LaU's Blog

2006-05-10T16:28:00.000-07:00

Laura Altafulla

SHAKIRA: COLOMBIAN PRIDE!!!
Shakira was born in Barranquilla, Colombia in 1977. She was a middle-class girl, who liked to sing, but now at just twenty-nine years old, she is the artist with the most international projection in Colombia. According to Univision, Shakira is not only the most successful Latina, she is also the most quoted, and for that who doubts it, every day there are more tests that confirm it. Her voice is recognize all around the world and has conquered the hearts of many people, so much that a statue of her has been donated to the Atlantico, by the artist Dieter Patt. Now there is a problem because there are a lot of different opinions about where to put it. The statue of Shakira has generated a big controversy, due to the different preferences from the citizens with regard to its location. But this statue should be in a place where young people can watch it everyday.
Patt is the governor of Neuss, a commercial district of Germany, where he promotes Colombia. "Colombia does not know that it has very important people who attract anywhere in the world the affection of people, as the case of Shakira and Montoya. For me the most important thing is that they do not forget where they come from, and have their own Social Foundations for children. For that reason I support them from Germany" said Mr. Patt, who besides to describe Shakira like one to the best pop singers, said that she is very likeable and in the world leaves a very good image of her country. Shakira is a symbol of which can be the new time for Barranquilla, Atlantico and Colombia. And according to El Heraldo, Mr. Patt said that his idea was to put a statue of Shakira in one of the entrances to Barranquilla, where she was born, to receive the people.
When the gigantic sculpture arrived to Barranquilla, on March, awoke in the city a big controversy for the definitive location. Apparently the authorities at first proposed to locate it close to the airport to receive the travellers who leave and come, but the artist prefers it to embellish some other place, because according to what Patt said, Shakira thinks that to the airport only goes the people who can travel on airplane, and she wants the young people to watch her and fill of spirit, with her statue. Then, the office of urban planning of the Mayorship proposed the park "Sacred Heart" in the north of the city, to locate the sculpture, but the head of the Government of the Atlantico, Carlos Rodado, is not in agreement with this proposal.
When Shakira received the gift, she said that she would like young people to reflect themselves in her to make all their dreams come true. According to her, she wants that when people see this sculpture, do not think about her, but recognize a girl who began of the anything to make her dreams come true and obtained it. This could be an incentive for young people to fight for their dreams, so that’s why it should be putted in another place, a place where young people can see it everyday. She proposed to the governor Carlos Rodado to put it in the round point between the Universidad del Norte and the Club Campestre. She chose this round point because every day the youth and the childhood of the Atlantico cross it and is also the round point in which the traffic affluence is bigger.
In spite of this proposal, there are a lot of people in discord, because they say that a round point is not a good place to locate an statue, they say it should be putted in a park, or in a seat, where people can walk, and take pictures calmly. And this round point is nothing calmly, is the one with bigger traffic affluence, and is also on a highway, what means that the sounds never stop, and it is not a place where you can walk, or sit.
But the round point continue being an excellent place to locate it, because everyday young people take this highway, and could watch it, what could be an incentive for them to surpass themselves, and fight more for their dreams, without looking in the obstacles. And the round point is also an entrance to Barranquilla, what is good too, because people who come to Barranquilla in this highway, the fist thing would see is this statue and would remember her as the Barranquillera she is, and would identify the Barranquilleros with her. The statue would also bring travellers to Barranquilla, because Shakira is a very famous singer, and many people would like to know the place where Shakira was born, and many of this people would take this highway to entry to Barranquilla.
Finally, the governor decided to take the advise from Shakira and put it in the round point, because it is a good place, where everybody can watch it, and the most important, the young people can watch it everyday, to fill their, and identify themselves in her, and never stop being dreamers, because they can became true, you just have to fight for them, because to get what you want you just need to work for it, and Shakira is a perfect example of this. So she would be the incentive they are not looking for, but also needing.

