MY GAP YEAR

MY EXPERIENCE IN MAUTHAUSEN

Mauthausen is a concentration camp which is situated in Austria. We visited that with the high school, in a trip that we make in April with the working group “Grup d’exili, deportació i holocaust”. It was an impressive experience.

Just to get there you can see that the atmosphere is very different, very… shocking.  It’s like go into another world, another terrified world. Mauthausen is located just in the middle of a hill. It is very striking.

We have visited the barracks, the showers, the experiments room (where the doctors made experiments with the prisoners, obviously), the crematorium, the gas chamber... I have frozen blood, especially when we entered into the gas chambers, where we saw the ovens... uf... there are no words to describe everything...

We saw a room where there were all the names of people who have died there. Awesome! A whole room full of names. Thousands and thousands of names that were fiilling all the room... I saw people crying or ready to do that. How much cruelty!! Only seeing the quantity of barracks and the thight measure of thats, it is possible to imagine how of inhuman it was all of this atrocities.

The worst thing of all is that there are historians who try to deny the facts, having so many proofs ... is totally horrible, frightening...

WUTHERING HEIGHTS of Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights is a classic of the English literature. The novel speaks to us about three familiar generations and about all his personal problems.

The novel presents an innovative structure. The first narrator of the story is Lockewood. He is a foreign and comes to the Wuthering Height to know Heathcliff who has rented a nearby villa, the Thrushcross Grange. His first impression of the family that live here is not very good. He perceives a strange environment. Heinterprets in a subjective way what is happening in Wuthering Height. Then, Nelly, the ancient servant of the house, appears like a second narrator of the story. Eventually, is Zillah, the new servant, who tells to Nelly all that she knows and that she sees. The reader knows the story through these characters and has the sensation of having attended fragments of life of these characters and it will turn out to him difficult don’t take part of his pain.

The main characters are: Heatchliff, who is a very cold and distant person. His only aim is to take a revenge for the persons who reject him for his condition of adoptive. Catherine is an energetic and selfish character. She loves Heatchliff but of a compromise she marries with Edgar. Nelly is the servant. She is a kind and fair person.

In this novel we can appreciate all of the elements that belong to the Romantic Movement; for example we can observe that there is a predominance of the feelings opposite to the reason, the feelings are taken to the extreme, there are supernatural elements (like ghosts or spirits) and doses of terror, there are moments of jealousies, envy, ambition of power, alcoholism...

I recommend it to all people who desire to enter in the deepest feelings of the all characters. 

SEXISM

How many times have we seen that a man is ready to hit his woman? Unfortunately we have seen these situations a lot of times in our everyday lives or in the news. This is not a nice situation that we don’t like to attend. And we think “if I could do anything…”.

Sexism (or gender discrimination) basically consist in a prejudice or discrimination based on a person's sex or gender. Sexism can affect either gender, but it is particularly documented as affecting against the female gender. Sexism can be a belief that one sex is superior to or more valuable than another sex. It imposes limits on what men and boys can and should do and what women and girls can and should do.

The concept of sexism was originally formulated to raise consciousness about the oppression of girls and women, although by the early 21st century it had sometimes been expanded to include the oppression of any sex, including men and boys, intersexual people, and transgender people.

The domestic violence is a clear example of sexism. Changing that is only in our hands. We can change that if we report to the police all of these violence that we see. In this way, we will be able to help people who really are struggling. 

TEENAGE HACKER JAILED FOR MASTERMINDING ATTACKS ON SONY AND MICROSOFT

Adam Mudd was 16 when he created the Titanium Stresser program, which was used to carry out more than 1.7 million attacks on websites. He earned the equivalent of more than £386,000 in US dollars and bitcoins from selling the program to cybercriminals. During the trial he showed no emotion and he was sent to a young offender institution. The court heard that Mudd, who lived with his parents, had previously undiagnosed Asperger syndrome and was more interested in status in the online gaming community than the money. The Aspenger syndrome is a developmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication. Polnay,  the prosecuting said there were more than 112,000 registered users of Mudd’s program who hacked about 666,000 IP addresses. Among the targets was the fantasy game RuneScape, which had 25,000 attacks. Mudd pleaded guilty to one count of committing unauthorised acts with intent to impair the operation of computers. Ben Cooper, defending, said Mudd had been sucked into the cyber world of online gaming after withdrawing from school because of bullying.

