Botany

This post is a follow up to the BBC documentary we watched last week, Seasonal Forests. The other day your classmate Oian brought to class a book he had on English for Agroforestry Specialties, and I think it is quite useful to learn some more new specific terms on nature and forests. So thanks, Oian! Here I ulpload a few pages of Lesson 1: Botany. There are some activities too, so I think you should all take a look at it.

Botany Vocabulary

A follow up to your pronunciation workshop

After so much sweating last Friday, I figure you might as well like to try the fun part of this jungle of phonetic symbols... This game is called Guess the celebrity behind ! What follows is a classic matching exercise where you have a set of names and surnames of actors and actresses to match, but first you will have to take off their phonetic disguise!
And I'd like to thank my friend and fellow teacher Cristina Sánchez Soto for this activity!

Celebs in Phonetic Disguise_matching exercise

And now check your phonetic abilities below

Celebs in phonetic disguise_key to the exercise

Seasonal Forests

Remember the motto Think global, act local we were talking about in class? Well, now we're gonna go from the local to the global: Here follows an awesome documentary on Seasonal Forests all over the world, by BBC Planet Earth. Please, enjoy the scenery, the images are just stunning . But, of course -and  not to forget what we're here for, before watching the video, complete the worsheet below:

Seasonal Forests: Students' worksheet

Work on the new vocabulary, and read the listening comprehension questions, you should be able to answer these as you watch the video, or once you've watched it.
And now, enjoy the documentary:

Planet Earth: Seasonal Forests

(NOTE: If you want to have English subtitles on it, download this file Seasonal Forests_English subtitles, and save it in the same folder as the .avi file above. Then use theVLC media player to reproduce the .avi file.)

Have a beautiful and relaxing week!

Moral Dilemmas

A moral dilemma arises when we have to choose to do one of two equally unpleasant things. To be in a moral dilemma is to be faced with a situation in which no matter what you do, you think you do wrong. Thankfully, most of us do not come across dire situations that present a moral dilemma, but we all have experienced the bitter feeling of having to take hard decisions in our lives, haven't we? In these situations it is never easy to tell right from wrong. Let us see one experiment in ethics, aimed at studying people's feelings and reactions:

 The cave explorers:

"An enormous rock falls and blocks the exit of a cave you and five other tourists have been exploring. Fortunately, you spot a hole elsewhere and decide to let "Big Jack" out first. But Big Jack, a man of generous proportions, gets stuck in the hole. He cannot be moved and there is no other way out. The high tide is rising and, unless you get out soon, everyone but Big Jack (whose head is sticking out of the cave) will inevitably drown. Searching through your backpack, you find a stick of dynamite. It will not move the rock, but will certainly blast Big Jack out of the hole. Big Jack, anticipating your thoughts, pleads for his life. He does not want to die, but neither do you and your four companions. Should you blast Big Jack out?"

 We will discuss this moral dilemma in class next week... But meanwhile... Do you guys remember the movie Se7en? This very famous film from the 90s, about two homicide detectives on a desperate hunt for a serial killer who justifies his crimes as absolution for the world's ignorance of the Seven Deadly Sins? Well, its very last scene depicts one moral dilemma Brad Pitt's character apparently is having: Should he kill the deranged serial killer who has decapitated his wife, even if this means the serial killer triumphs from beyond the grave? Does he really want to spend the rest of his life trapped inside the logic of the killer's warped, psychopathic system? But could he live without avenging his wife's death?

Abbreviations in English

Hello there,

A while ago we went through some commonly used English abbreviations in class, and a few days later one of your classmates emailed me a file with a really nice list of them. As you could see, English is actually full of them, especially in instant messaging. Some of them are all time classics, just like the one above, do it yourself, a motto back from the seventies which comprised this idea that we are all creators, no need to hold back our hidden creativity! (BTW, it also means "bricolaje"!) So feel free to come up with a new abbreviation of your own and spread it around!

Click on this link to see the list of abbreviations

And thanks, Luis Alberto, for sharing it with us!

