Message in a Bottle: Hope

Dear unknown,

 

Here, alone, on this island, I write to you.

 

I don’t know you, you don’t know me.

 

But my loneliness moves me to you in every instant.

 

Alone, lost in the wild nature.

 

I always dream of the moment we shall live together

 

All these conversations that we haven’t had and maybe shall never have.

 

I imagine you near a fireplace or in nature on a beautiful sight.

 

This beautiful view that I have...

 

That I can not share with anyone but you...

 

 

Goodbye beautiful unknown, who I will perhaps never get to know...

 

 

David Dias 

Message in a Bottle: Doubt

Now that you've found my message you might want to help me and my family, if it is not too late… If you do wish to give us a hand I promise I will show you the most beautiful mountains and the immense extension of sand which stands just in front of all that water. You could even stay with me and my family and I could show you all the games we play here. We have many nice things we get from the sea and many shiny stones which we get from digging in the earth. My mother always says that we have to believe in someone called God who someday will give us the water we need to drink and grow anything we want. I sometimes doubt his existence because, if my mum was right on considering him so powerful and generous, he would have already given us water and he would not have let my sister die. But she believes that someday God will make it rain for days and days and that we will have all the water we need.

 

I'm afraid that sometimes she is also ill or that she can't think very clearly because here it hardly ever rains and when it does it all dries up very quickly.

 

If you are God please listen to mum. She loves you and thinks you are the most powerful man in the world. If you are not God but you can help us by showing us how we could do to use the salty and dangerous water in the sea, I will consider you God.

 

…………………………

 

 

Deborah Martin,2° Bach 2

 

Message in a Bottle: Love is Money!!

I’m a humble and simple man that got lost with the wind because of my own spirit. I used to be a business man and I was in the top of my career, I won a lot of money but being in this dessert place made me realize what I really was.

Many times I saw my wife and by the look in her face I could guess that she missed me, that she knew I’ve changed, then my son that I couldn’t see him grow happily and healthy. I also realized that I never helped anybody, I just cared on my own and nothing else… So who ever you are, what ever you are, no matter what you do in your life, always, but always take care first of the people you love because those people I’m sure they’ll give anything for you… Because life is all about love, enjoy it.

Thank you for your time my dear reader

Love, Somebody

Gastón Forbes, 3º ESO

Message in a Bottle: Listen, do listen.

It would be nice to send a lot of messages in bottles with the word peace. What does peace mean for our society? It is mentioned very often, but not carried out. Although it can sound tacky, it is very important for humanity in many aspects of life.

Why is it so difficult to respect others and to learn to appreciate how others live and communicate themselves? Why do wars start? Have they got real reasons to go somewhere and kill millions of people? Are there behind political interests? Can the person that receives this message answer all my questions?

 

Mysterious author.

 

Message in a Bottle: Cage!!!

This message is for you, the one who occupies my heart and my mind. I need you to free me.
Maybe it's too late, or maybe you won't get this message... I don't know, and I don’t want to know.
…………………………………………………
I just need you to open this cage and to let me fly away.
If you are not the person I wrote this message for, just throw it back away in my ocean of loneliness. I know you will end up reading this, my love.

Sarah. 1º bach 2.

Message in a Bottle: Life!!!

I write this letter to make this moment eternal. I like my life, my children, my husband, my job... But I have an illness and I am going to die.

Nobody knows that I going to die and I don't want that my family knows I am going to die soon.

This illness doesn't make me feel sad, I have decided to put this letter in a bottle and throw the bottle in the sea. If somebody finds my letter, this person will think that I'm alive but I will not be alive.

Each moment of my life was a happy moment by I'm afraid everybody forget me. If destiny makes good things, my letter will be found by somebody and they will know I have lived.


Estefanía Cuevas.1º bach 1

Message in a Bottle: You

For my Prince,
True love and sincere love,
My love towards you is completely magic.
You entered my heart as in a fairy tale.
You are my light and also my shadow,
Light that illuminates my smile and shadow that hides my tears.
To live without your presence is to die by your absence,
To absent my tears because of you is deceive you.
Thinking in you one night I remembered that not all the dreams are lies.
I have the heart frozen.
You are what I had always dreamed that night of summer a shooting star crossed my side.
Princess of that Prince who does not appears.

Tania González. 2Bach.

IS NEGOTIATING WITH TERRORIST GROUPS AN ACCEPTABLE APPROACH?

All parties having governed Spain in the last 24 years have had as one of their most urgent tasks, the end of the Basque terrorist group, ETA. In spite of having increased the pressure by providing the different police forces with more resources, facts have shown that it's not the only effort to be made to abolish terrorism in the Basque country. Therefore, all the democratic governments have also tried the option of negotiating with ETA and with Batasuna, the political party which pursues the same political goals as ETA.

Opinions of both the Spanish people and the political parties are divided between those who, on the one hand, believe that negotiating with assassins is unacceptable under any conditions and on the other hand those who feel that any approach which could lead to ultimate peace should at least be evaluated.

