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sábado, 30 de abril de 2011

Amar Pode Dar Certo


“Love Can Work Out"...funny how this phrase sounds so cliché - something that we expect to hear in a happily ever after couple story, romantic movie or to see in a billboard. 

And that's pretty much what I was expecting when I started reading this book: another self-help love book for desperate women and relationships that are falling apart.
But from the very first chapter I was proved wrong. The authors explain a very interesting theory which they call "the equilibrium point". Here is how they explain it:

"There is an experiment in behavioral psychology that exemplifies how the human being limits itself in love. A scientist puts a mouse in a cage. At first, it will walk from one side to another, moved by curiosity. When it feels hungry it will go towards food. By touching the plate, in which the researcher has installed an electric circuit, the mouse will take a great shock, a shock so strong, that if it doesn't quit touching it, he might even die. After the shock, the mice will run in the opposite direction of the plate. If we could ask him if he is hungry, he would answer "certainly not" and that's because the pain caused by the shock causes him to despise the food. After some time, however, the mice will come in contact with the double possibility of death: death from shock or starvation. When the hunger becomes unbearable, the mouse will slowly start moving back towards the plate. In the meantime, however, the researcher turned off the circuit. The dish is no longer electrified. However, as it reaches to almost touch it, the mouse will have the feeling that he took a second shock. There might be tachycardia, goose bumps and he will run in the opposite direction of the plate. If we asked what happened, the answer would be: "I took another shock." They forgot to warn you that the power was off! Thereafter, the mouse is entering a very great tension and it's goal now is to find a middle ground between the point of hunger and the food which gives it a certain ease. This is called equilibrium point, because it represents a position between doing something to eat while avoiding a new confrontation..."
Reading the above I couldn't help but identify myself and the first question that popped in my mind was: "Am I getting shocks without even touching the plate?" and by honestly answering my question I discovered that yes, I was. 
How many times I held myself from inviting someone to go the beach, a movie or dinner out of fear of rejection? How many times I stood and suffered alone because I didn't want to "disturb" or "be a burden" when asking for a listening ear. How many times I gave up on phoning or sending a simple message just to say "hi" fearing I might come out as stupid or corny or even "needy". 
Because of past experiences in which we are hurt badly we end up closing ourselves off to many great and wonderful experiences just because we refuse to suffer again. And we try to convince ourselves saying "I won't make myself vulnerable" but what we are actually truly doing is letting others have control over our own feelings and giving them the power to make us feel glad, mad or sad. 
And in our fear of giving in to love we give in to loosing life's greatest pleasures: friendship, romance, companionship, strong family bonds, a good conversation, etc. and who is really missing out in none other than ourselves. 
By the time I reached the last pages of this book I decided that I wouldn't let myself miss out on so many things in life out of fear of a little electric shock. Instead, I will give in to love and enjoy the very best life has to offer me!!!

 Sinopse do Livro:

Este livro nasceu para ajudar a inverter uma mentalidade que se está a estabelecer no mundo de que amar é algo sempre doloroso, frustrante e complicado. É importante que ao invés de nos decepcionarmos com o amor, nos questionemos a respeito da nossa forma de amar, sobre as estruturas das relações amorosas e sobre os objectivos que se tem quando se vive com alguém. O objectivo deste livro é ajudar você a voltar a acreditar profundamente em coisas simples tais como: amar, namorar, casar, conversar, acariciar, e principalmente acreditar em você mesmo. Chega de pessimismo. Amar pode dar certo!

quarta-feira, 27 de abril de 2011

3069 Days - Natascha Kampusch

I walked into the bookstore. Picked up this book at 5:00 pm and only left the bookstore at 10:00 pm (they were already closing for the day) when I had reached and finished the very last page. This story shook me up, woke me up and made me think soo very much.


Natascha Kampusch was a 10 year old Austrian girl who became famous as being one of the longest captives ever. Her captor, Wolfgang Priklopil kidnapped her with a white delivery van and kept her as his captive in a dungeon for 3096 days - until the day she was able to escape and from there tell her story - a story that shocked the whole world!!!


