15 Question Interview with an EF Student

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  1. If you could drink only one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?

– Water.

  1. What is your biggest goal in life?

– To be happy all my life.

  1. How old do you think our substitute teacher Kevin is?

– 28.

  1. What do you think you will be doing in 20 years?

– I think I will have a good job and my own family, and hopefully be married.

  1. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would that be?

– I think, in Spain.

  1. Who is the most important person to you?

– My sister.

  1. What makes you happy?

– The sun, going out with friends, my family, and eating.

  1. What makes you sad?

– If I see other people being sad or unhappy.

  1. Who is your biggest inspiration?

– My grandmother.

  1. Do you have any big regrets in life?

– My ex-boyfriend.

  1. Why did you come to Santa Barbara?

– Because I wanted to learn English in a sunny place and I heard a lot of good things  about Santa Barbara.

  1. What do you talk about to avoid awkward silence?

– Always asking the other person questions.

  1. Where is the best place to spend a Saturday night?

– In a good club.

  1. What would be the first thing you bought if you won 10 million dollars?

– A car and a house.

  1. What is important in a best friend?

– That you can always go back to the same person, knowing that she would never abandon you.

Oktoberfest

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by Jasmine Jacobs, Germany

 

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Oktoberfest is the world largest and most popular folk festival in the world. A folk festival celebrates traditional folk crafts and folk music. It is located in Munich, in Germany. Every year over 6 million people from all over the world come to Munich to be a part of it.

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One of the most popular traditions is the first draft from a freshly tapped cask of beer. This tradition signals the start of Oktoberfest.

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On one day you can see the splendid carriages of the Munich breweries. Every spectacular carriage is different and unique.

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It’s a 16-18 days folk festival. If you are over 18 years old you should visit the big tents. There you can listen to German folk music, drink the traditional beer and eat the traditional food. Warning: The beer is really expensive, it costs approximately $12.

There are 14 big and 15 small tents. In all these tents there is space for over 100,000  people. Every year all tents are completely full.

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To wear traditional German clothes is a fun part for all visitors. Women where a ‘Dirndl’, which is like a dress, and men wear leather trousers.

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This folk festival is not only a fun event for adults. In the outdoor area there is a huge range of fun activities for young people so it’s not necessary to visit a tent. You can have a lot of fun just being outside.

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PNL/QLF

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By Leon Valette,  French part of Switzerland

PNL is a French group composed of two brothers ( Ademo and N.O.S.). Their real names are Tarik and Nabil. They are from a city close to Paris in France. Their father is a Corsian raider who raised them alone without their mother.

They have a little brother named Yanis. At high school they attended hip-hop classes, influenced by  Psy 4 de la Rime Ou Sinik. Tarik started to rap at 15 years old.

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GAIS, Swedish Soccer’s Own Yo-Yo.

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Simon Kjellgren, Sweden.

“When you start supporting a football club, you don’t support it because of the trophies, a player, or a history. You support it because you found yourself somewhere there; found a place where you belong.” This is a quote from legendary soccer player Dennis Bergkamp. I personally live by those words because they’re the truest words anyone has ever said about soccer.

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“My team” is called GAIS, short for Goteborgs Atlet & IdrottSallskap (roughly translated to “Gothenburgs Athletes & Sports Association”), and is one of the oldest soccer clubs in Sweden. Founded in 1894 by a wrestler named Carl Gustafsson at a food hall in the heart of Gothenburg, they didn’t start up their soccer organization until 1897. The team blossomed and won their first national championship in 1919 and later became one of the founders, and the first champions, of Sweden’s top soccer leauge “Allsvenskan”. After that, they were ranked one of Sweden’s top teams for a while, at least until the fifties, more specifically 1954. That’s the year when we would win our last championship, at least for now.

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After 1954 we became a “Yo-Yo team”. This means that we went up and down in the leagues and were never able to stay in one league for long. It would take 50 years for “GronSvart” (“GreenBlack”, one of the teams nicknames because of their colors which are, you guessed it, green & black.) to really set their foot in Allsvenskan again. They had been there a couple of times before, but only for short periods of time. They managed to stay in Allsvenskan for 7 straight seasons after their 2005 promotion, which hadn’t been done since their relegation in 1955. During the 7 seasons they proved themselves a mid-level team, with their best position being a 5th place back in 2011. The year after that GAIS would be relegated again, finishing last with the worst score in the history of Allsvenskan. And that pretty much takes us to the present.

They have always had very passionate and cynically optimistic fans, this beautiful Rock n’ Roll team from Sweden’s west coast. Every year the fans think that we will win the league, and every year they are left worrying about another demotion. It has been that way for the past 4 years, but still, the fans remain positive. They have to remain positive so as to not go crazy from all the stress and disappointment that “Makrillarna” (“The Mackerels” another nickname given to us because of our colors) has brought us. I personally stay hopeful, knowing that after rain comes sunshine. although we play best when it’s raining; we call it Makrillvader (Mackerel weather) as it’s easier to fish for mackerel when it is raining a bit. I really hope that the sun will soon shine on our beaten down emblem and that our former glory will come once again.

