FLIP-FLOP RADIO: AN INTERVIEW

listen to ‘Flip-Flop radio: interview’ on Audioboo






I did this podcast with Tania Argelés and Marcel Kotthaus.

ARE YOU INFLUENCED BY WHAT CELEBRETIES WEAR?

Of course I am! But that’s why styles are for: to copy ideas from what you see around and try it to make it a little bit yours. We always look up to celebrities because they have a lot of money in their pockets that they can  spend on clothes and then everyone talks about them.

In my opinion I would say that celebrities now are trying to catch desperately the attention of paparazzi wearing dresses that anyone would wear, like Lady Gaga. I don’t think that she influences me at all, and I would dare to say that she’s the exception. She’s not the ony one anymore.

Jennifer Lawrence

Now there’s a trend (in the celebrity world) to show too much skin. I don’t think that this is a nice style but I was very surprised the other day when I went into a clothing store in my town and I couldn’t find a T-shirt that wasn’t cut by half. Who will go to highschool showing the belly? Nobody! Clothing managers know that if someone who’s recognized all  over the world wear some kind of shoes, people who admire this person are (probably) going to buy the same shoes because “he has the same ones”. 

Instagram's OOTD

Nowadays, most of girls are also influenced by apps like Tumblr or Instagram, where you can post your OOTD (Outfit Of The Day) and you’ll also find lots of outfits from other people. And all those outfits are similar to each other, they’re the same style. 

NEWS ABOUT CHRISTMAS: A GINGERBREAD VILLAGE

In this time of the year everyone is starting to get excited for Christmas being very festive. All the shops have their Christmas decoration and all the streets have the colorful lights and of course, there're always surprises! 

This time has arrived for a Chef, Jon Lovitch, who has spent nine months to built a gingerbread village that he's planning to give it away in pieces after holidays. 

The village has 152 houses, 65 trees, and five trains all made with gingerbread. And it's all made one by one for this New Yorker chef! The big "cake" it weights almost 1,5 tons. It's declared as a World Record (from The Guiness Book of World Records). 

Jon is planning to start teaching gingerbread construction to share all his talent and spread the world with love and joy! 

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I think that this gingerbread village it's a christmassy version of Easter cakes made of chocolate. In that time of the year all the chefs go crazy with chocolate! It would be interesting to see it because there's a lot of museums that expose this kind of mangers or massive doll houses, so why not going to see one made of sweets? I would love to eat a house! Made of gingerbread, of course. What I know for sure it's that anyone told to Jon that he shouldn't have to play with food!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2516191/Village-jammed-Chef-spends-months-making-worlds-largest-gingerbread-village-weighing-1-5tons.html

NEWS: A FLOATING CITY

If you're an adventurous person and you want to travel all over the world, you might not be as far as you thought for making it happen. The Florida-based Freedom Ship International  has designed a floating city. Unfortunately, it's not built yet. 

The floating city will have the capacity for 50.000 residents and  30.000 daily visitors. It's also going to have 25 storeys with every kind of buildings: schools, a hospital, accomodation (of course), bussinesses, parks, a shopping centre, an airport and even an art gallery and a casino! Can you imagine being in a never endless hollidays?

The giant ship is going to travel all over the world in a circuit that it will last two years

The company is trying to earn six billion pounds for starting to turn their dreams on but they said that they will need aproximately ten billion pounds! . It's really hard to know if they could make it possible, but they are very optimistic about the building process. The ship will weight 2,7 million  tones and  will mesure 4.500ft long. 

The frontal part
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The world-wide route
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I think that it's a good project to have it in mind but not to turn into a reallity. Do we really need a ship as big as that? A country moving all arround the world? It looks like a fantasy for me and it reminds me of a film that I saw when I was younger: Wall-E, because it was almost the same, the only difference is that in the film the ship was an space ship! This kind of projects I think it would be a great idea to implement them if we have any kind of "social-world-issue" like overpopulation.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2514936/The-incredible-mile-long-floating-CITY--complete-schools-hospital-parks-airport-50-000-residents.html

ORAL PRESENTATION: FULANIS VS. CATALAN CULTURE

For finishing the first term about Stages we all did oral presentations. Meritxell Vidal (http://meritxellvidalfeliu.blogspot.com.es/) and me did one comparing our traditionals rites of passage with another foreign culture.

Unfortunately, our phone had a problem while it was recording, so there's not all our presentation, but I'll post the prezi and also the things that we said!

We showed images with our Prezi: it's a really good support!

