Congratulations!

Hey everyone, as we reach the end of yet another academic year it’s good to take time to congratulate everyone on all the hard work they did this year. To the seniors who will be or already left, good luck on beginning your life away from home. To the juniors moving on to their last high school year, I also wish you luck with the IB or whatever test you will be taking next year. Sophomores, prepare to begin studying hard. And to the freshmen, well you should be excited because next year you won’t be the plankton of high school anymore! Try not to be too mean to the upcoming freshmen, I’m sure they’re nice kids... Right? If you go to an international school I’m sure you have someone who will be moving, if so, don’t worry too much, you’ll meet new people. Of course they won’t replace the ones moving but they can also be your friends. If you’re the person moving then good luck in that new challenge, it might be hard at first but soon you’ll feel like your home. And for those days when it seems that things will never work out, you can definitely count on the friends that stayed behind for support. 

Good luck with finals!!

http://www.andertoons.com/cartoon-blog/2010/12/end-of-year-sale-coming-soon.html

On Stranger Tides

http://www.disneydreaming.com/2011/04/26/pirates-of-the-caribbean-on-stranger-tides-tv-spot-die-trying/

Jack Sparrow embarks on yet again, this time to find the Fountain of Youth. The movie is pretty long and I don’t want to bore you with the details so I’ll talk about the most important events. First of all Jack Sparrow is hired by the English king to find the fountain of youth because he wants to live for a long time. Luckily Jack sort of knows the way but he needs a boat. The next day he finds himself in his ex-girlfriend’s boat and the captain is Black Beard. Obviously there is a ritual for the fountain so they get everything they need and fine the place. When they get there the Spanish pirates who wanted to destroy the fountain because it went against the bible battled for it and destroyed it. However someone was still able to take a drink for the precious water. But I don’t want to give the whole movie away so I won’t tell you who it is:). Obviously throughout the movie there are some epic sword fights and some pretty cool costumes but that’s true in the whole trilogy. Overall I really liked the movie and I definitely recommend it, even if you’re not usually into these types of movies you should give it a try.

Spring Snow

http://www.outdoor-weblog.com/50226711/vail_ski_resorts_delay_opening.php

It seems as if Spring Break was a long time ago, but I never had time to write a post about it. But now I finally had time since it’s the weekend before dead week so we don’t have too much homework. Well, in Spring Break I went to Vail, Colorado to ski. I went to ski school since it was only the second time I ski. I had a lot more fun than I thought I would. The group I was put on changed on a daily basis but I always had the same instructor who was very funny. I think I can say I learned a lot in the 5 days I went to class; I started out in as a level 3 skier and ended in as a level 5 so I was pretty proud. One of the most memorable moments, and probably the funniest too, was when I wiped out (which is what my instructor said when we fell or crashed into trees), in my case I had crashed into a tree. In my defense it was my first day skiing after around 3 years. It must have been quite a scene but in the end I was fine and I only had one more incident with a tree but it wasn’t too bad. I hope to go to skiing more often from now on because I had a lot of fun in Spring Break.

To Blog or Not to Blog

I’m actually glad that we had blogging as an assignment because I much rather write here then having to write formal papers more often. I think the pros of having a blog is that you can write about anything you want, I mean sometimes it feels like there’s nothing at all to write about but in the end I always find something. I think that having the freedom to write about anything you want makes writing a lot more enjoyable and therefore more interesting. Another good point is that you get to share what you write and it doesn’t seem like what you write isn’t appreciated. Even though I know these blogs aren’t getting thousands of viewers at least we know it's out there and someone might stumble upon it. Even though I personally like blogging there are some bad points about it. For example knowing that your classmates might read it, is a little weird and usually limits what you write. Another con is that is some people aren’t creative enough to come up with a new blog topic every time, I know I sometimes take a very long time to figure out what I’ll write about but then I always end up talking about something I’ve done. Overall I really like blogging although sometimes my posts aren’t the best I enjoy writing them. So if you like writing and don't have a blog I suggest you sign up right now!

