Watch out

It's very common people from different parts of the world keep in touch through e-mail, in particular from South Africa in order to promise a sum up of money to you, do not do that, have a look the last e-mail I received from there. Dear Sir, I crave your indulgence for the unsolicited nature of this letter, but it was borne out of desperation and current development. Please bear with me. My name is mr.ahmed fadil . auditor of B.O.A Bank (BOA) I discovered existing dormant account for 5years. I seek your consent to present yourself as the next of kin of the deceased. As an auditor in the bank I will use my position in the bank to help you stand as the next of kin to the deceased, so that the proceeds of this account valued at $22.5million dollars can be transferred to you, this is the story in a nutshell. Now I want an account over seas where the bank will transfer this fund. Now my questions are:- 1. Can you handle this project?... 2. Can I give you this trust?... If yes, send to me your personal information as below: Your name : Your address : Your occupation: Your age : Your telephone number : I expect you're urgent response if you can handle this project,contact me via my alternative email address:  dr.sangoali2@gmail.com Thanks Dr.Sango Ali TEL. 226 78 78 46 20. Never reply or send any money.

I'm Yours by Jason Mraz

Source: http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=2264

Author of this Exercise: Nereis

Marina Llop

Listen to the song and order the lines.

Before the cool done run out  

I tried to be chill but you're so hot that I melted  
And now I'm trying to get back  
I reckon it's again my turn to win some or learn some 
I'll be giving it my bestest  
Nothing's going to stop me but divine intervention 
Well you’ve done done me and you bet I felt it  

I fell right through the cracks  

It cannot wait, I'm yours  

I won't hesitate no more, no more  

Look into your heart and you'll find love love love  

Open up your plans and damn you're free  
I like peaceful melodies 

Well open up your mind and see like me 
It's your God-forsaken right to be loved love loved love love 
Listen to the music of the moment maybe sing with me  

Listen and complete with the missing word

So I  hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait I'm sure
There's no  to complicate                 CHORUSOur  is short
This is our  , I'm yours

I've been  way too long checking my tongue in the 
And bending over backwards just to try to see it 

But my fogged up the glass
And so I drew a new face and 
I  what I'm saying is there ain't no better 
To rid yourself of vanity and just go with the 
It's what we aim to do
Our  is our virtue

CHORUS

Well no no, well open up your  and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you're free
Look into your  and you'll find love love love love
Listen to the  of the moment come and  with me
I like one big family (2nd time: I like happy family)
It's your God-forsaken right to be loved love love love

I  hesitate no more
Oh no more no more no more
It's your God-forsaken right to be , I'm sure
There's no  to complicate
Our  is short
This is our , I'm yours

CHORUS

Elizabeth Blackwell, 1821-1910: Against Strong Opposition, She Became the First Western Woman in Modern Times to Become a Doctor

Source: Voice of America Special English www.manythings.org/voa/people 

Elizabeth Blackwell, 1821-1910: Against Strong Opposition, She Became the First Western Woman in Modern Times to Become a Doctor 

Every week we tell about someone important in the history of the United States.  Today, Shirley Griffith and Ray Freeman tell about the first western woman in modern times to become a doctor. Now, the story of Elizabeth Blackwell on the VOA Special English program PEOPLE IN AMERICA.

(MUSIC)

Elizabeth Blackwell was born in Bristol, England in eighteen twenty-one. Her parents, Hannah and Samuel Blackwell, believed strongly that all human beings are equal. Elizabeth's father owned a successful sugar company. He worked hard at his job. He also worked to support reforms in England. He opposed the slave women to have the same chance for education as men.

He carried this out in his own home. Elizabeth had three brothers and four sisters. All followed the same plan of education. They all studied history, mathematics, Latin and Greek. These subjects were normally taught only to boys. Friends asked Samuel Blackwell what he expected the girls to do with all that education. He answered: "They shall do what they please".

In eighteen thirty-two, Samuel Blackwell's sugar factory was destroyed by fire. He and his wife decided to move the family to the United States. Elizabeth was eleven years old.

The Blackwells settled in New York City. But Mr. Blackwell's business there failed. The family moved west, to the city of Cincinnati, on the Ohio River.

Samuel Blackwell was sick for much of the trip. He died soon after arriving in Ohio. To help support the family, Elizabeth and her two older sisters started a school for girls in their home. Two younger brothers found jobs.

In the next few years, Elizabeth's brothers became successful in business. The girls continued operating their school. But Elizabeth was not happy. She did not like teaching.

Elizabeth began to visit a family friend who was suffering from cancer. The woman knew she was dying. She said women should be permitted to become doctors because they are good at helping sick people. The dying friend said that perhaps her sickness would have been better understood if she had been treated by a woman. And she suggested that Elizabeth study medicine.

Elizabeth knew that no woman had ever been permitted to study in a medical school. But she began to think about the idea seriously after the woman who had suggested it died.

Elizabeth discussed it with the family doctor. He was opposed. But her family supported the idea. So Elizabeth took a teaching job in the southern state of North Carolina to earn money for medical school.