The video finishes when we were about to talk about the weddings and funerals:

WEDDINGS:

Meritxell: The fulani girls get married at the age of ten, and the boys remind skuaa’be until they’re 20. Skuaa’be means handsome young men.

The man is allowed to have four wives if he can feed them. They can only marry people from their own clan. The couple has a short ceremony and they usually dance afterwards.

Me: Our weddings are like the rest of Europe, the couple can decide if they want a religious or a civil ceremony. A day after the wedding they usually go on honeymoon.

FUNERALS:

Meritxell: When fulanis are middle age they are called ndottijo ( older man who has wise because he has lived so many years), when a fulani dies they also follow the islamic laws. They bury the deceased as soon as possible and then they recieve visitors at home. It is compulsery that the visitors bring food during three days.

Me: In Catalonia, when a person dies the visitors can say some words to the family in the morgue. The day after, the family can choose between the cremation or bury the body.

CONCLUSION:              

Me: During this presentation we have discovered another way of living very different from what we are used to.

We found that their traditions are more serious and extreme. The most important rite of passage is to pass the step between child and young adult but in our culture this is not as important as being 18 or getting married.

Meritxell: And that’s all we hope you enjoyed it!

THINGS I'VE LEARNT FROM OTHERS PRESENTATIONS

1. How other cultures celebrates the fact of passing away, and also some particular funerals. I found it very interesting that there're places where some people have to design an unique coffin for each person!

2.The steps everyone should follow if they want to do a sweet sixteen party. Like choosing a theme and of course, the dress!

3.Gypsy weddings are very differents if we compare it with ours! They have a lot of "not very nice" traditions and they sing a lot and they do a lot of party!

NEWS: CAN HORRIBLE BOSSES BE BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH?

This article is about how can a boss influence in your health.It says that a horrible boss can make you feel stressed and it can cause a poor office atmosphere.

Well, that's something that everybody knows. It's easy to relate your stress to your boss. But now experts say that having a horrible boss is bad for your health. How can you imagine that your heart disease or diabetes can come from the stress that you feel from your boss?

The scientists of Ohio State University  proved that stress can cause a change in the gene activity in cells, so the cells fight an infection that you don't have. This causes infections and they transform into health problems. They also made an experiment taking blood samples from people who had stress and the characteristics were the same.

I agree about that. At first I would never thought that such things like diabetes or a heart disease it can come from stress, but now I think that it has logic. But maybe they need to investigate more about this. Although if you have a horrible boss you can't do anything for changing it, unless you quit your job!

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Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2488278/Horrible-bosses-really-ARE-bad-health-Chronic-stress-cause-lead-heart-disease-diabetes-experts-warn.html

FILM REVIEW: GRAVITY

When at first I saw the trailer my first thought was, how can a film only recorded in the sky is going to turn out interesting? But suddenly everybody started to talk about how great it was. I was so intrigued that I went to see the film.

I loved it. I can't describe how faster went the movie, I was nervious all the film! Just with two characters Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. There wasn't even music in the background, just the tiny sound of their heartbeats. It was so moving, so touching. And of course, amazing shoots of the Earth, breathtaking. Gravity is definitely one of my favourites films, although it's not my all time favourite (which I didn't find a film as good as that, yet).

Gravity is about two astronauts: a woman who had lost her daughter when she was four, and a man who was going to do his last expedition.

They get stuck in the space because a missile hit a satellite and caused a chain reaction that destroyed their rocket. At this point, the two astronauts try to reach to the Chinesse emergency rocket. They could move through the sky because the man is wearing a thruster pack. They were about to arrive when the battery of the thruster pack went off. For reach the rocket the man had to push the woman, but that means that he was going to die in the sky.

At the end, she could go home, down to the Earth.

The director is Alfonso Cuarón. ( He's also known thanks to some of the Harry Potter films)

 Here's the trailer:

I coudn't find a video about my favourite part of the film, that it's when the man knows that has to die if she has to survive. Instead, I found a photo where you can see that he's going to take off the security hook that was connecting both of them.

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I really recommend it.

FAIRY TALE: TAKE ME BACK TO THE SKY

“They say that stars are fairies and that they shine thanks to their magic  dust. Sometimes, there are fairies that shine brighter than the Moon, the queen of the fairies. To punish them the Moon took away their magic dust. Without their magic dust they can’t shine or fly.”

Once upon a time in a town called Spring Valley there was a little girl, Aileth. She was seven years old, she had dark hair like the coal and blue eyes like the sea. She had frekles in her cheeks that made her enhance her shy personality. She didn't have a lot of friends but she had a very special friend, her pet. Boris, a red-haired cat.

