People who
decided to do plastic surgery usually do not accept themselves. We can
distinguish many reasons why people undergo such an operation. They want to be
more worthy taking such a step but is true happiness? Most of them believe that
after all their life will become wonderful all of a sudden. They will feel more
comfortable at a job interview, for example, which is one of the benefits.
Another one might be self –confidence, which
obviously all of us want to have.
“No pain no gain”
Keeping the
perfect look is definitely not easy. It happens that nature interference
follows some serious problems. Captivating miss Argentina Solange Magnano didn’t predict that injecting implants into her buttocks will release
surgical fluid into her circulatory system, lungs and brain what caused death
as a result. Of course this is only one example of many in those days. 20th and
21st centuries are the most lucrative for plastic surgeons.
Going through countless amount of plastic surgery
usually indicates being addicted to pursuing our ideal self. People stacked in
such a trap are called“living
dolls”
who are young women or girls.
Thanks to a special diet, exercise, and a plastic surgery she looks like a
living doll. These girls attract attention of people from all over the world.
The most popular are Wang Jia Yun, Dakota Rose, Lhouraii Li, Anzhelika Kenova,
Andy Santana and Mon Yuka, Anastasiya Shpagina and
Valeria Lukyanova. In addition to an admiring look they are criticized for
endangering their own health.
Most of us want to improve our looks
or more precisely, the way people see us. Sometimes people are obsessive about
their prettiness that’s why some of them
decide to do something about that. There are a lot of existing ways to improve
our personal image but probably the most frequent way of solving the problem is
plastic surgery. The name has its roots in a Greek word “plasticon”and means easily giving information.
At the very beginning plastic surgeries were practiced in India where people
were changing appearance of their noses excessively. A nose there was a symbol of pride and
dignity. Nowadays we have no restrictions to change whatever we want in our
body.
Addictions
We have a lot of
addictions nowadays and taking care of our looks isn’t an exception. A scalpel is
swapped for a Botox toxin injection. Some women are addicted that they take an injection
systematically to remove wrinkles. Patients see results after a few months.
Unfortunately it doesn’t
stay too long and the “Mefisto”appears, which is an unwanted
side effect making their faces look a little bit demonic and miserable.
In recent years correction of children’s ears is a real hit.
There will always be a reason for teasing children. Outstanding ears is the
most common thing to laugh down. A child with a complex becomes less confident.
In children’s competitions
girls wear a lipstick, mascara, attachable long curls, artificial teeth, mature
clothing full of splendor. I doubt children should look like this.
I would like to present to you interesting facts about some of my favourite films.
I hope you will enjoy it :)
The Lord Of The Rings saga
Russell Crowe and Daniel Day-Lewis were originally offered the role of the Aragorn but both refused. Therefore the role was proposed to not well-known Irish actor Stuart Townsend but at the last minute the director Peter Jackson concluded that he was is too young to play Aragorn. Just before the shot he replaced him with unknown to general public, Danish origin, Viggo Mortensen. It was a great decision!
In one of "The Two Towers" scene Aragorn (played by Viggo) saw a pyre of burned orcs and feared that the hobbits Merry and Pippin had been killed. Filled with rage and grief he kicked a helmet, screamed at the sky and then fell on his knees. The helmet was made of steel and doing that Mortensen actually broke two of his toes. The scream was real pain expression. Peter Jackson was so pleased with the result that the scene ended up in the film.
Take a look at the video below.
I’m so impressed with Mortensen’s acting that I have to mention one more thing. Viggo enjoyed his role so much that he took fencing lessons so he could play battle scenes in a more realistic way.
Furthermore V (as they called Mortensen on a film set) refused to play with a prop! His sword was heavy because it was made of real steel. He wanted to express real effort during battle scenes.
A choreographer and fencer who worked on “Lord of the Rings” said that V was the best swordsman he ever trained.
Sean Connery was originally offered the role of Gandalf but had never read the “Lord of the Rings” books and he said that he didn’t understand the script so he didn’t want the role.
An interesting fact is that he was offered 15% of the film’s total box office receipts.
This would give him about 400 million dollars! No one has ever been paid so much for a single role.
Sean Bean who played Boromir hates to fly and boards a plane only when there is no other way to get to a place.
Because of the fear he refused a helicopter ride to a set which was high in the mountain.
There wasn’t always possibility to take a makeup man on the set so Sean hiked up in his full character armor every day when a shot took place up in the mountains.
One thing is that armor was heavy, and the other thing - hiking took hours.
Did you know that Peter Jackson wantedWojciech Kilar as "The Lord Of The Rings" music producer ? Yes, that’s true!
Unfortunately producers didn’t agree with him and Howard Shore took this job. I must say he did well…the music is magnificent!
