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Wednesday 27 February 2013

Homework 27th February 2013

Last Monday there wasn't any new homework... If you were not in class today, don't worry, because I'll tell you what have we done: First of all, we checked the exercise "The bat" from the dossier, afterward we watch a powerpoint about the use of "Gerund or the Infinitive". It will be posted on the teacher's blog. 
         We went on with a listening from page 61 (dossier) "Task 2, EOI Galicia". If you bought the dossier, you can do the "Use of english". Finally, for this weekend, we have from page 10 and 11, "Passive voice test" as a homework. Whether I'll see you on the speaking workshop, or I wish you all a superb nice weekend!.

Wednesday 20 February 2013

Homework 20th February 2013

Today we have checked the page related with crime from the dossier. All the others exercises written in my last post will be checked the next day. You should also do the page 48 (BAT) and from Student's Book, page 75, exercises 1 and 2. No more for today. If you feel like to speak a little bit, I'll see you on the speaking workshop, if not, have a nice weekend!!

Homework 18th February 2013

Hi once more time!! On Monday... some of us were  in classroom number 13 or 16, I don't really remember, but it was the penthouse, next to the Althia room. The small gruop that got to be inside this room were enjoying an entertaining speech about Chicago (geography, history, sports, architecture, and some other anecdotes which could be very useful in case we have to speak about an American big city or something like this). For those who are interested, I've uploaded some audio files  (I recorded some parts of the speech) on the dropbox. Feel you free to listen or copy if you want. There isn't a very good quality, but my mobile phone can't be better and I think I was a bit far away from the speaker. Anyway, If you are interested, look for in the folders and you can get about 30 or 40 minutes of the audio.
            As I said before, only a small group of us were in the speech, the other part of the class were with our teacher in our regular classroom. They didn't check nothing at all, and all homework will be checked on Wednesday ( today). Nothing more to add for today, see you later and have a nice day!!

New vocabulary (extracted from PTEC Murcia's test)

Hi! I don't know if you felt like me the other day with the surprising test, but I was absolutely overwhelmed with a large amount of new vocabulary. I spent some time translating, and afterwards... it is much easier, try to read with knowing all the meanings!!  Much easier, isn't it?


Sunday 17 February 2013

Homework 13th February 2013

I´m so sorry. I know that it is a little bit late, but as you know I´m currently very busy... Homework from the dossier pages 46 and 47, in which you´ll need to rephrase some sentences and pages 66,67 and 68 where you´ll learn some vocabulary and collocations about laws. Sorry once more for the delay...

CORRUPTION / Spain gripped by 'corruption' scandal

Here some videos in which we know what our european neighbours think about us... Take a look!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21359234

Even more here...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-21361644


LAWS // Spain's Operacion Puerto to inflict more embarrassment on cycling





This article belongs to:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cycling/21259759

By Matt Slater

Last week, Team Sky boss Sir Dave Brailsford said he thought cycling knew enough now about doping to come up with a decent plan to tackle it.
"If 25 guys tell you how they robbed a bank, what new information are you going to learn from the 26th, 27th… it's a diminishing return," he suggested.
It was a mildly controversial thing for him to say at the time, but events this week have made his stance even more isolated.
The International Cycling Union's (UCI) decision to scrap the independent commission it set up to look into the Lance Armstrong scandal will come as little surprise to some. Yet its alternative plan for a "truth and reconciliation commission" proves there are still people at the top in cycling who can tell which way the wind is blowing.
There is, however, one corner of the cycling world that seems to be as uneasy about "T&R" as Brailsford is. That is Spain, which is coincidentally where Sir Dave made his remarks.
His problem with handing out amnesties for dopers in return for testimony is that it lets them off the hook too easily. He argues that cycling should just get on with making sure the sport never loses its way so badly again.
Spain's issue with truth and reconciliation is… well, it's complicated.
For proof of this look no further than the trial that has started this week in Madrid into a doping conspiracy that was uncovered nearly seven years ago, when "Operacion Puerto" shut down the blood-manipulating activities of Dr Eufemiano Fuentes and friends.