She was always sad, her mother died two years ago in a car accident. She misses her so much but luckily her father is with her.

One day, Aileth was ready to go to bed when suddenly she saw that the stars were moving. She looked closely and she saw a shooting star. She made a wish: “Please, please. Can you beautiful star get my mother back from heaven?” She didn’t wait for an answer because she saw a light blue little fairy leaning in  a branch of a tree. Aileth saw that the beautiful fairy was trying to fly but she couldn’t. She decided that she was going to investigate more tomorrow morning.

The next day, when Aileth woke up found the fairy lying on her bed, sleeping. “Hello fairy! Did you come to make my wish come true?” The fairy said:“For going up in the sky again, I need to accomplish a wish from a little girl like you. When I was up there I could observe you and I know that you’re a good person and you deserve the best.”

Aileth was thinking about what the fairy said. Was she going to return her mother from heaven? She wasn’t sure but she believed the little fairy. “I belive in fairies!” She said.

It was a long day, so she went to bed early.

It was a Sunday morning before Aileth opened her eyes. Suddenly, she heared a very familiar voice; her mother’s vioce: “Hi darling! How are you feeling today?”

“And that’s why when they tell you to make a wish when you see a shooting star. The fairy that falls is going to acomplish it if she wants to go back to the sky.”

The blue fairy falling from the sky.
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Aileth looking out the window.
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PROTEST SONG

Nowadays I think that a lot of singers write songs protesting about something. I think it's easier to identify yourself in a song against something than in a love song ( but so many songs are about love!).

I've chosen a song called Wings, by Macklemore. He's a famous rapper right now because one of his songs (Third Shop) was number one in many countries and it was always on the radio. One day I was searching a little more about him and I found this song. 

The song is protesting about society. About how we all want to buy expensive things for then showing them to people. I think that it's more addressed to teenagers or young adults than adults in general. I would like to think that when you grow up you will find out how all those big companies of clothing, etc. are manipulating us. Making us think that you have to wear some specific things to be cool or to fit in, or even for being better about something just wearing what they're selling.

Macklemore is singing about Nike, specifically about a kind of shoes. He's playing with the meaning of the words, talking about Nike's shoes, but also  protesting against what are they trying to do to us:

"They told me to just do it, I listened to what that swoosh said

Look at what that swoosh did
See it consumed my thoughts
Are you stupid, don't crease 'em, just leave 'em in that box
Strangled by these laces, laces I can barely talk
That's my air bubble and I'm lost if it pops"

The underlined words are the ones that have that double meaning.

He's explaining it like a story. An experience that he had when he was little. I can feel identified in this song and I don't even have Nike's shoes. But I think that this is happening right now. We just want things because we think that if we don't purchase them we're not going to fit in. Sometimes it's true, we prejudge people without knowing them. Why? How can someone be better than you by just wearing an expensive T-shirt? I'm not saying that it's a bad thing to buy expensive clothes but before buying them you have to ask yourself why you are buying them. Is this T-shirt beautiful enough to spend a lot of money on it? Am I going to wear it that much? Is the quality good enough? ...

In this stage of our lives we care a lot about how we look like. We think it's more important what others think of you, but we don't see that first, we have to ask ourselves how we really want to be. This is the key for not letting anybody down.

The lyrics of the song:

FLIP-FLOP RADIO: AN INTERVIEW

I recorded this interview with Tania Argeles and Marcel Kotthaus.

listen to ‘Flip-flop Radio!’ on Audioboo

If you want to hear an interview of PitonisaNaya click:
http://meritxellvidalfeliu.blogspot.com.es/2013/09/podcast-pitonisanaya.html

MAIL TO THE TEACHER

Dear Milco,

I'm Anna Camós from first of batxillerat A. I'm sixteen and I live in Vilafant.

 I haven't got any brothers or sisters and I haven't got any pets either. Well, I don't mind not having any siblings. But I always wanted to have a cat, it's my favourite animal because cats are very independent, and also because they spend the hole day eating, lying on the sun and sleeping. Who doesn't want to live a life like that? They look like they are having a lot of pleasure doing the things that they do. If I had one I would join it with pleasure! As you can see I could spend the whole day speaking about cats... 

To cut straight, my hobbies are reading (when I have a long time to waste because I love to read when I'm relaxed and I don't have to do anything else), listening to music, playing volleyball and sleeping (I sleep less than I should sleep,  so maybe that's the reason why I love it so much). 

I don't know yet what I want to be in the future. I love languages but I think that they are an instrument to use. And I love art but I if you want to succeed you have to be the best, and I'm not as good as that. I also love biology, I find the part of sanity very interesting. 

