TRIP TO LONDON

In less than two weeks will start our trip to London, and we’re so excited! We will be staying in the Safestay Elephant and Castle, a hostel not so far away from the center of the city. The hostel is five minutes away from the metro station, called the Elephant and Castle Station, which will take us to the center of London: Piccadilly Circus. The easiest way to get to the center is by tube, so I don’t think we will take the bus to go there. In the tube, we have to take the brown line, called Barkerloo, and at the forth stop we have to get out of it: we will have arrived to Piccadilly Circus.

Talking about the facilities of the hostel, some of them are: bunk privacy curtains, bed linen, personal power sockets, TV in private rooms...

And about what we can do near the hostel, we can visit some parks, like the Pullens Gardens, the Nursery Row Park, the Faraday Gardens... We can also go to the East Street Market, where we can buy some products. If we want to keep purchasing, we can go to the Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre. Therefore, there are plenty of things to do near the hostel.

MUST-SEE LANDMARKS IN LONDON:

LONDON EYE: It is considered one of the symbols of London. It’s a huge Ferris wheel situated next to the River Thames, in the center of the city. I think it’s an interesting place to go because you will be able to see the entire city and its fantastic views. To get there from the hostel we have to pick the tube, the one which is near our hostel. We have to take the brown line (Bakerloo) and get off in the stop called Waterloo. 

BUCKINGHAM PALACE: The Buckingham Palace is the official residence of the monarch of the United Kingdom. A lot of tourists go there for not only contemplate or visit it, but also to see the Changing of Guard, a popular attraction where, as the name says, the Guard changes, accompanied with music. To get there by tube, we have to take the brown line again, and get off in the Embankment stop. There, we have to change the line and go to the green line, called District, and get off in the Victoria’s stop. 

BIG BEN: It is also an iconic place of London. Even though Bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster, now usually refers to both the clock and the clock tower. To get there from the hostel, we have to take the brown line (Bakerloo) and then get off at the Waterloo stop.

YOUR SAY

FIRST GAY KISS IN DISNEY?

Disney has made a huge progress by showing a gay kiss on a cartoon for the first time. I wanted to talk about it because I think it’s a big improvement in the normalization of the LGBT community. Also, since in the project we are working on in this term is about “Love and relationships”, I think this fact is related to it.

The gay kiss was shown in a cartoon called “Star vs. the Forces of Evil”. In the scene, you can see some gay and lesbian couples kissing, among heterosexual couples. Also, some days ago the director of the remake of the “Beauty and the Beast” film said it would be a gay storyline in it. So yes, Disney is modernising itself (it was about time!). 

Unlike some people’s opinion that gay love shouldn’t be shown in films destined for kids, I think if kids are old enough to see a kiss between a woman and a men, they are old enough also to see a kiss between two people of the same gender. There’s not so much difference, isn’t it?

Besides, there are people who maintain than showing love between two persons of the same gender will “influence” kids, and make them gay or lesbian too. I think I’ve never seen such a ridiculous argument before. Sexual orientation it’s not something you can choose, like you see a gay couple and you say “Oh, I want to be like them” and you become gay. No, it doesn’t work like this. It’s something you feel inside, and seeing a gay kiss in the television will not influence you to change your sexual orientation.

In this picture you can see some gay couples
kissing each other.

So I think showing all types of love in the television, cinema, Internet or wherever will only be positive for normalizing it. In that way, if kids see that a relationship between two persons of the same gender is something completely normal, in some years there will not be persons afraid of saying they are homosexual, there will be no bullying to the people who are gay or lesbian and people will see a kiss in the street between two persons of the same gender as something completely normal and acceptable. Let’s teach kids tolerance and respect!

VIDEO:

NEWS

A TRANSPHOBIC BUS DROVE AROUND MADRID

Earlier this month (March 2017), a bus of the group Hazte Oír was immobilized for sending an anti-transgender message. Hazte Oír (which in English means “Make Yourself Heard”) is a right-wing Catholic group that was created in 2001 by Ignacio Arsuaga, a Spanish lawyer, but it wasn’t approved by the government until 2013 (as a non-for-profit organization). They are against the abortion rights and have launched messages against the LGBT community in general. They claim they have 7000 members and receive €2.6 million from supporters. 

