Addictions

Stress

Today in our society are multiple addictions that affect everyday lifestyle of many people.

An addiction is a disorder of the form of staff live and inadvertently affects the physical and

mental body and leading the person to have a life dependent on their addiction.

The modern addictions according to statistics made by an American university the 10 most

common addictions include plastic surgery, Internet, Sex, Love, Tanning, Shopping,

Exercises, White Teeth, Tv, Work.

Moreover stress which is a physiological reaction in the body that come into play various

defense mechanisms to cope with a situation that is perceived as threatening or increased

demand. Peiro (1992) notes that stress is an adaptive phenomenon of human beings who

contributes largely to their survival, to an adequate return on their activities and effective

performance in many areas of life.

Stress is a natural and necessary for survival, despite which today is confused with

pathology. This confusion is because this defense mechanism can be finished under

certain circumstances prevalent in certain lifestyles, triggering serious health problems.

Stress occurs when the intensity of job demands or because of organizational nature, the

worker begins to experience negative experiences associated with the work context.

(Doval, Moleiro and Rodríguez 2004, work stress).

Stress can be caused by overwork and family problems, financial problems among others.

For me a way to de stress out is to exercise, play soccer or any sports activities that help

me forget all the stress around me. Scale (2004 Confronting job stress, 11) has the

following keys to face the stress:

or Having a good physical

or keep a rhythm of sleep and adequate rest

or have leisure time and flexible working hours

Learn relaxation techniques or

o Encourage positive thinking

For me the best way to get away from the addiction is to live in harmony with your body,

mind and society around us and this is only achieved by having a certain equilibrium point

such as respect, honesty, courage, courage, excellence , tolerance and peace. Mesclando

all these points you can have a better life and more people around us.

Vocabulary

1. Surf

2. Engaging in

3. Turning each other in

4. devoting

5. compulsiveness

6. therapy

7. putting together

8. support groups

9. present with

10. coming out

11. fulfillment

Wish statements

Present and future wish

Use wish +would or could

Present wish

Use wish +pass form of the verb

Present wish (verb to be)

Use past form: wish+ were

Past wishes

Use wish + had+ past participle

Past wishes: could

Use wish + could have+ past participle

Honesty is the best policy

Vocabulary

1. conceal

2. finely honed

3. inflated

4. mislead

5. mull over

6. pervasive

7. preoccupation

8. put one over

9. put the pieces together

10. relentless

11. tattling

Modals- degrees of certainty

Almost certain

Present must

Past must+ have+past

Almost certain, negative

Present-future cant + couldn’t

Past cant+ couldn’t +have+ past participle

Quite sure

Future should+ought to

Past should+ have+past participle

Less certain

Present/future could+may+might

Past could+may+might+have+ past participle

The bold and the bashful

Vocabulary

1. break the ice

2. carried away

3. draw out

4. fill the void

5. grouchy

6. mark

7. outlook

8. take things as

9. think of

10. virtually

11. widespread

12. wind up

Adjective clauses

Identifying adjective clauses

Can be introduced by who, whom, which, that, whose, where and when.

Nonidentifying adjective clauses

Is used with the relative pronouns who, whom, which, and whose. Is is also used with

where and when abd cannot be used with that.

Quantifying expressions

Nonidentifying adjective clauses often contain expressions of quantity such as many of,

most of, some of, none of, two of, several of, half of, all of, each of, both of, and a number

of.

The tipping point

Vocabulary

1. transmission

2. mavens

3. word-of-mouth

4. epidemic

5. generate

6. got a hold of

7. consumed by

8. win over

9. profiled

10. root

11. goes a long way toward

12. holds

Adverb clauses of result

Adverb clauses of result are introduced by:

Such + noun or noun phrase + that clause of result

So+ adjective+that +clause of result

So+ adverb+that+ clause of result

Feng shui

Feng shui is a form of geomancy developed in China. Originally a form of knowledge that

studying the changes that occur in nature, the weather and the stars. The origins of feng

shui vary according to sources. For one takes the symbolism of I Ching (or Book of

Changes). Furthermore, it incorporates the five elements (wu xing).