http://bookblogs.ning.com/group/bloggingtips

Hips Don't Lie... Part 2

So in my last post I started talking about the Shakira concert and as I said the opening act was Train and that part was very cool. Well, about one hour after they were done singing (that’s how long it took the stage crew and security to prepare) Shakira finally started. The first place we saw her was walking in front of the stage in a pink dress, the dress was beautiful, but it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting her to wear. And soon enough she got on stage and opened the dress to reveal a skirt and top that seemed to fit with the songs she was going to sing. At that point all the fans had broken pretty much all the rules the security guards had tried to put on, everyone was standing on the chairs, getting out of their places to get close, and the aisles were crowded. It turns out that Shakira didn’t only sing songs from her new album; in fact most of her songs were past hits that are still sometimes heard on radio stations. There were two things that weren’t unexpected, but still it was surprising to see live, one thing was her dancing. Somehow she managed to sing wonderfully and dance at the same time. The second thing I noticed is that she’s really pretty, even live. Most celebrities get their pictures edited to remove unwanted things before their pictures are put anywhere, but with Shakira it seems to be different. She looked exactly like we see her in magazines.

This is one of the pictures I took at the concert

I was amazed with the show overall, there was a great atmosphere the whole time and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves even the singers.  

Hips Don't Lie...

Sunday I went to the Shakira concert at a university here in Caracas with two friends. The show was supposed to start at 5 pm but obviously that wasn’t the case, she only got on stage at 10:30 pm. However, there were some artists presenting before her. First, as usual, there were two Venezuelan singers who sung about 5 or 6 songs each, I didn’t know any of them but some people behind us seemed to know them pretty well. After the stage crew had a chance to completely rearrange the stage the band Train got on as the official opening act of the show, and this time it was our turn to sing (well actually scream) along with the lead singer, Patrick Monahan. There was a lot of excitement while they sang, at one point the singer took out his blackberry to take a picture of the crowd, later on he threw shirts that had “Trainette” (female version of Train) written across it, then he asked 6 girls to join him on stage, he even threw a straw hat that he wore for one of the songs and when he sang Marry Me, he came down from the stage to sing to the girls in the audience, and everyone in the first few lines got to see him close up. Last but not least, on his way out of the stage Patrick signed his shirt and threw it into the crowd. Very deserving and after having sung along to most songs one of girls who went to the show with me caught it. After about 5 minutes of screaming we were able to show the shirt to our parents who were also super excited.

This is a picture I took at the concert 

This post was actually supposed to be about the Shakira part of the concert but clearly I got carried away and this is getting long so I’ll tell you about her in my next post! 

Imperatriz

http://www.metro.co.uk/showbiz/pictures/photos-10799/pictures-rio-mardi-gras-carnival-2011/38

In my last blog post I talked about my trip to Rio and the carnival I watched, but I also mentioned that I had participated in one of the schools parade. I had mentioned this idea to my parents but I didn’t know until two days before we went to Brazil that I was actually going to be in the parade. As a way to make some profit, most of the schools offer spots for tourists in the parts of the parade that have big groups of people. The people in the cars and in the sections with choreography have to be locals who have spent a relatively long time practicing and preparing. The people who pay for the costume like we did can just show up around 30 minutes before the show and participate by dancing or just walking. Two other people from the group we traveled with decided to come with us. We were going in the second school, Imperatriz, so while the first school, Sao Clemente, went by we got dressed, as soon as we were done we went to the concentracao which is where everyone lines up to go on. The time before the show was very exciting, everyone was getting their final touches on make-up, fixing costumes and some were practicing their moves. When we began walking in the sambodromo there were tons of fireworks and the whole crowd was shouting. At one point we passed by the other people we were travelling with and they took pictures and filmed us. In total we talked for about 40 minutes, even if we were tired none of us would have noticed because the excitement from being part of something so great and fun had made us forget about anything else.  

