The positive mental attitude

To end the month with a good reading. I want to comment something about another book I'm reading "The positive mental attitude". I know that It's really difficult to get rid of the pessimistic attitude we have. I consider myself as a pessimist. So that's why I'm reading that book to change my attitude and to realize that being optimist is better to face all the situations we encounter in our lives.
What your mind can believe, then you can get it with a positive mental attitude.
When suddenly you receive a good idea, write it down. Use always pencil and a sheet of paper or a notebook or whatever.
When you have a trouble ask questions and your mind will work on it until you know how to solve the problem.
Do it now makes the difference.
Hope is the basic ingredient to stimulate yourself and others.
Stimulate others trusting them and with faith.
You can use letters to stimulate others.
When you have confidence in others, the latter get the success.
Motivate yourself saying the words of what you can be, example. "Be agressive", "Be sincere", etc and use the Do it now principle.
Study, think and plan with a positive mental attitude.

Those are part of the notes I took from the book that I haven't finished reading it.

I've dealt with different kind of people during my life. Those that are optimistic I admire and are a good example of how I should be. In family are few optimistic people unfortunately, so that's why I need to learn how to be optimist and practice that to be successful.

I think the book is worth reading it. If you don't have that skill you should read it.

Have an excellent day and end of month.

Resistencia civil pacífica / peacefully civil resistance

Hoy voy a hablar de algunas cosas que podemos hacer en nuestros lugares para protestar y obligar a los gobiernos y a las empresas a que hagan algo en beneficio de todos. Estas acciones dependen de cada persona y si cada quién pone su granito de arena entonces es una excelente estrategía para lograr nuestros objetivos como sociedad.
Hace poco recibí un email en que hablaba de la resistencia civil pacífica, te preguntarás y ¿qué es la resistencia civil pacífica?, te voy a decir algunos ejemplos para que te des una idea.
Resulta que vas seguido a un centro comercial en el que tiene un gran estacionamiento y cada mes le suben el precio, obvio le suben el precio porque es un gran negocio independientemente si la gente compre o no en los locales comerciales, con el solo hecho de ir a la plaza en tu auto, el dueño del centro comercial se vuelve millonario. Definitivamente te das cuenta de eso y analizas que el estacionamiento es un requisito obligatorio que debe de tener los centros comerciales y que no deberían de cobrar, entonces la solución es no ir al centro comercial en tu carro. Si haces esto los dueños van a perder muchisimo dinero y como no va a seguir siendo negocio, entonces van a reducir o a quitar la tarifa del estacionamiento.
Otro ejemplo: La gasolina, aqui siempre sube el precio de la gasolina. La solución hay que andar en bicicleta, o caminar, usar lo menos posible el automovil para que demostremos que estamos inconformes y que tienen que hacer algo para reducir el precio del combustible.
La electricidad es el mismo caso, tenemos que buscar alguna manera de no consumir tanta electricidad y si se puede usar algun tipo de tecnología para producir nuestra propia energía electrica.
El aumento de los precios de la carne por ejemplo, pues no compremos carne, comamos otras cosas.
Si realmente queremos cambiar las cosas entonces actuemos. Cada quien ponga su granito de arena para construir lo que más queramos para nuestra comunidad.

=)

____________________________________________________________

Today, I'm going to talk about some things we can do in our places to protest and oblige governments and companies to do something to benefit all the people. These actions depend on each person and If all of us do our part in it, then It'll be an excellent strategy to get our goals as a society.
A few time ago I got an email that was about the peacefully civil resistance, and you may ask and what the peacefully civil resistance is? I'm going to tell you some examples to grasp the idea.
It turns out that you go to the mall often, that has a big parking lot and the parking lot fee is raised each month because it's a big business regardless if the people buy or not something in the stores, with the mere fact of going there with your car, the owner of the mall is turning into a millionaire. Definitely you realized that and analize that having a parking lot is a obligatory requirement for the malls and they shoudln't charge for it, then the solution is not going to the mall with your car. If you do that, the owner of the mall is going to loose a lot of money and it's already no longer a business, then the fee is going to be reduced or it has going to be removed.
Another example: The gasoline, here the gasoline price rises always. The solution is that we have to ride the bycicles, walk, and use the car as less as possible to demonstrate we don't agree with the price, so the companies or government have to do something to reduce the cost of the gasoline.
The electricity is the same case, we have to look for a way not to use so much energy if you can you can use some technology to produce your own electricity.
The rise of the price of the meat for example, so we don't buy meat, we eat another things.
If we really want to change the things then we act. Each one does his own part t to build what we want the most for our community.

Poner un granito de arena = do someone's bit/part

Please comment it. Greetings!

Cameroon

Hi guys, how have you been? I went to a conference about Cameroon with my friend yesterday and we met a french girl and a cameroonian guy. We talked a little bit with the french girl and she explained us about some African handcrafts that were there. There were many crafts but what I liked the most was a very weird mask made of coconut's fiber.
The Cameroonian guy spoke in my natal language with a touch of french accent, he showed us a power point presentation. He said that Cameroon was named that way because the portuguese were the first ones in going there and they named 2 rivers like "Camaroes" that means shrimps.
The coin there is the African franc and you can buy many things with little money. For example a meal cost less than 1 usd. You can buy a 3-story building with 1000 usd.
There are 2 nature reserves with a lot of wild animals, I think they take care of the animals and keep preserving the nature.
The oficial languages in Cameroon are French and English. There are 8 States where French is spoken and 2 states where English is spoken. So it's like Canada.
Cameroon is a peaceful country. They haven't had a war or a conflict. The people there are pacific. The government has given a lot of scholarships to the good students to go abroad and then when they go back home they can get a job easily.
I think the government has focus a lot on education.
After the conference I saw part of a documentary and what I noticed was that the life there is completely different from here. First of all the babies are taken out from their mothers and are given to another family, It could be the mother's sister or another person, that's because they want their children to be completely independent.
The houses of the movie were small and there's no lawn, actually I didn't see lawn, all was ground. And I could notice that people were happy even though they seem to have a precarious life.
I think Cameroonian people are healthier than the people from here I think they don't worry a lot.
I learned something new about Cameroon, in fact this is my first contact with the African culture.

