Traditions

Hey, when I started to write this article was 12:41 am of Sunday, but I was very busy and so I'm writting now the other part of the article. Well I'm going to talk about traditions. This because last Sunday I went to my uncle's house to celebrate my cousin's birthday, and I thought that in Italy there are a lot of traditions, I'm going to describe them. The best tradition is: we have the habit of eating together, infact we eat every day together, we don't eat fast food, but for  lunch and for dinner we all seat at the kitchen table and we eat together , talking and laughing, and having fun, this for some people is a good thing, but for other is not a good thing, for me for example is not very good, because I have a lot of homework and spend a lot of time for eating is not for me the best idea to spend my “ free” time. Many families oblige their kids stay like 1 hour at the table, I have never liked that. The next tradition is: stay for lunch at granmother house, usually granparents invite their “ children” to eat with them and their family, so all the family is together at least for a day. Mum and grandmother prepare all tipical dishes of the family and sometimes children play together, I don't have cousins that have my age, so have never played with them.
All the family and friends of the family  are reunited for Christmas, for this party all families prepare their dishes and take them to the landlord.
For Christmas usually people exchanges a kiss to their partner under a sprig of mistletoe.
I don't know if in other places ther is the wedding list, here  this is  disappearing, but many people still do this, the wedding list is a list of the most important things that a couple wish for their future house, so the guestes don't give them useless things.
Here in Italy teenagers become adults when they are 18, so this is like in America for 16, these teenagers/adults do a very big party with their family and their friends, and after they can have their car.
Talking about wedding, in the South of Italy people do a very long marriage, like 3 or 4 days of party, and all the guestes must stay with the newlyweds. Sometimes friends cover the floor of the new newlyweds' house with glasses with water, so when they want go into their house, they must remove all the glasses.

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Health

Hey world :) I'm sorry, I didn't write articles because I was very busy, here at school we are doing the period of recovery for the students that have bad grades in any subject, so students that are good at school must explain to these students all the topics of the year, so we must study a lot, like 300 page by subject, and all days we must " teach" to this guys :D Well I want to write about health in Italy making a comparison with America because one day you know I'd like to live in America so I must know the rules of health :)
In Italy if you are sick you must go to your family doctor, that you choose near your town and you go there for prescription and for  visits of little importance, you go there if you have a cough or influenza or other little problems, or you go there if you want do a special visit by other doctors. This visit are free, you don't pay this doctors but they have a salary of about 4.000 euros. If you go by other doctor, visits aren't cheap! Is the opposite are too expensive and usually when you go by this doctors, you don't have the answers that you would like to have. Usually this doctors are surface and always they seem angry! I don't know why but for this I'm afraid from them! Some times ago at tv people talked about a doctor that in an operation has left a gauze in the belly of the sick! They are crazy! A lot of doctors pay their teacher to switch some exams or they know the right people to overtake the students that are better then them, so when you go to do a visit you can find a bad doctor. But not all doctors are so bad, sometimes if you are lucky you can find a real doctor. When you go to do a special visits by these private doctors, as a minimum you pay 100 euros and often this doctors  visit you for 5 minutes. But differently from USA if you go to the hospital you don't pay nothing, but when you go out from the ospital all the visits that you do you must pay a ticket for them. Like if you broke your elbow and doctors put it on a plaster when you must remove it you pay 50 euros. So isn't true that in Italy health is free! And drugs are expensive! While when I travelled with my parents in Danmark and Norway I had otitis and I was very sick, so we went by a doctor and we tought that we would pay a lot of money but at the end of the visit and with the drugs we paid around 20 euros, If I remember right in their money are 27 or 30! This doctor was very nice and good and patient, because he explained to them all in english and he repeated all what we didn't understand.
In America if you broke your elbow you pay around 500$ if you have insurance, without this you pay 7.000$
Well I don't know if in America doctors are good or not, but I hope so!


Esperia

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American schools

American Schools

The schools here in America are very interesting. I am in high school, and I feel like many people cannot be who they are without being judged for it. But they're not all bad. :) There are many kind and wonderful students. We have a variety of classes that are offered, and sports are a huge deal at my school. If you are good at playing sports, you are popular. Many people play volleyball, basketball, football, soccer, golf, swim, or run track. I attend school from 8:00-3:20 on Mondays- Thursdays. On Fridays, we have a shortened day and we are released at 12:30. There are four classes a day. We have some mandatory classes, like Language Arts, Math, Science, and History. French, Spanish, and German are also offered as optional classes.There are different obligatory classes for each grade level. I received all of my credits for my freshman year already, and right now I am taking all of my fun classes. Yay! :) I enjoy school. Sometimes it can be boring, but it's normal for everyone to feel that way. My two favorite classes are Creative Writing and Art. :) A typical class has about 20 students in it. My smallest class has 9 students in it and my largest class 25 students. I am the youngest student in many of them. 

