Alice in Wonderful

My intention was talked about one o my favorites films when I was little, "Alice in Wonderful" and, searching some information about this film, I have found something very interesting and very special!

Living in an age where most of the work is done through a computer, makes us forget that it hasn't been that way always, not many years ago, all used to be done by hand. Nowadays all is very simple and easy but before it wasn't. Let's put the example of the Disney movies. The Disney company have created a lot of movies based on drawings made by hand. Before, create a character involves a very hard work by many people and they have to lean on they imagination and creativity and use unconventional tools. But nowadays, it has changed: a drawer can make everything with a computer in an easy way.

Anyway, what I would like to talk today is not about the chance in the cartoon industry, I would like to talk about the character of Alice of the film "Alice in Wonderland". This character required a real model so, in this case, we can say that Alicia is real, not only in the imagination of the drawer but in the real life.

Some days ago were released some pictures never seen before of the animation process of the films Alice in Wonderful in 1951. With this film, the drawers decided to try a new technique that consisted in taking pictures to a model and then, make the draws by pencil upon the pictures and, in this way, create the animations.

The model was Kathryn Beaumont, a 10 years old girl that gave life to Alicia's character. The main majority of the scenes of the pictures were recreated in the study with differents decorations. All of this supposed a really hard work because they only get 23 or 24 seconds of film by week and for this, this is considered one of the most special animations of the Disney Company and they decided not to do it again: the final costs outweigh the budgets. Even so, we could say that it worth because the movie was highly successful and in fact, Kathryn Beaumont did Wendy's voice in Peter Pan film, in 1998 was nominated "Disney Legend", in 2010 she did the voice of Kairi in the video game "Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep" and repeated this role in 2013 for the continuation of this video game: "Kingdom Hearts HD 1.5 ReMIX." This fact has surprised me a lot because my older brother loved this video games, he used to play with it a lot and we didn't have any idea of this! And she continued playing Alicia and Wendy's roles in differents performances in Disney Land and she also had appeared in some advertisements until 2005, when she was replaced by Hynden Walch. But even having this curriculum in the "acting world", Kathryn  work as a teacher in a primary school for over 30 years.

E-mail to my teacher

Hi Sonia,

I think it's gonna be difficult to talk about my dreams because I don't know wich one explain...anyway, here we go!

Like many people I have lots (but loooots) of dreams so we should talk in plural rather than in singular about my dreams. I think that having dreams (or like in many cases, lots of dreams) it’s wonderful because these dreams can make your life go round. Whatever you do or try can be for making them come true. But, even having so many dreams and as I've already told you, I don’t know which ones explain but, after been like fifteen minutes with these email in white, I think that it would be nice to talk about these ones that are “nearly”, in a manner of speaking, to come true, and they are all who are related with my future studies, so here it goes!
Next year I would like to go to the university and my dream is study a dual degree: international relations and journalism. It could not be a dream because it is a university degree as any other, but it is because at least, last year, the cut off mark was a 12.46 so I think that I should try to do my best this year… The other part of this dream is that this degree is only done in Madrid so I would like to go to study there. In fact, this is another of my dreams: I would like to go to study to Madrid, my brother is studying there and he loves it so, why not try it?
Like I already know that this “first dream” is difficult I have a second dream that is like “the plan B”. If for anything, you know, something as simple as the mark, I can’t study this career, I would like to study publicity or something related with this career and of course, I also would like to go, Madrid. Anyway, if for whatever I can’t go to Madrid, I also have a “plan B” that it would go to Barcelona that it would be cool, too. And finally, related with these two dreams, I have two more (the list is endless, I know) that are the next: the first one would be go on an Erasmus! A lot of friends of my brother and even, some of my cousins,  have already done it and all of them have had great  experiences so I would like to try it and I don’t care where I go, I’m sure that I would be ok anywhere. And yes now, last but not least of my dreams would be take a gap year after my studies (whatever I study) to go to the United States for work as an au pair!
So to end now, I think that these dreams would be “the best ones” or maybe, the more “workable” for my studies because another option would be go to a football university I mean, It would be perfect go to Finland or to the United States (where the best male teams are) for play football in a professional way while you are studying your university degree, but this is another story…

Graduation...now what?

