About last summer

And it's love what I feel,
for you, for me,
for the moment we are sharing,
even it's as ephimeral as a shooting star,
because we are giving us the best we have,
our here and our now.
And we are never going to recover it,
it will be always shared.

Dear Sir or Madam

Manel

XXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXX

XXXXXXXXX

The Director

LingoLearners – School of English

221B Blacksmith Street

NE1 7RU Newcastle 

United Kingdom

November 29, 2016 

Dear Sir or Madam,

After having seen your advertisement in the newspaper, I am writing this letter to enquire about English summer courses at your school.

I am 33 years old and I have been studying English for three years in my local English school. However, I am sure that I need to improve many issues, in particular my level of oral comprehension and vocabulary.

It is for these reasons that I would be grateful if you could send me further details regarding courses in July 2017, especially the starting dates and how many hours a day. With reference to the mention about ‘small friendly classes’ I would like to know the number of students in each class approximately. In addition, I would like to know details about the different planned trips and how much they cost.

Finally, I would greatly appreciate it if you could provide me with some information about accommodation with host families.

I look forward to your reply.

Yours faithfully,

Manel

[Composition #2, 4th Level] 

Roman the "philo-lover"

Roman is probably the only one philosopher in Terres de l’Ebre. Born in Tortosa in 1982 he was the first child of his parents. They lived in Tortosa, in a little house where Roman didn’t even have a window in his room. When he was four, they moved to Campredó, where he had his first sister.

His first years at school were quite difficult. He used to be more thoughtful than other children at his class and this caused him some problems, with teachers because he used to question them and with other students who didn’t agree with some of his playtime’s social theories. Unfortunately, more than once he was punched in the mouth.

These situations made him feel insecure about his thinking and himself. He felt like a weird boy. When he had to start the university he was such an insecure boy that he bought big glasses just to hide under them. Luckily, in Barcelona he found another atmosphere, he was spot on with the degree he chose: Philosophy.

Nowadays he writes for some digital magazines and he makes the most of his imagination writing incredible little stories about his magical routine life. He also manages some philosophy cultural events around Catalunya and he is a happy philosophy teacher. Although he was able to adapt himself to a world which is not prepared for people so sensitive like him, it wasn't easy to be born being a philosopher in a land which wasn’t ready for it.

What a surprise!

To: alex_royal_stark@fakemail.net
From: manelcat@gmail.com
Subject: What a surprise!


Dear Alex,

How are you?

This week is terrible in my office and I haven’t got time to call you. I get home very late, so I’ve decided to send you an email and tell you some crazy news that I’m sure you will enjoy.

A few days ago, my brother Sam was at home when somebody knocked at the door. He opened and saw a strange guy with a white-haired beard and a bright cap. He was George R. R. Martin, the famous writer of A Song of Ice and Fire. You know my brother is a great fan of books, so when he recognized him, he was excited.

Martin had to go to the TV studios for an interview, but his car suddenly broke and it stopped just in front of my brother’s house. Martin usually travels with his team, but that day he went alone. Sam picked up Martin and took him to the studio. Meanwhile, they were talking about the books. Martin told him that he has just finished his last book and he was going to a press conference.

In gratefulness, Martin invited my brother to act in Game of Thrones ––the TV show–– as an extra!! He will be a soldier on her Majesty Daenerys Targaryen’s service! That’s awesome! Martin also dedicated a book and gave him two tickets for the premiere.

He is playing tomorrow at 10:00 h and next month we’re going to watch him on TV! He doesn’t have to say anything. He only has to hold a spear and a shield, and pretend to be a rude-looking guy! LOL.

See you on Friday, Alex. Cheers!



[Composition #4, 2nd Level]

Concerning New York (oral presentation)

I’m going to speak to you about the city of New York. I’ve never been in New York, but it’s a city that always has attracted my attention and I hope to visit it someday.

New York City is located on the East coast of the USA, exactly in the state of New York. In spite of being one of the biggest cities in the world, New York City is not the capitol of its own state, which is Albany —a city smaller than Reus. This also happens in other states: for example the capitol of California is not Los Angeles or San Francisco, but is Sacramento; or in Texas the capitol is Austin, instead of Dallas or Houston.

