Gris Y Aun Mas Deprimente

Experimental Poetry

Gris y aún más deprimente.

Me tropiezo, casi caigo

Mi cara mojada, sigo caminando

Triste pero cierto, pienso

No dejo que se hunda

Hasta ahora todo lo visto es gris

Deambulando por acantilados de tiempo

Mi cabeza flota

Mi mirada me duele. Da pena

Sentir melancolía no se compara.

É l perdió su guante,

Gris como este día

Humilde como el hoy,

Perdido como el mañana

Me hiere los ojos

Mi corazón, mi alma

Alguien está aun más deprimido

La vida no es siempre de colores

Así como estas flores

Llenas de rencor por un enemigo de ataque tardío

Hielo, se siente como en casa

Contemplo el cambio

con mirada un paso afuera

No me siento eterno

Si gira, me petrifico

Si vuela me desplomo

Si ríe me golpea

Si es feliz, sigo así

Déjà vu? Error

Circuito cerrado

Circulo maldito

Rueda del infortunio

Afortunado soy

de pensar en él devuelta

El pesado guante

De pasado, no pisado

Aplastado, abandonado

Él me crea un presente

más vivo y cambiante

Un camino recto

Que seguirlo no cansa

Mis pies ya no están.

Al menos no los veo

Respiro por la boca

Amplia y sonriente

Como es posible?

Un sacrificio. Un mártir.

Inconsciente, tangible

Los globos azules

Abajo mío

Subo rápido

El algodón susurra

Mi piel aúlla

Mis dientes se despedazan

Mis labios se abren

Liberan mi fluido esencial

Mis extremidades fluyen

Como en un río inundado de aire

Se desvanecen

Con ellos mis sentimientos

No hay desesperación

No mas rencor ni resentimiento

No siento mi vieja compañera

Mi tan olvidada ya depresión

Lucas Craig

Through The Gate I Shall Be Gone

Margaret Baldwin is my name. There’s no certainty on how old I am. Dead? Not yet i suppose. But I’m close to it, that’s a fact.
I have been standing behind this door for an eternity now and it seems that my staying will last for some more, This place, horrid. Lights? There’s none. Cold? Freezing to the bone. I can’t move, it feels like those dreams where you can’t scream of horror, no voice nor sound will come out your mouth. Where you want to run to escape a fatal destiny but your legs move slowly and get slower with every second that passes and feel like taking a thousand years long to move.
I’m alone now but haven’t always been. There have been 2 opportunities now where I have had the company of different people. One, the first one, was an old man. Old, older, so old he couldn't even remember his age. His face showed infinite centuries which had passed though him endless days and night that he could no longer enjoy. He did not speak and it was useless for me to speak to him. His eyes nevertheless revealed the beauty he had once had.
Such glitter was ever to be seen but in those huge pair of great lighthouses. Immense, blinding and serious at all times but carried within a certain touch of joy.
He didn't stay long but those were times were I could be, or some part of me, unaware of me situation and the atmosphere which surrounded my suffering being. Somehow his eyes shone with a kind of blissful light and revealed to mine the truth about the room. It was my height tall and there was space just enough for us both. The walls didn't seem like solid material and they weren't either stable nor immutable. I could just imagine it re-shaped when someone else came in. Along with his years ran long times of his bides in this hole.
There was a door, more likely a gate. It worked as entrance and exit. That's all I knew about it. He was gone.
Some long and deep thinking time passed be and the tribal shaped metal opened,the darkness gave some little space, she entered. 9? 10? I couldn't dare to ask, not even after she did with her soft but high pitched voice. I couldn't answer more accurately than "Much more than you I'm sure" She chuckled.
That lovely and tranquil sound lasted until the end in my mind, for my old brain and eyes weren't able to take hold of her face for long. My memory of her, lies in my ears. Once in a while I remember. Once in a while I'm comforted by her.
My chest hurts. My head bursts. This place has given me enough to think about and gave me another picture of life that I hadn't seen when I was...well, alive? I guess I'm not now. It just doesn't feel like it. There's no joy to enjoy. Even colors have stayed behind.
Today I spit blood. Dark and thick. My blood, a bad signal. The end must be close. So much suffering is unfair. I want it to end...to end...My bones are already too weak to bear my own weight. I can feel my scalp, my veins are wrinkled and voluminous. I shake. I tremble. Oh God, can you hear me? Will you listen to my prayers? Do something! Tears splashed over my shrunken cheeks. Their taste I could not even differ. I can sense bags below my eyes.
My lungs have compressed themselves and won't let sufficient air get in. I think I've given my last breath let go...
Down below, in another dimension, in a hospital room a machine made a monotonous high pitched sound. The body lied peacefully immobile. Stone cold. A clean white sheet covered the departed.

Love remained the same

Creative writing - Rosario Gonzalez Plaza

For my writing task I chose to write a fictional letter from Sanaubar, a minor character in The Kite Runner, to her son Hasssan. In it she finds the atonement she had been looking for for so many years. Despite the very little information the readers are given about Sanaubar’s character, I felt this fictional letter would return her the honor she was deprived of. On the other hand, I felt that Hassan’s character, his tenderness and kindness, had to have a more profound origin, and by giving the creation of his life such a passionate encounter I believe the reader would have another reason to feel touched by the story.