That's all for now. See you in class!

BYE BYE ESO

I can't believe that we have finished ESO. Now that I think about it I've the feeling that I'm going to miss it. ESO was a very big stage in our lives, and now it's over. I know that everything will be different after that. We're just starting to know who and how we want to be. There's nobody who's going to tell you what to do, right now we have our furure in our hands. Are we ready to handle it?

 When I think of ESO, it makes me feel happy. Did I enjoy ESO? I have met great people but, is that reason enough to say that I had a great time?

 In first and second of ESO my class was horrible. We couldn't listen to the teachers and we haven't got a good relationship between us. Sometimes I went home crying. I always say that this things make you strong because it's true. That's why third and fourth of ESO I could really fit in somewhere: our classes were entretaining and we all had that feeling of a group united. However, everything has a "dark" side: we had lots and lots of homework and projects to do and I wanted to do it everything and as much perfect as I could. I had to sacrificed hours of sleeping and that made me feel stressed. At the end of this year I think that I could manage everything as I wanted to be done (speaking about homework and studying!).

 ESO was a big lesson for all of us. We've learnt a lot and if we don't look at the not-beautiful things I think that we could remember it with a big smile. We should have to be proud of ourselves!

 WE PASSED ESO!!

Me and Marcel in first of ESO. We have changed a lot!
(By the way he's going to kill me, but I had to post that photo in somewhere!)

NEWS REVIEW

Today, 7th of June 2013, a woman called Carole Longhorn, found a bomb in her garden.

She's from Norfolk, England. While she was gardening she found a bomb and she brought inside of the house to clean the object. While she was washing the bomb, his husband arrived and when he saw the object that they had in the middle of the coffe table, he called the police. When the experts came they said that the bomb was from the II World War and that they were very lucky. Then they took the bomb and they detonated it in a safe place. 

The bomb
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I have read the comments that the couple did about their experiencies and they didn't seem to be very preocupated for what had happened. If it was me I would take serious steps: like revising if it could be possible that there's another bomb. I would be terryfied! If I have founded the bomb like them, I'm sure that I would be constantly thinking about what it would happen if the bomb exploded. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-22814466

A MYTH OR A REALITY? MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

At the beginning of the year, we wrote down our things that we want to improve or change.

Mire were:

• Do sport once a day.
• Learn to play the guitar.
• Give more importance to homework.

I think that I've to be proud of myself. We're in the middle of the year and I could say that I accomplish almost all of the goals.

I do sport every week: on Monday I do ballet, on Tuesday I play voleyball, on Wednesday I do PE (if that counts...), on Thursday I do ballet and volleyball, and on Fryday I do PE. I'm still thinking that I should do something more but I couldn't find the time!

I didn't have the chance to learn how to play the guitar. But this summer I will have plenty of free time to spend with my guitar!

And finally I think that I have always done my homework in time and I'm satisfied of that because last year, sometimes I forgot to write them in my agend and then I forgot what did I have!

GRAMMAR ESO

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TEACHER AND STUDENT DIALOGUE

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ROMEO & JULIET COLLAGE

CONCLUSION

I loved this second term. We studied very powerful feelings: horror and love.

We read books, we watched movies and we did movies! 

We search information about the big masters: Poe, Hitchcock, Shakespeare, etc. And I think that we learnt a lot of history and culture.

I enjoyed everything that we did.

TIME FOR ROMANCE

At the end of the second term we did the romantic project. We read a small version of Romeo and Juliet and we saw the film, too. We were all very moved! Now we will respesent and record one scene of Romeo and Juliet.

I hardly ever see romantic films, because they're all the same: one handsome boy met one beautiful girl, they fall in love, they have some problems, and in the end, they will be together forever.

I like mistery, acction. I like to suffer for the characters, the feeling of never knowing what's going to be next and of course dramas (like R&J).

 My favourite romantic film is 50 Firsts Dates. It's about one boy who met a girl. He fell in love with her, but the girl has a mental problem and she will not remember anything the next day. I like this film because the boy will make her fall in love with him everyday and I think that it's very beautiful dooing that for the person you love.

NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

At the beginning of the year I always use to have lots and lots of resolutions that I want to get. Then I just forgot everything because I'm always changing my mind about all the things around me. Perhaps two months ago I wanted someting that now I think that it's not useful and vice-versa.

I decided that my resolutions this year would be things that I'm always saying that I have to do.

My first resolution it would be keep doing some sport once a day.

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The second one would be give more importance to my homework than other things.

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My last one is learn to play the guitar, now that I have one I can't give up. 

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