My students in Advanced Writing for English Language Learners at Southern Maine Community College are learning to write for the purpose of persuasion. Each semester The Current is kind enough to sponsor this project so that my students can see their words “in print” in the form of a letter to the editor.

I thank The Current for doing this project with me for more than four semesters now. I know your readers will enjoy reading the opinions of my students. I teach them that writing letters to the editor is one way to begin to learn the value of freedom of the press, whereby they can speak (or write) their views and have them published.

Your feedback on their letters would be valued by any of your readers.

Rosemarie De Angelis

SMCC

Dogs are loyal, friendly and lovely

Dog is human’s best friend. Dogs are loyal, friendly, and lovely. Lots of people have more than one dog in the family, because they are fun and good company too. The longer you raise the dog, the deeper relationship you will build up with him. However, raising a dog is just as hard as raising a baby. Taking good care of a dog is very important. If you can succeed to do the two things, you and your dog’s life will be considered to be good.

Some dogs play outside often and they are likely to gets fleas. In no time your house will be full of fleas. That will cause lots of trouble for people and dogs. Flea bites can cause terrible itching on dogs, and bad infestations can cause hair loss and skin problem. Dogs with fleas need to be treated with special shampoo to prevent flea problems or with a monthly medication that will prevent fleas from living on your dog. The best way to treat this problem is to prevent your dog from ever getting them in the first place. I recommend that a dog needs regular baths to keep himself clean and disease free. Washing them twice per month is reasonable or using the monthly medication that I mentioned earlier. After the bath, dry him well. A comb and a brush will keep the dog’s fur smooth. His matted fur should be removed. Nails should be trimmed also.

When taking a dog for a walk, there is a law that you have to pick up your dog poop. Once you get caught, you will get a fine for $250. Besides, it is a very rude behavior to leave it on the street. It is bad for our health and terrible pollution to our city. However, some people don’t agree that a clean environment is very important for humans and animals. That’s why they are putting themselves and their family at risk for disease instead of taking five seconds to pick up after their dogs in our beautiful city. To save your dog and your home, you need to bath your dog regularly with a good dog shampoo and use monthly flea treatment. Do not do both, because that will be too many chemicals for your dog. Humans and animals both deserve a good life. To save the city, you need to be a responsible citizen and resident and pick up the dog poop. The beautiful clean city depends on humans. Good quality life needs humans to make and maintain.

Yujuan Liang

China?

Consider Rwanda for travel

Rwanda is one exciting and touristic place to visit on earth for vacation. Many people like to travel in Europe, Australia and few countries from Africa, but there is another country in the center of Africa called Rwanda that is a safe place and clean for vacation.

In Rwanda there is an nice climate the whole year. The summer is not too hot and the winter is not even cold except rain for only couple of weeks in December. There are excellent hotels for good price located in quiet area; security is guaranteed. You can walk during night time without being afraid of anything. Rwandese people are very friendly people with a spirit of hospitality for tourists. If you ask anyone who has been there, he or she will tell you how safe and clean the city of Kigali is. Some places like the Park of Akagera, Volcano Park, beach Kivu at Gisenyi, and Mountain Gorillas are the most visited by foreigners. In those parks you can find different animals like giraffes, zebra, elephant, antelope, hippos, wild birds and lions. For someone who likes a quiet place, the city of Gisenyi is great place with a beach on the lake Kivu.

In brief there is no doubt that anyone who visits Rwanda is amazed by the hospitality and different culture and food. That’s why I recommend to anyone who wants to have a good time for vacation to visit Rwanda.

Victor Nayituriki

Rwanda

How to follow your goals

As we know, every student has his or her own dream and goals in life, but sometimes he does not use the right strategies to accomplish his goals. The best two strategies to help students to succeed with goals are organization and time management. Some students might be clueless about those strategies, but it does really help a lot.

There are two ways to organize yourself. The first one is organizing your own space. It’s very important to have a neat and orderly desk. It does not just help to reinforce you to study, but it also saves so much time to not search for all the paper works. Also, you should get rid of all the useless material around study desk. It doesn’t help when you keep the photo of a celebrity which makes you daydream most of the time. You should have some photos that encourage you.

The second one is organizing yourself. You have to be very organized with your notes for the courses and keep up with your own agenda. Clear and neat notes can help to encourage studying. You should have a clear agenda and make sure you keep up with it.

Time management is also a very important strategy to achieve goals. Every student should have to-do lists with them and keep track with it as well. There is only 24 hours a day, so it’s impossible to create more time, but we can manage our time. If we did it well, our day will go smoothly all the time.

Therefore, in order to reach our goals, students need to follow the rights strategies. If you struggle and use the wrong strategies, you can try those simple strategies. We all have the opportunity to succeed, so do not give up!

Charya Mean

Cambodia

Smoke just one cigarette danger

In this Earth as human being, we know that smoking cigarettes is a big threat to the health of everyone. Remember even if you don’t smoke, it can affect your life when you sit close to someone who is smoking.

I have several reasons to show how smoking is very bad in our lives, and statistics show every year we always get high numbers of deaths from smoking. Also it is easy to become poor or orphaned in the society by a people who died by smoking cigarettes.

I can explain why smoking cigarette is dangerous while driving, because the driver cannot do two things at the same time. It is easy to lose control on the road and become unfocused and get into an accident. When you drive a car both hands of driver are occupied, so this means you do not have the way to get a cigarette and drive at once.

Some drivers choose to put their hand outside of the window while holding the cigarette and the other hand to drive because he won’t be able to do both but in fact, it might make an accident.

