Real-life anime girl bats her enormous eyelashes at you

VOCABULARY

1. Geek-(adj)- a peculiar or otherwise dislikable person, especially one who is perceived to be overly intellectual.
ex. - Albert Einstein was considered a geek when he was a student.

2. Cosplay-(n)- the art or practice of wearing costumes to portray characters from fiction, especially from manga, animation, and science fiction.
ex. My nieice participates in Cosplay competitions.

3. Anime-(n)- a Japanese style of motion-picture animation, characterized by highly stylized, colorful art, futuristic settings, violence, and sexuality.
ex. Anime TV series has become very popular all over the word.

4. miniscule-(adj)- very small.
ex. The letters were so miniscule that i can not read them even when i have my eyeglasses on.

5. unsettling-(adj)- to vex or agitate the mind or emotions of; upset; discompose
ex. The quarrel unsettled her.

In the geek world, cosplay is an art form. Sometimes it's just masks and colorful spandex. Sometimes it's elevated to a high level. Consider Anastasiya Shpagina, a 19-year-old Ukrainian whom some might call a goddess among cosplayers.

Shpagina is obsessed with anime. She's so obsessed, she turns herself into a real-life anime character, complete with giant eyes and a teensy body. She probably has a secret stash of Ramune, too.

Strategic application of eye makeup and costumes really make the anime look pop. There's definitely talent involved here, but the results are both fascinating and a little unsettling. The eyes are strange enough, but the miniscule waist is a bit of a head-scratcher. I hope it's as much an optical illusion as the eyes are.

In case you thought things couldn't get any weirder, there are also photos of real-life anime girl hanging out with real-life Barbie, a fellow Ukrainian woman named Valeria Lukyanova. Together, they could form the world's first Unrealistic Body Image Itty-Bitty Waist Committee.

This may be giving you some ideas for Halloween. If Shpagina can pull off the look, so can you (unless you're a 250-pound hairy guy, which might make it less believable). She shares her makeup tips on YouTube. Watch as she transforms herself into an anime Flower Fairy.

SOURCE :

QUESTIONS

1. What do you think of people who do these kind of things?
2. what would you tell her if you had an opportunity to meet this girl?
3. Why do you think Animes are very popular?

Human Barbie Valeria Lukyanova Opens Up to V Magazine

VOCABULARY

1. Accentuate-(v)- to give emphasis or prominence to.
ex. Women use make-up to accentuate their features.

2. artificial-(adj)- made by human skill; man-made ( opposite of natural)
ex. Some people prefer artificial flowers than real ones because they last very long..

3. flattered-(v)- to praise or compliment insincerely, effusively, or excessively.
ex. She flatters him by constantly praising his books.

4. strives-(v)- to struggle vigorously,to make strenuous efforts toward any goal
ex. He promised himself to do everything to strive for success.

5. Photoshop -(n/v)- to alter (a digital photograph or other image), using an image editing application, especially Adobe Photoshop
ex. Most models and cover girls pictures in magazines are photoshopped to make them look perfect.

The human Barbie Doll girl, Valeria Lukyanova, is back in the news and she’s looking more like the Barbie Doll than ever before. Valeria accentuates this doll look with make-up and a hair style to make her look manufactured out of plastic. According to Too Fab on Friday, Nov. 9, 2012, the Barbie Doll girl sat down for an interview and did a photo shoot in NYC recently.

Valeria completely denies that her looks are from any artificial source, she also added:
"Many people say bad things about people who want to perfect themselves. It’s hard work, but they dismiss it as something done by surgeons or computer artists. Some people even spread rumors about me and retouch my pictures to hurt me. But I don’t take them seriously. I’m even flattered! It’s what success is like. I’m happy I seem unreal to them, it means I’m doing a good job."

There you have it; the woman strives to look unreal! Valeria has become so popular that even ABC News did a special on her this summer. Everyone wanted to know if she is for real or a product of today's photography techniques. Even V Magazine flew her to New York for the interview and recent photo shoot to find out.

According to Too Fab, the photo shoot seemed to confirm that her unnatural figure and doll looks aren’t the product of Photoshop. It is all her and nothing is done after her picture is taken to make her look like the doll she is striving to be!

