INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!!!

MARCH 8TH, INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!!!

ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT WE FIGHT FOR EQUAL RIGHTS, not to pay back for thousands of years of men's dominance. Let's not be like they were (and like lots of them still are) if we are, precisely, fighting to show that we are intelligent and hardworker as to be on our owns and help society as much as any man can.

Those women who luckily live in liberated modern countries, have a happy Women's Day!!! Those who still live under oppression, keep fighting, keep believing!!!

You can read this interesting article related to all of this http://www.womanthouartgod.com/naturaldominance.php not saying I agree with everything, but it's short and it makes you think.

 

Disastrous Happy Ending Hetalia Day 2010 XD

So, this is a report for last years Hetalia Day 2010!

As you may or may not know, the Hetalia Day is hold the same day as the United Nations Day, on October 24th. It's a day in which Hetalia fans make parties, events, meetings and the likes to claim world peace and common understanding, to show than at least some youngsters CARE about history and our future, and to have fun with the games and roleplays inspired in Hetalia.

And for those who don't know what Hetalia is, it used to be a great webcomic about countries, international relationships, and similar stuff with lots of cultural, historical or just random humor. I'll talk in deep about Hetalia in other posts.



So, back to Hetalia Day, I was in the event hold in Madrid since it was the one nearest me at that time. I wope up at 06:00 (that's really early in the morning here in Spain XD) put on my Canada/Matthew Williams cosplay, and left to take a train. I arrived Madrid Puerta de Atocha at 9:30 and I had breakfast while waiting for my friends Ali and Eli who would be cosplaying as Chibiromano and boss Spain, yay >w<

The sky looked this beautiful early in the morning >w<




While I was waiting, I took a look at the Tropical Forest inside Atocha Station... there were turtles there lulz! So cute ha ha ha!







Eli and Ali arrived and we took a walk around Retirement Park, near Atocha... We were around there for quite some time when the other girl accompanying us got REALLY sick >.< the poor thing! Well, later everything was ok again and we had wonderful ramen at the Japanese Restaurant Oishi Sushi and Ramen! I had Karee Ramen, I thought it was going to be hot but it was pretty mild and sweet, quite good >w< Their website: http://www.oishiiramen.com/



 “Arbor Communitas Arduus” (means "Tree of the European" Union) near the "Arbor Communitas Diversus" ("united in the diversity") We saw it while wandering around Retirement Park. It couldn´t be any more proper visiting this place the very same day of the United Nations Day and the Hetalia Day XDDDYou can see more photos of the Tree and info about the sculptor here:

http://escultoronieva.blogspot.com/ 
http://eumanismo.blogspot.com/2010/10/aequilibrium-g-nieva-vasca-retiro.html

Later, we headed Eli and Ali's place so that they can get their outfits ^^ Ali helped me with the make up and styled my wig ( I'm not good at that ;A; ) She did a great job, thank you dear ;A; She also made me a present, a cute lips gloss >w< Their flatmate (the girl who got sick) was a lot better now, too!

So yeah, we left for the Hetalia Day, which we were conviced was at Plaza España at 17:00 BECAUSE THE OFFICIAL HETALIA DAY SAID SO. BUT THE INFO WAS WRONG. LULZ. So yeah, we arrived Plaza España, with our cosplay and all,but there was a concert there (and a policeman just kept stupidly staring at us XD) We thought it was strange that no one was ther, and that no one would show up, so in the end I had to phone my sis and ask her to look again on the Internet for the place and hour... in the end she was able to find it, and it was... YES. AT RETIREMENT PARK. LULZ. WE´VE BEEN THERE ALL MORNING AND NOW WE HAD TO GO BACK. WHAT THE HELL, THAT HUGE PLACE. LULZ. I swear we doublechecked the info one time and another... the problem was there were two different teams organizating it, and in the end one of them left the info online but never come to say "hey, the new meeting place is this blabla" so yeah XDDD in fact, we asked the policemen at the square and they said they´ve only seen a couple of cosplayers, than they waited there for a while and then left... so I guess those poor guys had the same luck as us.