She starts her book telling her life as a child. Her distant relationship with her mother. She describes her mother as a very overprotective woman yet at the same time one that taught her to hold her feelings and emotions because that is what it took to "be strong". Natascha comments that as much as she disliked having always to act so strong that was a determining factor in having been able to stand those long eight years captive. Natascha: a scared, chubby and insecure child; on her first day walking to school alone. Wolfgang Priklopil: A sick psychopath in search of a slave. 
Second of March of 1998 was the fatal day. Only 3069 days later would she be able to look back and see all she had been through. From starvation, hard labour, extreme violence, psycological abuse, hunger, loss of loved ones - she endured it all - and with a shocking courage and determination.
Of course, there are the marks and traumas which she will have to carry throughouth her whole life - but the overcoming of it all is what made this story stick out and cause such a great impact on me.
My words could never do this book justice and so my advice is: read it yourself. Let it shock you, shake you and speak to your innermost thoughts as it did with me.


Here is a bit about Natascha Kampusch (From Wikipedia):



Natascha Maria Kampusch (born 17 February 1988 in Vienna) is an Austrian television hostess mostly known for her abduction at the age of 10 on 2 March 1998. Kampusch was held in a secret cellar by her kidnapper Wolfgang Priklopil for more than eight years, until she escaped on 23 August 2006. The media attention later led to her signing a contract with Austrian channel Puls 4 for her own talk show, which had its premiere on 1 June 2008.
Kampusch was raised by her mother Brigitta Sirny (née Kampusch) and her father Ludwig Koch, in ViennaAustria. Her early life with her mother was reportedly not a happy one, according to Ludwig Adamovich, head of a special commission looking into possible police failures in the investigation of the kidnapping. He claimed that "the time Kampusch was imprisoned might have been better for her than what she experienced before", a statement absolutely refuted by Birgitta Sirny, who threatened to sue the commission chief over these remarks. 

Early years and family

Her family included two adult sisters, and five nieces and nephews. Sirny and Koch separated while Kampusch was still a child. Kampusch spent time with both of them, and had returned to her mother's home from a holiday with Koch the day before her kidnapping.[2][3]

[edit]Kidnapping

The 10-year-old Kampusch left her family's residence in Vienna's Donaustadt district on the morning of 2 March 1998, but failed to arrive at school or come home. A 12-year-old witness reported having seen her being dragged into a white minibus by two men,[4][5] although Kampusch did not report a second man being present.[6] A massive police effort followed, and 776 minivans were examined,[7][8]including that of Priklopil, who lived about half an hour from Vienna by car in the Lower Austrian town of Strasshof an der Nordbahn, near Gänserndorf. Although he stated that on the morning of the kidnapping he was alone at home, the police were satisfied with his explanation that he was using the minibus to transport rubble from the construction of his home.[9]
Speculations of child pornography rings or organ theft were offered,[10] and officials also investigated possible links to the crimes of the French serial killer Michel Fourniret.[11] Kampusch had carried her passport with her when she left (she had been on a family trip to Hungary a few days before) and the police extended the search abroad. Accusations against Kampusch's family complicated the issue even more;[12] there have even been 
unsubstantiated allegations that Kampusch's mother was somehow involved in the abduction or its cover-up.[13]