SOURCE: http://www.examiner.com/article/human-barbie-doll-girl-is-the-real-thing-valeria-lukyanova-does-nyc-photo-shoot


QUESTIONS

1. Do you believe that her looks are not a product of plastic surgery?
2. Would you undergo plastic surgery to enhance or improve anything in your body?
3. What can you say about people who undergo plastic surgery not for reconstruction but for aesthetic purposes?
4. Do you know anyone personally who has had plastic surgery of breast/butt augmentation?

Afghan Woman 'Beheaded for Refusing Prostitution'

VOCABULARY

1. lured-(v)-to attract, entice, or tempt.
ex. The beautiful woman lured the man and then robbed him while he was asleep.

2. suppression-(n)- the conscious intentional exclusion from consciousness of a thought or feeling
ex. She learned that suppression of her angry feelings didn't necessarily make them go away.

3. oppression-(n)- unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power
ex. The Filipinos suffered from Spanish oppression for 400 years

4. commonplace-(adj)-anything common, ordinary, or uninteresting.
ex. We now accept cell phones and laptop computers as commonplace in our everyday life.

5. defied-(v)-to challenge the power of; resist boldly or openly.
ex. Adolescents have a tendency to defy parental authority to prove to themselves and to other people that they are no longer a child.

Afghan police have arrested four people who allegedly tried to force a woman into prostitution in western Afghanistan and beheaded her when she refused, officials said Wednesday.

Mah Gul, 20, was beheaded after her mother-in-law attempted to make her sleep with a man in her house in Herat province last week, provincial police chief Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada told AFP.

"We have arrested her mother-in-law, father-in-law, her husband and the man who killed her," he said.

Gul was married to her husband four months ago and her mother-in-law had tried to force her into prostitution several times in the past, Sayedzada said.

The suspect, Najibullah, was paraded by police at a press conference where he said the mother-in-law lured him into killing Gul by telling him that she was a prostitute.

"It was around 2:00 am when Gul's husband left for his bakery. I came down and with the help of her mother-in-law killed her with a knife," he said.

The murder comes against a backdrop of a world outcry over the shooting by Taliban Islamists of a 14-year-old Pakistani girl, Malala Yousafzai, who had become a voice against the suppression of women's rights.

While Yousafzai's case has made world headlines, people using social media in Afghanistan have made the point that oppression and violence against women are commonplace in Afghanistan.

Abdul Qader Rahimi, the regional director of the government-backed human rights commission in western Afghanistan, said violence against women had dramatically increased in the region recently.

"There is no doubt violence against women has increased. So far this year we have registered 100 cases of violence against women in the western region," he said, adding that many cases go unreported.

"But at least in Gul's case, we are glad the murderer has been arrested and brought to justice," he said.

Last year, in a case that made international headlines, police rescued a teenage girl, Sahar Gul, who was beaten and locked up in a toilet for five months after she defied her in-laws who tried to force her into prostitution.

SOURCE: http://ph.news.yahoo.com/afghan-girl-beheaded-refusing-prostitution-155624426.html


QUESTIONS:

1. What do you think is the reason why these things happen in Afghanistan?
2. How do you feel about learning that in this day and age violence against women still exists?
3. If you were in the shoes of these Afghan women, what will you do to help yourself?
4. Do you think, this is a culture or Religious thing?

BLACK FRIDAY

Vocabulary

1. Chaotic –(adj.)- a state of extreme confusion and disorder; happening in a confused way and without any order or organization.
ex. The situation at the border was chaotic, with thousands of refugees arriving every day.

2. Ventured –(v)– To go somewhere unpleasant, dangerous, or exciting; to do something that is a risk.
ex. They ventured into the dark damp forest.

3. Traffic jams –(n)- a line of vehicles waiting behind something that is blocking the road.
ex. We were stuck in a traffic jam.

4. Retailers –(n)- a person or company that sells goods directly to the public for their own use; One who sells goods or commodities directly to consumers. These items are purchased from the manufacturer or wholesaler and sold to the end user at a marked up price.
ex. Wal-Mart is a well-known large chain retailer

5. Idiom -(n) Expression whose meaning is different from the meaning of the individual words.
ex. “To have your feet on the ground” is an idiom meaning 'to be sensible'.


Black Friday refers to the day just after Thanksgiving in the US. Because so many companies have a four day weekend, many people begin their Christmas shopping on this day. (Thanksgiving always falls on a Thursday in the US, and then people have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off from work.)

