A Reflection Post For ALES204

    Today i have finished my last class of ALES204 for this term. How time flies and I feel I just walk into this classroom yesterday. In this course, Dr. Laccetti and TAs let me know more about the social media and give us great lectures about how to write a resume and CV, which is very important and useful when we want to apply for jobs. From this course, I get to know more social media like Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, LinledIn, and many others. By participating in these websites, I know more about the events happen in the other side of the world and I can communicate so conveniently with friends faraway from me. Social media makes the world smaller.

       Image retrived from http://cdn.briansolis.com/wpcontent/uploads/2008/08/1814873464_02b8d3f59e.jpg

    By using social media, many people get helped by other people. For instance, in China, last year in summer, due to the rainstorm lasting for many days, and the road were destroyed,  the farmers in Henan province could not sell their crops. Therefore, they use social media to ask for the public's help. Many people saw this piece of information, they came to the farmers by themselves to buy the crops. The social media pays a very important roll in this case and solve the farmers problems. Besides, a teacher from a school in the rural area asked for help through the social media. Because that place is very poor, students even cannot afford a new textbook, the teacher ask people for help to send some textbooks and other books for the students. Just after a few days, hundreds of books are sent to the school. These two true stories show the importance of  the social network.

    However, there are still many concerns about the social media. Nowadays, people rely more and more on social media, therefore, there might be less contact in the real life.   Is that possible if one day, we all stay at home and using social media, and no matter where we go, we use Twitter to contact with friends instead of talk to them face to face? That is the biggest problem associating with the increasing trend of social media. Here is an an article about the bad aspects of social media.

    The future of social media is very bright, it brings us a lot more fresh information, easier to publish personal ideas, and search for lates information. In general, the advantages that social media brings us weighs far more than the bad aspects. As long as we can handle it well and can differentiate it with the real life, social media can become a very useful tool in our lives.
 
Here is my five comments under my classmates' blogposts:
1. Science of Chinese Food (free blog post) by Lutong Huang
2. Free post -- The sciences in Titanic by Qiyun Liang 
3. Wikipedia Article: Give you warm in winter by Feiyan Zhou
4. Smoothie Craze by Pharyne Hrywkiw
5. Do We Have to Drink Milk by Yuhan Jiang

Chocolate: Delicious Food for Human, Poison for Dogs

    Many people like to take a bar of chocolate at he teatime in the afternoon. At this time, maybe you want to share the sweet with your friends. If you cannot find anyone else, your dog is a good object to share with. Many people know that dogs also like desserts. But stop it, otherwise chocolate may kill you dog. In America, chocolate is one of five common items that can cause dog poisoning, the other four are antifreeze, marijuana, raticide and insecticide.   

     Chocolate contains theobromine, it can excite the central nervous system, relax muscles and increase heart rate.     However, for most animals, theobromine is poisonous. for human beings, we have a pretty high metabolic rate for theobromine, in other words, those toxins in our body will be excreted quickly through liver detoxification and kidney excretion, therefore the toxins cannot affect us. 

   Unfortunately, the situation becomes difficult for dogs. They cannot excrete the theobromine efficiently. Dogs can only excrete half of the theobromine they take after 20 hours. the minimum amount of theobromine which can poison a dog is 16mg per kilogram body weight. 300mg theobromine per kilogram body weight can cause the death of dogs. In addition, the usual chocolate milk contains about 1.4mg/g theobromine, and the black chocolate contains around 14mg/g. For example, for a dog whose weight is 3 kilogram, it he takes 3.42g of black chocolate, which is only a little bite, he might get poisonous. Taking 10g of black chocolate may cause severe vomiting and cramps. Taking 60g of black chocolate may cause its death due to fast heart rate and muscle rigidity. It is only the weight of a bar of chocolate. But for white chocolate, dogs can eat because it contains little amount of theobromine.

    In summary, if you want to share delicious food with your dogs, never feed them chocolate (except for white chocolate), otherwise your movement may let you lose your most loyal friends for the whole life.    

    Here is Yuhan Jiang's blogpost about milk, should we really need to drink milk? His point of view is very interesting and give us some information about why milk is bad. Nice blogpost, I like it.    

References:                                                                                            http://www.longbeachstuff.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Chocolate-Festival-longbeach.jpg

http://www.talktothevet.com/ARTICLES/DOGS/chocolatetoxic.HTM

        

My Own Little Contribution to Wikipedia

Wikipedia, as the most well-known online cyclopedia, contains great amounts of information, which is very useful for everyone to learn more knowledge. Comparing to traditional cyclopedia, Wikipedia is more convenient for us to find what we want : just type in some key words and click search, the results are right there. Besides, Wikipedia updates more frequently, we can find the latest information.  When I am doing my research paper, I will always go to wikipedia and get a general information about my research so that I can decide what is my next step. However, in schools, most instructors do not allow student to use Wikipedia as a reference. The reason is that Wikipedia is open to everybody, so anybody can edit as long as they get an account. Therefore, many resources in Wikipedia may not be true, and sometimes biased, it is not reliable under many conditions.

