lunes, 6 de diciembre de 2010

THERE WAS A TIME (CORRECTED)

There was a time; I suffered so much I wanted to take it out of me, and I did all the physical pain to release mu inner pain. The days when I played for fun were over, I was only 10 years old when playing was more an activity to not look weird among my friends. I tried to hurt myself to see if the spiritual pain disappeared, but this never happened, the death of my brother hurt me as I never though it may. How is it possible to want to die when you are 10 years old, how is it possible a person felt that much pain and hate against the world. I spent a whole year like this, and everything changed when I went to Secondary School, I did not know how, but it was like someone or something was telling me I should not be sad, and that I had a long life to live. Now I try to live with my past took away, and I know we are messengers on earth. I believe in angels, I’m blessed to tell myself I suffered that much to become who I am today. I know there is someone watching over me, my own personal baby angel.

THERE WAS A TIME

There was a time; I suffer so much I wanted to take it out of me, and I did all the physical pain to release mu inner pain. The days when I play for fun were over, I was only 10 years old when to play was more an activity to not look weird among my friends. I try to hurt myself to see if the spiritual pain disappear, but this never happen, the death of my brother hurt me as I never though it may. How it is possible to want to die when you are 10 years old, how is it possible that a person feel that much pain and hate against the world. I spent a whole year like this, and everything change when I went to Secondary School, I did not know how, but it was like someone or something was telling me I should not be sad, and that I have a long life to live. Now I try to live with my past took away, and I know we are messengers on earth. I believe in angels, I’m blessed to tell myself I suffer that much to become who I am today. I know there is someone watching over me, my own personal baby angel.

viernes, 19 de noviembre de 2010

MOVIES VS. BOOKS (CORRECTED)

How many times have you gone out the movies and said: “it was good but I prefer the book?” Nowadays it is not new to hear that a movie is based on a book. Harry Potter, the Chronicles of Narnia, the Lord of the Rings, the Twilight Saga, Interview with the Vampire; and even some titles of Stephen King and Charles Brown have been made into movies, but I believe that books are always better because you can use your imagination, the content is different and also you can learn from them.

When you read a book your mind will be more active than when you watch a movie. When you go to see a movie, you already have the images of all the sets and the actors have been selected to perfectly portray the character, but even though with this already given to you, you think that there is something missing .When you read a book you can activate your imagination, and you can create your own sets, and picture the characters as you believe they can be.

Most of the movies based on books tend to last from two to three hours top, because it is very tiring to be sitting for more than three hours. This is a limitation for the movie, because writers have to eliminate a lot of content from the book. When you read the book, you have more information that is essential to understand it, so when you go to the movies and realize that they eliminate essential information the movie may not have been completely understand.

As I said before, when you watch a movie you are not very active, you are just sitting watching images on a screen and listening to the script, but most of the times we cannot pay fully attention to the movie. When you are reading you not only activate you imagination, but also you can learn spelling, grammar, new vocabulary and you increase your reading ability, which help you have better grades, because your comprehension will be better.

In my case I will read the book and then watch the movie, but I will always believe that books are better than movies not only because you activate your imagination, the content is better and you can learn from them. Books are good for everybody, they are amazing tools for our learning, maybe when you read a book is because you want to read it and you do not notice that you are learning but eventually it will be helpful for you.

miércoles, 17 de noviembre de 2010

MOVIES VS. BOOKS

How many times have you gone out the movies and said: “it was good but I prefer the book?” Nowadays it is not new to hear that a movie is based on a book. Harry Potter, the Chronicles of Narnia, the Lord of the Rings, the Twilight Saga, Interview with the Vampire; and even some titles of Stephen King and Charles Brown have been made into movies, but I believe that books are always better because you can use your imagination, the content is different and also you can learn from them.

When you read book you mind will be more active than when you watch a movie. When you go to see a movie, you already have the images of all the sets and the actors have been selected to perfectly portray the character, but even though with this already given to you, you think that there is something missing .When you read a book you can activate your imagination, and you can create your own sets, and picture the characters as you believe they can be.

Most of the movies based on books tend to last from two to three hours top, because it is very tiring to be sitting for more than three hours. This is a limitation for the movie, because writers have to eliminate a lot of content from the book. When you read the book, you have more information that is essential to understand it, so when you got to the movies and realize that they eliminate essential information the movie may not have been completely understand.

As I said before, when you watch a movie you are not very active, you are just sitting watching images on a screen and listening to the scrip, but most of the times we cannot pay fully attention to the movie. When you are reading you not only activate you imagination, but also you can learn spelling, grammar, new vocabulary and you increase your reading ability, which help you have better grades, because your comprehension will be better.

