lunes, 23 de abril de 2007

1º Reaction on Fahrenheit 451

One thing that I like from the book is the fact that the author criticizes many times the problem with society; a non-educated society where the government can impose anything and people obey.

An example of this is Mildred, she represents society. When she is with the script, talking to Montag, we can see that it is describing a consumer society, very empty. And at the same time, when Montag listens to one of Clarisse’s relatives talking about society also, it’s a perfect example of the criticism I was making reference to. “This is the age of the disposable tissue”, where you use something if it benefits you and then, you throw it away. A very selfish attitude, where they don’t notice the other person, but just use them for their own benefit.

This is the perfect type of society governors want: people who are selfish, who do not care about other person’s life, without own thoughts, without apprenticeship or education, so they can control them.

I think this topic in the book is really important because it is happening now, in our own country, where people (who are a considerable part of our society) does not have resources to have a proper education and as a result they are highly manipulated by powerful people. And we are part from that society, but luckily we can achieve to something more and it is not in us to change this situation, it has to come form our governors and mostly from those people’s eager to change and improve their situations. Otherwise, we would eternally have this problem and it has more and more bad consequences each day.

What we can do is just to be grateful and take advantage from what we have.

A great concert: OASIS




It was approximately 10 in the morning, of the 10 of March when we were stepping out of the bus and heading to the hotel as we reached Buenos Aires. Some minutes later, we passed in front of the Polo Camp and saw a line that was 3 blocks long on the outskirts of the estate, where in less that 11 hours the most expected recital of the season (and on top of everything, mine) would be carried out.

From that moment, butterflies invaded my stomach, and I started to feel palpitations. It was the simple fact of imagining me, standing up, in front of a band with such trajectory, such history, songs that marked stages of my life, number one cd’s on the worlds ranking, and of course, number one in my ranking, ALWAYS.

Around 6 in the afternoon, we (my sister, her friend and I) started to get ready and we got beautiful in case we had the grate luck of bumping with any BROTHER. We knew the show would have “Juana la Loca” and “Turf” as support band. But as a surprise, “Intoxicaodos” showed up too. From the 3 groups we could only see Turf, which was on stage minutes before the grate and expected band. During that time, my sister and I were trying to charge credit to out cell phones and my sister’s friend was trying to get some signal so that we could call the people we knew they liked the band and had asked us specifically to remember them during a particular song.

On the stage, we could see the instruments, ready to be played. 15 minutes have passed since 9 o clock and we all started to get impatient. In that moment we saw movement on the stage! Of course, the first reaction or reflex act was to stand up. An unknown man approached to the microphone and confirmed that the group would do their appearance 45 minutes later than it was planned (delay caused by the slow entry of the public). It felt like time was stucked, and I started to get hysterical as usual and reproached the typical unpunctuality of the Argentineans. And then… it began! We got up on our chairs and could saw the band leaded by Noel y Liam Gallagher. Finally the auto proclaimed “best band in the world”, OASIS, made themselves present.

Among shouts and shrieks from the public, they opened the show with 2 of the songs form the new album “Don’t Believe the Truth”: “Turn up the Sun” and “Lyla”. A few moments after it had began, the incomprehensible conduct of the public near the stage generated concern in the musicians that ended up in an alert call from the production of the recital to the ones who were provoking incidents in the side of the stage.

The concert continued in an ordered way but with the mobility and bustle that the songs of the band awakened in people.

The songs of the new album didn’t provoke much response with the exception of “Lyla” and “The importance of being Idle” that Noel sang.
But the commotion was made with the classic themes that occupied more than the half of the list on the songs played.

The public did not stop encouraging them at any moment. Songs like “Wonderwall”, which Liam dedicated to all the ladies that were present, and “Don’t Look Back in Anger”, were Noel leaved the public to sing the chorus as usual, made vibrate 45.000 fans that accompany euphorically to the sound of the songs.

The show was short: it lasted almost half an hour. Songs like “Champagne Supernova", "Rock n´roll star" and “songbird” were not missing. But many of us stayed with the desire of listening some of the most renowned: “Little By Little”, “Go let it out”, or “Stand by me”. At the end, Liam leaded the farewell with: “My Generation”, the classic of the band “The Who”.

The band gave a magnificent presentation, in spite of the short time the spectacle lasted. But the sound was grate! As few artists, their songs were exactly the same as in the CD.

A point against it would be the little interaction they had with the public. But when there was some, they were kind and even funny: quotating Noel when a sneaker flew over his head and say: “shit! It’s Addidas, I wanted a Nike”.

To conclude this, I can simply say that it was one of my best nights of my life. A lot of adrenaline, a lot of rock and roll (or brit pop as you like to call it) and a lot of OASIS. The per-fect mix.

domingo, 22 de abril de 2007

Radio Programme: workaholics

In class, we've listen to a radio programme about people who work a lot and did many things at the same time and its effect on people, and their productivity.

We heard about a man named Joe who multitasked a lot: he made 2 phone calls while sending messages and checking his e-mails, he also typed e-mails while driving his car.
Personally, I think that multitasking can be useful in the computer for example. It helps me doing things faster and I save a lot of time I would have wasted if I didn’t do it that way. For example, I listen to music while chatting and doing my homework. Many people says that your work cannot be as efficient as if you do it without multitasking. But I think that it depends on each person and their way of managing things. I’m very used to doing it, so for me it’s more useful, instead of listening to music, then chatting and after that doing my homework, I save time and do it all together. But as I said: it depends on each person. Someone who is not used to multitasking may affect its productivity.

Another example is Christina, who didn’t use as much technology as Joe, but she had 2 cell phones: one for personal calls and the other to use it for her work.
In my opinion, I think it could be very useful to know weather if it is a personal one or form work. But many people do not do this because it’s a bit uncomfortable to carry around two cell phones everywhere. And besides, nowadays, technology is so advanced that the cell phone can identify the person who is calling.

In the radio programme they also talked about an experiment which consisted on working wherever and whenever people wanted as log as they finished. And the results were very good: people worked more than before! And I think this is grate because people know they have a deadline and they can administrate their time if they work at home and at any time they want instead of going all mornings at work and sitting in front of a desk.
I think it’s excellent or at least for me, because sometimes I’m not in a really good mood at the morning and I’m not very efficient. So what I’d do those days would be doing something else and in the afternoon when I’m better I do all the work I didn’t do before. Besides it’s much more inspiring to go to the park, seat on a bench and do you’re work, or sitting in a café while doing it rather than being behind your desk, always looking at the same thing, surrounded by the same things every single day.

To conclude I would say that although it is very important to be responsible at work, we must have an intermediate point were everything is not only work, because we also have an intellectual and familiar life to develop.
And to perform well at work, the person must have a balance. Anyway, this equilibrium is always the most difficult pint to find.