Wednesday, March 26, 2008

The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain

Huckleberry Finn is a boy who lives in America. A widow adopts him but his drunk dad comes looking for him for his money. He takes Huck to a log cabin by the river. Huck finds a canoe and while his dad is gone, escapes. He found a black man on the island and they ran away together. As they go down the river they get to know diferent towns and things. They get split uo and Huck stops in a big house. The fanmily has a fight with another family and Huck gets his chance to run away. He finds Jim and as they were going two men came running up to them.A "king" and a "duke".
They went from town to town acting, making money and then getting kicked out.
They go to a house pretending to be lost brothers of a dead man and try conning the dead man's daughters. They take the money that the dead man left his daughters but Huck felt bad and stole it of them and hid it in the coffin.
The king and the duke then got found out as conmen and were asked about a mark on the man's body. So they went to look and found the money. Huck and one of the daughters came up with a plan and Huck went from the house and left the king and the duke to get arrested.
Then they found Jim and took him. Huck went to a nearby house and pretended he was their nephew. It turns out their real nephew was Tom Sawyer. Tom came and pretended to be a stranger. They found Jim in a shed and helped him escape.
"Sid" who was really Tom, gets hurt and tells aunt Sally that they helped set " the run-away nigger" free.
In the end Aunt Sally adopts Huck. He hates it.
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My Opinion

I really liked the book because of trhe adventures and the mischeif they get into. It's also funny. At first it was hard to understand because it is written in the way you would say it but then I got used to it. The only thing I didn't like was the end. It was a bit boring. It just says "my aunt is going to adopt me and try to civilize me. I hate it. I've been there before".
I would reccommend this book, and wouldn't mind reading another of Mark Twains books.

Sunday, March 9, 2008

William Shakespeare



"My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak,--yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress when she walks, treads on the ground;
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

William Shakespeare

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Four Weddings And A Funeral.







This is a group of friends that have never got married or fallen in love, but one day two of them get married. Charles, the main caracter, met in that wedding an American girl called Carrie. He speaks to her a bit and really likes her.
In the second wedding he sees Carrie again, but with her fiance. He is upset.
The third wedding was Carrie's. In that wedding one of the friends died.
Then it was the funeral.
The fourth wedding is really unexpected... It leads to a surprising ending!



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In the funeral, the man's partner reads a famous poem. This is it:



Funeral Blues.



Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
-- W.H. Auden.



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W.H. Auden grew up in Birmingham in a professional middle-class family and read English Literature at Church. His early poems, in the late 1920s and 1930s, were a mix of obscure modern styles and accessible traditional ones, and were written in an intense and dramatic tone. He then got bored of this and abandoned it after he moved to the United States in 1939. His poems in the 1940s explored religious and ethical themes and weren't as dramatic as his earlier works, but still combined new forms devised by Auden himself with traditional forms and styles. In the 1950s and 1960s many of his poems focused on the ways in which words revealed and concealed emotions, and he took a particular interest in writing opera librettos, a form ideally suited to direct expression of strong feelings.
Wystan Hugh Auden was born in York, England where his father was a physician. Wystan was the third of three boys; the oldest became a farmer; the second, became a geologist. His mother, had trained as a missionary nurse.
In 1908 his family moved to Harborne, Birmingham, because his father had been appointed the School Medical Officer and Lecturer of Public Health; Auden's lifelong psychoanalytic interests began in his father's library. From the age of eight he attended boarding schools, returning home for holidays.
Until he was fifteen he expected to become a mining engineer, but his "passion for words" had already begun. He wrote later: "words so excite me that a pornographic story, for example, excites me sexually more than a living person can do".









Monday, December 17, 2007

My trip to england

Last week I went to England with my mum and my sister. My dad was there waiting for us. So when I finished school on Wednesday, I went home, ate and did my homework. My mum went to work. At half past 5 my parents' friends came because they were coming with us to England. When we got there we said hello to my dad and went to pick up the car we had rented. Its was freezing cold. We got to my auntys house at four o´clock in the morning. At six o´clock we had to wake up because we were going to a clothes show, there are loads of models there and they sell the clothes that they model really cheap.

