martes, 26 de junio de 2007

Entry nº 39

Fanatism

Nowadays fanatism is an activity that provokes an apassionate furor. Young people tend to hero-worship or idolize famous people, especially famous actors, actresses, supermodels, singers and music bands.
Sometimes fans get obsessed with their idols. Many teenagers get so mentally affected that have even attempted suicide because their parents have realized of their problem and tried to prohibit them any thing related with their idols such as posters or every sort of merchandicing. Many parents do not know how to deal with their children`s problem.
Sports are also another issue that have thousands of fanatics around the world. In my country and in many countries of Latin America the sport that has most fans is football.
Supporters of many football teams are ardent fans, they will watch every match of their favourite team or even will travel to the cities where the team plays.
Football fans are in its vast majority men, but there are also many women. The relationship between the supporters of two traditional rival teams in one of blind hatred ratherd than sporting rivalry. This strong rivalry has caused violent incidents among them inside and outside the field.

Entry nº 38

The River

Rivers are very important for the towns or cities near them because they contribute to their economical growth, the provide almost always the main source of drinkable water not just for their populations but also for the survival of animal and vegetal life and are also used for transportation.
For those reasons many important cities are placed near a river, but as technology develops fast and industries have increased their number, the amount of pollution also has increased and great part of the chemical products thrown out by the industries are thrown into the rivers. This has led to the intoxication of the water and as a consequence the populations` health have being affected.
Apart from pollution, people who live near a river has the chance of being affected also by floods produced by the excess of rain during some determinated seasons every year. Many people in my country has lost all their belongings and even their houses because of this. But there are many ways of preventing floodings and it is the responsability of government to invest the money necessary to give a solution to this problem.
As the sources of sweet water are very few around the world, it is responsability of all of us to maintain every river, lake and streem water as clean as possible.

Entry nº 37

The influence of televisión

Communication media have un impresive influence on the young generation. The most influencial is the power of what is shown in television especially on children because they reproduce every thing they hear and they immitate what they watch in cartoons and films.
It is very common to see children playing at the school games where they play the role of some cartoon character such as `The Power Rangers´, and the game will consist on fighting each other or at least pretend to be fighting. One consequence of this is that what may be harmless sometimes ends with some child hurted by another while playing these games.
Television as the main source of entertainment and information around the globe it has much responsability in the education of the younger generation.
The current problem with television is that it has been controlled by commerce and the business of making money no matter how, so that this has turned into a commercial and publishing site where through advertisements any sort of product is offered.
But the most important problem that has to do with the influence of television is in one hand the high level of violence shown in movies and many programs, especially children programs and cartoons that have a strong influence on children`s behaviour.
In the other hand, the problem of the sexual content that many programs have, from documentaries and entretainment programs to soap operas. It is very difficult for parents to control what their children watch because sometimes this sexual images are shown even at lunch time, this is even much more difficult for those families in which both parent have to work and stay many hours away from home.
That is why I think that all chanel television owners must bear in mind that television can spoil our children as well as help educating them and a great responsability for what children and teenanger watch on television is on their hands.

Entry nº 36

How to make easy money

If you want to make easy money, you can get married to a rich person for instance. To meet a rich person you can do many things. For example, you can visit those places where wealthy people go.
In every big city you will find some exclusive restaurants, pubs, bars and discos. The more accessible place is a disco because you can reach your target easily, what I mean is that if you are rejected or if the person you chose is not appropiate, you will have several other options to choose. There are many ways to attrack her or his attention, you can wear sexy clothes and make-up if you are a woman or invite her a drink or ask her to dance with you if you are a man.
Some Sport Clubs are also perfect places to meet a wealthy partner, especially if the sport you get interested in is tennis, polo or golf which are at least in Argentina typical high society sports.
But if your charme is in your physical beauty or you have some special talent for singing, dancing or acting, you can make money from modeling, music or acting. The only problem is that no matter how much talent you can have, you will waste your time waiting for the opportunity of your life unless you meet someone related with the business show.
Although it may be very easy sometimes another times it is not so, but in the modern world there are certainly many different ways of making money, all you need is a little bit of luck and some smart ideas.

