FINAL REFLECTION

Second of batxillerat has come to an end, and this means the end of many things, including this blog. It was created two years ago, when I was in 4th of ESO and since then, I have been posting different tasks, news and, what I enjoyed the most, my opinions and thoughs in the so called "my worlds" and "your says". 

Posting writings during two years should mean that my level of english has increased, so I'm going to compare my last writing with my very first one, to see if it is really like this. 

Going back to my first post I've realized it was a bucket list, which is not very good to compare with a writing, so I'm going to use my second post, which was a writing talking about my hero. (http://imnotpineapple.blogspot.com.es/2014/10/my-hero.html). And my last post was a news about human rights (http://imnotpineapple.blogspot.com.es/2017/05/jehovahs-witnesses-banned-in-russia.html).

At first sight, what I can see is that the first post was shorter, but it was probably because it was a task in which I didn't have a lot to say, and seeing my first "my worlds", I can see that the long posts are not something new. About the structure, the "My hero" task wasn't practically structured. With this I mean that I started talking about my hero, just giving information about it, and then I explained why I admired him. Instead, in the last post there is a very marked structure: the summary of the news, my personal opinion and the vocabulary. (although maybe it's not a good exemple to compare, considering that the news structure is given by the news pattern). Talking about the content, I think I've improved my writings because of the topics I'm talking about. When I started the blog, a lot of the topics were given as tasks, so sometimes I didn't have a lot to say, or other were chosen by me but were not very interesting. And even though I have been running out of things to talk, I think the content of my posts has become more interesting throughout time. Another thing that in my opinion has improved is the fluency. In the My hero post I notice in some parts a lack of connectors, which make it be less fluent, and instead, in the last posts of my blog I tried to use new connectors and to be more fluent. And finally, about personal development, I can say that I've noticed it, not only looking at these two posts, but in all the blog in general. It is related a little bit to what I said about the evolution of the topics and also the way I talk about them, which has become more mature. 

Talking about oral presentations or podcasts, I think my best one was the presentation about a gap year I did last year with Paula Caball and Paula Valenzuela (http://imnotpineapple.blogspot.com.es/2016/05/self-evaluation-oral-presentation.html). I've chosen this one not because of the language or the accuracy doing the presentation, because I think that more or less in all my presentations I've had a similar level, but for the way it was done. We tried to make it original and make up a story to fit the presentation in. So all of us played a different role (a girl who wants to do a gap year, a travel agent who helps her and an african women she meets during her gap year). With this little "theatre" we were able to explain the benefits of taking a gap year, the details about accomodation and different aspects of the country of which we were talking  about: South Africa. So I think it was one of my best oral presentations because of its originality.

And about the written post, one of my favourites is also one from first of batxillerat, in which I talk about dog's abandonment. (http://imnotpineapple.blogspot.com.es/2015/11/dogs-abandonment.html). It is a your-say in which I share my opinion about the topic and I give some solutions that, from my point of view, could help in the decreasing of dog's abandonment. It's one of my favourites because it's a topic I care about and I wrote it very fluently. But also, I have to mention the love essay I did this year with Paula Caball (http://imnotpineapple.blogspot.com.es/2017/03/love-essay.html), because I'm also very happy with the result. This was a task that required more work, because we had to look for information about the topic on the internet and then use it in our essay at the same time we were giving our opinion. That's why I'm happy with the result and proud of our work, because I think we did a good essay, using good references, good vocabulary and good grammar and structures. 

JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES BANNED IN RUSSIA

The news are about the intention of Russia's Supreme Court to ban Jehovah's Witnesses by closing their organizations for being extremist and not allowing them to practice their religious activities. If the law is approved, the property of the organization will be taken away and its members won't be able to associate in order to practise their religion in churchs. 

This has been seen as a violation of the right of freedom of religion and association by human rights defenders, as well as for Jehovah's Witnesses, who'll ask for help to the European Court of Human Rights. The Justice Ministry, who has decided not to support anymore the proclamation of the law, has anyways revealed that since 2007 several local Jehovah's Witnesses organizations have been banned, just as 95 pieces of literature considered extremist materials, which hasn't been obeyed by the Jehovah's Witnesses organization although they deny that. Punishments for not respecting the law will go from fines of a considerable amount of money to a maximun of 10 years in prison. 

The article reminds that Russia, as a member of the Council of Europe has to respect freedom of religion and association because it is a human right, although it has violated it before and is doing it again with this law that interferes with the free religion practice. Rachel Denber, member of the Human Rights Watch, has appealed to the Russian Authorities in order to make them respect the freedom of a religion which doesn't hurt anyone.

PERSONAL OPINION: 

As Denber says, if a religion and its practice doesn't hurt anyone, it should be always respected, because anyone should be free to believe and practise any religion they want. And well, of course, as a human right it should be always respected and I think it is a shame that authorities in Russia are thinking about promoting a law against a religion, when there's a Declaration of Human Rights which totally rejects the unfulfilment of any human right.

