...Paulina...

This is my own web page from Cartagena, Colombia that Mr.Hide made me make in the seventh grade english class. I really liked it and it was very fun to learn something new. You will find many interesting things in this blog. Bye!!!

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Hanging Out

In the Teen Life Project Wiki I saw two questions about Social Environment that I wanted to answer. These questions asked: Do you have any special places where you and
your friends can go and have fun? If you do have special places where you and your friends can go and hang out, how often do you go, and how do you feel afterwards? Well, my friends and I usually have fun at the Club Cartagena, at the campito, at many restaurants, and at our houses. We go to these places once or twice a week. We feel very tired after we had gone to these places. This days are long days of socializing (taking), and walking.

The Club Cartagena is a super cool place to hang out because it has tennis courts, a micro football court, two pools, and two restaurants. Many people go there throughout all the week. I go to tennis classes at the club from Mondays to Thursdays from 4:00 to 5:00. The Club has four tennis courts and people use them all the time. The courts are also filled of people that come to see their children play and nannies that come to take care of their little kids that also have tennis classes. I love to go to tennis classes at the club because I encounter with my friends from school. They are called Valeria, Valentina, Isabella, and Juan David. I also like to go to tennis classes because I get to see little kids that are very cute. I have become special friends for them. During my tennis classes I meet new people from other schools; I think this is very cool. For me, the most important thing about tennis classes is socializing with other people.

Some other people don't go to the club to play tennis but instead they go to play micro football. Going to play micro football is another cool plan to do, especially for the boys. They all meet there and play a couple of games until they get tired. Some boys usually go to the pool after the game. The pool is mostly used on Saturday and Sundays when adults don't go to work and students don't go to school. People mostly spend half of the day at the club taking a bath at the pool and then having lunch. That's what I do with my friends sometimes.

The "campito" is a micro football court that many teenagers go to because there's a softball field, a desert stand, a pizza stand, and a groceries stand around there. Girls come to eat pizza and a milkshake with Oreo cookies and vanilla ice cream while they see the boys play. The "campito" has organized two tournaments, one for boys, and the other one for girls. I just want to add that the seventh grade boys won the male soccer tournament. Right now we are having the female soccer tournament. Girls from all Cartagena will be competing. I just like to go to the campito because of the great pizzas and milkshakes.

Personally, I think that our houses are the best place to hang out with our friends. We don't cover any risks of being kidnapped, mugged, or anything like that. In our houses we could see movies, lean back, order food, play games, use the computer and talk freely. We are very relaxed when we go to each others houses. When my friends come to my house we can do may things more than what we do in the other houses. My house is special because it is located in front of the beach and it has a pool and a park. I have a kayak so when my friends come to my house we take the kayak to the beach and row for some time until we get tired. When we get tired we go to the pool and play some pool games. Then we go upstairs and do something else as watch some TV or play other types of games. My friends and I always have much fun at my house. At Natalia's house, one of my friends, we often see some movies and then walk across the street to the "campito". We also have much fun there. At Juliana's house, another friend, we spend some time at the computer and then we go to "El Otoyal" which is a restaurant specialized in hamburgers or we go to the Club Cartagena. At "El Otoyal" I don't order a hamburger but I order a meat "pincho" which is a kebab. Meat kebabs are delicious at "El Otoyal". At Sara's house, another friend we talk until we get bored and then we usually go to McDonald’s or Crepes and Waffles which are near by. At Mari Pau's house, another friend, we don't go so often. I haven't gone there in years.

As I have already mention, we go to eat at places such as McDonald’s, Crepes and Waffles, the Club Cartagena, the "campito" and "El Otoyal", but we also go to El Corral. El Corral is another restaurant specialized in hamburgers. In El Corral I order chicken fingers which are not so good. That's why I don't like to go so much to El Corral. When I go to Mc. Donald's I usually order a happy meal because I don't like fast food so much. Fast food is usually cold and it makes you fat. Instead, Crepes and Waffles is a healthy restaurant and they serve you warm and delicious food. Crepes and Waffles also have delicious deserts but we mostly have the desert at McDonald’s because it is cheaper.

