2nd book report, 2nd story "The Norwood Builder"

The story was The Norwood Builder written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and adapted by Philip Nokes, in the book Sherlock Holmes Stories. The story talks about a desperate young lawyer that is involved in the murder of an old builder and asks Holmes for help.

The story took place at London where John McFarlane a young lawyer, arrived at Holmes´s house asking him for help, because he is involved in the murder of an old builder named Mr. Oldacre. McFarlane explained to Holmes how the facts took place; Mr. Oldacre arrived to McFarlane´s office asking him to write on a formal way his testament, where he leaves him all his money, because he hasn´t any family and knows his parents about a long time ago. That night Mr. Oldacre asked McFarlane to go to his house to give some important papers, when McFarlane left the house forgot his walking-stick. The next morning McFarlane read at the newspaper about the death of Mr. Oldacre and the fact that he was the main suspect. Watson read at the police inform that the backyard of Mr. Oldacre´s house was burn and there they found parts of Mr. Oldacre´s clothes and bones and inside the house the McFarlane walking-stick. Holmes started to investigate about other solution to the case but he only found that McFarlane´s mother was Mr. Oldacre´s fiancé until she met Mr McFarlane. Holmes was starting to believe in McFarlane´s guilty, when the Mr. Oldacre maid found a blood fingerprint of McFarlane in a wall. When Holmes return to the house to see the fingerprint he noticed it wasn´t there when he first saw the house so it had to be put by someone in recent days and made another discovery that the central passage of the first floor of the house was shorter than the second one so he started a fire in the passage and started to shout “fire” and suddenly Mr. Oldacre get out of a hidden room at the end of the passage. He conclude that Mr. Oldacre wanted to take revenge from McFarlane´s mother scorn by taking McFarlane to jail, disappear and start a new life in another place. But they caught him and his maid after he can escape.

This story shows how a bad feeling like the resentment and the anxiety of revenge can’t make a person take bad decisions. Once again the author involves us in the mystery of the story and surprises us with the end with all the details. Once again the most little detail can help Holmes to solve any case he has.

The story is a interesting and captivating tale that I enjoy reading a lot because show us the dark side of a person that can be able to destroy the life of someone just because he wants revenge of something that passes a lot of time ago. This can make us think about the bad decisions that we can make when we have bad feelings.

2nd book report, 1st story "The empty house"

The story was The Empty House written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and adapted by Philip Nokes, in the book Sherlock Holmes Stories. The story talk about the return of Sherlock Holmes after his false death, and the way he caught the man who tried to killed him with a simple trap

The story took place at London where Watson was solving the murder of Ronald Adair, without Holmes because he had died, time ago at Reichenbach. Watson started the investigation at Adair´s house where he had locked in a room in which he was found with a bullet wound in his head, the police didn’t found the weapon and can´t explain the way the murderer enter in the room and killed Adair. During the investigation Watson met at the street an old man, who result to be Holmes, he explain Watson the way he escaped from a couple of men that wanted to killed him, during the fight he pushed one of them from a waterfall and hide, then he discovered the other man who was throwing him rocks, he escaped and then hide in London until he heard about the Adair´s murder. Then Holmes asked Watson to follow him to an empty house in the same street where he used to lived, and watched through the window the window of Holmes´s house where Watson surprised discovered that near the Holmes´s house window was an exact wax model of Holmes, that he had put there to confuse his murderer. They waited in the empty house for 8 hours when they suddenly heard someone entering to the room they where, they stayed in calm and caught him. Then Holmes explained Watson that his murderer; Colonel, was Adair´s murderer too, because Adair had caught him cheating at cards.

The story is very interesting because the way Homes could escaped from those who wanted to killed him, and how he hide from the one who survived and then make a plan to caught him and wait him to make a mistake like the Adair´s murder. However the imagination of the author involves us in the story catching our attention with all the detail and that special way of Holmes to solve every problem he faces.

I like this story because it shows again the intelligence and imagination of the author to create a big story about little facts, and found a special way to solve the conflict. A fact that I like a lot of these stories is that when you began to read it you can’t ever imagine how it would be solved.

