Gonçalo Cadilhe visited our school

Monday, 28 February 2011

Today our school received Gonçalo Cadilhe, a travelling writer.

His experience is astonishing. Although he is young, his adventures all over the world (approximately 100 countries ) “enriched his soul” and made him capable of describing his life as a book of adventures where he found the happiness doing what he wants to do.
The photos of his journeys were amazing, and his will to fight all the world trends and live like he wants is a message of courage to deal with life and enjoy it.
Personally, I would like to travel a lot, enjoy the wonders of the world and make that my lifestyle, opposing the traditional path that we are taught to follow.
But… My motives would be different because although I agree with his lifestyle, my ideals are different. Probably I would travel and live around the world to get away from this system and fight for some ideas that I defend.
I would go to find out other cultures and ways of seeing life. Just to learn about how other people live and deal with nature around them.
Generally it was worthwhile to think about alternative lifestyles and to see that maybe the way to find our happiness can be out of the world of work in a building for 8 hours every day.

About my class tomorrow, I’ll try to make it fun and create a space when we can all laugh, participate and learn. The theme will be a surprise and I hope you all enjoy it. The main objective is to improve a bit our general knowledge and make you think about a very actual theme that started a long time ago.

Diogo

A poem about the last unit

Sunday, 27 February 2011

      You probably remember that our English Teacher asked us to elaborate some kind of song or poem about the last unit we have studied. This is my work, I hope you like it!


This world is such a craziness
Everyone can touch our sadness
That all of us got stuck inside
Hidden between the fakeness and our pride

Most of us keep so quiet
We can only think of our belly
Always fighting to maintain a diet
When others, across the world don't have bread or jelly

How can we be so complaining
Idiots, racists and always demanding
To be superior to those who are outside
Watching our steps glass-eyed

Please say something!
 Can't we do anything?
Are we trying everyday not to die?
Then how can we say such a lie?


Raquel Moreira 12ºB

What happened in my birth year? + extra

Thursday, 24 February 2011

I was browsing through my Tumblr when I found out a very interesting and funny site.
Well, the site consists of naming a few events that happened in the year that you're born.
just click to go to the page


hope you like it! (:


and now the extra:
I saw this image and I can't stop thinking about how it portrays the reality hehe.

Vânia Amaral

True Grit

Monday, 21 February 2011

This weekend I decided to go to the cinema and I went with António to see this marvelous movie.

Plot of the movie: Following the murder of her father by hired hand Tom Chaney, 14-year-old farm girl Mattie Ross sets out to capture the killer. To aid her, she hires the toughest U.S. marshal she can find, a man with "true grit," Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn. Mattie insists on accompanying Cogburn, whose drinking, sloth, and generally reprobate character do not augment her faith in him. Against his wishes, she joins him in his trek into the Indian Nations in search of Chaney. They are joined by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, who wants Chaney for his own purposes. The unlikely trio find danger and surprises on the journey, and each has his or her "grit" tested.

 We enjoyed it a lot and we hope you all go and see it for yourselves.

Here is the trailer of the movie :) enjoy!

Miguel Amaral and António 12ºA

José Sócrates: Bad English

Saturday, 19 February 2011

This is just a video that I found... It shows that after all we are learning English very well.   =D

Hope you enjoy it...

Carlos Silva 12ºB

Black Swan

Black Swan is a mysterious American psychological thriller film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman, Oscar nominated as best actress.


A New York City ballet company is preparing for the production of Swan Lake, choosing to cast a new lead to replace the current star performing the Swan Queen. However, the lead must maintain an adequate portrayal of both the White and Black Swans. Nina, a ballet dancer, is competing for the part alongside several other young dancers, including the newcomer Lily. Nina is a perfect fit for the innocent and delicate White swan - Princess Odette - but she lacks the passion of the darkly sensual Black Swan – the evil sister, Odile. As Lily has a personality that matches the Black Swan, the two compete for the role while Nina slowly loses her mind, finding her dark side, as she becomes more and more like Odette's wicked sister. She starts having psychotic symptoms and strong visual hallucinations during her twisted and desperate search for perfection.

I strongly recommend to the ones that enjoy gloomy thrillers. It wasn´t one of my favorite movies because I was expecting that it would be more focused on dance, but I really liked Natalie Portman’s performance.



I hope you like it!
Daniela :)

The Great Leap Forward

Thursday, 17 February 2011

China’s Great Leap Forward was an economic and social campaign of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aimed to modernize its economy through decisions made from 1958 to 1961. Mao Zedong led the campaign, using China's vast population to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a communist society through the process of agriculturalization and industrialization.


Private farming was prohibited, and those engaged in it were labeled as counter revolutionaries and persecuted. Restrictions on rural people were enforced by social pressure, The Great Leap ended in catastrophe, resulting in tens of millions of deaths by starvation and violence. Described by ones as a policy based on coercion, terror, and systematic violence and by others a very expensive disaster, it "motivated one of the most deadly mass killings of human history.”

Mao was criticized and marginalized in the party conferences, leading him to initiate the Cultural Revolution in 1966. It is said that this disastrous policy is an economic disaster, in which 30% was nature’s fault and 70% human error.

Mao Zedong stated:

"Casualties have indeed appeared among workers, but it is not enough to stop us in our tracks. This is the price we have to pay, it's nothing to be afraid of. Who knows how many people have been sacrificed on the battlefields and in the prisons [for the revolutionary cause]? Now we have a few cases of illness and death: it's nothing!"

"When there is not enough to eat people starve to death. It is better to let half of the people die so that the other half can eat their fill."

The great leap forward turned out to be a great leap into the abyss!
Daniela :)