Follow the Crowd? 🌍

History is full of pioneers with great ideas. People who think for themselves can achieve great success as a result.

For example, mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi is not only credited with being the father of algebra, but also produced works on astronomy which helped to form our understanding of the stars. The English term algorithm, which today you commonly hear in association with computers and social media, originated with his name. Imagine your work being so important that it's still used well over a millennium after you lived!

Polish scientist Marie Curie discovered Polonium, an element 400 times more radioactive than uranium. Polonium was added to the Periodic Table in 1898 and was named after Curie's birth country, Poland. As a result of her work, Marie later won the Nobel Prize which she shared with her colleague and husband, Pierre Curie. The couple continued to work with radium and soon determined that it had the power to kill cancer cells. This would go on to help millions of people with various cancer treatments all over the world.

In more modern times, we have pioneers such as computer programmer Grace Hopper (1906–1992), who helped construct programming languages for computers. Grace believed that computer programming should be user-friendly and simpler for people to understand. To do this, she converted English terms and expressions into machine code that could be understood by computers. This resulted in COBOL, a computer language for data processors that is still in use today.

• come: come down hard on somebody · come across something · come up with something
• hold: hold (somebody) back from doing something · hold onto doing something · hold off on doing something
• set: set about doing a task · set out to do something · set out a plan · set up something
• take: take to doing something · take something in

In 1912, the famous British explorer Captain Scott failed in his race to Antarctica partly because he wore heavy leather clothing. His rival, Roald Amundsen, succeeded partly because he wore lighter-weight fur animal skins. Why am I telling you this? Well, for next week's expedition to the mountains, I want you to remember the saying: 'There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes'.

Our company has a ¹ proud tradition of taking young people to some amazing places, but we want all of you to be safe and comfortable by taking the right clothes. Adventure sports clothing is a ² lucrative industry, but you do not have to spend a lot of money to have ³ high quality, durable and ⁴ practical clothes. Good walking boots and a waterproof jacket are the ⁵ bare essentials.

HYPERBOLE — Using extreme numbers/amounts:
• I've spent about a million years wearing school uniform.
• This thick jacket weighs a ton!
• I've been there tons of times!
• It cost my parents a small fortune.

Using extreme adjectives: gigantic · ancient · ravenous · soaked · incinerated

Using superlatives: the tiniest diamond you've ever seen

Using 'literally' (when something isn't true):
• It's literally the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard!

UNDERSTATEMENT — Using 'softeners':
a bit / slightly / kind of / rather …
Using phrases with not/no:
not exactly / not terribly / not entirely · not the most / not the …-est · no big deal

Time and time again we are told that having friends brings positivity to a person's life and that the more we have, the happier we will be. But is there such a thing as having too many friends?

A person can have many different types of friends. You can have really good friends who are honest, caring and great at giving advice. Then there are friends that are classmates or colleagues who you only really see in school or at work. You also have the people you see at the gym or in the local coffee shop: acquaintances. Do we really need all of these people in our lives?

Well, I would say yes. Humans are social beings, and having many friends can put a smile on our faces when we need cheering up. Many of us spend too much time looking at computer or phone screens. Having a real person to look at and talk to can make all our worries disappear.

Socialising is also a great thing, especially after a long and difficult week, or if you're just feeling a little bit lonely on a random Tuesday evening. I'm not saying you need to be out with friends every day, but being sociable and gregarious is definitely advantageous for our minds and bodies.

Socialising can boost our mood and reduce stress. In fact, research suggests that the endorphins released during positive interactions can imitate a physical response similar to exercising. No, not the sweating profusely part, the relaxed and less anxious part. Socialising is also said to improve a person's quality of life and well-being due to the happiness and contentment that you feel when you're with your friends. So, there you have it, having friends is the best thing in the world, or is it?

Well, maybe there isn't such a thing as having too many friends after all? But as we all know, there are two sides to every coin and enjoying your own company can have its benefits …

I like nothing better than curling up with a book and not having to make the effort to engage in small talk. It's not that I'm antisocial, I do get a kick out of seeing friends, but I'd be just fine stranded on a desert island.

Sociability is very highly prized in our society and sometimes it seems as if everyone wants to be seen as outgoing and gregarious. Think about all those group photos that get posted online. But research shows that being an extrovert may actually be overrated. Apparently, one of the key personality features of highly artistic people is a lack of interest in socialising. Who knew, right? It may be that artists need the time alone to reflect introspectively on their experiences, and to learn about their inner world, before transforming this into art.

Another study found that managers who were more introverted were actually highly effective when managing more vivacious employees because they were more likely to listen to what their employees were telling them. So, loners can be good team players, just not in the way you might have been expecting.

