Final refelction

This course is finishing and with it and at least, our Batxillerat!!!! Now, our days in the high school are numbered: after four years ins ESO and two horrible, stressful but also, fantastic and full of great moment two years in Batxillerat, finally, we can say that we have achieved it and we are ready to face a new and an important stage in our life that personally, I’m looking forward to starting.

So, as I have say, a new stage is about to begin but before, I would like to look back and see how has been this last year and above, all related to my English. For this, we must go back to 2013 – 2014 course, when I started 4th ESO and also, when I created this blog. My first publication was “MY DREAM” and reading it I can’t stop laughing, I didn’t remember that my dream was to be a professional football player… anyway, I don’t think that we can find one of my favourite post in this year because now that I’m reading all of them (they aren’t very extensive) I can see that all of them are a little simple, I’m mean, I used to use a very simple vocabulary and simple syntactic structures but  I’m not very ashamed of this because now I can see how much I have to improve. If we continue reading the next posts, we reach first Batxillerat, where the things started to change.

One of the big changes was the way to present the blog: I remember that when I started first of Batxilerat, my blog change radically, I created a new wallpaper, I changed the title of the blog, I started to put more “impressive” pictures,… Another difference that we can see are the topics. In the first year, I used to talk about thing like my favourite band, my favourite song, my favourite film, my favourite and my favourite, I mean, very simple thing that only interested to me, but from Batxillerat, I started to express my point of view of different topics as the gender violence, the consumerism or “major” problems in our society as why was so hard to see black and blue in a dress. One post that I would like to headline is the one called “Just do it”. I like this post because I talk about how absurd it seemed to me the “new year resolution” and in fact, I still considered that you don’t need to wait until 1st January for changing your life, we all have 365 days (sometimes up to 366) to take up something or make a change in our life, so we should use all of them. Another improvement we can see are in the news, now I don’t like to talk about the things that everybody can see in the new, I like to search new as theft of art that seemed like movie plot or news related with topics that I can have a point of view as the ones related to the fashion world or the stereotypes. 

I have to say that I’m very proud of all the work that I have done in this blog because now that I’m reading the compositions of this year, I can see a big difference and not only in the writing but also in oral presentation: now I have more fluency and I’m more self-confidence. However, I’m aware that I have a lot more to change and improve and although there are many ways to do it, making a blog is one of the best: in 4th ESO, I had never thought that do this blog, what seemed to me a bummer but I have end enjoying it, would help me to improve my English, so I think that I will consider continuing writing in English, maybe not on the internet or in this blog but in a more personal way.

The American Sniper

Recently, I've seen the movie "American Sniper", that it's about the real history of the Texas marine Christopher Scott Kyle, the deadliest sniper of the US army. He is destined to Iraq with the mission of protect his mates from the rooftops, windows... while they enter and inspect the Iraq houses searching terrorist. His precision with the weapon saved a lot of lives of his army and Kyle, becomes known as "the legend" for all his mates but he also became the main objective of the Iraqis who put price on his head. In the film, we also see the four missions which the sniper participated and he beat record of deaths as sniper in the US army.

I really enjoy the film because is entertaining and the end of the film surprise you. For this, I was interested in the real history of this "American hero".

Christopher Scott Kyle, was born in Texas. He was the older of two brothers and his parents were religious and farmers ("God, country and family" is one of his mottos). His first weapon was a rifle that his father gave him when he was eight years-old. He learned to use it hunting with his father. In 1998, Kyle enter in the army of the US with the intention of be form in the unit Navy SEAL (snipers) and at 1999, he was destined to Iraq. 

Between his achievements, stand out get hit a terrorist from 2.100 meters and survive to a six attacks with bombs. He also came to kill more than 40 terrorist in only one day trip. Is attributed to him more than 150 deaths (although there are more because the army only count those who have had witnesses). 

All this history can be seen in the film, the most "spectacular" of his man is that the normal thing is go to a one mission to Iraq and then, not want to go back anymore (as his brother), but Kyle went to a four different missions having family and sons.

Unfortunately, at the age of 38 years old, he was murdered in a shooting rage by Eddie Routh, an old friend of the army that after return from Iraq, suffers mental problems. After this, he was condemned to life imprisonment.

This film has received a lot of proses but also, a lot of critiques. People complain that the paper of a sniper it isn't the same paper of a hero that is with which is compared in the film. Others criticize the racism of the film and also, the fact of do a film of a person who had had declarations as "I don't care about people of Iraq, I hate this wilds, I just want to protect my people and finish with the evil" (I think that it’s normal that a persona that have been in the war of Iraq for times, say this). So we can say that some people see the film like the exaltation of a murdered and a solder with traumas because of his job, and others see the film as the history of the tragic lost of one of the most important members of the army. 

