FINAL REVIEW: MY ENGLISH PROGRESS

We finally achieved the end of 2n Batxillerat, meaning the end of high school. Through all these years we have learn so many things in our English classes and in the last two years, we had to create a blog in which we had to post some tasks and news. But mainly, we had to write about our thoughts and the topics we wanted to discuss about, improving our writing skills and learning new vocabularies. And in this final post I will be doing a final review of this blog, starting to comment the first post with the most recent one.

ENGLISH PROGRESS 2014-2017

If we travel back to 2014, we can find one of the very first posts that I write on my blog. It is called My Hero and from what I can see It wasn't a very elaborated post. I only said who he was and a few things that I like. If I had to do this now I probably would have added more things and tried to be more specific with everything. Thinking that proves that now I am more able to write more and better without the difficulties that I once had. 

Another important thing that I notice is that I  talked about really mainstream topics like my favorite music or tv shows, my friends and family, etc. And now one of the things that I focus more on is trying to find interesting topic or news to talk about, making more orignial my posts. Besides, I try to use more connectors, phrasal verbs, the new grammar that I learnt or using synonims, because like that I don't repeat the same word over and over again. And with all this facts, I thik that I improved my posts and my English a lot in this lasts years.

Through all these years, we had done a few oral presentations or oral tasks like podcasts. I didn't enjoyed doing them because I am a very shy person and that led to my fear of talking i public, even if that public were my classmates. I always was very nervous and I couldn't concentrate on what I was saying, but It usually ended up very well and with my personal satisfaction. Surprisingly, this last year I threw that fear away due to all the oral presentations that I had to do for my Research Project. That's why I think my best oral presentation was about my research project because I wasn't nervous and I felt confident in front of my class. And, believe me, I was really glad and relieved that I got through that shy state that I was having. But, this can't avoid the fact that my other presentations weren't good because I enjoyed many of them. I remember one that I've done with Mar Oliva and Paula Caball last year that was about the evolution of fashion, a topic that I found really interesting.

And, if we talk about my favorite writing, I think that I will have to choose the your-say that I did about our society and how it is making people more insecure about their behaviour and how they look.
To sum up, I just want to say that this blog has been a really good idea because it helped us a lot to improve our English and our writing skills. So, I do think that my Englsish has improved in many ways and I hope that it keeps getting better. 

RARE ALBINO ORANGUTAN

Rare Albino Orangutan Rescued From Captivity In Indonesia
http://all-that-is-interesting.com/albino-orangutan
Recently, conservationists rescued the five-year-old albino orangutan, a member of the species from captivity in Borneo, Indonesia. Due to all her fragile characteristics, white hair and bright eyes, she's at a very high level of risk.

She was kept captive for two days with a local family but now she's been taking care of in a special place prepared to her condition.

Unfortunately, she lost her mother and that was followed by this illegal capture, which will be a trauma that she'll have to recover of as soon as possible by the experts. Also, the population of the Bornean species experienced sharp declines in recent years and that's a sign that we'll have to take care of the world if we want to keep seeing those amazing and beautiful animals.
Basically, this article is trying to warn us about the species that are in danger and how things like that can affect to them in a really negative way because, even though we see them as just animals, they have the same feelings as humans.

MYSTERY SEA CREATURE

Huge Mystery Sea Creature Washes Ashore In Indonesia, Turns The Water Red

http://all-that-is-interesting.com/sea-creature-indonesia

Asrul Tuanakota was the one who found the strange animal and he thought it was a stranded boat. But soon, he realized that he had found some mysterious sea creature that had appeared dead on the shore and  had turned the surrounding water red. Also, the animal weights approximately four elephants.

Some locals inhabitants have identified the mystery creature as a giant squid. However, Marcus Chua of Singapore’s Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum told that there are no records of giant squids in the waters of Indonesia.Some peole states that it may be some kind of whale as well. But the conditions of the animal's body can't help to define what is this mysterious creature.
I think that this kind of news show us how much of the world we still have to find out and that many of the legends and miths that we know, may be true due to all this unknowledge and I find that it's pretty exciting.

