Qs you should be able to answer

What's your name? Where are you from? Have you got brothers and/or sisters? Are they younger or older? Where do you live? What are your hobbies? What is/are your favourite subjects at school? Have you got pets? What are the seasons in a year? How many days are there in one year? How many months are there in one year? Could you tell me the names of the months in English? How many days are there in one week? How many weeks are there in one year? What are the days of the week? When did you last go to the cinema? What film did you watch? Did you like it? (The film that you watched) How many people live in your house? Do you live in a flat or in a house? Is your house big or small? How many rooms are there in your house? What is your address? What do you have for breakfast? Can you swim? Can you play the piano? How often do you go to the dentist? Say thenumbers between 60 and 70. Count between these two numbers. Have you got a mobile phone, car, tablet, ipad? Have you got an Internet connection or facility at home? How many things are there in your bedroom? Have you ever travelled to France, Portugal, the UK? Have you ever been to Germany, the US, England? What do your parents do? What are your parents' professons? What do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want your professon to be? What would you like to eat or drink now? Have you got a facebook account? How many friens have you got on facebook? Have you got a twitter account? How many hours are there in one day? What time is it? How do you get to the supermarket/ sports centre? Tell me the name of ten farm animals? Where is France, Portugal? Do you speak English? How many languages do you speak? Who wrote Hamlet? Do you like reading books? What is the last book you read? Who is the prime minister in the UK? What is the name of the Queen of England? How many States are there in the USA? Tell me the name of some computer devices that you remember. Where is the life vest in an airplane? What did you do last weekend? Do you believe in UFOs? Do you think they exist? Why? How long is one inch?

Order of the adjectives in English

Colour
Shape
Origin
Purpose

ill or sick?

Apparently, sick can be placed before a noun and sick can't. In British English sick also means vomit or be about to. Ill can be in expressions like: ill-mannered or ill-treated. Both mean to be in poor health conditions.

I`m not scared

I'd like to go back now to 1988. I was about 17 years old at that time. I would walk a few miles to the shopping centre and buy my vinyl records. I had been working with my father for a couple of weeks  so that he accepted to pay for our HiFi player. I could play vinyl records and music audio tapes. It did not play CDs! It was a technology breakthrough though; I could make copies of my records and cassettes. We still keep both:  my records and my Hi-Fi records player.

At that time and very pretty and fair singer called my attention. The song sounded rather mysterious and exotic and they rhythm was very sticky. I headed for El Corte Inglés - I would walk a few miles from my house - and buy my 900 pesetas long play.

"I'm not scared" has been one of my favourite songs ever since. As I could read on Wikipedia, the song was orginally written and composed by Pet Shop Boys, who later recorded their own cover version. It contains a  couple of lines in French and in fact, the song became so popular in the rest of Europe that it has got its own version in French.

I wanted to use this song in class for these reasons: to begin with, becuase I like it a lot, the language it uses is rather simple and of course, it brings back memories of my past.

The vocabulary is easy. Grammar is a bit more difficult here: you have to bear in mind a couple of conditional tenses and structures. I like the use of the verb snap, which here means: "chase people trying to bite them".

I understand the song tells the story of a couple. The girl loves the guy but he is a liar. There is some hidden story behind the man: he is a spy or something. The girl does not know why he behaves this way, but she seems to accept anything except for the dogs trying to bite her.

Here are the video, the original song and the Pet Shop Boys´ version as well as a link to the its lyrics.

My Rosetta Stone

History tells that a French soldier discovered a stone where a message had

been sculpted in three different languages. The Rosetta stone, as it was 

later called, provided the key to translate the hieroglypic texts.

As I am lately learning German, here's my own key stone:

Zuerst am Morgen klingelt der Wecker, dann schlafe ich noch zhen Minuten.

