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HOT TOPIC: FlashHOT TOPIC: Flash mob – a new fashionmob – a new fashion

E D Y T O R I A L

Once, somebody asked me about the definition of the world. I may say to you, that I had no idea how to response straightaway that time. Why? Shall I shine through giving a pretty trite definition? I’d rather told him about the sky and its colours, about the forests and the wind, about the grass and the morning dew, about the Paradise (which exists- really!), about the girls and the boys and their silly loves, about people who are still in the run, about stars and the Universe, about the books and the word , about everything which is surrounding us. Then, he asked me about the definition of time. So I told him, that this was our individual property, which can be observed while ageing. The first step taken by a child, the granny recalling the step while drinking tea … It seems that was two days ago. Out memories are so vivid. This is exactly what time stands for.

So, my dear readers, do not get lost in this big, crazy world. Have always a sense of time and have some time to smell the roses, run barefoot after the rain and be yourself, because the World is your home- feel like at home.

The editors

Gaba Kocjan

Table of ContentsON TOP: Flash Mob 4-7Subcultures at schools - are we this different? 8-10

A small hoarding problem among young people 11- 13

Volunteering - it is good to help others 14-15

My Nation vs. other Nations: minority and ethnic groups in Poland 17-18

Do you see the treats ? 19

Religious diversity 20

Seven wonders of The Ancient World 21-22

The band of the month: The Beatles 23

A meditation in Cracow Gallery. It had gang together about 1750

persons.

FLASH MOBou are going across the park, when all of a sudden several people appear and start to dance. You think this is a good TV material and you may even notice a film crew. You are watching them. You hear the music. Suddenly

they stop at the same time and everyone disperses in multiple directions. The art or an attempt to challenge? This is a flash mob exactly !

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THIS IS A FLASH MOB !A flash mob is an organized event where a group of people gathered to perform a short show to unexpectedly entertain or confuse an existing crowd of people. Participants usually do not know each other. They organise the meeting via various mass communications to get together at a specified place and time to show up at a certain place for a few moments, then disappear.

A BIT OF HISTORY?The first Flash Mob was

organized in the United States. The first attempt to perform the action was unsuccessful, but the second, which occurred on June 3, 2003 at Macy's department store in Manhattan, proved to be a success. Participants were to meet at Macy’s department store and pretend they lived together in a warehouse on the outskirts of New York, that they were shopping for a "love rug". Then the group moved to the Hyatt hotel and a shoe boutique in SoHo. In each place they were following the prepared instructions. The popularity of flash mobs is growing because people have got tired of different protests against. They just want to be a part of something and have some fun instead.

A meditation in the main shopping centre in Cracow.

About 1750 people assembled together in one place.

The ‘No Pants Subway Ride’ organized by Improv

Everywhere. What about the shame? Who cares! It is just

for fun!

FLASH MOB HITS POLANDThe idea of a flash mob is making its way round the globe… Poland is not an

exception. The first Polish flash mob was organized on 17th October at 17.00 at the Warsaw Rotunda. The plan was “Everyone involved is weaings shower caps and goggles. They are pointing at the Palace of Culture and Science for about two minutes, then we will disperse. “

In Lublin the idea was “Have your CDs and break them shouting: no more CDs, long live the DVD!". Unfortunately, after a reminder from the administrator of the Web Side, who said that The Flash Mob must have “no theory”, they changed the script for “We're having binoculars and looking for 2 minutes at the clock tower.

In Radom in M1 Shopping Center, 60 people started eat sandwiches with cheese. They praised loudly the meal saying “How great are these sandwiches!”. A tasty idea, ain’t it?

There was a funny flash mob on the Kabaty platform. A girl with red hair started the performance. She dropped a teaspoon on the ground. Then 70 people did the same after 10 minutes.

WHAT FOR? It is for fun, to perform a show, to feel free, to forget about the rules just for a short

time. I introduces elements of absurd to a dull, urban reality. Imagine such a situation, you are going across the street and suddenly a group of people start to sing the same song. Isn’t it nice ? Usually surprising. We like to manifest, so Flash Mob is spontaneous, without any purpose. Participating in a Flash Mob is a rare opportunity that you see happen. It is a challenging, sometimes silly, risky and rewarding experience. These are the ideas that attract the young modern generation.

