My Year abroad

For my final blog, I decided to write about my year abroad in Heilbronn, Germany. Being stressed to get assignments finished and trying to study for the upcoming exams has made me miss my erasmus year so much more.
Although part of the reason I chose to do the marketing course in Dkit was the chance to study abroad, I was very apprehensive about going when the time came. I have never lived away from home and I was worried I wouldn’t make it through the year there.
The language barrier was difficult at times. I had no previous experince of the language so I took a beginners German course in the first semester. It was definately one of the worst classes i had. Right from the start the lecturer dint speak any English so it was very difficult when she explained anything in the beginning as no one had any idea what she was saying. One of the main things i didnt like about the lectures there was the fact that some were at 8 in the morning and could last 3 hours so I found it a bit difficult making it to thoses lectures.
The main thing I loved was the travelling side. I have been skiing in Austria and had a trip to Barcelona. Also I have been to a few places in Germany such as Stuttgart, Heidelberg, Wurzburg, Munich and Berlin.
I never thought I would meet and have such close friends there or that I would come to love my life in Erasmus and not want to leave. I’m disappointed in the fact that I didn’t interact with the Erasmus in the first semester as much as I did in the second semester. Also I would have liked to have travelled more while I was there.
I would definitely recommend the year abroad to anyone. As someone who has never lived away from home, the best part was the independence. You will learn a lot about yourself and meet so many people from different cultures. If I had the choice to do it all over again I certainly would. I can honestly say it was the best experience of my life!

The X factor

Recently I have noticed a lot of negative complaints about the X factor and mainly Jedward. So as im a huge fan of the both the x factor show and the brilliant John and Edward, I had to blog about it. I'll admit when I saw Jedward's first audition I thought they were complete twats but as time went on I grew to love them.
Every week there was anticipation of what John and Edward could possibly do next after their hilarious rendition of Britney spears' oops i did it again. And, every week they got better and better. I know of course, they werent going to win but they provided the most entertainment out off all the contestants.
Simon got a lot of hassle for letting the public decide on the result when Lucie Jones and Jedward were in the bottom two. I really don't see what all the fuss was about. It was clearly obvious lucy was the better singer but if the public wanted her in the competition so much then she would have had more votes and stayed in the competition.
I also noticed a lot of complaints about X factor winner's gettin the christmas number one every year. I have to admit Im a bit sick of it too. The last two winners (Leon Jackson and Alexandra burke) who I did want to win, had really bad songs and still got to number one just cause of the X factor. There are a number of groups set up on facebook to finally get songs worth being number one to beat these X factor winners. The groups include a campaign to buy A rage against the machine single and push it to number one, the group already has 50, 000 members the last time I checked so looks like this could be the year of a free X factor christmas number one.

Mobile Commerce

Mobile commerce is now a vital part to any business and people's lives. Its hard to think back to how I ever lived without my phone or the internet. my first phone was the size of a brick and i only used it to send text messages and play some games. Nowadays you can barely see a phone to buy that doesnt have a camera, video recorder, wifi and bluetooth bulit in. The growth of internet usage is due to wireless connections. A study has shown that there were more handsets than PCs connected to the internet by the end of 2003 (Dataquest 10/05). I think that shows how far m commerce has come.
Most devices out there has wifi built in, mobile phones, laptops, even psp's. More and more areas and businesses have hotspots for wireless users. There are a number of advantages that m commerce brings such as it cuts costs for businesses and helps businesses easily stay in touch wwith customers, suppliers, and employees.

Is there a place for religion in modern society?

I think its evident that religion doesnt have the place in society it once had. Take catholism in Ireland for example. The number of churchgoers is at an all time low compared to way it once was, also the number of priest being ordained and nuns joining the church in Ireland has fallen. There are a number of reasons for the continuing downplaying of religion in peoples lives. I think part of the reason is the many abuses just coming to light in recent years. The complete trust which was placed in the church at that time, led to countless children being subjected to an extensive level of sexual, physical and emotional abuse and neglect and this suffereing went unnoticed for too long because of that trust. The controlling of peoples lives by the catholic church (the education system being run by nuns and priests, women having children out of wedlock being sent away and having their children taken from them) has also played a part in the church's decline as people in modern society are no longer controlled like that.
But i do belive despite all the negatives, there is still has a place for religion in modern society. i think the reason is that many people need to believe in a higher power out there watching over you. Its also a comfort to people who have suffered a loss of a loved one, knowing they're in a better place.

NAMA

Ok, so i wasnt really sure what NAMA was about, at first when I saw it was the topic for a blog, I thought I might have missed a lecture or two and missed a topic. So after a bit of research and help from google i discovered NAMA stands for National Asset Management Agency. Basically it means it is an asset management company dealing with assets tansferred from banks. Its not a bank in the fact that it will not be taking deposits from the public, NAMA will have loans on its books based on real physical assets.

It will buy all of the land and property development loans of the six Irish banks of covered by the State guarantee. The government hopes that by NAMA taking problem property loans off the hands of the banks, those institutions will be in a position where they can continue lending. So this means that NAMA will probably become the biggest landowner in Ireland.

(Source: Money Guide Ireland)

Online Adult Industry

I thought this topic was an unusal one to do as many people find it uncomfortable and obscene. I was shocked when I learned of the statistics of the online adult industry, some of which include:

• visits to pornographic sites have doubled between 2001 and 2005
• some sites have more than 50 million hits
• 6.5% of males using the internet spend neraly 6 hours a week ehgaging in cybersex.

There are 3 general cybersex categories which are recreational, sexually compulsive and at risk. For the category at risk, it can prove to be very damaging to their lives. There are a number of physical risks such as dry eyes, migraines, eating regularities and sleep disturbances. It has also been proven that using these sites can destroy marriages. A study of men who were shown pictures of playboy models had less marital love for their wives. i was extremely shocked by the statistics and study results. I don't agree with the online sex industry but feel if others want to see it then they should have the choice. The pornographic industry is huge and continues generate a vast revenue.

Social networks / social media

A virtual comunity is a gathering place for people and businesses that do not have a physical existence, they exist on the interent in various forms, chat rooms and websites. it includes social networking sites. There has been a significant growth in using social networking sites, according to weblogs cumulative, the number of people using them are doubling every 6 months. there are a number of social networking sites including bebo, facebook, myspace and second life, to name just a few. Almost everyone is on or has been on one or more of these sites. They're a great way to chat with friends you never get to see or who live in other countries, upload pictures and videos and play games. The downside for me is they're completely addictive. I have to check my facebook account regularly during the day, plus its a great way to avoid studying. Though many people are a lot worse than me and almost all their sociallising is done online which i don't think is a good thing. In the lecture on virtual communitites, I learned about a virtual community called second life which basically is built and based on real places and you can create a character and meet people and "socialise" in these places. I think this is a bit too strange for me, id prefer to go to the real place and meet real people.
Another form of a virtual community is a brand community. Many companies use them as part of their corporate strategy as it has a number of benefits to a business.