Entry nº 35

Review. A doll`s house

The play A doll`s house exposses the internal changes of its characters and the most important is the process of changing through which Nora Helmer passes.
At the beginning, Nora is described as a childlike woman that behaves like this to have the approval of her husband and her father as well as the rest of the society. But at the end she revels who she really is, she is a courageous woman that is capable of doing anything out of love.
Following the same plot structure the author lets an open ending, in this way all depends on the possible change of Torvald Helmer, Nora`s husband. If he changes his way of thinking and his beliefs and if he accepts his wife in the way she is, there will be a happy ending for their marriage. But if he is not able to manage this situation they will never be together again.
On the one hand the author highlights the importance of true love. At the beginning Nora`s love for Torvald made her do things that led her to break the law, and he claimed to love her most than anything else and he swore he would die for her. But when he knew her fault, he placed on the side of the law and he judged and rejected her.
And on the other hand the author wants to make us realize that love is not enough to be happy, especially for a married couple. We need respect, we need to be loved in the way we are and to be treated as equals.

Entry nº 34

Review: My fair lady

After have read the play Pygmalion, when I watched the screen adaptation My fair lady I saw apart from a few slight differences, an importan change in the end of the film.
In the play as well as in the film, Bernard Shaw shows a relationship between a young lady, Eliza Doolittle, that has very clear her value as a woman and an old bachelor, Professor Henry Higgins, who thinks that all women except his mother are thoughtless creatures.
It is rather difficult fo believe, at least for me, that a relationship between these two characters would have the happy ending that is shown in the film, because he is not able to treating her with the respect she deserves.
So that I personally agree with the end of the play, when she leaves him and gets married with a young man that is in love with her, Freddy. In my opinion this end is more likely to have happened in real life.
In what refers to the actors` performance, I enjoyed the film very much because each character was interpreted exactly as I had imagined them when I read the play. I especially enjoyed the performance of the actress that characterized Eliza, and the actors that performed the characters of Prof. Higgins and Alfred Doolittle (Eliza`s father).
And in what respect to the musical performance, I loved the songs because of their rhythm and their lyrics, most of them were funny and easy to remember.
The customs used in the film were also remarkable, especially the dresses and hats of the women at the horse race that showed the materialism and ostentation in the Victorian period, as well as the clothes worn by the actress who characterised Eliza after and before her transformation from a flowe girl to seem a duchess.

viernes, 22 de junio de 2007

Entry nº 33

Anecdote

The first time I went to Capilla Del Monte in Cordoba it was during summer vacations when I was about six years old. I went there with my mother; we stayed in a hotel together with her work partners so I was the only child among a large group of adults.
There were a lot of things to do and see, for example you could take a ride on a horse or even on a donkey and or spend the daytime near the river having a barbecue, swimming, walking at the side of the river or gather around some improvised musician listening folklore songs that he would play on his guitar.At night the streets were crowded, and one thing that really struck me was that a long roof covered one of the streets in which pedestrians could walk.
As this city is in a valley there are very attractive landscapes and places to visit. One of the places of interest is a big rock with the shape of a shoe where every turist went to take photographs.Another place highly visited by tourists is a small hill called Cerro Uritorco where many sights of U.F.O.s were reported and people said that if you climb to the top of the hill you would see a huge mark on the soil with the shape of a circule. My mother bought an old newspaper that published a notice about it and a description of the appearance of an alien seen in that place some years before.
A particular characteristic of that city is that all the streets are like a slide and if you walk fast you can falldown so, it was a bit dangerous to go out for a walk.
The weather was lovely, and as it is a very energetic place to go to take a rest and recover your physical and mental energy, many old people and those who had health problems used to go there.
The last time I went to Cordoba was also with my mum and with my family when I was eleven years old, but in that moment we visited another cities near this city, certainly all of them are similar but I still prefer Capilla Del Monte because this is the nicest and peaceful place that I have ever visited.

