Essays

1st Essay

GLOBAL WARMING

Maybe this is the most important theme around the world at this moment, the global warming. Costa Rica is not an exception in this discussion.  At Costa Rica now are talking about, different themes like access to green energy, cheaper and cleaner. However this is not enough, we must take immediately actions to address global warming or these consequences will continue to intensify.

The main cause of the global warming is our indifferent attitude.

Until the people and the governments, think that this is a real problem that we are living, until that moment we can’t begin to solve the problem. For more than 20 years the people think that this was a joke, or invention of a crazy scientist. Now we are living a lot of effects of the global warming, and also thousands of people are displaced from her house, by the greenhouse effect, now we believe that problem is real.

What are doing Costa Rica about the global warming?

Costa Rica is often a reference in themes like conservation, renewable energy, and forest conservation.  This year Costa Rica made the 85% of electrical consumption with hydroelectrically generation.  However still lack a lot of way, because the vehicle fleet in the country is growing up to much, and this is one of principal pollution problems.   Also the waste management, is complex, and don’t have a clear politics.  Also deforestation is a most important cause of climate change; unfortunately, Costa Rica is no stranger to this issue, the control over the illegal deforestation is too weak.  If we don’t make changes soon.  We need to be prepared for the consequences. That is the sad realty. 

Lost biodiversity

At least 110 species of harlequin frogs live in Central America, also spider monkeys, jaguars, panthers and a long list of animals and plants and endless list of extinction. But people still do not understand what will happen if we lose these animals. For example: a lot of bees are being lost every day, by the elevation in temperature. This is very serious, because they are responsible for pollinating, that means that the plants will not give more fruit if these animals.

Global Warming is the most important threat, for the life in the earth, all are changing around us.  If you know that your house are in danger, for your actions you will change. Don't you?  Then, your house are in danger, just right now.  What will we do? I'm sure to be a beholder, is not an option.  Actually the change come from each people, supported for the global change. Then we need demand to our governments the radical change, and we need demand ourselves the same thing. 

“We do not inherit the earth from our fathers, we borrow it from our sons” Native American Proverb.  

By: Oscar E. Castro Herrera.

References:

·        Union of Concerned Scientists. (2011). Solutions to Global Warming in Latin America. September 27, 2015, from Union of Concerned Scientists Website: http://www.climatehotmap.org/global-warming-solutions/latin-america.html

·        Unknown. (unknown). The main cause of global warming. September 22, 2015, from timeforchange.org Website:http://timeforchange.org/main-cause-of-global-warming-solutions

2nd Essay

The two Costa Ricas, talking of education

Every year, high school results seem to confirm the supremacy of private education: high school average of those notes come from private schools is much better than those who come from public schools.

There are elements that contribute to private schools have some advantages over many public schools for example infrastructure, equipment, longer opening hours, greater involvement of families of course, in the selection of students. In addition, socioeconomic status and educational level of their homes is one of the variables most strongly associated with academic performance.

Private schools have not only a strict admission policy, but a very strict policy about who can continue in school: especially in the last years of high school, it seeks primarily to retain students who have a high probability of successfully face baccalaureate tests. The others (those who fail and repeat) is repeated often prevents them there and they are often asked out of school.

Public schools, however, are obliged to serve all who need. In fact, caring for  the majority of the student population, from large sections of the middle class to those living in extreme poverty, from those living in the downtown to those living near from the border or in areas of difficult access. In public schools are not only students with special talent and willingness to study, but also boys, for their socio-economic conditions, special educational requierement of their families and the environment in which they live, must overcome enormous difficulty coping with some success the educational challenge.

For me this is very dangerous, harmful.  Because if we strong the private model this could bring a lot of problems at future. 

