Final reflection: My English Competence in 2010

These are my best oral evidence and my best written evidence.

I have chosen this oral evidence because I think that in spite of the pronunciation which wasn't perfect, I expressed myself clear and the oral presentation was very well structured. Also I used some specific vocabulary that I had never used before so I think that it is my best oral presentation, in addition in the others I was a bit nervous so this is the one I was more quiet.

Regarding my best written evidence, I have chosen this one because I think that I used some good arguments, it was well structured and I used some connectors.
I really don't know which essay to choose, because I think that this one is quite good too. I didn't choose the others because they are shorter or not as well structured as these ones.

Final reflection: My English progress.

I'm going to compare my first composition with my last composition. What I can see is that I used to use short sentences and I didn't link much of them with any connector or post-fillers:"I like going to the mountains a lot so I go to summer camps/routes...". Nowadays I make longer sentences with connectors, as you can see in the second paragraph:"On the one hand, it's clear..... pushing the others to the abyss.".
Regarding the oral presentation, I think that my first oral presentation was quite good because I talked about an experience I had. The structure was right, the language used had some new vocabulary I learnt in Scotland, the presentation, the fluency and the pronunciation could improve but they were quite good. My last oral presentation was the one made in London so I think that it wasn't much better that the first I did, because it wasn't as prepared as the other. Despite that I think I have made a progress in the way I make the oral presentations because now I have more experience and I have learnt some useful things. My compositions have also improved, now I try to use as many connectors as I can, and I also try to use some phrasal verbs and new vocabulary.

Opinion essay: Mind-body therapies.

In our country mind-body therapies are becoming popular. Yoga, relaxation and group therapy classes are done in lots of centres and they are taking importance among the population. In my opinion, mind-body therapies must have something special, if not, people wouldn't go.

I believe that our mind must have some kind of connection with our body, so our body reflects our mind state. That's why I think that mind-body therapies can improve our health. In the same way we feel bad when we are depressed, when we are happy and optimist, our body has more energy and feels better.

In conclusion, I don't agree that mind-therapies are a waste of time because it's obvious that our mind and our body are connected and the state of one or the other affects ourself.

Discussion essay: Minority languages are likely to die soon in a global world.

In the last years our world has experimented some radical changes which could have fatal consequences. One of these is globalization. There's some people who believe that globalization will kill minority languages, but others defense that there's still hope.

On the one hand, it's clear that a global world makes and important pressure to minority languages because, as you know, English is becoming the most important language in the world, pushing the others to the abyss.

On the other hand, minority languages won't die till all the speakers die. So, it's a long process before a language disappears. Furthermore, there will be always written evidences, that will remain throughout the years, but really a written language is not as a spoken one. See the example of Latin.

To sum up, minority languages are under pressure but despite that, they will be always there. What is clear is that time will tell us what will happen eventually.

LOST

LOST final is approaching, there are just two chapters left, the producers have made three different endings and they still don't know which will be de definitive one. Surely they will keep all the versions and after the official ending they will show the others.
One of the things I like the most is the way they connect all the events that take place. Every chapter uncovers another mystery, that's why everyone is expecting the ending of this fabulous series.
In spite of that, the thing I don't like is the fact that the producers and creators really didn't know which way they have to follow, I think that they had an accorded ending but didn't know what could be in the middle, between the starting and the final. So it seems that they have made lots of decisions on the fly. That's why they had different endings for season five and six.
Although, it's a great series that will remain on our memory because of his intrigue and the innovations it have brought specially in the narrative ways.
In two weeks time all will be finished and we will finally find out the answers to all our questions.

NBA playoffs

As you maybe know, NBA playoffs are being played. The conference semifinals will finish in a few days and it must be said that they are being really spectacular. The series were: Phoenix Suns-San Antonio Spurs, Los Angles Lakers- Utah Jazz, Cleveland Cavaliers-Boston Celtics and Orlando Magic-Atlanta Hawks.
Three of the series have been decided very fast, with just four matches (4-0) Phoenix Suns, LA Lakers and Orlando Magic have classified to conference finals. With any doubt Orlando Magic-Atlanta Hawks have been the most spectacular series, Orlando have won the matches with an average of 23 points per match. It have been as a kid game for Orlando.
Obviously Cleveland Cavaliers-Boston Celtics is being the most disputed series of the semifinals. Nowadays are 2-3 with Boston leading the series. It's being a titan war, a star battle: LeBron for Cavaliers and Rondo and Allen for Celtics.
Lakers didn't have much troubles and completed the series easily with a magnificent Kobe and a reliable Gasol.
Will see what happens with this interesting series between Cavaliers and Celtics.

