For many years in our culture, teenagers have started to drink alcohol and smoke very early, but lately it seems like it's even earlier. Bascially in all the continents, you can see how 13 year-old pre-teenagers start to drink alcohol and get drunk, which is not a very healthy choice because they haven't grown up yet. This can create problems that are difficult to solve. It gets very easy for teens to take drugs and in some places they can buy cigarettes and alcohol by themselves. They probably think they are old and mature enoough to do these things but they are not at all. If it's prohibired it's because it's dangeruos and can harm your body and organs, not to make you angry. For example here, when it's carnival and everyone goes out, I cann see people very drunk around me, and they are not 20 (which is young too), they are 12 or 13! And every year there are boys and girls in the ambulances because they've had a bad reaction to alcohol or drugs, and that is very dangerous. I know many people that have a bad reaction and they were in a very dangerous state. I think our society is used to do things earlier each time because us, the humans, want to try and do new things but some of the things are very dangerous !!!! If we do the things we're supposed to do when we are older, then when we are older what are we going to do?
As I explained in another post, suicide it's one of the first causes of death in teenagers, which should be solved soon.
Months ago, sailing on the internet I saw a friend of mine that posted this recording on Twitter. It lasts 12 minutes and it's very sad... It always makes me cry.
It's a suicide track that explains in a second person what it's like to live a suicide. The girl starts explaining that you are so tired and can't take it anymore and that you decide to finally commit suicide. You record a video telling your parents you are so sorry... and you say sorry to everyone. Then she explains how you feel while you are killing yourself and starts to explain what happens after this... how people's life change when you are not here anymore. She explains how your daddy feels, how your mummy feels and how your little sisters feel... How does that teacher that made you get angry feel, how does that boy feel, how does that girl that made you feel horrible feel... How is life changing. She goes to the future, some years have gone and now your little sister is 15 years old. How is she doing? How are your parents doing? How is people from school doing? Those who you thought they didn't care about you... How everything has changed in your life... but now that you realize it, you can't go back. "You're dead, you're gone, there is no going back", it's what the girl that recorded it repeats. Now, now that you see how is people doing, how lifes' around you have changed because you couldn't take it anymore... Everyone thought you were happy, everyone thought you loved your life, everyone thought you enjoyed everything but at night, at night all the thoughts came over your mind. You couldn't take it anymore; you killed yourself, the pain is over. The pain is over for you, but what about the others? Those who love you? Now they are who feel the pain. But you're dead, you're gone, there is no going back.
I think this simple record can save and has saved many lifes. I've seen many people that have gone through hard times saying this thing always made them stay, that there were times they couldn't take it anymore and didn't know what to do anymore and wanted to commit suicide but just because they didn't think about the others; they were just thinking about how did they hate their life but now how would their dead affect to others. How are your parents supposed to smile again when their little girl commited suicide? How is your little sister/ brother supposed to grow up without her/his sister? How is your friend supposed to keep going through hard times if you are not there? I think these are the kind of questions the audio make them think about and realize they can't kill themselves, that they have to fight and keep going. They are not alone.
Finally, last night was the premiere of the movie The Hunger Of Games and I went to the movies to watch it. I was very excited because I had waiting for so long to it !
Josh, Jennifer and Liam
The Hunger Of Games it's a very well known movie that was released last year and it became very famous. Half of the world or more was waiting to the second part of the movie to come out and thousands of people went last night to watch it.
I went with some friends from school. They are very good friends and I love them all because I know them since I was little and they are these kind of people that are always smiling and laughing and saying funny things, which it's a thing I like a lot.
We decided to meet at 9pm at the cinema so before the movie started one hour later, we could eat something as dinner in a bar. Angelina and I arrived and Anna, Marcel, Jana, Miquel, Nil and Adriana were already there. We talked and laughed a bit and bought our tickets because there was so many people there and we were pretty sure they were there to watch the same movie as us and we didn't want the tickets to be sold out before we got ours. Then we went to order our sandwich and minutes later Silvia and Ferran arrived.
There was a lot of people in the movies. We were all very excited ! Some of us had read the book so they knew what was going to happen, but, as good friends, they didn't say anything.
We bought our popcorn, sweets, cokes... and then we entered to the hall. It had been so many time since I saw the hall that full! With the crisis and remembering that it costs 7-8 €, not many people goes to the cinema.