Both positions are understandable as both carry the same aim which is the termination of terrorism and more specifically of ETA. However, the negotiations which have taken place during the past years have not led to much.

Having said this, the North Ireland equivalent problem is often taken as an example for those who believe that success can be reached through negotiation. The downside of the strong division between the two main democratic parties (Socialists and Conservatives) is that the terrorists are the only ones not losing out.

Whichever of the two options are taken, it is imperative that in the eyes of the terrorist group and the Spanish people, the two main parties solve their differences and show unity and collaboration amongst themselves. As we have examples in Europe where negotiations with terrorist groups have succeeded and the opposite, there doesn't seem to be a one-off solution to the problem. What is clear is that peace should be the only target even if reasonable concessions have to be made by all.

Debbie

Poverty in the first world

 We always talk about poverty referring to what we call the third world, but, have you looked around you? Have you seen that man there, sleeping on the street?

Before thinking to help the poor countries we must think about our people, to be able later to help poor countries. The number of poor people in some developed cities is estimated to be around 100.000.I think that's not so hard to reach: the government of rich countries should dedicate a part of their time and money to think of a solution. 

Death Penalty

Death penalty is the punishment that means the privation of life of a criminal. This means taking away the life of someone that did something that is considered a really serious crime. This is decided by the government depending on the gravity of the crime.

Among us we can find people who agree with this punishment and some other who oppose to it.

On the one hand, people that agree with death penalty give different arguments like, for example, that they think that it is fair that if someone kills another person he or she should receive the same punishment and be killed, in other words, we can say they agree with the idea of “an eye for and eye”. Others think that society should not have to pay for someone who is so dangerous that they can never return to live among normal people. They also say that the threat of execution is enough to make other criminals think twice about committing a capital crime. Meaning in this way that being a criminal you would think really carefully about it because you would be afraid of being punished.

On the other hand we have the ones who oppose this penalty. They also have their strong arguments. Some people think that although the act of murder is horrific and inexcusable, executing the killer does nothing to bring the person back so this makes the punishment useless and turn it into another murder. Others use an economic fact as a backup. They say it often costs more to execute a criminal than it would to keep him/her alive in jail and the positive thing, some people find by doing this, is that they are convinced that they will learn more alive than being killed and that they will not do it again. We have others who use psychology to stand for their ideas. They agree on the fact that it is irrational to assume that a criminal is going to consider the consequences of his actions before committing a criminal act. Finally a very important backup fact is that death penalty is considered as cruel and inhuman.

In the world we can see perfectly both positions regarding this subject: on the one hand we have the United States, who agree with death penalty (last sounded case was Saddam Hussein) and the European Union, who think the opposite way. About Hussein’s case, the European Union stood up saying that it was inhuman an immoral to kill him and that it was against Human Rights established by the United Nations.

Now the question is: “should it be legalized or not?” and it is not easy to answer it because it completely depends on each person or government’s opinion and also both sides have strong backups that support their position. Personally, I don’t agree with death penalty because I think that punishing others with death makes you a murderer too, in a different way, but also guilty; that “an eye for an eye” was a way of punishing people but many years ago, now society had evolved and rules are different.

 

Ramiro

Living Abroad

I´m going to speak about living in a country in which you weren´t born, that is our case.The people who study in this High School have different nationalities. Some of them have been born in France but they don´t feel French, they feel much more Spanish than most of the Spanish. On the other hand, there are people who were born in Spain, but living in France with pleasure or as an obligation. The people who are here for pleasure normally take advantage of the oportunity to learn the language and get to know the culture but the rest who are here as an obligation don´t want to see the good oportunity and they do all they can to go back to their country.In my friends' group there are all types of people, each one of them think a different way.I am one of those who think that being here is the best oportunity that my parents could have given me, and I try to make the best of it.

Ana

 

HAVING A LOT OF FRIENDS IS NOT ALWAYS EASY

 Having a lot of friends is not always easy. As we see iy, there are a lot of positive things, like having more people to talk about your problems or getting more presents on your birthday. Moreover, you also have more people to help you when you are in need and more opinions to give you advice. Last but not least, having a lot of friends means having better and bigger parties. On the other hand, you can have problems when choosing who to go out with or with different opinions between your friends. Furthermore, enemys could be between them, and you might have to choose who to support. Beside, the more friends you have, the more misunderstandings there are. Finally, if you have a lot of friends you will have no credit on your cell phone. To conclude, having a lot of friends, like everything in life, has its positive and its negative sides. In our opinion it is better to have a small group of close friends than having a lot of friends that are not that close.

By Sarah and Marta

Was

It may have been the biggest emotional and revoluting change in my life, which also was such a great impact, that it will be marked and sealed in my memory for the rest of my life, and this can be positive, as it can be negative.

In anyway, I said emotional change, because I never have been as confused as I was when I have just arrived from one chaos to the other, even bigger and worse, chaos. I suffered a big black out, my whole personality changed from one day to the other, like the day becomes night. But in my case the night did not return into day.

