Mendizabal in the University
I was reading on the Internet an interesting story that was published on the website of La Gaceta. The headline said: “A man returned to University after 40 years and at 78 he received an engineering degree in Tucuman.” Here’s what the story was about.
Serafín Mendizábal had been working since he was a teen because he didn’t have enough money to pay for her university studies in the Universidad Tecnológica Nacional. For this reason, he enrolled and finished a small career in the Escuela Industrial de la Nación. Years later, he returned to university, he was a president of Students Center, and he was going to finish it. However, in the last days of 1976, a bomb exploded in the University. The Argentine Army kidnapped Mendizábal and other students who were in the university. During days, they were tortured because the kidnappers thought that he knew some details of the explosion. A week after, he was released.
Mendizabal said he developed many psychological traumas, but he pretends to be the same person. After, he left the university.
One day, in the 2000s, a friend of his grand-daughter asked for help to describe the military dictatorship. Mendizabal remembered the day when he was kidnapped and started to cry a lot. He said he has not been able to stop it. His wife went to ask professional help and psychologists said a suggestion that impressed her: Mendizabal needed to return the university to finish his studies.
Mendizabal returned at 65 years old when he had retired from his job. Although he had done until 5th year, he had to study all the courses again. His professors and classmates helped him in many things. 13 years later, he received an engineering degree. He finally fulfilled his dream.
This article was presented for the course Advanced Grammar 2 of the ICPNA. Book: Focus On Grammar 5, published by Pearson.
Unit: Adjetives Clauses – Review and Expansion. 12th Adjectives Clauses with Prepositions; Adjective Phrases (underlined).
Instructions: Write a few paragraphs about a recent story that interested you. The news story should contain examples of direct and indirect speech.