JAPAN ENFORCES NEW ROAD RULES FOR 'MARIO KART' DRIVERS

In this piece of news, we can see how Japan’s roughed their legislation in reference to go-karts driving in Japan’s streets. This happens because there is a tendency in Japan of costuming up as Mario’s character and drive a kart inside of Tokyo and the tourists are starting to do this massively. This leads to some problems, such as there is no actual legislation of go-karts running down Tokyo. However, this was solved, adding some requisites to the karts, such as safety belt, regulating how the kart has to be…etc.

This news is really funny because it shows how sometimes we are really weird. Is there an actual necessity of dressing up as a Mario Kart player and drive a kart in Tokyo’s streets? However, good point for the Japanese community that they have improved the safety in the streets, so even if it is freak, it is a good action.

LINK:http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-42263757

MARI OLIVER

In this other piece of news, a black girl who is a student in a high school in Houston, Texas has sued his school for not accomplishing the expectations of what’s supposed to be a school in the United States; free and equal. She has refused to do the Pledge of Allegiance, before starting every class. She calls out that she has been bullied for refusing to stand on that pledge and also that she hasn’t received any help from her school’s principals.

This is a rough news, because it shows how even in the United States of America, where everyone is supposed to have rights and be free there is still discrimination, and people who fight against that is often bullied. She is from Texas, what is considered one of the most conservative states in America, what makes everything even worse because it shows how we haven’t progressed not even a little bit with the objective of respect humanity in every human being on Earth.

LINK: http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-42114340/meet-the-17-year-old-who-is-suing-her-school

BRYAN SINGER

In this piece of news, a denounce is done to a film director, Bryan Singer. In this one, a boy named Cesar Sanchez-Guzman allegedly says that he was sexually abused in a yacht, when the film director invited him to a room, locked the door and asked him to perform sexual activities against his will. Singer’s legal representative says that his client receives these kinds of accusations really often and that he refuses to have done any of these.

The worst part of this news is that we will never know what has happened to the boy. Either he only wants to win a trial and get some free money, or he was in fact abused, we will never know. The film director’s representative is for sure much better than the boy’s, so it is evident that the trial will be won by him. Also, he wants to demand the boy for malicious prosecution so we can see that there is only one possibility when the trial will be fair. However, it also exists the other possibility, which makes the legal system a complete mess.

LINK: http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-42278174

'SAMURAI SWORD'

Basically, in this piece of news, it is explained that a woman who was a priestess has been killed to death by her brother together with her wife. The incident had happened the night of the 8^th of December of 2017 in Tokyo, Japan, near a Shinto shrine. It is believed that the siblings had some religious feuds and they solved it using force. Apparently, the brother has killed his sister by stabbing her several times using a katana and his wife has stabbed with knives the priestess’ driver.

It seems that the incident has occurred because of a stupid reason, but it is another way of remarking how many conflicts religion can make, even between members of the same family. I think that this should be investigated, because it's not another conflict due to discrepancies between members of the same religion, it has something to do with inheritance of a charge, in this case, a religious charge, so this kind of topics should be deeply investigated with the objective of making a safer world for everyone.

LINK: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-42275875

MASSIVE CANNABIS CARGO SEIZED AT SEA

In this piece of news, it is explained that a Police patrol found a cannabis seize near Crete’s coast and it was worth it 71 million euros. This happened the 8^th of December of 2017. The travelling of the illegal drug was between Cyprus and Malta, near Greece’s territory coasts. Actually, the drug was hidden in a boat in a quantity of six tonnes. Six men, allegedly from Syria were arrested.

I think this kind of news is really funny because it’s kind of stupid how many drugs are circulating near us and we don’t even know what happens in our seas. I would never think that these kinds of astronomical money are travelling in our sea, but indeed it does.

LINK:http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-42277397/massive-cannabis-cargo-seized-at-sea 

SHOULD THEY BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY?

Years ago, it wasn't frowned upon to kill someone if this has committed an unjust act and, even more, many of them were executed in public in order to educate everybody and show what could be his punishment.

Now, there are lots of offenders, criminals, murderers, etc. that have committed some crimes and they are just brought into the prison. There, they not only have better living conditions (majority of cases), but also have lots of enjoyable activities to do and any kind of hard works.

In addition, they have the opportunity to walk out of prison having the confidence of those who have accepted their release and, again, in many cases they make the same mistakes.

