Ysern ś Parrot March March, 2016.

HIDDEN PLACES IN MADRID

The Enchanted Forest

The Enchanted Forest is a botanical garden, unique to Europe located in Madrid where you can relax, enjoying the beauty and the magic of more than three hundred living sculptures of different sizes made by the best artists of Europe, and more than 500 plant species from around the world.

The Enchanted Forest is complemented by labyrinths, exhibitions of cacti, bonsai, aromatic plants, where children and adults can spend unforgettable hours in a magical place. In addition, there is a stream, and in one corner of the garden is one of the few natural waterfalls of Sierra Oeste, the Barbellido waterfall.

This space has been created with the intention of creating a new style of art.

The atmosphere especially is what attracts so many visitors. The natural and mysterious setting makes you forget where you really are. (Sergio Álvarez and Rubén Gallego – 1º Bach: A)

The next football World Cup

The World cup will be in Russia in 2018. It’s the twenty first edition of the world cup. Germany will defend the title of World champion. This event will take place between the 14th of June and the 15th of July. It’s the first opportunity that this country will organize the championship, and the first time in history that football’s world cup is held in a country in Eastern Europe.

In Russia, they have increased the security measures, because they are very worried about the lives of the fans. Also they have created 36 training camps.

In the World cup thirty-two teams participate and Russia will participate as the host country. The teams are divided into eight groups. Of each group two teams advance to the next round. Then we have the sixteen, in this round we have four groups with four teams, each will pass eight teams.

After we have the eighth round, from this phase, we will have matches between two teams, only one team advances.

We are in the final round of the championship, we only have eight teams, this round is called the fourth round, only four teams advance.

We are in the semifinals, two teams will advance. Finally we have the round that is the final. In this round only can win one team.

We hope that Spain win the title as in 2010. (Pablo Campos del Pozo – 1º Bach- B)

Useful and unknown inventions

THE PORTABLE FISHBOWL Do you think your fish is always bored being in the same place? Do you want to take it for a walk? If the answer is yes then with this portable fish bowl you can do it. You only have to carry it and enjoy your fish’s company.

THE TRANSPARENT TOASTER Are you fed up when every morning you burn your toast? You won’t ever have this problem again with this transparent toaster, the walls are made in a way you can see if your toast is ready or not.

THE SLIPPERS WITH LIGHTS Do you bump into the furniture every time you go to the bathroom at night? You don’t have to worry anymore; with these slippers with light you will see everything on your way to the bathroom. Feel safe with these marvellous slippers.

THE HAMBLIN GLASSES Have you ever wanted to read a book at night and you felt uncomfortable taking the book in your hands? The solution is these special glasses. You can read a book with them without eye fatigue.

(Laura Florindo and Chouaib El Farji – 1º Bach-A) Books to read

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . . .

Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.

This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Moral allegory and spiritual autobiography, The Little Prince is the most translated book in the French language. With a timeless charm it tells the story of a little boy who leaves the safety of his own tiny planet to travel the universe, learning the vagaries of adult behaviour through a series of extraordinary encounters. His personal odyssey culminates in a voyage to Earth and further adventures.

For more information about books: books-sweetladies.blogspot.com WHEN THE INFATUATION IS OVER

Valeria Pérez del Real – 2º Q

When the infatuation is over Love is a period of intense feelings that does not always last. Falling in love is a step in the relationship, certainly the first, but it is merely a stage in love, which is much more than that. The physiological response of love Apparently, a substance called phenylethylamine, which increases our energy, gives these changes when falling in love and produces more dopamine, a hormone for happiness or love. This substance is associated with pleasure and satisfaction, and its increase is what produces the sensation of euphoria typical to the early months of a relationship. These early partners are vital for maintaining the relationship. Infatuation stage changes the body's hormone production and completely alters our mood. Thus, just we are relating the great satisfaction and happiness, produced by chemical changes, with the person who produces them. Thus an intimate relationship and desire to continue with the other and maintain the couple is also created. Do we get used to love? Substances mentioned are diminishing over time because, basically, our body gets used to these substances. At first, being a new situation, the reaction to these hormones is very intense, but then it diminishes, even when the substances remain in the body. This usually occurs within two years, which is what many consider to be the end of the crush. Then the relationship changes and it seems that our body does not react with both the euphoria and those intense physiological reactions, but a search of safety and serenity alongside our partner. The problem arises with whether blindly believing in love should always continue, and that, if there are no such initial reactions during the following years, has the love has gone. Not really. Love does not disappear, it changes and adapts. And so must we.

The Pyramid of Keops

The Pyramid of Keops is the largest of the three pyramids of Giza plateau outside Cairo (Egypt), it is the only of the seven wonders of the ancient world that still stands.

It lies on the left bank of the Nile, and is the most northern. It is considered that the monument was built during the reign of Cheops or Koufou, kings of the Fourth Dynasty, between 3,000 and 2,500 B.C. It is assumed that Melchizedek and Enoch were the architects who drew up the plans. Due to its height of nearly 150 meters, and its base of more than five hectares, it is not comparable to any building erected by human hands, and even today architects and modern engineers are amazed to think of the means employed to accumulate such a mountain of stone.

