Puppy room

Considering their reputation for eating homework, dogs may not seem like the ideal study buddies.

But for hundreds of Dal students eager for a break from the stresses of exam period, the Dalhousie Student Union’s “Puppy Room” was just the friendly, furry reprieve they were looking for.

By the time the doors opened Tuesday afternoon for the first of three Puppy Room sessions this week, more than 100 students were in line to hang out for a few minutes with a Labradoodle, a Sheltie and a Golden Retriever — all volunteering their time through the non-profit Therapeutic Paws of Canada.

“We ran from class,” said Megan Sommerville, a commerce student who was first in line with her friends.

“Puppies are pretty much the best thing ever,” added fellow student Trisha McWilliams.


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Can you tell me in 200 words other ways you know to relieve from stress in exam period?

Norway's rakfisk: Is this the world's smelliest fish?

I was looking up a new post at the BBC website when I found this article and I remembered when I was teaching my 1º Bachillerato students about British food two weeks ago and how some said "¡qué asco!" to some meals. I reminded them that you can´t say that to meals, you should say "I don´t like it", "I´d rather have another thing" or any other non-hurting comment, and suddenly I found this meal which everybody agrees stinks. Read about it:

Norway's five million people enjoy one of the highest standards of living, not just in Europe, but in the world. Could the secret of the country's success be connected to the local appetite for some exceedingly smelly fish?

Take a selection of over-ripe cheeses. Place them in the midst of a pile of dirty, wet soccer kit. Leave for a week. Now you have the nose-numbing smell of rakfisk, one of the great Norwegian delicacies.
I am in the small town of Fagernes, about three hours from Oslo. There is snow, spectacular scenery - and that odour, ever present, hangs in the air.
Rakfisk is trout sprinkled with salt and fermented in water for - depending on how smelly you like your fish - up to a year.

Continue reading the main story

I want you to write 200 words about a food you don´t like, describe it, or write about any uncomfortable experience you have had with food in a restaurant or wherever.

Myths

Do we only use ten per cent of our brain?
It’s amazing just how many medical myths there are to choose from, but one part of the body seems to attract more than its fair share, and that’s the brain. One of my favourite brain myths is the idea that we only use 10% of it. It’s an appealing idea because it suggests the possibility that we could become so much more intelligent, successful or creative, if only you could harness that wasted 90%. This might inspire us to try harder, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean there’s any truth in it.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121112-do-we-only-use-10-of-our-brains


There are lots of the so-called "urban-myths", can you tell me one of them, or any other myth?  (200 words)

Preu-students and a teacher at Halloween night

Happy Halloween!

I hope you have enjoyed the video. I have two different activities and you can do one of them, or both!

-option A: write the words you haven´t understood from the video with the translation and explain what a      Jack o´lantern is.
-option  B: send to my e-mail a photo of yourself in your halloween costume (your face must be shown), I´ll publish it on the blog!

Happy Halloween!!!!!!

Accidents

Even for the Spanish, cutting a good slice of air-cured ham, one of their popular traditional delicacies, can be a risky business.

One Spanish medical foundation claimed last week that 57,000 domestic accidents involving ham knives – which have blades over a foot long – take place annually.
But maybe not for long: as Christmas approaches (when the largest percentage of the 4.5 million ham legs purchased every year in Spain are sold), Juan Carlos Gomez, the Spanish National Champion of Hamcutting, has been touring Spain giving master classes in how best to tackle a jamon serrano.
Mr Gomez most recently showed up in Malaga, revealing to the winners of a competition organised by Navidul, one of the country's biggest Serrano producers, secrets of the trade such as whether to hang the leg with the hoof pointing up or down when cutting and which part of the ham to cut first.
For those unable to attend his classes, Mr Gomez, has even written a bluffer's guide (rather more cruelly called a "guide for the clumsy" in Spanish) to ham, as part of a popular series of self- education books covering everything from childbirth to wine tasting to, somewhat less predictably, neurolinguistics.
Apart from eager and rookie cutters having an injury-free ham-eating experience, the ultimate aim of his classes and book is to carve out the perfect slice of serrano.
This apparently is 3cm to 5cm long – "not so big that we have to fold it over or so small that it doesn't taste of anything," Gomez told the newspaper Ideal.
In: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/postcard-from-malaga-8224140.html


We are not surprised about it, are we? I´m sure we know someone who has had this accident while trying to produce a wonderful dish of this delicious food, but I want you to write 200 words about any other accident you have had or another member of your family, or, why not? a friend. Remember this is a narrative and you will have to use past tenses and connectors of sequence.Go on!

New record for world's oldest man Jiroemon Kimura

Do you remember that selectividad text "The world´s oldest woman"? I do, in fact I have worked it  with 1º Bachillerato this year. The curious thing is that I was looking for some news to write here and I found this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7-eUmY0sSg , I would like you to watch the video and answer this question with 200words:


"Would you like to live so long? Write advantages and disadvantages.

Yujuuuuuuuuuu! Here we are again!!!!!!!