Rio 2011

This is a picture I took of Portela.

Three weeks ago I traveled to Brazil for three days for Carnival break, it may sound crazy but it was one of the most exciting trips I’ve ever gone on. My family and I went to Rio with another 14 people, among them there was a local comedian and a former actress both who would say jokes as often as they could. Although we went to a couple of the usual tourist locations, our main purpose was to go see the famous Rio carnival. In Brazil, more specifically in Rio and Sao Paulo carnival is probably equivalent to a weeklong 4^th of July. The most important event is the carnival school parades; basically there are 12 “schools” that spend the whole year making songs, costumes, and parade cars for their spectacle. Each school has an hour and thirty minutes to cross the sambodromo which is a long street with stands on both sides. When our group arrived at the sambodromo at 8 pm and soon the first school started passing by us. The most amazing thing was the overall feeling as we watched the parade, everyone passing by us was dancing and had the biggest smile on their face, and everyone in the stands was dancing and singing the song that went with the school presenting. We watched all the six schools that presented that night and I even participated in one but I’ll talk about that experience some other time. Everything was amazing and we only went back to the hotel at 6 am and it seemed like we could still hear the drums in our head. 

Survival

http://goo.gl/F1Z15 

In my English class we are reading Lord of the Flies (aka LOTF). In my opinion it's a very interesting book, we haven’t yet finished the book yet but I have great expectations for how this will end. I really hope the boys get rescued but it seems like the chances of that happening are very slim since Jack isn’t listening to Ralph. Well I’m not writing a summary about it here because we’ve talked about it enough in class. As I read the book I noticed that Ralph seems to be doing everything possible to get rescued or at least give the world a signal that they are there. I decided to look around the web to see it there is anything else they should be doing; I found 5 things that should be done in order to get rescued from a deserted island. The first one is finding water; humans can only live three to five days without the intake of fresh water. The second tip is to build a signal fire because without it no one will find you. The third step is building a shelter to protect you from rain, sun, wind, and simply to feel safe when you go to sleep. Fourth is finding food, although you can last a little longer without food it's important to eat and gain more energy. The last point is waiting. Rescue can take a long time so patience is probably the most important. If I were stuck in an island I would definitely rather be with Ralph because he seems to know how to get someone out of an island.

This is the website I found: http://purpleslinky.com/humor/life/castaway-five-top-tips-to-survive-on-a-deserted-island/

What Are You Now?

A few days ago I was sent a link to something quite interesting and I thought I should write about it. Apparently there is a new zodiac sign! This happens because of the Earth’s rotation and the alignment of the stars. So now a 13^th sign has been added. This new sign is called Ophiuchus and if you were born between Nov. 29^th and Dec 17^th then that should be your sign. The addition of this new astrological sign messed with the dates of all the other signs too so people that were Capricorn are all of a sudden Sagittarius. These are the new dates:

http://goo.gl/6uEzt 

Capricorn: Jan. 20 - Feb. 16
Aquarius: Feb. 16 - March 11
Pisces: March 11- April 18
Aries: April 18 - May 13
Taurus: May 13 - June 21
Gemini: June 21 - July 20
Cancer: July 20 - Aug. 10
Leo: Aug. 10 - Sept. 16
Virgo: Sept. 16 - Oct. 30
Libra: Oct. 30 - Nov. 23
Scorpio: Nov. 23 - Nov. 29
Ophiuchus: Nov. 29 - Dec. 17
Sagittarius: Dec. 17 - Jan. 2

Personally liked mine, I was Aquarius and my new one, Capricorn, isn’t me at all. So I plan on keeping my old zodiac sign as do many people I’ve talked to. If you also like the sign you have well, I’ve read in some places that these new horoscopes should only be applied to the people born after 2009. So unless there is a two year old reading this blog don’t worry about your star sign changing.

For more information visit: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/13/new-zodiac-sign-dates-oph_n_808567.html#s223863&title=kristin_leigh