Our national symbol

Drinking mate with friends or family is Argentina's oldest and most famous social practice. You can drink it during breakfast, lunch, tea or dinner time, no matter how old you are. For me, chatting to someone while drinking some mates is a unique opportunity to share a special moment with that person. This is the symbolical aspect of mate, and I think this is the main reason why this custom has survived over and over the years in our society. But of course you can drink mate on your own! I got used to doing this while studying at Teacher Training. Mate has become a really pleasant company to me during these years.
As most of us as Argentinians should know, this infusion is prepared by steeping dry leaves (and twigs) of yerba mate in hot water, rather than in boiling water-the flavour becomes really bitter if it is prepared with boling water, the water temperature should be between 71–82 °C-.
Even though I knew that mate was also typical from Uruguay, I have to admit I didn't know people in Paraguay, Chile, eastern Bolivia and southern and western Brazil also drank mate. But now I realize that yerba mate is original from this area in South America-the North of Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Southern Brazil-.
Also in Paraguay, Brazil and of course in Argentina, when the temperature is 30ºC or higher in summer, we drink tereré, a cold beverage that we usually prepare with cold fruit juice-because it's sweeter than just using cold water-and which I personally enjoy drinking near the swimming pool with friends while sunbathing.
As you can see, mate is with us everywhere at any time, no matter the season of the year or the moment of the day!
And you can accompany it with either sweet or savoury food-delicious facturas, cake or cookies or some salame, cheese and ham in a wonderful "picadita".

So near the end...

Today, as I have finished with my practice period in the workshop, I'd like to share with you a personal and critical reflection I wrote about this subject, which also applies to all practical subjects in our curriculum.
First of all, I think both the practice period and the topic of assessment were really useful to us as teachers-to-be. Even though most of us may have some teaching experience in institutes or as private teachers, facing thirty students in a big classroom in a public school is definitely another story. I profited from this opportunity a lot, and now I feel I am more prepared to work in a school than I was at the beginning of the year, even though this is my third year working in a private institute with different age groups. Designing an integrative test bearing in mind the characteristics of a certain group of students and preparing activities to evaluate everything we had done during the practice keeping the same context was totally new for me, and therefore has been a practical as well as a valuable experience.
As regards the lessons we observed during the first part of the year, I believe this can be an enriching experience as well as a waste of time. Some form teachers were really helpful and taught wonderful lessons but some others did not like the idea of being observed- I do not blame them for that- and after the class finished I had the feeling that we were a burden for her and for her students and that they were not working in their usual way.
Finally, I would like to make a comment on the plans. In my view, they are the best way to learn how to organize a lesson, in spite of the fact that when we become teachers we no longer plan our classes in such a detailed way. However, during this year I felt that some of the activities we had planned were wrong for the teacher or needed improvement and, in some cases, I really disagreed with the corrections, sometimes because I couldn’t see what was wrong or sometimes because I thought the corrections were unnecessary.
Girls, to tell you the truth, I tried to be as honest as I could and also to include most of the aspects and topics we had dealt with during this year. I believe this kind of subjects has give to most of us all those practical details and pieces of advice that so many theoretical subjects sometimes fail to give.

Keeping a pet-would you recommend it?

Do you sometimes feel lonely or bored? Are you planning to leave your parental home and need some company? Or has your roommate just moved out and you want to share your life with someone? A possible solution could be getting a pet. But be careful, this can be a pleasant as well as a nerve-racking experience.
Having a pet at home definitely has its positive side. “Learning to look after an animal teaches children to be patient and responsible,” states Doctor Howard Penny in a popular TV show. It is also a well-known fact that pets are pleasant company, especially for elderly people or for those who live alone. Or you can even form new acquaintances when walking your dog in the park! This is my eldest sister's case and she's getting married on December 4th!!!
Still, watch out! Do you think that raising these defenceless little creatures is an easy task? You may be mistaken. Take, for instance, the case of exotic animals such as iguanas or alligators, which are rather hard to care for and as a consequence may end up living in unsuitable conditions.
So is it advisable to buy a pet or not? Well, for the above reasons, it cannot be denied that keeping pets at home is a double-edged sword: you might be embarking on an exciting adventure that may turn into your worst nightmare. Then, may be you should think about it twice, don’t you think?

