YOUR SAY: Erasmus

For those who may not know, an Erasmus is a scholarship that allows student exchanges between many European universities for a certain period of time. The word Erasmus stands for European Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students, but the programme is also named after a Dutch philosopher, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, who expanded his knowleadge in many European cities.

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Students can choose the lenght of their stay from two to nine months. Not everyone can get into an Erasmus programme, it's necessary to have, at least, one academical year of your studies already completed, althought this varies from one country to another. For example, here, in Spain, where degrees usually last for four years, students can do an Erasmus in their third or fourth year. They also have to have an official certification of their language level (of the language of the country they're going to) and, depending on the destination, it's compulsory to have a medium level (this happens with English, French and German, mostly). They are given a certain amount of money and they live with that.

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You may be wondering why I chose this topic. Well, as we're doing the gap year's project I thought it would be a good idea to show another alternative. My sister Andrea is currently doing an Erasmus in Bologna, Italy. She has a lot of fun, but she also learns a lot in the Università di Bologna.

But what do I think about the Erasmus programme? I think that it's a great experience that everyone should try. 

First of all, you can choose the European university that you want to go to in order of the subjects they teach. Other countries offer you a different variety of subjects to choose from that you may not have in your own country. For example, my sister Andrea (she studies History of Art) wanted to learn about Asian art, but there wasn't any of that in her university. When she applied for the Erasmus in Bologna, she was able to choose that specific subject. Another case may be that you do have the oportunity to take that subject in your university, but you may have better lessons about it in another country.

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But Erasmus (let's stop fooling ourselves) are not all about studying. The experience of living in another country for that long is unique and very enriching. You can meet new people from different cultures (you won't be the only Erasmus student there, there will be students from different countries!) and contact with society. You can go party, go on trips to discover new places and also get a good level of the language. What is there not to like about an Erasmus programme? Somebody tell me!

The Erasmus programme is not the only student exchange scholarship. There are some variations of Erasmus, like Erasmus + and Erasmus Mundus, and other scholarships like ISEP, Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci programmes.

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Personally, I would love to do an Erasmus. I don't really know where, but I'm sure that it will be somewhere where I can complete my studies in the way I want. I also think that I would take the long-term programme because I would like to finish my stay with a really good language level and also with some contacts for the career that I would do later (basically, gather oportunities so I can live in another country when I work). When I saw that my sister was having a lot of fun and going to a lot of new places I realized that the Erasmus programme is something worth-living.

After all of this, I've come to the conclusion that, if you're going to do a degree, doesn't matter the area of it, you should totally check out these student exchange scholarships, as they allow you to learn in a way that you wouldn't be able to learn in a regular school year.

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NEWS: "Black Friday: Wal-Mart workers revolt"

This piece of news was written by Kim Gittleson on 28 of November for the BBC News.

The article talks about how Wal-Mart workers protested in the streets for their rights on Black Friday, one of the biggest sales of the year. Wal-Mart is a big chain of department stores of the retails sector.

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Barbara Gertz, who is working in a Walmart in Aurora, Colorado, explains that many workers have joined OUR Wal-Mart (Organization United for Respect at Wal-Mart) to demand higher wages to the company. She disapproves that some people in Wal-Mart management say that they are open to receive concerns and questions from workers. She has sent her concerns to the company for years and has received no response.

She talks about the OUR Wal-Mart, that has united as well with other organizations like the organization of people who work in fast food chains. All this people has found a new way to protest that is an advantatge for them because they're not seen as an "official" organization. They're "alt-labor" groups and protest for workers' rights. They make strikes in the most important days, like Black Friday, so the companies will be forced to listen to them. This practice has increased because retail companies are getting more and more competitive. The companies force the workers to have bad schedules (they do more hours of work), specially on those specific days.

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I personally think that big companies like Wal-Mart should care more about their workers. They're so obsessed with offering the best deals and sales to gain money that they forget some of the workers' rights. They have to do more hours to prepare those special days and they don't have a fair wage. I think that they're doing a great job with their protests. The system that they've found of protesting on "big days" is going to be successful in the end.