The movie was very interesting. I had been wondering for months what was going to happen because I couldn't imagine! And it surprised me. In my opinion, it's a very good idea but the end of the movie it's one of those that makes you feel restless for days because you have no idea what it's going to happen. I really cannot wait for the third part! All of us were like "we want to see the following part now!", but yeah, it was the premiere so we have to wait like a year or more? Awe... The actors are all good! Jennifer Lawrence is lovely and beautiful, Liam Hemsworth is lovely and beautiful too and Josh Hutcherson is lovely, beautiful and was my first crush ! The first time I saw him was in "Zathura: A Space Adventure", where he was 13 year-old and I was 8. Now that I'm thinking, probably I saw the movie years later because I don't think I started having crushes at the age of 8.. But he was my first crush, that's for sure! Now being serious, they are all very good young actors and I'm sure they are going to keep doing movies for many years ! They are not just lovely and beautiful but talented, which it's the most important thing. The movie lasted more than 2 hours and as we took the session of 10:15pm, I arrived at home approximately at 1am. I've slept a lot !!!
I had such a good time. The people I went with are people I really value and I don't want to lose. Normally, when I go to the cinema, I go with one or two friends, or maybe with the girls, but never with them. And I hope we go to the cinema together soon!!! We saw announced so many cool movies so yeh, we have to repeat it !
Lately, society's idea of beautiful has been changing. Every year, in a faster way, the idea of "perfect body" it's changing and becoming thinner. These last years what was common was to see how models were each time thinner until it's normal to see bones in their bodies, and this doesn't stop. This still happens and we don't know when it's going to stop. But aside of this, there are also models that are not super skinny; some of them are not skeleton and they are beautiful. Others, are not "thin" neither (according to the typical idea of thin) and they have a really nice body. Some are bigger sizes and they are still beautiful. There is no size that defines the word beautiful, because each woman in the world is beautiful in the way they are. There is no one perfect; some people may be thinner but maybe a bit uglier than that girl everyone calls "fat". Or maybe they are thin and beautiful but they are an arrogant person. No one is perfect.
Robyn Lawley, a 24 year-old model, is the new face of French lingerie company Chantelle Paris. She is starting with the brand's new autumn/winter campaign and what she shows is that we don't need to be a size zero Victoria's Secret Angel to model lacy lingerie. She is a size 12 model and shows the collection that it's available in sizes 32A to 44H. This woman, as many other teenagers in the world, used to hate her body. She said when she was 16 she used to hate her body a lot and that even at her absolute skinniest, she wasn't still enough to model. But one day she stopped caring about it and started to eat normally again without hating food and, as she saw she liked this, started a food blog and says "I dedicated my life to just loving food.". She agrees it was a huge turnaround when she started plus-size modeling. This young woman gave her opinion about how society reacts with "thin equals beautiful" body ideals, and explained that our society is always talking about it and judging others, putting as example when a celebrity woman gains weight people ridicule her and that this have its consequences to young girls. Also she gave her opinion explaining that us, the society in general, should focus on what we say to each other and that the best thing to do is to find your set natural weight and be happy at that weight and that we can't try to force ourselves down. "I can't be skinny, that's just my bone structure", says.
Lawley is one of those women who breaks the idea of beautiful. She is not one of those skinny girls and she is very beautiful. Why can't society just accept this and not exclude sometimes this kind of bodies? Or even better, why can't society just accept every single body?
In Lawley's blog we kind find many pictures about meals; from breakfast to dessert. Sometimes she explains the recipe and sometime she just comment how good it tastes! But her blog it's very beautiful and here you can check it: http://robynlawleyeats.tumblr.com/
And no one can tell you otherwise. Here no one is better than you.
This news article explains about two monthers that got given the wrong baby and that two months after the birth, they knew officially there had been a mistake.
Both women are called Lyudmila Alexandrovna and were given Caesarean operations with just one minute of difference.
From the first minute, they realized there was something wrong and one of the women said her marriage was almost wrecked because the DNA didn't belong to her husband.
Both DNA's proved that there was an error but the hospital insisted until the last minute there wasn't. Just last week they accepted there was a mistake.
It was obvious for them because they exchanged photos of the daughters and one of the women noticed the other baby was more or less exactly as her older daughter. And the same happened with the other one, who saw the other baby was similar to her son.
