Software Piracy Essay Example

Software Piracy Essay Technology in the 21st century possesses the ironically unique ability to simultaneously bring out the best that the human mind can conjure, as well as the worst.   A perfect example of this is the software industry.   Because of the infinite intelligence and skill of software developers, combined with a bit of creativity and ambition, computer software is constantly being engineered to assist us in business, education, medicine, and much more.   Conversely, this same software has led to the advent of a more sinister, yet equally intelligent and ambitious individual, known as the software pirate, which is to say that this individual’s main goal is to use what others have created, without the creator’s permission, for their own ruthless gain.Software piracy is likewise unique in the way that it is viewed by the general public; while most people would be outraged and appalled at the prospect of entering someone’s home or business without permission and steali ng the contents, these same people often times feel that software piracy is not a big issue, and see nothing wrong with it.   This may be a social phenomena or simply a skewed view of a very real crime, but whatever the case, the fact remains that the crime exists, is growing, and has specific penalties for its violations.With the issue of software piracy in mind, the key aspects of the topic will be presented and discussed in this paper, and ultimately, the paper will conclude with a summary and thoughts on this highly volatile topic.Software Piracy Defined and ClassifiedBefore anyone can truly appreciate exactly what is involved in software piracy, as well as its effects, it is important to first have a basic definition of what software piracy is, as well as the basic classifications of software piracy.   Loosely defined, software piracy is the use, copying, distribution, and/or sale of software without the permission of the owner of that software, which is to say the person o r persons who own the licensing rights to the software (Software Piracy and its Impact on Social Welfare).   This broad definition includes several classifications of software pirate; on the lowest level of piracy, and indeed the most innocuous, are those who purchase software legitimately and perhaps install it on more than one of their own computers, for personal use, as well as the person who buys an illegal copy knowingly and does the same.   More serious are the business buyers who make unauthorized copies of software and use it for commercial purposes, or buy illegal copies of software in the full knowledge that the software is in fact illegal.   The most harmful, and unlawful software pirate is the individual who knowingly produces many illegal copies of software and sells them to others, which of course is done mostly for the sake of the tremendous profit potential of software piracy itself (Marshall, 1993).The basic types of software pirates can become involved in a v ariety of pirate activities as well; the first and most common method of software piracy is called End-user Copying, which is essentially the deliberate copying of a program and distributing it. Additionally, many pirates are quite fond of the practice of   Hard Drive Loading, or the illegal copying of software onto a computer that a   computer dealer or company is selling, in order to make the machine more marketable to the customer, who may not even realize that a crime has occurred.Internet popularity has given rise to yet another kid of software piracy, when software is unlawfully sold or given away for free online; in either case, this is being done so without the consent of the owner of the software intelligence, and therefore is highly illegal and unethical.  Ã‚   Counterfeiting is also very popular, in the sense that logos, packaging, and all of the other attributes of the original software packaging can now be cleverly duplicated so that the buyer has truly no idea th at what they are buying is in fact false software, making the consumer an unwitting victim to the crime of the pirate.One thing is very clear in regard to the means and types of software piracy; it is growing in occurrence, complexity and volume as technology develops and software is created that is more desirable for thieves to steal, and the crimes do vary in damage and commonality. While the classifications of software pirate vary in detrimental effect, they all do have a measurable effect in one way or another.   Because of this, it is also important to understand how the piracy has a sort of compound effect throughout society, as well as how society responds to it overall.How Pirated Software Can be IdentifiedEven with the latest techniques that software pirates use to dupe innocent consumers into buying pirated software without their knowledge, there are some classic characteristics that pirated software can exhibit, thereby alerting the buyer of this fact and helping them t o avoid a bad buying decision: §Ã‚      Programs (including the operating system) were preinstalled on the computer but there aren’t any accompanying original CDs. §Ã‚   No official looking documentation accompanies the packaging. §Ã‚   Your tech person seems to be able to provide you with any program you need, but you never actually have to pay for it. §Ã‚   Different people are using software on different computers that were installed from the same CDs. (Ahoy Matey-Are You a Software Pirate?)Issues from Consumer and Developer ViewpointsThe knee-jerk reaction of the average person may be that software piracy is a harmless, even victimless crime, and that the companies such as Microsoft that develop and sell software are profitable enough to handle a bit of pilferage.   