Personally, I believe that the problems who had suffered the boy all throughout his life have greatly influenced with the crimes he has committed. Because of his disease and for the problems that he has suffered in the society, he has acted of this form. 

Link of the news: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/25/teenage-hacker-adam-mudd-jailed-masterminding-attacks-sony-microsoft

THE GOVERNMENT JUST ANNOUNCED A GAMECHANGER FOR CYCLING IN ENGLAND

THE GOVERNMENT JUST ANNOUNCED A GAMECHANGER FOR CYCLING IN ENGLAND

The government has said it can achieve its goal of doubling cycling, and is now legally bound to do so. The government’s intention to launch a CWIS (the publication of the cycling and walking investment strategy) was first announced in January 2015. The CWIS has been the result of years of pressure from cycling and walking groups and the concerted efforts of a small but dedicated group of civil servants. The CWIS promises up to £1.2bn will be spent on cycling and walking by 2020/21. We can expect £26 per head to be invested in cycling and walking over the next four years for everyone in England outside of London.  With so much funding for cycling and walking it is absolutely crucial and in the areas where it will have the most impact. There’s some excellent guidance for councils on how to begin planning and delivering comprehensive cycling and walking networks in their areas. This is supported by the government-funded Propensity to Cycle Tool, which allows local authorities to map the potential for increased travel by bike under different scenarios. The government has said it can achieve its goal of doubling cycling with half the recommended amount. The people want their local roads and streets to be well designed, well maintained and, above, all safe and attractive for everyone to use. The health, environmental, economic and quality-of-life benefits of doing so will be enormous.

I think that it is a good initiative on the part of the government. That will be the best option because, in this way, the people who wants to be kept in shape, will be able to do it. It also will encourage another people to practise cycling or walking.

Link of the news: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2017/apr/26/the-government-just-announced-a-gamechanger-for-cycling-in-england

AIR POLLUTION PLAN CANNOT BE DELAYED, HIGH COURT TELLS GOVERNMENT

The government has been ordered to publish tough new plans to tackle air pollution after the high court rejected attempts by ministers to keep the policy under wraps until after the general election. In the latest defeat for ministers over their continued failure to tackle the UK’s air pollution crisis, which is believed to be responsible for 40,000 premature deaths a year The new measures are likely to include the imposition of multiple clean-air zones across the country, where drivers will face fines if their vehicles do not pass roadside emissions tests. The judge said the government’s own figures showed that nitrogen dioxide pollution is linked to the premature deaths of 23,500 people a year in the UK. The court decided that the threat to public health constituted “exceptional circumstances”. The nation’s dirty air is one of the most important public health issues in recent times. The high court’s decision recognises the need to urgently tackle this crisis. The plans included five clean-air zones where diesel drivers faced charges if their cars did not pass emissions tests.

Be careful of our environment is crucial for our health and for the maintenance of our planet. The environmental pollution can cause many deaths every year. For this it is important that the governments raises awareness about this problem and try to solve it.

Link of the news:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/27/air-pollution-plan-election-campaign-bomb-court-government

WHAT IS LOVE?

What is love? In these years I make to me also this question, which is very difficult to answer, but I will try to answer that or, simply, I will try to explain what happen when we fall in love.

Every people, in a moment of his life, has fall in love with a person, but, why this person and no other? That’s a thing that we don’t choose. We don’t choose the person that we love! That’s true.

When we fall in love with a boy or a girl, our hearth quickens and we notice that we lack air. And, when we see this person we cannot avoid smile, to the point that we seem to be stupid.

We try to approach this person everything what we can, and try to talk with him, to have conversations... and when we see this person we are nervous…

Sometimes, we try to speak with him, but we cannot. We are not capable of reacting and our mouth can’t say any word. We are collapsed. Why the brain and the heart do not put in agreement? That’s another question very difficult to answer…

But, having the person that we love always in our mind is a great manifestation of love, of pure love.

Who didn’t suffer that in a moment of the life? That are only sensations that we experimented when we fall in love. Those are splendid and magic feelings that are always 
presents in our life.