When the hospital accepted the mistake, they decided to change the babies and keep the one they gave birth to, but they also decided to stay in contact and according to them, they have became great friends even though they live away from each other.
Now, they are staying together in the same hospital suite, helpling each other get to know their real babies and they are receiving hellp from a psychologist and so are the babies, to check everything is fine with them.
This is not the first time this happens. Once two mothers discovered their 12 years old daughters weren't theirs. But the girls didn't exchange family because one is Muslim and the other Christian.
Last Saturday night I met a friend of mine after long time. It's been two years since she left this school and since that, I don't see her much. On Friday, I received a message from her. She was explaining me she got invited to go to a private birthday party by a friend of her, but that she got told too to carry some friends if she wanted to. The fact is she didn't know the boy who made the party nor anyone from the party, and so the boy that invited her didn't neither. Who invited her was another invited guy, so no one of us knew him. So Julia, my friend, invited me to go with her, and I accepted. First, I didn't care if I didn't know anyone, but hours before I started to get nervous. The party was like a mini Project X , but a very mini one... It wasn't like that at all, but crazy people and loud music and drinks and a pool were there. We got told it was next to a pub we know, so we were there at 11pm. We asked her friend where was the party and it WASN'T next to the pub, so he had to come to take us to the house. He came with two more friends, who didn't know the birthday guy neither. It was actually funny and stupid because any of us knew him, even though to me it was very awkward! The house was in the middle of big houses. It was little but the truth is that we didn't need more. When we arrived, Julia and I were like we didn't want to go inside, but yeah, we had to, we were already there. Just when one of the guys opened the door, like a explosion of very loud music exploded. We walked through the corridor and then we arrived to the little living room, and all we could see was a table full of food, many drinks and guys smoking. Some of them were around the table eating and the only five girls that were there apart of us were preparing drinks. At the first sight, we were shocked; we had expected it was going to be cool but not in that way! The night was crazy. Everyone was drinking beers of 1'5l each person and smoking the whole time. I didn't drink anything, so I was sover and I clearly saw how people acts when they are drunk. It's hiliarous!! One room was full of mattresses without sheets in vertical against the wall, and many times the guys were fighting and making who knows what there. In the living room there was some people sat in circle smoking without speaking. Some guys were making a beer fight outside, putting half of it in the window. Some people that didn't know what were they doing, walking without a direction and some of us were there just enjoying. There was that typical horse mask and the guys smoking used to put them on making stupid things because cannabis had done too much to their mind. That was without doubt the most funny thing that happened. I couldn't stop laughing for minutes!! That party was so damn cool! There were no parents and the house wasn't from any of the people there neither. Someone (I guess the birthday guy) chartered the house for that night. I'm pretty sure they had many problems the following day because the floor was full of beer and everything was dirty... Glad I left soon!! I would definitely repeat one of those, but with my friends!
The video below it's the recording of Angelina and I presentation about the Sweet Sixteen Party.
(The end of the presentation it's not recorded because who was holding the mobile phone got tired. Sorry!!!!)
