I choose to be Mozart!

 Writing pg 126

What if you could be Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein or Mozart for one day?, Who would you be?

 There’s no way I would consider to be Einstein, because I’m not a scientific-oriented person. I would consider choosing Leonardo, because of the many interesting activities he was involved with. But in the end I prefer to be Mozart, because I like his music a lot, and also because he was a little bit mad and a very funny person.

There was a biopic on him called ‘Amadeus’ that shows different sides of his character: he was very passionate about his music but at the same time he used to act like a child almost all time. His life had some difficult aspects, like his relationship with his father, his debts and his premature death, so I would choose to be him in one of his happy days, maybe in the opening night of one of his operas (Don Giovanni’s look specially fun in the movie!).

Essay “Cause and Effect “

Issue: “STRAY DOGS”

In recent days I have listened in the news that amount of stray dogs is increasing, and it has become in a health problem because have sprouted new cases of rabies.

I think some causes of this problem are:

• ·         Lack of responsibility from the owner of dogs, while the dogs are babies they take care of them but as sooner they grow up, all wants throw off them.
• ·         People thinks the pets are a toy for children, so when this toy leave of like them, is easy throwing them in the street.
• ·         When your dog is not from good bread, it do not have economic value to you nor other people, that one reason for nobody take, care, vaccinate stray dogs.
• ·         New laws to protect animal forbidden kill dogs or give a bad treat, then there is not anything to do with them, they should be vague on the streets.
• ·         And we can take like a joke but, the fact of our culture see bad that we feed us from dogs is one reason that abounds free.

Consequence

• ·         Between the bigger consequences of this problem we can found the increase of rabies in some zone of the city.
• ·         I can drive bicycle without feel fear, because stray dogs feel attract from these, and they run after, bark or bite when see one bicycle.
• ·         The lack of sexual education and care of pets from owners has increased the number of babies’ dogs without home.
• ·         Is easy find waste of animals in the street and this dried and fly on your street food.

Solutions  

• ·         The government should be more emphasis in the promotion of sterilization program.
• ·          Should exist some regulations to get pets, only responsible people could buy or sell dogs.
• ·         Realize sensitization campaigns about the life of a stray dog.
• ·         Give more promotion to adopt dogs from shelters.

Can you give some ideas?

World Problems

In recent days I was searching about human rights, to be specific “rights of person with disabilities”, It because is the topic of my thesis and because I have had bad experience in this rubric.

In a law level all go well, the countries and its high officials have good ideas even they have include people with disabilities in their take of decisions, now we have a lot of documents to protect these “poor” people, these “necessity” people. But in the facts and actions all is equal. We do not know what feel, expect, think and did when we interact with them, even the same people with disabilities do not know what are their rights, what they can demand regarding health, sexual life, architecture, public politics, sports and entertainment between other topics.

While I was making my social service in a community of Yucatan I could watch how uninformed is the people and how injustice they live day at day in their work, in the school in the hospital, that people do not think that deserve respect.

And sadly in my way between institutions like CREE (Centro de Rehabilitación y Education Especial), y la SSY (Servicios de Salud de Yucatan), I have received a lot of criticism, your topic is not important, is obvious that people do not know their rights but you can change it, the system is bad and we cannot do anything. People in a position of power are not interested in this, but they do not understand that disability is just around the corner, with the aging or the accidents, and more that do something for them we should be something for us.

I think is no as hard, if we open our minds, the key is one simple word “equity”, is a reality we are no equals but is also true that all are humans.

Gifted Children

As I mentioned to you, here is the link to the video about a gifted child who can play anything on the piano since he was 6 years old...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQC3L4OY1Jg

Remember you have to write a 30-word summary on the most important ideas. It would be great if you post your work here in the blog.

I hope you enjoy this.

What would you rather be? a photographer? a travel writer?

Remember it is very important that you post your writings on the pictures you selected. To help those who do not know where to start, I am posting the sample description of a photo, written by the photographer who took the picture:

"About 7:00am I was down by the river. Walked around took a few shots and wasn't really pleased with what I shot. So I packed up and started to leave when I came across the falls and thought to myself while the sun is still low why not try to open my shutter up and see what this looks like, I took about 6 shots but this one was the first one and my favorite I knew when I took it, it was special."

Location: Jeffersonville, IN United States

Author: Dante Cooper

Here are also a couple of videos that will give you an idea of what it takes to be a professional photographer and a travel writer. If you could choose any of them, which one would you choose? Why? Think in terms of your actual skills and lifestyle to support your ideas and choose a point of view for your photo description. Remember you need to use a rubrics and make sure your work covers the criteria detailed in the one you are using. Check your Grammar and Spelling before posting your work!!!

The typical day of a photographer....

Portrait of a travel writer...

I hope this material enhances your motivation to write!

As for the reading exercise you had for homework last week, it would be great if you posted your answers to the questions here so everybody could read them and check their own answers so we'd save a lot of time!

Logical Deduction Puzzle

Do you want to test your detective abilities? Read the puzzle below and if you find the solution, post a comment with it:
(Taken from the book "Logical Deduction Puzzles" by George J. Summers)

Malice and Alice

Alice, Alice's husband, their son, their daughter, and Alice's brother were involved in a murder. One of the five killed one of the other four. The following facts refer to the five people mentioned:

1. A man and a woman were together in a bar at the time of the murder.

2. The victim and the killer were together on a beach at the time of the murder.

3. One of Alice's two children was alone at the time of the murder.

4. Alice and her husband were not together at the time of the murder.

5. The victim's twin was not the killer.

6. The killer was younger than the victim.

Which one of the five was the victim?

Puzzle Project Instructions

As I mentioned to you last class, you are working on a Vocabulary Review Project which you will bring to class on April 27th.

1. You need to choose 10 vocabulary words of pharasal verbs from all the book's units (6-10). If you do this on a Word sheet you will be able to copy and paste all of your words in the puzzle maker program.

2. Write the word or words, if it is a phrasal verb or an idiom use hyphens in the place of spaces, then insert a space a write the definition:

 example: "out-of-focus describes a photo that is not clear"

3. When your list with all the definitions is done get in the web page:

http://www.discoveryeducation.com/free-puzzlemaker/?CFID=11158818&CFTOKEN=80448979

and choose CRISS-CROSS from the list.

4. Follow the steps. In fact you will only need to add a title so you know it was done by you. Leave the same default values and then proceed to write the words and definitions or copy and paste them in the corresponding box from your Word document.

5. Once this is done, click on "Create my Puzzle". You can either print it from there or copy it in a Word page and save it. 

6. Of course you will need to bring your list of words because that will be the answer key for your puzzle.

7. You will exchange puzzles and try to solve the one you get as a vocabulary review.

Feel free to send me a message or write a comment if you have any problems or doubts on how to do it.

Enjoy it!