In imperial China, the feng shui was a state matter and only the imperial buildings and

some nobles had access to this application. So, it was called "applications emperors and

kings." Even applied to the location and orientation of the graves (yin Zhai, or 'house of the

dead') and it was believed that the feng shui of them, influenced the fortunes of the

descendants of the deceased.

Since the establishment of the republic, the feng shui (along with other traditional Chinese

culture) was virtually banned. Thus the current centers of diffusion of feng shui are not in

China, but in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia. In the last decade of the twentieth century

with the rise of the new age feng shui has become enormously popular education and

practice and has spread almost all over the world.

Vocabulary

1. properly positioning

2. disapproved of

3. personal stories

4. tough, experienced

5. surprised

6. beyond the limits of ordinary experience

7. moves, flows

8. a large quantity of something

9. with doubt

10. feel and know

11. idea that is unrelated to the topic

12. repeat what someone else has said or written

Spoken discourse connectors

Contrast

but

however

on the other hand

Addition

plus

in addition

on top of that

Result

so

as a result

Spiritual renewal

Spiritual renewal in hard times is essential for well-being in our spiritual journey. All around

us each day, we face the negative side of life staring us in the face. Gas prices take us

prisoner and a failing economy, devastating weather conditions, even television and

movies saturate us with negativity. What we place our attention on is what we become.

Therefore, spiritual renewal is absolutely necessary today for survival.

Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton, (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968) was an Anglo-American Catholic writer and mystic. A Trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, social activist, and student of comparative religion. In 1949, he was ordained to the priesthood and given the name Father Louis.

Merton wrote more than 70 books, mostly on spirituality, social justice and a quiet pacifism, as well as scores of essays and reviews, including his best-selling autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain (1948), which sent scores of World War II veterans, students, and even teen-agers flocking to monasteries across the US, and was also featured in National Review's list of the 100 best non-fiction books of the century. Merton was a keen proponent of interfaith understanding. He pioneered dialogue with prominent Asian spiritual figures, including the Dalai Lama, the Japanese writer D.T. Suzuki, and the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Merton has also been the subject of several biographies.

Vocabulary

1. prophets

2. ascetic

3. fasting

4. divine

5. enacted a law

6. vibrant

7. hectic

8. replenish

9. well-being

10. refrain from

11. will

12. fosters

13. gratitude

14. humility

Workplace privacy

Employers want to be sure their employees are doing a good job, but employees don't

want their every sneeze or trip to the water cooler logged. That's the essential conflict of

workplace monitoring.

New technologies make it possible for employers to monitor many aspects of their

employees' jobs, especially on telephones, computer terminals, through electronic and

voice mail, and when employees are using the Internet. Such monitoring is virtually

unregulated. Therefore, unless company policy specifically states otherwise (and even this

is not assured), your employer may listen, watch and read most of your workplace

communications.

One company offers technology that claims to provide insight into individual employee

behavior based on the trail of "digital footprints" created each day in the workplace. This

behavioral modeling technology can piece together all of these electronic records to

provide behavior patterns that employers may utilize to evaluate employee performance

and conduct. For example, it might look for word patterns, changes in language or style,

and communication patterns between individuals.

Recent surveys have found that a majority of employers monitor their employees. They are

motivated by concern over litigation and the increasing role that electronic evidence plays

in lawsuits and government agency investigations.

Vocabulary

1. employees

2. employer

3. keep an eye on

4. surveillance

5. safeguards

6. eavesdropping

7. legitimate

8. a log

9. scope

10. willy-nilly

11. dignity

12. demeaned

13. driving

14. sinister

15. deter

16. racial slurs

17. bug

18. cheap shot

19. fine line

20. foolproof

21. go that extra mile

22. keep tabs on

23. not have a leg to stand on

24. slippery slope

25. snoop on

26. step up

27. subject to

28. think twice about

29. 24-7

Verbs followed by the gerund or infinitive with a change in meaning

Forget+gerund

-Forget having

Forget+infinitive

-forget to write

Stop+gerund

-stopped calling

Stop+infinitive

-she stopped to call

Boosting brain power through the arts

The Mozart effect

There are some theories related to the Mozart Effect; one of them is that by listening to Mozart’s music, some kids can improve mental tasks known as “spatial temporal reasoning”. Another theory says that if you listen to Mozart’s music, you are going to be smarter, specialty if you listen to it when you are a baby.

