The first taste of smokes

Language Class Activity 3

The third language class activity is about a childhood memory. I have chosen my first experience of smoking to write about. Hope you enjoy it.

During my childhood I always had been curious about smoking. Looking people who smokes anywhere and anytime, it was always been a question for me that how people smoke and why they like inhale such smelly smoke? Is there any hidden pleasure in it that I don’t know? Smoking was always forbidden in our home.
During those days, I usually had to stay over at my cousin’s home; we were really close and have same age. One day after talking a bit about smoking we decided to give it a try, so we went to the roof stealthily and got prepared for smoking. Since we didn’t have any cigarettes, we decided to build them ourselves. We rolled up some pieces of newspaper in place of cigarettes and as an imitation from smokers we putted them through our lips and lighted the tip of rolls. You don’t believe, but we were really surprised, because the rolls had a lot of smokes more than any cigarettes. We started to inhale the smokes as smokers inhale. But unlike the smokers, as soon as the smoke came to my throat, it made me coughing. We were very serious experiencing smokes, so we kept going, inhaling and coughing, inhaling and coughing… after a while we were really feeling bad, Even without smokes coughing was keeping on strongly with the feel of vomiting. We coughed all the day and suffered the throat ache but HATED SMOKING FOR YEARS.

Enrique Iglesias

Class Activity 2

This is the second class activity which is a research about popular singer Enrique Iglesias. Doing this research was a great experience to me.
The words in bold form are described at the end of the research.

Enrique Iglesias is a very popular pop music singer. At the dawn of new millennium, Enrique was the best-selling Latin recording artist in the world.
Enrique is the son of a multimillion-selling music performer Julio Iglesias. He has followed in his father's footsteps with even larger footsteps of his own. At the first point everyone considers that Enrique has used his father to gain acceptance as a musician, but simply when you refer to his biography, you'll see in the counter point he never used his father's popularity or had his supports. In Enrique's childhood he never had been close to his father because Julio was mostly away from home busy with his own music career. When Enrique was in middle-school, he was keeping his musical aspirations a secret, saying "I never wanted to tell my parents".
Enrique was born in Spain, but he moved to Miami when he was only 7, mostly because of terrorism threats in his home country. While there, Enrique was exposed to three different cultures and musical influences; Hispanic, European, and American.
The young Enrique always had aspirations to become a famous musician, as after a year studying business at the University of Miami, he decided to follow his passion for music and released his first album at age 20. The album which was recorded in Spanish, sold more than a million copies in three months and to date has sold more than 6 millions worldwide. The second album "Vivir" (1997) enjoyed global sales of more than 5 million disks and launched his first world tour, backed by sideman for Elton John, Bruce Springsteen, and Billy Joel. In a mere three years, Iglesias has sold more than 17 million Spanish-language albums, more than anyone else during that period. He also won the 1996 Grammy for best Latin performer, 1996's Billboard artist of the year, in addition to other magnificent awards and countless accolades around the world.
With 1998's album, Cosas del Amor, Enrique moved to more mature content; He released his first Interscope and first in English, which achieved gold or platinum status in more than 30 countries and brought his global album sales to more than 23 millions.
Now Enrique Iglesias moves on to the next chapter. And though the secret to any artist's success is constant growth, Enrique says there is one thing that will never change: his striving for that next great song and next great album. "That's the challenge, that's the fun," he says. "That's what will always drive me. I keep having to prove myself."

Resources:
The official website of Enrique Iglesias
Yahoo! Music
sing365.com

New Words:
dawn: begin, start.
aspiration: ambition, goal, dream .
passion: desire, love, heat.
to date: until the present time.
backed by: supported by.
sideman: musician who plays music to support a solo performance.
mere: only, just.
Grammy: any of a number of golden statuettes awarded by the American National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for outstanding achievement in the recording industry .
Billboard: weekly American magazine devoted to music and the recording industry (includes the weekly charts for top songs and albums) .
strive: endeavor, try hard.

A traditional wedding in Iran

Language Class Activity 1

"Before going to the heart of the matter, It is mentionable that this writing is originally written as a language class activity. My teacher Miss Hajilou at pishro language institute asked us to write a brief essay about marriage to practice new words and expressions we just learned at the class. This is my essay, I know there may be too much errors in my essay, but I hope she correct me!"

Iran is a large and multiracial country which includes too many different races within the country. So it is common to have different traditions in the country including wedding traditions.
Arabs, Lores, kurds, torks and fars people which make up the most population of the country, has their own wedding customs, but in this brief writing I’ll try to explain a typical wedding in Iran that I think it is mixed of the customs of the different country races.
In a typical Iranian family, the groom’s family which probably including matchmakers (maybe groom’s uncle, aunt …) goes to the brides home and formally asks for her hand in marriage. In ask for hand feast, usually the bride offers the tea to grooms family. When the bride’s family agrees, two families talk about the other arrangements. They talk about the amount of marriage portion, marriage lines and set a date to get marry (Aghd) and the marriage ceremony.
Before of the marriage day, usually there is a feat of ‘hanabandan’ which the families put some hennas on the new couple’s hands. It is a traditional custom.
The next day, the couple take each other in marriage in presence of a priest, who should record the marriage with the signs of witnesses.
After that the period of engagement begins which may take from a few days to a few years, depends on the couple’s view.
After this period if everything goes well, they will take a formal wedding ceremony, inviting all of the friends and relatives of two families and usually serves a dinner or lunch with candy.
The day after the reception is the shower day, which the ceremony attendants should donate their presents.