Choose one of the topics a) or b). Write about 250 words.

The weirdest sports in the world?! As you are mad about sports and always on the lookout for new challenges, you have browsed the internet for inspiration. You have found these unusual sports on a website. On your personal blog

• describe your experience with sports
• share your opinion on one of the sports presented below. Feel free to suggest variations to the sport.

Doggie Surfing

participants: you and your dog

activity: teach your dog
to ride the waves

equipment: a surfboard

location: a lake or the sea

Zorbing

participants: individual riders

activity: roll down a hill inside a large ball

equipment: large transparent plastic ball

location: hill with flat surface

Quidditch

participants: two teams, 7 people each

activity: play with a broom between legs, rules similar to rugby

equipment: ball, broom stick

location: pitch

Chess Boxing

participants: two opponents

activity: 4-minute round of chess followed by a 3-minute round of boxing

equipment: chess board and boxing gloves

location: box ring and table

Adapted from: https://www.boredpanda.com/weird-sports/ [accessed: 20 May 2024] OR

Doggie Surfing – My New Favourite Sport?!

Sports have always played an important role in my life. I used to play football a lot when I was younger. However, in the past few years I have really enjoyed trying different sports.

This made me realise that I genuinely enjoy exercising, whether it is on my own or with friends. Therefore, I try to be active as often as possible. Usually, I do sports at least four times a week. On Mondays and Fridays, I play volleyball with my friends. Sometimes, we even take part in competitions. I love to compete! Every Wednesday, I go running with my dog and once a week, I try to do something new that I have never done before as I am always eager to learn about new sports. This week, I stumbled across doggie surfing. On a lake or the sea, you teach your dog how to ride the waves on a surfboard. That sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? I love surfing and being active in the water and I also love my dog. Hence, I was thrilled to find out that you can teach your dog how to ride a surfboard. I just booked a train ticket to Spain, where I will try doggie surfing with my dog Milo. I hope Milo will love being in the water and on a surfboard as much as I do. I will let you know how it goes! Maybe we can even organise a doggie surfing competition in the future?

See you soon,

Liv

Staying Healthy: Self-Care Strategies

Keeping your mind healthy is just as important as keeping your body healthy. However, especially with exams coming up, students often feel stressed and overwhelmed which can have a negative impact on our overall health. Therefore, it is crucial to know self-care strategies that can improve our well-being, especially in extremely stressful situations. When I feel really stressed and overwhelmed, I have always found it beneficial to talk to my friends and share my feelings with them. While doing some research, I found an infographic and learnt that it can also help to teach positive self-talk and do daily emotions check-ins with yourself. This can help to ensure that you are aware of your capabilities and your emotions and allows you to understand and regulate your feelings better. Moreover, getting off my phone gives me more time to tackle my tasks and makes me more focused and productive. To keep my mind and body healthy, I also like to take walks and eat healthily. Schools can contribute to our mental and physical health as well. For example, it could be beneficial to plan for brain breaks in which we can recharge. Moreover, providing a variety of adequate extracurricular activities could help us to take our minds off school and reduce stress. Furthermore, doing extracurricular activities with our peers helps build strong relationships within our school which has a positive impact on our wellbeing at school. Make sure to take care of yourselves and try some of these strategies to improve your health!