Christmas holidays

In this post I want to talk about Christmas and how I spend it year every year. To me, Christmas is the most beautiful celebration of the year, in fact it is the only thing that I like about winter (because I hate cold, and being an onion with all the jackets, scarfs and jumpers). A lot of people think that Christmas is becoming a materialistic holiday, and yes, obviously the industry gets a lot of money from all the presents, but I don’t think that Christmas has to lose its magic because of this. Apart from spending time with my family, the thing I love the most of Christmas time is the atmosphere; I mean, everyone is in the streets doing their Christmas shopping, the streets are full of lights and people singing Christmas carols… Everything is so magical and it reminds me when I was little and the eagerness I felt during these special dates.

As a tradition every year we decorate our Christmas tree on the long weekend of December, and then it’s when I feel that Christmas is about to start. When the school trimester comes to an end, me and my family pack the suitcase and hit the road to Barcelona. We used to stay in Barcelona from the 23^rd to the 27^th but this year for certain circumstances we only spent one night there, which makes me very sad because we almost didn’t have time to spend with my grandparents. But well, we had lunch all together on Christmas day, which by the way it was delicious and I couldn’t eat more. The following day we got back on the road to arrive to Albacete. We stayed there from the 26^th to the 3^rd of January. There we did a lot of things with our family; we were having lunch all together day in and day out, my grandmother took me and my cousins to the cinema, I saw my friends from there and all the time we spent there was great and perfect. Regarding New Year’s Eve, my sister and I used to spend it having dinner with all my family, but the last two years, although our heart hurt because we love having New Year’s dinners with our family, we decided to spend it with our friends in the village we go to in the summer. Well, after these Christmas days, the 3^rd of January we took the car again, but this time to go to a little village in Huesca to finish the holidays snowboarding. Apart from some falls, to be the second time we did snowboarding, it was quite good.

I have to say that my Christmas holidays have been perfect and every year is better than the year before.

Pakistan gang 'stole spinal fluid from women'

This piece of news talks about four people who stole spinal fluid from women to sell it on the black market. This happened in Pakistan, one of the members of the gang was acting like a doctor while he was telling his victims what did they had to do. The impostor told his preys that they had to give their blood samples to qualify to the Punjab government dowry fund. But when they had to extract the blood, the gang didn’t take women to the hospital, they took them into a house to perform the procedure.

Personal opinion

First of all, I have to say that every time I hear news like this one I can avoid thinking what kind of people they have to be, who they think they are? I mean, they aren’t anybody to be cheating people to get profit from them. Why is it so hard for everybody to behave well and be kind to each other? The world would be so much better than it is now.

On the other hand, I think that this kind of things happen when a country is not regulated enough, if this illegality was punished harder or maybe just more investigated there would be far less corruption like this. I know that it must be so difficult to rule a city but I'm sure there is a way to control all this bad incidents and protect more the residents of the country.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43042867

Self-evaluation

A few weeks ago, we had to do our research project presentation in English class. As I said in another post, my paper was about antimicrobial resistance.

To support my presentation I used a power point, in fact it was almost the same power point I used in my real presentation, so I think it was pretty accurate talking about the making up for between the images and the texts. Although it had to last 5 minutes, mine lasted 7 ,more or less ,but well, it doesn't matter, the more the better isn't it?

About body language, when I was doing it, I thought I was looking more at the public than I actually did, but it wasn't so bad given that I didn't read and I wasn't completely still, I moved around pointing at the screen to make myself clear. 

As for the content, I believe that it was good considering that I prepared the paper and the presentation over so many days, and regarding to the content, it doesn't matter if I did it in Catalan, the only thing I had to do was translate it, so that's why I think it was a great content. I tried to summarise the best I could to not make it tiresome.

Regarding the language, I think it was proper and quite good because I perceived that everyone understood me. But on the other hand it was not very complex, because as always, I wrote my paper with the perfect word for every moment but on the day it came out as it wanted, so I ended up talking normally. Finally with regards to my pronunciation, I did a very big mistake mispronouncing  antibiotic but well, the rest of the words I think were pretty good.

Research project

Last 15^th of January, the nightmare of the research project ended forever, no more stressing about the deadlines, no more experiments, no more surfing on the net for hours and hours to get information. It’s true that the paper itself, was delivered before Christmas, but we still had to do the presentation after Christmas so the stress of doing that was there.

I remember when I was in first of batxillerat and all the teachers told us that the students of second of batxillerat were doing the presentation of the projects, and I thought it was so far away from me, I mean, it was one year away, but here we are with all the work done.
We’ve been searching for information, reading articles, looking for experiments to do, and preparing the paper all summer long, to start the new school year with less work to do, yet, during the first trimester we had to do a lot of things, apart from all we had to do from high school (homework, essays, studying for exams…). In my case, although I had the theoretical part pretty advanced, I still had to keep doing it because it wasn’t as perfect as I wanted. On the other hand, I had to start the practical part, I knew what I wanted to do, but I had to do it, so I missed some classes to go to the lab, I had to stay in high school some afternoons… Even though I had to spend a lot of time, it wasn’t so bad given that I was doing something I like and I want to study it in the future.

