Some Thesis Statements...

1) Being successful at school does not ensure success in life, and, certainly, many times it is the other way around.

2) The increasing and obsessive importance of a healthy diet makes us forget that food is something to be enjoyed, and many times we are not even able to eat an ice-cream without feeling guilty.

3) Although the Internet and Social Networks have many advantages and make us feel “connected to the world”, they also have disadvantages and an excessive use of them can affect us in a negative way.

Outline of an Essay

I. Travelling abroad is now easy and cheap thanks to Erasmus plus.


II. All people should have the possibility to spend some time abroad at least once in their lives
* See other cultures
* Learn and respect the differences


III. There used to be many programs with this aim that are now gathered in one single program called Erasmus plus
* Studying abroad (Erasmus students)
* Working abroad (Erasmus Placement, Internship)
* Participating in Youth Exchanges or Training Courses (Intercultural exchanges)
* EVS (European Voluntary Service: to develop a voluntary service in a foreign country).


IV. If you are between 16-35 you can enjoy all the possibilities above
* Erasmus plus covers almost 100% from all the costs (no need to spend a lot of money)
* Meeting new friends from all over Europe
* English as common language: possibility of practising and improving your English.

V. Once we know all that, we can conclude that Erasmus plus offers just advantages for youngsters to improve themselves
* Personal development
* Professional development
* Invest in your future

Keep calm and quit smoking (Problem/Solution Essay)

Despite the constanst advertising and awareness campaigns against it, smoking is still one of the biggest problems for public health and the first cause of death in the world. The numbers speak for themselves: 140 people die in one day in Spain because of tobacco, the product that most diseases and deaths causes in the majority of the developed countries, and that could be prevented. Unfortunately, nobody seems to care about this situation. On television we just hear about deaths by traffic accidents or contagious diseases, when it is actually smoking the main cause of mortality in our society. Tobacco companies, on their behalf, represent a pressure for the governments and health authorities, creating thousands of victims every year, so it is difficult to find solutions.

Nevertheless, there are things we can do. One possible solution could be to restrict (even) more the number of places where smoking is allowed, but this remedy would be criticised, problematic and complicated to lay it down, since it is already forbidden almost everywhere, and the cure would be worse than the disease. Another remedy is to make stricter punishments for those who break the smoking ban laws, for instance, by imposing higher penalty fees. However, it would be very difficult to control everybody everywhere, and there would be still many people infringing this law.

A final solution can be to increase the taxes and price of tobacco, as when its price rises, not only is the number of people who smoke reduced but it also prevents many from starting cigarette consumption, especially at very young ages. This is probably the most effective way to dissuade smokers and restrain its use, and it is accepted normally quite well by everyone, even smokers, because, at the end, we all know how damaging smoking is. 

Super funny #Superbritánico

Looking around some shops, I stumbled upon some notebooks and diaries that caught my attention. Traditional expressions were written on them, but translated literally from Spanish into English, which looked like funny, very funny.

Straightaway, I googled some of them and I discovered Superbritánico. Three colleagues with a Translation company in Seville, one French, one English and one Spanish, like in the joke, started to amuse themselves by translating colloquial expressions literally from Spanish into English. Short after, thanks to the social networks, they became incredibly popular.

Because it is an easy way to make people smile and because it may be less embarrassing to say certain things, now you can express yourself with an air... Superbritánico, even if you are an English philologist.

The United Kingdom and The United States Point-by-Point

Definitely, two of the best places in the world where to learn or improve English are The United Kingdom and The United States, but there are great differences between them to keep in mind. First of all, we should consider the distance of each one from our country. While The UK is just around 2 hours far from Spain and there are flights from most of the airports, to The USA it becomes a bit more complicated and less accessible if our intention is to visit our home regularly, since we need to travel to Madrid or Barcelona and from there take a 7-8 hour flight to our destination, most of the times with a stop-flight somewhere else during the journey. The flights are

therefore cheaper to The UK than to The USA, but when it comes to currency, life is probably cheapear for us in The USA, as the value of the dollar is lower than the value of the euro, than in The UK, as the pound is higher than our euro. Another thing to consider is the kind of English we will get in each place. Although both are useful, the British English and the American English differ in many things such as pronunciation, vocabulary and spelling. Whereas the British English is said to be the best English, a lot of people agree that the American accent is much more understandable and easier for foreigners. A last important issue to take into account too is the way of life in each of them. The weather in the United Kingdom is generally rainy and cold, which might be the reason why British people are said to be colder and closer, while The United States are bigger so the weather changes a lot from one area to another and also people's character, I guess, although in general they are thought to be more friendly. At the end, both places have advantanges and disadvantages, it is all about your personal preferences and, of course, your budget!