Anyway, we finally arrive Retirement Park again. We looked around for quite a while... everyone was at Palacio de Cristal, but after almost another hour of wandering around, we arrived. YES. FINALLY, AFTER BEING IN MADRID SINCE 09:30, WE ARRIVED THE HETALIA DAY MEETING POINT AT 18:30. BUT IT WAS WORTHY.


There was an girl from USA with us, very nice and cute, and her Spanish was so good >w< It was hilarious because I was speakin to her in English while she was speaking to me in Spanish XDDD it was great practice for both! She loved both me and the other canada cosplayer lol XD

So yeah, it was already dark so all of my photos and videos are, yeah, at night. But anyway, the starring cosplayers will probably enjoy them anyway XD So yeah, here you have some photos and comments I have to do about them...

PFFFF EVERYONE WANT TO HAVE MY EYES! YOU'RE SO FREAKING JEALOUS PFFFFF

IT´S NOT THAT I DON´T KNOW HOW TO USE MY CAMERA. IT´S JUST THAT EVERYONE IS SO JEALOUS OF THE AWESOME PRUSSIA AND GILBERT´S RED EYES. THAT´S WHY EVERYONE HAVE RED EYES IN THE PHOTOS. LULZ.

DEAL WITH SEME ARTHUR, YOU BLOODY GITS.


AIN´T THEY KYUT. ALFRED X ARTHUR WITH A SEME ARTHUR.  NO ONE WAS EXPECTING PAPARAZZI MATTHEW ME TAKING PHOTOS LULZ (in fact, I don´t think anyone could see him... lulz)






AWESOME ME IS AWESOME... Feliciano what the hell with your face...



DON´T MESSS WITH THE BIG BOYS, DA.



OH LOOK IS ME XDDD And later me with bro and his "Americanishness" (that't so totally a word now) and with Lovi and Tony >w<

I ALSO HAVE SOME VIDEOS

KALINKA KALINKA KALINKAAA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=laWOlpZFlxI

AWESOME 5 METERS (WHUT) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6yd0UdfUe8

WE MADE PRUSSIA CRY http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmJIEeWQCxs

Playing twister (Canada, Prussia, Purssia 2, France, Spain) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpVS9yCRXVo

Playing IMPOSSIBLE twister (aka close-up to Arthur´s ass) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=te_frMMruFk

And now some other Hetalia Day 2010 Madrid videos other people uploaded!!!

Fashmod ruined by very angry Swiss! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8CdK4csFFA



So I ended the day without my hairbrusher, my pencil, my eraser, my drawing (one I did for te fanart contest) or proper photos/videos of the Hetalia Day xD but I made friedns, happened to get closer to those who were my friends already, and I had so much fun!!!

AND THAT´S ALL. LATE REPORTS ARE LATE XD

See you!

Will Chinese Supplant English?

So our native English teacher sent us a note to discuss it, and since I love to talk about this stuff, he inspired me to write this entry.

You know there has been lots of discussion about Chinese possibly overwhelming English as the "international language", right? Why? In simple and short, right now China is one of the most powerful economies and a big country with loads of people that are potencial clients. That, and our non-Asian countries are full of Asian people too -plus a good part of them are Chinese-. However, people who think that all of this is enough as for Chinese to supplant English in our schools, universities, etc., are too naive and misinformed, in my opinion.

There are too many reasons why Chinese won't be overwhelming English as the lingua franca, not any time soon, not later either. Both me and my teacher wrote quite some lines about it, he as a native English teacher living abroad and me as both Chinese and English student (my first language is Spanish).