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GAIS supporters displaying a banner with our most famous motto: “Style, Class & Tradition – since 1894

To bring it full circle, I’d like to go back to the quote in the beginning, but tweak it just a little bit. “When you start playing for GAIS you might do it because of our history and  our trophies, but you’ll stay because you found yourself somewhere there, somewhere you belong.”

And to that end, I’d like to translate part of a song by Sweden’s most famous singer, and also our march-in song, which kind of encapsulates what the team is all about. “I don’t have any strong arms to carry you with, and I’m not much at all to look at, but you’ll never have to lie again, and you’ll never have to see me laying there, dead on the road”.

German Sites

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Pascal Lange, Germany

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The Neuschwanstein Castle is in Neuschwanstein, Bavaria. It was finished in 1869 and inspired Walt Disney, that’s why it is sometimes called the Disney Castle.

 

Brandenburg Gate:brandenburger_tor

The Brandenburg Gate was built from 1789 to 1793. It’s a triumph gate in Berlin and the only existing city gate of 18 others.

 

Europa-Park:

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The Europa-Park is a theme park in Rust, near the French border. He’s 95 hectares large and the biggest in Germany. The Europa-Park opened on 12th June 1975 and is the second most popular theme park in Europe, after the Disneyland Paris. The ‘Golden Ticket Award’-Jury of the US magazine “Amusement Today” chose the Europa-Park in September 2017 for the fourth time in a row to the best theme park in the world.

 

Cologne Cathedral:2016-quer-IMG_0692

The Cologne Cathedral is the second tallest cathedral in Europe and third tallest in the world and since 1996 UNESCO world heritage site. The Cathedral was started in the 13th century but finished in the 19th and was from 1880 to 1884 the tallest building in the world.

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Ulm Cathedral:

The Ulm Cathedral is, with 161.53 meters, the tallest church in the world. She was built from 1377 to 1543 and wasn’t damaged at the 1944/1945 attacks on Ulm. Ulm is the city were Albert Einstein was born.

 

 

Reichstag Building:download

The Reichstag Building is in Berlin and was built from 1884 to 1894. Since 1994 the elections for the Bundespresident are in the Reichstag Building and since 1999 the German Bundestag, so the German Parliament sit in the Building.

 

Dresden Frauchenkirche:dresden-frauenkirche-1500x850

The Dresden Frauenkirche is in Dresden and was built from 1726 to 1743. She was seriously damaged from the 13th to the 14th February 1945 and on the 15th February she collapsed. From 1994 to 2005 the Church was rebuilt.

Traveling

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By, Ali Alghamdi, Saudi Arabia.

And, Ali Ahmad, Saudi Arabia

Traveling is one of our hobbies. We have traveled since we were young. We have many reasons to love traveling, such as changing our daily routine, learning about other countries culture, meeting new people from different countries, and visiting museums help us to learn the country’s history.

We have visited about 30 cities in 17 countries in the last five years.

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One of the most beautiful cities we visited was Auckland in New Zealand. The weather was perfect and the people were more friendly there. We loved this city because it was amazing.

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Also we would have so much fun in Milan, There was a big mall that has many brands, Italian foods and it was beautiful .

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We visited Selangor also in Malaysia and it was amazing city for tourists to relax. And if you need to marry you can go to there as a honeymoon.

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Eventually, traveling has positive and negative sides but we will keep traveling until the last day of our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Social Behavior USA vs. Europe

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Britt de Gier from the Netherlands

Muhamet Shala from Switzerland

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Wanderlust – the Need of Travel

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Stella Pioli, Italy

I love to travel. Don’t you love that feeling when your first waking thought is, “Oh, yeah…I’m going somewhere today!”?. My parents and grandparents always told me to explore the world, because if we were meant to stay in one place, we’d have roots instead of feet.

 

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A word that we always hear more often is “Wanderlust”. For those who don’t know what it is, it means a strong desire for or impulse to travel and explore the world. It may reflect an intense urge for self-development by experiencing the unknown, getting to know unfamiliar cultures, ways of life and behaviors, or may be driven by the desire to escape. For them, it’s not only travel, but a challenge; they explore places where they are likely to be pushed out of their comfort zones or encouraged to take risks.

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Not everybody is meant to travel. There are some people who never feel the urge to leave the house. Staying in the city they came from, hanging out with the people they have known since they were kids, sitting on the same the couch, and staying in the 360 degrees that immediately surrounds them: they’re happy with that. A lot of people in this world don’t see the point of travelling, and most say it’s a waste of time, money, or it’s scary to travel to places that are far away.

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page” – Saint Augustine

Then there are the rest of us: the people who can’t sit still and always keep their passports on them – just in case. In fact, if we did not love to travel and explore a new culture we would have never taken this trip to Santa Barbara. It doesn’t matter if you stay for 4 weeks or 9 months, you had the impulse to travel, you were bitten by the travel bug. We are still finding and preparing ourselves for school and career. The skills and experience we gain from traveling abroad gives us life-long personal benefits as well as a leg up in the professional world.