Read more, vote less (Opinion Essay)

Because we are born in a particular family, nation and class, we are all different. We all live in some kind of social and cultural circles which attach us to specific values. But we are also living in a world of globalization, coexisting therefore with others. Unfortunately, this coexistence becomes a problem sometimes.

Normally, we tend to form groups based on similarities and then we produce stereotypes about other groups of people. I decided thus to write an opinion essay supporting and defending multiculturalim environments and the importance of connecting ourselves with the world beyond the one we take for granted to grow ourselves.

I think most people would love to travel to far and exotic places like South America or Africa, but when they find families from these countries as their neighbours, or children from these places as their own children's classmates, it becomes a problem. We live in a society which seems to tell us our values and ideas are the right ones, and therefore the best. My mother, for instance, has been a teacher in a Primary School for 30 years. For sometime now, she started to have some Moroccan and Chinese children in class. In my opinion, it is very positive for kids to have children from other cultures as classmates, and also for teachers. It can teach them many things. They can learn, for instance, that one girl who covers herself is not an oppressed girl, that her reasons are spiritual and her choice, personal.

I am convinced that one of the best ways to overcome these cultural ghettos is through reading. When we read, we get involved in the story and empathize with the characters, no matter their race or religion. We like them or we dislike them for their personality, not for their background. Literature, fiction, stories connect us. I will never belong to any political party because, from my point of view, they are very dangerous. They create ideologies that teach us that as humans beings we are different than others and therefore we are better than them.

Because it is not healthy for a person to spend so much time staring at the mirror, it is not healthy likewise to stay for too long inside our cultural circles, our friends, our neighbours, if all the people in our inner circle look like us it means we are surrounded with our own image. If we are going to learn something worthy in life, we are going to learn it from people who are different than as rather than from people who are exactly like us. At the end, the culture of coexistence is the only way that will lead us to a better world, we only need to learn how to build it..

Me, myself and I (Description Essay)

Because I don't know any person better than I know myself and because it is good to look at yourself sometimes, I have  chosen me as the person to describe in the description essay.

I am a girl in her twenties who loves music and art, sunny winter days and cloudy summer days, and gossiping while drinking coffee with her best friend. I like walking around the empty city at night. I eat mostly green things, but once I was wild and ate pizza.

I am usually quiet and shy, but kind and friendly too. I love reading novels  written just by female writers- someone really has to convince me that one book written by a male author is enough good to read it. Oh, I am not a feminist, it's just a preference.

If you ask my mom about me, she will tell you I am just like my dad, but I have actually things from both. I have got green eyes like my mother and my hair is naturally blond like my father, but I also have many things from nobody. For instance, I am not afraid of changes while my parents are not very fond of them.  Indeed, I have recently changed my hair colour (it is not blond anymore) and I am back in Murcia and in La Merced after a two-year gap, which feels like being new in home, a sweet home full of lovely strangers.

At the end, I am like a plant, an ordinary girl who undergoes a metamorphosis every once in a while but keeps her roots  in the same place, and still  listens to her favourite band since she was 16.

We are all Luna-tics

No matter what is happening down here, when we look up at the sky, it is always there: the moon, eternal and everlasting. The idea that it has an influence on us is something which goes back a long way, and there have been so many legends about it that consequently a myth has been created, to the point that many people believed (and believe) in werewolf, or wolfman, humans who transformed themselves into wolves during full moon. Perhaps not up to that point, but it does have an influence on human beings.

While Waning Moon is said to convey tranquility to meditate and make plans, it would be Crescent Moon the right moment to carry out these plans. However, it is thought that when the moon most influences us is when it is full. There is a belief that Full moon modifies somehow human behaviour, and there must be some truth in this because it is especially in Full Moon nights when most accidents, most crimes and most suicides happen. Although there is no scientific evidence about this, I do believe that the moon influences us, and this influence happens mostly through our horoscope. Approximately, every two days and a half the moon changes from one star sign to another, that means, every twenty-eight days (one lunar cycle) the moon will stay in your star sign influencing you during those couple of days.

