YOUR-SAY

FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM

A few weeks ago I saw a video about a North Korean girl named Yeonmi Park who talked about her story in the conference One Young World in Dublin in 2014. The video is quite famous and maybe you already have seen it, but if you don’t I totally recommend you to do it, because it’s worth it. It makes me think about all the misery, inequality and injustice in our world, and the way the media hide it from us.

Yeonmi explains how horrible the North Korean system is. For example, she says that the people are sentence to death just for telephoning unjustifiably abroad. Also, a thing that impacted me so much is when she says that she saw a friend’s mother being executed for seeing a Hollywood movie. Another thing that caught my attention is when she tells us that she saw her mother being raped (her mother protect her, because at first the man tried to rape Yeonmi).
She explains her story while she’s crying, but it surprises me how her tears are delicate, she doesn’t cry a lot, but when you saw her you know she has lived the worse. It’s like she has cried so much in the past, that now she doesn’t have more tears. And also, she is wearing a cute dress, with her hair perfectly done and she makes me think about a porcelain doll; a delicate doll that has passed through the worse.

This video makes me think about the refugees in Europe. They, like Yeonmi, are trying to escape from a hell, risking their lives to get freedom. There are so many injustices in the world, some of them we can’t do anything for it, but most of them we can. We are all humans and I think we all have the same right to live in freedom and with good conditions.

VIDEO:

FORMAL LETTER

15 Muralla Street
17486 Castelló d’Empúries, Girona, Spain

19th March 2016

Ms. Reynolds
8357 Marshall Road
20017 Pine Grove, Louisiana


Dear Ms. Reynolds,

The reason why I am writing this letter is because I am interested in babysitting your children: Lucy, Alice and George. My English teacher showed me your advertisement and I thought that this could be a nice experience for me to improve my English and learn lots of things.

I think I have some good qualities to do this job: I have two little brothers who are two years old both of them and I take care of them when my parents are not at home, so I have some good experience with it. I also consider myself responsible and friendly, and capable to adapt to everything. And, obviously, I am in love with children and I love spending time with them.

Find my curriculum vitae attached to this letter. Looking forward to hearing from you as soon as possible. Thank you for reading this letter.

Sincerely,
Paula Caball

YOUR-SAY

A LITTLE REFLECTION

Money. What’s money? It’s just a piece of paper with value. Although, it’s still just a piece of paper. It’s us who gave it value.

But don’t you think that maybe (just maybe) it’s more valuable a tree, or a living being, or the air? We are devastating forests, contaminating the air, we are destroying nature. What will happen when we have contaminated the last river? Or poisoned the last breath of air? Will money still have value?

We have to think about it, and notice that we can’t eat money, it doesn’t have value, except the one we give it. However, food is necessary, water is necessary too and also the air to breathe. We have to open our eyes and observe that we are destroying the planet, and all the life in it. One day, we will destroy ourselves, the Earth will be so contaminated, that will be impossible for any animal to live here. But we can change this future if we want. And now you can be thinking “of course I want to change it!”, but not everybody wants it. Lots of multinationals gain a lot of money contaminating the environment, so they want to continue gaining money. Maybe we have to reconsider what’s the real value of money.

YOUR-SAY

ALCOHOL IS NOT THE ANSWER

Most people, when they go partying, they drink alcohol (among other things) to have a good time. They say alcohol makes them forget the problems and help them to have a good time. Actually, I think there’s nothing wrong about drinking a bit of alcohol, if you like it and you want to do it. I think the problem is that people abuse of it and drink too much. 

As everybody knows, drinking too much is not good, not only for your health, but also because if you drink too much you will feel bad: you’ll have headache, stomach ache, you can throw up and forget parts of what you did. So, if these are the terrible consequences, why do people drink until this happens?

As I said before, if you drink a bit because it makes you feel happier and enjoy more the night, go ahead and do it. But don’t exceed your limit, because a part from the fact that you will have a horrible night (and the day after), your friends will have a bad time too worrying and taking care of you.

Of course everyone can have a slip-up, and maybe one night you pass your limit with alcohol, but if this happens, I suggest you to be more careful the next time. I don’t know, but for me get very drunk it’s not funny, it don’t makes you spend a good time nor enjoying the party or the night.