New York City is composed of five boroughs: Manhattan, The Bronx, Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens. The Bronx is the only one that is located in the continent, the others are in islands.

New York City is the most populous city in the United States, with a population of 8.5 million. The whole population of Barcelona, Munich, Rome, Paris and Dublin could live together in the five boroughs of New York.

New York City has an area of 1.200 square kilometers. That’s a big extension, but to understand its size better is interesting to compare it with a more familiar area. This is Tortosa* and this green rectangle is Central Park on the same scale. If you walked from the McDonald’s to the university in Remolins you would walk half of Central Park. Obviously, Central Park is a little part of Manhattan, and Manhattan is the smallest district of New York…

New York City has many monuments and issues to speak about, but I have only five minutes. I’m going to talk about some of the most iconic places to visit in New York:

Grand Central Terminal. It was built at the beginning of the 20th century, and even today is the largest train station in the world. It has 44 platforms and half a million people transit every day through this space. It’s been used as a set in many films, like Superman, Armageddon or Modern Times.

The Statue of Liberty. Its real name is Liberty Enlightening the World. It’s a 46-meter-high neoclassical sculpture placed on Liberty Island. It was given as a present by the French government to commemorate the centenary of the American Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776). It was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and was built by Gustave Eiffel in France with 31 tons of copper.

Central Park. It’s a great green lung placed in the middle of Manhattan, which is taken every day by thousands of New Yorkers and visitors to rest in the grass, take photos or simply walk around. The park also has lakes. The biggest one is the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir. It’s a popular place to practice jogging and biking. Actually, there are too many people that authorities established to run only in clockwise direction, in order to avoid crashes.

The Empire State. The Empire State Building is 443 meters high and was the first skyscraper in the world to contain over 100 floors. It hosts 1.000 offices and has its own postal code. The last 30 floors can change the light color. This system is used to commemorate special events and anniversaries and there is an official calendar on its website where you can know upcoming lightings.

(*) See the presentation file.

[Oral presentation, 4th Level]

Article based in the former post "Concerning New York"

My great-uncle Arthur

My great-uncle Arthur worked many years in a factory. They produced umbrellas; just a single type of umbrella, the classic long one. Although you might think his life was really boring, it was not at all.

He was born in Munroe Falls —a little village in the North of Ohio— in 1919. He dropped out of school at an early age in order to work in their family business. But soon he realized that he was too lively to stay in the same place and left to Chicago. There he worked as a paper boy delivering the Tribune.

One day, in December 1941, he read in one of his newspapers a huge headline with only three letters: «War!». He threw the papers down and went to a recruitment point to enlist in the Marine Corps. His regiment was sent to the Pacific and during several months fought in the tiny islands of the Coral Sea. Southeastern Asia is a very rainy region, and rain was a reality he had to learn to live with.

After the war he created a little workshop introducing all the materials he had learnt in the Army to make the most resistant and innovative umbrellas and other rain clothes. A little time later, an important corporation bought his patents.

With the money he had earned, he travelled through Europe and South America learning about many countries and cultures. When he was 31, he fell in love with a Parisian painter in Montmartre. They got married and left to San Francisco (California) where my great-uncle started working in the umbrella factory as a production manager. He retired when I was born and started writing children's stories telling all his personal experience around the world.

My great-uncle passed away when I was 10 years old. Everybody in our family was sad, but still today we remember him and we are happy about the full life he had.



[Composition #1, 4th Level]

Comparing adult life and teenager life

At first glance, adult life may lead to more difficulties compared to the teenager one, but if we analize it deeply we can say that nowadays to be a teenager is not easy.

To begin with, adolescence is a critical period that includes not only the preadult's personality formation, but also it carries acne, glasses, body odors, brackets...

In the technology era, getting the latest mobile is not possible for everyone, and that may create frustrations. To get a job is not easy either. This issues can be multiplied if you live in the middle of a problematic family, like unemployed or divorced parents. And finally, if you study at an American high school maybe you should wear a bulletproof jacket...

So in conlusion, I love my adult life and I don't miss when I was a teenager.


[Composition #3, 2nd Level]

Like every summer, a group of friends went to a lake house for the weekend

Like every summer, a group of friends went to a lake house for the weekend. The first morning they went to town to buy food supplies and live bait for fishing. In the afternoon they carried their bags and fishing rods towards the lake, following the stream down the hill where they had the cabin.

