Mail to teacher

I’m going to write a little bit about my dreams. I think I can’t even know all of them, because I have a lot of things to do, most of them are dreams, not really possible to fulfil, but who knows… maybe in a future I’ll have done them! I think I’ll struggle myself to do everything I want, or if I can’t, I would have tried it at least.

 I’m going to start talking about my short term goals, that are things related at school and horses, as you can suppose. On the one hand, the biggest one is to pass 2^nd of Batxillerat with good grades, and face all challenges I could have. That’s all I can desire from school. On the other hand, I have to tell you my new thing in life: I’ve moved from the school riding horses to another one. It’s in Besalú, and everything is going to be more complicated. I’m not going to go there everyday, it’s a lot of money to spend on the oil, but my parents said they would take me there almost twice a week. I hope they do it.

 Now, the long ones. In a future I want to travel around the whole world. I want to see different ways to live. The last week an Italian boy, from the horse world, asked me if I wanted to do an exchange, this year. I thought it was a good idea, going to Lombardia will be so good, but not this year. Maybe in a few years, or next summer, Christmas or Easter. It’s not any silliness, I meet a lot of people from Europe playing horseball and I think that it’s the time to start planning some travels with this people.

 To finish this writing, I have to talk a little bit about Obama’s speech. I admire him. I’m sure all he said in this speech wasn’t all written in the paper he had to study, he really felt what he said. He gave to all the students from that center some good ideas, that studying now, at this age, is the best thing we can do. We have to meet our goals, and the best way to do it, it’s studying and have a degree and a good future, if it’s possible. He also says that we have to avoid dropping out of school, try to stand up all these children who are being bullied and for this reason, the studies aren’t its principal goals.

 Finally, I only can say that I’ll make all my family proud and continue studying and earning good grades, so they’ll try to fulfil my dreams.

Podcast

listen to ‘Irene’ on Audioboo

Nip and tuck

Scenario: a married in a consulting room

Characters: Doctor, Vanessa (20 years old) , Charles (50 years old)

- Doctor: Hello, I’m Dr. James, tell me your problem.

- Vanessa: Well… Can you appreciate my boobs? I think they’re right, but my husband doesn’t agree with it.

- Charles: You’re wrong (...), I only said that you could improve them…

-Doctor: My view as a doctor is that these boobs are right for her age, of course it can be bigger, but I can’t do an operation if she doesn’t want new boobs.

-Vanessa: He’s packed, he would pay my surgery… you know what I mean, darling.

-Charles: yep, I think this plastic surgeon can change our relationship and i’m not talking only about our sexual life… (he made a racy look at her).

-Vanessa: Doctor, what are the risks on it?

-Doctor: it isn’t a complicate operation, I have done a lot of them. But when you enter in a surgery you ever have the probability to…(interrumped by Charles)

-Charles: Shut up, you!!

-Vanessa: What’s wrong with you?

-Charles: I want you to get a bigger boobs, so…

-Vanessa: and if I told you I didn’t want? What’s about me? Do you think I’m a doll?

-Charles: Not exactly a doll…

-Doctor: Please, can you argument it at your home, or better with a psychologist, please? Cause I’m not your psychologist!

Vanessa stands up and she leaves.

- Charles: doctor… I want to tell you something.

- Doctor: tell me!

- Charles: mmm.. I want to take advantage of this situation to talk about my…

- Doctor: your what?

- Charles: you know i’m talking about…

- Doctor: penis surgeon?

- Charles: (he embarasses himself) yes..

- Doctor: can we meet another day and talk about this?

-Charles: yes, thank you.

Preemie baby

• Summary:

Ward Miles Miller, a preemie baby was born 15 weeks before term, and his weight was only 700 grams. This video, called "Ward Milles' first year" shows how this baby fought to survive in spite of the situation. He had to be for 107 daysinside an incubator in the hospital , and his parents went to the hospital as much as they could to visit him. His father, Benjamin Scot, said that the first scanner wasn't really inspiring, and the possibilities to survive were awful. Benjamin made this video as a birthday present for his wife as a recognition for the day the little Ward arrived home, and now, it has been on internet, and almost everybody has seen it. In fact, Ward is already 16 months old and he has started walking. 

• Opinion:

It's incredible that a baby so small can survive. I really recommend that you watch this video, it's really shocking and it makes you learn that you have to be brave and face all the problems you can have. I really enjoyed watching these images.

• Words I have learnt:

Preemie baby: prematur

Incubator: incubadora

ORAL PRESENTATION

EVALUATION

TOPIC: We have talked about beauty pageant and I think it was really interesting and shocking.

