Discrimination\Favoritism\Nepotism

Today I want to write about some phenomenons in the world; Discrimination, Favoritism, and Nepotism. Throughout this post I use some definitions and descriptions from the Wikipedia encyclopedia. First let me compare these concepts. What are the definitions, similarities, and differences of these three concepts?

Discrimination:

Discrimination is a sociological term to the treatment taken toward or against a person of a certain group in consideration based solely on class or category. Discrimination is the actual behavior towards another group. It involves excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to other groups. According to the definition of the United Nations "Discriminatory behaviors take many forms, but they all involve some form of exclusion or rejection."

The discrimination involves some very important categories;

- Race and Ethnicity discrimination;

Racial discrimination differentiates between individuals on the basis of real and perceived racial differences and has been official government policy in several countries, such as South Africa in the apartheid era.

- Age discrimination;

Age discrimination is discrimination on the grounds of age. Although theoretically the word can refer to the discrimination against any age group, age discrimination usually comes in one of three forms: discrimination against youth (also called adultism), discrimination against those 40 years old or older, and discrimination against elderly people.

- Sex discrimination;

Though what constitutes sex discrimination varies between countries, the essence is that it is an adverse action taken by one person against another person that would not have occurred had the person been of another sex. Sexual discrimination can arise in different contexts. For instance, an employer may be discriminated against by being asked discriminatory questions during a job interview, or because an employer did not hire, promote or wrongly terminated an employee based on his or her gender, or employers pay unequally based on gender.

Favoritism;

The practice of giving preferential treatment to a person or persons.

Nepotism;

Favoritism shown to nephews or other relatives, as in politics or business.

The differences among the above concepts are now clear based on the definitions and descriptions.

You may ask why I am writing about these concepts. Ok let me tell you why.

I came from a third world country, so called developing country, to a developed country, Canada, about two years ago. I left my country with many pretty aspects. I left my kind family, relatives, and friends. I left the place which I had very wonderful or sometime annoying memories about. In my country, like all the other developing countries, there are the above concepts noticeably around people. I came to a developed country which I believed that these concepts are not even defined theoretically.

However, I was wrong. Yes I was very wrong though I still believe that Canada is one of the best countries regarding these issues. There have been many cases during the two years which I felt the discrimination, the favoritism, and the nepotism. However, I just mention the latest case which I faced. This case made me very disappointed and somehow angry which I complained about to almost everybody who I thought he/she may do something. Though the case involves money, but the main reason which made me disappointed was the favoritism (or maybe I can say discrimination).

For privacy issues and respecting the involved people I don't reveal the names. In the university which I study there is an important award called UMGF. The value of the award is CAD16000 per year for Ph.D. students and CAD12000 per year for master students. According to the application package there are some criteria for getting the award. Every year some UMGF awards are available for every department in the university. This award is mostly given to the students according to the relations of the committee members and the faculty members. For two successive years I did not get that because there are some close friends of the awards committee members in the university which need that more.

This is just a case I have seen as favoritism in Canada. There are lots of cases around people. However, you always have the right to claim against it though most of the times they provide some justifications and you cannot get any good outcome.

What a pretty/strange world!!!

I really don't know how to call that; strange, pretty, amazing, or precious. You help me about that.

That is about a succession of thoughts, images, sounds or emotions which the mind experiences during sleep. Yes. Dream.

The dream itself is a very interesting and in my opinion spectacular phenomena.

Dreams. Dreams. Dreams.

What are the content and purpose of dreams? Nobody exactly knows yet, though they have been a topic of speculation and interest throughout the recorded history.

However, an issue of a dream I am thinking about is the telepathic dream. As you know Telepathy happens in dreams when thoughts, emotions or physical sensations are transmitted from one mind to another.

I am sure that it has happened for you too.

Last night, I had a dream that was about an event ten thousand kilometers away from the place I was sleeping in. In the morning, when I woke up I was completely preoccupied for few hours with the dream I had. After some hours I got informed that a close relative of mine had a surgery (not very serious though) at the time I was asleep. How could it happen? How could my mind know that? How were the real event and the dream so similar while I didn't know a tiny thing about that? Isn't it strange?

Fortunately, the surgery had gone totally OK and there is no problem at all except most likely some days pain.

Isn't it spectacular to feel the family from ten thousands kilometers away? It really is. It's amazing. Isn't it?

AVATAR = A perfect combination of Technology and Art

Last night, I and four friends of mine went to watch AVATAR that I'd heard too much about. All who watched the movie were quite happy to spend their time and money for. I am sure that I have never heard so much compliment about any other movie.

AVATAR is a science fiction epic movie written and directed by James Cameron, a Canadian Ontario was born in Ontario, the current province I am staying right now. The film is based on an even in the year 2154 on Pandora, a moon in the Alpha Centauri star system. Humans are engaged in mining Pandora's reserves of a precious mineral, called unobtanium. There is a race of indigenous humanoids, called the Na'vi, that resist the colonists' expansion, which threatens the continued existence of the Na'vi and the Pandora ecosystem. Humans have developed genetically engineered Na'vi bodies of four characters to interact with the Na'vi.

The movie is a really good one with all kind of features. We watched the movie in IMAX 3D. I really liked the landscapes. There were some scenes of very beautiful landscapes. The creatures in the movie were another strong point of the film, very interesting and diverse creatures. Really awesome. The technology used by the humans were also fascinating and looked very real. I am sure we will have most of the technology shown in the movie in 100 years.