Malapropisms and Spoonerisms

Malapropism is a form of mis-speech which usually provokes much hilarity among those who witness it. It occurs when the speaker wrongly uses a word or phrase to mean something different, just because the words sound similar, for example: He had to use a fire distinguisher. Sometimes, speakers are totally unaware of the fact they are using it wrong, and that's when people start laughing. One of the great icons of malapropisms is no other than the former US president George W. Bush, whose malapropisms were so well-known that they were collected and published in a book called Bushisms. But, of course, as he once claimed, "They misunderestimated me"...

Spoonerism is an error in speech or deliberate play on words that results in the switching of the first letter of two words in the same sentence. Some of them are pretty creative and hilarious, just like the Queen and the Dean above... I remember one of my friends from Edinburgh saying "It's roaring with pain", instead of... who can guess?

Here follow some malapropism and spoonerisms for you to have a laugh. And, if you would like to add some more to the list, be my guest! We could share some new ones in class next week.

He is the very pineapple of politeness                                        Go and shake a tower

Having one wife is called monotony                                          Know your blows

My sister has extra-century perception                                   You have very mad banner

"This is unparalyzed in the state's history"                                 Lack of pies

Gib Lewis, Texas Speaker of the House                                     This is the pun fart

"It will take time to restore chaos and order"                           I must mend the sail

George W. Bush

A friendly visitor of this blog shared with us a short extract of a radio program precisely about Misnomers and Malapropisms, from Minnesota Public Radio. Click on this link to learn more about this tendency we sometimes have to confuse like-sounding words:

Misnomers and Malapropisms on the radio

And remember: Reading is important to avoid talking like some former world leaders...

Huelga General del 14N: carta abierta a mis estudiantes

Hola a todo el mundo:

Ante la huelga general a la que estamos convocados este próximo miércoles, me gustaría compartir con mis estudiantes las razones por las que me adhiero moralmente (moralmente porque estaré cumpliendo servicios mínimos) a esta huelga como profesora de lo público, y como miembro de una comunidad que comparto gustosamente con vosotros y vosotras: las Escuelas Oficiales de Idiomas. Quiero exponer aquí que mis razones para apoyar la movilización se resumen en una cuestión conceptual fundamental: el concepto de derecho frente al concepto de negocio.

Ya no queda la más mínima duda de que en la agenda de nuestros administradores está el desposeernos del derecho de aprender, de formarnos, para poder ser a la vez personas más libres, pensadoras, críticas, y en definitiva más ciudadanas. Lo considero derecho, y por tanto lo considero derecho de tod@s.  Nuestros señores administradores no lo consideran derecho, y mucho menos derecho de tod@s. Ellos no se rigen por los derechos, eso sería dejar de ganar mucha pasta: ellos se rigen por los beneficios. Una vez han saqueado nuestro derecho a una vivienda, ahora vuelven sus miradas hacia nuevos territorios que perforar para seguir sacando el máximo beneficio: la salud, el agua, la educación... Sus posibilidades de hacer business con dimensiones tan fundamentales del ser humano son inmensas, y creen que nada les puede parar.

Detrás de la brutal subida de tasas de matrícula en casi todos los tramos de la educación pública, incluidas las Escuelas de Idiomas, está el propósito de acabar con nuestro derecho a aprender y a formarnos. Cada vez son menos las personas que tendrán acceso al "privilegio" de entrar en un aula. Nos han reducido de ciudadanos a consumidores, con unas únicas reglas de juego: las de su propio beneficio. Quien crea que ellos pararán la maquinaria, o que este plan de condenar paulatinamente a cada vez más gente a la exclusión tiene algún límite cercano, se equivoca. Las Escuelas de Idiomas están en el punto de mira de su plan de recortes-beneficios, les encantaría poder hacerlas desaparecer de lo público, y ya han movido varias fichas en el tablero: la súbita subida de tasas en un 250%, como siempre por la espalda, responde exclusivamente a este plan. Está claro que se ven fuertes, pues habrá que decirles que nosotr@s somos más fuertes, que somos más, y que defendemos el derecho de todas las personas a poder venir a clase, y que queremos que nuestr@s compañer@s profes vuelvan a clase también. El miércoles apoyaré la huelga, y el jueves seguiré defendiendo que las Escuelas de Idiomas, desde hace 101 años, también son de tod@s y para tod@s.

US Election System

Last week we learned how the US election system works. As you could see, it differs considerably from a system based on the popular vote. As a matter of fact, four presidents in the history of the US took office without winning the popular vote, Mr. George W. Bush included. Watch the video again, so that you can review the vocabulary for electing a president, and maybe you can write and share your reflection on it with the class.

