SWIMMING IS FOR EVERYBODY

 Swimming can be practised all around the world. It is very simple and not very difficult as most people are taught to swim when they are young. It doesn’t need much material, just a towel, a swimsuit, goggles, a swimming cap and a pair of flip flops. Apart from that, if you want to develop your muscles more, you can use oars and swimming flippers that are not too expensive.

Swimming is a very healthy sport because it mostly makes the whole body work. It also relaxes. However it is not the best sport; it can be dangerous if you start to swim before you haven’t finished your digestion. Therefore you can get injured if you don’t properly make some movements of the arms or legs, or if your posture is not correct, you can acquire serious problems in your back.

To practice this sport in our country and province, we have several levels of difficulty and also of speed. If you are just starting with it, there are short courses in which you are not told to swim much and that take few hours every week. If you are more advanced, in these short courses there are also levels in which more hours every week are added and the number of meters you have to swim increases. If you think that your level of swimming is higher than this, you can go to the school of swimming in which you pay a fee for four months and you swim one hour everyday of the week, from Monday to Friday. Moreover there is a higher level than this, it is the club of swimming, in which you pay the same as the last one but you swim two hours every day of the week and in which you can compete with the rest of the provinces of Castilla y León and within the rest of the communities in Spain. Actually this is where I swim.

It is a bit hard, but it is worth it because you end with the satisfaction that one day when you compete you can win some medals and also you can get to be the best swimmer of our country. Here in Soria there are a lot of people who swim that are really good and that win a lot of medals and are good people. Swimming here doesn’t mean that you leave your studies, because it is surprising that with the number of hours that we spend swimming, they have really good academic results. Being here means to be good at swimming, be a hard worker, and a good student (or at least trying to be). Here we can find people of all ages, from 11 or 12 years old to people of 18 or 20 years old.

All in all, swimming is great; you can have a really good time without spending a lot of money and you can be healthy. For the ones that haven’t tried it yet, I advise them to try it. It is worth it and they can get a lot of advantages. 

I hope you have liked it. BYE!!

LAKE NATRON: THE LAKE THAT WILL PETRIFY YOU

It is said that there is a lake in Tanzania that petrifies every animal that submerges in its deadly water. Is that true?

If you tape Nick Brandt, Lake Natron in Google, you will be shown an amazing collection of balck-and-white photographs of a decadent grey moor. Probably it willl remind you somehow of a 19th century poem, or even of death. It is grey, dark and quite sinister.The photo is dominated by a prettified animal, probably a bird. Also grey. Spooky, isn’t it? It feels cold: as if a death had arrived there like a deadly breeze.

But if you only type Lake Natron in Google (and you omit the pictures by Brandt) you will see a bright red lake surrounded by yellow hills and a bright blue sky. You will also see flamingos, lots of flamingos. I’m not cheating you. It is just the same lake, the same époque. I will also add that the photos by Brandt are not false, nor retouched. 
Lake Natron is a salt lake located in North Tanzania, In the border with Kenya. It covers between 600 and 100 square kilometers depending on the season It is very near to a volcano: Doinyo Lengai (translated as God’s Mountain). This is a major factor. The volcano releases minerals and compounds to the lake: chlorine, sodium, magnesium and sodium carbonate.They are all very alkaline compounds. This sodium carbonate is very abundant in the lake. Sodium carbonate is a salt that, in reaction with water, creates a very alkaline solution. This salt helps the process of conservation of corpses –in ancient Egypt it was used in the process of mummification. This solution rises the PH of the lake’s water up to 10.5. Taking into account that caustic soda’s PH is 13.5 we can assume that this is an extremely alkaline (and hostile) environment. This alkaline water scalds and ocular damages to undapted animals, but that’s all. No animal is petrified by the lake, although some people argue that it does, especially after watching Brandt’s work. The animals were not killed by the lake, they died accidentally, naturally… And the compounds of the lake petrified (calcified) the corpses.

The environment is extremely alkaline, so Whow can flamingos live in there? Well it also has a scientyfical explanation: The redish color that paints the lake is not a mineral, but organic. An algae called Spirulina (adapted to the alkaline water) releases red pigment that paint the water. this red pigment attract the 2,5 million flamingos that live in the lake. They are well adapted to the environment, and they feed on the Spirulina. As well s they have a great place to brred, safe from predators. To avoid the alkaline water they stand on the mud or salt islets.

The artist also had a trick. He did not find the corpses as they appear in the photos. He found the calcified animals on the shore of the lake but he admitted that he moved the corpses to create an illusion, and I think it was quite effective.

SCHOOL DRAMA!

On the 16th of April, we started the Easter holidays! Well... you could call it holidays but really, with all the studying/homework/preparing for our third and last term, we couldn´t relax.

On the last week of the second term we arrive at class and we are bombarded with homework for the holidays. OK, one teacher gives us something that’s easy, another something that can be done in 30 minutes. We don’t mind. But if you add; the little amount of homework that “that” teacher gives us, plus the little amount of homework that “that” teacher gives us, plus the easy homework that “that” teacher gives us, plus the easy homework that “that” teacher gives us, and so on, IT ISNT A SMALL AMOUNT OF HOMEWORK!! For me, seriously, the worst part is when our teachers say, enjoy your holidays, after giving us the enormous list of homework.

Some of us do our homework at the beginning of the holidays; others of us leave it for the last minute. These problems are ours, but still... I agree totally with homework, because if we didn`t have homework, well, we would forget most of the things we have learnt in school, but...

Perhaps all of the teachers should have a meeting before the holidays to put in common the amount of homework we are going to be sent so that it balances out. 

I talk for every teen when I say this; how do our teachers want us to enjoy our holiday when they give us so much homework?