Been Missing these Great Folks ;)

Clockwise: Me, Rafaela, Gabriela, Cássio, Simone, and Germano

My mini Friday group! They are little kids with such big hearts

Reposting from a long time...

Ten truths about myself:

It's about time for you all - fellow bloggers, students, friendly readers - to know some truths about me... Embrace yourself and don't ever tell me that I have never warned you about these things.

1. If I stay more than 32 hours with empty stomach, I'll faint. I've also had this peculiar habit of shutting my eyes really tight every time I sneeze. My husband thinks this is kinda cute, though.

2. I've been trained by skillful disciples of an Indian guru called Paramahansa Yogananda to obtain the power of resurrecting living creatures. Since I'm in my early studies, so far, my power has only worked on recovering lizards' tails.

3. Some of the products that I can't live without are: adult diapers, dandruff shampoos, sleeping pills, holy water, concealer, and self-help books.

4. If I touch hot boiling water or heat up iron, I get burnt skin and blisters come out after that. And this is hard to say... but... my farts and belches aren't fragrant.

5. Some of the things you'll find in my bedroom are a butterfly knife, lithium, rat poison, pepper spray, a pile of old "O" magazines, and a box with all Mariah Carrey's best singles - anything for self-defense and protection.6. Had I been born in Malaysia, I would have been born a toothless illiterate bald baby.

7. Some cars aren't made for me. They have got three pedals and I was born with only two legs.

8. Satan has found a way to control my technology devices. Many times while typing unsaved posts for blogs, e-mails for supplier, or working on translations, these texts manage to completely disappear from the computer system. And that normally happens after a computer screen window is closed. Where do these files go? Ask Satan. I almost forgot to mention some weird schemes that lie beneath some commands such as control-V, control-C, control-Z, control-N, and control-A. These are all devilish tools. I must exorcise this machine.9. I don't want to shock any of you guys but I can't stand roaches so I do kill them in coldbloodedness when they come across.

10. Finally, I am very much ashamed of this, but... I have decided to let out some of my truths, so here it is: I have no power to control my heart beats. This is doggone true. Besides, I've got no eating disorders either. I've got no phobias, mental disturbance, or traumas. I'm free from depression or any sort of stress. Actually, I am not quite sure if I'm alive.

Tuesday Late at Work

 
I am tired. Not news. 

I am 20 kilos thinner (yeah, I lost 40 pounds). This is hell of good news. 
Losing weight is somehow new data on this blog. However, I've been losing weight since I quit drinking alcohol and that was about 5 years ago. 

I have also gone semi-vegetarian and that has been almost almost for two years. My body is better. My mind is better. I love animals and I do believe that we can only fully respect the environment and all animals if we do not kill them for any reason whatsoever. 

What is not news though is the fact that I still depend on psychiatric medicine. When I mess up with the amount I am supposed to intake, I never get to wake up okay. I lost the track of time during my last night's sleep. I got up at a quarter to ten. I was expected to be in class at 9:30. Yeah. I ran one hour late. I felt so embarrassed that I had to come up with a fake excuse: "I had an asthma attack and ended up in the hospital." 

I am evil. Nope. I am far from being evil. 

I am human. I am a tired human :) 
Not news!

There, there

When time is all you have, there is always lack of creativity. Thus, I felt like posting this old narcisist gif from winter this year. Funny thing is that we got 9C last night and 12C this morning. It does feel like Brazilian mild winter outside

Laila's Blue Hair Gif

Sunday Selfie Part II

Sunday Selfie

English Speaking Project 2015

Alguns alunos sentem muita dificuldade em FALAR em inglês. Eu escuto isso, principalmente de alunos que afirmam entenderem tudo o que ouvem, conseguem ler com rapidez e muitos até escrevem com maestria. No entanto, travam quando tentam se expressar oralmente. Isso era a minha realidade também quando eu era estudante. Por isso, decidi postar aqui uma lista de dicas que podem colaborar na superação dessa dificuldade que é tão normal. Essas dicas foram extraídas desse site: http://www.espressoenglish.net/

How to Speak Fluent English:

1) Understand that there is no “magic trick.”

