interviews with Messi

 INTERVIEW 1

AN INTERVIEW WITH MESSI

What will you all do so that you don’t relax?

We can’t relax.  That’s not our way of looking at things.  All of the Barça players set new challenges for ourselves, new goals … we want to keep growing.  In football to stand still is to go backwards.  And it’s obvious that we enjoy very much what we have achieved, but we are plenty aware that we want to always to look forward.  That makes it so all challenges are nice.

Was the signing of Javier Mascherano a great signing?

Yes, of course.  I have a good relationship with Javier, and he’s a reinforcement that will help us a lot.  He just arrived and has only had one practice, but he is very happy.

Did he say anything to you?

I know it’s what he wanted and I am sure that he is going to feel very comfortable with us at Barça.

Would you have liked it if Cesc had ended up signing?

Who wouldn’t want to have Cesc in their team?  I’ve already said that it would have been very nice to be able to play together with him again, like when we played together in the cantera.

Do you see yourself as the new winner of the ‘Balón de Oro’?

Do you want the truth?  I have never stopped to think about the individual awards.  I appreciate them and they fill me with pride, but my priority is always the team.  For that reason, I don’t think about the ‘Balón de Oro’ but Barça continuing to win titles.  We have various competitions ahead of us and it will be a season full of challenges.  This team continues to have a hunger for glory.

Did you speak to Gaby Milito about his return to the national team after being out for 1000 days?

He deserves it. For all of the effort he has put into the last months and because, in addition, he is more than capable of wearing the albiceleste shirt.

Do you see a national team that’s distinct from the one of Maradona?

You note that there’s a new trainer who asks for other things, that has his own ideas and little by little we get used to what he wants.  I don’t like to make comparisons.  Each coach has his methods and his ways of working.

Does [the continuation of] national team coach Batista depend on the results?

I don’t think the continuation of ‘Checho’ depends on these results.  Personally I think that behind it all, everybody has a job, and because of that, one has to let him do his with tranquility.  For us, right now the most important thing is the Copa América.

Have you put into perspective what happened at the World Cup?

What happened, happened, and now it doesn’t make much sense to keep talking about it, because the whole world saw it.  I don’t think we failed.  We won four of the five games we played in South Africa, but it affected us to lose against Germany.  We can’t change anything of what happened now.  What is most important now is that the group is fine and that we want very much to start this new cycle.  What’s more, now Spain is the best rival that we could have in order to achieve that objective.  We have to stop thinking about the past.

What is your opinion about the management of Maradona?

I have always said that Maradona was important for the national team, because he arrived at difficult time when things were not going well.  I have great affection for him.

INTERVIEW 2

What do you want, as a player and in life?

As a player I believe that, as I have already said before, I want to win things with the national (senior) team. It is one of the challenges that still remain for me to achieve. Otherwise, thank God I got everything at the individual and team level, and I would love to do the same with the national team.

And in life, I’m not missing anything because I have my family, people that I know, which to me is more important, more than all the material wealth that I can ever have.

Do you ever think that you still have a lifetime ahead of you yet?

Hopefully I can continue to achieve a lot of the goals I set for myself. I am only at the start of my career. There’s still a lot of years left for me and hopefully I can repeat everything that I have already achieved.

Do you like to see matches that you played in?

No, I don’t watch them, not even in the news.

Well, only when there is a great game do I look at it, or that someone have recorded it for me, But I do keep everything that happens to me in the club, things that today might not seem significant but I suppose will be worth some very nice memories later.

If there is one thing that is clear about you, it’s your character. You seem hesitant to believe it (being the best). How do you handle that?

I try to live my life as I always have my entire life. I try not to change anything. There are things that are hard for me to do, like going to the movies, but I always try to lead a normal life. Being with my family and my friends is a lot more important.

How does it feel to be the No. 1 player in the world?

The truth is, for me, it’s all the same. For now, all that I want to do, and what interests me, is just to play, do it well, and contribute things to my team. Then, if I am the number 1, 2 or 3, the truth is, it’s something that I don’t give much importance.