On Saturday I went shopping with my mum, my auny and my sister. But me and my sister got bored and went to have a look at some things to buy for my mum and dad for Christmas.

That night we was going to do a suprise party for mum because it was her birthday, so that afternoon me and my sister rang my dad, we went to the restaurant where we was going to do the party and started decorating it.

It looked really good and there was alot of ballons and confetti and other stuff.

My mum thought that we was going to have a meal in an Italian restaurant, but when we got there all our family and friends were there and started singing Happy Birthday! Mum didnt know what to do and just stood there with her mouth open staring at everyone. Then we put in a DVD of photos of when she was little and we were all laughing about how much she has changed over the years.

Then the food came, we all ate and then the DJ put some music on. My dad started singiing on karaoke and his phone rang. It was a joke that dad wanted to pull on mum. He said it was her cousin Jose Angel and that he was asking her to put the tele on. So she went and put the tele on and there was a film of my family in Madrid wishing her a happy birthday. She didnt know wether to laugh or cry. She had a really good time that night. So did we all.

On Sunday all my family came to my auntys house to eat and we were all talking about Saturday night.

That afternoon we went to scotland to go to my grandads grave and clean it up a bit and put new flowers on. It looked really nice and bright white. We look after it well.

That night we stayed in a hotel in Scotland and me and dad went to get some food. We got lost on the way back and it was really funny.

On Tuesday morning at about ten o´clock we set of again to Manchster to say bye to my uncle and his son before we went to the airport. When we got to the airport we quickly had lunch and looked for our friends that were coming home with us aswell. We got sat down on the plane and off we went.

We got home quite late and we was all tired out. That week we spent more time in the car than any where else. I hate going in the car up to Scotland. It seems to take forever and its my poor dad who has to drive.

I think it will be the last time we go back to England for a long time. But who knows because my dad likes to surprise us.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Quality vs Tabloid newspapers

The main difference between tabloid and quality newspapers is that tabloids are more colourful, have a "page 3", and usually contain information about politicians and other famous people if they have been caught having an affair or doing something out of the ordinary.
Quality newspapers explain storys more deeply, arent very colourful and when they contain stories about politicians it is about their elections and other important things that they are thinking about doing in the future.

Which newspapers belong to which group?

The Daily Mail:- Tabloid
Evening Standard:- Tabloid
The Times:-Quality
Daily Mirror:-Tabloid
The Sun:-Quality
The Independant:-Quality
Daily Telegraph:-Quality

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Why do we have two names for some farm animals?


The answer to this question goes right back to the Battle of Hastings in 1066.


The Battle of Hastings was the decisive Norman victory in the Norman conquest of Engalnd.


