Andrzej Missala

 On Saturday evening, I went to the forest for a walk with my dog. It was getting dark. I could hear loud conversations and people laughing. When I approached them, I saw around many empty bottles of alcohol, cans and plastic packages. Next day morning I decided to clean up this surrounding. This is a big problem for me. Many people spend their time in that forest, but some of them throw their trash there. I regret that people do not think about the environment,  animals, and all other people who live near the forest. I hope it will change soon. I often can see people who collect these garbages in bags and take them out of the forest, but that's not enough.

When I was walking to the nearest store yesterday, I was approached by a homeless man. He started asking me for money to buy some alcohol. He said he wasn't going to lie and that he was addicted to alcohol and had no money. He told me that I would understand him for sure and he saw that I was a good person.  I was surprised that he mentioned his addiction to alkohol and he didn't ask for food. Probably it was his experience that it had been easier to get money for the bottle of alkohol than for food. It's sad that homeless people don't try to stop drinking. I didn't want to contribute to his alcoholism, so I didn't give him any money. However I didn't feel comfortable in that situation. I think that specialised organisations should be more active to help homeless people. However I'm aware how difficult it is to help addicted people.

 I was on my way from school last Friday. When I was getting off the bus, I saw that a boy at my age, fell near the bus stop. I noticed crutches next to him.  He could not get up. Many people gathered around him, especially the elderly. They discussed about his unhappiness and accident. However, they all just stood there and didn't even help him to get up. I reached the boy and gave him my hand so he could get up. I gave him his crutches and collected his stuff that had fallen apart around him. I put them in his backpack and said goodbye. I can't understand why those people were just talking instead of helping. They had been there before me, and they could help. Probably they were afraid of offending him. It's hard to help in a natural way. I hope the boy safely reached his destination.

On Friday morning a boy from my old elementary school texted me. He started persuading me to meet him and other people in the evening. Honestly, I didn't want to meet them, I said that I would rather not be able to do it, that I had other activities for the evening, that I was tired and that I had an appointment at the hairdresser. Despite that, a few hours later they started calling me and saying that they had heard from that boy that I would meet them. When I strongly refused and said that I had an appointment at the hairdresser in 30 minutes, the boy who wrote to me at the beginning started asking where I was going to the hairdresser because he wanted to pick me up. I finally stopped replying to their messages and did not answer their calls. I wonder why people don't understand simple messages and sometimes they ignore my opinions. I don't feel comfortable when I have to refuse them and to say 'no'. I try to develop my own assertiveness. I'm quite busy at sch

 About a month ago, I was at the cinema with a friend. We were hungry so we went to buy ourselves some food. When we were standing in line, a middle-aged lady approached us. She asked us to buy her something to eat. We saw that she was in line in front of us, buying food. She was holding a huge bucket of meat behind her back and for about six minutes she asked us for it and she didn't want to leave even though we told her we didn't have that much money. When she finally passed away, it dawned on me that I had seen this woman many times before. She often pretended to be blind on buses. She pretended that she could not walk and often threw away crutches or plaster after leaving. The woman often smelled of vodka and tried to steal from other people. She focused on younger people trying to extort money from them. I started to think about all these situations. I was wondering if this was due to this woman's difficult past? I don't really know anything about her. Maybe she ha

When I was returning from school by bus,  few days ago, I witnessed an unpleasant situation. I saw a boy  at my age who had a broken leg. He tried to get to the exit door to get off at his bus stop but could not do it because the bus was very crowded. Even though he asked passengers to let him move forward, people ignored him. The boy couldn't get off. When he tried to do it at the next stop, the situation was supposed to repeat, but I loudly asked people to turn their attention to the boy and let him get off. They were embarrassed but reluctantly did it and the boy was able to get off and thanked me. I started thinking about the situation. I was wondering if people had not heard him? Was the boy talking too softly? Probably some passengers had not used public transport for months because of pandemia and they forgot about taking care of vulnerable people. For sure, it's not easy to be a senior or a disabled person in the society and to ask others for help every time.

 A few days ago I read an interesting article entitled "Why do we hate the sound of our own voices?" by Neel Bhatt. The author of the text is a surgeon who specializes in treating patients with voice problems. He records his patients' voices to follow the course of treatment. It turns out that most patients feel bad hearing their own voices. Surely many people feel the same. This is due to a mixture of psychology and physiology. I learned that the sound from an audio recording is sent to the brain differently than the sound generated when speaking. People perceive their voice as deeper, nicer and more pleasant to the ear. As a result, the recorded voice sounds unattractive to them. The difference between these voices is annoying. There was a survey in which people assessed their own voice. They all rated their voices very low, in contrast to the clinicians who rated the voices of these patients much better. I understand this because I have had the same problem in the past

 A few days ago I read an interesting article entitled "Horses can recognize themselves in a mirror - new study" by Ali Boyle. I learned that horses possess an unusual skill, widely considered an indicator of self-awareness. They can recognize themselves in the mirror. Many animals treat their reflection in the mirror as if it were another animal. Some of them lose interest in it over time. When this happens scientists test their understanding using the "mark test". The animal is marked in a location they’ll only be able to see in the mirror, perhaps on their forehead or ear. Then scientists watch to see if the animal spends more time touching this body part in front of the mirror when it’s marked than when it isn’t. If it does, this suggests the animal recognizes its reflection. The results of this test indicate that self-recognition can exist in an entire species of horses and show that they are animals that can objectively look at their body. I find it very inter

