What I love and I hate about the weather in my country

All countries around the world have different weather. Likely, here, in Spain, the weather is very good. It's usually hot in summer and cold in winter. Would other countries like Switzerland have the weather?

I think that having this climate is perfect. For example, when summer comes to us, it means that we can begin going to the beach as it's always sunny. Also, school classes finish and that's a good point for students (myself included!). So it is at this moment when you meet your friends and can have fun.

However, there are some negative aspects about the weather in my country. The place where I live, Empuriabrava, is a zone located in the north-east of Spain. Because of our location, we have a kind of wind called "tramuntana". "Tramuntana" is horrendous, in my opinion. Once it comes, everybody seems crazy and that's why we often say that this kind of wind affects our body, because of our behaviour. Sometimes, it rains, but I don't consider that a negative point. When I'm sad, the sound of the water drops help me to relax.

So I can honestly say that we can't disagree with the weather we have. Most of the countries around the world would like to have it, central europe countries for example.

The firefighters

In this case I'd like to talk about the job of the firefighters. I think their job is amazing even if they work less, if we compare it with other common jobs. Some people say that their job shouldn't be as remunerated as it is and that's why I would like to comment.

First of all, their job provides us a service, as most of the jobs that exist in the planet. Their objective is to provide us security and to try to avoid damage that affects to nature. Of course, they try to put out fires. The problem that some people see in their job is the money they get; they get between 29.000 and 42.000 euros per year in Catalunya. It may seem a big amount of money keeping in mind that they work, for example, three months of the twelve that a year has. But, I think that this as well paid as it is because their job is really hard and they risk their lifes. We have to keep in mind that a fire is a thing that can happens at any point of the day so they must be prepared to attend to any fire (at least they should). Also, working on these disasters require people who have a good physical condition. The events they have to beat aren't easy. Firefighters, to access to the firefighter's school, have to have, of course, knowledge about medical processes, languages (because they can be send to any part of the EU- in case they take the "oposicions" in Spain-). Another challenge they have to achieve is driving weight vehicles such as fire trucks. As most of the jobs, to get into the school these people have to sit an exam. Once one has completed the seven phases he becomes a firefighter.

So now that you have heard a little of it, what do you think about firefighters and their job?

The influence of technology in our society

As most of us know, technologies are very important in our society. Technology helps us in lots of ways. This is why I'm going to ask you a question: We humans, can we live without our mobile phones? And, are we supposed to live without them nowadays? Of course we cannot.

The first statement I have to explain the influence in our society is this one. How many of us are wearing a mobile phone instead of a watch? The answer is very simple: convenience. A mobile phone can provide us lots of utilities like searching extra information, the ease of communicating other people... while a watch only informs us about the time. That's why lots of schools/high schools are thinking about applying a new technological educative system where the learning is provided by these new technologies. Of course, using mobiles phones or even tablets at school implies a few risks such as private photos or just the bad use of it.

A part from the school use, we can find all around the wall (except poor countries). Technology also include videogames. Videogames is one of the most important arts of the world. Lots of people are absorbed by them Most of the times you are playing videogames, you are not paying attention at what is happening outside that virtual world. This is a negative aspect of the influence of technologies. The same way it happens with our smartphones. When we are getting bored and we don't know what to do, we usually pick up our phone and open Instagram to see others people lives. That's another reason of why we cannot love without these technologies. It's miserable but is true.

Nevertheless, if technology didn't exist, human age wouldn’t have improved as much as it has developed. That's why I think we have to keep on progressing in technology terms. But, as the use of technology is increasing, we have to control it to not becoming an addict.

Online shopping

Internet is everytime offering more and more facilities. Shopping is one of the activities that is becomind more popular to do online, but is it really an adavantadge or it has more cons than pros?

First of all, shopping on the Internet can be a good option in terms of convenience because you don't need to leave your house and this can be useful for people who don't have much time or for those ones who can't go and buy in the shops for any reason. Also, it broads your possibilities because it allows you tu buy things that are not sold close to where you live. 

Also, on the Internet you can sometimes find the products cheaper than they are in a regular shop, so you can save some money. However, you may have to pay the shipping costs (in some cases it can still end up being cheaper).