Once I had all the paper done, I had to focus on the presentation, so I prepared my presentation, and I waited until my turn. I had the presentation at 5:30 pm therefore I saw a lot of my classmates going into their classrooms, and coming out happy and relieved while I was there super nervous. When the time came, I went into the class and I remember the worse moment ever was putting the pen in the computer and standing beside the screen. Once I said the first two phrases, everything else was so easy and fluid. When I ended, I was so overjoyed, I couldn’t believe that it was finally over; I felt so relieved and euphoric at the same time.

Nowadays, I can say that I am so proud of all that I have done and the mark I got. I’m so happy about the ending of all this stress, but, although the TdR is finished, we have to keep studying until selectivity. 

Fashion models expose sexual harassment

This news talks about the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire programme that showed some stories of models that had been sexually harassed.

It mentions some short stories from different models. The first one is Marissa who says that she was doing a photo shoot for a jeans brand and when she took a break and came back, the photographer wanted her to make “a performance” for him. The second model is an anonymous one; she says that a stylist wanted to kiss her against her will, so she pushed him away and he ended up masturbating next to her, and the worse part of it is that this stylist is still working in the same place.

There are a few reports more from other models like photographers who wanted nude photos, or molestations by photographers or stylists.

Personal opinion

I simply haven’t got words for all these events, I don’t understand how evil can people be. I mean, when these models are posing for a photographer, they are working to get some money from it; they don’t need to go through all this abuse. The most shocking about all this, is that most of the assailants turn out uninjured and are still working with other girls. In my opinion, a worker who molests anyone as, little as it might be, should be fired and punished by law.

Another sentence that has me freaking out is the next one: "I told my agent about my abuse, they told me to 'stay quiet, he's too important to lose as a client'" I can’t believe that someone can play down something as big as an abuse. This agent has even thought how the model felt when “the important” photographer abused from her? I think not, this man clearly has neither empathy nor heart.

To sum up, I think that this should be more reported to put all these abusive workers in jail.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-42230705

Self-evaluation

A few weeks ago, a friend and I did an oral presentation about dreams. We thought it was a curious topic to develop considering that everybody dreams and not everyone knows why  we dream or what's the meaning of the dreams. We explained what they were, how they happen, the 5 stages of sleep, the meaning of some dreams and sleep disorders.

To support our explanation we used a power point which was pretty complete, but not excessively. We used images and some key words to help us remember and manage all the information. Although we could have expanded on the topic, we only explained the essential so the presentation lasted more or less what it had to last, nine minutes.

My body language was not bad because I looked at the audience, but I think that I could make more gestures with my hands and arms. I read sometimes from my notes but just when I couldn't remember a word or I went blank.

I consider that the content was pretty good because as I said before, this is not a topic that everyone knows a lot about so we introduced new information to the audience. The information was clear and concise, just enough to get to know the topic superficially.

Regarding the grammar, I think the only complex words were the technical ones because I still don't know why,but I didn't say the things I wrote in my paper, on the contrary it came naturally. For this reason I think that although everything was easy to understand (when I didn't get tongue-tied), my vocabulary was not very rich and varied. As I said, although I got tangled up, I think my pronunciation was pretty good and everybody understood what I wanted to say.

Volleyball

In this post I want to talk about volleyball and what it means to me. Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net, and the aim of the team is ground the ball in the other team's field.

I've been playing volleyball since I was 12; a bunch of girls wanted to start a volleyball team in Castelló, so we did it. Some of us had never touched a ball before, but we were willing to learn. Nowadays, five years later 5 of us original girls are still playing together  in Sant Pere Pescador. 

I always think that I started playing real volleyball when I moved to Sant Pere, in 2014. That year was the first one that we played in a higher level, and we started to play every weekend.

Every training and every match made us better, in each match there was something better than the match before, we were improving week to week, until now. We still keep learning every day. Thanks to our new trainer, we started to learn a team works, we learnt to trust in our teammates, we learnt values such as commitment, cooperation and unity. 

Since 2014 nothing has changed, there are some new girls and other ones who have left it, but as my trainer says, the ones who really want to play volleyball, who don’t mind spending all the afternoon in the sports complex supporting other teams or playing, the ones who wake up at dawn to take the bus and drive for 3 hours to play, even if the night before was carnival. These are the girls that keep playing.

I am so proud of my team, we are a very united team, on and off the field, and that’s because we spend a lot of time together, not only in trainings but because almost every time that we play in another town or city we have to stay there and have lunch or dinner, so we talk and laugh a lot. Also, every year we go to another city to play a tournament, so we spend a complete weekend together. Nowadays, thanks to all these things we do, there is a lot of confidence with all the teammates and with the trainer.

To sum up, I want to say that volleyball has made me live experiences and feelings that I couldn’t live if I didn’t play. I wouldn’t change at all the feeling of making a point during a difficult match, and celebrate it all together or the adrenaline that you feel after a good match. Playing volleyball is my passion, and thanks to it I have met a lot of fantastic people and spent a great time with them.