The use and abuse of technology by Andrea Quintal G.

What will happen if suddenly all of the technology that we have now just disappeared? Imagine yourselves without a phone or computers, like people lived before… what would you do? I think that technology is good because it helps us to face challenges of our daily life, but I also think that people get confused with the words use and abuse. When we abuse of technology we can have a negative repercussion from it, like everything else that we use in excess. I didn’t come to tell you to stop using technology; I just want to tell you some of the negative consequences that can happen to you if you don’t moderate its usage. Nowadays people depend on the technology, it is almost part of us and without it we can’t do a lot of things, like having access to any kind information that we would like to know about, or to talk with all the people around the world, while I was doing some research, I found out that people that were surveyed (from 8 different countries) said that they couldn’t go a single day without their cell phone in hand. I think that we need to learn how to live without technology or at least leave it for a couple of hours a day and enjoy the company of other people. Some of the consequences that the excessive use of technology brings are health problems, such as brain cancer, because when you use your cellphones for a long time the radiation can damage the brain causing tumors, this has been proved in three studies since 1999. Another example of damaging could be microwaves, they can hurt your eyes because they are very sensitive to heat, and it can cause cataracts that over the years can leave a person blind, your laptops can also give people skin cancer as you put your laptop on your legs while doing homework or playing games your skin can get 2nd degree burns and that causes cancer. The excessive use of technology can also cause mental problems such as anxiety, aggression, depression as well as drug abuse, self-image issues and even suicide. Nowadays people depend on technology, I read on a website that 94 percent of people between ages 18 to 34 own a cellphone, 70 percent own a laptop, 69 percent own an iPod or another type of MP3 player and 23 percent own a personal tablet; people use technology almost for everything, like their work, education or even to entertain themselves, the average amount of text messages that a common teen sends are 100 per day, but I think that it is very important to be present in the real world, socialize and enjoy life, talk to real people instead of talking with your cellphone. The new generations spend about 8 hours per day in front of the TV or computer screens, which amounts to more time than the average school day or the average amount of sleep every night for young adults, I think that this dependency that we have on technology affects our lifestyle and the new generation’s lives. I am not saying that we need to stop using them what I mean is that we need to leave them a few hours per day learn new things, meet new people and above everything enjoy life, the real world.

The importance of Studying away from home by Kassandra Chan

Have you ever thought about traveling to other country to study for college? Or how hard would be leaving home? Good morning my name is Kassandra and I am going to talk about the advantages of going to a foreign country to study. It may be a little hard to leave our parents but this experience has many advantages that will help you in your future. This decision is difficult for many students and it’s normal to feel scared, but like I mentioned before there are many advantages of going away to college, living on campus and fully immersing yourself in university life. The on-campus college experience can be a time of tremendous intellectual and social growth and learning for students. Some of the advantages are: Going away to college is often an important step in learning to live independently. Students who stay at home may still live with their parental' rules or have the luxury of not working. By contrast, going away to college forces a young person to take full responsibility for his/her life, schedule, health, social activities and finances. With no parents around, college students must learn to fend for themselves, balance their budgets and deal with problems on their own. Students can also have the opportunity to learn how to tolerate and live with others. Residence hall life gives young people the chance to meet people from different places who may have different perspectives of life. Students can learn valuable lessons about getting along with others, whether it's dealing with a difficult roommate or challenging their own beliefs about people of a particular culture or race. I think that an important thing the student can acquire is to have the opportunity to see new places and having new experiences. Learning to navigate life in a new place gives students memories and experiences that they will have for the rest of their lives, and the chance to see what life is like somewhere outside home. Living on campus or going away to college also gives students the chance to get fully involved in university life. Students who commute or live at home don't often have time to attend social functions, participate in interest groups or immerse themselves in daily campus life. Students who live on campus are within walking distance to everything that happens on campus, whether it's a mixer, a play or a party. Getting involved in campus life helps college students make friends, become members of clubs and can often gain access to internships or jobs. More and more companies claiming vast knowledge of one or more languages or have had an international experience in labor recruitment. Engage with people of different nationalities allows the student to develop communication and personality skills such as being more tolerant of differences and be more prepared to adapt to new environments where you do not know anyone and have to be interacted. I know that it is a difficult decision, but you don’t need to make it right now, just think about all of the advantages and how this will affect your lives.

