My feelings about the World Trade Center Memorial Pools

source: Foster and Partners

The World Trade Center Memorial consists of two huge pools built within the footprints of the Twin Towers with the largest man-made waterfalls in the country cascading down their sides. 

Michael Arad, the architect of the Memorial Pools said: “The design strives to make visible what is absent. The primary responsibility we have is to those we lost that day.” It’s the architecture of absence.

source:Google Images

I was looking at the images of those pools and the feeling is really of absence. Something is missing. The pools should be full, that’s the purpose of pools, but they’re not. The water keeps disappearing. It gives the feeling of that something is going away, like the lives of those 3 thousand people, victims of the attack. To reinforce that idea, the names of the nearly 3,000 individuals who were killed in the September 11 attacks in New York City, and at the Pentagon, and the February 1993 World Trade Center bombing are inscribed in bronze on the edges of the Memorial Pools. 

Victims names inscribed in bronze on the edges

And completing that sensation of absence, you have the constant waterfalls reminding the non-stop tears of the survivors who miss their relatives.





It’s amazing that the twin pools are perfect footprints of the Twin Towers.  The idea of footprint is exactly absence. When we see a footprint, we know that something or somebody was there, but it’s not anymore.         

source:Google Images

Footprints are always something left behind. 

I imagine that looking at the Twin Memorial Pools must be a very strong feeling to those who witnessed the September 11 terrorist attack and lost relatives and friends. 





Actually, all the architecture was projected based on the concept of remembering the event and the victims. Observe the photo below. Can you see? The orientation of the tower is a way of acknowledge (what in Portuguese we say “reconhecimento”) of the void left by the Twin Towers.

It looks like the new tower is looking at the place of the old ones. The position of the new tower also allows the entrance of light, in a way that the new tower doesn’t project permanent shadow on the memorial.

I’ve loved the architecture. I’ve found it intelligent, creative and touching. 

Related videos:

see also:

http://online.wsj.com/video/911-memorial-opens/C170FA3C-48BC-44C6-A3D4-0836EC049F70.html

Vocabulary:

man-made (adjective): artificial rather than natural

to witness (verb): to see something happen, for example a crime or an accident.





If you liked this post, please click on the box below in one of the options: ( ) funny, (  ) interesting or (  ) it helped me. And post a comment sharing with us your opinion. Did you like the Memorial Pools architecture?





by Vivian Barone

Barone English's Pedagogical Coordinator

What if we could be the tipping point?

We usually don’t think how privileged we are. If you are able to read this text you are among the people described below.

Actually, considering that English speakers estimates vary from 500 a 1800 million and the world population is about 6.94 billion, if you speak English you are more fortunate than almost 5 billion people.

When I read that poster I remembered a video I usually use in classes about the topic “Tipping Point”. It's the video below.

Happily we are among the 3 out of 4! But, what about the forth? So sad!

Have you seen the expression “Tipping Point” used on the video? What does it mean?

Malcolm Gladwell (2000), the creator of the tipping point theory, defines it as the reversal of something. Is the moment when something suffers an irreversible change. 

His book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, seeks to explain and describe the "mysterious" sociological changes that mark everyday life.

Think about something you can do to reverse that. As the video says: “What if we could be the tipping point”?

by Vivian Barone

Related videos:

 

Haiti: Sexual violence against women increasing

On the post "Why should we pay attention to girls?" (Thursday, May 26th), I talked about the importance of investing in girls’ education and health. On this post I've extend the topic to the horrible situation of the women in Haiti. This shocking reality show us why organizations such as www.girleffect.org  and www.girlup.org are so worried about protecting girls and investing in them. Unhappily, this is a shameful situation that our society closes the eyes to it.

Actually, the situation is so cruel that I was in doubt if I should post it or not. But, I wouldn't like to shut my eyes to it. 

In order to understand the videos below you need to know what the word "rape" means.