What about you, girls, have you got a pet at home? I have two dogs-one is twelve and the other one is five- and I love them, but I admit that at the very beginning, when they were puppies, we had to take care of them as if they were babies. Hope I can find a picture of them to share with you! They are cute!

The death of a "leader"?

Wednesday October 27th, we Argentinians had to stay at home to wait for the person who was carrying out the census in our neighbourhood (I couldn't find an equivalent to the word "censista"). For me it was a holiday so I woke up at about 10 a.m, not that late, and when I turned on the TV-I am a TV addict as you can see- I learnt the tragic news. Former president Néstor Kirchner was dead! He suffered a heart attack, the presidency later confirmed.

I have to admit that I was greatly shocked. I wasn't fond of him because I totally disagree with his and her wife's (the current President) ideas but still he was a young person, only 60 years old. I knew he suffered from a heart disease and that he had been operated on two times this year but I think nobody expected him to die!

I feel sorry for him and for his family. In spite of the fact that I do not sympathize very much with the President, I feel pity for her as she has lost not only her beloved husband but, above all, an expert political adviser. This is precisely the main reason why, as many people claim, our President is likely to face many new threats to her leadership.

Having said all this, I want to say I am still filled with indignation over some journalists, especially those belonging to Clarin group, who highly criticized and obviously opposed Kirchner during his political career, and now mourn him and behave as if they were sorry or hurt for his loss. They must habe literally jumped for joy when they confirmed the news!!! And while the President was standing near her husband's coffin-she was really moved, it showed- these journalists were publishing pieces of news on the net saying how Kirchner had fought for his ideas and how he had risen to power. I honestly couldn't believe my eyes when I read that. For the love of God, do they think we are idiots or something of the sort?

Finally, I'd like to tell you why I chose this title for the post, and it is because I have read in many, specially foreign, newspapers or websites that, with Kirchner's death, Argentinians had lost one of the most important leaders of our history or something like that. I didn't feel like that at all! I believe Kirchner was the leader of a political party, even though he was our President for four years and he may have done several good things, even though I believe the bad things he did outnumber the good ones.
I am not trying to start a political debate over this topic, I only wanted to voice my opinion on such an important event. We had to watch the funeral and everything the President did afterwars for two running days! The country was paralyzed, for Christ's sake!
How did you feel about this? If I have to choose a word, it would be overwhelmed. I wanted to come back to reality, specially because of television!!! ;)

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Today, October 17th, we celebrate here in Argentina Mother's Day. This is a day of reunion, in which we try to share with our mums as much time as we can, as well as making her feel happy. In our country we generally honour our mums by giving them presents. Besides, we often organize a family gathering to celebrate this special day.

In many countries, such as Mexico, Brazil, Paraguay, USA, Spain and Switzerland, Mother's Day is celebrated in May, whereas in the UK and Ireland, it is celebrated in March or April.

As regards the origin of this celebration, each country follows its own tradition. In the UK, Mothering Sunday celebrations are part of the liturgical calendar in several Christian denominations, including Anglicans. In the Catholic calendar is marked as Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent to honour the Virgin Mary and your "mother" church. Children and young people who were "in service" (servants in richer households) were given a day off on that date so they could visit their families. The children would pick wild flowers along the way to place them in the church or to give them to their mothers as gifts.

In some countries Mother's Day was changed to dates that were significant to the majority religion, like the Virgin Mary day in Catholic countries, or the birthday of the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad in Islamic countries. Other countries changed it to historical dates, like Bolivia using the date of a certain battle where women participated or Paraguay celebrating it the same day as "Día de la Patria", on May 15th.

In Argentina, we celebrate Mother's Day on the third Sunday in October, apparently because as we are in the South Hemisphere in October we are in spring. Precisely in Lebanon Mother's Day is celebrated on Spring's day. Don't you usually give flowers to you mum in this day??