There is also plenty of evidence from the natural world that you don't have to enjoy going round in a pack to thrive, or even survive. Take the Laysan albatross, for example. When these birds fly for the first time, they head off out to sea alone where they will stay for the next three to five years. They're not completely stand-offish though. Eventually, something tells them that it's time to find a partner for life, even if they only actually meet up once a year. In human terms, introverts may spend a lot of time alone, but their relationships tend to be much more deep-rooted, and more enduring.

Of course, choosing to be a bit of a loner isn't the same thing at all as being lonely. We need connections with others, even if we also like our own space. Research in the UK found that loneliness and prolonged solitude can exacerbate the risk of developing serious health issues. Being with others can also improve our immune system. The world needs all different kinds of people.

The definite article is used when the topic is known. It can be known because:

a. It has been mentioned before.  |  b. It is unique.  |  c. It is a superlative (which makes it unique).  |  d. It's talking about one of a pair of comparatives.  |  e. It is a geographical name for certain countries, bodies of water or mountains.  |  f. We are talking about a group, class or species.  |  g. It is an ordinal number (first, second, etc.).  |  h. It's a period of time, such as decades or seasons.

¹ ∅ Human beings are social creatures. On average, we spend around 75 percent of our waking time in direct communication with other people, and very often we are indeed influenced by what ² ∅ others think, especially by what those around us think.

If we already hold ³ ∅ strong opinions, listening to others who think differently may make no difference. But ⁴ ∅ research does show that when we are surrounded by people who think ⁵ the same as us, but more strongly, our own views will become more forceful, and we may feel more entitled to act on them. This is how ⁶ ∅ crowds can have their emotions manipulated.

We may also feel that what others do gives us 'permission' to do the same. In one experiment, ⁷ a psychologist compared people's behaviour in ⁸ a national park in ⁹ the USA, on two different trails. On one trail, there was ¹⁰ a sign asking people not to take pieces of ancient petrified wood home, explaining that 14 tonnes were taken each year by walkers. On the other trail there was no such sign. People on ¹² the trail which had ¹³ the sign took ¹⁴ the largest amount because they reasoned that it couldn't be that bad if lots of other people were doing it too.

Without doubt, the world is changing very rapidly, and, as society changes, we may ask ourselves just how relevant traditional values are in our modern world.

For example, many older people would say that you should always put your family first, and prioritise their needs over anything else. However, in some places in Europe, it is no longer common for people to live with their extended family. In fact, around a third of households in Europe contain just one person, meaning that people have had to become more self-sufficient. People also often have to move some distance from their family in order to get work or progress their careers. This makes it inevitable that they will not be in a position to give the care and support that might be possible if they were all living together, in a more traditional way.

Similarly, many people in Europe do not know their neighbours in the way they used to. Whereas in the past people might stay in the same village all their lives, and their families would know each other well, nowadays people move around more. In addition, most people are out at work all day, with the result that there is less opportunity to be neighbourly, and people therefore tend to be more reserved with each other.

Having said all this, traditional values remain extremely important in countries like Jordan. It is still important that we do whatever we can to help our fellow humans. And some traditional values remain as important as they ever were. For example, working hard is no less necessary in the modern world, even if we may work different hours or online rather than in an office. In fact, those who work at home may be more available to help out with the care of very young or old family members, for example.

In conclusion, while our circumstances may change, our basic moral code should not. Caring for others and having values that we endeavour to live by should never be regarded as old-fashioned.

My class decided pretty quickly to do something for Ramadan to help less fortunate people in Irbid, and we had the idea that we wanted to create a place where people could eat desserts for free. I wanted to make knafeh, but everyone had different ideas, and we were all trying to persuade everyone else of how good we each were at cooking different desserts. To be honest, we wasted a lot of time arguing about it so no wonder no one could hear what Noura was trying to say. When I took in what it was, I got everyone else to listen.

The point she was making was that if we really wanted to help people who needed food, it would be better to make pilaf because it's a rice dish, so it's much more filling. Knafeh and baklava are delicious, but you can only eat a little as they're very sweet. With pilaf, we would be able to make a huge pan of it and keep adding to it as more people came. We all instantly recognised that it was a much better idea, and so that's what we did. And now, we've got other people involved and we've set up three other places around the city to give out food. So far, we've served over 1,000 people. It's amazing to know that our social action project had such an impact!

We really wanted to do something a bit different and perhaps more creative. We already knew that quite a few of us were artistic, so I suggested that perhaps we could make some artwork about our YES experience and have an exhibition where we would sell our work for charity. Everyone was really enthusiastic about the idea, but we did have some issues trying to sort out who should do what. Several people wanted to be in charge of putting the exhibition together, although no one actually knew much about the process of doing this.

Eventually, we managed to agree on everyone's roles, and I volunteered and was put in charge. I figured it could be a useful skill to put on my CV. I found someone from the local art college to help me, and they let us use their art studio for free. It wasn't the easiest project to work on, but when we had finally completed it, there was an enormous sense of satisfaction. It wasn't the best art ever made, but we did manage to sell almost everything and raised quite a lot of money for a children's charity.