About English 4

Finally I could finish English 4, well at least I could survive until the last class lol…. Seriously I am happy to being in this class, I´ve taken different courses in different places and I think that this one has been the most dynamically group I have ever been. I have learn grammar in a different way, because most of the time is very boring just being reading a book, filling spaces or completing sentences the whole class and this time was different.

I love the way that Elsa prepare her lessons because we are not just learning grammar, we are thinking and involving real life topics to our classes, that is very important because it teaches us to develop ourselves in different situations and being able to talk about different trending topics and not just only repeating hackneyed themes or fake lives from the books where all is pink color and a perfect world.  

Also I think that this class is very dynamic and that is great specially in my case that I work Monday to Friday from 6am to 3pm, I have to wake up every day at 4:30 am and I have to go school every day also, can you imagine how tired it is for me, I would like to have time to sleep 

but I can’t and unfortunately many times I got sleep at classes (I know I should do that, but is hard) but this is the first class that I don´t get sleet even one minute because the whole class is very dynamic and it keeps me awake.

As I said before I love the topics we talked on classes that encourage me to discourse and give my opinion about the different topics and is great to know that Else lets me talk and express myself on those topics it is very interesting and also at the same way I am learning and somehow I have lose a little bit my stage fright public speaking, maybe because she gave us confidence.

I think that this is a great way to finish my last English class because I have learn a lot and reinforce all that I have studied on previous courses and also it gave me the opportunity to talk and have better pronunciation and more vocabulary, I have really enjoyed this course.

Does money mean power?

This is a topic that we talked about in classes and I think that it is very inserting so I decided to write all my answers to the teacher’s questions on this blog.

Do you have to be cheap to make a fortune?

I don´t think so, however I think that if we don´t spend on unnecessary stuff we could save more money than we could think. That we are economical is very different from being stingy or cheap, stingy doesn´t spend absolutely nothing, even for personal hygiene or hunger, they prefer not to eat to have to buy food.

Can a wealthy person be generous?

Yes, there are many wealthy persons that they have their own beneficial organizations.

Should wealthy people give back to society?

I think that they don´t have to, but it would be great if they do help others.

Do you think it’s fair that so much of the world’s wealth is in the hands of so few people?

I think that if your wealth was earn with your hard work it is fair. I think that is unfair that some people doesn´t try to be a productive people or a hard worker person and they just extend their hand to ask for money, while others are studying and working.

Based on those questions I think that money can help you to have power, however is not a fact that money mean power and vice versa.

Gerunds and Infinitives

We use gerunds (verb + ing):

• After certain verbs - I enjoy singing
• After prepositions - I drank a cup of coffee before leaving
• As the subject or object of a sentence - Swimming is good exercise

We use 'to' + infinitive:

• After certain verbs - We decided to leave
• After many adjectives - It's difficult to get up early
• To show purpose - I came to London to study English

We use the bare infinitive (the infinitive without 'to'):

• After modal verbs - I can meet you at six o'clock
• After 'let', 'make' and (sometimes) 'help' - The teacher let us leave early
• After some verbs of perception (see, watch, hear, notice, feel, sense) - I watched her walk away
• After expressions with 'why' - why go out the night before an exam?

On the following video we can see a mix of songs that includes at least one sentence using Gerund or Infinitive;

Mad Max

An apocalyptic story set in the furthest reaches of our planet, in a stark desert landscape where humanity is broken, and almost everyone is crazed fighting for the necessities of life. Within this world exist two rebels on the run who just might be able to restore order. There's Max, a man of action and a man of few words, who seeks peace of mind following the loss of his wife and child in the aftermath of the chaos. And Furiosa, a woman of action and a woman who believes her path to survival may be achieved if she can make it across the desert back to her childhood homeland.

(IMDB, 2015)

Basically nobody wants that kind of furture and the best we can do it to keep our nature, try to be healthier and teach our next generation to take care of this planet.

Monsenor: The Last Journey of Oscar Romero

In this movie the Salvadorian civil war is represented and his main character is Moseñor. It shows how he fight for the poor people. He risked his life many times and he was given many opportunities to continue living but just only if it stayed out of the civil war and stopped to defend the poor people and be focus only on religion to side with the powerful people of Salvador. 

As a fact this movie is based on a real life story in the 70´s on Salvador. Oscar Romero was prelate of the Catholic Church in El Salvador. He was against all the bad things that were happening at that moment in Salvador, like kidnapping, assassins, injustice, extreme poverty and some more. He fight for peace, and justice for people; he used his power as an Archbishop to speak up and rise his thoughts but in March of 1980 he was killed during the mass in the altar.

I think that this movie show us how most of the time political and economic power can pass over our human rights and our values. Unfortunately injustice is everywhere even in our country, wealthy people is always looking for more money no matter if the are some people is extreme poverty or without job, they only think on themselves and that is very sad.

I think that this movie should be transmitted on TV in order to know a little bit of History from other countries and also to reflect about what we are doing and what can we do to avoid and change those situations.