Ich stehe um sieben Uhr auf. Dann dushe, rasiere un putze ich meine Zähne. Danach früstücke ich um zwanzig nach sieben Uhr. Ich trinke en Kaffee mit Milch un ich esse ein Brötchen mit Butter und Marmelade. Ich ziehe mich um halb acht an. Dann rauche ich eine Zigarette. Ich gehe um zhen vor acht Uhr los. Ich nehme keinen Bus; ich gehe lieber zu Fuss. Danach fange ich die Arbeit um Viertel nach acht Uhr an. Am Vormitag mache ich eine Pause. Um halb drei komme ich nach Hause.Dann esse ich das Mittagessen.

Am Dienstag un Donnerstag lerne ich Deutsche. Am Wochenende mache ich die Deutsch Hausaufgaben. Am Mittwoch treffe ifch meinen Freund. Am Abendspiele ich mit den Computer oder ich sehe fern.  Schliesslich gehe ich ins Bett um zhen Uhr.

To start with, my alarm clock rings, then I sleep for ten more minutes. I wake up at seven o'clock. After that, I have a shower, shave myself and brush my teeth. Then, at about twenty to eight I have my breakfast. I usually drink a white coffee and eat a toast with a butter an jam  topping.I dress myself at half past seven I smoke a cigarrette. I leave  home at half past eight. I don't usually take a bus, I prefer walking. I start work at quarter past eight. Later on, I take a break. At half  past three I come back home. Once there, I have my lunch.

On Saturdays and Sundays I learn some German. At the weekend I also make my German homework. I meet my friends on Wednesdays. In the afternoon I play with my computer or I watch TV. To end up with, I usually go to bedat ten o'clock.
Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

British Car Plates

I have always wanted to know why car placard numbers were different in Great Britain.

I have found it out, but it turned out to be more difficult to understand than I thought.

Basically, the whole sequence of numbers and letters is divided into three sets:

1. What I'll call a geographical locator: The first section of letters tell you where the car is from.
2. A date locator: if card get their plate between March and August, they just write the last two digits of the year, but it the plate is made between September and February, they get the same figure, plus 50 - don't ask me why -
3. And last but not least, they write a set of three random sequence of letters. they don't include letters I, Q or Z.

This numbering method give the British people three major adavantages:

1. You know when a car was made.
2. In case of crime involvement, witnesses usually remember the area code.
3. They have enough new codes until 2051 while the Spanish system can only cover until 2025. - but only if we are still buying cars by that time. -

FYI, I found this here, just in case you want to know more.

Power Distance

I had never thought of it, but once you twig the idea, you feel better with yourself as a teacher. When I was younger, it would have been impossible to shout in class or talk to other students when our teachers were speaking. In other words, the teachers were the authority in class. If they decided so, they would not repeat their explanations and they would not tell us how they made out their assessment calculations. We were invited to leave the classroom - sometimes forever - if our teachers decided we were misbehaving.

This is nolonger true: teenagers decide now what they eat at home;  they have their own properties - mobile phones, video games, etc. - and they argue with their parents if they disagree with  their opinions. Of course this is also happening during lesson periods. Our students tell us aloud if we say or write something wrong in class, they want to check their exams and they ask us how we made our assessment calculation - even if they aren't right at all - . Thus, we could state that Spanish people are getting used to freedom. The problem is parents still demand the same explanations as their sons as daughters: they both, parents and their siblings want to have meetings with teachers to make decisions about teachers' work. Needless to say that they always want to have positive marks at the end of each term - it doesn't matter if they worked hard or not -. 

Due to our education, we tend to be as flexible as we can, but you see, the supervising process we are going under is making the whole stuff really difficult.

No more complaints this time. Thanks to Speak Up magazine for the nice article at number 327.

Robotics Laws

1. A robot must not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey orders given it by a human beings except where such orders conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existance as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

A small, good thing

This short story by Raymond Carver is one of the most shocking ones I have ever read. Belive or not, the story hooks your attention from the first line but once you are onto it, you really feel the pressure of an uncomfortable situation. On and on you expect a negative conclusion and every clue you get, it makes you feel more pessimistic about the end of it. (I know it all sounds extremely confusing, but I don't want to make it more obvious).

