Iavante English Training Programme

The following stories were created by students in 2011.

     A Summer Cultural Tour

-Four Friends, Three Children, a Castle and a Possible Ghost-

On our visit to the Escorial Monastery and Royal Palace, we found a ripped picture in Felipe II’ s bedroom. In the library we also found many old books lying on the floor next to a suit of armor. The most famous book of the Library “Felipe II’s Memories” had disappeared! The rest of the tourists accused us of stealing it. It was very important for us to find out what had happened before the police came.

After finding a few clues and making our little grey cells work (as Poirot in Agatha Chistie’s books says), we discovered that somebody was trying to steal an expensive old book from the library palace. The thief pretended to make noise and scare the rest of the tourists by pretending to be a ghost. The supposed thief wanted to create a confusing situation in order to steal the book.

But what is the moral of this short history? What you first see is not what lies beneath.

     The Algarve

This year for my summer holiday I went to the Algarve, situated on Portugal’s southern coast. I went to the city of Lagos, near the end of the Algarve, for one week.

Lagos has beautiful beaches but my favourite is “Do Camilo Beach” because the water is very clean, transparent and very blue. However the water is a little cold.

The weather in Lagos is special, because the mornings are hot but the nights are very cold! It is the second time that I have traveled to the Algarve and I’m sure that I’ll go back.

A Special Holiday

This year I had a very special holiday. I began my holiday in Calahonda. It’s a city in Granada where I spend all my holidays with my family and my friends. I also visited other beaches in Granada. For example, Nerja where you can eat a delicious paella, and Playa Granada, a very small, curious and fun beach.

The last week of my holiday, I went to the Algarve. It’s a port in the south of Portugal. The Algarve coast is very different than Granada’s coast. In Portugal you can find beaches with cold water, fine sand and international tourists. You can find people from other countries, English people above all. In Granada the water is calm, there are black rocks and the tourists are local.

Summer Fun at the Beach

My vacation was excellent! I enjoyed the beach with my family in the place of my infancy. I spent all my time with my family. For me it was very important.

Our friends were there too with their daughter.  Everybody went out a lot. The summer was very fun. The beach was ideal for swimming in the morning and in the evening.

Namibia Safari

This summer I went to Namibia for my holiday. Namibia is a country in South Africa. It was a German colony until 1990. It doesn’t have a very large population, only about 4 million. Half of the population is white and the other half is black.

We went on a safari in ”Moremi Park”. We saw a lion’s prints. The driver explained that it was a female lion and her cub. The driver said, “We are going to follow that print to find this animal”…and there they were!!!…but where?… They were near the tree in front of the car! They were laying face down. They had eaten a lot and they were sleeping!!

The Shoe Store

It was a wonderful summer day, very hot, more than 40 degrees and we decided to go shopping. It was like walking across the desert. Nobody was in the street. We were suffering and we needed to go into a cold place. My friend told me that she wanted to buy new shoes so I brought her to a famous shop in Granada close to the Cathedral that it is known all over the world. We entered the shop. There were only four people. One of them looked very strange, she seemed to be homeless. I was wondering why she was there…It is a very expensive shop. While my friend was looking for her new shoes she left her bag on a chair. When she went to pay, she couldn’t believe that her bag wasn’t there. She had no money, no credit cards, no passport. She had to return to her country and her flight was leaving in two days. The homeless old lady wasn’t there. We asked the owner and she couldn’t tell us anything except that she saw her leaving the shop in a strange way… and there was another woman waiting for her outside.

We called the police but nobody arrived so we decided to go to the police station and fill out a complaint form. They suggested we never leave our bags or anything alone. Later, my friend also canceled all her credit cards. This experience made her realize that we have to take care to watch our bags.

Beware wherever you are of everyone, no matter where they are from…

      Lost in Wutach

It was a nice morning in the Dark Forest. My friends, my girlfriend and I were excited about the trekking we were going to do that day. We had a delicious and powerful breakfast. We were worried about our allergies in the forest, but the high humidity level calmed us. Later we started to walk. We were very happy, joking and singing, not very well, but our audience was not very strict, you know, the plants and stones. The sun was shining through the trees and the river looked like silver.

