marichuli

Manuel, sweet sixteen

2008-04-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

You haven’t been with us for four months. Your absence is a deep pain which breaks my heart. It’s difficult to accept this reality. It’s also difficult not to ask about your situation, where you are, what you are doing, why you went away. I feel sad about it.

Sometimes I remember things and experiences we lived together. I have a lot of memories when you were a little boy. You were always happy, always laughing and making laugh, although from to time to time you started crying when you wanted something and your parents said no.

I think your childhood was happy because you were a cheerful boy, in spite the problems you had with your foot that finally left you a slight limp that only your mother noticed it.

Sport was always important for you. Firstly bicycle, afterwards motocross. Because of sport, you have travelled a lot. You have visited many European countries and almost all Spain. There are many important trophies on the shelf in your room, near a portrait that José Maria, your uncle, painted for you a few years ago.

Little by little, you became an adolescent. Consequently, your relationships changed. Lately it was difficult to see you. Your friends were so important for you! They were above everything else. If I suggested going out for a walk or something like that, nearly always your answer was no, because you had always arranged to meet your friends I feel your death came in a moment you were far to me. This situation has your departure even more difficult if it’s possible.

Now, I hope to see you in the other side, perhaps then, it’ll be possible to understand why sometimes the life is so difficult.

Meanwhile, I can imagine you in the air, jumping with your motorbike, wearing your special clothes, red of course. Your mother always remains me you were happy doing motocross.

Your funny aunt

the wedding

2008-02-27T03:25:00.000-08:00

February 15, the wedding

Today I’m going to a civil wedding. The marriage ceremony is taking place in the town-hall of Barcelona. I wait expectantly for it, because it’s the first time I go to a wedding with two grooms.

I remember two years ago I saw an homosexual wedding in a small town. The couple had been leaving together for a long time and everybody knew it. When they arrived at the town-hall perfectly dressed, they looked back before going in, because many people were in the street waiting to see them and to say hello, and they said: “Ja era hora”.

Sunday 17

The wedding’s day the grooms were also perfectly dressed. They looked elegant and the guests too.

Pere Portabella was the master of the ceremony. Two friends read poems. When the ceremony was finished, family and friends invited to the wedding went to a luxury hotel to have dinner. Before dinner, a fantastic appetizer
was offered , and people in general, started drinking champagne.

Inside the dining room there were round tables perfectly decorated with flowers and candles. Everything was marvellous.

When the wedding cake appeared, we listened to Procofief, and the lights were turned off.

During the coffee, “La vie en rose” by Edith Piaf began the dance, and many guests were to dance. every one seemed to be having a good time. The women’s high-heeled shoes started being so annoyed…, but everything was right to the end.

I explained that because today, fortunately, the wedding I went, it’s like the most of the wedding, more or less elegant, more or less kitsch. That minds love is the most important in life and it also minds that in this country, finally “the times are changing”, like B. Dylan said quite a lot of years ago.

Irina Palm: A lesson of dignity

2008-02-07T01:25:00.000-08:00

Who is Irina Palm? She’s a woman in her early sixties. She really loves her grand-son, who is ill, and the only possibility for him to get well is in Australia; but the family can’t afford the trip and the clinical care. Consequently, she decides to look for a job to help them.

Finally, she gets the money to pay the expenses.

Her son and her daughter- in -law are really amazed. They would like to know how she has got the money. Her friends are also interested in her job. But she has decided not to say anything, because she imagines a bad reaction from everybody.

What is the job? She works in an erotic club, masturbating men. Indeed. When people know it, they react as she had imagined. First, her son doesn't want the money, her friends decide not to speak to her, and neighbours do not dare look at her face if they find her in the street or in the supermarket.

I’m not going to explain more, because, Irina Palm is a film, and I don’t want to spoil it.

My question is: Why does society hide some economic activities related to sex? What’s wrong about it? Irina Palm, the main character in the film, does her work honestly, and she earns the money to save her grand son because, her love for him is above everything. But society, the same society who uses this kind of services, it condemns women, and also men, although less, who do these jobs. I think this is hypocrisy.

What do you think?

One advice: Go to see the film, and don’t forget to pat attention to the clothes she wears when she is working. The film offers the possibility to practise English, as well.

Strange pair of shoes

2008-01-20T08:29:00.000-08:00

Sales have started and many people decide to go shopping, to find some bargains.
Last year, I showed to my brothera pair of shoes that I had seen, and I was sure he would like them. We come into the shop to buy them, but they didn't have his size.

The other day, he phoned me (he lives in Lleida), and he asked about the same shoes we had been seeing the year before. “Try to buy me the shoes, please. I really like them.”, he toll me. Two days later, I went to the shoe shop. The size which my brother needs it was in another shop, but they offered to me to bring them, and I could pick them up the day after.

I came back to the shoe shop, just to pick the shoes up. Many people were into, trying to find bargains. I paid and I got out.

This Saturday, his wife was in Barcelona and she picked the shoes up. When she arrived at home, my brother tried them on and he phoned me saying the shoes were O.K.