Entry nº 32

Essay: Pros and Cons of video gaming

Video gaming is a wide spread form of entertainment which against popular belief, is used not only by children but in its vast majority by adults. The popularity of video games has been attributed to its well-designed graphical images, fast movements and special sound design that resemble the images and plot lines on a film. These characteristics give a realistic appearance to video games and their aim is to catch the player’s interest. Despite its popularity, video gaming has received tough criticism about its influence on children’s behaviour.
One of the main factors of criticism of video gaming is this effect of catching gamer’s attention that is believed to provoke a change in their behaviour. Some people blame video games for turning children into screen addicts with no social life and even becoming them more violent.
As video games are becoming more complex and challenging for players, they spend many hours practicing to get to the highest level, so they get obsessed about winning the game. Players are so absorbed by the game that they do not pay attention to what happens in the real world while they are playing, this makes them behave like zombies.
But such assumptions have not been proved yet. On the contrary, there is much more evidence of the good effects and uses that video games have. For example, video gamers develop motor skills related to the use of computer devices more easily and quickly than those who do not play.
Video games have a great potential to be used for educational purposes. The problem-solving activities of many games can be also used in education as a tool of motivation and learning. In fact, some off-the-shelf and role-playing games are actually used in some foreign schools.
Apart from its educational use, video games are also used as a tool of work training. New recruits are tested or taught through the use of elaborate systems of simulation.
For many parents video games have also a special purpose. Due to the increasing rate of violence, many parents are worried about their children’s safety when they are away from home, so they usually choose video games as a way to keep their children protected at home providing them with an entertaining indoor activity.
Taking into account all this information about the good aspects of video gaming, may be this wrong opinion about the social impact of video gaming that has been held will probably change in the next years. And perhaps if governments supported the use of video games on education and provided schools around the world with the necessary equipment, video gaming could be exploited as a good source of motivation and learning at school.

Entry nº 31

I’m in two minds about...

I’m in two minds about having a child. This has been a frequent topic of conversation between my husband and me since we got married fourteen months ago.
Every time we talk about it both of us express our points of view. He is really excited about having a baby but I am always telling him the disadvantages of this, and my position is so strong that at last he changes his mind.
Although from the bottom of my heart I really want to have a child, in fact this has been my dream since I was a child, this is not a good idea at this moment because I am studying and I would have to give up if I had a baby.
We are too young indeed. I think we should enjoy our life together as a couple and we need to grow up a little more before taking such a decision. A baby would bring an important change in our life styles. Babies need special attention and care that we are not prepared to give yet.
In fact, we do not have a house of our own. We are living in a rented flat that is not comfortable for raising a child. The flat has no elevator and we live on the third floor, so it would be tiring to go down stairs and then up stairs carrying a baby in my arms, for example.
I am sure we are going to be very good parents but we have to be patient and not hurry things up.

Entry nº 30

Review: A Chinese Restaurant

The first time I went to a Free Fork Chinese Restaurant was six years ago, when my step-father took me there to celebrate the birth of my baby brother Gonzalo.
It was a sort of auto service system, where you could choose helpings from multiple dishes as many times as you wanted. There was food from different countries, for example, Chinese food, South American food and Italian food among others.
There were also different kinds of home made sauces, salads and desserts. All the food was served on some kinds of long tables divided in little metal containers on one side of the room. On the other side there were chairs and tables where everybody sat and enjoyed their meals.
Drinks were a bit expensive, but it is reasonable if you take into account that you could eat everything you wanted as much times as you wanted just for $9 per person.
That night I ate Octopus for the first time in my life. I enjoyed it very much and I also tried many different desserts.
When I came back two years ago, I found the place closed with a note in the main door that said “Closed by the Public Health Service”.

