Thanks

Do you remember the text that you had to translate into Spanish as part of the exam last Friday? Here it is, just in case you have forgotten it

DON’T THROW IT AWAY, GIVE IT AWAY!!

The Freecycle website calculates that they’re saving 300 tons of waste a day. In one year, that’s the equivalent to four times the height of Mount Everest. It’s clearly an environmentally friendly scheme, but it has an additional important advantage: members obtain objects that they need, but can’t afford to buy. Their slogan is ‘Changing the world, one gift at a time.’

And now, some of your suggestions:

- La página web de 'El circulo gratis' ...

- En un año es como una equivalencia de escalar el Monte Everest cuatro veces...

- En un año es un peso equivalente al de cuatro veces el peso del Monte Everest ...

- En un año este montón equivaldrá a ...

- En un año es equivalente a cuatro toneladas de hielo en el Monte Everest...

- Es una inmensa equivalente a cuatro veces la altura del Monte Everest...

Thanks for making me smile and even laugh sometimes!!

I expect you do not mind my using these examples to show the rest of the class how funny your translations were. In general, the exams were quite good and I know that all these mistakes are due to all the stress you have been suffering from so many exams in the last two weeks of the term.

Thanks again!

Christmas

I WISH YOU A VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS!!!What is your favourite Christmas song?? And film?? I'll start with one of my favourite songs for Christmas time:

Fairytale of New York by the Pogues

Here is the lyrics

But I like many other songs about Christmas. Here you can see a photo of the Christmas concert that our school choir (Coral Padre Manjón) gave in San Jeronimo Church in Granada to commemorate their 25 years as a choir. And here you can listen to one their songs in that concert. Holy Night I like how they sing and I enjoy their concerts a lot. The song you can hear in this link is a favourite of mine!!

What about you?
Please, leave a comment here and say something about your favourite song and film about Christmas.

I'll tell you about my special Christmas film soon!!

Our planet, our dirty planet

Don't you think our planet is too full of waste and rubbish?? What can we do with the huge amount of rubbish that we produce every day??

Have you got any ideas?? Here are some suggestions about how to reuse waste. What do you think of them??

Please, leave your ideas here.

Some people in the class have suggested films about Environment. This is the list of films that may be interesting for us,

• Marina suggests WALL - E
• Mar V thinks that the film THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW is also about Environment.
• Belen said a good film could be WATER WORLD with Kevin Costner
• Jose Manuel S. suggested HOME
  
• Most of the people in the class suggested AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Now, what do you think?

Perfect for a Halloween Party

I have found the perfect house for a Halloween Party. There is no need to redecorate it. It is already old and creepy. As you can see in the pic, it is painted in black and full of decorations on the façade.
It has been empty for a couple of years, so I guess it will be full of spiders, bats, worms and probably there is an old skeleton of a cat or a dog hidden in the cellar.
As it is in very bad conditions, I am sure there will be a lot of strange noises produced by walls falling apart, creaking floors and empty water pipes.
There is no electricity, of course, so we will need candles and torches, which will make fantastic dancing shadows during the party.

Would you like to come to this scary, terrifying party??

If so, you will have to answer these questions:

1.- Where do vampires keep their money?
2.- What do you call a witch in a desert?
3.- What musical instrument does the skeleton play?
4.- What do ghosts serve for dessert?
5.- When is it bad luck to meet a black cat?

A good harvest

Have a happy September!!!

Greetings from the seaside

Have a great summer holiday!
Enjoy yourselves as much as possible and, please, don't forget to send a postcard with a few lines to your blog!!

Jessie J, Price Tag.

A wonderful song;
Turn on your speakers, put up the volume, and start to dance and sing...

Jessie J, Price Tag.

Seems like everybody's got a price
I wonder how they sleep at night
When the sale comes first
And the truth comes second
Just stop, for a minute and... smile
Why is everybody so serious?
Acting so damn mysterious
You got your shades on your eyes
And your heels so high
That you can't even have a good time

Everybody look to their left
Everybody look to their right
Can you feel that? (yeah!)
We'll pay them with love tonight

It's not about the money, money, money
We don't need your money, money, money
We just wanna make the world dance
Forget about the price tag
Ain't about the (ha!) cha-ching cha-ching
Ain't about the (yeah!) b-bling b-bling
Wanna make the world dance
Forget about the price tag (ok!)

