The Good-Bye

THE GOOD-BYE

I’m conscious that this adventure is going to finish, because everything in this world have a beginning and an end, but we don’t have to be worried, even if the next year we can’t be together learning this fantastic language!!

This year, for me, it has been a bit hard. I work as a primary teacher in a private school (and writing this I’m giving you an important clue for the Sitge’s Party!!) and at Christmas I decided to prepare the competitions for Primary English Teacher (that is to say “oposicions” in Catalan).
I’m studying all the theory in English and I’m preparing all my didactic programming in English too, so… I’m doing a REALLY HARD WORK! (You know!)

In fact, on February, I had to go to the doctor because I suffered a nervous breakdown!
The exam will be the next 23rd of June and at this moment I’m so busy that this summer I will be the whitest people in the beach!!!
It’s for this reason that this post it will be the last one for this year, but I don’t want to finish it without summarising my impression about how the course has functioned.

First of all I want to speak about the BLOGS.
At the beginning, I thought that to post our writings on the net it will be a bit surrealistic but now I think it’s a great idea because we have access to our companion’s writings and we can give our opinions and receive comments that make you feel better with your creations.

On a second hand, I think that even though the student’s book is a good one, we haven’t got enough time to do it and practise it so much that we had liked.

But, in general, I’ve learned a lot of new things, I’ve improved my oral and writing skills and I’ve won great and interesting friends so… My personal mark for the development of this course is a 10!!!

See you in the Teacher’s party!!

Bakerna 2

Becoming Human's Summary

Summary from Becoming human's documentary

Prologue

• Donald C. Johanson  perhaps human’s existence begins 4 millions years ago.

Some species adapted to the changing world while others were extinct. They developed a complex culture than nobody does it before and for that reason they could survive.



Evidence

1) HADAR (Ethiopia) it’s placed in the northern.

1972 they do a little travel to explore and they discover how rich the place was in fossil animals.

19731st fossil hominid discover, a knee joint, dated in 3.4 millions of years from a hominid

1974return to Hadar (last October) discovered the most important hominid on the all times. LUCY


2) LUCY

Donald looks further and found the whole skeleton of an hominid. The son “Lucy in the sky with diamonds” was sounding all the time while they were celebrating the discover. 3.2 millions years old.

AUSTROLOPITHECUSAFARENSIS

AUSTRO: Southern
PITHECUS: ape
AFARENSIS: afar region (where she was discovered)

Around ETHIOPIA they find more interesting hominid fossils.

3) RECONSTRUCTING ENVIRONMENTS

Kaye Reed Paleocologist She reconstruct the environment

Animals are a good source of information about past environment. Their anatomy reveals whether they were grass eaters or fruit eaters. That help us to reconstruct the environment.
HADAR very dusty place now but before there were a lot of plants and vegetation and animals.

AFRA REGIONthey work with them and they help to discover from who are the bones (fossils) from cats, lions…

The preservation of the bones gives us information about the past, how they are conserved through the years. The environment exposition give us interesting clues. They find more carnival bones than others.
Lucy was bipedal, and she’s got long arms with the benefit to climb a tree and get away from other dangers. However the trees disappear and this specie certainly will not survive.


Anatomy

1) The common ancestor

1971 Darwin proposed than human and apes got a common ancestor.

Primatesinclude monkeys, apes and humans, and they share many important similarities to make us distinct from other animals, they share brains, eyes, nose, teeth, clavicle, hands and thumbs.

African Chimpanzee=a lot of similarities

We share a common ancestor. In a concrete time in Africa, apes begin to develop like for example. Grasping toes (there was a big diversity of apes living there).

6 millions years ago, the world became a dryer and a colder place. African forest change and some apes species extinct but other begins to adapt to the new climate. And it survives the common ancestor of apes and humans.

Saint George and the Dragon

Legend of St. George

The life of St. George is shrouded in legend. He was born in Cappadocia of noble Christian parents. On the death of his father, he lived with his mother in Palestine. He held an important post in the Roman Army - the rank of Tribune during the reign of Emperor Diodelsian (245-313). When the persecution of the Christians by the Emperor started, St. George personally complained to him. He was imprisoned tortured and beheaded.

In the legend of St. George, he is usually portrayed with a dragon. One of the legends is of Saint George rescuing the princess in the town of Silence.

