Beauty contests for children

A few days ago I was recommended a very good movie called “Little Miss Sunshine”, a lovely story which presents a big problematic for children, girls specially. Briefly explained, the movie is about a little girl who watches on tv a beauty contest for little girls. She admires the contestants and decides that she wants to participate in the next contest. At first the family refuses since they are afraid that she might be ridicule in front of the other well prepared girls but then they decide to allow her to participate.

While watching the movie I got to interiorize in the world of these beauty contests for little girls and I looked up for some more information. I found such shocking photos

I came to know that these girls wear an incredible amount of make up, they dye their hair and some of them even undergo cosmetic surgeries. Most of these deplorable actions are carried out by their parents. These children are also deprived of school and they live their lives around the contests. As soon as one of it ends they start preparing everything for the next one.

In my opinion, beauty contests for children should not be held. What’s the good in it? They only teach children how to be more concerned about their appearances than about their qualities as human beings. Beauty contests encourage parents to live through their children’s lives, promote egocentrism and envy. I cannot think of anything good coming from them. Can you?

Temptation and the cellphones

You probably remember, as I do, those times where cellphones were not a regular object. We were glad to have at least a phone in ur homes but cellphones were probably a fancy object that only the fortunate people owned, something to dream about perhaps. I can recall the exact moment when my best friend came to my house holding her first cellphone. The device was quite big with a very small black and white screen. It was absolutely incredible that she owned a cellphone being only seventeen years old! She was the first one in our class to posses one but pretty soon we discovered how the personal phone had become a fashion.

Almost ten years later it is absolutely inconceivable to find someone without a cellphone. Everyone has at least one. Companies are creating even more advance phones every time, so advanced that it is no longer necessary to resort to a computer in order to use internet.

These apparatus are fully equipped with whenever you need. And if you have in the palm of your hand all the information you need I wonder… Should cellphones be allowed in a class? Well.. why not? But my concern is, should we allow students to make use of their cellphones while they are in an exam? Are they to be trusted having the temptation of looking for the information there are required in their phones?

I had the chance to witness a misuse of these devices, someone copying from the cellphone while I wracked my brain in order answer correctly. I felt so irritated I could not stop thinking about it for a while.

In any case, I believe the use of cellphones in the middle of an exam should be punished somehow. I have discover that copying from the phone is just another way of cheating, a simpler one.

Filters

To begin with this topic I want to make something clear, I don’t meant to offend anybody with my beliefs or with what I write. My intention is that you reflect upon it while you are reading and if you don’t feel like leaving a comment is ok then.

Having stated that, my idea for today’s post is to tell you about a situation that I underwent a few days ago. I was revising my facebook account and I come across a very disturbing post (it was disturbing for me at least) where someone explained about a 6 year-old boy that wanted to be a girl and that his mother had allowed a surgery in order for the boy to become a girl. This person not only explained the situation but also sentenced the mother by insulting her and calling her names that I won’t mention here. The post was really aggressive because it also made mention of God and how it was a sin to go against the nature imposed by God. “Pepita” (this is how I call this person) claimed that it was written in the bible that that was an aberration and even more, if someone would be willing to allow her children to do that, that person deserved to die. o.O

I felt quite irritated when I read that and I needed to write something back to that person so, I used the most polite words I could find and I explained to her that although she didn’t agree with the mother’s decision  she should not use such  hard lines to show it. My intention was to make her realize that she was promoting fury and that she also could hurt someone else’s feeling with her words.

But it was not only her who used to write very aggressive posts, is many other people who have no “filter” in their mouths, or in this case, in their writings. We all have our opinion and it is ok that we express them. Let’s just be careful with how we say things since we ARE writing for the rest if we make it public like in facebook.

Good news/Bad news

How many times we have woken up in the morning and turn on the tv to watch the news while we are preparing breakfast but all you see on tv is bad news! Every day there is a new incident on the streets, strikes, bad decisions taken by the government, many catastrophes happening around the world or people involved in an accident. So every day you think “isn’t there any good news in any of the channels that cheer me up in the morning?” and when the answer is not you feel frustrated.

But yes, exceptions exist. Every once in a while there is a good news: improvements for the city, someone winning a humanitarian prize (and I cannot think of any other example, I haven’t seen many good new lately :/).

Now, let’s get a little pessimistic. What happens when good news are not entirely good. For example, when a police investigation is being carried out and every step of it appears on tv. Let’s analyze this: a campaign against child sex exploitation on internet developed a software, a computer-generated 10-year-old girl in order to catch paedophiles. The sources revealed to the reporters that this “little girl” was a Philippine girl called Sweetie and that by using her they had been able to catch one thousand paedophiles and that they will continue with their work.

