TLP Reflections

I liked some things but disliked some about the Teen Life Project. I didn't like doing the research because it was boring too write so much with so little information. Because there was so little information it was very hard to research and to write about my topic. One thing I liked about doing the research is that I learned a lot about my topic. One thing I liked about the teen life project is that we learned how to use wiki pages and to research more easily. I don't think I am going to use a wiki again in my life except for wikipedia. The part that I liked the most about the teen life project was doing the documentary. I really liked it because my topic was video games so we had a lot of fun filming us while we played video games and talking. One problem that everyone has and I noticed it on the documentary of everyone and in movies is that when they are filming any little thing happens and you laugh. At the beginning you laugh but then you sometimes get mad.

When Mr.Hide talked to us the first time about the teen life project no one was interested in it, I thought, oh no, another boring, non-sense project about nothing. Then, when we started doing all those weeks of research everyone got even more bored. Finally, came the big part, documentary. Everyone learned a lot from those documentaries, "Spell Bound," "Super Size Me," and some more documentaries we watched. We started doing the documentaries. Everyone with their different topic about today's issues. Nobody cared how other documentaries were doing, they only cared about theirs. All the students with the cameras and all that filming and recording. When it was the day before giving the documentary, almost all projects were not complete, so there was a lot of nervousness.

In conclusion doing the teen life project was a great experience were you can learn a lot of new things and you can have fun doing the documentary. I hope we don't have to do another project like that because it is to long, but I liked it.

Music Imagination

I imagine a beach in Cuba and a drug dealer walking with a bag full of money. I also imagine an old lady playing the organ. Another thing I imagine is a sad thing like a funeral and there are many people around one person. I imagine a very nice and expensive Mercedez-Benz passing through a dark street very slowly. An assassin is about to kill a person. A ballet parker picks a car and steals it from the hotel. Then, he takes it to an old house in a mountain where he hides many months from the police. Many weeks later a jet picks him up and he goes to Miami and makes a big robbery of a bank with some of his friends. Then many police officers search him and pursue him until they get him. The ballet parker is taken to jail and escapes.

Fat and little people drinking beer in Ireland and dancing like the Irish when they make sound with their shoes. The hobbits from Lord of the Rings playing the banjo and singing. An old man saying old stories to his grandchildren.

Some bald Chinese men with long beards smoking and singing. A fat Chinese man who is drunk yelling to a child on the street. Many people gathering around jumping, dancing, and singing around a fire while eating meat.

The Positive Aspects of Technology

(Sorry, I tryied to serch for the topic I was supposed to talk about but I did not find info about it.)

Technology. How would we live without it? Have you ever thought about it? No, you simply say: it has only bad things and it only takes away our time. Is that true? No, studies in universities and hospitals show that technology and video games have more good effects on people than bad effects. Imagine yourself at midnight in a library and you find what you are looking for. With technology, simply turn on your PC, go into internet, into Google and type what your looking for and you'll find out much more than you were looking for. Video games have a similar effect. I read about it in an article called "Dream Machines" by Will Wright, producer of many famous games such as The Sims, at a page called Wired.

The human imagination is an amazing thing. As children, we spend much of our time in imaginary worlds, substituting toys and make-believe for the real surroundings that we are just beginning to explore and understand. As we play, we learn. And as we grow, our play gets more complicated. We add rules and goals. The result is something we call games.

Will Wright wrote this great words summarizing what he wrote in the article. When a kid receives a video game they don't read the manual, they simply play the game and understand it with the mistakes they make. When a child plays a video game his or her memory become better, they never forget how to play the game. Children take video games as a new form of learning and they learn how to become creative, how to take decisions, such as what way to choose. People take the world as a place for creativity.

People who have never played a video game only say that video games are bad because they take away children's time and they teach bad things, but if they had played they would notice the contrary, the positive aspects of video games such as creativity, community, self-esteem, problem-solving, agility, and self-confidence. Video games also make children have more imagination. For instance, today you ask a child to do a story about heroes and they will possibly do it with their favorite video game characters and new characters that were made by the child because of the video game's effect on the child's imagination.

If you have never thought about this, think about how some technologies helping our bodies. For example, cars help our legs and reaction, TV our senses, and video games our agility and hand-mind coordination.

