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I’m going to talk about my last summer, especially about July. I think it was the best month in my life so far.
I got a grant which consisted on spending a month learning English in Toronto; I stayed in the York University campus. There were five more Spanish people with me; the other people of the residence were from other parts of the world. Most of them were from Québec that is a Canadian region, which is in the North-east. They are French speakers so I have to communicate with them in English.
The residence was so beautiful; it was like the ones in American films. It was huge and it has three principal buildings: two residences, and a building with the classrooms and the cafeteria. Then there was a swimming-pool, a gym, some tennis courts, even a football pitch and even better a soccer pitch.
The residence was surrounded by a forest so it was very charming, special, beautiful and wild at the same time.
The first impression when I arrived at the campus was good, I was still in a shock state because of the travel and so on, but I liked it, I though I was in an American movie and I have always wanted to go to a typical American high school. But at the same time my Spanish mates and I were so afraid because that was completely new for us, we didn’t know each other and we had never been so far from home.
When I saw my room for the first time I felt a bit frightened because it was such a small place that I though it was a prison, and we were even placed in different floors and opposite places in the residence. Anyway, the next day I was like in my own house and I even decorated my room, because that was going to be my house for the next 31 days…and although my room was the smallest one I had the best panoramic view, you could see the front of the campus from my window because I was just over the principal gate.
Well the schedules, the most difficult ones: the food schedules, we had breakfast at 9 o’clock, that wasn’t a problem because it was just like here in Spain, then we had lunch at 12.30-13.00, and then we had dinner at 5.30-6.00, but from 6.00 that was the dinner to 9.00 a.m. that was the breakfast there were too many hours, so we were so hungry at night.
But the second day we realised that less than 10 minutes walking from the campus there were a 24-hours-open-supermarket and a McDonald’s that was open the full day too. So we with our Quebecers friends went there to eat, it was very funny because we were listening to music while we were walking.
Well now I’m going to explain a little bit how was my lessons schedule, I went there in order to learn English so we had classes too. But they weren’t boring; in fact, they were so funny and useful.
The first day they checked our English level by a test, there were 12 levels from level 0 to level 12, I was in level 7.
From 9.30 to 12.30 we had the three hours of class, we did grammar, but most of the times we had to do speaking exercises by groups. There were more o less 15 people in each class and I was the only Spanish in my class so I had no other way to communicate with the other people to do the group exercises than speaking in English, and that was hard at first but then when I lost the embarrassment it was very good for my English improvement.
Alter having lunch, we had a seminar or a workshop: Monday and Wednesday we had seminar and Tuesday and Thursday we had the workshop. It lasted one tour and a half, from 13.30 to 15.00, and we had the rest of the day free. We used to go to the computers lab, or to the quad, that was how we called a field that was between the residence and the cafeteria where we played games, sunbathed or whatever. Boys used to play soccer while we where watching them.
Friday afternoons were completely free, but sometimes we had trips.
And on Friday night we always had a party, from 10 to 2.30 at night. It was so funny and a good opportunity to know more people from the residence, we were about 200 only in my building and at the end we all knew each other.
Well now I’m going to talk a bit about some of the trips I made:
The first Friday, that was the second day I spent in Canada, the supervisors took us to have a walk into downtown; I mean the Toronto city centre. And we took some photos in some typical places in Toronto.
Eaton Centre, I loved it, it was the biggest mall I have ever seen, it has 3 floors and it’s very large, I spent two afternoons shopping there and I wasn’t able to walk all over it.
I will start talking about a place which I think is the icon of Canada: Niagara Falls.
At first I must confess that they didn’t impress me so much. Because I’ve seen other water falls and they weren’t as big as I had imagined. But then we rode on the typical boat called “the maid of the mist” with the typical blue coats and it sailed to the falls. When we were near the falls it was really exciting and amazing, you could feel the water on your face without seeing anything, and you have an exciting and relaxing feeling at the same time, an adrenalin rush, it was awesome.