So what's up with Maine and Nebraska?

Maine and Nebraska both use an alternative method of distributing their electoral votes, called the Congressional District Method. Currently, these two states are the only two in the union that diverge from the traditional winner-take-all method of electoral vote allocation.  

With the district method, a state divides itself into a number of districts, allocating one of its state-wide electoral votes to each district.  The winner of each district is awarded that district’s electoral vote, and the winner of the state-wide vote is then awarded the state’s remaining two electoral votes.  

This method has been used in Maine since 1972 and Nebraska since 1996, though since both states have adopted this modification, the statewide winners have consistently swept all of the state’s districts as well.  Consequently, neither state has ever split its electoral votes. 

Although this method still fails to reach the full ideal of one-man one-vote, it has been proposed as a nationwide reform for the way in which Electoral votes are distributed.

Writing assignment for Halloween

Hello there,

As part of your homework for Halloween (I know... what a bummer...sorry...),  you have to write a report about the topic below, following the practice and instructions given on the coursebook, pages 16 and 17, under the headings Reading and Writing Skills. Complete the exercises step by step, and get ready to write a report of which the title is:

A new form of Romance: Finding love in the Internet

Write about 140 words. Divide your report into four or five paragraphs, making sure you introduce the topic in one paragraph, develop the main ideas in two or three paragraphs, and conclude and give your personal opinion in a last paragraph, ok? Oops... And happy Halloween!

How optimistic are you?

Some people are always thinking about the worst things that can happen to them... Some other people are constantly wearing these rose-tinted glasses that make them totally oblivious to possible dangers, and most of us prefer to see the glass half full most of the times, while staying on the realistic side of life.   

Tali Sharot is a researcher who after conducting several lab studies believes that we are born to be optimistic, and that we are actually biased to look on the bright side of life. 

Click on the link below to review vocabulary and expressions, and get ready to watch her talk again. Next week I would like you to share your comments and ideas in class, so click on the open questions to get started!

Tali Sharot's vocabulary and expressions

Open questions on Tali Sharot's talk

It's all about taking risks...

You have probably realised by now that learning a second language means taking risks, and regaining your own creativity! You need to be creative, imaginative and, above all, you need to lose your fear of being wrong! 

Here follows the talk Kevin Robinson gave at TED several years ago, where he speaks about our current education system, and some things that we should change if we want to make the most of our human capacities. 

But first, before watching the video, review the list of vocabulary and expressions he uses, which a) I think you should know, and b) are gonna help you follow the thread of the story, ok? 

                                         Click here to see the vocabulary list 

Click here to see the vocabulary list

And now enjoy the lecture! I tell you, he's definitely a fun guy!

Now, could you please answer these open questions about his talk? We'll be discussing his points of view in class next week! Cheers!

Click here to answer the open questions
Click here to answer the open questions

School Calendar

Hey, but, are we going to school this Friday?.. Click on the link below to find out!

School Calendar

First day of class Info: Year 2012-13

Click on this link to view full information

The Yes Men fix the world

Do you wanna see more bold people acting? then you guys gotta chek this out. The Yes Men are a group of culture jamming activists who practice what they call "identity correction" by pretending to be the powerful people and spokespersons por prominent organizations. They create and maintain fake websites similat to the ones they want to spoof, and then they accept invitations received on their websites to appear at conferences, symposia, and TV shows. What they come up with while doing all this is simply amazing! A perfect film to stir up a hot and lazy summer day...

Have you ever wondered...?

Please, don't miss Victoria Grant, the 12 year-old Canadian girl who boldly explains the corrupt banking system we're suffering right now. Question is: How come banks get richer and richer while we get poorer and poorer? Well, according to Victoria Grant, simply because we're being robbed! Don't miss the girl! And thanks, Cosmina, for the heads up!

Listen again

Dear all,

Find in these links below the audio tracks you heard this week in your listening test. Remember we listened to three different tasks. You may want to do them all again, with your exam sheet, but do not look at the answers I gave you in class until you're done with the listening questions.

