martes, 14 de octubre de 2014

Tears, Idle tears Poem Analisys (Letelier, Abusleme)

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

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.

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: 

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

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.