Love remained the same

Hassan agha,

There are certain things about life we are not given the right to understand. There must be, for unfairness seems to be present in our blood.
Memories, my dear, have the power to shed tears of joy… and pain as well. I remember the moment I saw your eyes for the first time while you were being delivered as well as I remember the moment I turned to see my front door for the last time …
The word LOVE never made more sense than the day I found out I was pregnant. It s out of my capacity to describe the million things I felt at that moment. Because the creation of a new being whose soul is the fusion of two passionate lovers can only be compared with the elation of daydreaming.
And that’s why my heart bleeds so much when I think of the pain and loneliness lies might have caused you, the most innocent of all. But I am not writing to discuss my feelings, I am not writing to be reasonable either. And I don’t want to preoccupy myself either with what my actions might have caused you. Instead I just want you to know the truth you deserve to hear despite all the years you were deprived of it. I want you to feel, for once, the love that’s inside you.
So this is love, this is you. I remember the first time I crossed looks with your father. Your father, not the honorable man who raised you. Yes, I remember. It was an unspoken secret; we had fallen for each other. We shouldn’t have. Yet we couldn’t help it. It was not meant to be. He took the risk of coming to my window one night and stared into my eyes… I will never forget the tenderness of his look, window of the sweetness of his temper, the benevolence of his heart and his sparkling soul. We kissed. There was no need to chat. Kisses reveal the unspoken. We made love with the clarity of passion. There were not two people on earth with more purity of love than ours. There were no two people on earth with more opposite destinies either. I opened my eyes the next morning to find myself next to the man I loved and praised, and to shed a tear for what was about to come.
Baba loved you, he loved you infinitely. He loved you so much he would give his dear son to his servant and best friend to make sure you had a better future than the one already written for you and to have you close to him, even if that reminded him of his guilt daily. He would love you so much he would do everything in his hands to be sure I was still alive, saving me from my fatal destiny for violating my family’s honor. There were lies to disguise the truth … lies whose cost you probably had to pay; lies about me that my imperfect memories try to vanish but the burden on my consciousness is still on my fragile shoulders.
We never saw ourselves again closely enough to find in each other’s eyes again the peace we both so much longed for. I had to run away right after you were born, for we could not risk the life of the three of us. If someone else had found out we would have been chased and stoned to death .Our family honor would have been stained forever and we, remembered as criminals. It was only me who ran away, but we all made sacrifices. And we did it for love. We did it for you, the blossom of our connection.
There’s no shame in truth. Men seem to find shame in freedom. Regardless of everything and upon reflection I have felt like the most blessed woman on earth ever since I saw your father for the first time. There was no room in your father’s heart, great as the world, to feel anger or resentment as he understood about honor and responsibility. But I understood about unfairness and sorrow. Away from the man I loved and my adored son, it took me a long time to find peace with myself and the world again. It took me more than it should have. But that’s why I came to you, my son, with no more mourning or crying or pain, but with just the treasured gift of truth and the healing power of love.
I hope you can forgive us.

Loved you always.

Sanaubar

My Confession

Through this short story I tried to give a voice to Sanaubar, a minor character in The Kite Runner. The only thing we know about her character is that she leaves her family and runs away. I wrote a story narrated by her, trying to explain the reasons why she did this. She is a very cold woman who blames life for her own faults and who is not sorry for the things she did. This is my version of her personality and this is also how I felt when I read about her in the book.


It is really hard to describe what I felt when I got the news: it was simply… unbelievable. I felt guilty enough already, that feeling of bretrayal was eating me inside, but we all make mistakes, don’t we? We’ve got to deal with them and just get over them, and I thought I had, until I found out I was pregnant and it wasn’t my husband’s baby, it was actually his best friend’s.
It might seem terrible, but it wasn’t. I mean I don’t want to sound like an awful person, but let’s be realistic: a woman’s dream is, and will always be, getting married with the perfect man, have the perfect family and live happily ever after in a perfect house. At least that was my dream, my idea of the perfect life, but it never came true: I married a man who, to be honest, was really far from being perfect, we didn’t have babies and we lived miserably, but when you’re young and in love… again, I guess we can make a lot of mistakes in life and this was a really big one.
There was something I couldn’t live with, and it is hard for me to face, but I was so jealous of her. She had everything I had ever dreamed of, my ideal of the perfect life: she was married to that strong, powerful and wealthy –wealthy above all- young man. They lived in the perfect mansion and she was pregnant, and the baby was obviously supposed to be as perfect as they, as their love, as their family, as their life. And who was I? The insignificant wife of that hideous servant and our lives were devoted to serving them. Why was I supposed to watch how their lives blossomed every single day while I was sleeping next to a man who would never give me babies? I didn’t even choose to live with him, my whole life had been planned since I was young: our families knew each other and they figured we should get married, even though we weren’t in love, at least I wasn’t. I have to admit it wasn’t that bad, Ali was a nice man and all but once you start to realize none of your dreams is becoming true, it all gets boring and life just doesn’t make sense anymore.
Oh… it makes me so mad even to think about those times. I never, ever felt like a woman until that unique day came, one of those days you remember for the rest of your life even though the consequences were terrible. It was another happy and lovely day for the perfect family: that child was already born and their lives couldn’t possibly get better. But it happens, I mean, nothing can be THAT perfect, can it? She died, some complications after labour, I heard. She seemed fine at first, but she didn’t last too long, those weak women who know nothing about life never do so.
A couple of months later, Baba and I made what he calls ‘the worst mistake of our whole life’. What were we supposed to do? Lie? We all knew Ali was infertile so the baby was obviously not his. So we just pretended, the three of us, that everything was just fine, I still cannot understand Ali’s reaction: he didn’t say anything, anything at all! Always with that smile and that understanding look on his face. What the hell was going on? Some months after the big news he confessed he could understand me as he was never able to give me what I always wanted: a family. How can someone understand something like that? I cheated on him and all he could say was that he understood my reasons? So he forgave me and promised to raise that child as if he was his own, but no! It wasn’t his baby! That made him even more disgusting to my eyes. Couldn’t he get mad for once in his life? I hated him for loving me so much and for being so forgiving. What can I say? Women can be very complicated sometimes.
Don’t missunderstand me, it’s not like I felt fine with the situation. I had made a terrible mistake but it was already too late to do something about it and at least I had a moment of happines in my life, I deserved it. The lousiest 9 months of my life went by slowly, and they were torturing: Ali was around me all the time and Baba played the friend role the whole time, as if the baby wasn’t his. It was absloutely irritating as you can imagine. That fake situation was driving me crazy. The day Hassan was born finally came. I didn’t know what to feel: I was not happy or pleased at all, but everyone around me seemed to be so, again, I had to pretend that that was the happiest moment in my whole life but I kept feeling so depressed. Wasn’t this what I’d always wanted? Maybe it was, but that wasn’t how I wanted it to happen.
A few days after giving birth I grew restless, suffocated. I couldn’t stand that situation anymore: we were still servants at that luxurious mansion and there was something even worse than that, Hassan was in our lives now. Having to look into Hassan’s eyes every day of my life made me feel really nervous, it’s actually kind of hard to explain. Who was he? It seemed it was Ali’s baby even though I knew very well who his father was, a small version of the man I hate, it was exactly like him, that smile, that gentle look… Running away was my best option. So that’s what I did.