However, at the end an old question came up to my mind. Technology has helped people in many cases. It has provided very different facilities. It is so easy to count lots of cases which technology has improved quality of life for people. However, some people believe that technology and science finally destroy all the humans. There are currently some signs and reasons which support their opinion. For instance, in the movie there were lots of war equipments that could easily kill thousands of people at a time. Already the nuclear bombs can kill millions of people in a second. will it occur sometime? I wish even a single person was not killed by war equipments. I wish all the companies manufacturing the equipments like guns got bankrupted soon because of no demand for their products. However, I don't think it is possible.

A short note on one year life experience in Winnipeg

Today I'm going to write a little about the experience of one year life in Winnipeg. I arrived to Winnipeg on Augest 31st at night when it was so windy and somehow cold for me. Before arriving I did not know too much about the city and I knew nobody there but my future supervisor. I just knew that Winnipeg is a very cold city and in fact, it is the coldest city in the world that has more than 600K population. I think I was very optimist because I did not arrange any place to temporarily live before arriving. Fortunately, I met a person coming to the city for the first time who had managed with a friend to stay at his home till renting a house. Thus, I was also invited by him to stay there. That was very good for me. Then, I found out that they (some Persian students of University of Manitoba) provide the temporary place for newcomers to stay to find a permanent home. This was the first good thing that I remember about Winnipeg. Let me provide you some information about Winnipeg mostly from Wikipedia.

- Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada.
- It lies at the bottom of the Red River Valley, a low-lying flood plain with an extremely flat topography.
- There are no substantial hills in the city or its vicinity.
- It is relatively close to many large Canadian Shield lakes and parks, as well as Lake Winnipeg (the Earth's 11th largest freshwater lake).
- Winnipeg has a humid continental climate with extremes of hot and cold. Winnipeg citizens sometimes call the city Winterpeg, Manisnowba because of its low winter temperatures.
- Summers in the Winnipeg area can sometimes be quite humid; nearby Carman, Manitoba reached 53 (127.4) with humidex, breaking Canada's old humidex record, in 2007.
- Winters in Winnipeg are usually dry, and can sometimes feel colder due to the strong wind from the northwest. The city has reached a record low of -57.1 (-70.8) with wind chill.
- According to Environment Canada, Winnipeg is the coldest city in the world with a population of over 600,000.
- Winnipeg is ranked as Canada's sixth sunniest city year-round, second for clearest skies year-round, and second for sunniest city in Canada in spring and winter.

Now let's talk a little informally about Winnipeg.

I mostly remember the city by coldness and kindness of its people. First, As You can now feel Winnipeg is very cold in the long winter and sometimes you cannot stay outside more than 10 minutes even wearing very good and warm clothes. I experienced the temperature of -51 this winter. It gets so boring when you have to be always in a closed and sheltered place. Thus, we just were in the home or in the university or in the bus to go and come back. The bus transit system of Winnipeg is working very good. However, in the winter we sometimes missed the bus or it did not come on time and then it was so hard to stay in that cold weather and wait for the next one. That is a nightmare. I think you are now feeling cold. Let's forget the cold weather for sometime.
Second, the best thing about Winnipeg is that the Winnipeggers ( the people residing in Winnipeg) are so warm and kind. They often smile at you and try to help you out if you need any and sometimes even if you don't need. I can bring you some examples. For instance, if you have something to do in an organization like a bank or shopping center, the person you talk to often does her best to help you, though she/he might not be responsible for that. They use the word of "Sorry" many times a day. If you are passing them, if they are passing you, if you give them something or do something for them, if you are not satisfied with something or in many other situations, they tell you "sorry". Sometimes I got ashamed and said I should have told "Sorry" not you. In addition, there is a tradition here that they keep the door open for you if you are walking after them. Sometimes they wait some seconds for you to arrive and it is so nice of them. And so many other samples like these. About three weeks ago I was visiting Montreal for one week. The city was a very nice one and it was so alive. However, after two or three days I noticed that oh my god I am missing Winnipeg. In Montreal, almost nobody cared about others and everybody was taking care of herself or himself (some exaggeration ;-)) ).

By the way, I'll leave Winnipeg next week to Toronto. I most likely will miss the nice people of Winnipeg. I wish all of them health, success and prosperous.

Nice To Meet You

This is the first note I am posting to my blog . I am so happy that I hereafter have such a nice tool for communicating to you. I liked to have a weblog for a long time. However, I always postponed having such a great communication facility for different and sometimes silly reasons. Maybe one important reason was that I am a kind of lazy person at these things. However, I finally defeated it to take a step in the right direction. Another reason to justify is that I have always been busy.

First of all, let me introduce myself by just few words. I am Saeed, a Persian. You may not know what my name means. Saeed means "Fortunate, Prosperous, Auspicious, Lucky". I am a graduate student of university of Manitoba. I am taking Computer Science in the faculty of Engineering. I started my Ph.D. study from September 2008 under supervision of a very kind, knowledgeable and supportive professor in the department. She is very hard-working and interested in what she is doing. She is the best in the department and even the faculty. Of course, she is just a sample of many many successful and intelligent women all around the world. My major research is about Wireless Sensor Networks, including their theoretically analysis to simulation and implementation. I love the area.

In this blog I am going to talk about my thoughts, experiences, activities and everything probably interesting for you. I really like to hear your comments and opinions about my posts and see what you think. Please provide me your valuable and very respectful ideas and comments.