"VICTUS: BARCELONA 1714"

Victus: Barcelona 1714 was written by Albert Sánchez Piñol and it was published in 2013 by La campana editorial.

This novel is about a man, Martí Zuviria, who hires a German writer to basically write up his earlier life. The novel starts with an epic adventure he lived. After that, Martí had to go to the Bazoches castle (France) to prepare himself us a military engineer. After hard-work and the death of his great professor who was a famous engineer, Martí lived a battle in Almansa even though he didn’t pass the final exam which would make him an official engineer. After going back to Barcelona - where he met a woman –, he fought in a lot of battles in favour of the French monarchy. But that didn’t last forever. After the retirement of the ally, Martí decided to join Antonio de Villarroel’s army. Unluckily, after working so hard on the planning of the trenches, walls and other important war important elements, the war was won by the Borbon’s army.

The title of the three parts of the novel is very curious. The author based on the famous Latin expression Veni Vidi Vici to name each part, but, the last one is called Victus, because, on September 1714, it took place the fall of the city of Barcelona where the Catalans lost the war. That is also the reason why he named the book like that.

For the Spanish class, we had the opportunity to read a book, which apart from help us with the mark, it is a great excuse to read. In this second term, I decided to read this novel because it gained me a lot and I wanted to read it since the first term of school. I must say that It has impressed me a lot. A part from being a historical novel, which I like them a lot, this novel has something different. The author, from the firsts lines of the book, makes the reader feel like one of the characters, like if they were there, living the story.

The way the author made the character’s talk is amazing; the dialogues between each character made me being stuck with the book during days, without leaving it. But, the best thing of all is the way that the plot makes you think about the little details of life. The death of your loved ones, the struggle you suffer to become who you want to be and the most difficult sacrifices you have to do to make a better place for your loved ones are the top things that this book shows you.

DESCRIPTION OF A PERSON

In this post I will describe my sister. My sister is older than me; she is nineteen years old. There is just three years of difference between our ages, that explains why we are so close and we comprehend each other without any difficulties.

From the psychologist point of view, my sister can be described from a lot of different ways. She is an open-minded person and this helps a lot when it becomes to talk about something. Apart from that, I must say that she knows everything about everything. She can talk perfectly about politics and economy situation, science novelty, music, films, etc. That is why I always tell her that she is a very cultured person. She perfectly knows how to argument her thought.

When it becomes to her personality, I must stand out her sense of humour. She is very cheerful and such a joker. She is always laughing, even in the most serious moments. She knows how to cheer up a person who is having a bad day and knows when and how to help people when they don’t even ask her.

What she can’t put up with two-faced people and those who only act for their interests. She is a hard-working and a strong person. No matter what she goes through she never gives up. That’s one of the best things about her and one of the things I look up to. She fights for her dreams and demonstrates day after day the reason why she is where she is now. She is very organised, but even though she sometimes gets stressed considering that the career she is studying at this moment is hard and it requires a lot of work.

Physically, she is not that tall but neither short. She has dark wavy medium-sized hair and dark eyes too. I can’t describe her style because she doesn’t follow any. She just wears what she likes without having to discuss if it is trendy or not.

She loves to read books. If she had her own library, she would go out of there. She also likes to go to the cinema and watch series. I have to say that she has a good taste for it.

Finally, I would like to say that being her sister is such a pleasure but it has also its negative part, I will always be compared to her and that’s bad because I can never be as perfect as she is. I am happy to have someone like her in my life. It is so good to have a best friend forever.

SCIENCE LIMITS ON GLOBAL ISSUES

As we all know, science has changed our lifes mainly for good. However, science has its own limits, for example, when it becomes to the global issues. In this post, I will talk about a global issue which is the violation of human right and the intervention of science on it.

Human rights are the basic rights and “freedoms” that belong to every person in the world, from birth until death. They apply regardless of where you are from, what you believe or how you choose to live your life. They can never be taken away, although they can sometimes be restricted. These basic rights are based on values like dignity, fairness, equality, respect and independence.

The problem comes when these rights or “freedoms” are not respected. There are a lot of facts which infringe them. For example, the West Bank barrier or the current settlements in Palestine, the immigration and refugees banning and the utility of chemical weapons on civilians.

If we look at the science role in these violations, we can say that science helps a lot to carry through these actions. All the chemical weapons created, the machinery and equipment used between other many devices are designed from science. With this idea, we could say that science has its own limits which create a lot of problems in real life.

Some of the science limits which influences some of the human rights violation are obvious but some of them are not. On one hand, science does not make moral judgments about anything. On the other hand, science doesn’t guide us when it becomes to know how to use the scientific knowledge.

As a conclusion, I must say that science limits influence a lot some of the human rights violations and, at the same time, these science limits are an important weapon for industrialised countries to take advantage from poor countries which doesn’t have power to own scientific knowledge.

OSCARS 2017

About a week ago, the 89th Academy Awards ceremony took place in Hollywood to honour the best films of 2016. It was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. This year, in general, everyone was surprised by the winners of every important category.

There were many films (and actors) that were the odds-on-favour to win the most valuable prize a celebrity could get. La La Land, for instance, was one of those. The successful musical had fourteen nominations (best picture, best director and best actor, amongst others), which is the exact amount of nominations that Titanic had in the 1998’s Oscars. The film did pretty well by taking home six golden figures. The other applauded film that night was Moonlight, followed by Fences and Manchester by the Sea, which won three, one and two Oscars respectively.

