Free post by Marianela

The story of the cigarette:

The first Europeans who arrived to America saw that the natives were smoking leafs of tobacco, so they inserted this practice in Europe in the century XVI. But in the century XX this modal change because each smoker consumed more than a thousand of cigarettes in a year. The society thought that the tobacco take out stress and it didn’t have injurious efects. During the II Mundial War the doctors recommended to send cigarettes to the soldiers.
But, the scientifics don’t take a long time to realize that the Cancer lung had been increased in 1930. The experimental studios with animals’ demonstrated that lot of the chemical substances what contain the cigarettes’ smoke are cancerous.



The first measures:

• In 1964, the cigarettes’ packet included an warning.
• In 1969, this warning bolstered up until been in this way: “The Sanitation Authorities advised that the tobacco damage seriously the health”.
• In 1971, prohibited cigarettes’ publicity in radios and televisions.
• In 1970 y 1980, lot of towns and states approved laws what demanded reserved spaces for smokers in public and work places.
• In 1990, a federal law prohibited to smoke in all national flights what last at least of six hours.



Ana Claudia: This post is actually Marianela's, she couldn't post it, so I am doing that for her. Bye!

Volleyball :D

hello everybody!

Today's post is going to be about my favourite sport, the volleyball. I've been practicing it since i was 11 and i hope i'll enjoy playing it for many more years!

Volleyball is an Olympic team sport in which two teams of six active players, separated by a high net, each try to score points against one another by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.
The complete rules of volleyball are extensive, but in general, play proceeds as follows: points are scored by grounding the ball on the opponents' court, or when the opponent commits a fault. The first team to reach 25 points wins the set and the first team to win three sets wins the match. Teams can contact the ball no more than three times before the ball crosses the net, and consecutive contacts must be made by different players. The ball is usually played with the hands or arms, but players can legally strike or push (short contact) the ball with any part of the body.
Through time, volleyball has developed to involve common techniques of spiking, passing, blocking, and setting, as well as specialised player positions and offensive and defensive structures. Because many plays are made above the top of the net, vertical jumping is an athletic skill emphasised in volleyball. This article focuses on competitive indoor volleyball, which is carefully regulated and played indoors. Numerous variations of volleyball have developed for casual play, as has the Olympic spin-off sport beach volleyball.

Well, thats all!

I hope you enjoy it!

See you!

This is my and my team previous to a match!

I'm in the back-left playing around with the ball :P

bye!

Fran Contin

Free Post =D

Well here is my Free post and i'm going to talk about Snowboarding.

The first modern snowboard was arguably the Snurfer (a portmanteau of snow and surfer), originally designed by Sherman Poppen for his children in 1965 in Muskegon, Michigan. Poppen’s Snurfer started to be manufactured as a toy the following year. It was essentially a skateboard without wheels, steered by a hand-held rope, and lacked bindings, but had provisions to cause footwear to adhere.

During the 1970s and 1980s as snowboarding became more popular, pioneers such as Dimitrije Milovich, Jake Burton Carpenter (founder of Burton Snowboards from Londonderry, Vermont), Tom Sims (founder of Sims Snowboards) and Mike Olson (GNU Snowboards) came up with new designs for boards and mechanisms that had slowly developed into the snowboards and other related equipment that we know today.

Dimitrije Milovich, an east coast surfer, had the idea of sliding on cafeteria trays. From this he started developing his snowboard designs. In 1972, he started a company called the Winterstick, which was mentioned in 1975 by Newsweek magazine. The Winterstick was based on the design and feel of a surfboard, but worked the same way as skis.

In the spring of 1976 Welsh skateboarders Jon Roberts and Pete Matthews developed a Plywood deck with foot bindings for use on the Dry Ski Slope at the school camp, Ogmore-by-Sea, Wales. UK. Further development of the board was limited as Matthews suffered serious injury whilst boarding at Ogmore and access for the boarders was declined following the incident. The 'deck' was much shorter than current snow boards. Bevelled edges and a convex, polyurethane varnished bottom to the board, allowed quick downhill movement, but limited turning ability.

In 1979 the first ever World Snurfing Championship was held at Pando Ski Lodge near Grand Rapids, Michigan. Jake Burton Carpenter, came from Vermont to compete with a snowboard of his own design. There were many protests from the competitors about Jake entering with a non-snurfer board. Paul Graves, the top snurfer at the time, and others, advocated that Jake be allowed to race. A modified division was created and won by Jake as the sole entrant. That race was considered the first competition for snowboards and is the birth of what has now become competitive snowboarding.

