Final Reflection - Portfolio

My progression

In my oral presentations, I can see many differences between my oral presentation about Pro Gat and the one about my research project. Firstly, my pronunciation is better, I can use higher level vocabulary and I speak more fluently. Moreover, I've become more confident of myself and I'm able to look at my audience more than before. My sentences are better structured, as well. The same happens with my writings. My vocabulary, structure and specially sentence linking have improved a lot from my welcome e-mail to my writing about nuclear power, for example.

If I had to show my best evidence for my English level, I would show...

...for my oral evidence, my podcast reading the tale I wrote last year. Alltough there are some pronunciation mistakes, it shows that I can speak quite well and it also shows some creativity, with music and sound effects. I think that's also important, specially for what I want to study, because you have to work with computers.

...for written evidence, I think my formal letter or my sentence from home-related post are a good evidence of my writing. They also show my maturity and my opinion about some recent topics, beside of my English level.

For the future, I want to practice my English a lot so I can go abroad and communicate with people without problems, for example. Maybe I find a job where I need English or something like that, so I think it's a good opportunity to be able to learn it and keep a good level.

Inline-skating II

I've already told you about my tramuntana experience while practising again with my inline skates. But there are far more exciting ways to entertain with inline skates!

That friend of mine who's been here during Easter has shown me how he enjoys great days with his skates. He goes to practice tricks in a halfpipe once a week and also goes to contests. Actually, he's at a contest in Berlin today, the 21st May. The winner is going to spend two weeks in Barcelona, for another contest.

When he was here, I got to see him skate twice in the little street park in Castelló. As it is a street park and he usually only skates in halfpipes, he couldn't do many tricks, but it was still nice to see it. If I go to Bremen by the end of June, he promised he will take me to the skatepark an show me how he really skates. I'm looking forward to it. Here I have a photo (the best one I got) from his skating sessions in Castelló.

I've been thinking of trying it out a bit, actually.. What do you think?

Finally! - Plans.

I must say it: it's Friday, the 20th May 2011. Today have been my last two second batxillerat exams. I'm so glad!

This week has been so stressing, you know, I'm still happy I get some time to rest now. On wednesday, there will be a maths exam I'll have to take, but that's okay. At least it's not two exams every day now! And now, at last, I get some time for my friends. So this evening I'll go bowling with some friends and tomorrow afternoon I'll go have some ice-cream with Alexandra and Melissa (I hope she comes, too).

Monday.. yeah, on Monday I'm going to IES Castelló and look for the marks I still haven't got. I'll take my philsophy (Plato) notes with me because I'm going to help Pep (Joey) with it. He has to take the philosophy exam on Tuesday. We'll see If I can help him, but I really hope so!

For the rest of next week I have plans, too, like going to Figueres and such. I will meet once or twice more with some of my friends. I really need now some days off, to relax and have fun. And then, study again for PAU!

3 monsters at home: my cats

Lucy...................Timmy..................Maya

I can't believe that I haven't written a post about my three cats yet. Most people already know them, but I think it's time to write a blog post dedicated to them! :D

Timmy is the oldest of our three cats. Still in Germany, I wanted a cat as a pet and ym parents told me that I could have one when we had moved to Spain. So, two months after moving here, I got him. That was in June 2003. He was three months old, more or less, so he was born in March, 2003. That means that he's over 8 years old, not so young for a cat! But he's still very active, playful and cute. Lately he's grown very fond of my father, some years ago I was the only one he really played with. My father and I think he's the most intelligent of the three because he always listens to us talking and seems to know exactly when we talk about him.

Lucy is the second cat we got. We don't know how old she is, because she was a homeless cat. We found her in the nieghborhood, very thin, hungry and scared. For some days, we went to feed her and as she was always there, we knew she was homeless and took her home. She is a silly. When someone of my family goes out the house, she starts crying until he returns, which is really annoying, but it seems like she is somehow afraid that he or she won't come back. Now we've learnt to deal with it and she is learning that nothing happens. We've had her for 3 years now.

Maya is the youngest of our monsters. She's two and a half years old and that's also how long we've had her. We got her as a little kitten, some hours old, because her mother left her on our terrace. So we raised her with special kitten milk. She's.. well, special. She's the one who less cares about us humans because, I think, my mother was too good to her, she allowed her a bit too much. But Maya's very sensitive and notices when there's tension in the air. When I'm sad, she always runs over to me and tries to cheer me up. She tends to annoy Lucy when she can (well, it's quite easy, I must say).

News - Finally, equality?

I've read about a news article saying that the most powerful people in India are women. So, the president of India is a woman, Sonia Gandhi. The speaker of the parliament and the leader of the opposition are women, too.

Sadly, it's not like they got there by their own strength, as they inherited the charge from a male mentor. But still, I think it's a progress because in other countries female descendents couldn't inherit such important charges. In my opinion, this is an important step to equality that might already be done in most parts of the world, but still not everywhere.