It was surprising that it all happened the same as in a movie. The story plot followed a very straight forward time line. There was a beginning: the traffic accident of a child triggers all the subsequent situations. An ordinary family with unimportant problems or difficulties comes across a fatal and sudden event that affects one of its members. Philosophy or even religion become more important; more important  than anything else: their house, their professions or their money.

There is no room for imagination in the story, except for the doctor's explanations about the actual situation of his patient; there is no space for anything different from realism either. Every situation shows as it is; as though every scene had been recorded with a camera.

In my opinion, the story is no more than raw criticism against materialistic society and the narrow views of consumerism. The baker, for example, may endlessly go on and on, day after day making his muffins and cakes, but he would not care about anything else except for his money.

Whatever it is, please have a look at Mr. Carver's biography. It is as interesting as his own literature. If you have the chance, please read this short story.

Oh Joseph, I'm so tired

In once heard from a movie, that it's not us who choose books but the other way round. So I can't help talking about what happened when I decided to go to the city and buy a new book with a couple of short stories to read. I went into the shop and there he was....He never taught me for a whole term, but I saw him around for a long time at university and I attended some of his lectures about idioms both in Spanish and English. I was doubtful on whether he would recognize me or not. After all, I had been out of the education world for more than a decade and I had not seen him for more than fifteen years. Of course he looked older. I think he was discussing the sales figures of his most recent book with the book shop owner.

I wondered if he would remember me and I inquired in the most rude manner I could have imagined. I stared at him and immediately after that, he seemed to have a vague memory of myself. We greeted each other even thugh he could scarcely identify me with one of his former studets. I acknowledged how much I admired him at that time and told him I still kept a copy of each, his grammar and idioms books - the latter of which I probably acquired in a second hand book shop - and he made a few questions to me. As soon as he knew I was teaching, he stated we were colleagues, the mere fact of his declaring this, made me feel uncomfortable and ashamed as it is long ago that I knew I would never be as wise or intelligent as my teachers were.

Well..., going back to the book issue; one of the short stories included into this booklet I purchased was Oh Jesus, I'm so tired, by Richard Yates. I had no idea who the author was, and I even looked up the name in my American Literature handbook. His name was not in there, so I asked wikipaedia. I had seen the movie trailer on TV some time ago. Winslet and DiCaprio starred the film Revolutionary Road which was the author's most successful novel. I t was turned into a movie more than fifty years after it was written. So, the short story we are talking about was included in a short stories collection called Liars in Love.

The reason why I said books choose people is because the dramatic line within the book portraits a critical period of American History which resembles the one we are living in Europe now. The poor or middle class NY society of the early 1930s become an excellent background to tell us the story of a divorced mother and her two children and how their struggle for the Amerian dream ends up in deep frustration.

Apparently, the younger brother, who is seven years old when the story is happening, becomes the omniscient narrator when he grows old. The whole story turns around an anecdote happening to their mother, who at that time was appointed by President Roosvelt's office to make an sculpture of his head.

False and great expectations about the future, poverty and mediocrity, lack of means and money, hypocrisy and sour criticism to Amerian way of life are the main topics in the story. So, you could discribe this fine piece of writing as realistic as you feel all these places and characters really existing. The author really describes every feature in the characters' personalities and every single spot in this narrow geography of him, which in spite of this, makes you feel as though you could visit every room or call on every person or house he talks about.

I'll stop here for fear that I might write longer than I should. It is only about 60 pages long and it is worth spending one or two afternoons reading it. Hope you enjoy if you happen to come across a copy of the story. It was my pleasure to find my former teacher anyway.

Living Abroad

Nowadays, travelling is a possibility for everybody. Most people have already visited other countries over the world and an important number of people have lived abroad. The only idea of living abroad is very interesting, because it means a change in anyone's life.

