The first part of the introduction of my research The world has known deep and global transformations in the twentieth century. Process of industrialization in Europe, Asia, and America alongside with colonization and the two World Wars have brought, among other events, thorough changes within and outside states’ sphere. Postcolonial period has also involved new questions in the third world concerning economic development, political organization and relative issues. Briefly, the twentieth century is considered as the most active period in all humanity history whether in terms of tensions and wars between states, birth of globalization, technological revolution, and research publications in so various and divergent disciplinary fields. In fact, in this period, social phenomenons spawned by industrialization process and colonization- both in the north and south hemispheres of planet- were and still a subject of studies. They were studied predominantly under sociology and social psychology. However, many issues referring to the worker class, popular culture, national identity, among others, were dealt under new disciplinary field known as Cultural Studies. This movement had as founders Richard Hoggard, Raymond Williams and Edward Thompson who have published “Uses of literacy”, “Culture and society” and “The making of the English working class” in 1957, 1958 and 1963, respectively. The birth of this disciplinary field was in the UK as a response to the critical situations in the country. Authors cited above have studied different questions referring to the culture, the popular classes, education, etc. In fact, population has been trapped in dire poverty, worker class was arbitrarily exploited and ignorance had been a feature of an overwhelming majority of the population. Cultural Studies have studied causes and consequences of these social phenomenons and tried to bring some reflections over concepts of solutions. The last two decades of the 20th century were characterized by the extrapolation of Cultural Studies in North America where new questions have been involved such as the definition of identity, population, ethnic group, race, nation, and so on. In the succeeding years, Cultural Studies have become universal and new authors in Asia developed new tendencies and posed new questions, extending the old researches. The Indian Ranajit Guha is considered as the founder of a new disciplinary field so similar to Cultural Studies: Subaltern Studies.

A funny job application In the last summer, my friend and I have decided to search for a work to save some money, so we decided to apply for call centers. We’ve made that choice because call centers are the best places to work in when you have no previous experience, but on top of that because most of them don’t require any engagement and let you the freedom to leave your post whenever you want. We started by doing a research on the internet to find the nearest call centers to our location. In less than 15 minutes, we’ve found one! Not only it’s just a few kilometers away from our places, but it’s also one of the leading companies in the field. We scheduled a Monday to do our application and we started collecting the required documents: CV, letter of motivation, etc. The day has come for us to finish that task, but we’ve had a little problem. We didn’t know the exact location of the center, so we asked a taxi driver. The driver himself didn’t know the way so we had to search for someone to show us the way. I asked a passerby: Me: Excuse me sir, could you tell us how to get to Next Call Center? The man: You’re kidding! Next Call Center is in the other part of the city! At this moment, I was really turned around! But I went on: Me: I’m sorry sir, but the address indicated in their website says it’s not far away from here. The man: Hmm they must have changed their office. Anyway, listen carefully to me, I’ll show you the way. Me: Yes, thanks. The man: Now you’re heading east, you’re actually in the opposite direction. You should turn around. Then go straight down this street for four blocks until you hit “Rue Elisabeth”. There, you will find a bus station. Take the bus number 14, and ask the driver to let you know when you reach “La ville haute”. The bus will drop you off in the intersection of “Rue 5” and “Rue 4” streets. Make a left and go down the “Rue 4” street. Walk for about 10 minutes and you’ll see the Next Call Center office on your right hand side. Me: I think I’ve got it. I’m a bit confused by the amount of indications and directions you gave us, but we’ll be fine. The man: I hope you won’t get lost on your way there! Have a nice day. Me: Thank you very much sir. With the help of the stranger and my GPS phone application, we’ve finally found the location. We applied for the jobs and they told us they will get in touch with us. What a relief! The funny part came when they turned down our application!

