Black Swan

Last Wednesday I went to the cinema to see Black Swan, which is an American psychological thriller film directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, and Mila Kunis. It was recorded last year and two weeks ago Natalie Portman won an Oscar for her role in the film.

I’ve seen two others films of Natalie Portman like Closer and Star Wars and I must say I love her work, actually she has been my favourite actress since I was twelve. So, that’s why I was anxious to see her last film. Some friends of mine had watched the film before me and when I asked them for their opinion, most of them answered they enjoyed it, but also that it was very hard. Now, I agree with them.

The main characters are:

Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman)
She is a young dancer of a New York City Ballet company who lives with her mother, a retired ballet dancer. Nina is obstinacy in being perfect in dancing and doesn’t have experience with boys. While preparing for the next production of the company, called Swan Lake, she starts to suffer psychotic symptoms.

Lily (Mila Kunis)
Lily is also a young dancer of the NYC Ballet company, whose character is just the opposite of Nina. She is not perfectionist and she loves being with guys. However, she is a brilliant dancer as well. If Nina becomes ill she is her substitute in the company.

Thomas Leroy (Vicent Cassel)
He is the director of the NYC Ballet company and who decides which girl have to do the main role of Swan Lake. She has a lot of influence in Nina’s life.

PLOT

Nina is training hard to be the new Queen of Swanks. When she gets this role her, personality starts to change. She becomes paranoiac and thinks Llily is going to steal his role doing it better than her. At the same time, her mother is controlling all her life. Her changes of mood and personality increase while the date of the premier of the ballet play is getting closer. And, if it is not enough, Thomas and Lily introduce her into the sex world. The end is not pleasant.

What about Facebook?

It seems that young people have become completely dependent on social reds like Facebook or Twitter. But, despite these uses of internet are very new, now they have the power to make the people of a country start a revolution, as it has happened in Egypt.

On the one hand, there are many advantages of using Facebook. It allows us to talk to people from anywhere and very quickly. Moreover, you can create groups of people and join people who have the same ideas as you. In addition, there’s any law which penalises your ideologists or control the information you pass to others. For this reason, many people say this is the best way to exchange free information.

On the other hand, there are some reasons why Facebook is not such a useful thing. For example, there would be a different type of friendship if there weren’t so many people connected. What is more, sometimes your privacy becomes injured in the way that everybody can see what you say or upload on the social red. Lastly, watching at what others do is a waste of time.

In conclusion, I would say that Facebook in the new globalized world we must be inform of news and be able to exchange our opinions with everybody, and with Facebook it is possible. However, I think that we don’t have to stay connected all the time or make exhibition of our life on it.

Description of a friend

My research project

PRESENTATION
For my presentation I used a powerpoint which helped me a lot to focus on the main ideas. There were some photos which were useful for the audience to understand what I was saying. The timing was ok because I finished just in 7 minutes.

BODY LANGUAGE AND EYE CONTACT
I think I looked to the audience most of the time, although I looked to the powerpoint ocasionally. In order to make the presentation closer to the audience, I didn’t bring any paper, so instead of reading a resume I just read some sentences on the powerpoint.
I did some gestures to hold the attention of the audience.

Anyway, part of the class agreed I was reading too much on the powerpoint and not looking at the audience at all. I don’t think so. I believe that if we prepare a powerpoint we don’t need a paper which says all we have to say. I find is better to read on the powerpoint because the audience can follow you easily.

STRUCTURE
I organized each part in order of importance and I used many makers, too.
This part was easy because we all used the same structure we used in our project presentation.

CONTENT
How the topic was our research project, all the information I gave was new for the audience. I think all was clear with some good examples and, of course I looked up information in books, Internet, archives etc.

LANGUAGE
First of all I’ve to correct a very big mistake I did. I wrote throw instead of through in the title of my project.
Maybe I should improve using more vocabulary, phrasal verbs or expressions, but I used some topic-related vocabulary like the word estate. My “favourite” pause fillers are WELL and AND because I only use these. This time I used many sentence linkers.

PRONUNCIATION & INTONATION
I think I’ve improved in this part because I spoke fluid and I tried to not use a monotone all the time. About the pronunciation, I check the pronunciation of some words with an internet programme.

SELF-EVALUATION
I think this oral presentation is the best one in two years. But, of course, I have to improve, specially, in my pronunciation.

