Spring - Edition 30

NEWSPAPER EDITORS: JOÃO SÁ & SOFIA SUMMAVIELLE 12TH L

WHY SHOULD STUDENTS CHOOSE ENGLISH IN THE 12TH GRADE?

ARE EXAMS USEFUL?

THE IMPORTANCE OF ENGLISH EDUCATION IN PORTUGAL

TEENAGERS – MUSIC – POEMS – DISORDERS - LIFESTYLE

ANXIETY DISORDERS

LOLITA

REFUGEES AND THE WORLD

400TH DEATH ANNIVERSARY OF SHAKESPEARE

01

HAPPY 30TH ANNIVERSARY SPRING! Besides being the 30th anniversary of Spring, it is also an honour for the 12ºL to be responsible by putting together this incredible newspaper, full of works and articles written by us, the students.

It’s a pleasure to be a part of such an amazing project, where we can express our believes, our opinions, our pieces of advice, and mostly, how the English community is growing and developing.

Here you will find a variety of topics that will certainly help you in some way, even if it is just for fun. It was amazing the amount of emails that we received, filled with beautifully written pieces.

Lastly, thank you all so much for participating, and of course, a bigger thank you, filled with appreciation and respect , to our beloved teacher, Márcia Ribeiro, for always supporting our ideas and being 100% in with this project.

We hope you enjoy reading Spring as much as we did while making it!

CLASS 12º L , 2016

THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS INDISPENSABLE THESE DAYS English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early Medieval England and is now the most widely used language in the world.

The English language is indispensable these days due to globalisation, which makes it essential. It is one of the official languages in the European Union, and it is the official language in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand and even in the Caribbean islands. It is also the third most spoken language in the world after Mandarin and Spanish.

In today’s global world the importance of English cannot be denied nor ignored. English has been playing major role in many areas including Medicine, Engineering and Education, where it is most needed.

The intensification of the interaction process among countries, people and cultures made the understanding of English a valuable benefit.

Learning English can be challenging and a way to enjoy life. We can see that it is also very valuable to learn as it can crea te many job opportunities.

In the old times, to speak English was a privilege of a few, nowadays it is mandatory for many.

Being able to speak English fluently can be a keystone to success in the business world. It’s an essential attribute to conquer in a world in constant globalisation, it’s the opportunity to be one step ahead, and it’s an open door to a universe in progress. English has emerged as the global language of trade and commerce.

Many of the world’s top films, books and music are published and produced in English. After you start learning English you’ll have access to a whole new world of entertainment and acquire great cultural understanding. Not to mention that in general the most popular language around the world is English.

In conclusion, English is truly important in our lives. It is a vital tool. It even makes us more confident and able to speak our minds to all kinds of people.

We should take pride in learning English.

Rafaela Costa, 12º P

02

WHY SHOULD STUDENTS CHOOSE ENGLISH IN THE 12TH GRADE? After the 11th grade English stops being mandatory and we can choose if we want to go on studying English or choose another subject.

There are people who choose what they think is the easiest, just to help them with marks, and that’s why they choose English or they do it just because they like the teacher or the subject, but do you ever stop and think on the advantages that English can bring to us? If we continue to study English in the 12th grade , it will become easier for us to understand and speak the language.

We will find it easier to communicate in other countries, because it is a global language.

These days is increasingly difficult to follow what we want, to follow our dreams, and the situation in which our country is, just makes it more difficult.

Some people spend years studying to be what they always dreamed of and end to be something totally different, even if they don’t like it, they just want to work so that they can live with no difficulties.

We have to follow our dreams and if we can’t do this in our country we have to do it abroad, we have to live, and English will help us in our life abroad, sometimes we need it to follow our dreams and to be what we always wanted.

Maria Santos , 10ºG

Nowadays, we are surrounded by the English language. Understanding it gets more and more important in our daily life!

In my opinion, it is important that students choose English in the 12th grade, because many of the most famous movies or songs are written in English, speaking English is a tremendous asset for anyone’s professional career and also for the fact that someday we may be able to visit the 45 countries where English is the official language. Furthermore, the English language is not hard to learn, compared to many other foreign languages such as: Chinese, Russian, and so on.

On the other hand, there are those students who do not intend to leave our country and prefer not to follow their studies with English. Furthermore, some students have no interest or think they have no reason to learn English as they do not reach positive results and are unmotivated.

To sum up, everyone should know at least the basics and begin to consider learning more since the English language is very present in our daily routine; not to mention it would be easier to understand and socialize with people from abroad!

Débora Santos, 10ºK

03

THE IMPORTANCE OF ENGLISH In this text I mean to explain and to describe the different ways to learn English. There are many interesting ways to understand or to know more about English. Socially, I think that English is the most beautiful language in the world. Nowadays, it is very useful for us because it is an official language, so we can use it to talk with different people around the world.

First of all, some of the amazing ways to learn English are: watching English films in the original version due to the fact that while we are watching it and reading the subtitles, our brain memorizes them, so in that way we understand English. Reading books, magazines or newspapers in English (which is the best way to learn English), so in that way we know more about the grammar and the structure of English. In addition, listening to music or podcasts in English is also a great way to learn it due to the fact that we understand the pronunciation of many words easily.

Second of all, travelling to English speaking countries is an excellent way to communicate better in English with other people and become conscious of their fascinating culture. Furthermore, using the Internet for information, email, chat or social networking is very important for us because we use it more and almost everyone has access to it, so we will improve our knowledge about English and we will apply this spectacular language in many situations without problems.

To sum up, I believe that reading books, magazines or newspapers in English is the most perfect way to learn this foreign language because that way I can understand the language structure better and add vocabulary more efficiently.

Rui Filipe Costa, 10ºG

THE TOP 4 DIFFERENT WAYS OF LEARNING ENGLISH In this article I'm going to write about what I think are the Top four different ways of learning English.

The first way is watching English films in the original version, because it improves our way of listening to English and learning new words or different expressions.

The second way is listening to music and podcasts in English, because the English songs are the best in the world.

The third way is travelling to attend English summer courses abroad , because besides being super awesome, it improves our cultural knowledge.

The fourth way is using the Internet for information, email, chat and social networks, because it allows us to learn a lot as English is the most spoken language in the world.

In my opinion the best way to learn English of them all is the third one because besides being the most fun it is the one that allows us to improve our knowledge.

André Soares nº5 10ºG

04

‘’ ENGLISH IS IN A WAY…’’ English is in a way phylosophy because it teaches all kinds of things that make us think and grow as people. We learn about forms of life, for example alternative lyfestyles (the slow life movement, going green, going vegan or minimalists), about the environment (such as ways of trying to save our planet), to question consumerism and it also allows us to debate and talk about our favorite themes like people we admire. So, English is not only a global language but also a global subject.

Francisco Melo, 11ºC

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PROFESSIONAL COURSES

Hello!

Our names are Luis and Pedro. We are students and we are attending the professional course Técnico de Gestão e Programação de Sistemas Informáticos.

By writing this text, we would like to share some of our concerns and visions about this kind of experience. We are going to talk about what we do as well as about what we wish we could do and why you should consider joining a course like this.

Joining a professional course can bring a lot of experience that will be useful one day when you go out into the real world outside school. It helps you find jobs in the area you choose more easily because you are being trained for that specific area and for a particular purpose.

Don’t get the wrong idea, because people often think that joining one of these courses means you aren't qualified enough to join a harder one... Totally wrong and mistaken! We consider ourselves good students... We know, because we are living the experience, that a Professional Course often provides you with knowledge you can use to work immediately after school. But you can also do exams and be ready to go to university. It's only up to you!

By attending one of these courses you are specializing in an area. We know that most of us won't become real and skilled experts... but you can be a good professional ready to learn a lot... All classes will be related, mostly, to the area you choose and will focus on preparing you for the future. And that's good!

To us the course felt weird at first because we had no idea of what we were going to learn and we had terrible schedules. A month later or so we were used to the situation and we liked what we were doing a lot more. After having been working for a year, we still have a terrible schedule but we feel like days go by fast as we do what we like and learn more things that will be useful for our future.

In conclusion, Professional Courses might not be in your list or you might think they're not the best choice but they can be a very useful way to specialize in a professional area and make a living out of the education and skills you receive from them.

Luís Pedro Fernandes Sousa Nº15 11ºN Pedro Manuel Bastos Ferreira Nº23 11ºN

05

WORK OR UNIVERSITY ?

As Steve jobs said we need to “stay hungry, stay foolish”, and he is totally right. In life we need to think in what we want to be and not what the others want you to be.

So today I’m going to start with the world of work and I will talk about the example of Bill Gates. Do you know why? Because he is someone that never gives up and, for instance, he works 7 days a week and 24 hours a day.

This brings us back to Steve Jobs´ sentence “Stay hungry” and he couldn’t be more right because if you expect to be someone in life you need to work a lot and never leave the work you can do today for the next day.

Therefore, this leads us to the rest of the sentence “Stay foolish” and, in my opinion, this is the most important part because in society there are people that will always want to bring you down and others that will tell you what to do; however, you should always follow your instinct and listen only to yourself.

