MY ENGLISH COMPETENCE IN 2015

If I had to choose any post to show my level of english I would choose a writting about living without mobile phones. 

Although it's not a long composition, the structure is very clear and there are lots of connectors and interesting ideas (in my point of view). It's also a common topic to talk about nowadays, so it shouldn't be boring to read! 

Choosing an oral evidence is even more difficult. I choose the presentation of my TDR. I had been working on that project for so long that I think it's the best presentation that I have done, Seeing it again I can see how I wasn't that nervous. I was more secure and the presentation has a good structure and a lot of information. 

All the posts helped me to improve my english, I think that the ones that I choose are a good example of my level. Nevertheless, I always see somethings that I could have done better!

MY ENGLISH PROGRESS from 2013-2015

While reading my first post of Batxillerat (Mail to the teacher), I don't have the feeling that I'd written that two years ago.

I don't know if now I would do a better informal letter to a teacher. The text itself has to be informal, so I don't think that back then I put a lot of effort on writing it. Perhaps the most diferent thing I see when I compare it with the newer ones is the fact that the sentences are very simple, with not too many connectors.  I don't tend to do a lot of mistakes, not even two years ago but I can detect some of them that now I wouldn't do. An example would be "I sleep less than I should sleep" there's no need of writing sleep twice. 

I remember that it was hard to me to adapt my way of writting to english. The usual style I use to do essays in catalan or spanish is with long sentences it's trickier to make rich but short sentences! That's another aspect that has changed during the years. In my last post I can see more complex connectors and eve the structure of the sentence is different.

I can't tell precisely if I have improved a lot in the writing part. However, I don't need to watch my presetations to know I did an enormous change. Having re-watched my old presentation about when I was a child I can see that now my english is more fluid than before, and I was even more shy. I have improved in my posture and my way of explaining, although in the most recent presentation (about the TDR) I'm nervous as well. 

NEWS: DID YOU KNOW THAT KINDER EGGS ARE ILLEGAL IN THE USA?

I remember that when I was a child I loved to recieve Kinder eggs. In fact even now I would enjoy eating one (although now it would be more for the chocolate than for the toy). If I have to describe my childhood in ten words one of them would be Kinder. So, can you imagine a life without Kinder?

Sure you do if you come from America! According to the article that I read, Kinder eggs are banned in the USA. There's an especific law which says that doesn't allow to put something that isn't food inside food, it could only be possible if the not-food product is visible from the outside.

The law was created due to the fact that, fourty years ago, there was an incident caused by the swallowing of a little piece from the toy.

In my opinion, there's no need of such a drastic action. There's a warning in Kinders that says to be better opened with adults. Also the capsule which contains the toy is too big to be swallowed! I find the law a little nonsense. Food is not transparent, how do you expect that the object could be visible from the exterior if is covered by food?

It's a big shame that American kids can not be able to enjoy Kinder eggs, however, I'm sure that they have a lot of snacks better than Kinder to enjoy!

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Source

News source: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/why-are-kinder-surprise-eggs-illegal-in-the-usa-10055273.html

NEWS: NEPAL QUAKE: MORE THAN 1000PEOPLE DEAD AFTER TREMOR NEAD KATHMANDU

At the end of April, a natural disaster ocurred in Nepal. An earthquake (7.9 on the Richter scale) killed more than a thousand people as a result of the avalanches in the Himalayas and of all the demolished buildings. Most of the survivers spent the days at local nursery plants. Two ancient temples with a lot of significance  were also completely destroyed.

Last week the policemen confirmed the death of a catalan woman who was hiking the Himalaya. Nevertheless, there's a large number of people missing that might not be found.

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The destroyed temples

I find terrifying how nature can cause this amount of damage in matter of seconds. It must be devastating to lose someone in this kind of accidents, even more if you don't really know if the person is just missing or if it's already dead. Although it's nobody's fault, it's amazing the amount of support that the city recieved and in consequence a lot of lives were saved. 

