the canteen

The canteen is having less and less people for eating, which can be the reasons?

I have lunch in the college three times per week but I never buy the food in the canteen. The reason is that when I have my break for having luch is about 3 or 3.30 and the time for lunch time is finished. So if I like to have lunch there I should have my break early, between 1.30 and 2.15 and this isn't suitable for me. Around 1 pm I go to the library to study and I can't stopt only 30 minutes later for eating. For me is easier to buy the food in any take away and eat when I want. I know they have to fix the lunch time according with the different courses but for me is no adequate.
Other reason is the variety and quality of the food, as well as the price. They aren't enogh good for eating there every day.

Some people think that the staff isn't very friendly, they are even unpolite. The staff didn't say you hello or thanks. I can't understand how this is possible. If you are working in a restaurant, bar, etc you should be polite with your customers, if you don't like your job, nobody is guilty. Change it!

we're getting married older

If we compare the average age that people is getting married in the UK it can be said that it’s higher than 30-40 years before.

We are getting married older due to changes in our lifestyle. Nowadays people are finishing their studies later. They are still studying until 25-28 years old. Before getting married people need an economic stability, find a “good job”. All these issues made the age are increasing.

Also we can consider personal issues such as now people prefer living together first and sometime later to get married. Other people think that they are too young to get married. Some of them prefer to have different relationships before getting married.

This new trend has positive aspects: people are more mature, they know his/her partner better, they have more knowledge about life. But on the other hand this can result frustrating if you are 30 years old and you continue living with your parents. Women older than 35 years old could have some serious problems for having babies. And this point is really important.

If we compare this figures with other countries we can see that Latino American  people are getting married younger than British. But if we consider countries such as Norway or Finland the figures are more similar.

In the future we can see that this trend is increasing and people will get married older and older.

(232 words)

ideas:

*Why? change lifestyle: people studying

                                    hard to find a job

                                    money

*it's good? (+) people more mature

                 (-) babies, frustration

*comparison:  Spain/ South America (before)

                     Norway (equal)

*Future? increasing 

buying a computer

Before buying a computer you should take in account some details. There are computers for any necessity and anyone so you should choose it well.

First of all, you should consider how much your budget is. You can spend from 300 to 1500£ or even more. Therefore, you should know what item you can afford it. You should consider not only the price but also the use you are going to give it.

Regarding the use, you have to know which speed you need, how many gigabytes you are going to require, where you are going to use it. For example, a laptop is a good choice if you are going to use it at home as well as in other places, so you need mobility.  On the other hand if you need to watch very clear images and in detail, a PC with a big screen is your choice.

About the software, you need an antivirus. When you are using internet you should be careful with downloads as well as with the mail. A virus is a big danger for your computer and for your documents, programs etc., you can lose everything in one second. Microsoft Office will also be very useful. With it you can edit and manage all your documents, pictures and you can do presentations. If you are a student you need it.

As you can see, the election of a computer isn’t easy. The worst is that at the moment you buy it you are losing money because next day your computer isn’t update and it’s old fashion. The technology gives huge steps and it is advancing continuously. What is new generation now tomorrow isn’t it.

(281 words)

Plan:

Before buying -- budget
                         use
                        requirements (speed, capacity)

which? pc/laptop

Programs?

Security? antivirus
             downloading

Proposal about next ESOL course

Due to my experience during this year I would like to give you some suggestions for the next year's ESOL course.

Firstly, it's very important the number of students that are attending the course .In my opinion the ideal number should be between 6 and 8. It’s a good number for working in couples and groups.

Secondly, the hours per week are a main issue. Most of people that enrol in this course are working so it shouldn’t be daily. Because of the experience of this course three days per week and three hours per day (with a break of 30 minutes) should be the ideal lasting. Fewer hours may not be useful for learning.

The topics studied in the course are quite important as well. These should be topics about issues that really interest, worry and affect people. For instance, topics about work, studies, family and actual news can be useful.