In my case I will read the book and then watch the movie, but I will always believe that books are better than movies not only because you activate your imagination, the content is better and you can learn from them. Books are good for everybody, they are amazing tools for our learning, maybe when you read a book is because you want to read it and you do not notice that you are learning but eventually it will be helpful for you.

jueves, 4 de noviembre de 2010

1973: REAL STORIES OF A SAD GENERATION

"When you are climbing everybody holds you, but when you fall nobody stops you"

1973 is a documentary directed by Antonio Isordia and produced by the CCC, CONAPA, and Azteca Churubusco.

Set in Mexico City, this documentary portrays the lives of three citizens born in that year: Rodolfo Escogido Rodriguez, María Fernanda Ramos Macín and Alejandro Cota, whose only fear is being forgotten in history.

The documentary was filmed between 1994 and 2003 and won the JVC Award for the best director in the 20th International Film Festival in Guadalajara, and it was nominated to an Ariel Award for the best movie and documentary.

The movie is interesting because it unfortunately portrays the reality of most Mexican people, people with dreamsand hopes that end because of the lack of support or because of the lack of attention.

You should go watch this movie, if you are into documentaries and if you want to have a dosis of reality, because there is nothing more real than this movie.

miércoles, 20 de octubre de 2010

ANIMAL TESTING

According to Wikipedia web page animal testing, also known as animal experimentation, animal research, and in vivo testing, is the use of non-human animals in experiments. Every year over 100 million animals are use to experiment in pharmaceutics laboratories, companies of make-up and cleaning products, and for medical research. All these experiments are all for the human benefit, because all these experiments are done in order to know the effect some products may cause to humans. Nowadays in most of the countries animal testing is considered a sign of animal cruelty and this is punished by the law either with a fine or with imprisonment.

Most of the animal experiments are done by pharmaceutics laboratories. In order to use new medicine scientists will make the animal get sick. During these experiments the animal will suffer pain because of the sickness and the experiment, and by the end the animal will die either for the experiment or because the scientist will kill it because they cannot experiment with it anymore. After the tests, medicine will come out to the market only to be removed little time later. This is because the reaction in an animal will not be the same as in a human that is the reason why some of the medicines are out the market, because of the secondary effects it causes in humans.

Animal testing on cosmetics is arguably one of the most (if not the most) controversial areas of animal testing. This industry test with animals until they finish a product or only to test an ingredient of a formula. There are some organizations as the EU (the European Union) which in 2009 banned the entire cosmetics test on animals. After this happened these cosmetic companies had to find a place where animal testing is not banned otherwise they would not be able to make those experiments, so even though they know it is banned or they can be punished they continue doing experiments. Testing in cosmetics is very controversial because animals will suffer and die for the price of human beauty.

Many people may say that humanity would not be able to move forward if it were not for animal testing. I think that we probably have better medicines and procedures and with these many diseases had been cured, but scientists should find out a way to avoid using animals or humans to experiment. If they are intelligent and prepared enough they can find a way to test without hurting anything or anyone, as the use of skin human cells, or using computer simulation.

Animal testing is very cruel and none animal should die during an experiment only for the benefit of the human sake. There are a lot of different ways to create and proved medicines, cosmetics, cleaning products and more without hurting animals. Animal testing should stop because I think we become animals when we kill, so would you like to be used in testing?

References:
Animal testing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. (n.d.). Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved October 18, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal

Using Animals for Testing: Pro's Versus Con's - About Animal Testing (UK). (n.d.). Informed Discussion on Animal Welfare in Animal Testing at About Animal Testing (UK). Retrieved October 18, 2010, from http://www.aboutanimaltesting.co.uk/using-animals-testing-pros-versus-cons.html

Using Animals for Testing: Pro's Versus Con's - About Animal Testing (UK). (n.d.). Informed Discussion on Animal Welfare in Animal Testing at About Animal Testing (UK). Retrieved October 18, 2010, from http://www.aboutanimaltesting.co.uk/using-animals-testing-pros-versus-cons.html

domingo, 10 de octubre de 2010

MY BEST FRIEND (EXAM)

Have you ever imagined being friend of someone who is not totally but a lot different from you? Well this happened to me. My best friend is a girl named Marisol and we met in high school. The first time I met her I did not like her, and I even knew why, but time passed and we became friends, and now we are inseparable. It has been 7 years since we met and every day we become closer.

Marisol is 21 years old and she is studying physical therapy at UAA. She was born on August 30th 1989 in Aguascalientes, Ags. She lives with her mom and her brother, and she is the youngest of her family. She is very tall and a little bit chubby; she has long dark brown wavy hair. According to her face, she has rounded nose, big brown eyes, and also she has full lips and a big smile.