The trail had several paths and we weren’t sure about the right choice. We took the one in the middle and for the next kilometers we were nervous. We confirmed that we were on the right path. Soon we had the lucky opportunity to see a local music band playing in a kind of summer camp. It was raining. It was wonderful. We returned to the trail with improved energy. It was becoming late but everything was ok.

That is, everything was ok until we felt that something was wrong. We were lost and we didn’t know where the last right checkpoint was. We focused on finding the right way. We didn’t fight, we just talked about several choices such as the right path and what we would do if become dark such as where to sleep, food and what to do about the cold.

As the sun set, we found a bridge that we had being looking for some hours. We laughed excitedly and happily. We spent the last part of the trail talking about our adventure. We felt very proud of ourselves, knowing the next problems of the trip would seem as little games.

We learned about how to handle problems, the real problems and the lesser ones.

The Mountain House

A group of mountain climbers went one clear day to the top of the Sierra Nevada. In a mountain refuge, they stopped to eat something and to drink isotonic water. As they were preparing to take a new route, the owner of the refuge asked, where they were going. They answered, “To the top of the mountain on a new route”. The refuge owner recommended that they continue on the usual route, because the weather conditions could change quickly. They didn’t believe the old owner, because the big sun was high in the sky.

The mountain refuge owner insisted and because they didn’t want to hear more they started walking on the usual path. However in the middle of the road, they changed and took the new route. They didn’t know, but it was a really big mistake!!! Four hours later, the weather conditions changed and it started to snow. Nobody could see anything, and they couldn’t walk because the freezing wind turned their hands violet and made it difficult to walk.

While they were waiting for their death, they could see the rescue group looking for them on the usual route, the path that the refuge owner had recommended and insisted that they must take. While they died, the thought to themselves, “Why didn’t we follow his advice?”

     The Fast Worker

It was a warm morning at the end of spring. I was sleeping and dreaming happily, like everyday, when suddenly I was woken by a frightened shout.

I’m pregnant! my girlfriend shouted sadly at me.

I felt like the roof of the house was falling over my head. I’m not ready I thought. I need to do a lot of things to be prepared to have a baby! I was the happiest man on Earth when I heard the news. However I knew I had to work very hard before the baby was born. I didn’t know anything about babies and I didn’t have the house ready for a new guest.

I spent all my holiday working on the baby’s room and reading books about parenting. There were many problems to be solved: where to move my office, how to correct the problems with humidity that appeared in the walls last winter, when would we buy and mount the furniture and with what money… in only fifteen days.

I wanted to do everything at the same time and obviously this was impossible. The first task I worked on was repairing the roof and fixing the humidity problem. I used latex paint and waterproof concrete in order to prevent rain from passing through the wall and affecting the room’s plaster. Next I removed the damaged plaster and put up new plaster.

The end of my holiday was approaching and the room was still not painted. I wanted to accelerate the process and this is when I made a big mistake. I painted the room on top of the very fresh plaster, which caused the paint to dry and fall onto the floor. I didn’t accelerate the process! Instead I lost two days and money and my holiday was almost about to finish. I had the same problem: an empty room with a bad paint job.

I finished the paint job after my holiday ended, learning a difficult lesson. My grandfather taught me when I was young: “Don’t ever rush during the threshing because the wheat might break”.

     Poquiperri

My husband and I were on our property in Conil when suddenly a dog appeared and began running around the house. He was in the rubbish, biting and breaking the bag and taking out everything that was in the cube. I called my brother-in-law because he had let the dog in. I was angry at the dog and my brother-in-law. I tried to get rid of this dog. Everything I did was unproductive; the dog always came back. My husband said, “Look at this dog, he doesn’t look like a dog. I will call him: Poquiperri”.

I started to call the dog “Poquiperri” and he seemed happy with his new name. The first night Poqui slept on my flowers and when I woke up in the morning I saw they were all flat!! I said to Poqui, “This isn’t right, you shouldn’t do that!” But Poqui only wagged his tail and jumped all over me looking at my hands for me to pet him.

One night my husband and I went to my parent’s house and when we returned Poqui had eaten my shoes. What a mess! My husband hated this dog. But Poqui continued jumping all over me and wagging his tail and I was beginning to love him.