I think that both positions of the film are respectable because it’s true that the job of this man it's not like the job of a hero, I mean, they dedicated to kill people but in the other hand, is what he have to do. I'm sure that if the people that the sniper had kill where in the states, for example, who criticize him, would reconsider him as a hero. He only try to protect his mates and he also try to end with the terrorism and killed the terrorist is one way. It’s a man who had been in the war and for this, is normal the “hate” that he have to the Iraqis. 

You are wrong if you think you can't change the world

Rosa and Bernarda are two sister from La Patrona, one of the most poor places in Mexico.  Twenty years ago, they were with their purchase waiting for the train to pass to cross the railroad way to their home. Then, when the train pass, they saw that there were people hanging and climbed on the roof wagon shouting and asking them something to eat or drink. 

These poeple were the first inmigrants who climbed the wagons of a for try to cross the border and enter in the USA. Every day, hundreds of inmigrants of Mexico, set off one of the most dangerous journeys: cross Mexico for try to arrive to North America with the hope of have a better life, and most of them decide to do this trip hanging in the wagons of the train well know as "The Beast" or "The train of death" since this inmigrants run the risk of fall down of the train, they may suffer an amputation and also, men, women and childrends travelling in this way are constanly battered, kidnapped and even raped by criminal groups. Even that, every day, up to 500 inmigrants, go over 3.000 km in this conditions and with all this risks. 

When the sisters saw this people asking for something to eat or drink, they felt bound to give them the food that they have just buy. Since then, all the days untill now the mother and the siblings of this family cooked things like rice, beans,... and put it in bags and boxes together with water and give it to the people who travel in this train. 

With the time, this women have become a group know as "Las Patronas" formed by 14 women of the same village that every day, so there isn't a day that there aren't poeple hangig on the train, coocked almost 15 kg of food (each one) for this thousands of inmigrants. Now, they recive food from some neighbourts and organitzacions but at the beggining, they have to cook and give the food from her own houses.

At first, her work was a little improvisate but now, they assigned task and responsabilities between them: they start the work early in the morning and cooked twice daily. When they hear the train noise, they aproach to the railroad with wheelbarrows full of bags and boxes with food and water and, with the help of some volunteers, they share out it between the inmigrants. For make sure that the inmigrants take the food, they tie a rope to the bags and they pull it into the wagons: they have less than 15 minutes for devide morethan 200 bags!

I think that these women have become a symnbol of solidarity, in fact, they have recived several awards from fundation and organitzacions of Human Rights and this story has also been move to documentary films. This kind of things show us that it isn't necessary have a lot of money for try to change the world: these women live in one of the most poor areas of Mexico and even so, they probably give the only food that these inmigrants would eat in all the journey aboard the train, so you are wrong if you think you can't change the world. 

Europe and the refugees

Whatever it said, there're multiples reasons for welcome with the maximum generosity the hundreds of thousands of people that, since the break out of the refugees crisis, are seeking asylum in Europe. It's not about migrants: it is about fugitives fleeing of a violent death and fleeing of the war in their countries.

The first reason for to host these desperate people is moral, is completely wretched having thousands and thousands of people, including elderly, women and children, dying of cold, hunger and diseases in our borders in the same way that there isn’t any human form of justifying that more than three thousand people have died trying to cross the Mediterranean. Allow this daily apocalypse is equivalent to throw in the trash the reason “of be Europe”. The second reason for welcome refugees would be legal: what is happening now and what starts almost a year ago is a clear violation not only of the Human Right Declarations of 1948, but also of the Refugee Convention of 1951 and of the European Convention on Human Rights of 1953; refusing to grant to these people the right of having rights put us out of the law. A third reason could be a political one: with the asylum policy that we are showing, we are proving and suppose a confirmation that liberty, equality and fraternity of western rhetoric is just that, a rhetoric, nothing, an instrument for show off. And finally, another reason could be an economic one: some relevant economist warn that we need refugees almost as much as they need us because in countries as our countries, aged and with very low birth rates, refugees will be who will pay our pensions.

There are much more reasons for host refugees (without having in account the common sense; we can put a door in a country, we can’t put a door in the middle of a field). What is safe and what is clear is that the Europe reputation is in danger, like the values on which this state has been built (political freedom, religious tolerance and law equality).

I think that the Europe of the future should be reconstructed as it was done at the begging; assimilating what is not Europe, assimilating other cultures, other lifestyles and other values and converting them in Europeans. In this way, we will become a free society, more prosper and more peaceful: a society in which all want to live, in which all want to look like.

"Kalimán en Jerico" - Àngel Burgas

As we are working  and learning how important are human rights, today I would like to talk about a book that I recently read: “Kaliman en Jerico”. The author of this book is Angle Burgas, from Figueres.

In August 2011, Angel Burgas travel to Medellín and there, he visited the Fundacion Faro, in Jericó, where the boys of the street are treated to join the society. Most of them get it and some of them, then, became volunteers to help others boys in the same situation as they to get out of this kind of life.

Burgàs wanted to explain the stories of this young boys as a denouncement to our western mentality and eyes and as a help from this side of the world that had become in a bitter novel.