Yes, there are different methods, and some are more effective than others. For example, a good English course should balance all the areas of language (speaking, listening, vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing). If any of those elements are missing, then you will have difficulty becoming fluent.

Also, different methods will appeal to different people. I personally do very well with "BUILDING BLOCKS OF INFORMATION" and I memorize them by ORAL and MENTAL repetition; other people hate memorization. Some students can pick up English easily from informal conversations, from songs, video games, social networking; other students prefer a more organized and structured method.

Still, becoming fluent in English – or any language – is a long-term process.

If anyone says they have “the secret” to instant fluency… don’t believe them!

2) Use English in your daily life as much as possible.

It’s more important to have frequent contact with English than to have hours and hours of study. Using English for 10 minutes a day, every day, is better than studying for 1 hour only once a week.

Even if you don’t live in an English-speaking country, there are still many ways to do this!

Here are just a few suggestions for making English part of your daily life:

- Listen to English as you drive to work.
- Read the news online in English instead of in your native language.
- Practice thinking in English while you are doing housework or exercise.
- Read articles, blogs, magazines, listen to podcasts, and watch videos in English about topics you enjoy (this is important! You will make much more progress if you are having fun during the process).

3) Balance the areas of language learning.
-Reading
-Writing
-Speaking
-Listening
-Grammar
-Vocabulary

Many students make the error of focusing too much on one or two areas, and they end up being weak in the other areas. One tip is to dedicate one day per week to studying and practicing each area.

4) Get a regular speaking partner through a “conversation exchange” website.

You can’t just study English… you need to USE your English!

If you have nobody to speak with in daily life, you can find a speaking partner online through a “conversation exchange” website. On these websites, you can meet native English speakers who want to learn your native language – this way, you can both help each other learn and practice.

Here are some conversation exchange websites and free dictionaries:

*conversationexchange.com
*sharedtalk.org
*englishbaby.com
*Speaking24.com
*flork,com
*LiveMocha’s conversation exchange
*thefreedictionary.com
*urbandictionary.com

Try to speak with your partner at least once a week. This is so important for practicing as well as building your confidence!

5) Read, watch and listen to English in many different contexts.

If you only watch news programs in English, then you will be able to understand a more “formal” style of English, but not a typical conversation between two native speakers, which is often filled with idioms and slang.

On the other hand, if you only watch movies and listen to songs in English, then you might not be able to understand (or write) a more academic article. And if you only use English for work, then it will be hard to talk about other topics because you won’t have the vocabulary.

So make sure to diversify your English input:

fiction and non-fiction
formal and informal
lectures and conversations
serious subjects and comedy
etc.

6) Learn to think in English.

This is one of the biggest keys to English fluency – but how can you learn it?

There’s a step-by-step process you can follow:

First, beginning to think with individual English words
Then progressing to thinking in English sentences
Finally imagining entire conversations and stories in your head in English
(Read this lesson for a more detailed explanation with examples).

This is one of the best ways to practice English, because if you make a “mistake,” nobody knows about it!

Also, you can practice thinking in English anytime, anywhere. No need for a textbook or classroom. The earlier you begin the habit of thinking in English, the easier it will be to speak fast.

7) Say things with different words – be creative!

Two big obstacles to English fluency are lack of vocabulary and pauses / hesitations. This usually happens because you have an idea, but you can’t express it in English. It can be really frustrating. However, if you don’t know a particular word, try to think of alternative ways to express your idea.

Here’s an example: in a conversation about cooking, my student didn’t know the word “onion,” so instead he said, “the white vegetable that when you cut it you cry” – it was a perfect description, and I understood exactly what he wanted to say!

This is also important for English sentences. Sometimes you want to say something a certain way because you are translating directly from your native language, but you don’t know how to construct the phrase in English.

Of course, learning to think directly in English will help you avoid this problem – but also try to be open-minded and flexible in thinking of different ways to say the same message.

Native English speakers also have many ways to say the same thing – just look at this list of different ways to say “hello” and “goodbye” in English.