And here, the song

Virtual barber shop

Hi everyone! How are the holidays?
I know the course is over, but I found the following video and I found very interesting. ;)
Before you see it, it is necessary that you should follow the following instructions, but no good to hear :)
1. Connect headphones to your computer (required)
2. Giving "play"
3. Close your eyes.

Enjoy! :D

My interview

Last Saturday , when the Granada C. F. won the match which played with Elche, I started to talk with my grandfather who was one of the persons that in 6th April 1931 founded the team of the city.
The first thing that I asked him was how he feel about the match, he said to me that he was very proud of his team, but she also said to me that he was embarrassed because of the hooligans of the team that are called "Seccion kolokón" because when the team of Elche was in Granada they started to threw stones and cans.
Then I asked him about the best goal that the Granada CF has achieved in its history and he answered me that in 1959 the Granada CF was second in the ¨Copa del Generalisimo¨ now called ¨copa de s. m. el rey¨, I wanted to know which was the team that won this tournament and he told me that was the Barça, this made me disappointed. At last he made me choose between the Granada and the Real Madrid, I haven't answered yet, and I think that I'll never do it.

This interview isn't real because I've never met my grandfather but I think that he would have answered on this way

My greatest interview:

There is nobody like my grandmother.

It's obvious that grandparents have a very important role in most of the cultures. In the occidental world this role is usually even more important. Once, somebody told me that his family was the only people from all over the world, who never would leave him; wherever he was...

I asked my grandmother how she had been able to overcome every trouble in her life and while she was thinking about it a few seconds, but finally she replied to me that she could overcome all the problems with my grandfather's help. He had always encouraged her to give her best and to get her goals. I felt astonished because I thought that her answer would be completely different, maybe that all her achievements had been got by herself with so much effort. Of course that this is so, but she put the merit on my grandfather as if she would never had got anything if he had not been there with her.

I said that I looked up to her because I thought she had got everything on her own and she told me that I was right, she had been alone until she was 23 and during those previous years she had made headway because it was the only way to go places but she added that I couldn't forget that no one can be successful and happy without the others.

I remembered an incredible sentence she whispered to me like telling me an important secret or as if she was thinking aloud; ''This life is a continuous long journey where you go away and come back every single time, and probably you will feel alone for many times, but you have to remember everyone who has contributed to make you feel happy and who has left their footprints on you. Once you will have to leave, in the right moment, and all that you will need is to be surrounded by people crying while you are smiling the same as you were surrounded by people smiling were you were born, and you were crying. ''

I came back home and when I arrived I realised that my grandmother was the most courageous and aware person I have ever met. I am proud of my grandmother, and I hope to make her feel proud of me one day.

My grandfather

Last year in my old school, we had to do an interview with a writer we liked and I chose to interview my grandfather (Rafael Guillén)
The first thing I asked him is what kind of books he wrote and he said that he wrote books of poetry. I asked him if he had won any prizes for his poetry and he told me he dad. In fact he had won the National Prize for Literature in 1994, he told me that in the same year, he had previously been awarded among others important prizes: the Prize Leopoldo Panero in 1966 , the Guipúzcoa Prize in 1968, the Prize Boscan in 1968 and the City of Barcelona Prize in 1969 too.

I also asked him if he has devoted all his life to writing poetry and he said to me that he hadn't, at first he worked in a bank of Granada and much later he began to write poetry.

Finally I asked him if my interview was good and he said i was. And it appears that was true because I got a very good mark!!

CONGRATULATIONS!!

Congratulations to all players in Granada FC and CONGRATULATIONS to all the people who organized and played the school football league!!!

Thanks, Jorge, Julia, Pablo and Mercedes. It would have been impossible without your hard work!!!

Mario Casas by Mª del Mar

Some days ago, I was lucky to meet a handsome boy all of us have ever seen on TV... His name is Mario Casas. Does it sound familiar?
I didn't lose the opportunity and I did him an interview.

