Public Transportation Do you take public transportation or do you prefer your car? A big amount of people takes the public transportation in Mexico City. One of the biggest cities of the world uses the subway as the main way to transport people. The subway has 12 lines, 195 stations, 200 km length and over 5 million of people use it daily. It´s the most efficient, fast and cheap way to travel through the city, at least the most of the time. In a rainy day and in rush hour the trains have severe delays and the travel becomes a heavy journey. In some stations you can find different kind of exhibitions about culture, history and science. There is one in the connection between two lines, it’s a long corridor and you can see pictures from the biodiversity of the country and in some point you cross a dark tunnel with constellations on the top simulating a night sky. The subway is good but it is not enough for a big city like Mexico City so there is a big and complex net of bus routes that can help you to reach every part of the city and If you are in a hurry you always can take a taxi or an Uber.

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Cartoons Do you remember a cartoon from your childhood? I remember in the last part of the 80´s there were two main options, American cartoons about Marvel or DC superheroes, productions from Hanna Barbera like the Flintstones, the Jetsons, Scooby Doo, etc. The other option was the Japanese wave like Mazinger Z, Candy Candy, Heidi, Remi, Transformers and more. I remember a good mix, Silver Hawks and Thundercats, both were American productions but the animators were Japanese. I still like superheroes cartoons but I prefer the Japanese cartoons or anime as they call it. Why? The huge variety of plots and genres, the design of characters, the quality of the drawing and animation, the quality of the soundtracks. It´s important to say that not all the anime is for kids. It´s rated like videogames and some titles are for a mature audience. The most popular and common in this part of the world are for teenagers like Dragon Ball, Bleach and Naruto. All of them with more than 300 chapters. I prefer shorter series. A hundred of chapters are more than long enough. The 90´s was the golden age for anime in my country you could find anime in primetime. Some religious groups launched a national campaign against anime and convinced the government to avoid anime broadcasting. This prohibition lasted more than ten years. These days the anime is recovering space on tv but the internet is the king when we talk about the diffusion of the anime.

Concerts Do you like music? I guess so. Have you ever been in a concert? I hope so. Do you remember your first concert? How was the experience? When you’re a child your first musical influence comes from your family and your local environment. I grew up among genres like salsa, cumbia, English pop and others. I still listen to these kinds of music. It´s impossible to forget your musical heritage. My first concert was in 1998 and I was 15 years old. My older sister invited me and we went to the concert with three friends of her. Who was playing that evening? Maybe you have heard about a British heavy metal band called Iron Maiden and as a guest a Spanish band: Angeles del Infierno. It was the second visit of Maiden to Mexican ground. I knew the band for an old tape with its greatest hits in the earliest 90´s. I remember the cover of that tape. There was a creature in a judge costume pointing at the figure of a prisoner. For a kid like me the cover was so cool. Later I discovered that the creature´s name is Eddie and he appears in each of the album covers. Great art cover but what about the sound? For me, the sound of the band was completely different and fresh, full of energy. I didn´t understand the lyrics but that wasn´t a problem. The music was good enough. I became a fan. The concert was great and it wasn´t the last. Maiden has been in Mexico 6 times more since 1998 and my sister and I have been there all the times.

Reading 3 In my last year in the University I had a meeting near midtown and I walked through the big square called Zocalo. It was early in the morning and the square was full of book stands. That surprised me and I realized that It was a big book fair. Unfortunaly I was in a rush and It wasn´t open yet. Later I discovered that the fair was celebrated every year. I assisted to the next year. I spent a day walking among the stands and watching the huge variety of books. I didn´t have a job so my budget was limited. I bought some books and my interest to reading returned. I assist to these kinds of fairs whenever I can. These events are common in my city. Not everyone is big like Zocalo´s fair but you can always find something interesting. The majority of my books were bought in this way. Sometimes I buy in a library but just when I want a specific book, otherwise I prefer the surprise that produce find a book that you aren´t even looking for. One of my last purchase was a beautiful edition with the complete collection of Edgar Allan Poe´s tales. I have heard about it but I didn´t expect to find it.