8) Practice talking to yourself.

This is REALLY an excellent way to develop your fluency and build your confidence. There is no pressure to be perfect, and nobody else will hear your mistakes.

For speaking ideas, go to this website and choose a topic. Imagine somebody is asking you the question. Then practice answering it by talking to yourself out loud.

Yes… it feels a little bit silly. But you can do it alone where no one will hear you, and it’s a great step to putting your English into practice.

9) Don’t think too much about grammar, and don’t worry about mistakes.

One of the biggest “mental blocks” for English learners is being nervous or afraid to make a mistake – or embarrassed if they don’t speak perfectly. But remember: Communication is MUCH more important than perfection!

Here’s an example:

Imagine someone says, “Yesterday I go to party in beach.”
This sentence is incorrect; it should be:
“Yesterday I went to a party on the beach.”
However, even with the errors, it still communicates the message SUCCESSFULLY!

Of course with time you will want to correct your mistakes, but for everyday speaking in general, RELAX and remember that mistakes are not fatal; the important thing is to communicate.

10) Don’t give up… never stop learning!

I’ve had a lot of students who study for a few years, then stop… then start again, then stop for a long time, then re-start… maybe you have done this, too.

The problem is that you often lose the progress you made before, and then becoming fluent takes much, much longer.

But the good news is that you don’t need to be a genius to become fluent in English – you just need to have dedication and practice consistently.

If you do this, you WILL reach your goal of English fluency.

November 13th Laila's horoscope

Exacting standards

***

At this time your thinking has settled into stable patterns, and not very much is changing in your mind. But you have discipline and concentration, which enable you to get a great deal of work done. You have a clear idea of what you want to achieve intellectually, and you are willing to work for it. This is an excellent time for any long-range planning that requires great attention to details. It is not so good for the kind of planning that requires you to see the larger scope all at once and handle it as a single system. This influence favors any kind of work involving organization and restructuring. It is excellent for most business transactions, especially those requiring carefully thought-out plans for development. It is not so good for risky or speculative investments, because your level of intuition is lower than normal. It is also a good time for serious study and difficult mental work. Your views about the world have reached a point of stability, so you act from a consistent position. You believe that you understand what the world is about and you operate on that basis. Obviously this can create some problems. If your mental patterns become too fixed, you close out viewpoints and opinions that will help you grow. Narrow-mindedness is a danger with this influence. You can either organize your knowledge into its most useful form, or you can cut yourself off from knowledge through intellectual rigidity. This influence sharpens your critical faculties. Your standards are very exacting, and you are likely to judge everything by them. Consequently you are very quick to see exactly what is wrong in any situation. But here again there is the danger that critical thinking may become an excuse for nit-picking and narrow-mindedness. You can too easily learn to see the flaws in everything before you see the strengths, which makes your world seem a great deal more imperfect than it is.

25 Years of the fall

Merry Halloween

Post by Laila Chris Batista.

minhas considerações sobre a eleição e quem devemos excluir no Facebook

Eu adorei essas eleições: perdi amigos (se é que contatos no face podem ser chamados de amigos?), pessoas deixaram de me seguir aqui, no Twitter, etc, e para lhe falar a verdade, eu achei deveras interessante pois nunca tinha visto POLÍTICA ser levada tão a sério desde quando pintei minha cara e fui às ruas gritar: "FORA COLLOR", a looooong time ago.

Se eu excluir todos os meus contatos que oPTaram, vou "blogar" e "facebookar" mais à vontade, com certeza, pois vou estar ao lado de pessoas que pensam como eu. Eu poderia selecionar meus 'facers' geograficamente, eu poderia "unfriend" todos os contatos Nordestinos, Cariocas e Mineiros... Uai, aí eu estaria anulando quase toda a minha família por parte de pai, mãe e esposo já que eles vivem nesses estados brasileiros... mas é certo pensar assim? É certo achar que separar nossas diferenças, vai nos fazer melhores?