Entry nº 19

When I listen to old music like those soft Spanish songs from the 60s, 70s and 80s, I remember my childhood. That music that my mum acostumed to listen in the mornings and so she made me listen and enjoy. The time when I didn´t have any corry or responsability other than doing my homework.All my world was resumed in going from my home to school and the other way round, alternating this routine with the playing time when I used to join with my neighbours and we used to invent games and wander around the block. But always with the condition that I had finished my homework before going out.
When I listen some Tango songs I remember that time when the whole family was closer than nowadays. Every Sunday all my relatives used to go to my grandmother`s home to have lunch and we used to stay until noon. While we were having lunch we used to watch the television program called Grandes Valores del Tango because the adults especially my grandmother love listening Tango. I remember that my grandma`s backyard was the playground of all her grandchildren and as it was full of trees, fruits and animals like hens, dogs and cats we used to travel to multiple imaginary worlds on that huge paradise.
Some special old songs dedicated to the fathers have always made me feel sad because I remember my own father who lived with my mum and me only until I was 3 years old and then he left us, he splited up with my mum and at the same time with me because since then I saw him two or three times a year until he died when I was 18. Although I know he loved me and he knew I loved him too, I still feel an empty space on my heart when I think of him.
As I love listening to music most than anything else, music has always been part of my life and every single moment has its own song to be remembered. Even when I feel sad or worried the only thing that keeps me calm and comforts me is music, but the sort of music that touches me most is English soft music from the 70s, 80s and 90s. Music in English has a special meaning for me that few songs in Spanish have. And that is one of the main reasons that I have for learning English. Listening to music in English made me willing to learn this language in order to understand the meaning of the lyrics.

Entry nº 29

Review: Around the world in 80 days

To be sincere, before I saw the performance I had few expectations about it because I had been told that the actors were Argentinean and they were just four people on stage, but after I saw it my opinion changed completely.
Although there were only four actors their work was so well done that it really surprised me, they did every single thing, from changing their customs as fast as possible, to preparing the different sceneries that conveyed the collocation of objects, huge posters, etc and the removal of other things on stage. All their work was done with a clear naturallity and every movement and dance performed were in exact concordance with the sound effects.
Apart from the satisfactory performance of the whole group, I get particularly surprised with their native like pronunciation, especially the accent and tones produced by the only girl participating.
Another aspect to remark was the interaction of the group of actors with the public before and during the performance.
To sum up I have to say that I really enjoy the play and the body gestures of the actors helped to make sense to their dialogues so it can be seen not only for people with high levels of English but also for beginners.

Entry nº 28

Coment: Virtual worlds

I am particularly interested in the issue of Virtual Worlds due to the fact that in our country this kind of advanced technology is not able yet. This virtual worlds are three-dimensional reproductions of almost any thing in the real world, virtually all created by users. There you can find businesses, Universities, art institutions, musical groups, casinos and even the sexual industry. Through Internet these cyberworlds produce huge amounts of money.
The most popular virtual worlds on Internet are Second Life, its owner is a private enterprice called Linden Lab and Entropia Universe that was created by the Swedish Government.
My main interest is the uses or applications of this technology in Education and Work. In what refers to Education, I found information about many Universities of foreing powerful countries such as The United States and The United Kingdom that have bought their own “land”(as they call their space in these cyberworlds) in Second life. Harvard Law School has built a court room in Second Life for students to practise their advocacy skills.
To take part in this parallel universe you have to create a three-dimentional character that is called avatar, you can choose your appearance, age, gender and colour. In this way you can create the person you have always dreamed of being no matter if you are a student, a teacher or a tutor. Then your character has to be trained to walk, fly (to another area of the cyberworld) and even get dressed.
Virtual worlds have a pedagogycal use in education; they are an important tool of teaching, learning and research. For students these virtual classrooms are less intimidating than the real life because they can avoid the problems of the face-to-face interaction, mainly in what has to do with physical appearance. Because of that these classes have been specially design for disabled students. Teachers can bring distance learner together and they have a clear vision of who is contributing and paying attention and who is not, and if needed they can take the class to other areas of this virtual world.
As the users have the possibility to build multiple things, these parallel words can have important applications for genetic coding, mathematics, chemistry and architecture.
In what respect to work, these virtual worlds have the capacity to generate thousends of jobs through Internet. Such is the case of a new virtual universe that China is launching with almost seven millon users and its most important aim is to create new jobs. In this way virtual worlds are boosting the trend of home-working. Consequently this trend has a good effect in our enviroment due to the decrease of pollution generated by travelling. That is whay corporations find it a good place to hold meetings. At these respect Second Life has three important applications.First it has a system for micropayments using its own currency (Linden dollars) that can be changed for real money, second its residents can keep their intellectual property rights to what they create and third its an open source because it allows anyone qualified to create their own applications (games, education or business projects).
But there are some difficulties in the use of this new technology. The degree of control is limited in education because it belongs to a commercial provider and the institutions can not restrict the areas that the students have access. The possible confusing attitudes of the students towards their theachers while sharing the same virtual environment. An important obstacle is that unless you have a top-range computer virtual worlds are not practical so that poor countries than can not affor the adquisition of these equipments are in disadvantage with the powerful countries. And finally in the future, the distintiction between real and virtual may become very indistinct. Having this in mind, I can`t help thinking in the description of the future given in the book Fahrenheit 451 because this virtual worlds are getting interesting for more and more people that are spending more time there than in the real world. And I fear this situation could end in a society totally controlled by the providers of this service, making of the users zombies of the technology whose only way of living will be in front of a screen, being completely unable to maintain a face-to-face communication.