Shore won two (!) Oscars for the best music in 2002 ("The Fellowship Of The Ring") and 2004 ("The Return of the King").
Listen to a sample of an "Uruk-hai theme":
For the production purposes, the crew built a real hobbit village in New Zealand. Now when shots are over the village is open for tourists.
If you want to see the hobbit’s place or drink beer in the story’s “Green Dragon’s” pub just go to www.hobbitontours.com and book your room :)
The Dark Knight
Christopher Nolan, the director, told to build a hospital near an old parking shell and blew it just to make one single scene with the Joker. It took weeks to plant charges that allow the building to collapse sequentially. It had to be done carefully because they would have only one chance to film explosion correctly. Luckily everything went smoothly.
In the scene of Joker’s interrogation both actors Ledger and Christian Bale were improvised for a while. This part of the movie is kind of brutal and the fact they improvised is really impressive. Great acting.
Fans and film critics outraged because Ledger played mostly in films for teenagers. Offering him the role was a controversial decision but his play was astonishing! Unfortunately he died of drug overdose shortly after the end of shots. After a few weeks he was awarded an Oscar posthumously. This happened for the second time it the Oscar’s history. A well played Joker changed the way fans saw his acting.
The Matrix trilogy
In the training room before the attack on Morpheus Neo rubs his nose in a characteristic way, similar to that presented by Bruce Lee. This movement was improvised by Reeves.
Wachowski brothers asked Warner for 80 million dollars for their film. Warner said no and gave them only 10 million. The directors took the money and filmed the initial stage of the film with the escape of one of main characters – Trinity. This cost the whole 10 million. Warner representatives were so impressed that they agreed to pay the rest of the amount.
Here’s that impressive scene:
As you can see, almost all of the scenes in the Matrix are light green color, as if it were being viewed through a computer monitor, and the scenes in the real world are deprived of it.
In Greek mythology, Morpheus is the god of sleep. Morpheus in the film awakes people.
Signs on computer screens, which symbolize the Matrix code are reversed letters of the Latin alphabet, numbers and katakana - Japanese alphabet characters.
"The Matrix" was the first film when the “bullet time” technique was used. By 2002, this technique had been used to create more than 20 different movies.
The technique is based on the CGI (Computer Generated Imagery) and processing sequence of photographs taken with a large number of cameras.
Making of bullet time:
Final result:
In this film, we can admire shooting and explosion scenes. Most of them were created through CGI, but one thing couldn’t be generated by a computer - the road. To shot the scene on a highway Wachowskis commissioned the construction of a 2.4 kilometer stretch of highway at a military base in California!
The motorway exits and the walls with the height of 5.8 meters were real. To shot this scene, General Motors offered more than 100 cars, which were completely destroyed!
Remember the scene when Neo had to decide in which world he would like to live? The real or the fake one?
If Morpheus asked you which pill would you choose? :)
"You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I’ll show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."
The Wachowskis said they would choose the blue pill…
Django Unchained
The horse, Django, is actually the horse of Jamie Foxx – an actor who played Django. The actor got it for his birthday a few years before. Tarantino's role in the film was a great opportunity to ensure that Foxx could present his skills in front of the camera.
Leonardo DiCaprio, who played Calvin Candie, did everything to evoke terror among viewers. In one scene, Candie hits the table and smashes a glass which hurts his hand.
This scene wasn’t in the scenario. DiCaprio really cut his hand, and despite the blood that dripped from the wound heavily, he didn’t stop the shot even for a moment.
Thanks to his character, he presented even greater signs of madness. Quentin Tarantino, the director was delighted.
Slaves fights shown in the film were not really a historical fact, despite what Tarantino says. He was inspired by fights presented in the book "Mandingo". In his version there is only one winner - the one who survives. The fact is that a black slave cost a lot of money and it would be uneconomical to sentence him to death in a duel.
But on the other hand, there was something like a “nigger fight”. Fights took place during annual festivals arranged by the owners of cotton plantations. Fighters couldn’t use any weapons, and the fight lasted until when one of the "owners" didn’t stop the fight.
Do you like
spring? What would you say about living on an island
where spring is an entire year? Let me introduce Madeira – the land of
eternal spring.
Basic information
Madeira is a
Portuguese territory located on the Atlantic
Ocean about 400 kilometers from the Canary Islands. The total
area of island is pretty small: 801 km2. The capital city is Funchal (Cristiano
Ronaldo’s place of birth). The average temperature is 19 degrees in winter and
24 degrees in summer.
Picture 1 - Madeira (source: mapy.google.pl)
Picture 2 - Madeira Island (source: itaka.pl)
Levadas
Levadas are
small irrigation canals that bring water from the north springs to the south side of the
island. There
are over 2,170 km of levadas and nowadays they provide a remarkable network of
walking paths.