Geraldine Galvez

Chapter between 9 and 10 for The Kite Runner

I didn’t even know why I had to leave. That Amir wanted me to had been obvious for days, but what was the reason? I could instantly notice the feeling of rejection in his eyes. He needed me out of the house as soon as it could be possible. I thought I was the one that should be mad with him after he ran away while I was being attacked by Assef and his friends, but it was the other way round, he didn’t even want to see me. After so many years living like brothers, being obliged in some way to quit the life with which I was happy, starting a new one sounded unfair to me. What did I do wrong? But it seemed not to have an answer. I had to move on.
Dad lied to Baba that day we were leaving about going to uncle Hazarajat’s house. We had to look for a new house, a new home, somewhere new to live. This was something that we had never had to do. We always had Baba’s comfortable mansion in Kabul. We had never had to worry about living in the street and be homeless. Ali, my father, had always lived with Baba and his father. We had always had the peace of a secure house and family. But this time there wasn’t any Baba, or any Amir either.
That was something about which I was really concerned. Being alone was new to me, I never had to deal a similar situation, it was something in which I had no experience at all. I was born and raised next to Amir, and he had never been absent for me through all these years. Thinking that those stories, games, runs to the pomegranate tree wouldn’t be there anymore terrified me. And all guided me to the same question, why?
Days passed and we had to move to a very old abandoned house and look for a job, and luckily maybe a new “Baba’s mansion”. At first it was very hard, and as days went by we started to get used to it. But for me there was nothing left to do. It was like being born again, a new life had started and this time I had to deal with it alone.
Our neighbours were quite nice people. They were Hazara servants, just like us. Their son, Borat, was a twelve-year-old boy. He reminded me of Amir. He was a natural leader, always knew some new game to play all afternoon. Why not give him a chance. I decided to try.
At first it was impossible to get along with this new lifestyle. All the comfortable aspects of our past life were gone and I started to learn what real life was like, and sometimes even without our basic necessities. Dad always reminded me that this experience would help me in my future, but how could I stand having less food and money? I suppose it was something of my age that I couldn’t understand, but dad was always right and I trusted him. Things should get better.
Borat taught me many things about how to get by in my new life. Playing with him always up till late was great, we never got tired, just like with Amir. It made me very happy to have a playing partner again, although I knew it wasn’t the same. Borat wasn’t Amir.
I talked a lot with him about Amir, I taught him all the games we used to play, told him all the stories he used to tell me, all the places we had visited and obviously the big kite tournament we won together. I avoided the details of my meeting with Assef when I was looking for the much desired blue kite for Amir. But he wasn’t really interested in it. In these situations he usually changed the theme we were talking about and proposed some new recently invented game. That made me feel a little uncomfortable sometimes. I liked to talk about Amir, he was part of my life and he would always be.
I missed him so much. But what made me so sad was the anger of feeling that I would never talk to him again. In some way my brother started to disappear. I began to forget his face, and also Baba’s too. But, in some way, I felt them in my heart. At that time, I started with the obsession of writing him letters that I thought I would never send him, like kind of pretending to be in contact with him. But they never got to his hands until I asked Rahim Kahn to do it many years later. I hope that they did.