To sum up you should be independent and not rely on others.

To finish I want to remember you that we´re the ones to decide what to do in life and not the others, so it depends on you to make the choice and don’t forget to follow your dreams always and never rest until you do it.

Pedro Alves , 11º E

We, teens, are in an important part of our life, at this age we need to make great decisions. One of the most common and important questions falls back on what we want to do after high school: Work or study? That´s the question… Many teenagers have been thinking about it for a couple of years, which seems legitimate to my eyes, however, we can see that a huge part of people at our age just wait until the last moment to decide! And for this reason we see many “students” dropping out college, and others unhappy with their current job, and why? The answer is simple… Our future needs to be planned with time, not in a few hours!!

Today, at my English class we debated during ninety minutes about our future, and to be honest, it was interesting and enriching to know the others´ opinion at the same time.

Firstly, I would like to say that a big part of the class agreed with me, when I said university is the best option to make for people who have higher expectation for their lives and want to work in an area they enjoy. In my point of view, an employer, in normal conditions, would prefer an employee with a degree instead of one without it.

Secondly, and for me the better argument I could give, our age. When we go to university and we get our graduation, master degree, PhD, some years have passed and we will become more mature, independent, have our own ideas, contrasting to those who decide to go immediately to the world of work.

On the other hand, there were my colleagues who want to finish secondary and go and find a job. One of the reasons my friends gave was the economic situation of their families, since they´re passing through difficulties they can´t afford the tuition fee, and when they touch that point my sensitivity woke up… There are so many talents around the world, and unfortunately, due to financial problems they have to stop studying; it´s a pity.

The next topic is insane, I know, but it´s veracious and I’ve never thought about it… There are many people, such as Steve Jobs, who have big industries and companies and don´t even have a graduation. It´s crazy and my suggestion, for those who have great ideas or plans in mind and don´t want to “waste” five precious years of your life in university, is to risk everything and expose your job/talent to public eyes. If you never try, you´ll never know.

During our class I could see a lot of divergent points of view. It’s a decision that only depends on you; it´s your future at stake.

To sum up, people have different perspectives about their lives, and the essential thing is never to give up, always give your best and put dedication and effort in everything you do!!

RISK, you only live once!!!

Vítor Hugo Gonçalves, 11ºE

06 There are different stages in our life. One of these stages is student days. Student life is considered as the most important period of our life. Our future dreams, desires and hopes depend upon it. The other stage is when we go to work. Going to work gives us the money that we need for our things. However, we have difficulties when we are choosing between them.

We think: should I go to university or work?

It’s a big question most of us don’t know the answer to.

But I should say that it is very important to take a degree. Firstly, because you will never have the same chances of finding work if you don’t go to university. Secondly, because studies make our minds more prepared for the outside world. And finally because we will meet new people and improve our CV. In contrast, working can give us a lot of experience that, when we are reading a book, we can’t learn. Steve jobs defended this perspective “I’m not dismissing the value of higher education; I’m simply saying it comes at the expense of experience”.

Furthermore, when we finish college and we start working, we are gaining time, this means, the others will have a degree but, probably, when they finish their course, you already have a house, maybe a car and sometimes you are married.

These are just some of the differences between studying and working.

To conclude, we must take a deep breath and think a lot about it because we are choosing our future and the future of our children. And like Eleanor Roosevelt says “the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”.

Diana Mendes, 11ºD

When we are young, we don’t care about how our future will be or what we will do tomorrow. But what we always forget is that it’s in childhood that we find our bases to our future. But when we grow up, when we start to have conscience of life, we have to make our first decisions and develop our independence.

One of the most important choices of life is, definitely, when we finish high school and we have to choose what we will do: we can keep studying and go to university, get a job to earn some money or take a Gap Year to improve our skills and help us to choose what we want.

In my case, maybe I will go to university, because losing a year to work or to take a Gap Year is a waste of time. Those who have an idea of what they want to do, like me, should go to university and keep studying to get a better job, instead of wasting one year.

However, there are some people who like to travel abroad, to develop their skills and improve their knowledge to help them later on if they go to university. This kind of people, commonly, takes a Gap Year. On the other hand, we have those who don’t want to keep studying and prefer to get a job and earn some money.

To sum up, when high school finishes, everyone has to decide what he/she will do, and each person has to choose according to their vocations.

Eduardo Fernandes, 11ºE

Nowadays teenagers have a big question when they finish high school that is: "Should I go to university or should I start working right now?” This is one of the most important choices and one of the most expensive we make in our lives because our future depends on it.

On one hand, going to university gives us the opportunity to get a job easier because companies favor those who have a degree.

Moreover, there are a lot of jobs that require a graduation diploma, for example, if you want to be an engineer or a doctor, you have to study at university. It is also important to know that most of the jobs that require a degree are usually the best paid.

On the other hand, if you want to earn money as soon as possible, you should start working. Another reason that can make you choose to work instead of going to university is that you will never have to study again. So the lazy ones have the idea that if they are working, they will never have to study hard and this is true. However, in their work they'll have to strive as well or they will be fired.

In my opinion we must only go to university in order to have a degree that allows us to work in our dream job. So, if you are only thinking about going to college because your parents want you to, or if you are more interested in partying than in studying, I advise you not to go.

To conclude, I think students like us should make their choices taking into account their motivations and their plans for the future.

Fortunately, there are career options for you whether or not you want to continue your education.

Fábio Gonçalves, 11ºE

07 If surviving high school is already a difficult task, imagine deciding what you want to do after it. When we finish the 12th grade we are faced with a problem: start working or continue to study? Have a Degree or not? Which area to choose? And where? The pre-university stage seems to give you a knot in the brain and you are the one who has to untie it.

I am in the 11th grade, and this subject is something we all should start thinking about. I am determined to follow a university degree, related to health, which is something that always caught my attention; I find it very interesting.

Many people don't want to continue studying and use as an argument the fact that sometimes people can't get a job after so much effort, time and money invested or that the degree didn't teach us the important things in life and what we really needed to know, which is sometimes actually true. On the one hand, they are right! But I still support that “knowledge is power", therefore I think it's the best way to be successful and to have a good life. There are difficulties, but if we don't attend university, life will be even harder. Although we can wait six months for the perfect job with a degree in our hand, working as a supermarket cashier, nothing tells us that someday we won't be lucky enough to have the job we want. We just have to try to be the best in what we like so that we can have more chances in life.

Continuing to study certainly implies spending money and many families don't have the financial possibilities. Furthermore, after finishing high school teens are often forced to go to work, which I find very unfair and revolting. There are scholarships that can help those families, but sometimes those scholarships are not enough, because attending college is very expensive.

Another frequently mentioned issue is "stopping a year to improve grades or the school results". I think this is a sign that more and more young people fight for what they really want and have goals, which it is good. It is obvious that students must focus on that gap year, as it is usually called; it's like a last chance and, perhaps, that year of experience may help you decide what really matters for the future and, more importantly, what you really want to do!

Finally, I think that all professions should be respected and we shouldn't give value only to the "higher education". Therefore, what is important is the fact that what we do for living is something that we feel passionate about in order to feel fulfilled.

Bia Peixoto, 11ºE

ARE EXAMS USEFUL ?

For over 12 years of our life we have had to sacrifice hours upon hours of our days to study for (an) incoming exam(s) and to quote what many students, myself included, thought “Are exams useful?”, “why do we have to spend so much time with exams? They just stress us out.”, “there has got to be a better way than an exam. “ To answer the questions we shall look upon the opinions of a student and a teacher from separate high schools.

Zack Lint, an 18-year-old computer engineering student, voiced his opinion about exams: “Well, I, personally, don’t think exams are the best way, I mean there needs to be a way to evaluate students and exams are the most useful and efficient way… except for us students. They give us immense amounts of stress and have a far too great weight on our evaluation, particularly in math, where it is worth over 80% of our term’s grade.” An interesting point of view, mainly because it is a student that doesn’t downright reply with contempt and rage at the mere mention of exams and thinks they are useful to a certain point.

Dante Silver, a 38-year-old human anatomy teacher, replied the expected answer for a teacher: “Yes, exams are useful. If there were no exams, youngsters wouldn’t study at all, and then their lives would be upside down in a matter of minutes in the career world.

Exams are not given the credit they deserve when it comes to studying, in fact, these evaluation factors are the main reason students study, they might say “No I would still study, even if there were no exams” and both they and their teachers know that it is one big and fat lie.”

With these opinions we can conclude that, yes, exams are useful; perhaps they are not the best way to evaluate a student, but they are what motivates them to study and therefore they are needed. Once you students out there become adults with actual careers you will see just how important exams are.

João Alexandre Carvalho, 11º F

08

SHOULD EXAMS REALLY EXIST ?

Exams are part of our educational lives and our future depends on them. Nowadays, if we want to be accepted in any university, it is almost essential not only to pass the final exams, but also to have a wonderful grade on them.

It is almost impossible not to think that exams count 50% in our grade to enter into university and that is what most annoys the students. They argue that they make an effort to have good grades during the three years of secondary school and, in some cases, by bad luck, all that effort is going down the drain because they didn’t achieve the grade they wanted in the exams.

