Vanderlei´s Writings

An Unbelievable love History

The film is written by Peter Morgan and it is based on the novel by Philippa Gregory. Directed by Justin Chadwick and starring by Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana, Jim Sturgess, Kristin Scott Thomas, David Morrissey, its running time is 1hr and 55min.

I new a bit about the social and political history presented in the film, but, as I had not read the book, I did not really know exactly what to expect from it. A friend of mine, who had watched the film in Portuguese, told me that it was a very interested and beautiful film. All I knew is that it was a period drama that stars two of the hottest actresses today.

The movie starts off with Mary Boleyn (Johansson) getting married. Her older sister Anne (Portman) is asked by their father to meet with King Henry VIII (Bana), to possibly become his lover, since the Queen has not given him a son. Things become complicated when the King prefers Mary. This makes Anne jealous. Mary does not want to go through with it but her family gives her no choice, even her husband asks her to be the King’s lover. Mary does become pregnant with his child, but during this time, the king got in full love for Anne.

At the beginning, it sounds very soap opera-like, doesn’t it? It is, but it is done extremely classy, and never dull. The photography is rich, the script and editing have a snappy pace, the score has an enchanting edge to it, and the performances are all very good. I could not decide who I liked more, Portman or Johansson. Each is given a time to shine. I would say that Scarlett dominates the first half, but then Portman takes over in the second. The way her character figures out how to manipulate the king, is like watching a kid pulling wings off of flies for the first time. And both actresses display a great talent for birthing scenes. Usually, I kind of laugh at these in movies, but here they both pulled off the labor scenes with painful realism.

For people that think that costume dramas are a bore should give this one a chance. It does not have that stuffy feel like most of them. My only complaint was that it felt a little too short. I thought some of the characters, like the brother (Sturgess) could have been fleshed out a little more. But besides that, it’s a very entertaining and involving story of family and sacrifice. 

The Secret, by Honda Byrne, Atria Books, 2006.

I still have not become a millionaire after I read The Secret of Ronda Byrne, but I believe many things have changed positively in my life after someone told me about that book for the first time.

It happened at the beginning of 2007. I was living in London when a friend of mine, who lives in New York, said he had read a very interesting book. By that time, I was finishing reading The Da Vinci Code and I was very excited with that kind of reading. Before I had bought it, my friend brought his book to me and I read it in a few days.

The book is very interesting indeed. Ronda Byrne wrote a bit by her own experiences, but she appropriated of successful personal history from known people around the World in order to justify her point of view about how to be or become a well successful person in life.

According to her advices, nobody who is or wants to be an expert in any area, get it not by working physically hard or waiting for miracles and so on, but the secret of those people is because they realized how to think positively in favor of their dreams. Then, if you want to be the best one in any area of knowledge, or you expect you will win a huge sum of money, the first thing you have to do is strongly believe in it. Then, you have to perform as if you had already gotten this objective. Keep doing like that all the time, the positive things around the World will conspire positively over your dreams and you will reach the target point you wish.

All the book is written showing us examples of positive relates from someone who believes they got a successful life because they strongly believed on their dreams and accredited on them in order to get professional success, and personal satisfaction. Therefore, she gives examples of people who recovered from terrific diseases and injuries just because they thought positively they would be able to do that only with the power of their thoughts.

Now I understand why frequently people on the underground or wherever I was with the book on my hands pointed it and make such as comments: “Oh, this is a great book!” “Are you enjoying it?” “Have you already watches the film about it”? I think these are the same comments I would make if I see someone enjoying this lovely reading. That is the reason why I have one version of the book in English and other in Portuguese at home.

A blooming yellow Ipê!

I have to go to university every morning on weekdays to take the Linguistics and English Language and Literature course. I always try to be happy with my routine, but in August there is an extra something which makes me happier going there: the yellow trees I can see along my way.

