Summarizing

Foreign languages to be taught at school from age seven

Ministers are applying a new curriculum which is going to be introduced in September 2014. The curriculum consists in several new reforms in the teaching of science, maths, English, etc.

First, in the case of science the new curriculum will emphasize in the teaching of it by studying the nature instead of studying the scientific method and there will be less focus on doing experiments. However, there will be more focus on observe the surroundings.

Second, in maths classes, statistics will be slimmed down to emphasize more on mental arithmetic. What is more, children are expected to do a multiplication or a division with large numbers mentally and at the final year of the primary school they are going to learn algebra.

Moreover, in English teaching, children are able to learn a new language such as Mandarin, Latin or Greek from the age of seven. So, students will need to be able to speak in sentences with good pronunciation and express clear ideas in a foreign language. Ministers, also expect that students develop understanding of basic grammar and the government will set a list of words that children must learn. In addition, students will be expected to learn poems by heart and recite them and know how to debate.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/jun/10/foreign-languages-compulsory-aged-7

COW! CHICKEN! COW AND CHICKEN! :D

Wow, when I was a child I really liked to watch the cartoons on TV. So, it's not fair to talk about just one... but I must confess my favourite ones are Invader Zim, Hey Arnold and Cow and Chicken.

I’m going to write about my favourite of favourites. When I was 10 years old and by the time I got home after school (I studied in the morning), I had lunch and I watched Cow and Chicken on Cartoon Network. It was really funny and really unrealistic, just think, cow and chicken are brothers and they were adopted by humans. I laughed a lot with them, especially when they ate pork butt with potatoes because their parents (who had no body, I mean, they had just the legs and could speak and do things xD ) threw them the food with a catapult. The opening song was really catchy. I use to sing it the whole afternoon “Mama had a chicken, Mama had a cow, Dad was proud, He didn't care how. Cow! Chicken! Cow and Chicken! Tu tu tu ru tu tu ru ru” xD obviously, I sang it in Spanish. Nowadays I miss Cow and chicken because they’re not broadcasted neither in TV cable nor open tv. I’d talk about Invader Zim and Hey Arnold but time is running out ñeeee

I'm the Eugene of technology xD

Well, I might tell you I like technology and I have mp3 player, laptop, smartphone, etc. However, I don’t have the last updates U_u because I’m poor and I can’t afford technology yet. LoL

I remember when I bought my first gadget by myself with my own money in 2009. It was a netbook, and I think I was one of the few who had a netbook that year. My netbook, acer brand, aspire one model, was too small, portable, suitable, blue, xD the only problem, it had Linpus Linux instead of windows as an OS. It was a nice OS, but limited. I could connect everywhere, but someday it started with problems, so, I installed windows xp. My netbook didn’t endure it and after failing and failing I decided to sell it and buy another one, therefore I bought a notebook. I think I don’t have much luck with technology, when I get a gadget, generally they have problems xD if it isn’t the battery, it's the OS, or it has a scratch I didn’t notice when I bought it. Nowadays, I live with my android, my Samsung galaxy young, but guess what? I have to send it to the technical service because it has problems with Wi-Fi. xD Did you see Hey Arnold?, well, I’m like the character Eugene with bad luck, but my case is with technology.

Daedalus and Icarus

When I was in high school, around 15 years old, me and my mates went to a walking civic tour by Santiago. We started in Parque Forestal and finished in Palacio de la Moneda. In the middle, we visited the Museo de Bellas Artes and a statue in the entrance called my attention, it was a statue about Daedalus and Icarus. So I decided to find out more about this Greek myth and the story says that Daedalus and Icarus were prisoners in a maze by The King of Crete, Minos. Afterwards, Daedalus and Icarus could scape from the maze created by Daedalus. However, they couldn’t leave the island because the king watched over the earth and the sea. Therefore, Daedalus decided to make a pair of wings manufactured with wax and feathers. Later, Daedalus told Icarus that he shouldn’t fly so high, because the heat of the sun would melt the wax. Icarus forgot this warning and flew high and high until his wings melted off. Icarus fell into the sea and died. Daedalus cried for his child and in his memory named Icaria the land near the place where Icarus passed away.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daedalus

Business in the veins

By the time I was eight or nine years I dreamt with my own business… I dreamt I was a boss and I sold things. Years later, when I got in my first career at a University (business administration) I started planning my first business, it would be a "café" like those ones in Bellas artes. It was all almost prepared, I had associated with my sister (a business administrator as well) and my Brother in law (Designer who was in charge of marketing and branding) What is more, we had decided our target! but we didn’t find a guarantee who was requested by the bank as a requirement to give us the microenterprise credit :(. So, we froze the plan and we decided to wait for more experience and save more money to solve some future expenses and be our own guarantee. So, that is how my job would be, I would be the boss, I’d work in my schedule and it would be located somewhere in Downtown Santiago and someday when we open the café we’re going to open new franchises in other countries to expand our business and compete with Starbucks: why not? xD

Wow, I like many movies. Though, I’m not into movies or cinema. Well, two movies that I like are "Pelicula Parentesis" and "Le fabuleux destin d'amélie poulain". I’ve seen those movies once I was switching channels looking for something fun to see, not because I wanted to see them.

Both are movies that many people might say "weird, don’t you think?" and yes, they’re really weird and freak, Amelie for instance, a girl who never played with kids when she was one because her doctor (her father as well) thought she had heart problems because it beat faster every time she saw her father because she didn’t see him much. Well, she decided to help people, forgetting her own life until she was helped by a man she had also helped when he didn’t even know her. And Parentesis, a girl who escaped from home, knew a man who had taken a time to think, away from his girlfriend they had taken a "time". The girl went to live with him for a week and changed his life and his bad habits, later she escaped again, was raped and ended in a mental hospital because she was "special" and by the time the guy found her, she didn’t remember him.

What I rescue from these movies is the perseverance of doing something because later you’ll be rewarded and the fact that in just one week your life can change and never turn the other way round.

Culture Clash? Have you listened about it?

A culture clash is a conflict between two or more civilizations which are integrated into one environment. The conflict is the disagreement that they have to the other because of the religion thoughts, way of living, traditions and/or identity of the other culture.

                I did not know about this way of call a group of civilizations which are opposed to each other. One famous one is the fight between Nazi Germany and the Jews, and I think this is one of the most known around the world.

This culture clash became such horrible and catastrophic that many Jew people passed away in the Concentration and internment camps in several countries of Europe. The ideology intended to killed the Jews because they were “the origin of all the evil” and they also was guilty for encourage the internationalism, the pacifism, democracy and Marxism. What is more, they were responsible for the rise of Christianity. German Nazi people referred to Jews as if they were a mess and caos.

I have read and I have seen books and movies about this culture clash conflict for instance, The Diary of Anne Frank (book), 160023 Vivencias de un sobreviviente del Holocausto judio (book) The Pianist (movie) and The boy in the Striped pyjamas (movie). Because of them I chose this culture clash. Stories which have make me cry and feel.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clash_of_Civilizations