The 25th Hour Review

"Novels like the 25th hour don't fall out of tree every day. The tone is dark and intense; its elegant style is cut on the raw side; and the caracters come from places we've all been. " (The New York Times)

Discuss this statement in the light of your reading. You can also include some comparisons with the movie we have watched so far.

All Monty Brogan ever really wanted when he grew up was to be a fireman. Now he's about to start a seven-year stretch in the federal penitentiary for drug dealing. With just twenty-four hours of freedom to go, he prowls the city with his girlfriend and his two best friends from high school — a high-flying bond trader and an idealistic teacher. As the minutes count down, Monty seizes one last chance to stack the odds in his favor.

Hurtling from the money pits of Wall Street to Manhattan's downtown lounge and club scene, from the enclaves of the Russian mob to the old immigrant neighborhoods, The 25th Hour evokes the pulsing rhythms and diamond-hard edges of a city in the raw, illusory hours between midnight and dawn. A taut and mesmerizing tale of an urban purgatory suspended between the crime and the punishment, The 25th Hour heralds the arrival of a major player in contemporary noir fiction.

The book starts with a strong narration of Monty's bravery, trying to save a dog from the street. This wa

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea (PNG), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands (the western portion of the island is a part of the Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua). It is located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, in a region defined since the early 19th century as Melanesia. The capital is Port Moresby.

Papua New Guinea is one of the most culturally diverse countries on Earth, with over 850 indigenous languages and at least as many traditional societies, out of a population of just under seven million. It is also one of the most rural, as only 18% of its people live in urban centres. The country is one of the world's least explored, culturally and geographically, and many undiscovered species of plants and animals are thought to exist in the interior of Papua New Guinea.

The majority of the population live in traditional societies and practise subsistence-based agriculture. These societies and clans have some explicit acknowledgement within the nation's constitutional framework.

After being ruled by three external powers since 1884, Papua New Guinea gained its independence from Australia in 1975. It remains a Commonwealth realm of Her Majesty Elizabeth II, Queen of Papua New Guinea. Many people live in extreme poverty, with about one third of the population living on less than US $1.25 per day.

Papua New Guinea is part of the Australasia ecozone, which also includes Australia, New Zealand, eastern Indonesia, and several Pacific island groups, including the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

Australia and New Guinea are portions of the ancient supercontinent of Gondwana, which started to break into smaller continents in the Cretaceous era, 65-130 million years ago. Australia finally broke free from Antarctica about 45 million years ago. All the Australasian lands are home to the Antarctic flora, descended from the flora of southern Gondwana, including the coniferous podocarps and Araucaria pines, and the broadleafed southern beech (Nothofagus). These plant families are still present in Papua New Guinea.

As the Indo-Australian Plate (which includes landmasses of India, Australia, and the Indian Ocean floor in between) drifts north, it collides with the Eurasian Plate. The collision of the two plates pushed up the Himalayas, the Indonesian islands, and New Guinea's Central Range. The Central Range is much younger and higher than the mountains of Australia, so high that it is home to rare equatorial glaciers. New Guinea is part of the humid tropics, and many Indomalayan rainforest plants spread across the narrow straits from Asia, mixing together with the old Australian and Antarctic floras.

Papua New Guinea is richly endowed with natural resources, but access has been hampered by rugged terrain, the high cost of developing infrastructure, serious law and order problems, and the system of land title which makes identifying the owners of land for the purpose of negotiating appropriate agreements problematic. Agriculture provides a livelihood for 85% of the population. Mineral deposits, including oil, copper, and gold, account for 72% of export earnings. The country also has a notable coffee industry and other crops include cocoa, oil palm and tea.

Former Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta tried to restore integrity to state institutions, stabilize the kina, restore stability to the national budget, privatize public enterprises where appropriate, and ensure ongoing peace on Bougainville following the 1997 agreement which ended Bougainville's secessionist unrest. The Morauta government had considerable success in attracting international support, specifically gaining the backing of the IMF and the World Bank in securing development assistance loans. Significant challenges face the current Prime Minister Sir Michael Somare, including gaining further investor confidence, continuing efforts to privatize government assets, and maintaining the support of members of Parliament.

In March 2006 the United Nations Development Programme Policy called for Papua New Guinea's designation of developing country to be downgraded to least-developed country because of protracted economic and social stagnation.However, an evaluation by the International Monetary Fund in late 2008 found that "a combination of prudent fiscal and monetary policies, and high global prices for mineral commodity exports, have underpinned Papua New Guinea's recent buoyant economic growth and macroeconomic stability. Real GDP growth, at over 6% in 2007, was broad-based and is expected to continue to be strong in 2008."

