Happy Andalusia Day!

Andalusia Day (‘Día de Andalucía‘ in Spanish) commemorates the referendum for Andalucia to become an autonomous community within Spain, which was held on February 28, 1980. So this year the 33th anniversary of their Statute of Autonomy is honoured.

Andalusia is internationally renowned for its impressive natural beauty, but also for the warm and hospitable character of local people. This is why everyone is more than welcome to come in and join the festivities. The question is: how do they celebrate Andalusia Day?

 

And the Oscar goes to…

We’ve been counting down the hours till the celebrities hit the red carpet, and we finally have the list of the lucky winners. The Oscars ceremony is over, and this marks the ending of the film award season. Oscars fans will have to wait a whole year for the celebration to come again, but in the meanwhile, and to make the waiting experience a bit less distressing, we can delight ourselves with the best acceptance speeches and quotes from the red carpet and backstage.

For a start, let’s have a look at Ben Affleck words.

In his guise as producer, Affleck accepted the best picture awards for Argo. He used the speech to look back to 1998, when he and Matt Damon won the best screenplay award for Good Will Hunting, and to his rocky Hollywood career in the intervening years.

“I was here 15 years ago and I had no idea what I was doing, stood out here in front of you all, I was just a kid. I never thought I’d be back.”

“So many people extended themselves to me and I want to thank them. You can’t hold grudges, it’s hard, but you can’t hold grudges.”

“It doesn’t matter how you get knocked down in life. All that matters is that you get up,” he said, choking back tears.

All is fair in love and war

Valentine’s Day is back and no one seems to be indifferent. While many argue V-Day is a commercial invention, even when based on historical events, some others are so overwrought that would go as far as to hire an online fake girl/boyfriend to pretend being in a relationship. That way, if you don’t have a date on Valentine’s, at least you can keep up appearances on Facebook. All is fair in love and war.

The contemporary hype surrounding this festivity puts many couples off going for a big celebration, but we can still see it as the perfect excuse to do something kind for the people we care for, and that is our humble suggestion at The English Cam. So dear late but thoughtful Valentine’s gift-givers, here we go!

Let’s start with the V-Day must: a card. Instead of buying it, we can show our DIY spirit and create it ourselves. If you need a bit of help, you can download our card here (small size or big size) and fill it with your feelings to let people around you know your reasons to celebrate love. Needless to say, we’re not only speaking about romantic love. What about your unconditionally supportive friends and your endlessly caring relatives? What about your most inspiring and charismatic teacher? What about that neighbour who always gives you a hand with your shopping bags? Tell them how lucky you feel that they’re part of your life.

Maybe these lines will help you come up with your own stroke of genius. So let’s celebrate love because…

Life is like a box of chocolates

We have a theory: anything gets better with chocolate. Whether we’re talking about muffins, beer or a bad day, we’ve carried out a series of homemade experiments and can guarantee that chocolate always works its magic!

Yes, we admit it, we have a craving for chocolate. In fact, we enjoy chocolate as much as we appreciate design, so when we found this Chocolates with Attitude limited edition box, we just couldn’t help falling in love.

New Year’s Resolutions

New Year’s Resolutions* are promises that you make to yourself to do or to not do something in the New Year. The term ‘resolution’ implies that you are really determined to achieve them, not allowing anyone or anything to stop you. This is the utopian theory, but what happens in practice? I think most of us will agree you’ll be lucky if you manage to stick to your New Year Resolutions by the end of January.

If you think this is the most likely scenario, you ‘ll probably feel discouraged to invest some time and effort in thinking about your own resolutions. However, research shows us we may be wrong. Curious to know why? Then keep your eyes (and ears) peeled! 

Welcome to the English Cam!

We spend years and years trying to learn English. We study at school, sign up for extracurricular lessons, hire a private teacher and even go to an English summer camp. At least we can say we have an intermediate level of English now, right?

But we still find ourselves wondering how you say this or that in English, and then we realise some things can never be learned from coursebooks. Let’s face it, you only run into some stuff in real life.