Another teacher there agreed to help her study the sciences she would need. The next year, she studied medicine privately with a doctor. He was also a medical school professor. He told Elizabeth that the best medical schools were in Philadelphia.

No medical school in Philadelphia would accept her. College officials told her she must go to Paris and pretend to be a man if she wanted to become a doctor. Elizabeth refused. She wrote to other medical colleges -- Harvard, Yale, and other, less well-known ones. All rejected her, except Geneva Medical College in the state of New York.

She went there immediately, but did not feel welcome. It was not until much later that she learned the reason: her acceptance was a joke. The teachers at the college decided not to admit a woman. But they did not want to insult the doctor who had written to support Elizabeth's desire to study medicine. So they let the medical students decide.

The male students thought it funny that a woman wanted to attend medical school. So, as a joke, they voted to accept her. They regretted their decision by the time Elizabeth arrived, but there was nothing they could do. She was there. She paid her money. She wanted to study.

Elizabeth Blackwell faced many problems in medical school. Some professors refused to teach her. Some students threatened her. But finally they accepted her. Elizabeth graduated with high honors from Geneva Medical School in eighteen forty-nine. She was the only woman in the western world to have completed medical school training.

Three months later, Doctor Elizabeth Blackwell went to Paris to learn to be a surgeon. She wanted to work in a hospital there to learn how to operate on patients. But no hospital wanted her. No one would recognize that she was a doctor.

A hospital for women and babies agreed to let her study there. But she had to do the tasks of a nursing student. At the hospital, Doctor Blackwell accidentally got a chemical liquid in her eye. It became infected. She became blind in that eye. So she was forced to give up her dreams of becoming a surgeon.

Instead, she went to London to study at Saint Bartholomew's Hospital. There, she met the famous nurse Florence Nightingale.

Elizabeth returned to the United States in eighteen fifty-one. She opened a medical office in New York City. But no patients came. So doctor Blackwell opened an office in a poor part of the city to help people who lived under difficult conditions. And she decided to raise a young girl who had lost her parents.

Elizabeth Blackwell had many dreams. One was to start a hospital for women and children. Another was to build a medical school to train women doctors. She was helped in these efforts by her younger sister Emily. Emily also had become a doctor, after a long struggle to be accepted in a medical school.

With the help of many people, the Blackwell sisters raised the money to open a hospital in a re-built house. The work of the two women doctors was accepted slowly in New York. They treated only three hundred people in their hospital in its first year. Ten times as many people were treated the second year.

Elizabeth Blackwell's work with the poor led her to believe that doctors could help people more effectively by preventing sickness. She started a program in which doctors visited patients in their homes. The doctors taught patients how to clean the houses and how to prepare food so sickness could be prevented.

News of Elizabeth's theories spread. Soon, she was asked to start a hospital in London. She spoke to groups in London about disease prevention. And she worked with her friend Florence Nightingale.

Elizabeth returned to the United States to start America's first training school for nurses. And in eighteen sixty-eight, she opened her medical college for women. She taught the women students about disease prevention. It was the first time the idea of preventing disease was taught in a medical school. Soon other medical schools for women opened in Boston and Philadelphia.

Elizabeth Blackwell felt her work in America was done. She returned to England. She started a medical school for women in London. She wrote books, and made speeches about preventing disease.

Doctor Blackwell talked of deaths that should never have happened, of sickness that should never have been suffered. She spoke about the dangers of working too hard, of eating poor food, of houses without light, of dirt and other causes of disease. And she told doctors that their true responsibility was to prevent pain and suffering from ever happening.

In eighteen seventy-one, she started the British National Health Society. It helped people learn how to stay healthy.

Elizabeth Blackwell never married. Neither did her sisters. They believed in treating men like equals. And they expected to be treated like equals themselves. Most men of that time did not accept such treatment. This belief caused problems for their brothers too. They had trouble finding wives who wanted to be considered as equals.

Two of Elizabeth's brothers did marry, however. Both their wives were famous workers for the cause of women's rights.

Elizabeth Blackwell died in England in nineteen ten. She was eighty-nine years old.

She was a very strong woman. She once wrote that she understood why no woman before her had done what she did. She said it was hard to continue against every kind of opposition. Yet she kept on because she felt the goal was very important. Toward the end of her life, she received many letters of thanks from young women. One wrote that doctor Blackwell had shown the way for women to move on.

(MUSIC)

This Special English program was written by Nancy Steinbach. I'm Shirley Griffith. And I'm Ray Freeman. Join us again next week for another PEOPLE IN AMERICAprogram on the Voice of America.