(I'll post my thoughts on that after the post, as a reply to this entry, so that it makes more sense and so that it isn't so long! xD)

So, in short, this is what my teacher thinks: "I highly doubt it.". And then, he explains:

1. English was lucky enough to emerge as the lingua franca during a critical time. Before the Internet, so much international trade/travel, study abroad programs and large political unions (like the European Union), languages used in the past for international communication were confined to relatively small groups of people. Because so many people now travel, move to other countries, participate in research projects with international audiences, conduct business internationally or at the very least use the Internet, many people feel the need to learn English. People are therefore investing large amounts of money and time to learn English like never before. I could be wrong but I think the number of people who can at least maintain a basic conversation in English is exponentially rising. I would argue that this inertia is if not impossible, very difficult to stop. Imagine. If you know English, you'll be very inclined to teach your children English. You wouldn't know the first thing about teaching them Chinese.

2. The lingua franca is often chosen because of political and economic reasons. You're probably thinking that's exactly why Chinese will supplant English; China is a huge economy already and it's bigger every day. True. It will no doubt one day be bigger than the US economy. But, when will it be bigger than all the English-speaking countries? Canada, the UK, Ireland, the US, Australia and New Zealand are all fairly powerful modern economies. Luckily enough for English-speakers, those countries are also conveniently geographically located. There is at least one in the Americas, Europe and the Pacific. Countries from all over the world probably want to do business with at least one English-speaking country. As long as they want to continue those economic relations, they'll want to know English to facilitate those relations.

3. To learn how to communicate in a language, you have to hear it/read it as often as possible. Generally people have a LOT more access to English than they do Chinese. In fact, until recently, it was hard to escape English. A lot of video games, for example, were only available in English, whether or not you spoke it. Books, TV shows, textbooks, research, videos, podcasts are all widely available in English.

4. English is in a lot of ways not the best international language. It's obnoxiously irregular. But, on the other hand, it's relatively simple in comparison to other languages. Often times you just have to add another word and you have another tense. Let's be honest, it's a lot easier to practice/learn a language when you only have to memorize one word (rather than ... potentially 20 new conjugations and irregular verbs that break the rule).

(...)
In Spanish, on the other hand (as in many other languages), you have to memorize a number of conjugations JUST to properly speak in the present. Since they don't typically use subject pronouns in Spanish, you HAVE to know the conjugations well just to know who they're talking about. Needless to say, to speak at a very basic level in English, you need to know significantly less grammar than you would to learn most other European languages. Cases, the subjunctive mood and gender (which are common in many languages) are practically non-existent in English.

I don't know that much about Chinese but I know that few people know how to even say hello in Chinese. Someone once told me that depending on intonation, a word can have four different meanings (good luck with that). Beyond that, you'd have to learn a completely different writing system. I think that because of the writing system alone, Europeans and Americans at the very least would feel more comfortable learning a language that at least looks SORT OF similar to theirs. Imagine, a person who knows NOTHING about English (from Europe) can at least read English. Sure, they'd have a really thick accent possibly but you'd probably understand at least something. Learning how to read Chinese, on the other hand, alone would require a great deal of time. I doubt that most people would be willing to take the time.

5. For Chinese to become the international language you'd not only have to convince everyone who is used to learning a foreign language that they have to stop studying/learning a language that is already at least slightly familiar to them, you'd have to convince English-speakers that they have to learn Chinese AND that they have to take it seriously. Historically, we're not very good at this and we're not very willing to do it. Unfortunately that makes a difference. Besides, if the Chinese are already speaking to us in English, why would we feel the need to learn theirs?

Having said all this, I am not "defending" English. I am a proponent of us ALL learning a constructed international auxiliary language. At the very least, I don't think it's fair that everyone makes it easier for English-speakers by learning their language. Unfortunately, I think that's even less likely than Chinese supplanting English as the international language."

Let's know about your opinion! As I said, my own reply is in the comments too!

See you!

Just created my blog ^^

First entry!

So, I just created this blog! First twitter, then facebook, now a blog....! I´m getting all modernized yay XD

I hope this helps me keep in touch with my friends while I´m abroad, allow me freely express my thoughts and concern, share and promote my art, among other things!

 So, thanks for reading, and see you!