Felipe Martínez Devoto

The First Goodbye

“I just can’t stand waiting this long everyday. What do they talk about anyway?” José whispered without moving his lips too much. “Oh! At last, why did it take so long?”
“You should have gone then, I wasn’t going to end the conversation because you were waiting ”, said Raúl, “I enjoy talking to people who actually know things. This teacher, Enrique something, I don’t remember his surname, is probably the most learned person in the whole school. Yesterday he was giving me some advice...”
“So, wanna do something at my place?”
“No, I’m not in the mood right now, in fact we’ve got homework for tomorrow and I want to sleep well tonight.”
José was already walking out, “Doing homework, huh! See ya later then.”
Raúl sighed.
The following morning, they were laughing about a classmate who once farted in History class and the teacher locked the boys in until the smell was gone. It was one of those past events that were brought up constantly and they laughed as hard as the day it actually happened. Outside it was misty and the windows were blurred because of the cold, no-one could see the schoolyard from the inside, and the room looked much smaller. Suddenly, when the laughs died down, Raúl said, “What are you going to study when we graduate? If we graduate, of course.”
“I want to be a doctor,” said José.
“That was a quick answer. So... when did you make up your mind?”
“Last year I guess. Why are you so interested?” His eyes wandered over the classroom and seemed to be reading what Mrs Ortega had been writing on the board.
“What? Why shouldn’t I? It’s your life, you’re my friend. Do I really need to ask you those things? I mean, why didn’t you tell me before? It doesn’t offend me though, well to some point it does. We’ve been friends for more than four years now, four years of having the same conversations, telling the same jokes and you don’t take just one minute to tell me that. Are we not supposed to talk about serious stuff?” Some people turned around, but as neither of the two spoke they turned again.
“I’m sorry,” said José, “but it’s not such a big deal.”
The bell rang and Raúl turned to his left to clear the window.
“It’s just drizzling. Let’s go outside,” Raúl said as he stood up. “I feel kind of frustrated, you know. At this point of my life all I want to do is have fun, enjoy the time left. But I can’t do it this way, not without sharing it with you. Anyway, are you even interested in what I’m going to study? Do you already know?”
“I am interested” said José.
“I don’t know what I’m going to study, really, and we are almost four months from graduation! I can’t think under pressure. But that’s another problem.” He cleared his throat and spoke in a lower voice. “I think I’m not ready to leave school right now, leave these people or leave you. I would give anything for one more year.” He scratched his forehead roughly. “You know what’s funny? I have always had this thought that we were meant to be friends. We like most of the same stuff, we have the same sense of humour and we never had a problem with each other. And now we’ve got one.” José stayed still. “Or that’s how I feel these days, because I’ve realised that what I know is your favourite food or what you do on Thursday afternoons, you get what I mean? Knowing how you react, what’s your opinion about anything, what you like or dislike about people including me is what I want to know. In fact, I have never known what you don’t like about me.” A cool breeze was blowing and they walked towards the classrooms for shelter. “I’m sorry, going back, I think a four year experience should have told us something about each other, but they didn’t seem to be enough. The way I see it we have never been ourselves, we always tried to be someone else to get on well. You with your ever lasting good humour, your pessimistic view of the school and teachers, and any other attitude that’s typical, just don’t seem to be right. I can feel it, you are different.”
“Well,” said José, “being optimistic I think I know one thing about us; we’ve still got so much to learn. I certainly know that. I am happy to have you beside me.”
Raúl rearranged his hair, “I am too, believe me. But university won’t wait and we don’t have much time to learn from each other as you say, it will lead us to different paths and we won’t see each other as often. I can’t even imagine myself next year”
“Ok, change subject. It’s depressing”
“Right...” minutes passed, they ejoyed themselves watching their classmates play football. “So... how’s Julieta doing?” Raúl asked, “I haven’t seen you together since, I don’t know.”
“She’s fine, we’re fine, it’s all going great, as usual.”
“Not convinced?” He smiled. “Where is she?”
“Somewhere south I guess. Family trip.”
“And you’ve been together for... two and a half years?”
“I guess, but I’m gonna dump her before graduation. After that I want to start a new life alone.”
Esteban, one of the football players, approached them. “José, Raúl, wanna play? We need you both to have a game. It’s not so cold once you start moving”
“Sure, I’m in” said José.
Raúl looked unsurprised, “I’m not playing. Thanks anyway”

Confronting the truth, a way to mature

Mostly every child, no matter their culture or religion, thinks dad is a kind of super hero. It is part of the growing process that a child discovers that their own dad is a common human being, with his pros and cons. In the novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini this fact is present in the whole story, in the way the main character, Amir, looks up to his dad, Baba. Amir can not fully mature when he is an adult because he still looks at his father as superior to himself.
When Amir was a child in Kabul, he used to live with his father. Baba was a very importat person in society as he was one of the richest and most powerful men in the city. At this time, Amir had two problems that bothered him. The first one was he was a fearful kid, and the second was his father wasn’t. These problems are the centre of the father-child relationship throughout the first part in the story.
“A boy who can’t sand up for himself, becomes a man who can’t stand up to anything”says Baba. Amir hears his dad saying this to his best friend, Rahim Khan, after seeing Amir being bullied by other kids. This feeling that his dad had for him is the obstacle to a better relation between them.
“My father was a force of nature, a towering Pashtun specimen with a thick beard, a wayward crop of curly brown hair as the man himself , hands that looked capable of uprooting a willow tree, and a black glare that would “drop the devil to his knees begging for mercy”, as Rahim Khan used to say.”[1] This shows not only how Amir looks up to his dad, but how everybody do so as well. Baba was the centre of attention and his presence was just impossible to ignore. The importance of this part of the book is how Amir lives with the concept that his father is some kind of super-hero.
Amir shows the admiration he feels towards his father, admiring mostly his bravery, conviction, and moral sense. “Tell this man I’d take a thousand bullets before I let this indency take place” says Baba. In this episode they were running away in a truck from the Russian invasion in Afghanistan. In the border, a Russian soldier wanted to have sex with a married woman who was escaping with them, in exchange for letting them pass. Baba confronted the soldier’s petition and he almost got killed. Attutudes like this made Amir look up to his dad with profund admiration.
But later in the story Amir dicovers the truth, his Hazara servant was his half brother. In this episode Rahim Khan talks to Amir after his father died, which is important to the development of all the others aspects of the story (betrayal,fear, ghosts of childhood, friendship and redemption). But it’s importance is that Amir understands, finally, why his father used to behave as such a hero. He has this weight on his shoulders; he is so afraid of social prejudice that he cannot admit he has a Hazara child and he had slept with his servant’s wife. Rahim Khan told Amir “ your father was a tortured soul”, showing how Baba was also looking for redemption by doing good actions.
To conclude I would say that the fact Amir discovered the truth and that he realised his father was a common person, with fears and mistakes as everyone else, makes Amir grow up and stand up to the old fears that had tortured him his whole life, and look for his redemption by being good again.
[1] Hosseini, Khaled: The Kite Runner (page 12-13)