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 VOCABULARY

retail: the sale of goods individually or in small quantities to consumers.

"alt-labour": unions of workers that agitate and protest for workers' rights in non-unionised sectors.

wage: the amount of money that a worker receives every month.

Black Friday: it's the Friday after Thanksgiving and is the official start of the holiday shopping season.

Oral presentation

Here you have the presentation that Rosó, Sandra and I did about Jewish rites of passage.

I don't really know how to evaluate myself. I have to say that I talk quite slowly and I got lost for a moment. I also made a mistake saying that there are to types of celebrations: bar mitzvah for boys and bat mitzvah for girls (I said boys though I meant girls).

In general I think that it's a good presentation. We got to interactuate with the power point with the pictures and the video and I think that's a good thing. I also think that our pronunciation is good.

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YOUR SAY: Plus insecurities

A few days ago, the famous brand Calvin Klein showed to the world the first pictures of their first model for plus sizes. Her name is Myla Dalbesio and, although ahw got this job, a lot of people wouldn't classify her as a plus-sized woman. These pictures have supposed an impact for society, who now criticises the enterprise for its choice. But does this really surprise us? Nowadays we've seen worse.

Myla Dalbesio

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It's not a secret that many aspects in our society encourage or provoke eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia. The most gullible part of the society when it comes to this are teenagers. They're trying to find their place in society, and that results in the search of not only self acceptance but also from other people. Among teenagers, acording to stadistics, girls are more likely to have eating disorders, and I think that it isn't a strange thing.

It is known that many clothing brands change the sizes of their articles every now and then. What used to be a small size can become a medium size, suddenly. This has resulted in a big change throughout the years. This leads some people to think that they have gained weight and that they may not be as skinny as society wants them to be. That's the first step for their minds to start thinking and thinking about the problem they have.

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Another evidence of society's pressure on people's weight (specially in women's weight) are catwalks. Models are much more skinnier than they used to be before, and a lot of them don't even seem to have a healthy weight. What's the message that people get from that? Designers show their clothes in the way that they think will look more beautiful, and that way is with a really skinny model wearing their clothes. Is that the ideal of beauty that society has nowadays? It seems that it is.

I personally think that the pressure shouldn't be there. Designers should have models with different weights and sizes, clothing brands shouldn't constantly change their size charts and teenagers should stop worrying that much about their weight, because beauty isn't about that.

YOUR SAY: What I think of euthanasia

Euthanasia is the act of killing someone who wants to die but is not able to commit suicide.

Nowadays it isn't legal, but there's a lot of discussion about it. People in favor of euthanasia say that the government should allow it in some cases like terminal illnesses or similar. On the other hand, people against euthanasia say that killing is a crime and, moreover, it shouldn't be normal for a person to make someone else kill them.

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So here's the problem: is it moral to kill someone because they want to die?

I personally think that it is (in some cases). Euthanasia should be legal. Why do I think that? Let's get into the situation.

Imagine that you have a terminal illness, like cancer, for example, and you know that there's no possibility for you to get any better. You are certain that, for the rest of your life, you will only suffer and will always depend on someone else. Don't you think that, if you wanted to end your life, you should be able to do so? And, if you weren't able to take your life on your own, would you like to have someone else to help you?

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People should do whatever they want to do with their lives. And concerning doctors' moral, they see people sying everyday and, sometimes, they give terminal patients a paliative treatment that won't cure them nor make their lives longer. Moreover, the methods that have been proposed for the realization euthanasia are all painless (like injections, for example).

Is death a bad thing anyway? We know nothing about it and we are pretending that a life full of suffering is better than an earlier death. I think that it's more moral to let someone die if that's their wish than to make them live with agony. 