On the other hand, however, shopping online can be a bit risky. First of all, you can't be sure if the web page in which you are shopping can be trustable. It can be a good online shop and you can get your products perfectly in the way you wanted, but there's also the possibility of paying and then never getting your purchase . Secondly, shopping online doesn't allow you to really see what you are buying. On the Internet there will be a photo, but it can be retouched or it can be a photo of a different product. And also, even if the photo is real, you can only see the product through a photo, you cannot see it and judge it in real life. This means that when you get the product it might not be what you were expecting as it can't turn out to be a different thing.

In conclusion, I do agree in the convenience of online shopping offers, as well as all the different possibilities and advantadges, but it is also important to keep in mind all the disadvantadges it has and its consequences. From my point of view, it's okay to buy some things on the Internet, but not everything. In this way, you continue buying things that are not necessary to be bought online in regular shops. On the Internet you can buy, for example, things that maybe are only sold in different countries, or things that can be trustable, for example books, that you can be sure it will be the same quality as if you buy it in a shop. But in other cases, I think it's better to buy them on a regular shop, so you can exactly see and be aware of what you are buying. 

Should be cars banned in the centres of the cities?

Nowadays, most people have their own car. In a survey that was carried out here in Spain, most of those who were asked said that they couldn’t live without a car. It would be too difficult for us them to go to anywhere because of the madding crowd.

It's true that cars are a must in people's life but at the same they are a major factor of pollution. What people haven't tho0ught about is that one car pollutes the air less than twenty cars. So, it is more convenient to use public transport instead of their own car, if you think about nature and the air you breathe every second.

Another problem are the frequent traffic jams that happen mostly because of careless drivers of the rush hours. No one would like to be in the centre of Barcelona at 8p.m.

People should use public transport more than their own car. First of all because it would be cheaper. Secondly, because it would reduce the pollution rate by approximately 80% and the city would be also less noisy. All these improvements would make our life much easier, because unpolluted air makes our bodies healthier and we can do as much physical effort as usual, but with less energy consumed.

Why people now is less healthier than twenty years ago?

Nowadays, young people are prone to be less healthier than they were twenty years ago and also to suffer a lot of illnesses. These problems are mainly caused by the busy way of life we lead.

Twenty years ago, young people were healthier since, although they did not look their health consciously, they did it by eating food without additives. This was because they lived more quietly, they spent a lot more time in touch with nature as well as, despite not doing sports, they did more physical activities by working than young people do nowadays.

In contrast, nowadays a lot of people give more importance to their appearance rather than to their health. Added to this, most of the time they eat fast food and also some of them are not fond of doing sports, so they lead a sedentary life. All of these problems make them be unfit and unhealthy.

To conclude, young people should be able to look after their health since there are lots of medical treatments for curing and preventing illnesses as well as there is more information available than years ago. However, the responsibilities, stress and the lack of time lead us to live aside the care of our health.

The lie, is it necessary in our society?

Of course it is. In fact we can't live in a world without lying as we are not telling the truth every day. A reason that could explain why is the lie necessary is because we want other people feel better. If we told the truth, people wouldn’t be as happy as it is now. For example, if someone that I can't stand comes to me to me and ask me something, I won't tell him that I don't like him. I'll just try to answer the other person's question. So here is an example of lying. If we told the truth we would hurt people. Truth hurts. Another example is related to loving. When someone is having a parallel relationship with someone else that is not his or her girlfriend/boyfriend, this one won't say anything to don't hurt his/her relationship. And once the other get to know what the reality, problems is come. So we prefer living in a world with lies and being happy than telling the truth and offending other people.

Nevertheless, I always try not to lie, but I do. I try not to do it because I wouldn't like people lie to me even if it hurts me.

*Even if we can't live in a world that always tell the truth, we consider the lie as a bad thing. But why's that?

1. Lying is bad because a generally truthful world is a good thing: lying diminishes trust between human beings. 
2. Lying is bad because it treats those who are lied to as a means to achieve the liar's purpose, rather than as a valuable end in themselves 
3. Lying is bad because it makes it difficult for the person being lied to make a free and informed decision about the matter concerned 
4. Others *

So even if we know lying is bad for us, we still use it because we want to arrange with other people and we try not to look rare

NOTE: I HAVE EXTRACTED *THIS INFORMATION* IN THIS LINK

Addiction to Technology

Game Boy Color

According to the subject (global issue) we have recently done at class, I'm going to talk about one of them: addiction, related to technology. This global issue and especially to social media affects us very much as we spend most of the time with our smartphones.

