ORAL PRESENTATION (The Big Bang Theory)

PROMISES

Promises are such a crazy thing. Some people believe promises are the hardest contract between two people, and that can’t be broken. I may be one of those… but no really.

It’s true that promises are something you can’t renege on, but they aren’t that important. The meaning of promise could be a statement or declaration that something will or will not be done, given, etc.; an indication or a sign of future excellence or achievement…

Those are simply words. Each one knows what a promise is, and each one assigns a specific meaning to this word. The only purpose of promises is to improve relations if respected, and deteriorate them if breached.

Promises are such a crazy thing. Some people believe promises are the hardest contract between two people, and sometimes that contract gets broken. 

"CHRISTMAS"

Christmas is a wonderful word, because when people think about it, they imagine the streets full of decorations, the night of Christmas eve, the illusion of a child the moment he or she opens the present… all those kinds of things that make you smile. But, is it really like that or it’s the image we’ve created about it? Christmas is a short period of spending money; it could be on presents, meals, Christmas sweets…

The word consumerism means the spending of the money without limits in the way of presents and other things that could be useless. In the past, people liked Christmas because of his essence, the feeling to be in front of a fire telling stories, there was no need to buy or receive presents.

Nowadays Christmas (for the majority) is based on spending, spending and spending more and more money on unnecessary things. A month, or more, before Christmas there is a huge amount of advertisements of toys, clothes, cologne or perfume, chocolate, chocolates and things like these.

Here in Catalonia we celebrate Christmas with the “tió” and, after Christmas, the Three Wise Men came to each town or city to see the children and give them sweets and little presents. That’s another example of consumerism. Why did the three wise men need to throw sweets and candy to the children? Why didn’t they only keep their letters with the list of presents they had written? Because that’s the new concept of Christmas. Children went to the street procession basically for the present, not only to leave the letter.

However it’s not everybody who has that image of Christmas. Poor people live it in a different way, I suppose.

A part from the consumerism Christmas has a special thing: it makes people more solidary. When Christmas comes and some poor people are in the street asking for a little money, people think it’s a good thing to give them something, because everybody deserves a little bit of magic on those special dates.

JOKE

ALIENS

Are aliens just a fairy tale, or do they exist? That's a good thing to wonder. 

Sometimes, I ask myself if there is life out of the earth, if there is someone out there controlling or just watching us as if we were an experiment... Maybe this is just a paranoia and some questions are just stupid; or maybe not. 

Supposing that aliens exist, I think they should be experimenting with us, checking if weapons help or damage our societies; if natural disasters destroy many things, or humans have the capacity to construct buildings strong enough to support them... Maybe they just wanted to see if a whole new world could develop without their intervention.

Probably this is just something that someday comes to anyone’s' mind and makes the person think: oh God, what am I thinking about? This is completely impossible. 

In conclusion I would like to say that we really don't know anything about our beginnings, even if such a lot of research has been done to demonstrate things. We have to believe their words as the religious believe in God. 

NEWS #4

PROTESTS ERUPT IN WASHINGTON DC AS BLACK STUDENTS DETAINED AFTER WHITE COUPLE “FELT UNCONFORTABLE AROUND THEM”

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/10/14/black-students-arrested-after-white-couple-felt-uncomfortable-around-them_n_8292302.html

SUMMARY:
A pair of black students had been restrained by Police in Washington DC after a white couple called the Police because they felt uncomfortable around them. One of the students was withdrawing money from a cash machine when some officers tackled him. The friend known as Mike recorded the scene and tweeted what happened to let people know the truth version.

The officers said that someone called them because of a robbery, but later they confirmed that nothing happened. Twitter has responded to this fact with a lot of people standing out for black rights, as they shout be treated just as white people.

OPINION:

America seems to be the best country in the world, but as all the cultures has its defects. Not everybody is prepared to establish contact with other cultures and this news is quite a good example of it. The two boys were treated like this just because they were black, and this isn’t fair. We should be more tolerant and accept different cultures as we accept ours.

VOCABULARY: restrained, withdrawn, tackled. 

source

(This video appears in the news and it is quite interesting because it defends what the article says)

"CRIMINAL MINDS"

Morgan: “Fantasy abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters.”

Reid: Bob Dylan once said, "I think the truly natural things are dreams, which nature can't touch with decay."

Criminal minds is a serial about crimes. In the serial, all the characters are experts on people's behaviour, and they are able to analyse what the criminal is like from the crime he has committed.

An interesting thing about the serial is that all the crimes that appear are serial murders, and the stories are based (sometimes) on real facts. The reason I love this programme is because I think it must be absolutely astonishing to be able to make people's profiles' just by analysing the crimes they've committed. I would love to have that ability, as I love psychology and crimes. I see myself working as they do, analysing peoples' behaviour in crimes or just in life, knowing why they act one way or another. 

My dream is to become a graduated in criminology and fly to the US to work there as a police officer as the characters of the serial. 

My favourite character has to be Morgan, because he is strong physically and psychologically, but at the bottom he is so sweet and empathetic. He identifies himself with teenagers, because when he was a boy a man of his area abused him.

As a conclusion, I'm going to say that I would love to be a criminologist and be like Morgan, sweet but strong. 

BATTLE OF INTERESTS

Do you know what a war is? Do people really know why wars start? Well, in my opinion, a war is a capitalist or religious battle, caused by the interests of different countries. The First and Second World Wars were cause basically because of the interests of a few countries; wanting to control the most part of the world they could.

Wars shouldn't exist, because the only thing we learn from them is that a lot of families loose people around them, and also the feeling of the citizens of the whole world sinks; and that makes me think: if countries know the consequences of war, why do they keep on starting them?