In the Spanish Constitution it says that Spain is an aconfessional country, which means that it doesn't have an official religion but it can have agreements with religious organizations, in Spain's case, with the Catholic Church. This creates a predilection for the Catholic religion, even though it's not official. But despite that, all religions are respected in Spain. 

In this case we can't do anything to change the situation because it is happening in Russia, but maybe the citizens there could demonstrate against it, which could be helpful in order to prevent the law of getting established. 

VOCABULARY:

· breach: violació, infracció

· withdraw: retirar-se

· misdemeanor: falta, delicte menor

LINK: https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/04/20/russia-court-bans-jehovahs-witnesses

LABOR EXPLOITATION

Have you ever thought about job conditions in all the country? We all tend to think about our situation and the sirtuation of those who are close to us, but, what about the worst job situations in the country?

One thing to consider is that the majority of the people who suffer this bad conditions are immigrants who come from underdeveloped or more poor countries. They come to Spain looking for a better life situation and what they find is people taking advantage of their needs and desperation to use them as "slaves". They are not slaves, but their situation is practically the same. In a lot of cases, no one forces them to work, but they have to do it in order to eat, so they have to put up with labor exploitation. This consists in working for too many hours, in very bad conditions and for a miserable salary.

In addition to this, for a lot of Spanish people immigrants are seen as "job thieves", who come here and steal jobs that should be for people of the country. Personally, I do think immigrants take jobs Spanish people could do, but many times is because people in the country don't want to do them, because of their bad conditions. 

To conclude, I think we should pay more attention to this kind of situations, which are more common than we think, because immigrant people should be considered the same way as anyone, as people.

INFORMAL LETTER

Esplais Street, 17

17486 Castelló d'Empúries, Girona, Spain

20th April 2017

Hello, Marcus!

How are things going? I hope everything is okay. I've been thinking lately and I would like to talk about something with you. 

I've noticed you spend a lot of time on your phone and some times we've hang out together, I've felt like you were giving more attention to your mobile phone than to me. It's not that I'm upset about it, it's just that I'm worried about you. I think you should try to stop using it too much, even if you try to do it step by step. I think you'll feel better, because maybe at the beginning you'll need to use it all the time, but at the end you'll see that you will enjoy real life a lot more! I hope you think about it and consider my advice.

Can't wait to hear from you.
Take care, 

Mar Oliva

DESCRIPTION OF A SOULMATE

I think it is difficult to describe a soulmate or life-partner. Well, you can describe how you would like it to be, but it is almost impossible that you find a person like that, and maybe it can even happen that you find someone similar but you don't end up liking him or her. That's because you find your soulmate when you meet him or her and you can't really know if a person similar to what you consider your soulmate should theoretically be, is going to fit with you in reality. 

But, anyway, I'm going to try to describe what I would like my soulmate to be. About the physical appearance, I like guys with tanned skin and brunette and straight hair. I really like green eyes or any other colour, and I would prefer him to be taller than me. But physical appearance is not very important, if I like the person, it doesn't matter what colour his eyes are or his hair is.

About his personality, as I'm a shy person, I would like him to be extroverted and also more active than me, because I'm quite calm, but not extremely active, because then we wouldn't get along very well. Something I would apreciate a lot in a life-partner is humour, if he made me laugh or had a similar sense of humour it would be perfect. And about his interests, I think it is good to have the same interest in some things, because it can allow us to enjoy those things together, but I also think it would be good if he was interested in things I'm not interested in, because it could make me discover new things, or simply distinguish us in some aspects.

In conclusion, physical appearance and personality depend a lot on each person and I don't think there is a perfect combination that my soulmate should have. However, I think we should agree in some important aspects of life, to allow the relationship to keep going. 

MODIFICABLE BOOK

This article is about a new and special book that has been launched, and which is constantly changing. The book is called A Universe Explodes and its author is Tea Uglow, who wrote it as a book to be changed. The publisher Editons at Play has published 100 books online, which you can read for free. If you want to take part in the project, though, you need to buy it. Then, in order to pass it to a new owner, you'll have to make some changes. You have to add a new word and take out two of them in each page of the book, a total of 21, if not, you won't be able to continue reading the book. This changes are stored online, and everytime a book passes to a new owner's hands, the words are reducted. The idea is that, at the end, there's only one world left in each page. 

The author of the article talks about his experience owning this book. He explains that firstly, he started to remove unnecessary adjectives and mistakes, but then he realized that it wasn't really changing a lot, so then he started to leave out main verbs or words that contribuited to the change of the story. 

The book's author also explains the idea of the creation of this project and how it started. She says that the relationship between the reader and the book when it is a physical one is different than when it is digital. When it's a physical book it puts up with changes in the pages, the cover, etc. But when it's digital, it doesn't suffer any changes, and that's why Uglow came up with this idea, that makes the digital book put up with changes. The article author says this project won't make the readers feel like if they owned a physical book, but that it will be interesting to see the final results of the different stories.