"Hello, as you know we are Angelina and Esther and today we are talking about the Sweet Sixteen party. We are going to show you the traditions, themes, dresses, invitations and some videos. The Sweet Sixteen party it's a copy of the Quinceañera, which means the moments when a girl goes from childhood to womenhood. In North America and Canada it's a coming of age party celebrating the sixteenth birthday of a girl, and recently also for some boys. One of the traditions is the Candle Lighting. It's a ceremony done by the guests, family and friends. Each candle is for a special person, for the parents, grandparents, uncles, best friends and maybe, if there is one, the boyfriend. Another tradition is the Father-daughter dance, it's the first dance dedicated to father and daughter. It's a symbol for her maternity and independence. Once the dance is over, it's followed by a dance with the friends. The Shoe Changing ceeremony is common in the Quinceañera celebration. The flat shoes are changed to heels. It's also a symbol of the child growing into adulthood. First of all you have to choose a theme, which can be: -Dance Party: It's a party for boys and girls and it has to take place in a location with plenty of space for a dance floor like a hotel ballroom. It's necessary to hire a DJ who plays the birthday girl's favourite music all night long. -Spa Party: Every girl loves beauty products, so some girls choose this theme for their party. It's a smaller celebration, ,with only the closest friends. The girl and her friends go to a local spa and then they enjoy beauty treatments. After this, they can go out for a fancy dinner. -Hollywood Party: It's for those who love glitz and glamour. It has to have a red carpet outside your house, and your guests have to dress like celebraties. -Luau Party: It's a tropical theme. It's ideal to celebrate it during summer, choosing a location with a pool and make it as tropical as possible, decorating it with colored lanterns, palm trees and beach balls. -Princess Ball Party: It's a party inspired in fairy tales. The girl has to feel like a real princess. The best location is a ballroom decorated with flowers, lights and a castle. After the dinner everyone goes to a dance. The most important and most exciting thing to do for every girl is to find the perfect dress. They look for it during months until they find it. There are many different kind of dresses, from the princess dress to the red carpet dress. Planning a party like this costs a lot of time and it's ideal to start it one year before the big event. 1-First of all, you have to create a budget to know how much you can spend. 2-Then you have to decide on a date. 3-After this, choose a theme. You can choose one of the ones we've just explained. 4-Now that you know what theme to use, pick a perfect location. 5-You also have to create a guest list; it's always better to invite more people because some of them surely can't come. 6-You have to care about the entertaiment, so hire a good DJ and a caterer. 7-You have to buy the decoration and presents, and the most important, the dress. The invitation it's the first impression to the party. It has to be designed according to the party's theme, and it has to include date, hour, place and theme."
During this last week my classmates and I have been presenting our oral presentations about traditions around the world. It was a project about one interesting tradition that it's done in some place of the world, and we had the chance to make it alone or in pairs.
I did mine with Angelina and we talked about the Sweet Sixteen party that it's done mostly in North America. First of all we explained what we were going to talk about and after this we started talking about some common traditions (Candle Lighting, Father-daughter, Shoe Changing). Then we explained some themes (Dance Party, Spa Party, Hollywood Party, Luau, Princess Ball) and then we showed some dresses. We also explained how to plan one of these big parties and what has to include an invitation. Angelina explained that MTV did a TV reality show about it and at the end, we showed one comic video of the problems that can appear and a video of approximately four minutes that shows all the party.
My classmate's presentations were very good. Most of them talked about weddings and funerals around the world from different cultures and it was really interesting. I learnt that in some places, when someone dies, they cut the body in different parts and spread it in the mountain. I got shocked with this because I can't find any sense with it. If in almost every culture they do specific things in the funerals so the soul can go to a better place and can be in peace for ever, how is supposed the body rest in peace forever if the body is cut and spreaded? I also learnt that in one european country to say yes with the had they shake the head horizontaly and to say no they shake it vertically, so they do it otherwise from the rest of the world. I don't understand why neither because it's like, every single person in the world shakes the head horizontaly to say no and vertically to say yes and just one country does it otherwise? And did you know when a viking died they used to put the body on one of those huge boats they had and they burnt it together? I knew something about it but I didn't know they did it with every single person that died. They probably used to burn many boats!!!!!
Bullying is something that has been always present in schools and everywhere. There's always people that needs to feel like they are the best, like they are in a upper level than the others, and to do that, they involve other people in it, making them feel worthless, unimportant, stupid... until the point they can't take it anymore sometimes and want to commit suicide. Bullying it's a serious theme. In my opinion it's not normal. There is no way to understand why does people have to be so mean and disgusting to other people. Making other people feel insecure doesn't make you a better person; otherwise, it makes you a worse and gross one. Behind each word of contempt to someone, there are many tears and awful words the person that got it say. They arrive home and start to cry, hating themselves and wanting to die. They don't want to go to school the following day because they don't want to live the same thing day by day. Some months ago, the guys from One Direction colaborated with Office Deport, a supplier of office products and of business services to promote "Together Against Bullying". They created this designing a limit edition products to raise one million dollars for anti-bullying education in schools across America. (If you are interested to buy something you still can: http://www.officedepot.com/a/promo/pages/together/ )
One of the members of the band, Liam, had some problems with this when he was little. He was bullied and had to be very strong. Fortunately, he went to The X Factor and became famous, so everyone know the big heart he has and now he is very loved, like he should have been always.
Each one of the members recorded a little video of less than 2 minutes explaining their thoughts about bullying.