While the boys were preparing fishing stuff, Jack needed to use the toilet; but they were in the middle of woods so he looked for a quite far away zone. That place was quiet but when he got ready to return to the lake, he realized that only a few meters from where he was there was a strange hole in the ground. Jack joked to himself “in a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit” and called his friends. They lit the opening of the hole with their torches. Although the entry hole was small, the cavity was much larger. Hearing the call of adventure, they decided to go ahead.

After a while inside, they heard voices. Surprised, they hid behind a rock. They saw two people left inside the gallery. They decided to investigate this mysterious cave. Finally, they found a metal door and a corridor lit with electricity. How could there be signs of civilization in the middle of an underground cave? Jack and his friends went through that corridor and discovered a clandestine methamphetamine laboratory.

They took photos and recorded it on their smartphones. Thanks to this discovery, the DEA could catch a dangerous gang that controlled the business of the blue crystal in the city for several months.



[Composition #2, 2nd Level] 

Dear Alex

Alexander Elliot Salmond
Crown St Andrew's House, 1
Edinburgh, SCOTLAND


Dear Alex,

I write you because this week we have received your “Scottish special cookies”. It was a great pleasure; we ate everything in a few days!

I would like to fly to Scotland again. I hope to do it this summer. Actually, I’m writing a lot of places to visit, like Stirling or Eliean Donan Castle. I read that this castle was   the localisation of “Higlander”. I like this movie! I think that we are going to rent a car and visit the North of Highlands, because last year we only saw Inverness.

A workmate told me about a very comfortable Bed & Breakfast in Fort Williams. I took the telephone number to book it as soon as possible.

Give special wishes to Jane and your parents. I hope we can meet very soon!


Kind regards!


Nick



[Composition #1, 2nd Level]

A summer keeping our English afloat: drawing conclusions

Summer is ending and it is therefore time to take stock. Let’s review the four areas that we marked when we finished the course: reading, listening, speaking and writing.

READING. I borrowed from the library five books tagged as a fourth level EOI. I achieved to finish four of them: Frozen pizza and other slices of life, from Antoinette Moses; The Amsterdam connection, from Sue Leather; A dangerous sky, from Michael Austen; Tales of mystery and imagination, from Edgar Allan Poe. The fifth book is Emergency Murder, from Janet McGiffin, which is the compulsory one for the first quarter, so I’m going to wait a few weeks to start reading it (in order to keeping it fresh for the January test). Meanwhile, I’ll take some Speak Up magazines because there are always interesting articles. I did a vocabulary exercise writing in a notepad all the words that I didn’t know. Whenever I can, I will publish a relation of them, which is not precisely short…

LISTENING. I think this area is my Achilles heel. This summer I bought on Wallapop all seasons in DVD from Lost —TV show— but it’s so difficult to follow the conversations. But I will not surrender. I try every day or twice watching an episode. I watched the whole show several years ago, so I know the main plot and I can follow the scenes; but their English is not easy at all. From time to time I listen to news channels like BBC or just Youtube. Definitely, documentaries and news are easier than dramatic fiction: a neutral language is used there, without colloquial or oral fast expressions. Anyway, I must go on listening stuff more and more.

SPEAKING. Until July, we had met regularly with Tim and Linden —our Australian friends— every Wednesday. They are really good and friendly guys and we enjoyed talking about different topics in English and Spanish. Moreover, I have been going every Monday to the library to the “Creative Conversation” sessions with two American guys. I spoke in English to the tourist people who were walking around the streets in the Renaixement, trying to help them with localisations, city streets, etc. And as I commented a few posts ago, I visited Berlin and I could speak to many people: German, Canadian, South-Korean, etc. I was able to use my English to start little talks.

WRITING. Well that’s the point… I wrote some posts here. Actually, it’s a good way to refresh structures and think in English. Apart from the English skills, it’s an imagination challenge. Thinking a short story, coherent, a little interesting… it’s not always easy. I wrote some historical post about the Second World War, that is a really interesting matter for me. And I wrote some narrative texts like in our EOI tests, starting with a single phrase. And I will continue doing it.

