EMMA, MY LITTLE SISTER

My sister Emma, or “Meme” as my mum usually calls her, is 14 years old, and she’s studying 3er d’ESO, which is 3rd Grade in secondary education. She doesn’t go to Sant Miquel dels Sants; she goes to Pare Coll.

Emma is quite small compared to the other girls in her class. In my opinion, she has a gymnast’s body. Her skin is quite pale, she has blue eyes and freckles. She’s a brunette and her hair is a bit wavy, even though she straightens it almost every day.

 

Her favourite sport is gymnastics. She has been doing this since she was 9 and she adores it. She trains 12 hours a week and she’s very good. Her dream is to go to a gymnastics camp in the USA, where the Olympic and World Champion Shawn Johnson trains.

She’s also a very smart girl, and cheeky at times as well. She loves listening to music and singing, and she always has earphones in her ears, so we have to shout for her to hear us. Another thing she loves is watching gymnastic competitions on the computer; she watches different ones every day.

People say she’s very sociable and a chatterbox, as she never stops talking. She has a lot of friends from different schools, but her best friend is Jana. Jana and Emma have been friends for 2 or 3 years, and they share absolutely everything: clothes, shoes, school bags, make-up, gym leotards...

Even though she’s very sociable, she can also be shy at times. Furthermore, if you get on her nerves she can turn out to be a little bit stubborn, and don’t you dare take her phone or her computer away from her, as she might kill you.

As my little sister, I really can’t complain. She can be really crazy at times and really do my head in, but in the end, she’s my sibling and I love her.

LONDON 2012

As you probably all know, this summer I went to visit my family in the UK. During the time I spent in Oxford, my family and I did loads of stuff. 

Nonetheless, the best part of my holiday was the day we went to London. We visited the Olympic Park and got to take pictures and go round it. I didn’t imagine it being so big, so I found it very impressive. Whilst we were walking around Westfield shopping centre, which was built right beside the Olympic Venue, we saw lots of Paralympic athletes from many countries. 

The best anecdote I can think about right now was when I got to customize my own ice-cream. My mum and I went into this Magnum shop and one of the shop assistants came over and asked me if I wanted an ice-cream. As I was hungry and I hadn't had any lunch, I decided to have one. First of all I got to choose the flavour of the ice-cream, then the kind of chocolate I wanted on top and finally the toppings. I chose vanilla ice-cream with milk chocolate on top and brownies, caramel and almonds as my 3 toppings. I have to say IT WAS THE BEST ICE-CREAM I’VE EVER HAD!!! And I can’t wait for a shop like this to open nearby!

My day did have a disappointment however. Due to the fact that the Paralympic Games were just days away, we weren’t allowed to visit the Olympic Venue inside. My dad promised that if it was open to visitors at Christmas, he would take me there just so I could see where one of the most incredible and biggest Olympic Games took place.

The London Olympics were one of the highlights of my summer, and this is why I'm going to tell you a little bit about them and how I lived them!

LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES

This year, the Olympic Games took place in London. My family and I watched all the sport events on TV. I even watched the Olympic Games during the week I spent with my friends in the Costa Brava, and in the end they were kind of tired of me and my obsession.

On July 27th, the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games took place and, in my opinion, it was the best Opening Ceremonies the world had seen so far. It was directed by Danny Boyle, the man who also directed Slumdog Millionaire. The best part of the opening ceremony, for me, was the short comic film starring Daniel Craig and the Queen herself, in which they jumped off this plane and pretended to parachute into the Olympic Venue. This small screen play was a clear example of the British sense of humour, which I love.  

The whole Olympics were amazing, but the fact that Team GB did so well was even a bigger achievement. Stars such as Tom Daley, Beth Tweddle, Rebecca Adlington, Sir Chris Hoy, Mo Farah and Victoria Pendleton were able to make Britain proud and show the whole world what they had been working so hard for. With a grand total of 65 medals, 29 of which were gold, 17 were silver and 19 were bronze, Team GB came just after the USA and China in the Medal count.

However, the best moment of the Olympics for me was when Jessica Ennis won the heptathlon. During the London 2012 Olympics, Jessica Ennis also achieved 3 new personal best scores, in the 100 m hurdles, the 200 m and the Javelin throwing. On top of that, she also managed to get a new World record and Olympic record in the 100 m hurdles, completing the race in just 12.45 s.

The Olympic Games came to an end on August 12^th, with and incredible closing ceremony, which featured a flashback into British music history, with numerous bands and singers taking part.

I'm really happy to have been able to witness these Olympics, as they will be part of British and Olympic history. I can't wait for the next Olympics, even though I know that, for me, they won't be the same as the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Dreams, people always have them but they usually think that it’s impossible to achieve them or they give up trying. Having dreams is one of the best things in life. You can imagine a future, a way to live, what to do and where to go, and no one can take it away from you. Living without a dream is like sailing without a boat; it isn't worth doing.

Giving up on your dreams is not a solution. In my opinion, we should always try hard to achieve a dream, this way, if people ask us about them; we’ll always be able to say that we tried really hard.