PRESENTATION: I think the presentation was quite fun and good, we used Prezi to do it, and it's really comfortable.10%

BODY LANGUAGE: I have to improve some body movements, but I was really nervous and I couldn't control it. 7%

STRUCTURE: Clear structure. 10%

CONTENT: I really liked the topic, it depends on the person. 35%

LANGUAGE: I think I have to use new vocabulary. I would use simple words, and now I use more rich vocabulary. But I need more. 18%

PRONUNCIATION: I try to do it the best as I can, and I think I'm not bad at pronunciation. 8%

Final mark: 8'8

(We couldn't post the video)

Dorian Gray

Youth and beauty don't last forever, but it doesn't mean that youth is the only thing that matters. In my opinion, I think that beauty is different for every person. Everybody can have different view points, opinions, for different people. It's not only beauty what matters, the most important thing is the person's personality. For example, Dorian looked like a young man and beautiful too,but during the story we've seen that this youth and beauty have destroyed his soul.
Finally, I think it's better having a good soul than being extremely beautiful and young forever.

Is humor necessary?

Nowadays, we are accustomed to be concerned about everything. We live in a stressed world and the majority doesn’t know the importance of humor in our lives. As a rule, we agree it’s not easy to be in a good mood everyday, nevertheless we need this sense of humor to live as good as possible. In our opinion, as a teenagers, we think we are living in a difficult period of our lives and our sense of humor is affected by that. During these weeks of hard work and exams that we have proved the difficulty to be in a good mood.

So If we take a little time to laugh or have fun, our mood really improves and this difficult week is going to become easier. Moreover, if we talk about mental health benefits we can say that we aren't stressed at all if we take some laughter time, on the same week as we talked about before. For this reason, laughter protect us from damaging effects of stress, and that's we feel better.

What's more, about physical healthy benefits, the days we're really stressed, our muscles are really tensed, so there's nothing better than a laugh that brings our body back into balance and relaxes our muscles. And to sum up with its benefits, we only have to talk about the social ones, that the most relevant effect is that laughter keeps relationships fresh and exciting, and unites people during difficult times.

In conclusion, we can only say that without happiness, laughter and humor is impossible to survive in the current society. We need it for every moment we live, every second in life. So it’s better to take a time every hole day to relax, to have fun a little moment and forget everything that’s around you.

Normandie 2013

This summer I've been to St Lô, a village from Normandie. I was there with the Spanish Horseball Ladies Team to play the European Championship. It entailed a big change for me, because last year I played with the Spanish Under16 team, but this year I was able to play with the ladies. Four girls who played with me and I we were only 17, and were the youngest girls in this championship. For this reason, nobody trusted we had many possibilities to win because we didn't have as much experience as the other players. But well, here comes the funniest thing! The first thing I have to say is that, to start with, I was a booking player, but one horse was ill and couldn't go to compete. We played the first match and we won 9-2 versus Portugal (I played this first match). Although I didn't play the second match, we won 9-5 versus Belgium. There were also two resting matches that we had to play against France, which was the best team ever. As it was expected, we lost both matches, but we ended up getting 2nd place. Everybody congratulated us, and of course, the we were the youngest ladies!! (nobody would have said... that we could get the 2nd place)


This championship was the best one, for me. Here I’ll show you some pictures:

My medical choice by Angelina Jolie

• Summary:

Angelina's mother fought cancer for a decade, more or less, and died at 56. She was able to meet her first grandchild and hold her in her arms. Angelina has a faulty gene, BRCA1, that increases her risk of developing breast cancer and ovarian cancer: she has an 87% risk of breast cancer and a 50% risk of ovarian cancer. Once she found this out, she decided to minimize the risk as much as she could. She made a decision: she would have a preventive double mastectomy. In an article she wrote in the New York Times, she explained how she got the breasts surgery, and about the reconstruction of the breasts with an implant.

She's very happy now to have had this mastectomy because her breast cancer risk has dropped from 87% to 5%. 

Finally, she thanked Brad Pitt, her partner, because he was next to her supporting her all through this difficult time.

• Opinion:

I really admire this woman. I know she has done this operation for her health, but in a part of the text she says that now she can tell her children that she's not going to leave them because of this type of cancer, since the risk is nothing compared with the previous 87%. 

She's incredible. Writing this article for women who have the same problems and explaining everything... she has to be very brave.

• Words I have learnt:

Faulty: defectuós

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/14/opinion/my-medical-choice.html?_r=0

A collector buys an Eiffel's tower part

• Summary:

A part of the stairs from the Eiffel tower has been bought for a collector, removed from there the 1983 because it broke the security rules. This collector has been a man from Portugal, and has owned it in an auction and he has bidden 220.000 €, the highest price.These stairs he has bought are between the 2nd and 3rd flat. It's property from a Swiss collector, and it's price it's about 25.000 €. The stairs were divided into 24 different stretch. Most of them were also sold at auction to different collectors.