Part 1: Feng Shui

Part 2: Charles Duke

Part 3: Headings

Answer key to the latest grammar points

And here you have the key to units 8, 9 & 10 of the grammar section of the coursebook:

Grammar section, units 8, 9 & 10

And the answer key to the phrasal verbs photocopy:

key to the phrasal verbs photocopy

Cloze: Bill Gates

Click on this link to view the gapped text on Bill Gates.

Click on this other link to view the answer key to this cloze.

Preparing the oral exam

Please, find below the topics you may be asked to talk about during your speaking exam:

Topics for the speaking exam

Unit 10: Use of the present participle clause...

And not on a such a different note... Gervasio Sánchez's photography

This is my personal recommendation of a photography exhibit currently shown at La Tabacalera, in Embajadores street in Madrid, until June 10th: Gervasio Sánchez was awarded with the Ortega y Gasset Photography prize for his work on lands and peoples who have been suffering war, poverty and violence for decades: Cambodia, the Balkans, Sierra Leona, Liberia, El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala, etc...
Let me warn you that this is not a compilation of pictures that is going to put a smile on your face, unlike the previous post. But life is about joy, and pain too, don't you think? One of the objectives of Gervasio Sánchez's photography, anyway, is to reflect  the dignity of war victims when reclaiming their right to regain happiness.

And this is his speech when receiving the Ortega y Gasset Award, censored, by the way. It's in Spanish, so don't feel obliged to see it if you don't feel like it.

Impossible Photography

Road workers' coffee break

Last week we could all enjoy Erik Johansson's impossible images in class. His work sparked a debate on the everchanging nature of digital photography, its new methods, goals, and perspectives. Here I upload the set of pictures we saw, and the video with the author explaining how he understands photography. And remember, as he simply puts it, that "the only thing that limits us is our imagination"!

Erik Johansson's images

And now you might want to listen to his talk again. I really believe it's a nice presentation, since he does manage to get his ideas on photography nicely across.
Note: Remember to click on English at the bottom if you wanna have subtitles.

And finally, click on the link below to view the 

answers to the listening comprehension questions. 

Fake or Real? II

And this is one of the most visited videos in 2011, a breathtaking recording of animal interaction in a nature preserve called Kruger, in South Africa. Judge by yourselves: fake or real?

Pretty amazing, huh? But there's always room for some critical reflection here:  Do you think the man may be somehow involved in the way animals interact here? Maybe you wanna think about the dimensions of park safaris like this one...

Fake or Real?

... So do lemmings really commit suicide? This has been a question sometimes heard in conversations about wild life in the last fifty years... Well, the answer is no, lemmings do not commit suicide. Where does that myth come from? In 1958 Walt Disney produced White Wilderness, part of the studio's True Life Adventure series. This documentary featured a segment on lemmings, detailing their strange compulsion to commit mass suicide. But this was all fake. In fact, it was staged: The lemmings supposedly committing mass suicide by leaping into the ocean were actually thrown off the cliff by Disney filmmakers! The epic "lemming migration" was staged using careful editing, tight camera angles and a few dozen lemmings running on a snow covered turntable.
As Karl S. Kruszelnicki puts it in his article, considering a company like Disney, where one rodent, namely Mickey Mouse, was Royalty, it's rather odd to think that Disney could be so unkind to another rodent, the lemming...

Read more about the lemming suicide myth here

Political Causes of World Hunger: A talk by Nuria Rebato

Dear all,

Hope you had a nice timeout these past days. And hope you're ready to get back to English! For starters, here I attach the great presentation Nuria gave on World Hunger and some of the real causes lying behind. Thanks a lot Nuria, for sharing your work with us!

Political Causes of World Hunger, by Nuria Rebato

Writing an Essay on Childhood Obesity

After the practice we did in class on the basic components of an article or essay. After these fun titles we came up with for some given topics. After learning about what a topic sentence is, and managing the structure and layout of an article, here comes your writing assignment for the month: Child Obesity in Spain.
Click on the link below and write about this topic as suggested in Exercise 1. Write about 180 words.

Exercise 1: Writing and Essay on Child Obesity in Spain

English Idioms, Sayings, and Proverbs

Dear all,
Here I attach the full document wih the English idioms, sayings and proverbs we were going through the other day in class. Definitions and explanations are also included in this post for your convenience. But remember this very old proverb: Soon learnt, soon forgotten, so you don't want to rush with this material. Savour the cognitive and cultural frames behind them instead.