"In the town of Silence, in Libya, there was a dragon, who was appeased by being fed two sheep a day; when these failed, the townsfolk offered by lot one of their young people. One day the lot fell on the King's daughter, who was led out to the sacrifice, dressed in her wedding gown. St. George came along and slaughtered the dragon and rescued the princess".

A cult dedicated to St. George can be traced back to as early as the 4th century A.D. and it was his subsequent veneration as a military saint in early Christianity, which established the nature of the St. George's legend. Early evidence for this can be seen in the Byzantine Empire of the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Becoming humans

BECOMING HUMAN…


I am delighted with the becoming human’s documentary, it’s a really good one and I have enjoyed a lot with all the theories that they explain about the human’s ancestors.

From my point of view, the more information we have about our past, the most prepared we are for the future.

To know about when and where the human’s life begins it’s an important fact, but nowadays we’ve got a very little clear information, and I think that the most interesting is coming!
-I would (...) stand out the discovery of Lucy’s skeleton.


Lucy had a small brain and was only about one meter tall, the pelvis showed it had been a female, and the team named her Lucy after the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds." I couldn’t imagine the happiness that his discoverer felt at that moment!

Another important point explained at the documentary it’s the moment of Bipedalism. In 1978, Mary Leakey discovered ancient footprints preserved in the ground around what was once a water hole at Laetoli, Tanzania. These prints showed clearly that small primates walked on two feet there. This put upright walking even further back in time.
But the most important discovered for me is the aptitude to be conscious, what is the same, the “consciousness”.

Sometimes I wonder: Are human beings alone conscious, or are other creatures also conscious? Is an animal such as a dog, for example, conscious?

Yesterday, IN class and with the explanation that we received we could learns that chimpanzees and gorillas may not be able to speak as we do, but this is not because they lack something in their brains; they lack a voice. They have no larynx, or voice-box, and cannot move their tongues as freely as we can.

For one reason or another, human beings evolved slightly differently. We have a well-developed voice-box, and after the first year of life the tongue frees up, permitting the complex sounds necessary for speech. With these two advances, everything changed.

This kind of art representations approach us to our ancestors and to know more about how they feel, how they think…


In short, I think that human(NO S) evolution IS an interesting topic that affect us directly and that MAKES us to pay attention and to be aware of the new discoveries.

Cool Hunters

Nowadays, to be cool means to be accepted for a big part of the society, it’s for this reason people wants to wear fashion and to feel as cool as possible.
But, in fact, we are surrounded by a society that search cool things everywhere.
Cool hunters try to find out what people think it’s cool, how they have to wear, to think or to be to become a great member of fashionable.

Students are a clear example of fashion and cool. By means of little works at the weekend or through their parents kindness, every week they spend time and money searching cool clothes or fashion complements like jewellery, bags, etc. in different street markets or strange shops.
But, sometimes, they buy this kind of entertainment that, previously, they have seen at television, on magazines or in wall charts at streets.

Teenager’s mind change quite quickly, in fact cool hunters are very necessary to discover and to inform us about teenager’s tendencies or preferences, and as much young they are, more near of them they will be!!!

My long Saturday


7.00 Somebody is crying a lot. At first I thougt that it was a nightmare but….. no! It’s my nephew! My sweet and little nephew…
I can’t believe it!

The day before we had a dinner with our friends and we went to bed very late! But now… now it’s different! I’m here this weekend to help my sister with his baby because she is very tired, more tired than me! I’ m conscious that looking for a baby is a hard work.




15.00 After visiting five different costume shops, to buy a tiger disguise for the baby (he's only four months old) go to the supermarket and go to the drugstore to boy some milk and cereal pap for him, now, I can say that I’m really tired. At this moment my sister is taking a break at his bed and me and the baby, we are in front of the television because the television calm the baby and he doesn’t cry!!
But anyway he can’t control his feelings and he's crying all the time, perhaps because he can’t sleep or he’s hungry o he notice that his mother isn’t here… I don’t know…. See you later diary!!!!




23.00 What a long day! Now I understand my sister, she works six hours a day, then she has to buy the food, clean the house, prepare the washing machine, etc… but she has to do all this things even if she’s tired or has a headache, because now she has a responsibility, a big responsibility, SHE HAS A BABY!!!!!!

At this moment I can value how difficult a mother life is at first. Nowadays women work as much as men, and they look for his children and clean the house, prepare the meals….

I only wish that my future husband helps me a lot!! I hope…..
See you tomorrow my sweet diary!!!!!