A poem

This is for us, to remember where we come from, and what anonymous people do for us. And finally to understand that war is not an alternative. The key is in the words!!
Respect the others in their differences, as you value yourself in front of a mirror.

The return to the islands

I stare at the snap shot
And I see green everywhere,
I look up, and there it is
The sun, with its sunbeams,
There is white and light blue too.
I am young and so they are,
Suddenly strange sharply words
Come deeply into my ears.
I raise my head, there are no greens.
I look up, but the sun has gone.
The white and light blue have vanished.
I look at me, I’m old.
There are scars in my hands, I’m lonely,
There is nothing around me
But white crosses and a thin boy
Passing by, belting out a sharply melody
Made of unknown words.

Ignatius Reilly

A Profile

One of the people I really admire is neither rich nor famous, nor even particularly talented. However, he is a hard-working man. Under a dark suit, a light-blue shirt and a typical peaked hat, hides a special person: his name is Héctor, and he is my father.

One of the reasons why I admire my father is that he is a real persevering born-fighter. He grew up in extreme poverty, in a little town in Santiago del Estero. Although his family condition made him work and study when he was a child, he had a happy childhood. However, when he was sixteen years old, he couldn´t stand his mother´s spankings and he ran away to Buenos Aires. There, he met a young amusing girl who would be his wife four years later. But it wouldn´t be easy because he needed a job to support his new family. It was then that he decided, influenced by my grandfather, to be a police officer. He had to work hard all his life in order to get all that a person dreams of: a home and a career.

Another reason for admiring my father is that he loves his job and he works gladly, although everyday he has to face from the most unusual petty crimes to the most cold-blooded murders. He also works like a psychologist when people come to the police station because they don´t know, for example, how to bring up their children. He has a kind heart and he is always delighted to help people.

Finally, I also admire him for his conservative ideas about life. He has influenced me since I was a child. He always supports me in everything I take up, and he has showed me confidence. He has taught me how to behave in some sorts of situations and when he punished me, he was strict. Now, as a grown up, I´ve learnt the difference between right and wrong, so I can understand why my father was so stern when I was a child.

My father is a special person. He has raised me the best he could, he has given me everything he could, but he has had a significant influence on my life. First of all, because he is my father, a good carefree father, and thanks to him I am who I am: a good carefree person, too.

Butterfly

All the troubles of the world

All the troubles of the world is a science fiction short story written by Isaac Asimov. This story was first published in 1958 and it is about an intelligent machine with great responsibilities, called Multivac.

“Multivac was the greatest machine in the world” begins this brilliant story, introducing to us in this way to a great computer which has the daily job of working with facts. It deals with every person’s facts of the entire world.

In a context in which crime has been eradicated, Multivac predicts a case of murder. People who work inside the machine are certainly worried and start an investigation which ends up in a shocking discovery. After arresting Joe Manners, and later on his son, Ben, it is discovered that Multivac is tired and was it that started a plan to die. Surprisingly, this extraordinary machine has developed human sensitivity and it is exhausted of dealing with every single trouble of the world.

Isabella

A brain teaser

Taken from: riddles.com/brain-teasers

Hi, people! This time, I challenge you to a brain teaser, which only requires mental reasoning to solve. Read it, and write your answers as comments. Next month, I´ll post the correct answer, so you can see how good you are at difficult questions.

Enjoy it!

Polly wants a parrot

Polly Perkins was after a talking parrot, so she went to the local pet shop in the hope of securing such a find. She was in luck. The shop assistant assured her that the parrot would learn and repeat any word or phrase it heard. Polly was delighted. However, a week later, the parrot still hadn't spoken a word. Polly returned to the shop to complain, however, it appeared that the assistant was accurate in what he had said, and refused a refund.

Why didn't the parrot talk?

Butterfly

My Home

My house is the most beautiful building I’ve ever seen. There is a small porche (my father always liked small porches), and then the front door. When you enter my house you can see the big living-room, where there are a lot of armchairs and one table with the old telephone. The other room near the living-room is the kitchen, where the whole family takes breakfast. On the opposite side there are three rooms. One of these is my room, the other is my brothers’ and the third is my parents. My room is wonderful, because my family decided that I could decorate it the way I liked. Then, I put a big trunk and upon it there are a lot of teddy bears, there is a bedside table and over it there is a library. My bed is right in the middle of the room. It is old and long because it belonged to my grandmother’s parents. Finally, my house has got a laundry, where my family put a little house for my dog Onna. I love my house and I love all the good times I had there!

Milkyway

Bad news

When I was a child, I wished that my older brother had a wife and had children, too. When I grew up, I felt that my dreams had been fulfilled. My brother married the best woman on earth. Her name is Alejandra. The wedding party was wonderful. They didn’t have a honeymoon because they hadn’t got enough money, but  the most important thing was that Alejandra was pregnant. My first nephew, Iván was born in November the 16^th. In the next year my dear Sabrina, Ivan’s sister, was born. But this wasn’t all, in October 2001 a new baby was born; my brother and his wife decided that I was going to be the baby’s godmother, and I was very touched by their decision!

Then my brother decided to go to Spain His poor economic situation brought him the idea of travelling to Spain. We all missed my brother at home, but at least the kids were still with us since he travelled alone in the first place. However, one day he phoned his wife and told her that life in Spain was, in fact, much better than here. Then all of us thought the same: the children were going to Spain as well. We hardly had one more month before Alejandra and the kids left the country to join my brother. Today, after many years, I still remember the face of the boys; they were very unhappy and cried a lot. I’ll never forget that day. 

Milkyway

Charles by Shirley Jackson

Charles is the story of a five years old boy named Laurie going for the first time to kindergarten. When he came home, after his first day of school, his parents asked him about school and if he had learnt something. He asked roughly that he had not learnt anything and that the teacher had spanked a boy for being fresh. His parents wanted to know the boy´s name and Laurie said it was Charles.

The following day Laurie told his parents that Charles had been bad again and had hit the teacher. The third day, Charles bounced a see-saw onto the head of a little girl. The rest of the week Charles´s behaviour had been even worse.

Laurie´s parents reflected on his behaviour, his toughness and bad grammar, seeing Charles as a bad influence to their son. They even thought of kindergarten being unsettling to him, but they just waited for him to come from school and tell them the news about Charles.

Charles´s behaviour was the same for a couple of weeks, yelling during story hour, hitting a boy in the stomach, kicking a teacher´s friend, and so on. However, during the third and four weeks Charles changed. Laurie told his parents that Charles had been so good that the teacher gave him an apple, and that he had been the teacher´s helper. Then things went back to normal, Charles told a girl to say a word, she said it and the teacher washed Charles´s mouth out with soup.

Laurie´s parents missed the first P.T. A meeting ( parent-teacher association ), but Laurie´s mum went to the second one, hoping to find Charles´s mother there. Although she scanned every face trying to find “the one” looking haggard, she could not find her. In addition, nobody mentioned Charles at the meeting. After the meeting she looked for Laurie´s teacher and she told her that Laurie liked kindergarten because he talked about it all the time. The teacher said that they had had a little trouble adjusting the first weeks, but now he was a helper, with occasional lapses. Laurie´s mum said that her son adjusted quickly but she added that she supposed it was Charles´s influence this time. “Charles?” asked the teacher, we don´t have any Charles in the kindergarten.”

This short story should be useful for parents as a way of reflection about their children misbehaviour. There is a trend nowadays to blame classroom mates at school or teachers, avoiding the real problems children have at home.

QueenV.