Epilogue.

In English terms this summer has been more productive than the last one:

1.- I’m happy of my achieves finishing four of five books. My speed and reading comprehension are improving.
2.- Listening is my worst area, so I need to continue doing comprehension exercicies of "ear-training" and listening to as many things I could.
3.- Our Australian pals have left :( but we will meet other English-spoken people to continue chatting and speaking.
4.- This blog will continue active as a self-obligation of writing English during the whole year and as a cool way to evaluate our progressions.


So... let's go on!

Dear Shoshanna

This is a fictional letter which was sent to Shosanna Dreyfus* by her aunt, Mrs Himmelstein.

Dear Shoshanna,

I felt very sorry because your great lost. It was a really injustice and I would make sure that the perpetrators were punished some day. I have been looking for you since I was noticed about, and finally I have been able to find you.

You have to know you are safe at last. My good friends, the Béringer family, will help and protect you. Just follow my notes below. You will find your new passport and everything you need in the attached box. From this day onwards you will be Emmanuelle Mimieux and you will own Le Gamaar Cinema. We think it’s the better option and a proper hiding place.

Paris is waiting for you. Leave the whole past and take your new life.

Yours,


Jacqueline V. Himmelstein

(*) Shosanna Dreyfus is one of the main protagonists of the Quantin Tarantino's film Inglourious Basterds.

Never was so much owed by so many to so few

‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few’. This is a well-known sentence by Sir Winston Churchill to evidence the decisive paper of the RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain as well as starting the dangerous bombing campaign over Germany. The bravery of these men and women achieved a great victory over Luftwaffe attacks, England was not occupied by German troops and allied armies defeated the Third Reich.

But it’s important to remember that several spitfires of those air squadrons were driven by polish pilots. When Germans occupied and defeated Poland, lots of polish ran to England and other countries. Polish experienced airmen didn’t remain waiting with crossed arms, but joined to the RAF and fighted as British to defend a foreign land.

Nowadays, in the Brexit age, the populist parties are blaming against polish (and others) immigrants in the UK. But those same polish helped British people to not be enslaved by and occupation army.

The first Luftwaffe bombing attacks took place 76 years ago today. So today is a good day to remember the RAF heroes and their polish brave people.

I never thought of doing that

I never thought of doing that. I’m afraid of heights; well, I was. When I was a child I didn’t like rides at all. Rides in a park, you know, like a roller coaster with loops and heavy height. Actually, I was afraid of any height, even walking around a soft hill or a not excessively high roof.

But one day, in my 21st birthday, my friends made me a joke and —with a blindfold over my eyes— got me on a plane. I still don’t know what happened, perhaps the panic or the effect of 13.000 feet in my brain. Anyhow, something changed in my mind and I jumped there —beyond my instructor! I enjoyed every second of the free fall. It was a magical feeling of flying like a bird. When I reached the ground I wanted to do again. I became an addict.

Since then, I needed to jump more and more often. But jumping is so expensive that I decided to join the skydiving academy and became a parachute instructor. After twice advanced training courses I got a job in the same place where I had jumped the first time. Do you want me to be your instructor?

Berlin on bike

I’ve been in Berlin recently. It was a great trip, because I love modern History and I could visit several places related to the World War II and the Cold War.

Berlin is a huge capitol; the city centre, which is called Berlin-Mitte, is enormous. It’s almost as big as the whole city of Barcelona. For this reason, we hired a bike. And it was a great idea. Berlin is totally adapted to the bike as an urban mobility; there are lots of cycle lanes, and many people move by bike.

Using bike let us move around the city on our own. When we got a highlight, we stopped and locked the bike. And of course, we had a much more better view of the urban reality that if we would have moved by metro.

We also visited Wannsee and Potsdam. To this purpose, we got the train from Alexanderplatz. In Wannsee we visited a villa where in 1942 took place a meeting between Reinhard Heydrich, Adolf Eichmann and other Third Reich authorities to perpetrate the Final Solution to the "Jewish Question", the plan for the extermination of the European Jews. Today, the building serves as a memorial and education centre.