Tecnological Development - PlayStation Vita (SONY)

The new tecnologycal development that I am going to talk about it's the PlayStation Vita, created by Sony.

This is much more than just a portable game console, PS Vita is a world in your hands!
The Vita is something considering anacronic in this age of smartphones and throwaway gaming experiences. The small console has a powerful processor dedicated to pushing around the latest high-definition visuals; it has two analogue sticks to provide accurate control, and it demands to be looked it, plus a huge 5 inche screen.

So, it's not hugely portable by modern standards and you can't phone people on it. That's so not on-message. Because it has Wi-Fi support and 3G, plus GPS function that allow you to locate nearby friends who also own one, for imprompt gaming sessions. PS Vita has twice as much memory as the PlayStation 3 and more computing power than the iPad 2!
The price vary from $249.99 (just with Wi-fi) to $349.99 (With the 3G Plan). Go get one for you!

  

My Trip - The Fantastic World of the Amusement Parks in the USA

This time, the challenge you be travel around all US, chasing the largest possible number of amusement parks that are spread out through all the american territory, seeking for fun and adrenaline moments.

In this travel I'm going to travel alone, by car, sometimes by train or airplaine, bycicle, motocicle, my mission is to reach the largest number of parks during the six months that I separated to make this travel.

Extreme Sports - Bungee Jumping

Bungee jumping is an activity that involves jumping from a tall structure while connected to a large elastic cord.

The tall structure is usually a fixed object, such as a building, bridge or crane; but it is also possible to jump from a movable object, such as a hot-air-balloon or helicopter, that has the ability to hover above the ground.

The thrill comes as much from the free-falling as from the rebounds.

When the person jumps, the cord stretches and the jumper flies upwards again as the cord recoils, and continues to oscillate up and down until all the energy is dissipated.

What is Vitiligo???????

Vitiligo is a chronic, unpredictable disease causing a loss of skin colour in patches. People of all ages and from all ethnic backgrounds can develop the disease.

What are the Symptoms?

Vitiligo does not cause physical symptoms but because of its unsightly appearance, particularly on dark or tanned skin it can have considerable impact both psychologically and socially.

About the Treatment:

Many ways of restoring normal colour to the skin have been tried but improvement is usually short‐lived.

The causes of vitiligo are not yet clearly understood, so many treatments have been developed on the basis of limited scientific evidence.

Skin may be moved (grafted) from normally pigmented areas and placed onto areas where there is pigment loss.

Several cover-up makeups or skin dyes can mask vitiligo.

Who is affected by vitiligo?

About 0.5 to 1 percent of the world's population, or as many as 65 million people, have vitiligo.
In the United States, 1 to 2 million people have the disorder. Half the people who have vitiligo develop it before age 20; most develop it before their 40th birthday.
The disorder affects both sexes and all races equally; however, it is more noticeable in people with dark skin.
Vitiligo seems to be somewhat more common in people with certain autoimmune diseases, including hyperthyroidism (an overactive thyroid gland), adrenocortical insufficiency (the adrenal gland does not produce enough of the hormone called corticosteroid),  alopecia areata (patches of baldness), and pernicious anemia (a low level of red blood cells caused by the failure of the body to absorb vitamin B12).
Scientists do not know the reason for the association between vitiligo and these autoimmune diseases. However, most people with vitiligo have no other autoimmune disease.

Vitiligo may also be hereditary; that is, it can run in families. Children whose parents have the disorder are more likely to develop vitiligo. In fact, 30 percent of people with vitiligo have a family member with the disease. However, only 5 to 7 percent of children will get vitiligo even if a parent has it, and most people with vitiligo do not have a family history of the disorder.

Prevention - Cure:

There is no cure, and no way of limiting the spread of the disease has so far been found.

A personal experience

The Hardest Part

           I am not sure about the exact day that we met each other, but I think it was around the middle of April, of course, at EF School NYC. Oh my God, what a could day! Because of that, everybody went to Rita Hall to get warm and try to talk with somebody, mainly because most people were newcomers, who had just arrived a few days before.

         Tired of facebook, I decided that I should do something more dynamic, like play ping pong. That's when I finally met Sarah, one of the nicest people I've met. From that day, we simply could not be more close; our friendship really happened in a very spontaneous way.

           Those two weeks were really funny, we really had a lot of empathy, we could talk about anything and we always had fun.