                 (http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7162/6793504913_a80da549ba.jpg)

In the course ALES 204, this week's assignment is to choose a stub in Wikipedia and edit our own Wikipedia assignment. This is my first time to edit in Wikipedia. The stub I choose is "fruit syrup". For myself, I like sweet food, and every time when I'm eating pancakes and waffles, fruit syrup is necessary. The former description of fruit syrup is very little, just two sentences. Thus I decide to add my own words to expand it. Later I find that editing is really not a easy job, the code used is confusing and tricky, especially for the references. I tried many times, it still says this article does not cite any references or sources. This make me feel very sad.  Here is the screenshot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_syrup

Fruit syrups, as the same kind of processed food as jams and jellies, are the method to keep flavor of off-season fruits. They can enhance the tastes of food and maintain the original flavor of fruits. In addition, fruit syrup can be preserved for a long time. Fruit syrup can also be made easily by ourselves at home. Just get your fruit, crush them, add water and sugar, and then put it on heat and boil, until it becomes sticky. Store it in refrigerator, and you will get your own fruit syrup. However, the processed food has less nutrition value than fresh food, espeially for Vitamin C. Under high temperature, Vitamin C can be broken down easily. Therefore, it someone want to get fruit nutrients, fresh fruits are still the first choice.

I find that there is a blogpost written by my classmate Jasveer Brar about the stub "food choice". This blogpost is very helpful for what food we should choose when we are eating due to their nutritive and dietary value. By choosing the right food, our body will be strong and healthy. 

My Own Facebook Page!

Today, I creat my own professional Facebook page for myself. It contains my personal information, my personal resume. I always consider Facebook as a pretty casual website, where we can share personal experiences, photos.Therefore at first, When we asked to create a online personal resume by using Facebook, I was quite confused. Later on, when I am working with my professional page, I realize that Facebook is a good way for people to show themselves, and employers an get to know more about the people they want to hire.


Here is a screenshot of my own Facebook Page:

This Facebook shows my personal online resume. It will be very useful when I am looking for jobs. By using online resume, it is easier to edit than by paper resume and of course, it is more environmental friendly. Besides, when I am looking for jobs, I don't have to go to every company and give my resume out. Employers can just go to Facebook, search my name and the my online resume will appear. For applicants, they will get greater chances of job opportunity, because everyone can see their resume online. For employers, they can get to know more about applicants'  personal information, their experiences and compare with others. In that way, they can find the person who is the most suitable for the position.


Recent years, social media like Facebook becomes more and more close to people's daily lives, and it will be very important to people's studying and working. In the course ALES 204, I have learned a lot about social media. Here is Christine's blog, another student in ALES 204. I think her blog post is very interesting. :)






    

Introductory Post

Hello, my name is Xuechan  Yang, and I'm a second year student in nutrition and food science.   I like eating so it's my dream to eat the delicious food all over the world in the future. I also like travelling. During the winter break, some of my friends and I went to Cuba, it's really a nice place. This pictwant ure was taken in the morning when we first arrived in Cuba. White beach and blue seawater, just like a paradise.

   
I'm also a fan of photography. Every time when I'm travelling, I'd like to take plenty of pictures for my friends, sceneries and local specials in shops and restaurants. The picture in the right was taken in a local shop, some crafts were hanged beside me. These were all made of wood, very exquisite, and the most important is that they were pretty cheap, one for only 3-5 pesos. Each of us bought lots of souvenirs. Our tour in Cuba was so great, if I have chance, I'll go there again.


Nowadays, due to different reasons, people do not care too much about their diet. For example, many people eat fast food very often to save time; many girls (including me) want to keep fit by dieting. That kind of lifestyle is unhealthy therefore I want to be a dietitian to help others (of course, I will keep myself heathy enough). So I plan to transfer to nutrition major.   


Currently, communication plays a important role in my daily life. I use Facebook and MSN mostly to communicate with my friends, and listen to their opinions about nutrition and diet. After taking ALES 204, I have my twitter and blog account. In the future work, social media will be more important. For instance, I can use my blog to write recipe suggestions for girls who want to keep fit; what people should eat if they are diabetic. Besides, I must go to talk with my clients faceto face in order to know more about their situations. That's the time when communication is extremely significant. 

                                  (http://www.mydiabetescontrol.com/images/index10.jpg)