Now, Poqui is one more in our family (almost) and I don’t scold him when he brings a chicken he has killed to my house and makes my property smell really, really bad (like death).

When you are persistent, like Poqui, giving love, and being nice to others, you can obtain anything that you want. Even if you are only a poqui of something, I suppose.

Who Let the Dogs Out!

Friday night I was alone at my mother’s house. My girlfriend was visiting her sister, my mother was working at the hospital and my sister was on a night out with friends.

However I was missing somebody: Otto, my sister’s little Schnauzer dog. She doesn’t usually take him out on Friday night. I called her to check if she knew where the dog was. She got very nervous and asked me to find him. Otto must have been very afraid due to the recent town fair fireworks.

I looked all around my Mom’s house shouting his name. I even looked in the front garden. It wasn’t until I entered the backyard that I could hear a dog whimpering. The sound wasn’t coming from my mother’s backyard but from the neighbor’s and it seemed that nobody was at home. I called my sister again and she told me that sometimes Otto hides at the neighbor’s house. She insisted that I go to the other house to bring Otto back.

I crossed the dividing wall by pushing a broken door and I entered into a very dark backyard. I could barely see anything that wasn’t closer than one meter away. Crossing to the other side, I could hear more clearly the sounds of a nervous dog. When I was less than a meter from the corner end, I was able to distinguish a shadowy figure that was far taller than Otto. I did not know this dog.

Was I afraid, you might ask. Not at all. You fear the unknown and although this dog was a complete stranger to me I could understand the situation. This dog (like many others) was terrified by the fireworks (they don’t know what fireworks are), also by an approaching stranger (me) who was not afraid (dogs smell fear). I turned around and went back to my Mom’s house to avoid scaring him more.

If you were wondering what happened to Otto, my sister found him a few hours later after returning from her night out. He had hidden in the doorway of a nearby house.

     Robbery in Creamfields

My friend Alvaro and I were in Jerez this summer for the Creamfields Electronic Music Festival. On the first day, in the middle of the night, somebody stole our cooler and a chair. We realized this in the morning and started to search for them. We looked around the campground and finally we found where they were. The guy who stole our equipment had a tent near us. We went to him and asked for our stuff, but he told us we had to pay if we wanted them back. We didn’t have any money, so we couldn’t pay him.

We were starving. We had no money and we couldn’t go to the city to buy food. So, we decided to wait until after midnight to steal our stuff back. It was 1 am when we saw the guy leave the campground. At that moment, we ran to his tent and opened it to look for our stuff.

We discovered that this guy had stolen many things from other people, so we decided to take all of it and give it back to their owners. Everyone thanked us for recovering their stuff. In the meantime, the guy came back and saw us giving back things to the people. He became furious. He started to yell at us, but the crowd protected us from him. Finally, this guy ran away because he was frightened by the people whom he’d stolen from.

The moral is: Don’t steal from too many people because they might steal even more from you or worse.

Name: InGNUana

Profession: He is a cool archeologist

Born in Tangier in 1978, he now lives in Dublin. His parents are Irish so he has double nationality: Irish and Moroccan.

Achievements: In his work as an archeologist he found the ancient city of  “Atlantis” and brought several precious things to the most important museums in the world.

Interests: He likes computers, electronics, and frequently practices endurance sports. He also likes to walk in the middle of nature.

Personality: He is an extrovert, with an acid sense of humor, very intelligent, and elegant when the occasion requires it.

Physical appearance: He is 1.8 m tall and his weight is 80kg. He has short brown hair, intense brown eyes and a muscular build.

Friends: InGNUana has only a few friends, because he usually travels a lot. All of them are from his childhood. One is a doctor in humanity sciences in another university and the other is a professional soccer player.

Flaws: He can get angry easily. He doesn’t have time to have a family. He is capable of lying in order to get the things he needs.

The Host———–
Chapter Summaries created by Students in Second Life Book Club

Contributors: Tresor, GNUardo, InGNUana, Linda LeJoin, Amy Lighthouse

**The Prologue**
This prologue describes how the Healer introduces a  selected soul into a human girl’s body. His regular assistant helps him in the operating room, where a group of students watch the surgery.