           Well, Sarah unfortunately had to return to France. She only had those two weeks off. Since that day, I discovered that one of the toughest parts of life is saying goodbye.

2011 Natural Disasters

               Recently many natural disasters have been occurred, the first one there I am going to talk about is the Earthquake that destroyed part of Japan in March of this year, with 9.0 magnitude in the Richter scale, that tremor caused an enormous damage in the coastal cities near to the epicenter that were flooding by tsunami waves, like we can see in the pictures below:

                            

           In addition to the devastation caused by the tsunami waves, in the northeast of the country, the Japanese government declared its first-ever state of emergency at a nuclear power plant and ordered 3,000 residents to leave the area after the quake caused a problem in the plant's cooling system. Radiation in a reactor at the plant rose to 1,000 times normal, Japan's nuclear safety agency said, and some radiation was reported to have seeped out of t he reactor.

          After the explosion of the nuclear plants, the radiation were spread out through the near area (about 50 kilometers), prompting the health authorities to inspect the radiation level in the population.

           Another consequence of the disaster was thousands of homeless people, that were moved to shelters.


               

         

The expressionism of Frida Kahlo - When the pain became art

                 In this post I am going to talk about one of my favorites artists in the 20th century and one of the surrealism icons: Frida Kahlo - a woman who turned a painful life in art!  

          Frida Kahlo de Rivera was born on July 6th of 1907 been called by the name Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón. The Mexican surrealist or expressionist painter   

Animal Farm Essay

            From the hope of the anthem "Beasts of England" to an wrong ending

          In this current essay I am going to talk about the novel Animal Farm, written by George Orwell in 1945, that tells the story of an animal revolution on a farm located somewhere in England. My main objective is to analyze a little fragment of the most important anthem in the story, called Beasts of England: "Beasts of England, Beasts of Ireland / Beasts of every land and clime, hearten to my joyful tiding of golden future time", and explain the reasons that led the animals, so full of hope, ending in wrong way.

           Giving a brief explanation of what the story is about, I can say the Animal Farm portrays on a group of oppressed animals that lived in a normal farm, controlled by humans, that decided to make a revolution. 
            With the implementation of the revolution the animals formed and implemented a system of government, called Animalism, on they new farm, Animal Farm. Now in the commandments of Animal Farm, the animals tried to form a government where everyone was dependent upon everyone else, and if they continued working that way, would be possible to implement the dreamed equality to rule their farm.

               In conclusion, I could identify some of the reasons that led to the collapse of the Animalism in the farm. Wickedness, indifference, ignorance, greed and short shortsightedness notoriously destroyed any possibility of functionality of the utopic system that Napoleon (the pig that auto-declared himself the president of the farm) wanted to impose, disguised as a "perfect and fair political regime", showing that no matter what laws and equality bind the citizens, corruption and power will seek to destroy that delicate balance. 

A Comparison between the military service in Brazil and in the US

             To start my comparison between the military service in Brazil and in the US I am going to talk about the conscription, and if is mandatory or not in both countries.

      

      In Brazil the conscription to the military service is mandatory for men, when they complete 18 years old. For women, is a matter of choice, you'll not be required.

       About the conscription in the US, is not mandatory.

My Own Music Festival --> THE OUT LOUD FESTIVAL!

                     The Recycling Cause ROCKS in the OUT LOUD FESTIVAL --> 15-16 November 2011

      The Out Loud Festival will bring music and environmental awareness to young people.

           To celebrate the end of the fall the OUT LOUD FESTIVAL will shake the structures of the Tarrytown Arena, located in Tarrytown (NY), 55 minutes away from NYC.

              Two days of premium parties (November 15 to 17) will take place at which the best rock bands of the moment will play, raising funds for the Brazilian recycling cooperatives in the Amazon region that need our help.
            Take a look in some bands that will perform during the two days of the OLF:
        METAL DAY (November 15): Mettalica, Slipknot, System of a Down, Guns N'Roses, Megadeath, Sepultura and Foo Fighters.
            INDIE/FUNNY DAY (November 16): Paramore, Sleigh Bells, CSS, The Strokes, Phoenix, The Killers and Kings of Leon. 
              
            
               

The letter for the little girl --> world citizen 7.000.000.000

          Hi little girl,

      Welcome to our World. You probably don't know, but now, we are 7 billion people, and yes, we have lots of problems.

      I don't want to scare you, I know you're too young, but I think you should know the truth:

      You live in a world with a lot of problems such as lack of food and water in some places, lots of kids not being educated, wars, nuclear problems, gender disparities, pollution, desertification, and many more difficult issues.

