Photography

For many people photos are just a picture to memorize moments in their life. Of course they are, but for me it's a bit more. I like to think about photography like an art to express feelings, ideas, thoughts... It gives you a lot of room, but sometimes it's difficult to find an appropiate motif.

Sometimes I just feel like going for a walk with my mother's camera. It's funny to notice how your vision for the things around you changes. You just begin to look closer and notice every detail around you. If you haven't tried it yet, you should definitely!

The other day I was looking out the window in my bedroom. I was in a melancholic mood. Suddelny I noticed the evening sky with little, red clouds. It was just so beautiful.. That's the photo I took:


And here's a photo from my last walk with mum:



I think it's relaxing, joyful... Like my last summer holidays. I love the reflex in the wet sand and the footprints!
Unfortunately I haven't got my own camera, but mum doesn't use hers much, so I can borrow it from her. Maybe I'll buy one someday, but I think I don't need it by now. It's a great hobby I like to spend time with.

Podcast - Hey Mum!

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Me reading the tale

I've made a podcast reading the tale I wrote. I think it turned out well with the music!

Here is the podcast to the tale:

Anglès - Podcast T...

Once upon a time...

I've chosen to post my tale to the blog because it's based on a game I really love and I like stories that give you some ideas to remember, like "If you believe, you can do (almost) everything." Also, I think it's one of my best writings because I let my imagination add details, I used adjectives ad I tried to make everything sound good when the tale is being read.

So this is the fairy tale I wrote this first term:

Once upon a time, there was a small but beautiful city called Twilight Town. It was situated besides a small mountain and had a specific characteristic: it had it's train station on top of the mountain.There lived four friends: Hayner, Pence, Olette and Roxas.
It was the last August week and the four kids met at their usual place. "So, it's our last summer holiday week..", Pence said. "Yeah, and we still haven't done our homework!", Olette mencioned loudly looking at Hayner. But he didn't say anything. He seemed to be deep in thought, until he stood up suddenly with a jump and shouted loudly: "I've got it!" Olette was irritated: "You've got what?" "The perfect plan! Remember our plans to go to the beach?", Hayner explained smiling. "Yeah, but.. We're blank, remember?", Roxas sighed. "Won't you let me explain? We can ask the people around town if they need help with something and earn the money for the train!" "And what about our homework?", Olette repeated in a annoyed way. "We'll think about them later, come on!", demanded the leader of the group and ran outside. Pence and Roxas didn't think about it and went after him. Olette sighed, left her notebook there and ran after them. "Roxas! Pence, Hayner! Wait for me!"

And so the kids started to look for a one-day job around the town. After some time searching: they found something: they had to put some big and colorful advertising posters around town. "I knew this would be a good idea!", Hayner praised himself. "Wait, what's this..", Roxas said looking at the posters, "It's about the Struggle tourney! And it's tomorrow!" "Wow, really? So the beach must wait!", Hayner said happily, looking at Roxas. "Seen the prize? It would be nice for our trip. We both have to make it to the finals, so, no matter who wins, we'll get the reward. Promise?" "Promise!", laughed his best friend. Then they went to work.

The next day, Roxas got up early and met with his friends at the town square. They already had set up everything: chairs for the public, the ring for the spectacle... Roxas and Hayner went to the desk were they could register for the game. Afer writing down their names, the woman explained the rules again: "You'll get some velcro pieces on your arms, legs and stomach, also a helmet with velcro. There will be stuck some balls, the same number for everyone. Your "weapons" will be those stuffed sticks. You have to try get the balls off your opponent's body and if you can and want to, you can pick them up and stack them on yourselves. When the time's over, the one with more remaining balls on his body wins. Any questions?" They hadn't any. As they turned around, they saw another boy from town in front them: Seifer. He was tall, strong and arrogant. "Registered yourselves to lose?", he laughed. "We'll win, I believe in ourselves!", Hayner shouted at his enemy, turned around and went away, followed by his friends.

At the afternoon, the tourney started. The first battle was Roxas against Hayner. Both of them were very surprised. "I guess that's it with our promise..", Roxas thought loudly. "What do I care! The one of us two that wins this battle will win the entire tourney! You'll see!"
The battle started. After a short time of just moving around, Hayner tried to make the first hit, but Roxas got away and could hit him from behind. Then the two of them really got started. The many hours they had trained all over the year could be seen clearly on both sides. "The time is over now!", a voice could be heard through the speakers. "And the winner is... Roxas!!" Hayner was sitting down on the ground. He fell after Roxas' last hit. His best friend helped him get up. "Remember our promise, now you have to win", Hayner smiled. "Good luck, partner."