É certo desconectar-se por uma bobagem? É realmente problema meu o que os outros  pensam de política? Bom, é problema meu quando o assunto é escolher quem vai nos representar politicamente.

Se fosse para excluir todos os eleitores do PT  da minha lista de contato, eu iria me distanciar de amigos de infância, eu teria que anular boa parte da minha família que é assumidamente Petista,  eu acabaria me distanciando de grandes amigos atores, músicos, escritores, pensadores e jornalistas que ainda acreditam ser possível ter socialismo implantado no Brasil, e, mesmo que isso seja possível, não é assim que eu quero viver, mas devo respeitar que é assim que 52% do meu país obviamente querem.

Assumo que não concordaria com o resultado mesmo se Aécio ganhasse, pois meu candidato não foi para o 2o. turno. Sou semi-vegetariana, adoto animais abandonados, não dirijo, evito produtos feitos de couro e testado em animais, e nunca concordei com rodeios, zoológicos, e pet shops. Sou membra do Greenpeace desde 1993... Sou Partido Verde. Eu não sou pró-capitalista. Eu sou anti-governo. Sou libertária. Por eu ser assim, não excluí, blocked, ou "unfollow" ninguém por POLÍTICA. Não vi razão para isso.

Eu adorei essas eleições pois todo nós podemos postar, "curtir", "descurtir", rir, compartilhar nas redes sociais aquilo que acreditamos, mesmo que sejam ideias divergentes. Foi possível até orientar pessoas mais jovens, como os meus alunos que nasceram somente depois da era PT e que não sabiam o que é ser de ESQUERDA ou de DIREITA. A pessoas se politizaram no Brasil e a democracia se fortaleceu. Se for para excluir alguém do FACE, por exemplo, eu acho que eu deletaria os que se irritaram com os posts sobre política e as eleições 2014. Vocês sim precisam encontrar seu estado fora do Brasil e isolado do mundo, e viver por lá para nunca mais voltar. "Y biba la demoCRAzzia!"

Brazilian 2014 Election Results

"Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff was re-elected this Sunday. The Associated Press reports that with 99 percent of the vote counted, Rousseff won 51.5 percent. Her challenger Aecio Neves got 48.5 percent of the vote.

NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro has been covering the election. She says that the elections shows that the country is "divided over its future," and called the campaign "bitter, bruising" and "filled with attack ads and corruption scandals."

The AP also says this election was a contentious battle:

Rousseff and Neves have fought bitterly to convince voters that they can deliver on both growth and social advances. This year's campaign is widely considered the most acrimonious since Brazil's return to democracy in 1985, a battle between the only two parties to have held the presidency since 1995.

Neves has hammered at Rousseff over a widening kickback scandal at state-run oil company Petrobras, with an informant telling investigators that the Workers' Party directly benefited from the scheme.

Rousseff rejected those allegations and told Brazilians that a vote for Neves would be support for returning Brazil to times of intense economic turbulence, hyperinflation and high unemployment, which the nation encountered when the Social Democrats last held power.

And the BBC reports developments from candidates besides Rousseff and Neves also made this election a dramatic one:

The election comes after weeks of intensive campaigning by the two candidates and a presidential race that took a tragic turn after Eduardo Campos, a main opposition candidate, was killed in a plane crash in August.

His running mate, a renowned environmentalist, Marina Silva, was thrust into his place, vowing to become the South American country's first "poor, black" president.

Silva came in third after the first round of voting.

The AP reports that before voting in the runoff in southern Brazil, Rousseff said, ""We've worked so hard to better the lives of the people, and we won't let anything in this world, not even in this crisis nor all the pessimism, take away what they've conquered."

After the election results were announced, Rousseff tweeted "Thank you very much" to her followers in Portuguese."

I myself am particularly disappointed with our presidential re-election because this party does not admit not doing anything to improve local industries, services, healthcare, and school education.

This was my original candidate from the Green Party

Source: from here. 

Halloween spirit has arrived!

