Do we really change? is the world changing?

"Change". Just a word. And sometimes words make all the difference. As a noun, this word means a change in something. For instance, " a change in Portuguese policy" or "what we need is a change of attitude on the part of politicians". As a verb, "change" means exactly the same, that is "when something changes, it becomes different". For example, "politicians should change laws to make the world better."
The main issue is to realise that every single second, we change and everything around us changes to. For worst? For better?
Recent studies show that as far as the Earth's climate is concerned, Man has done absolutely nothing to change it. When it comes to contaminated land sites, pollution of watercourses, household waste production or the huge amount of new roads and new housing which are under construction, the idea of building a fair society and a strong economy is without a shadow of doubt a kind of private joke heard among Members of Parliament and Prime Ministers all around the world.
Given the fact that the Earth's climate is changing dramatically and seasons are becoming wetter or hotter, Man shoul act immediately. Yet to ACT or to CHANGE is slightly different. In order to ACT, governments must ACT which means that they have to create solutions and putting them into practice. Does this really happen?
Portugal is an extraordinary example of the lack of creativity, commitment, truth and work. It is a territory where everything can happen and no one, absolutely no one, especially the governments, is punished. In the seventies, a dictatorial regime was replaced by a democracy (a very young one unfortunately) and still, the social and economical situation is far from being resolved. Education and Health are perhaps the two major problems. Despite the number of reforms which has been taken place, the results have been catastrophic. The authority has been taken away from the teachers in a ferocious way in this last decade. Discipline, study methods are no longer important. The most sophisticated IPOD, DVD or mobile phones and parents without any control over their children are a reality. Students are always right, even if they don't study. The fault is automatically given to the teacher who wasn't able to "reach the mind nor the psychological problems" of the poor kid! Hospitals and Health Centers are being closed every single month. As a consequence, five thousand people waiting to be put on a waiting list in a Health Center in Lisbon is just an example. Basically, governments have been promising to give back "some" authority to teachers or to cut hospital waiting lists , but in reality it is exactly the opposite. People are constantly being deceived by those who pretend to govern their countries.
To sum up, we really have to ask ourselves if something is being done to change societies. Man think that he is changing the course of Humanity by innovating, accelerating science or technology. However, all this high life change is just an illusion. By being overwhelmed with such changes, Man can't adapt himself to this new reality. Anger, anxiety, apathy, depression, despair, fear or fright are the REALITY. The Earth is indeed changing but those who inhabitate it are no longer having control over it.
So, is the world changing? For worst? For better? Are we really prepared to face these changings?
Maria Antónia

HOMEWORK

Your homework tonight is to watch Celtic beat Benfica ! , and to savour the atmosphere of football in Scotland - a full stadium, everybody singing, (everybody drunk) and hopefully no fans running on to the pitch this time ! good luck to all my benficista students - but i don't mean it - i am just trying to be nice . GO ON CELTIC !!!! (Mcdonald to score one, maybe 2)

fashion scene in portugal

oh good - something else that i know absolutely nothing about... as you can probably see by the way i dress - i simply don't care. i think 50 % of guys are like this - please tell me if i am wrong. Maybe i did one day, but because of my size it is very difficult to buy things that i like and in my size. It is difficult in Scotland, it is next to impossible in Portugal. XL in Portugal is too small for me, and with size 48 feet there is only one shop i can buy anything in and that is TIMBERLAND because it is an american brand. But I hate clothes that have logos on them. Why pay an extra 30 euros for a shirt with a small crocodile on it, when that shirt was made by slave labour in China or the Phillipines or somewhere like that. I really recommend a book called NO LOGO which tells you all about the practises of big clothing companies. Ever sine then, i refuse to wear any clothes with a logo on it if i can help it. I frequently cut the brand label off my clothes and constantly hunt for clothes that don't have any silly bloody animals on them !!! anyway enough of my rantings - over to you...

MUSIC SCENE IN PORTUGAL

well , as requested, here is a post about the music scene here - of which i know nothing . It is strange... i used to be right into music. I used to go to 60 concerts a year, i used to read a magazine called Q (i don't know if it is still on the go), and i knew everything about everything... and then one day, i woke up and i simply didn't care any more - maybe when i was about 25 . So i don't have much to add to this post. I find it sad nowadays that there seems to be very few bands that have a hit after hit. in my day it was quite exciting waiting for the new single of a well known band e.g. the jam. they would tell you what day it was being released and eveyone would rush out and buy it, and it would go straight into the charts at no. 1 . Nowadays it seems to be one hit wonders, and all the songs are just remixes of old songs anyway... god i sound old - i am beginning to sound like my father. the one thing i find really interesting about living here is that i have heard lots of differrent types of music that i would never have heard if i was living in the uk e.g. brazilian and african music. I open the post up to all you music lovers ... by the way - you don't need to write a new post, just click on comments and then add your thoughts there

It’s all about safety!