First, I asked him when his birthday was and where he had been born, and he told me that his birthday was on the 12th of June and he had been born in Coruña.
Then, I said that I thought it was obvious but I asked him what he did, and he told me he was an actor and he said that he thought he was one of the most famous actors in Spain, especially among young people.
I asked him what his first important performance had been and he told me that the first time that he had appeared on TV had been to advertise a cologne but his first important performance had been in the movie 'El camino de los ingleses'.
Later, I asked him if he had been a good student when he was at his school, and he said to me that he had been a good student but the subject that had been more difficult for him had been physics and chemistry.
I wanted to know what he would like to do, if he hadn't been actor and he told me that he would like to work as an English teacher because he had been good at languages.
Afterwards, I asked him what was most important for him, family or friends, and he said that he couldn't choose because he thought the two were very important.
Finally, I wanted to know what the TV series that he had worked better had been, and he told me that the TV series in which he had performed was ' Los hombre de Paco'.
As a last question, I asked if he was working on some movie or TV series and he told me that he was working on a TV series called 'El Barco'.
Unfortunately, Mario was in a hurry and I could not ask many more questions, thanked him for his patience with me and gave him two kisses.

I hope to see him another day longer!

Javi

The interviewer wanted to know about Javi's life.
She asked him about his friends.
He answered that his friends were very different.
"All my friends love music, but each other of them prefers a different kind of music. But the most important thing is that all of them are incredible"
Irene, the interviewer, also wanted to know about Javi's family.
Javi said that he had a younger sister who was very sweet and a bit bad, and then he spoke about his parents. He told her that his mother was very serious but his father was very funny.
Irene asked Javi about his studies.
Javi laughed and then answered. "I love to be in the University, I think that it is the best place in the world, there are all things that you can imagine. I study at the Computer Science Faculty and the people here are very friendly. I really like this place. The different classes are very enjoyable although there are subjects that I hate too, for example, statistics. I don't like this subject at all!"
Irene saw the hear time and said to Javi that it was late. She said goodbye and thanked him.

C.F GRANADA

Today the Granada football team played versus Elche to get a position in 1ª division. It was an amazing match where the C.F Granada had the control of the match most of the time. They attacked and Elche didn't do anything to win the match! Granada hit the pole twice but they didn't manage to score a goal... The minutes went by and 3 minutes before the end of the match there was a penalty for Granada. All the people were crazy in the city, all the people thought that Granada would win the match! Abel Gomez was chosen for shoot the penalty. He shot and he failed! Granada and the city were very disappointed, but the referee said that the penalty had to be repeated! All the people were crazy again!
Abel was chosen to shoot again. He shot and..... he failed again!
It's impossible!! Granada is disappointed and they must win in Elche if they want to play in 1ª division with the best teams of the world.

INTERVIEW TO LAURA UPS

Last night, I had the honour of interviewing Laura Ups, the best language teacher.

She is my sister, and I asked her some questions as she had some free time in that moment.

Firstly, I asked her what was her favourite language was, and she replied "French" but she likes English too.

Then, I asked her if she knew other languages and she answered that she knew a little Italian and German. I told her that she had an ability for languages. She told me that she could learn a language with words bases of the language, and she had proved it when some friends wanted to teach her German and it wasn't difficult.

Later, I asked her how she could study LADE while she was teaching English and French to children who are in high schools and she confessed me that it was difficult but she needed the money because she wanted to go to New York. I told her I could go like a photograph but she said to me that firstly she ought to receive the scholarship.

Finally, I told her if I got a good mark in English, we'd go to the beach. She said laughing "of course" and she would invite me to a picnic.

I hope she can go to New York and I hope to have a good mark :)

This is dedicated to Felipe

I am dedicating this post to Felipe because he is a very good student and because when he finished writing his essay for the exam, he told me -'Teacher, I am sure you will like my essay very much.'
And he was right, I do like it a lot.
And I would like to share it with you.

When you learn a language, you learn more than just a way to communicate

In these years learning a language has become a common thing. You learn it because you need it in your job, or to travel somewhere in the world ...

On the one hand, once you have learned a language you know many more things apart from just the language. While you are studying a language you are learning the culture, the typical food, the important places and monuments from the place where the language comes from. You learn it in reading exercises, in listening exercises, in vocabulary exercises....