YoLo

Roberto got Gold medal on his jiu jitsu competition. In order to get that, he needed sauna to lose weight so he booked a room at a nice hotel. After so much adventure, we ended up spending the night at Blue Tree Hotel. The room is nice. The bed is wide and the bathroom is awesome. Gotta love blogging in a hotel room. It is feels pro. Yolo.

Burqas are simply amazing

ISHA FOUNDATION, there we go!

An opportunity = This influence usually represents a time of optimism and positive thinking in your life. You seem to be at a quiet point of balance that enables you to look over the affairs of your life and get a good perspective on them. Therefore, it is a good time to make long- range plans and to reorganize.

You should use this time to gain new perspectives through education or travel or by participating in one of the consciousness raising activities or groups that exist now. This is a time of psychological and physical equilibrium. If you have recently been ill in either body or mind, this influence will help tremendously with the healing process.

 This is also a good time to examine your ideals and your goals, for it may be possible to actualize them in various ways now. At other times there is too much tension in your life or too much resistance from others. If you are involved in any movement for reform, now is a good time to take some positive action. Or you might become more involved in religion or philosophy, because you need to know much that is beyond the apparent order of things.

 It is quite possible that you will do nothing during this time, because it gives you a feeling of balance but no drive to do anything in particular. You have an unusual sense of ease and relaxation now. This is also a good time to travel, both for relaxation and for educational reasons.

The important point to remember with this influence is that it is fundamentally an opportunity. You will not feel driven by any energies, nor will you feel any resistance to your efforts to do something. You can make great use of this time, but you have to take the initiative.

Sunday blogging Sunday

• No pun intended. I woke up late. Hubby went shopping for a scale. We must care about our weight so he got us a similar scale to the one we used to have, a darn good one. 

• The scale and the jiu jitsu fighter are on their way to São Leopoldo for a state championship. I decided not to go due to the road trips. The championships don't take place in our town and the two-hour drive on curvy highways aren't my cup of tea. I always get sick and end up throwing up. He's won the Gold medal, btw

• I don't mind airplane trips, though. But the rush before getting on the craft is not my favorite stress either. Especially if we are taking international flights, there is so much packing, checking, and waiting.

• Our country is going through the worst economical, political, and social crisis during its last 30 years. I am afraid of where this is going coz things aren't great to us. We own an educational business that depends on a very strong and stable middle-class and uppermiddle-class.  

• As there isn't much production in the country, whoever belonged to those higher social classes are being delocated and feeling pressure due to unemployment and high default rates. I am included in this group who used to have spending power and now, I must be happy for affording a much cheaper grocery shopping.  

• There will be election in Brazil for President next Sunday. The candidates are the worst ever. I don't see any silver lining, only dark clouds. I am super scared and at the same time, I am not. As hubby says, "We have got options." Yeah, we have got the world to sleep on it. 

• I've just got the news that a childhood acquaintance was murdered by his "friend". What is up with the world we live in?

Are bloggers megalomaniac? 10 years blogging and just now I could figure that out

A selfie taken for the first post ever published on Oct. 7th 2004

This title is gonna blow, in the good sense hahahaha. It contains the words BLOGGERS and MEGALOMANIAC; good ones for GOOGLE SEARCH. I have been told that a million times: "People on social media are megalomaniac and bloggers are the worst type." The answer to the title : yes, they are. However, in different levels. I am one of those nonsense narcissist megalomaniac bloggers.  I myself started this blog in 2004 when I had been living back in Brazil for less than 2 years, in a strange city where nobody knew who we were. During my first years in this place, I totalIy felt I was going to collapse due to loneliness and depression. Luckily those were the golden years for MSN and Torrents for music, films, the oldies MySpace, Buzznet, and to all the early blog providers such as Blogger, Wordpress, etc.

Back in those days, 2002 /2003 I even tried to develop my personal site myself. As I started becoming familiar with Blogspot, Wordpress, Buzznet and others, the idea of blogging sounded more realistic. I've always had this plan for writing two books. The plan is still up but I am not ready for this kind of commitment now. I thought of blogs and how they would be the easiest, coolest, and cheapest solution for self-publishing. Everyone who started blogs 10 years ago were interested in other people's blogs and everyone commented on each other's blogs and bloggers created bonds. Most of these bloggers I ran across back in those days are still my contacts on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and so forth.