In the story, Àngel transfigure in Santiago, a basketball coach that travel to Medellín with a mission: “I came to Medellín looking for Adrián and I met Nahum, Hernán Darío, Jonathan,  Víctor Manuel, Fernando, Juan Esteban, Rubén Darío, Wilinton, Douglas, José Daniel, Ángel Antonio, Julio and Fabio. In Barcelona I am Santiago, but here at the Foundacion Faro in Jericho, I am Kalimán*, the hero who hear the real stories about boys injured, abused, outcasts of the good life. You cannot erase what lived, and learn to walk again is not an easy task. But “los pelaos” of Faro are also Kalimanes, they have left the street, the drugs and the bad life to start looking to the future with hope. For all of them, Kalimán never gives up.”

“Los pelaos” are children who survive or barelysurvive on the streets of Colombia immersed in the world of crime, prostitution and drugs. It’s hard to explain the stories of this guys, sometimes, of an unimaginable cruelty and brutality, without something breaks inside you because the stories that Àngel tells to us are as real as the boys that star in, what makes the story more hard because at the end, you realize that even the things that all these boys have done and have lived, they are just kids not very different from us at this ages, with so short live and, at once, so long full of hardships, drugs and violence: they only want what all boys of these ages want, a PSP, be an astronaut or play in Barça. The only difference is that they don’t have family or anyone who take care of them so they have had to make living in the streets of Colombia stealing, selling drugs, working with mafias and other criminal organizations and even, killing. For this, although Santiago is seen as a hero for all the boys of Faro, the character leaves clear from the beginning that this boys are the real heroes.

With this book we are able to see how a lot of children in Colombia, Mexico and other cities live. Most of them don’t have family so they have to make living on the street, doing and seeing things that are so far from what correspond to any child of this ages: instead of play football, going to school or going to the park with their parents, this boys are selling drugs (and in some cases, consuming it), are stealing and in some extreme cases, they are members of criminal organizations that required them to torture and kill.

This is a big injustice: all child deserve an infancy without worries and nowadays, there are a lot of kids without this right so is laudable the work of many organization as Faro that is working for remove children from the streets and try to give the childhood that they lost or without going further, get that boy stay away from this life is an achievement

*Kaliman is a comic hero born at the beginnings of the sixties in Mexico and that nowadays, is famous throughout south America. In the book, Kaliman is also the name that the guys of Faro give to Santiago, seeing him as a hero.

An example of world's injustices

Not many days ago, we went to MACBA (Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art) with school and something a little weird happen to us. The whole art history class were in the museum with a fantastic guide when suddenly, out of the blue, a man join us and start to follow us in our visit for the museum. Anybody said nothing and in fact, I didn’t notice that he was in our group until he started to speak. I have to say that he was a little bit strange man and also, it was a strange situation! It seems that he was an expert of philosophy because he talked about different philosophers, theories and he said something that really grab my attention: “we are in an era full of images that we didn’t understand, we don’t understand our own world, it’s like we were backing instead of going on”.

Why I’m explaining this? Is not for start a philosophic debate about this statement but I would like to talk about a thing that grabs even more my attention and thta was related to this sentence. If you have traveled abroad, you will know what it’s read ads or posters in the street and feel a little strange because you don't understand anything! But imagine something worst, imagine that you don't even know read. Then, you understand less of what are around you. This, in 21st century, can seem something very strange that only happened in specific places, in specific situation and in specific people but in fact, this is a pitiful reality that is happening nowadays and not only in the “third-world”, as many of us will think, it’s something that touches us very closer because is happening  in our country.

Some days ago, I was taking an English lesson outside high school and suddenly, a group of old African immigrants (the youngest one was 50 years old) enters in the place and we asked our teacher if they were also taking English classrooms. Our English teacher explain to us that they were trying to learn write and speak our language what impress me a lot! Many of them have been living there about two or three years and they have been walking around without understanding which enveloped them and what is worst, is that except one of the five, anybody even know how to write their  own language; they were starting from scratch.

I found amazing, impressive and astonishing that I was sitting in a classroom studying English, my third language, and just at the other side, only separated by a door, a group of people was trying to learn how to write for the first time… it’s something that you can get easily. How can be that something as important as education that in our country reaches to bore most of the pupils, in other places is something that not all child have access? It’s a great injustice because educations is considered a basic right.

For this, I would like to say that I found praiseworthy what these people are doing, they are not only an example of overcoming because we have to take into account that at these ages, it’s very difficult to learn a new language and even more, start learning from the beginning: when you are a child all is simple, you are growing up and you are more receptive. Our English teacher talk about the difficulties that she have to teach and also the difficulties that they have to learn, it’s a very slow process. With this example, we can also reconsider the lucky we are for have born in a place where we can have not an easy but a compulsory access to a basic education. These people are a perfect example of the big injustices that exist in the broad 21st century and that it is in our hand change it, look them: it’s never too late for an education.

