I remember us ,
you and I alone under the sky,
the dark and mute witness
of that friend love,
that for me was true love
and for you pure friendship.
In this Autumn of loneliness
that shared summer comes to me,
sometimes my heart comforts me
and I feel that the same invisible tie joined us.
Love covered by friendship,
that none of us uncovered
I for fear of losing you,
you for fear of finding me.
In the same way that your young childish heart
filled with happiness my empty feelings,
it destroyed in a second
the illusions that were growing in my heart
by giving its love to someone that didn`t deserved it.
And my betrayed heart
took refuge in your best friend`s arms.
When I closed my eyes I dreamed
that it was your body the one was hugging,
there were your lips the one I was kissing,
it was your one I was giving my tender cares,
but when I opened my eyes
it wasn`t your face the one I was looking.
Because of that day long romance
I ended up broken myself in pieces,
and I made you go away from me.
I know you didn`t want to hurt me
and I think that it was then that you realized
that you loved me as I still love you.
Now it is too late for both
because the passing of time
turned us into strangers.
Today, when your voice reaches my ears
I hear it inside like a distant echo,
and a piece of me breaks in tears.
When I see you passing by
my eyes can`t help following your eyes
but your indifferent look makes them apart.
Sometimes I wander
if you remember that summer
when my secret loves was given to you,
because I can`t forget it yet.
miércoles, 26 de septiembre de 2007
Entry n 54: Spring
Now that Spring has come the Autumn landscape is changing, every season has its own beauty but I like two of them in particular, one is Autumn and the other is Spring.
I like them because I can`t stand the extreme temperatures that we have to tolerate during Winter and Summer. And as I also love the warm of the sun on my face and during these seasons I can have sunbathes without suffering sunburn.
A perfect day would be to stay sit on the grass in a Spring day in a place full of trees and flowers, especially a place where I could smell the perfume of the orange tree flowers. Watching the sky, trying to find shapes in the clouds or just contemplating the deep blue colour of the sky. Listening to the singing of the birds while feeding the birds and doves around.
No words are needed, I just need the company of the person I love most playing with my hair and kissing my cheeks warmed by the sun and admiring the splendor of the colours of Nature that are spread around by each flower that blossom and by each butterfly that flies freely among us.
I like them because I can`t stand the extreme temperatures that we have to tolerate during Winter and Summer. And as I also love the warm of the sun on my face and during these seasons I can have sunbathes without suffering sunburn.
A perfect day would be to stay sit on the grass in a Spring day in a place full of trees and flowers, especially a place where I could smell the perfume of the orange tree flowers. Watching the sky, trying to find shapes in the clouds or just contemplating the deep blue colour of the sky. Listening to the singing of the birds while feeding the birds and doves around.
No words are needed, I just need the company of the person I love most playing with my hair and kissing my cheeks warmed by the sun and admiring the splendor of the colours of Nature that are spread around by each flower that blossom and by each butterfly that flies freely among us.
Entry 53: A magical love story
A long time ago, in a small island there was a magic forest that was believed to be habited by fairies. It was also believed that if someone wanted something with all their heart, and found a fairy in the forest, her magic would make it come true. But this person should be a pure hearted soul.
In that town lived a girl called Sunny. though she had a happy life, there was something that she wanted since she had memory and since then she had been dreaming of it.
One afternoon Sunny was walking across the forest when she sea a shining among the trees that caught her attention. After a while the shining disappeared in a place full of beautiful flowers, suddenly a charming voice called her, the voice came from a flower and in the flower there was a beautiful fairy.
This magic being told her: _ I have been waiting for you. You don`t know me but I know you since you were born.-
_I know the secret of your heart, I know your dreams.-
Sunny looked her with surprise and asked her: _If I have never saw you before, how can you know me and my dreams?-
The fairy answered: _ you were born with a pure heart and with a wish to come true that has been present in your dreams since then.-
_you have been dreaming with true love, the man in your dreams in the chosen one, he will love you with pure love and is waiting for you in some place.-
_I was chosen to make your dream come true.-
With great joy Sunny asked her:_ How are you going to do it?_
The fairy with calmed voice told her: _look for the only blue rose that you will find in this garden and five it to the mermaid that every sunset appears in the beach, she watches the dusk sat on a big rock near the cliffs.-
It didn`t took long for Sunny to find the blue rose, due to her pure soul and heart that guided her in the garden. In the very moment she took the blue rose she appeared in the beach. Without knowing exactly what would happen once the mermaid would have the rose, Sunny walked to the cliffs and found the mermaid exactly as the fairy had told her.
With the rose in her hands Sunny went near the mermaid and offered it to her without saying a word.
With great gladness the mermaid took the gift and started to sing a romantic tune. Far on the horizon of the sea something was approaching, it was a group of mermaids that were bringing a young handsome man sit on huge sea shell.
When he came in front of her, his eyes met hers and they recognized each other, he was the man of her dreams and she was the lady of his.
He told Sunny that the mermaids had been listening his dreams and sharing his loneliness since long ago, and they had taken him from a distant place to meet the woman he had been so deeply in love.
The magic of pure love joined these two souls it was the beginning of an endless love.
In that town lived a girl called Sunny. though she had a happy life, there was something that she wanted since she had memory and since then she had been dreaming of it.
One afternoon Sunny was walking across the forest when she sea a shining among the trees that caught her attention. After a while the shining disappeared in a place full of beautiful flowers, suddenly a charming voice called her, the voice came from a flower and in the flower there was a beautiful fairy.
This magic being told her: _ I have been waiting for you. You don`t know me but I know you since you were born.-
_I know the secret of your heart, I know your dreams.-
Sunny looked her with surprise and asked her: _If I have never saw you before, how can you know me and my dreams?-
The fairy answered: _ you were born with a pure heart and with a wish to come true that has been present in your dreams since then.-
_you have been dreaming with true love, the man in your dreams in the chosen one, he will love you with pure love and is waiting for you in some place.-
_I was chosen to make your dream come true.-
With great joy Sunny asked her:_ How are you going to do it?_
The fairy with calmed voice told her: _look for the only blue rose that you will find in this garden and five it to the mermaid that every sunset appears in the beach, she watches the dusk sat on a big rock near the cliffs.-
It didn`t took long for Sunny to find the blue rose, due to her pure soul and heart that guided her in the garden. In the very moment she took the blue rose she appeared in the beach. Without knowing exactly what would happen once the mermaid would have the rose, Sunny walked to the cliffs and found the mermaid exactly as the fairy had told her.
With the rose in her hands Sunny went near the mermaid and offered it to her without saying a word.
With great gladness the mermaid took the gift and started to sing a romantic tune. Far on the horizon of the sea something was approaching, it was a group of mermaids that were bringing a young handsome man sit on huge sea shell.
When he came in front of her, his eyes met hers and they recognized each other, he was the man of her dreams and she was the lady of his.
He told Sunny that the mermaids had been listening his dreams and sharing his loneliness since long ago, and they had taken him from a distant place to meet the woman he had been so deeply in love.
The magic of pure love joined these two souls it was the beginning of an endless love.
Entry 52: A short love story
Rose was sad and alone, and to lessen her pain she used to spend her time in a large lake of clear water placed in the middle of the forest.
Shining like the sun Rose walked on bare foots over the wet grass, she walked across the forest dreaming with love. Before getting into the lake, she observed the reflection of her face into the water. Her golden hair was waving with the breeze and her green eyes seemed to be two emeralds shining in her face.
Once in the lake, while she was dancing with the water Rose heard a noise that came among the trees and she felt as if someone would have been watching her, but she couldn`t see anything.
After a while something unbelievable happened, just in front of her standing in the grass there was a young man, but not a common one, he was the man with whom she had always dreamed of. Such was her scare that she sunk into the deepest of the lake, fighting to reach the surface she was drowning. In despair the athletic brunette jumped into the lake and swimming as fast as the beating of his heart, he could rescue her.
He took her of the water and let her laying unconscious on the grass, she was as beautiful as ever, her charmed touched his heart making him fall immediately in love of her and moved by a strong impulse he kissed her. In the very moment that his lips touched hers, Rose opened her eyes and looked his eyes, and the same impulse made her embrace him tight. Then he hold her in his arms and took her to a little cottage where he lived in isolation.
He set the fire and they sat together in front of it, silence was broken by an “I love you” that they told each other simultaneously, a kiss was enough to turn on the fire in their hearts. That was the end of their lives in loneliness.
Time passed and one day while they were running in the forest playing to chaise one another a short painful scream was heard and Rose fell down, her lover found her lying death because a poison snake had bitten her ankle.
In that moment his heart and soul died too and with the same strong impulse that he had kissed her for the first time, he took the snake and made it to bite him, he died out of love.
Since then their spirits live in the forest, it is said that they are seen running in the forest or swimming in the lake.
Shining like the sun Rose walked on bare foots over the wet grass, she walked across the forest dreaming with love. Before getting into the lake, she observed the reflection of her face into the water. Her golden hair was waving with the breeze and her green eyes seemed to be two emeralds shining in her face.
Once in the lake, while she was dancing with the water Rose heard a noise that came among the trees and she felt as if someone would have been watching her, but she couldn`t see anything.
After a while something unbelievable happened, just in front of her standing in the grass there was a young man, but not a common one, he was the man with whom she had always dreamed of. Such was her scare that she sunk into the deepest of the lake, fighting to reach the surface she was drowning. In despair the athletic brunette jumped into the lake and swimming as fast as the beating of his heart, he could rescue her.
He took her of the water and let her laying unconscious on the grass, she was as beautiful as ever, her charmed touched his heart making him fall immediately in love of her and moved by a strong impulse he kissed her. In the very moment that his lips touched hers, Rose opened her eyes and looked his eyes, and the same impulse made her embrace him tight. Then he hold her in his arms and took her to a little cottage where he lived in isolation.
He set the fire and they sat together in front of it, silence was broken by an “I love you” that they told each other simultaneously, a kiss was enough to turn on the fire in their hearts. That was the end of their lives in loneliness.
Time passed and one day while they were running in the forest playing to chaise one another a short painful scream was heard and Rose fell down, her lover found her lying death because a poison snake had bitten her ankle.
In that moment his heart and soul died too and with the same strong impulse that he had kissed her for the first time, he took the snake and made it to bite him, he died out of love.
Since then their spirits live in the forest, it is said that they are seen running in the forest or swimming in the lake.
Entry n 51: The dream that won`t come true.
The dream that won`t come true,
The illusions that won`t be made real,
The expectation that won`t be fulfilled,
The empty space that won`t be occupied,
The story that won`t have a happy end,
The wait that won`t come to an end,
The months that won`t be counted,
The nine moons that won`t be watched,
The breasts that won`t be filled with life,
The womb that won`t grow,
The cry that won`t be heard,
The baby that won`t be born,
The child that I won`t have.
This poem is a way of describing how I felt when the doctor told me I am not pregnant. I felt sadly disillusioned and although I refused to confront my feelings, some tears fell down my cheeks.
I find comfort in the fact that I am young and healthy and I will have many other chances to get pregnant, but in that moment It will be planned so that there will be no room for disillusions.
The illusions that won`t be made real,
The expectation that won`t be fulfilled,
The empty space that won`t be occupied,
The story that won`t have a happy end,
The wait that won`t come to an end,
The months that won`t be counted,
The nine moons that won`t be watched,
The breasts that won`t be filled with life,
The womb that won`t grow,
The cry that won`t be heard,
The baby that won`t be born,
The child that I won`t have.
This poem is a way of describing how I felt when the doctor told me I am not pregnant. I felt sadly disillusioned and although I refused to confront my feelings, some tears fell down my cheeks.
I find comfort in the fact that I am young and healthy and I will have many other chances to get pregnant, but in that moment It will be planned so that there will be no room for disillusions.
Entry n 50: A ridiculous love poem
If you look into my eyes carefully,
you will discover a treasure.
If you hear my words with attention,
they will tell you a hidden secret.
If you stay be my side in silence,
my soul will touch your soul.
If you let my heart reach your heart,
you will be the king of my kingdom.
If you give love a chance,
I offer you my treasure, my secretes,
my soul, my heart and my kingdom;
Out of love I will give you my all.
you will discover a treasure.
If you hear my words with attention,
they will tell you a hidden secret.
If you stay be my side in silence,
my soul will touch your soul.
If you let my heart reach your heart,
you will be the king of my kingdom.
If you give love a chance,
I offer you my treasure, my secretes,
my soul, my heart and my kingdom;
Out of love I will give you my all.
Entry n 49: Should physician-assisted suicide be legalized?
Imagine you are suffering from a terminally ill; would you choose an assisted suicide rather than continue living with such a pain? Physician-assisted suicide is an issue of controversy nowadays because there are people against the legalization of this practice as well as there are others that support it.
On the one hand it have to be consider the painful style of life with which people who are suffering from a terminal disease is living. They are not only suffering a physical pain, but also a mental one because many of them are conscious that sooner or later they are going to die.
What is more, there are many patients that can not support the costs of expensive treatments or the supply of medicines for the rest of their lives. Added to this is the fact that many treatments can be more harmful than the illness itself, such is the case of the chemotherapy for the treatment of cancer.
Many terminally ill patients would choose to die while they are able to do it consciously than to living in continuous pain and consequently watching their relatives suffer for them.
On the other hand, from the religious point of view legalizing physician-assisted suicide is considered to be a murder, in other words it would be a sin. Religious groups claim that no one is allowed to decide on other people`s life, they blame doctors and also patients of playing to be Gods. That is why doctors who assist these practices are persecuted, as is also the case of doctors who assist abortions.
Taking all these into consideration, I believe that physician-assisted suicide should be legalized but with a thoughtfully planned policy in order to prevent possible crimes, as for example the case of relatives that want to freedom themselves of a terminally ill patient who is unconscious. In this way physician-assisted suicide would be a merciful practice and a way of giving terminally ill patients a dignifying death.
On the one hand it have to be consider the painful style of life with which people who are suffering from a terminal disease is living. They are not only suffering a physical pain, but also a mental one because many of them are conscious that sooner or later they are going to die.
What is more, there are many patients that can not support the costs of expensive treatments or the supply of medicines for the rest of their lives. Added to this is the fact that many treatments can be more harmful than the illness itself, such is the case of the chemotherapy for the treatment of cancer.