Hanging out.

Yesterday I hanged out with some friends and we went to a foreigners' school to watch a short film and due to the delay of my friends I waited for hers for hours and at the end we didn't watch anything. After that there were glasses with apple sparky juice, pasties and sausage rolls , so we ate some of them and drank the juice.
As we had something to eat and drink, we decided to go to the cafe that is located in an alley and we ordered cafe, tea and chocolate drinks. One of my friends met a person there and I stayed with my other new friend. We were talking there when a little homeless female kid came and she was begging us to buy a rose she was selling, I felt really bad about the kid and I gave her some money and told her to keep the rose but she didn't keep it and left the rose on the table. I can't believe that no one helps homeless children to get a better life. They're are the future of any nation and If they grew with problems then when they are adults they may commit some crimes.
I feel really sorry about them, they shouldn't be on the streets. I think each time I saw a homeless person reminds me that how inequal is the world. I want an equal world in all the senses including human beings, nature and animals equality for all. We have to remember the symbiosis nature principle. Everybody depends on everybody and everything. We are part of the same world so we take care of it.

Vocabulary I didn't know

Just to reinforce the vocabulary I didn't know.

Armoured truck - Camión blindado
Pierce - Perforar
Calibre - calibre
Raid - Redada
bureaucracy - burocracia
refinery - refinería
financed by - financiado por
lord's prayer - padre nuestro (oración)
shrive - confesar
to go steady with somebody - ser novio de alguien
prognosis - pronóstico (medico)

Our Brain

Hi my friends. It's good to see you.

Before start writing I want to say that I'm with the people of Japan. I'm really concerned about what happened there and I feel really sorry for the families that lost a relative.

Yesterday in a conversation with my family an interesting topic came up. My aunt was talking about a book she read the name of the book is "what if your other half instead of an orange is a grapefruit" (Que tal si tu media naranja es toronja). In that book the author explains how the men's and women's brains work, and what is interesting for men and women. Then my dad said that the human beings only use the 10% of their brain. And well in order to improve the capacities of the brain is required to do different things that we don't usually do in a normal day because in a day we do repetitive tasks. For example: We can blindfold ourselves and walk carefully in a room and experience new sentations, we can play a musical instrument like drums, the keyboard, guitar, etc. , we can learn new languages like chinese or japanese where we have to remember the strokes' order and the meaning of the characteres, we can write with our left hand if we're right-handed or vice versa. These are some of the examples we can do to develop our brain.

What do you think?

Adjectives Verbs Nouns Adverbs

Sometimes I get confused, I don't know exactly when a word is an adjective, verb, noun or adverb. For this reason I'm going to type a list of words to remember.

Adjective Verb Noun Adverb
aware be aware awareness
bribe bribe
helplessness
fussy (exigente) demand/call for
hate hatred (odio)
true truth
protest
worship
fast
secluded /isolated isolate isolation
good well


I think you can do something like that to improve your language.

An interesting week

This was a very interesting and fun week. I hanged out with some friends, and I met my friend's girlfriend who only speaks English. I talked to her for a while and I really felt very comfortable with my English despite of not having practiced it for some weeks. Sometimes I said how do I say...? just to think about the word I was trying to remember, for example I didn't remember the word environment. She asked me many questions about my life what did I do, What my plans were, If I was able to move to any place, and things like that; I also asked her the same questions, and well I think the conversation was going well until a friend of us arrived and we had to join 2 tables and for some reason we all changed seats so my friend's girlfriend sit far from my seat and we couldn't keep talking. The rest is history.
I want to point out some important things about speaking.
Speak in an easy way. Use simple verbs. Don't try to spend so much time remembering a word, If you don't remember it use another word or explain the person what the word is used for or the meaning.
Listen carefully the conversation and catch key words, it's not so important to get the 100% of the words in a conversation but it's important to know the general idea.
Relax when speaking, don't worry too much about what you're going to ask when you're listening to the person. When you're calm you can remember the words, and you'll feel comfortable with the conversation.
Do your best to speak correctly, using the correct tones, stress, and the pronunciation. If you don't know it use another word you know it's pronunciation. It's not so good that the other person says what did you say? You can loose confidence.
Be brave and don't be shy to speak. If you never try it you never improve your English.
And the most important thing is that you have to ENJOY the language.

Singing songs

Another good technique to improve our speaking skills and to have more fluency is by listening to and singing our favorite songs regardless the language.
When you sing you push yourself to speak faster and well it's fun too. You'll learn pronunciation and common expressions, vocabulary, and many other things. So enjoy singing your favorite songs.
Some songs are really catchy, so take the advantage of it to sing the same song during all day long over and over again.
You can use any voice recorder software and record yourself and then play and listen to your voice and you'll see if your pronunciation is quite similar to the original song or not. And sooner or later you'll realize that your speaking is much better.
Enjoy it.