Picture 3 - Levada (source: visitmadeira.pt)
The views
are absolutely amazing. 25 Fontes Levada with Risco waterfall and cascades of 25 fountains
composed of many waterfalls.
Picture 4 - Risco Waterfall (Copyright to Me)
Picture 5 - 25 Fontes (Copyright to Me)
The
distance isn’t very long (about 4,5 km one-way) ,
but the path itself is
difficult. I hope that this movie can
explain it a little:
You can see
wet stones and a cliff on the left. On the right,
there is a levada
canal itself. The water is clean and very tasty.
Cabo Girão
Cabo Girão
is the 6th highest cliff in Europe with the height of 580 meters. The Cliff became famous in 2012 when in October
special glass-floored viewing platform was installed. The height is a little
scary especially for those who have acrophobia.
Forgive me
for not sharing with you my own photos… but… I
was too scared to take
one because of the height.
A few words
about the airport. Madeira has only one airport
in Santa Cruz. It’s one of the most interesting and dangerous airports in the world. In order to extend the runway in 2010
it was released over the Atlantic Ocean on 180 columns with a height of
approximately 70 meters each. One year ago when I was flying to Madeira the pilot told us that in Poland there are
only two pilots who have qualifications to land at that airport.
Picture 8 - Madeira Airport (source: google graphics)
Picture 9 - Madeira Airport (source: google graphics)
Summary
For the
time being Madeira is my favorite place which I have ever visited. It’s one of
those which make you think of moving there. Favorable
climate, a lot of green areas, ocean, fresh seafood
and very tasty wine.
What is
worth mentioning, in 2014 Madeira won for the
second time a prestigious
title of “Europe's Leading Island
Destination 2014” by World Travel Awards.
Motto of
Madeira: Of all islands, the most
beautiful and free
Most of us are currently trying to overcome the lack of creativity or motivation to make progress in writing their masters’ thesis in these warmer and warmer spring evenings (or not? Please correct me if I’m wrong :) ). I struggled with these issues more than I expected just a few months ago, but I tried to fight off these problems with some mind-tricks which I would like to share in this post.
First of all...
Get in the zone
Leave Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, video games, Game of Thrones, House of Cards, The Walking Dead etc. Try to position your mindset in the ‘working mode’ for these couple of months. Eventually, it will come natural that every weekday evening you would devote your time to putting the work into the thesis exclusively.
The 15 minute rule
Read or write for at least 15 minutes a day, no matter how much production it would give. The point is to force and make a habit of putting the work every day and keep the habit going until you finish. This works great even, when you’re tired after work - 15 minutes of reading a thesis related book and you’re done. When in the mood and full of energy - these 15 minutes will extend to 150 or more per day.
The 15 minute rule alternative
You’re not the only one struggling
Do not bother about all the other guys who might or actually are ahead of you with the progress. This is one of the most demotivating thoughts when creating anything. Almost everybody in a similar position as yours is struggling to write the thesis.
Write in non-stop sprints
Do not think too much of the structure, and introduction and conclusions when creating new content. It’s better to transfer your thought into concrete text, and then introduce and conclude the chapter. The key is to write fast, then, when doing a review, worry about rephrasing and proofreading your text.
Contemplate, envision
Contemplate the topic of your thesis during your downtime - you do not think about anything particularly important during breaks or travel so you’re better off thinking about something useful than waste precious time in the void.
Share your experience with others
It is always useful to share your progress outside your shell. Someone will definitely turn out to have some valuable tips. You might also hit the jackpot and discover that someone has written a thesis, article or has developed interest in your thesis’ topic. But beware not to ‘overshare’, otherwise your friends will be put off by your obsession.
Contact your thesis supervisor as frequently as possible
That is obvious in theory, but in many cases - not attended. This is a key, when your concept melts down or you are out of ideas. Your advisor will also notify you when you’re going the wrong way with the topic and it is better to catch that sooner than later, as a huge chunk of unsupervised text might go to trash.
Give yourself a breather
Always comes in handy
Relax once or twice a week - watch a movie, do some sports, meet with your friends and/or partner. This will clear your mind and prevent from completely alienating yourself from the world.
Make notes
You may (or rather - will) accidentally (or not) get a thought or a topic to add to your thesis - write it down. It doesn’t have to be elaborate - just a single phrase to remember and develop when you sit down and start writing. Nowadays we have many tools like Evernote to quickly make notes and associate a media resource with them.
Take a (audio)book whenever you can
This is linked with the “Contemplate, envision” tip. Most of us are full-time employed (and not working from home) and the main problem with gathering data and/or knowledge is the lack of time or insufficient time management. Have you wondered how much free time we have while travelling to or from our workplace?
