Sharing time!

After watching Brazil Vs Ivory Coast and cursing each Ivorian player I decided to surf on the Internet and check my Twitter.

As I'm a good CPE student, I've been following some English Written Newspapers and then I came across with the following Twit headline: "@cnni China 'steals U.S. thunder' ahead of G20 http://bit.ly/drGc6C"

This isn't the sort of news that would call my attention, but that idiom "Steal one's thunder", that was something special. Something that I could not left behind. Something that made me wade through this article. I remember I've already seen this idiom before, for sure it was one of Friends' Series episodes and shamefully I've forgotten to look this up.

As a matter of honor and pride, I decide to google it and them stumbled across this amazing website:

http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/index.html

This website is a corpus linguistic bank of idioms. It gives you the meaning and the origin of what you are looking up.

eg. http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/steal-ones-thunder.html

To my mind, showing the origin of the idiom is one of this website special features as I always questioned myself and others when the idiom didn't make sense. At last, Higor will nevermore be interrupted by my annoying questions. LOL

There is also this website I would like to share about Language corpora:

http://corpus.byu.edu/bnc/

It helps you to check the use of a word in context and also gives you the frequency rate it's used (like google).

Well, my goal here is to propose our classmates, future classmates and fellow teachers to share whatever is useful for our learning.

Danilo Antonietti Bertoni - CPE 2

Sorry, but I had to share...

It was 1998 and I was resting from my first end of semester rush at college. My mom called:

- A Husky puppy has followed me on the street. I think I'm bringing him home.
- But what about the cat? - I asked, worried about MY pet.
- I can't help, she said. It followed me to my friend's houses' door and it waited for me 'till I left! I'm bringing it home.

Ok, it was her choice. More than one hour later, mom came home. There wasn't any puppy with her. It was as big as a German Shepard and it was brought by the third taxi driver. None of the previous agreed on putting such a big dog in their cars.
- Ok, it's just a Husky, mom. Call him Lobo, as any other Husky, I said poshly

He was tired and weak from having spent such a long time on the streets and he couldn't even stand. We called the vet and made an appointment for the following day. At night I went up to him and try to stroke his head. He growled at me. I was scared and a thick wall was built between us.

I kind of liked him but I was a little afraid. Then I realized my cat didn't like him so I started to side with her. In addition, I felt a little jelous because my mother loved him so deeply but she only liked my pet.
Time went on. My cat died of cancer - poor thing. So difficult to put her to sleep...
Anyway, the days passed by and I still couldn't feel comfortable with that dog. He was big, bold, roomy and lazy.

In 2000 my mother travelled for 2 months. My sister had left home to live by herself some months earlier, thus it was just me and him. For 2 long months. "I'll just feed him and give him fresh water. That's all.", I thought, forever bearing that first night growl in mind. And along came what I now name as "our second first night".

I had just left my mother at the airport and the house was mine. I had the brilliant idea of watching The Shinning. Alone. At home. In my BIG house. I was scared to death! I went up to my bedroom, resigning myself to a sleepless night. To my surprise, that dog, that big bold roomy and lazy dog climbed the stairs behind me and tucked himself in right beside my bed. That night I could sleep. Soundly. Like an angel.

After that I was free to love that brown furry big fellow as I'd always wanted, but had been too pride to allow myself to.
Many years went on, with him bothering me so many times to walk him, embarassing me so often by pooping in front of my neighbours' doors, annoying me by barking at every single dog that would pass by my house at 2 in the morning. On weekends, at the crack of dawn he would open my bedroom door, wake me up to walk him. Extremelly angry, I would turn the other side and come back to sleep only to wake up later and find my books all peed.
I remember bathing him on hot summer days as an excuse to have an outdoors shower myself. More than once he would escape from the leash to seek asylum under my mom's legs - completely wet and covered with soap.

Last week Lobo was gone. Gone for good, after having escaped so many times to chase cute little lady dogs.
He is asleep forever, after so many nights sleeping by my side. Cancer has won again and has taken another pet away from me - this time the pet I would never forget. The big, bold, roomy and lazy lovely dog.

R.I.P., Lobo. May dog's heaven be full of books for you to pee on, comfy sofas for you to sleep on and cute little lady dog for you to chase. I'll deeply miss you.