      After all those bad news about were you born you 're probably are thinking, what should I do to help about it?

      Well, will be not easy at all, you will need to be patient and work very hard to help the planet, kid. Study hard, learn as much as you can, because the knowledge will help you to find the answers to our problems! 

       We need you little girl, don't lose your faith, help us to conserve our beautiful planet to many many more generations.

                                                    Have a good life, kid!

                                                              

                                                             Kisses.

                                                             

                                                             Carol, from Brazil.

7 Billion Stories - 7 Billion People - 7 Billion Actions

         Today, the post will be about a website called 7billionactions.org that count the population number of people in the world in a clock (that will reach 7 billion at the end of October this year), and also have stories about what people are doing to change the World that we live.

       The main objective of the website is to connect and inspire actions that involve sustainability, urbanization, access to health services, youth empowerment to support the idea of renew global commitment for a healthy and sustainable world.

       Thus, I'll try to make my part, and also inspire more people to join the website.
       How?!
       Simple: writing some positive words to inspire more and more people.
       Everybody should try --> Because try will won't hurts, just support! 


      

International Organizations - Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and World Health Organization (WTO)

            This essay particularly is my favorite until now, not just because is about an international issue, but is something that I really enjoy to talk about and something that I really think is important to be shared with everyone because of they international importance thus humanitarian as economically talking.

The importance of animals to medical research

         This post has a different kind of subject, much more important, but not less interesting, and also considered one of the most debated topics of our times. I hope you like it.

       

      Animals have been used for research since there has been research itself. The earliest references to animal testing are found in the writings of the Greeks in the 2nd and 4th centuries BC. It has been one of the most debated topics of our times. Many people argue that it is unmoral to test products on any kind on animals, while many scientists believe that animal testing and experimentation is one of the only ways that they can discover many medical or other unique breakthroughs.  

 Experiments on animals have been an important part in many key medical advances, including the development of antibiotics, vaccines, and surgical techniques. On the other hand, the critics of animal testing base their argument on the grounds of morality, the necessity or the strength of this procedure, whether proper authority to perform such tests is granted, whether such tests are actually needed and whether such tests provide us with any useful information. It is noteworthy that many medical procedures also have to be tested for safety in animals before even being tested on human beings.

Following the above reasoning, animal rights activists argue that animals have a right to their own life and that they are not ours to do with as we please. According to PETA, “As many as 115 million animals are experimented on and killed in laboratories in the U.S. every year. Therefore, the supporters of animal rights say that animals have the right to live their own life peacefully, and that we are not allowed to meddle with them just because we can. Some also believe that the goals of this type of testing are not significant. 

Scientifically speaking, animal research is incredibly important and necessary for a wide range of reasons. One reason is to develop new vaccines and treatments and cures for many diseases. Also this helps research to ensure that new products are safe to use, thus, preventing they from they blinding us, burning our skin, or killing us. Animals do make good research subjects for many reasons and research on them can tell us a lot about ourselves. Animals are extremely similar to humans and are exposed to many of the same health problems. Supporters refute this statement by emphasizing that the brutal treatment of animals in tests is administered most of the time with anesthesia. Animal testing serves as an early screening for products before they can be tested on humans. Companies are normally not even allowed to go forward with human testing until they have shown pre-clinical data indicating the safe usage of different drugs.

In the midst of all this, is important to know that a lot has been done over the years to help find alternative ways to using animals in research. The cosmetics industry, which 20 years ago tested nearly all its products on animals, has finally come to a close. Many companies have reduced their use of whole-animal testing by as much as 90% and some have got rid of it entirely.

In conclusion, it is hard to remove animal testing completely. For me the best and most effective option, like a conscious consumer, is try to prevent animal testing by boycotting certain products that do require that kind of testing, in an attempt to reduce the number of animals being harmed in these experiments.

Just to introduce myself....

Hi everyone!
My name is Ana Carolina, I'm from Brazil, I live in Tarrytown, NY.
I came to US to study English and International Relations at EF International School, located in the same city where I live: Tarrytown.
I hope you all enjoy my posts and send me some comments.


Thanks for your attention!
xoxo

My Favorites Skyscrapers in the World

        My first choice was the unique 7 star hotel in the World called Burj al Arab, located in Dubai (United Arab Emirates).  [YOU CAN CHECK THE MAP BELOW]

          This amazing construction was designed by the British architect Tom Wright to mimic the sail of a ship, very well done, how we can see in the picture.