[edit]Captivity

During the eight years of her captivity, Kampusch was held in a small cellar underneath Priklopil's garage. The entrance was concealed behind a cupboard. The cellar only had 5 m² of space (approximately 54 ft²). It had a door made of concrete and was reinforced with steel. The room had no windows, and was soundproof.[14] For the first six months of her captivity, Kampusch was not allowed to leave the chamber at any time, and for several years after her kidnapping she was not allowed to leave the tiny space at night. Afterwards, she spent increasing amounts of time upstairs in the rest of the house, but each night was sent back to the chamber to sleep, and while Priklopil was at work. However, in later years, she was seen outside in the garden alone,[15] and one of Priklopil's business partners also said that he met Kampusch near his home when her kidnapper, Wolfgang Priklopil, called and came to his home to borrow a trailer.[16][17] After her eighteenth birthday, she was allowed to leave the house with Priklopil, but her kidnapper threatened to kill her if she made any noise.[18] He later took her on a skiing trip to a resort near Vienna for a few hours. She initially denied that they had made the trip, but eventually admitted that it was true, although she said she had no chance to escape during that time.[19]
According to Kampusch's official statement after her escape, she and Priklopil would get up early each morning to have breakfast together. Priklopil gave her books, so she educated herself, and according to a colleague of his, she appeared happy. Later, when explaining that in general she did not feel she had missed anything during her imprisonment, she noted, "I spared myself many things, I did not start smoking or drinking and I did not hang out in bad company". But she also said: "I always had the thought: surely I didn't come into the world so I could be locked up and my life completely ruined. I give up in despair about this unfairness. I always felt like a poor chicken in a hen house. You saw my dungeon on television and in the media. Thus you know how small it was. It was a place to despair." Dietmar Ecker, Kampusch's media advisor, said Kampusch told him Priklopil "would beat her so badly she could hardly walk. When she was beaten black and blue, he tried to smarten her up. Then he would take his camera and photograph her".[20]
Priklopil had warned Kampusch that the doors and windows of the house were booby-trapped with high explosives. He also claimed to be carrying a gun, and that he would kill her and the neighbours if she attempted to escape.[21] Nevertheless, Kampusch on one occasion fantasized about chopping his head off with an axe, although she quickly dismissed the idea.[22] She also attempted to make noise during her early years of captivity by throwing bottles of water against the walls.[22] She said that on trips out with Priklopil she had attempted in vain to attract attention.[22]

[edit]Escape

The 18-year old Kampusch reappeared on 23 August 2006. She was cleaning and vacuuming her kidnapper's BMW 850i in the garden. At 12:53pm, someone called Priklopil on his mobile phone, and he walked away to take the call because of the vacuuming noise. Kampusch left the vacuum cleaner running and ran away, unseen by Priklopil, who, according to the caller, completed the phone call without any sign of being disturbed or distracted. Kampusch ran for some 200 metres through gardens and a street, jumping fences, and asking passers-by to call the police, but they paid her no attention. After about five minutes, she knocked on the window of a 71-year-old neighbour known as Inge T, saying, "I am Natascha Kampusch".[23] The neighbour called the police, who arrived at 1:04 pm. Later Kampusch was taken to the police station in the town of Deutsch Wagram.
Kampusch was identified by a scar on her body, her passport (which was found in the room where she had been held), and by DNA tests.[24] The young woman was in good physical health, although she looked pale and shaken and weighed only 48 kg (approximately 106 lb), almost the same weight (45 kg) as eight years earlier when she disappeared. She had grown only 15 centimetres (approximately 6 in).
Sabine Freudenberger, the first police officer to speak to Kampusch after her ordeal, said that she was astonished by her "intelligence, her vocabulary". After two years Priklopil had brought her books, newspapers, and a radio, which she kept tuned mainly to Ö1, an ORF station that is known for promoting education and classical music. She also states that she constantly had a feeling that she lacked something: "a deficit. So I wanted to make that better and I tried to educate myself, to teach myself skills. I have learned to knit for example."[25] Priklopil, having found that the police were after him, killed himself by jumping in front of a suburban train near the Wien Nord station in Vienna. He had apparently planned to commit suicide rather than be caught, having told Kampusch that "they would not catch him alive".[26]