Here there is what I had prepared to say.

Hi everybody!
I’m Gisela and I’m going to present my research project: FORTIANELL: A JOURNEY THROUGH HISTORY.
Fortianell is a big estate near Fortià, which is 10 minutes away from here.
The owners are the Rahola-Estrada family.
It’s also the place where I live.

1. Why did I choose this subject?
There are many reasons:
- One is because I have been living here for a long time, since I was 3.
- Another one is because when some friends came to visit me, they used to ask themselves: What’s that? or is that a convent? And I just could say that it was an agricultural college and that it had a lot of history.

That’s why I thought it was a good idea to study the history of the house.

2. What were my objectives?
There were two objectives:
- One was to put together the different events that have happened since 1849 to the present day.
- The other was to focus on the periods with very little or without published information.

Having stated [steitEt] my objectives…

3. How did I carry out the task?
I started my research by interviewing the owner of the house, who is an agriculture engineer and who provided me with general information about every important event in the house’s history: books, photographs, etc.

After those interviews, reading that information and discussing the subject with my tutor, I planned the bases of the project.

Then, my teacher and I, went to the archives [arkaivs] in Figueres, because we had to find some important information about Fortianell there.

Later, we had a meeting with the owners of the house in Fortianell. That allowed us to redirect [redairect] the project and situate the teacher in the scene of the events.

Following this, I interviewed some other people who gave me important information to complete my data.

(I’m going to talk about them in the next page, with the structure of my project.)

4. Structure and content
This is the result of my research, a project in four chapters:

Chapter one goes from 1849 to 1904, the second one goes from 1904 to 1936, the third one goes from 1936 to 1942 and chapter four goes from 1942 to the present day.

Chapter one is divided in two periods:
- The first one goes from 1849 to 1876. It starts with the transfer of the estate by the Estrada family and the opening of the first Agriculture college subsidized by “la Diputació de Girona”. It finishes with the moving of the college from Fortianell to Figueres.
- The second one goes from 1876 to 1904. It’s a dark period without any relevant information. Fortianell became deteriorated and there were tenants in the house.


 Chapter two includes two periods:
- The first one goes from 1904 to 1919. It starts with the arrival of an agricultural college from Limoux (France) which rented the estate to the Estrada family. That agriculture college was religious because it was from the “Germans de la Doctrina Cristiana de la Salle”.
o In that period I got information by interviewing Sr. Llovet, whose father was a pupil of that college.
- The other period goes from 1919 to 1936. In that part the agricultural college went to France, and Fortianell became a novitiate of La Salle.

 Chapter three goes from the beginning of the Civil War to 1942. In this part there are many important events like the expropriation of the house, the stay of Internacional Brigades and the using of the house as an arsenal for weapons.
- For that period I got much information by interviewing Hermano Guillermo, who was in the novitiate and who lived the tragic events before the Civil War in Fortianell. He also gave me information of the operation of the novitiate.

 Chapter four goes from 1942, when the Franco Regiment returns the estate to Estrada Family, to the present day.
Nowadays the estate is run by Sr. Josep Rahola Estrada and his two sisters. They have a company: Fortianell S.A.
- In that part I interviewed Sra. Emilia, who was a tenant of Fortianell.

5. Conclusions
I’ve divided the conclusions in two parts: the ones relating to the objectives and the others relating to my personal experience.

- Relating to the objectives: I actually found answers about social and educational role, both in the agriculture college as the novitiate. The agricultural college was leader in the level of Europe. Fortianell was also the scene of important history events I’ve had the opportunity to check it by my own.
- Relating to my personal experience: I want to highlight the learning staff referred to knowledge that I learned:
o The way to research/ the way of the research. How to omit information.
o That’s a different way to study.
o I’ve seen that I could follow looking for information.


To finish I want to say that I’ve enjoyed a lot doing that project and that I’m very happy with the result of working hard.

Happy New Year!

This time I decided to celebrate the New Year arrival with my brothers, who are studying abroad this school year. They organized to spend the night in a refuge in Bassegoda Mountain, which is situated near Albanyà village, with some friends. At the end we were fifteen.

