WRITING: My travel to Madrid

Most of the students of my level and I travelled to Madrid, which is situated in the centre of Spain, last week. Last Monday we met in Banyoles, in front of the high school, at seven o'clock in the morning. Everyone was very excited and happy for the trip, and precisely I was completely happy because I was looking forward to the trip since one month before. The teachers started to call all the students to see if someone was missing, and then one by one started to get in the bus.

We needed ten hours to arrive to Madrid but the trip was very fun and anybody got bored in the bus. Each one took his bag and the teachers gave out the keys of the rooms of the hotel. It was in that moment when I started to feel ill. I felt cold, and very tired and I decided to tell it to the teachers. Dolors said that may be I had a little fever and she also said that I hadn't worry about it. Shortly after we went to a restaurant and there we had the dinner. During the dinner we had a great time, we laughed and we told lots of jokes and little stories. As time was passing I was feeling worse, but I went out with my friends. We turned back to the hotel at one a.m. and I got into bed because at that moment I felt very cold. The next morning when I woke up I felt absolutely sick and my room-mates went to call one teacher who realised that I had a lot of fever and decided to call a doctor. After two hours the doctor left my room, he diagnosed acute bronchitis and for that reason I had to rest all the day in the bed. During that day the only thing I did was sleep, I hadn't strength to do anything more.

Next day like a miracle, I hadn't fever but I continued feeling a little bad. My friends advised me to have a shower and I did it. After the shower everyone went to the first floor to have the breakfast. There I tried to eat something but my stomach was slightly bad and I started to feel a little dizzy and all of a sudden when I stood up form the chair I fainted. After some minutes I opened my eyes and I saw the three teachers and some of my friends around me, I didn't understand anything because my last memory was that I felt very dizzy and when I opened my eyes I was lying on the floor and Julia was holding up my legs.

The teachers called the doctor another time and she said that the fainting wasn't important and dangerous but I was resting in the bed until lunch's time. From that day my health started to improve and I could finish the trip like all the students.

WRITING: Opinion essay

Are our zoos cruel to wild animals?

Main of the developed countries have zoos in their main cities and we are used to see the animals into the cages and for us is the only way we have to see the wild animals. But, in fact if you think a little bit about wild animals' life you can realise that living in a cage is not their natural habitat.

First of all, I'm not totally against the zoos but I've got some reasons to think that the zoos are a cruel place. In one hand I think that going to the zoo is very interesting and you can learn lots of things about the wild animals. Visiting the zoo is the way that children can know lots of animals and the way that they live, in other words, the zoos are like a “teacher”. Another good thing about the zoos is that it can protect some animals that are in danger of extinction.
In the other hand I've got quite reasons against the zoos. The most important is that the animals are in a cage, and this is a torture because they used to live in freedom and in the zoo the space is limited. Another important thing is that they are used to live in a concrete climate and when they are brought here, they have to get used to this climate. Related with the reason before, the environment is very polluted, and this can effect the animals' health.

To sum up, I believe that the zoos are quite cruel with the animals, however I think that is the best way to know all about the wild animals' life. So, I think that I could never get a concrete answer because for some reasons I am against the zoos and for some other I am for the zoos. As far as I am concerned the best solution for see the animals would be to go to the place their live but I know that this is very expensive.

TWO LIVES

1.Look at the front cover and observe it. How do you relate the title to the picture?

Well, when I bought the book and I saw de title and the picture I thought that this book would be about two young people, who fall in love and then for some reasons they have to split up. And a long time later they meet and then they remember their relationship.

2.Most of the story takes place in Tredonald, Wales. Find information about this coal mining village.

3.Chapter 1: Two young lives

-" Life was not easy for the Thomas family." Why ? ( 3 lines )
Thomas family, was a coal miner family. The father of the family hadn’t got job, and always was drinking alcohol. Two of the three sons had to work to get money. The oldest son died some years ago in a war and the mother died too, but she died when her youngest son borne. So this family wasn’t very luckily.

- Richard Thomas had been killed while fighting in North Africa in 1943. Which war was it ?
This war was called The desert’s war. It was one of thousands fights that took place in the Second World War.

- In chapter 1 we know that Megan and Huw are good friends. Describe the moment.
We know that Megan and Huw are friends when Huw goes to the shop of Megan’s father, and then he invites Megan for a walk and she accepts. In this chapter we learn that Megan and Huw are friends since they were childhood.