In 1982 the first National Snowboard race was held near Woodstock, Vermont at Suicide Six.

In 1983, the first World Championship halfpipe competition was held at Soda Springs, California. Tom Sims, founder of Sims Snowboards, organized the event with the help of Mike Chantry a snowboard instructor at Soda Springs.

Snowboarding's growing popularity is reflected in its recognition as an official sport: in 1985, the first World Cup was held in Zürs, Austria. The International Snowboard Association (ISA) was founded in 1994 to provide universal contest regulations. Today, high-profile snowboarding events like the Olympic Games, Winter X-Games, US Open, and other events are broadcast worldwide. Many alpine resorts have terrain parks. The sport has also had an impact in countries that are largely without snow, such as Australia.

Anorexia and bulimia

Anorexic people are afraid to get fat, they want to be thin and have a perfect figure that’s why they are to much concentrate with their weight and their look. They are always cold people and they like to be alone, avoiding contact with friends and relatives.
Anorexia starts when there is a crisis of personality or problems with the family. Most of the anorexics are women and they try to improve themselves more and more, controlling their weight and vomiting are the most important events in their life.Those that vomit have a different disease, call bulimia. This disease is which they eat compulsively and soon they vomit it.
It usually affects in people before de age 25 (usually in adolescent age, between 15 an 18 years). Studies have show that the 5% adolescent population is affected by alimentary disorders.

Anorexics Symptoms:

1.- Don’t want to keep their weight
2.-Vomitate
3.-Start eating less and less
4.- Can’t concentrate in their studies
5.- Lose their menstruatin
6.- People feel cold, lose their hair...
Etc...

Anorexics Treatments:

• The best treatment is a group therapy
• Talking about the problem
• Help of the family
• And the more important is adquiring the right eatingattitude

Bulimia Symptoms:

1.- Eating with out control
2.- Feeling that it’s impossible to stop eating
3.- Fasting to compensate for previous over eating
4.- Inducing vomits that are denied
5.- Abusing of laxatives and diuretics
6.- Problems with theeth
7.- Changes of humor and deppresions

Bulimia Treatments:

• The best treatment is group or individual therapy
• Then, adquiring the right eating actitude
• The bulimy there is a pharmacologic treatment
• The most affective are antidepressants

Spinetta- By Marcos

Luis Alberto Spinetta (born January 23, 1950), is an Argentine musician. He is one of the most influential rock musicians of Latin America, and together with Charly García is considered the father of Argentine rock. He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the residential neighbourhood of Belgrano. As a kid he listened to all kinds of music: folklore and tango, and a little bit later, rock. As with almost every other rocker of his generation, The Beatles

would change his life. In 1967, in the midst of a repressive political climate, he formed a band called Almendra with school mates.


Contrasting with the backwards and authoritarian government of General Juan Carlos Onganía, Argentina and especially Buenos Aires was undergoing a cultural blossoming based on new art expressions; the new generation, the sons of the middle class, was immersed in an effervescence that would not reappear in Argentina until 1983. Spinetta was part and later an exponent of that blossoming and rebellious youth that would express itself both through the arms and the arts. Spinetta devoted fully to the latter path, although he briefly became involved with left-wing political movements.

It was 1969 and his band, "Almendra", recorded their first album. The band started recording and playing intensely and it became successful almost overnight. Almendra composed its own songs and the lyrics were in Spanish (something radically new). The subtlety and beauty of their sound would be one of the milestones (maybe the first) of Argentine rock. After two albums that enjoyed radio diffusion and deserved fame, the band split. Spinetta composed and recorded a new solo album, but an inadequate environment (he would later say that the mood of Argentine rock and rockers of those times were too "heavy" and negative for him) and the vast changes that success effected on his life made him leave the country.

After a lengthy stay in Europe, he returned to Argentina and formed a new band: "Pescado Rabioso". It was destined to be as mythical as Almendra. With a far more powerful sound and expressing the tension in the streets of an increasingly violent Argentina, Pescado recorded its first album in 1972. It was both a continuation of the creative stream of Spinetta and a drastic change in the style of his music and lyrics. The band recorded a second album; although a third one carried its name, Pescado was by then dissolved; Artaud, recorded in 1973 and mostly a solo album by Spinetta, was a major breakthrough. Partly based on the writings of Antonin Artaud, Spinetta exorcised many of the demons of his past in this album. This process would open the door to a new era in his music.