With the graphics of video games, video gamers and each time feeling closer to the place on the TV. For example, you play a game in which you are in an African city and you need to escape from a war. You would get to know how these people live and how is the place in which they live. The majority of the people say that action and shooting games are the worst. Really, when children play a game of the World War II they will learn about what made the war start, who won, and the names of the famous people.

Video games are also a way to express ourselves. In many games you can create a character and make it how you want. Just like music, you can reflect your lifestyle with what games you have and which ones are the ones you play the most.

I think that technology is have much more good effects than bad effects. For me, I think video games are cool and I have learned a lot thhrough them. Video games are becoming a lifestyle.

What Makes Teenagers Like Video Games and How Can They Affect Their Social Lives?

In recent years, the video gaming industry has grown a lot and it is having a very strong influence on people. The target buyers for the people who make video games are children. The video gaming industries are studying what makes children play video games. I found interesting information in a PBS page and it was an article called Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked and it was written by Henry Jerkins a MIT professor. The article talks about what influences teenagers to play video games and how it can affect their social and family life. The article also talks about the effect video games have on children and teenagers but I already talked about that on the last post I wrote.

Some things that make children and teenagers play video games are stress from school, depression, being bored, and pressure from friends and families. Teenagers also play video games to pass time and to become creative for something because video games stimulate the creativity of children and teenagers. When teenagers are starting to have problems at school such as homework, they start having stress. Some teenagers think that playing video games takes away their stress but it only takes it away while they are playing. Also, many times when children are sad or bored and they have nothing to do they play video games. If the children always play video games when they are bored they get used to play them at all times. Another reason for children to play video games is that sometimes friends have a videogame and they show it to you and to other people just for you to feel jellous. Because of this the teenagers and children feel pressure of buying the videogame so they dont feel bad. Also children play lots of video games because they like to play them with their friends. When children go to their friend's houses and play video games, they usually like the games so they buy them. Some publicity that video games producers use is that they use some children playing video games and with their faces they are "saying" buy this video game or you are stupid or something like that.

The military uses some video games of shooting to train soldiers to kill and some military psychologists say that the video games children play have the same impact on them. Some times games can make children brutal and more agressive. When the children know that the military uses video games they buy them just to feel like if they were in the military.

Some psychologists think that video games can be really good to children in many positive ways. Henry Jerkins wrote this very useful paragraph about positive things video games have:

The military uses games as part of a specific curriculum, with clearly defined goals, in a context where students actively want to learn and have a need for the information being transmitted. There are consequences for not mastering those skills. That being said, a growing body of research does suggest that games can enhance learning. In his recent book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, James Gee describes game players as active problem solvers who do not see mistakes as errors, but as opportunities for improvement. Players search for newer, better solutions to problems and challenges, he says. And they are encouraged to constantly form and test hypotheses. This research points to a fundamentally different model of how and what players learn from games.

I think that video games can be very fun but when you play them to much it can get really boring. Sometimes I play video games because I am bored but never because of some reasons that Henry Jerkins talks about in the article I read.

In my next post I will like to write about some problems that video games can generate in adult's lifes.

Impact of Video Games on Teenagers

I was searching some information of the impact of video games on teens and I found this page that has a lot of information. The page talks about some studies that universities and hospitals have done. The general result shows that when teens play bloody and violent they can behave like if they were that person in the game. Many children reveal to their parents and teachers if they say that video games are bad because they are vicious about them. But not all the video games are bad for people, the ESRB (Entertainment Software Rating Board) shows that some games help people with computer reading, solving problems, and motricity. The ESRB rates video games according to their content. The rating method is: Early childhood (3 and more years), everyone (6 and more years), teen (13 and more), mature (17 and older), and adults only (18 and older depending on where the game is sold). One of the major causes of increasing teen violence is that there are more violent games and more children allowed to play them a lot. More studies about the subject have said that boys play more videogames weekly than girls. The author of the article said:

Video games also encourage players to identify with and role play their favorite characters. This is referred to as a "first-person" video game (Anderson & Dill, 2000, p. 788) because players are able to make decisions affecting the actions of the character they are imitating. After a limited amount of time playing a violent video game, a player can "automatically prime aggressive thoughts" (Bushman & Anderson, 2002, p. 1680). The researchers concluded that players who had prior experience playing violent video games
responded with an increased level of aggression when they encountered confrontation (Bushman & Anderson, 2002).