Entry nº 27

Living in the city is more dangerous than living in a small town

This is a fact that life in the city is more dangerous than life in a small town, but in every small town there are also really dangerous situations that people has to face from time to time.
Although nowadays I live in a big city my home town is actually a small town, so that as long as I am here, I take all kinds of precautions at home, in the streets, on the bus and when strangers talk to me. A lot of places and situations in the city that are usually safety for someone who comes from a small town can be very dangerous here. At least people in the city will always make you aware of the possible dangerous situations and will give you advices to take into account.
In my home town when someone has a problem and calls the police they never or hardly ever come or do not pay attention to your claims so people solve their problems between them, which can be very dangerous sometimes because that is the root of many rows and fights that usually end in bloody situations.
As small towns have small populations, people know themselves very well and are almost everybody friends that is why they exploit in anger easily when their feelings are involved in violent situations.
But apart from those extreme situations, you can just go out alone at night no matter if you are a man or a woman and stay until late without any risk. But of course you must be careful always, especially during some periods in the year when people from other towns come to work and with then people’s belongings start to disappear. Everyone can be victim of a robbery especially if you go out in bicycle or in motorbike.
I really think that those robberies can be avoided easily if policemen where walking not just in the main streets but also in each neighborhood.

Entry nº 26

Personal Reaction: Desperate measures

Addition is a problem very difficult to deal with because drugs and alcohol start a process of deterioration of our body and mind, it is the most effective and slower road to death.
A user of drugs sooner or later becomes dependent and if he or she cannot give it up or if they haven’t got a person who can help them, they will certainly die.
Taking into account the attitude that this English mother took to help and deal with her son’s addition, we have to understand that they are not just sick people that have to be cured or a sort of problematic group that spoil our society, they are persons who have used drugs as a escape from reality that reality that affects at all of us.
Life is not an easy game to play, but there are some people strong enough to deal with it and there are others that can’t stand this and try to escape using drugs or alcohol as their anaesthetic for reality.
Addicts have to be helped because they can not fight alone in the war of detoxing it is a process that produces many physical and mental disturbs, they need to be tried as persons with problems, with an illness that although it seems not to have cure it has and it depends mainly on themselves and partly in the people around them.

Entry nº 25

Personal Reaction: Sweet smell of success for biofuel expert

Considering new sorts of alternative biofuels as a renewable alternative for the use of metals associated with the traditional battery components, is a great advantage for the humanity, because it involves to avoid contaminating the environment and also will reduce the economical problems settled among some countries for the lack of availability and disposal of the current sources of power that exists around the world, many of which are at the risk of disappearing in a few years.
The problem is that these new improvements are mainly an advantage of the most powerful countries and probably for those poor countries that can not financiate these new scientific investigations, the access to the new sources of power will be difficult to reach.
Ironically, these countries are the major providers of the raw materials needed to create these mew biofuels, as is the case of Argentina and Brazil that have great productions of sugar per year.