Ilá -CPE 2

Books Suggestions

Lately I’ve surrendered to the work of two current female writers whose best-selling books are absolutely worth reading. Due to university influences, I was so used to reading classic literature that I’d despise any kind of trendy-fashion-everybody’s reading kind of book. However, such extreme decision has gradually changed.
Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat Pray Love has sold million copies worldwide and has been translated for more than 36 languages. After hearing Higor and Débora commenting on it (thanks guys!) and searching for it on the Internet, I decided to read it and for my surprise it definitely enchanted me. It’s about the author’s personal memories and search for peace, well-being and God during her trips to Italy, India and Indonesia, after years of a troubled marriage and a devastating divorce. It’s a smooth, funny and involving kind of narrative which makes you keep on reading as much as possible. What I most admire about it is the way it leads you to think your life over through Gilbert’s experiences. You might not have traveled to the places she visited or you might not have been married yet, but you can entirely sympathize with her pain, findings, urges and wishes since they can be found within each human being’s life journey.
Helen Fielding’s Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination is the book I’m reading now and I recommend it. It tells the story of a British journalist whose overactive imagination makes her suspect she’s just met a member of Al-Qaeda disguised as a French playboy. Even though, she’s in love with him, she cannot trust him since her life seems to be at stake. As a matter of fact, she doesn’t even know if he’s a dangerous person or if her imagination is playing with her. It’ll certainly attract anyone who’s interested in adrenaline and laughter all packed up in a comic adventure narrative. Fielding is famous for Bridget Jones’s Diary and Bridget Jones: The Edge of the Reason, her two best-sellers which confirm her talent and irreverence when creating comic real modern heroines.
Hence, these are my two reading suggestions. Besides all the fuzz around the millions of copies they’ve sold, the fame achieved by their authors and the fact that they deal with the ‘female world’, they are really must read books for everyone, especially for the ones who are willing to have an interesting and fun reading time.

Hope you enjoy them!
Ana Paula Biazon Rocha – CPE 2 – Mornings

Life on Mars – BBC from January 2006 to April 2007.

If you need only one reason to watch the two seasons of Life on Mars, I will quadruple it. It’s great fun, astonishing production, stunning location and breathtaking soundtrack.
It all begins when DCI (Detective Chief Inspector) Sam Tyler from the Manchester and Sanford Police is hit by a car and wakes up in 1973, working at the same station but a step lower at the police hierarchy. Sam then finds himself having to work for an extremely violent and degenerate police force which is under the command of Gene Hunt – the Gene Genie, a violent alcoholic sexist but efficient DCI.
For those who like a well weaved detective story, Life on Mars is a must see. If you belong to the geeks-who-love-time-travel-and-sci-fi group, it’s needless to say your Star Trek days won’t be missed. And, beyond the musical reference for rock and roll lovers, there’s also the historical reference of the British police violence and the seventies background.
Featuring flawless performances, Life on Mars fits all needs. It has aroused so much interest of such a different audience that it was awarded with an American version and a sequel – Ashes to Ashes. And ultimately, if none of the above suits your taste, you can merely lay back and enjoy the picturesque sights of the secluded 1970s Manchester framed by its gloomy always grey sky.

Ilá Coimbra - CPE 2 - mornings

Shutter Island

Hi there, it's Mariana from the evening group, how are you?
Yesterday me and my boyfriend went to the movies to see The Shutter Island. In my opinion, it's one of the best movies I've ever seen! I highly recommend everyone to see it!
And today, after spending about 3 days with no reading (sorry Higor :P ), I just continued reading You've Been Warned, by James Patterson, and I'm loving every second of it. It's the first time in my life that I honestly say that would like to have more spare hours to read! It's amazing for me to say that because I've always been the type of girl who would read just the necessary and nothing more, and would rather watch the movie than read the book. I'm starting to think that books in English are contagious!
Hope you enjoyed my tips.
Cheers.

The Husband, by Dean Koontz

Dean Koontz is one of the most successful writers of thrillers in America nowadays, and I have read a few of his books, having thoroughly enjoyed most of them. I highly recommend Odd Thomas, Life Expectancy and Velocity.

When I say I enjoyed most but not all of the books I've read of his, it's because he has a knack for solving his mysteries in a supernatural/spiritual fashion, and I'm both afraid of and uninterested in such stories. Cold Fire, for example, is a fascinating story up to the very end, where he decides it is OK to explain everything by way of extraterrestrial communication and the like.

Due to all that, I now only buy a Dean Koontz if the blurb pretty much guarantees that nothing is going to be explained with E.T.'s, spirits, possession, reincarnation or anything like that. That seems to be the case of The Husband, and I promise that, should he disappoint me again, this will be the last book of his I'll ever read.

It's a most gripping story! A 27-year-old gardener -the husband of the title- is going about his business on one of those boiling Californian summer days when his phone goes off. On the other end of the call is his wife, saying she loves him no matter what and that he should remember that forever. A man then takes over and says he has 60 hours to come up with 2 million dollars if he ever wants to see his wife again. Mitch, the gardener/husband, desperately tries to explain to the stranger that there must be a mistake, since he's merely a gardener and has, at best, 11 thousand dollars to his name in the bank, to which the man answers "I know.".