The worst part of the violence in video games is that sometimes the children stay violent forever. It is easier that small children are influenced from this violent than teenagers or adults. The children of today can become violent by watching their older brothers and sisters play violent video games that are not proper for small children. Some times the industries that make video games make campaigns to promote their video games, and many children see that and they would like to have them.

When children and teens have video games and they play them a lot, it will be very difficult to take the video games away from them. This are some tips for parents worried about their children playing too much video games or not proper games for them:

• Know what is the game about and if it can affect your children.


• Watch your children playing the game and think if it is good for your son or daughter.


• Talk with other parents to talk about video games.

I think that parents should never take away their children's video games because it will cause the child to become very sad, and they will be very bored. I also think that there is a good part of video games that can be better than the worst parts. The games can bring motricity to children and use of technology in their lives and that is important in these days in which to get a good work it is very useful to have a good control over technology and not the tech controls you. I think that not all games are bad. Some games have other languages or mathematics or something like that that the children can learn at school and playing the game.

I would like to learn about what things can influence children and teenagers to play video games.

.::Technology::.

I've been thinking of the topic I would choose on my Teen Life Project, and my first issue to choose is technology. I found an article called "Technology Gives Teens Myriad Ways to Torment" and it talks about how technology can cause stress for teens. The major topic of this article is how technology takes away time from teens and how it makes them stress. It talks a lot about internet bulling and how sometimes teens give their personal information on internet. The major cause for internet bulling is that some persons cant solve their problems in real person so they do it on the internet.

"People are too wussie to stand up to the person in real life, so they decide to
go on the computer and send mean, nasty messages," said Colleen Harris, 16, who
said she has been the target of an online assault. "They're trying to be mean
and vicious, but they're ignorant. ... When they were calling me names, it
didn't faze me at all, but I could see how other kids could be hurt by it."

This is what Maria Elena Baca, the writer of the article said about internet bulling. The police can't do a thing about this problem because it is illegal to prevent teenagers from expressing their selves. Many studies have said that 7% of children who use the internet have been targets of internet bulling and many have received rude comments or messages. Many universities and organisations have been creating anti cyber bulling programs. Most of these programs teach teenagers how to prevent cyber bulling to occur to stop the problem. The worst part is that the majority of the bullies are teenagers because many adults don't know how to use internet. There has been cases in which bullies put comments on web pages that say that some one uses drugs, or something like that. Some of the affected people of the problem go on with their lives, but many don't. A student in Canada had to leave school because o the offends his classmates caused him on a web page that said he consumed drugs and that he was in groups of robbers. The older teenagers have been able to solve the problem and they only laugh about it, but the youngest ones have been stressed and scared. Many of this teenagers do not report their problem so it becomes greater each time they go into the red. Many of the times cyber bulling is only a joke but it can end really bad, like the boy in Canada who had to leave the school.
I really think that cyber bulling is a big problem that can affect student's life's at schools and in their houses. I think that children should make some things to stop the problem, those things are:

• Teach teens how to block bad messages.
• Don't respond to bad messages they send you.
• Never reveal personal information.
• If you are going to share your password make sure you only share it with your parents.

I think that all the teen agers should be aware of cyber bulling. Always be aware of bad messages you see on the internet and always say no if some one asks you for personal information and never chat with unknown people.

Internet bulling can cause children and teenagers have more time being on internet and less time doing homework.

I'm interesting in finding out how can video games affect teenagers life at school and at home.

Answers to Some TLP Questions

How much technology do you have in your place?

Here in Colombia the majority of people are poor, because of that technology is not important for a lot of parts in Colombia. Only in the most important cities of Colombia you can find the latest technology, but here in Cartagena you can find the new technology very little and expensive. For example, the Nintendo Wii was released in October in the United States, and here in Cartagena it was released a week before the 24th of December, and it's price was more than twice than in the United States. I would like that here you could find the latest technology in many places and much less expensive.

Is poverty a big issue in your place?

Colombia is one of the poorest countries in America. I think that more than 70 percent of the country is poor. About one million people live in Cartagena, and eight hundred thousand are poor. The government says that they are helping, but nothing has changed for the poor people, instead, they are having more kids and less food and money to live. Poverty is one of the biggest problems that Colombia is facing right now. Some causes of poverty are that when people are poor, they rob or kill to have something to live with, so the crime in our country grows along poverty. In Bogota, a major named Antanas Mocus made really good things, he reduced the assasinations in Bogota from 30 death for every 1000 people to 5 dead for every 1000 people.

