in life is gaining material things, not having a happy family life. They might think only material properties bring them a happy life and look down on spiritual values. Therefore, they only exert themselves to be successful in their career and ignore their family. It leads to unhappiness or even breakdown in modern families.
In general, modern life brings about a lot of drawbacks to people. In order to overcome those drawbacks, we had better give more priorities to leisure activities, spiritual values and family life which we used to neglect. Hopefully, people can both enjoy their modern life and happiness at the same time.

Benefits of home-cooked food

Foods play an important role in our life, for they provide us a variety of vital vitamins and minerals. Therefore, it is necessary that we choose the best foods which are good for our health. To my mind, home-cooked foods are the best choice for three following reasons.
First of all, by preparing meals at home, we can control over the quality of food. Cooking at home provides not only various choices of fresh ingredients but also proper hygiene. As a result, we can enjoy safe, healthy foods when cooking at home. On the contrary, many restaurants and food manufacturers profit by using out-of-date ingredients and ignoring good hygiene principles. Consequently, there is a high possibility that foods in such places have low quality which may negatively affect on eaters’ health.
Secondly, cooking at home helps us avoid harmful substances. We can choose to buy ingredients from trustworthy sources to make sure that they contain the fewest dangerous elements. Also, it is possible to wash the ingredients and eliminate all dirt, impurities, and pesticides when cooking at home. On the other hand, foods in restaurants or pre-packaged foods may contain a lot of unhealthy additives or artificial colors and flavors. Also, owing to mass-producing process, cooks in some restaurants or factories hardly wash and clean their ingredients carefully.
Last but not least, another benefit of home-cooked food is cost saving. It is obvious that we only pay for the ingredients and some other uncostly additives when eating at home; meanwhile, we have to pay much more than that when eating out or buying canned foods because the price includes service and producing cost except for the food itself.
In short, home-cooked foods are really beneficial in terms of health and finance. Therefore, we should choose home-cooked foods as our major intake no matter how busy we might be in this modern life. I strongly believe that cooking at home is the most healthy and economical choice.

Adolescence

How to help teenagers go through their adolescence successfully

When teenagers reach adolescence, they experience many complicated changes in both physical and mental development. Parents play a very important role in aiding adolescents go through this phase of transition. From my viewpoint, by doing two following crucial actions, parents will be of great help to their adolescent children.

First of all, parents should treat their children’s friends open-mindedly because adolescents are greatly influenced by their friends. It is the fact that many parents prevent their children from making friends with other adolescents of the same sex or the opposite sex. Actually, this method cannot help adolescents avoid being influenced by bad friends. On the contrary, it limits parents’ control on their children, for adolescents can still secretly make friends without their parents’ permission. On the other hand, by keeping an open mind, parents are aware of what types of people their children are striking up a friendship with, and they can help their children avoid some bad friends. As for adolescents, gaining independence and respect from their parents, they will probably be closer to their parents.

Secondly, it is important that parents offer their adolescent children sex education. In some Asian countries, a number of parents think that adolescents are still immature, and it is not time they taught their children about sex. As a consequence, many adolescents have sex unsafely, and they suffered from sexually-transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancy or discrimination from their classmates and teachers. Since adolescents start having a strong affection for the opposite sex, it is difficult for parents to completely prevent them from having sex. The only thing they can do is educating their children about what sex is, what age should a person has sex and how to have it safely. After being broadened their mind about sex, adolescents will carefully consider if they have sex at their age or, at least, avoid having unsafe sex.

In general, being open to adolescents and educating them about sex are two effective ways to help them pass their adolescence successfully. They are also the two good ways for parents to show their love and build up a close relationship between them and their adolescents.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Related vocabulary items:

- milestone: an important event

- spurt: increase rapidly

- reminisce: recall something

- throw a tantrum: show a strong feeling of anger

- broaden one’s mind: increase one’s knowledge

- bear in mind: remember

- something slipped my mind: I forgot

- have something in mind: have an idea

- having something on your mind: be worried

- one’s mind went blank: one cannot remember anything

- put your mind at ease: stop somebody from worrying

- to my mind = in my opinion

- cross your mind: if something crosses your mind, you are thinking of it

- take a stroll/trip/walk down memory lane: remember happy things in the past

- tell two people apart = distinguish between A and B = discriminate between A and B: (We are so alike that even my parents cannot tell us apart)

- be mature = reach maturity

- lavish money on something = spend money lavishly/ wastefully

- initiate something: be the first one to do something (You are the host, so you initiate the conversation)

Generation gap

Essay

Generation gap is unavoidable in not only extended families with many generations but also nuclear families between parents and children. A number of conflicts in a family are brought about by generation gap. In my opinion, to limit bad effects of generation gap, each family should use three following methods.