"Why I hate school but love education" -Suli Breaks

I'm coming across with an inpsiring video: somehow Suli Breaks has bagged millions of hits with his breakthrough monologue "Why I hate school but I love education". In only six minutes this british student makes you doubt if education has the value thta you've always have given to it and even, if the educational system thta we have is the best one. So I recomend you to take a minute to watch the whole video because it woth it. 

“Education is about inspiring one's mind not just filling their head”, said Suli Breaks. If you search “School is” in Google, you will get: “School is a waste of time”, “School is boring”, “School is prison”… If you search “School makes me feel”, you will find: “School makes me feel suicidal”, “School makes me feel worthless”… And that’s because the educational system is not working properly; if you fail a test, it makes you feel like a failure and this is not a way to inspire or teach people. Now Google “Education is”, and you will get “education is the key to success”, “educations is freedom”, “educations is the great equalizer" “Education inspires, with an education you can chase your dreams, with an education you can do whatever you want…” In fact, there also are sentences that we are used to but I have to say that not once in school I have learned how to “chase my dreams”, how to explore what I want to do after college,… but of course, I have learned where Uganda is and the complexities of polynomial systems.

I believe that one of the main problems of school is that we should not solely be learning about other people’s theories, ideas or perspectives on a subject and then, throw up it in an exam and forget what you have “learned” forever and pass to the next theory, idea or perspective because, how many of us has study something so hard for then, forgive it after the exam? For this, I thik that education should be find and learn about our own perspectives and ideas and what that means.  School should be about inspiring people to strive for the best in anything that they do instead of showing students at what 

they are good or bad according to a mark, education should  be about showing students new skills and opportunities and not crossing they answers because they are “out of the checklist”; education shouldn’t be closing students in a grey room and teaching them about hyperboles and Pythagoras theorems and convincing them that knowing this techniques will bring them a better life or that a university degree will solve all your problems because, in fact, that’s the way our society runs: you are told day in day out about going to primary school, going to secondary school, get a degree, work, have a family and put your child in the same cycle. But, "let me ask you this; what are you studying for?" People say that education is the key to success and I’m sure you have heard your parents, your teachers and most people in society saying that you need to through high school, get into the best college you can and then, get a job. And there’s so much pressure to follow this path. The whole process is about being six hours in a classroom, trying to get a grade, trying to pass the next text and trying to finish the latest assignment. School is about memorizing dates, times and numbers for what? You will never think again about the year that Cervantes loose his hand or where Tirkemeinstan is; I’m still waiting the moment in my life when I can use all my knowledge about subordinate sentence.

With this, I’m not saying that school is wrong and it’s better not to go, I’m saying that the way that it works, the way that it “educates”, it’s not the best one. Education is about experiences, building yourself and learning. I think that the first priority of all education system should be hep students to find their potential and not make sure you can finish a book before the year ends and schools, at the moment, are not providing this. We are just told how great other people have been and what’s the next step we should take for have a “good life”; we never learn what we can really do or about what ideas we have and what does it mean.

Finally, If you search the definition of “education” in a dictionary you will find the next: “the act or process of educating; to teach (a person) by instruction or school” and in fact, this is exactly what our education system is doing nowadays, you go to school for “filling your mind”, for instructing yourself, instead of “inspire” your mind. For this, I would like to end providing a new definition of what I think that education should be: “Education is the process of inspiring, engaging and encouraging people to construct their own view, to build their own ideas and their own thought processes”.

Children tales

A few days ago, I read an article written by Santiago Rocalingo that talked about what he thinks about the children's STORIES or the fairy tales. The author believes that the children's STORIES shouldn't be for educated the children or for give them certain "good" values, it should serve to entertain them. For this, the author is against the modification of children's books like Hansel and Gretel, The Little Thumb and many more which the original plot talked about leave the sons in the middle of the forest, children who steals,... and rewrite them trying to turn them in "politically correct stories" as the author says, where the bad character always lose (but without violence) and the good one always succeeds, the families are always nice and the characters an example. The author think that in this way, we are not protecting our CHILDREN, we are creating drag stories and making that children prefer the TV or the PlayStation where they can PARTICIPATE in wars and kill as many people as the want without anybody says nothing. I DON'T not totally agree with the author. In one hand, it's true that children's stories could be a little BORING because are always the same: there’s a good character with who the child want to identify because should be the hero of the story, should have a lot of friends and should win against the bad character. This bad characters is the one who the child don't want to identify because should be ugly, rude, without friends (in some cases he have a henchman who isn't as bad as his master but who will follow him anywhere he goes or will do anything he say) and should lost against the good character. This is in that way because children's stories are directed to a public who is still learning to differentiate between what it's right and what it's wrong and for this, they need to set in a good model who have the right attitude and with who can be identify. If it weren’t in that way, which role model we would be teaching to the children? But on the other hand, I think that it's also true that nowadays, it's useless try to change the children's books because they can play with the more violent play in the PlayStation, the computers,...