However, exams are a great method to evaluate the students and see if they have the topics they studied during 10th, 11th and 12th grades present in their minds. It is also a way to prepare them for the pressure they will face during university.

In conclusion, I must say that I am in favor of having exams because it is a method of external evaluation that exists for a very long time, but I am against their 50% weight in the final grade of the students. In my opinion, they should have a lower weight.

Mariana Silva, 11º D

TESTING THE MORE THAN KNOWN 

SELECTIVE TEACHING

According to law, everyone from the six to eighteen years old has to pass through this obligatory ritual called education. This includes going to a school with other people from about the same age in order to attend a class. A teacher's work is to pass information, which is said to be useful in some way in our lives, to the student.

While it seems nice and simple every teacher has the enormous fear of their student failing in the exam. So, in order to avoid this, teachers decide to teach students to how to pass an exam instead of teaching kind of useful stuff.



Hunting Mistakes

But what is an exam? It's simple as it is: a sheet of paper with several questions of different types, all about the things we should have learnt in class.

However, instead of this being a way of evaluating the knowledge it's actually an error hunting mechanism. Teachers don't want to know what students learned but what they didn't. The most perfected knowledge evaluation method!

As we pass throughout the classes, leaving our opinions and reflections, which were created in the classrooms, in the same notebooks where we registered everything we should know, we realise it's all been a waste of thinking because when the bell rings to sign the start of a class where is a test going on, nobody stays indifferent, the moment has come and all our work over the classes was put under a test, in order to be converted to a number that will decide how much you are worth in this society.

Hugo Manuel Cunha, 11°E

09 07

THE PORTUGUESE EDUCATION SYSTEM The Portuguese Education System has a lot of characteristics that I would like to change, since it is our future in their hands.

I don’t agree with the choice that we have to make when we enter the Secondary School. For example, we shouldn’t be choosing courses with defined classes. What if we want to have History and Biology together? What if we want all the languages that we could possibly have but no History? We should have the opportunity to choose what we really want to follow and study, even in the years 10th to 12th.

For example, I want to follow Applied Languages and I do have some classes that are needed but if I didn’t had Philosophy during my first two years of high school my final grade could have been so much higher. Can you see the impact that it has on my future?

Another issue is definitely the amount of time spent in school and the number of students per class.

I do know that the 12th grade schedule is one of the best, since we mostly only have school in the morning, which means that we have all afternoon and night time to study and do homework, but what if we have extracurricular activities? What if we have a sport or a gym to go to? What if we want to rest for a while? And it’s even worse in the other grades, where most of them start at 8.30am and leave at 6.30 pm. That’s ridiculous and completely absurd.

How can teachers give classes and pay attention to every single student if the class is packed with 30 students or more? How can teachers be motivated when students aren’t?

By no means am I saying that we can’t study and that’s why some of us, students, are rude or complicated to deal with and have bad grades, because we do have time to do it, but literally only for that.

We want to have fun and feel relaxed, not stressed and tired. How can we sleep 8 hours or more a day when most of the time we are still doing homework and studying at night time and have to wake up way too early for class?

These are some of the examples that I really don’t agree with, and I didn’t even start with the ones referring to the teachers.

Imagine how long it would take me to write that!

Sofia Summavielle, 12º L

EDUCATION IN PORTUGAL Portugal is a very small European country. However, it is always trying to equalize the other European countries. Because of that, this nation has applied several rules in education. In my opinion, some of them should not exist.

First and foremost, students should have the chance of choosing if they want to continue studying or not in the tenth grade. Like that, classes would be much more productive once those who didn’t want to study wouldn’t disturb the ones who were interested in it.

Furthermore, schools should have better conditions. I believe that if people studied in better equipped schools and with more sophisticated technology for students to use, they would become much more interested in school, and probably in studying. This happens due to the increasing dependence of today’s teenagers on high technology.

Some people may claim that school is not a place to have fun but to study, but for me, it is not only a place to have fun, but also to talk with friends and meet new people. In consequence of this, we become happier, and then, more concentrated.

In conclusion, education in Portugal should suffer a few changes so students become more interested. This way, they would also get better grades.

André Silva, 12º F

10

TEENAGERS AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES Teenagers have a tendency to be always surrounded by new technologies. Actually, sometimes this is so strong that the fun becomes an addiction.

Nowadays, teens don’t leave home without their cell phones. A few years ago mobile phones were only used to communicate through calls or messages. But nowadays, they are used in many other ways like playing games, listening to music, surfing on the Internet or social networking. In the old days, people only did that with proper equipment like playstations, radio, television or PCs. Also, with these new technologies, people, especially teenagers, are getting more and more addicted to games and social networks and spend endless hours on cell phones and computers. Some of them don’t even leave home and this affects their social lives, their relationship with their parents, their ability to communicate face to face, their studies and even their body. Teenagers can have serious both brain and eyes’ damage for life. In most cases, teenagers don’t realize that they are addicted and when they and people around them understand that it’s already too late.

Technologies are not bad. Actually, technologies are very good and help us in many ways by making our lives easier, furthermore, they are becoming more and more global. However, we need to have control in ourselves to avoid these and further problems while having fun at the same time.

Ana Margarida Soares, 10º G

TECHNOLOGY “It became shockingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”

Technology has become a very important part of our lives. During the past few years, technology has evolved in many ways, but despite having many good things it also has some dangers.

Humankind has been, anywhere in the world, overwhelmed by technology. Our generation has been consumed by new technologies.

Every day, new electronic devices are built in order to facilitate our lives, but what teens nowadays don’t understand is that instead of facilitating our lives we are becoming sedentary beings.

The first thing we do when we wake up is to check our social networks. At this moment, our whole life revolves around one device: the mobile phone. We are able to talk through messages with a person who is next to us just so we don’t call for her. We no longer play the games we used to when we were kids. Today the first gift a child gets is an electronic device.

What happened to the board games we received and we played as a family? What happened to socializing during family dinners?

Technology has become an essential good for the human being, which is a worrying situation! In the future, technology will have already replaced everything that used to be commonplace. All around us will be controlled by a cell phone or another electronic device. But there’s one entity that should never be replaced or absolutely controlled by technology in any way: People! We are so interested and so connected to our mobile phones that we forget how good and pleasurable can it be to have a face-to-face conversation, a date… for people just to be themselves. The future of technology threatens to destroy all that is human in people.

It´s time we lived our lives as teenagers, make mistakes and live intensely every moment we experience, but this will only be possible if we leave all that technology behind(specially cell phones) and start to value what really matters!

Bruno Gomes & Mariana Costa, 10ºK

11

VIRTUAL REALITY Virtual reality is an expression that is becoming more and more common nowadays, but what does this expression really mean? Well, virtual reality is part of the new technology that is being developed at the moment, and has the objective of creating new virtual environments really similar to the real life. This new technology is on the edge of being capable of reproducing anything you want into a screen.

Virtual reality has different applications which is being developed on, but the bigger one is videogames. This technology applied on this area has been back and forward trying to look for the perfect balance between reality and fiction, and some companies have invested large amounts of money so that they could get to the market with the best product and the best price, but a war has already been set up to see who should be on the top.

The research dug into this technology is already so deep, but researchers think that we have just searched a little surface, and plans to coordinate virtual reality and our movement are already drawn. This will allow us for example to replace that same character in that videogame for ourselves, which can be really awesome, but scary at some points.

The advantages of increasing our range in the area of virtual reality are many, for example bringing “life” to videogames, which will allow anyone to have a brand new experience in the area of gaming. This allows making incredible landscapes, and bringing into a screen a whole new world we have never imagined.

But these advances aren´t perfect and, like everything, they have disadvantages. This will encourage people to leave their homes less often, which brings in the problem of obesity, and several more health problems. Another disadvantage is that diversion can turn into addiction, and mental health issues can be provoked really easily, furthermore, they can be really hard to treat. Not to mention the money problem, because this technology is really expensive, and it is going to be hard to make it reach a large amount of consumers.

But the thing is, it is being developed, and we just got to wait to see in what way it will interfere with our lives.

Vasco Mota, 10ºG

THE VINYL INDUSTRY It is true that music is one of the most popular activities amongst teens and even adults in general. And now with the rise of vinyl it has gotten even bigger.

Forbes magazine announced that in 2014 sales of CDs have dropped 13% while LPs sales have increased over 50% since 2013.

This might point to the comeback of vinyl again since the late 80s. The perks of a vinyl record is that if you have a good turntable sounds even better than MP3.

If record sales continue to grow as they are right now we might be on the verge of a musical revolution.

Ana Vale 11ºC António Pedro Dantas 11ºC

12

ENGLISH AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE In our opinion, English will be the only language spoken all over the world in the future.

Why? Because nowadays it seems that children learn this language from their mom’s womb!