In Potsdam, we hired a bike again to visit the great Prussian palaces. Potsdam is a really-beauty city full of history, woods and amazing lakes. I had the opportunity of taking a bath in the Heiliger Lake, and the water was less cold than I imagined… We found a genuine ‘biertgarten’ (literally ‘a beer garden’), that is an outdoor area in which beer and local food are served. It was a great change to taste the German food far away of the touristic circuits.

To sum up, Germany is a nice place to visit, with great landscapes and plenty of History and kind people.

Baix Ebre Research Awards

Eleven years ago, the president of the Consell Comarcal del Baix Ebre, put in his budget two awards for the best high school students research work in our region: one for the humanistic work and the other for the science and technology work.

In this time, I thought it was a silly decision but it has continued during these years.

The second year, he gave a name for the prizes: the humanistic work was Federico Pastor Award and the science and technology work was Pare Romanyà Award.

Four years ago, the president at this moment decided to change of the format prizes and introduced one presentation of the work as a part of the final score and this is very interesting to hear the research works and the ability of the students to defend them.

While the jury deliberates, we can enjoyed a small performance of music.

For a lot for years I was a member of High School Joaquin Bau AMPA and I went to the awards presentation and I enjoyed it a lot.

This year I returned because one of my friend’s daughters was one of the finalists and it was fantastic to see young people defending their work and I could to learn a lot of things about different finalist themes.

This is an open act and normally only parents and teachers go but I recommend it to everybody.

I recognise that eleven years ago I was wrong in judging the decision of the president!!!

And now, who were these people who were named awards?

Antonio Romanà Pujó was born in Barcelona on 21st March 1900. After his college studies, he entered the Society of Jesus in Gandia, in 1917. Simultaneously to his ecclesiastical studies with the Bachelor of Sciences in Barcelona, which ended with an extraordinary award and obtaining the same score with his doctoral thesis "Criteria existence of closed orbits?".

He was professor of mathematics and astronomy. After an internship at the observatory at the University of Vienna he joined the Observatorio del Ebro where he was appointed head of the sections of Magnetism and Atmospheric Electricity and land. After the Spanish Civil War he was the director.

Despite the hardships of war, he undertook the task of repair, recovery and calibration of stolen and damaged instruments as well as the reconstruction of the pavilions.

Spain was expelled at the end of the Second World War from international agencies of astronomy and geophysics and in 1946 he undertook negotiations to stabilise the presence of Spain as a member of it.

In October 1970, having turned 70 years old, asked to be relieved of the post of director of the Observatory, but he continued to work in the same place as honorary director until an illness made him retired. He died on October 13th, 1981.


Federico Pastor Lluís, (Tortosa, 03.31.1846 - 04.19.1923) was a writer and historian.

He studied his primary and high schools in Tortosa. It would have studied medicine in Valencia, although it seems that did not finish the career. It was chronicler of the Secció Excursionista de l’Orfeó Tortosí, honorary member of the Ateneu de Tortosa, favourite son of the city (1911) and was director of the Museu Arxiu Municipal for several years.

He was a correspondent of Las Provincias and was a correspondent member of the Ateneo de la Juventud Valenciana and the cultural society Lo Rat Penat. He was also managing partner of Centre Excursionista de Catalunya, corresponding member of Real Academia de las Buenas Letras de Barcelona and the corresponding of Real Academia de la Historia de Madrid.

His most famous work is Narraciones tortosinas (Tortosa, 1901) a collection of articles and biographies of historical people of  Tortosa that during the first decades that appeared in the local press -specifically Tortosa Illustrated magazine, from 1899 with a letter-prologue by Felip Pedrell 

The historical or biographical articles are scattered in local publications: Libertad, Diario de Tortosa, Tortosa Ilustrada, El Eco de la Fusion, La Zuda, El Restaurador or other like Bulletin of the Society of Castellonense Culture.

http://www.baixebre.cat/actualitat/noticies/dos-alumnes-de-linstitut-joaquin-bau-de-tortosa-guanyen-els-xi-premis-de-recerca


Tere, 1st August 2016

It had been many days since it last rained

It had been many days since it last rained. Actually, it had been several months. Climate change, which had been warned about plenty of times, was now a fact. Many international symposiums have taken place with many experts from around the planet. Nevertheless, nobody knows what is happening. The one thing that they know for sure is if it continues in this way, things will get worse.