Conditionals

The conditionals are also called the “if clauses”, is very common to use them without noticed it, however is very important to know the correct grammar about it:

The Zero Conditional:

(if + present simple, ... present simple)

The First Conditional:

(if + present simple, ... will + infinitive)

The Second Conditional:

(if + past simple, ... would + infinitive)

The Third Conditional

(if + past perfect, ... would + have + past participle)

Examples:

Present Real Conditional	Present Unreal Conditional
If I have time, I study English. Sometimes I have time.	If I had time, I would study English. I don't have time.
Past Real Conditional	Past Unreal Conditional
If I had time, I studied English. Sometimes I had time.	If I had had time, I would have studied English. I didn't have time.
Future Real Conditional	Future Unreal Conditional
If I have time, I will study English. If I have time, I am going to study English. I don't know if I will have time or not. Other forms possible.	If I had time, I would study English. I won't have time. Other forms possible.

I would like to finish with the following song, I think that this song uses conditionals:

SIMPLY RED, If You Don't Know Me By Now

If you don't know me by now

You will never never never know me

All the things

That we've been through

You should understand me

Like I understand you

Now girl I know the difference

Between right and wrong

I ain't gonna do nothing

To break up our happy home

Don't get so excited

When I come home

A little late at night

Cos we only act like children

When we argue fuss and fight

If you don't know me by now

You will never never never know me

We've all got our

Own funny moods

I've got mine,

Woman you've got yours too

Just trust in me like I trust in you

As long as we've been together

It should be so easy to do

Just get yourself together

Or we might as well say goodbye

What good is a love affair

When you can't see eye to eye

If you don't know me by now

You will never

Never never know me

Reported speech

Reported speech

We saw in class the reported speech, that is like repeat or report what another person said, the structure and examples are the following:

Type	Example
direct speech	“I speak English.”
reported speech	He says that he speaks English.

Questions:

Type		Example
with interrogative	direct speech	“Why don’t you speak English?”
	reported speech	He asked me why I didn’t speak English.
without interrogative	direct speech	“Do you speak English?”
	reported speech	He asked me whether / if I spoke English.

I found this text, were you can see highlighted Direct Speech with light blue and Reported Speech with pink

The Canterville GhostChapter VI

About ten minutes later, the bell rang for dinner, and, as Virginia did not come down, Mrs Otis sent up one of the servants. After a little time he returned and said that he could not find Miss Virginia anywhere. So, the whole family started looking for her.
The hours passed, but they could find no trace of Virginia. So, after dinner, Mr Otis ordered them all to bed, saying that nothing more could be done that night, and that he would contact Scotland Yard in the morning. Just when everybody was about to leave the dining-room, the clock struck midnight, and when the last stroke sounded, a secret door opened in the wall and in that door stood Virginia with a little box in her hand. Everybody ran up to her.

“Good heavens! child, where have you been?” said Mr Otis, rather angrily, as he thought she had been playing a trick on them.

“Papa,” said Virginia quietly, “I have been with the ghost. He is dead, and you must come and see him. He had been very nasty, but he was really sorry for all that he had done, and he gave me this box of beautiful jewels before he died.”

Then she led the others down a narrow secret corridor to a little low room. There the family found the skeleton of Sir Simon, who had been starved to death by his wife's brothers. Virginia knelt down beside the skeleton, and, folding her little hands together, began to pray silently.
Meanwhile, one of the twins was looking out of the window in the little room and suddenly said, “Look! The old almond-tree has blossoms.”

“Then God has forgiven him,” said Virginia and stood up.

My hobbies

I have a lot of hobbies however I don’t have enough time and money to spend on it; I will start listing my hobbies:

1.     Running:

I love run however I don’t have the best physical condition to do it but at least I tried, it is an excellent way to relax myself and exercise. I ran 5K however I would like to run longer distances but I will have to train more often and by now I don’t have time for it.

2.     Hiking:

This is similar to run, however I can enjoy nature and different views, I could spend hours practicing this, for me it doesn’t matter if it is raining or if is sunny, I love it.

3.     Hand craft:

I like to be creative doing handcrafts especially if it is jewelry or something I can wear, but here it is expensive and again I don’t have enough time.

4.     Read:

I like to read because I can imagine the whole scenario based on the descriptions and is like if I were living in another world, on my world.

So far those kinds of activities are the ones that keep my life balanced because I have to work every day, I go to school every day and also it helps me to quit smoke and focus on healthy things.

Sean Stephenson

Sean Stephenson

American therapist

Who’s he?

—May 5, 1979 (age 36)

Therapist 

Author

—Motivational speaker

—He suffers Osteogenesis imperfecta

Challenges

—He have taken a stand for a quality of life that has reached millions of people around the world.

•including

•Sir Richard Branson

•President Clinton

•The Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

•He have appeared on:

•The Oprah Show

•TEDx

•YouTube motivacional videos

•The Biography Channel

•“Three Foot Giant.”

•Books

•Get Off Your "But": How to End Self-Sabotage and Stand Up for Yourself (2009)

•How You(th) Can Succeed!: Transforming Dreams into Reality for Young Adults (2001)

—At his 18 years he have fracture 200 times.

