ABC Student News: Book Review

Erin Dionne - Models Don’t Eat Chocolate Cookies

Rating: 5 stars!!!

Although I would recommend this for some younger female readers, I do admit it’s a fun read for the rest of the school girl population. If I didn’t make it clear before, there is absolutely no doubt that this book is aimed for girls – starting with the fact that the book’s central character is a 12 year old girl struggling through the infinite drama that is “pre-pubescence”; and the fact that this 12 year old girl is also trying to get out of a beauty pageant by losing weight. [I think we just lost some of the boys!] But, if you’re a boy - you’ve made it this far, what’s a couple of more lines? So… as said before, the book is basically about a slightly overweight 12 year old girl who is basically entered into a beauty pageant for “Husky Peaches”, against her will. So, as her last desperate attempt to get out of the pageant, she decides to lose weight in order to be disqualified from the pageant. The book transcends from her decision to lose weight to her actual procedure to do so - as many other things go on in her life throughout the book.

The Critic’s Corner: Bravo Erin Dionne, Bravo… Maybe it’s a biased opinion, but if I was Dali I’d artistically twirl my mustache at both its ends in admiration of the ART! Just saying… Not that it’s a perfect book but the way in which its unique plot harmoniously intertwines with its witty style deserves my round of applause. The fact that you can actually relate to Celeste [the central character of the story] – no matter who you are - and the fact that it’s Celeste that narrates the story throughout the whole book, immediately connects you to her world and makes you part of the book. In other words, Dionne’s attempt to connect the reader to the novel gives the reader a solid perspective of the story and also leaves the reader with no doubt on her mind on what the writer meant. So, next time you’re looking for a fun read, I’d recommend this book! Remember me when I say that after you finish this book: your review won’t vary much from mine.

Written by: Celina Milla

ABC Student News: International News

If Napoleon Bonaparte was alive, how would he react to these news?

 France and England have recently agreed to join their armies to cut costs down.

London, UK - During the past 2^nd of November, new treaties on defence and nuclear joint were signed by two of Europe’s nuclear powers, England and France, despite the fact of being enemies in historical battles such as the one in Agincourt and Waterloo.

After having signed the agreements along with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, current prime minister of the United Kingdom, David Cameron, stated: “ Today we open a new chapter in a long history of co-operation on defence and security between Britain and France.”

On one of the two treaties, both heads of state committed their armies to work “more closely than ever before”, by setting up a “combined expeditionary force” of 5, 000 soldiers from both sides, as well as agreeing to share at least one aircraft carrier at sea between them. On the other treaty, both countries agreed to increase co-operation on “nuclear safety” during the next 50 years. This nuclear treaty will involve the establishment of a centre in the UK for the development of testing technology and another one in France to carry out the actual nuclear testing.

The ultimate goal of such treaties, Sarkozy and Cameron said, was “to save millions of pounds without undermining national sovereignty”.

Will these old rivals actually be able to work together in an attempt to prevent future nuclear wars and cut costs, or will this strategic move lead to yet more tension? Let’s hope for the best.

By: Gerardo Blandón

ABC Student News: Curious Facts

Gadsby: A Story of Over 50,000 Words without Using the Letter "E"

Gadsby: Champion of youth is a 1939 novel by Ernest Vincent Wright. The plot revolves around the dying fictional city of Branton Hills, which is revitalized thanks to the efforts of protagonist John Gadsby and a youth group he organizes.

The 136-page novel is written as a lipogram and does not include words that contain the letter "e". The novel's 50,110 words don't contain a single "e." In Gadsby's introduction Wright says his primary difficulty was avoiding the "-ed" suffix for past tense verbs. He focused on using verbs that don't take the -ed suffix and constructions with "do" (for instance "did walk" instead of "walked"). Scarcity of word options also drastically limited discussion involving quantity, pronouns, and many common words. Wright was unable to talk about any quantity between six and thirty. Wright used abbreviations on occasion, but only if the full form is similarly lipogrammatic, such as with "Dr.", and "P.S.". Wright "blacked" the E key of the typewriter with string, so as to forbid E-words that might slip in... and many did try to do so. Wright's book inspired other "lipogrammatic" works, including the famous novel A Void, which doesn't use the letter A.