On the other hand, nowadays we live in a world full of ‘stress’ and where everybody wants to do a lot of things in a little time. We are losing the tradition of learning a language correctly – that is to say, learning the culture, monuments, typical food, etc. - There are a lot of methods of learning a language that make you sure that you can speak a language with 1000 words or things like that, to make you believe that you will not have to spend much time learning the language.

To sum up, when we learn a language, we learn more than just a way to communicate, but just if we learn it correctly not in a fast way. To learn more than just the language you need TIME (years!)

Interviewing my mom

When my teacher told me that I had to interview a person who I admired, I didn’t know who the person I admire the most was. Later I realized that that person was my mother because she never surrenders and she works hard to look after her two daughters: my sister and I.

I asked her what she did in her job and what she did to get her family out, and she answered me that her job consisted of being subdirector of nursering in Jaén and she told me that she worked 100 km from our home, so she travelled everyday to Jaén and she returned home in the same day.

Afterwards I asked her how many people worked in her hospitals and what kind of jobs there were in her hospitals. She answered me that she managed four hospitals where three thousand and five hundred people worked. She also answered me that there were more than sixty different professions, including doctors and nurses.

INTERVIEW TO ANTONIO RAMIREZ

Last weekend, I had the honour of interviewing Antonio Ramirez, the best judoka in Spain.

I invited him to have lunch, while I was asking him some question in order to know what a champion's life is like

Firstly, I asked him when he had started to practise judo and why, and he told me that he had started to practise this sport when he was 4, and he had started because his parents love judo.

Then I asked him if this sport was very hard and he answered it was a really hard sport because you can injure yourself very easily. Also he said that he sometimes had to go to the physiotherapist after a fight, specially if he had lost it.

I also asked him what judo had provided him, he said that judo was a life style, because he should be healthy and strong, and judo helped him to concentrate

Finally I asked him how often he usually trained, and he said that he went to the gym every day, because he wanted to go to the Olympic Games.

We hope that Antonio will come back from London with the gold medal.

COME ON ANTONIO, WE LOVE YOU!! (I´ve posted a photo where you can see him practising judo)

Transplants

The transplant is a complex medical treatment. With transplants organs, tissues or cells of a healthy person can replace organs, tissues or cells of a sick person.

In some cases, this action serves to save a person's life, in others they help to improve the quality of life, or both.

Blood transplantation is the first example of transplant of which we have information throughout history.

As scientific knowledge has progressed, it has become possible to transplant almost anywhere on the body, such as the first heart transplant performed in 1966 in Minneapolis by Dr. Richard C. Lilehey.

This treatment in now widely used in medicine and greater risk the rejection, because if the transplant is from another person, the body cannot recognize the organ as its own, producing rejection, expulsion and infection of the organ.

One Republic - Secrets

One Republic , born in 2004, due to the combination of Ryan Tedder, the lead singer, with his friend Zach Filking on guitar, who are joining Eddie Fisher on drums, Brent Kutzler on bass and Drew Brown on guitar.The success of One Republic began during the summer of2006. One year later they released their début album ''Dreaming Out Loud'' produced by Greg Wells. From this album came off their best item called ''Apologize''

I need another story

Something to get off my chest

My life gets kinda boring

Need something that I can confess

Til' all my sleeves are stained red

From all the truth that I've said

Come by it honestly I swear

Thought you saw wink, no

I've been on the brink, so
Tell me what you want to hear

Something that were like those years

Sick of all the insincere

So I'm gonna give all my secrets away

This time, don't need another perfect line

Don't care if critics never jump in line

I'm gonna give all my secrets away
My god, amazing how we got this far

It's like we're chasing all those stars

Who's driving shiny big black cars

And everyday I see the news

All the problems that we could solve

And when a situation rises

Just write it into an album

Singing straight, too cold

I don't really like my flow, no, so
Tell me what you want to hear

Something that were like those years

Sick of all the insincere

So I'm gonna give all my secrets away

This time, don't need another perfect line

Don't care if critics never jump in line

I'm gonna give all my secrets away
Oh, got no reason, got no shame

Got no family I can blame

Just don't let me disappear

I'm going to tell you everything

So tell me what you want to hear

Something that were like those years

Sick of all the insincere

So I'm gonna give all my secrets away

This time, don' need nother perfect line

Don't care if critics never jump in line

I'n gonna give all my secrets away
So tell me what you want to hear

Something that were like those years

Sick of all the insincere

So I'm gonna give all my secrets away

This time, don't need another perfect line

Don't care if critics never jump in line

I'm gonna give all my secrets away

All my secrets away, All my secrets away

Here is the video

The school year is almost over!!!