News comment, 10th week

Anaesthetic awareness

Can you imagine how it could be to wake up during a surgery? the news I heard this week was based on a new movie called “Awake” that´s about this situation. The news explained a strange situation called anesthetic awareness in which the patients wakes up during a surgery just a few minutes after they had had anesthesia, the doctor explained that this can happen because the mix that the patient inhale before the surgery is compound of tree substances; one is to keep slept the patient, the second one is an analgesic that keeps controlled the pain and the last is used to paralyze the body, and sometimes the two first substances can be inactivated in the body, and that is the reason why the patient can wake up and feel what is happening in his body but he is unable to move so he can´t tell the doctor or nurses what is happening until the surgery ends. There was a narration also of a person that had suffer this situation, and she explained that it happened to her during a cesarean, and it was terrifying, she wasn´t able to tell the doctors and she was felling pain in all her body. The doctor also explained that it is not a strange situation he said that it is One in six hundred operations in which the patient is experimenting anesthetic awareness. I think this is a non-rare situation if we compare it could be like those people that take an aspirin and it didn’t calm his pain, there are some drugs that function only for some people, and if anesthetics are drugs it is common that they don’t function for some people.

Book report, 2nd story "The speckeld band"

THE SPECKLED BAND

The second story I red was The Speckled Band written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and adapted by Philip Nokes. The story talked about the avarice of people talking about money and the action they are able to do when they are afraid of loose what they had, and the way a recognize person can become a murderer using his intelligence and courage.

The story took place at Stoke, a village near London, in which Roylott family lives, two sisters, Julia and Helen, and their stepfather. The mother of both died years ago and left all her money to her husband Mr. Roylott, and established that when her daughters married they can receive a part of the heritage. Two years ago one Julia died just before she gets married, and the Helen is about to married so she was worried about what would happened with her so she went with Mr. Holmes to asked him if he can helped her to discover how her sister died. She only can told Mr. Holmes some clues like, some days after Julia died she told her she had heard some noises like a whistle and a sound of metal, and when she died her last word was “the band, the speckled band”, that she died in her room which was locked totally and some things about his stepfather Mr Roylott, like he was a violent person who had pets like a tiger and a monkey.

Mr. Holmes went with Dr. Watson to Roylott house in stoke an took a look off all the things in Helen`s room the place where she was supposed to died, and in which was staying Julia temporally. He observed that in the room was a ventilator with a rope hanging of it and that the bed was fixed to the floor, and in Mr. Roylott room he found an iron box with a plate of milk above it. Mr. Holmes ask Helen to stay in Julia’s room until Mr. Roylott arrived an after he got into his room she had to return to her room and left Julia`s room light turn on. When Holmes and Watson saw the light they went to Julia’s room window and waited there until they heard some noise in the ventilator just in that moment Mr. Holmes hit the rope with a stick and after that they heard a horrible scream in Mr. Roylott’s room they arrived there and found Mr. Roylott sitting at his chair with a speckled band in his neck; a snake. Mr. Holmes deduce that Mr. Roylott had killed Julia by introducing the snake in her room and letting it killed her, but this time when Holmes hit the snake it returns to Mr. Roylott room and killed him.

The story is really interesting, the way the author has the imagination to create such big scenery with all kind of details about how the murderer planed everything is surprising, and how everything Helen said can helped Mr. Holmes to solve the case and to connect everything. The author had the ability to make us imagine every little detail like the sound of the metal when Mr. Roylott put the snake in the box.

The story is captivating and keeps you interested until the end. It shows us the terrible things people are able to do when they are not satisfied with the material things they had, this is a problem we can see everywhere we go, people fighting for the best economic status without taking care of human beings.

Book Report; 1st story "The man with the twisted lip"

THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP

The story was The Man with the Twisted Lip written by Sir Arthur and adapted by Philip Nokes, this story is about a big truth in the life; sometimes a man can earn more money by making people feeling compassion, happiness or joy than developing a profession like accountant, doctor or teacher.

The story takes place in London were one day Mrs. Whitney ask Dr. Watson for help, because her husband had been in an opium house for 2 days, Dr. Watson looked for him but he found him and someone more; Sherlock Holmes. Holmes told Watson the reason about his visit to the opium house; he was trying to solve a case about the disappearance of Mr. Neville Sinclair. Holmes had only a pair of clues; the clothes of Mr. Sinclair full with coins outside the opium house, the testimony of Mrs. Sinclair in which she said she had saw his husband in a window of the opium house, and a beggar who was arrested in the opium house after Mrs. Sinclair called the police.