The last day of 2010 we were already prepared for the adventure. We had bought a lot of food, including meat for the barbecue; we all had a comfortable sleeping bag, were wearing a good jacket for the freezing winter and had already borrowed the keys of the refuge. So, after meeting in Figueres at five o’clock we went by car to the refuge, where we arrived at seven.

The refuge was new, so inside all was clean and looked secure. It was the cleanest refuge I’ve ever seen! There were also a flat for the “bedroom”, where we installed the sleeping bags.

After leaving the bags, we had to prepare the fire for the barbecue. Some people went to have wood to burn, others started preparing the salad, and the others, like always happens with big groups, just looked how the rest were working ;). While preparing all for the magic night it started raining.

Later, at ten pm, we sat down together in a circle next to the fire to have dinner. We ate salad, pasta, chips, soup, meat… and at twelve o’clock, the twelve expected grapes. As there was any church, radio or television there, it was me who rang the “bells” which allowed us to eat the grapes. I hit every step in the refuge with a casserole twelve times, while I was watching my own watch. It was really funny!

Then, all were speeches of Happy New Year and the party started. We played some funny games like one called the psychologist or another called the murderer. We didn’t drink too much and we just drank beers.

Anyway, the next day, at 9 in the morning, some of us woke up to climb the Bassegoda Mountain, as we decided the night before. So, at 11 o’clock we were on the top of the mountain eating happily a chocolate cake with some orange juice. Unluckily, there were many clouds which didn’t allow us to see the beautiful views as usual. However, it was grateful to stay at the top of the mountain, breathing fresh air and being with good friends the first day of the year!

Human Rights

Human Rights are a list of Rights that everybody should have in their lives. But, unluckily, the bill that accepts them is just avoided in some countries of the world. I think that’s horrible, and not just because, as people have taught me, we are all the same.

First of all, I would like to say that the majority of the planet is poor and doesn’t have any rights. In my opinion, this is one of the worse things that exists now and that’s a thing that we could fight to by taking part of an ONG or working in jobs related on this event.

Secondly, the few countries that accept them, sometimes don’t respect the Human Rights either. I must say that politicians would have to work more on respect them, especially in factories and in illegal jobs in countries like India or China.

To conclude, we have to think about our future, which means that if we can, we have to help people from countries without Human Rights avoided, in order to make the world a better place, in other words, to make an equal world.

Computers have made the world a better place

Nowadays there are many people who own a computer. A computer is an instrument which allows us to work, to look for information, to surf on the internet or just to play.

On the one hand, there are people who can become addicted on playing computer games or surfing on the internet. Sometimes, computers make people less sociable.

On the other hand, with computers, we can keep the contact with people who are far from us, only using some internet programmes like Skype or Facebook. We can also look for information very quickly and easily in order to know what’s happening in the world.

To sum up, I would like to say that computers are very good if we use them in a good way. I agree with the idea of the title because now we have the access all the information which some was private before.

What about research project?

The research project is a compulsory work that every student of Batxillerat has to do to get the Batxillerat certificate. The topic for that work is free and it can be written in four different languages: Catalan, Spanish, English or French.

As I said, we decide our own topic, but we all have to follow the same structure: start with an introduction, follow with a body of the work and finish with some conclusions.

Many students think that’s a waste of time and they complain that Catalonia is the only place of Spain where the students have to do this type of work before going to the university.

In my opinion, the research project is very useful for us if we see it in the way of learning how to look for the information in a historical archive, for example, or how to do experimental analysis; or in the way of improving our writing and knowledge. Actually, the objective of doing that work is to be able to do others similar investigations in the university.

In my case, I’ve chosen an historical research, more precisely, I've decided to talk about Fortianell.

Fortianell is a kind of a big house and is also the place where I live. It has been many things since 1849, when the relatives of the actual owners bought the property, until now. I’ve divided the work in four periods. The main part is the Spanish Civil War period, when the building was used as a French novitiate (it was rented to French friars). I put emphasis on it because is where there is less bibliography information. That means I’ve had to look for unpublished information, in other words, in that part I’ve done the research.

Now, I’m finishing the writing because in three weeks I’ll have to give it to my teachers.

This is Fortianell:

ORAL PRESENTATION

My group was formed by Pep Esteve, Júlia Feliu and me, and we talked about plastic surgery.

We used a very well prepared powerpoint which supported our presentation and which was focused on the topic. I don’t know how long did we speak, but I think I didn’t speak enough.