Many terminally ill patients would choose to die while they are able to do it consciously than to living in continuous pain and consequently watching their relatives suffer for them.
On the other hand, from the religious point of view legalizing physician-assisted suicide is considered to be a murder, in other words it would be a sin. Religious groups claim that no one is allowed to decide on other people`s life, they blame doctors and also patients of playing to be Gods. That is why doctors who assist these practices are persecuted, as is also the case of doctors who assist abortions.
Taking all these into consideration, I believe that physician-assisted suicide should be legalized but with a thoughtfully planned policy in order to prevent possible crimes, as for example the case of relatives that want to freedom themselves of a terminally ill patient who is unconscious. In this way physician-assisted suicide would be a merciful practice and a way of giving terminally ill patients a dignifying death.
Reading report
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date:September 19
Title: Police must not store DNA details of the innocent - report
Source: www.guardian.co.uk Date of publication: Tuesday September 18, 2007
Vocabulary
Database: 1. A collection of data arranged for ease of search and retrieval.
Littering: 6. To make untidy by discarding rubbish carelessly.
7. To scatter about; strew.
Speeding: 6. To move or cause to move rapidly. 7. To increase the speed or rate of; accelerate. 8. To drive at a speed exceeding a legal limit.
Convened: 1. To meet or assemble formally. 2. To convoke.
Acquitted: 1. Law. To free from a charge or accusation. 2. To discharge from a duty. 3. To conduct (oneself) in a specified manner.
Convicted: 1. To find or prove guilty of an offense or crime.
Spokesperson: 1. a person who speaks on behalf of another or others.
Rape: 1. The crime of forcing a person to submit to sexual intercourse.
Feedback: 1. a. The return of a portion of the output of a process or system to the input. b. The portion of the output so returned. 2. An evaluative response.
Main ideas
¨ Government must prevent police from storing the profiles of innocent people on the British national DNA database.
¨ Innocent people are concerned about how their DNA might be used if it is kept without their consent.
¨ The national DNA database has details of almost 4 million people arrested for recordable offences.
¨ Present laws allow police to take DNA samples from anyone who has been arrested without asking permission.
¨ The Home Office said that maintaining records of people who where innocent at the time had helped solve crimes years later.
¨ Proposals to expand police powers to take DNA samples from people arrested of non-recordable offences was made in March.
¨ Some say that in a DNA database containing records of everyone would remove issues of discrimination.
Personal reaction
This article is about a controversial issue in the U.K. about the store of DNA information in the police database.
Many people think that this storing should not be expanded to innocent people without their consent.
Police affirms that maintaining records of people who were innocent at the time had helped solve crimes years later.
I think that in what respect to crime solving, the use of DNA information is the most effective technique developed to identify criminals. But it is also important that to keep these personal information without the consent of people that had been declared innocent may be a way of sensorship that is why they consider to be suspicious the use that police and government can make of this information.
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date:September 19
Title: Police must not store DNA details of the innocent - report
Source: www.guardian.co.uk Date of publication: Tuesday September 18, 2007
Vocabulary
Database: 1. A collection of data arranged for ease of search and retrieval.
Littering: 6. To make untidy by discarding rubbish carelessly.
7. To scatter about; strew.
Speeding: 6. To move or cause to move rapidly. 7. To increase the speed or rate of; accelerate. 8. To drive at a speed exceeding a legal limit.
Convened: 1. To meet or assemble formally. 2. To convoke.
Acquitted: 1. Law. To free from a charge or accusation. 2. To discharge from a duty. 3. To conduct (oneself) in a specified manner.
Convicted: 1. To find or prove guilty of an offense or crime.
Spokesperson: 1. a person who speaks on behalf of another or others.
Rape: 1. The crime of forcing a person to submit to sexual intercourse.
Feedback: 1. a. The return of a portion of the output of a process or system to the input. b. The portion of the output so returned. 2. An evaluative response.
Main ideas
¨ Government must prevent police from storing the profiles of innocent people on the British national DNA database.
¨ Innocent people are concerned about how their DNA might be used if it is kept without their consent.
¨ The national DNA database has details of almost 4 million people arrested for recordable offences.
¨ Present laws allow police to take DNA samples from anyone who has been arrested without asking permission.
¨ The Home Office said that maintaining records of people who where innocent at the time had helped solve crimes years later.
¨ Proposals to expand police powers to take DNA samples from people arrested of non-recordable offences was made in March.
¨ Some say that in a DNA database containing records of everyone would remove issues of discrimination.
Personal reaction
This article is about a controversial issue in the U.K. about the store of DNA information in the police database.
Many people think that this storing should not be expanded to innocent people without their consent.
Police affirms that maintaining records of people who were innocent at the time had helped solve crimes years later.
I think that in what respect to crime solving, the use of DNA information is the most effective technique developed to identify criminals. But it is also important that to keep these personal information without the consent of people that had been declared innocent may be a way of sensorship that is why they consider to be suspicious the use that police and government can make of this information.
Reading report
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date: September 17
Title: Food for thought
Source: www.economist.com/index Date of publication: Sep 13th 2007
Vocabulary
Junk: junk food n. 1. Prepackaged snack foods high in calories but low in nutritional value.
Placebo: 1. A substance containing no medication, administered for its psychological effect on a patient. 2. An inactive substance used as a control in an experiment.
Carmiosine:
Tartrazine:
Ponceau:
Ditching: 2. To dig or make a ditch. 3. To drive (a vehicle) into a ditch. 4. Slang. To discard. 5. To crash-land on water.
Dye: 1. A substance used to color materials. Also called dyestuff. 2. A color imparted by dyeing.
Itching: 1. A skin sensation causing a desire to scratch. 2. A skin disorder marked by intense irritation and itching. 3. A restless desire or craving.
Concoction: 1. To prepare by mixing ingredients. 2. To devise.
Quinoline:
Allura:
Quaffing: 1. To drink heartily.
Downing: 18. To bring, put, strike, or throw down. 19. To swallow hastily. 20. Hostile toward.
Behest: 1. An authoritative command. 2. An urgent request.
Offspring: 1. Progeny; young. 2. A result; product.
Main ideas
¨ It is complicated to find out which are the effects of junk food oon children.
¨ In a study some parents reported a deterioration in the behaviour of hyperactive children but independent observers noticed no difference.
¨ The second test was made using different cocktails of additives as well as placebo drink that contained no food colourings or preservatives.
¨ The researchers tested two drinks to mimic more closely what an average child might reasonably consume every day.
¨ The diets of 150 children were changed so they contained no food colouring or preservatives and then some where assigned to drink one of the two cocktails during 3 or 5 weeks.
¨ The researches asked parents and teachers to assess the children`s behaviour.
¨ Children quaffing the cocktail containing tartrazine were less well behaved than those who had been downing the placebo. The results for the second concoction were less clear.
¨ British Government recommends that parents of children who show signs of hyperactivity should consider cutting some artificial colours from their diets.
¨ Medic suspect that the hyperactivity is at least partly genetic.
Personal reaction
This article is about a research done in U.k. to measure the possible effects of food that contains colouring or preservatives in the behaviour of hyperactive children.
The results were not clear for many of the children involved. So the government warned parents about the possible effects of these components in their children`s behaviour. But at the same time doctors clarified that these problems in their behaviour may be the consequence of a genetic condition.
The most important is the fact that in those countries medical research is so advanced that they are constantly investigating the cure or treatment for many health problems that affect more commonly to their society in order to improve their life style and the life style of future generations as well.
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date: September 17
Title: Food for thought
Source: www.economist.com/index Date of publication: Sep 13th 2007
Vocabulary
Junk: junk food n. 1. Prepackaged snack foods high in calories but low in nutritional value.
Placebo: 1. A substance containing no medication, administered for its psychological effect on a patient. 2. An inactive substance used as a control in an experiment.
Carmiosine:
Tartrazine:
Ponceau:
Ditching: 2. To dig or make a ditch. 3. To drive (a vehicle) into a ditch. 4. Slang. To discard. 5. To crash-land on water.
Dye: 1. A substance used to color materials. Also called dyestuff. 2. A color imparted by dyeing.
Itching: 1. A skin sensation causing a desire to scratch. 2. A skin disorder marked by intense irritation and itching. 3. A restless desire or craving.
Concoction: 1. To prepare by mixing ingredients. 2. To devise.
Quinoline:
Allura:
Quaffing: 1. To drink heartily.
Downing: 18. To bring, put, strike, or throw down. 19. To swallow hastily. 20. Hostile toward.
Behest: 1. An authoritative command. 2. An urgent request.
Offspring: 1. Progeny; young. 2. A result; product.
Main ideas
¨ It is complicated to find out which are the effects of junk food oon children.
¨ In a study some parents reported a deterioration in the behaviour of hyperactive children but independent observers noticed no difference.
¨ The second test was made using different cocktails of additives as well as placebo drink that contained no food colourings or preservatives.
¨ The researchers tested two drinks to mimic more closely what an average child might reasonably consume every day.
¨ The diets of 150 children were changed so they contained no food colouring or preservatives and then some where assigned to drink one of the two cocktails during 3 or 5 weeks.
¨ The researches asked parents and teachers to assess the children`s behaviour.
¨ Children quaffing the cocktail containing tartrazine were less well behaved than those who had been downing the placebo. The results for the second concoction were less clear.
¨ British Government recommends that parents of children who show signs of hyperactivity should consider cutting some artificial colours from their diets.
¨ Medic suspect that the hyperactivity is at least partly genetic.
Personal reaction
This article is about a research done in U.k. to measure the possible effects of food that contains colouring or preservatives in the behaviour of hyperactive children.
The results were not clear for many of the children involved. So the government warned parents about the possible effects of these components in their children`s behaviour. But at the same time doctors clarified that these problems in their behaviour may be the consequence of a genetic condition.
The most important is the fact that in those countries medical research is so advanced that they are constantly investigating the cure or treatment for many health problems that affect more commonly to their society in order to improve their life style and the life style of future generations as well.
Reading report
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date: September 12
Title: The birds, the bees and the taboos
Source: www.economist.com/index Date of publication: Sep 13th 2007
Vocabulary
Posh: 1. Fashionable.
Bonfire: 1. A large outdoor fire.
Euphemistic: 1. The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered blunt or offensive.
Flipchart:flip: n. 8. The act of flipping, especially: a. A flick. b. A short quick movement. c. A somersault. adj. 9. Marked by casual disrespect; impertinent.
Genitalia: 1. The reproductive organs, especially the external sex organs.
Hurdle: n. 1. Sports. a. A framelike barrier to be jumped over in certain races. b. hurdles A race in which such barriers must be jumped. 2. An obstacle to be overcome. v. 3. To leap over (a barrier). 4. To overcome; surmount.
Fuss: 1. Useless or nervous activity; commotion. 2. Needless concern or worry. 3. An angry or fretful protest. 4. A display of affectionate excitement and attention
Ruckus: 1. A disturbance; commotion.
Tinkering: 3. To work as a tinker. 4. To make aimless or experimental efforts at repair; fiddle.
Stripping out: 1. a. To remove the covering from. b. To undress. 2. To deprive, as of honors or rank; divest. 3. To remove all excess detail from.4. To dismantle piece by piece. 5. To damage or break the threads of ( for example, a screw) or the teeth of (a gear). 6. To rob or plunder.
Main ideas
¨ Sex education has never been Indian schools`strong suit.
¨ A new sex-education programme introduced by the central government was rejected in many Indian states.
¨ The attempt to make sex education universal in a country where sex is rarely discussed, is always going to be tough.
¨ Some expressed anger over the inclusion of information on contraception and sexually transmitted diseases.
¨ Some think that teaching sex educacion is an attempt to create a homogenised culture.
¨ Many Indians have serious misconceptions about what sex education involves.
¨ The central government has formed a committee to review the course material.
¨ Others think that the attempts to prevent sexually transmitted diseases must be done by the health department rather than the education department.
Personal reaction
This article is about the attempts to incorporate into the school curriculum in India, a new sex education programme which main initiative is to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
But as in the Indian culture the sex issue is not openly discussed, many states have rejected to incorporate this programme.
Religious groups argued that this is just part of an attempt to import western costums that are different to the Indian values and their culture. This is clearly part of a misconception about what sex education involves.
So although in the western world this sort of education policy is highly incorporated, in the eastern countries this work will take much more time and effort. Their narrow minded way of thinking do not let them see that their huge percentages of sexually transmitted diseases is closely related with their misconception of sex education.
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date: September 12
Title: The birds, the bees and the taboos
Source: www.economist.com/index Date of publication: Sep 13th 2007
Vocabulary
Posh: 1. Fashionable.
Bonfire: 1. A large outdoor fire.
Euphemistic: 1. The substitution of an inoffensive term for one considered blunt or offensive.
Flipchart:flip: n. 8. The act of flipping, especially: a. A flick. b. A short quick movement. c. A somersault. adj. 9. Marked by casual disrespect; impertinent.
Genitalia: 1. The reproductive organs, especially the external sex organs.
Hurdle: n. 1. Sports. a. A framelike barrier to be jumped over in certain races. b. hurdles A race in which such barriers must be jumped. 2. An obstacle to be overcome. v. 3. To leap over (a barrier). 4. To overcome; surmount.
Fuss: 1. Useless or nervous activity; commotion. 2. Needless concern or worry. 3. An angry or fretful protest. 4. A display of affectionate excitement and attention
Ruckus: 1. A disturbance; commotion.
Tinkering: 3. To work as a tinker. 4. To make aimless or experimental efforts at repair; fiddle.
Stripping out: 1. a. To remove the covering from. b. To undress. 2. To deprive, as of honors or rank; divest. 3. To remove all excess detail from.4. To dismantle piece by piece. 5. To damage or break the threads of ( for example, a screw) or the teeth of (a gear). 6. To rob or plunder.
Main ideas
¨ Sex education has never been Indian schools`strong suit.
¨ A new sex-education programme introduced by the central government was rejected in many Indian states.
¨ The attempt to make sex education universal in a country where sex is rarely discussed, is always going to be tough.
¨ Some expressed anger over the inclusion of information on contraception and sexually transmitted diseases.
¨ Some think that teaching sex educacion is an attempt to create a homogenised culture.