Guild Wars 2 is coming

Last year I talked about Guild Wars, one of the best games that I've ever played. The game started to be sold in 2005, it's a MMORPG and PVP game. So Anet is developing Guild Wars 2 which has lot of expectation from the fans. Guild Wars 2 uses an improved version of the Guild Wars game engine. In PvE Guild Wars 2 will use a persistent world but it will still utilize instanced content to tell the story. Really it will start a great revolution in MMORPG world: It will be free of monthly payments, nice graphics and it will brush the limit of the interaction between all the players and the interaction between the players and the world.
The releasing dates are not accorded and the beta ones neither, but surely next year we will be enjoying of this game.

Here you have some videos:

Barcelona beats Olympiakos to win Euroleague

Yesterday, Barcelona won Olympiakos in the Euroleague final (86-68). Navarro was the MVP of the final. Olympiakos couldn't stop the fast game that Barcelona was playing.

Really the match was really exciting, and despite the high quality of Olimpyakos players, Barcelona put up with the pressure. Ricky, Navarro, Ndong, Mickeal and the others made a fantastic match whith very few errors. Morris was spectacular doing lots of blocks, intimidating the other players. Actually we can say that Regal FC Barcelona is nowadays the best european team.

The news.

Trip to London

Man arrested over Times Square bomb plot

As you maybe know on Saturday there was an attempt of car bombing in Times Square. The authorities have made a progress apprehending a man called Faisal Shahzad who was attempting to travel to Dubai from New York airport. The car was hired from a second-hand car park shop in Connecticut. But the investigation is still going.

Is easy to think on the consequences of this terrorist act, I don't understand how can people act in this way. United States seems to be the objective of many terrorist organizations, surely in some days we will be able to know which was behind this attempt. In my point of view is better to don't look for troubles with USA because you could finish with your tail between your legs.

The news

Jenson Button revels in 'best' Formula 1 victory

Last weekend the Chinese Grand Prix took place, and once again F1 shows that it isn't boring at all. Lots of things happened: at the start of the race Alonso started before the lights went off, so he was penalized with a drive-through. After that it started to rain and the monoplanes went into the pit lane to change the tyres. Button chose the best strategy: he resisted driving with the slicks under the drizzle while the others decided to change to intermediate tyres. So he finally won the race getting 25 points and now he is leading the classification.
It was really a mad race, but I think that in Barcelona we will see a quiet race. Despite of that it will be very interesting.

The news.

Formal letter: Unfair agriculture.

From: desmondhume@gmail.com
To: presidency@unitednations.org

Dear secretary-general,

My name is Desmond Hume and I am an Intermon Oxfam supporter. I am writing this e-mail in order to complain about the unfair situation the African agriculture suffers. Our NGO would like to see UN doing something on that affair. The Africans are working hard in the fields and European companies make the most of them just paying a miserable amount. Besides, those companies sell these products in modern countries with high prices. Therefore it is needed to implant fair trading rules on those countries.

Yours faithfully,

Desmond Hume.

Podcast: Mr. Darcy's description

Spotify

I'm sure that you have heard about Spotify, a P2P music streaming service that allows you listening to music without waiting for buffering. You can search the music you want by the song's name, by artist, by album, etc.

The key of his success is that the owners had sign a contract with the majority of music producers that allows them to offer these music in his program. So really, they are paying for it, this is the reason why in the free version there are advertisements every X minutes. So I think that it is a good initiative and a good solution for music piracy, because, sincerely, I prefer having a program installed in my computer using 3MB of memory (approximately) than having tens and tens of GB occupied by illegal music. And another important thing is that there is a huge amount of music of every style, and every time there will be more and more. In addition, the sound quality is perfect.
So, in conclusion, I recommend you to sign up and make the most of this service.

Here you have the link: Spotify
(The problem is that I don't have invitations any more, when I signed up invitations weren't needed)

Diatoms

Today I'm going to talk about the most abundant group I found during my research project and the most spectacular one because of his beauty: diatoms.

Diatoms constitute a very large number of species (about 10,000) grouped in 200 genera.
They can live in all kinds of wetlands sufficiently illuminated. Most of them form part of the plankton. His colour is yellow-green because of the pigments in their plasmids.
His most notable character is the presence of an external skeleton composed of silica (silicone dioxide, SiO2) called frustule. They are the most common species of phytoplankton and they represent the 45% of primary production of the oceans so they are very important producers. In addition, they are very used to study the water quality.