Some believe that this, together with the other two pyramids served as tombs, others believe as temples, the fact is that the three great pyramids of Giza plateau are distributed over the desert in the same way as were the three stars of " belt "of the Orion constellation.

It is built in a way so their sides are oriented towards the four cardinal points, and so the reflections of the shadows show a chronometric accuracy of the essential points of the solar year, giving the precise dates of the spring and autumn equinoxes and the winter and summer solstices.

Herodotus says that one hundred thousand men worked for twenty years and ten years were used to build the road where the stones were dragged. This road is 925 meters long by 19 wide and 15 high, at its highest elevation are polished stones and is decorated with animal figures.

For centuries it retained a coating of bonded stones so it looked like it was a single block of stone from the base to the top.

(Jorge Alberto Pérez Gómez - 1º Bach: B) GRAMMYS 2016:

The 58º edition of the Grammys was held on the 15th of February. It was located in the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California.

The awards began with Taylor Swift’s performance of her new song “Out of the Woods” from her album 1998. She was one of the most nominated artists at the Grammys. She finally won for the category “album of the year”.

The Grammy for “best song” was given to Ed Sheeran for “Thinking Out Loud”, it was his first Grammy and he looked so thankful.

Meghan Trainor, who is known for “All About That Bass “ and “Lips are Movin”´, won “Artist of the Year”. When she went on stage to accept her award, she started crying, she didn’t expect it.

There were a lot of interesting performances, Justin Bieber sang “Love Yourself” from his new album: Purpose. In his performance, he appeared playing the guitar for the first time in concert.

One of the most controversial performances was Adele´s, she sang “All I Ask” but there was a lot of audio problems and it wasn´t a good performance, everyone was disappointed.

In short, the Grammys were full of excitement and good performances. What will happen in the next Grammys? We will see soon. (Helena Cobo Arévalo – 1º Bach- B)

E-SPORTS

“E-Sports” is a term that defines electronic sports, and is used to name video game competitions within a massive community, including sponsors, teams, and the organization of official or semi-official tournaments. Professional players compete against each other in videogames associated with electronic sports of real time strategy (RTS), fighting, and first person shooting…

EARLY HISTORY OF E-SPORTS

The earliest known video game competition took place on October 19th of 1972, at Stanford University for the game “Spacewar”. Stanford students were invited to an "Intergalactic Spacewar Olympics" whose grand prize was a year's subscription to Rolling Stone. The Space Invaders Championship held by Atari in 1980 was the earliest large scale video game competition, attracting more than 10,000 participants across the United States, establishing competitive gaming as a mainstream hobby.

In the summer of 1981, Walter Day founded a high score record keeping organization called Twin Galaxies. The organization went on to help promote video games and publicize its records through publications such as the Guinness Book of World Records, and in 1983 created the U.S. National Video Game Team.

During the 1970s and 1980s, video game players and tournaments began being featured in popular newspapers and magazines. One of the most well-known classic arcade game players is Billy Mitchell. Televised eSport events aired during this period including the American show “Starcade”, which ran between 1982 and 1984, airing a total of 133 episodes, on which contestants would attempt to beat each other's high scores on an arcade game. Tournaments were also featured as part of the plot of various films, including 1982's Tron.

COMPETITIVE GAMES

Among the most famous videogames in the competitive view are the LOL, GSO, COD and DOTA2: - (LOL): League of Legends is a fast-paced, competitive online game that blends the speed and intensity of an RTS with RPG elements. Two teams of powerful champions, each with a unique design and playstyle, battle head-to-head across multiple battlefields and game modes. Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CSGO): It is a shooting game in which there are two struggling teams of five players each, and one of them are terrorists and the other antiterrorists. This game is very strategic, in which each player before each game buys weapons depending on the role they have on their team. The original version of this game is the "father" of the shooters. -Call of Duty (COD): It is a series of games in first person (FPS). This game, of war, consists of the struggle of 4v4 teams, playing different game modes and different maps. The Call of Duty changes every year due to the fact that each season it is developed by a different company. - DOTA2: It is a multiplayer strategy game in real time, in which two teams of five players have the aim of destroying the rival structures while controlling characters called heroes. Here, you always play the same map.

E-SPORTS IN THE WORLD.

Nowadays , there are a lot of tournaments and this is what all players fight for, to go to one of the greatest tournaments of the videogame to which they dedicate many hours.

The biggest events are presential tournaments and are where a huge amount of money is shared, the main tournaments in the world are The Dreamhack and the World Cyber Games which monopolize the majority of videogames. The developers of these games create a world tournament, as can happen with traditional sports. For example, , creator of the League of Legends, has worldwide leagues, in Europe, America, Korea, Oceania, where you compete against the best teams of each of these regions with the objective of reaching the major tournament, the World Cup. This tournament usually has a prize that can surpass a million dollars, although the sponsorship is also important, like computer companies, for example BenQ or energy drinks companies, like Monster or .

Moreover they usually have a big audience, the platform where tournaments are broadcast in the West is called .tv, and this platform is a streaming platform which belongs to Amazon.com.

