Psychics and cold reading techniques

Here is an interesting article in which you can learn to "cold read". This is a technique used by some psychics to get information about their subjects. Click on the picture to read the full article.

Election Day Vocabulary

Tomorrow, 6th May 2.010 is election day in the United Kingdom.

Students sometimes ask about the vocabulary related to this, especially on the voting day.

Here is a piece of authentic material which can be used in order to extract information about the terms listed below.

Students should suggest a definition and/or their translation into their language after reading it. Click on the pictures to see them better.

Tip: you can role play a voting situation when they have to elect their class representatives.

Local Goverment Elections

Parliamentary Election

Poll Card

Polling Station

Ballot Paper

Polling Booths

Ballot Box

Presiding officer

Teacher helps pupils cheat

GCSE: the General Certificate of Secondary Education is "an academic qualification awarded in a specified subject, generally taken in a number of subjects by students aged 14–16 in secondary education in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland" (Wikipedia)

Public school: although it may sound like a contradictory term, a public school is that which is run by private hands, as opposed to a state school, which is run by education authorities and on public funding.

Teacher at princes’ school helped his pupils to cheat in French exam (Timesonline)

Gordonstoun teacher banned after pupils get exam 'tip-off' (News.scotsman.com)

Shakespeare's Birthday: What A Piece Of Work Is Man!

Today, 18th April, is Shakespeare's Birthday, and it is celebrated at The Globe, the reconstruction of the theatre built for his company, although this one is not in the exact location of the original. Click on the picture on the right to read about its history.

References to Shakespeare and his works my appear anywhere and at any moment in the English speaking culture. An example:

In the the musical "Hair", at the moment in London, also a film, one of the songs is "What A Piece Of Work Is Man" and the lyrics come from Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Act II, Scene II). It is a beauftiful although not very uplifiting passage (Hamlet is a tragedy and this quotation summarises Hamlet's melancholic mood at a certain point).

The song is also beautiful and it is sung at a critical moment in the musical.

The lyrics

What a piece of work is man!

How noble in reason!
How infinite in faculties!

In form and moving how express and admirable!

In action how like an angel!
In apprehension how like a god!

The beauty of the world!

The paragon of animals!

...

I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth,

This goodly frame, the
Earth, seems to me a sterile promontory,

This most excellent canopy, the air, you,

This brave o'erhanging firmament,

This majestical roof fretted with golden fire,

Why, it appears no other thing to me

Than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.
...

What a piece of work is man!

How noble in reason!

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Act II, Scene II)

HAMLET

I will tell you why; so shall my anticipation
prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king
and queen moult no feather. I have of late--but
wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, forgone all
custom of exercises; and indeed it goes so heavily
with my disposition that this goodly frame, the
earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, this most
excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave
o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted
with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to
me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason!
how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an angel!
in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the
world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me,
what is this quintessence of dust? man delights not
me: no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling
you seem to say so.


If you want to read Shakespeare's works, this is an excellent site:

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare

Two pieces of news about animals and one word: lifespan.

Today, among many other stories, The Times published two pieces of news about animals, one about genetic manipulation and how it might help developments on ageing research. The other is about sexual abstinence and how it makes some birds more attractive.

In both of them, the word "lifespan" is used. Read the articles to see how and to find which of them was done by a Spanish University. Can you guess?

In The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy,

a "mega-selling cult classic", as defined on the back of the 2009 McMillan edition of the 1.979 humorous novel by Douglas Adams, Bethselamin is mentioned as a "fabulously beautiful planet" affected by one of our modern diseases: tourism.



Adams describes the situation as follows: "Bethselamin is now so worried about the cumulative erosion by ten billion visiting tourists a year that any net imbalance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete whilst on the planet is surgically removed from your bodyweight when you leave: so every time you go to the lavatory there it is vitally important to get a receipt".



Today, The Independent publishes a piece of news about monuments in danger in the UK and, although tourism may also play an important role, it is not always the main cause. Click on the image to read the article.