Dog Fights by Valentina Febles

Do you know how many dogs are misstreated? How many are used to earn money? How many are in the street? Or maybe, how many have already died? It is true and it happens, this is called Dog Fights. Dog fighting is a type of blood sport, generally defined as pitting two game dogs against one another in a ring or a pit for the entertainment of the spectators or the gratification of the dogfighters, who are sometimes referred to as dogmen. Dog fights usually last until one dog is declared a winner, which occurs when one dog fails to scratch, one dog dies, or one dog jumps out of the pit. The loser, if not killed in the fight, is typically killed by the owner through a gun, beatings, or torture. However, sometimes dog fights end without declaring a winner. For instance, the dog's owner may call the fight. Dog fighting generates revenue from stud fees, admission fees and gambling. Animal advocates consider dog fighting to be one of the most serious forms of animal abuse, not only for the violence that the dogs endure during and after the fights, but because of the suffering they often endure in training. According to a filing in U.S. District Court in Richmond by federal investigators in Virginia, which was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act and published by the Baltimore Sun on July 6, 2007, a losing dog or one whose potential is considered unacceptable faces "being put to death by drowning, strangulation, hanging, gun shot, electrocution or some other method". Some of the training of fighting dogs may entail the use of small animals (including kittens) as prey for the dogs. Statistics organization called Canine Miracles show that 100% of the dogs have been tortured or abused. The total of the perpetrators are men and 80% of the "worst torturers" belongs to high socialoeconomic class, and who usually try to help these injured animals are predominantly poor people Dogmen keep them in chain in a dirty backyard, starving and beaten, trained to fight and keep on fighting. Even if their legs are broken, even if their guts are hanging out. If they win, they live to fight another day; If they lose, they die To the men they’re are just dogs, but who is the real animal?

Why should countries show empathy? by Dianné Rodríguez

Countries can show empathy for many reasons; they can obtain benefits from helping each other, like being empathic to stay in peace; helping each other to protect the environment; or they can share information to know if one country is having a problem etc. Empathy is the base of peace and is the key to help each other.

Advantages and Disadvantages of being a girl

 by Stephanie Cervera

Being a girl has their advantage and disadvantages at the same time. I know every single girl in the world sometime has feel insecurities and other time feels like the perfect girl in the world.

Every time, when they ask me what is a disadvantages of been a girl, I always think that women have had pass through so many things, like insecurities .I think every single woman or girl in the world is beautiful in every single way, but sometimes they don´t feel like that, and they only think that they are fat or ugly. I think if you have a friend or not even your friend, you should help her to avoid that negatives comments.

Other disadvantages are that “men” use us like a toy. I think is the worst feeling in the world, no woman should be treated in a bad and disrespectful way; you need to treat them with respect. I you are suffering because a man is mistreating you, don´t keep it to yourself; you are the one who can make a difference.

Even though women suffer a lot, one and the most important advantage for me, is giving birth. Giving birth is the best thing God gave us; you can make a new life. Another thing is that we are more responsible and sometimes or always we are more intelligent.

I think been a woman or a girl is like a job, is vet difficult. We go through many things, but if women didn´t exist, the world wouldn´t exist.

Xavier’s excellent xylophone

by Ana Paulina Riancho Castro

Xavier has a big xylophone,it likes to dance and sing, it loves to be in the ocean, and lives inside a ship. It likes to show it skills infront of every kid, it makes a lot of shows, for people to shake their hands to the rythm of the song.

The xylophone fell from the stage and broke a leg, it made an X-ray to know if it was OK. It jumped,screamed and shouted, its leg was very hurt. There was a lot of noise, the people was very loud, the xylophone made them shut up, for him to sleep.

The turtle

By: Ana Paulina Riancho Castro

It wishes to be as swift as a cheeta,

But it stills being as  slow as a snail;

It’s tiny as a microbacteria,

But brave as a lion that plays;

It has a beautiful shell,

As bright as a diamond

And hard like a rock;

It can be very quiet,

But when it is endangered

You can hear it “roar”.