The main feature of each flash mob is its short duration. At the appointed time, the Mobsters disperse. The second rule is not to talk about the Flash Mob, there is no "source" or "organizer" of the Flash Mob. You’d better not hang out at the flash mob location before or after the action. Flash Mobs come in many different shapes and sizes and there really is no limit to what can be done in a flash mob. Flash celebrations, Random acts of culture, Marketing mobs, Flash politics and Urban prankster are just a few of the different types of flash mobs and flash-mob inspired events taking place today.

Flash Mobs are a new crazy fashion the future of which is still unknown. It seems that the popularity of the phenomenon is growing. It may break the daily routine, improve our well-being, forget about everything else and make others happy. Who are the heroes of such an event? They remain anonymous.

I

Subcultures at schools - are we this different?

Creative people in your schools- subcultures

In our school you can see many subcultures. They are hidden, because our headmaster said clearly: “no promotion of subcultures!”, but if you look for a minute and pay attention, you can see many signs.

People listen to many kinds of music, have different beliefs and opinions. Subcultures make our school life more interesting and colourful. You should have your own opinion on this topic, express yourself and have a nice style. But remember- do not propagate it it at school!

Angelika Uchacz

BrainsThey are socially awkward and clueless. They just learn and learn, over and over. They have got powerful minds and often no friends. In Poland they are called “kujony”.

SkatesThey always have skateboards and wear XXXL T-shirts, usually have a fringe covering a half of the face.

Punks and metals.Leather boots, jackets, pentagrams and T-shirts with a favourite band. They listen to a loud, aggressive genre of rock music called punk rock. Most of them have brightly colored hair gelled in weird shapes, or their hair might be shaved, cut intentionally bad, or messed up.

ArtistsThey always have their own opinion on everything. They are creative and often have manual abilities. They are dreamers.

Track-suit peopleThey often listen to rap music, dub step and hip-hop. There is a common belief that they really like football, don’t have a brain and are just stupid and aggressive. Sometimes yes, but I know some people who belong to this subculture and they are intelligent and nice.

SportsmenThey are usually well-built, high and slim. Girls like them very much.

Hippie „Peace” The stereotype about them is that they take drugs and travel around the world with the “Flower Power”. Some do that. But some do not. They just want the end of the wars and peace. They want to be free.

HipstersThis is not a new subculture. They tend to be in their teens through to their 30s. It seems that they “don't care” but the attitude is extremely carefully constructed. Hipsters like to perceive themselves as being highly creative, intelligent, thoughtful, and witty.

Barbie girlsThey always have a ton of make-up, short skirts and look like huge dolls, a bit silly sometimes because they care a lot about appearance.

A small hoarding problem among young people

Nowadays appearance is very important to both boys and girls. It may sound shallow but people are usually judged by looks. Since the first impression is very important, young people take care of their image. When they are in school, it counts doubly. Children are ruder than adults; they can laugh at everything especially when they see a boy or a girl who does not look well.

The truth about hoarding among young people is very painful for them: if they do not get pocket money, they will not spend money on gadgets or designer clothes.

What helps with spending money?

We all see advertisements which show us really pretty girls or handsome boys and we want to get clothes they have on posters because we think that we will look prettier.

How it begins?

Usually it does begin when young people change schools. They have to face new people, find new friends. We all see what gadgets are used by our mates. Some of us really want to be well-liked, and they can do almost everything to be considered as someone cool. When they often see that their mates use for example i-phones, i-pads or very popular netbooks they also want to have that. From the desire 'to have' to buy something the way may be very short.

Unfortunately it is not always the truth, we rarely look as good as models on posters. What is worst? The worst thing is that when we want to have something, we will buy it no matter what.

Young people cannot resist advertisements and it is leads directly to hoarding. Beautiful people on posters show us that we are not pretty or we do not look well and as a result we want to imitate them.