Hope you enjoyed a fantastic day with your mums and families!!!

My Pecha Kucha presentation

For my Pecha Kucha presentation I chose to talk about 'women in history, who shaped our destiny and helped us be what we are today'. And by this I refer to those brave women who, all of them experts in their chosen field, contributed to breaking the myth of the ‘weaker sex’.
I provided some information about eight women I myself admire and consider role models, as they passed into History for their intelligence, determination and courage; and who challenged stereotypes about the role of women in traditional societies. These are the chosen ones:

Joan of Arc was born in France in 1412. At the early age of 13 she began to hear voices from the saints that told her her mission was to save France. She then went to the Dauphin Charles of France and was sent with an army to Orleans, succeeding in raising the English seige. She won many more battles against the English and even escorted the Dauphin to be crowned king, something that would never have happened if not for her.
However, in 1430, she was captured during a battle and sold to an Englishman. Then, she was put on trial for sorcery and heresy. The Dauphin made no attempt to save her. Instead, she was convicted by the Inquisition and burned at the stake in1431, being less than twenty years old.

Elizabeth I was born in England in 1533, the daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. When she was three years old, her mother was accused of treason and beheaded. So she was pronounced as illegitimate and put last in order of the throne. Her father's sixth wife, Catherine Parr, educated her in rhetoric, history, theology (being Protestant), moral philosophy, and the languages of Greek, Latin, French, English, and Italian.
She took the throne after ‘ Queen Bloody Mary’, her half-sister, died. She never got married. As a queen, she declared herself the head of the church, extended England overseas, reduced her council's size, removed the debased currency in the monetary system and created treaties with Scotland and France. She died in 1603.

Mary Wollstonecraft was born in the 1750's, a major protester for women's rights. She started protesting at an early age because of her father's abuse of her mother and favouritism towards her brother. At age 21, she stated she would never marry because marriage gave the husband ownership of all the property, including herself.
She is the author of the essay A Vindication of the Rights of Men that focused on the French Revolution's humanitarian ideals. Then she followed it up with a study: A Vindication of the Rights of Women. In 1796, she had a relationship with the philosopher and novelist William Godwin. They married and had a child together, Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein). However, she got an infection after giving birth, and sadly died.

Marie Curie was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1867. In 1891, she went to Paris and worked at a laboratory, where she met Pierre Curie. They got married soon and together discovered the element Polonium. A few months later, they also discovered Radium. In 1903, she won the Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with her husband and another scientist. She became the first woman to receive a Nobel Prize in Physics.
In 1934, she died of leukemia, probably caused by her exposure to radiation. In 1995, her ashes were enshrined under the dome of the Pantheon in Paris, the first woman to be laid there for her own merits. Marie has two craters named after her as well as a NASA rover with her name.

Simone de Beauvoir was born in Paris in 1908. She attended Sorbonne for an education and in 1929 passed agregation in philosophy. Most of her works included her opinions of existentialism, the belief in individuality as well as her feministic beliefs. Probably one of her most famous works was an essay called "The Second Sex". This dealt with the abolition of what she called the "eternal feminine", equality between the male and female sexes, and woman's role in society.
Through her writings, Simone de Beauvoir became a forerunner of the feminist movement. Her private life came to be admired nearly as much as her work. She chose to never marry and did not set up a joint household with Jean Paul Sartre. She never had children. (This gave her time to earn an advanced academic degree, to join political causes and to travel, write, teach, and to have (male and female) lovers). Simone died in 1986 in Paris.

María Eva Duarte de Perón was born in Los Toldos in 1919 and had to work since an early age in order to survive. She went to Buenos Aires to find acting jobs, and worked there as a model and as an actress. She met Colonel Juan Domingo Peron, then the secretary of the United Offices Group at a party. He soon became the vice president to the new president.
Eva and Juan were soon married. He then ran for president and was highly supported by the poor. He was elected, and as First Lady, she organized the Peronista party's women's branch, showing her support of women's rights. She also created the Eva Peron Foundation, which helped poor people get money, housing, and clothing. In 1951 she run for vice president but had to resign because she was seriously ill. Sadly, she died of cancer at a fairly young age in 1952.