People were carrying him on their shoulders. They all happily called his name over and over. "Roxas, Roxas..." He just couldn't describe the feeling. Besides the people carrying him walked his friends. "You see? You can do everything as long as you believe.", Olette smiled proudly at her best friend. Roxas smiled and looked at the trophy with the four marbles.

Nintendo Wii and Mario Kart

That's something I'd really really like to have: a Nintendo Wii. It's not like I'm always stuck with video games, but it's fun to play them with other people sometimes. And the Wii is the perfect platform for fun with family and friends!
The special characteristic of the Wii is how you play: you don't just sit on the sofa and "smash" some buttons. The Wii controller has got movement sensors, so you play tennis by actually movingthe controller like it was the racket. It's a new idea I really like.

The game I'd like to have with it is Mario Kart Wii. It's a racing game with famous Nintendo characters: Mario and his friends and enemies. You can choose from up to 24 characters! But first you have to unlock most of them. The controls are also very special here. You can plug your controller into a wheel and play as it was the steering wheel of your kart or bike. It's very intuitive and easy to learn. Of course you can play alone: races against the computer, time trials (try to beat your best time over and over again!)... but the real fun is playing with other people!
It's also not the typical racing game because it's not always the fastest who wins: On every track are several item boxes that give you all kind of stuff to help you: a star that makes you invincible for a short time, mushrooms as little speed boosts, bananas to leave at the track...
There are 32 different tracks: half of them are completely new and never seen, the other half is a remake from tracks of older Mario Kart games. On almost every hidden track are some hidden (and not-so-hidden) shortcuts that can help you to get the victory!
In conclusion, it's a funny game for both young and older people. All the family can enjoy it because of it's simple and intuitive controls.
Finally I want to leave you a video with three races:

Red - Ordinary World

Ordinary World by Red is my favourite song at the moment. It is special to me in some way, so I want to share it with you:

And here are the lyrics:

Came in from a rainy Thursday on the avenue
thought I heard you talking softly
I turned on the lights the TV and the radio
but still I can't escape the ghost of you

What is happening to me crazy some would say
Where is the life that I recognize, gone away

And I won't cry for yesterday
there's an ordinary world somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world
I will learn to survive

Passion or coincidence once prompted you to say
pride will tear us both apart
Well now pride's gone out the window
cross the rooftops, runaway
Left me in the vacuum of my heart

What is happening to me crazy some will say
where is my friend when I need you most gone away

But I won't cry for yesterday there's an ordinary world somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world
I will learn to survive

Papers in the roadside tell of suffering and grief
Fear today forgot tomorrow beside the news of holy war and holy need
Our's is just a little sorrowed talk, just blown away

And I won't cry for yesterday there's an ordinary world somehow I have to find
And as I try to make my way to the ordinary world I will learn to survive
Every world is my world (I will learn to survive)
Any world is my world (I will learn to survive)
Any world is my world, every world is our world, every world

The song makes me think about someone who lost all he had. His past still chases him sometimes and he still misses that life he used to know, his friends, all his world. But then, in the chorus, he seems to say: I won't get it back, it's gone, so let's start over again. The message, after all, is still positive: it's like a "never give up".

It also reminds me of many times I've been thinking about giving up something I started.. I've even thought about leaving school once. When I'm in a similar mood today, the song helps me to think ina different way about it. So I can consider it in a more neutral way and make my decision.

I've heard the song first in a video about a game I really like. The main character was someone who always had to resist all kind of things. He needed a regular, normal life, without that many ups and downs, and he was searching for it. Sometimes I feel the same way sometimes: the song makes me know that I'm not the only person who feels like this. And it makes me feel at least a little bit better.

There's an ordinary world..

"My" town

As you all know by now, I'm german. Well, today I want to talk about the town where I grew up. I learnt some things about it some days ago
Wilhermsdorf was first mencioned in a written document in 1096, so it's over 900 years old! Many jewish people used to live there until Second World War. The Main Church ("Hauptkirche". In the photo, the biggest building at the right side) celebrated its inauguration in 1714. The Hospital Church ("Spitalkirche"), near the place I lived, was built in 1718.
Nowadays, Wilhermsdorf's town council includes 14 towns, is 27km² big and is home to more or less 5000 people.

I've decided to write a post about "my" town because I have lots of good memories of it, the school, my friends there... I have lived there for 9 years, since I was nearly 1 year old until I was 10.
I lived on the main street, number 75 (at the photo, the marked house), in a two-family house. It was big and I had a big bedroom with room to play. It was near all my friends and near the school: I went there walking. In fact, looking at the photo, you can see the sports field we went during the break. All the town is sorrounded by fields and woods. I loved going for a walk at the small forest nearby.
There's also a public indoor swimming pool we used to go every two weeks at the gym class fro 1st to 4th grade.

