Let It Come

A wonderful year has passed, an even greater is about to begin.

My best wishes of good thoughts for all of us, folks.

And long life to MeetUP SpeakUP Club

(once again, Thank you, Ju, for the awesome collage)

Time to say goodbye

But not for long.

Yes, it seems that this years' last MeetUP has finally arrived. And we've got a lot to remember and to talk about. Therefore, to make our last meeting even more special, a special treat awaits all meetupspeakers.

Following close BND's principles and to celebrate our friendship and the lovely time we spent together, we'll play Secret Santa! The rules are simple: everybody must take a homemade present with you, anything is just perfect; we'll draw the Secret Santa on December 12th and give the presents there. =D

Till this moment, I invite everybody to share this semester's best moments here, in our blog! Which meeting did you enjoy the most? What things we didn't do this time that should get into next year's have-to-do list? How can we make Meet UP Speak UP even better?

Share your ideas and opinions here!

BND!

Guess what guys? Our next meeting will fall exactly on this year's Buy Nothing Day. Do you have any idea of what that is?

It's a day where you challenge yourself, your family and friends to switch off from shopping and tune into life. The rules are simple, for 24 hours you will detox from shopping and anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending!

Everything we buy has an impact on the environment. Buy Nothing Day highlights the environmental and ethical consequences of shopping. The developed countries - only 20% of the world population are consuming over 80% of the earth's natural resources, causing a disproportionate level of environmental damage and an unfair distribution of wealth.

As consumers we need to question the products we buy and challenge the companies who produce them. What are the true risks to the environment and developing countries? The argument is infinite - while it continues we should be looking for simple solutions and Buy Nothing Day is a good place to start.

So, are we, meetupspeakers, compulsive buyers or responsible shopers? How about joining BND?

*By the way, that's the reason why we're meeting in a square rather than in a restaurant/snack bar. =D

Why do we act the way we do?

Have you ever thought about why someone is more or less competitive, supportive, and extroverted, has good social skills, etc. than others?

According to Ancient Greek Teachings the human beings behavior is determined by a set of innate characteristics combination that we inherit from our parents; in this sense, these characteristics affect our conduct, vocational aptitudes, sense of humor, motivation and even our feelings. Do you believe that?

In order to explain that, many psychologists work with the Four Temperaments Theory that provides information about how this set of characteristics combination determines our actions. The four temperaments are: melancholic, choleric, phlegmatic and sanguine. All of them have strengths and weaknesses and, although we all have characteristics from each one, there are two predominant.

To sum them up, I would like to share this analogy. Please, read it and tell us who you would be:

Once upon a time four people were walking in the forest when they found a rock in their way. So the MELANCHOLIC, very disappointed, said: “it’s a tragedy, there is a BIG rock in my way! This happens JUST with me! And now what should I do? I’m going to miss my meeting, my life is ruined”. The PHLEGMATIC felt flabbergasted admiring the rock’s beauty; he sat down on it and started dreaming awake. He also thought about some BEAUTIFUL ROCKS that he had seen on his life and it would be wonderful if his girlfriend were there as well. Then, he breathed deeply the plants smell around him and went away. The SANGUINE, who was coming very overjoyed with the forest fresh air and the beautiful plants that he was seeing, jumped over the rock; he tried to make some dance steps and went away delighted. For sure, in two minutes he had forgotten that INSIGNIFICANT STONE. In the CHOLERIC’S case, upon seeing that STUPID rock, he really got cross, cussing at people who could have taken care of the path and could have removed it. Very furious, he kicked it hurting himself; getting angrier for that, he kicked it again and, suddenly, had a great idea of how to remove it from the path.

Of course, the temperament is not the only influence on our conduct, many others daily life aspects exert powerful influences on our actions.

International English Certificates

Hi my friends,

Sorry, I’ve abandoned you … haven't it? :-(
But I have a good reason for that :-), in the last two or three weeks, I was desperate because I would take the International Spanish Certificate (DELE - Diploma de Español como Lengua Extranjera) last Saturday. Thanks God, now I am free of it :-)! It was difficult! The grammar and vocabulary test was terrible; there were idiomatic expressions that people use just in Spain. It’s really bad, isn’t it? Anyway, I’m very satisfied with my Spanish and I’m sure I’ve done everything that I learnt with my dear “maestra” Marcela Bown (She’s a great Spanish teacher from Yazigi).

