KNACKING... FOR SAVING!!!!

To save or not to save? In time of crisis it not only seems to be the general question but also the answer for our desire to find some extra money from a little income and much spending.

As the proverb says: SAVE MONEY, LIVE BETTER!

Here you will find a top 5 tricks in order to save money when living in our daily routine. Enjoy them and try to practice!

1. I know this piece of advice can sound like trivial but pay attention, please...
TURN OFF THE TELEVISION!!! Watching less television is an important way to save money and you'll find lots of financial benefits: 
- Less exposition to ads. The only one purpose of advertisement is selling, marketing and merchandising. Try to focus on other things in life. Your life quality will increase!
- Less electrical use. If you think how much advantage you take of having the television on all the day, you'll notice it is non-existing. Wasting electricity taking into account the price of it... should be forbidden!

 2. WRITE A LIST BEFORE YOU GO SHOPPING, AND STICK TO IT. You shouldnot go into the supermarket without a strong idea of what you want to buy when in there. The spending in necessary food is not high in comparison with the spending in unnecessary things (such as snacks, frizzy drinks...) we buy so as to full the trolley.

3. GET RID OF UNREAD MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS and CANCEL UNUSED CLUB MEMBERSHIPS. The best example is the gym membership... The number of members of a gym largely exceeds the number of attendants. If you think can may not go or may go little it is better to cancel the membership. It means a monthly spending that would mean an important quantity of money at the end of the year and would considerably increase your saving.

4. MAKE YOUR OWN GIFTS INSTEAD OF BUYING THEM FROM THE SHOP. Handcrafts have a material and symbolic value that will appeal your friends and relatives more than anything you can buy. This involves your homemade touch, the time you dedicate in the creation of something for the target person and the original exclusivity of the gift.

5. DON'T GO TO SHOPPING CENTERS JUST FOR ENTERTAINMENT. It will make you fall into compulsive consumption even if you thought you didn't do it. The appealing presentation of the products as a need mixed with your leisure time usually means extra spending. 




 

HOW TO PREPARE FOR AN EXAM?

Hi everyone!
     We are finishing May and it's time to pass the final exams to have a relaxing and happy holidays (and of course, don't think about the retaking exams in September!). Here you can watch a video to prepare exams, some of the tips are very interesting! I hope you like it! ;)
                                                                   

SAVOIR AIMER... APPRENDRE À AIMER

Bonjour!

     Vous avez ici une belle chanson en français. ;)

WOMEN'S DAY

What is it?


     
     International Women's Day (IWD) was originally called International Working Women's Day and it is marked the 8th of March. It is a celebration of respect for women's achievements in relation to economy, politics and society.


Why do we celebrate this day?
    
     The first International Women's Day commemorated a demonstration by women workers in New York in 1857 but what established the modern celebration was the was a fire  at the Triangle Shirtwaist factory (N.Y) on  25th March, 1911. It was provoked and killed 146 women workers, most of them immigrants.


     LOOK AT THE VIDEO AND ENJOY SOME WOMEN'S CONTRIBUTIONS:

WHITNEY HOUSTON

ANECDOTES:

SAVING FACE:

     Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown were known to have a turbulent relationship. Once, they took a romantic cruise around the island of Capri and shortly Whitney was hospitalized with a gash on her face. Houston said she had cut herself after swimming INTO a rock. It was a way to adress the rumours that Brown had caused her the injuries.

Finally she admitted the truth "When we are fighting, it's like that's love for us".


THE USURPER:


    West Midland's police arrested a 46 year old man after she got up on stage pretending to be Whitney Houston at Birmingham's LG Arena.
The woman fooled the audience for a few minutes as she walked on stage to a standing ovation. However, the audience members realised something wasn't quite right after she sang the first line of "I Will Always Love You" and got the words in incorrect order. Several members of the audience members had got up and left complaining of perforated ear drums due to the deafening noise.


       

CHARLES DICKENS

     Charles John Huffam Dickens was born in Portsmouth, England (7th February, 1812) and died in Gads Hill Place (9th June, 1870). He was a famous English novelist. He was one of the best-known writers of universal literature, and the most important one in the Victorian period.

     He was well-known during his lifetime and nowadays he remains popular.  Many of his writings were originally published serially, in monthly instalments (Dickens himself helped popularise).  He combined mastery when narrating, humour, tragic feeling as well as irony. He criticized  the society where he lived and brought his readers with an intense description of people and places.

     He condemned publically the brutal exploitation of children in England, and thanks to his involvement with society, many consciences awoke with the reality of the time. He was highly talented and extremely energetic, he fought for social reforms, he taught his thoughts about intellectual property or against slavery in the United States...

     Some important quotes of Dickens are:

• "A loving heart is the truest wisdom".
• "A day wasted on others is not wasted in one's self".
• "Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts".
• "Every failure teaches a man something new he needed to learn".

                                                                                   

More famous quotes:

• "Charity begins at home, justice begins next door"

What did he want to say?

THE GROUNDHOG DAY

                                                                 

Grounhog day is a holiday celebrated on February the 2nd in the United States and Canada. It is a folkloric event to make a weather broadcasting according to the groundhog's performance:
If it is cloudy when a groundhog emerges from its burrow on this day, spring will come early. If it is sunny, the groundhog will supposedly see its shadow and retreat back into its burrow; that means that the winter weather will last at least two more weeks.
The largest Groundhog celebration is held up in Punxsutawney; Pennsylvania.

Now, pay attention to important images and vocabulary about the celebration:

What is "a groundhog"? Also known as a whistle-pig, woodchuck, or land-beaver is a rodent, belonging to the group of large ground squirrels known as "marmots".

What is "a burrow"? It is a hole or tunnel dug into the ground by an animal to create a safe and suitable space for habitation or refuge. Some animals that usually make burrows are groundhogs, rabbits, cobayes, mice...

What is "weather broadcasting"? It is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a given location. Weather forecasts are made from collecting data about the current state of the atmosphere and using scientific understanding processes to project how the weather will evolve.
Nowadays we can find computer-based models to predict the weather, but this is something that human beings have been doing informally for millennia, using methods that have to do with folklore more that with science. Some of these methods are: groundhogs (in North America and Canada), Cabañuelas (in La Mancha, Spain), etc.

Tongue twister:

HOW MUCH WOOD WOULD A WOODCHUCK CHUCK IF A WOODCHUCK COULD CHUCK WOOD? (If you can pronounce it properly, you'll get an extra point!!! hehehe)    ;)   ;P