Mother Teresa was born in 1910 in Skopje, now the capital of Macedonia. When she was 18, she became part of Ireland's Order of the Sisters of Our Lady of Loreto. She trained in Dublin, Ireland and India. She worked as a principal at a high school in Kolkota, but the sight of the sick and dying in the streets made her change her mind of what to do.
So in 1950, she and her helpers formed the Missionaries of Charity and she became the leader. In 1952, she established in Kolkota the Pure Heart Home for Dying Destitutes and in 1979, she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her accomplishments. In 1990, a book of her quotations and anecdotes ‘Mother Theresa: In My Own Words’ was published. She died in1997.

Lady Diana Spencer was born in England in 1961. Her parents divorce when she was a child, and she worked as a kindergarten teacher before marrying Prince Charles, heir to the throne of Britain, in 1981. Her beauty and youthful charisma quickly earned Diana the nickname of "the people's princess." Her unprecedented popularity as a member of the royal family attracted intense press attention, and she became one of the most photographed women in the world.
However, the marriage was troubled almost from the start, and its breakdown was daily fodder for tabloids during the 1990s. Diana and Charles were divorced in 1996 and she devoted her life to her two sons, William and Harry, and to worldwide charities. She and her boyfriend, Dodi Al Fayed, were killed in 1997 in a high-speed car crash while being followed by paparazzi in Paris.

And to finish my presentation I chose eight quotations by these women to reflect upon the contributions they made to our modern societies:

'One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. But to sacrifice what you are and to live without belief, that is a fate more terrible than dying.' –Joan of Arc
'I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too.' -Elizabeth I
'If the abstract rights of man will bear discussion and explanation, those of women, by a parity of reasoning, will not shrink from the same test.' –Mary Wollstonecraft
'Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.' -Marie Curie
'Man is defined as a human being and a woman as a female - whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the male.' -Simone de Beauvoir
'I demanded more rights for women because I know what women had to put up with.' -Eva Perón
'Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.' -Mother Theresa
'Carry out a random act of kindness, with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.' –Princess Diana

Getting rid of exams- a better choice?

Do you always shiver with fear or feel like fainting before sitting for an exam as I usually do? Or do you learn your lessons by heart and then walk in the street repeating everything parrot fashion? Well, just chill out for a second, people! A viable solution could be to get rid of examinations and evaluate students through continuous assessment and with project work. But is this a good or a bad idea?
It is wise to say that exams can sometimes be unfair, as their results do not always show clearly what students have studied or actually know. This might be because many people get very nervous when they find themselves in such a stressful situation and are therefore not able to perform successfully.
If we analyse the situation from another perspective, tests are beneficial to some students who are a bit lazy and, when they see an exam coming, are forced to study so as to be able to at least pass the exam.
On balance, it seems to me that continuous assessment is a better option. Teachers should evaluate their students progressively instead of just summing up marks from different tests to obtain an average that does not reflect what the student has learnt. Besides, project work also gives students the choice to work with their classmates, thus making the process of education a valuable and memorable experience.

What is your opinion? You may disagree with me, but I think that introducing new ways of assessing our students is something we as teachers to be should start considering.

FAAPI 2010

Hi everybody! I'd like to share with you our experience at FAAPI this year. We had the golden opportunity to meet really important people such as Jeremy Harmer, Allan Malley and Herbert Puchta. Besides, we attended very interesting lectures delivered by other profesionals who are not that well-known but who were very didactic-not in all the cases- and who provided useful and valuable information about current teaching practices in other countries, such as the United States.

I want to tell you that the university facilities where really modern and extensive. There were plenty of classrooms so many workshops or pannels could be held at the same time. The plenaries were held in an enormous auditorium with room for more than a thousand people. There was also a huge patio where we could go during the coffee breaks to breathe fresh air and enjoy the sunshine.