In reality, neither of these assumptions could be further from the truth.The consumer is hurt by software piracy from several standpoints, whether they are involved in the purchase of pirated softw are or not.   The sad reality is that when software is pirated, the legitimate consumer pays more for the licensed software copies because the developers need to recoup their lost revenue, via piracy, somehow.   Beyond this, if a consumer knowingly or unknowingly buys pirated software, in many cases, the copied software contains errors or viruses that will damage the consumer’s computer equipment, or cause the software to malfunction.   This will become painfully obvious to the consumer when they are faced with an infected computer or serious calculation errors in homework, business reports, etc. Likewise, it is not hard to imagine what would happen if pirated software malfunctioned in a piece of industrial machinery, an aircraft, or medical equipment- in this instance, piracy becomes deadly.Developers, at the very least, are victims of crime at the hands of the software pirates, for quite literally, their property has been stolen from them, and they are not reaping any of the financial benefits of their creation.   This can be quite disheartening to a developer who has dedicated a great deal of time, talent, and treasure to a software development project, only to see their product being counterfeited and sold on a widespread basis, while they fail to realize any gains from those sales.   Reflecting back to the consequences of inferior software copies as well, a developer’s reputation could be improperly harmed if a pirated copy of software was assumed to be the genuine article, and someone was harmed by it.The bottom line is that software piracy is not a victimless crime, and in some instances, life is actually on the line as well as quite literally billions of dollars and the life’s work of some very intelligent people.   Realizing this, law enforcement has taken some definite steps to prevent software piracy, as well as punish those who choose to do so.Laws Against, and Penalties for, Software PiracyWithout a doubt, there is a general consensus by most of the civilized world that software piracy is a serious crime, and as such, should carry with it serious consequences for those who break the law and choose to deal in pirated software products.   In the United States, laws have been enacted to punish individuals in the criminal, as well as civil, courts when they engage in software piracy.Criminally, software piracy is essentially theft and copyright infringement; of course, the degree to which the piracy has been undertaken will determine the amount of the theft, and therefore the severity of the criminal penalty.   Without authorization from the copyright owner, title 18 of U.S. Code prohibits duplicating software for profit, making multiple copies for use bydifferent users within an organization, downloading multiple copies from a network, or giving an unauthorized copy to another individual. All are Federal crimes, and penalties for these crimes can   include fines up to $250,000 and jail ter ms lasting many years, clearly showing that software piracy will not be tolerated and is being viewed as the highly serious crime that it is, with specific consequences and undoubtedly scores of innocent victims.Enforcement and Deterrents/New Protections and TechnologiesClearly, law enforcement and the legislative communities have united to fight the plague of software piracy, but in the estimation of many, the tremendous amount of piracy that has taken place, and will take place in the future, makes enforcement of laws and punishment of lawbreakers all but useless; therefore, new methods of deterrent against piracy have emerged in recent years, and software companies have stepped up to address the growing problem.   Just as sharp minds have created software, likewise, they have created protections for that software against copying.   Examples of this include the integration of programming code within software that will not allow it to be copied from its original media source, t he use of registration codes that need to be registered on the creator’s Website for the software to function, making replication impossible, and the like.   From the packaging standpoint, the use of complex holograms as labeling for the packaging, serial numbers, barcodes and such have made counterfeit packaging very difficult to facilitate.One of the leaders in the fight against piracy has been Microsoft, an organization that has always been at the forefront of the technological boom.   Because of Microsoft’s success through unique innovation and an unending supply of creativity, the firm has been one of the most victimized in terms of imitators and outright criminals such as software pirates, who have realized a great deal of ill gotten money at the expense of Microsoft, via the piracy of popular software such as Windows.   However, Microsoft has fought back in a variety of ways, many of which were mentioned earlier in this paper.   