I have to say that we were looking at the audience most of the time, even we read occasionally from our notes. In my case, I tried to hold the attention of the audience with some gestures and asking some questions to it.

We organized the ideas in order of importance, but it’s true that we could use more discourse markers. Apart from that, I think we introduced new detailed information to the audience which was supported by quotes. Moreover, we gave many examples.

The worst part, for me, was the language because I can remember me putting some verbs in a bad tense and I didn’t use much rich vocabulary. Even that, it’s true that I used some connectors and many fillers.

The pronunciation part wasn’t really good, in my case. I was nervous because I didn’t have it very well prepared. I haven’t seen the video, but I think that I didn’t use a monotone all the time, but my speaking wasn’t very fluid at all.

I just want to add that I helped a lot my group to prepare the powerpoint and the structure of the oral presentation; although I didn’t speak as well or as long as I could during the presentation.

I think my group deserves a very good mark, but for my poor oral presentation, I just deserve a 6.5

Transcription of what I prepared to say

1.
So, at first, the doctors or surgeons had to do these operations to cure the people whose deformations made them ill. You know, they didn’t do it in the way to make people beautiful. But, when someone saw that it could become a big business to rich people who disliked their appearance. Then was when plastic surgery was divided in two different specialities.

3.
Do these images ring a bell to you? What do they suggest you?
For example:
When someone talks about Michael Jackson, what does appear on your mind?
Michael Jackson is one of the most famous people who made the plastic surgery popular, because of his hard changes on his face.
There’re lots of famous people who have been operated to be forever young or to be just good-looking, like Belen Esteban.
But, sometimes they only look like a monster!

Anyway, now, plastic surgery it’s not just for rich and famous people.
As all of you know, until now, the medicine has improved a lot and that has allowed improving the technique of doing operations, the tools to do them or the way to do them.
All of that, made possible to reduce the cost of these interventions. We can inject us Botox in every dermatology clinic or we can take away our hairs in any laser centre.

4.
Now, a question for you: if you wanted to change something of your body or if you had to look for a cosmetic surgery centre, is there any Clinique that appears on your mind? Any famous cosmetic centre?

You see that the prizes can be from 1500 to 400 €.

5.
However, why people want to change their appearance?

Maybe, they think it can give them happiness because if they are good-looking they are more accepted in this true superficial world.
Sometimes they get happiness and beauty but normally they don’t.
Cosmetic surgery has consequences: positives and negatives. You already know which the positive ones are: happiness, beauty, raise up the esteem… But, perhaps you don’t know too much about negative consequences like illness, or the worst, addiction.

Did you see the news this week? The case of that poor boy who has been in coma for 22 years because he wanted a cosmetic operation.
Now we are going to show you an example of a woman who is addicted in cosmetic surgery.

Lucky!

Lucky is the title of a song written by Jason Mraz and sung by himself and Colbie Caillat.

I listened to this song for the first time, last year, when a friend of mine recommended it to me. I had already listened to I’m Yours, the most popular song of Jason Mraz which I love. So I was really happy to hear from a new song of that singer. I listened to it and… it was great!

Now, it’s one of my favourite songs and I have listened to it more than hundred times. I always sing in the bath because it’s easy to memorize and to catch the tone, too. I think that’s a good way to practice English ;)

I would like to compare this song to the famous song of Frank Sinatra and his daughter Nancy: Something stupid, because in both songs there are a man and a women singing together such as a dialogue. I definitely love both songs.

Here there are the...

...LYRICS


Do you hear me,
I'm talking to you
Across the water across the deep blue ocean
Under the open sky, oh my, baby I'm trying

Boy I hear you in my dreams
I feel your whisper across the sea
I keep you with me in my heart
You make it easier when life gets hard

[Chorus I]

I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again
Ooohh ooooh oooh oooh ooh ooh ooh ooh


They don't know how long it takes
Waiting for a love like this
Every time we say goodbye
I wish we had one more kiss
I'll wait for you I promise you, I will

[Chorus II]

I'm lucky I'm in love with my best friend
Lucky to have been where I have been
Lucky to be coming home again
Lucky we're in love every way
Lucky to have stayed where we have stayed
Lucky to be coming home someday


And so I'm sailing through the sea
To an island where we'll meet
You'll hear the music fill the air
I'll put a flower in your hair
Though the breezes through trees
Move so pretty you're all I see
As the world keeps spinning round
You hold me right here right now

[Chorus II]

A great film: LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE

The first time that I heard about that film was when the main character, the young girl called Olive in the film but Abigail Breslin as a real name, was nominated to the Oscar awards in 2006. Then she was just 10 years old. Since then, it was like an objective for me to see that funny film.