The day in the CNtower, which is the highest building in the world, about 500 metres? It’s a bit frightening when you are on the elevator because it goes up very fast and at the same time you can see the city through the elevator glass. At the time you reach the top you can enjoy beautiful panoramic views of the city and the most interesting thing is the “glass floor”, because there is an area where the floor is not opaque, in fact it is transparent, it is made of glass. I must confess at first I was a bit afraid, but then after convincing yourself that it’s not going to break you try to walk in it. It is a strange situation to have the city literally under your feet.
Well, I have to many trips but I am not going to talk about all of them, only say that we went to most of them by bus, in the typical American school buses, like the Simpson’s one.
One day we went canoeing to Ontario Lake, we were unlucky because it was a cloudy and rainy day, in spite of it I enjoyed myself a lot, and there were fantastic views.
Another day we went to Wonderland, it is the premier theme park in Canada, and it is famous because of the Roller coasters.
I really enjoy this day; there is a water park too, full of water slides.
We had cultural trips too, like the one to the Science museum, I liked it a lot because it is very didactic, but not only in a children way, it is divided in areas, the technology one where you can dismantle things like telephones, the experiment area, the sports one…
Another day we visited the ROM, Royal Ontario Museum, it is placed in a huge building and it has one of the biggest collections of ancient history, and I’m a lover of ancient history so I enjoyed myself a lot watching the Roman, Greek and Egyptian areas.
We went to a baseball and an American football match too. I’d never seen any match of both sports before. And after that I can say that for me baseball is too boring.
But on the other hand I liked American football a lot; I think it is because of the atmosphere that involves it. It was spectacular, a lot of cheerleaders, and the publicity… so amazing.
Well we had a lot more trips like a bike tour near the lake, the zoo, the beach…
The first Saturday we arrived there we decided to go out downtown at night, to see how the nightlife in Toronto was. But after meeting the people from the campus we preferred to be all together in the collage at nigh, some of the boys played the guitar, the violin, and all of us sang or danced or just talked. We even did a bonfire with the typical mushrooms.
And something that even made this travel more important was my party. I was there for my eighteen birthday, all of them sang “happy birthday” to me several times: in class, in the cafeteria, in the residence, in the subway… and in three languages: Spanish, French and English. But I had never imagined that at night they were going to do a party for me. It was so emotional and unforgettable, we didn’t have a cake but we had eighteen doughnuts with eighteen candles. And it was perfect I didn’t need anymore.
Most of the people from the residence were from Québec, in the north-east of Canada, and if everything continues all right I’m likely to visit them this summer.
I’m not very sensitive and emotional, but I really had a bad time when I had to say goodbye to them, although I only spent a month there I was with them the whole day, so they became my family, and I miss them a lot.
Now I speak with them on the Internet, and I hope not to lose contact.
Leviathan
First of all I am going to say why I chose this novel. I wanted to read somethin written by Paul Auster, who was given the Prince of Asturias award. Besides he directs movies and he has several cultural interests. I thought ,this is my chance. But why this novel, whose title is “Leviathan”. On the one hand because the title is the same as a book of philosophy and on the other hand I supposed taht the topic mas not philosophical, in addition to the fact that the shop assistant encouraged me to buy the book because she had loved it.
My first impressions when I started readin it were not very good. I felt it was a little boring. However after reading some pages I changed my mind. The book was gripping me, and I could not put it down until the end.
The plot mainly takes place in New Yord city from the seventies until eighties (including the first Regan’s government) .There are two main characters, whose names are Peter and Benjamin. Peter, who is the story teller, tells us how and when he met Benjamin. Different circumstances, periods, and several people are showed in each moment of their lives, but they are always related to these men. The writer makes yor understand the behaviour and feelings of main characters.
On balance, it is a book highly recommendable. It is easy to read, it is interesting so shows up American people in an unusual way. To my mind it is worth reading.
