Egypt's euphoria

I read an article the other day in the online-version of economist.com and it talks about the resignation of Hosni Mubarak. I thought you might be interested, because the protests in Egypt are in the newspaper all over the world for the last few weeks.

Basically what it says is that Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak notified, that he is going to resign from his function. A correspondent from Alexandria described Egypt’s collective elation as the release of 30 years of bottled-up emotion. He said that he had seen birth and he had seen marriage, but he had never seen happiness like this. Another reporter described the rise of Egypt’s people and the fall of Egypt’s dictator as “everything I’ve ever hoped for”.

What surprised me most was the fact that Mr Mubarak was Egypt’s president for more than 30 years!

As for me I think it is good that Mubarak resigns from his function, because he is quite old and he was president for a very long time.

Vocabulary:

resignation – Rücktritt

The people in Egypt are happy with Mr Mubaraks resignation.

bottled-up – aufgestaut

A cause of this is the 30 years bottled-up emotion.

elation – Hochstimmung

Egypt’s collective elation is breathtaking.

American Gun Culture

In our last English lesson Farrah told us something about the American gun culture. Basically what she talked about was that in America everyone is allowed to bear arms. This means that everyone is allowed to carry weapons with him or her.

Why do Americans want to protect their right to bear arms?

The Americans are used to their guns and they might feel strong against the government and burglars. They also need guns for hunting. In former times the cowboys had to fight against animals and other people who wanted America to be their country.

Farrah also told us something about the Redneck stereotype. Rednecks drive very old cars, they drink beer all day long, they are uneducated, they all wear guns and they don’t care about what other people say about them. Rednecks wear very old clothes.

At the end of the lesson Farrah showed as a video on youtube about the congresswoman Garbielle Giffords who was shot in the head by a young man last week. This happened in shopping-center in Tucson (Arizona).

Thanksgiving

On Wednesday 24^th November, Farrah told us something about Thanksgiving.

This year, Thanksgiving was on 25^th of November. For me, it was very interesting, because I didn’t know anything about Thanksgiving.

Food:

Things what people in America eat on Thanksgiving are: a turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, fried onion and green beans, sweet potatoes with marshmallows, corn pudding, a pumpkin pie, pecan pie and some more things.

History:

The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621. In the first year, the Pilgrims were in America they didn’t know how to get food, to build houses and some more things. So Squanto helped the Pilgrims and he told them very useful things. Because of this, the Pilgrims organized a little party to thank Squanto.

The day after Thanksgiving:

The Americans call the day after Thanksgiving “Black Friday”. It is the traditional start of shopping Christmas-presents. Very popular presents are toys and electronics. The shops open very early in the morning to get all the people in.

Halloween October 31st

Halloween is a shortened form of All Hallow's Eve.

Halloween means holy - Eve is the day before a holy day.

Halloween was an ancient British Celtic festival.
At Halloween the souls of the dead returned. People lit bonfires to frighten evil spirits.

Now bonfires are only burnt on November 5th - Bonfire Night.

• masks
• costumes
• ghosts
• witches on broomsticks with black cats
• skeletons
• bats and spiders
• and Halloween lanterns

...have all become part of Halloween

Children play trick-or-treat. They ask for a treat hoping to get sweets.

I found a very funny video about Halloween on Youtube. I like it very much because the song is very nice. :)

To watch the video click here.

Farrah

Farrah is 22 years old and she lives in Maryland, which is about 30 minutes away from - the capital city of the US - Washington DC. She has no brothers and sisters and she likes it, because she gets everything she wants from her parents. Farrah's hobbies are reading, listening to music, watching TV, travelling and spending time with friends.
Farrah is going to stay in Austria till the end of May 2011. In Austria, she lives in Linz which she likes a lot. She also told us that she likes Austria a lot because of the old buildings, the beautiful cities and the mountains.

The development of advertising

First paragraph:

In the 19^th century, during the Industrial Revolution, advertising became popular for new and fringe products. Later, more and more factories produced the same products and so, brand-naming became necessary.

Second paragraph:

The economic depression was a turning point for the economy. Before the depression the production had permanently expanded, but after it there was a crisis because the factories produced too much and the customers did not buy enough and so the prices fell. And so the small firms combined with other small firms to raisetheir profits.

Third paragraph:

An example of the changes is a case in the soap industry. Small factories flooded the market with anonymous soap bars and so the competition grew very fast. The leading companies started more aggressive selling methods to . . ..

Fourth paragraph:

Lord Leverhulme was the first industrialist who realized that advertisement is an important part of selling methods. Nowadays, advertising is important and those firms who can’t pay for advertising are out.

My favourite spot

My favourite spot is the Zalando-Onlineshoeshop-Spot because I think it is very funny, I love shoes and I like the laughing of the man at the end of the video. :D

In the spot there is a man in a room with a lot of shoes and you can see that he is very nervous about all the shoes. Suddenly the doorbell rings and he hears a loud scream from his wife. Then you can see a man with new boxes of shoes.

If you want to see the full spot just click on the picture below.