The Circular Ruins by Antonella Aguilar

A man who tries so hard to impose another man on reality by dreaming him does not seem to be common human behaviour, but in this short story this is what the author, Jorge Luis Borges, focuses on.

A wizard who wants to bring his imaginary son into the real world is the protagonist of a story where dreaming is in every moment.

The wizard dreams about some students in a temple, he keeps only one of those who dares to oppose him, this pupil becomes real and is educated by him.

After that, the boy is sent to another ruined temple which is destroyed by fire but he does not die in that terrible accident. Unfortunately, as a result of this, the teacher realizes that this divine son is alive

because he is a projection of his dreams to find a terrible outcome.

A story that must be read because of its surrealist way of telling the events, those that will make you enjoy this beautiful alternative of writing. You may also find yourself a bit lost and confused if you do not pay a special atenttion while you are reading.

So, to prevent this kind of mishap you should submerge your senses in the sentences, thinking carefully in every detail that is written and analysing it.

Borges is one of the most important writers from our country and he will open your mind to a parallel world if you read his amazing short stories, begining of course, with “The Circular Ruins”.

Review: "The circular ruins"

By Catriel Benavídez

‘The circular ruins’ is one of the most well known short stories of the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. J. L. Borges is recognised because of his short stories all over the world.
‘The circular ruins’ is about a man who arrives in a land which was totally unknown only with the purpose of dreaming a man and imposing him on reality.
The story is very catching and has a wide vocabulary. Maybe you have to pay much attention because of that, but finally you enjoy it.
I would recommend to buy and read ‘The circular ruins’, especially if you like reading fantastic stories. I am sure it will catch your attention and you will like the end of this great short story.

Circular Ruins, by Agustina Claps

This short story was written by Jorge Luis Borges; it's about a wizard who wanted to dream the perfect person. After a few nights of strange dreams, he dreamed a classroom, he was the teacher, he was teaching; he started to look for the perfect person, but he did not find him; the next night he found a pupil in the same classroom that could be him, but then he knew that he wasn't. He kept looking, but he failed. He was tired; He started to have insomnia, so he decided to go to the forest to get tired. He talked to the "fire god", looking for help, the god asked him t adore him, and he would help him; the wizard did it. The end is "circular", an open ending.

In my opinion this is a very nice and educative story, it describes every scene very well, with interesting details, very complex vocabulary, it leave you a teaching.

On the other hand it's a very complicated story, the vocabulary is for people that have a very good language. You have to look for information to understand the story, becouse it uses synonyms that we are not use to reading

I recommend this story to language teachers, or professional people, and to look for information before and after the reading, to take advantage of this beautiful and strange story.

By Agustina Claps 3°E

A noise in the middle of the night

One day I was watching TV when I heard a noise. I was alone because my parents had gone to Mar del Plata. I didn`t go because I had to study.

I was very frightened, for this reason I closed all the doors. Then I heard another noise, I looked through the window and I saw a shadow. Some minutes later, somebody knocked at the door, I asked: “Who are you?” and nobody answered. Then he began to hit the door and cried some words but I didn`t understand.

At this moment I called the police. Ten minutes later the police arrived and arrested him. They said that he was a drunk man who wanted to rob.

When the police left my house I closed all the doors and windows and I went to bed. I hope I will never see this man again .

by Juan Andrés (2nd year)

