The real meaning of music

Once I talked to a very friendly old man who was musician and he told me this: "Music has such incredible power and it's nearly impossible to find someone who does not like it". I say music is very important to me indeed and I totally agree with him. Music has the power of changing your mood when you're down. if you're tired, for example, you can relax at the sound of a smooth jazz as a background. Music is an inspiration.. it can be an inspiration for love or simply a romance, I mean, you can try to make a declaration of love just by singing and playing an instrument at the same time and then it will make the other person melt. Music is democratic, there are a lot of different and great styles, so you can just be into a specific type or any others. Music is art. Music is poetry. Music can just represent love as well as your spirit and soul. Well, just let music take your mind and you'll see...

Speaking of music, you can listen to a song I like very much called "Brither Than Sunshine" by Aqualung. When I first heard the song, on a movie called A Lot Like Love, I just loved it :D

Prejudice... get rid of it!

Hello guys, after a long time I'm finally back :D Today I'm gonna make a new reflection: while I was watching a very interestin' show in which the heads of two different families (usually it's the mother) exchange their families for a week. Today, though, happened a thing in the show I had never seen before - this exchange took place between 2 VERY differents, or rather, extremily different families: one very rich lived in a LARGE and very much nice house (it was an incredibly beautiful mansion), and the other one was based in a very poor house, located in a very poor place (it was a slum in fact). Although there was this large difference between them, they acted in a so much sensible way, there was much respect between them that it deeply touched me. The show just put out, no matter what, even if there's a lot of material need, a family can be really very strong if they're all united. In addition, they involved in the process of exchange faced the incredible experience without any prejudice.. Respect is the key word. You can face an experience which, at first, seems impossible for you to completete it, but at the final you'll see you could learn much more than you ever had realized.
Then I must wrap this up just saying that getting ready for new experiences means you must throw away all those stereotypes you got in your head.

Joke: God and the man.

I don't want this Blog to be too formal, so I'm posting this joke, which I already thought it's very cool and interesting when I first read. Enjoy :D

- God and the man

A man visits God and says "God, do you mind if I ask you a
few questions?" God says "No, ask me anything at all."

So the man says "God, you've been around for a very long time,
so, for you, how long is a thousand years?"

God replies "For me, a thousand years is only five minutes."

The man then says "That's interesting God. And, for you,
how much is a million dollars?"

God replies "For me, a million dollars is only five cents."

The man says "Really? Well then God, could you lend me
five cents please?"

God looks at the man, smiles, and says "Of course my son.
Just wait five minutes!"

Problems by Langston Hughes

One day I was listening to a Podcast in English what I try to do sometimes just to practice my Listening Skill. It's a good way to improve and work on your vocabulary as well. I recomend you all to do the same thing. If you're a begginer, you should start taking a short time a day to listen to something in English, and then the time can increase time after time. You may hear a lot of things in English, by listening to music, for example - it's nearly impossible not to hear anything in English actually - but listening to a podcast made for this purpose, to you who are a student of English as second language, wil involve you much more. On this podcast, it was being discussed about an American writer named Langston Hughes (he was an African-American born in the state of Missouri, who wrote alot of things about racism) and Of course I had to search for other work by him, and then I found a book which contains his most important and famous poems. There are many interesting poems in this book, but I got interested mainly for this one: "Problems". It's a very simple poem, not hard to read, though it's no easy to understand it fully the first time you read. If you read it you might think it doesn't make sense at all LoL. Anyhow, it's enough. I'm gonna show you the poem and you should comment saying what you think after reading it, Ok? I wonder there will be a lot of ideas about the poem, some people may understand, others probably not. But it will be funny to read all the commentaries and controversies that can show up from the reading of it.


Problems
(Langston Hughes)


2 and 2 are 4.
4 and 4 are 8.

But what should happen
If the last 4 was late?

And how would it be
If one 2 was me?

Or if the first 4 was you
Divided by 2?



P.S. If you're interested on practicing your English listening skill, check out this website www.eslpod.com Download podcasts and enjoy yourself.

Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité

These are the most important words that somehow marked the world in the middle of 18th and in all 19th centuries, and most probably still mark the thought of the actual world: Liberty, Equality and Fraternity by the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. They are the slogan of French Revolution, one of the more important facts responsible for putting down the strength from the “Ancien Régime”, absolute monarchy, blocking all sorts of abuse by the king Louis XVI in a very radical way. Then all the interests of the bourgeoisie could largely show up and be respected.

Before the French Revolution, though, The USA Independency Declaration process could already be noticed; like the French Revolution, that one finally avoided the abuses from England could go ahead. Then, Americans broke the link they had with England; principles based on liberty, equality and fraternity were thought to form the new country. In that context, people really thought at that time they could be definitely happy living in a society that could preserve the liberty, which was represented by republicanism, for example. Although liberty and equality were respected, we cannot forget the capitalism was becoming a solid economic doctrine, so it was very important to spread liberty as a value because it is a very basic point in the capitalism.

After a lot of battles, the revolutionaries made it and capitalism could increase. And even after Cold War, capitalism still seems as the absolute economic doctrine, however some countries still try to resist to it with too much difficult. Anyhow, equality never meant, besides the reference to the economy, a real equality between people. Neither capitalism nor the type of socialism the USSR experienced could ever offer the real meaning of equality among people. Also, we deceptively have liberty, but we are not necessarily free either. We live in a fake democracy that we can see a lot of differences between rich and poor men. Actually democracy only means the right of voting, but it is still stupid to a certain degree.

Recently, it has been spoken of what has happened in Honduras, a small independent island located in Caribbean: the president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, right now ex-president, had envisioned to bargain, without success, by making up a plebiscite, in order to be able to make a little change in the law to remain in the power during more four years whether re-elected. What was the inception of it? Simply, militaries took his president position and then he had to leave the country. Their act, for sure, shows us how liberty and equality can be affected actually.

Militaries most times just represent the interests from elite, but we should understand the action of Zelaya might reflect his purpose of remaining in the power and will of creating a dictatorship, as a tendency in some unstable countries in Latin America. It is not different in Venezuela, for example as well as is interesting to observe that in these two countries there are extremely poor people, what can reflect the intolerance which exists on their politics.

Obviously, liberty and equality are nearly to utopia and very philosophical. They have been discussed since some centuries ago but the interests of the upper class have always been prevailed. The matter is: we cannot stop fighting and never let others manipulate us. The values of society can change gradually and we should never let our can-do spirit go away.

The angles people can see from.

It’s a fact that everybody is different, so the implication of it is different things coming up. In spite of the differences and divergences, like different points of view, for example, are well-known between people, they’re not most times respected. Why do people seem to have the pleasure of judging other people’s choice? Why would you judge a person by their preference? That’s kind of stupid, isn’t that? It’s funny how society tends to think the private life can work as a spectacle.

Well, it’s not hard to conclude, it’s all relative, of course; everything’s a matter of choice or the way you think about. You may prefer chocolate flavor, but the strawberry one is very popular among a huge group of people - I admit I’m one of them hehe -. You can be appealed to men, women or even both. So the more you try to see things as usual, the more you’ll understand the real meaning of much stuff. Of course many things can’t just be seen as natural as possible, but do not speak without enough knowledge of the situation. You should always remember this: Never judge a book by its cover.

Have you ever thought about the power that TV or newspaper have of manipulating such common ideas among the public opinion? After all, Europe’s not the best place to live, nor white is better than black. Likewise, analyzing the movement of a little bug is not worthless at all - I know I sound nearly crazy now hehe -.

At last, just for the record, when people finally start respecting opinions and the way other people choose to live, it doesn’t matter whether on edge or in a very calm and boring way, the world will become a cooler place to live in. Just think about it, alright?

Welcome!

Hi y'all! I'm Felipe and I've created this blog exclusively to share my ideas and visions about the actual world as a way to practice English, which is one of my passions. =) So beginning today, I'm gonna try to post some nice things and will be so glad seeing other ESL (English as Second Language) students commentin' as well. In fact, not only ESL students, but everybody from everywhere is welcome to comment and suggest some topics for me to write. I'm with excitements waiting your reactions to my posts. Enjoy!