PERSONAL OPINION:

I really liked the idea of this project, because I think it is a good way to make the readers feel the digital books as their, as Tea Uglow says, but it is also a way of unite people. It becomes a group project in which people of all ages and places and who have no connection bewteen them. In my opinion, it is very beautiful to be able to create something like this, with different people who can contribute different points of view and more projects like this should be done. 

VOCABULARY:
· hone: perfeccionar
· underpin: donar suport, recolzar
· lop off: tallar, retallar

LINK: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/apr/28/ebook-every-reader-obliged-to-edit-a-universe-explodes-tea-uglow

ROBOTIC DRILL SURGEON

This article talks about a new robotic drill that can help in skull surgeries, basically thanks to the time saving of the operation, because it goes about 50 times faster than if a person carries out the surgery. This drill has been created by researchers of the University of Utah and now it's being used for operations that involve hearing loss caused by a noncancerous tumor. However, it is thought to be also used in other kind of skull surgeries. The fact that it allows the operation to be done in less time has also other benefits, for example the decrease of infection because of the reduction of time the wound is opened, of costs and of human error. 

In the article, the leader of the researches explains how it works. First, it collects the bone data of the patient and identifies where are the important veins and nerves. Then the researchers, using a special software, program the cutting path the machine has to follow. About the safety of the robot, researchers can place safety barriers to avoid the machine affecting parts which don't have to be touched, and it is also programmed to automatically shut off in case it gets close to a facial nerve. Also, to perform this kind of operations, a surgeon stands all the time next to the machine and he can turn it off fast whenever he wants, to avoid accidents.

The drill was first tested in plastic blocks and then in cadaver skulls to finalise it before testing it in human alive skulls. After being successfully tasted, it is thought to be launched in about one or two years. The creators say it will cost about $100,000, which is not a big amount considering it will remarkably reduce the time of surgeries and, therefore, the costs of each one. They also say it would be good to use this drill in teaching hospitals, because they believe it would be a great tool for learning. 

PERSONAL OPINION:

The news catched my attention, but I was shocked when I read that it help to reduce the time of a surgery from two hours to two and a half minutes. It is huge difference of time, that really shows a difference. If the time of the operation is reduced that much, as the news says, it can lead to less infections and less costs. But time by itself is also important, because nowadays for non-urgent surgeries, people have to wait in a neverending line and for a very long time. So, if thanks to this drill operations that lasted hours can be done in just a few minutes, the long waiting lines for surgeries will disappear, which I think is an important benefit.

VOCAUBULARY:

· drill: trepant, "taladro"

· screw: cargol, "tornillo"

· to drain: buidar, drenar

LINK: http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/01/technology/robotic-drill-surgery/index.html

THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN

Between the second and the third term I've read the book called The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins, which was quite popular about two years ago. By then it caught my attention, because I felt it was the mystery type of books I like, and now that I've read it I can say that I was right.

The book is about a girl, Rachel, who is having problems with many aspects of her life, which lead her to start drinking too much alcohol, and this caused her even more problems. Everyday she catches a train that stops for some minutes in a stop which is near her old house, where she lived with her husband and where now he lives with her new wife and their baby. When the train is stopped, she sees a couple in their house and they seem like the perfect couple. One day she sees the girl of the couple, Megan, kissing another man, and the next day she sees on the news that she is missing. She remembers being around that neighbourhood that night, but as she was drunk, she can't remember what happened and what she saw. That's why, when they found the dead body of the girl, she starts to try to solve the case by remembering what happened that night. 

The book is very intriguing and makes you want to now what happened, specially at the beginning and at the end. At the beginning you want to know if the girl is dead and when you know she is, you start to wonder who has been the killer. Maybe in the middle of the book things start to get a little bit monotonous, because it's all the time Rachel trying to figure out what happened and getting drunk. But when you are getting close to the end, you are willing to know what happened and when she finally remembers what really happened, there are some really tense and thrilling scenes.

After reading the book, although I liked the ending, I thought of an alternative ending. It would be Rachel discovering she was the one who killed the girl. I thought it could be possible at the beginning, but then when I continued reading the book I didn't thought it would end like this. But actually it could be possible, because Rachel was drunk and didn't remember what she did, and she could have had a reason to kill her: jealousy. She saw the couple from the train and they seemed so happy, while she was depressed, coping with alcohol and alone after her husband had cheated on her with another woman, and formed a family with her. Also, when Megan disappeared and Rachel wanted to know what happened, she went to see Scott, Megan's husband and started to get close to him. So she could have been jealous of the perfect life Megan had with Scott, which lead her to try to steal Megan's life by killing her and approaching to Scott. Also, as the girl went missing the day after Rachel saw her kissing another man, she could have been very angry with her for cheating on her husband, because Rachel suffered that from her husband, and killed her. 

As I said, this is a possible alternative ending, but I liked real one and I liked the situations it lead to, because they were very tense and different from what you thought during the book.