How can we help ourselves?

It is really easy to say that but hard to do: We need to stop imitate our mates or people on posters. We need to be ourselves all the time, and what is the most important we need to like the person we are. We may practice a "so what" attitude toward adverts and gadgets our mates have.

These things can help us not to spend money but we have to know that spending money on gadgets only it is not good and it does not help with being ourselves.

Klaudia Gałuszka

Sometimes each of us needs help, children need help with doing their homework, our grandparents need help with housework. Helping

people is integral part of our lives.

Volunteering

This was one example of indirect help but in Poland we have much more actions like this one. For example a Christmas charity parcel. It is organized in nearly every school and you can help without leaving school. This action is about collecting food (with long shelf life), toys, clothes or other things for people in need.

Help to man’s best friend

If you like animals and you are not allergic, you can help in animal shelter. It is not an easy job. You have to feed animals, take them for a walk and do many other things. If you really like animals, watching them being kept in cages may be difficult to deal with but it cannot discourage you! It is exactly the reason to help them!

Klaudia Gałuszka

Direct contact with people

Somewhere in every town, there is a place where people need help, for example a hospice or a children’s home. There are many people who are volunteers and help at such places.

Work in a hospice is very hard. If you want to work there, you must be mentally strong and be prepared for what you can see there. You will have to help old, ill people, and always smile. This is work for people with strong nerves.

Work at a children’s home is a little bit enjoyable if you like children of course. When you work at children home your work may include playing with children or helping with their homework. Volunteers are very helpful at such homes, they make the children start laughing again.

Indirect help

If you have less free time you can also help. There are charity actions you can participate in, like WOŚP in Poland. Each year on the second Sunday of January WOŚP plays. Plenty of volunteers go out on the street and collect money for children. Every year they collect large sum of money and the foundation buys medical equipment to save children.

What makes a social whole? A society is a very broad concept that is usually broken down into different levels and facets of life. Within a society, there are smaller groups with different subcultures associated with region, nationality, ethnic origin or social class. There are also other factors that separate smaller societies one from another. These are culture, language, race, and religion. Of all the mention factors, ‘minority’ has been used interchangeably with ethnicity. What are the consequences?

A Minority Group- what is that ?

It is a group of people, living on the area of another country, differ from other part of society in language, culture, ethnic origin or religion.

These groups may be of different nationality. In Poland there live: Germans– from Germany, Czechs- Bohemia, Belarusians- Belarus, Ukrainians- Ukraine, Lithuanians- Lithuania, Jews- Israel and Armenians- Armenia.

Another factor which defines minority is Ethnicity. Members of each ethnic group identify with each other, through a common cultural, linguistic, religious, behavioural or biological traits.

My Nation vs. other Nations-

minority and ethnic groups in Poland.

Minority groups in Polandaccording to nationality

Rights of minorities

After years of political non-existence, minorities have become the issue of political and legal importance to Poland since 1989. Poland treats all its citizens equally and respects their right to preserve their own cultural and national identity, as well as their social and political aspirations. It was sanctioned by The Constitution (1997) and by National and Ethnic Minorities and Regional Languages Act (2005).

U- Ukrainians

N- Germans

S- Slovaks

T- Tatars

Ł- Lemkos

B- Belarussians

O- Armenians

K- Karaims

Ż- Jews

C- Czechs

R- Roma

R- Russians

Ethnic minorities

In contrast to other minority groups, ethnic minorities have never had a separate country. An ethnic minority is a group of people that have a different culture, religion or language to the main one in the place or country they live in. Its members constitute usually less than the half of the total population of the country. Poland is highly homogenous, since those who belong to ethnic minorities constitute about 3 per cent of all inhabitants (according to the public census from May, 2002).