La crise en France (part 1) J’avais déserté mon clavier pendant un certain temps et je me suis rendu compte dernièrement que mes compétences en rédaction ont vraiment diminué. C’est pour cette raison que j’ai décidé de me remettre à l’écriture régulièrement, suivant une technique bien particulière. À chaque fois, je vais énumérer une dizaine de mots, principalement en relation avec la politique et l’économie, et j’essayerai de les intégrer dans mon écriture. Autrement dit, je vais me poser des limites au lieu d’écrire librement. Je pense que c’est une puissante technique d’apprentissage, reste à savoir si elle va donner ses fruits. L’objectif derrière tout cela, c’est que je puisse finalement écrire plus vite et mieux transmettre mes pensées en écriture. Eh oui vous l’avez peut-être deviné, mes pensées sont souvent en désordre, un véritable chaos dans ma tête ! Aujourd’hui, je souhaiterais écrire à propos de l’intégration en France. Par intégration, j’insinue l’intégration des populations françaises d’origine étrangère et plus particulièrement les populations arabo-musulmanes. Ce sujet m’intéresse beaucoup et je le suis de très près bien que je n’habite pas en France. Les crises et les attentats terroristes à répétition en France posent question. Est-ce que le modèle français de sécularisme ou « laïcité » va à l’encontre des libertés individuelles et religieuses ? Ou bien est-ce que ce sont les populations qui refusent l’intégration et tentent d’imposer leurs idéologies ? J’ai l’impression que l’on assiste à une colonisation de la France, pas comme celle que cette dernière a fait subir aux populations de l’Afrique, mais une colonisation plutôt « douce ». Je ne connais peut-être pas tous les arcanes de la politique française, mais je tenterai dans cet écrit de partager mes points de vue à ce sujet, à titre personnel. Le débat sur le « burkini » dans le courant du mois de juin a fait à nouveau émerger la polémique sur l’intégration sur la scène intérieure. Les médias qui couvrent cette polémique transmettent l’image d’une France qui peine, une France qui vit une division, sur tous les niveaux, entre ceux qui tiennent à leur identité et race « française », et d’autres qui acceptent de vivre dans une société culturellement diversifiée. À suivre.

Info about Turkey Turkey is one of the countries that we have been hearing a lot about in news lately, probably because of the Syrian civil war and all the interests involved. Today, I want to talk a bit about Turkey and share my personal info on it. Geographically, Turkey is mostly located in Asia with a part of land in Europe; representing roughly 3% of its territory, and borders four seas, namely Black Sea, Aegean Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Sea of Marmara. Turkey has also borders with eight different countries from both Europe and Asia, which make its location strategic and a crossing point to different continents. Turkey is considered as one of the most powerful countries at a regional level and can be compared to some nearby leading states. Economically, the government have turned around the economy during the last twenty years, making it more liberal and open to the world. This can be seen in the fact that the country have petitioned to join the European Union and works hard to achieve that goal. Furthermore, some cities like Istanbul, the economic capital, have become very thriving and actually draw millions of people for business and tourism every year. Talking about tourism, Turkey is the sixth most visited country in the world due to its beautiful nature and historical sites as well as the modern infrastructure. This sector accounts for 10.9% of the total GDP. Although the country is relatively stable and prosperous, it has different political problems and contentious relationships with its neighbors. Turkish forces have clashed with PKK rebels lately, stamping out the ceasefire enforced many years ago. Turkey had also political crisis with Russia and Israel, leading to a severe economic hardship for the country. Regardless of this, Turkey still has a great political and diplomatic influence in the region and hopes to oversee peace talks between Palestine and Israel.

Harry Potter Series For a long time I have been searching for some fiction books to start practice reading English regularly, some books that are suitable for my level as a beginner. I found on the internet many suggestions of reading Harry Potter series, and I starded by the first book a week ago. I can say that the style of writing is simple and easy to understand but in the same time very rich in common vocabulary. I'm happy I found such a great novels to read and I enjoy every minute of it.

Fear of public situations I'm preparing today for a presentation that is planned for Saturday. It's about a course that I have to explain to my classmates. Although it's a simple course and I know all the people there, I'm really worried about it. Public situations are scaring for me, and I'm usually afraid of speaking in front of a lot of people and to be the center of attention. I know it's a natural feeling and that the best actors, musicians and artists have such a feeling when they perform at scene and knowing that is releasing me a bit. So I'll try to beat that fear by good preparation and self-control, and I hope I'll have no problem during my presentation.