I believe the congress was carefully organized. It's quite obvious that ACPI (Asociación Cordobesa de Profesores de Inglés) has already been in charge of organizing many FAAPI conferences. During coffee breaks we could drink as much coffee as we wanted, and we were also provided with some sweet food to enjoy together with the coffee.

I think that when attending this annual conference you can learn about new trends in EFL and, above all, you have the wonderful chance to talk to native speakers, both American and British. So, next year, if you can save some money and invest it in your profesional development, do not even hesitate!

My painting

Hi girls!!
Well, after looking for a painting that shows, in my view, one aspect of scientific development for some time, I've chosen this one, 'Sunset at Ivry' (originally 'Soleil couchant à Ivry', 1873) by the French Impressionist artist Armand Guillaumin (1841-1927).
This work of art shows, as you can see, how wisps of smoke from factory chimneys spoil the magnificent view of an orange sunset in a beautiful rural landscape in France. I think not only the scenery is breathtaking but also the combination of colours is. I personally admire human beings who are capable of producing such great masterpieces.
I've been exploring a bit and I found out that this painter was contemporary with Cézanne and Pissaro, two other famous French Impressionistic painters, and with the latter he remained a close friend during the rest of his life. Precisely, both artists were particularly interested in showing in their painting both their love for landscapes and the negative effect caused by industrialization on them. Throughout their work together, Guillaumin developed his art of landscape painting.
As you may probably know, and as we studied in Literature III, Impressionists went out of their workshops to paint in the open air and this was mainly to take profit from the unique effects of natural light. This study of light effects is what is called Impressionism, as a painting consequently becomes an impression of one moment felt by the artist in front of nature. Beautiful...isn't it?
I hope you liked my choice and also that you've learnt a bit more about this artistic movement!

What is Englishness?

I'd like to share with you some postcards I brought from England. Two of them seem to be part of a series called 'Get around in English. Lesson nº...' and probably this is done on purpose to mock at EFL Coursebooks. That's what I thought when I first read it, but maybe you have a different interpretation! The first postcard, the one with the man drowning in the river-Thames maybe- is hilarious! I couldn't stop laughing when I read it precisely because during my first days in London I was shocked to discover that every English person I met was as polite as the man in the postcard. The man who checks your seat at the theatre says 'Thank you' when you give him the ticket, the teacher at the course would apologize for silly things or use constructions such as 'Would you mind...?' ' If that's not too much trouble...' every time she wanted us to move, or to change pairs, etc., etc. Then I got used to it but at the beginning I couldn't believe my ears. And after some days I reached the conclusion that we Argentinians are so very impolite! I hate generalizations but I honestly believe that 90% of us are like that. A few days after I came back to Argentina, I was at the butcher's and I literally stared at a woman who instead of 'asking' the butcher for the things she needed was actually giving orders to him, using the imperative: 'Dame 1 kilo de supremas. Ah y matambre también quiero. No, no no me lo cortes así. Bueno, ¿cuánto es todo? No me des dos bolsas, poné todo en la misma.' Oh my God! This is so rude! Isn't she listening to herself? She did not even say 'please' or 'thank you' when she left.

In my opinion, this is an issue for us as teachers and teachers-to-be, because we need to make students aware of this huge difference between the target culture and ours. What is your view on this? Do you agree?

The second postcard is also amazing! After quite a few years of studying Phonology at Teacher Training! When I saw this postcard for the first time, the long hours spent in front of the mirror practising the English sounds came to my mind. Did that happen to you as well? And when you listen to native speakers you realize that your Phonology teacher was not exaggerating at all. They actually speak like that! Our students also find the sounds odd or overdone when they listen to CDs in the classroom or even when they watch films at home, even though American movies are more common. I will never forget the way my teacher at International House, Fiona, pronounced my name. She produced the a: sound in the middle of my name, it was delightful to listen to her. For the first time in my life, I wanted a teacher to call me in class!!! Isn't that funny?