**Chapter 1: Remembered**
The soul is recognising the new body and finding out that the body has memories. This is something very new and odd for the soul. The soul is astonished with this situation.
The memories include the chasing of the body by the Seekers and also a face.

**Chapter 2: Overheard**
The soul awakens in the new body and listens to a conversation between the Healer and the Seeker. They disagree and argue about the need to use violence. The Seeker waits for the soul to wake up to ask her some questions.  The soul remembers her last body and recognises her new name: Wanderer. The soul describes how souls are. The soul wants to collaborate with the Seeker and tries to recover the body’s memories. But it isn’t easy and the soul wakes up with a sense of anger.

**Chapter 3: Resisted**
The soul is adjusting to her new body. She thinks the body is resisting and comments about this situation with the Healer and the Seeker. She wants to provide the needed information but it’s very hard for her.
The Healer explains about a previous case of resistance with a less experienced soul that had a bad end.
Making an effort, the soul shares the information she can find about the host. Her name was Melanie, and she came to Chicago to try to meet her cousin Sharon. The soul manages to find one memory the host is trying to hide: Jared, an important person for Melanie.

**Chapter 4: Dreamed**
A woman and a friend, or family member of hers, are very hungry, and are searching for some food. The woman goes to a home that is very far from her house and waits for the people that live in that house to leave to get food. When she tries to get out of the house a man tries to catch her. He is surprised to find that she is not an alien. He is also not an alien. His name is Jared and her name is Melanie. Melanie needs to get back to her home to bring food to her little brother named Jamie.

This is a dream that Wanderer has. When she wakes up, she emails the Seeker to tell her about Jamie. Melanie tells Wanderer that she hates her. Wanderer is upset that Melanie is getting stronger and talking to her inside her head.

**Chapter 5: Uncomforted**
The soul, Wanderer, goes to see her Comforter, whose name is Kathy. Kathy’s husband is Wanderer’s boss at the University where Wanderer works as a professor. Kathy tells Wanderer about the intitial days on Earth, and they talk about human love. Wanderer is getting very emotional because of feelings she has, and Melanie is getting stronger inside of her. Kathy suggests that Wonderer go to the doctor to get a new body. However Wanderer doesn’t like this idea and Melanie doesn’t either because the body will be thrown away. Wanderer decides that she doesn’t want the body to be destroyed.

Photos from our sessions in Second Life on Iavante Island:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/IAVANTE/209/173/34

—Orientation Day—

—Changing Bodies and Working with Our Avatar’s Alter Ego—

     —> 

From this …                        to this…

  to the famous Dragon…

and finally to this.

—Teleporting Around—

The following collages and stories were created by Students in 2010.

Click on the photos to enlarge.

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Relax

I want to relax. I want to dream. I go to the beach and I swim with my friends. It is a romantic place, relaxing, and comfortable. The beach is paradise, it’s full of nice shells. Suddenly!! What’s the matter? Lourdes wake up! Your daughter is here!

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Mary

There was once a girl named Mary. She worked alone in a great company department. She had never worked in a team. One day the director of human resources decided to change the department.  The new department was to be the marketing department. She joined the marketing department, where there was a team of people of different ages, profiles, and backgrounds. She learned to work in a team, like birds that change towards a target all go together, as well as the importance of active listening and teamwork, which makes work better and more enjoyable.

Images

My story is about images: people, smells and tastes in travel. It’s necessary to have a good camera and sensibility for images. This photo is of a very big salt lake in Bolivia. I haven’t visited it, but it is a beautiful place to see the sunset. It is possible to drink piña coladas in the house…this recipe is very easy!!

The Deer

In a land of sunflowers, there was a young man who was looking for a deer. The man wanted to kill the deer to cook and eat it.

Close to this place a dog walked when he heard a shot. The dog saw an old man looking for the deer too. This man had a red nose, maybe because he had drunk a lot of red wine. The old man was able to kill the deer and when the young man realised this, he ran away and drove his car out of the forest.

The Virus

It all began with a little bit of life: a virus.

Initially humanity didn’t know the consequences of this enemy. We didn’t have any weapons to fight it and soon it controlled our lives.

People were sick in a couple of months. First their legs stopped moving forever, after that the virus effected their arms, speech capacity and finally it killed the person.