[edit]After escape

In her official statement she said "I don't want and will not answer any questions about personal or intimate details".[27]
In the documentary, "Natascha Kampusch: 3096 days in captivity", Kampusch sympathized[citation needed] with her captor. She said "I feel more and more sorry for him - he's a poor soul", in spite of having been held captive for eight years by him,[28] and according to police she "cried inconsolably" when she was told he was dead,[29] and lit a candle for him at the morgue.[30] She has, however, referred to her captor as a "criminal".[31]
There is also speculation that Kampusch may have Stockholm syndrome as a result of her ordeal.[32][33] She said "my youth was very different. But I was also spared a lot of things – I did not start smoking or drinking and I did not hang out in bad company".[34]
In her book "3096 Tage" (3,096 Days) published in September 2010, Kampusch denies she has "Stockholm Syndrome." She suggests that people who use this term about her are glibly disrespectful of her right to describe and analyse for herself the complex relationship she was forced to have with her kidnapper. In her autobiographical work she does not shy away from describing the ruthlessness and hideous cruelty Priklopil exposed her to, describing in detail the hideous physical and psychological abuse he exposed her to. But at the same time Kampusch is able to discuss the occasions where he gave her gifts, and to see him as a weak and pitiful creature, and not simply a monster. In "3096 Days" she repeatedly expresses her world view that there are many shades of grey in life, nothing (in her opinion) is all black or all white.
During her first interview, Christoph Feurstein asked her if she had been lonely during captivity. Kampusch snapped "what a ridiculous question" and left the room, returning after a brief pause. In 2009 Kampusch became the new face of animal rights group PETA in Austria. In June Kampusch wrote to Ilse Aigner, agriculture minister in Germany where the campaign is based, demanding freedom for zoo animals, stating: "The animals would, if they could, flee as I did, because a life in captivity is a life full of deprivation. It is up to you whether social, intelligent and wonderful creatures are to be freed from their chains and cages where ruthless people keep them."[35] In January 2009, Vienna's public prosecutor stated that DNA tests and questioning of witnesses had led to theories being discounted that Wolfgang Priklopil had an accomplice. Natascha Kampusch has also maintained that her captor acted alone.[36]

[edit]Interviews

After reportedly "hundreds of requests for an interview" with the teenager, "with media outlets offering vast sums of money", Kampusch was interviewed by Austrian public broadcaster ORF. The interview was broadcast on 6 September 2006 after her approval. ORF did not pay for its interview,[37] and said any proceeds from selling the interview to other channels would be forwarded to Kampusch. The interview was sold to more than 120 countries at a fee of 290 euros per minute. This money—estimates say some hundred thousand euros—will be donated to women in Africa and Mexico by Kampusch. Likewise she plans projects to help these women. As of 6 September interest has been enormous.[38]
The newspaper Kronen Zeitung and news magazine NEWS also interviewed Kampusch. The interview was published on 6 September 2006. Both press interviews were given in return for a package including housing support, a long-term job offer, and help with her education.[39]
New developments[40][41] challenged the Austrian government in February 2008. Politicians of the conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) threatened to break up the newly formed SPÖÖVP ("red–black") coalition government in April and May 2008.[42] Kampusch said that she had lost confidence in Austrian justice. Revelation of mistakes in the interior ministry's investigation of her kidnapping came to light, as well as statements of a policeman which were repeatedly ignored in 1998.
On 16 June 2008, the newspaper The Times published an in-depth interview with Kampusch by Bojan Pancevski and Stefanie Marsh.[43]
On 17 February 2010, the British TV channel Five broadcast an exclusive hour-long interview with Kampusch, entitled Natascha: the Girl in the Cellar.