However, this Academy Awards ceremony did not only shine for its winners, but it also stood out for its critics of Trump’s policies, the diversity of its nominees and its epic fail ever made in the Oscars’ history. Jimmy Kimmel kicked off the Oscars with some basic jokes. It even looked like a Jimmy Kimmel Live! monologue.

Some of the winners of the night (from the left to the right): Mahershala Ali,

Emma Stone, Viola Davis and Casey Affleck.

Getting though the winners of that night, first of all I will start with the best director award. The winner in this category was Damien Chazelle for La La Land. He is the youngest director to win an Oscar. On one hand, for the best actor and actress, the awards go to Casey Affleck, for Manchester by the Sea as Lee Chandler, and Emma Stone, for La La Land as Mia Dolan. It looks like Casey is following the same steps to success as his brother, Ben Affleck. On the other hand, for the best supporting actor and actress went to Mahershala Ali, for Moonlight as Juan, and Viola Davis, for Fences as Rose Maxon.

As for the best original screenplay won Manchester on the sea and for the adapted one Moonlight. There were many others winners like for the Best Animated Feature Film, Zootopia, for the Best Foreign Language Film, The Salesman (Iran), for the Best Documentary-Feature, O.J.: Made in America, for the Best Documentary-Short Subject, The White Helmets, etc.

During the lasts months of last year, I was making a list about all the films I would like to watch. Most of the nominated ones were there. But I have to admit that I have not watched any of them yet. This is what happens when you have no time.

This year, if we compare it with the last one, the Oscars did justice with people from another country if we look at the winners. Winners like Mahershala Ali or Asghar Farhadi, for not talking about the exceptional cast of Fences, Hidden Figures, and others, demonstrate just the opposite as what racist people think. Muslim people winning the Oscars, making such a good appearance (except Asghar) and speech, have possible turn all people bodies.

"THE WALLED OFF HOTEL"

While I was surfing on the Internet I found an article from a newspaper which talked about a new hotel which will be opened in Palestine on the 11^th of March. I found it interesting and amazing, that is why I decided to talk about it in this my say.

As we all know, since the construction of the Apartheid Wall, this created a lot of discussion. However, it did not lead us into a solution but to more conflicts and tension. The wall has isolated more than a half million of Palestinians. It was repeatedly rejected by Amnesty International and The United Nation, but it looks like they can do nothing about it.

Today, fifteen years after the construction of the wall, a British artist, known as Bansky, will inaugurate his own hotel called “The walled Off Hotel” in front of the Apartheid wall. It has ten bedrooms and each of them includes a work of art from the artist.

The name of the hotel has a metaphoric meaning. “Walled off” means separated by a wall. Considering that the hotel is in the other side of the wall, the name explains perfectly the situation of the Palestinians.

The artist and his representative team clarify that the hotel is not just a work of art but a lodging for clients. Apart from that, the main objective of the hotel is to attract tourists and travellers to one of the most abandoned place of Palestine where the economic situation is terrible because of the control by the Israeli government. According to the artist, a lot of people said that that location was had the worst view of the world and they asked him why he would like to build a hotel. He answered that he wanted to make people realise and see the worst view of the world to react to it and hopefully do something about it.

It is not the first time Bansky makes such a works of art in the Gaza Strip. In 2015, the artist went there to paint the walls of the territory to satirise and to report.

I think that is a great idea this. The paintings he has made are fabulous; he got to represent the Palestinians so well in each one of them. But he didn't use only paintings, he also designed the hotel in such a way that he makes so obvious the terrible situation there.

These are some of the paintings and designing made by Bansky: 

DO WE WATCH TV ANYMORE?

When I was little, I was always watching TV. As soon as I got home from school or my after-school activities, I would watch my favourites cartoons. Watching TV was just like my way to spend time. But at the same time I was growing, the amount of homework was increasing and with that my free time was reducing, until now, that I do not even turn on the TV.

It was not long ago when I realised that I do not watch TV anymore. I think it was at third of ESO, when school homework started to increase. But the causes of it are not only because of school work, there are some facts which changed my way of “living”.

First, I would like to say that the television industry was created to entertain. But little by little, the idea of entertaining has hanged. I do not know if it is because I have grown up and nothing in the TV looks entertaining or it’s just my point of view. In the second place, I think that the main cause would be the shortage free time I have (putting to one side school).

In my opinion, I am glad of not watching that much TV. But, however, I spend a lot of time surfing on the internet. This has brought me positive things like negatives ones.

On one hand, Internet provides me with the ability of select the series and shows to watch whenever I want. The biggest inconvenient of TV is that people have to make time to watch it, meanwhile with the Internet services, people can watch what they want without having to make time. But, with the new companies, like Netflix, this concept has changed, of course. On the other hand, lately, the most of TV shows and series doesn’t attract me that much. Youtubers have also influenced a lot people. It is more easy to watch them everywhere and any time. It is more pleasant, even though I start to think that YouTube is becoming more like a big TV company. When it becomes to the news, I haven’t watch them for a long time. The fact that we can access to social media apps from the mobile phone makes easy to check quickly the news (meanly the most recent) and helps you to keep updated of what is happening around the world.

As a conclusion, I have to say that it is not bad to watch TV when you know how to. When I say that I haven’t watch it for a long time I don’t mean that I never do, but first I check its programming from the mobile phone. For example, about a week ago, I watched the film The imitation game in the TV after checking what films they would transmit. As for the utility of Internet as an alternative of the television is, technically, not a big difference, but for my actual situation it makes a big difference to my time.