Tears, idle tear by Alfred Tennyson
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ah, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns
The earliest pipe of half-awakened birds
To dying ears, when unto dying eyes
The casement slowly grows a glimmering square;
So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.
Analisys:
The first stanza reflects the sadness of the lyric speaker, as it can be seen in the second line by its choice of words, like divine despair and tears from the depth. Although, in the fourth line we can found traces of melancholy and a nostalgic scenery
The Mackay Blog
martes, 14 de octubre de 2014
lunes, 30 de junio de 2014
Speech + Rational
Ladies and gentlemen, members of the alumni of Harvard,
You all might try to guess who I am and why I am here, right now,
standing in front of you.
My name is Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster, the world famous
free-song App, and I'm here to tell you an uncommon story, maybe known by a few
of you. A tale full of up and downs, ambition, friendship, and betrayal. THIS,
ladies and gentlemen, is the origin of Facebook.
My friend Mark Suckenberg started just like you and me, a regular
student of a worldwide known university. Pursued by mass media, successful
people, and the inminent ambition of being recognized by the entire world. But
how? How could a computer programmer boy, with no more than one friend, unknown
by society, and no budget, be successful? Taking into consideration
that globalization has taken part of our lives. All that matters is to be
socially accepted.
It all started with one idea, to be “cool”. As you can notice, all
of you since you entered this university, are looking for the same thing, cool
friends, a nice social life. If Eduardo Saverin wasn´t Mark´s only friend, he
wouldn´t be able to accomplish this task. This man would help him to finance
almost every movement of Mark's ideas. One day, after Mark broke up with her girlfriend,
and returned to be socially awkward, he realized that hooking up with hot
girls/boys was the main trouble of many students, so he made a website to match
you with your “crush” (the person you like) just by clicking "like"
in his profile photo.
As the site started to gain popularity between the Harvard
university alumni, to keep it working, the two boys needed to improve their
technological equipment so it could support the connection of many students at
a time, so, as that wasn’t for free, Eduardo took the financial position of the
project with the help of his father’s bank account, taking the 30% of the
earnings as Mark took the 70% by typing day and night, lines, and lines, and
lines, of codes. Until this point, we haven’t seen any fight between the two
friends, but now it’s when the things are starting to heat up. The extrovert,
Eduardo Saverin, was accepted to join the Phoenix Club, as you may know more
than me, the coolest club you can join in this institution, but in the other
hand, we have the introvert Mark Suckenberg, who didn’t stand a chance to join,
so as Eduardo started to gain popularity, Mark’s envy began to blossom.
My entrance to this project was not during the best time. My ambition
influenced Mark’s perspective, and in some way helped to leave his best friend
aside. I knew that this project was my chance to get out of the hole where
Napster left me, but I never thought that I was able to do such a horrible
thing, destroy what really is important in our lives: Friendship. My idea of
success was wrong: step over everything until you achieve what you want because
life is a race where there is no one you can trust. Mark, motivated by my
ideas, knew that Eduardo would never doubt in his words so he lied about the
content in the contract he signed, expelling him from the project with less that
1% of the stock shares so he had no longer power in the decisions of the company.
Ambition of power and money led Mark to betray his very best friend. You may
think that this was the end of the story, but unfortunately we have still more
bad news about these 2 characters; Eduardo Saverin sued his ex-best friend Mark
for a gigantic amount of money, clarifying that there is no way anymore to be
friends again.
What I’m trying to tell you with this story, is that no matter
what you are trying to achieve, you MUST always think in the people involved
and how will your achievement affect them, because ambition is able to blind
you completely, even more at your age! You may think I’m crazy, but you never
know what you are capable of until ambition knocks at your door! Most of you
are making decisions everyday following your emotions, but it’s time to make a
change, THINK WITH YOUR HEAD!
Ladies and gentlemen, would you like to sacrifice the only thing
that money cannot buy, friendship, for being a lonely powerful billionaire. Is
Mark Suckenberg really successful? Is he really happy thinking about betraying
his only friend? I cannot give you the answer to that question, but I can tell
you that as frantic ambition is a poison, your family, friends, relationships,
are the only remedy to establish a balance.
Thank
you for listening, have a nice day.
Rationale:
This written task is based in the film ‘The
Social network’, a movie that we watched in class for a better comprehension of
the part 2 of the IB English course, which belongs to Language and mass
communication. Now, I decide to write a speech about how the ambition is able
to damage our relationships by speaking from Sean Parker’s perspective. I chose
this character to develop this theme because he takes a conflictive role in the
movie as his ambition distorted Mark’s mind so he betrayed his best friend,
therefore we have the precise vision of the deed for a deep reflection and
development of what has being studied in class. My speech is not based in a
single person’s method, but my general knowledge about how a speech is established
in terms of structure and style to keep the audience paying attention to the
speaker, alluding to rhetorical devices like repetitions, and exclamations
marks to emphasize in the message, not to mention the strong presence of pathos
(ethos and logos in a second layer) because as the audience of this speech are
mainly young adults, they best way to keep them interested is with strong
emotions
I think I accomplished the task belonging to
language and mass media by applying all the elements I said before, because it
shows clearly reflects the power that media has and how it works in the
audience, changing everyone’s point of view.
viernes, 20 de junio de 2014
martes, 6 de mayo de 2014
Letter to Jamie Shea
Mr Jamie,
I have watched you interview for the NATO review. I have many thing to tell you about it but the main reason that I'm writing to you now is because you spoke about war really softly. I know that your job is really hard in terms of public speaking because anything you say can be controversial. Now, you applied a lot of euphemism along your interview even though war is a terrible subject and its needed to be softened, but you crossed the line. In my opinion you should be careful for next interviews otherwise if I were your boss I would fire you.