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There was a polemical case recently in the United States. A young woman of Oregon, USA, commited suicide at the age of 29 on 1 November after announcing through Youtube that she would do so. Her name was Brittany Maynard and she had a terminal brain cancer. She had campaigned in favor of euthanasia and announced that she'd rather die by taking a prescribed life-ending drug that by the terrible way she was told she would. She died in bed, peacefully, surrounded by all her loved ones. There are only five states in the United States that allow euthanasia: Oregon, Washington State, Montana, Vermont and New Mexico. Here you can see Brittany's video explaining her story:

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YOUR SAY: Zoos are ̶g̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶ prisons

Zoos are considered places of entertainment, spectacles of wildlife. Many people enjoy them. You can see a lot of families with their kids (or any other kind of people) looking at the variety of animals. You'll probably hear them say: "Look! It's moving! Now it's sleeping! Look how silly they are!". They wait, they stare, they can get really loud... What about the animals? Does people care about them?

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Have you ever asked yourself what would zoos be like if you saw them through the eyes of an animal? I don't think that I can tell you exactly what they're thinking, because no one can guess, but it's an empathy exercise that everyone should, at least, try to do. Imagine that you are the one inside the cage, inside the closed area were animals stay. That tiny space would become your home, and throughout the day you would see a lot of strange faces staring at you all the time. You wouldn't understand anything they say but, when you tried to speak, they wouldn't understand you either. Your life would become a monotonous routine: the zookeepers would feed you, you'd sleep, maybe walk around a little bit. I'm sure that you'd wonder: "When will I be able to go home? Will I ever see my family again? My home? Where am I? Who are these strange creatures? Why did they kidnap me?". And there you have it, the word that I think describes best what they do to animals in zoos: kidnapping.

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The animals are taken from their habitats and brought to the zoos. No one has asked them if they want to go (of course I don't mean this in a literal sense), but us, humans, take them there anyways because we want to be entertained. Now that's quite selfish, isn't it? I don't understand why they're kept in the zoos when they don't belong there. Lions' habitat is the savannah, deers' is the forest, polar bears' is the artic... We restrain their freedom while we fight for human rights. What about animal rights? Do they even exist?

Although there are zoos that are worse than others, I don't think that there would have to be any place like this. I would only consider the natural reserves where some vets and volunteers work to help animals. That's different because animals can do what they want and aren't caged up.

I've only been to a zoo twice in my life, and I don't think that I'll ever repeat the experience. The first time was when I was a child and, of course, at this age, I didn't get to understand what that place meant to animals. The second time was in our trip to Berlin, this year, with highschool. I didn't enjoy it, not even a bit. I felt a bit disgusted by it. The animals broke my heart because they looked really sad and bored and some of them had strange behaviours caused by their situation.

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To sum up, I don't think that zoos are necessary in our society. There are plenty of other entertainments for us to enjoy. Those who really want to see wild animals live can go on a safari, a route through the jungle... There's no need to be so selfish.

Why not a safari?

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YOUR SAY: Freedom is a warm gun

One of the main polemic debates in the United States nowadays is wheter firearms should be forbidden or not. There have been many cases of shootings all over the country throughout the years. There was a school shooting recently that made people rethink about this topic. Many students died in it.

students reuniting after a school shooting

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People in the United States can legally buy guns. The defensors of this say that being able to purchase firearms provides people with protection and security. On the other hand, people against this practice say that it's a lot more easier for criminals and mentally unstable persons to commit crimes if there isn't any control of this weapons.

I personally think that firearms should be illegal. There have been too many accidents and shootings. Each time something like this happens, people start debating about it again. It's true that the criminals will get firearms anyways but that doesn't change the fact that crime rates would decrease. The only problem I think there would be is that, in the transition of forbidding guns, there wouldn't be a control of the people who have this kind of weapons.

It's obvious that a country without guns would be much safer. Criminals and terrorist wouldn't be able to buy weapons so easily. Another reason is that animals would be less hunted down, specially those in danger of extinction. The only people who should have guns is the authorities. They're the ones to keep society safe because not everybody is right when they decide to "take justice". 

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In conclusion, I think that guns should be banned in the United States because it's costing too many lives and they're not really necessary. The prohibition would make the country safer.