Before social media networking became intrinsic world culture aspect, bloggers could quadruple the number of visitors to their blogs overnight by posting entries on these topics: Britney Spears, Facebook, How to get rich quick, British Airways, Lost, Friends whatever series was on TV, Five day weather forecast, and a few other words that they might not be appropriate to link to a teacher's blog. There were blog readers everywhere. In order to make my blogs my way, I had to teach myself html codes. At first, Blogger Blogs were quite difficult to edit. As I am a certified journalist, I did study in college a few things on editing and publishing printed materials. Blogs are digital, riiiiight, the color codes are similar, the types of fonts are the same too, and so on.

On my very first posts, I was not sure about opening to the readers facts about me or where I live. My first posts were cold and distant. Whereas, I've always published my poetry on my blogs. In truth, I even created an entire other blog dedicated to poetry. Click here. And lemme tell you, posting poetry can be a lot more personal. I confess that I did turn this blog a deposit of my old floppy disks txt files, at first. Later on, from 2005 on I made this place more like my trashcan. Huahuahauhau For a couple of years (2005~2007), this blogspot was read the most and very often commented too. Orkut had become the number one Internet spot in Brazil and from there, people swtiched off from blogging, including me.

My worst mistake as a blogger was the poor choice for my blog tittle. As I added the word PAWNSHOP to it, I've got several visitors who are interested in actually pawning. What I meant by adding the word "pawnshop" is to pay a tribute to Sir Charles Chaplin; the blog was entitled after one of his movies. It is also to be the title of a possible non-fiction novel that I've dreamed of writing for years and years.

Alright, in SEO (search engine optimization) terms, "PAWNSHOP" might not attract the kind of visitor that is necessarily interested in ESL teaching, psychological disorders, or makeups per se but I thought of this blog more as an experiment, a modern day Pavlov’s dogs if you will. Give them the keywords and they will salivate. Or something like that. I don't need readers who don't get the blogsphere thing. I don't write here to please anyone.

Is this a little arrogant? Yes, it is. Do I care? Nope. Are bloggers megalomaniacs? Some of them are. However, there is a slight difference between megalomania and narcissism. I know a megalomanic in real life, and this person does not write blogs. The symptoms are quite distinctive as pathology, however a low degree of megalomania is found in so many people as a way of defending against loss in everyday life.

This journal is turning 10 years old this month. My real life business is turning 12 and my marriage is turning 16 years old. I teach languages for a living: English, Portuguese, and German. I live in a small carpeted condo with a husband and 4 cats. I really deserve to write about me, my 3 college majors, and my work life. It is me who is writing using my own experienced hands. This has to be a virtual place about my life and nothing else. If I want to go crazy, I will. If I feel like posting a photo of my shit, I will do so and no one should resent that because it is no one's business. If you do not like this blog, do not ever come back here. 

I know, I know that it’s not quite so simple as that. Readers will love you, others will not mind you, or some will even hate you. Whereas, they keep coming back and they stop by for a while. I don't wanna sound like our presidentA Dilma, but you must fancy a few numbers. Here they are: 1,408 Published comments, 894 Published Posts, 19 Followers, 1,700 views last month, and 65,000 visitors from all over the world. ha! Megalomaniac, me? I sure am. ;)

I don’t really know what I’m doing here or where I am going. I am still figuring all out but I have a sneaky suspicion that there’s probably more to it than typing random words. (Then again, I also have a sneaky suspicion that it IS just a case of typing in random words.) The point is, I don’t know where I am going with my life. However I do see myself here blogging for 10 more years, minimum. And lastly, apparently, it’s seems not politically correct to admit having mental disorders or that we are narcissistic. Tsk. So there we have it, someone who is not afraid of being politically incorrect.

Experiment succeeded. Bamboozled. This is also my English grammar gym. Here I work out my ESL skills. It is mine and it is free. For sure I will keep coming back here every Saturdayish.