YOUR-SAY

MAN ON THE MOON

John Lewis's Christmas' Advert is now a typical thing for this time of the year. I personally love these ads because they’re always very deep, sentitive and always make me cry.

This year wasn’t different. The story is about one little girl who, one night, looking through her telescope at the moon, she finds an old man living there. She’s amazed, and she keeps watching him, but she can notice that the man is feeling alone and isn’t happy, so she wants to help him. She tries to send him a message in several ways, but she can’t do it. Then, on Christmas night, she manages to send a telescope to the man in the moon with balloons. The man smiles when he notices that someone cares about him, and he’s even happier when she can finally see the little girl in her house watching him and waving at him.

Personally, I liked very much, even made my cry! The part I liked the most was the end, when the man and the girl finally can see each other and both smile (and even we can see the man crying). But the most important and beautiful thing of the ad is the message that is sending to us: not to forget the people who are alone in Christmas (specially the old people) and make them feel wanted and that someone cares about them. It makes me think about how isolated many elderly people are all year round and especially at Christmas.

Like always, there were people who criticized the ad (it’s normal, we all can express our opinion about something). Most of the reviews said that the ad has got no logical sense. They said that, if this was real, the man couldn’t breathe, or the girl couldn’t send him the message and other things. But, I say, why this ad has to be logical? It’s an ad, it can be illogical, magical or whatever it wants. Also, it’s a CHRISTMAS ad, and Christmas, among other things, represents magic, so it doesn’t have to be strange if a Christmas ad is magical or illogical. Another thing is that the previous John Lewis ads weren’t logical (for example, the one which 2 snowmen fall in love), and the people didn’t criticized that (or didn’t criticized that much).

Another thing that people say is that this ad is telling us to buy presents to solve the problem of solitude. About that, I think they’re missing the point. This advert is telling us that it’s the little things and acts of kindness that have the power to make the most difference in society. Just checking up on your elderly neighbour, speak to them, inviting them to Christmas Dinner… These things mean more than any amount of money ever could. It’s not about buying things; it’s about caring for the people that they think no one is caring about them.

So, in summary, I’ve loved this ad and the message that is sending to us: “Show someone they’re loved this Christmas”.

VIDEO:

link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuz2ILq4UeA

FAIRY TALE

THE THREE LITTLE PIGS

YOUR-SAY

LIVE THE MOMENT OR HAVE A MEMORY?

Last week, the American newspaper “The Boston Globe” published a photo of the photographer John Banding. In that photo you can see a group of people behind a fence photographing and recording with their smartphones the actors that were presenting the movie “Black Mass”. Then, you can also see a grown woman in the first line watching the same thing not through her mobile phone, but through her eyes.

A lot of people gave their opinion about it, showing their different points of view but, a part from that, I want to show you my own opinion.

First of all, I think it’s obvious that we’re so addicted to the mobile phone, the technology, the social networks… And we know it. We became so addicted, that if our mobile phone runs out of battery it’s such a big deal. A big, big deal. Or, if simply we forget our phones at home, we start “missing the phone”, especially when everyone starts using it and you can’t, so you start feeling strange and weird, out of place.

It’s like we depend on our phone. No, I think it’s better to say that the phone became a part of us. He follows everywhere you go, like your shadow. The difference is that your shadow stops following you in the dark; the phone doesn’t. And if one day you don’t bring your mobile phone with you, somebody else will do, and maybe you will end up playing games on your friend’s phone of both of you watching videos through it. It’s like a course. Also, the mobile phone is method of salvation. I mean, for example, if you are waiting for somebody, and you don’t know what to do, you take your phone and you start checking anything, even if it’s not important, just to not feel like a lonely person. Or, another example, if you are in the bus, you do the same thing I said before. Talking about that last thing, call me a freak but I saw a lot of films when the main characters met or fall in love in the bus, or in the underground, or even in the street waiting for something or someone. They just look each other and… love. But now, we can’t do this. We are always watching our phones; we don’t look at each other. We don’t look at strangers anymore. We don’t watch the birds flying in the sky as we walk. We just head down and watch our phones. A screen. 

Of course I know that NOT EVERYONE is like this. But I’m talking for the most of the people (especially the teenagers and the young people) who do this.

So, talking about the photo, I think it shows what our generation is like nowadays. As I said before, we’re always using our smartphones. A lot of people criticized that these people in the photo are not enjoying the moment as much as the elder woman, and I’m totally agree with them. Clearly, if you are recording something you have to be attending to the phone, making sure you’re recording it well and all these things. So, you’re not enjoying the moment as much as the other people (that aren’t using their cameras or phones) do. For example, I play the guitar, so three or four times a year I do concerts. My mother always wants to recorder it, to have a memory, but every time she ends up just recording a part of it, because she says that she wants to enjoy the concert and the music, and if she is recording, she can’t enjoy as much. And she feels the difference between recording, or just enjoying of the moment.