Another thing that I think is worth talking about is the fact that you shouldn’t be ashamed or embarrassed about your dreams, if they make you happy then other people’s opinions are not important, everything else will just fall away.

When you’re a child you have your own dreams; some girls dream about being princesses, others about being teachers or even vets; on the other hand, boys usually dream about being footballers or basketball players. Most of their dreams are crushed every day by adults saying that they’ll never come true. Who knows, although adults are only trying to help little children realise that dreams are hard to come true and it’s better to face reality as it is, maybe someday they will come true. Let children dream, it won’t harm them.

A very good example of dreams being crushed is when little boys and girls find out the truth about the Three Kings. I still remember when one of the girls in my class told me about it. I ran home and cried on my bed because I couldn’t face the fact of not having the feeling of butterflies in my tummy on the evening of the 5^th of January, not waking up and running to the Christmas tree to see if I had behaved myself during the year and I had got every present I wanted. If I could ask for one wish right now, it would be to become a little girl during the Christmas holidays. This way I could relive all those special innocent moments again.

Life is too short to not do what you want. I think you should be able to choose which paths you take, what you want to do, who you want by your side at all times, good ones and bad ones, and most importantly, don’t let other people’s opinions get to you. Live life to its fullest because; let’s face it, life is too short and precious to waste it.

BULLFIGHTING IS FINALLY OVER


Bullfighting has been a tradition in Spain for over 600 years. It was recently banned in Catalonia, and there has been a lot of controversy about the decision. Some people think that banning bullfighting is a way of showing their independence from Madrid, depriving Spain of its tradition, and other people, mostly animal rights activists, think that bullfighting is a terrible way of enjoying yourself.

In my opinion, the decision to ban bullfighting was right. First of all, harming an animal to the point of death for fun is probably one of the worst if not the worst traditions in Spain. An animal shouldn’t suffer so that some people have a good time. I know that the tradition has been in force in Spain for a long time, but in a society where there has to be justice and liberty, bullfighting shouldn’t be allowed.

Secondly, even though Catalonia is a region in Spain and it actually isn’t a country, we should have our own traditions and we should be able to ban bullfighting which is also hurtful and uncivilized.  

The way I see it is that it's an awful way to enjoy yourself and it's not fair either. For instance, when the bull enters the bullring, the bullfighter immediatly weakens it's neck muscles so that the gore isn't as strong as it could be. That, from my point of view, is pathetic, because they automatically make the fight unfair.

In 1991 the Canary Islands banned bullfighting and there wasn’t such an impact, but the fact that Catalonia has banned it recently, given all its history with Spain and the fact that it’s always wanted its independence, leads Spanish citizens to think that it has something to do with Catalonia wanting to become different from the rest of Spain.

I do think that banning bullfighting has a bit to do with Catalan nationalism, because we can we different from the rest of Spain, we should be able to make some of the decisions which involve Catalonia, rather than just accepting that all the decisions have to be made for us.

On the subject of banning the “correbous”, I think that in the end they’ll have to disappear as well. But there’s a big difference between bullfighting and “correbous”. In bullfighting the bull dies in the end, and in the “correbous” it doesn’t. Nonetheless, the bull suffers in both of them, so if the Catalan Government has banned bullfights for not fulfilling the animal rights rules, they should also ban the “correbous”.

Here's a link where you can watch the last bullfight in "La Monumental", and you can see what they do to these poor animals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dm8Ptsy-phY

My Summer Holidays

Last summer was one of the best I've ever had. It started on my birthday, June 28th. My friends and I went out all day and out for dinner, and after that we went out to a party in a town nearby.

During July I didn't do pretty much anything. I went to the gym every day and in the afternoon I went out with friends to the cinema, the swimming pool or out for a quick stroll around the shops. We also went once to the local discotheque and once to a small town festival, and we went shopping in Barcelona twice. At the beginning of August, I went with five friends for a few days to l'Escala, a small touristy town on the Costa Brava. We spent most mornings on the beach, while in the afternoons we did several activities like hiring a paddle boat, which is this water slide attached to a small boat powered by pedals. We had trouble moving because we weren't strong enough, but we did get the hang of it at the end. On the 5th of August I went on holiday to Paris with my parents and my little sister. We stayed there for a week and visited several places like Versailles, the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. When we came back from Paris we spent a week at home and then, on the 17th, we went to the UK to see my family. I really like going to Oxford because it’s so different to here.



First of all it’s not hot, it’s quite mild in the summer and I really like going shopping there and getting all my clothes, CDs and DVDs. Whilst we were in the UK we went down to London twice. The first day we went shopping and to the Hard Rock Cafe, a very famous restaurant which has different objects belonging to rock artists from around the world.  We went there with one of my dad’s best friends and her two children. On the second day we were down in London we went to Madame Tussauds, the wax museum. We came back to Vic on the 24th of August and I spent the last few days of summer going out with friends. The last highlight of my summer vacations was on the 6th of September. My friends and I went to Nuria, this little valley in the Pyrenees. We walked up to Nuria, had lunch there and then came back down on this cog railway called “cremallera”.
As you can see I had a wonderful time and I have very good memories of this summer.