In conclusion, I really liked the time I spent there and miss the town and the people a lot, but I also like it here. The two places are different, but I like them, each in it's own way.

My friends

I’ve said already more than once that my friends are very important to me, so I think I should write at least one post about them. I can’t and won’t talk about everyone of them, but I’ll try to be fair so nobody gets upset. :)

First of all, the three I spend the most time with these days: Adrià, Marcel and German. It’s just funny being with them: they’re always joking or doing silly things, and I just enjoy watching them and laughing with them. But if it’s necessary, they can be serious. I know I can tell them if I need help and that I can trust them.

Melissa, Alexandra, Claudia, Maryana and Greta are the five I always have lunch with on Tuesdays. It’s a very funny hour in which we say all kind of really really stupid stuff to eachother. But we all know nothing about that is serious. I really love them. <3

Wijan, Africa, Adrian, Aleix, Pep, Maribel, Guillem, Yasmin, Sarah, Oriol, Cristina and many others are the ones I don’t spend so much time with, but I still love a lot!

I still have friends in Germany, like my all-time-best-friend Lisa. People might think it's stupid saying your best friend is someone who's that far away, but she understands me in a way noone else does. I miss her a lot!

Finally, at this point I want to say thanks to all of them. For being there for me, for not being angry with me when I’ve got my moody days, thanks for all :) I love you so much!

My pets

In my oral presentation I talked about animals, and so I'll do in this one. But now I'm going to introduce you my pets.
I've got three cats at home, a male and two females. I'll explain you a bit about every one of them:

-Timmy has been "the king" at home for 6 years now. He's 6 and a half year old. He behaves very well. He's very calm in general, but he likes to "ask for food" in a very.. loud way. He always feels qhen something's wrong with me, because then he always tries to cheer me up and won't go away from my side until I'm better. I love him very much.

-Lucy was found by my mother at a empty plot. She is really thin, but I think that's a attribute of her breed. She is a Siamese. In some senses she's a bit strange, but maybe that's because of her previous owners. She always plays with Maya or Cleans Timmy and she is really loving with us, too.

-Maya was left by her cat-mother in our garden on October 7th, 2008 in the early morning. My mother found her outside, cold and calling for her mother. So she took her inside and out her under a infrared light to warm her and gave her a little bit of milk. Later, when I woke up and the shops opened, we bought some special cat-milk and raised her. Now she's a year old and the biggest of our cats! She's a very impatient bighead and also always hungry. It seems like Mum is like her mother, too. I really really love our Baby.

Self-evaluation: My oral presentation

In general, I think my oral presentation wasnt really bad, but not really good either. I talked about the summer I worked at the animal home from Pro Gat.
I used a powerpoint which was focussed on the topic. I think it was visual, because there were many photos and only a few sentences. It helped my presentation because it remembered me some important things. My presentation was 5:30 minutes long: the timing was allright.
Referring to my body language, I was looking at the audience, but mostly at the teacher, I don't really know why.. I read occasionally from my notes, but I think it wasn't too much. My gesture wasn't so good, it needs to improve.
My structure was right, I think: I ordered my ideas in order of importance (What is Pro Gat, what they do, some personal things that happened to me...) I use some discourse markers (On the other hand..)
I introduced a lot of new information to my audience: most of them didn't know I worked for Pro Gat a summer long and some didn't know what it is. I think it's clear, there was nothing too difficult. My information is completely original and based on my own experience.
I think my language, grammar and vocabulary is correct. I used verbe tenses que learnt in class, lie used to. I used some linkers and pause fillers. Maybe I used a few pause fillers more than I should have used. I didn't check the pronunciation, because there weren't many new words for me and generally I knew how to pronounce them. I was thinking so much about what to say that I didn't really change my intonation. That was not so good. My speech was mostly fluent.
In conclusion, I should improve my gesture and intonation, the same happens with my eye contact. I forgot some little things and added others, but that wasn't so important. And I should try not to forget about my powerpoint next time!!