Monse Rodriguez Alvarez.
HEAT AND DUST is a novel written by Ruth Prawer Jhabuala. It is a Romance which takes place in Satipur, India. It alternates between two times periods, the 1920`s and the 1970`s.
The proganists are two English women living in India in different times: Anne, who is the narrator, is in India to learn more about her grandfather`s first wife. Olivia, another protagonist, who lived there during British colonial rule. Olivia is a young woman bored and lonely in the middle of the British colonial society. Olivia travels to India to join her husband Douglas, but she has difficulty integrating herself because of British prejudices against Indians. She develops an affair with the Nawab, a local man. When she becomes pregnat, she has an abortion because she is not sure who the father of the child is, her husband or the Nawab. Parallelly, the narrator also falls in love with an Indian man, her Landlord Inder Lal.
From a historical and social point of view, I found the novel quite interesting, but I didn`t find all the characters moving, the novel is not very clear about the character of Anne, for exemple. I did not quite like the end, I think it is rather abruptly and inconclusively.
In my opinion, the lenguage was not too difficult but some parts were a little bit boring. The book is worth reading but I expected more from it.
Marta Cabeza Casielles
Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life is a collection of seven stories written by Roald Dahl. All of them grew out of Dahl’s experiences with his friend Claud when he lived in the countryside.
The action takes place in rural England and the characters who are related to the seven stories are: Gordon (the narrator), his friend Claud and their neighbour Rummins.
My favourite stories in this book are: ‘Ah, sweet mystery of life’ and ‘The champion of the world‘ because I think both are the funniest. In the first one Rummins has a singular and amazing method to get a heifer or a bull when a cow is mating; the method does even work with people!, in fact, he says that he has used it to have his four male children.You can find it a bit ridiculous, however, it was Rummin’s method and how proud he feels about it wthat made me laugh from the first moment. Apart from that, I found the vocabulary easy in this first story, which let me have an enjoyable reading.
In ‘The Champion of the world‘ Gordon and Claud poach pheasants in a non conventional way, they are able to hunt more than one hundred in one night but in the end they have a little problem with them.I think the story has an hilarious ending but what I like most is the way the author relates how the characters prepare the poaching and how they make it possible.
Since you start reading the book you realize Roald Dahl makes an exhaustive description of characters and places. It is sure that this aspect really helps you to visualise the story in your head, however, it can sometimes make the reading boring because the author spends several lines doing it, and from time to time what you want is more action than description.
In spite of having said that the first story has an easy vocabulary, I think, that in general, the book has a lot of new words which make the reading a bit tedious, although it is not an obstacle to follow the storyline.
Finally, I have to say that when I chose this book I expected it to be easy to read because Roald Dahl is supposed to write for children, but it is obvious this time he didn’t. In general, I liked all the stories and I would recommend them if you want to have a good time and, especially, if you have a good vocabulary level.
Alejandro García Lodeiro
By Maite Martínez Crespo
Som
Al my friends talked about that film on those days but I had to wait in silence or to try to introduce another topic because I knew nothing about the plot…until now. That is the reason why I have chosen this book. I enjoyed reading it very much and I am proud of being able to tell you a little bit about its plot now:
Matilda is a five-year-old child whose parents care little about her so she learns to look after herself. Her family also hates reading and Matilda desperately wants to go to school and to the public library but she has to wait until Miss Trunchbull, a horrible school Headmistress who believes that hard discipline and intimidation are the best methods of learning, bought a second hand car from Matilda’s father’s company.
Matilda learns that the Headmistress is more cruel than her parents as she usually punishes students locking them in a small hole in the wall called the “cokey”.
Matilda also discovers that she has mental powers and she uses them to help her lovely teacher, Miss Honey, who is Miss Trunchbull’s niece and is now living in poverty, by stealing, using her powers, some of Miss Honey’s stuff from where Miss Trunchbull was living or writing on the blackboard as if she was Miss Honey’s father’s spirit. Because of that Miss Trunchbull disappears and Miss Honeys recovers her father’s house.