For example, the packagin g of Microsoft software products now features tamper-proof seals, holograms that are very difficult to copy, and so forth; once the package is opened, the software features the online registration codes that are being utilized by many software companies to avoid unauthorized copying.   Also widely used by the company is an advanced and widespread enforcement division, which is well known for enforcing software violations and taking legal action against those who violate Microsoft’s intellectual properties (Microsoft Cracks Down on Software Piracy, 2006).   What this clearly illustrates is that software piracy will not be tolerated, and is in fact a crime of the most serious type.Response of the Educational and Business SectorsFollowing Microsoft’s example, the business sector in general is doing all that it can to combat software piracy; as technology progresses, so too does the ability of software producers to keep one step ahead of the criminals.   Taking it a step further as well, the fight against piracy has likewise gone global, as it is estimated that billions of dollars in revenue is lost every year from the piracy that takes place in Asia alone (Marshall, 1993).   While international infringement is by its very nature quite difficult to enforce, there is an awesome responsibility on the part of the software owners to make every attempt to protect their property from outright theft.The educational world, too, has moved forward in efforts to prevent the unauthorized copying of software, be it proprietary software created by a given college, school or university, or the software purchased from an outside vendor, for both represent potential liability for the educational institutions and expose the computer networks of the institutions to potential malfunction and virus exposure (Moores, 2006).   Furthermore, integrity is the backbone of any reputable educational institution and must exist in order to set an example for its current and prospective students, which will help to ensure the long term viability of the institutions themselves.   In this instance, the importance of protection from software piracy is absolutely key.Software Piracy as Economic and Social PhenomenaUp to this point, the emphasis in analyzing and discussing software piracy has admittedly been from the economic point of view, and indeed that needs to be considered anytime the topic is discussed, for as the old adage goes, money is truly the root of all evil and indeed the driving force behind much of the crime that occurs in the world today.   Whenever something valuable, and as easy to steal as software exists, there will always be someone around who is more than willing to take the risk to steal it.   Likewise, or perhaps as an underlying factor in the motivation for committing software piracy, are the social factors surrounding the crime (Bagchi, et al, 2006).First, the previously stated myth that stealing software is not a crimin al issue because there is so much of it in circulation, and if someone takes a copy or two from someone else, the developers will make up the loss somewhere else, is absurd.   Within modern society, in large part due to the proliferation of movies, television programs, and yes software, that portrays criminal acts as exciting and desirable creates a feeling in society that crime overall is acceptable and a â€Å"small crime† like piracy of software matters little in the big scope of all of the major crimes that occur in society.   However, the piracy has within it the potential to collapse the whole software industry.   To understand this better, one must realize how and why software creators exist and continue to produce.The reason that software is created, and is able to continue to be created, is because the legitimate sale of the software by its creators generates financial benefits for those creators, thereby giving them the means to create new software products an d continue to make meaningful contributions to the technological community and enhance the lives of others.   If they do not realize these gains, they are likely to cease producing said software.Socially, and economically, the average person must come to grips with the fact that software piracy is illegal, dangerous, and unacceptable.   Once this happens, the average person will be able to vigilantly refuse to buy illegal software, and be good citizens by reporting the sale of illegal software to law enforcement for proper action to be taken.Summary and ThoughtsThis paper has discussed software piracy from a variety of angles and points of view, but what it has not done, which is important nonetheless, is make a comment on the effect of technology on our lives, for better or worse, and how technology holds the power to create or destroy the human experience.   While it is difficult for many people to grasp how an intellectual property, lacking the concrete attributes of a car or diamond ring, can in fact be stolen from an owner and unlawfully used by another, that same person can undoubtedly realize that if technology is jeopardized by criminals and opportunists, their future will be quite bleak as well.   Software production employs millions of Americans, and generates billions of dollars in revenue, and perhaps that is where the best understanding can be found.   If economic collapse can be brought about by software piracy, it must be stopped, for the good of all of humankind, before it is too late.