Here's my literal transcription:

OK. Good morning everybody, Im Nicole, as you all know and today in this oral presentation I'm going to talk about the place I worked at in my summer holidays last (summer) year. First of all I want to start with a question: do you all know Pro Gat? ... Who doesn't know? OK. It's aprivate organisation that takes care of homeless dogs and cats and tries to find them new homes. Ummm... They can be found here between Empuriabrava and Castelló and they have.. Well, when I started working they had 35 dogs and like 50 cats. Umm.. They didn't use to work for profit but only to help the animals, but people explained me that things seem to be changing a bit. I don't know. Well, I'd like to point out that the organisation lives only from donations from other people. Umm.. They can be found every Saturday morning at the market of Empuriabrava selling things other people donated: clothes, books, for example.
Umm.. Family and friends had told me a lot about them before I (started working) decided that I wanted to help myself. Umm.. I went there to have a look and ask if they could need my help and later I realised that they could need every pair of hands they get. Umm... I didn't earn any money, it was completely voluntary, so I could go there or stay at home as I wanted, but I used to go... nearly every day, mornings and afternoons.
Umm.. Some personal things that happened to me were for example that I used to clean every day a specific enclosure - an enclosure is like a big cage - where lived six young German Shepherds. They were four months old, more or less and, as it is usual fo that (little) young dogs, they always wanted to play and it was very difficult to go in and out there without being scratched or bitten accidentally or... well. Also, it was almost the same with the cats, because I used to go feed (them) or clean the cats' house, (and) but it was even (more) harder because there weren't only six cats, there were 20 in one og these houses! A second thing... (I realised about the powerpoint, so I could say things I forgot etc.)
Errr.. Well, you can see here four dogs I used to play a lot with. These two are Olli and Stan, and up there is Sissy and Lobo. Umm.. Well, these are the young german shepherds I was talking about. Umm... yeah. I used to call them "monsters" but in a joking way. It was quite funny because many times they used to escape and I was always running after them. Umm.. These are some of the cats. As you can see here's the window and the wall of the cats' houses they were in and they had also a big cage outside, so they could in and out as they wanted.
Umm.. I'll always temember that little white dog. He was called Damm and in his life he got adopted from the animal home and returned three times, two of them in only two years. Afortunately, in December he got a new home where he still is and they told me that he's fine now.
I also used to have kind of a favourite dog.. I know I shouldn't have had one because he wouldn't be mine, but.. don't know, he caught my attention from the first day. Er, his name was Zoro and he was very lucky because he only there for like... a month and he got adopted from a german pair and they went with him to Germany. I wans't sad because he was gone but I was very happy because I know he's much better now than he would be in the animal home here in Castelló.
On the other hand it makes me like a bit sad that there are still some of the animals I got to meet las year, waiting for someone to adopt them, like.. well, this is Lobo again and this is Scruffy. I got to meet them in July last year and I went there like two (years) weeks ago and they were still there.
Umm.. Well, in conclusion, it was a time I really enjoyed and I've learnt a lot about taking care of animals and the responsibility it takes. Well, are there any questions?

Oral Presentation

The video of my oral presentation:



And here's my Powerpoint:

Anglès Expo Oral 1st term PP

View more presentations from the_two_memories.

A breed apart

The article talks about the 46 native animal breeds in Catalonia. 30% of them are in danger of extinction because people brought foreign species here, which where better for livestock. Now it's up to us to protect the native catalan animal breeds.
I think the article is important because we need to protect those things that make our region different from others, such as the native animal breeds. It affects me and people around me basically in the same way: we lose some of the local culture and history. But some people don't consider it important like I do.

Some examples of native catalan breeds are:

-The catalan donkey is the national symbol of Catalonia. It's a black donkey with a white muzzle. Some years ago, though, it was in danger of extinction. Afortunately it was saved thanks to a raising fame in the USA.

-The pyrenean mountain dog was used to protext sheep from predators. They were kept all their life with the flock, so it was like their family and they protected it.


Source: Catalonia Today 319

Introduction

Hi there!

So this will be this year's english space... As it seems, this year we've got more freedom on what to post, so it definitely will be more fun, I think!
I think I'll upload a song and comment about it, maybe one or two posts about my friends, something about school... I don't really know yet. I will try to do my best, that's for sure!

Besides from introducing the blog, I think I should also introduce myself a bit. Most people who'll read that blog will know me, but I think it's never wrong to explain something about myself. You never know who gets to read your blog, right? ;)

Soo.. I personally think I'm just the normal teenager. I mean that I don't really stand out in anything. Ok, maybe my marks are good, but I don't really think that counts. ;) I'm a bit shy, but that got better the last years. I like reading and inventing little stories, swimming, doing something with my friends... And I really really love irony! I don't have that lots and lots of friends people seem to be used to have. I prefer not to have too many people around me. But those less friends I have are all very close ones.
I hate prejudice: judging people without knowing them is being stupid. I also don't like when people don't listen, but I learnt to care less. I think that if they want to listen, I'll be fine, if they don't, it's also allright.

Last but not least, something I use to say a lot: Take me as I am. Or at least, let me be the way I like.

Thanks for the attention (?) =D

Nicky.