Imagine you are driving in highway speed limit 65 and you want change the line with no time intervening and you find the butt of cigarette with fire on the windshield of your car. It could cause an accident because you didn’t expect to see anything while you are driving in that time.

Imagine that tomorrow a gentlemen has a birthday for his grandfather and he is supposed to drive two and half hours with his family, wife and three children. He starts his car and closes the window and opens the AC start to smoke. As we know secondhand smoke is very bad especially for children because they are not strong enough. They breathe faster than adults so they might get serious sickness from nicotine.

This is the advice I have for smokers in the car. I would like to encourage you to stop smoking while driving, and try to protect the health of nonsmokers. Smoking kills you and your surrounding; why do you have to sacrifice your life and of those who care always about you. Stop today and promise to start a new beginning.

Samuel Ishimwe?

Parents should police TV violence

The violence on television can have a positive or negative effect on society. The television is one of the most powerful communication in the world. Today there is an evolution on communication and we can communicate by so many ways. It helps us to learn more, to know exactly what is going on in the world and to connect with people everywhere in the earth.

The television also has an impact to our life, sometimes positive and sometimes negative; it depends on many factors. This violence affect the behavior of children and can have an impact on them. They can develop aggressive behavior and they will reproduce exactly what they saw on television like their heroes or their favorite characters using violence. Sometimes people use violence to get some attention of the public and many TV programs show are based on violence just to show the public the negative effects.

In fact the television violence is a troubling problem not only to young people but for our society as a whole. Television is guest into the family home, and for that reason, parents have a special obligation to take care with the messages and images they present. They should be aware of the moral and advertising messages they allow their children to see and hear without their supervision by saying what they do not like them watching on Television. They need to watch and listen carefully to the television and decide whether the message it delivers supports the values that individual family believes are important. The only way to reverse this trend is for parents to push back and explore potential policy options that may reduce or ameliorate the harmful effects of children’s exposure to television violence.

Mike Lapika

Congo (DRC)

Cold brings hard times at school

The summer is distant memory. The warm hearth and time beckons. The joy of the holidays is past. Everything moves more deliberately. Thinking about it, it’s the hardest time to go to school even if that quiet time makes this season a blessing for those who love family moments.

As a culture, the spring semester begins in the winter season. Even if we have to associate this slow season with boring times, stupid and crazy weather, we have to think about the way a duck flies and enjoy school.

The brain is created to tell our bodies to always get ready and be on time for school. The speed of our emotion is slowing down our need of school. Despair, shock, and disgust are moving faster than hope or love of school. Nostalgia, guilt, sadness are slower to move in and out of us; they’re often layered with memory or paired up with other complex emotions.

Just to think about getting ready to go to school, walking around school buildings on this cold time makes you feel like nothing is going as it supposed to be and school takes so much from our bodies and thought. Our brains are freezing, memories, dreams slowing down and the fast movement of writing and reading books are often dominated by the faster emotions like despair.

The hard cold time of school is like a prerequisite that will bring us to the fulfillment of our dreams. We need to be healthy physically and mentally and definitely love school as much as we can. Don’t think about the bad weather, just think how school is important for your future. Now go to school.

Danny Katende

Congo

Nothing like homemade food

No matter where we stay nothing could compare to homemade food. It tastes delicious, authentic and maintains body health. Another good reason is we would spend less money than eating at the restaurant.

People cook food in different way, but one main goal is that we want the taste to be pleasant for our taste buds. For me, cooking is one way to say I love you or to show that I care about someone from the bottom of my heart. So every time I cook, I spend quality time washing vegetables, cutting fresh meat carefully and putting the right nonallergic ingredients in the food. No one knows better than I know what my body likes. Every meal that we cook is another way to express a special feeling of love to all members in the household, and also there is more than a chance to improve relationship between husband and wife and parents to children.

Additionally, homemade food can be affordable for people who do not have high income or a lot money to eat out. I would rather spend $20 a day for my family to eat at home than spend $50 at restaurant for all kinds of dishes. It is a waste of time to travel from one restaurant to another in order to find the right meal. Some owners won’t tell you the truth about how the food was prepared. A lot of food is pre-cooked and many of vegetables are not clean. This is the reason that the waitress can bring your meal to the table in less than 10 minutes. Homemade food is non-preserved and brings more vitamins, fibers, and minerals than restaurant food.

In conclusion, the more we eat preserved food, the more sickness we will get. To avoid getting sick we have to be aware of what we are eating everyday. Therefore, homemade cooking would be the best option.

Mey Kuy

Cambodia

No reason not to play baseball

Baseball is a bat and ball game played between two teams of nine players. You could have more people on the bench to substitute. Everything that you have to do to win a game is score runs. Baseball is a difficult sport because it’s all about timing and making contact with the ball. Making contact with the ball is difficult, because you only have three chances. If you miss all three times, then you will strike out. If you hit the ball that gives the fielders opportunity to make the out, but it also gives the batter the opportunity to run the bases and get points.

Baseball is a great sport to play. It takes a long time to play baseball because it’s difficult to play. Some people find that baseball is boring, but it’s not. When you’re playing it is not the same as when you are watching. It is more fun to play than to watch.

As you can see, baseball could be fun if you play it. Baseball is good exercise. It gets your heart pumping faster and you get an adrenaline rush which helps you burn calories. When you play baseball not only do you have fun you also get your exercise for the day. Don’t wait another minute. Join a team today!

Luis Ramos

Puerto Rico

Charya MeanDanny KatendeSamuel IshimweYujuan LiangVictor NayiturikiMike LapikaMey KuyLuis Ramos