Matter essays

Matter essays Ch.1. The nature of Science; Measurement Systems; Physical - about our physical environment; Physics, Chemistry, Geology, Meteorology Science - a body of knowledge AND a method hypothesis - a tentative explanation; needs testing by a controlled experiment scientific law - important relationship observed in nature; occurs consistently (example: The Law of Universal Gravitation) scientific principle - specific set of relationships (example: The Archimede's Principle) model - gives an idea of the properties of a physical system (example: scale model of the Solar system) theory - a confirmed hypothesis, based on extensive experimental evidence (example: plate tectonics theory; atomic theory) Click on this link to view an impressive voyage through the various scales in the Universe - "the powers of ten" demo from Florida State University. PHYSICA means "NATURE" in ancient Greek. Ancient Greek philosophers were trying to discover the laws of Nature by pure reasoning, based on logic and general philosophical principles; mostly without experimenting. Modern Science began with Galileo's experiments (in 16th-17th century): not just reasoning, but observation -> hypothesis -> checking the hypothesis with experiments. Aristotle's intuitive thinking lead to the wrong conclusion that "heavier bodies fall faster" Galileo's numerous experiments: "all bodies fall at the same rate, reach ground at the same time". Any difference is explainable by air resistance. Newton: the theory of gravity. Not obvious that falling bodies and planets move under the same rules; experimentally proven. Need for objective description of properties; need for standards. Measurements and Measurement Systems (English, SI, CGS) ...

Content Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 2

Content Analysis - Essay Example sisting of the messages, production techniques, medium, sources quoted or referred to, and circumstance, and the job of content analysis is to inflict some kind of order on these phenomena† (Shoemaker & Reese) with the intention of explaining their meaning. The website of the ‘American Idol’ shows that it has been one of the best entertainment programs for the past nine successive seasons. â€Å"American Idols judges include Paula Abdul, accomplished choreographer and music superstar; Simon Cowell, multi hit record producer and head of A& R at BNG Records; and Randy Jackson, a Gammy Award-winning 20-year music industry veteran and former A& R executive at MCA Records† (American Idol: The Search for A Superstar 2005). The qualified age-range for competitors in American Idol is currently 15 to 28 years old. The initial age limit was 16 to 24 in the first three seasons, but the upper limit was raised to 28 in season four. It could also be seen that the lower li mit was decreased to 15 in season ten (J. Atsu Amegashie 2009) Sociological theory on medicalization recommends that women, girls and other less powerful groups are more and more subject to medicines authority over their health, bodies and lives as well. This is due to the fact that during the adolescent period girls suffer a considerable drop in their self-esteem and may become especially or particularly vulnerable to medicalization. Simon Cowelll and Paula Abdul are the two judges of American Idol. Simon Phillip Cowell is an English television producer, A&R executive, industrialist and a very popular television personality. As a judge, Cowell is recognized for his blunt and frequently controversial criticisms, wisecracks and insults regarding contestants and their performances. He is also known for synchronizing actions and events of both the music and television industries, having encouraged singles and records for various artists that have grown to become celebrities. Cowell has been engaged in

Work & non-work Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Work & non-work - Essay Example This would call for effective planning, that is, creation and maintenance of a working strategy or policy, combined with organizing the available resources and leading/ directing the work force and finding the best combination of resources and capital to match them with the available time span of the project (Drucker & Maciariello, 2008). Effective work management should help both the team members and the management to understand and organize their work better; evolve into a more collaborative process that gives individuals control over what to do and when to do it, and in one way or the other promote specialization to ensure that employees do what they understand best (Easterby-Smith & Thorpe, 2008). This promotes democratization at work place empowering workers to give maximum value giving management the visibility to the totality of the project and other works, and to create workplace harmony by enfranchising workers and/ or and demonstrating the innovative aspect of each worker a t his/her unit. From this we can define work as sustained physical or mental effort; energy expanded by natural phenomenon whereby one exerts strengths or faculties to solve a given problem, or the specific duties and assignments performed by one as means of livelihood