TEEN FOUND LOCKED UP BY HIS PARENTS

Police Rescue 14-Year-Old Locked Up By Parents Since Birth

http://all-that-is-interesting.com/israel-teen-rescue

Police in the Israeli city of Hadera found a 14 year-old boy in a really bad conditions inside the family's courtyard from what seems a long time. The family had moved from Russia to Israel in 2006 but they never reported that they had a son and never registred him in school. Also it seems that the parents had taken their son into the building’s courtyard at night once or twice a month. 

The lawyer in defense of the parents claims that the decision to keep him inside was to “protect the boy, who had mental health problems.” But one neighbor states that he saw the boy looking like a zombie and that he seemed to need help as soon as possible.

Personally, I can't believe that a thing like this happens nowadays, and never I would think that someone could do this to their own son. It's a very criminal act and It should have several consecuences because who knows what that poor boy has been through during all these years.

REMOTED PLACES OF THE EARTH

ONE OF THE MOST REMOTE PLACES IN THE PLANET: ALERT

http://all-that-is-interesting.com/remote-places

Can you imagine living in a place so extreme that in summer it never gets dark and in winter darkness is all you see?

Well, I thought that It will be intersting to see how is living in one of the most remote places in Human Civilization, like the town of Alert in Canada.

Alert is the northernmost permanently inhabited place in the world, being only 817km away from the North Pole. The number of inhabitants is around 62 people living there permanently and some ''hosts'' like military forces or scientintist and ecologists.

Personally I think that it should be a really nice experience to go there some time and relax from all the issues of the consumism world. Living there must be really hard for the people because their weather conditions are extreme and the life is not easy when it comes to this certain circumstances. But I think that for the people living in a big city, it could be an interesting experiment to spend some time there, enjoying the natural enviroment and, mainly, respecting it. Because we don't take the care that we should be showing to the nature due to all the facilities that we have in our countries. 

HUMAN RIGHTS NEWS

As I said in my other post about human rights, I will be focusing in the 2nd article: ''Don't discriminate''. I wanted to dig deeper with this right and I thought that a news about the several terrorists attacks that we've suffered lately are a clear example of discrimination. For example, I choose the most recent in the European culture, the attack on Westminster's Parliament in London.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/22/westminster-terror-attack-everything-know-far/

The attack began when one man was driving crazily down the street in the Tower Bridge of London, harrassing brutally the pedestrians. He managed to kill four of them and injured over fifty other pedestrians.After that fatality, he crushed his car in front of the Parliament, where it was taking place a political reunion, and was shot to death a few moments later by a police officer.

But this is just another tragedy of this awful attacks. I think that it's completely brutal to see people killing another people just because they have different ideologies when it comes to religion. Also, I have to stand out that, unfourtanetly, the occidental media doesn't pay the attention that it deserves the constants attacks that the people in Siria are receiving. They only show to world the attacks in places like, France, the UK, Germany, etc. The people that are suffering this kind of things, either if they're Sirian or French, they should be treated and taking care as equal. If we don't, then we are being hypocrite and we're also discriminating.

A NEW BEGINNING

This year is our last one in high school. It has been a long way since we first started in 1st of ESO. I remember how we were really scared and excited the first day and it's really interesting to see that I have the same feeling now that I'm leaving high school. 

Through all these years we met a lot of people, and some of them will be some of the friends that we will never forget and the ones that we will keep in touch with. But, obviously, it's really hard to keep in contact with everyone and maybe some friends that are really close to us now, will never appear again in our lives. And that's why we all are anxious about leaving, because there's this sad and hard moment when we will have to say goodbye.

On the other hand, another thing is expecting us: university. It will be one of the most significant changes from our lives because we'll have to be away from home and start to be independent. We'll have to make defining choices like what are we going to study, where, etc. It sure will be really challenging and maybe hard to handle sometimes, but those years can be the best ones of our lives and the many new experiences that we'll have will make it worth.

MARIE CURIE: A RADIANT WOMAN

In this you say I wanted to talk about one of the most influential woman from the modern history, Marie Curie. I think that it's very interesting to see that a woman in that epoque could achieve the things that she did and how her studies influenced science so much.