It does have advantages, but it also has disadvantages… First of all, there are doctors from all around the world who can communicate with each other while using one language and then there are less misunderstandings which, of course, in medicine could be fatal; People from all around the world can communicate easier because they share a common language; the media can broadcast the most recent news from all over the world. However, one disadvantage, which is often mentioned in this context, is the fact that many languages have died because of the spread of English; many are still in the process of losing a large number of speakers and are guaranteed to be doomed in the near future.

All in all, we’re happy that our children will speak this wonderful language as their first language and I’m sure that we will learn a lot from them when they attend school.

However, we wish that they could also be able to speak French and Portuguese as they are our two mother tongues. It’s important for a person’s identity to remember their origins, and language is a very essential part of it. Are people whose languages are being lost because of the dominance of the English language losing their identities then? Probably!

Cátia Moura and Émilie Marques, 12ºL

THE NIGHT’S BEAUTY We have all noticed that with night comes a darker tone to our surroundings, a sort of warning to turn on the lights as the Moon is about to take the Sun´s place for a while. Most people disregard this change, as they should, coming from beings who have years into their life and dealing with this same change on a daily basis, but , what if we , by doing so, we´re actually missing out on one of nature´s most awe-inspiring beauties?

With the moon, comes darkness. That much we know. But what does the darkness bring beyond the feeling of fear and dread? Simply put, it brings a sky full of shining and shimmering twinkles of white and yellow colours.

For eons people have seen the stars which pop out in the horizon, and seen their fate´s, their futures, and, a sense of calm in knowing that, although we may have problems to overcome, they are still tiny compared to the rest of the universe.

It truly is magnificent how such a grim time of the day can bring about the best in that which lies far, far away from our reach.

Bruno Summavielle, 12º F

13 12

EMPLOYMENT PROSPECTS FOR YOUNG PEOPLE IN MY AREA 2. INTRODUCTION The desire of this report is to analyze the employment prospects in my residence area for people whose age is 20 years or so. Furthermore, this report will include the challenges you may find when searching for the perfect job for you, future development businesses and tips to help you get in the employment market.

3. HOW TO FIND A JOB IN ALTO AVE AREA Alto Ave is a territorial area between Vizela, Guimarães, Fafe and Terras de Basto. In the past, this was an area known by its very recognizable textile companies. With the economic crisis lived in Portugal, most of those companies bankrupted and closed their doors. As a consequence, nowadays only 70% of those companies are active, which make things very difficult in terms of job prospects. Nevertheless, with one of the Minho University’s headquarters installed in Guimarães, it is expectable to have some of the best engineering and technological companies installed in our area in a near future. Another option is to pray by an “Interior Development Subsidy” from the government… which is not expectable, though!

4. EMPLOYMENT TIPS As expectable it is tremendously difficult to find a job in Portugal. When referring to small populations like Alto Ave, things get even worse. But one thing is viable: “The best ones always achieve what they want!”. To be honest, this is the motto you must follow every day. Don’t expect for any relief in the future, try always to give your best in order to show that you deserve the best job in your area. Give your best to enrich your curriculum… An experienced employee is a very strong arm for any company, and your bosses will appreciate that!

1. CONCLUSION 5. ALTERNATIVES YOU MAY CONSIDER Unfortunately, it is not with surprise that I find highly qualified people working in supermarkets. With this stagnant economic situation, it is very likely that employment will decrease in Alto Minho in the future. You should consider visiting Oporto and Lisbon metropolitan areas to find the perfect job for you. If that is not enough, buy an airplane ticket and follow your dreams abroad…

As long as employment prospects continue to decrease in Portugal, it will be very difficult to work here.

Only a substantial investment will change this situation…

Who knows if you are not going to be the next major investor in Alto Ave area?

Luís Fernandes,11ºC

14

MY SPEECH It is necessary to remember that the past is in your head, the future in your hands. This should be our motto of life.

Right now my life is a real chaos consequently I identify myself with Fernando Pessoa´s words: “I live in the present.

The future, I don’t know it.

The past, I no longer have it.”

I have no time even to sleep; it is the job, the studies, football, the girls… My days are very busy; any day I won’t have time to live. All this because I study all week to get good grades at school, I work on Saturdays to earn a little money and other have other things like football to relax.

What I want for the future?

It is a question which I can’t answer because sometimes I think of giving up the studies and take the opportunity I have to start working full time, other times I think of studying to get a better job.

First of all, I plan to finish the secondary education the problem is later. Should I continue to study for a course? Or should I leave studies and go to work immediately?

Secondly, I plan to have a job that I like. And I don’t need to earn fortunes, I just want to be happy because life is short.

If I continue with studies, I want to be an engineer of new technologies or renewable energies.

Nevertheless, my desire is to leave school and start working as soon as possible.

I have guaranteed employment in a hairdressing salon, and this profession, fascinates me. Hairdresser is a good job and I like it and the times we live in are not easy to get a job, but at the same time I don’t want to disappoint my parents.

It is due to the different opportunities I have, that it is so difficult to choose. For now I will continue with this busy life.

To conclude, I will let it all happen naturally and wait for the future to arrive. Don’t forget the future is in your hands so do the best for you. Build your future, but first live in the present.

Óscar Pereira, 11º E

15

400TH DEATH ANNIVERSARY OF

shakespeare

William Shakespeare was born on 23rd April 1564 and died on 23rd April 1616 at the age of 56 years old.

Shakespeare was married to Anne Hathaway and had three children. He was an English writer and poet.

He has written more than thirty eight plays and one hundred and fifty eight poems.

His main works are Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, King Lear and Macbeth.

Nowadays Shakespeare is known as the “Father of Theatre”

João Sá , 12ºL

16

WHAT IS THE TRUTH ABOUT SHAKESPEARE? Shakespeare is known by his amazing ability to write. He is a monumental personality of history. But some other people think differently.

They question themselves about the art of the amazing Shakespeare… are they right?

The theory of conspiracy is wide, they say that he may have been paid to assume literary skills from some anonymous. For them the lack of evidence is a very good reason to believe that he is not real.

Authorship doubts believe that the author of Shakespeare’s works manifest a higher education, displaying knowledge of contemporary science, medicine, astronomy, rhetoric, music and foreign languages. Moreover, they assert that there is no evidence that Shakespeare ever attained such education.

In addition, the writer of the Shakespeare canon exhibited a very classy vocabulary, variously calculated, according to different criteria, as ranging between 17,500 to 26,066 words. “The plays of Shakespeare”, said Henry Stratford Caldecott in 1895 Johannesburg lecture, “are so stupendous a monument of learning and genius that, as time passes and they are probed and searched and analysed by successive generations of scholars and critics of all nations, they seem loom higher and grander, and their hidden beauties and treasured wisdom to be more and more inexhaustible; and so people have come to ask themselves not only, ‘is it humanly possible for William Shakespeare, the country lad from Stratford-on-Avon, to have written them?’ But whether it was possible for any one man, whoever he may have been, to have done so”. As for the whole genius acquiring knowledge, 18th century critic Samuel Johnson said “Nature gives no man knowledge, and when images collected by study and experience, can only assist in combining or applying them. Shakespeare, however (may have been) favoured by nature, could impart only what we had learned”.

To sum up, there´s only a couple of questions left, ‘what is the truth about Shakespeare? Was he real or was he just a person moved by money?

Bruna Rafaela Magalhães , 12º P

17

LOLITA I was pondering if I should or shouldn’t do a review on one of my favorite books, Lolita, by the one and only Vladimir Nabokov.

Even though it is an English classic, the plot is extremely controversial, given the nature of the relationship between the two main characters.

Humbert Humbert, a 37-to-38 year-old literature professor initiates an abuse relationship with Dolores Haze, the 12 year-old girl that he likes to call Lolita. He starts by describing the death of his childhood girlfriend, Annabel, which affected him deeply.

With and extreme affection and fixation to nymphets (girls aged 9-14), that makes him, what we name now, a pedophile.

He maintained affairs with prostitutes aged between 16 and 17 by pretending that they were three years younger until he eventually married a woman with childish mannerisms, Valeria, for safety.

A couple of years later they split and he started a new life in a small New England town so he could write. There, he marries Charlotte Haze because he had found his precious nymphet, her daughter Dolores, ‘’Lola in slacks’’ and ‘’Dolly at school’’, but in his arms ‘’she was always Lolita’’.

I’m not going to say anything further because it isn’t fair for me to spoil you the rest of the book, but let me tell you, don’t be fooled by the topic.

FIVE FACTS ABOUT READING

What makes these novel memorable and fantastic is definitely how beautifully written it is. So beautiful that you actually start pitying the abuser.

Even though it is, with no doubt, a child abuse case, it is described so romantically and profoundly that you find yourself constantly questioning your moral values.

One of my favourite quotes of the book is definitely how he describes and sees their relationship, by saying ‘’ All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly, I should add, because that frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other's soul and flesh; but there we were, unable even to mate as slum children would have so easily found an opportunity to do so. ‘’.

This is hands down one of my favourites and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did, it is considered a classic by a reason.

Sofia Summavielle , 12º L

FACT 1 : Reading can make you a better conversationalist.

FACT 2 : Neighbors will never complain that your book is too loud.

FACT 3 : Knowledge by osmosis has not yet been perfected. You’d better read.