Finally, there are other questions that can also be important such as the price (the course should be affordable, should consider the personal situation, etc.). Trying to get an equal level course in order to have students with the same level in the class. Having a continue feedback from the teacher.

I hope my suggestions can help you for the next year.
(214 words)

Plan:

number of students?  6-8 good for groups and pair work

hour per week? 3 days, 3 hours
                       people are working
                       no less hours

Topics? everyday topics
           work, studies, news
           important issues for life

other ---- price (affordable)
              level of course


                     

the pros and cons to sharenting

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2013/may/18/pros-cons-of-sharenting

The pros and cons of 'sharenting'

Are sharents – parents who blog, tweet and post pictures about all aspects of their children's lives – doing their children harm by crossing the boundaries between public and private life?

 

Sharents have a tendency to get a little carried away in posting pictures of their children, says Nione Meakin.

 

They have been dubbed "sharents" – the mums and dads who blog, tweet and post pictures from their children's lives – often simultaneously. If you're not one yourself, you've probably come across one, perhaps even taken advantage of apps such as Unbaby.me, which helpfully replaces the endless feed of baby pictures with images of cats or, if you prefer, bacon. Because sharents have a tendency to get a little … carried away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

to dub- to give a name

carry away - when you don't have the control, you can't stop

 

 

Nowadays most of us are sharing our lives with other people, there is a new word for this people, they can be dubbed "sharents". For instance, we use facebook and twitter to say to everybody what is happening us. Regarding the babies this trend is even worse. Parents take pictures about their babies in any circumstance, doesn't matter what they are doing, everything is important and they have to share it, they carry away.

 

 

Mostly aged 35 and upwards, they were early adopters of social media who quickly became comfortable sharing their thoughts with strangers. Now, as they enter parenthood, it seems natural to take everyone along with them, every step of the way. On STFU, Parents, a blog that "mocks examples of parental overshare", photographs of a child's vomit ("This is what I had to clear up today!") and a mother showing off her own placenta almost make one nostalgic for the days of annual

round-robin newsletters.

 

mock - to laugh at someone, often by copying them in a funny but unkind way

round-robin - a letter that you send to a lot of people, for example at Christmas, telling them what you have done that year

 

 

 

 

 

the massive sharing of images and thoughts it isn't exclusive of teenagers. This is happening in parents about 35 years old and upwards. When they have a baby they feel the necessity to share any moment with everybody.  We can find mocks due to this oversharing.

 

But how will this parental sharing affect children as they grow up? That photo of your son playing the angel Gabriel might be cute when he's four but will he be bullied about it a few years later? Do you want his mum's account of him wetting the bed still out there when he becomes prime minister? "The problem with digital footprints," says Tony Anscombe of the internet security firm AVG, "is that it's difficult for an individual to control that information once it's out there. When it comes to our children, we're making the decision to put things out on their behalf, and what seems appropriate now may not be appropriate in ten years' time."

 

behalf - representing, instead of you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The issue is when he/she is a children can be funny the different situations that we have immortalised. But the problem  can be later, when she/he grows up. This can be embarrasing for him/her. This picture is going to be with you all your life. We should be more cautious about we share with other people. Once we publish something in the web we lose the control about it. And what now can be correct, ten years later can be a big problem.

 

One can't help wondering how the son of the American blogger Nerdy Apple will feel when he's older and still haunted by his mother standing up for his decision to go to a party as Daphne from Scooby-Doo with a post titled "My son is gay". Or how much time the son of Canadian blogger Buzz Bishop will spend on the psychiatrist's couch in the wake of his dad telling the world that his older brother is his favourite child. The psychologist Aric Sigman agrees that we should be concerned: "Part of the way a child forms their identity involves having private information about themselves that remains private. That is being eroded by social media. I think the idea of not differentiating between public and private is a very dangerous one."