Everyone can point out several moments in history that were characterized by important changes in individuals, society and the world. Take, for instance, the industrial revolution. For those who lived during that period everything seemed to change faster than they could keep up with… changing from the country side to cities, from the fields to industrial plants, from the fresh air to pollution…

There’s no doubt that many mistakes were made and that many people suffered from the side effects of change… but yet the society survived and the world (although we still suffer from the increase in pollution) also survived.

This leads us to today’s issue: Given this previous experience with change, why is our society so worried about its effects? In my opinion, it’s clear that change is now faster than it was in the industrial revolution (so is our society in general)… But aren’t we better prepared for it? Are we not aware of the existence of negative side effects? Aren’t our governments and NGOs making important efforts to help the “change-excluded” people?

The main point, as I see the problem, is that one of the basic needs of an individual nowadays (take, for instance, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and given that the basic needs such as food and shelter – physiological needs – are provided) has to do with safety.

Safety is, without a shadow of doubt, the core of the problem. Change is affecting safety in many different ways. For instance, we no longer expect to have the same job forever and we worry more than ever about security (ourself, our family and property).

In conclusion, it’s my believe that change is raising this much discussion and concern because no one knows exactly what’s going to happen in the future and, for the time being, the predominant feeling is of deep concern, fear and anxiety about the future.

Ricardo

Hi Graham and everybody,

It's the first time I'm doing a homework on the net. I really don't know if at the end of this task, you will receive this. I hope so! I have just 15 minutes to do this. It's quiet a challenge to me!
Anyway, I really hate not to do what I am asked to do. So I'll start with the first homework. I think that it was writing about ourselves, wasn't it? The worksheet Andy gave us was called "C2 - getting to know you". There were 40 questions and we had to choose 10 to talk a little bit about ourselves. As I read some of your homework, I understood that it was probably the same worksheet.
I really would like to have time to choose 10 or even more questions to talk about myself. I will do it (probably this weekend) because I think that it will be funnier instead of saying that I am just another teacher suffering from the enormous amount of changes from our different governments during these last years. They don't understand (or they don't really care about it) that something must be done. I have to confess that I am really tired of being a teacher (especially for the last years as I have many groups of 30 students). Being a teacher in Portugal is really a hard job as the system has being falling down year after year. Today, a teacher doesn't have any sort of authority in a classroom or outside it. I am not saying that all the students are alike but the great majority can't distinguish a teacher from a friend or even from his/her parents. This is the Portuguese reality. Students don't fail even if they don't know anything. What really matters are statistics at the end of the year. This government really likes statistics and the Portuguese believe in them. I don't.
I know that what I wrote was not very enthousiastic. But time is up. I have another class of 30 students this afternoon. But I will meet all at 7 o'clock.
Graham, I promise that I'll complete this homework and I'll do the other one.
So, see you in a few hours,
maria antónia

Hi guys,
I'm writing this just an hour before our class, so Graham won't have a word to say about a possible miscommitment to the class. I guess i'm the kind of person who likes to work under pressure.

Moving on, Benfica will beat Celtic so I don't understand why Graham even bothers talking about it.

Related to the topic Graham posted on the blog, my opinion is that women should stay at home bringing up the children. At least that's what I would like it to be at my place: I want to have a big family, so my wife must be an old-fashioned woman. But, if she isn't, I will accept that.

I think Portugal is a great place to live, because it has the best of both worlds: the sunny weather of most of he 3rd world countries and the economics of a developed one (although in less quantity - this goes for both). Anyway, I would rather live here than in Scotland, for example, where it rains all year round, or in Brazil, where I can get killed if I wear something a little fancy.

My favourite sport is rugby. Altough I quit playing a couple of years ago, I still care about my club and, obviously, for the portuguese national team. In Portugal, rugby moves much less money than football, because it is still an amateur sport. I think that's why it's such a fair sport.

I would describe the British people as too polite for my taste. Portuguese people, being part of the latin people, are much more passionate than the british. If you're in an argument with a british person, you cannot refuse his opinion without adding a «mm-mm» or a «oh really?!». If I did that whit my friends, I would be considered a bit sissy.

I would prefer money to time. I actually have a lot of free time by this point of my life, but I don't have enough money to enjoy it. Against Graham's way of life, I actually need money to have fun. You can´t buy anything using time as a coin.

Like Marta, I just finished reading "Por Amor da Índia". Funny coincidence. I didn't like it, but I do understand she did. It's really a women's book.

That's all for today.