Sunday 13 June 2010

Springs Tidings: Endangered Success

This article was taken from internet. The page is www.suit101.com. I chose it because I find interesting the topic, because it is easy to read, because I have always liked reading about animals and because I think it is important to take care and respect animals, specially those that are in danger of extinction.
The article is about endangered animals but with a happy ending. Thanks to the effort of government agencies, community groups and common people who want to help, several animals that were in the list of endangered species are rcovering so fast that they have left this list and live on their own with occasional monitoring. Others, on the other hand, that thought to be also in danger, have been taken off the list because people found large populations of it. Finally, some species that were in this list because of illegal hunting also recovered thanks to the help of law enforcement agencies.

Sun

The last tea

It is a short story in which a young man and a girl meet in a tea room for a cup of tea. They have been friends for some time, but now something has happened to change things between them. The woman has been secretly “in love” with him but he doesn’t seem to notice this. What’s more, he spends the entire time talking about a woman he has just met. She feels so angry at this that she invents that different men have a crush on her. It doesn’t work. He leaves the tea room saying that he has a date with her in a couple of hours.
I chose this short story because I found it very interesting, very well written and at certain moments funny. I found interesting the way in which these two people spend time talking about such an important suject as love is, when none of them feel it. He has only a crush on the girl he met whereas she is only interested in him because he is not interested in her.

Sun

Sunday 6 June 2010

BOOKS ON WHEELS

This is about a project on reading, but not as a skill, or a subject matter. It means Reading for pleasure. The writer reminds about having been read some books by her mother, and realized that most children don't visit bookshops to "choose the book to read at bed". That's why she thought to implement this project at her school, "Books on Wheels club". The fist aim is that children get in contact with books. So, she stated a day for reading, chose a quiet place at school and brought pillows for them to sit on. Children listen attentively and then they work with it.They make a book trolley, decide the difficulty of the book ,through using traffic light system, they write their impression of that reading,etc. After the class each pupil can take one book for reading at home. Through these experiences students develop their creativity, their imagination, self-confidence, accuracy, fluency and at the same time they discover a fascinating worl of magic. It seems an interesting project. It might be a nice experience. Good Luck!

Kelro

AGEL ENTERPRISE truth or fraud?

I would like to share this information and this experience with all of you people, because I think it is important and if anyone is better informed about it, you can comment on and give your opinion.
Last week an old friend of mine, who I met by chance, invited me to be one of the members of a company called AGEL. He asked me if I could make a meeting one day in which he would explain to me what was it about. Before accepting, (and as I´m usually very distrustful) I decided to look for some info on the Internet.To start with, when I was googling "AGEL", it inmediatly appeared some words like "fraud" and "cheating". Then, I decided to enter the official site, www.agel.com, where I found some information about the products this company sells. It gives little information but quite persuasive. AGEL sells many gel products to reduce fat, to lower heart problems, to obtain the nutrients your boby needs, to provide supplements for healthy joints and many others. Besides, the company promisses anyone who joins them (by selling their products) to enrich in a very short period of time.The system with which it operates is one called pyramid scheme; where the incomes of the company and the sellers come from the people who joins them and who buys the products. From this page, some may think it a reliable and serious company.
On the other hand, I found some interesting comments of people who had enrolled the company, who had lost much many, and who had found the weakneses and cheatings of this supposed reliable company.To start with, the products are not approved by the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration): they contain different kinds of sugars which are not beneficial for human life, and some others have ingredients which haven´t been tested on humans yet, but just on animals. Secondly, but not less important, the American company seems to have just a few headquarters in the USA and some in other countries, but not in all of the countries it claims to be. This may be a big trouble if anyone has to do a complaint. Where are they supposed to go? Who are they going to claim? In fact, some blogs on the internet show many complaints about people who had bought the products but never received them.
I could go on enumerating other complaints and darknesses of this company, but what worried me most was the fact that a known person tried to persuade me to be part of this business. Why did he do that? didn´t he know all these? To my surprise, I found the answer: everyone who enrolls the company is obligued to buy a number of boxes with products, if they don´t sell them they lose their money.If this happens, you´ll be forced to make other people enroll the company so as to obtain a prize and recover your money back. Moreover, AGEL sellers do have a bank account (opened by the company) where the money they earn from the sales is deposited;that´s why the company makes sellers believe in their own business. But let the time pass...and AGEL would probably dissappear with all the money.

IZZIE

"SWEET WAFFLES": recipe

Hi! I had no idea of what to write about. I was looking for a different kind of text in a textbook and I found this recipe.It's not something new but different. You will need: a cup of sugar, Two eggs, two cups of milk and two cups of flour. This recipe is quite simple. First, put in a bowl the eggs with the sugar and whysk them, until they become a unifyed preparation, whih a spoon.Then, without stopping whysking, add the milk and the flour alternately. Once all the ingredients are integrated, let the preparation rest in the refrigeration for almost twenty minutes. Then, mix it with a ladle. It must de liquid, lightly soft as cream before being whysk. Now, takea waffle-iron on the cooker, turn the heat on. Add to the waffle-iron a teaspoon with butter. Carefully, pass with the ladle part of the preparation to the waffle iron. It takes, approximatedly, one minute to be cooked from one side, and one more minute fron the otherside. Repeat this process with each waffle. They are delicious!!!I hope you try them. My advice, Change one cup of milk to one of cream. Don't forget to control or regulate the Heat!!!!!!