Before hanging up, the kidnapper asks Mitch to look to the other side of the street at a man who's leisurely walking his dog. The moment Mitch looks, he hears a single shot and sees the man's head exploding from it. The kidnapper finally says, "so that you don't think we're kidding", and hangs up.

I started the book yesterday morning, and read over 100 pages in a day. It's one of those page-turners you just can't put down, and so far I'd say it might be one of Koontz's best. Let's see if it'll stay that way or if he'll manage to squeeze in otherworldly elements in the story.

CPE 1 and 2 Writing of the Week

Dear all,

I know I should've put this up last Friday but I just couldn't. Anyways, here are the suggested writing topics of the week:

1) (mandatory for CPE 1) A radio programme is running a competition to find the 'Personality of the Decade'. Listeners wishing to nominate a personality are asked to write letters to the radio station giving details of the individual they have chosen and why they think this person should win the title. The person should be well-known and should have made a significant contribution in their field during the past ten years.

Write your letter.

2) (mandatory for CPE 2) Your college has been given funding to improve its leisure and sports facilities for students. The college principal has asked people to send in proposals on how the money can be best spent. In your proposal comment on the present facilities, and make recommendations for improving and extending them.

Write your proposal.

The assignments are due Friday, March 12th.

Classes begin this Friday, 2/19

Dear all,

Welcome (back)!

It's with great pleasure that I announce our CPE courses resume this Friday along with everything else in the country; after all, Carnaval is over and done with!

We have the following CPE groups this term:

- Friday mornings, 9 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. - Higor - CPE 2

- Friday afternoons, 3 to 6:15 p.m. - Wagner - CPE 3

- Friday evenings, 7 to 10:15 p.m. - Higor - CPE 1

The set books for part 2 of the Writing paper are:

- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick

- Shakespeare in Love: A Screenplay, by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard.

I hope to see your writings about here in our blog this year.

Cheers,

Higor.

The Time Traveler's Wife (film)

Yesterday I went to the movies and watched "The Time Traveler's Wife", which has a very cheesy title in Portuguese, "Te Amarei Para Sempre", but shouldn't be despised because of it, even though I've got a hint that the book by Audrey Niffenegger, which I haven't read yet but look forward to doing it soon, must be better, as usual.

At first, we are introduced to Henry DeTamble (Eric Bana), who has a genetic disorder that allows him to time travel. Such ability seems to be extremely interesting but, as a matter of fact, it doesn't really favor him, since he can just see things but cannot change them, especially when concerning his tragic mother's car accident when he was a little boy, which he keeps on visiting but is not able to avoid.

Suddenly, lonely good-hearted librarian Henry meets Clare Abshire (Rachel McAdams), a smart pretty artist who knows him much more than he can possibly imagine. When he is older, Henry visits Clare during her childhood and becomes the true love of her life. They start a beautiful involving relationship and get married.

For Clare, having her husband time traveling is strangely acceptable and she seems to enjoy it. However, as time goes by and she has to get used to the fact that Henry misses important moments like Christmas and New Year's Eve, due to his uncontrollable skill, they can't help but fight. That's when she discovers she's pregnant and they become anxious about the possibility of having a child.

Unfortunately, Clare has a miscarriage and after trying a couple of times, both of them realize that the baby can have his dad's genetic disorder and suffer with it. On one hand, Henry gives up and gets a vasectomy. On the other, Clare gets really upset and ends up sleeping with young Henry, who comes and visits her unexpectedly. Then, they have a lovely baby girl, named Alba (Hailey McCann and Tatum McCann).

After that, Henry visits his daughter when she's 10 and she tells him she's also a time traveller. She says her mother is doing fine and that he died when she was just 5. As a result, Henry gets to know he will only live more 5 years but he hides this information from his family. When the final moment comes, he teaches his daughter some tricks, so that she can get used to time traveling, and says goodbye to his beloved wife. As if all these dramatic events weren't enough, the public is also surprised by why and how Henry dies. Despite this, as Henry is a time traveler, Clare and Alba still get in touch with him and their love remains deep and true through the test of time.

Directed by Robert Schwentke and having Brad Pitt as one of its producers, the movie is a real piece of "break down and cry" drama whose real characters are love and time and how people deal with them or are dealt by them. Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams' performance is convincing but I left the movie session with the sensation that there could be something else to make the movie really work. Although being a bit confusing and long, "The Time Traveler's Wife" is a nice option for those who like the drama genre even if it's not the best of it.

Ana Paula Biazon Rocha - CPE1 - Mornings

Finding Nemo

The infinite blue of the ocean never seemed as cosy as in this blockbuster Pixar Animation.

More than 1 trillion beings in the Ocean, seven seas, reefs and abysses and a thought-to-be coward traumatised clownfish called Marlin seeks his only son, Nemo, with a slightly forgetful absent-minded, though absolutely warm-hearted, sidekick friend, Dory.