Cashing Ice

Both at CMC and English class, we have deal with issues related with the enviroment, the pollution, the causes and the consequences of that problems,... and recently, I have seen a documentary about the thawing of the Poles, Groenlandia,... This documentary impact me a lot! It was a visual example of how dramatically is the change of the weather in our planet. The docuemntary was made by the photographer James Balog (USA), that before recieve an assignment of National Geographic in 2005, he started to record and preserve during more that six years pictures of this changes. In the docuemntary, he said that he wanted to find a way to capture and show what was happening in the Artic and in the glacials from around the world. The result of this has been this documentary: "Cashin Ice", based on 25 different cameras aiming to 16 different glacials in Alaska, Greenland, Iceeland, Switzerland, Canada... Each camera took pictures every half and hour during the day, producing almost one milion of pictures altogether. Balog said that do this documentary has change his point of view of the climate change and see this documentary has had the same effect on me, what you see in it shocks you! I rememeber one scene of the documentary in wich Balog appears seeing the pictures taken by on of the cameras and saying: "This is the memory of a landscape, a landscape that has already disappeared and will never bee see againg in the story of the civilitzation".

I think that of all the places recorded, the Arctic is which has cuaght more my atention because is the one that has change more. In Semptember of this year, the ice layer was the lower record registret ever! It wouldn't be a problem if during the "cold stations" this ice were formed again, but it is a problem because althoug during this "cold staions" the ice grows, each summer it melts more and more so the Arctic, since 1979, has been reduced by 40%.

Another shockin case is Greenland and the Antarctica hat according to the NASA, the thraw of this areas is now irreversible. The ice in this places decreases 2km each year and in the last decade has disappeared abou 35 km of theur area! 

I think thta what we should ask to ourselfs is: Why is happening this? And what we can do to solve this problem?Well., along the history of the Earth, the climae has been always changing: there has been seasons more and less hot oR cold, there has been glaciations,... and bound to this changes of temperatures, there has been setbacks and expansions of the areA coberted by ice. This changes happened in gradually ways, but now it's different; nowadays, the effects has increased as a consecuence of the human activity. The increasing pollution, the increasing emission of gases, the deforestation, the gases emitd by the trasnports and the industry, the use of fossils materials,... that cause the greenhouse effect are contributing at the increasing of the force and quickness of the climate changes. With the greenhouse effect, the global temperature increase a lot (just in the last decade it has increased 1,8ºF) and as a consecuence of this, there is an increase of the temperature of the ocean, a hole in the ozone layer,... that help to the thraw of our pols, to the extintion of many species, to the increase of the extreme weather events,...

The problem according to James Balong, is that althought the technological and economc solution for stop the impact of the climate change already exists, the only thing left is a greater political and public undertanding for try to conscious the population what are we doing to our planet  and how can we stopped this.

In the heart of the sea

I would like to talk to one film that I have recently seen: In the heart of the sea. I really enjoy this film (not only for the main character, Chris Hemsworth) for the story itself. This film is based on the novel Moby Dick, written by Herman Melville (1819 – 1891) and published in 1851. This book is one of the top works of world literature and for write it, the author was inspired in a totally true story: a great albino animal of these characteristic has existed wandering the ocean, sinking boats and being chased by the most daring whalers. So the book tells the story of the whaler Pequod commanded by Capitan Ahab, who had the obsessive and we also can say, self-destructive, hot pursuit of a great white sperm whale.

I think that one of the things that I like most of the story itself is the fact that it really could be a real one. At the beginnings of the 19th century, whaling was probably the most dangerous, unpleasant, and less rewarded of all occupations. Signing for a trip whaling could mean beeing up to five years away from home and a trip to the end of the Earth. The life of a whaler was between blood and blubber, with long periods of boredom and often, with violent deaths, but it was a big business. The whale blubber provisioned to the streets of London, New York, Berlin or París the necessary fuel for to illuminate them and most machines of the industrial revolution used the same fuel.

For this, it’s strange how rarely Moby Dick has been filmed, this story has never been a Hollywood obsession as other popular and good know adventure books as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea or Journey to the center of the Earth, both of Julio Verne, that had been on screen several times. Anyway, this adaptation is a very good one if you didn’t know about Movie Dick story or if you want to know more about it.

The film, directed by Ron Howard, although tell us the same story, it’s narrated in a different way. In 1850, the young Herman Melville (author of the original book),  visits Thomas Nickerson, the last survivor of the whaler Essex, and he’s willing to pay him for know the story of Movie Dick. This sailor put us in the winter of 1820, when the Essex, a British whaler, was assaulted by something that nobody could imagine: an enormous size albino whale with almost, the human sense of revenge, and it comes the second big difference with the book: the novel only tell us the mind of the story, In the heart of the sea reveals us the terrible consequences of the meeting, when the survivals of the crew, among them who narrates the story, were forced to their limits and were compelled to make the impossible to stay alive. They had to face storms, the famine, the desperation and the panic. In that context, all men doubt even about their belief, about the value of their lives and also, about the morality of their office.

