January 10, 2013

• Report # 960

  Last night was the first time in probably five nights that I didn’t sleep with two pairs of socks on. While I still used my jacket, I didn’t have any trouble staying warm like some of the previous nights. On Tuesday it ended up raining quite a bit but it was at least 15 C (60 F) so it didn’t feel too cold. After running at Fundidora Park I headed home and had a shower and then went downtown and toured the metropolitan museum of Monterrey.

  It was a small place with just a couple of rooms, but I actually spent a long time in the second room as there was so much to read. The first room was all about paintings from some artists from Monterrey so I went through there pretty quickly, but the second room was full of history from the city’s beginnings to modern times, so it was very interesting. There is an art museum as well and I definitely have plans to check it out, maybe on Friday.

  In the afternoon I went to have lunch at VIPS which is just like a simple restaurant which is run by Wal-Mart in Mexico, though it’s not usually inside a Wal-Mart, or anywhere close to one. I got a discount card for 20 % of next visit, all the way up to 50 % off for the fifth visit, so I’ll have to return at least a few times this month. Afterwards I walked to El Globo and picked up a frappuichino and some donuts and walked to the metro station and headed home.

  Yesterday I ran once again in Fundidora, the fifth day in a row, and then I headed home, had a shower, and walked up to the Galerias mall. I had lunch at the Japanese restaurant Wok and it was great as usual. I had some miso soup and sushi with octopus and rice. Afterwards I went to Cinépolis and watched Words, about a struggling young author who finally finds great success with his newest book, but the problem is he didn’t write the book himself, he just found all of the pages and stole the idea word by word.

  Speaking of writing I finally finished typing up the story I had written in Spanish last summer. I added parts to the last chapter to make it a little more detailed and interesting, but now it’s definitely all finished and typed up. It’s the first story I wrote in Spanish, and I have to say it’s much, much, much longer than any of the 50 plus short stories I posted on Xanga. Seeing as I really don’t enjoy writing stories I’ll probably just post one on here sometime this year, but not for a while !

  After I picked up a Frappuichino from Santa Clara and walked home. It was so nice as it was super sunny and 18 C (64 F) and it felt so nice and warm. I believe the cold spell is over here for the next few days and it will be over 20 C (70 F) for the next few days. I really have to spend less money, because even if I was working I would be going over my limit. The thing is though once I am working I won’t have all of this spare time so I’m sure I’ll be spending less. I talked to the lady from Teleperformance on Tuesday morning and she told me there was one form of the company’s missing but that they would deliver my documents in the next few days.

  I’ve heard this all before, so I just hope they get them in ASAP. She told me something about sending me an email, so if I don’t have an email by tomorrow, I’ll definitely be calling her in the afternoon to see what happened. I talked to my parents last night by skype and I believe I’ll be talking to my grandmother and aunt tomorrow. The movie that I saw really got me thinking about plagiarism and how serious of an offense it truly is.

  Obviously there are different ways to plagiarize and in many ways the results of that plagiarism wouldn’t be as serious, though in the end the person who plagiarized will have to live with the fact for the rest of their lives that they cheated. I don’t know about most people, but I think that would be an absolutely horrible thing to live with. There are different ways to plagiarize and the reasons are completely different as well.

  In the movie the author did so because he was so blinded by his own desire to get a book published and become a success that he really lost track of the true principles of writing. In that case seeing as in the movie the book was a top seller, the young man claiming to be the author would have received millions of dollars, while the true author of the book never received a penny. This is an extreme case of plagiarism and I would say if a situation like that happened, the person should probably go to jail for fraud for a little while.

  I remember how much effort some teachers in highschool and university spent on the students trying to hammer down the point not to plagiarize. In one English class, the teacher actually gave us an exercise to practice plagiarizing some sentences so we would really be 100 % sure what was plagiarizing and what wasn’t. On my essays or assignments I always made sure I had my references down, even the ones I used almost nothing from. It’s certainly better to use too many references than not enough !

  And here on Xanga often I use newspaper or internet articles to talk about something, but I’m always sure to credit the journalist and the Newspaper and website to which the article originally appeared. Some people might not think that this is so important on a blog, but to me it is because at the end of the day if the ideas of someone else are used in some way, shape or form, they should be given the credit. When it comes to students who write though, I think there are some students who purposely try to cheat through plagiarism, and others who just end up doing so because they really don’t know what they are doing.

  So as long as this is happening I think schools should continue stressing the importance of students to watch their work, give references where needed, and to try hard at all costs to avoid any forms of plagiarism. If universities aren’t strict enough on this and too many students get through by blatantly cheating, we will have a world filled with people working for certain companies that appear to have no shame in how they got there, and they might even continue to break the codes of honour to get to the top.

  One would think that for a person knowing that they cheated to achieve something would eat away at them for the rest of their lives, but not everyone thinks the same, and I’m sure there are a lot of people out there who just don’t care and this is the problem. These people need to be caught and while society doesn’t have to go all vengeful on them and do whatever they can to rip these people apart, they should at least no there is no place for cheating in this world and there will be consequences to pay for those actions.

  For the next question:

  Do you think enough is done to discourage people from plagiarizing ? Do you have any stories about plagiarism ?

  Today is the first day in months that I don’t have any pictures, and while I’ll probably have some next time, it’s nice to have at least a one day break. I wish everyone all of the best with everything. Take care and I’ll talk to you all on Sunday, bye for now.

  • 11:46 am
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