Saturday, 15 August 2009

Goodbye!


Dear friends, as I announced in my previous entry, I will discontinue the three blogs I dedicated to my university courses to concentrate on: My English Journal: http://ejvb-myjournal.blogspot.com/ starting this week.
You are welcome to my new blog. of course. I will keep on uploading compositions and comments on aspects of my daily teaching.

English Grammar.... On a Theme that is timeless!
Thank you, YouTube robot, for recommending me this very nice video by dennisfisher59 today.





Monday, 29 June 2009

A repeated bad experience once more at the end of the academic year 2008-09

Today's strip.

Manager has got the spare part Easy Rider needs for tonight's All Stars' Special and Chocolate Pie on the Beach Competition. First rate stuff, from Old Crazy Prof. Pot, who will raise hell with his students first and then will get depressed, sullen and resented, as usual. Manager wants five more, Easy Rider bargains for two more and some smoke.




How many victims of petty crime, harassment, molestation, mobbing, blackmail and related concepts at University? In what way can these “problems” affect life on campus.

This year, like last year, like on a number of other occasions in the recent past my garage has been burglarized and somebody has stolen some of the most important and expensive pieces from my scooter. During these years I have spent almost the same amount of money to repair my motorbike as its original price. These actions usually take place when there is a big "scooter and beer" party or event –end of school and university, beginning of summer and so on- in the city and, therefore, trading stolen parts can be highly profitable for those in the business. I must confess that these repeated assaults against my property affect me deeply in different ways. I feel humiliated and threatened.I must be alert. If these thieves know about my property and visit my scooter periodically this means that they know me about me and my hereabouts and they can try some other criminal course of action if profitable or they can "sell the information" about me to other gangs. Monipodio, Divinas Palabras, Oliver Twist, Viridiana are some of the references I keep in mind when I think of this sort of people. Of course drugs and thrillers are also there, but I'd say that the procedure here seems to be quite classical. Thinking about my scooter being quartered by thieves I always think of the Middle Ages and also of pimps exploiting their victims. You should consent to these periodical "molestations" and consider the expense cheap. Ah! And accept it as the normal course of life. I wonder how many people at university can be the object of prey of thieves, pimps, dealers and similar. Also to what an extent this can affect teaching, research and personal relations on campus. Do "they" also control the students?

Why me? Am I that weak? I suppose that this is an unavoidable question in all cases. I am deeply concened for those people who may have his health affected or can be the object of easy violence.

I won't be able to have my scooter fixed in the near future because a big union strike is taking place these days and all the works are closed. Political strife and social crime should not be confused. Something specially worrying is that in this kind of exceptional circumstances social abuse and crime can increase and be even more pernicious.

Today I should be writing my final comments on how the year did in Grammar, but, frankly, I’m not much in the mood to talk about communicative patterns. Well, in a way I’m talking about definitions and vocabulary. I have also done a cartoon. I was thinking of Dashiell Hammett and Jean Gabin. Social violence and political violence is not the same, not even in a dictatorship. To what an extent is this kind of social petty crime affecting many of us both consciously and unconsciously? In moments of economic hardship and strong political controversy we must always remember that social crime must be not confused. It must prevented and controlled strictly according to the rules of Justice.

I have done some preliminar homework on some basic definitions and concepts.

On Repeated burglary
and victimization.

By most definitions, repeat victimization, or revictimization, occurs when the same type of crime incident is experienced by the same—or virtually the same—victim or target within a specific period of time such as a year. Repeat victimization refers to the total number of offenses experienced by a victim or target including the initial and subsequent offenses. A person's house may be burglarized twice in a year or 10 times, and both examples are considered repeats.

The term "victimization" usually refers to people, such as a person who has been victimized by domestic violence. But repeat victimization can best be understood as repeat targets since a victim may be an individual, a dwelling unit, a business at a specific address, or even a business chain with multiple locations. Even motor vehicles may be repeat victims. Later in this guide, we discuss how to distinguish repeat victims in police data by address, victim's name, and other identifiers.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

Office of
Community Oriented Policing Services

http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/files/ric/Publications/e07055803.pdf


P.S. It seems evident that the need of be precise language to describe negative experiences and critical situations cannot be questioned or relativized. I acknowledge that I should work on my vocabulary a little bit more on this area.

I've selected one of the most representative musical scenes from Oliver. A classic, but easy to be updated to the present trade conditions.


Friday, 1 May 2009

A couple of free hours... I need a bath (etic) story!

Some free time to do some creative composition, at last! It's Labour Day, a good occasion to remember that in many areas of activity the number of working hours per day has increased, not decreased in the computer age. We now work faster, of course, but we need to check the messages in the internet and prepare materials during the weekend and, as we work in small supervised groups when teaching, we need to prepare more activities on line, not to mention research and personal and professional contacts. In the past the number of working hours was set in 40 per week. I know that now, both directly and indirectly -at home or in my office- I spend about 12 hours a day, not to mention the weekends. 60-70 hours, is it possible? Only in my case? Am I wrong?
I have spent three hours this afternoon-evening writing a short composition on some contemporary issues. Bathetic, satiric, ironic? I cannot tell. To me my compositions are a catharsis, a way to express some of my feelings and ideas about what is going on. Of course both the ideas and the humour are my responsibility, even though I think that I never reach the point of being either abusive or overconfident when stating my opinions. Of course, a joke always involves some risks....
I must confess that I miss the good old days in which some friends and me met to have dinner and talk about the way of the world during the weekend. Unfortunately Time never forgives and we all live very busy lives now. Besides, of course, there are different ways of socializing.
I have not uploaded anything in this blog for almost a month; unfortunately not much time, not even for bathetic humour! I should write something to refresh some old notions such as proposition, propositional attitude, irony, humour, effect, double meaning, pamphlet and so on. Grammar dry and boring? Impossible if you know how to apply it. It's a question of style! A touch of "class?"




Main errata:
2.- "She was in charge...." Rewrite. Obscure.
on/in
3.- "Beating round the bush."
began/begin
6.- you/your

Sunday, 5 April 2009

My Easter Contribution.



Yesterday I had some free time to walk downtown, to write and compose. I was thinking of how Easter -same as Christmas same as....- may be used as an excuse for confrotation and violence. I had in mind also a true proposition: There's is at least one human being who has gone through crucifixion due to a mixture of religious, political, social and ethnic reasons in a country occupied by a foreign Imperial power. This had led me to compose a presentation in which I debate what is serious and what may be taken as offensive in using the language of wit. I hope you find it of any interest. In a way, I recreated the long conversations I had in the past with good friends when the times seemed less depressing. Unfortunately, no more conversations with friends for many years now. Times have changed and work piled up! I had many references in mind. Blanco White, of course, was one of them!