and means to achieve a predetermined and mutually beneficial objective. Non-work on the other hand can be viewed as the other activities that do not directly involve exertion of energy/ faculties but are in line with human development process and help to promote productivity (Creager, 2011), time spent away from the chore duties in daily life or work life; usually for pleasure and refreshment or reflection of the previous periods, a prerequisite for productivity at work place. The greater prevalence of single parenthood and dual careers in the workforce has resulted employees trying to juggle between demands at home and work which can result into work- family conflict, where demands of home and work interfere with eac h other making it difficult to combine both activities. This paper will analyze the various job-related relationships, their merits and demerits; causes and their impacts to the work and family environments, evaluation of jobs in relation to technology, social stratification, gender and the nature of the job. Spillover Spillover in this context may refer to the overall impacts of individuals work life, positive and negative, in relation to their personal growth and development and/ or family life, that is, how the individual’s work- perceived emotions affect his/her life and the impacts in other social structure/ environment around him/ her. Spillover can largely be influenced by the need to maintain a work-life balance which involves prioritization, planning and personal organization on career and profession/ lifestyle, that is, pleasure, leisure, spiritual development and meditation and/or health (Young, 2012). A perfect combination of these factors will ensure individual p erforms best at work and in other areas, for instance, good health will ensure an individual performs his/her duties correctively and timely despite the field that one is in as long as there is effective training. The spillover can be positively felt within individual’s social structure, the family and the society, and in the work place in that a clear career definition helps individual plan responsibilities and allocate ample time within the cause of the day, month, or annually; giving him/her time to attend to other functions which are essential for human development (Reis & Sprecher, 2009). For instance, work spillover can be felt through the non-work effects of relaxation of leisure, that is, when an individual has had a break from his natural duties at work (Levis, 2011),

Discuss The Role of Curleys Wife In The Novel Of Mice And Men Essay Example for Free

Discuss The Role of Curleys Wife In The Novel Of Mice And Men Essay In this novel, Curleys Wifes main function or purpose is her representation of one type of female in that time of American history. She seems to be the sort of person who is well calculated in her actions. She likes to make herself attractive by using make-up, when she wears shoes with red Ostrich Feathers she doesnt need to wear them on a dust ranch, but she does. She dreams of being a movie or Talkie star, she tells Lennie this, in a rare show of confidence. She is not a stereotype but I think that her character is quite predictable. In the video adaptation she seems to be friendly because of her appearance and the way in which she says words. When she doesnt want to be noticed, her physical presence is less noticed. She is described as brittle this could mean that she is fragile. The word fragile is usually associated with small and easily broken things. The word brittle could also be describing her physical state of mind. She could seem strong but really could collapse or break down when even slightly touched, or in her case, if she is rejected or insulted. But when she talks she has a dominant charisma, which demands attention. For example, whenever she walks into a room, the men always stop talking to listen to what she has to say. This could be from fear of punishment if they do not agree with her or offend her. It could also be because of the reputation as Jailbait which she has, or how she has the eye. Because of these two abilities, she can sneak around, trying to overhear anything incriminating which she could use to blackmail someone. An example of this is when she sneaks into the stable when Lennie, Candy and Crooks are there, and she listens to them. Throughout the whole novel she does not have name of her own, which she is called by. She is only referred to as Curleys Wife. This could suggest that she is the property of Curley. Or it could also back up the fact that she is like a ghost, because a ghost has no real identity. She could act mean, or deviously because she wants to make herself noticed more. She tells Lennie I get awful lonely. This suggests that she wants someone to talk to her, or whom she can talk to. She is only described by people, with sentences like She got the eye and a Tart. After reading the part of the novel when she is in the barn with Lennie, the reader is emoted to sympathise with Curleys Wife. This could make the reader feel sorry for her, but then there would be a conflict of emotions when you realise that She has wrecked Candys dreams as well as passed