WORKS CITTED.

Todos quieren con shakira: Shakira en nuevo dueto y con estatua. http://www.univision.com
Alemanes apoyarán plan contra basuras: Rodado consigue cooperación. Granados, José. http://www.elheraldo.com.co
Shakira tendrá estatua. http://www.esmas.com
Una estatua de la cantante Shakira adornará desde este domingo el centro de Barranquilla. http://eltiempo.terra.com.co/
Barranquilleros, indecisos sobre ubicación de estatua de Shakira. http://eltiempo.terra.com.co/

2006-05-10T16:15:00.000-07:00

Laura Altafulla
Saturday’s morning

My mom has always been a sedentary person. She has always hated every activity which requires any physic activity. Her fun outdoors are going shopping or taking a tea with friends. And now she is still like this, because of a little accident she had the only day she treated to be an active person.
My father is an architect, he is always working on buildings. One day, my dad was working on a building close to my house, and we (my mother, my brother and I), decided to give him a surprise, we would go to visit him. I can remember perfectly. It was a Saturday morning, like 9:00 a.m. We were younger I was like ten years old, and my brother was like eight, so we convinced my mom to go doing some exercise. On my house, there were two bicycles, and a pair of skates, so my mother and Andres, my brother, would go on bike, and I would go skating.
As soon as my mom and I were changing our clothes, my brother went down stairs to the garage, where we keep the bikes, to check them, because may be they were broken down, and it was all okay. So we decided to start our trip, everything was going perfectly. The road was not as short as we thought, but we were good. Of course we falled down, and had some scratches, but we were happy to go to visit dad.
We finally arrived it was like ten o’clock, and my dad get happy when he saw us there visiting him and he stopped the construction for some minutes, he told us he would stay there for a long time, but he also recommend us to make another short ride, to give him time to get free, to go back home with us and to take us to have lunch. My father also gave us some advice to ride the bicycle better.
We were having the short ride when my mom got an idea. To go for another side to watch a different houses and horizons, but at the end it was not such as wonderful idea as we thought. In this side it was too lonely, there were nobody there, so we decided to go for dad and wait for him there in the construction. But we were going back we found the ride full of little mountains and also many gratings, to catch all the rain water.
All seems that my mum didn’t realize of the grating that were at the end of a long descent. It was horrible she was bleeding so much. A wheel of her bike got into a lattice so she on the bike made a turn of 360º in the air, and also got trapped with the bike on the grating. Thank God we had a cell phone to call dad.
When dad arrived he took her to the hospital, but she didn’t stay there for a long time. Now she has not any scar, but since that day I don’t ride bike and my brother doesn’t either. I think we are still scared of her horrible fall.

2006-05-10T16:07:00.000-07:00

Laura Altafulla
ISRAEL: VIOLATING HUMAN RIGHTS?