In 1974 he formed a new band, "Invisible". With his new band he recorded three albums; Invisible, Durazno Sangrando (together with Artaud, hailed as his best album ever), and El Jardín De Los Presentes. With Invisible, he left the powerful and rough sound of Pescado; the new tunes were more harmonic, soft and mellow, yet his work remained essential and revolutionary. Following this line, he embarked on a solo project, A 18´ del Sol, after dissolving Invisible in 1976–77. By then, ten years later after starting his career, his style had become a delicate amalgam of old and new; the old pop and (proto) heavy rock had merged with various elements of jazz and bossa nova. That unique flavour would become his style during the next half decade.

Eiffel Tower

i will talk about the EIFFEL TOWER becouse is something that I admire a lot.
:)
Named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower is the tallest building in Paris and one of the most recognized structures in the world More than 200,000,000 have visited the tower since its construction in 1889, including 6,719,200 in 2006, making it the most visited paid monument in the world. Including the 24 m antenna, the structure is 325 m high (since 2000), which is equivalent to about 81 levels in a conventional building.


Eiffel Tower October 2007
When the tower was completed in 1889 it was the world's tallest tower — a title it retained until 1930 when New York City's Chrysler Building (319 m — 1,047 ft tall) was completed. The tower is now the fifth-tallest structure in France and the tallest structure in Paris, with the second-tallest being the Tour Montparnasse (210 m — 689 ft), although that will soon be surpassed by Tour AXA (225.11 m — 738.36 ft).


Eiffel Tower from the neighborhood.
The metal structure of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tonnes while the entire structure including non-metal components is approximately 10,000 tonnes. Depending on the ambient temperature, the top of the tower may shift away from the sun by up to 18 cm (7 in) because of thermal expansion of the metal on the side facing the sun. The tower also sways 6–7 cm (2–3 in) in the wind. As demonstration of the economy of design, if the 7300 tonnes of the metal structure were melted down it would fill the 125 meter square base to a depth of only 6 cm (2.36 in), assuming a density of the metal to be 7.8 tonnes per cubic meter. The tower has a mass less than the mass of the air contained in a cylinder of the same dimensions, that is 324 meters high and 88.3 meters in radius. The weight of the tower is 10,100 tonnes compared to 10,265 tonnes of air.
The first and second levels are accessible by stairways and lifts. A ticket booth at the south tower base sells tickets to access the stairs which begin at that location. At the first platform the stairs continue up from the east tower and the third level summit is only accessible by lift. From the first or second platform the stairs are open for anyone to ascend or descend regardless of whether they have purchased a lift ticket or stair ticket. The actual count of stairs includes 9 steps to the ticket booth at the base, 328 steps to the first level, 340 steps to the second level and 18 steps to the lift platform on the second level. When exiting the lift at the third level there are 15 more steps to ascend to the upper observation platform. The step count is printed periodically on the side of the stairs to give an indication of progress of ascent. The majority of the ascent allows for an unhindered view of the area directly beneath and around the tower although some short stretches of the stairway are enclosed.
Maintenance of the tower includes applying 50 to 60 tones of paint every seven years to protect it from rust. In order to maintain a uniform appearance to an observer on the ground, three separate colors of paint are used on the tower, with the darkest on the bottom and the lightest at the top. On occasion the colour of the paint is changed; the tower is currently painted a shade of brownish-grey. On the first floor there are interactive consoles hosting a poll for the colour to use for a future session of painting.

Free Post

Im my free post i'm going to talk about Juan Roman Riquelme, a famous football player :D.
First of all let's start talking about in wich team Riquelme plays, he plays in Boca Juniors Football team, the best football team of all times :P. He has played in Boca Juniors a few years ago, then he left to Spain to play in Villareal and then he came back. Personally, i think Riquelme is one of the best world players in this position, playing with the number 10 in his back. One thing he does amazingly are free kicks, he has scored a lot of goals like that, he can also evade a lot of players, and throw really good goal passes. In the last months, he has been playing with an injury, and a lot of people has been really mad with him about that, because he hasn't been playing good football, but i will never be mad with him about something similar...

This is his face when he's shooting a freekick.

That's him celebrating a goal.

Well, Thats my free post, my opinion, and i hope you like it.

See you!

