TED TALKS

YOUR BODY LANGUAGE SHAPES WHO YOU ARE

This talk is made by Amy Cuddy, and the main topic of it is the body language. She starts the talk by asking to the people listening to her to take a look of what are they doing right now, what’s their corporal position, because that shows a little bit of their personality.

Then, Cuddy focuses on the nonverbal communication and its importance. She says that we tend to think that the way we look or act only affects how other people see ourselves, but that’s not totally true; it also affects ourselves. To explain that, she talks about the power dynamics, especially she focuses on the nonverbal expressions of power and dominance. Then, she talks about an interesting fact about animals as well as humans: when we want to demonstrate power we tend to expand, open up, take up space. Even when you, for example, win a race and you just feel powerful for ten seconds, you will open your arms to show it. Cuddy says that this type of thing (open your arms when you feel pride) is universal. One thing that caught my attention was that she said that even a person who has born blind and, of course, never has seen somebody do that pose, he/she would still do it if he/she won in a physical competition; because that sign is universal, both in the animal kingdom as well as in humans.

Contrarily, when we feel powerless we do exactly the opposite: we close up, we make us small (both animals and humans).

Afterwards, she moves her theory into a classroom: there are people who you notice them a lot, they speak loud and stand out among the others; contrarily, there are the opposite people, who prefer not to stand out and remain quiet and silent. In fact, this is related to gender: women feel chronically less powerful than men, so they normally are quieter and more calm what it comes to standing out in class. Cuddy figured out that this is also related to participation, the first type of people tend to participate more at class, while the other type nearly speaks. This could be a bad thing in some degrees at College, where participation counts 50% of the mark. So then, Cuddy asked herself a question: could those people who are more insecure to fake being more participative? Basically, can they fake it until they make it?

Therefore, she did an experiment to prove it. She found out that if you force yourself to “feel powerful”, you actually really feel it. The simplest way to do it (and the most effective one) is to adapt a powerful pose during 2 minutes, and that makes you increase your security in yourself. But also it works the other way, if you unintentionally adapt a pose of dominance, your self-confidence will decrease. So she recommends us to, before a job interview or an exam (for example), adopt a powerful pose during 2 minutes in the bathroom, the hallway or wherever you want. That really can help you, make you feel more secure and powerful, and it’s very easy to do.

 

Amy Cuddy finishes her speech by telling us to not just “fake it until you make it”, but to “fake it until you become it”. She says that if you keep doing this little experiment your self-confidence will eventually increase until you will become secure in yourself.

PERSONAL OPINION:

I think this is a very motivating and inspiring speech; Cuddy gives a lot of good advices for feeling more secure in you. Naturally, the quote that I liked the most is: “Don’t fake it ‘till you make it, fake it ‘til you become it”.

NEW WORDS: 

Hunch: Encorbar-se
Tweak: Modificar
Glance: Mirada
Outcome: Resultat


Link: https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are

EMAIL TO MY TEACHER

Dear Lourdes,


My name is Paula Caball, you might remember me because you were my English teacher in first of ESO.

I don’t consider necessary to do a physical description of me, so I’m going to explain who I am. I think it’s difficult to do a brief description of my personality, because I have a lot of things to say. But, in general, I consider myself a positive person, cheerful and talkative. I’m also outgoing and I love meeting new people and being with my friends. I’m a hardworking person too, and that sometimes it’s a bad thing because it makes me be stressed out, especially now that I’m in Batxillerat. Another bad thing that I have is that I worry way too much about things that maybe aren’t very important. Also, I’m very perfectionist, and I like to do everything correctly. Finally, I think I care too much about what the other people think of me, and that shouldn’t be important.

