My personal Hit-List of Disney movies

As I have recently written about the latest Disney movie, which sadly enough doesn't seem to be very successful, I thought of watching some of my personal favorites from my childhood again.



Here is my Hit-List of Disney movies which will always be nice to watch, no matter how old or young you are :)


The Lion King
The Beauty and the Beast
Toy Story
The little Mermaid
Finding Nemo
Mulan
Monsters
Mary Poppins
Robin Hood
Bambi
Dumbo
101 Dalmatians
Tarzan
Pocahontas
Winnie the Pooh
Ratatouille

... and many more :)

oh, and from the newer productions, my all time favorite:

Pirates of the Caribbean


 


To see the complete list of Disney movies, including the one's about to be released until 2015:
http://www.disneymovieslist.com/disney-movies.asp

Rabea

picture source:
http://media.photobucket.com/image/disney%20movies/StormyWolfBowler/DisneyMovies.png?o=11
http://www.tropical-paradise.net/pirate-of-the-caribbean.html

Movie flop to cost Walt Disney $200m

Walt Disney has said it expects to lose $200m (£126m) on its movie John Carter, This makes the movie one of the biggest flops in cinema history. 

 

The film deals with a military captain who is transported to Mars. The he discovers a wildly diverse planet whose main inhabitants are 12-foot tall green barbarians. Finding himself a prisoner of these creatures, he escapes, only to encounter Dejah Thoris, Princess of Helium, who is in desperate need of a savior.

The film is based on a series of books written by the author of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs. The studio is now working on the second part of the trilogy, hoping that the next part will be more successful.

It is estimated that John Carter cost $250m to make and it is likely that Disney spent another $100m on marketing.

Mark Kermode, specialist who reviewed the film for bbc news said: "The story telling is incomprehensible, the characterisation is ludicrous, the story is two and a quarter hours long and it's a boring, boring, boring two and a quarter hours long."

The film's director, Pixar's Andrew Stanton, had previously had great success with films such as Finding Nemo and Wall-E.

Personally I haven't seen this latest Disney production, but as the reviews are quite bad, I am not sure, if it is worth watching it now. As I myself somehow grew up with all those well known Disney classics such as Finding Nemo, The Lion King, Beauty and the beast, Toy Story, Mulan, Mary Poppins and, of course, Pirates of the Caribbean, it is sad to hear, that the newest movie doesn't seem to match the high standard Disney movies usually held. 

Hopefully the next movie produced by Disney will be as great as some previous ones were!

r.s.

picture source: 

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/movies-toto/2012/mar/9/john-carter-review/ 

Presentation in the American Corner of Siauliai Library

We 4 volunteers usually attend the English Club implemented by the American Corner of the Siauliai Public Library every Monday. At our last meeting, Merve and Ömer presented their home country, Turkey. Merve even cooked a traditional Turkish dish and we all enjoyed to drink Turkish tea together :)


 










Rabea

picture source:
http://www.savb.lt/amerikos-skaitykla/3162-angl-kalbos-klube-savanoriai-i-turkijos-pristat-savo-al

Who is the UK's best animated character of all time?

Paddington Bear has been elected to be the best animated character of all time in UK movie history.

Paddinton Bear

The cute bear was created by former BBC cameraman Michael Bond firstly for children books, and has now been announced to be the best animated character at the ninth British Animation Awards ceremony which took place in London.

The very first tale with Paddington was released in 1958 and until now the children books have been translated into 40 different languages and over 35 million copies have been sold all over the world. Only in 1978 it was, when the animated series of Paddintons adventures were first shown on TV.

And now in 2012 the cuddly bear  beat a shortlist of other distinguished characters including Super Ted, Aleksandr Meerkat and Wallace and Gromit to the title.

Wallace and Gromit

The Tale of the Three Brothers, part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, was awarded the best animated sequence in a film. 

The tale of the three brothers, part of a Harry Potter movie

Personally I am happy that the children story "The Gruffalo" has also won, as it is one of the favorite tales of my little sister. :)

The Gruffalo

 r.s.

picture sources:

http://www.kollewin.com/blog/read.php?3249&guid=0 

http://rebelescapades.blogspot.com/2011/04/adventure-5-there-like-paddington-bear.html 

http://sikufital.blogspot.com/2010/12/tale-of-three-brothers.html 

http://theoscarnominatedshortfilms.blogspot.com/2011/02/2011-nominated-short-gruffalo.html 

source of information:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-17382333 

Music overcomes borders

A Orchestra from North Korea has performed together with the Radio France Philharmonic in a concert in Paris. The concert itself was not more remarkable than any other concert played by any other high class orchestras, but the fact that a major part of the playing musician was from North Korea, one of the remaining dictatorships on this planet, is remarkable.
It is the first concert a North Korean Orchestra has ever played in Europe until now.