[edit]Books

The book Girl in the Cellar: the Natascha Kampusch Story[44] by Allan Hall and Michael Leidig appeared in November 2006, written in English. Kampusch's lawyer described the book as being both speculative and premature and therefore planned to take legal action against it.[45]
Together with two journalists, Kampusch's mother wrote a book about the ordeal, Verzweifelte Jahre ("Desperate Years"). Kampusch appeared at the initial presentation of the book in August 2007, but did not want to be photographed or interviewed. Her mother writes that she did not have much contact with Kampusch after the escape because Kampusch was shielded from the outside world.[46]
Kampusch wrote a book about the "3096 Tage" (3,096 Days) published in September 2010.[47]

[edit]Media endeavors

Kampusch established her own website containing personal information including pictures of herself on 5 December 2007. She has become the host of her own talkshow at the new Austria TV station PULS 4 starting on 1 June 2008. The show had the working title of In Conversation with…Natascha Kampusch and eventually premiered as Natascha Kampusch trifft (Natascha Kampusch meets...).[48][49]
On 17 June 2010 German film-maker and director Bernd Eichinger announced that he was making a film based on Kampusch's captivity and wanted Kate Winslet to star in the film.[50] Bernd Eichinger passed away on 24 January 2011 and Natascha attended his funeral. [51]

The house
Kampusch now owns the house in which she was imprisoned, saying, "I know it's grotesque — I must now pay for electricity, water and taxes on a house I never wanted to live in." It was reported that she claimed the house from Priklopil's estate because she wanted to protect it from vandals and being torn down; she also noted that she has visited it since her escape.[52] When the third anniversary of her escape approached, it was revealed she had become a regular visitor at the property and was cleaning it out possibly to move in herself.[53] As of 2009, she is living in central Vienna.[54] In January 2010 Kampusch said she had retained the house because it was such a big part of her formative years, also stating that she would fill in the cellar if it is ever sold, adamant that it will never become a macabre museum to her lost adolescence.[55]





This video shows her dungeon. Where she spent 8 years. 

terça-feira, 19 de abril de 2011

Na Cama com Bruna Surfistinha


Good book!!! Real good!!!
She certainly evolved as a writer in her third book compared with the very first one she wrote.
She gives a lot of different tips on pretty much everything which involves sex: from how to kiss, what to wear on your first date, foreplay tips, Thai massage, what to pick out on a shopping trip at the Sex Shop down to crazy sex positions, fulfilling your sexual fantasies, what makes a good Ménage à trois, how to go about having an orgy, plus a ton of "nitty gritty" stuff!!! 
I definately don't condone her and what she chose to do for her life - but one thing I can say: Any woman that has had sex with 3,000 men has had plenty of experience, knows what a man wants and how to make him happy in bed!!! And so just because I don't accept her style of life doesn't mean I won't accept her excellent tried and proven tips!!! 
I won't go into details here but for any woman that is wanting to get out of routine, learn a whole bunch of new stuff and have a looottt more pleasure inside for walls...well, go for it! Read the book!!! 


I decided to include below a bit of Bruna Surfistinha and her life for those interested:



She Who Controls Her Body Can Upset Her Countrymen
Top of Form
Bottom of Form
SÃO PAULO, Brazil — She goes by the name Bruna, the Little Surfer Girl, and gives new meaning to the phrase "kiss and tell." First in a blog that quickly became the country's most popular and now in a best-selling memoir, she has titillated Brazilians and become a national celebrity with her graphic, day-by-day accounts of life as a call girl here.