Yours Sincerely
Aldous Huxley
English Presentation
The link to the presentation is here: http://prezi.com/kcg4cfscpuyt/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share
-Agustin Letelier
-Nicolas Whittle
lunes, 10 de marzo de 2014
Analysing letters writing task
First Correction
Original Letter:
Over the past six years, each morning, as soon as my students walk in the door… I am so happy to see them again and see my classroom take on life again.
Corrected Letter:
Each morning for the past six years, I have been happy to see my students walk through the classroom door.
Explanation:
In tº
Second Correction
Original Letter:
It feels so natural to me to be a primary school teacher.
Corrected Letter:
Being a primary school teacher comes so naturally to me.
Explanation:
Third Correction
Original Letter:
Yet for the past few months I am longing for and thinking about a new personal challenge.
Corrected Letter:
Nevertheless for the past few months I have been contemplating a new personal challenge.
Explanation:
Fourth Correction
Original Letter:
..it is a relatively young international school and I would like to be a member of a pioneering and ambitious team.
Corrected Letter:
it is a relatively young, international school, where I could be part of a pioneering and ambitious team.
Explanation:
Fifth Correction
Original Letter:
Last, I value the fact that the experience of living in Amsterdam and the Netherlands are being used and added to within the multicultural setting of your school, as I think this city and also the Dutch culture have much to offer
Corrected Letter:
I also like the fact it is a Dutch subsidised school with competitive fees and open doors to a variety of students.
Explanation:
Sixth Correction
Original Letter:
But in view of my university education, teaching secondary school students might be a future job possibility to me.
Corrected Letter:
In view of my university education, teaching in the secondary school might be a future possibility as well.
Explanation:
Seventh Correction
Original Letter:
I am an open minded person with excellent social skills. I tolerate pressure easily.
Corrected Letter:
As a colleague you will find that I have an open mind, good social skills and an ability to handle pressure easily.
Explanation:
Eighth Correction
Original Letter:
..value would be added value to your organisation by...
Corrected Letter:
I would add value to your organisation.
Explanation:
Second Correction
Original Letter:
It feels so natural to me to be a primary school teacher.
Corrected Letter:
Being a primary school teacher comes so naturally to me.
Explanation:
Third Correction
Original Letter:
Yet for the past few months I am longing for and thinking about a new personal challenge.
Corrected Letter:
Nevertheless for the past few months I have been contemplating a new personal challenge.
Explanation:
Fourth Correction
Original Letter:
..it is a relatively young international school and I would like to be a member of a pioneering and ambitious team.
Corrected Letter:
it is a relatively young, international school, where I could be part of a pioneering and ambitious team.
Explanation:
Fifth Correction
Original Letter:
Last, I value the fact that the experience of living in Amsterdam and the Netherlands are being used and added to within the multicultural setting of your school, as I think this city and also the Dutch culture have much to offer
Corrected Letter:
I also like the fact it is a Dutch subsidised school with competitive fees and open doors to a variety of students.
Explanation:
Sixth Correction
Original Letter:
But in view of my university education, teaching secondary school students might be a future job possibility to me.
Corrected Letter:
In view of my university education, teaching in the secondary school might be a future possibility as well.
Explanation:
Seventh Correction
Original Letter:
I am an open minded person with excellent social skills. I tolerate pressure easily.
Corrected Letter:
As a colleague you will find that I have an open mind, good social skills and an ability to handle pressure easily.
Explanation:
Eighth Correction
Original Letter:
..value would be added value to your organisation by...
Corrected Letter:
I would add value to your organisation.
Explanation:
jueves, 5 de diciembre de 2013
Essay writing task
1. Fatelessness has a message and it is
something that Imre Ketesz never thought or considered when he was writing his
novel. Write between 150 and 200 words.
Imre Kertesz never thought that his novel would have a hidden message that would make his novel even more attractive for the readers and make us get in his place. The message that he never thought that would be really connected to his novel is how the power of a person with corrupted values (the Fürer, Adolf Hitler) would be able to destroy a complete society, and his followers in the future would want those events to happen again. This way, unconsiously the author say that what happened to him and the members of his religion , or even if it happens to another must never ever happen again.
2. It is hard/easy to understand the points of
view expressed in Fatelessness. It is
likely to be a cultural problem/advantage
mainly. Write between 150 and 200 words.
It is easy to identify points of view as the events happen during the story but its hard to understand their meaning. Imre Kertezs shown different points of view that show the reader a better perspective of what have happened during the Holocaust to clarify that this must never happen again even if it benefits or create problems in the future generations.
Firstly, the author use his own point of view in the story to express the inter-cultural problem that was happening during the second world war, the arian race trying to exterminate everyone that was against the culture or differ from them, in other words, Imre Kertezs im
It is easy to identify points of view as the events happen during the story but its hard to understand their meaning. Imre Kertezs shown different points of view that show the reader a better perspective of what have happened during the Holocaust to clarify that this must never happen again even if it benefits or create problems in the future generations.
Firstly, the author use his own point of view in the story to express the inter-cultural problem that was happening during the second world war, the arian race trying to exterminate everyone that was against the culture or differ from them, in other words, Imre Kertezs im
3. Fatelessness has different narrative
techniques that seduce and affect our minds. Write between 150 and 200 words.
4. The Holocaust and
its atrocities have helped us understand Fatelessness much more. The context is
a key factor in the creation process of a story. Write between 150 and 200
words.
Suscribirse a:
Entradas (Atom)