Well, recording or taking photos of the moment have good parts too: you have a memory for the rest of your life (unless you lose the photo or the video), and you can show this to anyone you want.

With this, you have the sensation of having been there, right? I mean, it’s normal, you have been there. But, if you think about it, and let’s suppose that you where recording all the time, it’s like you haven’t been there. Well, I really don’t know how to say that. I mean, when you were recording, you were watching it through your phone, so you technically never have seen it in your own eyes, just through a video. Because even the moment you were watching it for the first time, you were doing it through your phone. Yes, I know this is quite confusing, but I hope you understand me.

Basically, recording videos or making photos has advantages and disadvantages, but, in the end, do you think it’s worth it recording it, but not enjoying the moment? In my opinion, I think that nothing is worth than enjoying the moment and living the moment (quite hipster, right?). You only have the opportunity to see what you’re seeing once, so we have to just enjoy. Although I recognize that it’s cool to have a memory of a cool thing for forever. Obviously, I have a lot of photos or videos of different moments of my life that I love and I’m happy that I have them.

So, in the end, I think that we have to do both things: enjoy the moment and make photos and record things. Just a bit of all, because each thing has advantages and disadvantages. We don’t have to bring it to the extreme like some people do.

I know I haven’t talked much about the photo in particular, but the photo was just a thing to introduce what I wanted to talk about.

I let you a video that shows our addiction to the phone that I've found very interesting "I forgot my phone"

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OINa46HeWg8

FESTIVAL

ALBUQUERQUE INTERNATIONAL BALLOON FIESTA

The Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta is a festival of hot air ballons. The Festival basically consists of a lot of hot air balloons (it has arround 750 ballons) filling the sky. It's the largest hot air balloon festival in the world and approximately 100.000 spectators watch it every year.

In the festival, there are also special events or things: the Special Shape Rodeo (there are different types of balloons, like one in the shape of a cow or a baby), the Balloon Glows (it takes place at night, and all the balloons shine), the Fiesta Challenge (a game where balloonists attempt to drop a marker closest to a target), the America's Challenge Gas Balloon Race (where special long-distance gas balloons are inflated and then launched.The winner of the race is the balloon that travels the farthest), the Fight of the Nations Mass Ascension (where balloonists from each nation launch, one at a time, to their national anthem and waving their nation's flag)...

Where does it takes place? It takes place in Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA). In a big field where the people can relax and have a great time looking at the beautiful sky full of baloons.

When? Every year, during the early October and it's quite long: it lasts nine days!

Why? This festival started in 1972, because of the 50th birthday celebration for a Radio in New Mexico (770 KOB Radio). The manager of the Radio asked Sid Cutter (the first man to own a hot air ballon in New Mexico) if they could use his balloon as part of the festivities. He agreed, but then they wanted to have as much hot air balloons as they could, so they tried it. In the end, 13 balloons attented to the party and 20.000 people went to the celebration. In fact, they also did a competition of hot air balloons in the celebration (it was like a race).
The next year, the Fiesta became and international event because of the competition. They saw that the race was a good idea, so they decided to do the first World Hot Air Balloon Championship. Then, the next year, they did it again, and again, and again... until now (they are still doing it).

Video

REBEL SONG

SAME LOVE - MACKLEMORE

As a rebel song, I've chosen Same Love by Macklemore and Mary Lambert. I have chosen it because it's a song that criticizes the society and talks about the issue of gay and lesbian rights.

It was the third single from their 2012 debut studio album, The Heist. The song was adopted as an anthem by supporters of legalizing same-sex marriage. Macklemore explained that the song also came out of his own frustration with hip-hop's positions on homosexuality. He said: "Misogyny and homophobia are the two acceptable means of oppression in hip hop culture. It's 2012. There needs to be some accountability. I think that as a society we're evolving and I think that hip hop has always been a representation of what's going on in the world right now".

I actually love this song and what it represents. It's a calm song and the rhythm is perfect.

YOUR-SAY

"DEAR FAT PEOPLE"

These last two or three weeks there has been such a stir in the English-speaking community in the Internet. Just because a video of a blonde and skinny girl named Nicole Arbour who talked about the fat people. The video is called "Dear fat people", and in the video she talks about fat people, making fun of them and also telling them to loose weight (in a rude way). A lot of American and English youtubers (also from other nationalities but most of them were from USA and from England) reacted to the video making other videos showing their opinion of it. Most of the comments of the girl's video were bad, so Youtube had to close Nicole's channel. After some days, Youtube opened her channel again and even let the video in Youtube.