Boys have penises, girls have vulvas. Don’t let them fool you.
If you’re born a man, you’re a man. If you’re born a woman,
 you will continue to be so

The transphobic group drove all over Madrid with a bus including this message: “Boys have penises, girls have vulvas. Don’t let them fool you. If you’re born a man, you’re a man. If you’re born a woman, you will continue to be so”. This message is a response to another campaign launched by Chrysallis, a transgender support group, which said: “There are girls with penises and boys with vulvas”. At first, Hazte Oír made an online petition to remove the campaign, but it couldn’t obtain enough support.

Hazte Oír wanted to drove around the Spanish capital for a week, and then go to another important cities in Spain, to spread their message. But, since there has been a lot of protests from political parties, organizations and people in general (using social media), the mayor of Madrid, Manuela Carmena, ordered to immobilize the bus.

The campaign in defense of transgender kids
 launched by Chrysallis.

Rita Maestre, Madrid Hall spokeswoman, said that due to Madrid is an inclusive and welcoming city, they cannot let a discriminatory bus to drive around it. There have been more protests, even from the president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Ricardo Blázquez, who asked for respect for children. The mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, has also criticized the campaign and forbid the bus to go in Barcelona, and if it does it, Hazte Oír will have to pay €3000 as a fine.

In defense, Hazte Oír said that the message wasn’t against anybody, neither wanted to offend or discriminate, it just wanted to “recognize a biological fact that we all have studied at school”.


PERSONAL OPINION:

From my point of view, I think it’s correct what the mayor of Madrid has done: not letting the bus drive around the city. Hazte Oír is sending a message of hate and intolerance. Imagine you are a transgender kid and see this: you would feel insecure and strange with yourself. It makes me angry the fact that Hazte Oír tries to defend themselves saying that they just want to “recognize a biological fact that we all have studied at school”, but it’s not the same the biological sex and your gender: you can have a man’s body but feel like a woman, or vice versa. I think we all have to respect each other; we don’t have to generate hate or intolerance.

NEW WORDS:

Diocese: diòcesi (districte de l'església catòlica presidida per un bisbe, arquebisbe...).
Fine (verb): multar
Revenue: ingressos


Link: http://elpais.com/elpais/2017/03/01/inenglish/1488358583_324566.html

YOUR SAY

WEAPONS IN THE USA

A recent study has shown that more than 50% of the homes in the USA have a weapon. Also, the dissatisfaction with the weapon’s regulation has increased among the inhabitants of the country, and now more than the 60% of the people don’t agree with it. I think the reason is because of the shootings that have happened in the last year. 

Some Americans defend having weapons, saying that it helps them feeling safer, because they can protect themselves if someone is trying to kill or attack them. But take a look at how many people have died because of a weapon in the last years: the number is terrifying. In my point of view, I think it’s safer the way it works in Europe, where almost anybody can have a gun or any weapon.

These defenders of the weapons also say that if Europe worked like the US, and some people could have weapons, some terrorist attacks could have been stopped, but I don’t think so. The USA has also received terrorist attacks that couldn’t have been stopped, like the one that happened in Boston in 2013, so this theory is not valid. In fact, in the country more people have died because of shootings or killed by anyone with a gun than being victim of a terrorist attack. 

But, what can they do to change that? I think they have to change their law about weapons, restrict the people who can have weapons and remove them from some people. But a lot of civils are against it, and they say that if the government takes off the weapons of the people, this would be an attack to the private propriety of them. Personally, I don’t think this is a valid argument, because I think it’s more important to avoid slaughters done by crazy people with guns, than worrying about private propriety. Yes, they will take your gun away, but with this you can avoid people being dead unfairly.

So, in conclusion, I am against weapon regulation in the USA, and I think they have to change it to stop shootings and the death of innocent people.

NEWS

NEW CONTINENT FOUND

This year, in February 2017, there has been found another continent. It has been found by a research team of the University of the Witwatersrand, in South Africa. This new continent is located under the island of Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean.