I feel privileged about living where I live. My flat is downtown Goiânia, and the university campus is on the outskirts of the city, an area covered by bushes and remnants of native forests. So, during a short period of the year, the yellow ipês do up my way towards the university campus. It works as a gift to my eyes, and probably also to the eyes of all those who, the same way as me, have to go there. Because of this, whenever I drive that way I start thinking that those trees full of lovely yellow flowers are trying to remind us that we have to preserve nature, specially its diversity.

Of course, Brazilian forests have a vast diversity of plants and because of that our country is well know as the World lung. Fortunately, there are plants everywhere, fruit trees or not; even in the city centre we can contemplate a lot of them, but there is something special on the yellow ipês which make me fascinated for them. I think this fascination started in a long time ago and recall my childhood.

I was born in a rural area not far from Goiânia and I grew up contemplating that interesting kind of plants. By that time, I could not understand why in specific period of the year colourful points pop up in the forest and bush surrounding. I say points because also the yellow ipês, there is a diversity of that plant in different colours. I have a special attention to the yellow ones, but there are species with purple, blue, pink and beige flowers. As far as I know, there are much more interesting things on the ipê´s secret.    

Only in August, when the weather is hot, do the yellow ipê’s flowers blossom. The sky gets gray because of the pollution in a mixture of dust and smoke, and the climate gets extremely dry in this area of the country. From my point of view, it looks like a compensation since during this period of the year, we seek for rains first of all, and life is quite hard. Maybe this is the reason why the yellow ipê, a typical tree from Brazil, became a symbol of our country, and it suddenly has become a symbol of my happiness on my way towards the university campus in the mornings of August.

 Quota system to bring Black students to universities

Brazilian state universities are well known as places where rich students study while poor students have to pay for private ones. Although it is quite strange to understand, and even though I am not able to prove statistically right now that this is the situation, it has unfortunately been a general rule for a long period in our country. To what extent it is wrong, right or acceptable is what I would like to discuss in this essay.

In order to grab a vacancy at state universities in Brazil, one has to take a very hard exam called vestibular. In some attended courses like Medicine, Dentistry, Engineering and Law sometimes there are more than one hundred candidates disputing each vacancy. The situation becomes worse because the quality of teaching in our state schools, where students should be prepared to go to university, is far inferior compared to the one provided by privates schools. Consequently, students from private schools have a lot more chances to go to a state university than those who have studied in state schools.

Due to historical reasons, in our country most black students study in public schools. As a result, the number of blacks at our public universities is visibly smaller than the number of whites. And this is a reality that the federal government intends to change with the introduction of the law of quota system for black students at state universities.

I study Language and Linguistics at UFG, a Federal University in the State where I live. According to the new law, in the next entry exams (vestibulares), ten percent of all vacancies of the whole university will be reserved to black or afro-descendent students, and ten percent will be reserved to students from state schools. This decision has created strong discussions by the educational community and drawn significant time and attention by the media. There are of course people who support the government decision. On the other hand, others do strongly disapprove such decision, especially students from private schools.

I personally disapprove of this decision for several reasons. First, I think the government should invest heavily in the quality of teaching in all state schools from kindergarten, throughout primary school and up to secondary school. With state schools of high quality of teaching, citizens would not have to pay for private school; they would not, therefore, have to face education as it has been made to: a knowledge and vestibular approval industry. Second, if the quality of public basic education were improved, all students would have the same chances to go to university. Third, the government should create more vacancies at state universities in order to make the entrance of more students who want to enroll in a degree course less difficult.

It is not fair, from my perspective, that a rich black student from a private school to have more chances than a poor (either black or not!) from a state school only because he/she is black and, in this case, able to afford a degree course in a private university. I also think that the law would better contemplate the diversity if twenty percent of all vacancies were reserved to students from state schools, which includes black and white, poor students who do not have financial conditions to pay for their studies. And I do not think the government wants to see the terrible situation of black professionals in a future suffering discrimination because the society will believe they only passed their exams because they were helped to get through the tests.

Finally, I strongly hope that governmental policies such as this, better planned and along others, will definitely put end to this terrible reality. After all, our universities should reflect Brazilian diversity, but social changes need time, planning and sense of reality to take place.