It’s tiny as a mouse

And as brave as Indiana Jones,

It feels big as an elephant

And acts like a shy baby dog;

It can see as sad as a hungry baby,

But if you get to meet it,

You can see it’s happy as a funny clown;

On earth it is very slow,

But in water as fast as a plane;

Don’t reject them at all

Because you canfind a very good friend.

 

Advantages & Disadvantages of being a girl

                  

by Ana Paulina Riancho Castro

Many people, many of them boys, think being a girl is easy, you don’y have to worry about sweat, being a mess, getting organized, understanding your own notes, and many other things; but that’s not true, girls have as many problems as boys, even if they are different.

Some of the advantages would be that must of us are cleaner and more organized, but there are some exceptions... Like me! Even if you don’t believe it, 3 of each 10 girls aren’t organized, which means that in the world, a lot of girls are messy and mixed up. If you are one of these girls, don’t worry, remember you are not alone.

Also, we can like different artists WITHOUT being bothered with it, like 1D, Justin Bieber, The Wanted, Ed Sheeran, and many others. Why? Because of the society, if a girl likes this kind of artists is OK, but if a boy likes them, he is being bullied and bothered, like being called gay and that kind of stuff. An 87% of the girls in the world are fans of this famous people, but lots of them get very obsessed and achieve the point when they "literally" know everything about them, and let me tell you, it’s kind of creepy.

As well, most of us are responsible too, because we mature faster than boys, but it not always goes well. One of the disadvantages of being a girl is related with this advantage, and you may be confused, it’s because we get the “period”. It is something horrible, you always have to know what clothes you can’t use during that time, what are the activities you can’t do; like going in a swimming pool, and also, your mood frequently changes, and it will be something weird for the people you are with. And what’s the worst thing?  It HURTS, from the “h” to the “s”, you can feel it. I think a 100% of girls hate having their period.

I could keep talking about the advantages and disadvantages all day, but I want you to know, even if you would rather be a boy instead of a girl, you’ll have the same amount of advantages and disadvantages, they could be different or alike, but you can’t change yourself.

Here’s my advice- “love yourself like you are, because if you don’t love yourself, you won’t be able to love”.

“Advantages and disadvantages of being a girl”

by Paola Alvarado

 

We are about 3,523,843,881 women in the world and usually, most of us just talk about the disadvantages we have, but why don´t we ask ourselves which ones are the advantages of being a girl?                                                                                                     

Girls have as many disadvantages as advantages, and we have to learn to be happy with what we have. We have one of the best advantages we can ever imagine and it´s giving birth.

Giving birth is an opportunity only girls can have. The fact of having your own baby to take care of should undoubtedly be the best feeling in life. Many girls all around the world think giving birth is a joke and that´s why they are 80 million unwanted pregnancies and about 40 million of those pregnancies are aborts, after they abort about 90% of them feel guilty of their decision. This is something serious, something we have to take care of, not just throw it away like a toy.

Girls tend to be more organized too. This is a really good advantage because you can either use it in school or when you grow up at your own house. According to a study made by The Journal of Human Resources, girls always do better than guys at school  because we pay more attention and we are much more organized than them so as a result we get better grades. Imagine, just in my class the average of the girls´grade is 9.1 while the boys´average is 7.8, so it definitely makes the difference.

Even though we have really good advantages, sadly we aren´t perfect so we have disadvantages too.

One of the worst disadvantages is that we have periods. Periods can get really painful and we can even change our mood really fast, which could make people think we are bipolar. One of my parent´s friend is a pediatrician at Star Medica and he told me that most of the patient´s parents´number one concern is about their daughter´s period. He also told me that many of his patients are even scared that during the cycle they will suffer any injuries or any problems. We can all get scared but it´s something we have to live with.

 Another is that girls suffer a lot of discrimination. Mostly boys discriminate us because they think we can´t do thing as well done as them, that´s why 1/3 of the women in the world suffer discrimination in their workplace. Another form of discrimination that women suffered was when they were not even able to vote for their governants until October 17, 1953. Anyway, never let anyone discriminate you, discrimination isn´t good that´s why we have to learn to fight for our rights.

As a conclusión, girls aren´t perfect, but we don´t only have to focus in our advantages because we are all perseverant women who are capable of doing everything we want to in life.
               