Well girls, if I happen to find more postcards like these-I'm almost sure I have more but the big question is where-I'll also share them with you!

We keep in touch! :)

To the Lighthouse

Re reading my previous posts, I've realized that I haven't written anything about my personal experience at Teacher Training. That's why I want to share with you how I felt reading the novel 'To the Lighthouse', one of Virginia Woolf's masterpieces.
If you have read the novel, or if you happen to know anything about the famous twentieth-century English writer, you will know for sure that reading this book, or any of her, is not an easy task. I had only read the short story 'The legacy' by Woolf when we were in Second year, but that piece was much shorter and easier to read than this one.

This author is one of the pioneers in the stream of consciousness technique, a narrative mode that portrays an individual's point of view by describing the character's thought processes, either in interior monologue, or in connection to his or her actions.

But this is precisely what makes the text so hard to follow! You are reading what one specific character is thinking about another character and suddenly you find yourself reading not this character's thoughts but the other's. If you are clever enough to realize! Besides, there is so little event that when you've finished the first part you ask yourself: but what happened? And you realize that nothing really significant occured!

As regards the language the author uses, I don't find it that complex but sometimes there are content words I've never heard in my entire life that are somewhat relevant to understand a whole paragraph. This is precisely why I read the novel with my laptop next to me and I have the Oxford Dictionary Online website always open to save me!

We haven't yet started discussing 'To the Lighthouse' in class, we're still dealing with the Woolf's complicated life and trying to understand her technique, her experiments with language and some symbolic elements that are key to understanding the story. I honestly can't wait to start focusing on the novel, I really want to share my interpretations with my classmates and of course with my teacher to see if I've been on the right track or not.

What about you? Have you read 'To the lighthouse'? Maybe your contributions can help me to make sense of it in a different way. Can't wait to read them!!

Tough words to learn

After many years of being a student of EFL, there are some words that are not new to me but which I find so extremely difficult to acquire and thus put into use both on my oral and written production. This happens to me at the level of pronunciation as well as at the level of semantics. Fortunately, I have a visual memory so spelling has never been hard for me, neither in English nor in Spanish.

Take for example words as 'rise' and 'raise'. Oh my God! I never know which one is pronounced with each dipthong ei and ai! I always have to look them up in the dictionary. Besides their meanings are quite similar so I find it very hard to know in which situations to use them.
What about all those verbs of seeing, walking and shining? We don't have such a variety in Spanish, do we? Glance, glimpse, stare, peek, peep, peer; gleam, glint, glisten, glitter, glow, sparkle; stagger, limp, crawl, march, wander, stroll, stumble, ramble, stalk... Oh my God!!! Imposible to remember ALL of them! Most of them are almost synonyms to me! I have always thought that the best way to learn vocabulary is by using the words in meaningful sentences that are more or less easy to remember. But this strategy isn't that useful in this case!

Another pain in the neck are phrasal verbs. Some of them become part of your active vocabulary because I've tried to use them as much as possible or because they are meaningful to me (e.g: look after, take up, talk somebody into, catch up with) but others...I used to study them by creating mind maps with the preposition in the middle and arrows with all the verbs it can be combined with. Still there are some I can never remember!

What about you girls? Do you have problems with any of the ones I have mentioned?? Share your experience with us!!!

We keep in touch!

I want to be a single mum-what's wrong with that?

This is not particularly my case, but I've always wanted to give my opinion about this.

A heated debate about single motherhood is taking place in societies everywhere. In Argentina, this is one of the controversial issues that arises when discussing gay marriage after we became the first country in Latin America to declare that gays and lesbians have the same legal rights, responsibilities and protections as heterosexual couples. If a single woman can afford and is psychollogically prepared to raise a child on her own, why can't a same-sex couple do this as well? Is it going to be traumatic for the child? And isn't it a childhood trauma to be raised without a father?

I personally have mixed feelings about this. I was raised in a traditional family and therefore strongly believe that children have the right to know and to grow up with a mother and a father, whether they live together or not. But I also think that women who for some reason don't have a partner to share this unique experience of becoming a parent with should also have the chance to choose whether to tread this path alone or not. Besides, there are women who don't choose to be single mothers but are dumped by their partners after he hears the news about the, for him, unwanted baby.