First of all, it is important that family members discuss openly about their childhood or funny and sad incidents in family gatherings. This activity does not only create a close relationship but also helps build up understanding among all members. For instance, once children are aware that their grandparents and even their parents did not have a good upbringing during their hard childhood, they will stop complaining on the previous generations’ obsoleteness. In the meantime, once old people realize young people are nurtured in a new modern way, it is easy for them to be tolerant of young people’s new habits or hobbies.

Secondly, people of each generation should not develop a very high feeling about themselves. In order to do that, they should not think that they are the only right people in their family because each person has his or her own limitation. When all members do not insist on their own opinions but listen to others, they can easily negotiate in case they have conflicting views. Also, together with keeping an open mind, each member should learn to respect one another’s good personalities. For example, teenagers realize that their parents have to struggle with pain to support them financially, and they stop rebel against their strictness. Parents realize that their children’s new style do no harm to their study and stop imposing their own unsuitable standard on their children.

In general, generation gap and its bad effects can be limited if all members cooperate to build up a close-knit family in which they are open and tolerant of each other. I strongly believe that each family, by doing that, can enjoy a cozy atmosphere with the minimum interference of generation gap.

Related vocabulary items

- in a family way: be pregnant (Our dog is in a family way)

- the oldies: old people

- golden oldies: old people who are energetic and successful

- the world is our oyster: there is a wide range of opportunities (Golden oldies often say "The world is our oyster")

- a family man: a man who spends most of his time with his wife and children

- wild somebody up = get in someone's hair: make someone annoyed (My mother's over-caution really wilds me up. She just always gets on my hair)

- run in a family: become a long-standing tradition (Teaching runs in my family)

- over the hill: getting old and pass the age at which you are the most productive (Come on, grandpa, you can't dance. You are over the hill)

- act one's age: behave in a way that is traditionally suitable for someone of that age (Please act your age, grandpa. You cannot dance for toffee)

- do something for toffee: do something unskillfully (I cannot knit for toffee)

- hand down: inherit (My father's stubbornness is handed down to me, or I inherit my father's stubbornness, or I take my father's stubbornness)

- maternal: belonging to mother (maternal grandmother)

- paternal: belonging to father (paternal grandmother)

- parental: belonging to parents (parental support)

- upbringing: educating a child

- sibling rivalry: competing between brothers and sisters (Sibling rivalry can be avoided once parents give their children a good, stable upbringing)

Classification of Clothes

In my opinion, clothes can be divided into three main types according to the places people wear them. The first type is working clothes which people often wear at work. Their designs and colors often depend on the wearers’ working conditions or regulations. For instance, almost all students have to wear uniform which is a white shirt while farmers often wear old, dark clothes. As this type of clothes must adapt to the working environments, the wearers have the least chance to show their own style. The second type is household clothes which people always wear at home. This kind of clothing is usually made from soft materials so that the wearers can be flexible in doing housework or taking a rest. The most common design of household clothes is simple, motley suits. With this type, people can indulge their tastes by choosing decorating patterns and colors of their dresses. The last one is going – out clothes which can best express the wearers’ styles in comparison with the two previous types. It is because the wearers can freely choose any kind of dress which suits their tastes and ages. The designs and colors of this type are unlimited because they are only dependent on the wearers’ taste and way of combining clothes to create the perfect one which shows their characteristics. To sum up, we should choose suitable clothes for each circumstance so that we can be confident wearing them.

My Father

Among all members in my family, the person whom I respect most is my father. Although he is now in his late forties, he looks quite young and fit. My father has a medium height, and he is a little bit fat like many other men of his age. There are some wrinkles on his broad forehead and around his bright brown eyes. Those wrinkles, together with a dark complexion create a serious look on my father’s square face. As my father is a farmer, he has to work very hard to support our family life as well as my brother’s study and mine. However, he usually spends his very little free time reading newspaper and watching news on television. The personality that I admire him most is his devotion to our big extended family. When any member has troubles, my father usually does his best to find the right solution. However, he is very strict if we do anything wrong, which has created an image of a bossy man in my childish mind. Whenever being told what to do or being forbidden to do something, I thought that my father and I were as different as chalk and cheese. It was not until I left my home and managed my own life that I realized how useful his advice is. There may be differences between us, but I am always grateful to my father for his advice and devotion.

My father's and my brother's views towards games online

My father and my brother have different views on games online. Firstly, to my brother, games online are young people’s useful pastime which helps improve their computer skill as well as flexibility. My father, however, regards it as a useless, waste-of-money activity which makes the players woozy. Secondly, their attitudes towards game players are also contrary. My brother thinks that games online players are very cool and modern while my father always calls them “idle people”. As a result, my father prevents my brother from playing games online because he is afraid that it will spoil him. Finally, with his positive viewpoint, my brother always welcomes new games to have more new entertaining activities. On contrary, with his negative view, my father thinks that every kind of game online should be banned so that teenagers will concentrate on learning instead of spending time on games. To sum up, in my opinion, their contrary views may be just resulted from the generation gap between them.