Alan’s story

The following story is real.
It happened when we were 13 years old, and a friend invited us to sleep to her house. We didn´t know what was going to happen that night but this was a night we would never forget because it was the beginning of everything.
Let 's go back to the past, to this summer night.
We were chatting,having fun when our friend told us a story.We listened to it but we didn’t believe it at all. She told us that a few weeks ago , her sisters and herself were playing the game of the cup and a ghost contacted them. He told them that his name was Alan and that he was 6 years old when his mother killed him.
He wanted his story to be known by everyone and he looked for revenge.
After telling this story our friend said to us that she didn’t feel well in her house because strange things started to happen.
This night we took a lot of photos in the garden . A few months later watching those photos we noticed that in one of them a little boy appeared like a ghost in white.We remembered that this night was very late and we were alone. And then we started to believe in our friend’s story.
Until the night our friend played the game of the cup ,strange things happened in her house.Every time we go to her house we feel that something is with us, when we are on the 2° floor we listen to noises in the 1° floor, like a person moving furniture, and the light of her bedroom turns on and off or the door opens alone. When we talked to her by the phone we hear voices and screams.
Apart from those facts, she started to dream things that she doesn’t understand ,like her house but it was different,it was in the middle of the field and there were no houses around.She dreamed that she was on her sister’s bedroom and saw a little boy hiding something in the floor,on the corner.
One day she seemed to see a boy entering her sister’s bedroom. So she went to see,thinking that the boy was his nephew.When she entered the room...it was empty,but she was very brave,and remembering her dream she went to the corner,and noticed that the wood of the floor could be removed. So she did it.
And then,under all the dust,she found a picture,in which was her house like in the dream with a little boy and a woman in front of it.To our friend the woman looked familiar, so she showed the picture to her mother to know if she could recognise her.
Her mother recognised the woman at first sight:She was her great-aunt.Her mother told our friend that the woman was the previous owner of the house,and that she had a son called Alan that dissappeared at the edge of 6 in a misterious way. She also said that the woman went crazy,and saw her son’s ghost, so one day almost burnt the house and she was taken to a mental hospital.
Our friend told her mother what had happened and went to see this woman.When they talked to the woman, she confessed everything. She told them that she had killed the boy because she was jealous as his father always paid attention to his son and not to her.
She confessed everything because the boy appeared every night in her dreams,and she was tired of that.She also confessed that the boy was buried in the basement.
So,our friend and her mother reported this to the police and it went to the house and dug up the boy’s body. The case became well known . After that Alan could rest in peace and the house was free..nothing stange happened again.


by Nicole and Julieta (2nd year)

A strange country house.

Once upon a time, there was a couple in their way to their holidays. The man, who was called Peter was driving in her own car with Lucy, his girlfriend.
When they were going, there was a thick fog in the street so Peter changed the road. They were lost, and there was only an isolated house on their way.
Lucy thought that they shouldn’t stop there, but Peter said that it was a nice house where they could spend one night. So they picked up their luggage and entered the house. Suddenly Lucy found an old newspaper with a photo of a young couple which had died in a road accident on their way to the country house. This news called Lucy’s attention.
At night Peter and Lucy went out to find a restaurant because in the house there was nothing to eat. Two hours later they couldn’t find a restaurant and they decided to come back to the house. When they arrived the lights of the house were off, that called Lucy’s attention because she had turned the lights on when they had left the house. So she decided to get into the house and turned on the lights, but when she did so the radio was on, and that was very strange for Lucy because she didn’t see a radio in the house. So Lucy turned on the lights and the radio went off. After that she was afraid and she decided to call her boyfriend, but when she went out Peter was lying on the floor so she ran to the house and went upstairs to call the police.
When she spoke to the police station and gave the address of the house to the policeman, he said that this house had burned down twenty years ago. She was so desperate, so she went downstairs and a spirit appeared and she died of a heart attack.

By Clara Lobercho y Micaela Ciraolo. (2nd year)

USA in 1929, Argentina today (5)

After Reading the book “Cinderella man” the true story of the heavyweight Jim Braddock, we have found several similarities with that period of the history, 1929, and Argentina today.
We can say that the economic history has changed a lot. Once it was all right and suddenly the system crashed and caused a real disaster. As a matter of fact, it is normal; it happens all around the world and there are very similar stories in different countries. For instance, the Argentinian’s one.
To begin with in 1928 in North America the economy was thriving, people were good, they could afford their bills and support their families. In 1929 the US stock market collapsed. Because of that people’s life changed totally: people started to lose their jobs and had debts so they could neither pay them nor support their families. Therefore a lot of them were homeless and that “Great Depression” was something which the US couldn’t recover fast.
On the other hand throughout all its economic history Argentina had very similar situations. Here, nowadays people are homeless, without job and some families can’t support themselves and from our point of view all this is the cause of great insecurity.