What would you change about your community?

Some things I would change to my community are poverty, technology, and security. The first change I would make to my community is poverty. I would make that every poor person has a good job, so they could have food and commodities. This change would make better in many ways, such as reducing crime. The second change I would make would be adding more security. To do this Cartagena would need more police men, that would produce more jobs, with more jobs there would be less poverty, and with less poverty there could be less crime. With a better security people from all the world would visit Cartagena, that would bring a lot of money. Also people would be more secure about making stores and stuff like that. Security and less poverty would make Cartagena a much better place to live and to visit. The last change I would make to my community, Cartagena, would be to add more technology. I would add skycrapers, malls with technology stores, and many things. I would like that all the new technology arrived in Colombia at the same time they arrived in the United States. I would also like that everything was less expensive. Oh, I forgot, another change I would make to Cartagena would be to add better transportation. I would make bigger streets, and all the busses I would sell them and get new ones with air conditioner. Also, I would add a subway to get easy transportation all arround Cartagena. At least the goverment is making a project called TransCaribe, which is like trains but they are busses, and they are adding water taxis which are taxis that you take on the sea. Those are all the changes I would make to my community although I like my city a lot.

Daniel's Life in Cartagena

Hi, my name is Daniel T., and I study at the Colegio Jorge Washington, by the sea in Cartagena, Colombia. I'm thirteen years old, and I like my school a lot. I have a normal life in this beautiful city that has many colonial things such as castles, old churches, and very long walls. I use to play soccer with my friends all weekends at the Campito, which is a soccer court with artificial grass. Also, I go to McDonald's and to El Corral which is a Colombian McDonald. A place that I visit a lot is the cinema. The last movie I saw was Eragon, which was very cool. I really like the place I live because it is close to my friend's house and it is on front of the beach. When I am home alone I use to play the Nintendo Wii that I was given on Christmas. I have two brothers, Andres and Edgardo. Edgardo is the older one, but Andres is already married and will have a daughter called Isabella.

In the teen life project, I will be talking about one of these themes: Ecology, Technology, Poverty or a Career. Ecology will concern us in the future if we don't care about it. There can be a greenhouse effect cause because of global warming. To stop this problem we can start using electric cars, we can put the garbage in the trash can, and stop polluting the atmosphere.

Technology is affecting our lives today. The schools are using computers in almost every class, so it is very important to know about technology. In the future, new technology and inventions will take away some jobs, but it would generate such jobs such as selling and manufacturing.

One of the themes that concern the most teens is getting a good job. Everyone likes a job that is easy and you get well paid. This kind of jobs are only easy if you where a good student in school and in university.

Poverty is one of the major concerns of the world. Many poor people die of hunger and on the streets. This problem makes people think of joining some groups such as narcotrafic groups or FARC (Colombian Armed Revolutionary Forces) or others. Many people die in wars becuase of this, and of drug use. The United States of America are helping a lot Colombia. They are sending money for the poor and people to stop the FARC and drug problem. Everyone knows that Colombia is famous for drugs and wars, but we hope that in the future, everyone would think of Colombia as a beautiful and safe place.

There are many more issues that can concern us in the world such as sickness, terrorism, drugs and alcohol, crime, and security. Most of these have to do with Colombia, like wars and terrorism.

In my teen life project, I will talk about one of the issues I talked about or the ones in the last paragraph. My favorite issue is technology because I like it.

Have a Site Meter in Your Blog

To have a Site Meter on your webpage, follow the steps:
1. Click this link: Sign up.
2. Click next, and click next again.
3. Write your blog's URL.
4. Write the name of your blog. (You can write anything)
5. Invent a codename.
6. Click next.
7. Log on.
8. Click on Manager.
9. Click on HTML Code.
10. Click Adding Site Meter to a Blogger.
11. Put your Blogger username and password, and select your blog.
12. Click Add Site Meter to my Blogger Template.
13. Follow the directions carefully, log on and out if it says yo to, follow them really CAREFULLY!
You are done, you now have a Site Meter in your Blog!

.::My First Regatta::.