For this reason, I agree with death penalty. It should be brought back again in order to impart justice and punishing them fairly. If you take another human being’s life, you should be courted in the same way.

It could be hard to watch and even more to do it, but when we talk about justice we are not talking to give a better life and a second chance to those who at some point of his life has killed somebody or has raped somebody violently, or has torture somebody.

Although this may seem contradictory to kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong, it can not be admissible and act as though nothing happened, because if they have been able to kill people, they can do it again. 

BUY NOTHING DAY

I don't agree with this idea because I think that everybody has to be free to buy what they want.

In my opinion, everyone has to be conscious what they can buy and has to have self-control, if you want to buy three TVs, why this could be so bad?, I think that we have to pay attention to other problems that are more important than these.

What is the problem if you want to buy a lot of things if it's your money and you want to do it?

You don't have to judge someone just because they like the Black Friday, and take profit from buying another phone even it's not necessary. 

CAN MONEY BUY HAPPINESS?

“I want to be happy”, “If I win the lottery…”

I have been thinking about two of the most repetitive quotes in our life.

When you ask somebody, if he wants to be happy, they have no doubt in shout a convincing “YES, I WANT.” And the second thing you ask them is: Will you be happier than now if you get more money? So in the face of this question, they seem to be sure of their answer, which is NO.

In my opinion, all of us have been educated in taking consideration of others, so when somebody asks you if you will be happier with more money, we think about how lots of people have less than us and in spite of complaining about their life they just go on with their days. So, why do we have to want more if the others don’t have the same things as us? We are struggling for equality, aren’t we?

Yes, I agree with that, but I do not agree with the first point that I made. I mean, if you refuse to get more money to be happier than now, do you think that you are helping to the others that don’t have money? Absolutely no. It is true that many people can say that if they refuse to win more money this money will be employed to help needed people, but this is not how our political system works.

In my point of view, money can help us to be happier because to cover needs is to have less needs, and it means less things to worry about and finally more time to enjoy.

I BELIVE IN IT...

Do you ever ask yourself that if you do something wrong, something wrong will happen to you? Or to the contrary, have you ever done something because you are thinking that you are doing a good action and something great is going to happen you? 

I didn't use to think in these things and I never paid attention about what I did and what happens to me few time later. But I have a friend who is always repeating to me that it isn't a coincidence in what happens to me, depending on what I did before. 

After spinning around the matter I realize that everything happens for a reason and most of time it is something related to what you did before. So what I would like to focus on is that you have to be conscious of which kind of decisions you choose because it could be the reason why something wrong or something good is going to happen you.

Even more, I agree with "cleansing" your conscience doing something right in order to get rid of your bad karma and changing it in a good one.

It seems like a joke, but doing it, it is possible to become a better person and, yes,  it is true that you are doing it in a selfish way, but you are doing ithttp://www.freeinvestigators.com/images/karma.jpghttp://www.freeinvestigators.com/images/karma.jpghttp://www.freeinvestigators.com/images/karma.jpghttp://www.freeinvestigators.com/images/karma.jpghttp://www.freeinvestigators.com/images/karma.jpg

WELCOMING EMAIL

Hello,

My name is Bruna I'm 17 years old and I live in Fortià.
So the question is what I expect from my life, at this moment I'm not sure. I know that I want to go to the University and have a college degree, to have a successful future, but I have no idea what I'm going to study. At this moment the only thing I want is to pass 2n Batxillerat (sorry Albert I don't know this word in Inglish and I didn't found on the Internet) with very good marks, to avoid problems of access to the college career that decides to make and for maybe get a scholarship.
The challenge that I have to overcome is that I don't really like to study, yes I study, but just because I have to do it, not because I like, so many times I have to do a big effort to every day after school study a little bit of each subject. So this year I will focus on earning good grades and put my best effort because you become good at things through hard work.
Who definitely help me to stay on track is my family, they never let me down and always support me in every decision I make so what I want is make them proud of me.


The sentence I most like of the Obama's speech is "No one's written your destiny for you" because is the truth, each decision you make, each mistake, you can always change your future, and this for me is the best, because if you fail, you have to let your failures teach you and start again in a different way.

Best wishes,

Bruna Silva

LOOK BACK ON YOUR BLOG (4th ESO and or 1 BAT) and answer the questions:

1. Can you see an improvement on your level of English in the past year/s? Where, for example?

Yes, especially on the topic of spelling mistakes, in pronunciation, I think the blog is very useful to work on these aspects.