 Tonight I read an article entitled "Five ways the pandemic surge in hand sanitisers may not be great news in the long term" It is true that the use of hand sanitisers and other antibacterial and antiviral cleaning products has sharply increased worldwide since the pandemic started. It has certainly helped to stop the increase in viral infections, however, it has some side effects. I learned that one study found that the regular use of ethanol to sanitize hands resulted in relatively low but measurable levels of ethanol in the blood. While this was below acute toxicity levels, continued use can result in "chronic toxicity", increasing the risk of health problems such as eczema or skin cancer. It can even be fatal at times. Repeated use of alcohol-based hand sanitizers can cause antimicrobial resistance and increase other infections. Research has also shown that ethanol leaking into lakes, ponds, rivers and oceans can harm aquatic species. I believe that despite the

One week ago I read an article entitled "Five vampire traits that exist in the natural world" by Louise Gentle. The author of the text has produced five examples of animals with the features of a mythical vampire. The first was a vampire bat that feeds only on blood. They must feed every two days to survive. I found out that these bats share their food with other bats. The second example is tardigrades. You could say that they are almost immortal, just like vampires. The jellyfish is “immortal” because it can change from a medusa back into a polyp when stressed. This reverting back to a previous form then redeveloping into the latter form could aid our understanding of repairing and regenerating damaged tissues. Another example is the rat naked mole that avoids sunlight, these moles are known for their longevity. The fourth example are bears and sharks, which have an acute sense of smell just like vampires. The last example are facial octopuses that can change their shape. I

 Two days ago I read a very interesting article entitled "Crocodiles today look the same as they did 200 million years ago - our study explains why" by Max Stockdale. Surely everyone has heard that crocodiles are called "living fossils". Scientists have explained where the name comes from in the article. They examined the found remains of prehistoric crocodiles and found out that these reptiles did not differ much from today crocodiles. I think the lack of change is unique and very interesting considering that there are so many different species of animals on the earth today and there are only 25 species of crocodiles in the world. Research by scientists suggests that crocodiles have remained unchanged for such a long time because they have reached a state of equilibrium that does not require frequent changes. When crocodiles evolve at a pace, it is likely because their environment has changed and it forced them to adapt. However, it turned out, that these great rep

 Recently I read an interesting article entitled "Spitting cobras may have evolved unique venom to defend from ancient humans" by Taline Kazandjian, Harry Greene, Nicholas Casewell and Wolfgang Wüster.  I learned a lot about cobras and their habits. These fascinating snakes are mainly known for their defense mechanism called hooding, when the sides of their necks flare out. However, as the authors write, hooding is not the only defense mechanism of these animals. Some cobras can spit venom up to 2.5 meters away, generally hitting their opponent's eyes with poison. I found out that this unique adaptation had evolved three times independently in a small group of Afro-Asian snakes. Spitting cobras use their venom only for defense, not for preying on other animals. Scientists have the theory that it was man who influenced the evolution of cobras. The timing of the venom spitting evolution coincides with key dates in the evolution of early human ancestors. This kind of defense

 Last week I red an article tittled "Five ways boredom could be changing your behavior, for better or worse". The text was written by Wijnand Van Tilburg. The article is about the impact of boredom on our behaviour. On the one hand, boredom may seem rather trivial experience, a privilege of people who have a lot of time. On the other hand, scientist proved through various experiments that boredom can be both good and negative. The author of the text showed five changes wich you can experience: impulsiveness, worse mental health, aggression, looking for new things and finding meaning in life. Boredom is an emotional state that makes us change our behavior to be positive, such as looking for new things, learning new things, finding meaning in life, or negative, self-destructive, bad for us and our surroundings. It depends on the person and their situation. https://theconversation.com/five-ways-boredom-could-be-changing-your-behaviour-for-better-or-worse-155784

 Recently, I read an interesting article wrote by Barbara Jacquelyn Sahakian, Christelle Langley, Fei Li and Jianfeng Feng entitled "How the pandemic may damage children's social intelligence". The text is about the negative effects of the lack of contact of younger children with their peers and the elderly. Usually children learn fast and develop skills such as sharing, conflict solving and empathy at a rapid pace. Before pandemia many children used to attend toddler groups or nursery before they started school. So even if they had no siblings, their emotional and social cognition could develop. I learned that social cognitive development begins in the first year of life, when children begin to develop “theory of mind”, which means understanding what others are thinking, which continues through age five. That is why contact with other people is so important at this age. U nfortunately during the COVID-19 lockdowns, many opportunities for social learning have been lost. S

  Recently I read an interesting article entitled "Narcissistic leaders: even children fall for their superficial charms" by Eddie Brummelman. The text tells about the problem of narcissism among children and leaders. I had some knowledge of Narcissism before, because I am interested in psychology and mental disorders. However, thanks to this article, I learned a lot of new things. Interestingly, narcissism develops already in early childhood. From the age of seven, there are stable differences between children in their levels of narcissism. As adult narcissists, they often appear as leaders in groups. The psychologists decided to check whether the same is happening among children. They conducted an experiment. The researchers recruited a group of 332 children aged 7 to 14. They assessed their level of narcissism and then asked the children to write down the names of their classmates whom they saw as "the true leader". It turned out that as many as 98% of the select