The battle took place on October 14, 106, between the Norman army of Duke William of Normandy, and the English army led by King Harold II. Harold was killed during the battle. It is believed that he got shot in the eye by an arrow. That is why the arrow s so famous. This battle is seen to be the point in which William gained control over England.
Background
Harold had claimed the throne of England for himself in January of 1066 soon after Edward the Conquerer died.
On September 28, 1066, William of Normandy, afer being delayed by a storm in the English Channel, asserted his claim to the English crown b military force, landing unopposed at a marshy, tidal inlet at Bulverhyte.
Legend has it that upon setting foot on the beach, William tripped and fell on his face. Turnimg potential embaressment in front of his troops into a face-saving exercise, he rose with his hands full of sand and shouted "I now take hold of the land of England!"
Upon hearing the news of the landing of the Duke's forces, Harold II, Hurried southward from London. He departed the morning of the 12th, gathering what available forces he could on the way. After camping at Long Bennington, he arrived at the battlefield the night 13 October.
The two Kings and their Countries.
HAROLD THE II:- He was the last crowned Anglo-Saxon King of England. He ruled from January 5 to October 14, 1066 when he was killed in the battle of Hastings.
WILLIAM TE CONQUERER:- He was a medieval monarch. He ruled as the Duke of Normandy from 1035 to 1087 and as Kingof England from 1066 to 1087.
Where is Normandy?
It is situated along the coasts of the south of the English Channel between Britanny (to the west) and Picardy (to the east) and comprises territory in northern France and the Channel Islands. The territory is divided between French and British sovereingity. It is divided for administrative purposes into two regiones: Basse-Normandie and Haute-Normandie.
What changed after the Battle of Hastings?
After the Battle of Hastings, William still had to conquer England. He marched from Hastings , crossing the Thames at Wallingford and then on towards London. At little Berkhamsted he received the surrender of the city. William took hostages to ensure the the surrender was kept.
William wanted to be crowned King as soon as possible. His Coronation took place on Christmas day, 1066. It was held at Westminister Abbey. During the Coronation, as the people inside the Abbey shouted out their acceptance of William, the troops outside thought a fight had broken out. Fearing that William had been attacked they began to set fire to the Saxons houses. As the Normn soldiers could not understand the language of the Saxins and the Saxons could not understand the language of the Normans, it was difficult for them to communicate.
William kept the promises he hd made to the barons who fought with him to give them English land.
We should remember that William the Conqueror was not only King of England, he also ruled Normandy an he spent a lot of his time there. Barons and knights in England spoke French for many years, and most writingwas in Latin or French.
The ordinary people spoke in their own Saxon language, and the Chroniclers continued to write in it untl the reign of William's grandson Henry II.
So why do we have two names for some farm animals?
Because to the French a pig was pork because thats the meat tat they ate.
A cow was also called beef.
When a Franch person went to an english farm and asked what a pig was, the English farmenr would say it was called a pig. But the French person would say it was a pork.
The English would grow pigs and the Normans (French) ate pork.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

HELLO!!!

Hi! I am Melissa. I'm fifteen years old. I was born on September the 11th, 1992 in Hull, England.
I lived in a little town called Withernsea. Then when i was four years old we moved to another little village called Allington Gardens. It was a mobile home park. My dad sites mobile homes for a living and he owned the park. I didn't like living there because my little sister, Sofia, and I were the only children. Everybody who lived there were retired. Then dad sold the park and when i was seven or eight we moved again.
This time it was a town called Barrowby Gate. I liked it there so I was sad when we moved again when I was ten to Barrowby.
I hated it at first, but then i got to know the neighbours and made really good friends.Then i started secondary school and made the best friends ever. Only to loose them all again a year later.
We had to move again. This time a lot further than ever before.
We came to Spain because my mum and dad wanted to be closer to our family and wanted us to have a better life. We started looking for houses in Almeria. We even went to Adra.
Then we found Berja and we really liked it. So we started looking around and we found San Roque. We found the house that we wanted and bought it.
I hated it. I wanted to go back and be with my friends in England. Here i couldn't make friends. It was really hard.
After a while i started speaking Spanish, but it really embarrassed me.
I have been here now and I have loads of friends and a boyfriend too. I don't ever want to go back to England. I have lost touch with my English friends and I'm concentrating on my new better life.
I like to go out with my friends. They are always there for me, and i am for them when we need each other. When we are together we never stop laughing.
I also like to be with my boyfriend and his family, we are all very close.
My family and I do everything together. we \re best of friends.
I have family from all over the place. My mus dad was Italian, so i have relatives there, him and his family then moved to Canada, so i have family there too. Then he moved to Scotland, so there is family there too, as well as in Kent, Hull and Withernsea.
My mum's mum is Spanish. When she met my Grandad they moved together.
My dads side are all English and they haven't moved from Withernsea all their lives.
So my mum is half Spanish, half Italian, and my dad is English. So my sister and i are a bit of everything.
I like living here but i would like to study in Almeria. Hairdressing or languages. I'm not sure yet.
I want to travel. I really like it. I have already been to England, Spain, France, Canada, America and Mexico.
I'm hoping to go to Australia and Italy one day.