diary 13

Today I'm going to talk about one of my experiences. Almost 2 months ago, my friend and I were walking on Paramatta Road in Syd.
We were just talking while walking when, suddenly, a can flew at me and almost hit us. I turned back promptly with an angry face and tried to find the person who threw it at me. There was a teenage boy or young man in a car driving along the road. He said something bad, maybe some curse words. Fortunately, I'm still not good at English especially with listening. I couldn't understand what that little bully said; I gave him my precious middle finger.

INFORMAL EMAIL

Hi friend,

Sorry for not writing earlier. I've been studying a lot, have gone to a private tuition for my English exams and had my other exams which I passed with flying colors! I'm really proud of and relieved about the results. Now, I'm doing a practicum from home in a technology company. I involve myself in as many jobs as possible. It's rewarding. Moreover, I reckon that they'll hire me and over time I'll be able to get a promotion and maybe raise my salary. It'll be a very satisfying job.

Nowadays, I'm living in a village in the north of Spain. In summer, it's boiling during the day but, during the night, the temperature is mild and there is a breeze. Thus, I can sleep all night. However, when there is a heatwave, it is impossible to go outside or to sleep. In winter, the weather is below zero. Although there are sunny days most of the season, some days have a thick fog because of a lake near the village. In Spring, the weather is mild and sometimes it's drizzling. In autumn, there are rain showers every week and the temperature is cool. This season is the most beautiful to me due to the falling leaves and amazing colors: yellows, browns and dark green.

In this village, there isn't any juvenile delinquency. I'm safe and sound. I get on well with my neighbours. People who live here don't invest enough quality time with each other and only meet on red-letter days. There's a nursery, a primary and secondary school and a high school. It is in the latter where the adolescents are often truant and, as a result, those teenagers are neglected by their parents. It's an arduous situation.

Anyway, life here is a bit quiet. The location is fantastic. Usually, I have a lot of spare time at the weekend when I can take the opportunity to go hiking in The Pyrenees and sometimes go skiing during the winter. The Pyrenees are near, only about an hour's drive by car.  Also, people can practice extreme sports there such as paragliding, canyoning, kayaking and so on. These kinds of sports give an adrenaline rush. There are places of mass tourism near here in contrast to the others where you can be alone. Furthermore, some captivating villages and towns are nearby where people can go sightseeing and taste the local foods.

I hope you can come visit me and get to know this area more.

Well, that's all for now. Please give my regards to your family.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Take care.

Chemical addiction

Sometimes I hear people say that "anyone can do anything if they want it enough". I don't think so. Sometimes our brain doesn't give us enough hormones and, even if you are working on your aim, you don't have the willpower. Your mind droping in napping and any little noise distracts you from learning. Also, you just want to sleep. How can a normal man work it out? Even if he continues his efforts, the results are poor.

Sometimes it's like some people have more RAM (like in a PC), some less. And you can't change it. I hate it. Maybe some of you face the same problem? Can you tell me about it? Share your experience, please.

A new chapter in my life

As I said before, I've been living in London for a year and 3 months now. In all this time, I've learnt so much about England's culture and feel like I've discovered a new world because I could meet people from various places around the world. I saw how people from different countries, cultures and ethnic backgrounds speak and interact amongst themselves normally. Thus, I saw a big difference between London and Madrid, which is also a country that has people from different cultures, however, the people are not very open-minded. Basically, in the beginning, it was different for me because I came from Spain. Each day I learned some new words and the people helped me so much.

An exciting day

An exciting day in my life was the day I went to AQUALANDIA, a water park in Benidorm in the Alicante province. I had a good time with Viki; although, at first, we were lost. We had a big day. There were many attractions, for example, a thirty-three meters long toboggan. In fact, Viki didn't want to ride it because it is the tallest in the world.  Another attraction was a tour on a big water floater around the park. We finished the day eating a glass of hail from a 1 meter long XXXXX (what). It was very, very good.

This is my first English topic. My Sunday meal! XD

Hello to everyone!!! This is my first English topic and I'm not very good at writing in English. But, I will try to describe what I ate for lunch today. Before I begin, thank you for reading this and for your precious corrections you make!
For the first course, I had a typical Italian dish, lasagne bolognese style with tomatoes, meat, Raspadura (Raspadura is a cheese made in my city) and ham. My mom cooks this dish superbly and I ate it all.
For the second course, we ate "parmigiana". Parmigiana is a kind of Italian food with eggplant, tomatoes, mozzarella cheese and a bit of oregano. If you like, you can add ham and eggs but we prefer it without those ingredients. I also use a bit of chili pepper.
For dessert, I cooked my favourite cake. Pears and chocolate! Very, very delicious. I like this kind of cake with a lot of pears and just a bit of chocolate because chocolate has a heavy taste and pears don't. If I use too much chocolate, then I can't taste the pears and, in my opinion, that isn't good. So, I follow my granny's council: look with your eyes for when the pears and chocolate are in the correct amounts. Oh gosh, my granny is a great chef!!! I'm mostly just a man who likes to cook and eat. I'm a good fork.
Afterward, we ate some fruits to rinse our pallettes and drank coffee. Ammazza Caffe is another wonderful thing in Italy.  Sometimes, after coffee, I drink a shot of rum or a little glass of liqueur with aromatic grasses.
For my family and me, Sunday lunch is very important because we are all around the table but, especially, there is my granny. Oh yes, there is also my little dog, Argo!

About the leasing of an office

They were discussing clauses of the lease point by point. One point was that the landlord wanted the right to raise the rent every year according to inflation rates. They thought this point on the document wasn’t a big issue because the growing rates weren’t higher than expected. As they moved on to the next point, the landlord requested that the leaseholder should foot the bill for any alterations and repairs. They took this clause very seriously and wanted to look for some guarantees. Taking into account they didn’t have many competitors around, they had faith in having an advantage in their negotiations. The landlord would likely be amenable on that one and he was generous. They threw in that he would provide parking spaces for the tenants.

Questions (Please!)

1) A professor of Literary Theory is giving a lecture and he says that: "...In other words, we said that in intellectual history, first you get this movement of concern about the distance between the perceiver and the perceived, a concern that gives rise to skepticism about whether we can know things as they really are. But then as a kind of AFTERMATH of that movement IN figures like Marx and Freud - and you will notice that Foucault REVERTS to such figures when he turns to the whole question of founders of discursivity"... What does "aftermath of that movement IN figures..." mean? What about "reverts"?

2)Do you say "a very consumerist society" or "a very consumer society"? What about "You are too consumerist" or "You are too consumer"? Or both sound odd?

Thank you very much!

Aftermath is an event that takes place after something has happened or the conditions you can observe. For example, a typhoon crossed over Taiwan. News coverage shows the aftermath. Trees are down, houses are up-turned and 17 people were killed. The figures that this person is referring to are Marx and Freud, meaning these people.

When someone reverts to anything, they are simply referencing back to someone or some other thing. So, Foucalt references Marx and Freud as he talks about that whole question of "the founders of discursivity".

Consumerist or consumer - I wouldn't use either. It's not a good blend. "A society teeming with consumerism".  Worst case, you could probably say consumerist society but it doesn't sound good.