This Sunday I woke up, ate breakfast, got a bath, and got dressed. I prepared my sailing equipment, packed them in a bag, and told my brother to take me to the Club Naval. There, I prepared an optimist, as usual, I made sure the sail was working, all the lines were tied, and the boat was secure. Then, my partners told me that today we had a regatta (a sailing race). At the beggining I thought I was not prepared, but later I realized that I could do well. Then, I got ready to sail, I got some french fries and a soda and a bottle of water. I put my sailing gloves on and took the boat to the water.

I got inside the boat, and started practicing for the regatta. Fifteen minutes later, our teacher told us that the first regatta was going to start in five minutes. Five, four, three, two, one, start! The race started, and we were four who raced. I was in third place, the race had just started. When we were about to finish the first race, out of four, and I passed a boy who was in front of me, I stayed second. I was happy, it was my first regatta and I stayed second, but three more races were coming. In the second race, I started really bad, and I stayed third. The same in the third regatta. The last regatta was very cool. We were all tied, sometimes I was first, and sometimes last. This race lasted for about 16 minutes. When the race was about to be over, I was in the last place. I wanted to be third, so I did everything I had to do to sail very well. After some minutes of trying, I finally had come to a third place, useful for me. The teacher told us that I stayed second in general, I was very happy with the results of my first regatta.

Your Worst Enemy... Yourself

The story Monsters are Due on Maple Street by Rod Serling has a clear message at its end. Two figures from outer space destroy the residents of Maple Street, and not with bombs or weapons, the residents destroyed themselves. The figures had turned off everything, and the people who lived in Maple Street blamed everyone because they did not know who could do this. The message of the story is that your worst enemy is yourself. If something bad happens to people, and they don't know really what happen, the first thing they do is find a scapegoat. Everyone starts blaming each other; the result will be a world without friendship, only with prejudices and suspicion. People don't search the really guilty people; they search the first men they can blame.

Even though this message was written back in the 1960's, it still has very significant words. Today, we are in a world full of prejudices and suspicion, everyone searches for a scapegoat. I think that this message is important because we could work together instead of fighting for no reason. It is true that your worst enemy is yourself because when you eat bad things, blame other people, and say lies, you hurt your self, physically and mentally. If people like Hitler and Osama Bin Laden would have in mind this message, many people would not have died, and prejudices would not be existing. This message would be really useful if something bad happens like what happened in the Twin Towers, or any other terrorist attack.

If the story “Monsters are Due on Maple Street” was written today, some little details would have changed. If the blackout would occur these days, some things that would be damaged could be mp3's, cars, lights, portable video games, digital clocks, computers, cell phones, and air conditioners. Some changes for the story to be more adaptable to today's audience would be that instead of the ham radio, they could use an iPod. The writer could write in the story that the aliens come from another galaxy or specifically from a planet in our solar system, for example, Jupiter's moon may have aliens. Today, the place where something like this happened would not be as horrified as in the story, they would be more prepared and instead of blaming themselves they would blame the local electricity factory.

CAMUN

Last year, my cousins told me they were going to the annual JMUN (Junior Model United Nations) in the school. I didn't know what it was about so I ask them about JMUN. They told me that it was a conference that simulated a United Nations conference. They also told me that JMUN was not so important, they told me that CAMUN (Cartagena Model United Nations) was more important because people from different countries come to the conference. I liked all that stuff about discussing and defending your point of opinion, so I told them if I could participate, and my cousins told me that I sure could. A week before the conference I started getting ready, I rented a full dress, I wrote a speech that everyone had to write, and I studied the point of opinion of the country I chose. I chose Ukraine, and I was partner with Luis Carlos because he also chose Ukraine. The day before the conference we went to a coctel that marked the beginning of CAMUN in the Castillo de San Felipe. There, Luis and I found out that Roberto and Augusto where participating in the conference, we thought it was cool.

Finally, the conference starting day was up. I woke up, ate breakfast, got a bath, and got dressed up. My dad took me to Hotel Caribe, the place where the conference occurred. Luis, Roberto, Augusto and I where very nervous, we did not know what to do or to say. After the first day of the conference, we had only said a few words. the next day, we talked a lot, and we discussed a lot. The conference ended on a Sunday, and we where happy because we had been in the CAMUN conference.

This year I will participate in JMUN and CAMUN, but this time I will arrive much more prepared because I am in the MUN elective where I have learned a lot about this conferences. JMUN will be in November 28 or 29, I don't remember. I hope I’ll do well.