FACT 4 : Books have stopped bullets – reading might save your life.

FACT 5 : Dinosaurs didn’t read. Look what happened to them.

18

OUR SOCIETY’S MENTALITY Nowadays, we claim that our society has become really judgemental but what we forget is that we, as individuals, are the ones who are a part of this. This being said, we must make up our mind and realize the changes we should make and take a few seconds to think about what we’ve become.

As we can see with our own eyes, more and more people are moving from their hometowns to go and live in developed countries so they can achieve a higher quality of life. This has resulted in a bigger amount of different people from different cultures living together, learning how to behave so their relationships are peaceful. Being able to live among people who aren’t from the same religion as us, for example, shows that our world has already learnt a lot about our differences or we can see this even by just accepting people with different skin colour. Although a lot of people might think this multicultural world only has bad things attached to it, it can be very beneficial for everybody. We learn so much more about other cultures and their traditions that it is crazy to think we don’t have the capicity to colaborate.

In my personal opinion, from this we only gain a huge experience of life, finding a lot more about how people live and how they respect what they believe in. Besides this, one of the things which is most talked about is a person’s sexual orientation. Being gay or lesbian is still pretty new to some people, mainly the old ones and people with a very closed mentality, who don’t see it as a normal thing but surely as a mental problem or a bad disease. This often causes a lot of struggles and ethical discussions about who has the right to critisize another human being.

As a conclusion, we must say that it has become almost impossible to ignore this cultural changes that our society has been going through, because we can see its reflect in every corner of every place. If we go on a trip or a vacation with family we can see that most of the tourists are from all around the world and that they come only to visit something they found interesting about the countries’ culture.

Ana Maria Faria 11ºJ

LOOKING IN THE MIRROR If we look through the world, what image can we see? Everything looks so confusing around me. This reflection only demonstrates us the problems that each population is facing, starting in racism and ending in terrorism. Can you see that in the mirror? I bet you can. I can see a lot of people worried about the future, asking themselves “What more can happen?; How many kids are hilling to suffer just because some nation wants to prove the value of their religion?”. All we can see are question marks.

Humanity is changing, generation after generation. Racism and terrorism are nowadays problems. Although I believe that being different can be hard, I also think that the basis for racism is, for sure, financial funds. For example, imagine a colored person who has a good car, an awesome mansion and a very wealthy life. Do you think that the so-called important people called will judge him? I honestly don’t think so. You know why!? Because that man has got money and in today’s society money is all that seems to matter, unfortunately.

People need to start respecting each other! We must put aside the skin color, the religion or the sexual orientation because none of them defines who we truly are. What really defines us as human beings is the way we behave, our actions, our pureness and especially our sensitiveness. Most of the population in the world is considered religious in the sense that they believe in Someone or Something superior to us... Most people believe that there’s Something or Someone who looks after us, even in our worst moments. One thing is true, God loves all His children but some of them, somehow seem to be forgotten. No kid, father, mother deserves to run away from his or her hometown just because he or she feels unsafe there..., just because sooner or later there will be a war which will devastate the whole family.

This isn’t fair! In my opinion, if we really wanted, we could end with these problems, but money is interfering once again. To make wars, people need guns, and who is producing them? Well, we all should think about this question.

To conclude I must say that we have to put an end to this. Young people have the power, we will be the next generation and we all can make the difference, we just need to try. We don’t need weapons, guns or hate, no! Every single person just needs a bit of love. I believe that we can find it within ourselves and once we have found love, we can change everything we want.

Catarina Moniz, 11ºJ

19 11 V

BEING A BAD PERSON IS DEFINITELY THE EASIEST PATH

I’m merely seventeen but I already have a strong opinion when it comes to being a good or a bad person. Let’s just say that experience made my beliefs.

For me, being a bad person is definitely the easiest path.

All you do is being mean, disrespectful, dishonest and maybe even a bully to others. Who knows? It’s always easier to treat people poorly by making them feel awful, ripping apart every single piece of self-esteem they have.

In my opinion, almost 90% of these despicable people only act that way because they’re unhappy, hurt and miserable. The other 10% it’s just their natural away of being. You know, just one step closer to (most likely) becoming a psychopath.

One perfectly good example of this is the all ‘’Touradas’’ thing, in which a community takes pleasure in seeing another living being suffer. So what makes us enjoy other beings’ misery?

I just honestly can’t understand.

It’s always easier to blame others for our problems, to have absolutely no social manners and education, to skip lines and don’t bother to say a ‘’ Hello ‘’ or ‘’Goodbye’.

Most of us take the world for granted, thinking that we are young and, therefore, we’re free from responsibilities and obligations. Guess what? We’re wrong.

ALWAYS treat people like you want to be treated, ALWAYS. Try your best to be kind, nice and polite to everyone and anyone, even to yourself, because “All that is necessary for evil to prevail is for good people to do nothing ‘’.

Sofia Summavielle, 12ºL

BE YOURSELF

Problems with your self-existence? With your self-esteem? Problems because people judge you?

Forget about them because you always have to remember that these people who judge you aren’t worth it, you must stay confident and find a haven where you can always count on it to relieve all the pain you feel, all your problems and insecurities. I’ve found my refuge in dance, I established my goals in that refuge and when I do it I feel special, without fear of being judged, disrespected… you have to have attitude and stand up for what you think is right! When I dance it is just me and my soul even when there are people watching me in the middle of the choreography because they know that I’m in my own world, that is just me and in that haven I just live my life to the fullest.

So don’t be afraid, have courage, love what you enjoy doing more and more and, last but not least - Be yourself!!

Class D Anonymous

20

REFUGEES Refugees are people who have to leave their countries because of war or human rights violations and when their lives are at risk.

Unfortunately, many people are against refugees. I think that it´s due to the fear of terrorism, the fact that the economy of their countries is bad or due to other diferente causes, but this should not be an excuse to reject the refugees.

ANXIETY DISORDERS : THE MAIN PLATE OF TODAY’S WORLD

The Portuguese Education Ministry decided to have primary schools teaching children to be in the refugees’ shoes. That´s how we fight against intolerance.

I asked a question to myself: How would I feel if I were a refugee?

I would feel bad and rejected if people did not accept me in their country. That's why I think that we should help refugees. Everyone deserves to live in freedom and in peace and if that is not the case in our country, it should only be expected that we should flee to another country in order to try to have better conditions.

Any way, following the EM’s initiative, “what would you take with you?” I think that I would take clothes because this is essential. I would also take my photo album because it´s my past and whenever I felt sad, I would like to be able to be in contact with my past memories. Another thing that I would take is my phone to communicate with my family and friends. And, last but not least, I would take some money, ID documents and mineral water.

I think that it´s important to help those in need, because one day, this can happen to us and we would surely like other people to help us.

Beatrice Gonçalves, 12º L

Every day we feel pressure and stress caused by the chaotic lives we live and, unfortunately, this simple stress has grown into something very serious in many cases.

It has grown into anxiety disorders.

The causes of this mental illness are unknown at the moment but it can entirely affect the way we live. So, how do we know we suffer from it? The main symptoms are unusual high levels of stress, sleeping problems, nausea, heart palpitations, dizziness among others.

As we live more and more busy lives we tend to feel more incapacity of dealing with all our problems, lack of confidence, and tiredness and all these factors contribute to the development of this kind of disease.

However, there are mechanisms that can help us with it, such as psychologists and psychiatrists.

If you think you are starting to have anxiety/panic problems you don’t have to actually panic at all, you just have to search for help and accept it. Everyone is capable of living a healthy life even with these obstacles.

Anxiety doesn’t mean you’re less worth than others, it means you have to transform your stress into strength and fight against it.

Alexandra Ferreira Leite , 12ºL

21

AN UNSAFE WORLD The theme of terrorism has been an issue we have been discussing a lot lately. It is even becoming a cliché, but I must say that it is an important cliché. But why should it be so important for people to talk about it so much? I think that this shouldn’t even be an issue to begin with.

Don’t get me wrong. I really think that we have to fight terrorism and put an end on it. There are people dying, people leaving their countries because they feel unsafe there. But why does it have to be like that?

What I’m really trying to say is that terrorism shouldn’t even exist, it shouldn’t be worrying people, it shouldn’t happen. People shouldn’t even have the opportunity to fight terrorism because it shouldn’t even be a thing in the first place.

I believe that there is no reason for this to happen. Why are people dying over financial, religious or political issues? Why do we have to sacrifice ourselves because of others’ whims? Why is our world being destroyed because of mean people? It’s not fair!

I once heard someone say “Why make war when peace is what builds the future?”. That’s the ultimate truth. What good is war going to bring to the world? None. Maybe it will be good for the ones who are behind all these attacks, the ones who make war, the ones who keep hiding. Other than them, no one benefits from this!

Refugees. This is another subject which deserves attention. Do you ever see yourself packing a backpack, leaving your home, saying goodbye to your friends, leaving your country and go find a safe place to live on an inflatable boat, not knowing if you are going to survive the trip or not?

