The first impression

The first day of class, our new teacher gave to us a list with four options, four words to select just one. The words were: Sun, Air, Tree, Earth. And we had to choose the one that represents us and explain why. 

Well, I have to say that I love these kind of test to meet yourself better and improve your imagination. So I was really surprised and excited, because it was the first class of English, and it was nice, not bored or theoretical like the others nine subjects that we do.

So, initially I thought that I was like Air, and then I ask to myself, how it would be? Like a feeling of freedom? Or like a feeling of nothing?

And almost instantly I thought that I wasn't like that. So I thought again and asked to myself, what of these words are you? And then I saw myself, a few years ago beside that beautiful and lush tree, in France, Forêt de Tronçais. I felt a beautiful feeling with this tree, a feeling of real freedom, the freedom that I was looking for. Because it is like feeling the roots of myself, with the earth, in a fixed place, without leaving, like your real home. If I'm a Tree, I'm my own home, and that sounds really good for me. Knowing myself and be happy just with me, I believe in that kind of freedom.

And you may think, "a tree is not exactly the most free option that you can choose, it can't be moved because it is fixed on a place". Yeah, well, that's exactly my definition of freedom. I think you are really free when you are feeling the roots of yourself and you are good with it, if it is not the case, I think you are trying to move, because maybe you want to escape, and then you are not really free. If you accept yourself, just the way you are, you will be always good, and it does not care where you are, because you are always in your body. If you think that your human body is your home, you will always at home. And a tree, is like your human body, just your home. 

And then, in the following slide, there are the definitions of the type of person that you are, in function to the word that you have chosen: 

Earth: systematic, logical, tidy, organized... STRICT! 
Tree: balanced, sensible, calm, fond of nature, ambitious, strong... RELUCTANT TO CHANGES!
Sun: active, optimistic, lively, cheerful... TOO INDEPENDENT!
Air: creative, imaginative, dreamy... YOU DON'T STICK TO REALITY!

Hello, again!

Hey, I’m Lianett Pérez, as you know, but all my friends call me Lily. I prefer this than Lianett, it is very seriously! 

I think we had to explain some things about us, so I would like to explain what I think now of my future.

Well... Right now I'm studying the humanities subjects, like Latin, Greek, Literature, History... Because it is what I like for now, but I don't know what I want to study. In 4th of ESO I thought to study Psychology, you know, to help another people, which kind of person wouldn't want this in his future? But, unluckily it is more scientific of what I could imagine... And now, I really have no a idea what I want to study, to do, or to work in my life. I only know that I don't want to wake up with sixty and realize I hate my job. I think if I really like a job, it isn't a job because it becomes in a good part of your life.

So, I took a decision, when I finish the baccalaureate I would like to live in the United States for about one or maybe two years. Part of my family live there, and I would like to see them too. But principally to learn English 100%, and take it like the first language. This is my first dream for the moment. And I have to take a decision for my future but I don’t want to depress myself with this, so until this moment, I would like to travel and know new places, people, or cultures... Because we have to keep going but I really think that take this decision is very important in our life, and future. Maybe it is the most important question for us, what would we like to study, or to do. But first of all we are here to be happy, of course. And now I had to study hard and be the person who I want, to be happy. That’s all that I can say now, maybe tomorrow it is different, but for now, I really enjoy the languages.

By the way, of course I actually expect to earn good grades and be proud of my work in this high school putting my best effort.

“Every single one of you has something that you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer, and you have the responsibility to discover what that is.” -Barack Obama.

The last one is the sentence of the speech that I have chosen. Why? Well, I think it represent very good my important question in this moment of my life. I totally agree with this sentence, I think we actually have a responsibility, not just with the society, but with us too. We deserve to be happy, and to be proud of what we are. And we are what we do, so right now, we’re students, but in a future, we’ll be a workers, so we have to choose very well and set ours owns goals if we want to be successful. So I can say that my first objective now is meet challenges in the future, and believe always in myself. Just doing this is how I can find what I really would like to study in the future.

Formal letter

54, Carrer Pau Casals

Castelló d’Empúries, Girona

lianett31200@gmail.com

+34 695 60 81 43

3, Juny 2017

29 Harley Street

London W1G 9QR

info@gapxperience.org

+44 208 0502 915

To whom it may concern,

It is nice to be able to contact your company. I am writing to enquire about the "Thailand Volunteering Gap Year" and be informed about the experience and requirements. The second reason of this letter is to introduce myself and send to you my resume so that it can be taken into consideration.

I am a young student woman and I am writing you because while we were doing a project of our "Perfect Gap Year" I realized I want to work with you and help in all the way I would can. As I said before, I am a young person, but I am hardworking and dynamic too. I consider myself an entrepreneurial person, with great aptitudes, skills for learning and a great ability in customer service.

I really love to help people, and see how you can bring smiles of nothing.

I think I am fit for work and I am enthusiastic about the idea.

I thank you for your attention.

Yours faithfully,

Lianett Pérez.

Gap year!

New feelings.

Yesterday night I watched "Into the wild" and I stayed absolutely shocked while I was watching the film. So, "amazing" is the best way to describe that feeling, the story, the facts, just amazing.

Probably, you -whoever you are- have watched the movie (if you haven't go watch it right now) so you know more o less what the feeling is after living that story.

A lot of people around me had recomended it for a long time but it was one of this things you say "yes, I will watch it" but you don't really mean it. Three days ago I discovered the soundtrack, And I decided to finally watch the movie.

What can I say? It's amazing, perfect. I wish I could met a boy like Alexander Supertramp. An intelligent and restless guy who, after finishing college, goes to see the world carring nothing and only with one purpose: finding himself through life and wild nature.

