Assignment 4 - An Interesting Anecdote (informal)

Write a story about you or someone you know. Choose from these ideas or your own:

• an interesting or unusual journey
• a practical joke
• a holiday experience
• a story from school, college, university
• the most enjoyable or frightening day of your life

Use the reason/contrast words (despite, although, due to, etc.) and the connective words that we learned in class (anyway, by the way, etc.). Also, use relative clauses where appropriate.

Flavia - A Terrifying Experience

One day happened to me something that I will never forget. It was afternoon and I came home after school with my best friend to do our homework. I was 14 years old and I had just started the high school.  We were alone at home: my parents were working and my sisters at school.

We were doing our homework in the kitchen when someone opened the main door.  I was sure it was my father coming home after work, so I didn’t pay attention to that and continued doing my homework, sure that he would have come to say hello to us, like every afternoon. After a while, he hadn’t come to the kitchen yet, so I called him. Nobody answered, but I heard that there was somebody near the main door , there was a noise coming from the entrance. So I stopped doing my homework to go to the entrance  and say hello to my dad. I couldn’t imagine that somebody else was in my house. I saw the main door opened and someone that was running away, I still can remember exactly what I saw. I saw the back of a woman, with blond hair and a bob haircut, black trousers and a sky blue windbreakers. And I  saw her getting into a car that was waiting for her.
I was shocked, couldn’t believe that someone had entered into my house and I hadn’t realized it. If I had just locked the door, it would have happened. And if hadn’t called my dad , probably she wouldn’t have run away. Maybe she thought that my father was at home and got scared. I still think that if she had known that there were only two teenagers at home, she wouldn’t have escaped. So I was really lucky, and from that moment I started to lock the door.

Luciano - The Gypsy and the Phone

It was last year, i was back from London for just few days and a really lucky thing happened to me, while i was out with my friends and taking the tube, a gypsy stole my mobile from my pocket, after just few seconds i realized i was robbed so i started to look around and ask my friends if they had seen the fact, suddenly one of them really calmly told me: "yeah, i've seen the gypsy stealing your mobile", and i was like "WTF, you've just watched the scene and haven't told me anything?!". Then, i tried to get off the train and follow her, but unexpectedly when i was about to step out, the gypsy dropped my phone on the ground, infact the overcrowded number of people that were obscructing the exit door trapped her arms inside the vehicle so that she couldn't escape. I wonder what would have happened if i had lost my mobile, fortunately everything went well.

Minkyu - Caught Red Handed

I would like to tell a story happened to me. To say exactly, not to me but to a girl. When I was 18years old I always went to the gym right after school. Normaly, I exercised for about 3hours from 7pm, so It used to be finished 10ish.

Oneday, I finished the exercise and was on the way home. I was riding a bicycle and passing by an elementary school near the gym. I was knackered so I didn't pay my attention to anything. It was dark at that time and there were no people. However, Suddenly there was a strange shout in the school ground. It was amazingly loud and horrifying. I am pretty sure I have never heard like that sound in my life. It was not like a shout in films. It was real and like monster's. I got off my bycicle immediately and ran into the school. 

When I got there. There was a girl and a stranger running out from her. He tried to molest her but he saw me. I tried to catch him. It was too far and I needed to take care of her because she was almost faint. I took her to her home and called the police and told about the situation but I don't know if he was caught or not even until now. I thought on the way back home if I hadn't been there what situation would have been happened.

Luciana - An unlucky event

An unlucky event happened to a friend of mine last year.
It looked like all one evening and he was going to take his girlfriend with his car when police stopped him at a checkpoint and forced him to do the alcohol test. To his surprise, the test is positive and even with a high number. The police decided to confiscate his driving license as punishment.
My friend was absolutely sure he had not drunk anything and can not believe how the test will be positive, but remembers that he used the mouthwash just before going out.He Suggested the hypothesis to the police and then they decide to take him to the hospital for blood tests. Sure enough, the analyzes were negative. Doctors confirmed the theory of the boy: Some mouthwashes have a high level of alcohol and may affect the results of the alcohol test.
His only sentence at the end of this story was, "If I had not thought about the mouthwash, at this time I would not have a driver's license."

Benny - It seemed an average day when..

It was a day of September and the house was completely empty: indeed my parents were at work and my sister Susanna and I were going to the seaside for a weekend.It seemed an average day however suddenly my phone rang and, when my mother said me that some thieves had been in our house, I felt my heart stopped throbbing. Immediately Susanna and I came back home, we went in and saw a dramatic situation: all rooms were upside down, all wardrobes were opened and our books and clothes were wherever in the house. Firstly we tried to understand how they had been able to come in and we began looking around. On the floor we could see some tracks guided in the kitchen, therefore we followed them and we saw a window completely broken. In that moment I realised that before I felt the apartment I hadn’t closed its: it was my fault and I thought “ If I had checked the windows before I came out, thieves wouldn’t have come in my home”. Since this moment I check again and again all the windows before I go out, due to I hope that was the last time I was a victim of a burglary.

Benny

Assignment 3 - Crime and Punishment

Either think of a crime that has happened to you, a friend or relative,
or research an unusual but true crime story.

Write a text about the crime, giving the important details, ie. what the crime was, who committed the crime, whether the criminal was caught and what happened to him/her.

Try to use as much new vocabulary as possible, and include at least one 3rd conditional sentence.

(minimum 150 words)