Last Friday, after the oral exam, some of us had time for a photo in the school yard with Padre Manjón himself. It's a pity that only half the class is here. The others were having sandwiches or playing football!!

THE PRESTIGE - one of my favourite movies

THE PRESTIGE

Christopher Nolan is one of my favourite filmmakers. I like him because not only does he direct films, but he is also a writer. He has written many brilliant films like : The Prestige and Inception.( my other favorite movie)

I could talk about the two, but I think that The Prestige is less known than Inception and I think that it is worth that people see it.

So I want to talk about this class of film that after seeing them, you will realize that everything fits and everything makes sense. I want to talk about The prestige.

There are many famous actors in this film. The main ones are: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale and Scarlett Johansson.

The movie is about two young magicians who begin working in London in the late nineteenth century. One of them is Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman), determined and sophisticated. And the other is Alfred Borden (Christian Bale), who is a real magician with skills but he is not able to prove it in front of the public. The two friends work together but after a catastrophic accident, which killed Angier´s wife, their relationship turns into enmity and hatred.

I love this film because you have to be attentive to all details, and you have to concentrate because the film jumps in time and you could lose the thread of history.

So I hope that when you see this film you will enjoy as much or more than I did

My interview

It was a sunny day. I had just arrived to Los Angeles and I took a taxi to DMC village, whose owner was a famous and wealthy man because of his very strange life. I was on time, so I didn't expect him to be waiting for me at the door. Daniel was wearing a beautiful kilt, he was singing yodeling but he greeted me.

I was sitting on his luxury armchair when we started the interview. The first thing I asked him was how his life was having three nipples. He answered me straight away that it was a special position because everybody was surprised when they discovered it and when they touched them, they felt revulsion but he felt sexy.

Afterwards, I tried to discover where he learnt to yodel. He told me that his grandmother had lived near Heidi's grandfather and the day before he moved to USA he'd met her on a cloud, while they were travelling to the top of the mountain, she had taught him to sing in that way.

I wanted to know how he remembered one of his parties with Freddy Mercury and he told me that they had been best friends, they had shared lots of things, guitars... and that when Freddy'd discovered the third nipple he had been more loving.

I think I met a really interesting person that day, I hope to see him again.

My favourite film is...

CHICAGO

Chicago was made in USA in 2002 by Rob Marshall. It is a musical film that tells a story taking place in Chicago, where Velma Kelly (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is a cabaret artist and one night she begins her show and Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger) who wants to be famous, is in the public. Roxie wants to became as Velma Kelly but this will cause them to fall from the top and to go to prison due to different charges for murders. There she meets with the legendary lawyer Billy Flynn (Richard Gere) who will take the Roxie's case. Roxie's career shines but Kelly will do something to change it.

My favourite scenes from the movie are the tango in the prison and the show "all that jazz".

This is one of my favourite film because Chicago has many dances, shows and it shows us that sometimes our dreams can't be so perfect as we think.

Martha Schiuma

I visited the famous pianist Martha Schiuma and I interviewed her. It was a great time when she told me all about her and her piano. First I wanted to know why she decided to play the piano when she was a child and she said to me that it was because her mother wanted. Martha didn't really decided to play the piano, it was her mum.

Then I asked her what she felt when she played the piano, and she told me that it was very difficult to answer, she felt something different with each type of music that she played. So I asked her how she felt when she plays the piano and she said to me that she felt more free when she played and when she sang.

Finally, she had to leave to a world tour, so I wanted to know how this world tour was, and she told me, to my surprise, that she cancelled it because she played the piano only for her, she didn't like that people heard her, so her fans would be very angry!

That was all!

My friend Ascen's interview

So, I've interviewed my friend Ascen about her life. Here it is! Enjoy it!