Rape (noun): the crime of forcing someone to have sex by using violence.

Happily, some people make the difference:

http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,762210895001_2044443,00.html

The two links below are of two other videos even more shocking. It's up to you to watch them or not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV0nTf78Vwc&feature=related

http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,95733349001_1996542,00.html

by Vivian Barone

Why should we pay attention to girls?

Why should we pay attention to girls?

Because when we invest in a girl’s health or education she can start a positive ripple effect. What does ripple mean? The picture below shows a ripple effect.

1. if a liquid ripples, or if something ripples it, it moves gently in small waves

2. if a feeling or sound ripples through someone or through a group of people, it spreads gradually

Watch the video below and see if you can figure out what ripple effect a girl can start.

 Why girls?

The non-profitable organization called girleffect.org shows why to invest in girls.

http://www.girleffect.org/

girleffect.org points some reasons for why girls have the potential of causing a positive ripple effect on their families and communities.





THE RIPPLE EFFECT

1. When a girl in the developing world receives seven or more years of education, she marries four years later and has 2.2 fewer children.


2. An extra year of primary school boosts girls’ eventual wages by 10 to 20 percent. An extra year of secondary school: 15 to 25 percent.


3. When women and girls earn income, they reinvest 90 percent of it into their families, as compared to only 30 to 40 percent for a man.


4. More than 600 million girls live in the developing world.


5. More than one-quarter of the population in Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and sub-Saharan Africa are girls and young women ages 10 to 24.


6. The total global population of girls ages 10 to 24 — already the largest in history — is expected to peak in the next decade.


7. Approximately one-quarter of girls in developing countries are not in school.


8. Out of the world’s 130 million out-of-school youth, 70 percent are girls.

                                                                                                                      source: www.girleffect.org

If you’ve found this topic interesting take a look at these videos.

Yeah, girls make the difference!

Actually, we must invest in all children, girls and boys. Not just because they can make a better world, but because they deserve it.

If you've liked this topic, maybe you will like the subject on http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2046045,00.html

by Vivian Barone

MODERN LIFE

Times have changed a lot! I really like the technology era we live at. I can't imagine my life without computer, internet, washing machine, refrigerator, etc... And I think so do you. But new changes bring new habits and if we don't manage them appropriately we can have bad consequences. I’ve posted some cartoons that provoke critical thought about the technology influence on people’s lives. In order to make the discussion easier I have divided the internet influences in 18 categories. Here they are:

1.      Good manners

2.      Cyberbullying

3.      Social Relationships

4.      Overweight

5.      Sleep Deprivation

6.      Teenagers Social Ineptitude

7.      Feeling of Inaptitude

8.      Elderly Adaptation to Technology

9.      Less Family Time

10.  Children

11.  Marriage

12.  Impersonal Customer Service

13.  Internet Addiction

14.  Time Wasting

15.  Bad Scores

16.  Education

17.  Plagiarism

18.  Self Knowledge

I know that is too much for seeing at once. So, you can read them (not exactly read because most of them are cartoons) during the week.  As you see them, think about one pro and one con of technology, especially internet, or how you feel about it. Later post a comment, please. Your colleagues will be happy to see it. Don’t worry if you make some language mistakes. This is a community of English learners. Even natives misspell words when they write on the internet. However, it’s better to write your comment on a Word document first. Some followers have complained that when they submit their comments they disappear, the coments of course, hehehe! As we’re going to see, technology is not always reliable, so it is better to prevent it. Here we go. 

GOOD MANNERS

Imagine how disturbing would it be living in a place that every moment people announced on speakers what they're doing or thinking. It would be like that:

That is what people do on Facebook and Twitter. Is there any problem telling about your actions and thoughts to others? No, there isn't. However, the boundary between what is appropriate and inappropriate it isn't clear, and some cross the line. Watch the video below and decide by yourself what would be the limit.

That is another consequence of modern life; people have lost the parameters for what is called good manners, etiquette or politness. See how easy is to lose the notion of good manners.

