Talking to a child

A little girl is sitting in the school hall waiting for someone. She looks shy, and a bit nervous, but she handles all these feelings quite well. She is short and thin, and around 6 or 7 years old. She has long dark hair, and her skin is quite pale. Her big brown eyes stand out on her face. She is wearing what seems to be the school's uniform, and she is carrying a bag on her shoulder.
After a while, a young woman approached her. The woman was probably one of the teachers at the school and she came to welcome the new student.
    -Hello! You must be Sarah. I am Laura, and I am going to be one of your teachers here.
    -Hello!
    -I have been told that you do not speak Spanish. Is that right?
    -Yes, I am so sorry.
    -Do not worry. You will learn Spanish soon, we are here to help you. And you can help us with our    English. I am afraid it is quite rusty.
    -Thank you! I will try to learn as quickly as possible. And your English is quite good, I understand you very well, and I am very happy to have someone to talk to.
    -Ok, then. Are you ready to meet your classmates?
    -Yes, but I am very nervous.
    -There is no reason to be worried. They are looking forward to know you. They even have been asking things to the English teacher in order to be able to talk to you. I think you will get along very well.
    -Ok, I feel a bit better now. We can go.
    -Come on, then. This way.

Respect

This single word could be the solution to most of the problems there are in the world nowadays. If we unwrap the full meaning of this word, we will find that it is not just a word, it reflects a bunch of human behaviors that mostly differentiates us from animals. Respect is not about being politically correct, or trying to keep your bad behavior hidden, or not hurting people that you know. Respect is to be considerate of others, to care about other people. It is about avoiding to hurt others even if you have never met them, and it is about really trying to behave the best you can, considering other people's feelings and situation. This is what comes to my mind right now, but I am completely sure that I am missing something. Anyway, I think it is enough to make my point. Taking into account my previous definition of respect:

• Do you think that politicians respect their voters?
• Do you think that banks respect their clients?
• Do you think that someone that beats his wife respects her, or loves her?
• Do you think that a teenager that is bullying a classmate is respectful?
• Do you think that someone who doesn't pay taxes having millions respects others who pay?
• Do you think that a football player that fakes a foul respects his opponents and their supporters?
• Do you think that someone that made a mistake and avoids to pay for it respects someone?
• Do you think that a driver who parks his car in a place reserved for disabled people respects them?
• ...

In my humble opinion, nowadays people mistakenly confuse respect with other things like admiration, envy, fear, etc. Therefore, politicians and banks "respect" you if you are a powerful person, or you have a lot of money because they can get some benefit from you. In the same way, an abuser will "respect" you if you are stronger than him or her, but just because he or she is afraid of you. And most people "respect" the rules, because if don't, they would be punished in some way. I am sure that true respect will solve a lot of problems in our world, but my doubt is how to teach respect? I consider that the best way is giving example. What do you think?

New Year's resolutions (V)

It has already been 5 years since I started to share my resolutions for the New Year. During these years I have always tried to be realistic, and I was able to achieve a lot of what I was planning to do during the next year. I have just reviewed my resolutions for the year 2012, and I have to say that I tried hard to do what I promised, and I got some positive results. Unfortunately, there were a lot of unexpected events this year, some of them pleasant, but others quite unfortunate. I know that all that events are beyond my will, but I will try harder this year to fulfill my expectations. I think that next year will be a year full of opportunities and I have to try to take advantage of them.

During this year I accepted a challenge, and I had the opportunity to teach some students, and I enjoyed that experience a lot. And more important, I realized that I can do things that I consider I am not able to do. Therefore, it was more than a very good experience, it was a valuable lesson for me.

Apart from the fact of realizing that I am capable of doing things I thought I couldn't do, I also learnt new skills. I started to learn French more seriously, and now I feel more confident when reading writings in this language. Besides, I started learning how to program Android apps, and I am reviewing other skills that I had partially forgotten. In summary, I am trying to make a good use of my time. 

I also met a lot of people with whom I spent the good and bad times during this year. They are the most valuable thing of the year, the most precious treasure I can keep.

At this point, I have to make my resolutions for the year 2013. I intend to keep improving my English and French level, and practice them as much as possible (that is the only way to stay fluent). I also want to keep learning programming Android, and building amazing apps, and also learning new skills in this field. I would love to meet new friends like the ones I am lucky to have now. It would be great if the current situation in Spain and the world improves, most people don't deserve this kind of punishment.

There are several other resolutions that I am going to make, but I am not going to write them down here because I did it in the past and I was not able to fulfill them. Therefore, I am not going to do the same but I will try harder to achieve that "invisible" resolutions.

Finally, in order to finish this post I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year!!!

P.S. I have to say that I celebrated New Year's Eve the typical Spanish way on the 30th December for the first time (Apparently, it is a new tradition in Spain to celebrate this date before the real time. Crazy, isn't it?).