The Commitments

The book was interesting. Obviously compared to the movie, which always omit several details, gave more information and helped me to add a list of words...Not always polite let me say ha-ha.
Never read a book about the start of a band, and in Dublin. Jimmy Rabitte was so into the music business and was passionate about it. Unfortunately all the problems, money, jealousy and just childish young adults made all the effort worthless. They even had a chance to have their own album but they just wasted it. I personally liked the movie better, was a lot of fun to watch.
There were plenty of differences between the movie and the book. The movie for example was a lot more explicit and precise about the time when Jimmy sent an ad to a newspaper, and received all kinds of people in his house pretending to know everything about soul. Dublin Soul. Jimmy’s twin sisters, who we did not read about in the book, were shown in the movie. On the other hand, the book was extensive when talking about the band’s gigs and performing. I got to say that I liked the movie better but for the reason that I was able to watch the group’s performances, they were really good.
In conclusion, great movie and book, funny characters and performances, Hopes and Dreams and lots of effort and fights. Soul band…too bad because they really had the Soul!

Immigration backlogs

I’m so into this topic, because my sister has been waiting forever to become an US citizen. At the beginning they said they would take about 3 months and then when she sent the papers and paid the fees, they said it was going to take a minimum of 18 months...What!

According to CNN, 1.4 million immigrants have applied to become naturalized citizens. This is 1.4 million has doubled last year’s number. People have been arguing that immigration is so build-up with paperwork plus their unwilling desire to do something about rushing things up that they have raised the period of applying from seven to 18 months. People is angered because they are also very interest in voting next November for general elections.

Hope some politics help to make things faster, is not fare that people wait for so long to become citizens.




http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/01/25/immigrations.vote/index.html

Day at The Beach!

One of my favourite places near Santiago is Rocas de Santo Domingo Beach. The last time I went to “Rocas de Santo Domingo” It was last year in November.
My father, brother and I went to have a relaxing day in the beach. I remember that I needed to get out of Santiago for a little bit, since I was somehow stressed of the city and especially of things going on in the University. Like always, the place was awesome, it was a cloudy Saturday, neither too hot nor cold day. We drove around the nicest cottages and streets over Santo Domingo and we had lunch in a little restaurant in front of the beach. What I liked the most was walking on the beach, even though my dad was quite talkative and my brother wanted to play all the time, I manage to chill out. I just wanted to be quiet and enjoy the day, but even so it was excellent and energizing. You should definitely go there and enjoy the landscapes and beautiful environment in it

No More Drama

“I carry your heart with me
(I carry it in My heart)
I am never without it
(anywhere I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
By only me is your doing, my darling)
I fear
No fate(for you are my fate, my sweet)
I want No world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
And it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
And whatever a sun will always sing is you

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(Here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
And the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
Higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
And this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)"



I heard this poem in the movie “In Her Shoes”. I like it because it reminds me of the relationship I have with my sister. I hate saying it in "public", but well… I have to be honest; I have not been the best person lately. I guess I was getting lost in some kind of state that I don’t want to go back to. Doing all I promised myself I wouldn’t do. For a minute I thought about packing my things and leaving somewhere else, but running away is not the best choice if you think that someday you have to go back and deal with whatever you have to deal. So I stay… trying to mend my mistakes just before I let more people down.
I think it’s important to realize when you are screwing things up.
So, I guess it is never too late to go back to the right track. Am I right?





Mary J. Blige always has got the perfect song 4 everything:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J-4dXS77V0

BBC...Priceless

BBC LeARning English

One of the best websites ever!! BBC is awesome, just an ideal site for English Teachers, students, learners, everybody! You can find great ideas, resources for a class or just practicing the language. I mean, I went to the phrasal section and I thought: OMG...They are so creative, inventing some story about Betty and her Boyfriend who actually cheated on her (nothing really new coming from a guy, right?) as a way to exercise all possible phrasal verbs. You can even listen the pronunciation and if are having problems with your old computer, all the info you need is transcribed on the website. My second favorite link in the BBC site was the “ Vocabulary from the news”, I’m personally interested in checking the news in a daily basis … well, this link gives you the meaning in context of expressions newspapers usually use when writing a piece of news. By the way, you can also listen to the words. Great way to keep on updated with new idioms, word, expressions, etc…
Great source of information and tools for English learners! I’ll probably start visiting it more again. I think it also says a lot about BBC and how important is Education for them.
Good Job!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schols kill creativity?