In my opinion, natural diasters like that one  are the worst, not just for the number of deaths, but also for the city itself. It erases the history that the city had. What would Catalonia be without La Sagrada Familia and the other beautiful churches spreaded across the country, without the famous ruins and such? Nothing. We would loose our essence, our nacionality. Without the patrimony, a city is just an industrial zone. Catalonia wouldn't exist without the tourism that comes each year. So, why aren't we trying to prevent natural disasters? We are contaminating the Earth, and although we can't stop the movement of the tectonic plates, we could reduce the pollution, we could decrease the deglaciation of the poles, we could prevent the extension of the hollow ozone. But we are doing nothing.

What kind of planet will our descendants will live in?

News source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/25/nepal-hit-by-strong-earthquake

NEWS: ARE EMOJI KILLING OFF THE ALPHABET?

Did you know that there are more than 800 emojis? According to an article, emojis are replacing internet slang completely now that the little images are creating a global recognised language.

Some internet slang like "Oh my god" (OMG) has been replaced with the emoji that has a fear expression, "Laugh out loud" (LOL) has been replaced with the emoji that is crying of happiness.

OMG!!!

LOL

However, it doesn't stops here. Nowadays emojis are also used combined to  create sentences. According to a study, Finland is the city where most of the network users use emojis in a daily basis. 

The most used emojis are the one used to express LOL, followed by the emoji that has hearts as eyes and then the one that blows a kiss.

Source

As a user of some networks such as Instagram and, of course, Whatsapp, I must say that I really enjoy using emojis. I think that complements very well a message. Although I have never used it in sentences because I find that is faster writing the word than searching for the right emoji, I wouldn't find it strange if someone replyed to me that way.

I can't tell if it's a bad thing or not. I don't see why internet slang should be better than emojis! Looking trough my phone, the emojis I use the most are the typical heart, the girl who's killing it, and also the dead face (mostly used to express how I feel about the final exams and la selectivitat).

The girl on fire

The dead emoji

News source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3070135/Are-emoji-killing-alphabet-Instagram-maps-use-icons-replacing-internet-slang-words.html

NEWS: HOGWARTS IS HERE! RESEARCHERS REVEAL REAL-LIFE INVISIBILITY CLOAK

According to an article of the Daily Mail, researchers from arround the world are trying to create an invisibility cloak inspired by the invisible cloak from Harry Potter.

Some inventors from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have already invented a cloak able to cover small objects. How it works? They have created a material wich is able to alter the cycle and speed of light so when the waves of light touches it, they get reflected instead of the object.

Here's an image of the Invisible Cloak. You hide an object inside the tube, and it dissapears due to the distortioned waves.

Even after reading this article I found it impossible to believe and to understand, but it seems that the inventors are going to the schools of their country to show how it works because it's physics. I haven't quite understand how the waves can make something dissapear!  But as seen in the other article that I post about the new machine able to mantain an organ alive, I don't see the utility to an invisible cloak. I'm not saying that everyone should be trying to find the method of saving the world, however that Institute is not the only one trying to design an invisible cloak, so why invert a significant amount of money, sources and time to something that it's not as demanded as the organ machine? And even though this project turns out well and in the future we will be able to be invisible, I'm sure that it's going to be used as a weapon rather than a common good. 

Harry Potter's invisible cloak

News source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3063185/Hogwarts-Researchers-reveal-real-life-invisibility-cloak-used-classrooms-teach-physics.html

NEWS: THE BREATHING LUNG TRANSPLANT

In a british hospital, it's a common thing to use a machine able to keep organs working outside the body during 24 hours. Using the machine instead of the traditional method of putting the organ into a cool box (where the organ only lives for six hours) doubles the number of lung transplants.

The machine, called Organ Care System, is able to keep the lungs in the same condition as the body, so the lungs keep working because blood is still circulating. The importance of that is because using that machines lungs can be transported, although just the 20% of them are going to be usefull due to the difficult compatibility of the doner and the person who's reciving it. As a doctor says, "organs weren't meant to be frozen on ice" so this machine basically solves the problem.

Organ Care System

Years ago, in La Marató of TV3, a program which each year is dedicated to a disease, they discussed the fact that there are a lot of people waiting for an organ transplant. This machine is giving the oportunity of saving a lot of lifes. I'm sure that doctors would find a way to built a machine like this for each organ. This kind of articles show us how quickly is the tecnology evolving!

News source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3075219/The-breathing-lung-transplant-New-machine-keeps-organ-working-outside-body-24-hours-double-number-successful-operations.html