¨ Many Indians have serious misconceptions about what sex education involves.
¨ The central government has formed a committee to review the course material.
¨ Others think that the attempts to prevent sexually transmitted diseases must be done by the health department rather than the education department.
Personal reaction
This article is about the attempts to incorporate into the school curriculum in India, a new sex education programme which main initiative is to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
But as in the Indian culture the sex issue is not openly discussed, many states have rejected to incorporate this programme.
Religious groups argued that this is just part of an attempt to import western costums that are different to the Indian values and their culture. This is clearly part of a misconception about what sex education involves.
So although in the western world this sort of education policy is highly incorporated, in the eastern countries this work will take much more time and effort. Their narrow minded way of thinking do not let them see that their huge percentages of sexually transmitted diseases is closely related with their misconception of sex education.
Reading report
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date:September 10
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Title: Are Your Jeans Sagging? Go Directly to Jail.
Source: www.nytimes.com Date of publication: August 30, 2007
Vocabulary
Sophomore: A second-year student in a U.S. high school or college.
Outrage: An act grossly offensive to decency or good taste.
Engender: 1. To give rise to. 2. To propagate.
Zoot:
Sag: 1. To sink, droop, or settle from pressure or weight. 2. To lose vigor, firmness, or resilience. 3. To decline, as in value or price.
Ordinance: 1. An authoritative command or order. 2. A municipal statute or regulation.
Badge: A device or emblem worn as an insignia of rank, office, or honor.
Thug: A cutthroat or ruffian; hoodlum.
Swagger: 1. To walk or behave with an insolent air; strut. 2. To brag.
Tack: A course of action.
Fad: A briefly popular fashion; craze.
Steadfast: 1. Fixed or unchanging; steady. 2. Firmly loyal or constant.
Craft: To make or devise, especially with great care.
Single out: To choose or distinguish from others.
Apparel: Clothing, especially outer garments
Headgear: A covering, such as a hat or helmet, for the head.
Brawl: A noisy quarrel or fight.
Spill: To cause or allow to run, flow, or fall out.
Decry: To condemn openly.
cuff: The turned-up fold at the bottom of a trouser leg.
Flout: To show contempt for; scorn.
Beat: A stroke or blow.
Garment: An article of clothing.
Amendment: a. Formal revision, as of a bill or constitution. b. A statement of such a revision.
Remedy: 1. Something that relieves pain, cures disease, or corrects a disorder. 2. Something that corrects an evil, a fault, or an error.
Main ideas
¨ Sagging pants are becoming a criminal offence.
¨ Pants worn low enough to expose underwear poses a threat for the public. This new law started in Louisiana.
¨ In Delcambre, L.A., the style carries a fine of as much as $500 or up to a six-month sentence.
¨ An ordinance in Mansfield subjects offenders to a fine or jail time.
¨ The hip-hop style is said to be worn as a badge of delinquency. Also it is related to the issue of freedom of expression.
¨ Sagging began in prison, where oversized uniforms were issued without belts to prevent suicide and their use as weapons.
¨ In 2004 the efforts to outlaw sagging in Virginia and Louisiana failed.
¨ The American Civil Liberties Union has been steadfast in its opposition to dress restrictions.
¨ School districts have become aggressive in enforcing dress bans.
¨ Dress codes are showing up in unexpected places as the National Basketball Association.
¨ Fashions tend to be descried when they challenge the conservative morality of society.
¨ Not since the zoot suit has a style been greeted with such strong disapproval.
¨ Sagging prohibitions are seen as racially motivated because the wearers are young, predominantly African-American men.
¨ This legislation has been proposed by African-American officials.
¨ Atlanta Councilman sponsored an amendment to the city`s indecency laws to ban sagging.
¨ A dress cpde ordinance proposed in Stratford was rejected drawing criticism that the law was unconstitutional and encouraged racial profiling.
¨ Benjamin Chavis, chairman of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network will challenge the ordinances in court.
Personal reaction
This article is about new laws applied in some states of the United States that consider the fact of wearing sagging pants a criminal offence.
This new legislation is criticized because the majority of the wearers of this trend are young African-American men, and so that it is considered a way of discrimination against them.
I think that following the same line of thinking we can considere many other trends as criminally offensive worn by women and men of every race in the western world.
This view lacks of sense because in this way almost every youngster would be charged or punished by law because of the way they dress, and criminals will continue existing no matter what clothes they wear.
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date:September 10
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Title: Are Your Jeans Sagging? Go Directly to Jail.
Source: www.nytimes.com Date of publication: August 30, 2007
Vocabulary
Sophomore: A second-year student in a U.S. high school or college.
Outrage: An act grossly offensive to decency or good taste.
Engender: 1. To give rise to. 2. To propagate.
Zoot:
Sag: 1. To sink, droop, or settle from pressure or weight. 2. To lose vigor, firmness, or resilience. 3. To decline, as in value or price.
Ordinance: 1. An authoritative command or order. 2. A municipal statute or regulation.
Badge: A device or emblem worn as an insignia of rank, office, or honor.
Thug: A cutthroat or ruffian; hoodlum.
Swagger: 1. To walk or behave with an insolent air; strut. 2. To brag.
Tack: A course of action.
Fad: A briefly popular fashion; craze.
Steadfast: 1. Fixed or unchanging; steady. 2. Firmly loyal or constant.
Craft: To make or devise, especially with great care.
Single out: To choose or distinguish from others.
Apparel: Clothing, especially outer garments
Headgear: A covering, such as a hat or helmet, for the head.
Brawl: A noisy quarrel or fight.
Spill: To cause or allow to run, flow, or fall out.
Decry: To condemn openly.
cuff: The turned-up fold at the bottom of a trouser leg.
Flout: To show contempt for; scorn.
Beat: A stroke or blow.
Garment: An article of clothing.
Amendment: a. Formal revision, as of a bill or constitution. b. A statement of such a revision.
Remedy: 1. Something that relieves pain, cures disease, or corrects a disorder. 2. Something that corrects an evil, a fault, or an error.
Main ideas
¨ Sagging pants are becoming a criminal offence.
¨ Pants worn low enough to expose underwear poses a threat for the public. This new law started in Louisiana.
¨ In Delcambre, L.A., the style carries a fine of as much as $500 or up to a six-month sentence.
¨ An ordinance in Mansfield subjects offenders to a fine or jail time.
¨ The hip-hop style is said to be worn as a badge of delinquency. Also it is related to the issue of freedom of expression.
¨ Sagging began in prison, where oversized uniforms were issued without belts to prevent suicide and their use as weapons.
¨ In 2004 the efforts to outlaw sagging in Virginia and Louisiana failed.
¨ The American Civil Liberties Union has been steadfast in its opposition to dress restrictions.
¨ School districts have become aggressive in enforcing dress bans.
¨ Dress codes are showing up in unexpected places as the National Basketball Association.
¨ Fashions tend to be descried when they challenge the conservative morality of society.
¨ Not since the zoot suit has a style been greeted with such strong disapproval.
¨ Sagging prohibitions are seen as racially motivated because the wearers are young, predominantly African-American men.
¨ This legislation has been proposed by African-American officials.
¨ Atlanta Councilman sponsored an amendment to the city`s indecency laws to ban sagging.
¨ A dress cpde ordinance proposed in Stratford was rejected drawing criticism that the law was unconstitutional and encouraged racial profiling.
¨ Benjamin Chavis, chairman of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network will challenge the ordinances in court.
Personal reaction
This article is about new laws applied in some states of the United States that consider the fact of wearing sagging pants a criminal offence.
This new legislation is criticized because the majority of the wearers of this trend are young African-American men, and so that it is considered a way of discrimination against them.
I think that following the same line of thinking we can considere many other trends as criminally offensive worn by women and men of every race in the western world.
This view lacks of sense because in this way almost every youngster would be charged or punished by law because of the way they dress, and criminals will continue existing no matter what clothes they wear.
Reading report
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date: September 5
Title: Humane league
Source: www.economist.com/index Date of publication: Aug 30th 2007
Vocabulary
Dubious: 1. Fraught with uncertainty; undecided. 2. Arousing doubt; questionable.
Rodent: Any of an order of mammals, such as a mouse, rat, squirrel, or beaver, with large incisors adapted for gnawing or nibbling.
Rove: To wander about at random; roam.
Mandatory: 1. Required or obligatory. 2. Of or containing a mandate.
Spot: 4. To mark or become marked with spots. 5. To locate precisely. 6. To detect or discern, especially visually.
Withdrawn: 1. Retiring; shy. 2. Emotionally unresponsive.
Outweigh: 1. To weigh more than. 2. To be more significant than.
Pursue: 1. To follow so as to overtake or capture. 2. To strive to accomplish. 3. To proceed along the course of; follow: pursue a course. 4. To be engaged in.
Batch: 1. An amount prepared or produced at one time. 2. A group of persons or things. 3. Computer Science. A set of data to be processed in a single program run.
Cute: 1. Delightfully pretty or dainty. 2. Clever.
Subtle: 1. a. So slight as to be difficult to detect. b. Not obvious; abstruse. 2. Able to make fine distinctions: a subtle mind. 3. a. Skillful; clever. b. Crafty.
Creep: 1. To move with the body close to the ground. 2. To move stealthily or slowly.
Straightforward: 3. In a direct or frank manner.
Raw: b. Not subjected to adjustment, treatment, or analysis
Enhance: 1. To make greater, as in value, reputation, or usefulness.
Main ideas
¨ Academic centres suppoting alternatives to animal testing have emerged in China and America in recent years.
¨ Animal testing is expensive and can be of dubious scientific value.
¨ The number of animals used in experiments has fallen by half in the past 30 years, and most of those employed today are rodents.
¨ A new law in chemical subtances regulation will increase about 4 million toxicology experiments on animals.
¨ This extra testing will also result in the withdrawal of a lot of chemicals that are in fact safe.
¨ Experimental animals may react badly to things that would not harm a human and viceversa, as a result false positives could outweigh false negatives 75 times ever.
¨ Genetic engineering might offer one way round this sort of problem.
¨ Chineese ingeneers are changing monkeys for genetically altered mice in the testing of a vaccine for the polio virus.
¨ To ensure only that each new made vaccine is identical to the culture from which it is derived would reduce the number of animals required.
¨ Sharing data freely between the national agencies would help.
Personal reaction
This article is about animal testing and exposes the pro and cons of this practice.
I think that animal testing should be reduced because sooner or later many of the animals that are used will be extincted. As more products are invented or improved more animals will be needed to test them.
No matter they are small rodents or monkeys, scientists should not forget that they also suffer and that there are many chemicals and other products to which they react in a completely different way than humans do.
It is also true that if it wasn`t for animals these testings would be done with humans, so that I support animal testing but I also think that it should be reduced as much as possible.
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date: September 5
Title: Humane league
Source: www.economist.com/index Date of publication: Aug 30th 2007
Vocabulary
Dubious: 1. Fraught with uncertainty; undecided. 2. Arousing doubt; questionable.
Rodent: Any of an order of mammals, such as a mouse, rat, squirrel, or beaver, with large incisors adapted for gnawing or nibbling.
Rove: To wander about at random; roam.
Mandatory: 1. Required or obligatory. 2. Of or containing a mandate.
Spot: 4. To mark or become marked with spots. 5. To locate precisely. 6. To detect or discern, especially visually.
Withdrawn: 1. Retiring; shy. 2. Emotionally unresponsive.
Outweigh: 1. To weigh more than. 2. To be more significant than.
Pursue: 1. To follow so as to overtake or capture. 2. To strive to accomplish. 3. To proceed along the course of; follow: pursue a course. 4. To be engaged in.
Batch: 1. An amount prepared or produced at one time. 2. A group of persons or things. 3. Computer Science. A set of data to be processed in a single program run.
Cute: 1. Delightfully pretty or dainty. 2. Clever.
Subtle: 1. a. So slight as to be difficult to detect. b. Not obvious; abstruse. 2. Able to make fine distinctions: a subtle mind. 3. a. Skillful; clever. b. Crafty.
Creep: 1. To move with the body close to the ground. 2. To move stealthily or slowly.
Straightforward: 3. In a direct or frank manner.
Raw: b. Not subjected to adjustment, treatment, or analysis
Enhance: 1. To make greater, as in value, reputation, or usefulness.
Main ideas
¨ Academic centres suppoting alternatives to animal testing have emerged in China and America in recent years.
¨ Animal testing is expensive and can be of dubious scientific value.
¨ The number of animals used in experiments has fallen by half in the past 30 years, and most of those employed today are rodents.
¨ A new law in chemical subtances regulation will increase about 4 million toxicology experiments on animals.
¨ This extra testing will also result in the withdrawal of a lot of chemicals that are in fact safe.
¨ Experimental animals may react badly to things that would not harm a human and viceversa, as a result false positives could outweigh false negatives 75 times ever.
¨ Genetic engineering might offer one way round this sort of problem.
¨ Chineese ingeneers are changing monkeys for genetically altered mice in the testing of a vaccine for the polio virus.
¨ To ensure only that each new made vaccine is identical to the culture from which it is derived would reduce the number of animals required.
¨ Sharing data freely between the national agencies would help.
Personal reaction
This article is about animal testing and exposes the pro and cons of this practice.
I think that animal testing should be reduced because sooner or later many of the animals that are used will be extincted. As more products are invented or improved more animals will be needed to test them.
No matter they are small rodents or monkeys, scientists should not forget that they also suffer and that there are many chemicals and other products to which they react in a completely different way than humans do.
It is also true that if it wasn`t for animals these testings would be done with humans, so that I support animal testing but I also think that it should be reduced as much as possible.
Reading report
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date:September 3
Title: Scientists' plea to use new hybrid embryos
Source: www.guardian.co.uk Date of publication: Sunday August 26 2007
Vocabulary
Plea: 1. An earnest request; appeal. 2. An excuse; pretext. 3. Law. The answer of the accused to a charge or indictment.
Slaughter: 3. To butcher (animals) for food. 4. To kill brutally or in large numbers.
Tissue: 5. Biology. a. A group of cells that are similar in form or function. b. Cellular matter in general.