In my opinion, the video is not as bad as everyone says. Even though this video is SO rude (Nicole explains her opinion in a very disrespectful way and, of course, there's other ways to tell what she wants to say) I think everyone criticized her because she defended a position that is "socially incorrect". I mean, if for example a man tells a skinny woman that she is too skinny, nobody would say nothing; but, if a man tells an obese woman that she is too fat, everybody would be like "You're so rude! How did you dared to say that?! or would think something like this. With this I want to say that there are topics that we considerate tabu, like telling fat people that they are fat. But, I think that we have to change our mentality about that. Of course, I don't mean that when you see a fat person you have to tell them that they're fat, no. Because that will mean that you're rude and I'm not saying that we have to be rude to people. But telling a friend or a close person that they're fat and they should get slimmer for their own health it would have to be a normal thing, because you are caring for their health. As much as we tell people with anorexia or bulimia to eat and get fatter for their health, we have to do the same with obese people, because obesity is a disease like anorexia or bulimia.

Another point is that if a fat or obese person had done this video instead of that girl, people wouldn't had criticized that much, because it's accepted when "you laugh at yourself". People reacted so bad at the video because it was made by a SLIM BLONDE WOMAN. For example, if a black guy makes a joke about black people, its funny; if a bald man makes a joke of bald people, it's funny; and also if fat people make jokes about fat people, it's funny. But if a white man tells a joke about black people... that's racism. And I'm not saying that it isn't but, I think everyone should be able to make jokes about everything, as long as we're polite and not trying to offend anybody. We have to take life with a little bit of humor. A joke is a joke, and we have to learn to tell jokes and not get offended about that as much as we have to stop using jokes as a medium to hurt or offend people. 

Of course, this is only MY opinion and I know that everyone has their own opinion and maybe they will not think the same as me. With this post I don't want to offend anybody, I just wanted to do a reflection.

I give you the link of Nicole Arbour's video with subtitles in spanish (I recomend to see it to understand better my opinion):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LriDtaf9VAo

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ME

Dear Anna,

I'm Paula Caball, I'm 16 years old and I'm from Castelló d'Empúries. I was born in Figueres the 16th of August of 1999. Well, to start my personal presentation, I'll tell you a bit of how I am physically: I'm not very tall, but also not very short, so I think I have a standard height. I'm slim, I have brown, straight hair and two big brown (with a little bit of green) eyes.

Talking about how I am personally (which I think it's more important and interesting), I think I'm outgoing and I try to always be a happy person. I think I'm also friendly, but sometimes I get sad or mad so easily. I mean, that I'm a very sensitive person and sometimes that's not a good thing. 

I love playing sports. I've been playing basketball since I was 10 years old with a team of my village, Els Esplais. I always wanted to do athletics, because I love running and I think I'm quite good in it but, in that time, all of my friends wanted to do basketball, so I went where all of my friends went. Then, I discovered that I actually liked basketball, and I kept playing it in the same team since I was 10 until this year. This year I had to stop playing it because last year I was so overwhelmed because of the studies and my after-school activities. I went to guitar classes twice a week and I also went to the basketball trainings twice a week (and obviously I also had to go to the matches) and that took me a lot of time (specially the trainings and the maches). Also, my mother wants me to get the First Certificate Exam, so she wants me to join English classes after school. I saw that I couldn't do everything, so I left basketball because it was the activity that took me more time. In fact, I wanted to still doing it, so it was hard to left the team. But I will not stop doing sport because I like it and It's healthy, so I'll go running twice a week (or maybe in some specific weeks I'll go once or three times).

As I said before, I go to guitar classes, so I play the guitar. I love listen to music, I don't know what I would do without music in my life (I think it just would be more boring). I also like to sing (even though I'm not a good singer) and playing the guitar at the same time, doing (or trying to do) covers of my favourite songs. But I have to admit that I'm not very good in it. Well, the important thing is that I enjoy doing it, so the other things just doesn't matter or are not as important.

 I will talk a little bit about my family. My father's name is Xavi and my mother is called Neus. I don't have any brothers or sisters even though I always wanted to. I love animals, specially dogs, and I always wanted to have a dog or any pet, but my mother hate animals (well, she's afraid of animals) so I've never got a pet. Well, when I was little I had two little fishes but they died after a year. Then, when I was 8, my grandmother bought me a little dog for me, but my mother didn't want him at home, so he lives with my grandmother. But I visit him and my grandma every two weeks (because she lives away from me). His name is Bobi, he's a yorkshire terrier and he's so adorable! He's so nervous but he doesn't bite, he just licks people. He's also a bit shy when he don't know people.

So, this is a little part of my life and how I am. I hope you like it and discovered new things about me.