Marie Curie was born in Poland in the year 1867, which was then occupied by the Russians, and she belonged to a poor family. Marie had a lot of interest in studying but the little amount of money that the family was receiving wasn't enough to pay them and they decided to waste it in Marie's older sister, so she couldn't have this privilege. Bronislawa, her older sister, got married and that were very good news for Marie because  that meant that his parents no longer had to take care of Bronislawa economically. Marie, taking advantage of this in 1892, introduced herself to the world of physics, focused on the subject of spontaneous uranium radiation. She decided to move to Paris to continue her studies and there he met Pierre Curie, who directed the laboratory of the School of Physics and Chemistry. They had a good chemistry since the beginning and they got married in 1895.

Since they got together, the couple had made several important discoveries in the science world. One of the most known is that uranium oxide emitted a much more powerful radiation than uranium itself and the discovery of two unknown chemical elements: polonium and radium. All of this discoveries made them win a Nobel Prize of Pysics in 1903. Also, she is known for the merit of being the first woman to teach at the Sorbonne in Paris.

MY SOULMATE

At some point in our lives we all have heard the term ''soulmate'', but its meaning is different for each person.

For me, my perfect life partner, above all, should be someone that I can trust and feel supported by. He, or she, has to be someone with a great sense of humour, sporty and smart, but also someone that makes me feel happy. I think that it is the most important thing and something that we can all agree with. 

When it comes to physical appearence I prefer brunette boys with bright coloured eyes and, if  it's possible, with tattoos on their body. Likewise, I prefer the boy to be taller than me and also to be in a good shape.

Even though, this idealization could be my soulmate, my perfect life partner, I'm not really sure that it exists someone that will be perfect in all these aspects, and if it does, your chances to meet him are nearly impossible. That's why I think that, although this person doesn't agree with you in everything or doesn't like the same things as you do, he or she could be your perfect life partner because, with all his or her imperfections, it could fill you completely.

LONDON TRIP

This last april we celebrated the ending of our last high school year by going to spend some days in London.

We had to wake up very early in the morning...or should I say night? Because we had to be at school at 2am. We were all very excited but we were also very tired. Luckily, we had two hours until we arrived at the Barcelona airport, so we could get some rest in the bus. Once we had arrived at the airport and we passed the control areas, we had to wait for our flight and the majority of us took some rest in some near comfortable chairs. Finally, we took our flight at almost 7 am to Gatwick, where we arrived at 8am.

Once we were there, we had to take another bus to the center of London, where our hostel would be. We only had time to leave our luggage in the main room of the hostel and leave faster to our meeting with a guide. And basically the first day consisted of visiting the most famous places of London, like the Big Ben, Covent Garden, Picadilly Circus or the Buckingham Palace and, even though we were extremely tired, we had a really good first day.

In the second day, my favorite one, we went to the British Museum in the morning. There, we had to find some masterpieces that our teachers handed us.  We were able to find them and then we spent some time admiring and discovering workarts. Afterwards, we were headed to Camden Town, which I particulary enjoyed A LOT. 
I was really excited to go there because I have heard that there were a lot of shops from different kind of things and food from all the cultures and countries you can imagine. We spent the afternoon walking around by ourselfs and I think we all had a great time there. And the day was just getting better because we had the chance to come back to the center by boat, which show us the natural landscapes of the city. After that wonderful time, we had dinner in a restaurant nearby and then we met up with a boy named Alvaro, who showed us where the famous killer Jack the Ripper murdered his victims and the history of this mysterious man.

In our third day, we visited a lot of museums. First, we went to the National Gallery, which I enjoyed a lot because some of the paintings that we are studying in History of Art were there and we could admire them. After that, we had free time and my friends and I decided that It would be cool, and so did our other classmates, to go shopping to Oxford Street. At 4:30pm we had to met up in front of the National History & Science Museum and finally we visited Harrods and had dinner in a nearby restaurant.

In the last day, we visited St. Paul's Cathedral in the morning and then we went to visit the Tower Bridge and the Borough Market, where we had some lunch. Afterwards we went to the Globe Theatre, Shakespeare's famous theatre, where we had a tour guide through all the sceneries, dressing rooms, etc. Once we were done with the visit, we visited our last thing in London: Tate Modern. I also enjoyed visiting it because it was a different kind of art that the one that I enjoyed but it looked really interesting. 

Unfortunately our time in London was ending and we had to came back to the hostel to take the bus to the airport.

For me It was an amazing trip because I never had been in London before and it turns out that I found a beautiful city to visit again. But the main reason was having a wonderful time with the best friends and classmates.

HUMAN RIGHTS

Human rights are a list of rules that should be followed to achieve worldwide peace and happiness. They were created in Paris the 10th of December of 1948 and there are 30 of them.

I decided to talk about the article 2, that says don't discriminate. These articles are all very important and useful to achieve a fair and peaceful world, but for me this one is one of the most relevant. Not following this article means violence against each other for being from a different country, religion and even gender. Is the main reason of the start of wars, terrorism, bullying, etc.

But, even though discrimination is still a thing nowadays, some people are trying to stop. For example, when it comes to bullying, there are appearing some organizations that helps people that is suffering from this kind of violence with making them tell their problem as soon as possible and trying to stop bullies to cause more damage. Also, this article is very controlled and followed in sports. For example, in football there are plenty of campaigns that supports respect between worlwide players and that gives an example of sportsmanship and respect between players from different races, ideologies, etc, to the youngest.

And unfortunately, we can relate the unfollowing of this article to the recent terrorist attacks that the world is suffering because they are attacking and murdering people just because they have different ideologies when it comes to religion.

ARTICLE 2:

"Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty."

LABOR EXPLOTATION

WRITING: LABOR EXPLOTATION

In these last years, immigration has been increasing in  our country to the point that it has become a threat to some people, due to the lack of work and the crisis. But that's not what I will be talking about, I'm going to focus on the labor explotation that some groups of immigrants are receiving in Spain. 

The fact that this is happening is because they're immmigrants and they are going to do anything to earn some money and be able to live in good conditions. That's why some business act like that towards them, they pay them with bad salaries and bad conditios to work but the workers can't quit the job because they need it so bad. 

Besides, they are forced to work so many hours and they don't have time to be with their family and that can affect their mental health because they can become depressed. Therefore, I think that we should control more this issue and try to give immigrants a better chance and not refuse them just because they are foreigners.

CLIMATE CHANGE IS REAL

This article wants to inform us of the damage that we have caused these last years among all the planet.

CLIMATE CHANGE IS A REALITY 

Since 23 years ago a large amounts of carbon to has been emitted in the atmosphere and that is one of the main reasons of the climate change. Another reason is the heat waves of this past year, which it has been one of the warmest ever recorded. Also, because of this uncontrollable phenomenon, the glacial layers of the West Antarctic are melting what would mean the rise of about 120 centimeters of sea level.

Due to this event, it has begun to point out areas where people, flora and fauna are not at risk. To all of this, the countries that emit more carbon, China and the United States, have begun to reduce carbon emissions. In 2014 fossil fuel emissions did not increase, since one of the factors is that China burned less fuel than in previous years. One of the reasons is that they have increased renewable energies, and  they try to not emit carbon in the atmosphere. Many countries like Saudi Arabia have opted for renewable energy.

Personally, I think that we all should see the damage that we are giving to our planet and try to find a solution or, like some countries are doing, reducing the amount of perjuditial things like carbon.

In conclusion, we must take care of our planet now that we are still on time, because who knows, tomorrow may be too late to save our planet.

WHAT IS HAPPINESS?

That's a question that most of the people, at some point of their life, has questionated themselves. So, I thought that it will be interesting what the experts have to say about happiness.

Happiness

We all have a very different idea of ​​what happiness is, but at the same time we all agree that we want to have it. For the experts, happiness is not a goal but a way to achieve others and they state that 50% of it would be determined in the genes while the other 50 would depend on our vital circumstances and above all, on the attitude.

 Another important fact in happiness is knowing how to enjoy the moment and they attache great importance to resilience,  the capacity that each person has to overcome adversities and return to their natural state, even taking out the positive part and being able to adapt better to new situations.

To conclude, some experts agrees with the fact that money does not give happiness since material things, at the moment that you possess them, there is no longer a positive effect and that can develope an attitude of endless ambition. And instead, people who have family and friends, even though they are rich or not, are happier because they feel supported and strengthened. 

Above all, what makes us more joyful is generosity and compassion, putting ourselves in the place of the other and giving our support.

LOVE

                                 TYPES OF LOVE

Love is a topic that everyone talks about and everyone wants to have. But there's only one kind of love? Of course not. There are many types of love and here are a few examples:

PURE LOVE: Pure love, even though it sounds like it, doesn't seek the perfection. It's only a mutual , imperfect and beautiful love,  so natural and true that makes you feel alive and good. When you're feeling  this love there aren't evil intentions or wickedness, there's only the desire to be loved, make happy the other person and be together, supporting each other. In conclusion, it's a very beautiful and powerful love.



PLATONIC: We all have been ''in love'' with a celebrity, making up a perfect love life with this person but that relationship doesn't exists. When you're in a situation like that you can say that you have a platonic love. It's a perfect and sometimes kind of obsessive love that it's very impossible to reach..

ROMANTIC: This type of love, is the one that we feel when we are young and innocent. Romantic love is when you feel an emotional high, exhilaration, passion towards one person that makes you feel butterflies in the stomach and the only thing you want to do is be together because you're so in love.



UNREQUITED / UNRETURNED: We all have been rejected by someone at some point and what you felt at that moment was Unrequited love. It's described as the feeling you get when you're in love with someone and that someone doesn't share the same feelings for you. It can be very painful and ,  sometimes, people have difficulties moving on.



BITTER LOVE: This type of love is the most dangerous one. Bitter love is resentful and cynical because it's painful for the two persons involved in the relationship but they, most of the times, aren't aware of its issues. Bitter love can cause psychological problems due to its obsession for the other person and the power of love involved in it. But also, bitter love can be when two persons are in love with each other but they aren't aware of each other's feelings and they continue to think that it's an impossible love.

REVIEW ORAL PRESENTATION

This week we had to do an oral presentation about our research project, mine called ''The most influential bands of the 90's in the United Stes'', in the Englsih class. In the presentation we had to talk about how we did our project, where did we find the information that we used, what was the part that we had more trouble with, etc. 

I think that I did it pretty well because, as I wasn't as nervous as other times, I've been more able to explain better what I was saying and look comfortable while doing it. Also, I included some songs and explained a little bit of their story so that people could be more interested in what I was saying. 

Basically, I talked about why did I choose that specific topic; the methodolgy that I used, mainly magazines; the objectives that I wanted to achieve; the parts that I divided my project, explaining what I did in each one; conclusions, where I commented If I've reached my goals and all the things that I learnt.

THE BLACK DEATH

The black death affected horribly in the medieval ages population. I wanted to learn more about this epidemic and I found an interesting article about it.

The most dreadful epidemic

The Black Death, The Most Deadly Epidemic was written by an anonymous author and published on August 17, 2012 in the National Geography. It explains the origin and spread of the epidemic, the first hypotheses about its origin, the final hypothesis, the symptoms and consequences and sequelae left by the plague.

To begin with, the author tells us that the Black Death began to spread in the middle of the fourteenth century, between 1346 and 1347, and was present until 1361. At that time, there were other chronic diseases such as dysentery, leprosy and measles. But the plague was the most feared because it affected both the poor people and the royalty, such as kings.

The author reveals that the first explanations about the origin of these contagious diseases indicated that they had an astrological origin by the eclipses or the passage of comets, Toxic gases emitted by volcanic eruptions and earthquakes and also indicated the evil to decaying organic matter, since they released gases that were present in the air that humans breathed.

Later on, he clarifies that in the nineteenth century two bacteriologists discovered that the origin of the plague was due to a bacterium that affected black rats and other rodents and was transmitted through the parasites that lived in those animals .