Entry nº 24

Personal Reaction: Church choirmaster jailed for child sex abuse

There are plenty of cases of child sex abuse that are reported to the police nowadays and many others that are not reported because of shame or fear, and the abuser may have been a relative, a stranger or a friend.
It is very important for parents to keep their children safe and trying to protect them they can put them in danger without knowing. That is the case of those parents who look for a religious activity to their children thinking that being involved in that sort of environments they will be protected. But there have been many cases of children assaulted by well-known priests who were supposed to take care of them.
I think that this kind of perverse behaviour is not a problem of certain sort of people because those who seem to be normal are many of these abusers.
I do not know if the fact of not having a sexual life can influence this terrible behaviour, but it can not be used under any circumstance as a justification at all. On the contrary, I think this should get the situation worst for the abuser taking into account the importance of the religious background of these persons.
The main problem is that there is no going back after these crimes, neither for the victim nor for the abuser.

Entry nº 23

Personal Reaction: Revolution, flash mobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future

We are conscious of the current situation of our world, as for instance the environmental pollution and the social problems that include several nations in their search for economical power or many other reasons, so imagine if these problems increase in the next 30 years. It will probably become a big world chaos.
Taking these views into account it is not difficult to envisage a grim future for us, but these are just possibilities that can happen or not. The important thing about this is to use the future developments and discoveries to ensure a better life style for the generations to come.
Technologic and scientific advances should be used to prevent wars and to finish all those illnesses that nowadays have no cure. But if instead of doing that, these advances are used by powerful persons or nations to increase their own power and wealth, our future is in danger.

Entry nº 22

Personal Reaction: Police smash huge drugs centre in raid on Rasta temple

It is widely known that for the Rasta community drugs like marijuana and cocaine are used as sacred herbs to create an alternative life style in which its members use this custom of using drugs as a way of providing peace and love.
If we compare this religion with many others around the world, we will realize that they have many different and even strange ways of worshiping, all of them with a religious connotation.
So that I believe that the Rasta Community should not be treated as criminals just for buying drugs and selling them to its members. But having in mind that many dealers use sects or religious groups to hid their real activity of selling drugs from the police forces, it is not impossible to think that the Rasta Community may have some members with such purposes, but in order to prove this the police has to do an exhaustive investigation or else they can mistake worshipers for dealers or the other way round.

Entry nº 21

Personal Reaction: Britain’s fight against drugs “a total failure”

The problem with the soaring use of drugs among young people in Britain is a situation that is lived in almost the whole world, including first and third world countries.
Although it is true, I personally do not agree completely with the direct relation that in the article is done between this problem and the social ill-being and social deprivation, because there are also an increasing misuse of drugs among young people that belong to the high society, or those rich youngsters that are involved in the business of music or acting, as is the case of the famous American singer Britney Spears.
Drugs are not a problem of a specific society, it can affect to anyone but the responsible for that are the dealers, who are in their majority adults.
The governments and police forces have to deal with these together. Even though the social campaigns against the use of drugs seem no to be useful they can not stop, they must continue to warn the new generation of teenagers dangerously exposed to that problem.

Entry nº 20

Personal Reaction: Argentina’s claim on the Falklands is still a good one

Although it is true that the Argentinean’s claim to the Falkland Islands is a justified and proper aim, it is also true that it would be difficult and uncomfortable for the British islanders to leave their lives, works and houses to start again in another place after so many years of living in the islands. I think they would feel like if they were mere servants of the British Crown handled like puppets.
On the other hand, it is a right of the Argentinean people to settle and proclaim the islands as ours, but considering our national feelings about the Islas Malvinas it is an issue that the Argentinian governments use to gain political support.
In fact the worrying thought that unrest my mind is the possibility of that once we get them back, in a suppositional case, our politicians could sell them to any other powerful country or even to Britain. As Argentinian we all know that politicians are able to do such things.