2. Which activity best shows your level of English?

The exams of books, that also helps me to start reading books in English, and the skills exams, in my opinion they are very useful exams, because you have to have the lever to understand and because you don't have to study.

3. Which activities were really USEFUL for you to improve your English? Why?

Most of all the exams, because you have to prepare them that means you have to learn all the rules of the orthography, the blog, with the news and the yoursay, and also the correcting compositions, because you can see the mistakes you make.

4. Which activities did you NOT find useful to learn English? Why not?

I think the vocabulary exams, because all you do is learn a list of names, that shortly you do not remember any, in my opinion we could look for a more entertaining alternative.

5. Which activities would like to do again next year to keep on improving your English?

I'm not sure, but maybe do more oral presentations, read more books in English, more interactive activities like Kahoo...

GAP YEAR

IS JEALOUSY NATURAL?

Jealousy is an emotional response that arises when a person perceives a threat to something he/she considers him/herself. 

This time I will talk about jealousy in couples. Jealousy that arise between couples, usually produced when you do not have much confidence in the relationship or one partner is believed inferior to the other. When a couple does not have much confidence often think the worst on both sides, because not knowing everything that happens to him or her, or what can get to think he or she, this may influence when they communicate with other people. 

If a partner feels inferior to his partner, always thought he or she wants not enough and that he or she could be with someone better than him or her. I think it's one of the worst feelings you can have in a couple, since many times because of jealousy, many couples are torn apart or many people come to hurt their partners for this. 

I think jealousy are both boys and girls alike, is also always say that girls are more jealous than boys, but this is an urban legend. Many men come to attack their partners for them. 

EXHAUSTED LONDON MARATHON RUNNER

Just 200 yards before the finish line runner David Wyeth's legs turned to jelly but Matthew Rees, of the Swansea Harriers, stopped running and turned around. He grabbed him and supported him across the line as race organizers stepped in. 

Viewers on social media have heaped praise on Rees, calling him a hero. 

What I can say about this news is that sometimes sport can contribute to make people more solidarity and even though it’s difficult to renounce competition and ease the loss of the first position, people learn to grow up developing some other aspects and values that makes them more winners than those who gets the first place. 

I think that one activity that helps boosting solidarity and respect and lots of other values is sport. We are used to hear that group sports are better than single ones, but today we have an example that shows it doesn’t matter which kind of sport you practice is just what you learn from it what  you can apply in real life.

A HOLIDAY FOR THE FILTHY RICH

The much-anticipated XXII Carat holiday villa complex in Dubai is set to be finished later in the year. There are 22 seven-bedroom villas on the market, each with landscaped gardens and a 24-hour concierge. 30% of the luxury properties - costing between £8.5million and £19million - have already been snapped up.

This is one of the reasons why I wanted to study something related with hotels, but is also the reason why I realize that just few people can afford it and while they waste their money in sleep over the most comfortable MATALÀS in the world or in having a bath wrapped in gold, hundreds of millions of people are trying to find any shelter to rest the night.
Hotels show really good the difference that has come up between rich and poor people and it increase every day a little bit more. 1% of population has the 99% of the world wealth while 99% of them has the other 1% and it must be one of the change proposal along the history. However, I consider it is something that will never happen taking in consideration that money corrupts people and it makes them greedier.

NORTH KOREA HAS NEARLY COMPLETED WORK ON ITS ADVANCED SUBMARINE MISSILE PROGRAM

A United Nations report suggests North Korea has made 'rapid developments', so it is believed the country is developing submarine-launched ballistic missiles and North Korea has said missile tests will be carried out at least once a week.

I’ve tried to summarize the news a much as I can because I just want to focus in the fact that power positions are occupied by mad people. On one side, Trump and on the other hand Kim Jong-un (EEUU and North Korea). 

It means that an argument between them can lead the world into a disaster and I’m sure that if a war take place, the entire lands will be devastated and the majority of them will suffer innocently. 

As I said in the last posts, we have progress in lots of aspects that can help our society lead it into a better world with new medicines, new ways of communication, etc. But at the same time, progress can fall in evil hands and it can be use in a painful way. 

I think society must change nowadays and we have to start thinking what can happen if we don’t stop these situations, if we let mad people stay in the power. We can’t not wait until all ends and we must avoid any disaster because, at the end, changing or not is in our hands.