Can technology make a better world?

At this stage, we can’t deny that technology and also, science, has made life easier, simple and more enjoyable: it has made great contributions to human life. However, there still a lot to do for making a prosperous, sustainable and equitable world in the future. So we also have to consider if we are going in the right direction or if technology is injuring us. I think that we, as humans, should be able to control, lead or bring science and technology and not the other way. If we look through the years, we can see that technology has rapidly developed and had had a great impact on human life. Nowadays, everything in our life deals with science and technology, but we have to ask if our society has changed thanks or because technology development. 

We can think that technology hasn’t made the world an easier or a better place to live. It’s true that day to day, tasks and everything we do have become easier but it has been at the price of losing the ability to think for one's self and losing social interactions. People are getting used to don't think anything, we don’t remember information (or not make the effort of remembering it) because all of us know and expect that our phone, our computer, the Internet,…do it for use; everyone know that typing a question in Google means having an immediate answer… and more importantly: technology have had an important impact on human’s ability to interact with others. We are losing our manners, we’re impolite, we play with our IPad or phone when we’re supposed to be speaking with the person that we have in front of us (in that line, I recommend this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgavjtcnC3o that talks about what happens around you while you’re looking your phone!). How many times have you seen a group of people in a restaurant looking their phones instead of looking each other? Or what's worse, how many times have you seen someone talking with a prson through the phone when they have ech other just in front?

I believe that technology should solve problems without creating new ones, and with this criterion, unfortunately, we could have an endless list of “technological advances” that didn’t lead to practical solution. For example, let’s take the use of the petroleum for make automobiles work. At the time, people thought that it was one of the best breakthroughs of the history of the mankind: your car could take you anywhere you wanted. But if we look closer, we would see that it emit huge amounts of carbon dioxide what contributes to the greenhouse effect, the global warming and increase the ozone depletion, what endangers the earth and the human life. 

For this, we should make science and technology a problem solver. Have you ever thought about how Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone? Well, so Bell, at that time, was facing a problem: he wanted to talk to his family even though he was miles away from them so this problem forced Bell to think and search a solution and, with hard work, he solve his problem by inventing the telephone. The same happens with the electric lamp of Thomas Edison: if he hadn’t been persistent enough to try until his 100th light bulb, he wouldn’t invent it; scientists would never have discovered the nuclear power founding a new energy called nuclear energy if they had felt content with hydroelectricity; or if after invent the pencil it hasn’t been the necessity of erasing what you have drawn, the rubber would have never seen the light. 

So we can look upon that technology has to sides: maybe we can say that we have get to a point at which we shouldn't reached, we’re in the midst of a "reverse evolution" in partly, due to our technology addition. For this, both science and technology, should be a never ending work in progress, it doesn’t mean that we are not allowed to relax and enjoy our progress, but being satisfied with our improvements will not lead in not moving and step forward. In the other hand, we can’t deny the fact that technology has improved our world, we only have to take as an example the medicine that continues to improve day by day.  

Summing up, technology is neither good or bad, but it’s powerful. It’s up to the people who develop and use it to determinate what effect it has on the world and it’s in our hands to use this powerful tool in ways that improve the world: it’s simple, science and technology can improve life if you work to improve science and technology.

The book thief

The Book Thief is a novel written by Markus Zusak, an Australian writer also known for other novels as Cartas Cruzadas. He published this book in 2005 and with it, he won the literary prize Michale L. Printz in 2007 and he achieved a record of 105 weeks on the list of youth novels of the New York Times. 

An interesting fact related to the biography of this author is the interest that he have, since he was little, about the Nazi Germany, the bombing of Munich, the Jewish abuse,… interests that linked with the different experiences lived by their parents, from Australia and Germany, during the Second World War helped and inspired him to write The Book Thief. 

Unlike other works as El niño del pijama de rayas of John Boyne, La bibliotecaria de Auschwitz of Antonio Iturbe or Bajo el mismo cielo of Núria Pradas and in which the authors talk about what was lived during the Second World War from different points of view: the son of a nazi general, Jews and prisoners in a concentration camp,… the The Book Thief does it from a quite different and less common perspective: from the point of view of German citizens who, as far as is possible, try to go on with their lives as the war is progressing. That way, the history of the novel revolves around the host family of Liessel Meissl, a little Germany girl who because of the war, she would live various adventures and misadventures, she would meet different characters that will mark her life as Rudy, a guy obsessed with Jesse Owen and who will became her best friend; Max, a young Jewish that Liessel family will try to hide in his basement and many others as Hans or Rosa, characters that will teach her the love of reading and writing. In fact, as the novel progresses, we will realize the reason of the tittle: Liessel, after get to her new home and after the death of his little brother, she develops a great love for the reading and writing thanks to her new father and her new friend Max and for this, she will try to gather and collect all books she found and even, she will steal some books from the library of the woman of the mayor of the city who will baptize she as “the book thief”.