Now, talking about which are my short and long-term goals, I don’t have it very clear, but the first one that I want to achieve is to finish Batxillerat with good grades (the best that I can but trying to not feel too stressed). I also will try to get a scholarship, because I think it’s possible although I know it’s very difficult. To achieve that I will have to study hard, concentrate in class and organize myself very well. I also have some long-term goals, for example one of them is to enter in the degree I want to study in the University and finish it. I also want to keep studying English to finally obtain the Proficiency (CPE) qualification. I would like to learn more languages too, especially French and German, but also some others like Italian, Russian or Chinese. Like most of the people, I want to travel a lot, and I’m sure I will find ways to travel that are not very expensive, because exploring the world is something I force myself to do! For example, I could do an au pair or volunteering in a NGO. Focusing on the people who can help me to stay on track, well, for the short-term goals I think I only need myself, because studying is something that, even though you can need help, you have to do it on your own. About the long-term goals, I also think that I don’t need anyone in particular to help me, but it’s always nice to have somebody by your side, so I think my family and friends could help me, but just to give me support.


“You can’t let your failures define you; you have to let your failures teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently the next time.”

This is one of the quotes I liked the most in Obama’s speech. I liked it because it shows that failures aren’t a sign of weakness, it only shows you that you have done something wrong but most of the times if you try harder, change something and keep trying you will achieve your objectives. The most important thing is to never give up.


I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Paula

NEWS

A SUPERMARKET IN DENMARK WHICH FIGHTS AGAINST THE FOOD WASTE

In Copenhagen, Denmark, has opened a new supermarket called WeFood, which sells food, cosmetics and household items that other stores rejected because they are near their expiration dates, had been wrongly labeled or had damaged packaging, but are still legal to sell and safe to consume. This supermarket sells the products 30 to 50 per cent lower than in regular supermarkets.

The supermarket has already been a huge success: the first weeks after the opening, the people have lined up before the store’s opening every morning.

This project has been applauded for a lot of people in Denmark, because this country throws away about 700,000 tons of food every year, according to several estimates. Food waste is one of the principal problems in the world right now. About 795 million people are undernourished globally, according to the World Food Program, but about a third of all the food produced in the world (1.3 billion tons more or less) is lost or wasted each year. The cost of global food wastage is about 1 trillion dollars a year, according to the U.N. Also, wasting food contributes to climate change: producing, distributing, consuming and disposing of food uses significant amounts of energy and water, which causes over 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. 

Nowadays, some European companies and countries are taking steps to battle food waste. In Denmark, if WeFood’s popularity continues, it will open new supermarkets across the country.

PERSONAL OPINION:

I find this a very interesting project, which will help for not wasting so much food. I think it’s ironic how in the developed countries you can find as many food as you want (more than we need) and there are countries all over the world who don’t have enough food to feed their inhabitants. Once I read that with all the food we have at the moment, we could easily end with the hunger in the world twice or three times. That’s impressive, because it makes you think that we have the solution to this problem, but we don’t try enough to solve it.


NEW WORDS:

Surplus: excedent
Shelter: refugi, alberg
Undernourished: malnodrit, desnodrit


Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/denmark-wefood-food-waste_us_56cf5d6fe4b03260bf75fe15

YOUR-SAY

NO MORE GENDER ROLES

I want to share with you a video that I saw a few days ago that I really liked. The video is made by Ariel, a detergent brand, and talks about an issue that still have our society nowadays: rigid gender roles.

The video shows the apologise of a father to his daughter, who lives independently with her husband and her son. The father sees how her daughter is making all the household chores while her husband is sitting comfortably in front of the TV reading a newspaper with a cup of coffee. Then he realises she can’t do it all, and that her husband must help her, but he doesn’t. He also realise that he wasn’t a good example for her, because he was like her daughter’s husband, so the girl saw her mother doing all the household chores and she followed her example. That’s why he apologises, but he also wants to help her to change that. Therefore, he writes a letter apologising for that and then he comes back home. When his wife sees him come back, she quickly wants to take all the clothes to wash them, but the man stops her and decides to do it himself. 

In the past, in most cultures, a woman’s work was to stay at home doing household chores and taking care of the kids. Fortunately, with the pass of time, this has changed and nowadays in most places women have a job like men (even though there are some inequalities that must end), but there are some gender roles that hasn’t been eliminated, and one of them is taking care of the house. This, step by step, is changing, but there are a lot of houses where almost all the household chores are done by the woman. As I said before, this must be eliminated and both men and women have to take care of the house in the same measure.