Yes, and so very happy to have the chance to meet so many new students eager to learn English!
I think that if this is going to be a tool to help you with your English you´d better know it well from the beginning so I´m proposing you some questions whose answers are in the blog, at the beginning of it, here they are:
1. Why did I choose this name?
2.What is the date of the first post?
3.Why did I decide to begin the blog?
4.Do you know the name of one of my favourite songs?
5.Which health problem did I have when I began the blog?

El descanso del blogsodepaula

Shhhhhhhh! Hasta septiembre 2012 no volverá a estar en uso, no sirve para el examen de septiembre y hay que dejarlo descansar después de un año tan ajetreado.

IOC selects three cities as candidates for 2020 Olympic Games

(CNN) -- The International Olympic Committee announced Wednesday that Istanbul, Tokyo and Madrid have made it on to the short list of cities bidding to host the 2020 Olympic Games. Baku and Doha were rejected for the second time in a row after failing to make the 2016 games.

"The executive board has decided that the following cities can continue to the next phase and become candidates for 2020. In the order of drawing lots: Istanbul, Tokyo, and Madrid," said IOC spokesman Mark Adams.

The three remaining candidate cities will enter into Phase 2 of the selection period. Files from the cities will be submitted to the IOC by January 7, 2013. Following an official visit by the IOC Evaluation Commission between February and April of 2013, a report will be made to the 2020 IOC Evaluation Commission and candidate cities will brief IOC members.

The election of the host city of the XXXII Olympic Summer Games will take place on September 7, 2013, at the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires.

In culling the field from five to three cities, the IOC executive board relied "on application files, the report of a working group of experts which is formed to assess the application forms of each city, the city's compliance with elements like the World Anti-Doping Code, and other criteria," said Adams.

Doha, the capital of the Gulf state of Qatar, had proposed changing the games to October 2-18, to mitigate the extreme temperatures athletes would have to experience during the usual July-August summer games. Based on a 10-year average, Doha temperatures in October range from 30 to 36 degrees Celsius (86 to 96.8 degrees Fahrenheit).

The working group also decided against Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan, for its infrastructural limitations. The "games planning and experience," were "not sufficiently developed at this stage," according to the report.

Of the five candidate cities, only Tokyo has hosted the Olympics before, in the XVIII Olympiad held in the summer of 1964.

What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of Madrid in this contest? Write more than 200 words. 

Conmemorating Expo92

20 years!!! It´s a long time... It´s been even celebrated on the portada of the feria de Sevilla. It was a great event. Hundreds of words have been written about it, you can have a look on the internet but there are about 210.000.000 entries about it. No, I don´t want you to copy any of these articles or information., I would like you to ask any in your family to tell you something about it from his/her personal experience, it maybe an anecdote, his/her opinion, in 200 words.

Enjoying a film

Some friends, my daughters an myself spent last weekend by the seashore. The weather was not very good so we had to do some activities in order to have an enjoyable time instead of going to the beach as it was impossible. One of the things was going to the cinema. The female group of us decided on this film because it was fine for both, girls with less than eight years old and "girls"with more than eight. We had a nice time, it is a different version, they have made some changes in the story but it is still a fine, lovely fairy tale and we all laughed and smiled with the film, which was the aim.
I won´t tell you the film as it is not fair, but I would like you to tell me the last film you have watched. Remember to use connectors to show sequence as they appear on page132 on the book of 2º Bachillerato and on page of the book of 1º Bachillerato. About 200 words :)

Holy week

It´s coming! Yeah! What does it mean for you? People have different thoughts about our holy week, it may mean a period of the year to rest, go to the beach, visit family...For others it has a deep religious feeling and they enjoy watching "pasos", sharing activities with their "hermandades" and taking part in their respective "estación de penitencia". Also there are some people who mix this religious feeling with resting and making other several and different things like myself. Can you write 200 words about what it means for you or what you usually do?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2YvB_k4DNE&feature=youtu.be

Man´s best friend

Can you write a composition (200 words) about why the dog is man´s best friend?

Bullfightings

I have just read a piece of news about bullfighting, about children watching it or not. What do you think of this? Try to write advantages and disadvantages in 200 words.

St Valentine

I have several exercises for you to celebrate St Valentine. You must copy the exercises,the lyrics, the poem and fill in the blanks. This is the link:

http://www.englishexercises.org/makeagame/viewgame.asp?id=6557

Freezing!!!!!

Yes! It´s really cold outside, I have seen it through the window. People wear thick coats and walk looking down at the pavement, they look like they are in a hurry, looking forward to getting home. Tomorrow it will be very cold again and we won´t go out. Can you write about 200 words suggesting things to do at home while it is freezing outside?

Phrasal verb exercises

The first exercises for this year are related to phrasal verbs.
1.The first one is writing each of the sentences above in English and next to it its translation into Spanish.

2. The second exercise is rewriting the text in the following site: http://www.mansioningles.com/practica_rick01.htm with the corresponding phrasal verbs.

Pay attention to the instructions and good luck!

;)