In my opinion, we are all addicted to technology but with different grades. There is no one that doesn't look at any screen. The ones who were born since 1995 are addicted to any kind of technology. For example, I began being addicted to videogames at 4. I didn’t spend three hours per day playing Pokemon or Pac-Man but I did spend one. So it was my mum who taught me how to use the Game Boy Color. Since I got this video game console, she also got interested in this virtual world. She enjoyed a lot playing Pac-Man, so in her free time she used to play it. So I consider myself a low addicted person in video games. However, I am a high addicted person to social network or just to the smartphone. I spend about four hours per day using my mobile phone. What I usually use is social media (WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram...) but I also play some simple mobile games such as Candy Crush. So this is me, and I'm sure there are lots of teenagers that are in my position.

I think we must stop using that much social media because if not we're going to be at "super addicted level". Of course we have to continue using Twitter (or others) to communicate our feelings but nowadays this fact has overpassed the communication of feelings. As I said in others texts, technology simplifies our lives and in this case it's trying to help us to communicate easier with other people. However, it doesn't help as the number of "super addicted people" is increasing considerably per year. I know a person who was in my class at second of ESO who only chatted by using his personal computer. He didn't even say "Hello" in the morning. His brain was living in that virtual world which now he can't get out of it. I'm not saying that technology is not helping at all, because it does help. For example, if we have a question at home of some homework, we only have to write an email to the teacher.

So is not technology's fault, it's our fault. We decide where the limit of consumerism (of addiction) is. And of course we must regulate it in case we don't want to finish as the boy I mentioned before.

Would I like to be famous?

This question has always come to our minds at some point of all of us and I'm sure the most of you hadn't thought about it in a seriously way. Well, I've been to both sites tough the answer was in different times of my life. At first, when I was little, I wanted to become a famous professional paddle player. I used to love playing paddle and joining competitions from around the world even if I only played in Catalunya. In fact, there were a few reasons that could explain why I wanted to become famous. The first one is obvious I think. And this is becoming rich. When you're little, you just think: "I want to live in a mansion, the biggest one in the world with lots of delicious food inside and a very wide open garden with enough space to play whatever I want" (or this was what I thought when I was a kid). So well, to achieve these sort of dreams is to think that you need a lot of money and the only way to earn it is becoming famous. Of course, I didn’t even thought about the consequences of being famous. I just wanted the money. But now that I'm older and I've matured (a little) I think the opposite. I wouldn't become a famous character because of these consequences. The first one is related to privacy. Once you are a popular person, you won't be able to live "in peace". There's always a journalist who is controlling what you do and what you let doing. I hate people who is doing it all the time. However, I like people who takes care of me. The second reason that supports the idea is the fact that I don't want to become a professional paddle player anymore. I don't feel like competing, I just want to play to have fun and that's what I do now, actually.

So now that I've commented my past and present opinions I don't know if in the future I would like to become famous. I hope I won't fall in this sort of world that pertains to famous people. But, if for some reason I finally fall in it, I'd try to think about the consequences again and restart the process mentioned before.

Do footballers earn too much money?

A lot of people think that footballers earn too much money. And I'm one of them. A normal family is never going to earn the same money in 10 years than a footballer in one year. In my opinion, being a footballer is as valid as being a trash collector. That's why I'm against of the fortunes they earn every year.

At first, they can earn 30 million only by getting signed for another club. I think it's not fair. I can understand that their image become public once they appear on the TV but this is part of their contract. Why doesn't an economist have this economic clauses?

In second place, lots of famous people like Ronaldo or Messi usually buy for themselves 2 brand new cars, 3 mansions in the nowhere and more stupid cravings. The most impressing thing is that some of them don't pay any taxes! Even if they are multimillionaire, they try to avoid them to buy more and more things to be the SUPER CLASS. Once they get all these things, they show off. I can't stand it. Why are they receiving that amount of money when there is a lot of people that is dying because of fame? Nevertheless, there are a few of them that seem supportive. Iniesta or Xavi Hernández always contribute a small quantity of money to try to help some children that can't eat.