Another singularity of this book that makes it special and different is the narrator: the death. She (not the typical one wearing a layer and holding a sickle) tells us, at the beginning of the novel, that there are few stories in the world worthwhile tell but that the book thief is one of those.

Personally, books with this kind of thematic, I mean, based on the First or Second World War, about the Nazi concentration camps and other historical facts are of my favourites whereby I have read a lot of them and I have to say that this one in particular, The Book Thief, surprise you for the originality of the narrator and for other things as the topics discusses or rather, the way that the author explains them because he doesn't focus, as the main majority, in the conflict itself or in the refugees or prisoners lives,  but history reveals us the life of the German population during the war: how young people were recruited, families without fathers, how the population reacts in the middle of the night in front of the sirens that announced possibleairstrikes and also, the more depressive and dark episodes of the war are mix with friendship or comic episodes and all narrated by an a compassionate death.

For all of this I think that, independently whether you like this genre or not, you should give a chance to this novel because it has a complete history inside, and if you don't feel like reading, last year was relased the film!!

"I fell in love online"

Meet someone in a bar or in a nightclub, flirting with a classmate, keep an eye on the most attractive guy/girl of the office, meet interesting people through friends and friends of friends,…there’s still people who resort to these “old tactics” to hook up, but we have to say that the new technology has put the hook up into a new level. In fact, according to a study done by Stanford University, California in which they asked more than 3.000 couples how they had met, Internet was the third resource most used for find a relationship. It was positioned behind the chances of “hook up in a bar” and “hook up through friends in common”.

The steady growth of the online world has opened different doors to personal relationships through different and new ways of communication: Messenger, Skype, social networks and even, through the video games! But we can’t forget the most important sites: the web pages specifically intended to find a partner (Meeting, eDarling,…). 

Find a relationship through internet is, relatively, a new option, but each time, are becoming more and more the singles who opt for this choices when it comes to dating. In sooth, according to a recent survey, it’s more than probable that you have already date someone who you met on Facebook or in any of this sites and if is not that way, I’m sure you know someone who has made it. Actually, there’s any difference between the “online” meeting and the traditional methods for find a parted, people who use this sites are searching for new friendships, casual encounters or an stable partner, the only difference is in the way to do it. Internet is another tool, neither better neither worst, it can go right or wrong, like in any other situation. In the same study mentioned at the begging, more than the half of the survey respondent, 59%, said that they were agree with the quote “Internet dating is a good way to meet people” in front the 21% who said that “online dating is for desperate people”. But, what happened to romance? Your eyes meet from across the room. He grabs your hand by mistake. You laugh, you talk and you marry two years later.

We all have our fantasies about that first magical meeting. I doubt any of us envisioned beginning our love story with “I logged on and liked his profile so I sent him a message’. Not romantic.  But if we really think about it, many events in our lives haven’t gone according to plan… and maybe for good reason.

There are stories with happy endings, but there also are cases in which at the other side of the computer, there was a person completely different from the one that the profile shows and not with the best intentions...What If he/she is a psychopath? Another concern is the chance of meeting someone crazy, socially inept or worst yet… married. It’s certainly valid.

The good online services have methods to minimize your contact with these types of people. Extensive questionnaires, private chats with usernames, and in-depth personality profiles are now common features of the services. Some of these test results are surprisingly insightful, the process of finding someone could actually help you find yourself. Go with sites recommended by friends who have used them. With the right service, meeting someone online is no more risky than meeting someone in a snack bar.

Anyway, a recent study have shown that it seems that Internet not only has changed the way people discover the love in life, but it also showed that couples that have met through chats, social networks and online platforms offers more guarantees of success in the relationship. This research was conducted through a survey of 20,000 Americans who married between 2005 and 2012 and of them, one out of three, had met her current partner online. Moreover, we also have to highlight that since 2005, the number of people who had had a meeting with someone that have met online grew from 43% this year to 77% in 2015.

At this point, we can say the phenomenon of dating 'on line' has become popular in a way that is not strange to meet someone who has met their partner on the internet. In fact, if we look at the most important sites as eDarling, for instance, we are surprised to see that there aren’t a “particular profile” but there is people of all shapes and colours: we can find young and not so young people, divorced and, why not, married people. In this particular site, eDarling, the 70% of the users are between 26 and 50 years-old, in FriednScout24, the 60% of the users is between 30 and 55 years-old, with 60% are men and the other 40 women.

So online dating has been around as long as the web made it possible for two people to communicate and now, millions of people search everyday profiles and photos of total strangers hoping to find that special someone. Ten years ago, told someone “we met online” was the equivalent of saying, “I’m desperate” but nowadays, it has completely change, either for better or worse. 