Marisol’s personality is very unique, I think she is bipolar (just kidding), she is very outgoing with people she already knows, but if she does not know anybody she feels uncomfortable and she can be shy. She tends to take her emotions to the extreme, if you tell her a joke and she finds it funny, she will laugh to the point that she is almost unable to breath and her face will turn red. But also if she is sad, she is not afraid to show how she feels, something that I always try to avoid.

As I said before, the first time we met I did not like her, I thought she was weird, but she was not, I felt that way because we were different. Eventually we started to go out, and we became friends, she makes me feel very happy and if I am sad and I know that she is the one that will support me, every time I need her she is there for me, and I consider her as part of my family, she is like another sister to me, and it is good to know that she feels the same way about me.

I believe that Marisol and I are very different, we like different types of music, she does not gets English and I am going to be an English teacher, etc. sometimes I think we are like water and oil, but at the same time I consider that these differences are the greatest things about our friendship. Probably if we like the same things our friendship would be boring. We complement each other and I never thought that someone that different from me would become my best friend.

martes, 28 de septiembre de 2010

MY EVOLUTION IN ELECTRONIC LITERACY (CORRECTED)

We have heard about electronic literacy, but what is it? Before all this electronic era, a literate person was someone who knew how to read and write, but now in order to be literate, you must know how to use electronic tools. Times have changed and a person who does not know how to use a computer, or does not even have an e-mail account, is consider an illiterate person. If we want to keep moving forward we must know how to use electronic tools.

The first time I met a computer I was 10 years old and I only use it to play black jack, because I did not know the other uses of a computer. Later on I started to use it for looking for pictures, videos or music that I like. I had a lot of problems using the computers because I did not understand them, for me it was impossible to use the internet, basically because computers never caught my attention, I found them very boring, maybe that the reason that I created my e-mail account until I was in high school. I think once I started to know more about computers and internet I wanted to learn how far I could get using a computer. To use the computer, internet and more, had helped me to study better and to know more things that I did not know about the world.

Electronic tools have not only influenced me but also help me to improve my English, because most of the web pages are in this language, so if you want to understand what is publish in that page you should know English. Also I think that thanks to the internet there are a lot of web pages dedicated to the study of different languages, most of them are for learning English, and in here we can find a lot of exercises to improve our second language. Nowadays is very common to use word processors because they are easy to use, and at school the teachers often asked you to hand in your papers in computer in order to give a better presentation. But also I believe that with the invention of the internet most of the students (myself included) have become laziest, because every time we need to find something, you turn on the computer and Google it, and the first thing that comes out, we copied and paste it on the word processor, and most of the times we did not know if that information is the correct one.

Every day is coming out the market new technology, and this is good because as future teachers we can use them to find different ways to teach English. We can find fun activities for the students, and with these the students will not get bored in class. One other thing we could find, is courses online or masters degrees online, this is really good because sometimes we want to keep studying, or we want to be more prepared, but for some reasons we do not have time, and with this you not necessarily must to be on a classroom with an specific schedule, so you can adapt your activities of work, family, etc; and keep your preparation as a teacher.

Nowadays a person with no access to electronic tools or any other technology is consider illiterate, and we have to accept the fact that this electronic era is going to continue, and everyday there are going to be new tools or gadgets, and we will need to learn how to use them if we want to be literates, it might be difficult but I think we can do it, we just need to know more about them and if we still do not know how to use them, then we should ask for help, the electronic era is happening, keep moving forward and do not stay in the past.

lunes, 20 de septiembre de 2010

MY EVOLUTION IN ELECTRONIC LITERACY

We have heard about electronic literacy, but what is it? Before all this electronic era, a literate person was someone who knew how to read and write, but now in order to be literate, you must know how to use electronic tools. Times have changed and a person who does not know how to use a computer, or does not even have an e-mail account, is consider an illiterate person. If we want to keep moving forward we must know how to use electronic tools.

The first time I met a computer I was 10 years old and I only use it to play black jack, because I did not know the other uses of a computer. Later on I started to use it for looking for pictures, videos or music that I like. I had a lot of troubles using the computers because I did not understand them, for me it was impossible to use the internet, basically because computers never caught my attention, I found them very boring, maybe that the reason that I created my e-mail account until I was in high school. I think once I started to know more about computers and internet I wanted to learn how far I could get using a computer. To use the computer, internet and more helped me to studied better and to more things that I did not know about the world.

Electronic tools have not only influence me but also help me to have better English, because most of the web pages are in this language, so if you want to understand what is publish in that page you should know English. Also I think that thanks to the internet there are a lot of web pages dedicated to the study of different languages, most of them are for learning English, and in here we can find a lot of exercises to improve our second language. Nowadays is very common to use word processors because they are easy to use, and at school the teachers often asked you to hand in your papers in computer in order to give a better presentation. But also I believe that with the invention of the internet most of the students (myself included) have become laziest, because every time we need to find something, you turn on the computer and Google it, and the first thing that comes out, we copied and paste it, and most of the times we did not know if that information is the correct one.