Also, there are people that say that drinking alcohol (or other drugs) makes them forget about their problems. Well, they might make you feel better for a while and makes you forget about them, but sooner or later you will have to face your problems anyway. In addition, I don’t think alcohol is necessary to forget your worries, I think you just need some good music and friends!

FILM REVIEW

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT

The Butterfly effect is and American movie directed by Eric Bress and J.Mackye Gruber, starring Ashton Kutcher and Amy Smart. The title of the movie refers to the butterfly effect, which shows us how a small initial difference can totally change the final result. 

The main character of the film is Evan Treborn (Ashton Kutcher), who lives in a small town with his mom and friends. His father is in an asylum, cause he has mental problems. Evan also suffers from memory blackouts where he suddenly finds himself somewhere else, very confused. It’s like he forgets about some small chapters of his life, but Evan’s mother and his friends hardly believe him. They think he makes it up just to get out of trouble, because most of the times he has memory blackouts it’s when he’s doing something wrong or irresponsible. Also, Evan writes in a diary all of his blackout moments (at least, the part that he is conscious), because he thinks this is a good way to try to recover memory. As Evan grows up, he has fewer blackouts until it seems he has recovered totally. Then, he goes to the University, and one day he finds one of his old diaries by chance and he decides to read it. Somehow, he travels back in time just in the parts he had a blackout when he was a child, so he is able to change his past. Even though he tries to change his past to make his present better, he can’t do it and he notices how a little change in the past can change all his future completely.

What I liked the most in this film is the storyline. I decided to watch this film one night when I was bored, because one friend recommended to me. At first I thought the film would be the typical American comedy, with nothing special, so I was surprised when I finished it thinking how good this film was for me. Well, it’s not one of the best films I’ve seen in my life, of course, but it has something that makes me like it a lot. The film has action, love and also some psychological part, so it has a bit of everything. I also liked a lot the main character, because you can feel easily identified with him (not for the part of the blackouts, but his character).

Talking about what I don’t like about the film, I didn’t like the fact that in some parts it’s too much unbelievable. But maybe this is to make the movie more interesting.

So my rating is:



TRAILER:

PHRASAL VERBS

I’m going to tell you a story that happened to me some years ago.

It was 8:00 am of a Saturday morning when my alarm clock woke me up. I was very sleepy, so I dropped off without noticing. Then, after 1 hour, I woke up again, but it was very late so I had to speed up and get out of my bed very fast. I had breakfast and I put on my tracksuit and, then, I left home.

I had a basketball match and I was late. I got to the train station and got on the last train. After a few minutes, I arrived and I found nobody but an old man cleaning the floor. I asked him about my match, and he said the match had been put off. I had totally forgotten about it. I felt very angry and I was planning to go back home and watch a movie or something. But, then, while I was walking through the street, I ran into my cousin. I wasn’t expecting to come across her, but then we decided to go shopping. I tried on a lot of clothes and finally I decided to buy a little cute dress for that night, because we decided to go to a party!

What it seemed to be a horrible day, it ended up being a fantastic day.

NEWS

THE "WOMAN TAX"

Some months ago, the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs found that, on average, products for girls and women cost 7% more than similar products for men. This is called the “Gender Tax” or the “Woman Tax”. Also, looking at almost 800 products from more than 90 brands in NYC, the study has found that this injustice happens 42% of the time.

Even children’s items are more expensive for girls than for boys. For example, a scooter for girls costs $13 to $25 more than a scooter for boys. This happens to a lot of products, following the girls as they grow older.

Focusing on the type of products women pay more for, the study said that the personal care products are the ones women pay the most for (about 13% more than men). The surprising thing is that they looked at pharmacies and other stores from around New York and found that the “Woman Tax” was there in all of them.

Finally, there’s a table where you can see some of the times women pay more than men for some products:

So, in conclusion, the study found that women are paying thousands of dollars more over the course of their lives for buying similar products as men.

EXAMPLES:

      

PERSONAL OPINION:

In my opinion, that’s something definitely not good. Why women have to pay more for something that is practically the same thing as men? I don’t think it’s a huge difference to produce something blue or to produce something pink, so it’s quite stupid to make women pay more for the same thing but different colour.