I wold like to say that, if humans have invented war, they should have the ability to eliminate it. So, our obligations must be: to stop wars and just let people live their own lives. I know this isn't as simple as it seems, but Rome wasn't built in a day; we have to persevere to reach our objectives. 

NEWS #3

PARIS ATTACKS: FURY OVER CLAIMS BY PHILOSOPHER ONFRAY

Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34904939

SUMMARY:
A French philosopher named Michel Onfray has given his opinion about the attacks in Paris. He has basically said that France had started by joining the United States in trying to impose their ideas on the Middle East. He says the Islamic State (IS) has attacked Paris in a response to their attacks. The philosopher doesn’t argue that the Paris attacks were justifiable; he simply says that they were inevitable. Onfray’s words in a 2013 interview were: "Why do we have a problem of terrorism? Muslims are not stupid. We bring war to their homes and kill them by tens or hundreds, and then expect them to be nice.”

His words had been so criticised by other Parisians such as Laurent Joffrin, an intellectual man who is against immigration and Michel Houellebecq, a novelist that has caused controversy in France with his ideas.

OPINION:

As Onfray says, France has started it all. In my opinion, he is totally right, because what the terrorists had done isn’t justifiable, but France can neither justify his actions. It’s totally normal that French people criticise him, because their main city has been attacked, but analysing the situation France should have thought before attacking Syria. 

This is what wars consist of, attacking and attacking pretending to defend each ones actions and not trying to solve the problems. This, my friends, is the world of capitalism and interests.                         

VOCABULARY: sowed, maverick, scornful, endorsement. megalomaniac, hotbed. 

WARWICK UNIVERSITY STUDENT OBJECTS TO SEXUAL CONSENT LESSONS SAYING HE DOES NOT "LOOK LIKE A RAPIST"

Link: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/10/14/people-are-really-angry-about-what-this-student-wrote-about-consent_n_8293104.html?utm_hp_ref=uk-universities-education 

George Lawlor, a Warwick university student, had rejected to assist to sexual consent courses at his university as he thought he didn't look like a rapist. The student wrote in a blog for students named The Tab, in which reflected his anger against the University for making students assists to such an insulting consent training lessons. 

He defended himself saying that he already knew what consent was and that he didn't needed to be taught not to rape because he wasn't a rapist. 

Some people reacted to his words replying on twitter in his favour or against him. 

This could be a good thing to debate... In my opinion, Lawlor is in his right if he didn't want to go to the training lesson, but the University doesn’t make that kind of classes in vain. I think this boy just had an exaggerated reaction to what could be a good thing, because there isn't a rapist figure, it's just people that  abuse of others, there's no need to look different. 

VOCABULARY: rapist, consent, hackles.

NEWS #1

MINNEAPOLIS MAN SHOT DEAD BY POLICE "NOT HANDCUFFED"

Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-34870718 

SUMMARY:

A 24 year old man called Jamar Clark has been shot by Minneapolis police this November. There had been many demonstrations against this fact because some testimonies said that the police shot and then handcuffed him. The man died a day later, and a lot of protests broke out then.

Demonstrations continued and, as a big number of shootings of black people had appeared, there had been a lot of protests nationwide about the excessive force against African Americans.

OPINION:

This is such an impressing item to talk about, because it seems that the Minneapolis police had forced the situation and killed a man with no fault. They’ve said he was the suspect in an assault case and was interfering with people working on that case, but this isn’t a relevant excuse to shoot a man.

Police sometimes seem to be racist in that type of context, because if a white man had been suspect and supposedly interfering in the case they wouldn’t have shot him. 

VOCABULARY: handcuffed, assault and sparked. 

AN E-MAIL TO MY TEACHER - MY DREAMS

Actually, I don’t know what am I going to do with my life. I mean, I have some options in mind, but I haven’t decided which one is the best for me. Those options are totally different, so I have to compare the different advantages of each one and decide. (Yes, I know these things aren’t dreams really, but this is how I thought I should start my composition)

Well, talking about other things, one of my dreams is to achieve my bucket list, that it isn’t that long. The most important thing for me in the list is to do bungee jumping; as I think it has to be an amazing and exciting experience. All the things in a bucket list are like little dreams that everybody wants to fulfil, don’t you think? So, let’s try to find another dream.

My biggest dream may be to find a dream to accomplish; because now I am focused on my studies and my future, and all this stuff is so stressful, so I can’t think about anything that it isn’t related to this.

Maybe my dream is to become an adult with a good work and a good salary to make my family and myself happy… or maybe happiness for me means to become a traveller to have an exciting life going around the world and making new friends; or perhaps just going with a friend to meet new cultures…

Definitely YES!! I've found my biggest dream and it is to travel and discover as much places and cultures as possible in the world!! So here you have my deep thoughts about my dreams... there aren’t many, but they may be sufficient. 

Sincerely, Rosó

IS HUMOUR NECESSARY?

Is humour relevant? Is it really necessary? Do you think we sholud spend our time wondering about this? I have the answer: YES. Humour is necessary and important in our society, and I am going to explain you why.

First of all, you have to know that humour strenghtens your immune system, protects your heart and relaxes your whole body. This is so significant that it means that laughter improves your health in more tha one way.

As a secong argument, humor helps you group bonding, and it is useful to create confidence and stong relationships. When you laugh with someone else, you are creating a nice situation that makes people feel good and comfortable. 

The third thing you ought to know about laughter is that it increases happines ans intimacy, because the confidence feel that is betwen people when they laugh makes everybody feel more confortable.

In conclusion I would say that a life without humour must be so boring and depressing, because laughter makes moments more interesting and it's easier to go on.