What is Christmas?

When it comes to discussing the origins of Christmas, many theories have been brought forward claiming one thing or the other about Christmas. The widely-believed theory suggests that Christmas has been with us for over 4,000 years and celebrations similar to that of Christmas took place even before the birth of the Christ child.

Although Christmas is celebrated on December 25 every year, About Christmas it has been said that Jesus was in fact born in the spring. Well, you get it right – there are a lot of contradictory statements associated with the origins of Christmas.

But this doesn’t really hamper the meaning of Christmas. Christmas is about celebrating the birth of the Lord Jesus while coming together with your friends and family and bonding with one another. The religious meaning of Christmas, however, has been declining slowly. These days, it’s more of commercialism associated with the holidays. People flocking at Target and Wal-mart stores with shopping carts full of gifts and ornaments are a common sight. Have we become more inclined to the commercial aspect of the holidays? It is important that the tradition of family bonding associated with the Christmas holidays continues forever and the essence of Christmas stays among us.

Even if you are not an ardent food lover, you cannot deny the love for holiday food. Be it Thanksgiving’s turkey or Christmas’ plum pudding, holiday food is enjoyed by one and all. Christmas cookies, gingerbread, eggnog, cheese log, apple cider, and much more – makes your mouth water.

Holiday food is cooked with great passion, and families relish the delectable meals together during the holidays.

Christmas means a rush of fun-filled activities. From shopping in crowded malls to eating out with friends and families, people do a lot to celebrate their Christmas holidays. Kids do not miss out on the chance of getting the things they wish for from their parents.

You can do a lot more on Christmas other than the regular routine celebrations. Bake some ginger cookies, wrap them nicely, and go visiting. You can also plan to create your own tree ornaments from scratch this year. Making your own ornaments will not only help you save money, it will also give you a sense of pride when you see them up on your Christmas tree. If you have kids, involve them in such activities; they’ll learn while having fun with colors, ribbons, and glitters.

Have you thought of turning into a thespian this season and visiting churches to sing carols and play some acts with young children? In case you do not have the singing talent, you could read out Christmas stories to little kids, stage an act around these stories, and help them learn and understand about Christmas?

Whatever you do this season, let your Christmas be a merry one.

Christmas Around the World

Christmas is a festival celebrated all across the world with immense festive fervor. The ways of celebrating Christmas slightly vary from region to region.

Different places have different styles of celebrating Christmas. No matter the traditions and customs of celebrating Christmas around the world may change but the spirit behind the festivity remains the same. At some places people follow the tradition of posing as Santa Claus and distributing gifts and at some places people exchange gifts year after year on Christmas – Christmas celebrations differ from place to place.

Christmas around the world is feted with great enthusiasm. People dance to the rhythms of Christmas carols, enjoy in the chilly wintry winds, relish the mouth-watering delicacies, dazzle in the colorful decorations and enthrall after getting some captivating Christmas gifts – all this and much more can be seen in the festival of lights.

Christmas around the world is so enchanting that it brings smiles to the faces of people. People wait for the whole year for this mesmerizing occasion when they will laugh, sing, dance, enjoy and make merry.

Cultural variations can lead to different customs of celebrating Christmas in different areas. If any person visits some far off place away from one's dwelling place then he might see the traditions of celebration of that particular place. It is always a great experience to visit some other place during Christmas holidays. Christmas holds a significant place for the people of Christian community. No only Christians but people belonging to other communities also celebrate Christmas with great passion. Christmas around the world is really a vital part of people's lives.

Is our weather changing?

While there are always great uncertainties whenever making predictions about the future, most scientists support the idea that our climate is being affected by emissions of a number of "green house gases."  The most significant of these is carbon dioxide produced by our use of fossil fuels.   

Global warming cannot be modeled with precision and assessments on the scale of a region like the Pacific Northwest are even more uncertain.  However, it is possible to make general predictions about potential changes, and the Council is considering this information as a source of risk in its planning to assure the region an adequate, efficient, economical, and reliable power supply. Many factors and variables will also affect global warming:  how fast the global economy continues to grow and what kinds of energy sources are used to supply that growth. 