- Kenna

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China

China has almost 1.4 billion people,so we do have many student.There are 2000 students in my grade,and I have to compete with 25000 students for collage--we are in the same province,and same grade.

And China is almost the first country to select officers by tests and exams.In ancient times,some people even chose to be a student for his all life(OK Thats because they didnt pass exams.).Though not all people have to go to school and only some of students can pass the exams,all Chinese at that time think the best things in the world are marrige and passing the exams.

So lets go into our topic--education in China.

Unlike students in other countries,high school students in China has poor free time.For example,me,a high school who is struggling for collage etrance exam,go to school everyday even Sunday,and stay at school 12 hours from Monday to Friday.On your high school,school thinks you just have to prepare for exams so it stops classes which cant be tested in collage entrance exam,like music,art and so on.So what you can do is sitting on your chair,and,keep writing and studying.The key to be a top student is----never stop.I know many student who can keep writing and studying for more than 5 hours.Yes,they dont stop.

Its good for us to remember things,but we cant be creative when we grow up.I guess thats why China dont have really great collages in the world.

I think the most important skill for a person is creativing.And when all people are creative,I believe the country will be better.I dont really like The Party,but I love my country.

I dont know much about collage because I havent enter one.Maybe I will write about it in the future.

Yin

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Italian food

Hey :D I'm sorry that I yesterday I didn't write some articles but I was busy :) since that I have written only about bad things of Italy, I'm going to write about the best thing of italy, food! All know that italian food is very good and there are a lot of types of dishes. Pasta, Pizza are know everywhere, but there are other foods that are good like Pasta and Pizza, I love Pizzoccheri, they are a hot dish with pasta of cereals, vegetables, potatoes and a lot of cheese, Pizzccheri are cook in the oven and they are very very very good :) are typical of Veneto and Trentino alto Adige :)

Other food that I like is Ossi Buchi :) They are  veal shank that is cooked with his bones and you eat the meat and the pulp inside the bones, is so delicious but not all people love this kind of meat

Oh! I forget ! Polenta! This is a type of flour that  you cook in a pot very slowly and at the end it is like a purèe but more substantial, usually it is eat with Gorgonzola ( a tipical italian cheese that is soft ) or Brasasto ( are pieces of meat with souce ) or you can eat only it :) 

In Italy is a tradition eat together, we aren't used to eat fast food or eat watching tv because we think that is a moment where a family must stay together and talk about problems or only have fun together, eating good food. :)

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The traffic in India

The Traffic in India.

Let me start with this crazy little clip

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjrEQaG5jPM

Pretty scary right? But if you get a rapidly developing country with double the population of Europe, and more cars than people in Spain, and put them on vastly underdeveloped roads, there is bound to be a lot of trouble. This is further worsened, by the indifferent car driving schools, which are willing to give licenses for a small bribe. In fact, I have plenty of friends that drive without ever even visiting a school. This is mostly because the fines and stuff are just not scary enough to make anyone think twice. All this adds up to India being probably one of the most unsafe countries to drive your car in.

Let me give you some stats:

• India accounts for around 10% of worldwide road accident fatalities WORLDWIDE
• Around 1,275,000 people are fatally injured every year on the roads.
• 14 people per hour die on the roads everyday

These are pretty horrifying stats and to realize that this can easily be prevented by simply raising awareness and making laws more strict all these lives could be saved. This is pretty serious stuff and with the explosion in car sales its more important than ever to be more aware.

Mithrandir

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We can't be ourselves

Well, today I want write about a bad custom that italians have. When you are walking on a street you can't be yourself, because if you are wearing strange clothes or you are too tall or fat, people observes and judges you.  Everyone is judged by people but they don't critic themselves! We think that we are perfect.. So in the free time we observe other people and we compare ourself with some other. I live in a little city and here everyone knows everyone, so you can't go out with a new friend that your grandfather is already  watching you out of the windows. When I go in a big city or abroad I can see that people wear what they want and people are not scared about that. I don't like this attitude that we have. Because I know that is annoying this, you can't do what you want because you are scared by  people's judgments. This is very frequent between old and young people or between teenagers. I'm a teenager and I know that expecially girls observe clothes and hair of other girls to be the best dressed. But is not right, because this can make sad someone. Few days ago a girls killed herself because her friends have fun of her and she was so sad that she died. People must think about themselves not about other people's life.

Esperia

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