a death sentence on Lennie. All of this could overshadow the fact that Curleys Wife has just died. But when you her confession to Lennie, you find that this is her only recourse in her search for attention. She tries to make herself look attractive to get more attention, but she is called a Tart. The fact that she is like a bad luck omen could enforce her image as Jail-bait. She is like a jinx for anyone who she tries to become close to. She says that she could get crooks hung and she caused Curley and slim to fight. She also indirectly caused Lennies death. Not intentionally, but she does. This could be a way of making the reader sympathise with her case, because Candy is angry at her for dying, and he doesnt stop to think that she is dead. Curleys Wife is the only woman who is mentioned on the ranch, so the men could think of her as pretty or appealing because they do not come into contact with any other women. This could encourage or strengthen her attitude. She thought that she could be a movie star and could still think that. This could be another factor that encourages her self-superiority complex. But she knows that. Because, she has no name she could be owned by Curley, this could explain her actions. It could be her way of expressing her anger. She is angry because, when she signed her marriage certificate, She didnt lose her individuality, but something worse, her identity.

Options Trading Essay example -- essays research papers

Options and the Investor Most people know that an option is a choice. It is a choice to buy that new compact disc, a choice to upgrade to leather on a new car, or a choice to speculate in the market. Options are a way to reduce risk associated with trading stocks and are quite advantageous in a capitalist society. An option is a â€Å"contract between two parties to purchase or sell a commodity futures contract at a predetermined price within a specific time period. Every option transaction has an option buyer and an option seller (4, p. 236).† The advent of organized options trading by the Chicago Board Options Exchange created a new way to play the market. Options can be used to hedge risk and to take profits larger than would be possible by buying and selling stock. This result can be accomplished using a variety of combinations to be discussed later in this paper. These strategies can be useful as pertaining to the options trader who wants to make the most profit with the least amount of risk. Ele mentary pricing of options will help the reader in understanding some of the differences in premiums and why the differences are so large. The Chicago Board Options Exchange has changed the way that options are traded through advances in technology to the point that options are bought and sold instantaneously with almost a 100% guarantee of credibility. This is one of the main reasons for the options explosion. Options   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Basic options have existed for eons and have been used as investment strategies for thousands of years. The concept was definitely used by societies other than ours, as illustrated by this excerpt from Aristotle’s Politics (2, p. 16): There is an anecdote of Thales the Milesian and his financial device, which involves a principle of universal application, but is attributed to him on account of his reputation for wisdom. He was reproached for his poverty, which was supposed to show that philosophy was of no use. According to the story, he knew by his skill in the stars while it was yet winter that there would be a great harvest of olives in the coming year; so, having a little money, he gave deposits for the use of all the olive presses in Chios and Miletus, which he hired at a low price because no one bid against him. When the harvest time came, and many wanted them all at once and of a sudden, he let them out at any r... ...the secrets of trading options. It is shown in the pages preceding that using options to hedge investment risk, or using options alone can almost eliminate the chance to lose big when investing. The advent of organized options trading by the Chicago Board Options Exchange created a new way to play the market. Options can be used to hedge risk, and to take profits larger than would be possible by buying and selling stock. Accomplished strategists have done very well in the options market, because with an increased repertoire of investing strategies, the investor who balances risk with reward will have the most success trading options. References: 1. Kolb, Robert, Options; An Introduction, (Miami, FL: Kolb Publishing Co., 1991). 2. Gastineau, Gary, The Options Manual, 3rd Edition (New York, New York: McGraw-Hill   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Book Co., 1988). 3. Trester, Kenneth, The Compleat Option Player, 4th Edition (New York, NY: Inves Trek   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Publishing, 1984). 4. Caplan, David L. The New Options Advantage (Chicago, IL: Probus Publishing, 1995). 5. http://www.cboe.com/education/ Options and the Investor David Walker Economics 185

Who I Am as a Teenager