Do these ratings, given by the press or fans, give a player more credence?

Of course. The player devotes himself to winning things, try to do his best, and it’s up to the public to make up their minds.

But there are players who, with far fewer accomplishments than you, wish for it. They can only dream about it while you live it.

It depends on the individual. Their way of being, their mentality and the way they view things. Everyone is different and each one thinks differently.

At this point in your life, the people of Catalunya take you as its own. Apart from your family, for obvious reason, and playing for the national team, what other things will you bring forth for Argentina?

A whole lot. Apart from playing for the national team, I have made it clear that at the end of my career, I will return to live in Argentina.

How do you see yourself in the future? Living in Argentina, but doing what?

For now, I have no idea. I believe the day I’ll end my career will still be far off, so I don’t know. But I know I will live in Rosario some day with my family. Only then will I know what I want to do.

famous quotes

PROPHET MUHAMMED MUSTAFA (saas)

“Say what is true, although it may be bitter and displeasing to people.”

“Do you love your creator? Love your fellow-beings first.”

“The ink of the scholar is more holy than the blood of the martyr.”

“Seek for my satisfaction in that of the poor and needy.”

“Heaven lieth at the feet of mothers.”

“Who are the learned? They who practise what they know.”

“All kinds of modesty are best.”

QUOTES BY TOPIC

Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?

Clarence Darrow (1857 - 1938)

Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.

A. Sachs

For certain is death for the born
And certain is birth for the dead;
Therefore over the inevitable
Thou shouldst not grieve.

Bhagavad Gita  

It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated.

Alec Bourne

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.

Beverly Sills

I hate women because they always know where things are.

James Thurber (1894 - 1961)

Women upset everything. When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and you're driving at another.

George Bernard Shaw

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

Friedrich Nietzsche

There is no remedy for love but to love more.

Henry David Thoreau

RENE DESCARTES Mathematician  

An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?

I am indeed amazed when I consider how weak my mind is and how prone to error.

I think; therefore I am.

It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.

SIGMUND FREUD Psychologist

Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise

Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts.

Children are completely egoistic; they feel their needs intensely and strive ruthlessly to satisfy them.

Just as no one can be forced into belief, so no one can be forced into disbelief.

DAVID BECKHAM Athlete

I love little kids looking up to me, young players looking up to me, respecting me.

I love scoring goals for England and playing for England. That's one of the reasons I didn't retire - I love playing for my country.

I still look at myself and want to improve.

Nothing amazes me anymore.

There's room for boys' and girls' football in the world-that's what I believe.

ALBERT EINSTEIN Physicist

A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

ORHAN PAMUK Novelist

I see Turkey's future as being in Europe, as one of many prosperous, tolerant, democratic countries.

I want to describe the psychological state of the people in a certain city.

Well, on the one hand the Turks have the legitimate need to defend their national dignity - and this includes being recognized as a part of the west and Europe.

Che Guevara Activist

“I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.

“I know you are here to kill me. Shoot, coward, you are only going to kill a man.”

“Silence is argument carried out by other means.”

“Better to die standing, than to live on your knees.”

sample general reflections on teaching English for future teacher candidates

Axis of Fluency and Accuracy

In my classes I focus on fluency rather than accuracy. However, this does not necessarily mean that I completely ignore accuracy.

At our school we are implementing skill-based instruction and we teach speaking together with listening. Our speaking course book is Interactions Access Silver Edition. It provides the learners with the input they need to speak via contextual and topic based listening materials. Each chapter naturally has a number of learning outcomes.

The very first chapter is entitled "Neighborhood, Cities, and Towns". For this chapter, for instance, one of the outcomes was to be able to talk about public transportation. As my students were at elementary level, I encouraged them to produce even a set of simple words (on foot, by bus) to answer a question like “How do you get to school?” These simple words they used proved to be accurate as they answered the questions by using the accurate prepositions like “on” and “by”. (It should also be kept in mind that in real life daily speech, people do not answer this question with full sentences) Also, before they talked about the vehicle they used, they had listened to a conversation about the public transportation two students used to get to school. When they made mistakes (like “by foot”, “of bus”), I waited until they finished and uttered the correct version: “So you get to school by bus?” and “You walk to school? You go on foot?” Then I reacted to their answers by using expressions like “How lucky you are! You are close to school. I live far from the campus.” These types of reactions turned the practice into an authentic social chat going on the class as well.