On the next Monday afternoon, when I arrived at home, there was one phone call from my brother in my phone, and in my mobile also. I phoned him to ask what happened. The pair of shoes was wrong: one shoe was in his correct size, (it was the one he tried on), but the other was one size and half more than the other. In the first time, he thought his feet were different, but finally, he compared the two shoes and he cheked the difference.

This is a long way for a new pair of shoes. But, the most surprisingly was the shop assistanct's answer when I phoned to the shop, to explain the situation. She said: Many people buy shoes in a different size because their feet are different. If you want a solution, try to find your complement. Since that moment, my brother is looking for it. But, what complement?

Il Komendatore

2007-12-02T23:59:00.000-08:00

Il Komendatore

Hello Komendatore: A pleasure to receive your post. I’ve visited your blog, but It seems to be in mourning.
What happens?
Anyway. Perhaps, we can meet in Cinebaix, in the next original version. Why not?

Cinebaix

2007-11-28T08:39:00.000-08:00

Cinebaix

I suppose most of the people who are in class, are living in the Baix Llobregat. Perhaps, dear colleagues, you are into cinema. If it is your situation, you need to know Cinemabaix .http://www.cinebaix.com/.

Cinemabaix is in Sant Feliu de Llobregat. Years ago, it was Cine Guinart. It was closed because the owner had financial problems. Time after, some cinema lovers decided to try to reopen it. They managed the town hold paid the rent for the building. It recuperated two jobs: the doorkeeper, Sebastià, a man who recommends the films when you go into the cinema, and the engine driver. But, all the other jobs are doing by volunteers: from choosing the films to cleaning.

The programming is very interesting. It’s possible to see films, one or two weeks after the première in Barcelona. They project films in catalan, they organise cycles, and the first Friday every month, there is a special session with debate. And the most important, from time to time it’s also possible to see original versions. (Very interesting for English students.)

The price is cheaper than Barcelona. It cost 5.5 euros, but if you are member, you only pay 4.5 euros, and you don’t pay for cycles.

I’m very into, but it’s necessary more people go in. People, please, come on!. This kind of initiatives is interesting from itself, and it offers a social service. Do you agree?

I forgot it: If you need to take the car, you can park any time at the rail station.

...

2007-11-13T00:26:00.000-08:00

Alcañiz
....

A big hailstorm

2007-11-12T13:20:00.000-08:00

I’ve never lived a “natural disaster” directly, but I’ve seen his effects.

I often go to Alcañiz, a town where may mother, my sister, her husband and their three sons live.

Two years ago, more o less, during the spring, there was a big storm, a big hailstorm. The ice balls were as big as a billiard balls, and they were fallen during thirty minutes. Can you imagine? The result was horrible: blind and glasses of the windows and balconies broken, cars dented, branches of the trees cracked… and all the roof tiles destroyed, triturated to be exactly.

I visited my family two weeks later and, when I was arriving I could see a very different landscape. The urban area was empty of cranes, like a big iron trees between the houses. I had an estrange sensation.

These cranes had been brought from around the country. Many people earned a lot of money because, all the people needed to arrange their roofs as quickly as possible and the price of works went up very quickly.

When I came back, one month later, the cranes have disappeared, bat the estrange sensation remained. What is wrong now? , I asked me? I stopped my card and I looked at the town attentively. Finally, I noticed what happened: all the roofs were new. It seemed like a picture, a bad and unreal picture.

Little by little, people have gone recuperated their normal live. Nevertheless, when the sky gets grey, many people look at it and start to pray.

Natural disaster?

2007-11-12T11:22:00.001-08:00

What are the“natural disasters”? Are the” natural phenomenons”, disasters?
“Natural disasters” is an expression not too much correct, in my opinion. When we use it, we refer to the nature like some bad. The nature exists and reacts. The problem is when people are in the middle on phenomenon.
What do you think about it?

Women second part

2007-11-05T09:10:00.000-08:00

Dear English class colleagues :

Tanks for your messages. In general, I not agree with you, but I undesrtand your ideas. They are normal ideas in this society.
I apologize. In this moment, the "patriarchate" is arriving at his end, and it's very normal, men(in general)and some women resist to the change. I don't worry about it. We are a lot of women, more every day, and some men also, we are hands on projects.

Women

2007-10-22T10:29:00.000-07:00

The other day, in the class, the teacher made a question to the students. The question was: Do you thik housewives should be payed by the state? I remenbered only two or three women said yes. Big suprise!, because in the class there are more women than men.

Some women said that is very complicated, (some men had the same opinion), because housewives not always do work. My question is: why when the subject of the conversetation are the women, many people, even the women theirself have a lot of ojections?

When people decide to change their job, or to lose it, they recibe the unemployment benefit. Nobody think if the people who recibe this subsidy are a millionaire; perhaps they are. In general, it considers (except the more liberal economists), the unploymen has this right.

Please, women! We need to think like a women we are. If we think as men, we never get our freedom, because, the economic sistem established by men don't want it. We need to belive we are important, the things we normaly do, they are important, our feels are also important. And we need to know that the problem is the conomy isn't interested in that. The capitalist economy profer don't pay the bills.

To be continued