English Idioms and Proverbs

English Sayings and Proverbs

Do we also have some of these images in Spanish? Maybe you would like to look into parallel structures in both languages! And what about Romanian, Diana and Cosmina?

Collapse: A follow up to David's talk on the financial crisis

Collapse is a documentary on Michael Ruppert, a police officer turned independent reporter who predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter, From the Wilderness, way before  it happened. He's now an investigative journalist and peak oil theorist. Whether a crackpot or a visionary, his theories leave no one feeling indifferent. This film, controversial as it may be, is probably going to catch your attention, especially after the discussion we had yesterday in class. And thanks David for sparking the debate. 

Click here to watch the documentary

Why I am leaving Goldman Sachs

Since the new topic of the week is Power and Money, I recommend you to read this letter published in the New York Times, written by Greg Smith, who is resigning today as a Goldman Sachs executive director and head of the firm's United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Reasons for resigning from his job in Goldman Sachs? He states them fairly clear, just read on! 

Greg Smith's resignation letter

PS.: And thanks, Carlos Estangüi, for the heads up!

The ancient art of Rhetoric in current politics? Oops...

Now that we are learning a bunch of rhetorical techniques in class to enhance our persuading skills, check out these two good examples of the famous Lists of three things technique... terribly failing! The first one is the 47th Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, in the Republican Presidential Debate in November, 2011. The other guy is Oscar Blanco, town councilor in Aranjuez, going oops at roughly the same time. Do they sound convincing to you??

I Shall Be Free No. 10, by Bob Dylan

As a follow up to his talk on Bob Dylan, Carlos chose this song from his second album, The Freewheelin', released in year 1963. Listen to the song while you read the lyrics. Apart from being an amazing musician, he's definitely a great portrait artist of his times: the US in the sixties. Enjoy!

I shall Be Free No. 10, by Bob Dylan_lyrics

I Shall Be Free No. 10, by Bob Dylan_song

Generation gap or brain gap?

Yesterday we listened to this talk about the so-called Generation Y, remember? Among other things, this generation is thought to be digital native, right? Well, I'd like you to watch this interview with Dr. Gary Small, who recently published his last book called iBrain, talking about the technological alterations of the modern mind. Is the last generation gap rather a brain gap? You'll find out, and, once you're done watching, of course, go ahead and answer the comprehension questions below.

The iBrain: Comprehension questions

Next March 9th it is... The pronunciation workshop is here!!

Dear all,

After such hard work with the mid-year exam, how about a change of tune and some fun listening to your classmates pronouncing those so much dreaded words and endings you never wanted to utter? I suggest meeting on Friday March 9th for a pronunciation workshop. Let's say 6 o'clock in our classroom. Everybody is welcome! So... You guys down for it? Yeah!

Modern Family: Bicycle Thief

Ok, guys, after watching the Bicycle Thief episode in class, and revising the vocabulary, I really think you should watch it again, so as to get acquainted with these new words and expressions. Plus, I'm sure you'll be able to catch more funny lines this second time! So just have a laugh with it!

Download the video here

dowload the subtitles here

vocabulary sheet

And one more cloze for the road

I figure you'd find a cloze exercise pretty timely before the mid-year exam... And, please, do me this favor and do not peek at the answer key until you have sweated on your decisions!

Cloze: Spacemen's Autographs

More on Crime and Punishment

Dear all,

Since it's perfect time in the year to revise the work done in class, here I attach a gapped text on the so-called cyber crime -incidentally a pretty burning subject nowadays-, accompanied by some related vocabulary exercise to work on.

Crime and Punishment_Reading

And just for the laugh in these sour times...:

The Hazards of Bottled Water

Yesterday we had a pretty interesting discussion about the hazards of plastic bottles, the so-called 6th continent in the Pacific, and civic and corporate responsibilities for all this terrible hazardous waste. Thanks, Silvana, for bringing up this topic! Here follow a brief explanation of this new human-made continent, and the news on this Australian town which banned bottled water.

"There is a patch of floating garbage in the North Pacific.

It is twice the size of Texas.

It is so large, that is has been dubbed the 6th Continent.

It is not a pretty sight and it is killing the ocean.