So, mind your manners on the internet.

CYBERBULLYING

When it is done on the internet, it just looks like a play, but unhappily it's not. The effect is the same as it were on the real life. How would you feel in a situation like the one below?

Unhappily the consequences of playing with cyberbullying are so serious that North American people created a word for naming one of these consequences: bullycide.

VOCABULARY

The term Bullycide is a * portmanteau word first used by Neil Marr and Tim Field in their book Bullycide: Death at Playtime. It refers to suicide attributable to the victim having been bullied. The term has come to prominence during the highly publicized teenage suicides in the USA in the latter part of 2010. However the term has been used prior to 2010.

In response to 2010 deaths an online event, Spirit Day, was created for 20 October 2010 in which participants wore purple items to signify opposition to bullying of LGBT people.

Legal analysts criticize the term because it links a cause with an effect under someone else's control.

Bullycide has also been defined as the killing of the bully by the victim.

Research shows those who are bullied have a higher probability of considering or performing suicide than those who are not.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullycide

* portmanteau /pɔrtˈmæntɔu/ (noun)  a new word formed by joining two others and combining their meanings ("`motel' is a portmanteau word made by combining `motor' and `hotel'")

Bullycide: Death at Playtime

by Neil Marr & Tim Field

Available in paperback or ebook download from

BeWriteBooks

SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS

VOCABULARY

What is a twitter bot?

It is a contraction of robot, which is apt, as they work automatically or by scheduling or programming. They are very easy to create, and usually collect website links, RSS feeds or Twitter posts and then feed them to Twitter. This term is also used on computing for  naming a computer program that works automatically, especially one that can find information for you on the Internet.

The most common auto feeders are Twitterfeed, SocialOomph, Ping.fm, Google, Twittelator or via an API. There are many others. Luckily Twitter has made the origin of a Tweet very clear on the ‘Home’ screen of a user’s Twitter page.

 So some of the tweets we receive can come from a bot, not a person that is interested in us.

 OVERWEIGHT

 

SLEEP DEPRIVATION

TEENAGERS 

SOCIAL INEPTITUDE

INEPTITUDE (noun) the quality or state of being inept.

Ineptitude is related to the adjective inept that means:

1.  not suitable to the time, place, or occasion : inappropriate often to an absurd degree.

     e.g.: Ineptitude is frequent on internet, for example, racism, cyberbullying, pornography, etc.

2.  lacking in fitness or aptitude : unfit, e.g:  inept at sports

3. lacking sense or reason : foolish

So on this cartoon the word used is ineptitude because some teenagers fail into the ability of fitting appropriately to social relationships.

FEELING OF INAPTITUDE

VOCABULARY

Although the words inaptitude and ineptitude can sometimes be used interchangeably they have different meanings. 

INAPTITUDE (noun) lack of aptitude; lack of talent or ability.

☺don’t confuse aptitude with attitude, they’re different words.

Inaptitude comes from the word aptitude, that means: natural ability that makes it easy for you to do something well. E.g.:

One of the greatest problems in our country is the Government’s inaptitude to improve the education system.

So on this cartoon the word  inaptitude  is used instead of  ineptitude  because the man doesn't have the necessary ability to use computers.

ELDERLY ADAPTATION TO TECHNOLOGY

LESS FAMILY TIME 

CHILDREN

 

MARRIAGE

 

IMPERSONAL CUSTOMER SERVICE

INTERNET ADDICTION

TIME WASTING

BAD SCORES

 

 

EDUCATION

PLAGIARISM

SELF KNOWLEDGE

EVEN THE ANIMALS CAN FEEL SOME 

TECHNOLOGY CHANGES!!!

I've just listed some cons, because they're not so obvious as the pros. Internet has a lot of advantages. Post a comment about at least one pro and one con or how you feel about it. We eager to hear from you.

By Vivian Barone