Yuck: Used to express rejection or strong disgust.
by-product: 1. Something produced in the making of something else. 2. A side effect.
overhaul: 1. a. To examine carefully. b. To repair thoroughly. 2. To overtake.
appall: To fill with horror or dismay.
bow: 1. To bend the body, head, or knee in order to express greeting, consent, courtesy, or veneration. 2. To acquiesce; submit. 3. To remove oneself; withdraw.
random: 1. Having no specific pattern or purpose. 2. Statistics. Of or relating to equal probability of selection or occurrence for each member of a group.
sole: Being the only one; single. sole“ly adv.
Main ideas
¨ British scientist made a plea to create the first animal-human embryos.
¨ The decision will be announced nest week.
¨ The issue is controversial because it consist of taking an animal egg, removing its genetic material and putting DNA from a human cell into it.
¨ Some campaigners and religious groups argue that it is unethical.
¨ These hybrids will be used to understand more about a range of neurological diseases.
¨ Scientists would use eggs taken from ovaries of cows that are slaughtered rather than from a human donated egg.
¨ To do this work a large number of embryos will be needed.
¨ To use cows`eggs is more practical than asking women to donate their eggs for research.
¨ Although the government was initially against the concept, it is now proposing to allow partial hybrids.
¨ The move has prompted strong protests from religious and anti-abortion groups.
¨ The Catholic Church has made clear its opposition.
Personal reaction
This article is about a plea that British scientists made to create the first animal-human embryos.
In my opinion, it is difficult to take a position whether against or supporting this tissue without having detailed information about it. But it is also true that it is a quite controversial issue because of the fact that scientist will be allowed to manipulate human and animal cells with results that are not predictable.
Until now they have been studying human diseases with human hybrid embryos, and mixing animal and human cells may not give the expected results.
As it is very important for the whole humanity to find new treatments and possible cures for many diseases, ethically speaking I think that diseases are the most important arguments for the application of these scientific practices. But if the plea is aproved, what will come next?
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date:September 3
Title: Scientists' plea to use new hybrid embryos
Source: www.guardian.co.uk Date of publication: Sunday August 26 2007
Vocabulary
Plea: 1. An earnest request; appeal. 2. An excuse; pretext. 3. Law. The answer of the accused to a charge or indictment.
Slaughter: 3. To butcher (animals) for food. 4. To kill brutally or in large numbers.
Tissue: 5. Biology. a. A group of cells that are similar in form or function. b. Cellular matter in general.
Yuck: Used to express rejection or strong disgust.
by-product: 1. Something produced in the making of something else. 2. A side effect.
overhaul: 1. a. To examine carefully. b. To repair thoroughly. 2. To overtake.
appall: To fill with horror or dismay.
bow: 1. To bend the body, head, or knee in order to express greeting, consent, courtesy, or veneration. 2. To acquiesce; submit. 3. To remove oneself; withdraw.
random: 1. Having no specific pattern or purpose. 2. Statistics. Of or relating to equal probability of selection or occurrence for each member of a group.
sole: Being the only one; single. sole“ly adv.
Main ideas
¨ British scientist made a plea to create the first animal-human embryos.
¨ The decision will be announced nest week.
¨ The issue is controversial because it consist of taking an animal egg, removing its genetic material and putting DNA from a human cell into it.
¨ Some campaigners and religious groups argue that it is unethical.
¨ These hybrids will be used to understand more about a range of neurological diseases.
¨ Scientists would use eggs taken from ovaries of cows that are slaughtered rather than from a human donated egg.
¨ To do this work a large number of embryos will be needed.
¨ To use cows`eggs is more practical than asking women to donate their eggs for research.
¨ Although the government was initially against the concept, it is now proposing to allow partial hybrids.
¨ The move has prompted strong protests from religious and anti-abortion groups.
¨ The Catholic Church has made clear its opposition.
Personal reaction
This article is about a plea that British scientists made to create the first animal-human embryos.
In my opinion, it is difficult to take a position whether against or supporting this tissue without having detailed information about it. But it is also true that it is a quite controversial issue because of the fact that scientist will be allowed to manipulate human and animal cells with results that are not predictable.
Until now they have been studying human diseases with human hybrid embryos, and mixing animal and human cells may not give the expected results.
As it is very important for the whole humanity to find new treatments and possible cures for many diseases, ethically speaking I think that diseases are the most important arguments for the application of these scientific practices. But if the plea is aproved, what will come next?
lunes, 3 de septiembre de 2007
Reading report
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date: August 29
Title: Avatars will soon outnumber humans
Source: www.guardian.co.uk Date of publication: Thursday August 23 2007
Vocabulary
Outnumber: 1. To be more numerous than.
Gartner:
Flagship: 1. A ship bearing the flag of a fleet or squadron commander. 2. The chief one of a group:
Gamble: 2. To take a risk in the hope of gaining an advantage.
Ensemble: 3. A group of musicians, singers, dancers, or actors who perform together.
Momentum: 1. The product of a body's mass and velocity. Also called linear momentum. 2. Impetus.
Grab: 3. To obtain or appropriate unscrupulously or illegally. 4. To take hurriedly.
Leap: 3. The act of leaping; jump. 4. An abrupt transition.
Upgrade: 1. To raise to a higher grade or standard.
ward off: 9. To avert, prevent: ward off disaster.
pervasive:existing in all parts of a place or thing; spreading gradually to affect all parts of a place or thing.
Main ideas
In four years` time 80% of internet users will hae avatars.
This will change society in a fascinating way.
Residents in Second Life come and go from this 3D world to anothers what has been causing financial troubles for this cyberworld.
The race to build a better virtual world is already in progress.
Second Life isn`t standing still and it regularly introduces new features.
Virtual worlds are a natural space for social networks.
This social networks will be more pervasive than reality t.v..
Personal reaction
Although this virtual worlds can be used by anybody al around the world, there are still many places where this technology is unknown or at least just a fes are making use of, so that I don`t agree with the future envisaged in this article.
Apart from that the fact that this virtual worlds have millions of users is not a key fact to think that people prefers living virtually to living in the real world, and a proof of this mistaken vision of the human behaviour is the current discussion about the addictive use of video games.
Videogaming caused great opposition among the adults that were worried of having their children hooked by this new technology some years ago, but scientific testing proved there were no proofs for such assumptions.
Due to this fact I dear to affirm that in what respect to the future consecuences and effects of the massive use of virtual worlds human behaviour is been underestimated.
Date: August 29
Title: Avatars will soon outnumber humans
Source: www.guardian.co.uk Date of publication: Thursday August 23 2007
Vocabulary
Outnumber: 1. To be more numerous than.
Gartner:
Flagship: 1. A ship bearing the flag of a fleet or squadron commander. 2. The chief one of a group:
Gamble: 2. To take a risk in the hope of gaining an advantage.
Ensemble: 3. A group of musicians, singers, dancers, or actors who perform together.
Momentum: 1. The product of a body's mass and velocity. Also called linear momentum. 2. Impetus.
Grab: 3. To obtain or appropriate unscrupulously or illegally. 4. To take hurriedly.
Leap: 3. The act of leaping; jump. 4. An abrupt transition.
Upgrade: 1. To raise to a higher grade or standard.
ward off: 9. To avert, prevent: ward off disaster.
pervasive:existing in all parts of a place or thing; spreading gradually to affect all parts of a place or thing.
Main ideas
In four years` time 80% of internet users will hae avatars.
This will change society in a fascinating way.
Residents in Second Life come and go from this 3D world to anothers what has been causing financial troubles for this cyberworld.
The race to build a better virtual world is already in progress.
Second Life isn`t standing still and it regularly introduces new features.
Virtual worlds are a natural space for social networks.
This social networks will be more pervasive than reality t.v..
Personal reaction
Although this virtual worlds can be used by anybody al around the world, there are still many places where this technology is unknown or at least just a fes are making use of, so that I don`t agree with the future envisaged in this article.
Apart from that the fact that this virtual worlds have millions of users is not a key fact to think that people prefers living virtually to living in the real world, and a proof of this mistaken vision of the human behaviour is the current discussion about the addictive use of video games.
Videogaming caused great opposition among the adults that were worried of having their children hooked by this new technology some years ago, but scientific testing proved there were no proofs for such assumptions.
Due to this fact I dear to affirm that in what respect to the future consecuences and effects of the massive use of virtual worlds human behaviour is been underestimated.
Reading report
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date: August 27
Title: School deaths that stunned black America
Source: www.guardian.co.uk Date of publication: Sunday August 19, 2007
Vocabulary
Outrage: 1. a. Grossly offensive. b. Beyond the bounds of good taste. 2. Extravagant; immoderate.
Galvanize: 1. To stimulate or shock with an electric current. 2. To arouse to awareness or action; spur. 3. To coat (iron or steel) with rust-resistant zinc.
Scar: 1. A mark left on the skin after a surface injury or wound has healed.
2. A lingering sign of damage or injury. v. scarred scar·ring3. To mark with or form a scar.
bout: 1. A contest; match: a wrestling bout. 2. A period of time spent in a particular way; spell: a bout of the flu
tit-for-tat:a situation in which you do something bad to somebody because they have done the same to you.
unscathed: 1. Not injured or harmed
Beating the odds
Slope: 2. An inclined line, surface, plane, or stretch of ground.
Prey: 1. An animal hunted or caught for food; quarry. 2. A victim. 3. The act or practice of preying.
Lodge: 9. To be or become embedded.
Byword: 1. a. A proverb. b. An often-used word or phrase.2. One that represents a type, class, or quality:
Blight: 2. An adverse environmental condition, such as air pollution. 3. Something that impairs growth or withers hopes.
Rut: 2. A fixed, usually boring routine.
Watershed: 3. A turning point. 1. A ridge of high land dividing two areas drained by different river systems.
Poignant: 2. Profoundly moving; touching1. Keenly distressing to the mind or feelings
Sheer: 2. Undiluted; pure: sheer happiness.
Sought:seek: 2. To try to obtain or reach.
Clip: 1. To cut off or out with or as if with shears. 2. To shorten; trim.
Sturdy: 1. Substantially built; strong. 2. Healthy and vigorous; robust.
Swarm: 4. To move or gather in large numbers.
Bear: 5. To have or exhibit.
Blare: 1. To sound or cause to sound loudly and stridently.
Sprout: 2. To emerge and develop rapidly.
Balloon: 1. a. A flexible bag inflated with a gas, such as helium, that causes it to rise in the atmosphere. b. Such a bag capable of lifting and transporting a gondola or other load.2. An inflatable toy rubber bag.
Bucket: 1. a. A cylindrical vessel used for holding or carrying liquids or solids; pail.
Scrub: 1. To rub hard in order to clean. 2. To clean or wash something by hard rubbing.
snitch: 1. To steal.
bail: 1. Security, usually money, supplied as a guarantee that an arrested person will appear for trial. 2. Release from imprisonment obtained by bail.
sole: 1. Being the only one; single.
plaudit: 1. An expression of praise or approval.
stance: 2. Point of view.
gang: 1. A group of criminals or hoodlums.2. A group of youths who band together for social and often criminal purposes. 3. Informal. A group of people who associate or work together.
pledge: 1. A formal promise.2. Something considered as security to guarantee payment of a debt or obligation
tip-off: 1. A piece of inside information; hint or warning.
Main ideas
A multiple murder took place in Newark were violence and drugs are part of the everyday life.
Newark is the centre of a bout of national soul searching about life in urban America and black youth.
The crime caused shock because the victims were not involved in a tit-for-tat piece of ghetto violence.
There is a growing sense of crisis in black America.
It seems even the brightest and best of black America can not avoid falling prey of the plague of street violence.
The reaction to the murders has been a mixture of disbelief and outrage.
The victims were four friends, only one survived.
The four had gathered in the playground of Mount Vernon High School and at around 11:30 p.m. a group of men approached them and shut them down.
The sheer pointlessness of the deaths is shocking
Parents are blame because of the way they raise their children.
The suburb where the deaths occurred has a crime rate relatively low.
The whole city is full of police cars and stop and searching operations offering a reward for information.
Residents are united in grief and anger.
Newark along with several other East Coast cities has been the centre of a `stop snitching´ campain led by rap artists and drug dealers.
Three men are under arrest.
Unlike many violent crimes in Newark these murders look as though they will be solved although that will be any consolation.
Newark mayor has taken a high-profile stance over the killings.
Newark is showing signs of forcefully tackling its problems.
The actions of ordinary people were more significant that the mayor`s actions.
There is still a long way to go.
Personal reaction
This article presents the problem of violence and drugs that affects the young black American society mainly in the East Coast cities of the United States.
The recent murders of four young black American students have shocked the whole nation because these youngsters were complete out of the environment of violence, drugs and crime that involves many othe adolescents nowadays. In fact they were students and none of them had a police record.
These cases of crime and violence are close related to the levels of crime that affect our Argentinian society, especially in crowded cities where many families are poor. But it would be a very unfair statement to blame poor people of being involved in this sort of crime because not every poor person is a criminal. In fact, I agree with the vew of the parents of the victims that say this is not only a fact of lack of economical sources but also a fact of education and raising.
Date: August 27
Title: School deaths that stunned black America
Source: www.guardian.co.uk Date of publication: Sunday August 19, 2007
Vocabulary
Outrage: 1. a. Grossly offensive. b. Beyond the bounds of good taste. 2. Extravagant; immoderate.
Galvanize: 1. To stimulate or shock with an electric current. 2. To arouse to awareness or action; spur. 3. To coat (iron or steel) with rust-resistant zinc.
Scar: 1. A mark left on the skin after a surface injury or wound has healed.
2. A lingering sign of damage or injury. v. scarred scar·ring3. To mark with or form a scar.
bout: 1. A contest; match: a wrestling bout. 2. A period of time spent in a particular way; spell: a bout of the flu
tit-for-tat:a situation in which you do something bad to somebody because they have done the same to you.
unscathed: 1. Not injured or harmed
Beating the odds
Slope: 2. An inclined line, surface, plane, or stretch of ground.
Prey: 1. An animal hunted or caught for food; quarry. 2. A victim. 3. The act or practice of preying.
Lodge: 9. To be or become embedded.
Byword: 1. a. A proverb. b. An often-used word or phrase.2. One that represents a type, class, or quality:
Blight: 2. An adverse environmental condition, such as air pollution. 3. Something that impairs growth or withers hopes.