The Arab-Israeli conflict is a conflict between Arab and Jews in the Middle East over the land of Palestine. This conflict has led too many wars, and consequently, too many people hurt and killed. According to what the republic of Cuba said to the international court of justice “During many years Israel has been responsible for continuous and flagrant violations of the human rights, of the humanitarian international right and the international right in these territories”. Israel with its position in the conflict has created a humanitarian crisis because of the limitations imposed on good’s and people’s circulation, the inhumane treatment of children, the destruction of goods and the territorial expansion with the wall construction.
The mourning imposed on the Palestinian families, the pain of the mothers of the Palestinian children died by the violence exerted by Israel and the humiliation of which the Palestinian town is object, could never be calculated, all because a land Israelis want to take. Now Israel is building a wall, to separate territories with the Palestinians, but this land really belongs to Palestinians. And with its construction many civilians defenceless has been killed or has been hurt.
According to the Israelis “the construction of the wall is simply a safety measure”; but it is not true. Israel with the wall is stealing part of the Palestinian territory, with which it will establish a new border with the use of force. The wall has the characteristic that has a permanent structure, and it is very expensive to build a wall like this, what means that it will be permanent and Israel will consolidate its politic of expanding territories, which is prohibited by the United Nations Organization.
Israel should stop the construction of this wall, because with it the possibility of negotiating with justice goes farer, because Israel is doing what it wants, is not being fair, is doing what he considers good for its country, but is not really thinking of Palestinians, who are been affected with it, because Israel is violating their rights as humans. Every minute many innocent Palestinians die and are humiliated by Israelis, because this is a humiliation, although Israel will continue its construction because they say that since there is the wall the terrorist attacks has diminished.
The international court of justice, maximum judicial organ of the United Nations Organization said “the wall that Israel builds in Cisjordania is illegal, in opposition to the international right, that must be destroyed and the Palestinians must be compensated”. According to the sentence read by its president, the Chinese Shi Jiuyong, the court considers that Israel “has the obligation to end its violations of the international right, paralyzing the construction of the wall”. The court also considers that the construction of the wall violates the Ginebra’s convention, which defends the
the rights of the civil citizens in the days of war and says that the rights of which Palestinians are being deprived are "autodetermination, work, attendance, health, protection, education and freedom of movement".
Finally, Israelis are violating human rights, and with the construction of the wall is destroying the illusions that have many Palestinians to see their territory in peace and living a normal life. The excessive use of force , the no distinction between civilians and combatants, the creation of a humanitarian crisis, the deaths and the cruel treatments of children, the generalized destruction of goods and the territorial expansion, is what Palestinians are living because of the wrong positions of Israelis, who are acting on bad faith.

WORKS CITED

1. ¿Cuáles son las consecuencias jurídicas del muro que levanta Israel en territorio palestino? http:/www.cubaminrex.cu/
2. Amnistia internacional. Israel y los territorios ocupados: el lugar que ocupa el muro en los derechos internacionales. Htttp:/ /www.es.amnesty.org
3. Corte de la ONU: Es ilegal el muro que construye Israel en Cisjordania http://166.114.28.115/20040710/mundo/mundo01.htm
4. El Tribunal de La Haya declara ilegal el Muro de Cisjordania entre las críticas de Israel y Estados Unidos http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2004/07/09/internacional/1089385216.html

2006-05-04T10:59:00.000-07:00

RELECTION

I have improved in many areas, but I think that in the areas I have improved more since the beggining until now are my grammar, the way I write essays, and my vocabulary, which I still want to improve more, and my business vocabulary. Also my pronunciation, needs to be improved.
that is why I want to spend the most time on during the rest of the semester in classes where everybody speaks, to make it more fluid and improved our pronunciation.
The type of classwork most useful, in my opinion, is where you enjoy learning, because you will learn better and eassier, so I think that the class has to be didactic, and a class where everybody give points of view, or maybe watching movies, what I can do personally at home to increase my rate of progress. I can also study harder. Now i don't have any other comment or suggestion about this class, I just think is a good one, and I enjoy it.

2006-05-04T08:55:00.000-07:00

Improving proofreading skills

There were several differences between Washington and Lincoln, Washington came from a wealthy aristocratic background and He had several years of schooling, On the other hand, Lincoln came from a poor background and had very little schooling. Another difference between them is their military roles. Washington was a general, He was a military leader and later he Became president of the United States. Lincoln never served in the army. He was a lawyer who early on became a politician, When he became president he took on the role of commander in chief, as all U.S. presidents do. Despite his lack of military background or training, Lincoln made several strategic decisions that enabled the U.S. military leaders to win the Civil War. Finally, Washington served for two terms and therefore had eight years to accomplish his policies. Lincoln, on the other hand, was assasinated while he was in his office and was not able to finish some of the things that he wanted for the country.

