Halloween is an annual holiday celebrated on 31st October. The historian Nicholas Rogers, exploring the origins of Halloween, has discovered that its origin is Celtic. The ancient Celts thought that the line that joins this world with "another world" was bigger with the arrival of the Samhain (a similar party).

The harmful spirits are removed. It is believed that sweets and masks are used to banish the malignant spirits. In Scotland the spirits were supplanted by young men with white masks. The word Halloween means: All Hallows Day.

There are different ways of representing this party: the pumpkins, the candles... Halloween imagery includes themes of death, evil, the occult, magic, mythical monsters, ghosts, witches, skeletons, vampires, werewolves, demons, bats, and black cats. Black and orange represent the darkness of night and the color of bonfires, autumn leaves, and jack-o'-lanterns.

Children go to houses asking for sweets. The typical phrase is: trick or treat. Halloween costumes are traditionally modeled after monsters such as ghosts, skeletons, witches, and devils. Over time, the costume selection extended to include popular characters from fiction, celebrities, and generic archetypes such as ninjas and princesses. Dressing up was prevalent in Scotland and Ireland at Halloween by the 19th century. Costumes became popular for Halloween parties in the US in the 20th century, for adults as well as for children.

The first mass-produced Halloween costumes appeared in stores in the 1930s in the United States.There are also costumes of pop culture, like presidents, athletes, celebrities, or film, television, and cartoon characters. Another popular trend is for women (and in some cases, men) to use Halloween as an excuse to wear sexy or revealing costumes, showing off more skin than would be socially acceptable otherwise. There are several games traditionally associated with Halloween. One common game is dunking or apple bobbing, in which apples float in a tub or a large basin of water and the participants must use their teeth to remove an apple from the basin. Another common game involves hanging up treacle or syrup-coated scones by strings; these must be eaten without using hands while they remain attached to the string.

Halloween is not celebrated in all the countries and regions of the world. Celebrations in the United States and Canada have had a significant impact on how the holiday is observed in other nations. In my city, Málaga, I meet my friends and we celebrate a party with many sweets. We do many games too. Our favorite game is after turning off the lights, we hide and a person must find us. It's called The Black Hall.

Angel Luís Díez López, 3º ESO B

Halloween is a very famous party in UK, but in Málaga too. Here, children go to the houses to ask for sweets, and some people give them money.

Children dress up and make-up to be scarier than their friends. Children dress up as vampires , witches , Frankestein and as ghosts.

The English people that live in Málaga give a lot of money and many sweets to the children because they remember their cities.

The typical colours are orange, black and red. Some people buy pumpkins to decorate their homes.

Carmen María Méndez Moreno 3º ESO B

Halloween will be here soon!

This typical English and American celebration is very popular in the world. Halloween is a very ancient celebration in honour of the dead.

People feast it in UK, and America of course, but in other countries too, like, for example, in Spain, concretely in Málaga, the city where I live.

In Málaga, teenagers and kids go out with their friends at night. Usually, kids disguise like monsters, ghosts, witches, sick-people, dead-men and dead-women , Frankenstein, the dead bride… and then, they go to their neighbours' houses to request candies and lollipops with the typical sentence “trick or treat” (like the English and American kids do).

Teenagers don´t always do the same; some of them make parties at friends' houses , or they meet and tell stories of fear, or they impersonate kids… some of them don´t celebrate it.

Another thing that they do for Halloween is to scare friends with all kinds of jokes .

Finally: don´t stay at home in Halloween!

Candela Mesa Cuevas 3º ESO B

More greetings...

Hello there. My name is Ángel and I’m fourteen years old. My birthday is on 27th January. I love cycling, playing basketball and swimming. I am in 3º E.S.O, in class B in Nuestra Señora de la Victoria high school.

My high school is very far from my home. I go there because my friends and my favourite teachers are there. My high school was the first high school in Málaga! It is an historical school. Many famous people studied here like Picasso, Manuel Altolaguirre and others.

In my school there is a library, a gym, a snack bar, lost of classrooms, a computer classroom, a technology class (where you can make objects of wood and watch the interior of computers), a music class (where there are some musical instruments). There are also two laboratories where you can watch cells in the microscope and do experiments.

And teachers are fantastic!

Every Tuesday and Thursday I go to a language school. I study French there. At he weekends I meet my friends and we go shopping. We buy clothes, shoes… I love reading books but I hate listening to music. My favourite subjecs are English, French, Geography, and History. I don’t like Physical Education because there are not tests.

Come here you will have fun!!!

Hi! I'm Raquel, I'm 14 years old, I'm from Málaga and I live here too. I study on Ntra Señora de la Victoria high school. I am in 3º of ESO, in classroom B.

I study here because it is next to my home and my friends study here, too. My favourite subjects are English, French and Art, but this year we don't do it. The best place of my high school is the library because it is very old and it has got lots of books. In my high school studied very famous people as Pablo Picasso, Manuel Altolaguirre, Severo Ochoa or José Ortega y Gasset.

My high school is very old but it has got an interesting history too. The biggest place of my high school is its chapel, though it's now an auditorium. Finally, I can say that I like my high school!

Healthy eating

Still waiting for your messages about the high school's anniversary...

Let me give you some advices on healthy eating meanwhile:

— Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.

— Don't eat anything with more than five ingredients, or ingredients you can't pronounce.

— Stay out of the middle of the supermarket; shop on the perimeter, where real food tends to be located.

— Don't eat anything that won't rot eventually.

— Always leave the table a little hungry.

— Enjoy meals with the people you love.

— Don't buy food where you buy your gasoline.

Back to school greetings

Hi there!, here we are again, this year we are celebrating a very special date: it's the 50th anniversary of the construction of our High School Nuestra Señora de la Victoria.

For this reason, I would like you to describe some of the wonders that can be found in our old building:its facilities, its peculiarities, or even the reason behind its name. You know there is a person who can help you finding out these details, your teacher Mr José Francisco Jiménez Trujillo.

I hope this will be a good way of meeting new friends and, at the same time, of learning something about our high school.

Here we have the first message, give yours to your teacher of English to be published!

Hi! my name is Candela, and I´m 13 though I´m at 3º E.S.O (in B class) because my birthday is on 18th December. I´m from Madrid, but I live in Málaga, I love swimming and going to Malaga beaches (however, my favourite beaches are in Tarifa).

I go to "Ntra. Sra. De La Victoria" high school everyday, except on holidays or weekends. I go there because it´s near my house , and my friends study there too.

In my high school there are a library, a gym, lots of classrooms, a classroom of technology, a classroom of art, something similar to a bar...

My high school is very famous in Málaga, it was the first high school in Málaga!! and lots of famous people like Picasso (a VERY famous painter) or Severo Ochoa (a scientist , he won a Nobel) studied at the Ntra. Sra. de La Victoria high school.

Every Monday and Thursday, I go to swimming classes, I can swim very well now.

I like dancing but I don´t know how to do it well. Of course, I like meeting friends, watching tv, listening to music, reading books, chatting on the Internet...