Rut: 2. A fixed, usually boring routine.
Watershed: 3. A turning point. 1. A ridge of high land dividing two areas drained by different river systems.
Poignant: 2. Profoundly moving; touching1. Keenly distressing to the mind or feelings
Sheer: 2. Undiluted; pure: sheer happiness.
Sought:seek: 2. To try to obtain or reach.
Clip: 1. To cut off or out with or as if with shears. 2. To shorten; trim.
Sturdy: 1. Substantially built; strong. 2. Healthy and vigorous; robust.
Swarm: 4. To move or gather in large numbers.
Bear: 5. To have or exhibit.
Blare: 1. To sound or cause to sound loudly and stridently.
Sprout: 2. To emerge and develop rapidly.
Balloon: 1. a. A flexible bag inflated with a gas, such as helium, that causes it to rise in the atmosphere. b. Such a bag capable of lifting and transporting a gondola or other load.2. An inflatable toy rubber bag.
Bucket: 1. a. A cylindrical vessel used for holding or carrying liquids or solids; pail.
Scrub: 1. To rub hard in order to clean. 2. To clean or wash something by hard rubbing.
snitch: 1. To steal.
bail: 1. Security, usually money, supplied as a guarantee that an arrested person will appear for trial. 2. Release from imprisonment obtained by bail.
sole: 1. Being the only one; single.
plaudit: 1. An expression of praise or approval.
stance: 2. Point of view.
gang: 1. A group of criminals or hoodlums.2. A group of youths who band together for social and often criminal purposes. 3. Informal. A group of people who associate or work together.
pledge: 1. A formal promise.2. Something considered as security to guarantee payment of a debt or obligation
tip-off: 1. A piece of inside information; hint or warning.
Main ideas
A multiple murder took place in Newark were violence and drugs are part of the everyday life.
Newark is the centre of a bout of national soul searching about life in urban America and black youth.
The crime caused shock because the victims were not involved in a tit-for-tat piece of ghetto violence.
There is a growing sense of crisis in black America.
It seems even the brightest and best of black America can not avoid falling prey of the plague of street violence.
The reaction to the murders has been a mixture of disbelief and outrage.
The victims were four friends, only one survived.
The four had gathered in the playground of Mount Vernon High School and at around 11:30 p.m. a group of men approached them and shut them down.
The sheer pointlessness of the deaths is shocking
Parents are blame because of the way they raise their children.
The suburb where the deaths occurred has a crime rate relatively low.
The whole city is full of police cars and stop and searching operations offering a reward for information.
Residents are united in grief and anger.
Newark along with several other East Coast cities has been the centre of a `stop snitching´ campain led by rap artists and drug dealers.
Three men are under arrest.
Unlike many violent crimes in Newark these murders look as though they will be solved although that will be any consolation.
Newark mayor has taken a high-profile stance over the killings.
Newark is showing signs of forcefully tackling its problems.
The actions of ordinary people were more significant that the mayor`s actions.
There is still a long way to go.
Personal reaction
This article presents the problem of violence and drugs that affects the young black American society mainly in the East Coast cities of the United States.
The recent murders of four young black American students have shocked the whole nation because these youngsters were complete out of the environment of violence, drugs and crime that involves many othe adolescents nowadays. In fact they were students and none of them had a police record.
These cases of crime and violence are close related to the levels of crime that affect our Argentinian society, especially in crowded cities where many families are poor. But it would be a very unfair statement to blame poor people of being involved in this sort of crime because not every poor person is a criminal. In fact, I agree with the vew of the parents of the victims that say this is not only a fact of lack of economical sources but also a fact of education and raising.
Reading report
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date: August 23
Title: Adiós to poverty, hola to consumption
Source: www.economist.com/index Date of publication: Aug 16th 2007
Vocabulary
Breeze: 2. Informal. Something, such as a task, that is easy to do.
Winding: 2. A curve or bend, as of a road.
Depot: 1. A railroad or bus station. 2. A warehouse or storehouse. 3. A storage installation for military equipment and supplies.
Vend:To sell, especially by peddling.
Fourfold: 1. Divided into a specified number of parts: fourfold.
case 2. A decorative or protective covering.
Sewage: 1. Liquid and solid waste carried off in sewers or drains.
Amid: 1. Surrounded by; in the middle of.
Grinding: that never ends or improves
Ubiquitous: 1. Being or seeming to be everywhere at the same time; omnipresent.
Pipe: A hollow cylinder or tube used to conduct a liquid, gas, or finely divided solid.
Ply: 3. To traverse or sail over regularly.
Sewerage: 1. A system of sewers. 2. Removal of waste materials by sewers. 3. Sewage.
Searing: 1. To scorch or burn the surface of. 2. To wither or parch.
Advent: 1. The coming or arrival, especially of something important
Plethora: 1. A superabundance; excess.
Rough: 9. Not complete, exact, or perfect
Nadir: 1. Astronomy. A point on the celestial sphere diametrically opposite the zenith. 2. The lowest point.
Inflow: 1. A flowing in or into.
Tradable: that you can easily buy and sell or exchange for money. Marketable
Shrink: 1. To contract from heat, moisture, or cold. 2. To dwindle. 3. To draw back; recoil.
Stipend: 1. A fixed and regular payment, such as a salary or allowance.
Remittance: 1. Credit or money sent to someone.
Collate: 1. To examine and compare (texts) carefully.
Abjure: 1. To renounce under oath. 2. To recant solemnly; repudiate. 3. To give up; abstain from.
Scarce: 1. Insufficient to meet a demand or requirement; short in supply.
Pamper: 1. To treat with excessive indulgence.
think-tank: 1. A research group organized especially by a government for solving complex problems.
Claw: 4. To scratch or dig with or as if with claws.
Mushrooming: 2. To grow or spread rapidly.
Threshold: 1. A piece of wood or stone placed beneath a door. 2. An entrance.
Main ideas
Montanhao is one of the poorest districts in Brazil.
The owner of a brazilian chain of supermarkets affirms that people there are very poor, but a lot are becoming middle class.
Life in places like Montanhao is still though, crime is a big problem.
Signs of progress are all around.
A new middle class is emerging almost overnight across Brazil and much of Latin America .
While poverty is measurable, the middle-class is subjective.
The middle class that is emerging is more accurately described as a lower-middle class.
In Mexico some of the new middle class come from the informal economy, others from new industries or service businesses.
These trends are furthest advanced in Chile.
Something similar is starting to happen in Colombia and Peru. In Argentina 40% of the society is considered middle-class.
In Latin America as a whole, !5m households ceased to be poor between 2002 and 2006, by 2010 this percentage will increase.
There are several factors behind these trends since 2004 the region`s economies have grown.
Since 1990s there has been a growth driven by an inflow of capital and accompanied by overvaluated exchange rates.
Innovation in what refers to social policies in Mexico and Brazil.
In both countries poverty is falling steadily.
Credit is still much scarcer than in developed countries but it is growing fast.
Sales of new cars, computers and consumer electronics in both Brazil and Mexico are at record levels.
These positive trends are recent and remain fragile.
The new middle classes have more schooling than their parents
Thegrowth of the middle-class society carries big implications for politics in the region.
Personal reaction
This article talks about an increase in the amount of people that belongs to a new middle class in Latin America society, especially in countries as Mexico and Brazil.
I believe that this global vision does not really match with many other countries in Latin America as for instance in the case of Argentina. Here the majority of the population is extremely poor, just a few are rich or belong to the high class and the rest belongs to different levels of the middle class society.
A very important factor that determines this situation are the social policies that the Mexican and Brazilian governments are applying to give a financial assisstance to the poorest families, which although also exist in Argentina are not enough as they should be in order to asure the poor a better life style.
Date: August 23
Title: Adiós to poverty, hola to consumption
Source: www.economist.com/index Date of publication: Aug 16th 2007
Vocabulary
Breeze: 2. Informal. Something, such as a task, that is easy to do.
Winding: 2. A curve or bend, as of a road.
Depot: 1. A railroad or bus station. 2. A warehouse or storehouse. 3. A storage installation for military equipment and supplies.
Vend:To sell, especially by peddling.
Fourfold: 1. Divided into a specified number of parts: fourfold.
case 2. A decorative or protective covering.
Sewage: 1. Liquid and solid waste carried off in sewers or drains.
Amid: 1. Surrounded by; in the middle of.
Grinding: that never ends or improves
Ubiquitous: 1. Being or seeming to be everywhere at the same time; omnipresent.
Pipe: A hollow cylinder or tube used to conduct a liquid, gas, or finely divided solid.
Ply: 3. To traverse or sail over regularly.
Sewerage: 1. A system of sewers. 2. Removal of waste materials by sewers. 3. Sewage.
Searing: 1. To scorch or burn the surface of. 2. To wither or parch.
Advent: 1. The coming or arrival, especially of something important
Plethora: 1. A superabundance; excess.
Rough: 9. Not complete, exact, or perfect
Nadir: 1. Astronomy. A point on the celestial sphere diametrically opposite the zenith. 2. The lowest point.
Inflow: 1. A flowing in or into.
Tradable: that you can easily buy and sell or exchange for money. Marketable
Shrink: 1. To contract from heat, moisture, or cold. 2. To dwindle. 3. To draw back; recoil.
Stipend: 1. A fixed and regular payment, such as a salary or allowance.
Remittance: 1. Credit or money sent to someone.
Collate: 1. To examine and compare (texts) carefully.
Abjure: 1. To renounce under oath. 2. To recant solemnly; repudiate. 3. To give up; abstain from.
Scarce: 1. Insufficient to meet a demand or requirement; short in supply.
Pamper: 1. To treat with excessive indulgence.
think-tank: 1. A research group organized especially by a government for solving complex problems.
Claw: 4. To scratch or dig with or as if with claws.
Mushrooming: 2. To grow or spread rapidly.
Threshold: 1. A piece of wood or stone placed beneath a door. 2. An entrance.
Main ideas
Montanhao is one of the poorest districts in Brazil.
The owner of a brazilian chain of supermarkets affirms that people there are very poor, but a lot are becoming middle class.
Life in places like Montanhao is still though, crime is a big problem.
Signs of progress are all around.
A new middle class is emerging almost overnight across Brazil and much of Latin America .
While poverty is measurable, the middle-class is subjective.
The middle class that is emerging is more accurately described as a lower-middle class.
In Mexico some of the new middle class come from the informal economy, others from new industries or service businesses.
These trends are furthest advanced in Chile.
Something similar is starting to happen in Colombia and Peru. In Argentina 40% of the society is considered middle-class.
In Latin America as a whole, !5m households ceased to be poor between 2002 and 2006, by 2010 this percentage will increase.
There are several factors behind these trends since 2004 the region`s economies have grown.
Since 1990s there has been a growth driven by an inflow of capital and accompanied by overvaluated exchange rates.
Innovation in what refers to social policies in Mexico and Brazil.
In both countries poverty is falling steadily.
Credit is still much scarcer than in developed countries but it is growing fast.
Sales of new cars, computers and consumer electronics in both Brazil and Mexico are at record levels.
These positive trends are recent and remain fragile.
The new middle classes have more schooling than their parents
Thegrowth of the middle-class society carries big implications for politics in the region.
Personal reaction
This article talks about an increase in the amount of people that belongs to a new middle class in Latin America society, especially in countries as Mexico and Brazil.
I believe that this global vision does not really match with many other countries in Latin America as for instance in the case of Argentina. Here the majority of the population is extremely poor, just a few are rich or belong to the high class and the rest belongs to different levels of the middle class society.
A very important factor that determines this situation are the social policies that the Mexican and Brazilian governments are applying to give a financial assisstance to the poorest families, which although also exist in Argentina are not enough as they should be in order to asure the poor a better life style.
Reading report
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date: August 22
Title: Distressed denim trend costs Mexican farmers the earth
Source: www.guardian.co.uk Date of publication: Friday August 17 2007
Vocabulary
Thrive: 1. To make steady progress; prosper. 2. To flourish.
Crust: 4. A hard covering or surface.
Peel off: 2. To strip or cut away the skin, rind, or bark from; pare. 3. To strip away; pull off. 4. To lose or shed skin, bark, or other covering. 5. To come off in thin strips or pieces, as paint.
seedling: 1. A young plant grown from a seed.
wry: 1. Dryly humorous. 2. Temporarily twisted in an expression of distaste or displeasure: made a wry face. 3. Bent to one side; crooked.
hover: 1. To remain floating or suspended in the air. 2. To linger in a place. See synonyms at flutter. 3. To remain in an uncertain state; waver.
peasant: 1. A member of a class made up of agricultural workers, including small or tenant farmers and laborers on the land.
attest: 1. To affirm to be correct, true, or genuine, especially by affixing one's signature as witness.
lace: 3. To draw together and tie the laces of. 4. To intertwine
hub: 2. A center of activity or interest. See synonyms at center.
sweatshop: 1. A shop or factory in which employees work long hours at low wages under poor conditions.
distress: 1. To cause anxiety or suffering to. See synonyms at trouble.
2. To mar or treat ( for example, an object or fabric) to give the appearance of an antique.
sandpaper: 1. Heavy paper coated on one side with an abrasive material, used for smoothing surfaces.
fade: 1. To lose or cause to lose brightness or loudness; dim. 2. To lose strength or freshness; wither. 3. To disappear gradually; vanish.
bleach: To make or become white or colorless.
Trigger: 1. a. The lever pressed by the finger to discharge a firearm. b. A similar device used to release or activate a mechanism. 2. An event that precipitates other events.
crescendo: 2. A steady increase in intensity or force.
garment: An article of clothing.
sack: 6. Slang. To dismiss; fire.
pumice: 1. A light porous lava, used in solid form as an abrasive and in powdered form as a polish.
Main ideas
Mexican fields are affected by chemicals from thriving blue jeans industries.
The area affected was once famous for its mineral springs and spas.
Tehuacan still has more than 700 clothes manufactures.
The factories range from large well-established facilities to clandestine sweatshops.
Of most concern environmentally are the laundries where the clothes are sent for distressing.
There have been many consciousness-raising campaigns aided by US based international solitary groups over the years.
Grupo navarra, the biggest manufacturer, is one of the few with a water treatment plant on site.
