When I was a child I loved Carnival, it was really funny to be a witch or the princess, to throw streamers and do those parades over the streets near school to show the diversity of masks and how nice we looked. Nowadays I don’t find it funny anymore, because people don’t know how to play jokes, they always abuse by throwing water balloons or rotten eggs. Even though I celebrated Carnival, a saw a great parade in Almada and then the Orishas concert, a cheering Cuban group.
25/02/2009
This week was very stressful, the body weighs so tired that is, the brain asks me to lie down and sleep. We were overloaded with tests and group works, these three days will be perfect to have some rest. I used to get home and spend the whole afternoon/evening in front of the books or computer, to finish the tasks as soon as possible or to memorize the material for tests.
20/02/2009
The group work we did for English about the city filled us with brilliant ideas. According to what we had thought the album would be very explicit, complete and creative. But we couldn’t reach our own expectations, but it wasn’t because we didn’t make an effort, because we really did it, but perhaps for lack of time and also the organization wasn’t the best one, we weren’t able to get together, because all of us have different and busy lives.
19/02/2009
Today was my first day at the gym, it was a bit embarrassing to get there and not to know anyone, but soon they put me at ease, they asked me if everything was OK and advise me to start with the basic machines and to spend little time for the body to get used to it. I followed their instructions and I tried the footbridge, rowing and cycling. When I got back to the balneary I was more relaxed, less tensed but physically more tired.
17/02/2009
On our trip to Martim Moniz and Mouraria, we went a bit about Lisbon. We were able to see that we live in complete disorganisation, full of geometric irregularity, with no green spaces, full of houses and cars, where people are busy from one shop to the other and where buildings are old and completely ruined…We were also able to see that in this city there is a big diversity of races, of cultures, people that immigrate in search of work and better living conditions. For example, when we entered in the metro we started listening Creole, and we didn’t have to walk too much in Centro Comercial do Martim Moniz to find some Chinese and Indian shops.
15/01/2009
Today we finished watching the film (“The Constant Gardener”) in English lesson; it’s a movie full of action, about a real fact, the fact of people being insensitive, immoral, that test medicines to combat tuberculosis, with the pretext to prevent HIV virus, without caring about the effects that it will have on innocent and ignorant people, that just want to be cured of this virus (HIV).A movie about love in which Justin tries to discover who killed his wife and finds out the crimes committed by some member of the government and pharmacists.
09/01/2009
In this learning journal I’m going to write about my Christmas holidays, in France. I dreamt with this trip for one month, and on the night before the journey I was so excited I couldn’t sleep at all. It was a surprise for my family; no one knew we were going there Christmas Eve. I will never forget their reaction, all of them open-mouthed, pale faced, immovable, and also there were people who cried.
I had never had such a Christmas, all my family (from my mom’s side) together in the dining table eating the traditional Christmas dishes, (both Portuguese and French) and singing happy songs. The funniest of Christmas night was the dancing part and opening the gifts, the small ones were crazy while opening the gifts; but the best for me was us being together in such a special night.
The following days were also very exciting, especially the reveillon, with lots of hugs, screams and of course, champagne.
The worst thing about the holidays is that they were very short.
07/01/2009
In the morning we shot our third group work, it was really a stressing work, because one of the members wasn't there and I was very sleepy, so couldn't think properly. we solved our problems, adjusted the dialogues and started the shooting, we laughed a lot, because of the clothes and the faces that each one of us made. It didn't take too much time, at least we didn't expect that it would take so little time, and the result was excellent, I think.
14/12/2008
As I got out of school, I ran towards Colombo, I was really very very excited; the film of the year had just been released. I’ve read the books more than three times, and I think the story is beautiful. An impossible love, between a Human girl and a Vampire boy. The film was much better than I expected, faithful to the book, the protagonists were as the writer had described and the magical landscapes that used to make me dream were much more real. I arrived home hysterical, I told the whole movie to my mom, poor mom, she always listens to me when I'm like this...
04/12/2008
Yesterday I went to the cinema, it was very funny. We saw a film about a police officer who was a murderer, "Righteous Kill" with the best two actors, Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. The exciting story of two police officers, who were friends, that have in their hands the mission to find who is the murderer that writes poems in the scene of the crimes. Then, one of them eventually finds out that the other is the one who has been committing the murders. I don't usually like this type of films, but this one was really very exciting, because I didn't have a ckue until the last scene.
24/11/2008
Today we started to learn how to make interviews, how the interviewee should behave, I'm more interested, because I'm understanding everything and I've also been doing the worksheets, everything at a slower pace, but I haven't given up. Vranda is also helping me. Now, I know what I have to do, if I want to have a good interview.
21/11/2008
This week, was the most complicated one, with too many tests, presentations and written works... we were full of work, but still I think, everything is going on better than last year, without any doubt. This is probably happening because I'm paying more attention in the class and also, because I can put all my doubts, without any fear and of course, because I don't let myself intimidate in front of them. The class is also in a better environment, which is a key factor in improving ourselves.
15/11/2008
This second group work was very exciting, we had an interesting and funny idea. Although we had gone through some embarrassing, I think we achieved our objectives. We tried to do our best in every scene, so we had to shoot some scenes too many times. We also had some difficulties in making the dialogues, so we could transmit our ideas clearly, but, in my opinion, the result was very good.
23/10/2008
We started the 11th grade with a group work, about the units of our book; our topic was "world @ Work". We did a poster with some "catchphrases" and some images; we also interacted with the class. With those images and "catchphrases" we made a story about the different options about this topic; we explained what happens in "world @ work". liked doing this work although we had very little time, I think we could pass on our idea, to our colleagues.
13/10/2008