Rough Draft of a Short Story

"Hey, that building, the Space Needle, is really high and very thin, I really love skyscrapers," said Jamal, "I like vertigo." Seattle's most popular attraction, the Space Needle, was crowded of people, especially from a Colombian group of people who went to visit. Jamal, Andrea, and Carla were some of these Colombians, but they were special. They had come to a conference about cakes at the center of the city, they thought it was boring so they ran away and went to the thin but tall tower. They bought their tickets, and then waited in line to go in the elevator that took people to the main room. Andrea, who was always negative, thought that it was to dangerous to go so high, something bad could happen. Carla, who was her best friend tried to convince her to go up the building. Dinnng, the elevator rang, the Colombians went into the elevator.

"Nothing bad will happen, lets go up," said Carla.

"No, it is too scary," responded Andrea.

Then Jamal said, "Ok, let’s let her stay here."

Andrea, who did not want to stay alone, finally accepted to go to the highest part of the Space Needle, “OK, I’ll go.”The three of them went up on the elevator; it took them about two minutes and a half. The room they were in was colorful, well decorated, and had a lot of large screen plasma TVs. Carla and Jamal went to the balcony, and looked at the beautiful city of Seattle.

"What a beautiful city this is, don't you think so," asked Carla.

"Yes, much beautiful than that city in Colombia we visited last year," responded Jamal.

Andrea went to balcony with her friends, but she did not dare to look outside. "I'm not going further, it's too high," said Andrea frightened while looking at Jamal who was doing bad faces to her.

“Ha ha ha ha! The poor baby is too frightened, ha ha ha ha!" said Jamal.

"Stop it!" replied Andrea with an angry and frightened face. Jamal wanted to show Andrea that it was safe, so he did something that no one would do even with a harness, he took a strap, he hold it in his hands, and he was about to jump out of the building.

"I'm going to jump," said Jamal.

"No!" yelled Andrea who came running to stop him from jumping.

"Ha ha, you finally came over here, I was not going to jump, I did this to frighten y..." Suddenly Jamal tripped over a bag and fell out of the building. "Help!! Help me!" yelled Jamal who was holding from the strap he holds. Everyone who stood close to Jamal started to stand apart and to go away, nobody was close to save him.

"I told you something bad would happen, now Jamal will die!" yelled Andrea to Carla.

"Nothing bad will happen, calm down, and pray on your knees!" replied Carla.

Suddenly a poor resident of Seattle came to save Jamal. His name was John, he was a strong and intelligent, and he really wanted to save Jamal. John saw the strap that the poor Jamal hold for about six minutes. John realizes that if he takes the strap and takes Jamal the strap may break and he may die. After some minutes, the strap started to brake apart, and Jamal was about to let go, and he had the idea to tie himself to the strap, so he did not get tired. John called 911 and asked for the fire fighters, but all of them were saving a burning forest. The strap continues to brake apart, very slowly, but breaking, in any moment Jamal could fall.

"Help, the strap is about to brake!" said Jamal.

"The fire fighters are not in the city and if I take the strap it will break," said Andrea and John while looking at Jamal.

"Do you see that little balcony over there?" asked John. "You can try to jump over there and there is an opportunity to save yourself," said John.

"I'll jump," said Jamal. Then, he moves the strap back and forward, and he jumped to the little balcony. He did not stood in the little place, he was now holding it with his hands and he was about to fall. "I will only hold it for a minute or two, fast help me," said Jamal with his last forces. Jamal started trying to get on the balcony and he did what he wanted to. Now, someone had to save him, and John had gotten a harness and went in search of Jamal's life. John hold him in his hands, and when they were going up, the harness felt off John's body, so they had to hold the harness' string with their hands.

"Oh, no, who will help us?" yelled Jamal and John together.

"We will save you," said Andrea.

Everyone who was in the top part of the building gathered up and started pulling the string to save them. "Pull!" yelled everyone together, "pull, pull!" Everyone pulled the string for about forty-five seconds, until they finally saved Jamal.

"Finally, we're saved," said John

"Thank you a lot for what you did, you saved my life, what can I do for you?" replied Jamal.

John started thinking, and finally he said, "You could give me a burger."

"I'll buy all the burgers you want, but first I must go to the hospital because my toe hurts a lot, hope didn't break it." said Jamal with his last forces.