By Oscar Castro Herrera

3rd Essay

World Agriculture and our future risks

Until today, world agriculture has been able to meet the growing demand for agricultural products. Although the world's population doubled between 1960 and 2000 and levels of nutrition improved markedly, prices of rice, wheat and maize (the main food products  in the world) fell by around 60 percent. The fall in prices indicates that, globally, supplies not only kept pace with demand, but even make it faster.
Globally, producers have satisfied effective market demand in the past, and is likely to continue doing it. But effective demand does not represent the total need of food and other agricultural products, as hundreds of millions of people need money to buy what they need or the resources to produce it themselves.
Food sovereignty implies prioritize the use of local resources for food production, minimizing the amount of raw materials imported for production and transportation. The food thus produced is consumed locally. It is not logical to eat rices in Costa Rica from the USA or fresh green beans coming from Kenya if we have local production.
It is very important to design and implement responsible attitudes in food consumption and to adjust our way of eating, knowing that the industrial model of production and consumption is destructive, while the based production model uses responsible energy practices.
The farmers around the world have experienced the devastating effects of free trade policies and WTO (World Trade Organization) in their lives and in local food production. So we defend the right of each country to protect their local markets, to support sustainable family farming and food in the market where they are produced.
I think we should change the model in our countries in Latin America, especially in Costa Rica. Think what would happen if countries that sell us food today can not or do not want to do more, for reasons as diverse as possible and droughts or wars. The model should be aimed at supporting farmers, ranchers, cowboys in general all food producers fururas for us and generations.

By: Oscar E. Castro Herrera.

References:

World Trade Organization. (2011). February 27, 2015, from Union of world alimentary study.  

                        https://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/agric_e/agric_e.htm


Difficulties through in their writing process.

For me the the entire work was so difficult, first because the choose the theme for each essay was no easy, second develop the theme and taking up a lot of vocabulary completely unknown for me, it require to find that new vocabulary

Welcome

Grammar

Grammar:

For me the next grammar section, it was the most important themes at the english three (talking about grammar), because it help me to have better grammar construction. 

1. Zero conditional:

With this conditional we are talking about actions completely real to do!

For example:

If you heat ice, it melts

When demand for a product rises, its price rice too

It is easier to relax if you close your eyes


For zero conditional, it is also possible to use "when" instead of "if".

2. First conditional:

If [Condition] the weather is [verb] nice tomorrow, I will definitly go to the beach. (result)

We use the first conditional when we want to talk about future events that are likely/ probably to happen.


For identify the conjunction IF,WHEN, AS SOON AS.  (this is the condition)

With the next slide is too easy understand this conditional.

3. Second conditional

We use the second contional to talk about imaginary or impossible things.

If I were you, I wouldn't do that!  {I imagining that, I can't to do that}
If I had a lot of money, I would live on a small island
If you didn't have a computer, you would use paper in class

Reflecting on my writing performance

      What can I do to have better english?

That was my question. In fact the language english is a big challenge for me, It could be compared with escalate to big mountain or run Hundreds kilometer’s in a day.

Since I have remembers, I need to fight with my bad english . I remember the worst moments at my high school , taking the english class , was possible that I did not put the necessary  know the language but for whatever the reason was, I suffered terribly across this time .

Some years after (more than necessary) I entered at the University, for some reasons I took some course of english with a normal results, but that was so good for me, because few time after, I need to take a Work That sent me to a training at USA, the minimum english that I have at this time was enough for take the training and won the level required, to continued working at this company.         

Out-of-class contributions

1. Reading a books:

"The Book thief "

One of the things that Im doing to improve my english is the reading, in fact I bought a book, two weeks ago,  this book is "the book of thief"  is a terrible history about a little girl that lose her mom by the war, around the time of second world war.  

2. Listen Radio

I read that One way to improve my listening skills and learn to understand native speakers when they speak at a normal rate is to listen to the radio in the language you're studying. And for this reason I think that is one of the most funny ways to learn english.

I love to hear BBC Radio because they has excellent themes and speakers.

3. Watching TV

Watch TV shows and movies but without the subtitles. This includes, news shows (my prefered). I see it the movies, talking with my daugther and trying to translate the meaning of the conversation for her.

In-class contributions

You can see the material doing click at the header.


Projects

Please click on each header below  to see the document:


1. Music Never End

• This project teach  me somethings, about the music special at baroque period, things  I didn't Know ever. So interesting for me, talking about my investigation and the presentation of my partners.

2. Enviromental Pollution 
   

• Before this project I did not know completely, the terrible effects of pollution on the planet, also I learn how we can do change, in our regular actions, For example was so shocked for me know that 80% of our waste can be reuse, recycle or reduced, in fact Im trying to apply today in my house.  