After one day of seeing this film I can say I still shocked. It just touched me so deeply. The story is great, the main character is unbelieveble; how strong, sensible and sensitive he is! And in the whole film there's so much humanity and purity. Human essence, biggest health. I loved it. 

And it is based in real facts! Christopher McCandless was the really guy, it is unbelieveble.

Film poster

The real one, Christopher McCandless

And well, there are some quotes I love from the film, well from Christopher McCandless:

“Happiness [is] only real when shared”

“I read somewhere... how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong... to measure yourself at least once.”

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”

Violinist Plays During Protest

Nowadays, in Caracas, Venezuela, the situation is very difficult, and we just focus the situation like: It is not with us, so we can't get into that problem. Well, the news is; in Caracas, Venezuela people have been protesting violently and clashing for over a month because they want new elections, because now there is Nicolas Maduro as a President. 

In a violent protest, the police targeted the protesters with tear gas, and the protesters just can protect themselves from the gas behind makeshift shields.

Amid of the trouble, one protester stayed calm and played his violin, until a member of GNB ("Guardia Nacional Bolivariana") took the violin by the ropes and broke it. The protester was hurt and disappointed. 

I'm so sorry about this boy, and this situation, it is really maddening, I can't imagine leaving home and find all the police and all these people fighting because they want their rights, just human rights that right now they are not given to them. 

(PD: I'm sorry too for can't put a video in English, I really look for but I'm not finding anything... And I really think it is important, really important to see how disappointed was this guy, and how much pain can suffer the society over a government, and of course how much damage can cause a corrupt government.)

https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/violinist-plays-during-protest-level-3/ 

"Internet"

Can Internet change the world for the better? That's the first question of that entry.

First it was fire for prehistorical human beings, then it was writing, finally electricity (among others). Now, what has changed our world and society is Internet. Is Internet going to improve our world as the others discoverings did? 

On one hand -and only hand for a lot of people- we have the obvious advantatges, like the whole world immediate communication or the access to all kind of imaginable information (usefull or not, depending what you look for).

On the other hand, Internet makes our lives so much easier that we are letting them control us. Often, everything that makes things easier ends becoming an enemy because it reduces us -human beings or privacity- at our minimum capacity of what we are and what we can do. And we can do a lot by ourselves. 

Consequently, Internet is making us believe that we can't do or know a lot; and as result our behavior is getting worse because we trust Internet too much instead of ourselves.

In conclusion I think Internet can not change the world for the better because it's damaging the poeple on it too badly. We should find a balance. Figure out what we can do by ourselves and don't trust these actions to Internet or our smartphones for example. By this way we would become less dependant on it (it's clear that a big part of the population IS dependant) and we would learn that we are so worth it.

Our home.

"We have almost learnt to respect the world". I don't know who says that but I wouldn't. And you only need to watch or read the news to see that it is not true. Or just look around us. Do you think this place, were you are right now, it's respected?

In my opinion the world has been the last priority in general for everyone, specially politics and powerful people that only care about their money (and they are actually the ones that can do more about it). But now that has become on emercency, well it's necessary a priority. Or at least it should.

Maybe now people it's a bit more conscious about it. There are more campaigns to try to catch attention and trying to make a change. But the problem is that even these campaigns, a lot of them, are only propagande. So again, we have money and not looking after our planet.
But well, there are actually the ones taht really want to do something for this home that we all share.

To finish, just say -once more- that I think we have a long way to go before we can say the sentence "We have almost learnt to respect the world". Actually, in my opinion, we have forgotten to do it, because once we knew how to do. So maybe the solution is look at the past.

I used this video in our presentation of "Consumerism", but I think it is quite appropriate on this theme too. So there you have it!

Three suns in the sky

There is a news from Mongolia, where appeared something strange in the sky, a celestial phenomenon. It seems like there were three suns in the sky, well literally there were, WOW, amazing!

It is so weird to explain, well the middle sun was actually the real one, but the others, on the left and the right were just a smaller reflections of the real sun. I mean, there were not real.

Then a local meteorological centre explained that this phenomenon is actually an optical phenomenon, known as an "anthelion", which means that the high sunshine in the sky and the light passing through snow crystals in the air caused the reflection of the others two.

It appears only when very specific conditions are given, for example, the anhelion can appear but the temperature must be lower than -30ºC, and the air must be filled with vapour and clouds (ice crystals.)

Well, I really do not know what I can say in my 'opinion', it is a real phenomenon, one of the many that our home, the Earth, has. I would like in a moment of my life, live something like this, and used it to respect even more the place where we live, because it is really a box of surprises. And the nature has more than we can see offering to us, so please, live and enjoy it, but especially respect it.

https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/three-suns-in-the-sky-level-3/

Mobile Bookshop in Baghdad

In Baghdad, Ali al-Moussawi, classified as a bookworm turned his van into a "mobil bookshop". He makes up to $4,000 a month selling books around the city. His bookshop has succeeded enough to hire four persons to help him. 

Ali said that it took nine months to achieve his idea and he really hope that people who do not read a lot, may be interested in a future, because his aim is promote reading. Something that I appreciate very much.

He said that he wants to develop too his bookshop and ‘impove its current shape’

He changes the books on the display when he is moving the van, because there are many areas divided still, and in Sunni areas, are most famous the books about Saddam Hussein.

Well the news is really nteresting, especially because we do not expect that one people who wants to change something takes it so seriously and sacrifices a big part of himself to make people think and that is so beautiful in our humanity. The power to want to give without having to recieve anything in return more than a smile or have help. 

https://www.newsinlevels.com/products/mobile-bookshop-in-baghdad-level-3/