Little miss sunshine is a comedy film from U.S.A. which was recorded in 2006. Its plot is about a family who wants to meet the goal of her little daughter. She wants to participate in Little miss sunshine, a beauty pageant. So, her family, in order to get her into that, has to cross the country by a VW van.

The characters are:
- Olive Hoover (little daughter)
- Richard Hoover (father)
- Dwayne Hoover (brother)
- Edwin Hoover (grandfather)
- Sheryl Ginsberg (mother)
- Frank Ginsberg (uncle)


Olive is a seven years old girl who’s always watching TV programmes about beauty. That’s why she wants to be little miss sunshine.

Edwin is a happy man, who’s thinking on sex all the time and who helps her granddaughter to make her choreography for the beauty competition.

Sheryl is a responsible mother who has to look after all the crazy family.

Dwayne is a strange boy who doesn’t want talk to his “silly” family.

Frank is a gay man who has come to her sister Sheryl because of his psychological problems. He has to be looked after for someone. During the film he becomes friend of Edwin.

Richard is a narrow-minded father who is always saying that in the world there are only to types of people: the ones who fail and the others who success.

The majority part of the story takes place into the VW van during the road trip to California. All the family is into the van and lots of funny things happen to them, like they forgot Olive in a petrol station.

If I liked that film was because of his witty humour.

I recommend you if you want to spend a great time laughing!

An old joke

My friend Anna

My best friend’s name is Anna. She is seventeen but sometimes she looks younger. She’s got thin skin and long blond hair which she normally keeps gathered in a rubber hair. She’s about the same height as me, 170 cm, but she is slimmer and stronger than me.

She’s a fun person with who you can laugh a lot. She’s always smiling and she is easy-going with her friends, but sometimes her jokes may worry more than one. I think, she definitely has a good sense of humour. Anna has been running with me for years in the same athletic club. Now I’ve stopped running, but she hasn’t and today she’s one of the best runners in Spain. She has already run in world competitions! She also like going to the mountain and we occasionally meet to walk somewhere.

Anna has always been a really good friend of mine, so we normally phone each other once or twice a week. The one thing that’s slightly annoying about Anna is that she asks too many questions. I think that this is because she is probably very curious. She wants to study biology. She admires the nature and the secrets of life, so I think she’ll meet her objective to be a scientist.

An ordinary day

J: What’s next subject?
G: English!
J: Really?
G: Yes, look the timetable
J: mmmmm...Yes look we have to go to the language room.
G: Ok let’s go.
P: Come on girls, stop chatting!! We are late.
(...) sound of walking and door
JPG: Hello Sonia, Good morning!
G: Oh Ssssssugar!! The computers are taken.
J: Damn!
P: Well, let’s think about another thing to do.
J: We can do just a free conversation.
G: Ok, nice idea. Come on sit down here!
P: Ok. Start speaking Julia.
J: no, no I don’t want to start
P: Yes, I see in your eyes that you really want
G: Oh tell me what you want, what you really, really want.(sing)
J: So tell me…
P: STOP! Are you crazy? Come on! Do you want to change this sunny day for a rainy day?
J: Rainy day? All days are clouded in school. Always the same routine...
G: I think you are a little bit pessimists.
P: But I’m very happy to go to school its very funny.
J: Yes as you don’t have to do the research project...
P: Yes it’s true! God bless me, ALELUYA!
G: Apart from the research project the problem is this year. Don’t you think?
J: You’re right Gisela because we have a lot of work to do like homework, research project, exams...
P: bla, bla, bla...haha I only have two subjects.
G: Lucky you!
J: People! It’s enough. Let’s go to do some grammar.
P: Yes, I agree with you.
G: Yes we have to practice for the exam.
G: Gisela
P: Pep
J: Júlia

Halloween in Germany

Last week-end I went to Heidelberg (Germany) with my mother and grandmother to see my brother Jofre, who is studying there for one year. We flight to Baden-Baden, the nearest airport from Heidelberg, from Girona.

