Use of it in English I'm not sure when I can use "it is" (or it's) and when to use "is" in an answer or in a sentence? When I have to use each one? Thanks!

Seventeenth entry: Alsuper In the past years, I’ve been working at a small building company. We focus our work into attending the necessities of a growing supermarkets company called Alsuper. This company is the result of years of effort from a local merchant who went into business with a small convenience store located in the downtown of Chihuahua in the mid 70’s. As the time went by, he built his first supermarket and found a warm welcoming from the community and his loyal customers. After the opening of his third supermarket, he ended up facing stiff competition with another national wide supermarkets chain. Also, he had to face the cost of the maintenance of this huge supermarkets without growing up the prices, at this pace he would end up closing the company. With the company at the edge of the bankruptcy and dealing with his delicate state of health, he took the decision of putting one of his sons in charge of the company. The first decision of the new owner was, shrink the size of the stores and reduce the variety of merchandise they sell as much as were possible. That way, he reduced the stores to its most basic form, saving money in the maintenance and avoid losing money with unsold merchandise. Under that new scheme of basic supermarkets, he could reach lower prices and make the business profitable again. Since then, the company found new opportunities of growing into other states of northern Mexico. The owner has plans to grow into Zacatecas and Durango states with new and more equipped stores.

Sixteenth entry: Can I work in your office? Back in the days, when I was in High School, I already knew I wanted to become an architect. I felt that I could become in such a great architect only if I coud start to work from the bottom in a local firm as soon as I can. I didn’t see any chance to work in any firm because I was young and I didn’t have any experience, until one day, everything changed. When I became part of the technical drawing elective class. My teacher was an architect, a grown lady, who everyone who has passed through her class was afraid of her, for the only reason that she demanded to much from her students. Nevertheless, the class was so demanding and I gave my best to succeed in the course and she noticed that. At that time I was looking for a part time job, not only because I wanted to work in a firm, but because I needed the money for my studies. Once, I was talking with my teacher and she told me she has a small firm with her husband and one of her sons. I knew that was my opportunity. I asked her a chance to work part time in her firm, but she didn’t think it could be a good idea. But I didn’t give up that easy. I asked her multiple times until she gave me the opportunity to work with her. Like I said before, I didn’t have any experience and the only job I could aspire was cleaning the office. I worked there almost 5 years and I grew up by acquiring knowledge. I started to draw some blueprints of their projects, however I was still responsible of keeping clean the office, but I learnt tons of new things of architecture and construction. When I ended up the architecture school she recommended me to the company I’m working now. She became one of the closest person in my life, and although I don’t work with her anymore, we still stay in touch. I wouldn’t be the professional person I’m today without her help.

Fifteenth entry: Office outfit I got my first architect job in a construction company immediately after I finished the school. I was so excited because it was my first serious job offer from a local company. The job consisted in being at the office the whole day drawing construction details for the supermarkets they were building. As a formal company, I had to dress the same way. I decided to change my wardrobe, so I bought new formal clothes to use in the office, I bought new shirts, a new belt, a pair of dress pants, and a new pair of shoes. I felt so good with my formal look, until that day. The main architect of the company, had enough confidence in my work to send me to inspect a pair of walls a contractor of us made in a supermarket we were remodeling. I had to walk through the construction site, climb those walls to check the steel reinforcement that the wall had to have on the inside and inspect another areas under construction. I did all of these things wearing my new office outfit. Since that I started to use a more versatile outfit, with a good pair of boots, a nice shirt and my jeans. I can look great for any office ambient and feel comfortable to do inspections in every area of any construction site.