After having his wife and children, though still in their eggs, eaten by a frightening barracuda, Marlin sees himself left alone at the Great Barrier. That is when he finds a last egg, fragile as it could be, spared from a dreadful end until his father retrieves him. He names this destined baby fish Nemo, as his wife Coral had wished for.

As overprotective as a father can be, Marlin tries vehemently to postpone Nemo's first day at school, which he fails absurdly. There he meets other sea creatures and their offpsring, which, at first, sets him at ease, but he soon panics as he learns that the pupils were to be taken to the Great Barrier, fateful place for his kin.

In the urge of saving his son, Marlin tells off Nemo in front of the other "children", bringing about a feeling of defiance against himself, for trying to prove he is no coward, Nemo swims away into open water, being caught by a diver who thought the small fish was one who had lost track of his family.

A memorable moment in this feature film is when Marlin meets Dory, an adorable blue and yellow fish who suffer from recent memory loss. As the plot develops, Dory becomes a key element and is sure to bring good laughs to all audiences, children, youngesters and adults alike.

In this 101 minutes of ocean-deep fun, viewers are taken to a plethora of places and meet remarkable characters. Among them is Bruce, a white shark trying to stop eating fish under the motto 'Fish are friend, not food', and Aussie-accented Crush, a hundred-fifty-year-old-and-still-young sea turtle who help Marlin immensely guiding him to P. Sherman, 41 - Whalaby Way, Sidney - the address of the diver who had taken Nemo, and the only thing Dory is able to remember.

Finding Nemo is a another awesome surprise from Pixar Studios, and a must-see for all audiences, especially for those reluctant ones who still believe animantion films are for children. You will change your mind.

Denis Sooma - CPE 1 - Mornings

Comedy?Romance? Who cares..it is entertaining!

The Proposal (2009) is certainly another chick flick romance/comedy, girl hates boy, boy hates girl, they play with a very yapping dog, and then “bang” they are in love. However, the predictable plot doesn´t make it less enjoyable, as a matter of fact there are some hilarious scenes that will probably make you believe that it is not a waste of time and money.

The movie begans when a pushy boss called Margaret Tate (Sandra Bullock) is going to be deportated to Canadá because her Visa had expired, although she is a very smart, organized and high-executive woman (just..just..in movies), anyway this is the situation. Then, she hatches an unbelievable plan to get married with her humiliated, but american, assistant Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds, the main reason to watch the movie!!!). He agrees with that sham marriage, which sounds like an workplace bullying, in order to be promoted.

Surprisingly, (really?) all her scheme backfires when Andrews needs to go home for his grandma´s 90th birthday in the remote Alasca, where the whole magic happens in only few days, which is more than necessary to fall in love, meet your husband-to-be family and ex-girlfriend, have a boat accident, get engaged and married (with just one simple fake kiss!!!). Well, at the very least to the movie industry these days are enough, but I do believe that in real life these things need a little longer time to be done.

Anyhow, we can be very demanding when we talk about these movies, they are fiction and invented to entertain us nothing more than that even though I sometimes, just sometimes, would like to watch a chick flick with more real facts or at least probable to happen.

Daiana C. Barbosa, CPE1, Mornings

Collaborative Writing - CPE 1 - Mornings

He woke up covered in a sheen of sweat; he had not as much woken up as been scared out of his wits into consciousness, but the truth was he could neither remember it nor even ascertain whether it had indeed been a bad dream that had done it. The clock on the nightstand read 4:12 a.m., which made this the fourth night in a row the very same thing had happened to him. At first, the second time it'd happened, he was mildly bothered but chalked it up to one of those startling coincidences one is bound to experience from time to time. The third time, the night before now, he'd been positively alarmed. Today, however, he was out-and-out distraught, and decided he would stop it somehow -- anyhow -- even if it meant never going to bed again.

He had always been skeptical, but it was getting more and more difficult to believe it had all been some appalling coincidence. He had even begun trying to make sense of it all, and already had the makings of a theory in full swing: Today, the fourth consecutive night, was April 7th. The time he'd been waking up, 4:12, could very well mean April, 12th, if it meant anything at all. April 12th was his birthday. Could it be that "someone", "somewhere", was trying to send him a message that April 12, his 50th birthday, was going to be an... eventful day? 5 days to find out.

He spent all day then trying to go on with his life but it wasn't easy for him to forget that something was about to happen soon. He had always been a normal guy, following the rules, not questioning too much and just accepting who he was and what he had gotten so far, but now that his nights were as enigmatic as things per se, he was sure he wasn't going to be the same guy any longer.

At work, he noticed some people were staring at him mysteriously as if they knew things were confusing but he drew the line at worrying about it. He had lunch alone and didn't talk to anyone. He sadly thought that maybe that would be it, he was going to turn fifty and getting older would mean he was going to be alone. Thus, instead of coming back home straight from work, he headed downtown and started walking down the streets hopelessly, just wondering if what he was being through was really worth it. That was when he saw something that suddenly caught his breath.