These activities certainly match Armstrong's in terms of their scale. It is their professionalism, sophistication and success that is up for debate. But first, some background. In 2004, a rider called Jesus Manzano told Spanish newspaper AS about the blood-doping secrets of his former team Kelme.


Among other shocking accusations, he claimed his dramatic exit from the 2003 Tour de France - airlifted off a mountain with near fatal dehydration - was the result of his team doctor giving him a blood-boosting drug intended for dogs.
Fuentes, having made quite a reputation for himself in athletics and at Spain's most successful cycling team ONCE, was Kelme's medicine man.
The team dismissed Manzano's story as the fabrication of a bitter man, pointing out that he had been sacked after he was caught with a woman in his hotel room during the 2003 Tour of Spain. But was he telling the truth? Enough people at the anti-drug trafficking arm of Spain's Guardia Civil thought so and started making polite inquiries about the pharmaceutical habits of the country's best cyclists. When, in 2005, Armstrong's former team-mate Roberto Heras tested positive for the drug du jour EPO on his way to a record fourth win at the Vuelta, those inquiries were bolstered by wire taps.
Heras was riding for Liberty Seguros, the old ONCE team's new sponsor, but Fuentes was his "personal physician". It would soon become apparent that Heras was not the doctor's only private patient.
By May 2006, those listening in on the wire had heard enough and arrested Fuentes and four associates, including his sister. Raids on properties owned by Fuentes uncovered almost 200 bags of frozen blood, 40 bags of plasma and a trove of steroids, growth hormone and masking agents. Most intriguingly, police also found calendars and documents marked with code names.


Matching a rider with the code would become a popular parlour game amongst cycling fans for months to come. For many of those fans, "guess the cheat" was better than watching the racing, particularly when Spanish investigators published a report two days before the start of the 2006 Tour de France that included the names of 56 cyclists. Among them was a young Alberto Contador, Armstrong whistle-blower Tyler Hamilton and Lance's favourite victim Jan Ullrich. And then? Not much really


The 2006 Tour would finish as it started, in shame, with American Floyd Landis being stripped of victory for failing a drugs test. But by that point the vast majority of those named in the Puerto case had already been told they would be facing no further action, criminal or sporting. With doping not a crime in Spain until a new law made it so in November 2006, the former was no surprise, but the fact so many were able to get away with cheating speaks volumes of an ambivalence towards doping that lingers in Spanish cycling.
To this date, only six of the 56 have been given bans for their involvement with Fuentes - and one of those, Giampaolo Caruso, would get his ban overturned on appeal - and none of those had anything to do with the Spanish cycling authorities.
You can see why Armstrong liked living in Girona so much.
So, given this Spanish reluctance to pry too deeply into old doping cases - and the fact that Fuentes and his four co-defendants face "public health" charges that have very little to do with actual sport - why the fuss about Operacion Puerto?
The short answer to that question is Balco.
Balco is shorthand for the biggest doping scandal in US sports history prior to Armstrong's.
For those who have lost count, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative was the sports nutrition company that happened to have a sideline in supplying cutting-edge doping products to some of the world's leading track and field stars as well as a number of big names from American football, baseball and boxing.
Operacion Puerto has been Europe's Balco-in-waiting ever since the name of Fuentes first hit the headlines.
That's because of his occasional - but potentially explosive - comments about his client list beyond cycling, not to mention the claims of riders like Manzano and Jorg Jaksche, who have spoken about their doctor's "other patients".
There is little doubt that Fuentes developed his expertise in what could euphemistically be called "sports medicine" when he was working with Spanish athletes in the 1980s. His future wife, Cristina Perez, was a hurdler on the national team but failed a drugs test shortly after the 1988 Olympics.
But doping in athletics - like cycling - is hardly news. Proof of doping in Spanish football or tennis, however, could plunge the country into darkness.
In the aftermath of his arrest in 2006, Fuentes said he had 200 clients in professional sport, which leaves almost 150 unaccounted for. There is also the small matter of 100 bags of unclaimed frozen blood