The government is not prepared to take on the economic interests of the factory owners.
The contamination is mainly the fault of the companies that act outside the law.
A substancial array of institutions at local, state and federal level have some degree of responsability.
The problem is the toxic styles imposed by the gib brands.
Personal reaction
The problem of contamination of water and earth is present indifferent places around the world especially affecting third world countries where multinational factories such us those that affects Mexico with brands like Denim blue jeans.
This multinational industries choose the poorest countries to place their factories because of the cheaper economical expenditures and also because many of them are aware of the problem of contamination that they produce and instead of affecting their own countries they bring their wastes and toxic chemicals to our countries.
But to reduce contamination and to settle the proper controls is up to each government which are dangerous poisoned by the corruption of their members that make a blind eye on the problem.
Date: August 22
Title: Distressed denim trend costs Mexican farmers the earth
Source: www.guardian.co.uk Date of publication: Friday August 17 2007
Vocabulary
Thrive: 1. To make steady progress; prosper. 2. To flourish.
Crust: 4. A hard covering or surface.
Peel off: 2. To strip or cut away the skin, rind, or bark from; pare. 3. To strip away; pull off. 4. To lose or shed skin, bark, or other covering. 5. To come off in thin strips or pieces, as paint.
seedling: 1. A young plant grown from a seed.
wry: 1. Dryly humorous. 2. Temporarily twisted in an expression of distaste or displeasure: made a wry face. 3. Bent to one side; crooked.
hover: 1. To remain floating or suspended in the air. 2. To linger in a place. See synonyms at flutter. 3. To remain in an uncertain state; waver.
peasant: 1. A member of a class made up of agricultural workers, including small or tenant farmers and laborers on the land.
attest: 1. To affirm to be correct, true, or genuine, especially by affixing one's signature as witness.
lace: 3. To draw together and tie the laces of. 4. To intertwine
hub: 2. A center of activity or interest. See synonyms at center.
sweatshop: 1. A shop or factory in which employees work long hours at low wages under poor conditions.
distress: 1. To cause anxiety or suffering to. See synonyms at trouble.
2. To mar or treat ( for example, an object or fabric) to give the appearance of an antique.
sandpaper: 1. Heavy paper coated on one side with an abrasive material, used for smoothing surfaces.
fade: 1. To lose or cause to lose brightness or loudness; dim. 2. To lose strength or freshness; wither. 3. To disappear gradually; vanish.
bleach: To make or become white or colorless.
Trigger: 1. a. The lever pressed by the finger to discharge a firearm. b. A similar device used to release or activate a mechanism. 2. An event that precipitates other events.
crescendo: 2. A steady increase in intensity or force.
garment: An article of clothing.
sack: 6. Slang. To dismiss; fire.
pumice: 1. A light porous lava, used in solid form as an abrasive and in powdered form as a polish.
Main ideas
Mexican fields are affected by chemicals from thriving blue jeans industries.
The area affected was once famous for its mineral springs and spas.
Tehuacan still has more than 700 clothes manufactures.
The factories range from large well-established facilities to clandestine sweatshops.
Of most concern environmentally are the laundries where the clothes are sent for distressing.
There have been many consciousness-raising campaigns aided by US based international solitary groups over the years.
Grupo navarra, the biggest manufacturer, is one of the few with a water treatment plant on site.
The government is not prepared to take on the economic interests of the factory owners.
The contamination is mainly the fault of the companies that act outside the law.
A substancial array of institutions at local, state and federal level have some degree of responsability.
The problem is the toxic styles imposed by the gib brands.
Personal reaction
The problem of contamination of water and earth is present indifferent places around the world especially affecting third world countries where multinational factories such us those that affects Mexico with brands like Denim blue jeans.
This multinational industries choose the poorest countries to place their factories because of the cheaper economical expenditures and also because many of them are aware of the problem of contamination that they produce and instead of affecting their own countries they bring their wastes and toxic chemicals to our countries.
But to reduce contamination and to settle the proper controls is up to each government which are dangerous poisoned by the corruption of their members that make a blind eye on the problem.
Reading report
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date: August 13
Title: A right to know - biological origins of IVF children to be stated on birth certificates
Source: www.guardian.co.uk Date of publication: Wednesday August 1, 2007
Vocabulary
Sweeping: 1. Having wide-ranging influence or effect. 2. Curving; contoured. n. 3. sweepings Things swept up; refuse.
Bolster: 1. A long narrow pillow or cushion. v. 2. To support with or as if with a bolster. 3. To buoy up; reinforce:
Raft: 1. A great number or amount.
Overtake: 1. To catch up with.
Draft: 13. Suited for drawing heavy loads. 14. Drawn from a cask or tap.
Surplus: 1. Being in excess of what is needed. See synonyms at superfluous. n. 2. A surplus amount or quantity.
Saviour: 1. A person who rescues another from harm, danger, or loss.
Tissue: 5. Biology. a. A group of cells that are similar in form or function. b. Cellular matter in general.
Unenforceable:enforce: 1. To compel observance of or obedience to. -- en·force“a·bil”i·ty n. -- en·force“a·ble adj.
Deceive: 1. To cause to believe what is not true; mislead.
Chimera: 2. chimera An impossible or foolish fantasy.
Unwieldy: 1. Difficult to carry or manage because of bulk or shape.
drag on: 1. To pull along with effort, especially by force; haul. See synonyms at pull. 2. To pull along the ground. 3. To search or sweep the bottom of (a body of water), as with a grappling hook. 4. To prolong tediously. 5. To proceed slowly or laboriously.
supersede: 1. To take the place of; succeed. 2. To displace; supplant.
over-arching: very important, because it includes or influences many things.
Merge: 1. To blend together or cause to be absorbed, especially in gradual stages.
Thaw: 1. To change from a frozen solid to a liquid by gradual warming. 2. To lose stiffness or numbness by being warmed. 3. To become warm enough for snow and ice to melt. 4. To become less reserved.
Ban: 3. A prohibition imposed by law or official decree.
Main ideas
Children born from donated sperm or eggs will have the information marked on their birth certificates.
The government will consider this planned reforms of legislation overtaken by science.
There is a parliamentary demand for the government to tear up its draft fertility bill, in favour of a more permissive approach in ethically contentious areas.
Under existing law, parents are not required to inform children if they are born from donated eggs and sperm.
Informing children about their biological origins would allow them to find the identity of their genetic parent.
The government was urged to extend the legal limit for storing IVF embryos from 5 to 10 years.
Frozen embryos into research was likely to be welcomed by couples who have surplus embryos, but are not comfortable with donating them to an infertile woman.
Further proposals seek to relax laws on the creation of “saviour siblings” where children are conceived to save the life of a sick brother or sister.
The report also recommended to grant research licences to scientists to fuse human and animal tissues to create hybrid or chimera embryos.
Trying to define what is scientifically allowable based on primary legislation doesn´t make any sense.
The report also recommended the government abandons its long-held plans to merge the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) and the Human Tissue Authority.
IVF landmarks
Personal reaction
I think that the fact of letting an adoptive child as well as those children born from donated sperm or eggs know their biological origins is up to the decision of their adoptive parents. But I personally agree with this British law that will ensure the right that all children have to know their origins through the inclusion of the information about their genetic parents in their birth certificates.
On the other hand, in what respects to that contentious areas such as the creation of “saviour siblings” or the use of frozen embryos to research is a quite serious and complicated matter to be treated because of the moral taboo that these themes represent in our society. That is why these issues must be carefully discussed and studied before coming to a decision.
Date: August 13
Title: A right to know - biological origins of IVF children to be stated on birth certificates
Source: www.guardian.co.uk Date of publication: Wednesday August 1, 2007
Vocabulary
Sweeping: 1. Having wide-ranging influence or effect. 2. Curving; contoured. n. 3. sweepings Things swept up; refuse.
Bolster: 1. A long narrow pillow or cushion. v. 2. To support with or as if with a bolster. 3. To buoy up; reinforce:
Raft: 1. A great number or amount.
Overtake: 1. To catch up with.
Draft: 13. Suited for drawing heavy loads. 14. Drawn from a cask or tap.
Surplus: 1. Being in excess of what is needed. See synonyms at superfluous. n. 2. A surplus amount or quantity.
Saviour: 1. A person who rescues another from harm, danger, or loss.
Tissue: 5. Biology. a. A group of cells that are similar in form or function. b. Cellular matter in general.
Unenforceable:enforce: 1. To compel observance of or obedience to. -- en·force“a·bil”i·ty n. -- en·force“a·ble adj.
Deceive: 1. To cause to believe what is not true; mislead.
Chimera: 2. chimera An impossible or foolish fantasy.
Unwieldy: 1. Difficult to carry or manage because of bulk or shape.
drag on: 1. To pull along with effort, especially by force; haul. See synonyms at pull. 2. To pull along the ground. 3. To search or sweep the bottom of (a body of water), as with a grappling hook. 4. To prolong tediously. 5. To proceed slowly or laboriously.
supersede: 1. To take the place of; succeed. 2. To displace; supplant.
over-arching: very important, because it includes or influences many things.
Merge: 1. To blend together or cause to be absorbed, especially in gradual stages.
Thaw: 1. To change from a frozen solid to a liquid by gradual warming. 2. To lose stiffness or numbness by being warmed. 3. To become warm enough for snow and ice to melt. 4. To become less reserved.
Ban: 3. A prohibition imposed by law or official decree.
Main ideas
Children born from donated sperm or eggs will have the information marked on their birth certificates.
The government will consider this planned reforms of legislation overtaken by science.
There is a parliamentary demand for the government to tear up its draft fertility bill, in favour of a more permissive approach in ethically contentious areas.
Under existing law, parents are not required to inform children if they are born from donated eggs and sperm.
Informing children about their biological origins would allow them to find the identity of their genetic parent.
The government was urged to extend the legal limit for storing IVF embryos from 5 to 10 years.
Frozen embryos into research was likely to be welcomed by couples who have surplus embryos, but are not comfortable with donating them to an infertile woman.
Further proposals seek to relax laws on the creation of “saviour siblings” where children are conceived to save the life of a sick brother or sister.
The report also recommended to grant research licences to scientists to fuse human and animal tissues to create hybrid or chimera embryos.
Trying to define what is scientifically allowable based on primary legislation doesn´t make any sense.
The report also recommended the government abandons its long-held plans to merge the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) and the Human Tissue Authority.
IVF landmarks
Personal reaction
I think that the fact of letting an adoptive child as well as those children born from donated sperm or eggs know their biological origins is up to the decision of their adoptive parents. But I personally agree with this British law that will ensure the right that all children have to know their origins through the inclusion of the information about their genetic parents in their birth certificates.
On the other hand, in what respects to that contentious areas such as the creation of “saviour siblings” or the use of frozen embryos to research is a quite serious and complicated matter to be treated because of the moral taboo that these themes represent in our society. That is why these issues must be carefully discussed and studied before coming to a decision.
Reading report
Name: Cristina Soledad Guzmán
Date: August 15
Title: It looks good on paper
Source: www.economist.com/index Date of publication: Aug 14th 2007
Vocabulary
Nanotubes:nano: One-billionth
Unveil:1. To remove a veil or covering from. 2. To disclose; reveal.
Plate:2. a. A sheet of hammered, rolled, or cast metal. b. A flat piece of metal on which something is engraved.
Tweak:1. To pinch or twist sharply.
Coating:coat: 3. A layer of material covering something else.4. To provide or cover with a coat or layer.
Butyl: 1. A hydrocarbon radical
Folded:fold: 1. To bend over or double up so that one part lies on another part. 2. To bring from an extended to a closed position. 3. To place together and intertwine: fold one's arms. 4. To envelop or clasp; enfold. 5. To blend in (a cooking ingredient) by slowly and gently turning one part over another. 6. Informal. To close, especially for lack of financial success; fail.
Pulse: 2. Physics. A brief sudden change in a normally constant quantity: a pulse of current.
Stack: 7. To arrange in a stack; pile. 8. Games. To prearrange the order of (a deck of cards) so as to cheat. Informal. 9. To measure up; compare.
Output: 1. An amount produced or manufactured during a certain time. 2. a. The energy, power, or work produced by a system. b. Computer Science. The information produced by a computer from a specific input.
scale up:5. To climb up or over; ascend. 6. To make in accord with a particular proportion or scale. 7. To adjust in calculated amounts: scaled down their demands.
wood-pulp:wood that has been broken into small pieces and crushed until it is soft. It is used for making paper.
Newsprint: 1. Inexpensive paper used especially for newspapers. Also called newspaper.
Main ideas
A new storage device was made by mixing carbon nanotubes with cellulose.
This is a low energy-density device which stores electricity directly by charging two conductive plates with static.
With suitable tweaking this device can be used as a capacitor, a battery or both.
Its crucial component is a solvent called 1 butyl, 3 methylimidazodium cloride able to both to dissolve cellulose and to act as an electrolyte.
This material works at temperatures from –80ºc to 180ºc and can be rolled up, folded or cut like paper.
The three-layer version, provides a unique hybrid power supply.
No poisons chemicals are used and makes it promising for medical applications.
The next phase is to convert wood-pulp to newsprint.
Personal reaction
Storing electricity is a current issue nowadays due to the possible future lack of energetic sources in the years to come, so that it is very important to find new ways of storing electricity in order to ensure the supply of this source of energy.
Apart from this fact the new material created to store electricity can work al temperatures from –80ºc to 180ºc and is flexible to manipulate so you can for instance cut it like paper with no effect on its performance what is a great valuable innovation in this field of technological investigation.
The problem with this new storage device is that it is needed a great invest of money in order to afford the scientific research and so that poor countries will always be in disadvantage to the rich ones.
Date: August 15
Title: It looks good on paper
Source: www.economist.com/index Date of publication: Aug 14th 2007
Vocabulary
Nanotubes:nano: One-billionth
Unveil:1. To remove a veil or covering from. 2. To disclose; reveal.
Plate:2. a. A sheet of hammered, rolled, or cast metal. b. A flat piece of metal on which something is engraved.
Tweak:1. To pinch or twist sharply.
Coating:coat: 3. A layer of material covering something else.4. To provide or cover with a coat or layer.