He looked thunderstruck, he rubbed his eyes hoping for a sight problem, but it wasn´t, he had to face it! He was here and... there? Actually, he was really there across the street, but not how he looks like today, it was him, it was certainly him when he was 10 years old, a chubby and greasy kid. In a matter of seconds his whole childhood passed through his eyes. He remembered that those were his favorite clothes, and that he used to wear those shoes to play baseball every Saturday. That definitely used to be his favorite day in the entire week because his father was there and that was the only day that he could stay with him – their parents had divorced when he was 7 years old - he has never known why, as matter of fact, he has never asked them why.

In an involuntary movement, he closed his eyes, and felt that happiness again. It was such a great feeling, he felt all over again the thrills and chills of those moments. He couldn´t even remember when was the last time that he had trembled with excitement. All at once he realised that he was dry and all alone in the world. He had never faced the awful truth, for so long time he had ignored it, but it is never late to change, he wanted it changed, he wanted a new life for that little boy. He opened his eyes. He had gone. He was relieved. He crossed the street.

The following day, after sleeping for about 3 hours, John O’Connor – that was his name – woke up tired from a fast-paced dream in which a disturbing woman would insist on staring at him with her cold eyes; it was as if there was something very important to be told. Mixed with such a cryptic image, the dreadful dream also brought John himself as a child again. This time around, though, the happy boy he used to be was deeply lost in fear. Apparently, the mysterious woman was constantly heading towards the boy to warn him about a big event that was bound to happen. Something related to the numbers 4, 1 and 2. Something related to his life. His choices. While awake, however, what exactly she was trying to say and how all those numbers and everything else fitted together appeared to be nothing but an unsolvable puzzle.

Feeling completely devasted and confused, John skipped work that day. He felt it would be stupid to ignore another “sign”- that awful dream among so many sleepless nights was bound to be a sign even for skeptical guy like him. He spent his morning learning everything he could about numerology and dreams. He found himself reading the Egyptian book of dreams and a couple of Chinese documents on the influence of numbers in our lives. He even considered the possibility of calling a “specialist”. Maybe by adding 4 and 1 and 2 he would find the answer to his problems. Maybe not.

Around noon, after massive reading, his mobile rang – it was a blocked number. Nobody said a word. The blocked number tried another call 2 days later. It was now the day before his birthday. Such a call wasn’t the kind of present he was waiting for.

John lied in bed staring at the ceiling as time stubbornly refused to pass. Dark stains from a leakage in the flat above had never seemed so entertaining, and his mind kept trying to make out shapes and outlines as people usually do with clouds in blue skies. Although sleeping was a much sought-after desire, he had given up shortly after the thirtieth time he had tossed in bed. '4.12', recurred in his mind. 'Could it be a message from up above?' He jumped out of bed dodging eventual footwear and misplaced furniture, trusting too much in his instincts, something he would surely regret later.

In the living room lied a Bible, carefully opened to Psalm 91, as a sort of lucky charm, or so he was told. He flicked through the Book thanking his frequent visit to Bible School in his teenage years, being able to find Revelation 4 quite easily. No sooner had he reached the chapter than he noticed 'There's no verse 12 in chapter 4. It ended in verse 11. So cliché!’

It was 3.04 am, and he stood by the balcony window as raindrops started hitting the sides of the buildings and coming down bringing a grey smudge of pollution stuck to concrete. The only light on came from the stereo on the rack. He took a glimpse at the caller ID beside his phone. A blinking red light. ‘A missed call?’ he thought. Maybe it had come while he showered. He slowly walked towards the device and brought its display to his eyesight. ‘Out of Area - time 2.14 am’ it read. He decided to dial *60, service he had hired to check on the last inbound call to his home number.

The recorded message from the phone company asked if he wanted to make a direct call to the last number received. He pressed * as confirmation. The recording thanked him for using their service, maybe for him being lazy to the extent of not wanting to take the number down as well.
The telephone rang at the directly connected number. His heart sunk. Would he obtain answers to his queries? Second ring, no answer. Third ring, he was going to hang up. Fourth ring, he heard a noise, someone had picked up at the other side.

‘What took you so long John?’ came a deep-pitched masculine sound, ‘I believe you’ve been quite unsettled lately. I believe we shall meet shortly.’ He looked at the stereo display. It was 3.40 am. ‘Meet me in front of Sunlight Christian Bookstore. I assume you already know the time. Don’t be late – I wouldn’t if I were you.’ The line went mute and even though he tried to call again, he had no luck. Sunlight Christian Bookstore was in the other side of town, he had no time to waste thinking. If he wanted to know what it was all about, he had to act fast. Putting on his jeans and a GAP t-shirt, he left his flat and he didn’t know if he’d ever see it again. Ever.