While the students were expected to talk about the transportation they used, they were also supposed to talk about how long it took to get to school by using that particular transportation vehicle. To talk about transportation-stating the particular transportation vehicle to get to school- did not require full grammatical sentences. However, saying “It is a fifteen-minute ride” requires grammatical knowledge (rather than saying “fifteen minutes,” they were supposed to turn it into an adjective by saying a “fifteen-minute ride.” Of course, the students produced inaccurate sentences. What I did was to let them make grammatical mistakes. Thus, I did not interfere when they made mistakes. As the main problem of lower level students are anxiety and not having language proficiency, I listened to them and after some practice I wrote some students’ sentences on the board. For example; I wrote:  “Celal goes to school by bus. It takes fifteen minutes. It is a fifteen-minute ride.” In this way, I reflected on the correct version without discouraging the students by just focusing on the mistakes. It is an example of balance between fluency and accuracy.  I emphasized fluency and communication by showing the students that I understood what they were talking about whatever their level was since I wrote their sentences. This also helped me to accentuate the accurate grammar form since I underlined “fifteen-minute ride.”

Another outcome of the same unit was to make the students say days and dates. This production required more focus on accuracy than fluency. Thus, while the students were doing a communication gap activity, (They were asking about the missing days and dates in their calendars and filled their versions with the information they got from their peers) I tried to address the errors just after the problematic sentence was finished. For example:

Student: It is on May.

Teacher: It is …?

Student: It is in May.

In conclusion, I ignore neither fluency nor accuracy in my speaking classes. The nature of a certain activity determines if I should put more emphasis on accuracy or fluency. I still balance between them by addressing the important-the key grammar points needed to implement a speaking activity- without interfering the student’s intention to communicate his ideas. One important issue to keep in mind is that even if the student knows all the grammatical rules, he still may not be fluent enough to communicate- he may not be able to communicate at all. Accuracy without fluency or fluency without accuracy is impossible, so the best way is to weave these two components together to produce our masterpiece in class: communication. In other words, we, as teachers of English should let our students to make mistakes to be fluent. We should also address their mistakes without discouraging them from speaking in order to train them to make fewer mistakes.  

To ask OR not to ask

I generally teach speaking to lower level students. Currently I am teaching elementary level listening/speaking. When I reflect on my questioning techniques in this course, I find out that I use most of them in my speaking class. I use “yes/no questions”, “wh- questions (what, when, where, who)”, and “why” questions.  The most frequent question I use is “open-ended (especially the wh- types)” and “why” questions. I suppose I never use “or” types.

This week we are studying Interactions Access Unit 4. The title of this unit is Health Care. At the end of this unit the students are expected to talk about their health problems, give advice to each other on various problems, make an appointment from a health clinic to see a doctor and discuss their eating and sleeping habits. I have been able to teach students how to give advice to someone so far.

To teach how to give advice, I began the lesson by telling my students that I had a serious problem: being too busy. I gave details about my workload and complained about it, which they listened with great interest. However, the only question type I asked them to elicit responses was “open-ended wh- type”. I notice that I tended to ask what I should do. I could also have given them two options and asked them to help me choose the best advice. For example I could have said: “Should I find another job or plan myself?” In fact, most students were enthusiastic about giving advice to me on such an issue, and they told me to plan myself; however, if I had given two alternatives before they gave advice, the less successful students would have chosen one of them instead of keeping silent. This could have encouraged them to interact and they would have felt they were also participating in the flow of discussion going on in the class.  