The concert is a remarkable cooperation between France, North and South Korean musicians

The cooperation of the French and North Korean orchestras was led by the South Korean conductor Chung Myung-Whun. 
He told the audience at the Salle Pleyel music hall that the concert featuring the Unhasu orchestra from North Korea and the Radio France Philharmonic from France showed that "music is bigger than borders".
In the first half of the concert, the 75 Unhasu musicians performed North Korean pieces, while in the following parts the joint ensemble performed works including Brahms's Symphony No 1 and Bizet's Carmen.

Chung, who is leading the Radio France Philharmonic since 2000, claimed that he is very proud and happy that he was able to realize this cooperation between the France and North Korea with him, citizen of South Korea as a conductor.

Speaking last week, Chung said he had been trying to organise such a concert - which comes as tensions remain high between the two Koreas - for 30 years.

"For practically all Koreans, outside the world of politics, there are not two Koreas - there's only one country, a family divided," he said.

r.s.

picture source:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2012/03/orchestras-from-north-korea-france-perform-concert-in-paris.html

for more information:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-17379127 

e.

What is happening on the Costa Concordia now?

As I have written quite a lot about the sinking of the cruise ship Costa Concordia a few weeks ago, I was surprised when I came across strange news related to the Concordia again today which have nothing to do with the actual event of the sinking. Apparently, the ship bell, which became a symbol for the sunken cruise ship, has gone missing. Until a few days ago the bell with the engraved name "Costa Concordia", which weights around 30 kg, was still in the sunken vessel, around 8m deep in the water, has gone missing. 

It is likely that the bell of the Costa Concordia has been stolen

The Italian police has opened a case concerning the stolen or missing bell, and for now they announced that they see the possibility that one of the divers or a member of the technical staff working on the vessel has stolen the bell. 

The salvage of the cruise ship is still going on

 

If we don't take the mysterious disappearance of the ship bell into account, the salvage of the cruise ship has gone well so far. Specialist are still pumping out the fuel which the ship had on board and due to the good weather conditions there haven't been any major problems. 


More important than the missing of the ship bell is without doubt to find out what exactly led to the crash of the ship and who is responsible for it. The Italian police is still investigating and questioning the witnesses and consulting with experts. Apart from Captain Schettino, eight other ship's officers and Costa executives are currently officially under investigation.  



According to the latest information, there have been 4.229 people on the Costa Concordia at the night of the incident and 25 of them have lost their lifes. Sadly enough 7 of the passengers still could not be found and brought back to their families, which brings the total amount of victims to 32.




r.s.




picture source: 
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089052/Domnica-Cemortan-Was-Costa-Concordia-captain-Francesco-Schettino-trying-impress-ballerina.html 
http://news.sky.com/home/world-news/article/16155170 



more information:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/03/costa-concordia-captain-coastguards 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17317279

How to Become an International Correspondent for Student Publications

I have been looking for some news for our blog and I  found a very interesting web-site which gives high school students an opportunity to become international correspondents for student publications. So if you are high school student and you are interested in journalism this web-site is definitely for you.

worldyouthnews.org is a global online news project for high school students from all over the world. It is a project of iEARN (International Education and Resource Network) which is the world's largest non-profit network that supports collaboration between teachers and youth and enables them to use internet and other technologies in learning process.

The aim of this project is to help interested students to improve their skills in media field, to broaden their cross-cultural understanding providing and provide an important global youth perspective.

If you are high school student (14-19 years old) you can join this project as a reporter but first you need to complete (successfully) the World Youth News Reporter Certification Course. It's free of charge :)
[If you are interested in taking this course and getting involved in this project you can contact Anindita Dutta Roy at anindita@us.iearn.org and ask for more details.]

After completing the course your first story will be published on this website and you will receive a certificate from organizers.

I would definitely recommend to join this project.
For more information visit this website: http://worldyouthnews.org/ World Youth News

Manana

Italian women - one year after their protests

protests in Italy one year ago

One year ago, more than one million Italian women took part in a demonstration against the sexist portrayal of women during the governing period of Silvio Berlusconi. The former Italian prime minister was involved in some sex scandals and questionable activities with underaged women. Many Italian women think that this portrayal of women at official event, on television and in newspapers created the impression, that especially young women are not more than some kind of dolls hanging on arms of older men. 

Silvio Berlusconi portrayed with two younger women

Now Berlusconi is not governing the country anymore, but he clearly made his point when it comes to women rights and the role of women in society. 
The new technocratic government fortunately presents a different view on those issues, as they claim that one of their main obstacles is to pull Italy into the 21st century when it comes to gender equality. 

The top-ranking woman in Mario Monti's new technocrat government is Elsa Fornero, a former economics professor.

Ms Fornero is not just in charge of the equality agenda, she is also minister of labour and welfare. And Ms Fornero is not the only women who helds a powerful position in this governemt now. Mr Monti has also appointed women to the justice and interior ministries.

But having some women in powerful positions is not enough to change how a big part of the Italian society still sees the 'right place' for the Italian women. As long as the main mass media institution continue to portray women as objects with more or less no ambitions in political, social, or science fields, it will be difficult for the country to overcome their old fashioned picture of women. 

