Across The Universe

Charles Dickens

2012-02-07T11:58:00.003Z

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812, the son of John and Elizabeth Dickens. A prolific writer, Dickens was also an avid reader and even had, later on in life, an amateur theatre company. If you want a picture of Victorian England don't miss some of his works, such as Oliver Twist, Hard Times or Great Expectations.
For those interested in his life and works go to the victorianweb.org.

THE STATUE THAT GOT MARRIED

2012-02-01T22:15:00.000Z

In the gardens of Smithfield stands the statue of a young woman wearing a solid gold wedding ring. The ring was found by the market superintendent in 1924, and when no one claimed it, he had it soldered onto her finger, because as she had been standing there, supposed to represent fertility since 1873, he thought it was high time she got married.

London cabs

2012-02-01T22:10:00.001Z

If you find a Cab-driver in London not carrying a bale of hay overboard, he is breaking the law.
All London taxis are "Hackney Carriages" registered and in the olden days this means "Horse-drawn". Regulations stated that no horses should go hungry and therefore insisted that all horse- drawn carriages that were registered as "Hackney Carriage" (mainly Taxis) should carry a bale of hay. That rule has still not been changed hence still applies. Fortunately it is not enforced.

Super Mario

2012-01-31T18:25:00.002Z

As you might know, I am a big fan of video-games. One of the most emblematic characters in the history of video-games is Super Mario.

Mario is an Italian plumber who lives in the Mushroom Kingdom, he uses a red hat with a big M in the center, which obviously stands for Mario.

This character is the main character of the Mario Franchise, by Nintendo, and he was created by the Japanese video-game designer Shigeru Myiamoto, in 1981. Recently, Mario celebrated 30 years of existence.

Mario and his brother Luigi usually get in trouble to save their princess Peach from the evil dragon Bowser. Often, they are helped by the lovely little dinasour Yoshi.

Since his first appearance in video-games, Mario's games kept on breaking sales records and this Italian plumber is often considered as a symbol of video-games.

Fábio Freitas 10ºB

Westminster Abbey

2012-01-28T13:56:00.000Z

Westminster Abbey or Collegiate Church of St. Peter of Westminster is a Gothic church the size of a cathedral. It is the traditional location for coronations and burials of British monarchs. It is located in Westminster, London, next to the Palace of Westminster.

The historic Abbey was built by Edward the Confessor between 1045 and 1050 and was consecrated on December 28, 1065. Edward built the cathedral, in the absence of a vote in which he promised to make a pilgrimage, the pope advised him to redeem himself by building an abbey.

The original abbey, in Romanesque style, was built by Benedictine monks. It was rebuilt in Gothic style between 1245 and 1517. The first phase of reconstruction was organized by King Henry III as a shrine to Edward the Confessor. The work was completed during the reign of Richard II. Henry VII added a chapel to the Virgin Mary in 1503.

The abbey was returned to the Benedictines under the reign of Queen Mary, who died in 1558 during the reign of Elizabeth I and then buried in the same abbey. In 1579, Elizabeth I making it back in the "Collegiate Church of St. Peter."The two western towers of the abbey was built in 1722 by Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor, are made of stone and Portland are an example of the revival of Gothic design. In the nineteenth century were carried out various reforms.
Since the coronation of William the Conqueror in 1066, all English monarchs have been crowned in the abbey, with the exception of Jane Grey, Edward V and Edward VIII. The Archbishop of Canterbury is responsible for performing the ceremony of coronation.
On April 29, 2011, in Abbey wedding took place after a long courtship of eight years, Prince William of Cambridge (Lady Diana's son) and his wife now and future queen, Catherine of Cambridge, the current monarch gave them the title of Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

Telma Soares 10º B

Impressionism

2012-01-15T15:11:00.000Z

Today I’m going to tell you about my favorite art movement, it’s call Impressionism and it started in the 19^th century in France. It name comes from the title of Monet’s painting, “Impression soleil levant”, which you can see above. This movement was very criticize back in that time because it broke up with every painting convection till then. In spite of that, this artists are now consider some of the most brilliant minds of the 19^th century and their painting are spread all over the world. Names like Paul Cézanne, Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley, Claude Monet, Frédéric Bazille, Pierre August Renoir and Camille Pissarro are marks on the history of art. Their painting was inspiring by the importance of color and by the simplest motives… Like a bridge, a bartender, a garden or a river. Quoting Renoir: “The simplest images are the ones which are immortal.”

