It's a free world

I’m up to my eyes because the second term is ready to end, so I have been absent from my blog for two weeks. Last Sunday, I look for a film in the newspaper. I read and saw the advice of Nuria about the film “Once”, but I go to the cinema with a friend who hate the musicals. So, I look for another option, of course, an original version in Yelmo Ikaria because is the only place where there are cinema in the Sundays morning.
The film I choose was “It’s a free world” directed by Ken Loach. Ken Loach is known for his naturalistic, social realism directing style and for his socialist beliefs. He made long time ago a famous film about the Spanish Civil War named “Tierra y Libertad”.

The main character is Angie, a working class woman, who is having been unjustly sacked from her job in an employment agency. So, she decides to set up her own agency with her flatmate, Rose. Taking advantage of the desperation of recent Polish immigrants, Angie build a successful business extremely quickly.

Honestly, I can’t recommend this film because it is very hard. But I’m keen on Ken Loach’s films although he shows the worst side of the human being.

An uncanny story

When I was a child I used to live in the family’s country house all my summer’s holidays. Very often I felt unhappy because I was away from home and I missed my family, especially my mum. That means I was homesick. In fact, I hadn’t any reasons for feeling bad because my grandmother and my aunt made me feel comfortable at home by doing all that I wanted and even buying me all I asked for. Although I was only nine, I can remember perfectly how they pampered me all the time. My cousins made fun of me about my sadness, specially, my cousin Maria used to tell me scary stories and silly tales in order to make me laugh.
One day, we were sitting down on a bench opposite the house, the sun was going down and there were wonderful colours and lights in the sky when several insects began to fly around us. Suddenly, we saw a humble-bee and Maria said: “you are lucky because this humble-bee is brown and a good thing will soon happen. But take care when you see a black humble-bee because then a bad thing will happen”. Although her words sounded as a joke I paid attention to her and I thought: “I wish my parents come soon!”
It was no longer than past eleven when I went to my room to sleep. Suddenly I heard a car. It stopped in front of the hause and after a while I could hear my mum’s voice. I jumped out of my bed and I run to give her a great big hug.
Some days after, in the evening, we were playing in front of the house again when I saw a black humble-bee flying around the light. I felt very bad and I was afraid for my family. After dinner my aunt was on the phone for a long time and when she finished she told me that my mum was in the hospital because she had had an accident.
Was it a coincidence or do you believe that some kind of animals can announce you positive or negative events?

The Girl with a Pearl Earring

Following the advice from the teacher and the classmate Island Castaway and Generation X, I decided to watch a film last week end. I think it is really useful in order to improve my English and besides it is amusing and interesting. In fact, I have never practiced so much like this course, writing on the blog, reading the texts from my classmates, watching films, and so on.
While I was looking for a film I though that I could be practical and watch the film “The Girl with a Pearl Earring” because I needed to watch it in order to make a comparison with the book.
To understand the film was not very easy for me, but I soon realized that in this film the silences, the looks, the light…were more important than the words. Watching the film, the feeling is the same as making a tour in a gallery of paintings, to enjoy repeatedly the beauty of light and shadow and colours. Most of the feelings and sensations of the characters are transmitted through the looks and expressions.
Soon the two main characters –Johannes Veemer and Grief – were involved in the same wavelength and they became very close. The most representative quote about this is when Grief, looking to herself in the painting, said “you looked inside me”.

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]