Black Friday is often reported as one of the busiest shopping days of the year. Shopping malls are packed with people, parking lots are crowded, and lines at stores are very, very long. Some stores even open at five or six in the morning because there are so many people. Other stores have discounts and sales to draw even more customers.

The word "black" to describe the Friday likely began in Philadelphia in the mid-1960s. Traffic jams filled the roads into the downtown area every year. The stores and sidewalks were overflowing with shoppers. The experience for so many of the people who ventured downtown was stressful and chaotic. It was a terrible, or black, day. Because other cities around the country similarly experienced traffic jams, busy stores, and too many shoppers on the day after Thanksgiving, the term spread. Black Friday became a common idiom in American English.

Although many people may see the day after Thanksgiving negatively, retailers have a very different opinion. It's their best opportunity to improve earnings for the year, and take the business out of the red (loss) and into the black (profit). For example, if sales were slow in the spring, summer, and fall, then the store must attract many customers and make many sales between Thanksgiving and Christmas. The first and most important day of this last chance shopping season is Black Friday.

Of course, there are some people who dislike Black Friday. There are some people who hate the day and its crowds very much. But there are also some people who strongly oppose the shopping day because they believe it harms society. They think that people should consume less and reuse resources more, and so have created a day called "Buy Nothing Day." It falls on the same day as Black Friday, and it encourages people to buy nothing, of course.

However, for most people, Black Friday just presents one more opportunity to go shopping. For those who don't like shopping, then it's one more reason to avoid the stores and shopping malls.

Questions

1. According to the article, what is “Black Friday”?
2. What is the reason why this particular Friday is described as “black”?
3. Do you think shopping on this day is risky and dangerous? Why or why not?
4. Would you venture out to the malls on a Black Friday?
5. Do you think people really save a lot of money during sales?

Loud Cellphone Talker Removed From Quiet Car By Police

Vocabulary

1. loudmouths -(n)-a person who brags or talks too loudly
ex. I try not to be a loudmouth, but I sometimes get carried away.

2. rebellious- (adj) defying or resisting some established authority, government, or tradition; insubordinate; inclined to rebel.
ex. Adolescents who start smoking do so partly because of the rebellious aura attached to it.

3. yapping -( verb-slang)-to talk shrilly, noisily, or foolishly.
ex. The woman kept on yapping even when her husband told her to shut up.

4. aggressive (adj)-vigorously energetic, especially in the use of initiative and forcefulness; making an all-out effort to win or succeed; competitive
ex. Michael Jordan is an aggressive basketball player.

5. belligerent-(adj)-of warlike character; aggressively hostile; marked by readiness to fight or argue
ex. The drunk man became belligerent when policemen arrested him


Amtrak created quiet cars in 2001 when a group of passengers who rode the Philadelphia to D.C. route every morning asked if they could reserve a car where cell-phone loudmouths weren't welcome.

Ever since, the rare havens of quiet have become a battlefield between silence-loving rule-followers and rebellious cell-phone addicts.

KOMO News reports that Lakeysha Beard says she felt "disrespected" by the incident, though passengers said it was Beard who was being rude by refusing to stop yapping while sitting in one of the train's designated quiet cars. She had not stopped talking since the train pulled out of Oakland, California, 16 hours before it reached Salem, Oregon, when a passenger confronted her about the talking. That's when Beard got "aggressive," KATU reports, and conductors stopped the train so that police could remove her and charge her with disorderly conduct.

Civilians and quiet-car champions are supporting her ejection for violating policy at high volume during the 16-hour journey. It doesn't help her cause she became belligerent when confronted about it by one of her fellow passengers.


Exercise I. Comprehension Questions

1. How did Amtrak come up with a quiet car?
2. What did Lakeysha violate?
3. “A passenger confronted her about the talking” – What does this phrase mean?
4. How did Lakeysha react on her removal from the car?
5. Explain this line: “the rare havens of quiet have become a battlefield between silence-loving rule-followers and rebellious cell-phone addicts.”

Exercise II. Your thoughts count!

1. Do you agree on Lakeysha’s ejection for violating policy? Why?
2. What is cell-phone etiquette? How do you observe cell-phone etiquette?
3. Have you ever been annoyed by someone not practicing proper cell-phone etiquete?


Sources: http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_thelookout/20110518/us_yblog_thelookout/loud-cell-phone-talker-removed-from-quiet-car-by-police