5/7/09

What do you do in your free time? / Iago Iglesias


First I`m going to say what a leisure activity is; a leisure activity is something you do outdoors or indoors, I mean, things to do outside or inside home. It can be activities we can do to improve our health like sports; activities we do to relax like going to the cinema, playing computer games, going to the park; or some cultural activities like visiting museums, going to the opera or going to the theatre. These activities help us to feel better and they are a good remedy against stress.

Many teenagers practice at least one sport in their free time. Football and basketball are two of the most practiced sports in the world. A lot of teenagers in Spain enjoy watching football on TV and some of their idols are footballers like Ronaldinho, Zidane or Lionel Messi. Some teenagers play in football or basketball teams and a lot of them become as good as sport stars. Sports have a very good repercussion on teenagers` life, they make friends, they forget the oppression of studies for a while and they spend a good time outdoors.

Some teenagers don`t like sports and they prefer other activities as, for example, going to the cinema or the theatre. My friends are very interested in the audiovisual world, they make short movies, video clips and theatre plays. I enjoy helping them because it's very interesting and sometimes I act in the movies, I learn a lot from them. The last short movie we did was called "Ti Transplantas" (Galician for “You transplant!”) and I acted in it, it was an exciting experience. We sent it to a contest and we are very optimistic because the result is very good. I like acting in these movies because I think that is a good way to lose my shame. In September of 2008 we did "La Casa del Terror" (Spanish for “House of Terror”) in "A Casa da Xuventude", a youth centre here in Ourense; we had a lot of visitors (approximately 300) and we collected a lot of money. It was like a mental hospital and I acted like a crazy man, it was very terrifying. Some days ago we finished the filming of another short movie, we called it "Braille" and we filmed it in my village, I didn`t act in them (because in this movie we used expert actors) so I helped in lighting and I helped my director in some things like the stage design. Some days we meet in "A Casa da Xuventude" and we write scripts for future movies, now we are thinking about doing a comedy and this summer we are going to do some video clips for some music groups. Here is one of the photos of "Ti Transplantas", my director and I (on the right) appear in it, we have good expectations of this project:

Meeting friends is the most popular activity that we do in our free time. A lot of teenagers meet their friends at the weekend and they go for a walk, play a sport, go to a bar or a restaurant or simply they talk and laugh. We can share opinions with friends, tell jokes or even gossip. We must choose correctly our friends; some young people smoke, take drugs and drink alcohol in "botellones" and they can involve us in that world; so in my opinion it's very important to know how our friends are.

But not all the leisure activities were the same over the years. My grandparents, for example, used to go to the mountain to catch flowers and insects and then they sell them, they collected a lot of money. My mother said to me that when she was a little girl she rode her horse on Saturdays and she went across the mountain with it, she was a very good rider, she loves horses. I admit that these activities are not popular nowadays but I think that they sound funny; teenagers could prove them.

Playing computer games has become the most addictive activity over the world. Many teenagers don't spend their free time outdoors because of the computer, the playstation ... etc. This activity could be bad for our health and for our state of mind. It could hurt our eyes and we can become unsociable people if we spend our free time indoors and it could even affect in our marks.
In conclusion, teenagers spend their free time doing a lot of activities. The leisure activity that a teenager does depends on his/her way of thinking. We can do it for pleasure (or for interest) and it's a good way against boredom.

by Iago Iglesias Cebreiros, 1º BACH B

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