Atmospheric and ocean scientists remain uncertain about whether global warming would result in warmer and wetter conditions, or warmer and drier conditions in the Pacific Northwest. In a warmer and drier scenario, overall volume of water passing through the Columbia River Basin hydroelectric system would decrease relative to historic averages, thus increasing the cost to produce power. In a warmer and wetter scenario, the amount of precipitation would increase slightly in the long-term, potentially reducing the cost of power.
Temperature and precipitation changes will have major implications for the region’s river system, the Columbia and its tributaries. In either a warmer and drier or warmer and wetter case, the annual snowpack would decrease, resulting in higher river flows in winter and lower flows in summer. This could lead to many potential problems, from putting pressure on storage reservoirs and the risk of winter flooding, to jeopardizing fish survival — particularly salmon and steelhead — by reducing the ability of the river system to meet minimum flow and maximum temperature requirements during spring, summer, and fall migration. Other possible effects include:

• Boosting winter production of hydropower while Northwest demands are likely to drop due to higher average temperatures (a good thing for power);
• Reducing the size of the spring runoff and shifting its timing to slightly earlier in the year (potentially a bad thing for fish);
• Reducing late spring and summer river flows and causing average water temperatures to rise (a bad thing for fish);
• Reducing the ability of reservoirs to meet demands for irrigation water (a bad thing);
• Reducing summer power generation at hydroelectric dams when Northwest demands and power market values are likely to grow due to higher air conditioning needs in the Northwest and Southwest (a bad thing for revenues); and
• Affecting summer and fall recreation activities in reservoirs (a bad thing).

There are implications for the electricity industry, too. Current scientific knowledge holds that global warming largely results from increased production of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses due to human activities. Because of the widespread use of fossil fuels to produce electricity, the electricity industry worldwide is a principal contributor to the growing atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and would be affected by any initiatives to reduce carbon emissions.

As part of its revision of the Northwest Power Plan, the Council is reviewing the status of the global climate change issue, including the current understanding of possible effects on the Northwest power system. The Council is using its planning model to look at projected climate change effects on the hydroelectric system and on the timing and magnitude of the electricity demands it has to meet. In addition, the model is being used to assess the potential effects of control policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions on the relative cost-effectiveness of resource choices available to the Northwest. This involves incorporating different scenarios about the probability, timing, and magnitude of carbon control measures like a carbon tax into the planning process. This analysis should also shed light on the value of other strategies to address climate change impacts. The power plan will include an assessment of how to minimize the risks posed by potential global climate change mitigation policies.

Quando usar 'will' ou 'going to' ?

"Will" tem vários usos em inglês. Mas quando comparado com "going to" a dúvida é sobre o tal do tempo verbal futuro em inglês. Então vamos ficar apenas com este caso. Ah, quero lembrar a todos que, linguisticamente falando, o tempo verbal futuro em inglês não existe! Pelo menos não dá forma como temos em português.

Bem, veja só! "Will" quando usado para falar de algo no futuro geralmente vem acompanhado de expressões que indicam incerteza. Como assim!? Calma! Veja as expressões abaixo:

• I think... (Eu acho que...)
• Probably, ... (Provavelmente, ...)
• I guess... (Eu acho...)
• I'm not sure, but I think... (Não tenho certeza, mas acho que...)
• I don't know, but I think... (Num sei não, mas acho que...)
• Maybe... (Talvez...)

Estas são exemplos de expressões que indicam incerteza em inglês. Claro que há outras, mas com estas aí você já será capaz de fazer a diferença.

Pois bem! Agora veja as sentenças abaixo:

• Eu provavelmente vou para Salvador em dezembro.
• Não sei não, mas acho que não vou à festa no sábado que vem.
• Talvez nós não estaremos aqui amanhã.

Como as expressões de incerteza estão presentes nas sentenças a palavra que indica o futuro a ser usada é "will". Assim sendo teremos:

• I will probably go to salvador in December.
• I don't know! But I think I will not go to the party next Saturday.
• Maybe we will not be here tomorrow.