My questions in relation to this are: if the project was really successful why would you risk it by making it public. Don’t they know that paedophiles also watch news? Won’t they be aware about Sweetie now?

Another example would be a piece on news where a building got burnt but luckily nobody was injured and we tend to think “Wow! What a good piece of news”. But think twice. Is it really good news that a building got burnt? Do we need bad events that turn out good in the end in order for them to be good news?

I consider that although we take for granted that some news are good news, sometimes we have to take a look at the biggest panorama.

Motivation!

Let me start this post with a personal story

December 2006. High school was finishing for me and I had my graduation party coming. My classmates and I were so worried about it. We wanted so badly everything to be perfect. It was going to be our last night together, quite an important event. Our thoughts were entirely on that. When the party finally passed and we celebrated also Christmas and New Year ’s Eve I realized that it was already January, even worst, that I only had two months left to decide what I wanted to study, what I wanted to be in life! Nothing inspired me.

Talking about it with my dad one very hot afternoon he suggested that I should try a cooking course since I had always loved cooking. So I did it. Nevertheless, I never felt motivated enough as to truly believe that I could be a chef one day, somehow I could not forthsee that in my future, so I quitted.

December 2007. I found myself in the same position that I was at the beginning of that year, not knowing what to do with my life. The days were passing so fast and I was overwhelmed by the idea that I was never going to find my course in life. But my mom spoke this time. She suggested that I should try learning English. Certainly, I had always loved cooking but I didn’t have great expectations as regards it. So my mom remembered me how good I was in English at school and the times I used to teach my classmates or my sisters the language. In any case, the two of us had a very long talk about that one day and the words that she dedicated to me at were really motivating. She said that no matter what I chose to study I should never stop studying. She said she wanted me to be someone in life, not like her who never had the opportunity to finish school (I never thought she was nobody for not studying but she felt like that). Thanks to her I am where I am now and already teaching!

Long story for an introduction, but it was not my intention to use it as an introduction since I am sure that while you were reading you could think of someone or maybe something that motivated you in any aspect of your life. And if the story was not enough I want you to take a look at the next pictures and reflect upon them.

These are quite inspiring people but... Despise their restrictions, what motivated them to go on with their lives as normal as possible?

Now tell me, what or who motivates you?

Papers papers PAPERS!!

“Si la Visa universal se extiende el día en que nacemos y caduca en la muerte, porque te persiguen mojado si el cónsul de los cielos ya te dio permiso.”

Ricardo Arjona is one of the most talented singers from Latin America. I discovered him years ago when someone dedicated a song from him to me. I fell in love almost immediately of the lyrics of every one of his songs. They always tell a story full of truths and I always think “He has just the right words”.

Now, I’m aware of the fact that not everybody likes Arjona. Nevertheless, I wanted to reflect a little bit about his last song “Mojado”.

When I heard it for the first time I got caught by the tune, the music. Later on I started paying attention to the lyrics. Mojados are those who try to cross illegally the borders in order to get to the other country. They are in search for new opportunities and a better life.

The song describes pretty well what these people have to go through when they are trying to cross to the other side. But, what I focused my attention on when I heard the song was that particular phrase that I wrote above.

Somehow I think that what the lyric is trying is point at is to the lack of freedom. We need this Visa to live whenever we want freely. And thinking about it, we depend upon a paper. We depend upon PAPERS! We live for them and die for them. We need a paper to buy food; we are born and exist only if there is a paper that corroborates it. Our own identity is written on paper.

We human beings have developed a system that makes life (every aspect of it) possible only because of a paper!

Maybe I’m being too extreme but I feel that our life is meaningless without these documents.

Lies, truths and stories

Sunday morning. My dad is watching TV but not really paying attention to the images on the screen. I sat next to him; he looks at me and my sister and pronounces some words.

"A lie that everybody considers to be true and a story that seems to be a lie"

At first neither my sister nor me could understand was he was talking about. He then explained that he had heard that phrase from someone else during the weekend.

An eleven year-old girl was almost raped on her way to school. The situation had been handled by the police who investigated the case and who were after the man the little girl had accused. A psychoanalyst had talked to the girl to keep her calm and to get some more information.

That is the lie.

Two days later the family discovered that the little girl had invented the whole story because she didn’t want to go to the school. She had even used her friends in order to make her story more credible.

That is the story. It got my dad thinking how was possible that a young girl could have invented such a story just because she didn’t want go to school.

But the phrase made me think about something different. There are always lies that everybody consider to be true, and everybody has some story that seem to be a lie. Many people at least once in their lives had created an extraordinary story out of a lie and it is so well portrayed that nobody ever dares to doubt of it.

On the other hand, some stories are so amazing that seem to be taken from a movie and that is why nobody believes them.

Now you think. Do you have a lie that everybody considers to be true or a story that seems to be a lie?