Stepping into the pitch-dark night John felt the uninvited icy wind slap against his face sending a chill down his spine. Not a single soul shared his uneasiness, for the streets were empty and his only companion was the deadly silence of the early hours. Each step echoed in his head blasting fogged memories of his miserable life.

Time seemed to no longer be following the rules of the universe and suddenly he found himself standing in front of a decrepit building raised above a long-forgotten bookstore where a half-open door carried the number 412 on its left frame. Taking a deep breath he blew the door open and dragged himself to the first step of the stairs leading to the next floor.

He had climbed 4 flights of stairs with no windows or doors to be seen, when, at last, he found himself starring at a shining marble door with the number 12 craved on it. He glanced at his trembling hands and hastily wiped the drops of sweat from his forehead. Involuntarily he glimpsed at his wristwatch: 4.11 AM.

Filling his lungs with both air and courage he grabbed the golden knob and gently opened the door at the very moment the display showed 4:12AM.

‘Right on time, John’, a hoarse voice called from the edges of the room. ‘It’s time for you to learn the truth.’

And he moved forward, unafraid, knowing that soon enough he would finally face his destiny and as darkness embraced him peace and calmness took over his body and mind.

He was finally home.

Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version

"Cocaine. Cocaine explains 90% of all decisions made in the 80s. Anything about the 80s that seems weird, the answer is likely to be coke."

Clayton Cardoso, CPE3, evenings

Inglorious Basterds

If I tell you that Inglorious Basterds is another Tarantinoblood everywhere movie you'll think- "Oh boy, another 2 hour and a half fullfield of suffering. If I tell you that Inglorious Basterds is another movie about the Second World War, you may feel fed up. Maybe not. That's not the point.
The point is that this is a revolutionary movie. I can explain why.
I've never been keen on Tarantino's work- I couldn't watch Kill Bill, for instance. Too much blood for me, but I do like Pulp Fiction. Well, in fact I like John Travolta. ;-)
But this holiday I went to the movies to watch Inglorious Basterds- because my boyfriend wanted to and- surpriseeeee- I really liked it, even though I had to close my eyes uncountable times throughout the movie.
If I had to use a word to define it, I would say it is a startling plot combined with incredible actors and a surrealistic true story.
Everybody should watch it and enjoy Tarantino's revenge against the nazi. The best revenge ever.

Carolina -cpe evening group

Bye bye

Hello Higor and dear classmates,

I’m just dropping a few lines to apologise for not having said bye-bye for you last class. I’d really planned to go to school, but in the end I couldn’t. But the worst part was to miss the party with beer on the house. That was really unfair!!!

Guys, my company is paying an English course for me in the USA and I’m currently writing from San Francisco!!! That’s my first time in an English-speaking country ever and I’m really happy to be here, but believe me, I miss all of you. I’ll write something about my trip as soon as I have the chance, here and on my own blog.

See you in November!!!

Cheers.

André Teodoro, CPE evenings.

My Writing Task - Fathering Nowadays

Hello, guys!

Here's a letter that I wrote in response to Task 2, p. 22 from our book, about the role of fathers these days. After correcting it, Higor asked me to post it here in the blog, but I could do it only now....sorry, Higor....;-)....by the way, I corrected the mistakes you pointed out!

Hope you all like it...

Dear Sir,

I am writing in response to last week’s article on the declining role in the family of fathers today. I generally agree that currently fathers seem to be losing their importance within the family structure due to the social changes we have been facing in the last decades. However, I do think that aspects like the lack of awareness and responsibility by some fathers and the remodeling of the modern family’s organization should be noticed when referring to this topic.
Nowadays, it is not possible to consider the classic family configuration of father, mother and children as it used to exist in the past because the modern social life has been making those who are together, supporting each other such as grandparents, relatives and in laws, the real family. Besides, many parents are not exactly sure of their function within their family life. That is, they have their children but do not know how or even want to bring them up. Thus, many children grow without having a solid parental reference and get more and more lost within the complexities imposed by society.
Considering that, I think that being a father these days does not necessarily rely on the biological competence but on the way such father accepts his role and gets open to raise his children, giving them good examples and being responsible for them under any circumstances. That is what happens to my grandfather and me, for instance, because he always helps me when I need him. He is not my biological father, but throughout these years his behavior and his experiences have inspired me so much that I see him as my real father. Thus, he makes me believe that a true-hearted fathering can change someone’s life.
All in all, because of my grandfather’s inspirational model, I really think that there are real fathers – grandfathers, uncles, father-in-laws, stepfathers, brothers, cousins – left in this world. It is a matter of looking for them carefully and hoping their examples are strong enough to resist the test of time and remain alive through their children’s responsibility towards their own children.
Yours faithfully,
Ana Paula Biazon Rocha

That's it!!!