FAMILY ALBUM, USA 72

Source: Family Album 

A King called Roberto Carlos

Source: http://www.maganews.com.br

People

A King called Roberto Carlos 

One hundred million albums sold (more than twice any other Latin American artist). Over 50 albums and dozens of smash hits.  This is part of the résumé of the most successful Brazilian singer-songwriter ever

Roberto learned to play the guitar and piano when he was a child. He moved to Niterói as a teenager and at that time met another teen who would become his best friend and musical partner:  Erasmo Carlos. The King’s first hit came in 1962, with Splish Splash.  The following year he wrote two of his biggest hits: É proibido fumar and O Calhambeque.  Roberto produced a light and irreverent kind of rock. In 1965 Rede Record invited Roberto, Erasmo and singer Wanderléa to present the showJovem Guarda, which was on TV for three years. In 1966 Roberto and Erasmo fell out over professional issues, but the following year they made up. Roberto also starred in successful films between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s.

Romanticism, religion, and a new phase

In the beginning of the 1970s Roberto began a new phase, with less rock and more romanticism.Brazil also got to learn about his religious side. Songs such as Jesus Cristo and A Montanha were big hits. His superstitious side also appeared, and he would not wear brown clothes, for example. Roberto began to sell albums in the USA, Europe and Latin America, and stars such as Julio Iglesias and Ray Conniff recorded his songs. In December 1974 Globo broadcast the first Roberto Carlos special, which has remained a tradition at the end of the year for the channel. Roberto has been married three times. His greatest love, Maria Rita, died in 1999, after a battle with cancer.

---

  

Vocabulary

1 more than twice any other – exp. idiom. = mais do que o dobro de qualquer outro

2 smash hits – grandes sucessos

3 résumé – currículo

4 ever – de todos os tempos

5 to fall out – se desentender

6 issues – questões

7 to make up – aqui = fazer as pazes

8 brown – marrom

Foto – Sony / divulgação

Family Album, USA 71

SOURCE: FAMILY ALBUM

OFF TO THE BEACH!

Source: Speak Up

Language level: B1 Lower Intermediate

Speaker: Justin Ratcliffe

Standard: British accent

BRITISH HOLIDAYS ARE BACK

“Enjoying the Holiday?”I said to Shirley in the local café. Shirley looked at me didn’t say a word. She was dressed in her while uniform and blue apron, and she was sweating. Her customers were dressed in T-shirts and sunglasses, carrying beach balls and deck chairs. Shirley ran around, pouring cold drinks, preparing sandwiches and trying to keep the flies off the food.

Walking down Albert Road today, it seems as if everyone is on holiday. Mr. Venn’s piano shop is shut. Leo’s delicatessen has a sign: “on vacation.” Everybody is in shorts or swimming costumes. Most of them are already sun burnt. Britain’s weather is not reliable but, when the sun comes out, you can be sure we’ll get burnt!

BESIDE THE SEASIDE

“In the old says,” said Shirley, when things calmed down, “British beaches were full ever summer. With cheap rail travel, the Victorians became obsessed with holidays by the sea. Bridgton and Margate in the south, Blackpool and Scarborough in the north: all desirable destinations for rich and poor. Great hotels were built, music halls, palaces and piers.” She showed me postcards of typical British beach scenes. Beach cricket. Ice cream. Large ladies in small swimsuits. Men in deck chairs, their heads covered with a knotted handkerchief.

THE FRENCH CONNECTION

“The Emperor Louis Napoleon III of France and Empress Eugene loved the British seaside, “Shirley said. “Graham Greene describes their sute in his novel Brighton Rock.”

“So what happened?

“Cheap flights,” said Shirley simply. “When they could afford it, everybody flew abroad: Spain, Florida, Tuscany. The seaside became unfashionable. Grand hotels fell into decay; piers fell into the sea. Michael Ryan and Stelios Hai-loan-nou have a lot to answer for.” I looked at the crowds heading for the sea: “But now it’s changing?

Shirley nodded and wiped her forehead. “Global warming. Flights are expensive and damage the environment. Luckily Britain’s getting warmer. I sell English wine now, and people love it!”

The British seaside is back. Get out the bucket and spade. Send your friend a saucy postcard, and let’s building a sandcastle. You must excuse me: I’m off to the beach.

HOLIDAY GLOSSARY

Holiday comes from the Old English “halidgag” or holy day. The word meant a religious day. Today, the holidays mean any break from work or studying, but especially the Christmas, Easter and summer breaks.

If you are on holiday, it means you are not working: it can also mean you are travelling. In the USA, on vacation has both meanings.

A new variation is the stay-cation, which entered the dictionary in 20099. In this economic crisis, many people stay at home for their holidays, so they can save money and enjoy the things they normally don’t have time for.

House-swapping is another great way to have a holiday without paying for hotels. In fact, I’m borrowing my friend Harry’s house in Scotland next week. Harry called it “pigsitting” because he lives on a farm –like babysitting. Only with pigs – but this is not a real word! It’s always a good idea to look up national holidays of any country you visit. It may be difficult to shop or do business, or there may be celebrations. Try these sites: http://www.holidayyear.com http://www.bank-holidays.com

A gap year can be taken between school and university: a chance to travel, work and discover yourself. Later in your career this is “taking a year out.”

A break from the military (or prison) is called furlough, if you have permission. If you don’t, you are AWOL –“Absent Without Leave” –and in big trouble!