In the States, the actress Jennifer Aniston (41), who was married to Brad Pitt, dumped by him and still doesn't have children, currently stars in 'The Switch', a film about a woman who gets pregnant using a sperm donor. After this, she has pronounced in favour of single motherhood, stating that "The ideal scenario for parenting is obviously two parents of a mature age. Parenting is one of the hardest jobs on earth. And, of course, many women dream of finding Prince Charming (with fatherly instincts), but for those who've not yet found their Bill O'Reilly, I'm just glad science has provided a few other options." Bill O'reilly is an American TV presenter who strongly criticized Aniston's recent comments.

I totally agree with Jennifer, apart from the fact that I am one of her big fans!!! As to gay couples adopting children, I'm still not completely certain whether this is traumatic for the child or not. I don't believe that if you're raised by a homosexual couple you're going to be gay, but I do think that children can become, especially during childhood and adolescence, an object of ridicule because of this.

Well, I am looking forward to reading or listening your points of view! And of course I can't wait to watch Jennifer's new film!

Have a lovely long weekend! :)

My cartoon

Hi girls! I wanted to share my, in a way 'feminist', cartoon with you here! I think it cannot be properly seen, but I have created a google doc so the comic is already there.

It was an enriching experience to work with this website. Even though there are not many characters or pictures to use, you can still create different and varied cartoons with the tools offered.

I am already a fan in Facebook of Makebeliefscomix. Through this social net you can see other people's comics. Besides, every week they post a new theme for people to create comics related to that theme. The comic strip theme for this week is: ‘’You and Your Brother Are Planning A Great Adventure.’’ You create the comic in the makebeliefscomix website and then upload it to the Makebeliefscomix profile in Facebook. It's fun to see other people's comics and share your own! We can try, can't we?

Could you please stop cheking emails??

I came up with the idea of this post after reading an article in a magazine called 'Is your email killing you?'. The article describes and explores how the overuse of emailing affects and 'invades' a person's work and private life. It mainly states that "increased emaling can lead to feelings of depression, anxiety, mental breakdown and even alienation and detachment".
As you all may know, an email or e-mail, i.e. electronic mail, is a way of exchanging messages across the Internet. It gained popularity at the end of the 1990's, and has become the most common method of exchanging information all over the world. Nowadays, most people use e-mails to keep in touch with relatives, friends and loved ones, no matter if they live just around the corner or 10000 kilometres away. The email has also become the best way of establishing and developing labour relations, especially because it allows you to send any kind of information by the minute to any computer in the world. But now, emailing is not only restricted to computers.

There are millions of IPhone, Blackberry and other smartphone users in the world. This is, according to the article, the main reason why emails are the same as text messages to some people: you receive them at the spur of the moment, there is no need to turn on the computer and check your emails. I agree with this idea because I personally have a blackberry and I have realized that emails and text messages are the same for me, and when I talk to other people this is not so to them.

The article points out that "emails actually affect a person's mental state and can even put somebody front of the line for a heart attack". I totally agree with those who believe that we are living through an information overload, but I also think that the article is, up to a point, going to extremes. My personal belief is that this excess of emails can be, in some cases, the main source of stress, both mental and physical, but I don't think that it can lead to death. As the article explains, "work-related stress can manifest itself in a diminished appetite and lack of libido, headaches, skin problems, difficulties with digestion, increased blood pressure and heart disease". But can a person suffer from any of these just because he receives an email in his mobile phone every five minutes? I don’t think so.

Girls, I hope you find the article I chose to comment on as interesting as I did!