And then, when you finally find somewhere safe, the people who live there tell you that you can’t be in their country just because of your religion, just because the people from your country are the ones attacking? Just because you live in a place where there are bad people, does it mean you’re a bad person too? You could be the one running away from the war, right now, you could be the one searching for a home…

Wouldn’t you want someone to help you?

I heard some people saying that refugees that come to our countries are dangerous, because they share the same values as the terrorists and because of that, they will start war in Europe. It may be true, but I don’t think that everyone who comes from Syria is mean and wants to do harm. People are saying that refugees are “stealing” the opportunities we could be giving to our nationals. I partially agree with them. I heard that refugees would be offered really good jobs and a luxurious home, here in Portugal. But, some time ago, young people were told by the politicians that they needed to go work abroad because there wasn’t work here, so how do they have work for refugees? They are giving them great homes when Portugal has homeless people living in the streets.

I have to say I’m very confused about this refugee’s subject. I know that it is our duty to help who is in need. But why are our politicians helping foreign people instead of helping Portuguese people, instead of helping their own people? Maybe they are doing it just for the money and fame. Who knows?

I truly believe that the real problem here is not the refugees but terrorism. If there wasn’t terrorism, there wouldn’t be refugees.

Terrorism is causing pain, grief and fear in our world. People are dying over power, religion, politics… Is it fair that innocent people die because of this? Every country that wasn’t attacked yet is expecting to be sooner or later. People know that they can die at any second. They are “seeing” bombs, guns and terrorists everywhere, even in the most insignificant things, when in reality there is nothing there. The fear is such that people can’t even distinguish what is a threat from what’s not. Our world will not be safer until we all try to be at least helpful to make it better.

Diana Margarida Soares Ferreira 11º J

22

SLAVES IN PORTUGAL It’s estimated that there are still 1400 slaves in Portugal nowadays, which is a sad but true reality. The question is: why and how does this still exist?

There are several kinds of “modern slaves” such as people being forced to work hard in bad conditions and for no money, abusive marriage or even sexual exploitation.

Most people might think that it’s impossible for such an awful thing to take place in our beloved country. Portuguese people always have been known for being adventurous and for our remarkable past of overseas discoveries all around the world.

Our conquers are something we all should be proud of. However, what most people don’t know is that it was in that very golden era that everything started. Encouraged by the crown, there were a lot of missions way down the Atlantic, all along the African coast, where life was hard. Days and days slaying the sea, successive trips who brought us essential products from the African continent. Besides those products, black people came too – the slaves. They were used to do the hard job. After finding the route to India Bartolomeu Dias, and Vasco Da Gama, at the dawn of the 16th century, there were clear evidence that more than 10,000 were living in Lisbon. In my opinion, slavery should be abolished, I mean, c’mon, we’re in the 21st century! Everyone should put themselves in their shoes and think, what if you were a slave? Do you even think about how they feel?

Strange as it may seem, we have come to the number of slaves in our country, we know they are here and their Human rights are not being respected, if they were counted that means people know where they are, right? So why doesn’t anybody does anything to help them?

Ângela Meireles, 12ºL

SHOULD EUTHANASIA BE LEGAL IN PORTUGAL ?

I’m going to write about euthanasia. I chose this topic because of an occurrence in my life that made me think about it. I personally think that euthanasia should be legal in Portugal because, in my opinion, people should have the right to end their suffering when they reach their breaking point. There are countries like Holland and Belgium who support this idea and I think that Portugal should do the same thing.

This is an ethical matter, thus the various opinions about it. There are those against euthanasia and they have their own reasons, for example, the possibility of finding a cure for AIDS. But, should people have to wait for a cure and suffer for another six or seven years, or should they have the right to die peacefully? I must say I think that euthanasia should only be applied when a person has a terminal disease. When there’s not a glimpse of hope. If someone wants it, why can´t that someone have it?

To sum up, no doubt this is a very important issue and that’s why it’s so debated nowadays and I believe it should be granted for those who want it because they should have the right to put na end to their pain.

Tiago Sampaio , 10ºG

23

Human rights’ violations In the 21st century it’s sad to realize that there are still people having their rights violated. I don’t want to seem feminist, but the women are still the gender who is more affected, and everybody knows it! From Syria to Sudan, to DR Congo, to Pakistan or Somalia, women are constantly being violated, being discriminated, being victims of mistreat, being sent to do all the tasks incumbent upon it and the ones that they’re not entitled to do.

In a general way, both genders suffer from the same disease “human rights’ violations”. It’s just cruel for people not to be able to express their feelings, their religions, their cultures. For me it’s repulsive to want to be respected but not to respect the others.

We have to recognize that the violation of human rights is a thing that started in the past and, if we act in minority, we can’t do anything to change it. So, if you’re against the violation of human rights, act! And don’t pretend you don’t see people crying for help who need you.

Cátia Moura, 12ºL

RACISM AND MUSIC "Formation" is a song directed Beyoncé. In her new video we find many references to the history and struggle of the black population from the United States since the time of slavery until the police violence currently suffered. The song and video were also a proud cry and representativeness, a response to racist attacks suffered by all blacks every day.

The clip was recorded in New Orleans, which is located in the southern United States. History tells us and reminds us at every moment that the southern United States is a racist area, with numerous cases of police violence towards black people, the emergence of extremist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, racial segregation and numerous deaths of black people. Remember that this region was the last to abolish slavery, which tells us a lot per se.

The song makes references to historical events of the black community in the US. As early as the beginning, the very first verse is "What happened after New Orleans?", With the voice of Messya Mya, a famous black blogger (New Orleans, 2010) was killed as she left the baby shower of her girlfriend and until this day no one was held responsible for the crime, which shows us a mystery among many murders of black people in the USA, plus the amateur shooting style we see at times remind us of another episode of violence that happened in the US when a black taxi driver was tortured by white police officers in 1991 in Los Angeles and had all the act recorded by an amateur videographer.

In a part of the video we see a police cordon with hands up in reference to the numerous cases of police violence and abuse suffered by blacks in recent years in the country, it is still possible to see the reference to the movement "Black Lives Matter" since then it shows up a wall spray-painted with the words "Stop shooting at us!", a cry of all blacks against police violence and in particular similar to screams echoed by the black community in the United States streets during 2014 and to date manifestations.

Despite being panned with this video clip, the Queen B proved to be an activist against racism and discrimination.

Here music mixeS with racism, the history and pride of black ethnicity.

All our actions when directed to speak to the black population are no longer mere texts, hairstyles, lyrics and music, black music is a political act and will remain one of their main forms of resistance and pride.

Maria Helena Oliveira, 12º L

24

GLOBAL INEQUALITY Since ever there has been discrimination and global inequality.

There are many types of discrimination like: racism, xenophobia, sexism, workplace harassment, disability prejudice. Each type of discrimination is different but still they all have the same negative effects. We should never discriminate anyone as we are all human beings and certainly we wouldn’t like people to discriminate us.

Global Inequality is an undeniable reason for this sad reality among well developed countries and underdeveloped countries.

We have natural resources and comfortable lives, which should be enough for all. Nevertheless, while some of us have everything, others have nothing. Shame on us for wasting food, water, clothes, commonplace things for us, while on the other side of the world people are starving to death, they are thirsty, most of them does not even have a house, not to mention transportation , nor schools.

Clearly there is no place for equality in this selfish and greedy capitalist world...

Even though our society has tried hard to make progress to fight against this huge gap, trying to narrow differences down, the truth is it is not enough.

Yet it is my strong belief that we must continue to strive for this world to become a better place, for us to be all the same.

Inês Bastos, 12ºL

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL SIDE OF FOOTBALL As you may know, football is the most played sport in the world, but football is so much more than a physical game. The brain and the psychology of the player are very important for the game. As Jose Mourinho once said " I can have the fastest man in the world, for example, Francis Obikwelu, but for football, in my opinion, he doesn't have what it takes to be a good footballer.

A good player has to be quick with his mind, like Deco. Deco plays very well and the most important factor about Deco is that he thinks fast. When he receives the ball, in his mind, he already knows where he is going to place it. And that is in my opinion the most important aspect in a player." So as you can see, the mental quickness of Deco is more important to Mourinho that the fast speed of Obikwelu.

Another example of nowadays is, to those who watch football, Atletico de Madrid, which is a team that is moved by its coach, Diego Simeone. The players of Atletico aren't better than Real Madrid or Barcelona players, but Simeone has a very special way of putting the importance of winning in the minds of the players. They run more than the others, they want more, they want to succeed.

In a team like Real or Barça neither of the team players need to show their abilities to any one because they have achieved the two best teams in the world, there is no incentive on the players, but as far as the players from Atletico is concerned, it's a very different history.

The mental strength of the players is the key factor of their success because they aren't better than any team, but when you want something really bad and you work for it, you will achieve success.

João Leiras, 12ºL

25

‘’...HATING EVERY INCH OF YOUR BODY...’’

I found myself writing this article but I’m still not sure if I should publish it or not.

If you are reading this is because I completely forgot the part where I feel way too exposed and vulnerable and really felt like maybe, just maybe, my own mistakes could help others.