Fourteenth entry: An old house As part of the culture of the people who lives in northern Mexico, my parents raised me with the belief of own a house for my future patrimony. And I refer to a big house, with front and back yard and spacious rooms. In my hometown, Chihuahua, the people adopted the north American ideal of how a house it should to be. This ideal is a copy of the suburbs you can find in the United States, where there’re a big house in a delimited piece of land that have a main street in front of the entrance, and the neighborhood looks exactly the same wherever you look. These type of houses doesn’t have any kind of features that I’d like to have in my house. My ideal house would be an old house, like one of that were built in Chihuahua at the beginnings of the last century. The houses that were built in those years have a different type of architecture. The lobby (which was also called zaguán) was the first room next to the main entrance. The rest of the rooms of the house were disposed around a central patio, and were connected with the lobby too. This central patio usually had a covered hallway all around the space, where you could sit and take the breeze of the afternoon. There are still some of this kind of houses, but for their age are conserved in very bad conditions. I hope someday I could restore one of these houses, so I can live there with my wife and our pets.

Thirteenth entry: Outrageous stories It seems that story books are not that popular these days, since Twilight and Harry Potter series came to flood the bookcases of the libraries. I really like to read story books. When I say to people that I’m reading a story book, they immediately think I’m reading a book for kids. There are great story books, but it might they’re a bit underrated. Story books can be entertaining and can caught you as much as a novel can do. I rather read a story book than a novel because I don’t have so much time to sit and read for hours. This kind of books are more flexible with your attention and time, you can read a short story and read another one later without worrying if you missed the main plot. The last story book I’ve read was Outrageous Stories (if you’re interested in this book, the original title is Historias Desaforadas) from the Argentinian author Adolfo Bioy Casares. This book is a compilation of different fantastic stories written by Bioy Casares and each story you read is more captivating than the last one. My favorite story of this book was one called Venetian Masks.

Twelfth entry: Wisdom teeth Perhaps, like many other people, I was afraid of the dentist. And like them, I used to visit the dentist only when I had a toothache. A few years ago I got my wisdom teeth extracted and it was a horrific experience. It wasn’t a painful experience but after that I’m not that afraid of the dentist anymore. I went to a maxillofacial dentist who was recommended by my dentist. I haven’t met him before but I got good recommendations from acquaintances. I went to his consulting room which is located in a small clinic in the downtown of my hometown. We started to talk about an ache I was feeling in my gums, in the back of my second molar. Before I visited him, he asked me to do a radiography of my whole mouth, to see what could be causing the ache in my gums. After he saw the radiography he said that it would be necessary to extract my wisdom teeth, because they were pushing my second molars. He booked the surgery and I went back to his consulting room a couple of weeks later. He didn’t use total anesthesia, he used only local anesthesia, so I was aware throughout the whole process. The surgery lasted almost 2 hours without any complications. I was off work for 3 days while I was recovering from surgery.

Eleventh entry: Dream Job I've always been a huge fan of Lego, ever since I was 8 years old. Since then I have been interested in this building toys, and I think Lego was an inspiration for me to become an architect. I'd love to designprofessional sets for Lego as a full-time designer for their Design Area. Once I saw a video about a Lego Designer explaining the design process for a Lego replica of the Solomon Guggenheim Museum in New York City. He was explaining the shape and form of the building and how to express the architecture with Lego pieces. I don't have any idea of the degree you need to have, to had a chance to become a Lego Designer. I think it could be impossible for me to become a Lego Designer one day. I do not think that countries like Denmark allows foreign people to do this kind of specialized work.

Tenth entry: A warehouse for final jobs I'd like to write a bit about my years at university, to be more specific, about my friends from university. Back in the days when I was attending the Architecture School I had a great group of friends. We were always together in all of the courses that we took. The toughest part of the architectural design class that we were attending was the final job. This final job consisted in a whole project for a cultural center located in my hometown. The project had to have blueprints of every space, facades, section plans and construction details. For this amount of job, we needed a place where we could work for hours without any kind of intromission. By fortune, one of my friends had recently emptied a a basement at his house where he used to keep lots of junk. We helped him to clean and conditionate the work space with tables and chairs; also we had enough space for a couch. The work hours suddenly became days without leaving the basement until we finished the blueprints. I really miss those school days when I could spend so much time with my friends. Now we have different job hours and is a bit difficult to see each other, but we still keep in touch and at least once a month we meet up in a bar.