Yet the prospect of the 57-year-old doctor providing the names of those clients during this trial seems unlikely. The judge has already limited proceedings to the cycling cases, allowing Fuentes to admit on Tuesday that he also treated "tennis players, athletes, footballers and a boxer" and just leave it at that.
When asked by Le Monde journalist Stephane Mandard on Monday if he was going to "tell all", Fuentes said: "I don't intend to name any of my clients. For me, that's the past."


Le Monde, as it happens, was forced to pay damages to Barcelona in 2011 for a story it published in 2006 about the club's alleged links with Fuentes. The same article also mentioned Real Betis, Real Madrid and Valencia. All four clubs denied any wrongdoing.
Spanish tennis superstar Rafael Nadal was also asked about a possible connection to Puerto in a press conference at Wimbledon in 2006. It was one of the few times anybody can remember him scowling, his rejection of any link was made very clear.
"I do not want to be a hero or a martyr. This is a huge hypocrisy," Fuentes told Mandard. There are many of his compatriots who will be delighted he feels that way.
Cycling fans, on the other hand, are going to have to endure another two months of this, as the likes of Contador and 2005 Tour runner-up Ivan Basso are called in to say as little as they possibly can about their dealings with the dodgy doctor.
It will all be very seedy and embarrassing, particularly for Contador, who only returned from a two-year ban in August.
Spain's tarnished reputation in this area is also unlikely to get much of a polishing, although getting this trial on after so many judicial roadblocks is a victory of sorts.
So as adverts for truth and reconciliation go, the Operacion Puerto trial looks set to be a disappointment. Hazy memories and the distinct possibility of a mistrial look more likely, which would ensure Fuentes keeping his secrets and Spain its heroes.

New vocabulary:
diminishing return :  rendimiento decreciente            hurdler: corredor de vallas
mildly:  moderadamente, ligeramente                       plunge: lanzarse, meterse
stance : actitud, postura                                          aftermath: consecuencia
to scrap:  pelear, reñir                                            scowling: ceñudo
who can tell which way the wind is blowing.:  quien sabe de que lado se está???
coincidentally : fortuitamente                                   dodgy: arriesgado, sospechoso
amnesties:   amnistías                                              seedy: sospechoso, de mala fama
dopers:  drogadictos                                               tarnished: manchado, empañado
airlifted :  transportado por aire                               polishing: abrillantando
intended : esperado, planeado                                 roadblocks: barricada
bolstered : reforzado                                              Hazy: difuso, confuso
wire traps: redes trampa?                                        mistrial: juicio nulo
Raids :  ataques
a trove: tesoro
intriguingly: fascinantemente
parlour : recepción
amongst: en medio de, entre
lingers : permanecer
bans: prohibiciones
overturned:: anular, volcar
reluctance: desgana
to pry: curiosear
fuss:  protestar, quejarse
shorthand: clave, escenografía
prior: anterior

Thursday 7 February 2013

Homework 6th February 2013

I'm sorry... I confess... I admit... I played hooky last monday... and I didn't get the right information to share... that is why I didn't write you... I will try to do better in case I have to be absent one more time. Moving us to our target, the homework for the next Wednesday (Monday will be off due to the Carnival celebration).
Dossier 3 --> page 34, Task 3 "Viking Woman", page 65 "Harrods" and pages 71 and 70. Exercises
And something left, we were working with a sheet about "Letters of Application", then the activity 8 should be done. If you need extra information, there is a related powerpoint in our teacher's blog .
And if you want more information about collocations, no hesitate and click here. or here if you had problems...
I hope I haven't forget anything... Have a nice Carnival!!!