Butyl: 1. A hydrocarbon radical
Folded:fold: 1. To bend over or double up so that one part lies on another part. 2. To bring from an extended to a closed position. 3. To place together and intertwine: fold one's arms. 4. To envelop or clasp; enfold. 5. To blend in (a cooking ingredient) by slowly and gently turning one part over another. 6. Informal. To close, especially for lack of financial success; fail.
Pulse: 2. Physics. A brief sudden change in a normally constant quantity: a pulse of current.
Stack: 7. To arrange in a stack; pile. 8. Games. To prearrange the order of (a deck of cards) so as to cheat. Informal. 9. To measure up; compare.
Output: 1. An amount produced or manufactured during a certain time. 2. a. The energy, power, or work produced by a system. b. Computer Science. The information produced by a computer from a specific input.
scale up:5. To climb up or over; ascend. 6. To make in accord with a particular proportion or scale. 7. To adjust in calculated amounts: scaled down their demands.
wood-pulp:wood that has been broken into small pieces and crushed until it is soft. It is used for making paper.
Newsprint: 1. Inexpensive paper used especially for newspapers. Also called newspaper.
Main ideas
A new storage device was made by mixing carbon nanotubes with cellulose.
This is a low energy-density device which stores electricity directly by charging two conductive plates with static.
With suitable tweaking this device can be used as a capacitor, a battery or both.
Its crucial component is a solvent called 1 butyl, 3 methylimidazodium cloride able to both to dissolve cellulose and to act as an electrolyte.
This material works at temperatures from –80ºc to 180ºc and can be rolled up, folded or cut like paper.
The three-layer version, provides a unique hybrid power supply.
No poisons chemicals are used and makes it promising for medical applications.
The next phase is to convert wood-pulp to newsprint.
Personal reaction
Storing electricity is a current issue nowadays due to the possible future lack of energetic sources in the years to come, so that it is very important to find new ways of storing electricity in order to ensure the supply of this source of energy.
Apart from this fact the new material created to store electricity can work al temperatures from –80ºc to 180ºc and is flexible to manipulate so you can for instance cut it like paper with no effect on its performance what is a great valuable innovation in this field of technological investigation.
The problem with this new storage device is that it is needed a great invest of money in order to afford the scientific research and so that poor countries will always be in disadvantage to the rich ones.
Entry n 48: I`m late
I am about three days late but I am not worried. Although I had planned to have this delay next year if possible, it is happening now.
I had planned this quite consciously because I did not wanted it to interfere with my studies. I want both but each of them have its own importance and they need all my time and dedication, so that it will be quite difficult to pay attention to both of them equally at the same time.
I know I am not the first woman in being late before it was expected, the only thing that I can do is to rearrange my schedule.
In order of importance one of them needs more my attention and care than the other, because one is animate and the other doesn`t.
At this point I think you can guess in which way I am late. I am late in my period and It means that soon in my family there will be one member more.
I have always dreamd of this delay and now I realize that no matter how well we can plan it, it just happens; especially when a young married couple demostrate their passionate love for each other as frequently as we, my husband and I, do.
The time that I have to wait to confirm my suspicions is dreadful. I am full of happiness, hopes and expectations because of my first baby, and I can`t stand planning what we are going to do and how we are going to manage to take care of the baby.
My husband is very exited also with this marvellous notice and he is also planning how he will help me to take care of the baby when I won`t be at home, because he wants me to keep on with my studies.
I hope to confirm my expectations in a few days time and then our lives will start to change for better.
I had planned this quite consciously because I did not wanted it to interfere with my studies. I want both but each of them have its own importance and they need all my time and dedication, so that it will be quite difficult to pay attention to both of them equally at the same time.
I know I am not the first woman in being late before it was expected, the only thing that I can do is to rearrange my schedule.
In order of importance one of them needs more my attention and care than the other, because one is animate and the other doesn`t.
At this point I think you can guess in which way I am late. I am late in my period and It means that soon in my family there will be one member more.
I have always dreamd of this delay and now I realize that no matter how well we can plan it, it just happens; especially when a young married couple demostrate their passionate love for each other as frequently as we, my husband and I, do.
The time that I have to wait to confirm my suspicions is dreadful. I am full of happiness, hopes and expectations because of my first baby, and I can`t stand planning what we are going to do and how we are going to manage to take care of the baby.
My husband is very exited also with this marvellous notice and he is also planning how he will help me to take care of the baby when I won`t be at home, because he wants me to keep on with my studies.
I hope to confirm my expectations in a few days time and then our lives will start to change for better.
Entry n 47: Fail
I am running out of time to reach the dead line settled by the Language teacher, I have difficulties to complete the amount of work that he asks us to do.
The main problem that I usually have to complete the weekly task is that I am running out of topics to write about in my entries. Many of the topics that were suggested by him are not interesting for me, or at least they do not cause any inspiration to me in order to develope them by writing.
I think that all this work has not helped me very much on improving my vocabulary and my writing skills, what has been proved with the two important failures that I have obtained up to this moment in what respect to the progress that I was suppossed to acquire in Language.
On the on hand I failed the first practico that consisted on a pro-con essay, and on the other hand I also failed the essay of the first semestral test.
Although I still have the possibility of passing it in the make-up test, I am very disappointed with these failures that I do not think I will pass this test.
I am terrified of losing the whole next year just because of one subject, having in mind that I passed the rest of the subjects that have already finished and are part of the third year curriculum. In fact I am doing quite well those subjects which have not finished yet, except for Language III.
The main problem is that I thought I was doing my best to fulfil the requirements established to pass the subject, but obviously there is something that I am not doing so well. That is why I fear I will lose my “regularidad” in this subject.
I really want ot progress in Language because it is one of the most important subjects of the curriculum, but I think that the work we do in class is not enough. The worst thing is that I do not have money enough to pay for a tutor to help me.
What is more, I have been investing too much money in this subject to take it again next year, if I do not pass it this year.
Apart from that there is a quite important fact that related to the failures of studentes in this class. I am not the only one who has failed in both the practico and the test, a great number of students (almost the whole group) in my class is in the same situation than me.
Therefore I wonder if the students` failures are their own responsability or there is something else that is not working as well as should be, I think that in cases like this there is also a failure in the teacher`s work.
The main problem that I usually have to complete the weekly task is that I am running out of topics to write about in my entries. Many of the topics that were suggested by him are not interesting for me, or at least they do not cause any inspiration to me in order to develope them by writing.
I think that all this work has not helped me very much on improving my vocabulary and my writing skills, what has been proved with the two important failures that I have obtained up to this moment in what respect to the progress that I was suppossed to acquire in Language.
On the on hand I failed the first practico that consisted on a pro-con essay, and on the other hand I also failed the essay of the first semestral test.
Although I still have the possibility of passing it in the make-up test, I am very disappointed with these failures that I do not think I will pass this test.
I am terrified of losing the whole next year just because of one subject, having in mind that I passed the rest of the subjects that have already finished and are part of the third year curriculum. In fact I am doing quite well those subjects which have not finished yet, except for Language III.
The main problem is that I thought I was doing my best to fulfil the requirements established to pass the subject, but obviously there is something that I am not doing so well. That is why I fear I will lose my “regularidad” in this subject.
I really want ot progress in Language because it is one of the most important subjects of the curriculum, but I think that the work we do in class is not enough. The worst thing is that I do not have money enough to pay for a tutor to help me.
What is more, I have been investing too much money in this subject to take it again next year, if I do not pass it this year.
Apart from that there is a quite important fact that related to the failures of studentes in this class. I am not the only one who has failed in both the practico and the test, a great number of students (almost the whole group) in my class is in the same situation than me.
Therefore I wonder if the students` failures are their own responsability or there is something else that is not working as well as should be, I think that in cases like this there is also a failure in the teacher`s work.
Entry 46:
Although many people especially those who owns television channels or are producers of some television programme for example, say that the media do not affects the behaviour or young people, the truth is that young people are the living proof of the influence that the media have on adolescents and children. You have just to look at them and pay attention to their speech and behaviour to see the effects of television on them.
On the one hand we have the oppinion of those who live from the television and cinema bussinesses, their argument is that it is the parents` responsability to decide what their children should watch. But the main problem with this argument is that this control over children is quite difficult to do in this age of working parents and independent young people.
As young people are the ones whospend more time watching television or going to the cinema, they tend to consume almost every thing that the media try to sell and they also tend to acquire the fashion trends, speech, and behaviour that the media show.
On the other hand we have the oppinion of parents and school teachers about the influence of television on children and teenagers. It is common in school playgrounds to see the violent behaviour of children since they are quite young, their games almost always consist of fightings that immitate the cartoons and children programmes that they watch. These games many times end up with a kid hurt by some other. In the same way it is commonly used by teenagers a quite violent and unrespectful vocabulary to talk to their peers, that is predominant in many television programmes nowadays.
Another important factor that reflects media influence is for instance the way in which young people dress and the hairstyle that they adopt, which are almost always connected with the sort of music they listen at and the programmes they watch.
In conclusion the education and the controlling of the content which young people are exposed through the media is a responsability shared by both parents and the media. Due to this bussiness men and producer people should acknowledge the great power of influence that they have over young people and they should grade the levels of violence, the kind of vocabulary and the content that among other things are shown in television.
And it is also very important that parents do as much as possible to control and limit their children while making use of the media, especially when they watch television.
On the one hand we have the oppinion of those who live from the television and cinema bussinesses, their argument is that it is the parents` responsability to decide what their children should watch. But the main problem with this argument is that this control over children is quite difficult to do in this age of working parents and independent young people.
As young people are the ones whospend more time watching television or going to the cinema, they tend to consume almost every thing that the media try to sell and they also tend to acquire the fashion trends, speech, and behaviour that the media show.
On the other hand we have the oppinion of parents and school teachers about the influence of television on children and teenagers. It is common in school playgrounds to see the violent behaviour of children since they are quite young, their games almost always consist of fightings that immitate the cartoons and children programmes that they watch. These games many times end up with a kid hurt by some other. In the same way it is commonly used by teenagers a quite violent and unrespectful vocabulary to talk to their peers, that is predominant in many television programmes nowadays.
Another important factor that reflects media influence is for instance the way in which young people dress and the hairstyle that they adopt, which are almost always connected with the sort of music they listen at and the programmes they watch.
In conclusion the education and the controlling of the content which young people are exposed through the media is a responsability shared by both parents and the media. Due to this bussiness men and producer people should acknowledge the great power of influence that they have over young people and they should grade the levels of violence, the kind of vocabulary and the content that among other things are shown in television.
And it is also very important that parents do as much as possible to control and limit their children while making use of the media, especially when they watch television.
Entry 45:
Last night I went away from home trying to escape from my reality, running away from my life, or may be from what I did with my life.
I started to walk without knowing where to go, without thinking of a particular place, I just new that I wanted to be as far as possible from him, from my owner, my punishment.
I didn`t want to cry because I was tired of crying every time I am desperate, my tears have never fixed anything but have helped me to release my unger.
Last night I thought that if I refused to cry I would become stronger because when I cry I feel weak and lost, so may be if I didn`t cry I would be able to control my feelings, I would avoid been hurt by the others, by him.
In fact, during my childhood and my adolescence this method used to be useful. Nowadays pretending to be a stone with no feelings is harder every time.
I have everything I need to be happy or at least I suppossed I would be happy as I live now. I just wanted someone that loved me and protected me and took care of me, I never wished having lots of money to be happy so material things are not my problem.Materially speaking I have nor less nor more of what I need.
My real problem is that I can not be happy because I do not feel the peace in my soul that just a devoted love would have given me. I know that truly love is that which you give without asking for nothing in return, but although I`ve tried to love in this way the one that I chosed to love loves me in a very meanful way.
Somentimes I think that since I started making my own decisions I started making the worst mistakes in my life and I ended up living as I do now.
In those moments I wish I could be a little child again and never grow up because as far as I know the happiest moments that I have in my memory are from my childhood. Growing up really pains.
In those moments I feel I`m lost and I will never find a way out, a hope, someone or something that will give me back the strength that I need to go on, to fight for my happiness, for me.
Since a long time ago I`ve been living like an automatic machine, like a robot, doing what I`m suppossed to do and pretending to be happy and full of dreams. I do not want to worry my family especially my mum, and I also know that they can not help me because it was my decision to live as I live so I am the only one who have to change it. But the fact is that I can`t, and I don`t know how long I will keep holding this lie.
I started to walk without knowing where to go, without thinking of a particular place, I just new that I wanted to be as far as possible from him, from my owner, my punishment.
I didn`t want to cry because I was tired of crying every time I am desperate, my tears have never fixed anything but have helped me to release my unger.
Last night I thought that if I refused to cry I would become stronger because when I cry I feel weak and lost, so may be if I didn`t cry I would be able to control my feelings, I would avoid been hurt by the others, by him.
In fact, during my childhood and my adolescence this method used to be useful. Nowadays pretending to be a stone with no feelings is harder every time.
I have everything I need to be happy or at least I suppossed I would be happy as I live now. I just wanted someone that loved me and protected me and took care of me, I never wished having lots of money to be happy so material things are not my problem.Materially speaking I have nor less nor more of what I need.
My real problem is that I can not be happy because I do not feel the peace in my soul that just a devoted love would have given me. I know that truly love is that which you give without asking for nothing in return, but although I`ve tried to love in this way the one that I chosed to love loves me in a very meanful way.
Somentimes I think that since I started making my own decisions I started making the worst mistakes in my life and I ended up living as I do now.
In those moments I wish I could be a little child again and never grow up because as far as I know the happiest moments that I have in my memory are from my childhood. Growing up really pains.
In those moments I feel I`m lost and I will never find a way out, a hope, someone or something that will give me back the strength that I need to go on, to fight for my happiness, for me.
Since a long time ago I`ve been living like an automatic machine, like a robot, doing what I`m suppossed to do and pretending to be happy and full of dreams. I do not want to worry my family especially my mum, and I also know that they can not help me because it was my decision to live as I live so I am the only one who have to change it. But the fact is that I can`t, and I don`t know how long I will keep holding this lie.
Entry n 44: How to be a good parent
Being parents since the biginning of time has been the most important and marvellous thing in the life of any couple but it has been also quite difficult to do, especially with the growing up of the first child because parents learn as the practice.