• Opinion:

It's incredible how people who is so packed can buy a part of this tower. I think they have so much money that they don't know what they can do with it. I wouldn't buy something like this, I would prefer to travel a lot around the world. And that's all, there's a lot of people in the world who has a lot of money. (lucky people).

• Words I learnt:

Auction: subasta

Stretch: troços

Summertime Sadness

"Summertime Sadness" is one of my favorite songs at the moment. I first heard this song this summer and I liked it because of the rhythm: it's slow and fun at the same time. It gives me energy to do things, for example, I usually listen to it when I do my homework, and when I finish doing it, I put up the volume, so it cheers me up.
I can identify with the lyrics, it's comfortable to listen to a song that makes you feel better when you're in a difficult mood, and then I want to listen to it again and again, until I get bored. But this always happens to me with almost every song.
I just want to say it's my favorite one because of what I've said before but, moreover, I need to listen to another type of music before and after listening to this one, so I can change my ming and find some other songs.

What are goosebumps?

This is something I always asked about! And looking for some news on the BBC I found this funny video. It's about goose bumps, and I didn't know what they were until I watched this video. 
What are goose bumps? As this man says, we all know we come from monkeys, but we lost most of our body hair so we're like naked apes*. When we get goose bumps it is because we're either cold or because we're afraid of something, and when we feel a sense of fear, the piloerector muscle shoots the hair out. 

I recommend that you watch this video, because I'm sure you don't know about the relationship between fear and goose bumps, it's really interesting, and you'll see it is totally logical.

Naked apes*: micos nus

Amphotericin B: Anti-fungal drug makes flu worse

• Summary:

A drug that is used to beat fungal infections can make flu worse. This drug is Amphotericin B, usually used by people who need chemotherapy or have had a bone marrow transplant. Scientists have studied this with mice, and they've found that this drug interferes with the way the body defends itself dealing with the flu, because this antifungal drug destroys the protein IFITM3, the one that makes it more difficult for the flu virus to infect the body, and for this reason the mice are more susceptible to get the flu. Professor Peter Openshaw, director of the centre for respiratory infections at Imperial College London, said that this was really worrying but before alarming users, more clinical information is needed.

• Opinion:

As you can see, I really like topics related to medicine, and I'm very interested in them. So, when I read about some new findings, for example this one about a drug that isn't well diagnosed, it makes me feel more and more interested, and I want to know more about it, but as scientists are still investigating... it would take a lot of time before I can find an answer! 

I can only say that the current research on medicine is incredible.

• Words I have learnt:

Chemotherapy: quimioteràpia

Bone marrow transplant: transplant de medul·la òssia

Protein IFITM3


Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25034524

Why men contribute so little

• Summary:

Scientists have obliterated the Y chromosome, the symbol of maleness in DNA, because they may be able to do everything without it. They discovered that mice with an modified Y chromosome, which consisted of just two genes, could still father babies. These mice were infertile, and they were able to have live offspring by using assisted reproduction, that it consisted of injecting genetic information from the sperm into an egg. It was shown that the mice and the offspring were totally healthy. It showed that it was still possible to reproduce with a modified Y chromosome, and this fact gives hope to men with these problems. Finally, they say that this finding could, one day, help infertile men.

• Opinion:

In this piece of news we can see that technology is developing very fast, and this fascinates me. Every time we get more solutions to our problems, and I am very happy that genetic problems could be solved in the future. I know a man who believe to be infertile, and I would be so proud and happy if this finding becomes a real solution.

• Words I have learnt:

Obliterated: esborrat
Maleness: masclisme
Albeit: encara
Offspring: descendència

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24991843

Google to remove image of dead teenager from Maps

• Summary:

In 2009, Kevin Barrera was shot, and his body was found near a railway line in Richmond, California. His father, Jose Barrera, asked Google to remove the image it took that showed a police car and officers surrounding his son's body without any respect to him. He says this image is really shocking for him, and every time he looks at it is like reliving that fateful day when it happened.
Google said they had never done something like that, but finally they made an exception because of the circumstances.

• Opinion:

In my opinion I think it's really amazing that Google has done something like this, removing an image someone has told them to share all around the world, and knowing that there are a lot of people who die like this guy. Moreover, I think if everybody starts doing this and asking them to post photos like that one, the world would be more difficult than it is now... Anyway, we can see images like that on TV.

• Words I have learnt:


Railway line: línia de ferrocarril (catalan)

Link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25000747