Elizabeth Monaghan was a 10-year-old girl, normal and common. She liked playing basketball and hunting Pokemons with her little brother. In spite of that, she was the only person in the world who understood the problem and solved it.

One day, after school, Elizabeth had picked her brother up and, as they used to do every day, went to the park to wait for their mother. Unlike other days, Liz didn’t bring her quadband-and-4G-connexion cell phone (a present from her 8th birthday) because the night before she had forgotten to charge it. So to help pass the time she decided to look at the sky.

She had never realised how beautiful the sky was. A great canvas in blue, with amazing white clouds like a cotton candy, and many birds flying away. She realised too that everybody in the park was looking at their phones, and that she was the only person looking at the sky. Suddenly, she shouted them ‘what a beautiful sky we are fortunate to have! Leave your little displays and look up there, there is a bigger screen!’ A few minutes after that, Liz could feel soft rain on her cheeks.

The solution to the problem was simple: it had not rained for so long because people had stopped watching the sky.

Viva México!

From: albert.marshall@aol.net
To: james.marshall@unam.mx
Subject: Viva México!


Hello li'l' brother! How are you?

I’m writing to tell you than I’ve just landed right now. The flight from Mexico has been really quite and I’ve been sleeping the most of the time.

I had never tasted real Mexican food and I really enjoyed it. Actually I’ve discovered I love spicy food. The special burritos are the best and I loved tacos as well.

Please thank your neighbours for the Mariachi hat that they gave me as a gift. Not everyone has got a genuine sombrero like that... They also were so kind and thoughtful with me.

And finally I’d like to thank you too for inviting me to pass a days in Coyoacán with you. It has been a great pleasure.

Talk to you later.


Jim

Concerning New York

The other day I was reading an interesting article about New York City, which is a city that has always aroused my curiosity. Here is a brief summary of it:

Grand Central Terminal is the biggest train station in the world. It was built in 1913, and even today is the biggest in the whole planet: it has got 44 platforms with 67 railways in two levels. And there is not only usability, its Beaux Arts style is an important feature: the very high main hall with the ceiling vaulted and illuminated over three great 23-metre wide windows. This space, where 500.000 people transit every day through, is a symbol of New York and has been used several times as a set in many films.

New York underground (“NYC Subway”) has amazing numbers too: over 1.300 kilometers of rails, 26 lines (most of them working 24 hours a day), 468 stations and 1,6 billion displacements a year. Most of the platforms exceed 200 meters long in order to host ten or eleven wagons that compose every cowboy.

The Statue of Liberty, whose real name is Liberty Enlightening the World, is a 46 meter-high neoclassical sculpture placed on Liberty Island. It was given as a present by the French government to commemorate the centenary of the American Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776). It was designed by French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi and was built by Gustave Eiffel in France with 31 tons of copper. It was sent in 350 parts packet in 214 boxes and was dedicated on October 28, 1886.

Central Park is a great green lung placed in the middle of Manhattan. It was built between 1860 and 1870 above a swamp zone. Its 3,5 km2 are taken every day by thousands of New Yorkers and visitors to repose in the grass, take photos or simply walk around. There is the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, a great water reservoir that covers 43 ha and holds over 3,8 million m3 of water. A path surrounds the lake, where lots of people usually go running and biking in; actually, there is too many people, that authorities established to run only in clockwise direction, in order to avoid crashes.

The Empire State was the highest building in the world since its construction in 1931 until 1972, when Twin Towers were built. After 11-S attacks, the Empire State was the highest building in the city again. It is 443-meter high and has 102 floors. But nowadays is not the highest in the world any more; this honor is occupied by Burj Khalifa (“Khalifa tower”) in Dubai (United Arab Emirates) with 830 meters high. However, the issues required to build the Empire State are equally amazing: 60.000 tons of steel, 10 million bricks, 6.500 windows, 113 kilometers of pipes, 9.000 taps, 73 elevators and over 41 million dollars. The Empire State hosts 1.000 offices and has got its own postal code. Last 30 floors can change the light color: there is a LED lighting system that is capable of displaying 16 million colors, which can change instantaneously. From the top of the building you can see the whole city, and that must be an incredible experience.