I leave you with some of my favorite paintings.

Impression soleil levant - Claude Monet

Edgar Degas

Pierre August Renoir

Frédéric Bazille

Alfred Sisley

Impressionism wasn't only felt in paintings, amazing musicians like Claude Debussy created wonderful songs, but that will have to wait till the next post!

Inês Ribas

True facts about kissing

2012-01-14T19:48:00.000Z

A kiss is just a kiss........
Did you know that a kiss influences your brain?

Volunteering - You can make a difference

2012-01-06T17:38:00.001Z

Volunteers in Mozambique

Volunteering, while traveling in Mozambique or any other country in the world, is a way to totally immerse yourself in the local culture. Volunteering provides a great opportunity to make life-long friends, learn a new culture from the inside out and discover that one person really can make a difference.

Watch the film and leave your comment, please.

Christmas Crackers

2011-12-31T01:25:00.000Z

Christmas Crackers are an important part of Christmas celebrations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and South Africa, but they are also used in non Christmas celebrations.
A cracker is a cardboard tube wrapped in paper, it seems like an oversized sweet-wrapper. Inside of the cracker are a coloured paper hat or crown, a small toy and a joke or piece of trivia.

The cracker is pulled by two people in a dinner table or party and it splits unequally. The person with the larger portion of the cracker gets its inner content.
Nowadays, the price of a cracker can be up to 200£, more a less 240€, because some of them may contain jewellery on the inside, but there are also available 2£, more a less 2,40€, typical crackers.

Diana Barros

Why be happy, when you could be normal?

2011-12-17T23:56:00.000Z

Why not read a good book during the holidays?

"My girfriend Susie is Jewish and does not ‘do’ Christmas. This is tricky because my place in the Cotswolds will be hung with baubles and glittery things and lights and wreaths – the lot. One thing I like to do is to fly down my two wooden angels who usually live on the bookcases – but at Christmas they live either end of the fireplace.
I do it because I enjoy it, because it makes me smile, and because I like the ritual and symbol of different times of the year. I don’t want it all to be the same. And the joyousness of sharing and the time for contemplation seem good to me".
Go easy on the shopping…

It's Christmas time....

2011-12-16T19:59:00.002Z

Please click on the image.

I wish all my students a wonderful Xmas and a very good year full of joy and happiness

Steven Paul Jobs

2011-12-14T23:33:00.005Z

Steven Paul Jobs (San Francisco, California, February 24, 1955 - Palo Alto, California, October 5, 2011) was an inventor, entrepreneur and U.S. tycoon in the computer industry. He excelled as a co-founder, president and CEO of Apple Inc. and revolutionize six industries: personal computers, movies, animation, music, telephones, tablets, and digital publishing. In addition to its link with Apple, was chief executive of Pixar animation computer graphics and maximum individual shareholder of The Walt Disney Company.
In the late 1970s, Jobs, along with Steve Wozniak and Mike Markkula, among others, developed and marketed a line of the first successful personal computers, the Apple II series. In the early 1980s, he was among the first to realize the commercial potential of the graphical user interface driven by mouse, which led to the creation of the Macintosh.
After losing a power struggle with the board of directors in 1985, Jobs resigned from Apple and founded NeXT, a company developing platforms targeted markets in higher education and administration. The acquisition of NeXT by Apple in 1996 brought Jobs back to the company he helped found, and he served as its CEO from 1997 to 2011, the year he announced his resignation, recommending as his successor Tim Cook.
He died on October 5, 2011, at age 56 due to pancreatic cancer.

Acácio Pereira

Kurt Donald Cobain

2011-12-13T20:54:00.002Z

''The worst crime is faking it.''
Kurt Cobain

''A friend is nothing but a known enemy.''
Kurt Cobain

For the people who don't know Kurt Cobain...

Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 - April 5, 1994) was an american singer, songwriter, musician and artist, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the grunge band Nirvana. Cobain formed Nirvana with Krist Novoselic (bass) and Dave Grohl (drum) in Aberdeen, Washington in 1985 and established it as a part of the Seattle music scene. The band found breakthrough sucess with ''Smells Like Teens Spirit'' from its second album ''Nevermind''.

Death

Cobain was spotted in the Seattle area with a shotgun. Days later on the 5th of April he killed himself into the grammy flat behind his mansion, put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Cobain's body was found when an electrician visiting the house to install a security system. He asked, but no one answered, so he checked the window. He thought he saw a mannequin sprawled on the floor until he noticed a splotch of blood by Cobain's ear. When police broke down the door they found Cobain dead on the floor, a shotgun still pointed at his chin and on a nearby counter a suicide note written in red ink addressed to Courtney Love, him wife and the couples then 19 months old daughter Frances Bean Cobain.

The suicide note ended with the words ''I love you, I love you''. Two days after Kurt Cobain's body was found about 5.000 people gathered in Seattle for a candlelight vigil. The distraught crowd filled the air with profane chants, burnt their flannel shirts and fought with police. They also listened to a tape made by Cobain's wife in which she read from his suicide note. Several distressed teenagers in the U.S. and Australia killed themselves.

We'll Always Remember...

Diogo Falcão

Steven Spielberg

2011-12-13T19:19:00.003Z

Steven Spielberg.

Now that the Christmas Holiday is coming, it's time for us to sit back on our couch and enjoy some movies.

When we talk about the cinema industry, lots of names pop up in our minds. For me, it's Steven Spielberg.

He was born in 18th December 1946, in Cincinatti, United States of America, and he is now 64, almost 65.

A lot of critics consider him one of the most relevant names in the industry right now, and for me, he is one of the best directors of all time.

In my opinion, his sci-fi movies are incredible. He directed such blockbusters as Back to the future, Indiana Jones and Jaws, but my personal favorite is, without a doubt, Jurassic Park.

Jurassic Park tells a story about an eccentric rich man named John Hammond, that uses his money to financially support some crazy dna experiences with dinosaurs that end up going terribly bad.

Overall, I think he is the best director of our generation and we should all take a few minutes to enjoy his masterpieces, even if we are not familiar with the genre.

Written by:
Fábio Freitas

Celebrating Frank Sinatra

2011-12-12T22:05:00.001Z

Francis Albert “Frank” Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, U.S.A., on 12^th December 1915 (died 14^th May 1998).

He was a singer, actor, producer, director and conductor. With more than 50 years of career, Sinatra was considered one of the best voices in the twentieth century. He started his career during the Swing Era and launched hundreds of songs immortalized by his voice.

He has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for his work in music and another for his work on American TV.

Without any formal training, Sinatra developed a highly sophisticated style.

He appeared in over fifty films and had his own TV Show.

Sinatra began to show signs of dementia in his last years and after a heart attack in February 1997, he made no further public appearances. After suffering another heart attack, he died at 10:50 pm on May 14, 1998 at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, with his wife Barbara by his side. He was 82 years old.

Vítor Guimarães

Fernando Pessoa in English

2011-12-11T11:54:00.002Z

Fernando Pessoa is one of the most important figures in Portuguese literature; however, what many people don’t know is that he wrote a lot in English. That’s right, I discovered it when I was searching information for an oral presentation about him. I thought that it would be a good idea to look for some of his poems and post them on this blog. So one of my favorite is about our Alentejo, although it is written in English (you can read it below).

Fernando Pessoa was fluent in English because he grew up in South Africa, were we was brought up according to the english customs. He ended up so far from his hometown Lisbon, when his mother married another man, who wasn’t Fernando’s father.

ALENTEJO SEEN FROM THE TRAIN

Nothing with nothing around it

And a few trees in between

None of which very clearly green,

Where no river or flower pays a visit.

If there be a hell, I've found it,

Inês Ribas Dias

Whisper by Slovo

2011-12-06T20:32:00.000Z

Here is a song I like and I want to share with you.