So you can see the number of people who usually see these tournaments, the final of League of Legends tournament or Counter Strike was seen by more than 1.000.000 people, not to mention there were also broadcasts on Youtube.com and multiple streaming platforms around the world.

Although not only presential competitions with huge prizes exist, we have the LANs too, a small competitions that are only national.

E-SPORTS IN SPAIN

In our country we have two big companies dealing with video games, these companies are La Liga de VideojuegosProfesional (LVP) and the Electronic Sport League (ESL) Spain division.

These companies cover almost every game, but the most famous game in Spain is LoL, both companies are engaged to broadcast all LoL competitions, leagues of each country , the World’s and tournaments during the year. Also LVP gives you the opportunity to get started in the competitive scene of different games like LoL, COD, HearthStone, CSGO and FIFA, although those who have the greatest impact in our country are the first two. LVP has the same format as LoL and COD, where you can play with other people or a team and advance to the professional league.

This league has 10 teams. Each season is divided into three parts (Sprints) where you have to play against all the other teams and the first eight will play in the Playoff where they can win points and medals.

The two top teams of the Ranking and the bottom two teams in the professional league will face each other, which will leave two teams left in the 1st division and two teams in the Ranking.

At the end of the three Sprints, the best teams (those who have earned most points during the season)will meet in a tournament which takes place at IFEMA, Madrid. This tournament, the highest in Spain, is called Gamergy. This live event is held twice each year, welcoming the scene in Spain and taking part in it are the best players and teams in the country. In this event, the last phase of the season in which the top eight teams in the country will face off for the win and a big cash prize.

Spain has been the cradle of great teams and gamers, mostly in LoL. We have spanish representation in the League Championship Series EUWest (LCS EUW), on one hand we have a team called who is one of the best organizations in our country, not only in LoL, and on the other hand we have who is a team funded by maybe the best spanish player ever, Enrique ‘’xPeke’’ Cerdeño. He set up the team after having an incredible 2014 and earning a lot of money. The team is made up of other spanish playesr, Alfonso ‘’ ’’ Aguirre, and the other 3 best players in the world. This 2015 Origen had a fantastic year, they rose from the bottom to the World’s accomplishing the 3rd position between the best teams in the World.

But we do not only have xPeke, we also have Carlos ‘’Ocelote’’ Rodriguez, Ocelote is also one of the best players in the game´s history, as a curiosity, Ocelote has his own model of Converse.

After a great career and earning 1M $ in one year, Ocelote has founded his own team, called Gamers2, but is not just a LoL team, he also has teams in CSGO, FIFA and in other videogames.

FUTURE OF e-SPORTS

It’s a fact that videogames are rising a lot, more and more companies are investing in this world, and not only companies, there also are professional teams who already have a LoL team, for example the Turkish team Besiktas or the basketball team Baskonia.

Probably in the not so distant future we will see other teams like Real Madrid or Barcelona betting for this kind of competitions, and who knows; maybe these competitions will be more famous than the traditional sports. (Sara Martín, David Martín and Jesús Bello – 2º Bach-A)

Days and radio programs in high school:

-Monday: Free day for volunteers to participate. -Tuesday: Day for gossip and news. -Wednesday: Midweek, two guys deliver news from around the world. -Thursday: On this day which is close to the weekend two guys tell us all the sports news, minute by minute. -Friday: On this last day of the week, they bring us major studies of current music and tell us a little about each song that sounded at recess. I hope you like our radio programs! Bye! (Daniele Ricciardi – 4 B)

The Royal Spanish Academy

In 1713, The Royal Spanish Academy was created by Juan Manuel Fernandez Pacheco, eighth marquis of Villena, he was the first director of this institution. In the beginning of its creation, it was only a small group of intellectuals but with the passage of time, a lot of important people have been part of The Academy like Benito Perez Galdos, Antonio Machado, and Mario Vargas Llosa.

Presently, The Royal Spanish Academy is located in Madrid, on The Academy street, near the Prado museum and The Royal Palace hotel. Last October, some groups of people had the opportunity to visit the different rooms of this historic building, like Damaso Alonso Library or the Assembly Hall where they have meetings every Thursday at seven o'clock, it is a historic ritual that they have done since the creation of The Academy, 300 years ago. I was part of one of these groups; it was a fantastic experience because not everyone can visit because it is a place where all academics are working during the week. (Jesús Benito Sánchez – 2º Bachillerato)

THE ORIGIN OF THE ARABIC HENNA. Many times we have seen several tattoos done in henna, which have the great advantage of disappearing after about 15 days. The origin of this ink and its first uses are very interesting. Lahenna is the Arabic name for the bush whose botanical name is Lawsonia Inermis. Its medicinal property is, curiously, lower than the temperature of the human body. That's why the custom in the Arab world was to use this shrub just to cool off. In the desert it was common to crush the plant until a thick paste was placed on your hands and feet to be keep yourself at a low temperature. In doing so, they realized that henna would dye skin and would not go away for a long period. That was how they discovered that they could use this for decorative purposes. (Salima Farssioui – 1º Bachillerato-B

Dear students