At the end of the article you can find that the organization who "watches" over monuments in danger gives a list of their World Monuments Watch for 2010. Among them, the historical landscape of Seville is included, but this time it is not tourism the main cause of danger. Can you guess what it is? Click on the following link to find out:

What's your opinion about it?

Books and films: Life Of Pi by Yann Martel

Life Of Pi, by Yann Martel (2001)

A few years ago I recommended this book to 4th year students at the EOI of Lebrija, and then knew that M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense) had been chosen by 20th Century Fox, who bought the rights, to direct the film version. It seems he dropped the project to direct The Lady in the Water, which did not turn out so well after all... Then Alfonso Cuarón replaced him but also dropped it to direct The Children of Men. After him it was Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, Amelie) who was chosen but he also dropped "after initial exploration". Finally, it seems Ang Lee (Brokeback Mountain) will hopefully direct the film, which will be released in 2010/11.


I still recommend its reading before watching the movie, as it is highly inspiring and suggestive and I guess the film will have to cut on lots of interesting parts to fit into an acceptably long motion picture. And also suggest you approach it with an open mind and not having read any summaries about it (thus my lack of links to the book reviews). You will have to trust me here.

So, do it and then let's see if the film is up to the original novel. I bet Ang Lee is the perfect choice to transmit the beautiful feelings of the novel but I prefer finding my own viewpoint and then contrasting it, don't you? Of course, you can always try the easy way and just wait and watch the film, but you will probably lose a lot of the nicely surprising moments of the novel.

A curiosity: the Canadian author of the book, Yann Martel, was born in Spain.


Check out this SlideShare Presentation where different people create illustrations for the novel (ideally after reading it ;-))

Life Of Pi Art

View more presentations from Matt Christensen.

MOVING HOUSES AND SCAM

The first thing I obviously had to do before moving to London was to find a place to live. I started looking for a place on the web, as I was still living in Spain, and a word began to appear more a more frequently, and this word is "scam":

SCAM: a fraudulent business scheme

And it was not just a word. I had already discovered the reputation London has for being one of the most expensive cities in the planet but still wanted to find that "bargain" and contacted "flat owners" through different sites. Of course I also contacted people who were genuine landlords but had the opportunity to come across some examples of real SCAMMING.

The funniest SCAMMER was someone who claimed to be a reverend moving away on a mission and for whom money was not important. The important thing for him, he said, was to find someone who took good care of his house while he was away, a house which looked pretty much like a five star hotel room. Others were not that obvious, but I began to identify some of the tricks and to my disappointment, I discovered that it was very difficult to find a bargain in London, especially if you are not there to check by yourself.

Of course, this is not something to laugh about, and some SCAMMERS have managed to deceive people by making them believe they are the real owners and taking a minimum of a 3-month-rent deposit (which can be a considerable sum), and then the real owner had turned up to everybody's surprise (but the SCAMMER, who would have disappeared).

Here are some comments from "Gumtree", a site which works like "Cambalache" or "Segundamano" here in Britain and which provides a lot of warning and even a forum to denounce SCAMMERS, as it is something that escapes their control:



Beware of SCAMMERS. It is already happening in Spain too.

So, what did I do in the end? I followed my tutor's advice and decided to go to a State Agent, but this is another story...

The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, by Mark Haddon

On Wednesday 6th May we had a lesson in which we talked about different aspects of "The Curious Incident of The Dog In The Night-Time". The debate was very interesting and many ideas were expressed. The general opinion about the book was very positive. Here I leave you a video of a "rapid review" which reflects some of the things we mentioned in class (we dealt with many many more aspects):

We also learnt that  autism and Asperger Syndrome are not exactly the same thing although they share many common features. We finally watched and discussed some videos from a campaign in the UK which is trying to make us aware of the existence of people with behavioural differences caused by this syndrome.

One aspect we mentioned is how some scenes and ideas might seem comical in the book when that is not the intention of the main character, something which is clearly reflected in some of the videos too.

These are the videos:

Finally, here is an interview with the author of the book, Mark Haddon, which is worth reading.