Andrea and Carla came back to Colombia after what happened in Seattle. John and Jamal became really good friends, so Jamal stayed living in Seattle, they worked together in the Space Needle, and their work was to make sure that no one fell, so that no one experienced what Jamal experienced.

Halloween is Coming Up

Lost in a Comic World

Imagine a normal summer day while playing in your background with your family and friends. You decide to play soccer, so you go inside your house to search for the ball in your room. Suddenly, you see a strange shadow below the ball, you sit on your knees and you touch the shadow. Suddenly, strong pulls of a strange gell pull you inside the shadow, leaving you asleep. Three hours or more later, you wake up and see a strange, very different world of that in which you have lived many years. Your first thought is that you are in a dream, but you realize that you are awake.

The world that you are now on is similar to the world in comics. The people that you see do not look real, you are somehow trapped in a comic book. Everyone looks at you with a daring sight, and you get really scared. Suddenly, a good and nice boy touches you at your arm and asks you to come to his house. You accept, and you you go to the boy's house. The house is a two-story red house with a very big backyard, it has at least 8 windows and you seem to like it. You start liking this world, even more than human world! You now live with the boy's family, by the way his name is Timmy. Timmy and you go to a public school together, and what you learn in school is how to be a super heroe. You have already lived 2 years in this world and you start getting bored. You are very sad and you miss your family a lot. You tell Timmy to help you get out of his world, and he agrees to help you. While searching a way out, Timmy tells you that he saw a green, two-story high portal that probably will take you with your family or to another world. You enter the portal, luckily you get back home, and you figure out that only 3 minutes have passed after you left the world. This would be very strange.

If this would happen to me, I would feel very happy but strange. Going to another world is something that you would never forget, it would be an amazing experience. I would never tell someone about this because people would say that it is very stupid and unbelievable. I would try to find a way inside the comic world to thank Timmy everything he did for me. Although this will never happen, a way inside a comic world, obviously, is reading comics such as Hulk, Spiderman, and Superman.

.::Awful Holidays!::.

Have you ever imagined how could your worst holiday be? I would imagine 1)
going to a scary hotel, doing nothing in my house, or going to a very boring farm while it's raining.The worst of these, would be going to a scary hotel. Not a scary hotel like in comics, but a hotel that has no food, a bad tv, and an ugly bed. I would not like a hotel without 2) breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Something that I would never like to have in a hotel is 3) an ugly, fat, and hairy room cleaner, horrible! 4)He cleans, he serves food, he does room service. Imagine that you are 5) right to a smelly gargabe, and suddenly you see your room cleaner! 6)While walking to your room, you meet a very nice girl. 7) Yes, this does not sound scary, but five minutes later the room cleaner told you she was dead a week a go! I would tell my parents inmediately to take me home or to the beach, cool! 8) Whenever I am in a very boring vacation, I tell my parents to go back home, that is what I would do in this freaky holiday. How would your worst vacation be, scary or boring, please write a comment about it.


1) Series of phrases.
2) Series of objects.
3) Series of modifiers.
4) Independent clauses.
5) Prepositional phrases.
6) Participial phrases.
7) Introductory yes, no, or interjection.
8) Adverb clause.

Google

Google, one of the most visited sites in the world, is really critiziced and congratulated. Usually, google is the first webpage students visit to search for information. Google makes it really easy for you to find very good information for your topic, you only need to type your topic, click enter, and choose the best site you see. Encyclopedia books can sometimes be better than google because google does not check their information, so you can have false information. Google is not only the page you usually type (www.google.com), google also has a program called Google Earth, it is free and you can see all the world, special places and even restaurants in cities. Google has a book search engine, you can search very good books, and even read some pages. I think that one of the things that makes google very good is it's domain over many languages and specialization in countries. For example, in the Colombian google, you can search for sites only found in Colombia, and that is very good. Some of google's enemies are Yahoo!, Go, and www.com. Hotmail, is also an enemy of google's www.gmail.com which is an e-mail "machine", it works like hotmail, but some people say it's better.

I think that google is the best site in the world. I like it so much because it can help you like an encycopedia by giving you information. Also, you can find very cool sites, like online games, sites were you can buy stuff, and many more things. Google has an extended menu on sites and programs. My favorite one is Google Earth (click here to download) I can see many new cities, the best thing I've seen on it are the palmlike islands in Dubai, you should look for them in this program. One thing I don't like about google is that it shows many offensive things to people, specially to Bush. You should look for information on Google, I recommend you.