Slippery Sue the Sleek Seal

by Paola Alvarado

Oh look! Slippery Sue! The Sleek Seal! She is swimming in the ocean seeking for a secure place to seat. Her shimmery skin made ir slightly difficult for her to sit any season of the year either in the shore or simply on a seat in a rock. Single with the silence, she continued searching for a place to have a siesta ´til she saw a singular place where to sing, sleep and seat happily with her Little slice of seafish.

Tovah´s tasty treats.

            

                     

                    By: Jessica Macías Z.

Tovah tastes a lot of treats, tasty all of them, one day he tasted a tiramizuwith tutsi-pop topping made by the top attractive chef. Tovah traded thetiramizu for his favorite tea-pot toy. But then his teacher told him a tragic story. Tovah transformed into a transparent T-rex, tears of joy fell while a transformer took him to a tropical place. Today Tovah still eats tasty treats and tries to tickle people. 

The Villainous, Venomous Viper

By Valeria Naranjo

Vicky the Viper had lots of vanity. She bragged being a villain of value, the very best of the valley. Vicky the Viper remained a villain, behaving bad with all the beings.

Venomous poison through her veins, various villagers feared her. So Venomous Vicky the Viper felt alone, vulnerable to madness she was then, so she kept her vandalism to herself.

One day a blackbird came, “Vicky the Viper how was your day?”

Vicky the Viper looked at him, her villainous temper was all fake, “You should run now safe and sound, I could bite you like bird of prey right now.”

The blackbird was brave and had a kind heart, “I don’t fear you, if you attempt to bite in vain, I can fly to that bush or vine. Besides, every villager seeking friendship deserves a chance.”

"Being a girl" by Jessica Macías

 

 8/10 boys think being a girl is easy or that a girl´s life is much more easier than a boy´s life, but that´s not true, being a girl has it´s advantages and disadvantages.

Girls mature faster than boys and we are more responsible, doctors say that we mature faster so we can be prepared for the future, so we can be ready to be mothers or just to be prepared for our jobs or the things we will do.

Another advantage is that we are cleaner and that includes responsibility, because if you are not responsible you CAN´T be clean, that´s why we are cleaner.

This advantage is the best: We can like any celebrity we want without being judged all of the time, for example: I had a friend (guy) that liked One Direction and he started to get judged. We can also hug however we want also without being judged.

We also have some disadvantages, for example: We have our period and that´s really annoying because our humor changes and we get all moody, I know that because of  my mom even if I don´t do anything she gets angry at me and why? I DON´T KNOW!!!!!!!!

We also give birth and that´s also really annoying, because any girl likes to be fat, and when when you are pregnant you are fat for 9 MONTHS .  I remember when I was really young and didn´t know where the babies were those 9 months, and my aunt was pregnant I saw her belly and asked her: “Why are you so fat?” and she was like “what did you just said?!”.

In conclusion being a girl can be pretty annoying sometimes, but we need to be thanked for what we are.

Fireworks entered the house! by Cynthia Rincon

One night in Christmas celebration my cousins Emanuel, Alex and me were outside playing with the fireworks, then I enter to eat a "bimbuñuelo"…

Then my family heard a scream and in that moment a firework enters to the house and passes   near my mom and my cousin Alison and almost burned them and went under the chair and jump to the sofa. In that moment my uncle Arturo took a towel from the kitchen to grab and stop the firework.

The family was scared and angry because somebody could have gotten hurt or the house could get in fire. Before that experience my father and my grandfather say to my cousin’s father that please don’t bye more fireworks.

I think that burning fireworks is dangerous because can cause a big fire and burn the house or somebody. When you are going to burn fireworks it is important to have an adult watching and helping you.

 

 

Advantages & Disadvantages of being a girl by Johana Sarzo

 

Women have had to face a lot of difficult things for earning the respect they have these days. Being a girl has a lot of advantages & disadvantages and I’m going to present them here.

Like we have a lot of advantages, we have disadvantages too, for example, the period, it is very uncomfortable and most of the girls (maybe all) don´t like having the period.

Another disadvantage is that girls, normally, are more complicated than men. We think a lot about things and we have more problems. For example, when I’m with my friends (boys and girls) we start talking about something and all the girls (including me) start discussing about the things we are talking about for a long time, while the boys only listen and they just don´t care.