If you move to another country, you'll find a new lifestyle: you'll know a new culture, you'll meet new people who can be really different from people in your own country. You'll also learn a new language..... Firstly, meeting new people always makes you happy, and also you can meet someone really special. You know what I mean! You can find some good friends. Secondly, you can start a new life: If you are not proud of our way of life, ou should change it. Finally, getting to know a new culture can make you get in touch with new customs and traditions.

However, not everything about living abroad is peaches and cream. Firstly, you mjust learn the language, because if you can't still speak the language, you won't be able to communicate to other people. Also you'll have to find a job to live on, and a house to live in. Secondly, you leave your family and friends in your country, something that is very sad... Finally, you aren't sure if everything will be okay in your new house, and this must make you think you do realy want to move.

In my opinions, there are enough arguments for living abroad. If I could, I'd like to try it, but diasadvantages keep me off from thinking about it. Anyway, I know that If I could, I wouldn't go alone; I'd like to take some of my friends with me!

by Antonio

Great Expectations

My students complain that I always choose very old books to read. I understand it is hard to think in a world in which noone watched TV, use mobile phones or computers, people travelled in carriages pulled by horses and social institutions were much different than they are now. Well.., I think the finest pieces of Literature were written at that time. Also, if we think of it, we usually choose to read contemporary novels and even if would be interested in reading as many books as possible, we would not read Great Expectations, unless one of our teachers obliges us to do so.

As a child, Dickens himself was a poor boy. He had to struggle very hard in life and make his own living since he was very young. This is so, one of the main topics all through his literature. The book tells the story of a very young boy who was born in a poor and uneducated country family. After some lucky events, his life changes until he becomes a city gentleman. In the end, he discovers he had not been so lucky after all, and he might have been very happy with his family and friends if noone had ever spoken to him about class, money or education differences. 

The book conveys very important educational values which I also thought important: hard work is over idle life, family and friendship are more important than money and love is definetely the most relevant topic in the book.

I just read there are at least 250 theatrical or TV versions of the book. I found an old black and white film version of it on youtube which I think is very helpful if you want to imagine what was the time and place background like.

The book we chose for our Bachillerato students is a graded reading by OUP publishers in Spain. In the one hand, I suppose the will not have to stop their reading that often to use a dictionary or would not find too many old fashioned words and, in the other hand, the book repeats several structures and words, so that the students can learn them at their own pace.

I found a couple interesting vocabulary topics in the book: Some misleading verbs like realize and notice and the difference between the verbs Lay, lie, lie. You can  also have some extra preactise in these two links: link 1 and link 2.

I hope that all my students have a great time reading the book with me. We will be listening to the the CD version enclosed chapter by chapter and they will be delivering a project and probably taking an exam. I will comment about the results when we have finished.

Changing Places

Just before my 40th birthday, I had the feeling (all men have, I suppose) that I might have missed something out as I was going through the path of life. 

The book I am going to post about has been in three different shelves for the last fifteen years. The pages are yellow and the cover is worn out by the pass of time. I read only 40 or 50 pages when my teachers asked me to read it in 1994, but my nostalgia has made me read it in the whole now. I think it was not my chance that characters in the book are around my age.

Two university professors, Mr. Phillip Swallow (the British one), coming from the imaginary city of Rummidge (probably Birmingham), and Mr. Morris Zapp (the American one), coming from Euphoria State (probably California), decide to swap their positions for six months in 1968. Literature is their field and, one way or the other, they both seem to be obsessed with Jane Austen. Once they arrive, they get involved into different universes and universities, where surprising coincidencies, misunderstandings and ridiculous situations give the story an humorous tone that keep you amused and entertained for the time you spend reading it. Thus, the author, David Lodge, portraits his own personal experience as Literature professor in both places.

Secondary characters are particularly important and influencial in the lives of both as they make them follow alternative paths in their life experience. In the one hand, Swallow is bored with his family life, routines and duties are suffocating him. He has got the feeling he hasn't made any progress in life and is not attracted by his wife any more. In the other hand, Morris is in the process of getting divorced and going to another country is a childish behaviour to get away from his daily problems.