3.  A Tribute for Pope Francis

• This project was very intersting for me, because it invited me to think, in this person that share the ideals similar to me, a person that reflect the good feeling in actions.  Important because also my presentation could help to my partners to rethink others ideas or positions.

4.  Maya civilizations

• Working in this project, help me to learn so interesting information about this rich culture The Mayans, about their  political, religion, social structure and a lot of interesting things.  

Oral presentations:

1. Moderm Families

Talking about families in this presentation my partners and I tried to do a comparison between the families of Costa Rica and USA.
Establish a relation or comparison between families of USA and Costa Rica, is so interesting because we can see, how the costa rican families tend to be each time more similar to USA families, for this reason the differences are principally defined by the income power of the costa rican families and the USA families. But if we have families with the same familiar income, practically don't have difference, it was or conclusion. 

2. Dont's and Do's 

I believe that this presentation was so important because in my case I knew some important concepts, but I unknown many others concepts, to apply when we are looking for a new job, like do's and don'ts in a work interview.


3. Pacific Garbage / Environment

At this presentation we talk about, how our planet is beign affected by our past decissions.
A quickly summary:  of the time people don't think, about the consequences of their actions, and all the damage that the nature is having. Now our planet needs an urgent change, to reverse the big problem that we have, and the first step is on us. One of the most affected are the animals because they are losing their habitat and many species are disappearing. We need to learn how to coexist with nature around us.
People and companies, have too much ways to bring their help to our planet, for example if any family begin to reduce their waste quote, and recycle or reuses a bit their wastes.
also some companies are trying to choose providers that contributes with the enviroment or they use recycling materials. Now another way to help our planet could be buy less plastic bags and use reusable shopping bags.
At the other hand,  we have to choose the garbage because a lot of that residuos could end up in rivers or water sources.
Another way to take care the environmental, is to reforest all near zones the natural deposits of water. Also is important to control the amount of water we are consuming.

4. Presentation #6 SUCCESS 

At this presentation we discuss about the how important is the success for us and the personal definition of success for each classmate. In order to have a better understanding, our teacher request us a general survey about this topic.

Let's see that survey and their results:

1. Which one is the key to reach  success?

a. Studies x   b. Money     c. Confidence   XX d. Family support x

2. Do you think success begins on chilhood ?

A. Yes  xx  b. No Xx 

3. Do you think money means success?

A. Yes  b. No Xxx x

4. It is important to feel successful?

A. Yes xxx  x b. No

5.  Do you think that success includes other people or just you?

A. NO. X X  If Yes.      B. Family  C. Friends   D. Both x x 

Conclusions:  The results were so interesting because everyone that did the survey say that the success is very important in their lives, but also they think that the success don't have relation with money or power.

Other conclusions:

1. Hardly someone thinks that money is the key to reach success
2. Is Hard to find someone  that consider that  success is  not important.


In-class work:


1. The Egg play:

The "egg play" was so interesting, it consist en do an a circle between the classmates, and next run the toy (like an egg) between  all the partners, the lapse that the toy spend to back to the player he/she need to say six phrases if she/ he want to win a prize, the phrases should be in future form

2. Name six

Doing a circle with your classmates the teacher, gave us the instructions. Consist in one of our partners in class, ask to other name six things or whatever, and other partner should need to tell,  this six different things.

Profile

Who Im?

Añadir leyenda

I was born in Grecia, Alajuela and attended Liceo de Poás High School. Ever since I was a teenager, I love with computers and all the related. It was my hobby, my passion, and my way of learning until today. Like most kids I enjoyed computer games too much. When my father’s gave me a computer as a reward for making honor 2nd year, I mastered DOS, Windows, and WordPerfect within six months. I then went on to teach myself programming basic stuff.

By the time I graduated high school, I knew I wanted to study computer. From that point on, everything was computers and networks. My life revolved around computing. By my first year at ULACIT, I decided I wanted to work for myself. That is why I had a found my first company at 18 years old.

I have my own company since 12 years ago, and today I have a lot of challenge in my life.

One of the most beautiful challenge are my two beautiful daughter’s, they teach me a lot of stuff each day.