I enjoyed watching Sir Ken Robinson, he is one of those people you would keep on listening to without getting bored. I totally agree with him when talking about the under appreciation of arts in the education hierarchy. Why is that the system encourage or persuades children to grow out of their capacities to be creative and to reach their talents? I would probably say that Mr. Robinson at exactly the same time that he is trying to make us aware of the whole situation he is trying to makes us stop or maybe transform the way we are educating our kids and so on… Even though we won’t be able to meet the future, we should want the best for children. And quite honestly, I would rather my kids being a Ballet Dancer or musician instead of one of those “disembodied” human beings walking around.

Internet Routine?

What do you do first when you arrive home? Or when you get to turn on your computer…what is the first thing you open or log into?

I’ve been thinking about this for quite a long time, what is it about internet that has gotten me so attracted to go into the same places, same websites, and same programs everyday? Do I ever get bored of the same internet-routine?…perhaps I have, but I still do pretty much the same.

“Internet Explorer”, powerful 2 words. Basically, if it doesn’t work I could just go nuts. Let’s see… Click on the browser and write www.Yahoo.com, I check the front page and see what news they have got. I rapidly click on MAIL; “OMG! I got some messages from my Friend Earl! “ ... This is my first e-mail account, I was about 13 years old. Yahoo mail is the place I can keep in touch with my sister, who actually assisted me in getting this account, and friends in the US. I visit it on a daily basis and I like it because it is easy and simple. It sounds awkward to say that It has had an impact on me, but It has worked since the very beginning as a practice source. By this I mean, my first mails to my brother in law, English only, were written in that account…I can still go back to the “sent files” and read my awful English mistakes.
I don’t think I would ever stop logging into my yahoo account because it would mean losing contact with people I really care about. And if it stopped working it would be awful losing all the contacts or e-mails I’ve written and received. No way that is going to happen, though.

If you are thinking about getting a trustworthy e-mail account, and just keep it simple… Just go into http://www.yahoo.com/. All you possibly want is there, mail, videos, etc. Just

Check it out!!

All right! This is my Favourite Gadget in the world....

A friend got it for me, and it's a 32GB ipodTouch.... I can check my e-mails, get into facebook, notes, buy music on itunes, youTube, Videos .....something like a computer. Unfortunately I cannot connect into the internet unless I have a network to connect to. ( don't even bother if a network has a password). The itouch comes from the iphone technology, you can use it with your fingers and it is very easy to make it work. I didn't care for the iphone...you know that if you answer this kind of "cell-phone" on the bus...you wouldn't keep it for too long.

Hope you like it, if you happen to get it...don't hesitate to ask me any questions about it.

bye -bye!

Rape Footage gives You Tube a Big Headache

Chairman and Member of Parlament severely attacked YouTube, video domain owned by Google, after realizing quite a huge mistake. They had failed to notice an uploaded video of gang rape footage.

Kent Walker, Google’s vice-president responding and at the same time giving explanations of what had happened, said it had been human error not detecting it and that the video had been watched over 600 times before removed. MP kept the argument saying it was “Absurd” the type of policy and security this webpage had since it only removes video after flagged, which is not appropriate because what would happened if nobody flagged some of these offensive videos?

Vice-president Walker says it is quite impossible to check every single video since there is about 10 hours of videos uploaded every single minute. But what they can do is to track offensive content such as the rape video with a combination of reviewers flagging them and brand new screen technology.




http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/apr/02/youtube.internet