“TV is a powerful influence on all of us, but particularly young girls who are looking for role models,” Los Angeles-based therapist Dr. Nancy Irwin.  TV can be a very bad influence for girls because they want to be like the actresses or models there. More than 90 percent of girls – 15 to 17 years – want to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance, with body weight ranking the highest. And that´s why they start having eating disorders.

Another disadvantage is that girls are an easier target for bullying. A girl is bullied every 7 minutes in the school yard, playground, stairwell, classroom or bathroom, because girls are shorter, more sensible, and is easier to hurt a girl than a boy.

There are a lot of other disadvantages, women can get raped and pregnant. And that way, you could get pregnant at a very young age, when you are not able to take care of a baby, and it´s difficult to overcome it.

We could have a lot more, but being a girl is not that bad, we can have a lot of advantages too. For example, we never have to stand at a urinal and have other girls stare at us like boys do (and normally, we have cleaner bathrooms)  

Another one is that we can have babies when we have a good age and if we want to, and most of the women think that giving birth is beautiful.

Women are known for having a higher tolerance to pain, women give birth… That´s something a man could never do.

Another good reason for the one is better to be a woman is because we have the ability to perform many activities with only one career studied. When we become mothers at the same time we are: psychologists, chefs, drivers, doctors, etc. Like for example, my mom, she didn´t study for being a doctor, but when my brother or me get sick, she knows what medicine she has to give us.

There are many others advantages & disadvantages and sometimes girls want to be boys because is easier. But being a girl is beautiful and I think we can have a lot of advantages.

 

 

 

 

"Being a girl" by Valeria Naranjo C.

Girls aren´t a very uncommon gender, in fact, there're so many girls in the world, about 51.1% of the total population, and all of them are immediately welcomed to a world full of pink, ribbons, dresses and skirts.
Of course, being a girl is more than only that, women are the only humans capable of giving birth, which is, in mothers’ opinion, a miracle full of light. Giving birth ends in raising a child, and this means responsibility. Research proves that, as we mature faster than boys, we are more responsible than them, and we mature faster Dr Marcus Kaiser states that, “Previous studies have shown that the brain does a lot of re-organizing during puberty, there is greater activity during this time, around 10 to 12 you start to see a lot of activity in the brains of girls as this pruning takes place, but it was between 15 to 20 for boys.”
In other situations, girls have a high self esteem that leads us to be happy with ourselves, and this encourages us to take our own time. This is a supporting fact for us to be more organized than boys… In Winter Break, my family went to Guanajuato, where my cousins live. My cousin Manuel loves to draw, and he always has his binder full of drawings with him, but when he showed it to my cousin Andrea and I, we were both astonished by how disorganized it was, so we took it from his hands and organized it in half an hour, to our cousin´s exasperation, but the other day my cousin wrote and told me he was able to find his drawings easily.
But, after a while, things change, women have their own issues, for example, our periods cause us to lose blood when we aren´t going to give birth soon, and that´s hurtful and exhausting. In periods, their hormones go on an “emotional roller coaster,” as 75% women report mood-swings.
In the mid time, most of the times we don´t grow up as much of the guys do, as we mature faster, that gives us early understanding that cannot last forever.  For instance, when I was eight, I was one of the tallest students in the classroom, but now, albeit having been one of them, I´m one of the shortest students after all the boys grew up.
While we have physical disadvantages, we also have psychological ones, by nature we are meant to have a soft temper leads us to have worry and concern by our environment, which leads to some consequences. In some situations, we keep taking it all inside without saying anything and take the whole weight of others on our own, which is harmful to our self-esteem.
Saying they are consequences would be an understatement; discrimination comes with it as we are said to be weak and just an unnecessary element to society. Women need to be prepared to cope with this statements and everything that comes with them.
We can conclude that, although being a female isn´t all pink and flowers, we´re ready to go through each obstacle. Being from this gender will bring more advantages than anything else.

"Advantages/Disadvantages of being a girl" by Natasha H.