Written by: Camila Vega

ABC Student News: Media Influence

Media Influence

What did magazines all had in common last summer? All of the issues released in May, June or even July had one thing in common. Many of these articles were titled as: The Best Suit for Your Body Type, The Year's Hottest Suits, Create Your Own Suit, Get a thin body in just 10 days – you get the idea right?

In spite of the summer theme, each magazine promotes sunless tanning and safe sun exposure, which is a good thing. The bad thing is? Advertisements and the way, we as teens are influenced by these adverts and these ideas that are being promoted.

Adverts seem to be featuring LOTS of skinny, tall and “perfect girls” nowadays. Other than that, all of the magazines were loaded with fashion and beauty advice, each featured several true life stories from the merely humiliating to the terrifying stories that people tell, then we had the stories from celebrities and their careers, boyfriends/girlfriends, piercings, etc. Last but not least, each had its own section devoted to “boys”. Not FOR boys, you understand, ABOUT boys. How to talk to them, approach them, rate them, understand them, date them, and dump them.

So, basically the porpoise of this is to understand that we are unique people and each day the media is bombarding us with ideas of how love, life, family, relationships and many others should be. What we, as teens should do is try to not be influenced by these ideas firstly because as Irene C.Kassorla once stated, we should “have control of the authorship of our own destiny.  The pen that writes our life story must be held in our own hand”, so next time you read or watch an advert keep in mind that these are just trying to sell ideas, but you are the one who will decide whether to believe it or not

Written by: Ingrid Orellana

ABC Student News: United Nations Celebration

The video above was produced by the IGCA team at ABC and it summarises valuable information on the UN celebration that was held today at school

Posted by: Ingrid Orellana

ABC Student News: Editorial

NOT enough streets for so many holes

Of the five taxes charged into the gasoline of the Salvadorian drivers, one of them is to cover the costs of the FOVIAL, but I think that the citizens have enough arguments to tell that what they told about the money charged for the FOVIAL costs isn’t true, but a mere lie. After all this past raining months and days we can confirm that the streets have had damage and some even started to sink, but the FOVIAL isn’t there when it happens, they only do something when this problems becomes public in the news, then they go and solve the problem.  Many of the streets have suffered damages which are ignored by the FOVIAL completely, but then my question is, if the FOVIAL doesn’t use the money for solving the road network problems, then for what do they use it? Does the FOVIAL even have the money, or is the government using it for something else? If we continue this way in no time we will have to expand the streets to give more space for the holes to expanse! Nearly every street in El Salvador has holes nowadays. Some people say that the FOVIAL has distorted their duty, to reconstruct and improve the road network, they receive 66millions yearly, but some says that that isn’t enough, but I think people wouldn’t care to pay a little more if the FOVIAL REALLY did their job.

Written by: Paola Soundy

ABC Student News: International News

THE ‘REAL’ ORIGIN OF HALLOWEEN

Halloween is round the corner, there are only 2 days left for one of the most popular celebration in North America and Europe to take place; and although in our country many do have the concept of the modern celebration, homogenization has not be influential enough to propagate the epidemic celebration in every Salvadorian home. However, the different believes around the origin of Halloween rose 220% this week between adults and children all over the world, perhaps to settle and debate on the different points of view of cultural or religious believers.

Although nowadays Halloween consists for the youngest on tricking and treating around streets to ask for enormous and delicious candy as an award to their fun and complexed costumes; the truth is that around the 800’s when this tradition arose it did not have that meaning but certain accepts were in fact similar to those practiced today.

Originally, the festival came from the Celtic holiday Samhain which means summer's end, and celebrated the end of fall and the beginning of winter. This day also marked the Celts' version of the New Year — and the time, they believed, when the dead came back to roam the earth. 

Ancestors were honored, but evil spirits were warded off by lighting bonfires and wearing costumes to hide from them. Turnips carved with faces got placed in windows to scare off the unwelcome undead. People would go "a-souling," and in exchange for food and drink, pray for a household's dead relatives. In Scotland, spirits were impersonated by men wearing all white with veiled faces. Sound familiar?

The entire tradition was a clash between this Celt tradition and the Roman Catholicism tradition of Feralia which consisting in honoring their deaths – and which is still celebrated on November 2^nd all around Christian nations, including ours – and which is now called All Saints Day. In the middle of the 19^th century Irish immigrants brought Halloween to American and it expanded and was transformed to now produce over $2 billion for all candy producers in the United States.

Written by: Fabiola Wollants