Graduation from the high school is a major milestone but... what's next? What does our future hold?

Maybe, we can think that finish this stage, finish Batxillerat, is a major goal but I think that it's more simply than this, I think that is another step toward other future achievements, an important step, but only another. Anyway, is something that may scare us because it’s the day you leave the "predictable routine" of the "undergraduate life and the day you need to seriously consider a terrifying question: what's next? Or in my case: career A or career B?

I have seen the TED videos talking about how to succeed and I have to say that I agree with what Angela Lee Duckworth say, that If there is no motivation to doing anything, nobody will want to make their goals important in their life. Grit is passion and persistence that can help you to accomplish your goals, nobody will get even close to accomplishing anything without "grit". I honestly think students of every kind should have grit for themselves because your talent, your marks,...would not be anything without grit, without motivation: you can be the smartest person in the world, but that doesn't mean you would reach all your goals because you need to be motivated in order to do something.In fact. I think something very similar to Duckworth's: you don't have to make your failures an unnecessary obstacle in your path or see it like a failure or a drop, you have to transform them into a step that will take you higher towards your goal. Those who are most motivated can turn their mistakes into leaps forward, into greater lessons learned. 

Maybe, the problem is that nowadays, people think that being successful is about having a lot of money or being famous, but it isn't: be successful it's about chasing your objectives and dreams and being happy with what you do and more important, being happy with yourself. Grit helps a lot by achieving your goals, but I think that you only would be successful if you know what you want in life. 

Chernobyl as a "radioactive paradise"

When people talk about Chernobyl, nobody expects to read or see anything related with adjectives like fascinating, wonderful or fantastic… but today is not one of that days. One of the biggest nuclear accident of the mankind history has created an area uninhabitable for the humans but not for animals and plants, that they have increased the number of specimens. Chernobyl is, nowadays, a radioactive natural paradise.
Last week, a team of scientists published in the magazine “Current Biology” an interesting study with impressive pictures about the different animals and plants that are living in an area contaminated by a high-level radioactive. The objective of the study was analyzing the impact of the depopulation and of the radiation on plants and on the wildlife. 

I think that one of the most interesting conclusions of this project was that the number of animals has increased a lot! I believe that it’s an interesting conclusion because this result show us that the human presence and his economic activities are more harmful to the environment and for the wildlife than the worst nuclear disaster… But, what’s about the radioactivity? We know that there are more animals than there were before the accident but, in which conditions? I mean, they are contaminated or no? Well, the studies show us that the answer is yes, all kind of life in this area is contaminated and in fact, the true is that there are more animals but they are also more radioactive and despite this, the diversity of species is smaller. Although it may seem a disaster for the biodiversity of the area, it isn’t because the predictions were that it wouldn’t be any kind of life in the area. 

Different studies that are also appointed in this project have concluded that the main problem there aren't extravagant mutations as many imagine, but rather other smaller. The biologist Timothy Mousseau, who has been studying the area for years, has just published a very interesting informative video about these small mutations. Mousseau also explains how animals like birds or spiders have developed tumors or small deformations; for example, the insects with more radiation develop spots, the trunks of some trees have different colors than used to have,… summing up, the effects of the radiation are evident in the region but I’m afraid that not in the way we have imagined I mean, there aren’t very strange animals with to heads or fifteen legs.

Another interesting fact of this project is that some animals like wild boars, deer and lynx that live in different regions where it was assumed that the risk of contamination was lower, are also contaminated because they feed on plants and soil fungi, where radiation levels are much higher. 
So we can conclude that this contaminated region, apart from having become a radioactive natural paradise as I have said, is also a mine for biologist being as since the accident, different groups of researchers have made different studies in these areas. 

There is Timothy Mousseau video about the mutations that some animals suffer!