I’m not going to tell the whole ‘’how it started’’ story because that is not the point, but I will tell you exactly how it feels to hate every inch of your body, even though it was just a normal one.

Most of the times when someone says ‘’eating disorder’’ people automatically think of two possible stereotyped cases : anorexia and bulimia, mostly associated to teenage girls who see themselves as fat when in fact they are extremely skinny. I’m not judging though because I thought that too, but is is so much more complicated than that.

I will only write about the one that I personally know: bulimia, or almost bulimia, in my case. A bulimic is someone who has ‘’an eating disorder usually characterized by periods of binging – or excessive overeating – followed by purging ‘’. Now, I say ‘’almost’’ because I actually never purged. Not because I didn’t try, trust me, I tried so freaking much, but I just couldn’t. That was probably the luckiest thing that ever happened to me. I isolated myself, got into fight with my friends, disliked every ‘’perfect girl’’, cried myself to sleep, felt awful every single time I ate, even if it was 100% healthy, and spent almost the whole summer indoors. I couldn’t bare the possibility of anyone seeing me. I know that I was never fat, God, I was what most of you guys see as skinny, but for me, having just a little bit of fat makes me feel bad about the way I look. It’s just how I feel and I think it will always be like that.

It still is.

With all of this happening I did the craziest and worst thing you can do, used the good old pal Internet. There you have the two edges: the right and the wrong. Of course I went with the wrong. I cut carbohydrates, you know, that thing that gives you energy? (sarcastic rhetorical question) and did yoyo exercise and diet routines. That helped a little bit with the mental part, but it didn’t last long.

I have improved and no longer have that nasty problem but all of those months and actions made me lose my period for 6 months, also known as Amenorrhea, had injuries in my bones and problems with some vitamins, like vitamin D and also with my hair, which made me have to take some pills during the past months of February and March. Those were hormonal treatments, which actually made me gain about 8 to 10 kilos. You can imagine how hard it is for that to happen given the fact I was, for the first time in ages, happy with my body. I mean, working out and eating healthily had showed results and I know I have to go through all of that again.

As you can see, eating disorders are a hard real problem that anyone can face, even if you apparently don’t have any reasons to.

I hope you can learn from my mistakes never to apply a rule or diet that is seen online, never to stop eating and never to cut the most important nutrients off your diet just because the internet says so. Always tell someone if you are feeling down and always, always try your best not to go through something like this. It isn’t worth it, trust me. If you want to lose or gain weight, for whatever reason, search for fitness and nutrition professionals, go for a run, eat healthy things and move. You will see that , in time, you will feel better, beautiful and well, from inside and out.

C. JoyBell C. once said, “The only person who can pull me down is myself, and I'm not going to let myself pull me down anymore.” So love yourself and cherish every single part of your body. Self-love is the most important kind of love that we have.

Sofia Summavielle, 12ºL

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TEENAGE TIMES 1. BEING A TEENAGER Being a teenager nowadays is quite a challenge, if you compare it to the good old days. By what my parents told me the weight that an adolescent has got to carry on his shoulders now, is massive compared to their time.

I wish I could close my eyes and wake up aged eighteen years old "being a straight A's student" but that's not a reality. The curfews can be the worst thing that you have, but I understand that to my parents, it's hard to wake up in the middle of the night to pick me up from parties, and as it is obvious they do it because they are worried about me, a young adult, but on the other hand an old child.

But adolescence isn't only the storm of helicopter parents, it can be the age of opportunity, where you start shaping your life. You can get work in order to let go the pocket money but also study hard, and what is meant to be, will happen.

2. FRIENDSHIP IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO TEENS Adolescence, the time of pimples, your first real girlfriends, and broken hearts. Obviously, you have your stupid,amazing friends that are like a parachute, when you are skydiving.

You can tell them secrets, and they will not run for the door, and if you need a helping hand they will always be there for you because when you spend more time at school than you are at home, you start developing a second really messed up family, where you can do whatever you want without restrictions. But well, they can't be perfect, although they love you, and you can’t say that you don't feel the same.

3. THE SECRET LIFE OF TEENS Peer pressure, exams, anorexia, bullying, addictions, stress, and looks are a few things that haunt today's teens. Some of the worst lessons that you learn in the school of life is during adolescence. The violence between teens is raising on a scary way, and this can be noticed on a daily basis.

And then, when you hit the bottom, you start to think about bad things, that can lead you to turn to the worst things in life, like an addiction to alcohol, or nicotine, and the problem is that at the starting point, you can relax, but when you want to stop the addiction is stronger that your will power. But many teens start thinking of putting a end to their suffering throwing away their lives in a bad decision.

This is the secret life of teens because when they should tell what is going on they keep it to them, and most teens desperately try to forget these issues in order to fake a happy life.

4. TEENAGE WORRIES

The teenage times is one of the best times you go through in your whole life, but as you know, life can be a rollercoaster. Peer pressure is one of the problems adolescents go through, but there's a million problems like pregnancy, drug addiction, depression, bullying, alcoholism, and so on... And the worst thing about these problems, is that they lead to other problems, like an adolescent that suffers from bullying can get depression, and then they can develop a drinking problem. As you can see, adolescence can be what you want, so it's up to you if you have only rainy days, or you can have a little storm mixed with a sunny day.

Dinis Dias, 10ºG

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THE TRUE MEANING OF DATING AT 16 When you’re sixteen, everything is over intense, and love isn’t exception. I mean, what other word could explain the anxiety of seeing the one you love again, or the break in your heart when you get an unexpected message?

Poems, smiles, looks, dreams, hopes, emotional security, fun and care, so much care. This is love when you have the world in your feet and a life to live. We, teenagers, have a huge tendency to build castles in the air and believe in “happy endings”, the “happy ever and ever”.

Having a relationship in this time of life is finding ourselves and the other person. We learn how to deal with new feelings, emotions and, obviously, hormones. We understand how people are for each other and how easy it is to fall in love with someone.

I know people who took a day to be “forever in love” and others who built a relationship from a strong friendship, a gradual and long process. Usually, the last ones I referred to are the most durable dating relationships, because people are so close to each other that they know how to fight for their love or how to react to the problems that can come.

Dating at 16 is learning how to manage time: you have 24 hours in the day, and you need to sleep, study, be with your friends, and still have time for the other person. It’s like walking on a treadmill, but you don’t want to stop. I mean, who wants to stop something so healthy and enjoyable like love?

Well, unfortunately, all has an end, and love isn’t an exception.

Teenagers have a stupid craze to be tired of everybody…, sooner or later. There’s always someone in the relationship who suffers in the end, because they weren’t still ready for it, or just because they make the most common mistake: depending on the other person for everything.

As I said before, at 16, love is very intense and some teens fall in love so deeply that they start living the other person’s life, forgetting themselves.

So, dating at 16 is also about learning how to deal with disappointments and the meaning of the end of something you wished so hard.

Teens love is the most honeyed, hard and outstanding love. I don’t believe it lasts forever, I believe people can fight for it and make it unforgettable. This is the best time of our lives and love is the best feeling of it.

Sónia Silva, 11º I

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LGBT LGBT is the term which we nowadays use to identify "lesbian, gay, bissexual and transgender" individuals. I think it's stupid that in the 21st century we still use labels to identify ourselves like our clothes, as if we were not even human beings.

What does it mean to even be an "LGBT"? Well it means, in general, that you've had suffered bullying, discrimination, prejudice, rape, mistreats and lots of other bad things in life just because you are you, just because you happen to love someone of the same gender, just because you're not on the right body; commonplace things that everyone has and simple things that make each one of us unique are the very things that people use to make fun or discriminate someone, just because… Even though we're all the same, we're all different. What are we? Humans? It surely doesn't appear so, animals are actually much more “human” than we are nowadays and we could learn much from them.

Being an " LGBT " means belonging to a great number of people around the world who have to fight to be free, to be happy, to love, to be respected, to be equals and in some places to even being alive. How is it acceptable that we get killed just because of such natural and supposed-to-be granted things? We live in a world where you are judged by everything that is good, everything that is you, from clothes to our skin colour; things that are part of us, good things that don't even define us; and people turn a blind eye to the things that should be judged, criticised and even should be destroyed or ended because they're destroying us, things like hate, fear, wars, poverty and so on. We should be spreading love, friendship, progress, education, health, tolerance, respect, unity and harmony, all the good there is in life.

I believe one day things like labels will be gone forever and we will be no more "blacks, whites, gays, straights, bis, lesbians, fat or skinny"; we will be just "us", what "we are", we will be just humans living in this wonderful blue ball orbiting the sun called Earth, in this wonderful and enormous thing called universe living this miracle that is called "LIFE", living for love, friendship and each other's smiles; I believe all the taboos and prejudice and social norms & stigmas, all those hate and fears, insecurities, will be over and we will be totally free to live, be happy and love. Only then will we truly be human beings.

Alexandre Oliveira, 12ºL

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THE SUN IS CHEATING Do not judge me for living where I live, I am chained up to my own freedom.

Do not judge me for crying, Because society is just cement And I'm soft and fragile.