Agora caso você esteja certo do que vai fazer, não lhe resta dúvidas sobre o que fará no futuro, já está decidido e praticamente acertado, então o que deverá dizer é:

• I'm going to Salvador this year.
• I'm not going to the party next Saturday.
• We're not going to be here tomorrow.

Veja que nestes últimos exemplos as expressões de incerteza não apareceram. O motivo é simples: você não têm dúvidas do que irá fazer; você sabe que fará aquilo e pronto! Você está se organizando para fazer!

Conclusão: quando não tiver certeza do que fará no futuro use o "will" acompanhado de "expressões de incerteza"; quando tiver certeza use o "going to".

Espero que esta dica seja útil! Por enquanto fiquem apenas com estes usos! Tem outros ainda! E vamos falar sobre eles com o tempo! Have a nice day you all!

Butterflies

 

There was a time in my life when beauty meant something special to me. I guess that would have been when I was about six or seven years old, just several weeks or maybe a month before the orphanage turned me into an old man.

     I would get up every morning at the orphanage, make my bed just like the little soldier that I had become and then I would get into one of the two straight lines and march to breakfast with the other twenty or thirty boys who also lived in my dormitory.

     After breakfast one Saturday morning I returned to the dormitory and saw the house parent chasing the beautiful monarch butterflies who lived by the hundreds in the azalea bushes strewn around the orphanage.
     I carefully watched as he caught these beautiful creatures, one after the other, and then took them from the net and then stuck straight pins through their head and wings, pinning them onto a heavy cardboard sheet.
     How cruel it was to kill something of such beauty. I had walked many times out into the bushes, all by myself, just so the butterflies could land on my head, face and hands so I could look at them up close.
     When the telephone rang the house parent laid the large cardboard paper down on the back cement step and went inside to answer the phone. I walked up to the cardboard and looked at the one butterfly who he had just pinned to the large paper. It was still moving about so I reached down and touched it on the wing causing one of the pins to fall out. It started flying around and around trying to get away but it was still pinned by the one wing with the other straight pin. Finally it's wing broke off and the butterfly fell to the ground and just quivered.
     I picked up the torn wing and the butterfly and I spat on it's wing and tried to get it to stick back on so it could fly away and be free before the house parent came back. But it would not stay on him.

 

     The next thing I knew the house parent came walking back out of the back door by the garbage room and started yelling at me. I told him that I did not do anything but he did not believe me. He picked up the cardboard paper and started hitting me on the top of the head. There were all kinds of butterfly pieces going everywhere. He threw the cardboard down on the ground and told me to pick it up and put it in the garbage can inside the back room of the dormitory and then he left.

     I sat there in the dirt, by that big old tree, for the longest time trying to fit all the butterfly pieces back together so I could bury them whole, but it was too hard to do. So I prayed for them and then I put them in an old torn up shoe box and I buried them in the bottom of the fort that I had built in the ground, out by the large bamboos, near the blackberry bushes.
     Every year when the butterflies would return to the orphanage and try to land on me I would try and shoo them away because they did not know that the orphanage was a bad place to live and a very bad place to die.

Veja como formar o Present Perfect Continuous:

Primeiro você deve conhecer os Pronomes Pessoais  (I, you, he, she, we, they). Depois disto fica fácil, observe:
I have been studying/walking/reading/swimming
You have been studying/walking/reading/swimming
We have been studying/walking/reading/swimming
They have been studying/walking/reading/swimming

Note que nos casos acima só mudam os pronomes (as pessoas - I, you, we, they). Já a forma verbal continua a mesma para todos 'have been studying/walking/reading/swimming'.