POLITICAL SYSTEM NEEDS A CHANGE

I've decided to write about spanish political system because I think it gives too much to talk about, especially questions and contradictions that must be solve. 

As I wrote in my formal letter, I think that kits if millions of euros are being intended to army and I would beg to the government to reassess and reorganize the general budget of the state. 

First of all, the money should be distribuated in a different way, reducing the huge difference between wealth and poor people. Those who are unemployed should have the chance to attend to free training laboral sessions because if they stay at home, with nothing to do, they are not going to improve in any field and when they decide to find a job, the enterprises won't want them because of their non-knowledgment or experience.

Also, I would like to propose to those business men and women who have money enough to live in a very good conditions, as Amancio Ortega, to share their benefits with their workers and, the government should lay out some laws and policies to control the laboral conditions that are offered to the lowest workers of these companies. 

Finally I would like to focus on one point that must improve in spanish society and it is family reconciliation.

Women who have children have to stay at home when they give birth and they are not able to go to work. Even with this overload and the effort that it represents, their wages are significally reduced. 

After all, I've written about it just to show all the aspects we have to improve if we want to build a better society. 

STUDYING?

This year, I started the course not fantastic but not bad at all. This term I’m more applied in my work because I know that I need a good mark to do the degree I want. Sometimes I don’t have time to do everything, because as you know I spend a lot of time with my horse, almost everyday, and it makes difficult to have a regular schedule of study. I try to go to the gym twice a week, but now it’s impossible, I’ve got a lot of things to do and I thing that it’s more important to have a good mark than doing something else. I don’t really like studying but it’s what I have to do to have a good future. I don’t really want to miss the oportunity to go to the University.

MY FAVOURITES APP

I want to tell you which are my favourites apps for iphone: FaceTime, Instagram. 

FaceTime is exclusive iphone app. It is like Skype, but face tame is only for apple: mac, iphone and ipad. One week ago, I had never used it, but last Friday I used this app with Berta. We talked long time, four hours more or less, while we were doing our homework. For this day, every afternoon we speak by face time, it's cool because it is as if we are together, that is, in the same room.

Instagram, I’m shore you know that, it is like twitter but only you can share photos. This app is exclusive for Smartphone. It's cool because you can choose many filters for the photo you took before. Also because you could see photos from famous people or just friend's photos. Then you could put like on the photo or a comment.

YOUR STYLE IS SPORTY!!

WALK, WALK, FASHION BABY

Isaac Mizrahi explains what is fashion for him. 

First he stard saying that he dosen't know were his inspiration comes from,

but he knows that it dosen't comes from research, he is inspired by the thing he see in the street, 

Like someone's shoes or some shade. Then he says that he is also inspired by the films, the color of the movies and

the way light makes the colors  

TRUMP

Donald Trump needs no presentation. He was a businessman, TV star and complete jerk who mysteriously had reached the USA government. But for who isn’t familiarized…who is Bernie Sanders? Well, he had to be THE president. He wanted public health assistance and PUBLIC UNIVERSITY (god damn why he couldn’t be Spanish?). I think only with these 2 affirmations you can imagine which kind of president would he be: not the one America can afford. Trump had won because white people went to vote, simple as that. And white people can afford university, so why do they need Sanders? Well, in this interview with The Guardian Sander strongly advises that Mr. Trump is a complete liar, and the reason he lies is to get from the USA his needs. That’s quite sad, because that makes him sort of a global issue. He is the height of hypocrisy, a “beautiful rich face” behind a nation which has most of the world’s power, and it’s quite depressing that the only one who was capable to take his place was Hillary Clinton, who is kind of the worst candidate for elections of any type.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/10/bernie-sanders-donald-trump-lies-democracy

CONSUMERISM

NELSON MANDELA

Here, we have a kind of weird news. At first, this is the publication of a book, in which the writer is dead since 2013. Secondly, the writer is a worldwide famous activist who fought racism in South Africa during Apartheid. Well, you can imagine that this man is for sure Nelson Mandela. So, what is this book about? It’s the continuation of a saga of books which he wrote while he was staying in prison (he wasn’t a criminal, in fact he was fighting for black people’s rights and the white government captured him for 20 years). I haven’t read the book, but I can easily assume that it will have tons of philosophy in it, a way to see reality. Because no, Nelson Mandela wasn’t just a nigga making noise (as I’ve heard from feminists during 8th of March), no, he was a visionary. The world needs more people like him.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/10/nelson-mandelas-presidential-memoir-dare-not-linger-due-in-autumn