The Roma

The Tatars

The Jews

These regulations are consistent to European standards. A particularly important aspect of state policy towards minorities is the privilege guaranteed by the Electoral Law, according to which national minorities' lists are exempt from thresholds requirements (which is 5% of the total votes cast for a party list; 8% for a coalition list). Also the conditions for establishing schools for minorities in Poland are favourable nowadays. The regulations guarantee the opportunity to learn and to be instructed in the minority language in public educational institutions, sustain and develop their own native language as well as introduce themes of history and geography of minorities in Poland to school curricula. Ethnic minorities may apply for grants for actions in the sphere of culture, education or aimed at ensuring equal opportunities in the field of public affairs and preservation of minorities identity.

What do we get from them ?

One could wonder what it is all about, how people are distinct, how social groups relate to one another. Do we benefit from the existence of minorities? Just think for a while about the Polish language and how it has been enriched by borrowings from other languages. Minorities have their own distinct culture and customs, elements of which have been assimilated into the dominant national culture becoming our common heritage. Polish national cuisine was enriched with various dishes originating in the incoming minorities. The variety of customs and traditions makes Poland more attractive and unique to foreigners. Poland is visited by 12.5 million tourists each year. It has to do with cultural diversity of our country.

Gabriela Kocjan

Religious diversity-

What is worse this addiction goes hand in hand with drug addition. Any addiction is difficult to overcome alone. Additionally. it may lead to irreversible damage to the nervous system or long-term health problems. Once hooked, addicts loose all sense of responsibility both towards themselves and towards others as well as the ability to manage time effectively. They need more and more of those substances to sustain the illusion of complete relaxation and happiness. The only way out of dependence is to undergo treatment for their addiction.

Beat me with your intelligence instead of fists!

The third threat is juvenile delinquency. More and more young people are committing crimes or minor offences. Juvenile delinquents begin offending or showing antisocial behaviour such as bullying, beating and humiliating weaker even in childhood. This continues into adulthood as they members of various gangs and aggressive football fans. Although, some young offenders tend to drop all criminal activity as they grow older, some of them get jail sentences .

To sum up, our role is to alarm authorities to undertake actions to stop or prevent those threats.

K. Gałuszka

Let’s play a computer game, shall we?

I would like to write about social threats to the youth. The first set of threats that youth face is computer gaming, the internet and TV. If someone is addicted to modern technology, nothing else matters. Playing computer games contributes to aggression and brutality. Those horrible bloody games cause many problems for children on the one hand and for society on the other. Teenagers lose sense of reality and as a result they become isolated from the outside world. Such games are contributing to a teenage lack of responsibility, a risk-taking behaviour, a shortening of the attention span, thus harming the ability to learn. They make children less sociable, less confident, and more introverted or even narrow-minded. There is evidence that aggressive games have negative outcomes, such as lower academic performance which may result in a lower chance of achieving success in life.

Alcohol and drugs? No, I'd rather not!

The second set of threats is associated with alcohol and drugs. More and more young people are experimenting with alcohol at a very early age and becoming dependent on alcohol.

Do you see the threats?

Religious diversity - the most

important factsThere are many religions in the world.

Christianity, Buddhism, Calvinism, Religion of Flying Spaghetti... Everybody has got their own beliefs and opinions about God and answers for the questions:

-‘How did the World begin?’

-‘Who cares about us ?’.

Catholics believe in the seven sacraments: Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, Marriage, Ordination, Reconciliation/Confession and Anointing of the Sick. They were instituted by Christ who is believed to be the savior of humanity and he died on the cross to atone for the sins of all humanity.

All Catholics are Christians, but all Christians are not Catholics.

Protestantism began with the "Protestant Reformation”, led by Martin Luther who posted his 95 Theses, calling for reform of the Christian Church. Luther criticized some practices of the early 16th century Catholic Church, especially the selling of indulgences. Protestants do respect Mary as Jesus’ mother but no not believe that one needs to pray to Mary, Saints or Angels.

There are religions in which polygamy is permitted. It takes two main forms – polygyny (a man marries more than one woman) and polyandry (a woman marries more than one man). Polygyny may be found in rural Tibet where agriculture is difficult and food requirements have led to a marital system. In Islam, limited polygyny is permitted; whereas polyandry is completely prohibited.