A girl’s life is complicated sometimes, but we can also have fun without getting too wild. According to Newcastle University scientists, “girls' brains can begin maturing from the age of 10 while some men have to wait until 20 before the same organizational structures take place.” That is definitely a thumbs up for us girls. About 15% of American girls now begin puberty by age 7, according to a study of 1,239 girls published last year in Pediatrics, and 23% of black girls hit puberty by age 7.

One definite advantage of being a girl is that we can wear pretty much anything, ranging from skirts, to tank tops, to short shorts, while men can wear only certain things. Could you imagine a man in short shorts with hairy legs? Ewwwww.

What’s horrible is that globally 65 million girls are not in school, which will be an almost unsolvable problem in their futures. Just because some schools are prejudice of different nationalities doesn’t mean they can just avoid giving education. I think that girls and boys should be treated equally, it doesn’t matter who matures first, or what nationality they are, or what gender they are, we are all humans, and WE DESERVE EDUCATION.

In January of this year 8.3 % of women were unemployed because some people underestimate us girls as being weak. That is the most stereotypical thing I’ve ever heard in my short 12 years of life. In my opinion I think that girls can be very competitive if they wanted to, which a lot of us do.

Girls have advantages & disadvantages, but it doesn’t mean we are weak in physical or emotional terms. Boys and girls should be treated equally no matter what their gender or nationality.

 

 

"The Ghost Dead Lady" by Carlos Daniel Morales

One dark and scary night, I was chatting with my parents between my kitchen and my dining hall, it was 10:30 p.m. I recall, I looked behind me, there was a glass door that connects my house with my patio.

Suddenly, when I looked at it, I saw a ghost dead lady, she was staring at me with her white, enormous eyes and she had a black, long hair which was falling on the floor, she was wearing a white, shiny dress and she was sitting on a weird chair, it was a kind of a bench, she was looking at me with deadly eyes, as if she wanted to kill me.

When I went upstairs to my bedroom , I couldn’t sleep because I was really scared, so I just tried to close my eyes really hard to try to avoid all those scary things; but I couldn’t, so I opened my eyes and started seeing scary ghosts all around my bed, and hearing sounds everywhere in the room.

When I finally fell aslept at 3:00 a.m. or later, I woke up a lot of times still hearing scary things, everything was quiet, just the sounds of rustling and murmurs, since that happened, sometimes I´ve been hearing scary things and witnessed appearances of scary deadly ghosts.

 

"Live is meant to be lived" by Rodrigo Hernandez

Exactly one year ago it was my grandmother´s birthday. I was arriving to my grannys house when I saw that some doctors were climbing my grandfather into an ambulance. It was a shock moment. Then, we went a little ahead and my sister and I went out of the car an enter home. All of this was in time of minutes. My parents went following the ambulance with 5 more uncles. I stayed with my sister at my granny´s house with 3 uncles and 2 cousins and with my other grandfather. At home I saw that in the kitchen , the food was in the grill and a kinfe in the table. I could see that my grandmother was cutting the vegetables. This happen at 12:30 , I didn´t believe it. I spent all that day at home , waiting for a call.

 

I remember that that day I ate pizza and rice with bananas. That day was like a year for me , the minutes were hours and the hours were like years.

At 4:00 o´clock the phone rang , it was

 my dad, he told me that everything was ok, that my grandpa was hospitalized and that I need to sleep cause they were irriving too late. They arrive at 1 am. I didn,t sleep.

My grandfather was hospitalized for 2 weeks and a half, he was very strong. Unfortunately he died. He died of stroke.

 

It was a hard moment. Because I shared my life with him in a very big way. I remember that when I arrived at my grandmother´s house, I ate and went with my grandfather from 3 to 7 or 8 pm , I spoke with him hours. We use to talk about soccer, watched the Ingles Family and watch classic movies. I played soccer with him too. I remember that we use to go to tha store and buy to packages of “chocolate abuelita” and ate it watching soccer matches or classic movies, it was a magic moment.

 

At his funeral, me and my family remembered too many things, we laugh, we cried, but always together as a family. In his funeral I give to my grandpa a soccer ball autographed by Pelé, it was his idol. I cried a lot. There were grice days with tears. But we need to learn how to live with the past and face the future, cause life depends of that. I know that my grandfather is not in the world, and he can not protect me as my grandfather, but he can protect me as an angel, because I know, he is in the sky watching me, and he will live in our hearts forever.