Currently there are studies that try to prove the positive effect that this music has. A done in 1993 by Rauscher, Shaw and Ky, proves that the effect produced by this music is only temporal; the students that they used to do the research did not present effects extending beyond the 15-minute period and also the studies did not show an increase in IQ in general. They concluded that music has an effect in the spatial temporal reasoning, but not in a long-term talking.

The study mentioned before was made with in adults, but some scientists did the same study and instead of using adults, they used pre-school children aged 3-4 years. They

gave keyboard music lessons for six months to those children. At the end of the training, all the children had the ability to play simple melodies. To prove if the music has an effect on the children, they did some tests to the children that did not receive music lessons and also to those ones who took music lessons and they compared the results. The performance of the kids who receive music lessons was more than 30% better than the kids that did not take the training.

The relaxation effect is another positive benefit that listening to this music can bring. Some women listen to this music when they are pregnant not only because they think that the baby is going to be smarter, but also because they feel more relaxed when listening to this kind of music.

I think that the effect that some kind of music can produce on us is real. For example, a song can make us feel energetic, happy, or maybe sad and depressed. So, I believe that Mozart’s music can relax our bodies and our minds, and when we are relaxed, we can think well and also show a better performance.

Vocabulary

1. Anhance

2. Proficiency

3. Abstract reasoning

4. Self-esteem

5. Underscoring

6. Neurological

7. Hallmark

8. Sequential

9. Interventions

10. Curriculum

11. Well-rounded

12. Building blocks

Microfinance

Microfinance is usually understood to entail the provision of financial services to micro-entrepreneurs and small businesses, which lack access to banking and related services due to the high transaction costs associated with serving these client categories. The two main mechanisms for the delivery of financial services to such clients are relationship-based banking for individual entrepreneurs and small businesses; and group-based models, where several entrepreneurs come together to apply for loans and other services as a group.

In some regions, for example Southern Africa, microfinance is used to describe the supply of financial services to low-income employees, which, however, is closer to the retail finance model prevalent in mainstream banking.

For some, microfinance is a movement whose object is "a world in which as many poor and near-poor households as possible have permanent access to an appropriate range of high quality financial services, including not just credit but also savings, insurance, and fund transfers. Many of those who promote microfinance generally believe that such access will help poor people out of poverty. For others, microfinance is a way to promote economic development, employment and growth through the support of micro-entrepreneurs and small businesses.

Microfinance is a broad category of services, which includes microcredit. Microcredit is provision of credit services to poor clients. Although microcredit is one of the aspects of microfinance, conflation of the two terms is endemic in public discourse. Critics often attack microcredit while referring to it indiscriminately as either 'microcredit' or 'microfinance'.

Writting 2

The white tiger

The Tiger is the greatest. In the wild, the Siberian Tiger manages to reach the 315

kg. The average size of the body including the head is about 3 meters. Even live

from Turkey to the Indochina peninsula and islands in the archipelago south of

Sunda. North Siberia reaches its location.

Due to its heavy weight the tiger usually do not go up in the trees. A little peculiar

among cats, the tiger not only proves to be a great swimmer, but also to like water

even when it comes to swimming. The basic color of the tiger skin is reddish yellow

with dark vertical stripes, in contrast to this; the white tiger has white to replace the

yellow.

The white tiger is a species that unfortunately is in serious danger of extinction. It is

estimated that today there are only 210 white tigers worldwide, mostly in captivity.

These carnivorous mammals belonging to the family of felines. They are solitary

creatures of habit, but sometimes they can be found in groups of 3 or 4.

White tigers are a variation of the Bengal tiger. They come from parents with a

recessive gene that gives them the white coloration on their skin. It is rare to find a

white tiger in a natural environment. They may have different shades on the eyes,

but generally are blue, except albinos, who generally have pink.

In captivity, life expectancy of white tigers is about 20 years. Most people think that

the white tigers come from Siberia, by its color. However, they have never been

seen there. Only found in India. The first known white tiger was captured in the

jungles of Rewa 1951 by the Maharaja of Rewa.