But it is not just her canny use of the Internet that has made Bruna, whose real name is Raquel Pacheco, a cultural phenomenon. By going public with her exploits, she has also upended convention and set off a vigorous debate about sexual values and practices, revealing a country that is not always as uninhibited as the world often assumes.
Interviewed at the office of her publisher here, Ms. Pacheco, 21, said the blog that became her vehicle to notoriety emerged almost by accident. But once it started, she was quick to spot its commercial potential and its ability to transform her from just another program girl, as high-class prostitutes are called in Brazil, into an entrepreneur of the erotic.
"In the beginning, I just wanted to vent my feelings, and I didn't even put up my photograph or phone number," she said. "I wanted to show what goes on in the head of a program girl, and I couldn't find anything on the Net like that. I thought that if I was curious about it, others would be too."
Ms. Pacheco parlayed that inquisitiveness into a best seller, "The Scorpion's Sweet Poison," that has made her a sort of sexual guru. A mixture of autobiography and how-to manual, her book has sold more than 100,000 copies since it was published late last year, and has just been translated into Spanish.
At book signings, Ms. Pacheco said, "80 percent of the public is women, which I didn't expect at all," because most of the readers of her blog appeared to be men, including customers who "wanted to see how I had rated their performance." As she sees it, the high level of female interest in her sexual experiences reflects a gap here between perceptions about sex and the reality.
"I think there's a lot of hypocrisy and a bit of fear involved," she said. "Brazilian women have this sexy image, of being at ease and uninhibited in bed. But anyone who lives here knows that's not true."
Carnival and the general sensuality that seems to permeate the atmosphere can give the impression that Brazil is unusually permissive and liberated, especially compared with other predominantly Roman Catholic nations. But experts say the real situation is far more complicated, which explains both Bruna's emergence and the strong reactions she has provoked.
"Brazil is a country of contradictions, as much in relation to sexuality as anything else," said Richard Parker, a Columbia University anthropologist who is the author of "Bodies, Pleasures and Passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil," and has taught and worked here. "There is a certain spirit of transgression in daily life, but there is also a lot of moralism."
As a result, some Brazilians have applauded Bruna's frankness and say it is healthy to get certain taboos out in the open, like what both she and academic researchers say is a national penchant for anal sex. But others decry her celebrity as one more noxious manifestation of free-market economics and globalization.
"This is the fruit of a type of society in which people will do anything to get money, including selling their bodies to be able to buy cellular phones," said Maria Clara Lucchetti Bingemer, a newspaper columnist and professor of theology at Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro. "We've always had prostitution, but it was a hidden, prohibited thing. Now it's a professional option like anything else, and that's the truly shocking thing."
But Gabriela Silva Leite, a sociologist and former prostitute who now directs a prostitutes' advocacy group, argues that such concerns are exaggerated. "It's not a book like this that is going to stimulate prostitution, but the lack of education and opportunities for women," she said. "I don't think Bruna glamorizes things at all. On the contrary, you can regard the book as a kind of warning, because she talks of the unpleasant atmosphere and all the difficulties she faced."
Part of the controversy stems simply from Ms. Pacheco's forthright and unapologetic tone about her work. Traditionally, Brazilians feel sympathy for the poor woman selling her body to feed her children; she is seen as a victim of the country's glaring social and economic inequalities.
But Ms. Pacheco does not fit that mold. She comes from a middle-class family and turned to prostitution, she said, both as rebellion against her strict parents and because she wanted to be economically independent.
That a woman is now talking and behaving as Brazilian men often have may also offend some. Roberto da Matta, a leading anthropologist and social commentator, noted that even though role reversals were an important part of Carnival, other areas of Brazilian life, including sexual relationships, could be quite rigid and hierarchical.
Under the system of machismo that prevails in Brazil and other Latin American countries, "only a man has a right to command his own sex life, and that control is seen as a basic attribute of masculinity," he explained. "So when a young, attractive, intelligent woman appears and says she is a prostitute, you have a complete inversion of roles, leaving men fragile in a terrain where she is the boss, not them."
For all her willingness to break taboos, though, Ms. Pacheco's current life plan is conventional. She has a steady boyfriend and hopes to marry him, and is studying for the national college entrance exam, with a mind to majoring in psychology.
"Being Bruna was a role that left its mark on me, but I can't abandon her," Ms. Pacheco said. "There are people who still call me Bruna, and I don't mind, but I wouldn't want to be her for the rest of my life."
Nor is Ms. Pacheco immune to the influence of pudor, a concept important throughout Latin America that combines elements of modesty, decency, propriety and shame. In her book, rather than write out the words commonly used on the street to describe sexual acts and organs, she prints only their first letters, with dots indicating what everyone already knows.
"I think it's quite vulgar to say the whole word," she explained. "But I didn't want to be too formal, either."