VIDEO:

NEWS

A DEAF GIRL'S DREAMS COME TRUE WHEN TINKERBELL STARTS TALKING TO HER IN SIGN LANGUAGE

Shaylee Mansfield was 4 years old when she went to Disney World for the first time. She is deaf and she never expected that the Disney icons would be able to communicate with her, so she was shocked when Tinkerbell started talking to her in sign language. Shaylee’s expression tells everything: her mouth opens completely and her eyes widen.

Her mother, Sheena McFeely, is also deaf, and she enrolled her daughter into a school where everyone speaks sign language, so Shaylee grows up feeling included. For Shaylee, school it’s a very special place and now, Disney World has become a very special place too where she can communicate with people.

The family was invited back to Disney World three years later and Shaylee receives another surprise when Minnie Mouse also talks to her in sign language.

Currently, the theme park is making steps to become more inclusive for children with disabilities.

VIDEO:

PERSONAL OPINION:

When I saw the video for the first time I became emotional, because I imagined how Shaylee felt at that moment. I think it’s a great step for Disney to find ways to make feel all the kids special regardless if they have a disability.  

NEW WORDS:

Widen: eixamplar, ampliar

Enroll: inscriure

Footage: metratge

Link: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/features/7080459/A-deaf-girls-dreams-come-true-when-Tinkerbell-starts-talking-to-her-in-sign-language-at-Disney-World.html

YOUR-SAY

LOOK UP

A few weeks ago I saw on Facebook that a German city called Augsburg have found a solution for people who are distracted on their phones while they are walking in the street. 

Well, as you perfectly know, while you are with your phone, you’re not paying a lot of attention to what happens around you, mainly because it’s impossible to truly concentrate to a lot of things at the same time. In the last few years, the numbers of deaths of pedestrians in the street has increased, and it’s surprising that lots of them are because the person killed or injured was paying attention to their phone and not to the street. Well, it’s not that astonishing considering our addiction to the phone (of course, not everybody, but most of us). So, this German city, Augsburg, decided to put small red lights in the street, just in front of a crosswalk, for people to see it and notice when they can cross it or they can’t. Because lifting your head and look at the traffic light or just watch if there’s any car crossing was too difficult and too complicated, of course. 

I also saw that in China, in Chongqing city, they even gave people who are all day at their phones their own walking lane.

In my point of view, I think this is going way too far. It’s not normal that a city has to make a personal walking lane for people who are texting in the phone, or that they invent a little red lights to put in the street for the people who are distracted enough on their phones to not lift their head and observe what they have in front of their eyes. Please, our addiction to the mobile phones is already killing us (literally). I think it’s very stupid and embarrassing to reach this level so, please, pay attention to what’s around you and if you are walking in the streets, don’t be all the way looking at your phone to avoid that a stupid red light in the street have to tell you when it’s safe to cross instead of raise your head and look it yourself.

YOUR-SAY

#GiveElsaAGirlfriend?

A few weeks ago the hashtag #GiveElsaAGirlfriend became Trending Topic on Twitter. It all started when a girl called Alexis Isabel twitted:



Then she twitted “Dear Disney, #GiveElsaAGirlfriend”. Some people liked her idea, and they started retweeting it until it became Trending Topic.

Of course, there are always people who are against it, so some people created the hashtag #CharmingPrinceForElsa. They argued that a lot of children watch and like Frozen, and it would be a bad influence if Elsa is lesbian (I totally disagree with it).

In my opinion, I think if Elsa has a girlfriend, this will not be a bad influence for the kids; I think it will help to normalise homosexuality among children. Also, it would encourage young children who are homosexual to know that they are not strange, and that is completely fine and normal to be gay or lesbian. It will be a great step for Disney to do it, because the LGBT community hasn’t been represented in Disney movies.

On the other hand, I think it would also be nice to let Elsa be independent. I mean, all Disney movies about princesses show the little girls that they have to found a man to be happy, but that’s not true. You can be happy without being married or having a partner. Elsa is a great example for being an independent woman, and feeling great about it.

Therefore, the best solution in my point of view is to let Elsa be an independent woman and create a homosexual character for another movie. I mean, create a movie which principal character is gay or lesbian.