Exposition

al-Qaeda

القاعدة

Dates of

operation August 11, 1988 – present

Leader(s) Osama bin Laden (1988–2011) Ayman

al-Zawahiri (2011 – present)

Active

region(s) Worldwide

Ideology

Sunni Islamism

Strict sharia law

Islamic fundamentalism

Takfiri

Pan-Islamism

Worldwide Caliphate

Qutbism

Wahhabism

Salafist Jihadism

Al-Qaeda

translation: "The Base" and alternatively spelled al-Qaida and sometimes al-Qa'ida) is a global militant Islamist organization founded by Osama bin Laden at some point between August 1989 and late 1989, with its origins being traceable to the Soviet War in Afghanistan It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad and a strict interpretation of sharia law. It has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United Nations Security Council, NATO,

the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and various other countries (see below). Al-Qaeda has carried out several attacks on non-Muslims, and other targets it considers.

Al-Qaeda has attacked civilian and military targets in various countries.

For example, it carried out the September 11 attacks, 1998 US

embassy bombings and the 2002 Bali bombings. The US government

responded to the September 11 attacks by launching the War on

Terror. With the loss of key leaders, culminating in the death of Osama

bin Laden, al-Qaeda's operations have devolved from actions that were

controlled from the top-down, to actions by franchise associated

groups, to actions of lone wolf operators. According to Lisa Merriam, a

brand consultant, with the death of key communicators, like Anwar al-

Awlaki, the ability of al-Qaeda's "brand" to inspire, motivate and instill

fear has sharply declined.

Osama bin Laden was the most historically notable emir, or commander, and Senior Operations Chief of al-Qaida prior to his assassination on May 1, 2011 by US forces. Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's Deputy Operations Chief prior to bin Laden's death, assumed the role of commander, according to an announcement by al-Qaida on June 16, 2011. He replaced Saif al-Adel, who had served as interim commander.

Atiyah Abd al-Rahman was alleged to be second in command prior to his death on August 22, 2011.

On 5 June 2012, Pakistan intelligence officials announced that al-Rahman's replacement Abu Yahya al-Libi had been killed in Pakistan.

Gulf War and the start of U.S. enmity

Following the Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, bin Laden returned to Saudi Arabia. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990 had put the Kingdom and its ruling House of Saud at risk. The world's most valuable oil fields were within easy striking distance of Iraqi forces in Kuwait, and Saddam's call to pan-Arab/Islamism could potentially rally internal dissent.

Refuge in Afghanistan

After the Soviet withdrawal, Afghanistan was effectively ungoverned for seven years and plagued by constant infighting between former allies and various mujahideen groups.

Throughout the 1990s, a new force began to emerge. The origins of the Taliban (literally "students") lay in the children of Afghanistan, many of them orphaned by the war, and many of whom had been educated in the rapidly expanding network of Islamic schools (madrassas) either in Kandahar or in the refugee camps on the Afghan-Pakistani border.

Attacks

Main article: Timeline of al-Qaeda attacks

Map of major attacks attributed to al-Qaeda: 1. The Pentagon, US – Sep 11, 2001 2. World Trade Center, US – Sep 11, 2001 3. Istanbul, Turkey – Nov 15, 2003; Nov 20, 2003 4. Aden, Yemen – Oct 12, 2000

5. Nairobi, Kenya – Aug 7, 1998 6. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – Aug 7, 1998

War on Terrorism

Main article: War on Terror

U.S. troops in Afghanistan

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the U.S. government decided to respond militarily, and began to prepare its armed forces to overthrow the Taliban regime it believed was harboring al-Qaeda. Before the U.S. attacked, it offered Taliban leader Mullah Omar a chance to surrender bin Laden and his top associates. The first forces to be inserted into Afghanistan were Paramilitary Officers from the CIA's elite Special Activities Division (SAD).

The Taliban offered to turn over bin Laden to a neutral country for trial if the U.S. would provide evidence of bin Laden's complicity in the attacks. U.S. President George W. Bush responded by saying: "We know he's guilty. Turn him over", and British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned the Taliban regime: "Surrender bin Laden, or surrender power".

Soon thereafter the U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan, and together with the Afghan Northern Alliance removed the Taliban government in the war in Afghanistan.