 

to erode - to rub or be rubbed away gradually

 

 

The medium too is something of a problem. In person, it may be possible to explain to a grown-up child that their birth was a shock but was not something you regretted – reading a public post written at the time and detailing strong emotions is a rather different proposition. In 2009, Shellie Ross used Twitter to report the death of her young son just hours after the event, prompting as much criticism as sympathy online. "The written word doesn't always lend itself to emotional nuance," says Sigman. "A particularly personal episode may not come across in the way it was intended."

 

nuance - a very slight difference in appearance, meaning, sound, etc

 

Some parents have already started thinking more carefully about the online presence they have given their children. Anne Bruce grew uncomfortable about what she had posted when a number of work acquaintances befriended her on Facebook. "I was concerned that I could come across as mumsy and unprofessional and also began to worry about compromising the children's safety – that photos could get into the wrong hands." But she was reluctant to give up an effective way of sharing pictures with relatives abroad, so instead set the children up on their own accounts with just a small number of (generally related) "friends". "It's not strictly within the rules of Facebook because they're only one and five and aren't supposed to have accounts but as I see it, the accounts are just my pseudonyms."

 

acquaintance - a person that you have met but do not know well:

mumsy- describes a woman with an old-fashioned appearance, like that of a traditional mother:

 

But opting out altogether is not that easy, as Natalie Lisbona, who lives in north London, knows. She is one of only two parents she knows who does not share information about their children online. "I wonder where these pictures will end up. I wonder what the information will be used for and how my girls will feel about me handing it over," she says. But she caved in and put up a couple of photos a few months ago. "I suppose I just wanted to prove I'm a good mum," she says. "I worry that by not mentioning my kids, people will think I'm not interested in them and don't do things with them. I put up a photo of them and it got 30 'likes' … I couldn't help feeling proud. But I'm trying to avoid posting anything else. I think the girls will respect me for it when they're older and still have their privacy."

 

to cave in - If a ceiling, roof, or other structure caves in, it breaks and falls into the space below:

 

 

 

 

 

Others feel that the advantages of sharenting far outweigh any negatives. In an increasingly fragmented society, social media allows us to stay connected to friends and family, and get support that for many is not easily accessible. Blogging was a lifesaver for Sophie Walker when her daughter, Grace, now 11, was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome. Feeling isolated, she started writing at courage-is.blogspot.co.uk "to make sense of what was happening to us, to give my daughter a voice and to find out if anyone else could offer advice or at least a sense of solidarity".

It turned out there were hundreds of other parents in the same situation. Grace has been involved since the beginning and reads every entry her mother writes. "I don't ever write anything she's not comfortable with and I self-censor a lot of our experiences. But I wanted to tell people how fabulous she is and show her too in the process." Dealing with a diagnosis such as autism can be very lonely, says Walker: "You get pushed out of the normal parenting groups and social situations. Blogging kept us in touch with people like us and gave us the support and confidence that helped us cope."

Aimee Horton just wanted her blog Pass the gin to provide a realistic counterpoint to all the "perfect parents" she came across online. Keeping up with the Joneses today often means painting a picture of a family life more idyllic than the Waltons, all sun-dappled Instagram scenes and tweets about making cupcakes together. "Perhaps some people truly love all elements of motherhood but there's a less represented group of us who love our children to bits but are very glad when they go to bed," says Horton, who documents her struggles trying to get planking toddlers into car seats and dissuading her son from having the Spiderman logo shaved on to the back of his head.

She is breezy about online footprints – "inevitable" – and plans to keep blogging until "it doesn't feel right any more. But I'd like to think it will stay there as a record when the boys are older. I'd never want to damage my children's confidence, and if it made them feel uncomfortable then of course I'd take things down. But if it's just a little bit embarrassing … well, they're going to have to learn to laugh at themselves at some point."