Everyone should have the freedom to choose what religion he or she wants to practice. No one has the right to tell you what to think or what to believe in. You can even create your own God or religion and get people to worship your God. If they believe... congratulations, you have your own followers.

We are told that there are ten thousand religions in the world! Yet, there are many people who reject the existence of God and not believe in any supernatural deity or supreme being. These people are called Atheists.

In ‘Focus’ they wrote that Islam is taking control over the whole Europe. I do not think so. There are many Christians and atheists. One people, one opinion, one belief.

A. Uchacz

www.seven-wonders-world.com

Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

The term Seven Wonders of the World refers to works regarded by ancient Greeks and Romans as

the most remarkable structures of their times. They were described by Philon of Byzance,

around the second century BC.

The Great Pyramid of Giza also called Pyramid of Khufu is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still standing. It is located near the Cairo city, in Egypt. The monument was built around the year 2560 BC! Is composed of 2,300,000 stone blocks, each averaging 2 1/2 tons in weight. Until the 19th century it was the tallest building in the world.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (Modern Iraq), one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. This is a quite mysterious wonder. They were said to have been built to please King Nebuchadnezzar's wife, Amyitis. Gardens were built around 600 BC and destroyed by an earthquake in second Century BC.

The Statue of Zeus at Olympia is the next miracle. It was located at the ancient town Olympia, on the west coast of modern Greece. It was built around 432 BC. The figure's skin was composed of ivory and the beard, hair and robe of gold which was attached to a wooden frame. It was completely destroyed by a fire that swept the city in 475 AD.

The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus is another great human made structure. It was located in the ancient city of Ephesus which is nowadays called Selcuk, and which is located about 50 km in the South of Izmir. The first shrine to the temple was probably built around 800 BC. It was destroyed and rebuilt several times over the next few hundred years. The temple had 127 columns over 60 feet high and was made completely of marble except for a tile-covered wooden roof.

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus is a monumental grave located in the southwest of Turkey in the city of Halicarnassus (nowadays Bodrum, in south-west Turkey). It was completed around 350 BC. Built in a mixture of Egyptian, Greek and Lycian styles, it was unique because of life-size as well as under and over life-size free-standing statues of people, lions, horses, and other animals.

The Colossus of Rhodes, built between 292 - 280 BC, was not only a gigantic statue. It commemorates victory of The Rhodians over Demetrius. They melted down bronze from the many war machines Demetrius left behind for the exterior of the figure. The statue stood upward of 105 feet high at the harbor entrance, until a strong earthquake hit Rhodes. The city was badly damaged, and the Colossus collapsed.

Finally, the Pharos at Alexandria which was a lighthouse at the port of the Egyptian city named for Alexander the Great. The only one wonder which has a practical use. It was built around 270 BC and was the first lighthouse in the world and the tallest building in existence, with the exception of the Great Pyramid. The white marble whole measured approximately 135 m (440 feet) height. It was the victim of earthquakes.

We think of Seven Wonders of the Ancient World as of one list. The truth is that there were several of them and many of them agreed on six of the seven mentioned wonders. It is still hard to believe that those buildings were build by humans.

AU

The Beatles were an English rock band, which started a new era of music. The group consisted of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. The group was active from 1957 to 1969. After their break-up in 1970, they managed to develop individual musical careers.

Although their initial style was a highly original, the group later worked in many genres ranging from rock-n-roll and R&B-based pop songs to psychedelic rock, often incorporating classical and other elements in innovative ways. Their music rapidly evolved, becoming increasingly subtle, sophisticated, and varied — ranging from ballads such as "Yesterday" to the psychedelic hard rock of "Tomorrow Never Knows."

This band was – and still is - a great phenomenon. They have changed music and music industry. Many artists have acknowledged them as an influence. Many bands today play The Beatles' music and some of them do it very well, but original version of “Let it be” or “Hey Jude” is definitely the best. The Beatles' line 'All you need is love' is a great motto to live by.

I believe that band will inspire us to love and feel better for a long time.

Love me do ♥ Angelika Uchacz