By the way, what do you think about the International English Certificates? Which are the most required? TOEFL? Cambridge exams (FCE, CPE)? IELTS? Etc. When should we take one? Are you confident to take one of them?

p.s I wasn’t shocked with a certain teacher wearing a Scottish kilt, he was cute :-)))))

Thanksgiving Day

“Thanksgiving Day is a joyous family festival celebrated with lot of enthusiasm in US, Canada and several other countries. Thanksgiving Day Festival commemorates the feast held by the Pilgrim colonists and members of the Wampanoag people at Plymouth in 1621. It is celebrated with lot of fervor and euphoria on the fourth Thursday in the month of November. For the people in US Thanksgiving is a time for merrymaking, shopping, family reunion, feasts and family dinners. People also take time to thank God for his constant grace and for all the material possessions man enjoys. For many Thanksgiving is also the time to thank near and dear ones and being grateful for their kindness.”

www.thanksgiving-day.org/

“Big Thiago” have chosen me to write this post, but I didn’t have any idea about what to talk about. So I’m here proposing that we talk about family tradition, family food and family meeting. Here in Brazil we don’t have a Thanksgiving Day, but I thought that It’s something like the Christmas for us. Don’t you think so?

But, anyways… I usually am with my family specially on Sunday. We often go to my grandmother’s home and take a lunch prepared by her. And we spend the hole day there, eating, talking, laughing, and having some fun with our cousins. I love family meeting specially because my grandma cooks very well.

ok, that’s it.

Now it’s up to you, speakers. What is you favorite family meeting? Do you like to stay with then?

P.s.: Let’s play “tricks or treat” next meeting again? #)

Going miscellaneous

Meetupspeakers shall never lack a subject matter!
There we have our first commitment.
Thus, with so much that has happened lately,
beware not, my friends for we shan't be silenced
by the overwhelming assortment
of things to be spoken of
(as if it were possible).
Thereupon, be prepared my faithful companions,
'cause tonight,
facing the mysterious and unknown,
we ought to have a lot of fun.

*and for the sake of not forgetting:
happy halloween!

No way!

Let's not cool out, people! What are we talking about on this coming Saturday? Suggestions are welcome!

Traveling around

I think it may be rather hard to find one person that is studying a foreign language who is not at least slightly interested in traveling around the world. And having Yázigi's next big event approaching certainly makes that dream stir up. The "Feira das Nações", as it was called, due to October 23rd, will take its visitors to a variety of countries through a creative mosaic of culture, history and other features that both students and teachers are so keen to keep in secret till the big Fair opening, at 5 pm.

Thinking of that, and being sure that many of you, meetupspeakers, have a lot to tell, photographs to share and wishes to reveal, I invite you all to talk about traveling, while eating some dream-flavoured ice cream, by the seaside, talking of those places you’ve already explored and the ones yet to be conquered.

Teacher's Day!

Professor, according to the dictionary, is the one who teaches a Science, art or technique. As if he was only that! A teacher is much more than that… He is a human being who dedicates his life to pass his knowledge to the others. And he likes doing it! Though he doesn’t show it he has feelings too, and believe it or not, he loves his students! And we love him too, because he is the engineer who constructs the bridge of knowledge, and with it, we can reach our dreams. Master you make our dreams come true! But we only thank you when we already reached our goals, in order to that exists your day, to remember that we are together in this hard walk to the future. So, THANK YOU!

Happy professor, teacher, master, instructor, educator, lecturer 's day!

Written by Anna Carolina Nogueira Borzani

MYP3 Student

Now what?

Hey meetupspeakers, how about one of you guys create a post suggesting what will come next? We've got a space, let's use it! =}

Music Freak!

First of all, I gotta tell you something: I don't have a favorite band, artist, whatever! I'm an eclectic person. I just LOVE music, anywhere, anytime, and for any reason . It's like a part of me and it has especial powers over me, that's why I just can't live without my iPOD or my guitar! ( yep, I can play :P) . I kindda have special songs for the days I'm extremely happy and the ones that I'm extremely sad. While writing this entry, I'm listening to "When Love Takes Over - David Guetta feat. Kelly Rowland" to get inspiration (ahaha), a fantastic eletronic music! Since the beggining of the week, I just can't spend one day without listening to Coldplay, mainly to : ' Viva la Vida', ' Life in Technicolor', ' Lovers in Japan' and ' Violet Hill' . I also like to listen to Pink, Alanis Morissette, Beatles, The Wonders, Blink 182, The Calling, Christina Aguilera, Jack Johnson, Johnny Cash, KT Tunstall, Lily Allen, Norah Jones, Oasis... WOW! just to mention some of the "English" ones... I'm also CRAZY about mpb ( Vinicius de Moraes, Toquinho, Maria Rita, Aline Calixto, Zelia Duncan, Ana Carolina, Tom Jobim, Antônio Nóbrega, Alceu Valença, Zé Ramalho, Geraldo Azevedo, Daniela Mercury, Lenine, Nando Reis...) and I enjoy french music too.