.::Problems in My Life::.

Have you ever had problems that you don't know how to solve? Everyone does, and when it happens to me I take a few easy steps to solve them. First, I would apologize with the person I hurt. Then, I would try to solve the problem, for example, if I broke something I would buy another thing or try to fix it. Finally, I would try to make the person I hurt happier by buying a gift for that person. If I am under pressure, I would get very mad but try to clam down and apologize, but if I'm not under pressure I would use the easy steps I told you (use them, they are free! He). Sometimes when I do a mistake and people yell at me I get really angry, and if the other people are still yelling at me, I get even angrier. If a person kicks me or something like that I would do what they did to me, if I am angry enough. I know that I should never be angry because it is bad for your health, but it's hard to stop.

One time I made a mistake that hurt a person was about five or six years ago. I was in my cousin's house and we were happy playing soccer in his backyard. I was about to score, but suddenly, my cousin pushed to the ground to make sure I did not score. I did score, but I got so angry that I kicked him and I threw his soccer ball to a car that was going fast, and the ball exploded! Then, I realized that we were playing soccer, and it was a simple penalty, so I felt sorry. My cousin was crying, I brought him some water, told him that I apologize, and promised him I was going to buy him the best Nike ball I could find. One or two weeks later, I gave him a brand new soccer ball, and he accepted my apology. We played soccer, and he pushed me to the ground, but this time instead of fighting, I took the ball, I put in the ground, I kicked it and scored the best "fair play" goal of my life. That day I saw my cousin very happy with his soccer ball, so I returned home very happy, I had done something very good.

I recommend you that every time you have a problem, try to solve it for yourself first, if you could not solve it, ask an adult for help. Try not to get in problems!

Sailing

Have you ever wondered how it would be to control a sailing boat for your own? In August, I wondered how it would be, so I told my dad to take me to "Club Naval", a place where I could learn more about navigation. In there, I asked what kind of boat could I use, I wanted the answer to be "you'll sail sunfish (a sailing boat)". The answer was not what I expected, it was "you'll sail optimist". I asked what was an optimist, and my sailing teacher told me that it was kind of a sunfish, but much smaller. That day, I sailed alone for the first time, because the only time I had sailed was with my parents and their friends in a sailship, but never alone. I didn't sail so good, I was slow. I went all Saturdays and Sundays, and I kind of knew how to sail. I never knew I was going to sail, but now, I'm a sailor, optimist sailor. I already knew some things about sailing, because my dad had taught me very well, and my friend Augusto said me some things I had to do. Last year, I did not liked sailing, but now I do, my advice for you, is sail, learn to sail. In three years or more, I'll be sailing sunfish, what I wanted to sail.

The photo at the top left corner is an optimist. The difference between the sunfish and the optimist is that the optimist is smaller and the shape of it's sail is cuadrangular, and the sunfish is bigger, it's sail has a triangular shape, and it is faster.

.::My Expectations Compared to Reality::.

If you read at the end of this blog, you would see a post called "Affect of technology on education", the second paragraph is about my expectation about having a blog. My expectations where that I would have a lot of visitors, lots of comments, and cool posts. Now, i have very cool posts, about 7 comments but not lots of visitors. One of the reasons is that our teacher has not told other teachers about the blog, and schools in the U.S had vacations until the end of August, so they don't know. If you would like to read what I wrote about my expectations, read this paragraph:

"My expectations about the blog are very good, because I always wanted an
internet address where I can express my feelings. I wanted to publish what i
think and that's what i'll do. I expect to have a cool site for people to read.
I expect to have a lot of comments in all my entrees. I hope everyone likes it."

One of the hardest things about blogging is that you need to write about thing that everyone likes, because if you write about only one thing, people will not like your blog. Another hard thing is that you need to put new things every week, so that people have something to read. One of the easist things to do in blogger is to write a comment, because you can say to people what you think about their post, and to write a comment you only have to click once. I feel that in a week or two my expectations will be equal to my blog now. My expectations have not changed because I still hope many people see my blog.

Something that makes blogger very fun is that you can put photos, videos, and links. We can put photos so people know what are we talking about. In our posts, we can put links so that people have more information about the topic. In blogger, I have learned to make webpages, before I didn't even know how to make them. Now, I can express what I feel in a webpage.