But even in Europe the world equality is still quite relative. For example, women with the exact same qualification and the same job as a man still earn less money. I think that isn't exactly what equality should be like. However, we're still quite a few steps ahead of some countries, where women still have many, many rights less than here.

Finally, I think it's nice to see that the world is in a positive progress, it seems, but that can't be the end now. It must go on like that.


Font: http://www.bbc.co.uk/

Linkin Park - Somewhere I belong and concert!!!

Linkin Park is a band that I've known for more or less 4 years now, so I can say that I've become an "adult" listening to their music. First, I'll tell some of general information about the band: Linkin Park is a band from California which was formed in 1996, with the name Xero. First, it was only made out of three highschool friends: Michael Kenji "Mike" Shinoda, Bradford Phillip "Brad" Delson and Rob Bourdon. When they finished highschool, they got more serious with the band, hiring Joseph "Joe" Hahn (or, better known by his stage name, Mr. Hahn), Dave "Phoenix" Farrell and Mark Wakefield, who left the band shortly after. Searching for a new vocalist, they found Chester (now also called Chazy Chaz from his bandmates) Bennington. The band changed its name twice: the first time to Hybrid Theory (which became the name of their first album), the second, due to copyright issues, to Linkin Park. On 1999, they signed a record deal with Warner Bros. Records and released their first album a year later.

What I like about Linkin Park is the special combination of their two vocalists, Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda. Chester is able to sing soft and melodical songs, but he can scream, too! That singing of him and Mike's raps make an unique combination that I like a lot.

But the most exciting thing is that I'm going to see them live! There is a concert in Hamburg the 21st June, and I'm going to Bremen, the 20th. A friend of mine is already ordering our tickets! I'm really excited about it

Finally, here you have the song which is my favourite at the moment: Somewhere I Belong.

Easter holidays - unforgettable!

So, many people already know that I had a friend staying at home during the Easter holidays. I can say that it was an unforgettable week for me.

On Friday, the 15th April, I didn't come to school because at 8:30 in the morning I had to be at the airport in Girona. So my father and me set off for it at 7:20. At 8:15 we were there. I can't explain how nervous and excited I felt! It would be the first time I'd see him face to face, because I met him through my ex-boyfriend, but didn't get to meet him in Germany. My father told me to go inside the terminal and look at the screens to see if the flight was on time. On my way there, though, I found there was no need to, as he was suddenly standing in front of me! My first reaction was saying: "You're too early!" We greeted eachother with a hug and we got back to my father.

The first day was rather peaceful. The next day, on Saturday, my grandma arrived by bus in Figueres. My parents went to collect her and my friend, Tyrone, and me made breakfast for everyone. But on Sunday was a very exciting day: Tyrone and me got up early to catch a bus to Barcelona: we were going to the "Saló del Còmic". We spent all morning going around in Barcelona, so he could see the city. He liked it a lot. After that, we actually went where we wqanted to go: the convention. We bought a few "souvenirs", like posters. I bought myself a necklace resembling the weapon of the game Kingdom Hearts. After going through everything there, we went back out and to have lunch. After that, we had a rest in a park. We rested there for an hour or so, then we went to the harbour, as he wanted to see it (he loves the sea..). But we didn't have too much time to get back to the bus, so we went on after another hour or so and got back to the bus station. On the bus home, we almost fell asleep, we were so tired! The we walked home from the Empuriabrava bus station. At home, we were so tired we got directly to sleep. I already loved my Easter holiday, and it was just the third day!

The nuclear disaster in Japan - Nuclear Energy

Since I heard from the tsunami in Japan and the nuclear disaster that happened two months ago, I've been interested in what exactly failed to protect the facility and the population from this disaster as it was supposed to be safe. I'd like to explain what I found out.

First, from the news in the german television, I heard that the nuclear facility had emergency generators, so they could keep running the cooling system as long as they had enough oil. the only problem was that they were in the cellar of the building. So, when the tsunami entered the building the water went down and broke them. I think that wasn't thought out well when they built the nuclear plant.

Moreover, the Japanese government bought the nuclear technology directly from the USA, including the safety measures. In America, there aren't many tsunamis, if there are any. American nuclear facilities are secure for tsunamis up to 10m of height. In Japan, there are statistics that say that there is a bigger tsunami approximately every 10 years, so they would have needed higher security, but they put the same measures as in America. So I think it was quite clear that someday something would happen, but I think not even the Japanese govenment thought it would be such a disaster.

Finally, I think Japan should think over all of their nuclear facilities and secure them better so there won't happen anything like this again.

A sentence from HOME - History of a journey

"In the great adventure of life on Earth, every species has a role to play, every species has its place. None is futile ur harmful. They all balance out."