There were also several differences between Washington and Lincoln. Washington came from a wealthy aristocratic background. He had several years of schooling. Lincoln came from a poor background and had very little schooling. Another difference between the two involved their military roles. Washington was a general. He was a military leader. Became president. Lincoln never served in the military. He was a lawyer who early on became a politician. When he became president, he took on the role of commander in chief, as all U.S. presidents do. Despite his lack of military background or training. Lincoln made several strategic decisions that enabled the U.S. military leaders to win the Civil War. Finally, Washington served for two terms and therefore had eight years to accomplish his policies. Lincoln, on the other hand, was assasinated. While in office and was not able to finish some of the things that he wanted for the country.

Jack Friedhamm was born in New York on October 25, 1965. He began school at the age of six and continued until he was 18 years old. Then, he went to New York University to learn Medicine. He chose Medicine because he liked biology when he was at school. While he was at the University he met his wife Cindy. Cindy was a beautiful woman with a long black hair. They went along for years before they decided to get married. Jack began to work as a doctor as soon as he graduated from Medical School. They had two children named Jackie and Peter and had lived in Queens since the past two years. Jack has a great interest in painting and likes to paint portraits of his son.

Jack Friedhamm was born to New York in October 25, 1965. He began school at the age of six and continued until he was 18 years. He then went to New York University to learn Medicine. He decided on Medicine because he liked biology when he was at school. While he was to University he met his wife Cindy. Cindy was a beautiful woman with hair long black. They went along for years before they decided getting married. Jack began to work like a doctor as soon as he graduated to Medical School. They had two children named Jackie and Peter, and have lived in Queens since the past two years. Jack is very interested painting and likes to paint portraits of his son.

2006-05-04T07:44:00.000-07:00

How is it going???

I have improved my english writing, my oral fluency, and also my vocabulary. I have learned how to do essays, what I think is important for me as a profesional in intenational business. But I still have problems in some areas, like my vocabulary, and my pronunciation. So I think we need to spend the rest of the time in activities to improve our pronunciation, and vocabulary, our business vocabulary. In my opinion the type of classwork most useful is one where everybody participates, and give opinions, something like that, a didactic class, where we can learn enjoying it. What I can do by mysel to improve my english is studying at home, and watching tv programs in english. Now I don't have more suggestions to give for the class, I think it has been really good, and I can feel the progress.

2006-04-06T17:42:00.000-07:00

GAZA STRIP!!!

This is a documental which show us what is happening on the gaza strip, and how the Palestinians think and feel about what is happening to their territories. The documental is based in a thirteen years old boy called Mohammed Hejazi, who let studies to work as a newspapers' salesman.
The documental we can see how children go to throw stones to Israelies soldiers, and how they treat them, like if they were terrorists, in spite of the fact that they are not any threat to them.
All children dreams, and Palestinians in the war, like any other children dream about libarating their country and about living a normal life. And Mohammed is one of this dreamer but he is incredibly expressive
In Gaza Strip we can see clearly what are living Palestinians, cause of the bad position that Israelies took, and we can see also how Israelies use violence to clear the territory.
Finally, Gaza Strip is a documental which shows the reality of the conflict, how Palestinians are living in the misery, just for Israelies. But it does not show the point of view of Israelies.

2006-03-23T12:06:00.000-08:00

Biased language

Biased language is a type of language, which refers to many different things at the same time. This type of language is used because people used to stereotype the use of the words as Rosalie Maggio, tell us in her book "talking about people". Another definition could be that biased language is the wrong use of the language., because it excludes some groups and people, an example is the word man, whish refers in some case to man and woman.

there is another type of language called sexist language, this is for me the most pollemic language and discriminative, in this language the discrimination is against us, the woman, and men are the rule of everything, male are the significant gender. But there is also a "nonsexist" language that tries to treat woman and man the same way.

There are other types of language like inclusive or exclusive, exclusive excludes some people intentionally or unintentionally, and inclusive includes everyone. Gender free, which don’t indicate sex, and we can use it for men and woman, and gender fair, promotes fairness to both sexes in the larger context. And in gender specific words, we identify and emphasize a persons sex when it is not necessary to do so. Generic, is an allpurpose words that includes everyone and pseudogeneric is a word used as though it includes everybody but that in really does not. Sex and gender, sex is biological and gender is cultural a society’s notions of masculine or feminine are based on how they expect the men and women to behave.