NEW WORDS:

Aim: Dirigit a...
Razor: Màquina d'afeitar
Burden: Càrrega

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/12066820/New-Gender-Tax-study-shows-women-are-charged-more-for-being-woman.html

YOUR-SAY

THE IGNORANCE ABOUT POLITICS

I think it’s obvious that politics affects our life. Even if you don’t like it and you don’t want to know anything about it, politics will affect you anyways. And also every day in the TV and on the news and newspapers there’s news talking about it: you can’t run away from it. But, well, in my opinion I think that, even if you don’t like it, you have to know which the situation of the country in political terms is, because it will affect your life, so it’s very important. 

A few months ago, there were elections in Spain, and just before that, I saw a video on Youtube which a man asked questions about politics to young people (mostly teenagers) and also to the political candidates of the different parties. The video was made humorously and he asked specific people that he knows they will answer with a “funny answer”. And I say funny answer with inverted commas because the video showed their political ignorance, and this is supposed to be funny but, actually, it isn’t. I mean, these people can vote and they didn’t know anything about politics, ANYTHING. In one question, the man asked “Which political party are you going to vote?” and one girl answered “PSOE” (a Spanish party). Then the man asked why and the girl said “I don’t know… Because my family votes that”. Then another young man said “I will vote PSOE because it has been governing for the last years and… Oh, no… It’s not PSOE, it’s PP, isn’t it?”. These are just two examples, but there are a few more. I will put the video at the end of the post, but it’s in Spanish.

Basically, nowadays, there are a lot of people that don't know the electoral platform of the different parties. And I think that, when there’s elections in the country, it’s essential knowing it because this will determinate your life.

To combat the ignorance of the young people about politics, I think it would be a great idea to inform the kids (specially the teenagers) about politics in school. They teach us a bit of politics, but basically the theoretical part, not the current part like what’s the political situation of the country. In my opinion, teenagers have to know the different parties and what purpose each one of them because in some years they will have to vote and it’s important knowing about the issue. Nowadays there are people that literally they don't know anything about politics and, however, they vote the first party that comes to their mind, or the party that they have been voting since ever, or the party that votes their family. We have to reflect on it. It took lots of years to get to have the right to vote, the universal suffrage and a more or less good democracy, so don’t waste the opportunity to choose which is the future you want for you and your country.

VIDEO:

LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRrRBv3QjVo

YOUR-SAY

BULLYING, NOT A GAME FOR KIDS

Last Friday, I saw a video on Facebook made by PlayGround which talked about bullying, in particular, child bullying. The video, among other things, said some information that caught my attention. It said that, in Spain, there are about 103.000 bullies and cyberbullies and, besides, 1 out of 3 students admits having attack (physically or verbally) another student. And the most impressive thing is that when you ask the bully why he or she does that, the majority of the times the kid doesn’t know exactly why.

The question is very simple but the answer is not: Why some kids harass others? Maybe, it’s because the bully feels superior doing it, and it makes him or her seem strong and powerful above others. In my opinion, hurting other people it doesn’t make you stronger, it makes you weak and rude. In addition, some experts claim that if the bully’s conduct doesn’t change, it’s probably that when he/she gets older will act in the same way, so he will move the violence to the job or at home. When the violence is at home, it’s when it leads to gender violence (against men or women). So it’s essential that we have to change the bully’s behavior when the kid is still young, because the more he or she grows, the more difficult will be to change their point of view. So, in my opinion, I think we have to teach kids to not to attack the others in the school, in a very early age because it’s when they understand it the most.

It’s very hard spend all your infancy worried and afraid of the others, you don’t enjoy school, you’re afraid to go outside, and it’s even harder if you don’t have any friend. It’s sad, but there are some cases of boys and girls that have suicide for suffering bullying. It’s not normal that a kid or a teenager (most of them are teenagers) have to kill him or herself because of another kid. And the worst part is that we don’t learn the lesson. How many extreme cases like these have to happen until we learn? Bullying is not a game for kids, it’s violence, and it’s a serious problem. So we have to deal with it and teach children not to do that; we have to get serious. Let’s stop the game.