I wish the Italian women, and other females all over the world success with fighting agains politicians like Berlusconi, who damaged the image if half of the population when saying  : 'Ladies, I have a mission for you on election day: cook!'

So, my opinion is, Ladies, our mission is to take part in elections, to vote for parties which will work towards gender equality, and to become active ourselfs and stand up for our rights.

Rabea

more information:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17289707 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7338415.stm 

picture source:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/5552751/Silvio-Berlusconis-girls-gaffes-and-graft-appeal-to-Italian-voters.html  

http://www.reuters.com 

Dance Battle in Klaipeda, Lithuania

On saturdaysomething happened which was really amazing,, ;)

yesterday i went to watch dance battle in klaipeda , "house, popping, team"
it reminds me everything which i forgot(ignored). place was awesome, people were awesome, musics were incredible...

During to primary and high school years i used to dance "break" , then somehow had to give up, but i have never lost my ambition!

`feeling to music and behave as much as you like, try to dance and watch to dancers ` 

so just wanna share that i really enjoyed and made a decision about to start dancing again,, at least basic level..!

here videos you may check it out :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6cYGn-F2oE&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yifVcIf8h9s&feature=player_embedded

http://youtu.be/msEhtqQnawI  

Skills for life - Math section :)

Skills for Life is the national strategy in England for improving adult literacy, language and numeracy skills. The strategy was launched by the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, in March 2001. The wider objective is to "tackle the adult skills gaps", by increasing the number of adults with the skills required for employability and progression to higher levels of training.

Now bbc has released some questions of the Skills for life Survey concerning the maths part. So, check how good your 'Math skills for Life' really are :D

sources : wikipedia.org

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9701000/9701303.stm

The test: How good are your arithmetic skills?

Q1. To clean a work surface, how much bleach is needed in half a litre of water?

CONCENTRATED BLEACH
Use diluted
- for work surfaces and basins (40ml bleach in five litres water)
- for bleaching whites (20ml bleach in five litres water)
- Soak for no longer than 45 minutes, rinse thoroughly

A) 2ml
B) 2.5ml
C) 4ml
D) 20ml

---

Q2. Four friends have joined a gym to lose weight and get fit. After one month they recorded their weight loss on a chart.

How much weight have they lost between them?

Weight loss after one month

Jo - 500g
Hasran - 1kg
Kevin - 1kg 200g
Cathy - 750g

A) 2kg
B) 2kg 450g
C) 3kg
D) 3kg 450g

---

Q3. How much bleach do I need to use in 2 litres of water to bleach whites?

CONCENTRATED BLEACH
Use diluted
- for work surfaces and basins (40ml bleach in five litres water)
- for bleaching whites (20ml bleach in five litres water)
- Soak for no longer than 45 minutes, rinse thoroughly

A) 5 litres
B) 20ml
C) 10ml
D) 8ml

---

Q4. The jacket potatoes and chicken joints have to be ready at 7.45 sharp.

When should Mick start to prepare them?

Chicken joints: five minutes to prepare, 35 minutes to cook.
Jacket potatoes: 15 minutes to prepare. One and a quarter hours to cook.

A) Potatoes at 6.15 and chicken at 7.05
B) Potatoes at 6.45 and chicken at 7.15
C) Potatoes at 6.30 and chicken at 7.05
D) Potatoes at 6.15 and chicken at 7.30

Answers:

Q1: C - 4ml

Q2: D - 3kg 450g

Q3: D - 8ml

Q4: A - Potatoes at 6.15 and chicken at 7.05

Children around the world

For everyone who is interested in photography, travelling and different cultures, bbc has published some very nice pictures of 'children around the world'. The travel journalist and photographer Peter Guttman (http://peterguttman.com/start.htm) tried to picture children from different parts of the world in their natural surrounding and shows how colorful and interesting our planet really is. The result is a very sensitive work of a great photographer.

Source: by Peter Guttman, bbc news:  http://www.bbc.com/travel/slideshow/20120228-children-around-the-world

Video of our Volunteers Week

As Manana and I already wrote quite a long time ago, we participated and organised a Exchange project for students from Didzdvaris Gymnasium and another Gymnasium with IB program, called EKOLA Wroclaw, Poland. The topic of the project was volunteering and as Manana and I are in fact international volunteers in Lithuania at the moment, we shared our experience with the students. Moreover we asked the participants to develop a short video about volunteering.

As a matter of fact, one of the Polish participants asked us if he maybe could  the video, as he is really into cinematography. Unfortunately, somehow he did not send us the video until now, but we needed the video for the final project evaluation. In order not to let the national agency wait for longer, we sent them this raw material the students filmed during the project. Hopefully our video guru from Poland will eventually cut the video somewhen later, and also add subtitles to the parts, during which our international participants and project leaders speak in their native language.

So now the video is one Youtube, so we will share it also on the blog, for participants, their friends and everyone else who is interested in volunteering and what young people think about it. :)

Rabea