After that Matilda loses her abilities but she wins a family because Matilda’s father is being followed by the police for selling stolen cars and he decides to move his family to Spain but he lets Matilda stay with Miss Honey, they two make a loving family and live together in Miss Honey’s father’s house.
Sara Gutiérrez Sama
The book I’ve read is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It is a fantasy book and it’s author is Roald Dahl. It tells the story of a young boy, Charlie Bucket and his poor family. Charlie, his parents and his four grandparents lived in the same tiny cottage on the outskirts of the city and they didn’t have enough food for all of them.
In the city they lived there was the biggest chocolate factory in the world and no one had ever got into it.
For several years, the factory had been closed to the public, but suddenly, one day, the headline on the papers said: WONKA FACTORY TO BE OPENED AT LAST TO LUCKY FEW. The idea consisted of five golden tickets hidden into the Wonka chocolate bars all over the world, and those lucky who could find them, would be able to visit the factory with their parents, guided by Willy Wonka himself.
Charlie dreamed about finding one of them, but he wasn’t able to afford buying a lot of chocolate bars. For his birthday he used to have one of them as a present, but when the day arrived, the bar didn’t have any golden ticket. But some days later, he was walking along the street when he saw a coin on the road. He picked it up and after thinking about what to do with it, he decided to buy a chocolate bar, and then another one, and this one did have a golden ticket!
When he arrived home, he told his family what had happened and no one could believe it! Finally, they decided that Grandpa Joe would go with Charlie to the factory.
The day after, they arrived at the factory, and the rest of the people were Veruca Salt, Mike Teavee, Augustus Gloop and Violet Beauregarde, all spoiled nasty children and their stupid parents. And Mr Wonka knew it. Then the visit started.
The factory was the most incredible place in the world. The workers were very little people called Oompaloompas and they loved cacao. The first room they visited was the Chocolate Room: it was a lovely valley with green meadows, a great brown river, a tremendous waterfall all made of sweet and chocolate, and there was a whole mass of enormous glass pipes sucking the melted chocolate from the river. One of the children, Augustus Gloop, the fat one leaned towards the river trying to eat the chocolate, when the bigger pipe sucked him up.
The next room was the Inventing Room where Mr Wonka was inventing his chewing-gum meal. When Violet, a chewing-gum addict, saw the new invention she had no doubt and chewed it. But the gum hadn’t been tested yet and Violet started to get as blue as a blueberry and become as round as a big balloon.
They kept walking till they found the Nut Room, which was full of squirrels testing the nuts for the chocolates. Veruca, the most spoiled girl in the party told her dad that she wanted one of those trained squirrels, and that she would take one of them by herself. But when she got into the room, the small animals took and tested her and found that she was a bad nut, so they threw her down the rubbish chute.
Mike Teavee was tired, so they took the lift and went to the Television Room. There they found a big TV set where the Oompaloompas were trying to send chocolate bars by TV. But Mike wanted to be the first person to be sent by television, got himself just in front of the set and was sent to the other screen but smaller.
So, the only child who was safe was Charlie. Mr Wonka explained that he wanted him to become the new owner of the factory, and him and his family could move there. This way they’ll never starve anymore, and Charlie’s dream could come true.
I’ve chosen this book because some years ago I saw the film, but I wanted to know the real story, because films usually rule out most of the things that appear in the original book. And I really like it because although we are not young children, it’s important to make our imagination work, and this book is full of fantasies. Of course it shows a moral, that parents have the responsibility of what we become when we grow up. I definitely recommend it to all those who have a children inside them.
By Maite Martínez Crespo
This book, writen by Sue Townsend describes the life of a 13-year-old English boy who lives a complicated yet simple life. The story simulates Adrian’s diary so it goes into detail about his life while he is in school, at home, and with friends.