Then I had the students to write their current problems (or those of someone they know) on a piece of paper. I collected the pieces of papers and randomly chose them one by one. I read the problem aloud and asked the students the same question: What should he/she do?” In this activity I could have asked “yes/no questions” together with “or” types. Saying “Should she leave the dormitory?” or “Should she leave the dormitory or talk to the principal about his problem?” would have been more productive in terms of keeping interaction and making the students get used to different question types in English.

After listening to the students’ advice on a particular problem, I reflected on some of the advice given by asking “Why should she leave the dormitory? Isn’t it difficult to do?” These types of questions, when I reflect on them now, may have been too challenging for the students as it was the first time they had encountered advice giving structure. After practicing advice giving via “Should he/she” (yes/no) and “Should she ____ or ________?” (or type), I should have asked “wh- open ended” types and “reasoning type: why.”

The most important thing I have become aware about my questioning types in my speaking class is I might relax my students by giving two options for them to choose when I ask their opinion about a particular subject so that they can feel themselves using English for meaningful purposes-for expressing their personal ideas on an issue. I have also become aware of the fact that by asking a lot of “why” questions I might be discouraging them from expressing their ideas and feelings since “why” requires more sophisticated answers. Reasoning requires improved cognitive skills and more proficiency.

 In the light of reflection I have made, my action plan for my upcoming speaking courses is to integrate as many questioning types as possible in order to make my students hear and practice various English language structures and make them participate in the speaking activities more by producing a wide range of responses. I will try to incorporate “or” questions and use “why” less frequently. However, it should not mean that I will never use “why” types. If I do not use any “why” types, it means that the students’ proficiency level will never go up. I will carefully plan my questioning techniques and try to have my students get used to producing language by providing them a prism of different questions. I will prefer “yes/no” and “or” types first. After making them respond to simpler questions in English, I will ask them to answer “wh-“, “why” and “open-ended opinion” questions. To make them participate in speaking activities I should be using easier (yes/no, or) questions which still appreciate their personal ideas. The thing is to show them they can produce the language orally to communicate their ideas, which “yes/no” and “or” questions can really achieve. To express opinions is not just about successfully answering “What do you think” or “Why do you think so” questions. When I reflect on my class and revise my notes on “Interacting in the classroom” lesson, I understand that only the teacher’s appropriate questions can encourage lower level students to communicate in English.

biography (revolutionists)

Deniz Gezmiş was a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary and political activist in the Republic of Turkey in the late 1960s. He was one of the founding members of the People's Liberation Army of Turkey (THKO).
The son of a teacher, Gezmiş was educated in various Turkish cities. He spent most of his childhood in Sivas, where his father grew up. Gezmiş graduated from high school in Istanbul where he first encountered left wing ideas.

Political life

The identification of Deniz Gezmiş was issued by Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine and given during guerrilla training in 1969.

After joining the Workers Party of Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye İşçi Partisi), he studied law at İstanbul University in 1966. In 1968, he founded the Revolutionary Jurists Organisation (Turkish: Devrimci Hukukçular Kuruluşu) and the Revolutionary Student Union (Turkish: Devrimci Öğrenci Birliği).

He became increasingly politically active, and led the student-organised occupation of İstanbul University on June 12, 1968. After the occupation was forcibly ended by the law, he spearheaded protests against the arrival of the US 6th Fleet in Istanbul. Deniz Gezmiş was arrested for these actions on July 30, 1968, to be released on October 20 of the same year.

During the 60s, Gezmiş crossed paths with the infamous American double agent Aldrich Ames. While scouting for information on Soviet intelligence, Ames recruited one of Gezmiş' roommates, who gave him information about the membership and activities of Devrimci Gençlik (DEV-GENÇ), a Marxist youth group.

Arrest and trial

On January 11, 1971, Deniz Gezmiş took part in the robbery of Emek branch of İş Bank/İş Bankasi(TR) in Ankara . On March 4 that year, he kidnapped four U.S. privates^[5] from TUSLOG/The United States Logistics Group headquartered in Balgat, Ankara. After releasing the hostages, he and Yusuf Aslan were captured alive between Gemerek-Yeniçubuk, Şarkışla and Sivas following an armed stand-off with law enforcement officers.