The revoluting change is directly linked to the other, new, personality, as all the ideas I had up to that moment not only changed, but suffered a big radical alteration, from the roots up to the leaves. It was like if I would have been leaving in a kind of bubble, flying through the time, in which everything seemed to be perfect and happy, and suddenly something or somebody stinged with a needle into the bubble, confronting me so, from one second to the other, to the unhappy, hard and rather sad reality.

Nevertheless I came trough without crying or complaining, always having the same aim in mind: not to end, and I even dare to say, like more than eighty percent of citizens around the world do; not to end with an ingenious view of reality, but to end knowing that in life there are many more things than that we have been living, and to end knowing that none of our ideas can be considerated normal, natural or logical, since there are coexisting so many different thoughts that are even opposed to some of ours, that to say that something is normal, always talking about ideas and thoughts, would be ingenious.

But after all, and as a consequence of the “new life”, I am glad for having learned two essential things in life: to learn to understand, and to understand the world.

Edgar

The Long Wait

I passed what seemed to me like hours just sitting there, waiting for an email that I knew, deep down, would never arrive. I could not even find the strength to cry any more, as my grief was beyond tears. I had passed four long months waiting for a broken promise and still… not even an answer, not even an excuse, not even a lie! Only silence.

A silence that rang in my ears like a fire alarm, a silence I could not stand any more.

A feeling of eternal unhappiness hit me like a rush of cold air when you open a door. I felt I would never be happy again…

 

Debbie

Daily Rush...tine

Everyday, before coming to school, my alarm clock wakes me up at seven forty. I normally wake up moaning about how late it is because I switched off my alarm clock and carried on sleeping… lucky my mother starts shouting! Wondering why my mobile phone has not an option of my mother’s shouts as a ring tone instead of “Pakito el Chocolatero” that gets on my nerves (and it’s the best I have got!). I walk slowly and sleepily to the toilet to do a wee. While I brush my hair so quickly that I will be bold one of these days, my mom reminds me how late I am and I ask myself who will wake my up in a few months when I am alone. I brush my teeth, do my eye-line (which is a must-do, even if I am late), have a cup of coffee after an orange juice, get dressed and run to school with a pair of biscuits in my hand at ten past eight. I still wonder why I arrive at the “lycée” at twenty past eight… even if it is panting and about to choke with the biscuits.

 

Debbie 

My Story

I felt that that night something extraordinary would happen to me, something that would totally change my previous existence, that would replace all my knowledge, that would replace my solitude for a very loud chaos. I had no doubt about it, I even think I was courious and couldn't wait for it to happen. The last few days everything was different, I could barely move, as if I didn't fit in that place. I felt that I had to do something about it, but every movement was like a nightmare, a torture. How to do it? How should I start? How long is the journey goning to take? Everything seemed impossible. I wanted somebody to help me but I was unable to speak, so I tried desperately moving my arms around but that didn't work either. So I decided to stay as before, as it had always worked well. For some minutes everything was pleasent again. All the noise diminished, that unpleasant tightness stopped...

Fruzsina.

The Morning

Everyday it's the same grey and boring morning that just waits to be lived and repeated, maybe until the end of my days. Everyday it results more difficult to start the trip and to smile for the next twenty minutes. It may be the only part of the day which doesn't offer any surprises, nothing changes from one day to the other.

It starts at seven o'clock when the alarm clock buzzes. Maybe this is the most important moment in the whole day, since the first thing I do when I open my eyes, is to look out of the window to see which colour will cover the following hours the sky, and depending on this, my mood will be marked for the rest of the day. But, anyway that doesn’t mean that I really get up at seven o'clock. No, I probably stay until 7:30 o'clock in bed. So when I get up I have to dress as fast as possible so that I could have at least four minutes to have breakfast without arriving late at school.

Now the worse and most boring, and I even would say, terrifying part in the whole morning just waits. When I'm walking to Saint-Lazare to take the subway, I just see sad, angry, stressed or tired faces, but no one happy, there's nobody smiling in this twenty minutes trip where everything seems to be a soulless mix of thousands of people who are just living once more their boring morning. In the subway it's even worse. Hundreds of people are pushing each other to get at least four or five centimeters to get just a bit of fresh air, without sweat or dust, to breath. And moreover there's this horrible and permanent noise that lacks any human contribution. Just quiet faces, and all of them also sad tired or whatever. It's not really a nice image to see, no, it's rather oppressive, to be suffering this short instant of ten minutes in that hot and almost dead subway. It's a big relief to get out of this coffin, out to the other side of the city, but never far enough to escape from this robotic morning action.

 

Edgar

Willkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome, Bienvenido

You know life is always ready for a bit of this and a bit of that. I have thought of including a BIT OF ENGLISH. What you see and what you enjoy is the fantastic work of the students of English at the Spanish Lycee in Neuilly (France). You are welcome to enjoy their BITS OF IMAGINATION, their BITS OF FUN, their BITS OF ENJOYMENT, and you are invited to have a go and write your comments.

 

See you soon!!!

 

And as many times as you want.