Mas está faltando acima os pronomes 'he' e 'she'. Por quê? Porque estes dois têm um ganham um jeito diferente no lugar do 'have'. Ou seja, tiramos o 'have' e colocamos o 'has' no lugar. Veja,

He has been studying/walking/reading/swimming
She has been studying/walking/reading/swimming

Portanto, lembre-se: as formas do Present Perfect Continuous são duas:

1. have been studying/walking/reading/swimming
2. has been studying/walking/reading/swimming

Você usará uma ou outra dependendo da pessoa, do pronome. Pratique aí dizendo qual é o pronome que completa a sentença:

1. ............... have been living in Porto Velho since 1989.
2. ............... has been reading that book for 3 hours.
3. ............... have been watching TV for 6 hours.
4. ............... has been listening to music since 6 o'clock in the morning.

E então quais os pronomes que completam as sentenças acima? Se você me disser que nas senteças 1 e 3 você pode completar com os pronomes 'I', 'you', 'we' e 'they' e que as sentenças 2 e 4 se completam completam com 'he' ou she'; vou ter de te dar parabéns, você está absolutamente certo.

Para finalizar diga se com o pronome abaixo você usa 'have' ou 'has':

1. He .................. been living in Porto Velho for 10 years.
2. They .................. been living in Porto Velho for 10 years.
3. We .................. been living in Porto Velho for 10 years.
4. She .................. been living in Porto Velho for 10 years.
5. I .................. been living in Porto Velho for 10 years.

Para saber se está certo ou errado, basta conferir nos parágrafos acima. Caso ainda assim você esteja na dúvida ou tenha alguma pergunta a fazer a respeito deste assunto, então é só deixar um comentário para mim!

Why is the ocean salty?

The saltiness of the sea comes from dissolved minerals, especially sodium, chlorine, sulfur, calcium, magnesium, and potassium, says Galen McKinley, a UW-Madison professor of atmospheric and oceanic sciences.

Today’s ocean salt has ancient origins. As the earth formed, gases spewing from its interior released salt ions that reached the ocean via rainfall or land runoff.

Now, the ocean’s salinity is basically constant. “Ions aren’t being removed or supplied in an appreciable amount,” McKinley says. “The removal and sources that do exist are so small and the reservoir is so large that those ions just stay in the water.” For example, she says, “Each year, runoff from the land adds only 0.00005 percent of total ocean salts.”

In lakes, relatively rapid turnover of water and its dissolved salts keeps the water fresh – a water droplet and its ions will stay in Lake Superior for about 200 years, compared to roughly 100 to 200 million years in the ocean. “Even if you did have any accumulation of an ion in a lake, it would be washed out quickly,” McKinley explains.

Ocean salts, however, have no place to go. “The ions that were put there long ago have managed to stick around,” McKinley says. “There is geologic evidence that the saltiness of the water has been the way that it is for at least a billion years.”

Some Quotes from Nelson Mandela!

Nelson Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC). In 1962 he was arrested and convicted of sabotage and other charges, and sentenced to life in prison. Mandela served 27 years in prison, spending many of these years on Robben Island. Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, Mandela led his party in the negotiations that led to multi-racial democracy in 1994. As president from 1994 to 1999, he frequently gave priority to reconciliation. In South Africa, Mandela is often known as uTata Madiba, an honorary title adopted by elders of Mandela's clan.

Mandela has received more than 250 awards over four decades, including the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize.

Below you can find some nice quotes from him:

“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination. “


“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.”


“Communists have always played an active role in the fight by colonial countries for their freedom, because the short-term objects of Communism would always correspond with the long-term objects of freedom movements. “


“Does anybody really think that they didn't get what they had because they didn't have the talent or the strength or the endurance or the commitment? “


“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. “


“For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. “


“I cannot conceive of Israel withdrawing if Arab states do not recognize Israel, within secure borders. “


“I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man. “


“I dream of an Africa which is in peace with itself. “


“I dream of the realization of the unity of Africa, whereby its leaders combine in their efforts to solve the problems of this continent. I dream of our vast deserts, of our forests, of all our great wildernesses. “


“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”

“If the United States of America or Britain is having elections, they don't ask for observers from Africa or from Asia. But when we have elections, they want observers. “

“If there are dreams about a beautiful South Africa, there are also roads that lead to their goal. Two of these roads could be named Goodness and Forgiveness. “