WRITTEN BY: Feruglio, Mariana and Fontenla, Mayra Belén.(3rd year)

USA in 1929, Argentina today (4)

After reading the book “Cinderella Man” the true story of the heavyweight Jim Braddock, we have found several similarities with that period of the history, 1929, and Argentina today.
During the twenties, in United States of America, economy was prosperity. Everybody had jobs and it was time of social changes, new fashions, new machines, and exciting new music. After World War I, American economy grew, and many people were making lot of money. People were happy, with a good future.
Everybody thought that happiness will never end, but the country was producing more than it needed and the end came suddenly. On black Tuesday, 29thOctober 1929 US stock market collapsed, and the whole system crashed. The economy failed, banks closed, families lost their money, and millions of people lost their jobs and homes. Most Americans lived on the streets, in cars, on the subway and in parks. People built hoovervilles to live in.
The reality that is lived today in Argentina is hopeless and similar to that of USA. Many people are without job. They are poor and lived in shantytowns like people used to live in 1929’s in US. Nowadays insecurity is one of the big problems, robberies and kidnappings are usually seen. That is a consequence of the lack jobs. We can say that the deficiency of a viable project is the biggest cause of the crisis that is lived in Argentina. The inefficiency of Argentinian government to solve usual problems is the cause of the slow development.
These are some of the causes of the crisis in Argentina.

Written by Arias Victoria and Bordenave Sofía.

A wicked place

Our story begins when an anthropologist called Mathew Stuart discovered, with his group of workers, an ancient building buried in The Sahara desert.
When they finally entered the building, they discovered that, inside that building there was a cemetery. All the gravestones had chains around them.

The night came and Mathew and his team were camping inside the building (which was an old church), in a big plataform near the cross.

In the middle of the night, Mathew woke up suddenly because he had heard a sound. When he opened his eyes, he saw a woman, very pale and dressed with a white and large dress.

-Who are you? - Mathew asked.

-I am Sara- the woman said.

Her voice was very low, like a whisper.

-What are you doing here?- Mathew asked.

-I am condemned, trapped here for all eternity- she answered.

-Why?- he asked.

-I committed suicide. My soul is wicked- Sara said.

Suddenly, a lot of people started to appear from the tumbs.

-We are all wicked- Sara whispered.

The souls began to walk towards him, but they suddenly stopped.

They can 't be near the cross- thought Mathew.

As fast as they appeared,they disappeared. The next day, when all the team was awake, they found, (written in the stone base of the cross) a small legend:

“This building is wicked. It is the prison for the sinner souls, which don 't deserve to go to heaven.

They will stay here, suffering for all eternity and paying for their crimes”.


by Meli & Marina (2nd year)

USA in 1929, Argentina today (3)

• After reading the book “Cinderella man”, the true story of the heavyweight Jim Braddock, we have found several similarities with that period of the history, 1929, and Argentina today.


It was the end of good times in North America in the 1920`s when the economy failed and as a result ten thousand factories in the New York area closed down and suddenly millions of people were out of work.
The American economy did not recover and a lot of Americans lost their homes. People started to live on the streets, in cars, on the subway and in Central Park.
On October 29, 1929 the banks closed and companies went out of business.
This was called the Crash of 1929.
The economic and social situation in Argentina, during the financial crisis that exploded in 2001 was very hard because a lot of people lost their jobs, many people lived on the streets or on the subway; and all over the country people began building shanty towns to live in.
In the first six months of this year, statistics show that the poorest part of the country is the North-East, 26,3 % of the population is considered poor, and a further 7,1 % suffers from extreme poverty.