I think I should go now
I must leave before my red eyes match the sunrise
No more coffee will put off today

I've stood too long
In the shadow of a doubt
I need some sun
It seems that time returns to me once more
But I have less now than before

And when I feel my world falling down
I think of you
I think of you

And when I feel I can breath no more
you speak to me
you speak to me

When the brightest star
Smiled as it squared shoulders with the night
You lit the glowing embers of my own light

Do you know
Your words could drag the moon down from the sky
Seduce my frozen heart with your war cry
You really made me listen for my voice
And I heard millions

And when I feel my world falling down
I think of you
I think of you

And when I feel I can breath no more
you speak to me
you speak to me

When you fell
I saw your visionary thoughts befriend your blood
Crimson lovers drowning in the same flood
I miss the beauty of your young black skin

I thought that freedom
Can only be defined as endless choice
And I only listened to the logic of the loudest voice

But this world
Will be shaken by a whisper

But this world
Will be shaken by a whisper

Man Ray

2011-11-18T14:40:00.000Z

Legendary Photography, painter, and maker of objects and films, Man Ray was on the most versatile and inventive artists of this century. Born in Philadelphia in 1890, he knew the worlds of Greenwich Village in the avant garde era following the 1913 Armory show; Paris in the 1920's and 1930's, where he played a key role in the Dada and Surrealist movements; The Hollywood of the 1940s, where he joined others chased by war from their homes in Europe; and finally, Paris again until his death in 1976.

Tea in England

2011-11-14T19:12:00.001Z

Tea reminds us all of England but where was this tradition born?
Tea was introduced in England by Catherine of Braganza (Catarina de Bragança). When Catherine of Braganza married Charles II (Carlos II) in 1662, she took with her a big amount of tea, which was very valuable those days. Soon it became an habit to drink tea in the English court.

This habit was quickly spread around England and since then it is a very important part of the english culture.

Diana Barros

The Origin of OK

2011-11-11T11:51:00.001Z

We say “ok” everyday, it has lots of different meanings. We use it when someone asks for something:

“Take your shoes from the floor!”

And we say: “Ok! I’m going to do it.”

And we all know that sometimes, that’s a lie… We also use it to express sarcam:

“My dad is king of Portugal! So I’m a princess…”

“Ok, of course you are!”

The point is that we often use this word, with one thousand of different meanings but we don't really know it’s origin.

Well, the oldest written record of the word “ok” dates from 1815, in the diary of William Richardson, who was travelling from Boston to New York.

"Arrived at Princeton, a handsome little village, 15 miles from N Brunswick, ok & at Trenton, where we dined at 1 P.M."

There’s no consent about the origin of this word. Some say it comes from the greek: olla plus kalla, that meant “good”. Others defend other origins like finnish (okeia), scottish (och aye) or even from french (au quai). There’s also a connection with wars. It may be an abbreviation of Orrin Kendall biscuits, which soldiers ate during the American Civil War. There’s also the expression “0 killed”, which was used in the night’s death toll during the First World War.

In spite of its origin, “ok” is used not only by speakers ofEenglish, it has spread all over the world and used by many other people, including Portuguese, that use “ok” everyday, in their one language.

Inês Ribas

Remember me

2011-11-09T19:01:00.001Z

This picture is from the film

«Gandhi said, "Whatever you do in life will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do" I agree with the first part, Michael you knew what expected, at 22 years Gandhi had three children, Mozart 30 siphoned and Bernie Howard was dead. You once told me that our fingerprints do not vanish from the lives we touch. Is it true for everyone, or is it poetic bullshit!?....Gandhi said, "Whatever you do in life will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do" because nobody else will. Like when someone enters your life and half of you say you are not prepared, but the other half says make her yours forever. Michael, Caroline asked me what would you say if you knew that you could hear me, now I know: I love you, god how I miss you and I forgive you!"

This text was taken from a movie called "Remember Me" and it is about a young man of 21 years, whose brother died and has to deal with his family. Later, he will meet a young woman who saw her mother die when she was little.
This movie is very exciting and it is one of my favorite movies.
I took the text from the film, because for me it was the best part!
I think that this text can make us think about life, and what we do with it .

Marta Sousa