History of English - 15' medium speed of Reading & Listening

Hi classmates! I recommend you the reading and listening of the History of English languages, just by clicking the link below:

http://www.manythings.org/listen/history/

I wish you enjoy it! :)

Marcelo Leporace, FCE Student

DOWNSHIFT TO SIMPLIFY YOUR LIFE- DANIELA HERRERO

Downshift To Simplify Your Life

Have you ever wanted to stroll while the other rats in the race pass you by? We live in a world consumed with consumption, but many people are learning that pleasure through shopping is a losing proposition and that there is more to life than the latest gadget or the largest SUV. These people have decided to simplify, or "downshift", their lives - choosing to work less and live more.

According to a November 2004 poll conducted U.S. News & World Report, within the past five years, 48% of Americans downshifted their lives in one of the following ways: cut back their hours at work, declined a promotion of failed to seek one, lowered expectations for what they needed out of life, reduced their work commitments or moved to a community with a less hectic way of life. If voluntary simplicity sounds good to you, do it! Just don't do it today. Before making such a major lifestyle change, you will need to carefully consider your source of income and your expenses. Read on as we show you how.

What Does It Mean to Simplify?

This concept is often traced back to author and philosopher Henry David Thoreau and his retreat to Walden Pond. The writer lived on the shores of Walden Pond for two years in the mid-1800s, isolating himself from the bustle of society in order to gain greater perspective on life. His exile gave Thoreau insight into the value of nature, solitude and contemplation and allowed him to distance himself from the consumerism and materialism that had already begun to dominate American life.

In modern life, the move to simplicity is often fueled by a general lack of fulfillment with the daily grind. Working to pay bills simply isn't much fun. Spending all of your time either trying to earn money or worrying about money is both physically and emotionally draining. By downshifting, you spend less time working and more time enjoying your life. It's the ultimate work-life balance decision.

Only the most self-centered among us would rank owning a luxury car ahead of spending time with our children, yet many people unconsciously make that choice, working long hours to pay for their cars and spending little time with their families. The same goes for fancy clothes and expensive homes. Trading the trappings of wealth for less stress, more rose-smelling time and the opportunity to live more and work less is the whole point of simplifying. It's the things that money can't buy, such as less stress and time with friends and family, that motivate these downshifters to give up conspicuous consumption.

First, Get Your House In Order

If you don't already have a good grip on your finances, you'll want to put some serious effort into figuring out where your money goes. Once you realize where your expenses lie, your goal will be to minimize them. The whole point of living simply is that the need to earn less money enables you to spend less time at work.

Let's look at some of the easiest places to make cuts:

◦Housing Costs - One of the most obvious ways to save a significant amount of money is to literally get your house in order. Living in a less expensive place is an easy way to simplify your life and save money. You'll save money on utilities and heating, and less space means less junk is needed to fill the space.

 ◦Transportation Costs - Transportation is another big expense category. Car payments, car insurance, gasoline, repairs and maintenance all cost money. To minimize transportation expenses, downshifters don't drive fancy cars. If they own a car at all, it's a solid, reliable, affordable model.

◦Luxury Items - While houses and cars are notable big expenses, the smaller costs of everyday living are important too. Downshifters don't spend money frivolously. Clothing and furniture should be chosen for comfort and durability, not style. Impulse buys are to be avoided. Money is spent carefully, as many downshifters are seeking a less materialistic lifestyle. Health and peace of mind take precedence over the things money can buy. Exotic vacations twice a year are traded in exchange for additional free time all year long.

◦Interest Payments - Credit cards should usually be tucked in a drawer and purchases made with cash. Money spent on credit card interest is money wasted, so purchases should only made when they can be paid for on the spot. If you are responsible enough to always pay the balance on time, then a credit card may still be an option - after all the card company is essentially giving you an interest-free loan - but if you feel temptation may force you to spend more than you can afford to pay off all at once, then it is wise to forgo credit cards all together.

Mini-Retirement

Financially speaking, downshifting is similar to retirement. Downshifters and retirees both work with a smaller, relatively fixed income. Therefore, the preparation for both is similar.

Downshifting doesn't mean that you don't need to save for the future. Part of the planning process prior to downshifting should include determining how much money you will need to save in order to meet your retirement goals. The amount that you need to save each month during your working years should be factored into your calculations when determining how much money you need to earn when downshifting. If you can meet your goals with part-time work or a less stressful, less time-consuming job, you have accomplished your mission. Any cutbacks in spending should come from the other categories in your pre-downshifting budget.