CPE 3 - Evening - Collaborative Writing

It had been an uneventful day at work, and as he drove home at his usual leisurely pace, he thought about how much his life had changed after his divorce from his ten-year marriage to his high school sweetheart. He now had all the time in the world for his friends, for his gambling, for his numerous girlfriends. There was now more money at his disposal (she hadn't wanted anything from him, apart from distance), less stress, no more quarrels. He wasn't deliriously happy, at least not yet, but he was well on the way. "This is better", he told himself when pangs of solitude hit him every now and then. "This is much better".

Upon parking his shiny brand new blue SUV in his ample two-car driveway, he noticed with a bit of a shock the door to his house was slightly ajar. A split second later, however, it dawned on him it could only be Linda, his former wife, back for something she'd forgotten, like his wallet, for instance. Angrily he shot up the driveway towards the door, thinking that it was only fair he'd give her a piece of his mind, for it was not right for her to just pop up uninvitedly whenever she saw fit. Scarcely had he set foot in his house, though, when he realized he couldn't have been more wrong. "I've changed the locks", he finally realized, "and there is no way this coat on the table could ever be Linda's".

He thought for a moment about calling the police when a strange noise came from inside. He couldn't do anything but enter his living room from where some different light was coming from. He had no time to gaze at a thing. In the moment he stepped into the room, a person came behind him and blindfolded him while another one - whithout a word - tied his hands very tight.

The two people sat him on the couch and less than two minutes later - which were an eternity for him - he heard music! A calm and relaxing song was playing on his stereo. "Those guys gotta be kidding", he thought. With no time for another thought, he felt a hand on his tend. A soft touch made him think he was dreaming. It was a smooth skin and he could swear he'd never felt such a great perfume before.

The person took his blindfold off and then he was shocked. Two incredibly beautiful women, 'dressed to kill', sexy as the devil were in front of him dancing on his dining table to the very sensual music. He could see only a few parts of them because the light came just from two or three lit candles over the place. Immediately he imagined which friends of his could have prepared such a surprise like that and decided to enjoy it. His hands were not available, so it took him a long time to get up and reach the light switch. When he turned the lights on and turned around to face the girls on the table, he got really confused. They had simply disappeared!

For a moment, he thought he had gone completely insane, he couldn’t understand what that was all about. Speechless, he went outside again, checked for his car and as everything seemed to be alright with his car and in the street he locked the door and went back inside. He was perplexed about all the little details of what had just happened. How could that possibly have happened? As he got angry again from the scary experience, he tried to be rational about it all.

First, he tried calling a few of his friends just to talk and see if they could suggest anything useful information, but it was worthless. He tried to remember the girls’ faces and, cleverly, after a few minutes he remembered that back in college, many years earlier -- right before he’d started dating Linda – he’d had an affair with a girl called Ashley, and that she looked very much like the blond girl who’d recently disappeared, and her best friend used to be a brunette just like the other girl. “Is this possible? Ashley? But... how? Why?” He finally decided to see if he could reach his old “girlfriend” somehow, and called again his buddies to see if any of them had kept in touch with her after all these years. The first friend he called was Paul, as he was the one who had introduced them and had hooked them up all those years ago.

Paul had been a very loyal friend, but nobody had heard from him for a long time. When he first looked for his number in his datebook, he realized he only had Paul's number from the time he used to live with his parents. "That's a problem" , he thought. But he decided to give it a try,anyway. He started to dial the numbers and when he heard the other side of the line saying "Hello" he noticed something rather scary was happening once more- he couldn't speak.

Completely desperate, he kept opening his mouth and trying with all the strenght he could to pronounce a single sound, but it was completely impossible. He thought he was going crazy; no, actually he thought he was dreaming. Yeah, everything was nothing but a bad dream and he was going to wake up at any moment now. Come on, wake up. Wake Up! He couldn't believe this was happening to him. Shaking and crying, he ran to the bathroom to look some kind of medicine to help to recover his voice once again and he looked at his image reflected on the mirror- he had deep wounds around his mouth. They looked rotten and infected by some dangerous bacteria. Feeling completely frightened, he heard a noise and looked behind. And there was the blond girl again, staring at him. Holding a head on her hands. A head with rotten wounds around his mouth.

For one split second, he thought about his whole life, his childhood and how his parents used to tell him off when he behaved badly, the baseball team where he had played when he was at school and all those nice classmates he had. Then, he thought about his little child. Sophia was 7 years old and still not making sense of what happened to her father, why he had left home. She blamed him for being away from home while he reproached himself for not having prepared his innocent daughter for the separation. Now he had to something, he had so many things to do, he couldn’t die without telling his daughter what really happened.