At twelve in the morning we had already arrived in Heidelberg. So, we had to look for somewhere to have lunch and to wait for Jofre. It was while we were eating when my mother, who was anxious to see “her good son”, saw him coming by a monocycle, which made us laugh a lot!

After we had had lunch, Jofre helped us to find the hotel which was situated in the old part of the city and where the sights were wonderful: the windows of the room were in front of the Old Bridge over river Neckar. That afternoon, after we had left the bags in the hotel, we went sightseeing the Heidelberg Castle, which was on a hill, and some beautiful squares from there, too. Later, as my grandmother was too tired to walk to any place to have dinner, we spent the evening in the hotel, where we had dinner, and Jofre returned to his student residence.

The next day, we had to go to the Catholic Church. It was the 31st of October! I haven’t said that my grandmother is a hard believer… So, we all went to the church, where we met Jofre again, but it wasn’t as bored as we thought, it was nice to see lots of young people, instead of old people, like in Catalunya, singing together every church song that they had to.

Later, as it was a sunny and warm day, we decided to go walking, with the bags, to my brother’s residence in order to see where he was living at the moment. During the walk, near the river Neckar, we saw many geese and ducks, and trees in the autumn colours. It was definitely fantastic!


Finally, we arrive to the residence, although later, we had to come back to the airport again. There, in the airport, my brother taught me how to ride his monocycle, it was really funny!

Anyway, we had to say goodbye to Jofre and came back to Girona.

To finish I would like to say I spent a great time with my loved brother.

Prevention is the best cure

In the last ten years, as all of us know, the Medicine has improved a lot. Now, the doctors say the preventive medicine is the key to good health because it allows us to live longer and healthier lives.

One example of that way to cure is the prevention of lung cancer in smokers and ex-smokers. Medical checks allow smokers and ex-smokers to know their state of health in relation to smoking related illness. Moreover, due recently advances, personalised treatments can be carried out via genetic study that allows for treating the illness more successfully. Anyway, the results of the lung cancer treatment depend on the size of the tumour. If it’s less than 2cm it’s easy to cure but if it’s bigger, logically, it’s more difficult to cure.

“Smoking is the main cause of avoidable death in the world.”

The information is taken from Catalonia Today- June 2010

First of all, I want to say that I’ve found this article very “light” because most of the things which it talks about seems logical and doesn’t add new information to the reader.

Then, I think that an article like that makes us to think twice before smoking a cigarette, although we already know that smoking produce cancer which is often lethal. I hope that if there is any smoker who read that article could change his live giving up smoking.

What are my dreams?

Hi Sonia,

I’m Gisela and I’m going to present myself and tell you what my dreams are.

To start, I have to tell you that I’m seventeen, I live with my mother in Fortià, I have two twin brothers who study in the University, I’m studying 2nd of Batxillerat in Castelló d’Empúries (I think you already know this ;) ), I play the saxophone and that I’m a happy person.

Until I was twelve I didn’t think too much about my future. When I was six or five I said I wanted to be a doctor, then a musician and then… I can’t remember! So it was just an imaginary future. Even that, what I really knew, because my parents told me, was that if I wanted to success I had to struggle, sure.

When I grew up, at the age of fourteen, I started to push and focus and I also started to meet my goals. For example, I run in athletic club and, little by little, running three times a week, I became better and better, until I could run in a Spanish competition, which was my objective. So I met my first goal.

Now, my goals and my challenges are different. I’m studying for the last year in the high school and next year I’ll be probably studying in the University.

My short-term goal is to get good marks this year to be able to choose the degree that I would like to do in the University. What I’m going to do to meet this goal is work very hard, don’t cut classes and refuse to give up. Then, in the University, my goals will be more or less the same: improve my knowledge, which means get good marks (maybe the mark won’t be as important as this year); meet some other people from other places and go to study abroad once.

My long-term goals are few. I don’t have many dreams in my life. I just would like to follow living happily. And to meet this goal I think the most important thing is “Don’t ever give up on yourself”, in other words, do what you like as well as you can and if you fail try it again and refuse to give up.

To conclude I want to write a sentence that I like and which is related with this topic:
“The circumstances of your live are not an excuse for not trying.”