Kelro

Hard Saturday night

It was a Saturday night, I was bored at home and I had been invited to a party in a friend’s house in Banfield. I wasn’t sure whether to go there or not. The distance and the money I’d have to spend made me doubt about it. Late at night I decided to go, so I took a bath and rushed to the railway station. Fortunately, I could catch the last train. There were no inconveniences; everything was alright up to Quilmes, where the train stopped. A person had committed suicide by throwing himself onto the railway tracks. For this reason, the train had to stop until the police arrived, and moved the corpse. I was running myself into trouble. As it was getting late and the place was unknown to me. I did what most of people did. I went to a bus stop, stood in a long queue and waited for the bus. The problem was that I hadn’t enough coins to pay. I needed change and there wasn’t any open shop where to get some. I walked two blocks to the nearest drugstore, got the change, and on the way back to the bus stop I saw the bus running off with everybody in. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I thought there was a curse on me. Desperate as I was, I began walking for a taxi. After walking a few blocks, I could catch one. We made an arrangement and he took me to the party for twenty pesos. It was quarter past four. Resentfully, I walked towards James’ house, which was in complete darkness. No sooner had I stepped in front of the door that read a notice on it that said “girls, we are in Tom’s house in Lanus”.
I took the first bus home with the last pesos I had. I arrived home at half a past six, exhausted, moody and penniless. I could finally say home sweet home, from now on no more parties, trains, buses, or even taxi cubs for me.

Ignatius Reilly.

Veronika decides to die

I decided to make a post on this novel from Paulo Coelho because I really loved this book, its characters, the concepts I found between lines and many other things it would be better, if you have the possibility, to find out by your own. Veronika is a girl that has it all, nevertheless, she is not happy, there's a gap in her life that doesn't fulfil her expectations, an emptiness she can bearly manage. One day, she resolves to kill herself, but she fails...From that moment on her life makes a turn, changing her world view altogether. In the search of sense of life she comes accross deep characters that mark her way of thinking and acting. I wouldn't want to develop the plot because it would be great if you have the chance of reading it. When I go back with my memory over this novel, I think in some periods of our lives we may see ourselves reflected upon Veronika. As I see it, this novel is highly recommended. You will find an enjoyable reading full of passion, life, madness and hope, in which every minute of life counts.

Slavonic

Wavin´ Flag by K´naan

Wavin´ flag is the official song for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. It is sung by K´naan, a Somali musician who lived in Africa, where he met starvation and war, and then he moved to the United States of America, to finally settle down in Canada, where he lives at present.
There are two versions of the song, the original one, Wavin´ Flag, and a recast version, a pre-chorus, Wavin´ Flag: the Celebration Mix, that seems to set the uplifting and unified tone of the World Cup. This version talks about the champions, and the proud they make people feel, as well as unity and celebration of every nation. The original version, on the other hand, is a strong critique to the sufferings that South Africa went through for many years. The song claims freedom; it seems that people want to be free from someone else, but in fact they want to be free from hunger, from wars, darkness, poor people on the streets and the so many bad treatments they suffer as a nation.
For me, the song is a mixture of confusing elements, because it has a rhythm that makes you sing it, but when you read its lyrics and between the lines you find the hidden and the real message that nation wants other nations to know.
Read the lyrics and listen to the songs by clicking HERE.

QueenV

Understanding girls

“We men” are not “women”. While girls spend hours to make up, days to dress up and centuries to wax, boys don´t need blush or lipstick, they wear whatever they have at hand, and they can go about unshaven for three days and nobody will mind.
It seems hard for us all to escape prejudice when we talk about the female gender. We have in mind cultural stereotypes shaped at school, the family or the media; and gender is a relative, dynamic and flexible concept.
Looking on history might be a good way to stop this prejudice. Prehistoric women were not only in charge of the food and the upbringing of children: they also accessed higher levels in social hierarchy. This is the case of matriarchies (women-dominated societies where power inherited from mother to daughter), which still exist today in remote places such as Western Sumatra, India and Northern Sri-Lanka. What´s more, with the advent of industrialization, demographic changes, the feminist movement and improvements in reproductive health and sexual education, job differentiation between sexes has become anything but rigid. Women have gradually gained respect and weight in many “male” fields such as sports, music, politics, business and academia.
Traditionally, girls have been defined as “closer to nature”, and boys as “closer to culture”. That´s why girls are more prepared for bringing up children, because they give birth to them and have a motherly instinct.
Nowadays, girls must work, look after their children, cook and clean… yet at the same time be perfect, beautiful, thin, sexy, and so on. They do everything boys do, and more! I completely agree with this perspective on women. Definitely, “women” are not “we men”.
(Taken from: Write On! Page 5.Buenos Aires Herald.September, 2003.)

Butterfly