"What is it that you want?" He asked the blond girl - silence - she kept staring at him. "I have the right to know, you psycho!" "Listen", she replied smilingly, "you have 7 hours to cure the rotten wounds on this head, 7 hours. You cannot leave the house and you cannot ask for help. If you break the rules, your own wounds will spread all over your body. Now, hold the head carefully." And she vanished.

Quite unexpectedly, he remembered the blond’s face, an ex two-timing bitch girlfriend of his from high school who fell in love with him just because he was the first one she'd had sex with. She used to give him hard times, a bossy, jealous, overprotective girl. Not surprisingly her ghost appeared for him, she left town right after they broke up and nobody ever knew her whereabouts. Anyway, from that point on, his life would never be the same again, he realized numbly. Pooped out from his nine-to-five job and disoriented, he just dozed off. After falling into the deep sleep of exhaustion, he got up at 7.

¡You do not waste your time with annoying rules!

Clayton Cardoso, CPE3, evenings

Lack of Time

It’s been a while since I last made my contribution to our beloved blog and I could easily justify such an outrage by complaining about how crazy my life is and, consequently, how busy I am. (I’m really going nuts, trust me).

However, I am also very used to saying that lack of time is “the lamest” excuse ever for those who are getting hooked on excuses: “Ah, teacher, I don’t have time to read such a big text”, “Ah, John, no time to go out with you today” and such and such. And then, without even noticing – surely due to our endless lack of time -, this freaking machine of finding excuses is created.

Gosh! We are ALWAYS looking for a good reason not to do something – and, please, a VERY sentimental reason so that we can get people to feel sorry for us. What an annoying habit!!!! Have you ever thought about the amount of hours we waste making up excuses?

I mean, we are very often concerned about trying to explain why something didn’t happen, but, honestly, it seems to me that it would be 5 thousand times less complicate if we just... acted!

So... Here I am... acting!

Basically this is a forgive-me-folks post. I love writing – so much that I wish I could make tons of dollars just by putting words together (ha!). There are no excuses when we love something and really want this something to become reality. NO EXCUSES AT ALL. So.... from now on, you can just punch me if I don’t write at least one post a week, ok?

Have a great day!

PS: Read the post, you lazy I-don’t-have-time-for-long-stuff pal!

PS2: I strongly suggest you to read “The White Tiger”! What an amazing book!

By Dé Benedetto, CPE 1 - Mornings

Translation

Last week I had the privilege to meet some very friendly people from the TSA (Transportation Security Administration), ANAC (Agência Nacional de Aviação Civil), Departamento de Polícia Federal and also some colleagues from my own company, INFRAERO, that I hadn't had the pleasure to meet before.

The TSA is a component of the Department of Homeland Security, formed immediately following the tragedies of Sept. 11 and is responsible for the security of the USA nation's transportation systems. One of their functions is to oversee security systems of airports with flights to the United States and as this is our case, a TSA team came to observe Guarulhos.

Four days before their arrival, my boss told me that our security manager needed someone who spoke English to accompany them and help with the language. I told him that I had never done translation before in my life but, of course, I would help. All I could do was to take a look at the terms related to security to familiarize myself with the lexis beforehand, since this isn't my area. In case you don't know, air traffic controllers work with safety, not security.

To my astonishment, on the first day of the visit, the security manager told me that we were going to the auditorium and the superintendent was going to speak in Portuguese about the airport, not only to the TSA team, but also to the ANAC members, some Federal Police officers and the representatives of the airlines involved. And they needed me to translate it simultaneously to English. Ok, it was not that simultaneous because he was going to say something, then stop so that I had time to translate and then continue... Luckily for me, there was someone among the americans who could spoke portuguese, and she agreed to sit beside me to help. Her name is Rukhsana and she lived in Brasília when she was a child. It's thanks to her that I felt more confident and could do the job. But in the end I thought I could have done it much better because my main problem was that I was not able to record everything he said and then I passed only the idea, not literally.

During their visit, I went to places in the airport that I'd never gone before, such as the Federal Police kennel where they train dogs to sniff out drugs in people's luggage which by the way in one of these days I actually could see a dog on duty. It was amazing when the agent planted a bag with drugs amid a bunch of thirty others as a demonstration and it still could find the drugs. After surrounding all the airport perimeter, I realized how large it is. There was a day that we walked through terminals 1 and 2 on the two floors, so they could observe all the luggage entrances and all the access points where passengers are screened before getting on a plane. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I have to confess that in the end my legs and feet were aching all over.

On the last day of their visit, we had an out-brief in a conference room and again I had to translate it in front of a group of people. But by that time after having been talking to them for the whole week, my translation skills had considerably improved. While they talked and expressed their feelings I translated from Portuguese to English and vice versa and although I say so myself, I think I did a great job.

By André Teodoro, CPE3, evenings.