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In many countries people no longer wear their national costumes. They are forgetting their history and traditions. More people should be encouraged to wear their national costumes everyday.Do you agree or disagree?

Costume and custom....

It is true that nowadays people don’t use their national costumes as a daily clothes, but this doesn’t mean that we have lost our traditions or what is more that we have forgotten our history. There are many different ways to demonstrate our national identity that in some cases are even more representative than a costume.

We are living at the beginning of 21 century, a time were the immediacy of technology and communication are factors that defined us, we want it all and we want it fast, furthermore we want it to be easy and comfortable. This is applicable to clothes as well.

If we think of traditions, the first thing that comes to mind are values and certain behaviour of people from an specific country or region and not some kind of clothes that were designed and made to solve the deficiency that old days could present; especially if those clothes were designed with the resources of that time.

A recent survey revealed that most people feel representative of their country by the way they act, live and speak but not by the way they dress.
This is totally back up by the sociologist Fernanda Garcia, who states that a country is defined by their custom and not by their costume.

In my opinion I disagree on to have to encourage people to wear their national costumes everyday, in fact I consider that this shouldn’t be given that importance principally because we are living in a word and decade were changing, trends and fashion are temporary.

" A new kind of marriage "

There should be another way besides divorce for a couple to choose if they want to continue with their relationship or not. What if we had the possibility to renew the marriage contract after a certain period of time? Before saying anything let me give you some reasons why this may be a good idea.

Firstly, research shows that every year there are more couples getting divorced after only 3 or 5 years together. The thing is that divorce (most of the time) becomes complicated in both legal and psychological aspects and what is worse the whole process could last over a year.

Then we have the couples that prefer just living together instead of getting married in order to avoid attachment because the word “everlasting” sounds terrifying for them. Furthermore the fact of not being married means that they do not have all privileges that married people have, making them vulnerable in society, especially if you want to upgrade in your workplace.

This new kind of marriage will give the opportunity for those whose marriage has no future, to simplify their lives, and the trauma of separation will be less harmful. And for those who do not want to end their marriage, this will keep them motivated to make an effort as it was on the first day.

4 paragraph essay.

´Culture shock´ (the survival guide!)

It can be for businesses, studies, work or because of love. It doesn’t matter the reason, the point is that nowadays it is common to see people from other countries here in Chile, as we can travel overseas and be foreigners in a complete different culture. But how difficult can be to live abroad? And how much can affect us the ‘culture shock’?

If you decide to live overseas, you may have to adjust to a complete different weather, the food taste won’t be the same; probably there are some fruits and vegetables that you haven’t heard of or tasted in your entire life. Whether you want it or not you will look like a foreigner, and sometimes local people aren’t exactly friendly at all. Even if you are in place where your same language is spoken; the unknown colloquial speech and the peculiarity of this country will may cause you more than one inconvenient.

The first thing you have to do, if you are going to live abroad, is to do some research about that country. Investigate what the weather is like, for example: How much does a season last? Does it rain much? Does it snow? Is the summer too hot?. Once you are there observe the local customs, try to imitate and achieve their formal and informal behave in society. Being open minded and daring to new experiences are the only way to have an opinion about something also frequenting familiar places can avoid the homesick feeling.

As you can see there is nothing impossible to go through and, in my opinion, having a positive attitude about it will help you a lot for you not to be sad, homesick or depress during this big change.

Secondary school, second version

A recent survey revealed that 90% of people believe that all students in secondary school should be in mixed-ability classes. I totally disagree with this. From my point of view I think this could be the cause of disciplinary problems.

Having students of different levels and abilities in the same classroom, from one side may help those students with less competence, but on the other hand what will happen with the others pupils? Probably they will be distracted if they don’t find the activities challenging and that will produce bad behaviour.

This brings us to the subject of ‘violence in the classroom’. Dr. Aretha Franklin states that children at secondary school need to learn discipline, and physical punishment is the best way to achieve this. This is in complete disagreement of what public opinion believes. Violence only bring more violence, I consider that teachers as professionals of education should try others ways to deal with this kind of situations, such as psychology, patience, and understanding our students.

Sowing the seeds of love

The other day I have a little difference of opinion with my cousin Pablo. It was the day that invited him to eat hog dogs but as I forgot to buy the hot dog bread, and it was already too late, we had to eat it in “halluya” kind of bread, that turn out a complete but funny mess.

Well the thing is that while we were trying to eat this new kind of hot dog, on the radio we heard “Sowing the seeds of love” by “Tears for fear”, do you know it? This song was very famous during the last decade. I remember that I used to love it in that time, even when I didn’t have any idea of what was the song about.

The argue started when he said that the trumpets that you can hear at the half of the song wasn’t necessary, he also said that the song was nice but that sound mess up the whole song.

And I said “nice” just nice??? First, the song it’s more than nice. It’s beautiful; it’s a poem, an ode to love, to freedom. There is a new era and we are the protagonist of it, we have in our hands the power to choose our future, we have the power to love and make a difference.

That’s what I think “Tears for fears” were trying to express in the song or at least the main idea. So this is not just a nice song ITS AN HYMN!!!

“Feel the pain, talk about it, if you're a worried man then shout about it
Open hearts, feel about it, open minds, think about it
Everyone read about it, everyone scream about it
Everyone (everyone, yeah yeah)
Everyone (everyone) read about it, read about it
Read it in the books in the crannies
And the nooks there are books to read...”

After these lines it was essential the sound of joy, like a trumpet. Tututututututuuuuuuuu....

But what does he knows?!! He is only 19, and I’m supposed to do the homework instead of pretend to be a music critic.

My name is Marjorie Oliveros but people call me Mayo, Marge, Yorin Malloa, Mayonesa, Margarina... and if you fond something that "sounds like" my name and its easy for you to say it, it will be fine.

I am 24 years old (yesssssssssss I´m getting old!!!). I am studiying english pedagogy, and this it´s suppoused to be my last year, in 2007 I have the brilliant idea to go to Disney and for that reason I am stuck one more year here.

Since I study the whole week, I work at weekends in the worse place you can imagine: a supermarket. I hate my job specially because I have to stay there for 10 hours each day.

I live in Maipu, I live alone since I was 19, I used to have a cat but when I went to the United States he run away and I have never seen him again.

I have a boyfriend, we have been together for 1 year and 10 months his name is Sebastian and he studies gastronomy but so far he hasn´t cook anything delicious for me...

When I am not studiying or working I spend my free time with him doing nothing, watching movies.

Another thing that I like to do is listening to music, my favorite groups are Portishead, Massive Attack, Morcheeba, Stereolab (tha name of this blog it´s taken from the album "Margerine Eclipse" by sterolab) and singers: Alanis Morrisette, Regina Spektor, Yael Naim and well a very good female voice its always welcome.

Of the picture in my avatar I dont have much to say. I was like 3 years old. Good time , when everything was easier