With this clues Holmes solve the case; he deduced that the Beggar in the jail was Mr. Sinclair, and he told homes his entire story. How the first time he disguised as a beggar to make a research an write a news about the life of a beggar, but he realize that as a beggar he can earn more than writing for the newspaper, so he continue as a beggar and used the opium house to disguise him, so when his wife saw him he tried to escape and dropped his clothes with the coins out of the building but the police caught him and put in jail.

The story is really interesting, until the end of the story the author caught your entire attention, because you didn’t have any little idea about what would happen. The way the author goes deep into the details of the personality of each character make us trust in the ability of Holmes to solve the case, in the capability of awesome of Watson or in the desperation of Mrs. Sinclair. But without a doubt the end of the story is the most surprising part you never imagine how the things will end, you imagine all kind of things like Mr. Sinclair was murdered, or he run away.

The story is a interesting and captivating tale that I enjoy reading but in the other hand shows a case of real life, how many times we have seen, lawyers or architects working as taxi-drivers or selling food and they live better, but the worst is when we saw little children begging for money in the streets only because it is an easy way to earn money even more productive than study a major.

Calm down, and count until 10!

This time I heard about a very common problem; the untreated anger, and how this makes us ill. A doctor of the Mental Health Foundation in the UK talked about people who can't control their anger, and how this problem can make them become ill. This kind of people is those who had continuous episodes of uncontrollable anger, this can bring problems like depression, anxiety disorders or heart diseases. Anger is a healthful way to express our feelings, but it is uncommon that we became angry every day, every hour. The doctor said that people who suffer this disorder can assist to anger management courses and he also said that this disorder need more research and studies because it isn’t considered as a mental disorder yet. Another thing he said was that the common thing like take a deep breath and count until 10 are things that also work. So I think it is time to ask us if our anger is becoming a disorder.

Cheap or expensive pills?

This time I heard something i think all of us had sometime pass trough, what kind of medicine choose?, that one that is expensive, the "original" or that one that is cheaper the generic. I heard about a research that had been made in The Massachusetts Technology Institute in USA, in which they tried to prove the placebo effect of pills in humans. In this experiment researchers produced some kind of pain in people and then told them they will take a pain killer and gave them 4 kinds of different pills, they told them the first one was cheap and made in china, the second one was expensive and made in china, the third one was cheap and made in USA and the forth one was expensive and made in USA, after every time they gave them the pill they produced them pain again and ask them how painful was it every time, and they concluded that people felt less pain when they took the expensive pill than those who take the cheaper, but at the end of the experiment they told them that pills were not pain killers it were only placebos (pills without medicine, just sugar). Another research explain this experiment, they said that everytime we take a pill and we know something that make us trust in it our body release opioids something like morphine that helped us to finish with the pain, thats why everybody thinks that expensive pills works better than cheaper pills although they had the same content.

Mishaps comment, 7th week

Raising Arizona

 I think the funnier mishaps in the movie were:

      1.       That every time Hi wanted to commit a crime the police caught him and he had to stay at jail for a short time, but that was a benefit for him because every time he had to go to jail he saw Ed and by this way he felt in love with her and married she.

      2.       That when Ed sent Hi to take one of the children he couldn´t decide which baby to take, and he put in the floor the kids and all of them started to crawl all around the room and he wasn´t able to control them so finally he put all of them back into their cradle and return to the car were Ed was waiting for his but without the baby

3.       When the couple of friends of Hi kidnapped the baby and took him with them to rob the bank, they left the baby behind in the road after they robbed the bank and when they get in the car a few time later they noticed they had left the baby behind.

The movie was really funny and showed the crazy things that a couple is able to do when they felt the wish to had a baby, but it finally had a message that showed us that we can do crazy and bad things but sometimes we had the opportunity to correct our mistakes and do the right thing.

Hubble site comment, 6th week

Hubble site

I think this site have a intresting topic, I heared the video about the events, stars and constelations that may appear this month on the sky. I hear some data that I didn´t know for example that the word zodiac was designate for the strip in the space in wich is supposed the sun, the moon and the earth moves. I heared too the explanation of the zodiac signs of this month; cancer and gemini. But the most intresting was that in the 20th of march during the solstice the sun is located just at the same distance of the west that it is from the east and in this special moment the day and the night had the same duration and in the rest of the days after this the day dures more than nights. In my point of view I didn´t believe so much in those who talk about the special features of the people based on the zodiac sign they had, but in the other hand I will always love a beautiful sky full of shining stars.