Here you can see some pictures I took of them:
Diatoms

The Big Bang Theory

The Big Bang Theory is a TV comedy about two prodigy physicists, Leonard and Sheldon, who live in front of Penny, a waitress who wants to be actress. Leonard and Sheldon are characterized for being very freaky: addicted to video games as Halo and World of Warcraft and fans of Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord Of The Rings and Superman. They also have two friends: Howard and Rajesh who are a clear example of 'geeks'.

All starts when Penny is moving to the floor in front of Leonard and Sheldon's one. Immediately Leonard falls in love with Penny.

I recommend you to watch this comedy because it's very funny, a prove of that is that is one of the most seen series in the USA after LOST.

Here you can see some scenes:

Formal letter

38C Kingston Street
Miami
99V56Z
12th January 2010

Great Avenue
Memphis
57F002

Dear Mr. Clooney,

I am writing in order to explain that I am worried about the future of our planet. In the last summit did not decide anything important so I wish this year you would decide something important to change the fate of the planet.

Personally I am quite optimistic and I think the whole world should be as optimistic as I am and start acting.

Politicians should enforce laws to decrease carbon dioxide levels of the atmosphere and protect more natural zones. Although, people can also help recycling their rubbish.

Professionally, as a biologist I will become, I will be able to help protecting the habitats of endangered species and studying in which way can we help improve their existence.

I would like you to transmit my ideas in the next summit. Thank you very much for your time.
Yours sincerely

Oriol Llorà

F1 tests.

Last Saturday I went to Montmeló to attend the last F1 tests before the start of the championship. It was really spectacular, the engine sound was completely different from the one you can hear in the television. The sound was very loud so sometimes you had to cover your ears because it was really painful. My father, my brother and I spent the whole day there and we could see the new cars and the new teams that there will be this year: Lotus, Virgin and Mercedes-Petronas (which was Brawn GP last year). Of course we saw the new Ferrari driven by Massa and also we saw last year champion: Jenson Button who this year is driving for McLaren. These are the times of the session:

1	N. Rosberg	Mercedes	1:20:686		128
2	S. Buemi	Toro Rosso	1:21:413	+0.727s	106
3	J. Button	McLaren	1:21:450	+0.764s	105
4	R. Barrichello	Williams	1:21:975	+1.289s	101
5	F. Massa	Ferrari	1:22:344	+1.658s	115
6	V. Petrov	Renault	1:22:523	+1.837s	68
7	A.Sutil	Force India	1:22:606	+1.920s	61
8	S. Vettel	Red Bull	1:23:123	+2.437s	51
9	J. Trulli	Lotus	1:25:059	+4.373s	102
10	K. Kobayashi	Sauber	1:26:216	+5.530s	105
11	T. Glock	Virgin	1:26:216	+5.619s	31

We also tried a F1 simulator which was really realistic because the seat had some hydraulic-suspensions and when you brake, it pushed you forward and when you accelerate it made the inverse. Also if you go out of the limits of the circuit it shook you a lot. Really it was quite good but a bit hard to drive.

New: Chile's long experience of quakes

Chile is a one of the places with higher risk from suffering an earthquake. It is because the country lies on the "Ring of Fire" and is located between the contact of Nazca plate and South American plate which brush past each other and causes earthquakes.

People in Chile is used to earthquakes, but the one which took place last weekend had a magnitude of 8.8 which is very high, even for Chile.
This was more powerful than the one which took place in Haiti, but the main difference is that Chile infrastructures are more well-prepared to put up with an earthquake.

Alarm sounds were heard along the pacific coasts to warn about the imminent arrival of the tsunami which had been formed by the effects of the earthquake.

The new.

Oral presentation

Presentation

I used a Powerpoint with images which were related to the topic and the time was correct too. So I put a 10/10.

Body language and eye contact.

I looked at the audience the majority of the time except some times when I looked my papers to know where I was, but I didn't read from the notes. So that will be a 8/10.

Structure

I introduced the topic, the ideas were well organized and it was well structured. So that's a 10/10.

Content

I think that most of the information was new for the audience and that the message was clear so people could understand. So it will be a 37/40.

Language

The grammar wasn't so complex but the vocabulary was varied. I used some connectors and fillers. So it's a 17/20.

Pronunciation and entonation

The pronunciation surely wasn't the best but I think it was comprehensible and the tone of voice changed during the presentation So that part will be a 7/10.

Total: 89/100