Who am I? This uncertainty has to be one of the most common to go through a teenager’s brain. As a regular teenager, I make mistakes, laugh, cry, smile and love. Every experience in my life good or bad, happy or sad makes me stronger. Each step in my life and each passing moment make me grow into the person I want to be. To understand who I am, I have to talk about things that help to shape my identity like my past, the culture where I come from, the environment where I grow up and my family Our history influences our patriotism and our nationalistic tendencies. As I have been growing up, I notice that my entire background have influenced in who I am. My history helps me to remember where my ancestors came from. By remembering that, I will understand my heritage, more about me, and how I should live my life the best I can. History is not only telling me about how my family’s ancestors lived their lives, but also show me my culture, my tradition, and the way that I think. The family history of everybody marks their past, their present, and their future, because the consequences of the actions remain in time. Our culture influences, to an extent, everything in our lives, from how we are schooled, the morals we are taught and other influences on our lives such as sports we play, foods we eat, clothes we wear, music we listen to and how we feel. All these examples represent my culture. It makes me different and identifies me with my birthplace, and I feel important in this world because of these differences. I was born in a small city in Vietnam, and I did not have any brother or sister. As the only child in my family, I grew up in a very loving, caring and educating family environment. However, grew up in that type of sheltered environment prevented me from seeing the outside world. My only friends were my toys, so when I started pre-school, it was really different for me because there were a lot more kids than I was used to seeing. Since I did not know anyone, I didn’t talk very much. As I grew older and moved through school, I began to have more friends than I did back in pre-school. I was starting to talk more and be more active. I realized that the environment where I grew up had influenced who I am as a person. All this parts of my background make the person that I am. Another aspect of who I am is the hobbies that I enjoy doing. I like to listen to any kind of music except rock and rap. I enjoy playing sports such as soccer, basketball and football with my friends. I also enjoy off-road adventures, and playing with my two three-year old nephews. Another one of my hobbies is reading books especially medical books because I want to be a doctor like my parents. My family is probably the largest reason that makes me who I am today because it decides my personality, bias and character flaws. My dad and my mom are both dentists and although they are busy with their job, they always spend most of the time to take care of me. Being a working housewife, my mom tries very hard to be a good homemaker. She is an adventurous cook, and she is good. Unlike many of my dad’s contemporizes, he is a picture of health and vitality. I admire his dedication to his patients and work. Although my father is a strict disciplinarian, he can be jovial and caring at the same time. When I was sick, my parents would take off work and spend the whole day to pampering me back to health. My dad used to tell me that â€Å"as a human being, everybody made mistakes. Some people would deny to facing it but the smart people would have the courtesy to learn from them and not made them twice. † He also taught me how to be strong. He told me to except things as they happened and moved on. If I spent all day thinking about it, I could miss the things that made me happy. Not only did they teach me good moral values, but they also provided me with examples of good behavior and how to support my family. I was taught that my most important goal in life was to have a good education. My parents used to say that someday they would not be with me anymore, and if I wanted to have an economic independence, I had to have a good education. Then I started to think about that, and I decided to study abroad in America. I knew more friends and got more independent. Through that experience, I had a chance to experience both traditional Vietnamese culture and innovation American culture. I learned how to use my Asian background as a beneficial tool and to see myself as a unique person rather than as a vagrant. I was able to know and learn about each person and their culture; my personality changed from introverted to sociable. Henry Ford once said, â€Å"Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though it is hard to realize this. † Each one of us is unique in the way that we interpret the influences on us and decide whether or not to accept these outside interventions in our self-molding. My history, my culture and my family’s environment are the most important parts of my life. They are things that help to shape who I am. I love being me and the person that I am. I am not perfect, and don’t try to be. I go through life with an open mind and take things in as they happen. I am me and that all I can be.