Some other characters like Charles Boon, a radio station host who was formerly one of Swallow's students or Wily Smith, a civil rights activist and well known rioter, make the humorous point in the story.

At some point each of them get to know people who were previously on their respective social circles. They even have sexual relations with each other's couples or daughters (Swallow sleeps with Melanie, Zapp's daughter).

The book is divided into six sections: The first one tells us about their experiences as they both fly to their destinations. The second section describes in detail the people and places they know. The third section is made of letters that each character sends or receives from people (mostly family). The fourth section is made out of newspapers articles in which they are represented one way or the other. The fifth section talks about their decision (or not) to go back home, and to end up with, in the last section, they decide how and when they are coming back home...(or not).

The places and timing are also central to the story: civil rights, the hippy movement, Vietnam war protesters, twentieth Century modern industrial societies (previous to ICT technologies) are clear examples for this. Academic life in particular is also analized in detail all through the book.

Fifteen or seventeen years later, I really had a good time reading this book. It has also given me the opportunity to watch Mr. Lodge in several videos in Internet. I hope not to have ruined anyone's reading.

Rick Astley

Do you know this guy in the photo? The question is who did not at the end of the 1980's. They'd thought you were an alien if you didn't. I still have a couple of his LPs or tapes! somewhere.

If I ask any of my teenage students who he is, I swear none of them would know. My father always said that music is never out of fashion. I didn' belive him. When I was sixteen, it was a matter of life or death to know Rick Astley's song lyrics off by heart.

There weren't computers or mobile phones around us at that time. This guy's life changed as he became famous and mine also did, as I grew older. I forgot about him and music in general and became a fan of computers instead. A few days ago, only by chance, I found out that his Never gonna give you up song video was linked to millions of internauts as part of an All Fool's Day joke in 2008. As a consequence of that, he is becoming famous again! Well, that's great, I'm not that old anymore.

To switch to the topic I wanted to talk about from the beginning of this post, when I bring songs to class. I mean, when I'm back to future and get an MP3 copy of my favourite songs and read the lyrics with them (once I have previously found them in Internet), they stare at me as though they did not know what I am talking about. I have to make a very thorough and extensive introduction if I want to play something by The Police or Genesis. Not so If I'm dealing with Madonna or Michael Jackson (R.I.P.) as, one reason or the other, they are still on newspares headlines, TV shows or the Internet.

We all know, or we reach this conclusion as we grow older, that music is a business as any other. It has its own advertising process and music producers look for a target audience. All in all, song themes, situations, places and words are endlessly
repeated by different artists at different times.

I think the right thing to do is a combination of both: old (did I say old?) songs as they are part of our western culture and history and brand new songs by Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Jessie J or Adele (Wow, they are all women!). I confess it's going to be hard to forget about pieces of paper with gaps or errors on them; the typical hand out you keep in a filthy cardboard folder and switch to computers as (to begin with) we'll be contributing to save the environment.

I hope I'll be still alive in ten years from now. What will my students think of my favourite songs? They'll probably think to themselves: "Where's this man come out from? His music is ancient!" I'll be making history and,.....What about MP3 players? Will they still be of any use? At least I hope I can keep my blog or otherwise, I am wasting my time.

I have a little surprise for you. Here is an exercises to practice your English.

Defender of the Faith

Philip Milton Roth served the US army for two years and he used his experience there to write his first novel: Goodbye, Columbus, published in 1959. The book is divided into a short novel and five short sotories. Defender of the Faith is the one I decided to read.

As Marcus Cunliffe points out in his Literature of the United States: "In the early twentieth century the general or WASP tradition did appear to control the nation's cultural life", but later, in the same chapter he states: "By the 1950s Jewishness became a big theme in American culture. Gentile prejudice was one sub-topic. Jewish self-dislike, real or alleged was also analysed".