News comment,5th week

Wearing heels?

I hear about a study made in a Italy University, in wich scientist were studing how to reduce the risk in women to suffer urinary incontinence (the lack of voluntary control of urinary functions) and they notice taht some women of the group had reuce this risk since they had start the study but they can explain why, because they were not taking any treatment yet. Then they discover that the difference between this women and the rest in the group was that everytime they came to the university they used heels, not to high but just a little, and that was enough to increase the force of a special group of muscles located in the floor of the pelvis, and with this they reduce the risk of suffering incontinence. After this discovering they began a new research in wich they put heels to all the women in the group, some very high and others not to high, and they discover that heels to high didn´t help women but little do, then they assume that little heels put the woman body in a special position, this is why they can make excercise that help incontinence problems while they walk. I had hear a lot of comments, and news were is told that heels help women in a lot of aspects, for posture, for health and this time for incontinence, so I think that is time to wear heels.

News comment, 4th week

Did you take nutrional suplemments when you were a child?

This week I listen about a research in wich a group of specialists study the importance of taking nutrional supplements when we are children, and the influence of this in the job development that we have when we grow up. The study involve some communities were the moms used to give some kind of suplemment to her children and years after they obtein better notes in vocabulary, grammar and other exams, and because of this they could obtein better jobs and earn more money that those who had the same studies but they had had a deficient nutrion during his childhood. I think this is important not only about the fact that nutrional suplemments can help us, i think that those children that had a complete diet, were taken care by their parents, enjoy their entire chilhood and were healthy can had a better development in their professional lifes and not only in this area also in his personal lifes. many mothers in poor countries can´t take care of this aspects of her children lifes, because they had to work or something else, that is why young women had to take concience about having children if they dont had the resources to support them and to take care of them.

News comment, 3th week

Do you know someone with cholera?

This week I listened to a news about something that for us may sound strange. We have the idea that illness like cholera, paludism, difteria an others had completly disappear from our community, but we had to know that this isn´t truth. The news was about an epidemy of more than 2000 cases of colera reported in an african country named Democratic Republic of Congo, cholera is an illness in wich the body lost water in different forms like vomiting and diarrhea, you can´t eat or drink anymore and you had to stay in bed, this illness is very easy to prevent, wash our hands, disinfecting vegetables and water are the more easily forms, but in countries like Congo this things aren´t easily, they take their water from holes in the earth and they even had food to eat, so it's very common that a lot of people die of this kind of illness. An international organization named Medecins Sans Frontieres join a lot of doctors around the world to help people in this poor countries where they dont have the resources to prevent and cure this illness. I think sometimes we have to know about the situation of other people to understand and value ours.

News comment, 2nd week

Taste sounds, hear colors, smell images, it is impossible, isn´t it?

This week I was searching for some news to hear and I found this very intresting, it was about a special medical condition named "synesthesia", people with this condition experiment really strange things, for example they can see colors when they hear a special word, or they can taste different flavors when they hear music. At the begining I thought it was a joke but then I look for some information on the web and i found that it was real. In the news the reporter interviews a women with this condition and she explains that her life wasn´t difficult, exept for those days when she had to memorize telephones or names, because she associate names or numbers with colors, and sometimes she remember the color of the person but she cant remember the name, for example rebeca, rachel and helen are orange so when she try to remember the name of the person she just remeber that it was an orange name. months of the year also have a color so for example if it is a november day it is brown it doesn´t matter how sunny it is. I found this condition very special because normal people like us can fell this things only if we take drugs. I found on internet that there are different kinds of synesthesia and that it is a non rarely condition.

News comment, 1st week

Scars, things of the past?

This week I chose to listen something about health,because it is the most intresting topic for me. The news was about the advances that scientists had done in the elimination of scars, I think it is really intresting because all of us are used to have a scar after every wound we made us, and this scientists from Bristol University are trying a new gel that can reduce the posibility to have a scar and can acelerate the process of healing. The main problem in this research is that they had to fight with the fact that if they eliminate the process of scar they would elimate the inflammation process too, and this is a natural process of the body to heal itself, so they create this new gel that can preserve the natural process of inflamation but reduce the process of healing. This discover is an advance in this area and made us think about the possibility that in the future the scars become a thing in the past.

http://http://radiotime.com/program/p_699/Health_Check.aspx