People went on strike, but the different governments didn’t have anything to say, nothing to do.

Organized groups of people looked for a new place for humanity to live, but they had no luck.

People died everyday and there weren’t any births. Humanity was condemned, no hope.

Soon, only our bones remembered our presence on earth.

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My Perfect Day

A perfect day for me cannot start without a good cup of coffee: hot, intense, dark, sweet and with a lot of caffeine!

Of course there are no good days without computers, or more specifically: solving problems with the help of a computer. Some tech news and web surfing is also always welcome.

Another passion for me is biking across the fabulous, giant and sometimes savage Sierra Nevada.

After that I need to recover my strength: why not a lunch or dinner (or better both of them) with my favourite meal: Sushi!

In order to end the day on a high, I need to share some time with my favourite people: my family, my girlfriend or my friends. Another thing I love is to watch a SCI-FI movie at my home or at the theater and to dream about it.

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The Forgotten Day

    I don’t know why, but one day, after taking fifteen trains, I am on a beautiful beach.

The hot sun and the smooth sea, make me feel good. I think, am I with a woman? I think so, because I can see her bag. It is a perfect day. A big ice cream and special cake are prepared for me. A cheerful waiter comes with a cold vodka, but suddenly, a very strong hurricane starts. The special food and drink are lost. Nobody is here, and I think that I might be dead.

RING, RING !!! My alarm clock goes off!!!

I am in my bedroom!! I was sleeping like a baby and dreaming about holidays. Disastrous holidays!! The reality is that I am in my house with only yogurt.

In the end, I forget this day ….

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A Real Dream………………..
    One day when I woke up, I decided to write down my dream. I dreamt that I lived in a stone house in front of the beach. It had big windows and we didn´t need to switch on the lights. Everything was made of wood: the floor, the stairs, the doors…. The walls were painted white. It had a big garden with a fountain and a place where children could play. The atmosphere was clean, no noises, no pollution. In the garden grew many kinds of flowers. It was like living on an island.

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Olive Oil

Olive Oil went on a ride in the savannah on a long legged giraffe. This giraffe was very smart: she knew every single story on earth and didn’t stop talking while she carried Olive Oil.
Suddenly a bipard attacked them!
A bipard looks like a leopard but has double the strength and intelligence (it has two heads!!!).
The Giraffe hadn’t spotted the bipard because she was busy telling stories. Olive Oil hadn’t seen it either because she was having fun and even if she had seen it, she didn’t know what a bipard was.
Their guardian angels did nothing because they were busy laughing up in the sky. God tried to stop the bipard but the bipard was quicker.
Afterwards, God thought that an animal quicker than himself shouldn’t exist. This is why you have never heard about a bipard before.

The following Second Life tours were created by Students and their Avatars.

You can use these guides to explore new lands in Second Life.

Yuka Perdide: Visiting RLinSL

JuanPedro Sosa: Visiting Moscow

Asamita Acanthus: Visiting Cypris Village

GNUardo Mavendorf: Visiting Russian Red Square

Esteban Serrari: Visiting Moscow Island

viciante Crazyboi: Visiting the Port- Metaverse Node for Arts and Creative Technology

Aceral Turbo: Visiting SEMFYC Health Island (Spanish Society of Family and Community Medicine)

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Javier: Hey, Manolo. Do you know there will be free beer at “Trini’s” bar next Friday?

Manolo: No, I didn’t. But I know a place where we can always find good music and nice cold beer, “Armando’s”

Javier: We always go to “Armando’s” and we never see any good-looking women there.

Manolo: But Javier we can’t waste our time with women. We must focus on the music and anyway I’ve got a girlfriend.

Javier: But not me! And I’m nearly 40. So I need to go to “Trini’s”! I promise I won’t say anything to your girlfriend, not to mention your wife and numerous ex-girlfriends!!

Manolo: Listen, the best way to meet a woman is if you surprise her with your musical talent! So we need to play and Armando is the only one who will let us play in his bar.

Javier:  That’s nonsense! The real reason you don’t want to go to “Trini’s” is that because you know one of your ex-girlfriends will be there and you’re still in love with her!

Manolo: What do you know about love??!! Anyway I’ve got to get back to work. Catch you later.