Men, women and sports

Elena Rossell is the first Spanish women in participate in the Motorcycling World Championship and the first women in the history in do it in Motorcycly2 followed by Ana Carrasco, who in his 16 years-old debuted in the category of Moto3. Laia Sanz is a Spanish pilot who ends 16º in the absolute ranking and won the Dakar Rally Trophy Women 2014. Does anybody hear something about this sportswoman? It’s more than probably that you have never listened to something about this women’s but I’m pretty sure you know who is Marc Coma, Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo, Marc Marquez,… they always appear in the newspaper, on TV, and in all mass media. Maybe this lack of knowledge could be because the motorcycling world is not as popular as others sports, but happen the same in all ambits: tennis, athletic, swimming and even, with the main sport: football. Does anybody heard about Carli Lloyd, Abby Wambach, Charli Lloyd,…? They are fantastic football players and all of them had won, at leats once, the Fifa Golden Ball like Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo.

We believe that in a “modern society” as our society, people are equal and there aren’t any differences on grounds of sex and that the reference model is not the male one so, why women who play football or any other sport charge, without exaggerating, 1% of what men charge for play the same sport? Why is the basketball player Amaya Valdemoro best known as “la Gasol”?

The “golden season” of the Spanish sport is, overcoat, thanks women and there’s a lot of examples: handball, synchronized, water polo and if we have to mention a mainstream sport, we can’t forget basketball. This last summer, the Spanish women's basketball team had managed to win the European Championship in all categories, the sub-16 national team won the Eurobasket and the sub-20, proclaimed world champion just two weeks after the main team won in France but, despite all this, how many people realized this? Does anyone become this wins into a national event as it happens with men wins?

The difficulties for keep women's teams in all ambits: basketball, handball, volleyball, water polo,… is leading that the majority of our athletes have to migrate to live in a professional way their sport like men does in our country. They win championship and they bring gold medals but they don’t have any possibility to become elite athletes because there aren’t economic and informative support that allows the players develop and, unfairly, this not only happen in our country, it happen around the world although in one places this problem is noticeable than in other: in many cases, for instance, most of the women who participate in the Olympics Games, in World Championship,… have to lead with all journey cost and they have to spend their holiday days for not lose their job because they have to combine her “sports life” with another “real job” and at the end, who recognized their efforts and achievements?

For all of this, we can say that there’s a clear difference between the social, economic and media reinforcement that is done with them in front of the lack of professional consideration of women's sports. Someone could say that this happens because “sportswomen’s doesn’t give money” and that’s the problem: sportswomen’s doesn’t give money because there aren’t any invest in it and if there aren’t any invest is because people don’t value what we do. Even so, is also true that, little by little, this is changing: twenty years ago nobody talks about women's football and nowadays, for example, some newspapers have a specific section for women’s sports and the international events has every time, more audience.

I like to think that this thoughtlessness is changing: before, if you google “women’s football”, the only you could find was sexist jokes but now, you will find pictures of icons and idols of this sport. Besides, every time are more the countries that try to rise the women athletes to the "popular" level of men and sports like football or basketball has more and more support. Even so, I think that there's still much to achieve.

Photoshop in the name of beauty

We all know that, nowadays, beauty is in the eye of society: so many people are influenced by what society represents as beautiful. Every year, millions of people spend more and more money to change their outward appearance. One of the guilty of this is the media that presents the society with unrealistic body types that promote how people want to look like especially, women. We spend so much time (and money) trying to look like what society wants that we begin to see others and ourselves as what is presented physically rather than who a person is, but what a woman is supposed to look like based on society’s perception? Many of us will try to find this answer looking in fashion magazines, beauty magazines,... but if you look carefully, you will find out how fake and unrealistic they are, I have never seen a person like that in the street but, however, I see how many women try to copy this images. And how the fashion industry manages for control, what they say, the canons ob beauty? One of their main allies is the Photoshop. Kilometric legs, flat tummy, illuminated faces, perfects waist and smiles without wrinkles are some of the miracles that appears in this magazines and that can be achieved Photoshop, a digital program that revolutionized the way we conceive an image.

I don’t think that the use of Photoshop is a “bad thing” I mean, you can improve your images, but the problem comes when you stop to get perfect images to have unrealistic images. And this is a big problem because it determines what people think of herself: everybody wants to look like models or celebrities on magazines, a thing that it’s nearly impossible because neither they are that way, but it makes you to live always conditioned by this images, you will never be plased with yourself if you are always trying to look like "how you should look" (according to the fashion industry). 

It's pretty clear that the use of the Photoshop especially in the fashion world is not a novelty but, however, never fails to impress us when images with an abuse of this tool come to light. A perfect example of this is the case of a picture of the actress Imma Cuesta that appeared a few weeks ago in the newspaper "El Pais". The actress has called "an invention" what the newspaper had done. In the message that she give she said that she didn't feel self-conscious, but outraged as a woman. I think that this complain is giving an important message that call us to think over what are the canons of beauty that we should follow and also say to usa that we should be more independent of fashions and stereotypes. After releasing her retouch on social networks, other actress has supporter Imma for his bravery.