-Hi Ascen, can I ask you about some things about your life?

-Yes, of course.

-First of all, where are you from?

-I'm from Cordoba but when I was a child I was living here, in Granada, about four years. Then, we came back to Cordoba.

-Have you got any brothers or sisters?

-Yes, I have one brother and one sister. Both of them are younger than me, I'm the oldest.

-And what are their names?

-María and Elías.

-Ok, and what do you do?

-Well, now I'm studying architecture at the university like my brother. I really love it!

-Oh! So your brother studies at the university, too!

-Yes, but he wants to leave it because he wants to became a chef. My parents are angry with him because of this.

-And what about your sister?

-She's at secondary school but the next year she will do Bachillerato. She loves languages, specially Asian languages, because she loves Asian culture. But she also wants to learn English and French. Her dream is to live in Japan or Korea.

-That's amazing! What do you think about it?

-Well, my parents and my brother think that she's crazy but I think that she can do it because she's really keen on it and she won't stop until she gets it.

-You really love her. You have told me you're at university student, where do you live?

-I live in a flat near the university with my friend Paula. We have lived there for three years.

- How are you doing?

-Sometimes it's hard because I miss my family and Cordoba, but I love Granada and I'm having a lot of fun here. Also, I have met a lot of people and they're so nice to me and some of them are from Cordoba too, which is fantastic!

-That's good! Thank you so much!

(Teacher, excuse me for being late!!)

BLINK 182

Blink-182 is an American pop punk band consisting of vocalist and bass guitarist Mark Hoppus, vocalist and guitarist Tom DeLonge, and drummer Travis Barker.

Their musical style has been described by various sources as "pop punk" and "punk rock".

One of my favourites song of this group is "First Date" :

FIRST DATE- BLINK 182

And the lyrics:

In the car i just can't wait,
to pick you up on our very first date
is it cool if i hold your hand?
is it wrong if i think it's lame to dance?
do you like my stupid hair?
would you guess that i didn't know what to wear?
i'm too scared of what you think
you make me nervous so i really can't eat
Let's go, don't wait, this night's almost over
honest, let's make this night last forever
forever and ever, let's make this last forever
forever and ever, let's make this last forever
When you smile, i melt inside
i'm not worthy for a minute of your time
i really wish it was only me and you
i'm jealous of everybody in the room
please don't look at me with those eyes
please don't hint that you're capable of lies
i dread the thought of our very first kiss
a target that i'm probably gonna miss
Let's go,don't wait, this night's almost over
honest, let's make this night last forever
forever and ever, let's make this last forever
forever and ever, let's make this last forever
Let's go, don't wait, this night's almost over
honest, let's make, this night last forever
forever and ever, let's make this last forever
forever and ever, let's make this last forever
forever and ever, let's make this last forever
forever and ever, let's make this last forever

And if you want the Spanish translation you can see it here

GUM

Chewing gum is a type of confection traditionally made of chicle, a natural latex product, or synthetic rubber known as polyisobutylene. For reasons of economy and quality, many modern chewing gums use rubber instead of chicle. Chicle is nonetheless still the base of choice for some regional markets, such as in Japan.

HISTORY OF THE GUM

Chewing gum in various forms has existed since at least the Neolithic period. 5,000-year-old chewing gum with tooth imprints, made of birch bark tar, has been found in Kierikki, Yli-Ii, Finland.

The ancient Aztecs used chicle as a base for making a gum-like substance. Women in particular used this gum as a mouth freshener. Many other cultures have chewed gum-like substances made from plants, grasses, and resins.

In 1848, John B. Curtis developed and sold the first commercial chewing gum called The State of Maine Pure Spruce Gum.

Chicle gum, and gum made from similar latexes, had a smoother and softer texture and held flavour better

NEED TO CHEW

The need for chewing has been studied by psychologists and anthropologists. With this research, it was discovered that gum chewing reduces muscular tension and helps you relax.

HOW IS GUM MADE?

1. In a container 500 kilos of pasta are mixed and additives are added to give colour and flavour.

2.The pasta goes to a mill, where it is flattened and shaped into leaves.

3. The sheets pass a cutter, which cuts it into the size you want.

4. The gum is packaged in coloured paper by an automatic machine.