FERNANDO LOPEZ RUBIO

Kite Runner

A Daring Rescue
Never had I imagined that the middle aged man in the false beard would be my saviour. Even less could I have expected what happened during those thirty minutes. And even if it has been over 20 years, I still remember every detail as if it were yesterday.
As I entered the room all dressed up, as always when my new master called for me, I was surprised at seeing another man with Him. The man didn’t look evil like the talib. No, I think he looked scared, or even terrified. He was wearing a kufi and a false beard. He was sitting on the couch eating grapes and he seemed to know the talib. I remember wondering what they would make me do this time, when they would begin. But they never began. Instead they started talking in a language I didn’t understand. There certainly was a strange atmosphere in the room that day. They finally reached an agreement and it seemed like I was leaving with the stranger, who was apparently called Amir. Amir seemed very surprised with the talib’s decision but didn’t say anything. As we started to leave, something strange happened. Amir has told me a hundred times what the whole thing was about but I really think he’s blackening a part of the story about him and my dad. The talib told Amir about a debt that Amir had to pay, and before I knew it the talib had taken out a brass knuckle with which he savagely started beating my saviour in a way I didn’t think was possible. Amir tried to defend himself but I could see in his way of fighting that he hadn’t been in many fist-fights in his life. The talib repeatedly hit Amir in the face. He wasn’t killing him, he was destroying him. I stood there, paralyzed for what seemed like an eternity. I tried to think. I really wanted to help Amir but I didn’t know how. I finally remembered the slingshot I always had with me. I had become famous in the orphanage for my power and accuracy with it. And it wasn’t for nothing; the slingshot was a deadly weapon in my hands. I just needed something to shoot, something small and hard. I watched around the chaotic room trying to ignore the havoc produced by the fight. I finally got my eyes on a small metal pellet attached to a table leg. The two men were too busy fighting to see me, so I slowly went over to the table and started to remove the pellet. I was just about to get it loose when I heard someone laugh. It wasn’t the talib’s nasty roar of laughter, but a truly happy one. I couldn’t believe my ears and I was even more confused when I turned around and saw that it was Amir who was laughing. His face was barely a face anymore and he was far beyond recognition. The talib looked as confused as I was and stopped the beating for a second or two before he kept on disfiguring Amir’s face. I finally had the pellet in my hand. I loaded my slingshot, tensed the rubber bands and aimed for the talib’s eye. I gathered courage and managed to call out a weak “stop it”. The talib turned around and faced me with an ear-to-ear grin, which faded away as soon as he saw my slingshot. I didn’t hesitate. I knew this was my chance to finally be free. I didn’t care much about the other man at the time. I was more concerned of what was going to happen to me. I realize now that it was a very risky shot. I didn’t think of the possible consequences if I had missed, and I prefer not to know. But as I let go of the pellet I realized I wasn’t going to miss. I saw the metal ball take the place of his right eye. It was a horrible sight which I wish I could erase from my mind. The talib fell to the ground in pain and I hurried over to Amir to help him out the door. He was barely conscious and I needed someone to carry him. Fortunately he had a friend waiting outside who helped him into a jeep. I think he passed out the moment we got him into the car. The trip that followed was the longest of my life.

We saved each others’ lives that day, and even if I soon after this incident lost my faith in Amir, there has been a special bond between my uncle Amir and me ever since. Anyway, I eventually forgave my uncle, and the two of us now live in America. I have a wonderful wife and I’m soon to be a father. I’m glad I can give my children the opportunity to grow up here in America, and I owe it all to my heroic uncle. I will always worship him for his courage to go to Afghanistan to save me. There is something that troubles me though; I just can’t understand why he burst out laughing when he was getting the beating of his life.