So, the subject matter of this story in particular is Jewishness and the relationship between Jewish soldiers and the army during II World War. Hypocritical religious convictions are under analysis as well as disicipline and social relations within the army. From the psychological point of view, rank status and shared religious feelings are an excellent excuse to launch a personal struggle between segeant Marx and private Sheldon, who plays the guilt trip on the former and tries to bring him round on doing what he wants.

If we explain some of the story plot, the comments above made will be better understood: Just before the end of II WW, sergeant Marx is sent to a traning camp in Missouri. Once there, he meets private Sheldon. They are both Jewish and Sheldon tries to take advantage of this situation to get special favours or even confidential information. Emotional blackmail is Sheldon's main strategy and, even though Marx is an experienced soldier, he ends up doing what Sheldon wishes.

The story follows a very straightforward chronological order; from May 1945 and covers - approximately - three months afterwards. The story is written in the first person singular and sergeant Marx is both narrator and main character. From the beginning, the reader gets the impression that he/she is in front of a personal diary, except because there are many dialogical structures. The action is a mixture of personal thoughts and reflections as well as a set of dialogues in military settings: the chow line, the headquarter's office, the parade yard or the shooting or range line.

Even though we are in a military context, the language used is quite informal, full of idioms, phrasal verbs and ordinary people's language.

In my opinion, the author is trying to show the conflict between religious duties and patriotic feelings; the clash between self-indulgence and sacrifice. In other words, he is denouncing the attitude of some American people towards the war in Europe.

There is another topic I think is worth making a comment on: the author makes is quite clear that even in a free democratical society, politicians take advantage of certain situations in order to get electoral profit. The letter that Sheldon writes to a congressman and its consequences are a clear example of that.

The reading of this story was interesting. It makes the reader think about different cultures and religions, world social and political order and the power of words.

The Courter

It was a few years ago that I heard on TV that a Mr. Salman Rushdie had written such a controversial book, that a death threaten had been issued to him. I was quite young and naïve, so that I wondered what on earth could a person write to deserve such a severe punishment.

I knew nothing else about him, as at that time his books were not included in my curricular design. It was then fifteen days ago or so that I came accross one of his short stories.

The Courter is a short story included in his work  East, West, which was published in 1994. The story tells about the daily and trivial adventures of an Indian immigrant teenager whose familiy settles in London for some time.

The excuse to bring up the story plot lies in a letter received by the author himself. The letter is fom an old acquintance of him and tells an anectote about a governess who used to live and look after him as well as of his brothers and sisters. The old Indian lady has a very peculiar romance with the house porter and, as she is having difficulties with her English, she says: "courter" instead of "porter".

I found the story both interesting and amusing and I got some more understanding about the difficuclties of immigrant people: language, race discrimination, customs, social status, etc. Even though most situations are shown in a quite humorous style, the real background is one of a deep sadness and homesickness. As a reference for this, at some point in the story, the governess character estates: "God knows for what-all we came over to this country".

Language is one of the main topics in the story, not only because some of the characters are foreigners and they have a peculiar use of language itself, but also because the author analyses the consequences of poor fluency on a man who suffered a stroke and this makes a social outcast of himself.

The whole story is built up in an attempt to establish a chronilogical order as the main character grows up, but in my opinion, he deliberately fails in doing this because there is a great deal of personal feelings and emotions with a mixture of intermigled characters that seem to appear with no logical order as in a puzzle that, as a reader, you have to reorganise.

I strongly recommend everybody to ready the story. It was fun.

The rich boy & The curious case of Benjamin Button

I remember to have found particularly easy to read Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, so that I thought that If I read something by some other writer belinging the so called lost generation, it would turn out to be the same easy.

That was not the case; I found it hard to read those two Fitzgerald's stories, I think due to the amount of vocabulary he uses - sometimes only suitable for the time and places he is talking about - and mostly because of the American cultural conventions he constantly and deliberately falls back on.