As there has not been created yet a book or guidance to learn how to be a good parent, this role is a very complicated task for many people. Parents always try to do the best for their children, since they are babies and while they are growing until they become older enough to make their own decisions and to choose what they want to do with their lifes.
But as the process of growing up is very difficult for both, parents and children, sometimes wrong decisions are made and consequently the relationship between parents and children is broken, and then is when discussions and quarrels start to take place and this almost always occurs when children become teenagers.
The brake is produced mainly because teenagers are at a moment in their lifes in which they are looking for an identity. They are forming their personalities so that they are full of insecurities about themselves, they are always questioning what is wrong or right and they are always comfronting and questioning the adults` authority and the limits that they put on them.
Add to that, adults tend to confuse them by telling them “you are too young for this” or you are too adult for that”, so teens get more confused about themselves. There is also the tendency of trying to protect them of the dangers of the life outdoors by wrongly trying to keep them indoors as much as possible, or on the contrary, some parents think that by being friends of their children they are going to gain their trust and give them too much freedom.
I believe that this is also a mistake because at that age teenagers are not able to distinguish clearly what is wrong ans what is right, therefore they need the limits imposed by their parents to protect them of possible dangers or from making wrong decisions.
The main problem for parents at that moment is to keep a balance between putting limits and conquering their children`s trust, in order to take care of them and to maintain the relationship built when they were kids.
The extremes are problematics then, an advisable thing to do for parents is to try to understand this difficult process which adolescents go through, and acompain their children with the proper freedom that will be settled by parents by stablishing limits as clearly and fairly as possible, and trying to make them understand the reasons of these measures and the possible consequencies of not following their parents advices.
It is also clear that no matter how much parents put their best effort on protecting their children, if they want to do the wrong things nothing on earth is going to stop them, although they are not very conscious of these mistakes and their consequences. Taking this into account, parents must understand that the most important thing in that moment is to talk and hear their children.
By maintaining a fluent communication with our teenagers and letting them express themselves, parents will ensure that the relationship with their children won`t be broken and also will prevent them from making mistakes.
As there has not been created yet a book or guidance to learn how to be a good parent, this role is a very complicated task for many people. Parents always try to do the best for their children, since they are babies and while they are growing until they become older enough to make their own decisions and to choose what they want to do with their lifes.
But as the process of growing up is very difficult for both, parents and children, sometimes wrong decisions are made and consequently the relationship between parents and children is broken, and then is when discussions and quarrels start to take place and this almost always occurs when children become teenagers.
The brake is produced mainly because teenagers are at a moment in their lifes in which they are looking for an identity. They are forming their personalities so that they are full of insecurities about themselves, they are always questioning what is wrong or right and they are always comfronting and questioning the adults` authority and the limits that they put on them.
Add to that, adults tend to confuse them by telling them “you are too young for this” or you are too adult for that”, so teens get more confused about themselves. There is also the tendency of trying to protect them of the dangers of the life outdoors by wrongly trying to keep them indoors as much as possible, or on the contrary, some parents think that by being friends of their children they are going to gain their trust and give them too much freedom.
I believe that this is also a mistake because at that age teenagers are not able to distinguish clearly what is wrong ans what is right, therefore they need the limits imposed by their parents to protect them of possible dangers or from making wrong decisions.
The main problem for parents at that moment is to keep a balance between putting limits and conquering their children`s trust, in order to take care of them and to maintain the relationship built when they were kids.
The extremes are problematics then, an advisable thing to do for parents is to try to understand this difficult process which adolescents go through, and acompain their children with the proper freedom that will be settled by parents by stablishing limits as clearly and fairly as possible, and trying to make them understand the reasons of these measures and the possible consequencies of not following their parents advices.
It is also clear that no matter how much parents put their best effort on protecting their children, if they want to do the wrong things nothing on earth is going to stop them, although they are not very conscious of these mistakes and their consequences. Taking this into account, parents must understand that the most important thing in that moment is to talk and hear their children.
By maintaining a fluent communication with our teenagers and letting them express themselves, parents will ensure that the relationship with their children won`t be broken and also will prevent them from making mistakes.
Entry n 43: The blog as a class component
I think that the blog would be a very productive educational tool for the improvement of our writing skills if it was applied in a very different context taking into account our socio-economical reality.
What I mean with this is that almost the whole group of students in this class lack of the financial solvence needed to buy a computer or even to spend money in going to a cyber place to use Internet whether to publish our entries, to look for articles or even for doing all the writing productions. So that the majority of my classmates and I have been having many problems with this task, especially those who do not know how to use the computer of those who do not count with time enough to spend in doing all this extra work.
The most desappointing thing is that almost all of us do not have any kind of comment from the theacher and as a consecuence we do not know how well or how wrong we are doing our written works.
And I believe that the amount of work that you ask us to do is too much, and may be if you would reduce the amount of work you would also be able to give as the feedback that we need to improve it.
Although I understand your point of wanting us to improve our knowledge and skills in the use of technological devices, I think that it is not necessary to include it in the language class because up to now it has been a troubling thing for us instead of helping us. It is completely absurd to have to learn how to use a computer and how to surf on the Internet to be able to pass the language class.
I am not against technology but it has been quite complicated to apply it into the language class.
Apart from that I think that as future High School teachers we need more practice in what respect to grammatical knowledge as well as improving our speaking skills and vocabulary, and the only way of reaching this point is by reading as much as possible.
What I mean with this is that almost the whole group of students in this class lack of the financial solvence needed to buy a computer or even to spend money in going to a cyber place to use Internet whether to publish our entries, to look for articles or even for doing all the writing productions. So that the majority of my classmates and I have been having many problems with this task, especially those who do not know how to use the computer of those who do not count with time enough to spend in doing all this extra work.
The most desappointing thing is that almost all of us do not have any kind of comment from the theacher and as a consecuence we do not know how well or how wrong we are doing our written works.
And I believe that the amount of work that you ask us to do is too much, and may be if you would reduce the amount of work you would also be able to give as the feedback that we need to improve it.
Although I understand your point of wanting us to improve our knowledge and skills in the use of technological devices, I think that it is not necessary to include it in the language class because up to now it has been a troubling thing for us instead of helping us. It is completely absurd to have to learn how to use a computer and how to surf on the Internet to be able to pass the language class.
I am not against technology but it has been quite complicated to apply it into the language class.
Apart from that I think that as future High School teachers we need more practice in what respect to grammatical knowledge as well as improving our speaking skills and vocabulary, and the only way of reaching this point is by reading as much as possible.
Entry n 42:Time of elections
Now that we are very close to a new governmental election I can not understand how people can be so blind and keep giving their votes to help politicians to construct an anarquy disgused of democracy.
I think that the main reason of this situation is the ignorance of the majority of the population, who choose to vote someone blinded by their lies, or because they have been bought with a “bolzon” (a bag of basic commodities), or because a politician has offered them a “Plan”(a minimal earning for a few hours of working) that will increase their poverty instead of help them to have a better life style.
People nowadays believe what is said and showed on televison or transmited in the media, but in fact they do not have any idea of the reality that is behind all that suppossed work being performed by false politicians who are nothing but thieves dressed in suits.
That is why the particular governmental situation of my province worries me a lot. The fact that the governor does not have a party on the government that could form a strong opposition is a clear trouble for the right performance of our democratical system of government.
It is very important in a democracy to have some opposition to the majority political party leader of a government. Those opposition groups work as a control body and will delimit the power of the great majority so that they wont be able to became or comform an autarquy and in this way they wont be able to abusse of their political power, as ocurres in our own province.
In all democratical governments there must be a balance between the political powers in charge so that all the points of view can be considered in order to work for the well being of the population. But the lack of this basic knowledge in many people is spoiling our democracy, and instead of giving to their right of voting the value that it deserves, they sell the vote to the one who will pay better.
I think that the main reason of this situation is the ignorance of the majority of the population, who choose to vote someone blinded by their lies, or because they have been bought with a “bolzon” (a bag of basic commodities), or because a politician has offered them a “Plan”(a minimal earning for a few hours of working) that will increase their poverty instead of help them to have a better life style.
People nowadays believe what is said and showed on televison or transmited in the media, but in fact they do not have any idea of the reality that is behind all that suppossed work being performed by false politicians who are nothing but thieves dressed in suits.
That is why the particular governmental situation of my province worries me a lot. The fact that the governor does not have a party on the government that could form a strong opposition is a clear trouble for the right performance of our democratical system of government.
It is very important in a democracy to have some opposition to the majority political party leader of a government. Those opposition groups work as a control body and will delimit the power of the great majority so that they wont be able to became or comform an autarquy and in this way they wont be able to abusse of their political power, as ocurres in our own province.
In all democratical governments there must be a balance between the political powers in charge so that all the points of view can be considered in order to work for the well being of the population. But the lack of this basic knowledge in many people is spoiling our democracy, and instead of giving to their right of voting the value that it deserves, they sell the vote to the one who will pay better.
Entry n 41: Privacy
All of us have right to privacy, that is to do things or to keep information in secret in our everyday life without the knowledge of the rest of the society, even the rest of our own families. But nowadays with the great advance in the technological devices especially created to investigate would-be criminals as well as famous people lives,that are always being persecuted by paparazzos, this right to privacy is frecuently violated and very difficult to maintain. As much publicly known you are, less possible your privacy is.
When we are walking on the streets, we can see that almost all the shops and important buildings have little security cameras that are controlled by the security system operating in those places. So that we know that we are watched by somebody and we try not to do something that might engage us in some trouble or that might seem suspicious.
In that cases we know that these cameras are not violating our privacy but controlling the security of a place or building. But there are other cameras that will disturb our privacy, especially to those who are famous, such was the case of Lady Diana Spencer and the facts that surrounded her death.Some witnesses said that Lady Di was escaping from the stalking of a paparazzo when she had the car accident that killed her.
I think that those people should have some legal way of protecting themselves and their relatives from the stalking of papparazzos and reporters in the streets as well as at their homes, because there are many devices through which cameras can take photographies even from a kilometer of distance.
When we are walking on the streets, we can see that almost all the shops and important buildings have little security cameras that are controlled by the security system operating in those places. So that we know that we are watched by somebody and we try not to do something that might engage us in some trouble or that might seem suspicious.
In that cases we know that these cameras are not violating our privacy but controlling the security of a place or building. But there are other cameras that will disturb our privacy, especially to those who are famous, such was the case of Lady Diana Spencer and the facts that surrounded her death.Some witnesses said that Lady Di was escaping from the stalking of a paparazzo when she had the car accident that killed her.
I think that those people should have some legal way of protecting themselves and their relatives from the stalking of papparazzos and reporters in the streets as well as at their homes, because there are many devices through which cameras can take photographies even from a kilometer of distance.
Entry n 40: I AM WASTING MONEY AND TIME DOING THIS
I really hate having to do things when someone else forces me to do as for example, the fact of having to spend hours in front of a computer wasting money and time to fulfil the requirements of the theacher of language.
In my opinion, it is absolutely unfair and out of point to ask students to do all their work through internet because none of us has born with a computer under our arms. It is completely unreasonable to have to learn to use a computer and even to learn how to surf in the internet in order to be able to aprove or to be able to pass language just because the teacher thinks that all of us have a laptop at home. And he also assumes that all of us have money enough to spend hours on a cyber or that we have Internet in our homes.
Apart from being absolutely unreasonable, it is at a certain point a naive thought because we are living in Argentina, a third world country and one of the poorest countries of the world. It is a stupidity to ask Argentinian students to work as students in the United States do, because their reallity is a completely different reallity to ours.
Many of my classmates do not even know how a computer works because they have never used one and having to do such amount of work that we are ask to do involves a really expensive work and at the same time is doble time wasted, because on the one hand we have to write all this down on paper and then ask somebody else to copy it on a computer, if we have access to one, if not we have to pay someone to do all this work directly on a cyber place.
And on the other hand, we have many other occupations in our daytime. Many of us have to work and have even children and a house to take care of apart from all the other subjects that we have to study and prepare for the rest of the school curriculum.
If the point is to make us improve our skills and knowledge in what respects to computers and Internet, it is not necessary to do in language because the school curriculum also have specific subjects during second and third year that are related to this matter, they are called Computacion and Informatica.
To finish this complain I can add the fact that we are human beings with a life that also consists of having some free time to have fun or to spend with our relatives. Life is not working all the time, we are not machines or robots which only aim is to work or to study.
In fact, we are studing to be able to find a job good enough to provide us with the earnings necessaries to survive as many other people do.
We do not want to be masters in English or Ingeneers in the use of computers and technology, otherwise we would be at the University studing to reach such high degrees.
In my opinion, it is absolutely unfair and out of point to ask students to do all their work through internet because none of us has born with a computer under our arms. It is completely unreasonable to have to learn to use a computer and even to learn how to surf in the internet in order to be able to aprove or to be able to pass language just because the teacher thinks that all of us have a laptop at home. And he also assumes that all of us have money enough to spend hours on a cyber or that we have Internet in our homes.
Apart from being absolutely unreasonable, it is at a certain point a naive thought because we are living in Argentina, a third world country and one of the poorest countries of the world. It is a stupidity to ask Argentinian students to work as students in the United States do, because their reallity is a completely different reallity to ours.
Many of my classmates do not even know how a computer works because they have never used one and having to do such amount of work that we are ask to do involves a really expensive work and at the same time is doble time wasted, because on the one hand we have to write all this down on paper and then ask somebody else to copy it on a computer, if we have access to one, if not we have to pay someone to do all this work directly on a cyber place.
And on the other hand, we have many other occupations in our daytime. Many of us have to work and have even children and a house to take care of apart from all the other subjects that we have to study and prepare for the rest of the school curriculum.
If the point is to make us improve our skills and knowledge in what respects to computers and Internet, it is not necessary to do in language because the school curriculum also have specific subjects during second and third year that are related to this matter, they are called Computacion and Informatica.
To finish this complain I can add the fact that we are human beings with a life that also consists of having some free time to have fun or to spend with our relatives. Life is not working all the time, we are not machines or robots which only aim is to work or to study.
In fact, we are studing to be able to find a job good enough to provide us with the earnings necessaries to survive as many other people do.
We do not want to be masters in English or Ingeneers in the use of computers and technology, otherwise we would be at the University studing to reach such high degrees.
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