by Anton Trolleberg

His mind is what I am today

Have you ever asked why we think as we think today, and why the world is organized as it is organized today? What is the origin of all the thoughts that we have in our mind? The world is like a vast lock, full of mysteries, and philosophy is the key that reveals the mysteries of existence and reality to us. It tries to discover the nature of truth and knowledge, and which are the basic values and the importance in life. It also examines the relationship between humanity and nature, and between the individual and society. Philosophy increases inside us curiosity, and the desire to know and understand. It is just a process of analysis, criticism, interpretation, and speculation. What we see today with our eyes is the result of our intelligence. Socrates was the first person who put human beings in the center of his thoughts. He has not written anything; however he has left his footprints in the European’s civilization, and has inspired during almost 2.500 years the Western countries’ thinkers.
The pre-Socratics were the first Greek philosophers. Their name comes from the fact that most of them lived before Socrates’ birth. They were mainly interested in the nature and source of the Universe. These philosophers saw the Universe as a set of connected phenomena, for which thoughts and doubts could find an explanation. The importance of pre-Socratics lies not in the truth of their answers, but in the fact that they examined the questions in the first place. This has inspired and influenced on later philosophers such as Socrates.
This great philosopher of the Ancient period was born in Athens, between 470 and 469 B.C. His father, Sophroniscus, was a sculptor and his mother, Phaenarete, was a mid-wife. He acquired the traditional culture of good families, and finished his military obligations, in which participated in important battles. In his youth, he was fascinated by the philosophy of nature, but as he could not find any coherent explanation to define its existence, he started his investigations putting human beings in the center of his thoughts. He dedicated his life to the analysis of human’s intelligence, and the field of ethics. Socrates also tried to get a precise view of some abstract ideas, such as knowledge, virtue, justice and wisdom.
Athens was in that moment the cultural life of Greece. It was developing a democracy in which the only condition was that its inhabitants receive good education. As consequences, a wide group of professors and errant philosophers, known as sophists, arrived to Athens. The sophists believed in relativism, and they were paid for their teachings.These principles were against what a philosopher shoul be for Socrates. For him, a philosopher is the one that admits that he knows few things and that is constantly looking for wisdom; and in fact, he was someone like this.
Socrates employed most of his life having conversations with Athenians in public places, such as streets and parks. He used a method as a tool of his teaching, which is known as the “Socratic method”.It consisted in making simple questions to different people, and Socrates pretending to know nothing.This was called Socratic irony.But through the conversation, he started to make people realize their wrong thoughts and their lack of knowledge.He made them think and formulate better answers.This method was also related to his mother’s profession; it was said that while Socrates’ mother helped to give birth to babies, Socrates gave birth to new ideas. For him, the true knowledge comes from inside each individual.
Because of that, Socrates used to say that there was a divine voice inside him that tells him what is right and what is wrong. His correct personality led him to contract lots of enemies as he left in ridicule those people that had a conversation with him. Generally, those people were politicians, artists, and merchants. Most of them were of high position in the society and were considered wise people. In 399 B.C., he was accused of corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens, and was poisoned in the same year. He would have saved his life if he had admitted that his thoughts were wrong, but he never gave up. He continued teaching to his disciples up to the last minute of his breath.
Athens was like an apathetic brawny horse, whereas Socrates was the odious fly trying to wake it up and keep it alive.His spirited and rational thoughts were the origin of most of Western people’s beliefs. He should be the desire of each individual; to have a critical and personal point of view towards every situation, and to defend it with arguments. This helps us to learn something which is discussed and analized by our own mind, and not repeat as a parrot the pre-fabricated answers or possible solutions; because what we think is what we are.
Eliana Li

Review: Shakespeare For Managers

I got Shakespeare for Managers by Rolf Breitenstein as a present and at first I thought it was a book for people interested in being a manager, investor or something related. To my surprise, the book could be read by any ordinary reader who definitely does not have to have any knowledge of Shakespeare or business.
At first the book talks about Shakespeare, his achievements as a playwright, and compares him with today’s investors, economists, CEOs, etc. For example Shakespeare had 10% of the Globe’s income, the theater he worked in, he bought land and properties in different places of England, he risked his career by making different kinds of plays the English were not accustomed to.

Later on there is an analysis of twelve of Shakespeare’s plays which focus on the behaviour of the characters (their characteristics, their strengths and weaknesses), also on the situation each one experiences. This is directly compared with a firm or company where every character plays its role according to their position, e.g. a king is today’s chief executive officer. All of this can be used as a guide or introduction to the business world, and also to Shakespeare’s because you get to know his style, the topics he wrote about which touch on many aspects of life, such as love, hate, death, friendship, doubt,
patience, among others.
In the last few pages there are interesting summaries of his 37 plays (which have no comment on business matters). These are ordered into tragedies and comedies, which are chronologically arranged and the histories, which follow a true historical order; Breitenstein considers that Shakespeare’s plays are too long and summaries are extremely useful, quoting “brevity is the soul of wit”.
There are also three of the most famous speeches “To be or no to be” from Hamlet, “Quality of mercy” from The Merchant of Venice and “All the world’s a stage” from As You Like It. These are very clever speeches, which are written eloquently and have huge power of language, rich in metaphors and other literary devices.
The book is original and practical, also comic, because of the informal analysis, and the alternative endings the author gives to most of the stories. These are usually short; they show that if something or someone had acted differently or if technology had existed in Shakespeare’s plays, the outcome would have been different.
I had never read anything about Shakespeare before, and with just a few lines and phrases it has opened my mind to another world. The whole idea of the book derives from the quote “To buy or not to buy: that is the question”, which summarizes the manager topic with ‘Hamlet’s’ most profound soliloquy. When reading the book, you get to compare different opinions, conclusions and points of view on the same topic, and that way you get a general meaning of Shakespeare’s works.



Pablo Craig

Reacción a la Muestra de Bachillerato de Arte 2007

Por Constanza Ellwanger Bossi - 9°A

1. ¿Qué valor tienen las manos para Valentina? ¿La mano de quién está estrangulando al mundo?

Las manos significan muchas cosas para Valentina. Entre esas cosas están la comunicación, la creación, la represión y la prohibición de la expresíón, el amor y el cariño, y la ayuda.

La mano de nosotros mismos está estrangulando al mundo. Nosotros estamos arruinando el mundo, no sólo ambientalmente, pero en distintos problemas y guerras, con la ignorancia y la no aceptación de las diferencias entre nosotros y con la mentira.

2. ¿Qué impresión o impacto te produce el disparo de la AK-47?