I'm going to post each one of their opinions because I think each one of them it's important and comprensive.
I think Liam was very brave and I admire what he says.
I totally agree with everything they say. I've never been able to understand which one it's the pleasure people get when they make other people feel slighted. Is it that they are who feel unworth that they need to make others feel it too? Or is it that they don't have the sense for feeling sorry?
There's many people around the world that the only thing that makes them feel better it's making others feel bad. They need to see how people suffers and are sinking, they enjoy seeing this. Making laugh, insulting, critiquizing behind them and being nice in front of them, creating rumours and thousands of awful things.
I've been seeing people doing this since I'm in high school. I used to see this around me almost everyday. We were like 12 or 13 years old and it was common; people wants to show they have to be respected when they arrive at school. But now, when I'm 16 and we are -or we should- be more mature, some people keeps doing it. I must say now people is more polite and respectful, but it seems like some people don't. Some people still needs to feel better than others critiquizing and making people hate the person they hate too. It's like they can't be happy just being who they are and having the friends they have. No, they need to ruin other people's life. And why?
This happens around the world everyday, 24 hours a day. People commit suicide, people starts to self-harm and to do things that shouldn't be happening. But eh, bullies like this. And I don't say this because I think it but because if they didn't like this they wouldn't do it.
There are many levels of being a bullie, obviously. Some people makes laugh and let people into ridiculous, others hit them in the corridor, others send hate cards and other threat, but all of them are bullies.
What is it wrong with them? What do they win telling people "kill yourself"? One day, those people who are bullied will agree with them and will take some pills. They will try to kill themselves. They don't want to live, if living means having a live like theirs.
The third leading cause of death among young people it's suicide and according to a British study, at least half of suicides are related to bullying. On the other hand, according to stadistics reported by ABC News, nearly 30% of students are either bullies or victims of them and 160,000 kids stay at home from school everyday because of fear of bullying. Just in the UK, over 5000 people commit suicide over bullying and 19,000 attend suicide.
I find this so sad. Can't they see what they do cost people's life?
Bullying it's a serious and grave problem and in my opinion, bullies should do a treatement or something because no one can feel good with someone's sadness, no normal people.
I think, with this advanced civilization we currently have, we should discover something that would makes people see it's not good since we are little. Maybe the problem it's with the parents, who knows, but maybe in schools or something there should be something that makes it stop, at least a little. It's not okay many people a year commit or attend suicide because some dopy and cloddish people is bored or have no life.
Here there's a short film about John's life, a boy that's being bullied at school everyday. The video shows one day of his life.
Quotes:
-"Celebrate being original"
-"Confidence allows us to succeed"
-"Embrace your uniqueness"
-"It costs nothing to be nice"
-"Being true is being brave"
-"Live kind, love everyone, and move together against bullying."
Parents from the UK noticed their two daughters were spending a lot of time watching TV and playing games. They didn't like this, so they decided to make a list of 100 outdoor challenges to do, which cost under £500. The girls are 10 and eight, and they ended up prefering, doing and planing things other than watching TV. Some things they did was walking on high ropes, cooking their mum a dish, sleeping under the stars and seeing a meteor shower on a beach, climbing the Eiffel Tower... The girls parents said some of the things were a bit dangerous and scary but the truth is that they -parents and daughters- are who instigated the ideas. While they were doing it, they documented it on a website with the intention of encouraging people to be more active. Now, the girls talk in front of people of any age about their adventures. They are currently working on a new list of 100 activities to complete by the end of next year. I find this new very interesting because many childs around the world are used to be or watching TV or in the computer or with the mobile phone or playing Play Station, etc... They wake up and go to sleep using that. Since the first hour of the morning they are using one of those things and this lasts until they go off to bed. Parents "lost control" with their children (in a way) because now not many boys and girls can enjoy or know how to enjoy without these kind of things. I think the parents had a good initiative and are making their daughters get used to be more active.