One of the major causes is people drinking water from plastic bottles.

In the US alone, 173,589,041 plastic bottles are dumped in the oceans

every day.

Yes, you read it right, over 173 million plastic bottles, every day.

People, stop drinking from disposable plastic bottles and switch to

reusable bottles .

It will save you money and give the oceans a chance."

Note on subtitles: If you want to read the English subtitles, click on CC at the bottom of the clip and then click on Transcibir Audio.

About the Mapuche People

Rossana sent me the Mapuche music that she wanted to play in class but couldn't, due to some technical problems. Here I attach it, together with a brief comment on their current situation in Chile. Thanks, Rossana, and see you later, guys!

Mapuche People

Music by the Mapuche People

More Recommendations on Film Noir and Thrillers

Here follows a bunch of movies and a brief synopsis of them sent by some of your fellow students from NA1. Thanks to all of them!

Diana Chitu: Farewell, My Lovely, by Dick Richards (1975)

Antonio Ruiz: A Time To Kill, by Joe Schumacher (1996)

Antonio Ruiz: Erin Brockovich, by Steven Soderbergh (2000)

Carlos Marques: A Few Good Men, by Rob Reiner (1992)

Elena Martínez: The Shawshank Redemption, by Frank Darabont (1994)

Elena Martínez: The Green Mile, by Frank Darabont (1999)

Rossana Osorio: The Music Box, by Constantin Costa-Gavras (1989)

Natalia: Suspicion, by Alfred Hitchcock (1941)

Juan Carlos Díaz: To Kill a Mocking Bird, by Robert Mulligan (1962)
Carmen de Blas: The Da Vinci Code, by Ron Howard (2006)
Rafael Torrico: A Beautiful Mind, by Ron Howard (2001)

Luis Sánchez: Goodfellas, by Martin Scorsese (1990)

... And this is an open list, I mean, I'm actually expecting the list to grow longer!

Witness for the Prosecution

One of the greatest trial movies ever. Billy Wilder directed an amazing Charles Laughton and an even greater Marlene Dietrich, who encountered each other in court over a murder case: He's the defense lawyer, she's the witness for the prosecution. Who do you think wins this duel? Well, you will have to watch the film, but remember not to reveal the ending to anybody!!

Ah!: Did you guys spot the lack of pies in court? ;)

The Argument Clinic, by the genious Monty Python

Guys, now that we have already commited ourselves to putting something on stage for the Spring festival... We gotta start getting down to it! First step: research on what we wanna perform. The Pythons sound like a great choice to me! Here you have the sketch we watched yesterday, but try and come with some other proposals to class, will you?
BTW, don't you think an argument clinic is just an awesome way to avoid split-ups and fall-aparts with family and friends in these stressful times? We should all get a voucher for Xmas!
Note on Grammar: Never too late to practice the fabulous British question tags and short sentences!

But who on earth invented this language?

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world! But, please, take the reading gradually, you don't wanna go totally nuts with this!

Dearest Creature in Creation, Study English Pronunciation

...And thanks, Lisardo, for such a great Xmas present...

Hooked on Facebook?

Most of us have already debated about the use, abuse, and misuse of social networks, haven't we? Well, those who missed Casandra's presentation yesterday might want to take a look at this video she showed in class: the "Facebook Song". I think it's pretty cool, and if nothing else, got a whole bunch of words related to social networks, so you should listen out for them! And thanks, Casandra!

Leonard Cohen - Cloze

Here follows a text on Leonard Cohen, 2011 Prince of Asturias Prize for Letters. It is gapped, so that you have to find the right words to fill in the gaps. Remember it is very important that you guys check you made the right choice both grammarwise and meaningwise! And do not write anything down before you fully understood the passage, of course! The key to the cloze comes on the last page.

Leonard Cohen, Prince of Asturias prize

As a reward now that you have finished, enjoy his singing, back in year 1967: The Stranger Song.

/səˈsaɪəti/

Society is a song from the original soundtrack for the film Into the Wild (2007), composed and performed by Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam vocalist). Apart from the note on pronunciation I pointed out yesterday, I believe you may find the lyrics a nice antidote against consumerist excess, especially at these dates. Enjoy!

Listen to Society, by Eddie Vedder
Read the lyrics here