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But have you ever wondered why some people need to travel more than others? For those people, it becomes one of life’s essential needs, as important as food and shelter.

Well, a study shows that such behavior traits with a gene variant known as DRD4-7R, which is thought to be present in around 20 % of the population. Some have even nicknamed it as the “wanderlust gene”. DRD4 is a dopamine receptor that helps control the levels of dopamine in our brains. The 7R allele is associated with increased risk-taking, curiosity and various psychiatric disorders including ADHD, alcoholism and drug dependency.

 

The Earth is filled with infinite experiences, wonders and once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Imagine, camping out underneath the aurora borealis in the Canadian tundra or hiking through the Sacred Valley of Machu Picchu. I believe that a lot of education is experienced in a classroom or through a textbook, but it isn’t nearly as fulfilling or effective as traveling the world.

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We are inspired to live better, to be happier and to give back to those in need. Our lives are defined by experiences. The greater the number of experiences, the better the definition of life becomes.

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough” – Mae West.

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Healthy Japanese Food

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By Haruka Toyoda, Japan

Japanese can live longer than the other nationalities. Actually, we have research.It says the average lifespan for Japanese men is 80.79 years and for Japanese women is 87.05 years.This could be the longest lifespan around the world. Why can we live so long? Because we eat healthy Japanese food which is an intangible cultural heritage.

First, I want to introduce the structure of Japanese healthy food.We always have 4 kinds of foods. It called ‘1 zyuu 3 sai.’ That means soup, rice, one main dish and two small side dishes. To tell the truth, we don’t count rice.This photo is the typical breakfast.There is soup, 1 main dish(fish),2 side dishes(egg and green one) and rice.If you eat this, you can get all nutrients you need.This soup is called miso soup which is made of soy so also this is healthy.
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Next, I’ll introduce SUSHI.This is the most famous Japanese food around the world.Our country is surrounded by the sea.So we eat fresh fish.Most of Japanese like this. Actually, real sushi doesn’t have avocado.It’s rare to see sushi with avocado in Japan and I have never seen a California roll in Japan.But I like this kind of sushi.

Finally, I want to tell you about Okinawa where the person who had the longest lifespan lived.Okinawa is located in the western  Japan.It has a  beautiful ocean and delicious food.The most famous food is called  Goya.It tastes bitter but it contains a lot of Vitamin C.The weather is warm through the year.And old people normally work at their own farm and grow vegetables.The secret to living a long time is to be active and eat healthy food.

Let’s eat Healthy Japanese Food!

 

Saddened, But Not Surprised

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britttBritt de Gier, The Netherlands

Crime is increasing in The United States. The alarming fact about the increase is the large percentage of young people that are involved in those crimes. One in four 11 to 16 year olds have committed an offence, for example shoplifting or assault. Is it that they get lost in the big bad world and dig the pleasure that the crime brings, or is it their surroundings, their parents or friends? The teens are not adults yet. They are not capable of handling difficult situations as mature people. The government came up with a possible solution. They introduced social behavior program and curfew orders for young people.

The Youth Justice Board did a study with over 5,000 schoolchildren. The outcome was shocking. In almost every category of crime, children are involved more and more. In the last year, the percentage rose from 22% to 25% of the proportion of children who committed an offence. A few examples of the biggest increases; handling stolen goods (19% -> 25%), physical assault (24% -> 31%) and thefts from school (15% -> 23%).573dfba60b3db_image

The same 5,000 children answered a survey about right and wrong behavior. These results are also horrifying. Not even a third of the children frowned at under-age drinking. 30% approved the fact of carrying a knife as a weapon, that is 1,500 of the 5,000 children. Less then a third of the children disapproved of hitting someone when they are insulted.  The spokesman of the Youth Justice Board says; ”The results are concerning and saddening, but not surprising.” An important possible reason for these results might be the decreasing age of the youngsters becoming young adolescents.

There are several different reasons for teens getting involved in crimes. If we discuss the possible reasons we might understand them better and we could give a helping hand. Ayouthcrime very common problem are economic troubles. Children who grow up in poor circumstances want to better their life standards quickly. They usually are not well educated, so they take the ”easy” route, crime.

Psychological problems push the youth to the path of crime, for example a troubled childhood when they have seen violence and try to hide their weakness behind the crimes they commit.

People who are being discriminated against in this world often show frustration and anger. They express their feelings on the society in the form of crime.

Young people are the future of every nation, so it is extremely important that they are guided on the right route. Youth crime is very dangerous, but attractive sadly for a lot of teens. It is a hard job to keep every single one of them on the right track. Some teens have issues with controlling their anger or putting their energy towards positive things, so they can contribute in the society. Youth crime should be taken seriously. Preventative programs are necessary, otherwise it will bring a nation to its knees.