The shame is that there are only remaining small parts of it. A recent report from Nature Communication says that these parts that left belonged to Gondwanaland, a giant continent that existed 200 million years ago. The separation of this ancient continent caused gave rise to Africa, South America, Australia, India and Antarctica. Now, there are some pieces of this “new” continent spread over the Indian Ocean, but there are under the sea.

But, how did they claim that this is a new continent? First, the team analyzed a mineral (zircon) found in rocks in the island of Mauritius. They reached to the conclusion that the remnants of this mineral were too old to belong to Mauritius: in the island there isn’t any rock older than 9 million years old, but the zircon found on these rocks was 3 billion years old. This fact demonstrates the existence of an ancient continent.

PERSONAL OPINION:

Even though I don’t really have anything to say about this news, I found it very interesting and curious. Furthermore, this report makes you think: if we have just found another continent, maybe there are some more and we don’t know it.

NEW WORDS:

Dub: annomenar, posar un sobrenom.
Crust: escorça.
Remnant: restes.


Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/03/world/lost-continent-mauritius-trnd/

NEWS

TENSIONS IN SWEDEN DUE TO REFUGEE POLICY
This report talks about Sweden and its refugee policy, and the problems it has caused. It starts presenting Rinkeby, a Swedish town where mostly of its citizens are immigrants. Unlike other immigrant neighbourhoods in Europe (like the banlieues of Paris or Molenbeek in Brussels), Rinkeby seems like a place without problems or disturbances; but actually that’s not true because recently there has been riots.

Also, just a few days before riots happened, Donald Trump said that something was going wrong in Sweden, due to its decision of welcoming a huge amount of refugees. Swedes reacted to that with derision, but after riots happened in Rinkeby, some people have been expressing their dissatisfaction with the immigrant policy of Sweden. In the other hand, there are other people who think this policy is something to be proud of.

It’s true that Sweden has received a lot of refugees; actually, it’s the country in Europe that has received the most. For example, more than 160,000 people arrived in Sweden in the peak of the European migrant crisis in 2015. Therefore, that’s normal the fact that there has been problems with the integration of these people. As Josefin Larsson, a salesperson who is half-Swedish, half-Bolivian, says that nowadays it’s difficult to see people native from Sweden in the streets, because most of the people are immigrant. Also, she compares how it is now and how it was 20 years ago, and the difference is considerable: some years ago it was so much easier for immigrants to become part of the society. To face this problem, some organizations and community groups, like Kompis Sverige and Invitationsdepartementet, are helping the immigrants to fit in the Swedish culture and society.

The tension is growing, and some people say the government is not doing enough to solve this problem. Also, in January 2016 a woman was killed at the asylum centre where she worked, so the pressure increased more. There are also people who think that now it’s not safe to walk in the streets, due to all the immigration issue. But police denies the fact that refugees are responsible for crime in neighbourhoods like Rinkeby.

Apart from that, the crime against Muslims has increased nearly 90% between 2012 and 2015. The hate is rising in the country, and now a Muslim is more likely to be the victim of hate crime than actually be the author. Therefore, because of all these problems with refugees and immigrant, far-right and nationalist parties are rising.

PERSONAL OPINION:

The issue about refugees is complicated. In my opinion, I think we should help them, because after all they are humans just like us. Also, citizens do not have the fault about the war, and I think the moral thing is to help them. I know that they are a lot of people and letting them in our countries will suppose problems (besides the ones we already have), but I think we all have to help a little bit because, as I said before, after all we are all Human and we should help each other, no matter the color of our skin or where we come from.


NEW WORDS:

Derision: burla.
Riot: disturbi, vandalisme.
Peak: pic, màxim


Link: http://edition.cnn.com/2017/02/23/europe/sweden-trump-refugees-integration/index.html

TDR: Abstract

THE MUSIC AND ITS ROLE IN EDUCATION

It is an extended opinion that the Spanish educational system is out-dated. Currently, new ways of learning are appearing, some of them involving music. That is why the aim of this project is to demonstrate the important role that music plays in education.

Therefore, the theoretical part is about discovering which are the benefits that music provides in education, and the historical relation that has existed between these two topics. On the other hand, the practical part is about verifying those benefits with kids studying Primary Education.