In this book Adrian tells the story about his complicated and miserable home life: he has to deal with a drunk father and an adulterous mum, the typical teenegers problems: he starts to be aware about his physical appearance, his acne problem, his first love with Pandora. He tells us about his parent’s split, his new eighty year-old friend: a crazy old man he helps for charity, he even speaks about the Royal Wedding.
But he speaks about all those serious and depressing problems in a funny way. This book is really hilarious and ironic, but at the same time it is a drama. I think the writer uses the child ignorance or the Adrian’s optimistic point of view to critizise some of the political and social problems in the world. Anyway I like how the writer analysed the teenage mind. She mixed everyday teenage problems with humour. This book can teach us that there are a lot more problems and obstacles as we get older: relationships, responsability and education become more complicated.
The book is brilliantly funny and I recommend it to anyone. It is different and original, it’s called the diary so it tells Adrian’s life with a lot of detail, although it is not heavy to read.
Sometimes it is a bit tought to get through it but you can understand it in the context. I think the book has the typical British sense of humour, some people are not very fond of it because sometimes it is difficult to understand, but in fact I think it is very special and I like it.
In this book you can find loads of new vocabulary, there were a lot of new words and expressions for me although they weren’t difficult, in fact they were everyday words, useful vocabulary, so I’m so glad to have learnt those words. So I recommend it to people who are learning English because it uses a coloquial language and we can learn a lot from it.
I liked this book because it is not boring or long, and it can be read quickly and enjoyably. And it’s funny to see what similarities I have with Adrian because I have just finished or I am finishing my teeneger period.
So I recommend it to everybody, the age is not important, it is good for teenagers because it migh help them to face their body and mind changes, and for adults and old people because it can remind them their life as teenagers. So read it and you will laugh non-stop, no doubt!!!
By Nuria Ortiz Pérez.
“A long way down” is a dark comedy that tells the story of four unknown people who met on the top of a high building called Topper´s House by chance, when all of them pretended to be on their own being their purpose to commit suicide on New Years Eve.
Their names are Martin, Jess, Maureen and JJ. All of them thought they had pissed their life away so they wanted to end it all, but their sudden meeting makes things a bit complicated because comitting suicide isn´t so easy when you are with other three people waiting behind you to do the same. Their lives weren´t easy and the decided to share their difficulties with the rest of them, so I think it´s important to describe the different characters.
Martin was a famous TV presenter who had gone to prison for having sleeping with a 15 year-old-girl. Everybody knew that because of his popularity but when he went out of prison he realized he had lost everything because his wife had split up with him, he couldn´t even see his daughters and his career was completly ruined.
Jess was a 18 year-old-girl who was a bit mad and who acted without thinking what she was doing, and who had lost her boyfriend because of her behaviour with him. She also had difficult family relationships, specially with their parents. Her father was an important politicien and she was accustomed to having whatever she wanted, but she had another problem in mind that was her sister Jen who had disappared and they didn´t know anything about her.
Maureen was a single mother who had to look after her disabled son called Matty. She couldn´t stand that situation anymore because that was all she had been doing for the last 19 years, so she thought the best solution was to kill herself.
JJ is an american rock singer who had left everything to go to England to live with his girlfriend and to continue with his band the Big Yellow but things didn´t come out as he wanted and his girlfriend split up with him and his band broke up and he found himself delivering pizzas.
What I liked most about the book was the way it is told, the author tells the story from different points of view, I mean, all the characters tell the story from their point of view, so you are reading the same episode in a different ay because they express themselves differently. That makes you able to understand them better because you can even read their deepest thoughts.
To my mind, the book is really interesting and disconcerting at the same time, because you never know what is going to happen, but I have to recognise that some parts of the book are really fictitious and I would omit them.
What I less liked about the book was the end, I´m not going to tell you but it´s something really strange, I think it is the kind of end I never like, because it doesn´t give you a real ending, you have to imagine it.
By Maite Roza