I think this sentence is entirely true! The Earth has alwys been well balanced out where every being needs of others. For an example, you only have to think about the food chain. For example, in an ocean, there is plankton, which is eaten by small fish. Bigger fish eats those, and so on until the biggest ones, like tuna or even sharks. If the small organisms disappeared, the bigger ones wouldn't have anything to eat and die out. If the bigger ones weren't there, the small ones would reproduce and die much less, so there would be an overpopulation and more or less the same consequences. Of course, humans are considered to be on top of the food chain.

the problem comes when this balance is broken, like we humans do. So, considering the same example as before, we catch too many tunas. So, the smaller fish have less natural enemies as before and can reproduce more, causing the above said overpopulation. More of those smaller fish means they need more food, like plankton. So they eat and eat more and more plankton until theres nothing left. As it can't regenerate because there are too many fish eating it away too fast, those fish will start to die out, causing the organisms higher in the food chain to have no food, too. So, entire ecosystems can die out because of us catching too much of one single species.

To sum up, I think we should be cautious about nature in every way we can and be respectful with our planet, so our children and all the other generations will have a place to live as nice as ours still is.

Osama Bin Laden's death

"Justice has been done." - That's what Obama said when Osama Bin Laden's death was announced. What I was asking myself immediately when I knew it: didn't they want to judge him properly? If so, why did they kill him directly? Couldn't they get him alive?
In my opinion, the american soldiers could have caught Bin Laden alive and bring him to the USA, but Obama didn't want them to. I think Bin Laden would have had too many things to say, I mean, for example, the 11th september, as I don't think Bin Laden is to blame for that. There were too many coincidences and strange happenings. The American government didn't want Bin Laden to talk, so they killed him before he could. That's my opinion about it.
I would like to hear other opinions about it. So, what do you people think?

Lego is fun! - Minecraft

I know you now might think I'm crazy, talking about Lego. But it's not exaclty like that. I'm talking about my new game: Minecraft, a game that's now getting very well-known nearly all around the world.

The reason why I compare Minecraft to Lego is that its entire world is built out of blocks, even animals and the player are square-shaped. And at the start, that's all: you're dropped in a completely virgin world and you can start collecting blocks of different materials, like dirt, gravel, wood... When you collect wood, you can build a workbench and create some tools to get stone, coal, iron... But at night, you have to be careful because monsters will come out.

What's special about Minecraft is that, because of that "blocky" design - you can build almost anything out of those blocks because you can place them as you want. It's a game that is a lot of fun if you're a creative person and you like to build.

I very like the idea that game follows: a mix of building, searching for ressources and surviving in one. It's a very nice idea. Moreover, here you have some photos. What do you think about it? Did you know it?

Dialogue: a profession that's dying out

A dialogue between Anna and a family friend, Mr. Adams.

- Hello Mr. Adams! How are you doing?
- Hello Anna! I'm fine, thank you. What's the matter?
- Errr.. There's something I've been wanting to ask you for.. for quite a long time now...
- So, what is it?
- Ummm.. There aren't many shepherds like you left here.. I mean in Spain, are they?
- That's right. Many things have changed that made us shepherds, like, less necessary: at least not so many of us are needed now.
- Really? And what has changed exactly?
- Some years ago, shepherds were nomades. They wandered with their lifestock.. I mean their cows, sheep and such.. So they wandered up a mountain during spring and then had to stay up there all summer long. In autumn, they got there herds back down. They always went were the grass was the freshest.
- But.. you don't wander around with your cows.
- (laughs) No. Nowadays we keep our lifestock in stables and feed them hay and industrial food. Now it's a lot easier and less time-comsuming to have big herds.
- Ummm... So now a single shepherd can produce more milk, meat or such and... that's why this profession is slowly dying out?
- Exactly. Also there are new machines to help us do our job.
- (laughs) Yeah, I've seen them. So.. thank you very much, Mr. Adams.
- You're welcome. But now I have to get back to work. If you have more questions, feel free to ask!
- Thank you again. See you!
- Bye!

Formal letter - World Nuclear Association

Fountain street 3
50397 Traverse Town

12th May 2011

World Nuclear Association
...
...
To the director general, John Ritch

Dear Mr. Ritch,
I am writing this letter in order to give my opinion about the nuclear accident in Japan after the tsunami a month ago and to give possible solutions for the future.

First of all, I think the problem would not have been so terrible if the emergency generators had not been in the cellar of the building. I think it was a big mistake while planning how to build the nuclear plant, thinking of the high risk of tsunamis in countries like Japan.

Furthermore, it is said that the nuclear plant of Fukushima was already obsolete and should have been shut down years ago. If that is true, I think other older nuclear facilities should be shut down and tested, at least.

Of course there can not be done anything about the Fukushima disaster now, but I think you should learn from it and try to prevent other nuclear accident like Japan's.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
Kairi Johnsson