Summary of presentations

Now I’m going to write a summary for the presentations we saw in the last class:

Carlos Castañeda:

He was a Peruvian-American anthropologist who write a lot of books about his knowledge in Shamanism. His books generated a lot of controversy in the academic community because of the veracity of his writings.

Mr. Chaverri´s family, job and English class:

Chaverri´s family is conformed by Chaverri, his wife and his son and I´m sure they are a beautiful family. She is a psychologist who works in San José and Chaverri junior studies in High School. He wants to be a doctor some day, but as we all know that is a very expensive carrier, so this is the point where Chaverri´s job acquire importance. His job allows him to finance his son´s carrier and to develop himself. Talking about develop, he has been studying English, did you now? ;-)

White Sharks:

I didn´t know  that over 50% of white shark attacks take place in Northern California but it is very dangerous for humans who used to visit this places.

It turns evident how the food chain works: salmons attract seals and sea lions end they attract sharks, so if you go to northern California and see a salmon run like hell!

Un actor se prepara:

It is a little peculiar that in our last class we were talking about how we express our feelings through our expressions and then Maria José did a presentation about a profession of expert people in expressing feelings in front of a camera or the public.

Being an actor/actress is an interesting carrier full of glamour and fame but equally is full of big sacrifices and things that not everybody can tolerate.

Rich father, poor father:

In this culture, where the consumption of goods is so ingrained, it is important to learn how to behave when you have some money in your hands. Sales men make spark our eyes with a lot of promotions and discounts of things we don´t really need, but you have to buy it just because your neighbor has it. I have the believe that we should expend only in the things that make our life better like health, education and others and avoid to buy things that we´ll throw to the garbage car in the next year.

Haitian Voodoo:

It is interesting how this kind of religion or something like that is so ingrained in caribbean countries, being a mixture of Catholicism and African religions and showing a lot of weird things like witchcraft. Personally, I don´t know how people can believe in those kind of things like zombies, supernatural powers and puppets.

Open bars:

There are a lot of teenagers in danger of become victims of alcohol and drugs and that is because, a lot of parents don´t care where their sons are. Other parents involve their own sons in this kind of behavior and the authorities make nothing about it. My question is: if it was so easy for the journalist to get to an Open Bar, why it is so difficult for the cops?

Micro Speech:

What Henry says is so true. We lack the ability to talk in front of people, there are exceptions but are not a common thing. Without a doubt we have to learn how to express in a very fluent and understandable way.

One century of electric activity in Costa Rica:

It is surprising how San José was one of the first cities with electric illumination. We have to be very proud of the role our company has been playing through all these years, and how it helped to develop the people and the industry in this country.

3 Quotes

“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary”.
Vince Lombardi – American football coach, he was the head coach of the Green Bay Packers in the 60’s. The NFL trophy is named in his honor.

This quote is so explicit that is difficult to tell something about it. It just reminds us that there is no way that we can achieve important things without a good amount of effort. There are a lot of us that sometimes just wait until good things happen to us, but in that case we are just loosing time.

“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken”.
Warren Buffett – He is an American investor, industrialist and philanthropist. He is widely regarded as one of the most successful investors in the world.

The quote says that we have to eradicate our bad habits and stimulate new and good habits before it is too late. Every day we repeat a lot of actions during the mayor part of the day and there are very few things we do for the first time. So it is very convenient that we try to acquire healthy routines that makes us grow a little every day.

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on”.
Winston Churchill – He was a British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War (WWII)

That’s the reason because we have to be very careful with the things we say. We can do harm to people by just telling things that aren’t true. Lies have the “ability” to spread as fast as light speed so it is a powerful weapon that we have to avoid to use. I know I am saying impossible things, it is impossible to stop lying. We are humans and we have an evolved brain that allow us to elaborate complex lies - that is one thing that makes us different to animals – but at least we should try to minimize the damage done with every lie we say.

Homework 1

As my first homework in my English course I want to talk about a book I read some years ago. The title of the book is "A Briefer History of Time" an it's author is the well known physicist Stephen Hawking.

First of all I have to say that this book is an update an a rewrite of the original book "A Brief History of Time" including simpler explanations to the physics involved in the phenomenon explained in the book.

This book treat subjects like the way physic theories about the creation and evolution of the universe have been evolving with the pass of time concluding that a theory is just provisional, useful until another better theory apears.

In that way the author explains the relevance of theories of the creation of the universe by ancient cultures, the theories proposed by Newton, the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics among others.

Other topics treated in the book are the relationship between space and time, the ever expanding universe, elementary particles and forces of nature (gravity, electromagmetic force, strong nuclear force, weak nuclear force), the origin of the universe and new theories that explain any phenomena in our universe.

I think this is a very interesting book because it tries to explain a lot of complicated astronomic phenomena in a way that can be understandable for the people who is not familiarized with this kind of topics.