4. Chapter 2 : The friendship continues

-In this chapter Megan and Huw take a decision about their relationship. Explain it. Why do they take it?
They decided to hide that they were in love because if Megan’s father knew all about their relationship then he wouldn’t agreed with their relationship and maybe he wouldn’t allow Megan to meet Huw.

5. Chapter 3: Romance grows

-"This Saturday was going to be a night to remember." ( page 15 ) Why?
Because Megan and Huw decided to go to the cinema and this meant that they could be together without hiding their self. And this also meant that they could be together in a warm place.

6. Chapter 4: Death at the mine / Leaving Tredonald

-After the first four chapters, how would you define the relationship between Huw and his brother?
I think that Gareth was very important in the Huw’s like because in his childhood Gareth was like his father. And before Gareth’s dead they was friends, they help each other. The two brothers took care of their father too.

7. Chapter 6: A surprise find

-Megan finds the letters Huw had sent her 50 years before, in 1946 and 1947. Imagine Meg's father was still alive and that you are Meg. What would you tell him?
I suppose that I would get very angry, because if he hadn’t hidden the letters maybe Megan and Huw’s future would have been different. Maybe if Meg had read the letters she and Huw would have got married.

-In the first letter Meg asks Huw: " Do you think he wanted me to find them when it was to late?". What dou you think?
Well, I think that in one hand it’s hard to know you’ve got a father after lots of years, but in the other hand it’s nice to know that your father worries about you.

8. Chapter 7: Time to decide

-Before leaving Tredonald, Huw told Megan : "in a year ...I'll come back here and we'll get married..." ( pag.23 ); but things turned out to be completely different. Why ?
Because as he had send her lots of letters and she hadn’t answered his letters, Huw thought that Megan had already forgotten him, and one year after he had left he decided to stop sending her letters. And with the years Huw met a girl and then they got married. An de same passed with the Megan’s life because as her father hid the letter she thought that Huw had forgotten her, and she lived her life without Huw. And a lot of years later when she was sixty-five years old, more or less, she met a man with who she wanted to get married.

9. Chapter 8: Telling Beth

-Find some information about Cardiff ( 3 lines ) and post a picture
Is the most important city in Wales, and it is the capital too. In this city there are the most important business, the most important teams of any sport and there is the government too. It is situated in the south of Wales next to the sea. Cardiff is one of the twenty cities of United Kingdom with more inhabitants. Historically, Cardiff is an important city which attracts lots of tourists.

10. Chapter 10: Writing back

-Meg is about to get married. In spite of that, she lets Huw visit her and her daughter. Why does she act that way? Do you think she does it for Beth or for herself?
Well, I suppose that Megan does it, first because she want to see Huw after all these years and then she also does it because she wants her daughter to know her father, because Is important for people to know who is their father. But however, Megan is afraid of meeting Huw because she doesn’t know how will she feel when they meet.

11. Chapter 11 : A new start

-What's Meg's present job?
She works in the coal mine, but not extracting the coal. She organizes tours down the mine for the tourists because nobody works in the mine, and she doesn’t want the mine to close.

-Why does Huw tell her " you always were a fighter, weren't you?" ? ( pag.48 )Because she always got the things that she proposed herself to do. And she think a project with the mine because it didn’t close.

-Do you think two people can still be in love after 50 years without seeing each other?
Well, it’s difficult know it with certainty, but I think that two people can’t still be in love after fifty years without seeing each other, because all the feelings over years aren’t the same. I think that if you meet with your first love after lots of years you can feel appreciation for that person, but it would be very difficult to love that person as the first day. However I think that some relationships have survived the passage of the years.

12. Chapter 17 : Time to go

-Imagie the conversation between Paul and Megan the moment she tells him that she is still in love with Huw. Write it down.
I think that the conversation would be a little uncomfortable, because however Meg is still in love with Huw, I think that Meg loves Paul too. But Meg loves Paul in a different way than Huw.

13. Did you like the book? Why ? What did you learn by reading it?
I liked the book, because all the English books that I have read before it in the school were about stories for children and this book is more interesting as the story is for older people. And I also like this book because I haven’t had too difficulties to understand it. While I was reading I learned some vocabulary and I got ability to read.