The Downside To Downshifting

Preparing to downshift is similar to preparing for retirement, just on a smaller scale. This means that many of the psychological hurdles that come with retirement are also present when you downshift. These include:

◦Loss of Prestige - Think carefully about the decision and make sure you are mentally prepared to go from well-respected senior manager with a big staff and a corner office to part-time worker or individual contributor with no staff. Many people have their identities tied to what they do for a living, and the transition to a less prestigious job can therefore be extremely stressful.

◦Loss of Friends - While you may be willing to live with less, not everybody else will follow your example. If you make the move, you are never going to keep up with the Joneses. Friends and family may not understand the choices you will make. You need to be comfortable with the overall scenario before you choose to live with less.

Ready To Slow Down?

Downshifting is all around us. From new mothers deciding against returning to full-time work, mid-level mangers stepping back to individual contributor roles and senior executives stepping off of the rat race treadmill, people from all walks of life and income brackets are willing to trade bigger paychecks for lower levels of stress.

So take a look at your lifestyle, reevaluate your spending and step off the treadmill. Get out of the rat race, and stop spending majority of your life at work. The rest of you life is still ahead of you. Enjoy it!

IS CONSUMERISM KILLING OUR CREATIVITY? DANIELA HERRERO

Is Consumerism Killing Our Creativity?

Have you ever fallen into a black hole of comparison shopping? You’re looking for a new digital camera, for instance. You head over to Cnet.com and read some reviews of various cameras, watch the video demos, identify the model you want. Then perhaps you employ Google’s shopping search to price out the options and find the best deal. All of the sudden, it’s four hours later. You’ve found the perfect camera, but your purchasing triumph is tainted by a creeping feeling of, well, disgust. Couldn’t that time have been used better?I was thinking recently about what my biggest distractions were – the things keeping me from pushing my creative projects forward. As I scanned through my daily activities, I found that the most insidious distraction was, in fact, things. More specifically, the wanting, hunting, and getting of things –  whether they be tangible (a new computer) or intangible (information).

As Annie Leonard says in The Story of Stuff, “Our primary identity has become that of being consumers – not mothers, teachers, or farmers, but of consumers. We shop and shop and shop.” We love our stuff. Yet more than the stuff itself, we love the act of finding it – the search, the anticipation.

But why is consumerism – and particularly, an online hunt for the ideal purchase – so addictive?

It turns out that our consumerist impulse stimulates the same part of the brain that fires when we’re on the trail of a great idea. As we go through the trial and error of executing an idea – What if I tried this? Ah! Now what about this? – we’re using those same wanting, hunting, getting instincts but in a nobler pursuit.

Neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp calls this highly addictive emotional state “seeking.” In a Slate article on seeking, writer Emily Yoffe sums up his research

For humans, this desire to search is not just about fulfilling our physical needs. Panksepp says that humans can get just as excited about abstract rewards as tangible ones. He says that when we get thrilled about the world of ideas, about making intellectual connections, about divining meaning, it is the seeking circuits that are firing.

The juice that fuels the seeking system is the neurotransmitter dopamine. The dopamine circuits ‘promote states of eagerness and directed purpose,’ Panksepp writes. It's a state humans love to be in. So good does it feel that we seek out activities, or substances, that keep this system aroused.

The consumerist search capitalizes on the same “seeking” part of the brain that fuels the creative rush. Of course, while consumerism can serve as an addictive substitute for the stimulation of creative activity, it offers nowhere near the same reward in the long term.

As creatives, we can often rationalize spending time on shopping by telling ourselves that we’re investing our time, energy, and money in a new tool – an item that’s going to catapult our creativity to the next level. Maybe it’s a new computer, maybe it’s a musical instrument, maybe it’s a studio of one’s own. Once you get that new thing, you think, you’ll have a superior means to complete your work.

It’s a false promise, of course. A means of procrastination baked into our consumerist culture. No external thing can prompt creativity, and there’s no substitute for just getting down to doing the work. In fact, it’s been proven that hardship – being deprived of things – stimulates creativity more than being well-off. A recent Newsweek article on America's declining creativity reported:

Highly creative adults frequently grew up with hardship. Hardship by itself doesn’t lead to creativity, but it does force kids to become more flexible—and flexibility helps with creativity.

When we have less to work with, we have to be more creative. Think about that the next time the consumerist impulse is threatening to encroach on your creativity.

--

Consumerism vs. Creativity - Your Thoughts?