The desire to document our lives is nothing new. But where does the need to publish it stem from? Why is the approval of strangers so important? Horton believes it's different for every sharent. "Some people do it for money, some people do it for support, to reach out – it's therapy in some ways. Some are showing-off. But every person out there on social media is after recognition of some sort and anyone who claims otherwise is lying.

"People want recognition that they have a perfect life or, if you're me, that you're not the only person who has to clean your children's poo off the floor."

'I record what makes me laugh'

Emma Beddington with her sons. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

I'd have to be an outrageous hypocrite to rail against other people's children online. I write a personal blog and it often features my sons: their weird enthusiasms, their idiosyncrasies, their repeated requests that I look at a picture of a man selling advertising space on his neck goitre in the Ripley's Believe it or Not! annual.

I like to think that I only write about them when there's something interesting to say. I'm probably wrong, but at least you can choose whether to read a parenting blog. I do: my favourites, The Harridan and Relentless Laundry, are witty and brilliantly frank about the humiliations and tedium of life with small children, while brimming with evident love and affection for their offspring. I love the writing; it reaches across the internet and reassures you you're not alone.

Facebook is different. I've never posted a picture of my child on it and it transpires that was wise, because my best friend would have disowned me.

"I hate it. It's the blight of social media," she hisses when I raise the subject. "A plague of red-faced potato babies. You're allowed one picture. That's all."

"Are baby pictures really worse than Instagram shots of artfully frothed coffee?" I ask her.

"I might think 'ooh, I'd like to try that cafe'. I do not want to try out that baby. I am not 'friends' with the baby".

I like Facebook babies in the same way I like pictures of other baby animals: because they are intrinsically comic and charming, however tuber-like. I also like them because each one reminds me that I no longer have to monitor another human being's bowel movements on an hourly basis.

I get twitchy, though, at status updates vaunting a child's precocious block-stacking or shape-sorting exploits, partly because I know I'm prey to that temptation too. We all think our kids are wonderful, obviously, and the occasional thrill of vainglorious pride we feel at their achievements spills out in a humblebrag or a boastful status update to our bored acquaintances. It's ghastly, yes, but it happens in real life too. The internet isn't to blame – it has just made the phenomenon horribly ubiquitous.

What about the kids themselves? This is uncharted territory: the internet is a world away from the yellowing photograph albums of our own childhoods. I don't use my kids' real names on my blog and I try to avoid writing anything that would have mortified me growing up, but might they resent me later? I'm sure they will. I resented my own parents on far flimsier grounds (unwillingness to buy me purple suede pixie boots, for instance).

I hope, too, that they'll recognise the love behind it: I record what makes me laugh and what makes me proud: the things that make me glad I had them in the first place. Emma Beddington

belgianwaffling.com

chakras

Results from Chakra test

Root	Sacral	Navel	Heart	Throat	Third Eye	Crown

Root: under-active (-62%) Sacral: under-active (-6%) Navel: open (31%) Heart: open (12%) Throat: under-active (-38%) Third Eye: under-active (0%) Crown: open (12%)          you tend to be fearful or nervous,  You'd easily feel unwelcome. I don't usually feel nervous but I have a lot of fears. Now it is time to change so I think it is normal to be afraid or aware about the near future. Because of my character I sometimes feel unwelcome, I know most of time it is not real, but I am always trying not to disturb other people. I think several times that I am not in the right place.         you tend to be stiff and unemotional or have a "poker face". You're not very open to people. I am not agree because I think I am quite emotional and even if I don't want to show my feelings I can not do anything because my face is quite clear. The second one is definitely right because I am very cautious and I need to know people before being open to them.         you feel in control and you have sufficient self esteem.         you are compassionate and friendly, and you work at harmonious relationships.        you tend not to speak much, and you probably are introverted and shy. Not speaking the truth may block this chakra.          you're not very good at thinking for yourself, and you may tend to rely on authorities. You may be rigid in your thinking, relying on beliefs too much. You might even get confused easily.        you are unprejudiced and quite aware of the world and yourself.

linking words

you are what you eat!