A professor of psychology, Matthew Hertenstein, did some research to see if by just looking at children's childhood school photographs, he could predict who would get divorced sometime in their lives. To do this he looked at photographs in hundreds of school yearbooks (childhood and adolescent photos) of people who are now 55. With this he saw that children who looked unhappy were the people who got divorced, not like the ones that smiled. Of course many children can fake smiles, so he checked if when the child smiled, the muscle that pulls up the lip was contracted, as well as the orbicularis oculi (because the muscle that makes the smile can be seen in the eye). But Matthew conceded that this is not completely true. The smile, or lack thereof, do not define exactly if your life is going to be one way or another. I was really surprised when I saw this. I had never thought before that your smile can define (in a way) your future. But I don't agree with this a lot. Everyone can have bad days; you can look horrible in the picture, when actually you were happy. Or you could have had a bad day the day before and then you took the picture and you looked horrible. Or maybe you were always sad but that special person you married made you change and it lasted for ever. I know this is a study and so everything is real, and that a smile can hide many things, but I don't think it can describe our future.
Rihanna has a not very common style, yet lately many stars use it. They don't cover their clothes a lot and some people say not very nice things about them. But they don't seem to care a lot of the comments. Not many people would have ever thought Rihanna saying "She killed it", talking about Princess Diana. She said that everything the Princess wore looked good on her and she states that she loves the hats and oversize jackets she used to wear. Describing her says "she was a gangsta with her clothes". But people does not have a good reaction to all her words like "she killed it", "she was a gangsta" about a princess and say she is a disgrace. Personally, I do agree with them because honestly, you can't say stuffs like this to a magazine nor talk about a famous princess in this way. It doesn't matter how famous she is, she should have more appropiate words I think. Rihanna also says she started to admire fashion because of her mother, that she kick-started her, as she used to watch her get dressed. "she was so fly. So fly", says about her mother. Who would have ever thought as Rihanna admiring Princess Diana's style? I wouldn't! But the truth is that Diana's style was actually beautiful and with glamour. She was so cool and I do like her too!
I guess you know who is Rebel Wilson, better known lately as "Fat Amy" in Pitch Perfect. This girl normally makes comic movies and she is actually really funny. She always makes me laugh and so she does to all the people around me, so I guess she makes everyone who watches her laugh around the world. She is great. Well, some days ago I was in Youtube searching one video and this one suddenly appeared. I took a look and as usually, it made me laugh. In this short video of 1 minute 44 seconds from MTV, she acts like she is Jennnifer Lawrence's sister. I found it very funny. Take a look by yourself!
This year, the weather has been a bit weird; it was cold until approximately June and now, in November, it is still hot. The winter lasted many months and I can remember how people were wearing jackets when years ago in the same month they were wearing shirts. I know there are currently problems with the climatic changes on this planet and this may be the reason this is happening but anywyas, it's strange. I like it when it's cold. Obviously, I don't like it when it's freezing but when I can wear sweaters, scarfs, gloves... I simply prefer this than sweating or things like this. So to me, it was actually really good when it was colder. But all of this didn't make the heat last less. The truth is that the months of heat are having its time. What was known as "Autumn" seems like it's not shown this year. I can clearly see people around me wearing shirts in the middle of November. In the morning it's a bit cold lately but during the mid-morning it's ot again, and it lasts until it's night, where it's a bit colder. I guess we are in the change of season right now and that's why it can be very hot or very cold in the same day.
Some recent reports linked skipping breakfast to obesity, diabetes and others things like catching flu. In addition, men who don't have breakfast are more likely to suffer heart attacks or heart disease.
According to an expert, Dr Neil Standley, when we wake up our body gets ready for daytime so the hormones release and that makes us feel hungry. But this is more common to people who normally go to sleep at the same time and more or less soon, because to people that stay up late and then have problems to wake up, don't feel hungry until some hours later, so it's recommended to go to sleep every night at the same time.
Breakfast is one of three important daily meals and that's why, if you'd skip it, then you would be hungry at mid-morning and then you would get a snack. As you would have eaten not many hours ago, you wouldn't be hungry for lunch, so you wouldn't have a proper meal and you would be hungry by mid-afternoon. Then you would have another snack and this would be always the same, because not eating the enough energy and food makes us need it and feel uncomfortable, and this has its consequences because when you get snack, most of the times isn't a healthy one.
In one study they noticed when someone didn't have breakfast, they ate 20 per cent more at lunch because they were hungry and were more likely to seek unhealthier and high-calorie foods. This is because humans, after a priod of fasting, are primed to seek sugary and fatty foods.
Some examples of breakfast that are shown in the text and that have less than 300 calories (enough number of calories to stop you overeating later) are:
