FINAL REFLECTION

I think that I have improved on my english and my task blogs compared to last year. I have relized that when I have to write a your say I have more vocabulary and I do it easily than last year. I also think that I have more things to tell, because last year it was so difficult to find something to write about and now I have more ideas. I think the activities that shows my best level of english are your says or writings in class, but something related with my pleasures because I get excited writing. I improved my english mostly from the series I watch, but I think my writing skills are improved thanks to the blog and other tasks. Also, I think that the oral presentations are useful because you are forced to talk in english so I learned more about pronuciations or fluency. Reading a book in english was really useful too, because I learned a lot of vocabulary. 

On the other hand I don't find useful news, because although you read and you get information I think that blog task it's enough. Also, I don't find useful evaluating other presentations because you don't really know how you have to evaluate and it is so relative because you may think that somebody is very fluent and another person can think the opposite. 

I would like to keep doing your says, but not news, also I would like to watch more movies or series because although it seems a nonsense it's the way I learned more. I would like to do kahoot once in a while too, because although it's not very useful for grammar or other skills, it's funny and it is useful to disconnect and do other things than grammar, voacbulary, listening, reading and all that kind of stuff.

Letter

520 Puigmal

Empuriabrava

Girona

29th May 2017

Mr/Mrs Magan

Puerto Princesa South road

Philippines

Dear Mr Magan, 

I am writing to ask you about your post in Workaway. I am 18 and I just have finished my secondary school education and I want to take a gap year to travel around the world, so I think that travelling with Workaway is a great option economically for young people.

I am interested to know more details about how I can help you. First of all, I would like to know about my schedule, how many hours I am expected to work each day and if I my working hours will be in the morning or afternoon.Additionally, I am keen to know if I will have some free time too. In my free time I plan to see and experience as much as I can of the local area- do you have any suggestions or advice?

I look forward to hearing from you. I'm able to do a skype interview if you want to know anything more about me.

Yours sincerely,

Paula Montané.

The DNA detective helping to reunite families

Julia Bell is a woman who helps people find their parents, siblings, or other relatives. A man, Robert Weston contacted her because he wanted to find his siblings. He was abandoned in a cinema toilet 61 years ago and now he has found his siblings.

First she has to do a DNA test and then she has to look in the databases to find someone that matches with some part of the DNA. 

Weston told Julie that he had been searching for a long time, but when she did the DNA test and searched on the database, she found a second cousin who told her about other relatives in his family. So Julia took a DNA test on some relative and she found coincidences with Robert's test, he was his brother. She got into this because her mother didn't know who her father was so she found that he was dead but there was a sister who was alive and now that sister is in touch with the family.

Personal opinion

I think that is very beautiful to be able to use science to figure out things like this. I can understand that people abandoned their children in the second World War because there were no safe methods of abortion or ways to prevent unwanted pregnancy but now, I don't know why people keep abandoning their children, because if you decided that you want to be mother or father you have to do whatever you can to protect your child. Maybe the parents had some reasons to abandon their child so I think that the DNA detective is very useful in these cases.

GAP YEAR

I always wanted to do a gap year, but nowadays I want it more than never. I think that a gap year has to be a year for yourself, to do the things that you want, and to be out of stress and worries, in my case I want to travel.

I'd like to take so many gap years, but the first one will be after batxillerat. I'm going to do it through Eorkaway, which is a web that contacts people who needs help with something , so you work in exchange for food and accommodation, and the only thing that you have to pay for is the flight. In this year I want to visit as many countries as I can, so to start I will visit 3 countries; Palawan, Philippines, Thailand and Los Angeles. First of all I will have to get the money working so, once I finish batxillerat I'm going to work from June to December to save money. In January 2019 I will start my trip, well, we, because of course, I'm doing it with Fatine.

The first stop is going to be Los Angeles. We are going to stay in a house that accommodates backpackers, and the only thing that we are going to do is take care of the house, and help with the guests five hours a day and five days per week, so in the free time we can visit the city and do whatever we want. We are going to spend three months in each country so, after 3 months we are going to take a plane to The Philippines. In The Philippines, we are going to stay in Palawan, an idyllic island- perfect to relax and sunbath everyday. The job that we will have to do there, will be helping in a hostel in different ways, like painting, travel blogging or taking promotional photos. The last stop will be Thailand. We are going to be stay in a bamboo hut in Koh Phangan, helping a family with rescued animals. I always really wanted to do something like that with animals so this is my chance to do it.