I confess I haven't watched the whole movie starred by Brad Pitt and based on Benjamin Button's story, but as far as I remember, in order to feature the just born old man, the film director decided to give him an ordinary baby's size, except for the wrikles in his face. I was shocked when I found out that Fitzgerald really meant a just born man with "ancient teeth" and long beard who speaks just after being born.

In my opinion, the story is a narrative experiment that provides the author with the opportunity to set up humorous situations and play with the hypothetical situation of an human being living backwards in time.

Benjamin Button's story is similar to Poncela's "Cuatro corazones con freno y marcha atrás". Let's not forget that both authors worked as Hollywood script writers for some time.

The rich boy mirrors the main topic in The Great Gatsby. Central to the story is its main character, who as a young man, runs a dissipated, lazy and - at some point - immoral life. He fails in settling down his own life and misses the opportinity of getting married a worthy woman. Later, in a very selfish and arrogant manner, he thinks of himself as capable of giving advice to others. In the end, he feels all alone; forgotten by all his friends and relatives. In spite of his failures, he insists in behaving the same way he used to.

The rich boy is also interesting from the historical point of view as we become priviledged observers of the very rich NY society; those belonging to the very reduced set of people who became rich before the 1860s.

I had the impression that the author himself gets involved in the story as he identifies as a close friend of the main character. Everything is then, told in the third person narrative style.

I strongly recommend you to read some of Fitzgeral's Literature, but be prepared to use your dictionary and your wikipaedia quite a lot.

To room 19

This is another short story I read recently and I summarize it as follows:
When you start reading it, you come accross a young, wealthy and well established couple, who own a big house and have four children. Apparently, everything should be all right, but the wife feels all alone and desperate. She had to do without her professional life and that - among other reasons - makes her feel down.

As the author goes deeper into the main character's psychological status, we discover that she really needs to have her own private time and space. Eventually, she decides to rent a room in a dingy hotel in London, where she spends a few hours each day.
Whatever happens next, you have to read by yourself.
The author of the story is Doris Lessing. She got the Nobel Prize not long ago.

Recitatif

All that I knew about Toni Morrison is that when at college one of my teachers insisted - or otherwise we'd fail - that we had to read Beloved and The Bluest Eye. At that time, I could not understand much of what I was reading, but I searched for some summaries that helped me answer the questions on my test and deliver a very modest piece of writing.


A few years have passed since then and early in July, I decided I had to take up some more reading in English just to catch up with the years I had spent reading only very easy samples of English taken from grammar books or English learning methods.

Even though I have to devote most of my time to keep an eye on my child, we drove together to a nice book shop in town and I came accross a new collection of short stories that include translations of the hard words at the bottom of the page. In a nutshell, I was determined to read some good stuff and my choice was Recitatif.

It is a sweet story about two women who spend a period of time together in a shelter when they were children. They do not meet each other for years and they have five different encounters as time goes by. The author tries to show how racial, social and psychological changes play a particular role in people's lives and how they understand and interpret their own recollections of the past the their relationship with others.

There's not much much more I would like to say about the story, I just want to recommend people to read it. Follow this link if you really want to go deeper into it.

Computers Today

In the past, people used to switch on their computers to look for information; mainly specialized websites or wikipedia. Now, we are facing a new situation; the Internet's consumer profile is different. People still look up their emails, but they have other means of personal information exchange: Facebook, Twiter, Tuenti..., as well as knowledge and information sharing sites such as Delicious, Blogger or Wordpress. In other words, what we call web 2.0 consists of an active participation of internauts in an infinite number of live and endless conversations, rather than simply seeking for information.

In average terms. How much time do you think people waste aswering stupid massages without a profit? Not to mention the amount of time we lose while our computers or laptops are switched on and off and they eventually start being operative. What about smuggling, illegal actions such as minors abuse on the web, credit card theft, etc? Well..., that's the bad thing about computers, I think.

But what would I do without looking up at my emails on daily basis? Probably read a fairy tale to my son.

Esteban
4ºF