Do you feel like our consumerist culture suppresses creativity? Have you battled against the consumerist instinct?

USEFUL GLOSSARIES FOR INTERPRETERS

Dear Interpreters   to be    Alfred and I expect this glossary by FANNY MAE will be really useful .
We will work on and explain these terms in   class

 https://www.efanniemae.com/sf/refmaterials/glossary/pdf/etosglossary.pdf

LINK TO LC. FOR C.A.E

If you want to practise Listeing Comprehension at C.A.E. level, you can click at : ihttp://www.examenglish.com/CAE/listening.php

Enjoy yourselves

LISTENING COMPREHENSION FOR F.C.

Dear Sts

If you want to do listening comprehension activities, here is one page you can visit http://www.ompersonal.com.ar/firstcertificate2/listening/fce01a.htm

New Technologies Aim to Help You Sleep Better

HEALTHY CONSUMER JULY 10, 2012, 2:56 PM

New Technologies Aim to Help You Sleep Better

By ANAHAD O'CONNOR

The Zeo Sleep Manager mobile app.

For Lisa Hanson, a stay-at-home mother in San Francisco, the alarm that used to rouse her out of sleep most mornings was the sound of her toddler.

“He wakes up at 5:30 screaming sometimes,” she said. “It would jolt me awake, and then I’d be miserable and groggy all morning because I’d be woken up when I’m in my deepest sleep.”

But last month, Ms. Hanson started using a new program, the Renew SleepClock, an iPhone app that keeps track of her sleep. Its makers, GEAR4, say that the program uses radio sensors — built into a bedside device the iPhone is plugged into at night — to detect breathing patterns and movements. It then uses that information to wake a person at the lightest point of sleep, the optimal time to wake up. The theory is that awaking from light sleep, as opposed to the deep stages of sleep, helps reduce so-called sleep inertia, the cloud of grogginess and impaired alertness that makes people desperately want to crawl back into bed. The app also acts as a sort of sleep adviser, giving Ms. Hanson guidance about the amount of shut-eye to shoot for and ways to get there.

“Since I’ve been using it, I do feel better,” Ms. Hanson said. “It’s waking me up in a more ideal stage of sleep and helping me have that much better of a day.”

The Renew SleepClock, which costs $199, is the latest addition to a new generation of smartphone apps designed to analyze and improve sleep patterns. While experts have warned for years that gadgets like smartphones are increasingly disrupting sleep by keeping us connected 24/7, these programs claim to do the opposite. Two other products that have gained followings are the WakeMate($59.99), a wristband worn at night that wirelessly transmits data to the user’s smartphone, and the Zeo Sleep Manager-Mobile ($99), which uses a sensor-equipped headband to collect data about the user’s sleep habits.

While all the apps vary, they generally work by having users pick a window of time in the morning — typically 20 to 40 minutes long — during which they would like to get up, then nudging the sleeper awake at the lightest point of sleep in that window. Sleepers get a score each morning that factors in the number of hours they slept while adding and subtracting points for things like disruptions and the percentage of time spent in the deep, restorative stages of sleep. The programs also let users keep track of daily habits like caffeine intake, exercise and meals, among other things, so they can see which habits might be affecting their sleep.

But while some people swear by these tools, scientists caution that the claims they make and the advice they dole out to users may not be very sound.

“I think these are clever devices, but there’s very limited data on how valuable they are,” said Dr. David M. Rapoport, the director of the sleep medicine program at New York University School of Medicine. “They’re a really good way to capture data. But some of them are giving out recommendations in ways that just aren’t proven.”

He points out that certain features, like quantifying sleep and tracking habits, are particularly beneficial because they identify sleep patterns. “Many people lie to themselves about how much sleep they’re really getting,” he said. “If it takes an app to tell you you’re only getting four hours a night and that that’s why you’re tired, then that’s a good thing.”

But, he says, when an app instructs you to get eight hours of sleep instead of seven, or to avoid coffee after 6 p.m. for better sleep, it has gone too far, since not everyone needs the same amount of sleep or is affected in the same way by caffeine. “These apps tend to suggest that there’s a right way you should do things,” he said, “but we cannot make the same recommendations for everybody.”

Dr. Rapoport also questioned the claim that waking a person from light sleep prevents sleep inertia. While some studies have found evidence of this, others, like one carried out by Harvard researchers and published in The Journal of Sleep Research, have found it has almost no effect. “It is not clear that systematically waking people up in light sleep is going to benefit them or lead to better health,” he said.