Bossa Nova ‘Bossa Nova’ is a Brazilian music style created by Joao Gilberto in 1954 in Rio de Janeiro. It’s a blend of Jazz and Samba with a complexes harmonies. It used to play with a classical guitar and its measure was always 2/4, it means ‘Bossa Nova’ is an authentic Samba. Even Frank Sinatra falls in love when he heard the the most well-known song ‘Garota de Ipanema’(Girl from Ipanema). I’ve enjoyed ‘Bossa Nova’ after my thirties. I’d had a girlfriend who all her family had loved ‘Bossa Nova’, and I’d learned I lot with them and today I am so glad for it because ‘Bossa Nova’ is my background for my own songs. Two months ago I went to visit Rio de Janeiro, because I’ve never been there before and I wanted to visit the Bossa Nova’s famous places. I found out those places when I read a book called ‘Noites Tropicais’(Tropical Night) by Nelson Motta who was the guy who lived those golden years of Brazilian music. The bad news was few people knows ‘Bossa Nova’ in Rio de Janeiro. People there don’t Know how important ‘Bossa Nova’ was for our culture.

My old band When I was 20's I sang and played the guitar in a band for five years long. My friends and I decided to make our own songs and during those years we made twenty songs. I have written all songs by myself and my friends helped me with the musical harmony. In those days we had only MySpace to share our songs. It was too expensive to make a video clip, only label bands had afforded to make it and share it on Youtube. The time came to us and some of us was engaged in other projects like another bands, marriage and so on. We decided to broke up. A few days later one of my friends, who played in that band, arranged a meeting to remember those old days and yesterday was the day. Some of us didn't remember our own songs, but it was nice to see them again and talking about ours lives and see how they can achieve their goals.

Barbecue Yesterday I went to my friend's birthday party. He is twenty-nine year old and he loves beer and barbecue. In Brazil we grill meat, sausage and chicken. We don't like grill hamburger in barbecue. I remembered when I was in USA in a barbecue, they had hamburger, sausage and corn in barbecue, and nothing about beer.

What is happening? Today I went to English meeting conversation. There were some people I know, but I haven't been there for a long time so, all of them seemed strange for me. I met a weird guy who lived a year in Ireland. He spoke so slow that I thought he realised that I was a beginner. There was a girl who I always saw her in some pictures on facebook's group. I thought she was starting learning speak English, but I heard her speaking and she spoke very well. She is so pretty beautiful girl and all of boys there was trying to speak to her. It was the first time that I listened more them speak. I think it is a good experience, I must know how people speak. I mist know if they speak fast, slow or use a advanced English. I hope enjoing these meetings and improve my speaking skill.

Graffiti We have two kind of graffiti, one of them is Graffiti tagging and the other one is Street Art. You can see a lot of them in urban landscape. Street art is constructive, sometimes beautiful, but depends on what kind of message it tries to show you, adorn urban landscape, stretches your mind and it tries to say “Have you thought about this?”. Graffiti tagging is destructive, it’s not beautiful, scars urban landscape and accelerates urban decay. In my point of view, I think we have to celebrate Street arts, I really keen on street arts and we have to protect them from taggers. In Brazil there is a law for people who do graffiti tagging, but most of cases police don’t take the tagger to the police office and apply their own punishment. When I was a teenage I had a friend who was a tagger and a day the police got him doing a graffiti tagging and the police painted him with my friend’s ink spray from the feet to the head.

Improving My English In My Car Everyday on the weekdays I spend two hours in my car to commute to work. I found a way to enjoy this time improving my English. Of course that I can't call to my friends and talk to them in English, because most of them don't speak English and it is not allowed talk on the mobile phone while you drive. A friend of mine gave me a good tip: - Listen to English podcasts while you drive. I started to listen to a podcast by British Council's website. The level was Elementary and it was a talk show hosted by Tess and Ravi. They talked about British things and the Royal Family. There was a novel about a girl called Carolina. She is from Venezuela and she was in New Castle to study and have fun. It were three seasons with twenty episodes each one. Now I am listening to podcasts by BBC. They have a lots of them about interesting subjects. I improved my listening a lot and now I am enjoying my time when I commute to work everyday.