I think this kind of "volunteering" is perfect for people who don't have much money and want to travel and know other cultures. In my case, I want to improve  my languages, know other cultures and traditions, etc. I also want to take this gap year to take a break in my studies life and hopefully decide what is what I want to do in the future.

Burgos

The third day we woke up at 8 a. m. as every day, to take the bus, leave the hotel and go on our way to Leon. Before arriving to Leon, we went to Las Medulas, an ancient mine where Romans extracted gold. It was so hot and we had to walk for three hours to arrive to the top of the mountain, so I was really tired. After that, we went down again, and we took the bus to get to Leon. We arrived at 9:30 p. m. to the hotel. We left all the luggage in the room and we went to have dinner. That day we didn't ate so well because we had only one hour to find a restaurant and have dinner. We spent about twenty minutes finding the restaurant and the other 40 minutes we had to eat very fast so I didn't enjoyed all that I could have enjoyed.

The fourth day was like the last one because the fifth day we spent all the day in the bus. Well, Thursday, we got up at eight o'clock and we went to Valporquero's cave which was amazing because it was a cave with six "rooms" full of geological forms like stalactites, stalagmites, columns, etc. I loved that place. After that, we went back to Leon, and we had lunch. After lunch we visited the basilica of San Isidro, and afterward we visited Leon's cathedral, it was so beautiful but I was tired of visiting cathedrals. Finally we got some free time to do whatever we wanted so we bought something for our families and we went to have something to eat. At night,our  teachers told us that after dinner we could go to a bar, so we had dinner and we went to a bar to dance. We went back to the hotel and we stayed like 10 people in the same room, talking until we had to have breakfast. The route back lasted 9 hours, so every 3 hours we had to stop. As we didn't sleep during the night we slept all the 9 hours.

It was a great trip and I enjoyed a lot from everything we did.

Remote island has 'world's worst' plastic rubbish density

This news talks about Henderson Island, an uninhabited island in the South pacific with the world's worst plastic rubbish density. This island has 37,7 millions pieces of debris on its beaches, the reason is because it is in the middle of an ocean current so it collects all the litter that goes into the current.

An Australian and British study said that there are 671 items of rubbish per square meter,of which most of them are things of single-use.

Another study said that most of remote islands are in the same situation as Henderson island. Most of the objects that are found in this rubbish are things that humans throw into the ocean like toothbrushes or cigarettes lighters.

Dr Lavers said that almost every island in the world and almost every species in the ocean are affected by the plastics that we throw.

Personal opinion

I think that this situation has to stop. We have to be conscious that we are not alone in this world, we coexist with animals, so we can't be throwing our trash everywhere because we are polluting their habitats. Also, humans have to live in this world for so many years, and if we don't take care of it, and we continue throwing our waste to the nature, we won't be able to live on this planet.
 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-39931042

Chechen police 'kidnap and torture gay men' - LGBT activists

 Lately we have been hearing in the news that there are some lgbt camps where people is tortured and humiliated because they are gay.

This news talks about the homophobic situation in Chechenya. The police and the government is chasing lgbt people to put them in camps to torture them, and the government just hides it by saying that "gay people don't exist in this country".

Natalia Poplevskaya of the Russian lgbt Network told the BBC that people, either gay or just perceived as gay, is being locked and kidnapped at the detention center near the capital. They suffer torture with electric shocks and there are cells that have been filled with 30 people in it.

Although there are news from the lgbt camp, the president Ramzan Kadyrov denies this tragedy, he just ignores it.

There is an email hotline to help the victims flee to other countries. Other governments and countries are trying to solve this problem.

Personal opinion

This issue makes me so angry, you can't judge people for who they love, it's like judging people who likes color red, it's stupid. We are all humans with the same rights and if someone wants to be with someone from the same gender, let it be and if you don't like it don't look at them, because everybody deserves to love and be loved with no one judging them.

Also, I don't know what is the problem that people have with gay people, I mean, they are not doing anything bad, they are just loving, as you love your partner, or your family. So I think that's not something that can be judged for. I just don't get why people cares so much about other people, live and let live.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39566136?intlink_from_url=http://www.bbc.com/news/topics/5dab232e-e90c-4db6-8a29-020ec21ae69f/chechnya&link_location=live-reporting-story