You’ll Never Walk Alone !!

Liverpool fans on The Kop, which is a stand in the Anfield Stadium, were one of the first groups of supporters to sing popular songs at football matches, and one of the first songs they adopted for the club was You’ll Never Walk Alone.

The song was written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, for their musical Carousel in 1945.

The famous version by the Liverpool beat combo Gerry and the Pacemakers, was released in 1963 and adopted by The Kop not long after.

The song quickly became the anthem of Liverpool Football Club and is invariably sung by its supporters, moments before the start of each home game. The words “You’ll Never Walk Alone” also feature in the club crest and on the Shankly Gates entrance to Anfield, the home stadium

The song says:

When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark
At the end of the storm, there’s a golden sky
And the sweet, silver song of a lark

Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
Though your dreams be tossed and blown

Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone
You’ll never walk alone

Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone
You’ll never walk alone

It is curious that a football club has this song as a hymn you might think that having a romantic score means that perhaps this song expresses people feelings because humans never stay alone.

When you were a child, your parents take care of you, when you were a teenager your friends were the most important thing, after you have a partner and you have your own children and when you are old perhaps someone stays with you

Our society can get many things when people are grouped together with a common project; an example was improving labour rights in the Industrial Revolution and nowadays the 15th May movement or in our land the fight for the flow of the river and the survival of the Delta

But when we see what has happened these days in the UEFA European Championship with two countries’ supporters fighting, it was terrible and it shouldn’t be that our society heads this way.

I prefer to walk alone instead of being in this company but I think we can’t ever walk alone because together we will be invincible

Tere, June 21st 2016

The coat of arms of Tortosa

A few weeks ago, Tim, an Australian friend who I met in El Forn de la Canonja doing language exchange, asked me for the meaning of Tortosa coat of arms. And that was a really good question because I have never raised that issue, and actually I didn’t have a good answer to give him.

I knew that Tortosa had been an important city in the medieval age, and then were the origins of the coat of arms, but I didn’t know more details about it. So I decided to look for some information and a former teacher recommended me an old book called Armas y blasones de la fidelisima y ejemplar ciudad de Tortosa. That book, which was written in the 19^th century, explained briefly this question.

In the old times, the first coat of arms was a ship with its sail in the wind. Nowadays, you can still see this symbol in some places like Chamber of Commerce or as a decoration seal in the city festivals.

The current coat of arms is a tower and is dated from 12^th century, when Muslims where defeated and the count Ramon Berenguer IV gave the city its traditions and customs, as a way to rule by itself again. It’s a silver tower, with a door, two windows and four battlements. The tower doesn’t correspond to any exact localization in the city. Therefore, it’s a generic symbol very often used in heraldry with medieval foundations.

The background is a red field (‘field gules’ in heraldic terminology) in a diamond-shaped box. The rhombus is a quite extended shape in the cities and villages because of their female condition, and the diamond shape has this connotation too. You can check most of the cities coats of arms and they have this shape.

In relation to the crown and palms, they were given by King Philip IV during the 17^th century, much more lately. So in a strict sense, neither crown nor palms belong to the original coat of arms. Both symbols have a monarchic meaning.

Thanks to an Australian guy we know more details about our city symbol, because if he hadn't ask me I wouldn't have done this tiny research ;)

How to get your password in CentrosNet

If you want to check your qualifications, you will have to click Accés a CentrosNet, in EOI Tortosa site. There you will have to fill some fields: user, which is your birthdate in DD/MM/YYYY format; password, which is you ID number (DNI) without letter; and there will be a third field, Contrasenya Personal d´Alumne/Tutor. This field is a novelty, because it wasn’t the past year. How can I get this password? 

If you click “I forgot my password” button you won’t solve the problem because your password has not been generated yet; so this option doesn't work. To get the password, you have to fill the first and second fields —birthdate and ID number—, and you have to leave the third field blank. Then click “enter” and type the password. Choose a password: it must be at least six and maximum eight characters long. Finally, you will receive an e-mail to active your password.

Go to “CentrosNet” again and fill the fields using your recent generated password. Now you will be able to access and check your qualifications :) Qualifications will be available from June 27th.

Important notice: Remind of keeping this password in order to formalize the enrolment and other future procedures on EOI.