Reading 2 I mentioned in a past entrance to the notebook how I learnt to read. My first years I read a lot of local comics related with wrestling. Superman, Batman and Spiderman were also popular but there was a problem with these comics. Most of them were continued. You had to buy the next number in order to know what happend with the adventures and I didn´t have the opportunity to get them. It was frustrating. On the other hand the local comics called “Sensacional de Luchas” presented a single concluded story and every number the main hero was different. I read a lot of these comics for years. In Junior High School read small books and short tales as part of my education. Here was my first approach to a big one from the Universal Literature, “El Quijote de la Mancha”. I read just few chapters and I didn´t like it at all. I think this book is for a different age not for begginers readers. I´m going to give it other chance in the future. In High School read more but I remember two books in specific, “El túnel” by Ernesto Sabato and “La tregua” by Mario Benedetti. Great short novels. You don´t have to write 3 or more books to tell a good story. Sometimes less is more. After High School I didn´t read much, well I read textbooks not literature but this is other story.

Hobbies Do you play a musical instrument? Would you like to learn? How is possible that people can play three or more? I mean not at the same time. I think this kind of people discover their passion for music early in their life. In my case I enjoy music but my approach to the guitar is relatively new. I always have been interested in drums and guitar, however drums are more expensive than the guitar and louder for my neighbors. Years gone and I didn´t get a guitar until a good friend give me one some years ago. It was an acoutic guitar. At the beginning I only was able to practice 15 minutes. The strings were too hard for my fingers and I realized because many people give up. It´s hard, as I mentioned before you must have passion and be patient and disciplined. No everyone is willing to spend hours with the guitar before to be able to play something that sounds barely like a song. It´s going to be a long process, that´s clear. I try to practice at least 30 minutes every day. I have heard to say from well know musicians something like "a complete life is not enough to master a instrument" That doesn´t make me feel better because I started too late in my life.

A long way How long does it take to learn a new language? Do you sound familiar this question? I think so. The most common answer is: It depends on different factors. That doesn't help much. There are averages in hours for every language. That is better. But know the way is one thing and walk the way is totally different. My first approach to English was in the first year of High Junior School, that was long time ago in 1996. Am I fluent in 2020? No, sadly. In my defense I can say that I have improved (more than 20 years without improvements, that would be an absolute failure) Back in 1996, I didn´t understand much in the classroom. It wasn´t fun. I passed the subject and after 3 years I just was able to understand few sentences and words. English is an obligated subject in the High School so I had to deal with the language again. My parents thought to help me and paid me an additional English course. I went to this course 5 hours every saturday for almost 2 years. That was really helpful. I didn´t finish the complete course but I covered around 50 %, and it was enough. I didn´t have serious problems with the language during the rest of my academic life. I have to say that during the university I took other course during 9 months and in 2016 took other 6 month course. A total of 3 years and 3 months of efective learning. I feel in the second half of the way, closer to the final goal of the fluency but I still have a lot of work to do.

Reading Reading is part of the education. We learn to read around 4 or 7 years old, and this skill is polished the next years of our lives. My parents didn´t read me tales before go to sleep and in my house there were not many interesting books for a child, however in that years, the end of the 80´s, there were a kind of comics about wrestlers. Have you ever heard about "Blue Demon" or "Santo"? These characters are very famous in many countries. In my country they were already leyends in those years. This comic with around 70 full color pages was published every week. I had a small collection. My first approach to the reading was through this comics and it was very fun. I used to watch the wrestling on TV every saturday afternoon. Time passed and I grew up and I tried to extend the quality of my readings. I don´t consider myself as a great reader but I try to built this habit. And I also read some books in English as part of this process of learning the language. In fact the last one was about this issue. Probably you have listened about it. The book is Fluent Forever.