HIGH PRICE OF RHINO HORN

This piece of news informs that recently a rhino called Vince has been murdered in a zoo near Paris. This has happened many times per day (specially in Africa, where there are three rhinos found dead every morning) and it has an only meaning: people are desperate to get money from horns. The demand from Asia is extremely high and there are some people who still think (because of urban stories) that rhino’s horns can give someone a really strength health, or sexual power…

The main problem here is that people who are involved in this has a lot of money, and they use people who doesn’t have even a little to get their hands dirty instead of them. It’s almost like white collar crime, but without humanity.

I think as one of the experts from the new; we need a powerful law which doesn’t have any empty sides to be used for this. If some kind of animal specialized tribunal existed, this would be much easier. As I said before, these people are rich. And we ain’t, so we have exactly 0 possibilities to defend ourselves in tribunals against them. We can just fight by our hands, or let animals die

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/10/high-price-of-rhino-horn-leaves-bloody-trail-across-the-globe

A DESCRIPTION OF A PERSON

His name is Lluc Bartrina nowadays he is studying 1st Bat, he's fond of playing play tennis, he has been playing since he was 4 years old.

I met him four years ago and since then we have remained firm friends. There is no one around me who wold be such a nice person like him.

I have to admit that his sinse of fashion has improved a lot, when I met him he was a disaster, but now I am keen on his dressing style.

He doesn't know how to hurt a person, he always ties to fing the best side of his friend. He's an amount of generosity, constantly trying to make every body happy, without thinking in himself.

He is the most special person I have met in my life and I'm sure I won't find another friend like him. 

EMPATHY

Lately I've been thinking -when I have time to, because with all this exams it's almost impossible,who knows, maybe that's the objective...- about one thing, one value that people is loosing more and more. Faster and faster (haha guess why I remember this specific words of the film and not other ones). And this value I gonna talk about it's empathy. 

Empathy is the quality of being able to imagine and feeling what the others around you are going through. Sometimes I just reflect about nowdays humanity and I try to figure out what is wrong. Because once you have the problem in front of you, and you recognize it, then you just need to solve it. Maybe that's another problem but it's one step more. It's like looking for something you don't know in a room. Once you know what you look for, even if you don't know where is it, it will be easier. 

People, specially young poeple, itsn't able no more to be in other people's place. And that ends causing so much paint. Because there's one main rule for eveybody, believer or not, which is "treat the other ones like you wanna be treated". And how can you follow this rule which in my opinion it's the solution if you aren't able to know the other poeple reaction and feelings? 

I don't know how we can change this but I think computer games, some movies, television, cartoons... are some of the causes. But well, if you read this post, now we are one step further because at least now we know what we look for. 

CURIOSITIES

The other day, I was surfing the internet and I found a blog full of curiosities and very fun! Did you know that the lenght of the nose is equal to the front? Yes, that’s true. And that banging your against a wall burns 150 calories per hour? There are some incredible things that I’m sure you didn’t know about them, and for this I write this blog here: listas.20minutos.es

It’s amazing how stupid things like this can distract and amuse you!

It happened to me, I was here at home with a friend and we didn’t know what to do, so we looked for some curiosities and we found this page. We started laughing and one of these things we should know that caught our attention, was that we always have the same size of eyes, since we born untill we die. That’s incredible!

DEAR JOHN

I've just seen this film because everybody told me that it's really fine. Well, it is, unless because it made me cry a lot (well, that's usual in me).This film is about a soldier who's in holidays and he goes to his town to visit his father. It is summer. One day, she meets a girl and they spend two weeks together and they really fall in love. She has to go back to the University and he has to return to the army. It is a year sending letters and he goes to the town again one weekend. There they meet again but he has to come back to the army. One day, there aren't more letters. Something happened to her. Savvannah send a letter to him and said that he was married to a man. Well, John was so depressed until he had to visit his father because he was diying. There they met again and John said that we wouldn't be anymore with her because she was married, so he was nothing to her. And as all the romantic films, in a few time they met again and here is the end.
I like so much romantic films because I get on the plot, it's like things were happening to me, and that's what makes me feel sensitive.

YOUR TYPE