Then he explains the symptoms of the disease. The bacteria was prowling around the homes for about 20 days before the onset of symptoms and then three to five days before the first deaths. The plague affected the armpits, the neck and caused high fevers. There were different ways of manifesting the disease: bubonic plague (when the lymph node became inflamed), pneumonic plague (when it affected the respiratory system and caused a very strong cough) and septicemia (when contagion passed into the blood and was manifested with dark patches on the skin).

Afterwards it is revealed that the starting point of the plague was in the Crimean peninsula, on the shores of the Black Sea. Later he says that some historians say that the pneumonic plague was the most propagated since the patients through the cough contaminated the air and they contagious to others. But he warns that indications indicate that bubonic plague was the most common and that transmission occurred through ships carrying infected people, rats and fleas between the goods. And that, therefore, spread the plague without realizing it by all the cities by where they stopped.

To conclude the author focuses on the death figures left by the epidemic. The black plague reduced 50 million of Europeans and the demographic recovery did not take place until the middle of century XV. In Catalonia the plague affected between 50 and 70 percent of the population.

IF ONLY THE LIVING LIVED

I wanted to comment this article that talks about young people and their cultural knowledge.

Javier Marías, the author of the article, wants to state that more and more individuals do not have an acceptable knowledge in the general culture of history or religion.

In the article, he talks about the general inculturation, more and more young people who do not have the acceptable level of general culture that should have and the author is 100% sure that if they show some historical fact, or the photograph of a historian or Someone important in history a young man will not know how to answer or have a confusion, so he wants to make an appeal not to leave those important data to oblivion, because it can be a great loss for the study of history.

Javier Marías then comments that not only has the general culture of history and religion in today's people been lost, but the same thing is happening in the art of cinema. The students do not know a movie like "Pulp Fiction" of the 1994 and they comment that those films in black and white seem a boring to them and they consider that it is to be wasting the time. Not only people, today's translators also do not correctly translate certain names from English into Spanish.

Finally the author announces that many workers of the amusement parks observe how when entering the tunnel of the terror they do not know the personages hidden inside, for example they confuse Dracula with Batman, only by the fact that the two they wear a cape. What today is a fashion, in five years no one will remember that fashion.

In con- junction today, we seem to want to erase everything lived in the past, forget what you once knew and learned at an increasing rate and just focus on the latest trends.

DIALOGUE

SCENARIO: TWO GIRLS AFTER WATCHING A MOVIE IN THE CINEMA
CHARACTERS: LORENA, PAULA

LORENA: Wow! I was so shocked about the movie!

PAULA: Yeah I know right? How can they put botox on their body?!

LORENA: I think that it's not necessary wasting so much money in this kind of stuff to look beautiful.

PAULA: I agree, Instead of going through a bunch of expensive surgeries, you could start doing sport and eat more healthy.

LORENA: Think about the canons of beauty in previous centuries, they preferred a woman with curves and a pale face and now people are obsessed with being skinny and tanned.

PAULA: That's true! People also waste a lot of money in X-rays to become tanned and that, eventually, can be harmful for us.

LORENA: Well, In fact I think we look hotter being natural than with all this surgeries. We don't want to look like some reality star...

PAULA: Yeah, I know right? I also prefer being natural and decide what I want to wear and how do I want to look without being pressured by strangers who don't even know me at all.

LORENA: You're right! Because all these adds and reality TV shows only show us some people who are too concerned about their body and this kind of things. We shouldn't follow what some stupid people say what's cool or not.

PAULA: The only thing that it causes is that we want to be like them and waste money in silly stuff.

LORENA: Yes, that's a big business!

PAULA: And also, this business release adds that make young people mainly to be insecure about themselves and that led them to want to change their appearance.

LORENA: I agree, I also think that It gives them phsychological issues and develope illness like anorexy and bulimia.

PAULA: Basically, nowadays they make business on everything but playing with our health... That's not good.

LORENA: I think the same.

PAULA: Well, It was nice talking about this and see that you have the same opinion. I'll call you, bye!

LORENA: Ok! See you later!