That's it guys... What about you? :)

by Juuuu Coelho

All about Music!

Get your guitars, tambourines, harmonicas and whatever else possible of producing melodious sounds: MeetUp SpeakUp is about to find its tune. If you’re a music freak, the kind that can’t avoid whistling a different song each minute, if you listen to music just to relax, if everything you do, you do it with a soundtrack playing on, or if like Shakespeare you believe that music is the food of love, for better or for worse, let’s play it on. Next MeetUP, we’ll sing, dance, jive, and dig music under the moonlight.

But as we still have a long time ahead of us, how about using this space to share what’s on our mp3-4-5-6-10s, iPods, cd-players and playlists? Create a post, introduce your artist, spread his/her music!

What if...

…every time you pushed a button you received $50,000...but someone you didn't know died? Would you still push the button? How many times? And if you could change one thing in the world, would you go global or local? What about one part of your body, which part would you change? And if you could have a superpower, what would it be? Would you rather be able to fly or be invisible? Would you prefer have all your thoughts and fantasies appear in a thought bubble above your head or fall in love with a different person every hour? And if you were given the power of erasing one person from the surface of the world, would you use it? What if you found a magic lamp, what would your three wishes be (wishing for three more wishes not being possible, of course)?

Beware!, next MeetUP we will be dealing with impossible wishes and cruel dilemmas! To warm things up, I challenge the first commenter to answer one of my questions above and ask another one for the following reader and so on. Let’s play evil, folks. =D

We, petty criminals

The warming up of this week’s MeetUP SpeakUP get-together is on the cover of Yázigi’s trimestrial magazine—the Ypsilon. Its second issue has given us some room to discuss the ethical implications of sharing, downloading and copying copyrighted materials from the Internet, such as songs, movies, software and games. After all, this is something almost everybody, most of the times, can’t help doing it. So may those who have never downloaded something from the web cast the first stone and leave the room: we, petty criminals, are about to confess our crimes. XD

But mind, we are not all that bad. We have our own rules—our ethics, if you prefer. I myself have a friend of a friend of a friend who downloads movies provided they are not released here in Brazil. Another friend of another friend of mine swears that he only burns audio cds when their cost is way beyond what he considers an acceptable price to pay (which is not much, truth be told). There's even some of us who are always trying to compensate our deeds by avoiding buying pirated DVDs and contributing to the big piracy industry (which is exactly my case).

Questions are: How far can we go unpunished? What precisely is piracy? When does the profitless pursuit for information end and the violation of authorship’s rights begin? To live without it: is it possible? What are the alternatives?

So, speak up!, brotherhood of downloaders, where do you stand?

Yes, we can!

First things first, this is not a post about Obama. It is actually the answer for a question that popped up during a discussion in my MYP4 group last week. We were debating the communication revolution and we easily got to that consensus of being the internet one of the most powerful tools ever invented. Nevertheless, if ‘with great power comes great responsibility’, to what degree is this power offered to us, common users? Can we really use the internet to engender changes?

Yes! We Can! Going straight to the point, João Pessoa movie fans can now count on the privilege of deciding what they are going to see in the big screen. There’s this website in which you can create mobilizations to promote and demand pictures to be shown in our movie theatres—as long as you have enough people asking for that same picture, of course. For those who love alternative cinema; for those who can’t stand 5 rooms occupied by the same movie; for those who would like to try something different; for those who are just looking for a new place to create another profile = try MovieMobz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JbTkdqYivuw
The German movie The wave (Die Welle, Germany, 2008), taken to our movie theatres by MovieMobz.

Our online lives

On my way to create the MeetUP SpeakUP blog I realized the huge amount of logins, passwords and profiles I have created so far. Considering that the Internet is yet on its way to adulthood (it is only 18 years old) it seems rather obvious that sooner or later some corporation would do the job of gathering everything to be controlled by a single account and free our tired minds from memorizing hundreds of digits. And so they did. *Thank you, Google.* Still there are plenty of possibilities to occupy, help or spoil one's life. And more arise almost every day. Thinking of that, I was wondering how do people keep their online lives updated? Do you like to look for new gadgets or you just wait for something to become noticeable to join in? Which of these webpages do you already know or have an account in already?

Orkut, Skoob, Youtube, Wikispaces, Flickr, Wikitree, IGoogle, Blogspot, Wordpress, Skype, Messenger, Launchcast, MYSpace, Twitter, LastFM, Facebook, Allmusic, Allmovie, IMDB, Habbo...

These are only a few I've quickly collected. Do you know more? Share it, it may be helpful, but mind!, let's not get someone a new addiction. =P

Greetings meetupspeakers =D

Hello folks, welcome to our MeetUP SpeakUP space in the blogsphere.