Un impacto muy fuerte. Lo primero que pensé fue en la Segunda Guerra Mundial, en como los nazis mataban tan fácilmente a otras personas, luego pensé en el vacío que puede llegar a tener un alma, y el arma reoresentaría la causa de ese vacío, que puede ser un problema cualquiera, pero grave. Más tarde pensé en la discriminación, en cómo una persona (que representase el arma) puede tener un corazón tan frío comom para discriminar y burlarse de alguien sólo por diferencias físicas, culturales, económicas, religiosas, etc. Y también cómo esa "burla" puede dañar al discriminado.

3. ¿A quién ves cuando mirás por el ojo?

Cuando miro por el ojo, veo un lugar vacío, de puertas cerradas, oportunidades rechazadas, una vida tan fría y llena de soledad. Veo también una mente cerrada que no está dispuesta a escuchar o a recibir ningún tipo de ayuda. Una persona aficionada y viciosa, ignorante y egoísta, llena de dolor y sufrimiento y ciega, sin poder notar el "buen camino".

4. ¿Cuántas imágenes ves en el juego de espejos? ¿Qué significan?

Veo muchas imágenes, imágenes que se multiplican cuadno las miro en los espejos. Significan para mí, la población, en un avance constante, multiplicándose con mucha rapidez.

IB Work

The impact of technology on our daily life

by Antonieta Majorel '07

Technology has become part of our daily life and its presence is increasing with every new and fantastic service or device launched in the market. We have become so used to it that it has changed some traditions. The question is: does technology have a positive or negative impact on our daily life?

Nowadays, technology is experiencing great development in entertainment, such as multiplayer games, videogames, MP3s and even MP4s. These gadgets offer a variety of ways of having fun, on your own or with someone else. The negative point is that they are frequently used alone, which increases the tendency of isolation. People live immersed in their own universe, without paying attention to what surrounds them. As a consequence, face-to-face relationships are affected. However, with the Internet, e-mail and some online games, another form of global communication has emerged. We can be in touch with people from Italy, China and Guatemala simultaneously, or read the recent news published in South Africa, Prague or Vancouver. This favors cultural exchange, which makes people more open-minded and accepting of differences. Besides, MP3s and MP4s aren’t only used for entertainment but also for the storage of information, like pen-drives. This is a very practical use. The downside is that statistics show a tendency of getting deaf earlier if you listen to extremely loud music frequently.

Another aspect of technology is that it has changed the traditional concept of work. With e-mail, some jobs allow working at home, without going to the office. Research has confirmed that this new method is more productive than the traditional one. However, they also found that working at home leads to devoting more hours to work. This idea is related to the loss of privacy due to the fact that modern workers are always on call. With mobile phones and the Internet we are always available for any kind of message, either from family or work. The dilemma with technology is that we don’t know how to organize our time, i.e. when to work and when to relax. In fact, technology isn’t the problem; the difficulty is that we don’t set our schedule properly. Still, our life quality has decreased because we have become stressed-out workaholics. What's more, our work quality has also diminished because as technology allows us to do many activities at the same time, we don’t concentrate much on each and that affects our performance.

In conclusion, despite having negative consequences on account of its wrong use – deafness owing to loud music, isolation, extra hours working at home, being always on call - technology itself is a key tool that helps us to simplify and improve our life. A great variety of new devices and services promote cultural exchange, boost entertainment and give benefits to workers. So, the impact is largely more positive than negative.

REFERENCE

“60 minutes” February 2, 2006. Report by Lesley Stahl. “Technology, like wireless Internet, the Blackberry and even wired bathrooms are helping Americans work longer hours. Forget 9 to 5 – for some it’s now 5 to 9”.

Stem Cell Research

The use of stem cells is the new advance in science and they are produced by embryos, which are destroyed in order to take these cells. They can replace every type of cell in our body and this is how scientists assure that most diseases can be cured. Biologically, this discovery is wonderful; even paralyzed people will be able to walk again by replacing the damaged cells in the spinal chord. But there is controversy on the issue: is it morally or ethically right to kill embryos?

Undoubtedly it is a great discovery and many lives can be saved, but at the same time there is a moral issue involved. Apart from paralysis in the spinal chord, there are other diseases that can be cured, such as diabetes, Alzheimer and heart problems. That is why, for a sick person the use of stem cells is a great advance in science; they know what it feels to be sick, and it is for sure that they want to be treated. But beyond those great and remarkable results, embryos are potential individuals. And if we kill what is likely to become a person in order to save another life, we are depriving someone’s right to live.

As far as I’m concerned, stem cells are, for sure, an incredible success in science, which shows that we are really improving health treatment. But the fact that embryos have to be destroyed is worth considering. We can’t just discard them because we are trying to save another person, or doing research. This issue is closely related to the controversy over abortion or euthanasia, so I think that it will be as difficult to solve as those issues are. When human life plays a role in the matter, we have to be careful with the choices we make. So, if you are alive, you have the right to live, why should you kill a life that is just beginning?

In my opinion, the research with stem cells that need to sacrifice the embryo shouldn’t be done. The only way I approve the research is with the stem cells that can be taken from the umbilical chord when the baby is born. They are not as efficient as the ones in the embryo, but taking them doesn’t steal the possibility of a person to develop.

References:

- 60 Minutes. Report by Ed Bradley. Feb. 26, 2006

“Dr. Hans Keirstead believes that embryonic stem cells are a medical milestones seen only every 100 years, and he hopes to conduct clinical trials on humans.”

