Friday, July 1, 2011

Summer Break

We all need a break, a long one, from school -from parents, students, teachers, colleagues, course-books, papers...but before we say goodbye for the summer, let me give you some advice about it:

* take any opportunity you may come across to speak English -or Australian, for that matter

* if you feel bored, have a look around you, you may discover people doing strange things. I love what Improve Everywhere does (Improv Everywhere is a New York City-based prank collective that causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places). Have a look at one of their "scenes": Horse Race in Bryant Park, New York:


Or planking. There´s a real planking craze going on in Austalia and who knows?, maybe you´ll be the ones to start it over here... Watch to video to see if you´d be interested..



Sometimes when people are bored, they do dangerous things and, if they are dangerous, it does not matter how funny they look, you shouldn´t do them because people´s lives are in danger. Here´s a video to give you an example of what I mean; the title of the video is anti-boredom campaign. Things are not always what they look like:




* If you plan to take a flight during your holidays, beware of cheap flights; read and listen to what might happen. Pay attention to the Irish accent:



The advantage of cheap flights is just that: they are cheap; you´ll have to pay a little bit more if you want to get something like this in your flight. The first video is an Air New Zealand ad. Here´s their explanation about it:

You won´t always be told about safety rules in a plane like this.We jammed a plane full of rugby fans, some crazy Air New Zealand staff and asked some of our All Black friends to lend a hand.
After two long days shooting, here's what we came up with. Makes you feel like flying with Air New Zealand, doesn´t it?
To show how crazy about rugby the country is, members of their national team the all-world All Black and Air New Zealand staff breath life into the typical pre-flight safety briefing. No beer chute exits, but Betty at the end though has a bit of a surprise finish. Ouch.
Created for our Domestic 737 service :



Listening to a steward rap the safety rules in a plane is also a plus in a flight:



* Wherever you go, respect the local rules, even if you think they are peculiar - and there are some peculiar rules out there, like the banning of kissing someone goodbye at the train station:



or these two:





















* Wherever you go, run away from stereotypes, they can be a negative influence in the way you see others; they give an oversimplified standardized image of a group of people, so don´t judge everybody according to the ideas of others


Besides, stereotypes are not so funny when they are about us. Read more about it in this link to The Big Think ; the following images are taken from there:  This one is a map of Europe seen by the Germans:


And this one is a map of Europe as seen by the Americans. Not so funny when we see what they think about us, is it?


* Forget your computer, social networks, emails for a while; take a pill if your will is not enough





















*And last, but not least, relax and enjoy the summer


Dear students, see you in September! Have a nice summer!

Dear readers, thank you for dropping by, for your comments, for your emails, for your suggestions...I´ll be back sometime in September.

2 comments:

  1. I really like the video of the Carousel Horse Race, so funny! And the second one is very strange...
    I knew the thirth one and the video about the rap in the airplane, and I had a photo of a map like those in my computer but I didn't know the web page, is very interesting.
    Have a good summer you too!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...