Remember:

You live the life you chose!!!!

Helping others

Foundations 

Pies Descalzos

• Is a Colombian non-profit organization, created by Shakira in 1997, when she was only 18 years old. 
• Collaborate on efforts to improve the education, nutrition and health of the most vulnerable: the children. 
• On the website http://www.fundacionpiesdescalzos.com/en/ you can become a sponsor by the godparent program, volunteer and you can make donations.

Telethon

•  Is a televised fundraising event that lasts many hours or even days, the purpose of which is to raise money for a charitable, political or other purportedly worthy cause.
• It began in USA in 1949.
• 1984 in Costa Rica

Habitat for humanity

• Was founded in 1976.
• Thousands of low-income families have found new hope in the form of affordable housing. Churches, community groups and others have joined together to successfully tackle a significant social problem―decent housing for all.

Habitat for Humanity in Costa Rica

• They offer low-income people the opportunity to own an adequate, permanent house, either building it from scratch or improving their habitat.
• In 2013-14, we performed 76 home improvements and rehabilitation's, which have a positive result in the community as a social entity.

World Wide Foundation (WWF)

• 1961→ IUCN, TCF were trying to meet conservation needs, but were desperately short of funds.
• The first call for broad support was the Morges Manifesto, signed in 1961 by 16 of the world’s leading conservationists.

The beach cleaning campaign

Background
We decided to create this campaign after we noticed the pollution situation  on guacalillo  beach , located between bajamar beach and playa azul

Slogan

•In the beach you’ll always be a tourist, but it can be yours! !! Help us to save it !!!!

Campaign plan

•Volunteers recruitment.

•Create a pilot program for volunteers.

•Advertise about the problem and our campaign.

•Expose the current beach situation and pollution.

•recognize the adequate machinery needed to address the beach pollution.

•Educate the people who lives near the beach and tourists also. 

Steps to follow

•We will make a campaign with brochures and ads using social networks.

•Open enrollment period for volunteers with a survey.

•Obtain SPONSORSHIP to get adequate machinery to clean the beach.

•Ask to different TRANSPORTATION'S companies for transport donation for volunteers.

•Solicit donations of food for volunteers, especially a lot of hydration.

•Give seminars for reuse and recycling.

•Give seminars on how to handle waste on beaches.

•Install adequate garbage collectors on the beach.

e-magazine#1

Genius

In order to start talking about genius I would like to introduce this topic with the genius definition; the merriam-webster dictionary defines it as a person who has a level of talent or intelligence that is very rare or remarkable. Based on the definition it is not clear if a person born as a genius or could develop his skills to convert himself in a genius; also it is not clear if the intelligence is synonym of skillful person, however I think that one thing could help the other.

I think that geniuses are people who already born with higher level of talent and intelligence, people who develop their skills more than others or that acquire knowledge through the years of practice or study aren’t genius, I think they are passionate and dedicated people that has very clear which are their goals and they have been able to achieve all they can do, but naturally without that extra mile they wouldn’t be able to be the person they are now.

Genius can achieve all their goals naturally and can impress others with their rare intelligence, they can use it to invent or discover new useful things and most of them starts at young age without having any extra studies or extra work, and many time they are excluded from the society because they are different and they go beyond the regular people from their same age with the same level of scholarity.

On the other hand we have the skillful people that can learn very easy but they invest plenty of their time doing what they want to or learning as much as they can in order to achieve perfection and be the best on what they are passionate but without all that practice and study they wouldn’t be able to develop their skills as they are. As an example could be a dancer, could be the best dancer on the word but without practice that dancer can’t develop his skill as much as he wish.

It is not hard to discover a genius but discover our abilities sometimes could be hard, all of us already born with an ability, everyone is good at any particular area however sometimes we are not sure which is our best area or maybe we would like to be good at something different to our ability. I think that we should find which our ability is and take advantage of it to develop ourselves as better persons and bring always the best version of ourselves.

Just to finish I think that a genius born as genius and we cannot convert ourselves in geniuses however we can find our abilities and develop our skills could be with practice or studying and always be proud of us as persons.

Genius

Albert Einstein

Biography

Born: March 14, 1879 – Ulm, Germany

Died: April 18, 1955 – Princeton, NJ

Parents:  Herman & Paulin

Siblings: Maja

Children: Lieserl, Hans & Eduard

Spouse: Mileva & Elsa

• Mysteries of science
• Violin & piano
• Mentally handicapped
• Federal Institute of Technology (FIT) in Zurich, Switzerland
•  A man whose name is practically synonymous with genius
•  One of history's greatest thinkers
•  Physicist and mathematician
• Nobel Prize in Physics award

Why he is consider a genius?

His contributions to science were revolutionary

Many scientist thought it was his brain, but researchers still don't know exactly how the brain's extra folds

Funny facts

1. Speak late as a child 
2. Negotiated a hostage crisis
3. Co invented a type of refrigerator 
4. Was offered the presidency of Israel
5. Only slept 15 min, every 4 hours
6. His brain and eyeballs got stolen