Finally I think the best way to talk is without excluding some people, and talking about a person like individual and not as member of a group, and not to generalize.

2006-02-13T16:12:00.000-08:00

Saturday’s morning

My mom has always been a sedentary person. She has always hated every activity which requires any physic activity. Her fun outdoors are going shopping or taking a tea with friends. And now she is still like this, because of a little accident she had the only day she treated to be an active person.

My father is an architect; he is always working on buildings. One day, my dad was working on a building close to my house, and we (my mother, my brother and I), decided to give him a surprise, we would go to visit him. I can remember perfectly. It was a Saturday morning, like 9:00 a.m. We were younger I was like ten years old, and my brother was like eight, so we convinced my mom to go doing some exercise. On my house, there were two bicycles, and a pair of skates, so my mother and Andres, my brother, would go on bike, and I would go skating.

As soon as my mum and I were putting on some exercising clothes, my brother went down stairs to the garage (where we keep the bikes) to check the bikes, because may be they were broken down, and it was all okay. So we decided to start our trip, it was everything going perfectly, the road was not as short as we thought but we were good. Off course we falled down, and had some scratches, but we were happy to go to visit dad.

We finally arrived it was like ten o’clock, and my dad get happy when he saw us there visiting him and he stopped the construction for some minutes, he told us he would stay there for a long time, but he also recommend us to make another short ride, to give him time to get unemployed, to go back home with us and to take us to have lunch. My father also gave us some advices to ride the bicycle better.

We were having the short ride, when my mom got an idea. To go for another side to watch a different houses and horizons, but at the end it was not such as wonderful idea as we thought. In this side it was too lonely, there were nobody there, so we decided to go for dad and wait for him there in the construction. But we were going back we found the ride full of little mountains and also many gratings, to catch all the water of the raining.

All seems that my mum didn’t realize of the grating that were at the end of a long descent. It was horrible she was bleeding so much. A wheel of her bike got into a lattice so she on the bike made a turn of 360º in the air, and also got trapped with the bike on the grating. Thank god we had a cell phone to call dad.

When dad arrived he took her to the hospital, but she didn’t stay there for a long time. Now she has not any scar, but since that day I don’t ride bike and my brother either. I think we are still scared of her horrible fall.

Laura Altafulla B.

2006-02-09T16:45:00.000-08:00

Obesity.
The most important part of being a normal weight isn't looking a certain way - it's feeling good and staying healthy. Having too much body fat can be harmful to the body in many ways. During the past 20 years, obesity among adults has risen significantly in America, because people do not eat safetly. the worst is that this problem is not limited to adults. it is also in youngt people. Among children and teens aged 6–19 years, 16 percent (over 9 million young people) are considered overweight. Being overweight or obese increases the risk of many diseases and health conditions, including Hypertension, Type 2 diabetes,
heart disease, Some cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon).
but never is too late to make changes in eating and exercise habits to control your weight.
the best way to avoid these health problems is to maintain a healthy weight. And the keys to healthy weight are regular exercise and good eating habits.

2006-02-02T15:48:00.000-08:00

What I remember better about carnivals is one day i was in the batalla de flores, and it was so crowded to walk until the bleachers, but i started to walk with daddys and everybody was trowing watter and shavy cream so we were so wet, and also people started pushing us and when finally we arrived to the bleachers my dad realized he had been robed, he hadn't his cellphone, neither the digital camera, and other people called him asking for a comission to give him back the papers, it fas a terrible batalla de flores, but we still go and also enjoy them, and latter we go to the beer's festival, where always sing famous singers like Eddy Herrera and Sergio Vargas. we always get sick in carnivals but we love them.