Nov 25. International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

Long live butterflies!!

November 25th has been chosen as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. In the following article you will find information about the origin of this celebration and why it is celebrated on this date.

I was really touched when I first read this beautiful poem by Carol Geneya Kaplan called "Another woman".

In 1988, Tracy Chapman wrote an impressive song about gender violence called "Behind the wall". Unfortunately you can see that 21 years later it still sounds terribly familiar. Watch the video clip, it has subtitles.

Have you ever heard of "The 16 Days Campaign"? Read a bit more and see if you would like to back up this initiative somehow. What 16 days do they talk about? What do we celebrate on Dec 10th?

Remembrance Day. Poppy Day.

Once again, like every year since 1918 Britain celebrates Remembrance Day. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month marks the signing of the Armistice, on 11th November 1918, to signal the end of World War One. This is what we know as Remembrance Day.

Remembrance Day is celebrated in many other countries whose young soldiers died in World Wars I and II. Read about the celebration in Canada.

You can listen to The Last Post, a bugle call used at Commonwealth military funerals and ceremonies commemorating those who have fallen in war. Many people wrote poetry about their friends fallen in war. Probably one the most famous poems is "In Flanders Fields", by John MacCrae.

Remembrance Day is best known as Poppy Day. Find out here why a poppy and why people wear a poppy on this day.

Watch this video on Remembrance Day in Canada.

What for?

People very often confuse the purpose of an action (what for?) with the reason why we do it. If we look carefully we will realize that they are two different concepts. In simple words we could say that the "purpose" looks ahead and generally has to do with ourselves, with our personal intentions or objectives, while the "reason" usually looks back and often has to do with other people's impositions upon us.

Today we are going to study purpose clauses and very soon we'll study the clauses of reason. Here you will find a good explanation on how clauses of purpose work, a set of exercises and a few sentences in Spanish to translate into English. Good luck! Remember the teacher is always around to help you if you need it.

Here's a short poem by horror writer Kristy M. Tallman called "Why & what for..."

The Road Not Taken

The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost is one of my favourite poems and today I want to share it with you. It was the first poem that came to my hands when I first arrived in America as a teenager. Still today I feel touched when I read it. Here you have the poem and also a link where you can hear Robert Frost himself reciting his poem. Hope you enjoy it.