Unfortunately, astrology and the zodiac are unregarded and not taken seriously by many people, or used just for economic-purposes by opportunists. Certainly, the horoscopes are not rules, there are lots of elements influencing us, culture, education. Neither should we fall into generalization, not all Aquarius are eccentric nor all Pisces are dreamers. Neither all Libras are romantic nor all Capricorns are loyal. But still, I do believe there is a close relation between our date of birth and our personality, which may explain why every person has a different way of seeing things and why it is so difficult to understand other people sometimes.

“We need not feel ashamed of flirting with the zodiac.The zodiac is well worth flirting with”. (D.H. Lawrence) 

What went around, comes around

That afternoon, Ada woke up from her short nap determined to buy what she had been waiting for all this time. There were just 15 minutes until lady Fatimah leaves for her 5 o'clock tea, so she got dressed as fast as she could, grabbed the coffee she always needs after sleeping and left in a hurry.

Across from her house, there was a small but very well-supplied shop called “A little bit of everything”, whose owner, a chubby lady originally from Syria but married to an English journalist, was exceptionally gifted at healing any disease, either mental or physical, by just mixing the appropriate herbs and ingredients.

When Ada got to the store, Fatimah had already left, and instead of her, her eldest daughter, who was the only person she would leave in charge in her absence, was there. Ada would have never let other person different than lady Fatimah to assist her, but the girl asked kindly:

-Welcome, how can I help you, Miss?
-Hi. Well...er...I ordered this medicine to Fatimah some weeks ago- she said, showing her client card- I wonder if...

Before she could finish her sentence, the girl had already left to the stock room. When she came back, she was carrying a little green crystal jar, with a note on it:

-The oblivion potion- she read slowly, - yes, it is ready- Here you have.

Ada took the little jar with a mixture of happiness and surprise, left twenty pounds in coins on 50 pence- it was her tips savings for almost 2 months, and run to her apartment impatiently. Once in home, she removed the label from the bottle and read carefully: “To reach the forgotten state, take one teaspoon everyday, preferably with meals, during 2 weeks. Do not take during more than one month. In case of discomfort, consult Fatimah”.

Gradually, she fell in a forgetfulness state which made her delete all the bad experiences, her last breakup, her parents' divorce. Little by little, she became happier, hopeful, optimistic, any bad memory affecting her now. However, all that glitters is not gold, and short after, she also started to forget the good memories, the summers from her childhood, the chit-chats with her sister. One morning, when she looked in the mirror, she had to check her face twice to recognise who she was. Her cat was starving because she forgot to feed him. Everything around seemed strange to her.

Eventually, I could not think of an end to Ada's story. Sometimes, many of us would prefer to delete like her all the bad memories, clean our minds from the negative past, or start from zero. Other times, we lean on sayings such as what does not kill you makes you stronger just to make a sense of the negative experiences. To me, the idea that our past influences our present, and will influence our future is one of the lemas of my life. To have the faith, the belief, that our stories matter, that across all the experiences we have lived, either good or bad, something has remained, something has been learnt.

“You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. (...) Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it we are nothing.”

(Luis Buñuel, Spanish filmmaker).

Losing words, gaining inspiration

As a non-native English speaker who has been given the task to write in English, I come across one problem: the lack of inspiration. Leaving aside the English level, which in all of us is good otherwise we wouldn't be here, I found it hard to open a blog and write freely about what I want, but in English.

Somehow, we are used to teachers who tell us what to write and how, which number of words they want and even which type of letter to use. One teacher even told me one time to choose dark blue when typing because it was softer for his sight.

So here I am now, with so much freedom but not many ideas, free but blocked, and it was interestingly this mental blank which gave me the idea to write about inspiration. Pablo Picasso used to say, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working”. The problem is when inspiration and me speak different languages... Some time ago, I read one writer's interview saying she would write in different languages depending on her mood. When writing on melancholy or romanticism, she would choose French. When her mind was more logical, she would write in English, or in German when an agressive speech. Unfortunately, not all of us are able to communicate in more than three languages, but her case makes me think if language is related with inspiration or the lack of it.

When writing in a second language, we are certainly losing some vocabulary, and when our vocabulary shrinks, our imagination shrinks, and the way we are thinking shrinks as well. Nevertheless, some studies state that, when thinking in a second language, our decisions are less risky and more analytical. If this is true, we might be more analytical and less emotional in our blogs, but this has its positive side too. When it comes to a good piece of writing, just inspiration is not enough.

Whatever the case, it is true that when we choose to think in another language we feel different, but still this can bring us new ideas we never thought we would have, and therefore new inspiration.

“A different language is a different vision of life”

(Federico Fellini, Italian director)