Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Mery Christmas and a Happy New Year! These days you can heard this sentence in the street, in the shops,… everywhere. The thing is whether we live these dates such as religious or traditional celebration or it is only a shopping pretext. Unfortunately, our society has become more and more materialistic and the citizens are important if they are able to buy a lot of things.
I like Christmas because it symbolises values like tenderness of a little child or solidarity between poor people. But, on the other hand, I hate Christmas because the consumption’s society makes us to waste our money and our time shopping and becoming crazy looking for a gift.
The custom of giving gifts to relatives and friends on a special day in winter probably began in ancient Rome and northern Europe. In these regions people gave each other small presents as part of their year-end celebrations-; nowadays, this custom goes up and it becomes a very great business.
That’s why I try to simplify Christmas –as possible as I can— by focusing less on stuff and more on connections with family, friends, fun, peace, and even a little rest and relax.

I whish you happiness in spite of Christmas.

Steve Jobs

Last weeks I have been very busy. Therefore, I haven't had time to write anything in my blog. However, I'd like to coment --before Christmas-- the speech of Steve Jobs during the graduation Ceremony at the University of Stanford because I found it very interesting. Firstly, Steve Jobs explains that whatever you do in life feeling like becames usuful in one time or other. I can say that this is true. I had studied sciences and I was bored about it. Then I began a letter career and I thought that never I had studied before could be useful to me. Now, I have to admit that sciences subjects had made my mind well done.
Secondly, Steve Jobs explains how one failure could became an open door to another oportunity. So, when you have a problem, in spite of the drawback you should go ahead.
Finally, in this third story he reflects about life and death and he gives us some very important advice: realize what is important in your life; don't waste your time. This kind of advice can only be given by somebody who has undergone the situation. In fact, when people know that they are going to die --as Steven Joes-- they value the important things in their lives and through away that isn't worth. What do you think about that?

Flood

I can’t write, as a personal experience, about exceptional natural disasters very famous in the world which we has been seen in all TV programmes. I am talking, for instance, about recent catastrophes like the Indian floods, the Peru earthquake or the Californian forest fire.
However, some years ago I lived a local flood in my city and I can say that it was really horrible. The causes of this flood were the prolonged and abundant rain in the up-river of Llobregat. After raining for many days in the area the water of the river overflowed and covered much of the city for many days. Luckily, no one’s been hurt because it happened during the day and people were awake, if not many people could be died.
Even now, when I close my eyes, I can see the dirty river’s water destroyed everything in its path.
Actually, Many months after the flood we knew that it happened, above all, because the Llobregat river was very dirty. What’s more, we found out that a building company threw rubbish in the river and hindered its normal flow.
After living this kind of experience let me ask an important question: are the natural disasters always inevitable? Why don’t human beings respect nature more?

Naomi Klein

Last week while I was looking for information about the war and its consequences I found various interviews to Naomi Klein. I thought that it would be worth to share it with you. What is more, I'll try to post a video to my blog.

Naomi Klein is a Canadian journalist, well known for her political analyses of corporate globalization. I knew her first book “Non Logo”, published in 2000, which for many people became a manifiesto of the anti-globalization movement. The book analysed the publicity of the large corporations and try to create a consumer culture. Klein criticized these corporations, like Nike, which are also often guilty of exploiting workers in the world's poorest countries in pursuit of ever-greater profits.

These last weeks Naomi Klein was in Barcelona to present her last book The Shock Doctrine, The Rise of Disaster Capitalism published on 4 September 2007. The book argues that governments introduce repressive legislation at times of national and international crisis. The Shock Doctrine explain how America’s “free market” policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.

After writing the book, Noemi Klein with her friend Alfonso Cuaron made a short film in order to diffuse the theory of the book. I found it really hard but very interesting. You have it there:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kieyjfZDUIc&eurl=http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/short-film]

Against the war!

I don’t know what to say after seeing an excerpt of the documentary called War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death based on the Norman Solomon’s book of the same name.

In my opinion, the most important concludes are that through 50 years the United States government has used the same arguments to continue the war. All the presidents lie and manipulate sufficiently to get the war started and go on it and, even, to avoid the withdrawal of all American forces. From the Vietnam’s war in the sixties to Iraq’s war recently, the efforts of the various administrations have been to justify, and retain, public support for war.

Reading and listening the interview from Amy Goodman to Norman Salomon, what made me think was the Cindy Sheehan’s story. I didn’t understand why she was disappointed by the Democrats. I have heard something about her but I didn’t know her story, so I found out some information.
Cindy Sheehan is the California mother who became an anti-war leader after her son, Casey, was killed in Iraq and she was walking away from the peace movement.
Sheehan achieved national attention when she camped outside President Bush's home in Crawford, Texas, throughout August 2005 to demand a meeting with the president over her son's death.
While Bush ignored her, the vigil made her one of the most prominent figures among opponents of the war.
Nowadays, she is disillusioned by the failure of Democratic politicians to bring the unpopular war to an end and tired of a peace movement she said "often puts personal egos above peace and human life."
"I have tried ever since he died to make his sacrifice meaningful," she wrote. "Casey died for a country which cares more about who will be the next American Idol than how many people will be killed in the next few months while Democrats and Republicans play politics with human lives.
"It is so painful to me to know that I bought into this system for so many years, and Casey paid the price for that allegiance. I failed my boy and that hurts the most."

Hiking the way of Saint James

The title of my presentation was “walking” because I hope to walk beside you, this course, in the English class. I still notice that I will make a big effort to follow your high level. However, I’m sure I’ll enjoy in our class like hiking in the mountains.

I think that creating a blog to improve our English learning is a great idea, although we have to work a lot. I’ll try to do my best.
In this new text I want to talk a little about me. But the problem is that I don’t like describing myself because, sometimes, I think I don’t know myself enough. In certain situations I am stronger than I believe I am. But in other cases I am weaker than I think. When I was a child I thought that people grew up and became perfect, wise, secure, ... but now, I realize that it was to build up hopes...

Anyway, thinking about how I could show you some of my distinctive features I suggest you find it out through my passion to the way of Saint James. There are a lot of reasons that I feel like doing this route; the first is that it implies the movement of the whole person: body and spirit; secondly, I carry only the necessary on my back, I clear the useless things off, I leave what is not essential. What is more, I can enjoy with the silence, peace and beauty; I can try out that walking is a patience school. It is the picture of our own life, every stage is a challenge, it is a question of progressing day after day courageously…; Moreover, everyday life acts have another flavour, like drinking, having a wash, welcoming a smile on our way... Mutual aid is also to be learned like showing the way, sharing food...; finally, walking this way gives many great occasions to live deep meetings with other persons.

What do you think? Is it possible to apply this way of life to every day?

Walking

My best hobby is go for a walking in the mountain.

I always feel like going for a walk in the mountains on holidays everywhere. You get fantastic highmountains and panoramic views all the time. But every season has its charm. For example, in summer you can find lakes and take a bath in the frozen water.

In spring you can enjoy with the flowers and the waterfall. In winter, the season when the weather is colder, besides walking, you can practice sports like skiing. Sometimes the worst problem is the cold wind that hits your face.

From September to November, the light and vegetation gradually change as the valley and surrounding mountains slowly and serenely adopt their rich autumn colours.

Autumn is an ideal time for mountain walking but it is very important that you look for information about the weather before setting out because in this season the weather conditions are very changeable.