Every day is coming out the market new technology, and this is good because as future teachers is a good way to find different ways to teach English. We can find fun activities for the students, and with these the students will not get bored in class. One other thing we could find, is courses online or masters degrees online, this is really good because sometimes we want to keep studying, or we want to be more prepared, but for some reasons we do not have time, and with this you not necessarily must to be on a classroom with an specific schedule, so you can adapt your activities of work, family, etc; and keep your preparation as a teacher.

Nowadays a person with no access to electronic tools or any other technology is consider illiterate, and we have to accept the fact that this electronic era is going to continue, and everyday there are going to be new tools or gadgets, and we will need to learn how to use them if we want to be literates, it might be difficult but I think we can do it, we just need to know more about them and if we still do not know how to use them, then we should ask for help, the electronic era is happening, keep moving forward and do not stay in the past.

lunes, 13 de septiembre de 2010

ME, MYSELF & I (CORRECTED)

Can you describe yourself in a few words? This is impossible… you need more than just a few words to have a general concept of someone. There are many aspects to consider when you are describing yourself such as personal information, likes, and dislikes, and with this you will have a better idea of who am I.

The main aspect to know someone is personal information. I’m Xochiquetzal Cruz de la Riva, but everybody calls me Xochis, bitch, Xochitl, or Xochi. I was born on October 11th, 1989 in Aguascalientes, Mexico. About my look, I’m average height, chubby, and I have wavy long brown hair, and my eyes are also brown. I consider myself friendly, responsible, punctual and, sometimes I can be really shy. My family is made up of my dad, my mom, a sister who is four years younger than me, a white dog, and a black cat.

Another aspect that I consider for you important to get to know me better are my likes. I love listening to music, I cannot live without it, and I feel empty if I do not listen to music. Also I like TV series; some of them are Supernatural, Glee, True blood, The Tudors and ER. Another thing I like is to read and because of it my sister says I’m a nerd, but I do not mind, and the thing I love the most is to be with my family and my friends, I love to hang out and to fool around with them, if I did not have them by my side, I think my life would be miserable.

Now that you know my likes, I think you should know my dislikes. I do not like people that smoke, and also I do not like hypocrite people, because they tell you that you are their friend and whenever they can, they stab your back. I hate unpunctual people, because I consider myself punctual and if I do not make you lose your time you should not make me lose mine. One thing that I hate is light in general, I prefer darkness, and if you go to my house you will find my room in the dark because light annoys me.

Now that you know my personal information, my likes and my dislikes, you have a better idea of who and how I am. You have to remember that you cannot describe yourself in a few words, it does not matter how long you take, because at the end everyone will have a better idea of who you are.

lunes, 6 de septiembre de 2010

ME, MYSELF & I

Can you describe yourself in a few words? This is impossible… you need more than just a few words to have a general concept of someone. There are many aspects to consider when you are describing yourself such as personal information, likes, and dislikes, and with this you will have a better idea of who am I.

The main aspect to know someone is personal information. I’m Xochiquetzal Cruz de la Riva, but everybody calls me Xochis, bitch, Xochitl, or Xochi. I was born on October 11th, 1989 in Aguascalientes, Mexico. About my look, I’m average height, chubby, and I have wavy long brown hair, and my eyes are also brown. I consider myself friendly, responsible, punctual and, sometimes I can be really shy. My family is made up of my dad, my mom, a sister who is four years old younger than me, a white dog, and a black cat.

Another aspect that I consider important to get to know me better are my likes. I love listening to music, I cannot live without it, and I feel empty if I do not listen to music. Also I like TV series; some of them are Supernatural, Glee, True blood, The Tudors and ER. Another thing I like is to read and because of it my sister says I’m a nerd, but I do not mind, and the thing I love the most is to be with my family and my friends, I love to hang out and to fool around with them, if I did not have them by my side, I think my life would be miserable.

Now that you know my likes, I think you should know my dislikes. I do not like people that smoke, and also I do not like hypocrite people, because they tell you that you are their friend and whenever they can, they stab your back. I hate unpunctual people, because I consider myself punctual and if I do not make you lose your time you should not make me lose mine. One thing that I hate is light in general, I prefer darkness, and if you go to my house you will find my room in the dark because light annoy me.

Now that you know my personal information, my likes and my dislikes, you have a better idea of who and how I am. You have to remember that you cannot describe yourself in a few words, it does not matter how long you take, because at the end everyone will have a better idea of who you are.