Silver medal or bronze one: What are they really worth?

I think it is very unfair the pressure that we put over our athletes on the battle for gold medals whilst they’re competing in the Olympic Games. I say this because only when the Games are taking place do we remember that we have athletes in our country. Once such period is over, they are completely forgotten for the following four years, when the global games start again. But, in fact, there is a huge exception to this rule. The Brazilian man’s football team is a good example of well paid and greatly sponsored group by big and well known companies, both national and international ones. Whereas this is an exception which should actually be the rule, it in fact makes the whole situation even more unfair.

As we read on newspapers and it has been broadcasting by television almost every day, some Brazilian men footballers earn good salaries by playing for regional teams here in Brazil, and many of them sign millionaire contracts to defend international teams abroad. Because of that, they often become very famous and have in some cases been treated as Hollywood stars. So far so good, but it is no longer right when we remember that this does no happen to most players.

I have to mention the fact that some sports have been played by members from a high society, and in those cases, they come from rich families and normally do not need support from the government to become professionals. Differently from those ones who do not have any support to get a specific and essential training that is added to their professionalization. A good example of them is the girls who decide to become football players in this country. With the exception of Marta, who became quite famous and has been playing football abroad for years, the others do not have much support when defending their regional or local teams.   

Given such facts, from my point of view, the silver medal won by the Brazilian women’s football team is worth, as a matter of fact, much more than the bronze one got by the men. If we think deeply about the economical, psychological and physical structures that the guys have, compared to those ones that the girls have access to, I think whoever is reading this simple essay will strongly agree with me: those girls are much more than footballers, they are good examples of Brazilian heroines who make us proud of being Brazilian. Thus their silver medals are worth gold ones.

Contrarily, concerning what is made available to the men football players in order to be trained, the fame that they have as the best ones in the world, and the wage that they earn for their (bad) performance in football, I think those bronze medals they got were exactly what they deserve - just a prize for their third position, or a little bit less than that.

A good lesson of long life.

Last holiday, my brother-in-law’s father came to visit us in Goiânia. He lives in Poços de Caldas-MG and he is a 96 years old man.

When my sister told me her father-in-law was coming to visit them, as I did not know him by that time, I thought he was a typical old, tired man, a kind of person who depends on someone for almost everything, or likes to sleep earlier at the night and stay in bed until later; but, in fact, I was completely wrong.

Even at the airport, Mr. Melo told us he would like to go to Trindade walking as normally people do here for religious reasons. I asked him if he would like to walk to Trindade because he was a catholic man and he said he was protestant, but he would love to walk among courageous, interested and happy people. He added that should be very excited walking from Goiânia to Trindade looking at all beautiful girls.

After our dinner at my sister’s house, he asked my brother-in-law if he was prepared to make a barbecue on the next day. Around midnight, my sister told him that his bed was ready and he was able to go to sleep when conveniently. In answer to her, he said thanks but would like to hear and see more about Goiânia.

Mr. Melo was a very funny person. All the time he was doing something to make us smile. He had lovely mood, good speeches and charismatic ideas.

On the third day he was here, he invited us to go to a pizza restaurant to celebrate his visit and mainly, to celebrate the life. There, he was noisier than the children were. I saw him clapping his hands and shouting “pizza”, “pizza”…

Of course, we started to introduce him to our friends as a brother of my brother-in-law, but never as my brother in law’s father.

When I asked Mr. Melo what was the secret of that lovely happiness, he was categorical to say: “I think I am a happy person because I never expect anything from tomorrow, but I live everything that God has given me today!”

I think that is the secret of life; isn’t it?

Welcome to my blog at Edublogs.

My name is Vanderlei Chagas

I am supervised by professor Dr. Maria Cristina Faria Dalacorte Ferreira.

I study English Language and Literature at Universidade Federal de Goiás.

This is my blog as part of my course on English Writing Pratice II.

I hope you like things I’m trying to do here.

And, please, leave comments about my works to help me doing them better day by day.

Thank you for your visit!

Vander Chagas