Book Clubs-a growing trend

Social book clubs have become extremely popular in the last few years among group of friends all over Britain. These people gather regularly to discuss a pre-agreed book, which each member of the club has to read previous to the meeting. These are generally held in homes, but can also take place in pubs, public libraries or even bookshops. Nowadays, being a member of a book club has become a part of a British person's identity.
One of the main reasons why this trend has become so popular is the fact that congragating in people's houses is, as a form of entertainment, much cheaper than going to the cinema or to the theatre. Besides, it is a golden opportunity to mingle with other book lovers.
You may be wondering where and how everything started. Well, in television. Richard and Judy's Book Club started in 2002 as part of the regular daytime chat show hosted by Richard Madeley and Judith "Judy" Finnigan, who are married English TV presenters. The couple also launched a wine club, these two clubs being very similar in style to those used by the famous Oprah Winfrey in the States. The club featured literature by both new and unknown writers. There was a book revision each week and the winner, the 'Read of the Year', was announced at an awards ceremony. The Richard and Judy's Book Club was a great success, as every book that was reviewed was then sold out in a matter of minutes.
There are even reading group guides online where book club members can find useful tips and questions to take discussions to the next level, both for fiction-novels, short stories- and non-fiction-biographies, memoirs, essays, historical accounts.
In my opinion, the most remarkable aspect of book clubs is that they promote reading as a leisure activity. This is important especially for adolescents, who prefer surfing the Internet or watching TV instead of taking up reading as a hobbie. Besides, they are generally in contact with school books only, and are forced to read them by parents or teachers. Another point to consider is that many of the books that are in fashion at a certain time are made into films later. So, if teenagers decide to start a book club, they can agree on a book to read, then discuss it and finally watch the film to compare their interpretation to that of the film director.
I would finally like to share with you some links you might find useful if you are interested in knowing more about book clubs or in forming one yourself:


Online articles on Book Clubs:
-Why the book club is more than just a fad, by Charlotte Higgins

-How the Richard and Judy Book Club has shaken publishing, by Bryan Appleyard.

-On Book Club Discussion Questions and Topics

There is also a film I have watched and would like to recommend: 'The Jane Austen Book Club' (2007). Directed by Robin Swicord. With Maria Bello, Emily Blunt, Kathy Baker.
Well, I hope you find this topic as interesting as I did.

Regards to all of you!

A Greek Tragedy

Hi there!!

I know the pictures have nothing to do with what I'm going to write about, but I wanted to share some more with you! Hope you enjoy them!

Now tell me, is the country paralized by Argentina's performance in the World Cup??

I read the newspapers on the Net and I still can't believe it! It's a game, you win or you lose guys! It's as simple as that!

But well, here in London people were extremely sad last weekend when England lost to Germany. That day, we were on a tour in Bath, Salisbury and Stonehenge and streets were deserted, everybody was at home watching the match! And when the match finished, we 'interviewed' our guide and he was sadly disappointed at the result. I said 'Come on! Life goes on!' and he laughed, but yesterday I have to admit I had a similar sensation. I think the problem is that there were great expectations of success and now that we were beaten by Germany it's a Greek tragedy. It's a game!!! Terrible things happen in the world and everybody is worried about a football match! Whether we win the World Cup or not all the political, economic and educational issues in our country will still exist. I know many people will disagree with me but well, this is the way I see it.

Hugs to all of you!

Constanza.

Trip to England

Hello everybody!! Sorry for the delay but we don't have the chance to use the computer much, we spend the whole day sightseeing, visiting places and enjoying!! I'm still in London while Jose is in Ireland. Maybe I travel to Ireland on Friday, but I still don't know. I want to share some pictures for you to see hoy many amazing places we've had the opportunity to visit: Stonehenge, Wimbledon, the Tower of London, the Big Ben, etc.

This country is wonderful girls! People are so kind and helpful and I still can't believe how everything works as it should, things are so carefully planned and well-organized, in every aspect of life I would say. You walk in the streets and everything is clean, nobody throws litter for example, the city looks so nice! There is a great variety of things to do and interesting places to explore. You need a whole year to get to know more or less what London has to offer (it sounds like an add, I know).

Well people, I'll do my best to keep in touch! Hope you enjoy our pics!

Hugs!

Hi!

Hello everybody! This is totaly new for me!