Their trial began on July 16, 1971. Gezmiş was sentenced to death on October 9 for violating the Turkish Criminal Code's 146th article, which concerns attempts to "overthrow Constitutional order". According to legal procedure, a death sentence must be endorsed by Parliament before being sent to the President of the Republic for final assent. In March and April 1972 the sentence was placed before Parliament and in both readings the sentence was overwhelmingly approved. Some politicians such as İsmet İnönü and Bülent Ecevit opposed the sentence, but Süleyman Demirel voted in favor of it.

On May 4, President Cevdet Sunay, after officially consulting the Minister of Justice and Prime Minister Nihat Erim, refused to grant Gezmiş a pardon. He was executed by hanging on May 6, 1972 in Ankara Central Prison.

	Long live independence for the people of Turkey. Long live the great ideology of Marxist-Leninism. Long live the brotherhood of Turkish and Kurdish people. Damn imperialism.
—Last words of Deniz Gezmiş. MALCOLM X   Malcolm Little, the son of an African American Baptist preacher, Earl Little, was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on 19th May, 1925. Malcolm's mother, Louise Little, was born in the West Indies. Her mother was black but her father was a white man. Earl Little was a member of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) and a supporter of Marcus Garvey. This got him into trouble with the Ku Klux Klan and after the family were threatened they moved to Lansing, Michigan. Little continued to make speeches in favour of UNIA and in 1929 the family house was burned down by members of the Black Legion. In 1931 Little was found dead by a streetcar railway track. Although no one was convicted of the crime it was generally believed that Little had been murdered by the Black Legionnaires. Malcolm's mother never recovered from her husband's death and in 1937 was sent to the State Mental Hospital at Kalamazoo, where she stayed for the next twenty-six years. Little moved to Boston to live with his sister. He worked as a waiter in Harlem and after becoming addicted to cocaine, turned to crime. In 1946 he was convicted of burglary and sentenced to ten years imprisonment. While in prison he was converted to the Black Muslim faith. After his release from prison in 1952 he moved to Chicago where he met Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Nation of Islam sect. He changed his name to X, a custom among Muhammad's followers who considered their family names to have originated with white slaveholders. Malcolm soon became a leading figure in the Nation of Islam. He went on several speaking tours and helped establish several new mosques. He was eventually assigned to be minister of the mosque in New York's Harlem area. Founder and editor of Muhammad Speaks, Malcolm rejected integration and racial equality and instead advocated black power. Malcolm was suspended from the movement by Elijah Muhammad after he made a series of extremist speeches. This included his comments that the assassination of John F. Kennedy was a "case of chickens coming home to roost". In March 1964 Malcolm left the Nation of Islam and established his own religious organization, the Organization of Afro-American Unity. After a pilgrimage to Mecca, Malcolm rejected his former separatist beliefs and advocated world brotherhood. Malcolm now blamed racism on Western culture and urged African Americans to join with sympathetic whites to bring to an end. Malcolm X was shot dead at a party meeting in Harlem on 21st February, 1965. Three Black Muslims were later convicted of the murder. "...Early in life, I had learned that if you want something, you had better make some noise." "Human rights are something you were born with. Human rights are your God-given rights. Human rights are the rights that are recognized by all nations of this earth." "Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression, because power, real power, comes from our conviction which produces action, uncompromising action." Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. I believe in human beings, and that all human beings should be respected as such, regardless of their color.

funny quotes

Friendship is like peeing on yourself: everyone can see it, but only you get the warm feeling that it brings.
The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on. - Robert Bloch
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils ... - Louis Hector Berlioz
It's true that we don't know what we've got until we lose it, but it's also true that we don't know what we've been missing until it arrives.
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.
The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not. - Mark Twain
I told my wife that a husband is like a fine wine; he gets better with age. The next day, she locked me in the cellar.
Girls are like phones. We love to be held, talked too but if you press the wrong button you'll be disconnected!
The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think.