And they go, with misty and sad faces, Walking towards freedom.

Do not judge me for who I love Because love kept me in captivity.

Do not judge me by my past Because it escapes me through my fingers.

Do not judge me for not seeing the world your way.

And do not judge me because you believe you know me, Because I run through these misty faces.

And they walk in the deceptive sun,

Because I belong to me and you are you,

Walking towards freedom

And… all I want is my freedom.

And nor the blood… nor death… nothing follows them.

And I cry, tormented, troubled and haunted, Because I know I've been there

Do not judge me for every step I take,

… And there's nothing.

Because I am a tragedy in a perfect symphony.

Francisca Mendes, 11º J

Do not judge me for giving up, Also… because I have tried. .

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AM I A STAR?

Personally, I think that stars are fascinating. They have their own light and each one is unique and different from another. Did you know that most of the stars, when we see them, when we look at the sky, are already dead, but we can still see them because their brightness remains? They say that if you make a wish when you see a shooting star, it will certainly come true. Maybe… who knows?

As stars, I can't shine without darkness. Some try to turn my light off, but that just makes me stronger. In fact, when you weaken your brightness in order to let other people shine, all the world gets a little darker.

But what is it that makes one person sparkle while another stands in the shadows?

It's pride, strength and vision.

It's the brilliance of discovery and creativity.

It's the choice to move to a brighter destination and the glint of determination to get you there.

At the end of the day, it is asking yourself: "What makes me shine after all?"

Helping people makes me shine.

To make one smile makes me shine.

To guide my blind friend also makes me shine.

Taking care of my body and health, so much as having good results and good marks.

But mostly, leaving people proud of me really makes me shine.

The thing is, seeing the reflection of your brilliance in people's eyes. For instance, when my mother looks at me with her eyes sparkling, I know I'm spreading my glitter through the world. Then, I'm glad I'm alive.

However, work and sacrifice will always be my glitter.

Being a star means that you have to spend all your time cultivating your brilliance and your goals.

But when you finally overcome the clouds that hide your brightness (your difficulties), you’re the happiest person in the world.

In spite of that, the ones who have their own light, just like stars, will always bother those who stand in the dark.

Being a star is painful, because all that you have left in the end is nothing.

Nothing but your own brilliance, which most of the times is invisible to the others.

So I'm one of those who were born to suffer, who were born to shine. As long as I can express my feelings, I'll be shining on like the Moon and the stars and the Sun. When I'm on the stage, with all the spotlights and attentions on me, I feel like there's no place I'd rather be.

The curtains open and the night is mine.

I'm playing, I’m performing and I'm sharing the thing that is the most important thing to me, which makes me twinkle the most: MUSIC. All I have and all I am is there exposed to everyone in a happier language than mine.

And I swear to you that in that brief moment, I’m the brightest star that the universe has ever seen.

Ana P. Almeida, 11º H

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SUPER HERO Pop Culture An inside view of the Geek world.

With the National Superhero Day being celebrated on the 28th of April, we decided to write about this past and current year and how amazing they have been for the sci-fi lovers. Lately the two big superheroes film creators, DC and Marvel, have been going toe to toe to find out who actually can create the most amazing film and improve the so loved classic comics. They have been working non stop to give the viewers excellent special effects, brilliant plots and fantastic actors and actresses so we can all have our childhood superheroes. The ones who can fly and make the world a better place come to life in the big screen.

So far this year not many movies have come out but if you are part of the geek community you have probably seen all the dates and trailers and everything that has been released about your favourite superheroes. This year Marvel kicked it off with “DeadPool” an antihero movie where the main character didn't worry about using his powers for good but only for his revenge making it hilarious and amazing to watch. Also coming out this year there is “Civil War” a film which will bring most heroes together for an epic battle between themselves and where each team is led by a main hero in this case Captain American on one side and Iron Man on the other. Later this year Marvel is taking it a bit to the dark side and has decided to create the film called “Suicide Squad”, a film where the main characters are not superheroes per se but the Bad Guys that they actual put in jail. In it will feature all our favourite villains and we will get to see them interact and try to save the world for a change.

DC as well as Marvell are North-American editors of comic books and the media related to them, DC is also responsible for a lot of the most classic superheroes like Batman, Superman, Wonder-Woman, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquamen, the Justice League among others. And for being considered one of the best in the world when it comes to superheroes DC has recently released a film named “Batman vs Superman” a film that created a fight between two of our favorite superheroes, the human and the alien, and made them fight against each other to eliminate once and for all the doubts of many fans … can a human win over a supernatural being?

Well, we don't really know about you guys but for us this is going to be a hell of a year filled with the most amazing and fantastic stories of our favourite heroes, those who made us believe that the world would always be protected by a greater force and nothing awful would ever happen, and by a few villains, those amazing bad guys that you can’t help but love in their wicked and rebel way.

Maria João Silva & Ana Catarina Silva, 12ºL

31

‘’’ A SONG OF A LIFETIME’’ One of my favourite songs is called “7 years” by Lukas Graham and it summarizes our lives. Everything starts when we are seven years old, which is the age of innocence and it is the time when we try to make friends that we hope will accompany us till the end of our lives. Without even noticing, we are eleven years old, a phase of our lives where we begin to decide our way and sometimes we end up making wrong and bad choices for our future, as we can hear in the song, where Lukas Graham says that he smoked weed and drank alcohol with friends… and that isn’t good for our health.

This is a very updated subject because when young people want to enter a group they get into drugs and also join this bad life only to be well accepted. The twenty years mentioned there refer to an age where we already begin to get a sense of what life is and we come to the conclusion that life isn’t a fairy tale when we are sure of what we want to do in the future. But nowadays, people still get lost in the years and don’t take life quietly, because they don’t want to rush anything. On a blink of an eye we’re thirty years old, where we already have a family with children and a job. This will be a very happy time of our lives, because family is a key element where we should have everything that we dream about. Finally, we are sixty, when we are older and we reflect on our lives, we reflect on what we lived, what we could have lived and what we did and what we could have done. In this age we already have grandchildren, the family is growing and there should be no greater happiness than having children and grandchildren, seeing the family getting bigger and bigger.

Another aspect that the song refers to is the issue of parents. When we are young we have their protection, they give us everything and do everything to see us happy and sometimes we don’t value it. Parents are the ones who never fail to care about us, are always concerned, it doesn’t matter how old we are and it will always be like that. In this song the singer says that when you are sixty, you expect your children to visit at least once or twice a month and personally I think he isn’t asking a lot from them because they mustn’t forget that their parents always did a lot to make them good, happy and successful people. We can’t treat them badly, we can’t abandon them when they are most in need and we must give back all the good they did to us. We only have one father and one mother and we can’t only value them when they aren’t here anymore.

However we should enjoy life because it happens in the blink of an eye and I agree that this is the message of the song. The singer found a very simple and soft way to describe it as well as creating a really good song.

Beatriz Costa , 11º J

SAME LOVE Macklemore and Ryan Lewis – Same Love ft. Mary Lambert From the very beginning, since I started appreciating music, Macklemore is one of my favourite singers. He doesn’t just sing songs; he tells stories with a good rhythm and conveys a powerful message to the world. And this song is not an exception.

What he is trying to really say is no matter you’re homosexual or straight, loving is all the same: take care, show respect, be kind… there is no need to be homophobic, we “come from the same God”, and we are all the same, independently of our sexuality, and “no law is going to change us, we have to change us”. Just imagine yourself in their place before you jump into conclusions and hurt people who never did you wrong, because those are choices we make in order to feel good about ourselves and that is not going to change who we are.

These kinds of choices led to unending wars, and right now it takes a lot to stop them, otherwise the world will be governed by hate. As Macklemore says in the song, “No freedom 'til we're equal, damn right I support it”. Think about it, and the next time, you’ll see that being gay is not an affront, but just people being themselves.

Vasco Mota, 10º G

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2016 MUSICAL EVENTS

MUSE

02/03 May

Meo Arena

DEOLINDA

06 May

Casa da Musica, Porto

AC/DC

07 May

SHAWN MENDES

08 May

Passeio Maritimo de Algés, Oeiras Meo Arena, Lisbon

ROCK IN RIO

20/21/26/27/28 May

Parque da Bela Vista, Lisbon

ADELE

21/22 May

Meo Arena, Lisbon

BENJAMIN CLEMANTINE

02 June

Coliseu do Porto

NOS ALIVE

07/08/09 July

Passeio Maritimo de Algés, Oeiras

IRON MAIDEN

11 July

Meo Arena, Lisbon

SUPER BOCK SUPER ROCK

14/15/16 July

Parque das Nações, Lisbon

MEO MARÉS VIVAS

14/15/16 July

Cabedelo, Vila Nova de Gaia

MEO SUDUESTE

03/04/05/06/07 August

Zambujeira do Mar,

VODAFONE PAREDES DE COURA

17/18/19/20 August

Paredes de Coura

FESTA DO AVANTE

02/03/04 September

Lourinhã

SELENA GOMEZ

16 November

Meo Arena, Lisbon

JUSTIN BIEBER

25 November

Meo Arena, Lisbon