Written by Gazzaneo, María Lucía and Mazeikaite, Victoria.(3rd year)

USA in 1929, Argentina today (2)

After reading the book “Cinderella Man”, the true story of the heavyweight Jim Braddock, we have found several similarities with that period of the history, 1929, and Argentina today.
The 1920’s had been good times in the United States President Herbert Hoover thought that the good times would never end, but he was wrong. The country was producing more that it needed, and many historians believe that was the cause of the problem. The end came suddenly, in October 1929, when the whole system crashed. The economy failed, banks closed, families around the country lost their homes, and the bad times continued to be hard for more Americans.
In Argentina the financial crisis exploded in 2001, plunging 50% of the population into poverty.
According to statistics recently issues by INDEC, in the first six moths of this year poverty in Argentina dropped to 13,9%. In number, this amounts to 3.429.000 people in Argentina, of whom 99.500 are considered destitute. They fall under the extreme poverty line, which is based on the inability to afford what INDEC deems to be “minimum dietary requirements”.
The poorest part of the country is the North-East, where statistics show that 26,3% of the population is considered poor, and a further 7,1% suffers from extreme poverty.
The 64,34% of the Argentinian people lose their jobs and don’t have any food to eat. Some people lose their homes too and die in the streets.

Written by Díaz Samantha and Zavaleta Cecilia

Dream or Reality

My family and I have lived in Georgetown since I was three years old.
We used to live in front of a cemetery until something happened to us. One night I was having dinner alone because my parents were at the theatre and the phone rang. I answered and a strange voice said:
-"Look at the cemetery"
I started to feel very scared but I went to the window,I was looking through it, and suddenly all dead people came out of their tumbs. I was so scared that I ran to my room and closed all the doors and windows. The dead bodies broke the front door and came into the house. I tried to escape but they were to many following me. One of them was my best friend Johnny. He caught me by my neck and bit me. I started bleeding and I fell to the floor. Suddenly I heard a familiar voice calling me it was my mum. I was in the theatre with them and I did not know why I had fallen asleep and I was dreaming. When I came back to my house I look myself at the mirror and I had a big scar in my neck.



by Malen & Nicolás (2nd year)

USA in 1929, Argentina today

After reading the book “Cinderella Man”, the true story of the heavyweight Jim Braddock, we have found several similarities with that period of the history, 1929, and Argentina today.
The 1920’s had seen good times in the United States. In 1928, during the “Roaring Twenties”, there was time of great economic prosperity and social changes in the United States. Since World War I, the American economy had been growing faster, so people were fascinated that the good times would never end, but this was wrong.
On 29th of October 1929 the US stock market collapsed, ending with the good times that they had had. The consequences of that “crash” were homeless new Yorkers living on the streets, in cars, on the subway, among others.
Nowadays, in Argentina we can also see homeless poor people living on the streets, families around the country have lost their money and their jobs, a lot of people have started to build shanty towns to live in, robberies are many more than never before and there are a lot of kidnappings. These are only a few consequences after the crisis.

By Ezequiel Garbagnati, Gonzalo Lloriú and Nicolás Sabas

A night with the driver

Many years ago, Mark took a taxi at 3:00 AM after a friend’s party. When he got in, he told the driver: -“To Evergreen st. please” – When the driver saw him, Mark noticed that he had an evil look. The fire of hell was shining in his eyes. But after a few seconds he decided that it was all his imagination.
He was very tired because of the party and he only wanted to be in his bed. The driver said: -“I know a shortcut gentleman”-
-“Ok”- Mark replied. And the next thing he knew was that he was asleep. He had very strange dreams. He dreamt that he was running in a dark place without direction. And someone was chasing him, and shouting his name.
He woke up in the morning lying on his bed. He had no idea of what had happened the night before. Suddenly he saw a note in his chest:

“Don’t bother about the bill, I had a great night. You have very fast legs
not everyone can escape from death”.

by Fede & Joaquín (2nd year)