Juanso

Walt Disney World: where dreams come true..

When I think of fun, the first place that comes to my mind is Disneyland. So, as this is one of the world's greatest and funniest place, I want to write about this magic area which surprises me everytime I go! I really hope you enjoy it ;)

Walt Disney World Resort is the most visited and largest recreational resort in the world, it has a total size of 101 km2. The original Disney, located in the cities of Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, about 24 km southwest of Orlando, Florida, USA; was inaugurated in 1955 by its creator, the american Walter Disney (1901-1966) and also owner of The Walt Disney Company.
Nowadays, it contains four theme parks (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom and MGM); two water parks (Typhoon Lagoon and Blizzard Beach); twenty-three themed hotels classified into five categories: Deluxe, Moderate, Value, Vacacional Club and Campground; and numerous shopping, dinning, entertainment and recreation venues.
Downtown Disney consists of three sections: Marketplace, Pleasure Island, and West Side. They include the Disney Quest indoor arcade, a House of Blues restaurant and nightclub, a Planet Hollywood restaurant and a Cirque du Soleil theater and original production, La Nouba.
Name and Logo:
During the resort's early planning stages, Walt Disney referred to the project as Project X, The Florida Project, Disney World, and The Disney World. After Walt Disney's death, his brother, Roy O. Disney, added the name Walt to "Disney World" as a permanent tribute to his brother. The resort's original logo was an oversized "D" with a Mickey Mouse-shaped globe.
Attendance:
The 2008 issue of Park World magazine reported attendance estimates for 2007: Magic kingdom, 17 million visits (N.1 worldwide); Epcot, 11 million visits; MGM and Animal Kingdom, 9.5 million visits.
Employment:
When Disney's first park, Magic Kingdom, opened the site employed about 5.500 cast members. Today it employs more than 61.000, having more than 3.000 job classifications; spending more than $1.1 billion on payroll and $478 million on benefits each year.
Transportation:
Disney transport contains hundreds of buses which are available for guests at no charge. It is also possible to travel by taxi boats and with the Walt Disney World Monorail System, a technological and fast monorail transport which operates all around the Disney parks.
In the world there are also other Disney properties such as Disneyland Resort California, Tokyo Disney Resort, Disneyland Resort Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland Resort.

Well, I hope you liked it :)
Enjoy the last day of winter holidays, unluckily !!
- Caro Padilla -

Friends!!

Hi everyone! I hope you are enjoying!! I was until I realized I still had to do my English homework! – Just Kidding xD - I will tell you a little bit about my favorite TV- Series, it’s called “Friends”..


“Friends” is an American Soap Opera created by Marta Kauffman and David Crane which tells the story and everyday life of Ross (starring David Schwimmer), Monica (Courtney Cox), Rachel (Jennifer Anniston), Joey (Matt LeBlanc), Phoebe (Lisa Kudrow) and Chandler (Matthew Perry).
Joey is my favorite character; he’s sweet and charming but also kind of silly. He’s an actor. Rachel is the typical popular girl and fashion victim. Monica is obsessed with cleaning and cooking, also a very good friend. Ross is Monica’s brother and works as a paleontologist; he always makes his friends bored with his dinosaur- stories. Phoebe is really sweet but sometimes selfish. Finally, Chandler is the one that is always making jokes and is fooling around.
It was first broadcasted the 22th. September 1994 by the NBC, but here it’s showed in WB channel. It finished broadcasting in 2004; from the 10 years of run it won many awards, like 6 Emmys and a Golden Globe.
The show reached many countries from all around the world. The season which had the most viewers was the 2nd, but the one that reached the 1ST raking position was the 8th (personally my favorite one!)
You are probably familiar with the song “I’ll be there for you” (from The Rembrandts) which was at the beginning of the show.
It was originally called “Friends like us” but eventually the named was changed to its shorter version. The writers also considered other names such as “Across the hall” and “Insomnia Café” before picking up “Friends”.
In the first season, the actors earned $6.500 for each chapter, by the last season each one earned $1.300.000 for chapter!!
The story is filmed at the WB studios; the main sceneries are the “Central Perk”- Café, Monica’s apartment and Joey’s apartment (which is in front of Monica’s).
If you want, you can watch it Mondays and from Wednesday to Friday in Warner Brothers Channel at 8.00 PM. I hope you like it!
See you!!
Caaaro F =)

Sources:
www.friendspeich.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friends

Video!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwpq7QIFXJA