Valentina Becker

3rd polimodal comments on Brave New World

We are reading Brave New World and this is part of Bokanovsky's Process, where people are created without a mother. In first place, they separate the eggs in Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas and Epsilon. They are put in test-tubes and in incubators. After that they bottle the eggs and in the Social Predestination Room, the lower cast receive less oxygen than the higher ones. That's why Alphas and Betas are the developing ones because their brain receives a huge amount of oxygen.


by Nabila Sebih, Camila Masaguer, Pía Aiquel and Chloé Nougués




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This is a picture of a poster made in Literature class. It describes the different steps followed in the Central London Hatchery & Conditioning Centre to make human beings.
The steps are in a circle because each circle represents the test tubes and the curves of blue sky represent social equality.


by Nicolás Barrera, Mercedes Ramallo and María Lobo




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Brave New World
Central London Hatchery & Conditioning Centre



By Daniel Orderique, Pablo Iramain and Diego Aguilar








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This poster describes briefly what happens in Central London Hatchery and conditioning centre. In this place is where, in Brave New World, human beings are created. They created this way of developing human life, because it's easier, and from one embryo they create 96 human beings.

By Gustavo Sanchez Iturbe, Santiago Baricco and Ramiro Lobo

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This poster shows the process of Bokanovsky, in Brave New World. It´s divided in four different steps, explained in the poster. This type of creation is really easier for them, from one embryo they obtain 96 human beings!

By Emilia Lobo, Luz Padilla and Joaquín Chemi

Hemingway's stories

Death is the unavoidable end we all get to, it is the inevitable feeling of “nada”, omnipresent in Hemingway’s stories in which we perceive his true sense of death, in different forms.

The meaning of “nada”, In ‘A Clean Well-Lighted Place’, death is not physical but spiritual. The loneliness that the old waiter and the old man feel is represented as death. Unlike the young waiter, they don’t have anyone waiting at home for them, they are alone and the café stands as an image of light and cleanliness against the dark chaos. The old man and the old waiter don’t want to feel that loneliness, which is why they like going to places like a café where they find order and have company. The old waiter says: “I’m of those who like to stay late at the café… with all those who do not want to go to bed. With all those who need a light for the night”. The old men and the old waiter have both lost their hopes and confidence. They feel like they have no one to share the rest of their lives with. They feel lonely, left behind. And the only way for them to keep those thoughts away is by sitting in a café, where there are other people and they don’t feel so miserable. We can realize that there is a relationship of brotherhood between the old waiter and the old man who feel the same way. The old waiter sympathizes with the old drinker of brandy because he is like him: of the kind that need the cleanliness, the light and company of other persons and unlike the young waiter who wants to go home because he knows that someone is waiting for him and he is impatient to get there. But he is only being selfish and has not the slightest conception of what it means for the old waiter and the old man to keep the café open which represents insulation against the dark.

In ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro’, death is personified, as it approaches Harry: “He had just felt death come by again…It moved up closer to him…so its weight was all upon his chest”. In all the course of the story we can see Harry’s feeling about death. Now that he feels it, he understands the importance of his writing. As he married a wealthy woman, he didn’t feel the need of writing for a living anymore, and now, he regrets it. He knows that he won’t be able to write anymore, and he could have done it a long time ago and written about the things he liked. But it’s too late and he blames his wife for it. Worst of all are the memories of his past life. Liberty, opportunity and Integrity were the qualities which he once owned and now are irrecoverably lost. He was very obsessed with the idea of death and now that it was close, he had lost all curiosity about it. Now time was over and possessive death moves in. Harry has lost hope because he knows that death is waiting for him and he cannot do anything, and he now knows and is aware that he should have written what he liked when he could.

We can also perceive death-symbols like the vultures and the hyenas; the death-image transfers itself from the vultures to this other foul devourer of the dead. Harry finds without astonishment that the image of the hyena is slipping lightly along the edge of the emptiness. “Never believe any of that about the scythe and skull”.

In ‘Hills Like White Elephants’, we can not really see death, but we imagine it. Death is expressed in the future, in a decision. The future of the baby that Jig is carrying in her womb is decided by two people. She only has two options: to have an abortion or not. But if she decides to have the baby, she would put at risk her relationship with the man she loves at the beginning -because at the end, she realizes how selfish and immature he is and how they have a very shallow relationship. So death is the end of a relationship or the death of the baby.

In ‘The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber’, we can see Francis’ death, which is very ironic because he died happily, but all his life he was very miserable, tied to a woman who didn’t love him and who, in the end, kills him. But on the other hand, his death was a happy one because he realized he was not a coward anymore, and with that, he felt very powerful and exultant, although it lasted only for a few minutes. Francis must fight against his wife who does not want him to be self-confident because she is conscious of the consequences that it could have: he would leave her and she would not have the privileges she had for marrying a rich man. Francis must also struggle with his cowardliness which obstructs him from having the respect he deserves form his wife and his friends.

In ‘Now I Lay Me’, the Signor Tenente didn’t want to fall asleep because he was sure that when he did, death would come and take him. “I myself did not want to sleep because I had been living for a long time with the knowledge that if I ever shut my eyes in the dark and let myself go, my soul would go out of my body”. So he started to remember events on his past and he prayed for all the people he saw in that memory and when he finished praying for those people, only then there would be light and he could sleep. He was afraid of darkness which, in this case, represents death in ‘A Clean Well-Lighted Place’.

The way that Hemingway writes is extraordinary because he does not give all the information for the reader, but he makes you think and realize what he is trying to say. There is more to the iceberg than what we see on the surface. For me, it is amazing how he enters upon the theme of death because he mixes different views of it, which is, more importantly, the feeling of being lonely, the fear to have no one waiting for us at home, no one who cares about us or having no one to share our life with. That is a kind of death: not death itself but the feeling we have of being alone in the world.