In conclusion, I think that footballers are overvalued. Their job is as valid as anyone else’s and for this reason they should earn similar quantities of money.

YouTubers

First of all, what is a YouTuber? A YouTuber is a person who works for YouTube. That is a person who upload videos in the Internet for entertainment. Once I've introduced the subject, I'd like to comment some aspects about these people.

Lots of people from around the world think that making videos for the community and uploading them is not a job. What I think that they believe is that for them working is going outside and use either their feet or their hands to build a machine, to organize papers, to cook for a school... These people aren't seeing what a YouTuber is doing for the society. They are providing entertainment, one of the most important aspects in our daily lives. Nevertheless, making videos is not as easy as it looks. A well-produced video takes between 8 and 15 hours of edition! I'm one of those people that think that being a YouTuber is a job. They are working, they are editing videos for someone else and also re receiving some money.

Every YouTuber has his own channel where they publish their content. These people also have subscribers. Subscribers are those ones that follow the YouTuber's channel. Of course, YouTubers are getting paid. The economic system on YouTube is based on the timing of views. For example, a person who has made a video of eight minutes, and the average timing of watching that video is three minutes, the YouTuber is going to be paid for those three minutes. That's why all of them want lots of subscribers. If they've got lots of them, they have more chances of getting paid better as people are notified about new videos and so they watch it. In Spain, the YouTuber who has got more subscribers is Rubén, known as elRubiusOMG.

Another aspect that YouTubers have in mind are "likes". The "like" is a button you can press to show to the YouTuber that you have enjoyed the content. It exist the "dislike" button, too. I think it's a good way to show your opinion. Sometimes, writing comments is harder than pressing a button. Also, there are some YouTubers that are asking for likes. They are asking for them because a video that has lots of likes is classified in a list called "Popular videos". And if the video is in this list, there are more possibilities of getting more views.

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF NOMENEES

Donald Trump is an American man who has never worked in politics. He is a business man. Although he is not a politic, he has some strengths that might help him to become the new president of the USA. Trump is very extroverted. We can appreciate this quality while he is having a speech. Because of the way he speaks doesn't it doesn't seem that he is shy. That's why I think he is outspoken. Perhaps, his business experience has helped Trump to improve his mood. Another strong point he has is his faith. This quality is reflexed in the "face to face" he used to have against Hillary. Most of the times, to defend himself, he used arguments against the 60th year old woman. In fact, Donald has accused Clinton in helping on some sexual abuses. Apart from his faith, his irony is present in the speeches too. His "power" is also shown when he is saying that if he wins, no more immigration will come. These Donald's qualities might attract American people.


Nevertheless, as a person he is, he also has some weaknesses. He is racist. We can notice that when he began to explain that wanted to build a large wall to separate the USA from Mexico. In addition to this fact, USA wouldn't pay this wall (if Trump wins) so Mexico would be supposed to pay for it. In the moment he used this explanation, lots of people considered him a racist as he wanted to expel Mexicans from the USA territory. He doesn't want Muslims in his country either. Some other people categorise him as a "machista". Trump has talked about woman in a bad way. Once he told he liked to see a woman kneeling. He also said that he didn't like dirty fat woman. Trump, for some people might not be taken seriously. If I were one of those Americans I wouldn’t take him seriously. He is also egocentric. Another weakness is that he hasn't got any political experiences.


The other candidate is Hillary Clinton. She is an old American woman that has fought against Trump for the USA presidency. Clinton has proven to be a political fighter. Her experience has helped a lot in his career as she was the First Lady of the United States. In thanks to this fact, she knows about what consists in being a president. Another strong point that she has is that transmit effectiveness and the determination to lead the USA. She also is supported by a few people which are usually Spaniards, Afro-Americans or woman. Another positive aspects that describes this woman are perseverance, promised and strong. However, this qualities didn't help her to win the elections.


As Donald Trump, she also has some weaknesses. The most important one is that she represents the unpopularity of the establishment and the politic class. Another factor that could had influenced in the elections was the famous case of the emails. She was accused of corruption and maybe that's why more than a half part of the USA had voted Donald Trump.