As I had already told you, my friends and I go to these cool places once or twice a week. We always go on Fridays and sometimes on Saturdays. After going to these places we feel very tired because we get to our homes very late and after a whole night of socializing and walking. I think that what makes us tired is that throughout all the week we have been doing many projects and homework and our Fridays we need to rest. Another thing that makes us tired is that throughout all the week we have been sleeping very early to wake up early in the morning to go to school and then on Fridays we are breaking the routine.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Introduction

Hi, my name is Paulina and I study in the Colegio Jorge Washington of Cartagena, Colombia, a beautiful city located on the coast along the Caribbean sea. I live in a cool apartment in Castillogrande, our neighborhood, in front of the beach. In the apartment I live with my mom, dad, sister, cat, and a maid. My cat is five months old, he is a pussy, little, cute persia. I know that is not usual to have a maid living at home but this people need a job because they are very poor. My maid gets vacations from Saturdays to Sundays. In my free time I practice tennis which is my passionate hobby. I practice it in the Club Cartagena with a couple of friends. After tennis classes which end at 5:00, I go home and finish my homework. When I had finished my homework I eat and then go to bed. On weekends I usually go to my farm which is located about 20 minutes from Cartagena. In my farm I have four dogs that I love very much. I have a lot of fun in my farm but what I like to do the most on weekends is got to the beach, the pool, or the Islas del Rosario.

My 7th grade English teacher is called Mr.Hide and he assigned us a cool project called The Teen Life Project. In his speech about this project, he announced that we needed to choose an issue of our world today that we minded about. He also told us that we, the seventh grade, were going to work with other students from many parts of the world such as Malaysia, Canada, and the United States. When he told this, I got very excited. Our first step of the project was making this introduction. In here we needed to tell the other students what are the issues that we mind about.

The first human issue that I mind about are wars. I think that is something criminal and unjust, many innocent people die. I have never understand why are wars formed. Do they have a reason or all what they want is to cause damage to the the country and to this people. Many people get affected by wars and mostly the familiars of the people who die. It should be very sad to know that someone had died in a war defending his country.

The second issue that I mind about is sexual abuse and physical abuse especially in my country, Colombia. In Colombia many bad people force women and young children to have sexual relations with them. This had become a serious problem because kids think that sexual abuse is normal and some are being paid to have sexual relations with men. In the worst cases a woman can abuse of a men. Other bad people practice physical abuse where they hit and torture others causing them a lot of damage. There was one case in Barranquilla, a close by city from Cartagena, that a women lost her baby because her husband punched her all around her body.

The third issue that I mind about is poverty and all the causes of it. Someone that is poor doesnt have enough money to support their family, they cant have an education or give their sons an education, they suffer from hunger, they dont have enough money to pay taxes, they dont have enough money to buy clothes, they dont have enough money for a home, and they dont have enough money to pay electricity, gas or water. People like this ones dont have opportunities in life.

The environmental issues that I mind about is that the ozone layer is getting thinner because of CFC´s that are produced by refrigerators. If the ozone layer gets thinner more rays can enter to Earth's atmosphere and touch the surface causing skin cancer and global warming. Global warming is kind of melting the planet. The poles are melting and they are giving more water to the oceans. Global warming is causing Cartagena to sink. Cartagena is officially sinking also because there are lots o buildings being built and there´s a lot of weight on it's surface. Global warming is causing fishes to die and to move to a deeper area where the water it's not so hot.

Another environmental issue is deforestation. Many beautiful forests are being cut down to make paper and furniture which benefits us but they do not benefit the animals that live in the forests that are loosing their homes. In some way way deforestation doesn't benefits us completely because trees are the ones that give us oxygen and if people cut down trees we would have scarce oxygen.

My biggest preoccupation is that if humans, residents of Earth, don't take care of our planet, It would soon destroy and collapse killing everyone.