Little things that make a big difference Quality, many times if not all, turns out to be more important than quantity. Let’s take the example of the parents who hardly spend any time with their children. Let’s suppose both parents work and they do it for many hours, so when they finally get home it is already late and they’re tired. What happens then? Well, supposing they don’t bring more work home and have some free time, maybe they decide to ask their child how the day was and to check if he has done his homework and give a hand if necessary. They could even motivate him or punish him if there’s a reason for that. But that’s only a possibility, because these parents could also just sit down and watch TV or read the newspaper while they make sure his or her kid doesn’t bother them. They have had a hard day and they are too tired to pay attention to the stupid things a child cares about. Moreover, teachers are expected to do the parent’s job nowadays. My experience tells that parents who implicate directly in their children education get better results than those who don’t. And this is not a question of time but a question of the quality of the time they spend with their children. Even if they spend fifteen minutes a day with them, that is going to make a big difference, because you’re going to make him feel special, as special as to make an effort to be with him when you are shattered and would rather be doing other thing.

An unexpected text message One month left before the exams, it is time for revising. I have all these notebooks all over the table, but my mind is elsewhere. Two days ago I got a text from a girl, a student of Biology like me, who said she had something important to discuss with me. I was very surprised, shocked. This girl had never looked interested in me at all and suddenly she wanted to see me right away. The girl I am talking about is that type of girl all men feel attracted to: popular, beautiful and quite a good student. There was always somebody, either a man or a woman around her. Not me, I didn’t want to look as stupid as the others boys who behaved like clowns in an attempt to get her attention. We met in a bar. She was already there having a drink when I arrived. She explained to me straight away that she had been reading some of my works and have found them interesting. She thought we had many things in common and could get along well; maybe even do some research together. While I was hearing that my face went from red to white a few times, I know that because I felt the warm in my face and the cold as well. She noticed how I felt, and suddenly she laughed and told me that if we hadn’t been together until now was down to fact I had been avoiding her, and she had convinced herself that I didn’t like her. The text she had sent me had been her last attempt to put things right between us. I wonder how many times things like this happen. We don’t approach someone because we’re sure he or she is not interested in us, and then it turns out it is us the ones who have prevent that from happening with our behavior.

Pickpockets I don’t know if what I am going to say is something that only happens in my country or everywhere (in the EU at least). We have a big problem with pickpockets here in Spain. They worked as they do everywhere, in markets, subways and any other crowded places. Though tourists are always their favorite victims, we are all suffering this problem in Spain more than ever before. I know you can find pickpockets in many places but what I’m interested in discussing here is the response that justice gives to tackle this problem. Here, stealing a wallet is a small offense which doesn’t stop the delinquents from acting again a few hours after being arrested. Police says they have to be arrested many times (even hundreds of times) before they end up in prison. In practice, this means that when a band is operating in a city, they are left alone for some time and then asked to leave when the citizens can’t stand it any longer. They are expelled from one city to another from time to time. That’s where the problem is, justice considers as small offenses many actions that can make our life really hard to live. You feel impotent when you see a guy acting on the street the day after you reported him to the police. Committing criminal offenses is very cheap, you can do it fearless of any consequences.

Traffic considerations Finding a parking place is becoming very difficult these days in my town. Public transport is not very good and people don’t like to depend on it. A car or a motorbike is a symbol of freedom, and as soon as we have enough money to buy one, we do it, even it that means taking out a loan. All this makes practically impossible to find somewhere to leave your car. Besides the pollution is becoming a serious problem along with noise. The thing is, it takes more time each day to get to work because of the traffic jams we suffered every morning on our way to work. Then, when it’s time to get back, we can spend an hour driving around the city hoping to find a parking place. There just a few people who seem to think differently and have decided to use their bikes instead of cars. Of course, this way of transport is only possible if you work nearby. Anyway cyclists have to use the sidewalks if they don’t want to risk their lives. I don’t know if they will be able to do it for much longer as the town council has got many complaints from neighbors who don’t want to share the sidewalks with the cyclists. An increasing used of the public transport and building of bikeways seems to me the only reasonable way of dealing with this problem. Maybe others measures should be implemented to dissuade people from using their cars that much like taxes and circulation restrictions.

Vendredi Le vendredi est toujours le jour dans lequel je prendre quelque chose avec mes amis. C’est le moment de se relaxer et parler de tout : de nos inquiétudes, nos projets, du job et des amours s’il le faut. Nous ne pouvons pas fumer au-dedans du bistrot, mais cela n’occasionne pas aucun problème parce que la plus parte des jours ça fait bon ici et on peut sortir dehors pour fumer tranquillement. En hiver c’est différent, il fait froid et pleut souvent dehors. En ce cas nous nous rencontrons dans un autre lieu où ce n’est pas interdit de fumer. On n’est pas tous de fumeurs mais, comme ça se passe dans la plupart des cas, les non-fumeurs se sacrifient en faveur des fumeurs. Alors si l’on a envie d’entrer dans un bar, on va toujours choisit des lieux où fumer soit permis. La raison pour laquelle on ne fait pas ça dans le cas du bistrot duquel je parlais tout à l’heure, ce parce que on a la habitude d’aller là-bas depuis qu’on était des gamins et rien d’autre. Mais je ne suis pas sûr si l’on va continuer le faire parce que j’en ai assez d’avoir sortir pour fumer une cigarette, et je n’ai pas l’intention d’arrêter maintenant.

The printer The other day my boss asked me to print some documents out. The printer was broken. I told my boss about that but he wouldn’t listen. He said the printer was only jammed and made me go back to check it out. Of course, it had nothing to do with that, it was far more serious. Maybe it was time to get a new one, I thought. As you can imagine, my boss wouldn’t heard of it, he was cutting back on spending and wouldn’t hear of buying a new printer, even if that decision brought along more losses to the company because of all the time lost. That day and, I’m afraid, the days that follow I will have to go to the basement to get my printouts. We keep down there an old printer that uses a lot of electricity, takes a lot of time and produces bad quality documents. But that’s what my boss wants and I’ll have to cope with it. I know that when losses start to get bigger he will give in in the end. Until that day, I’ll have to suck it up.

L'écriture Il y a longtemps les gens toujours me donnaient le même conseil : il faut lire beaucoup, ceux qui lisent beaucoup finissent pour écrire très bien. J’ai suivi ce conseil et je dois admettre que ça c’est vrai à peu près. C’est vrai que mon écriture allait de mieux en mieux grâce, je croyais, à tous le livres que j’avais lu. Mais en réalité le progrès que je faisais n’était pas aussi important ou, au moins, pas aussi important comme je pensais il devrait être. Si bien je passais des heures à lire, jamais mon écriture a atteint un haut niveau. J’ai fini pour comprendre que si bien la lecture aide ce n’est pas quelque chose qui puisse remplacer le travail créatif que l’on doit faire quand on est forcé à écrire. C’est à ce moment que l’on doit produire nos propres mots et cela on ne peut pas le faire qu’en écrivant. C’est un indiffèrent si l’on fait beaucoup d’erreurs ou notre texte est vulgaire ou ennuyeux. C’est qui vraiment compte c’est le fait que pour faire quelque chose mieux qu’avant il faut pratiquer et avoir de la patience. Sinon on n’arrivera jamais à faire rien d’importance dans notre vie. Je crois qu’il faut distinguer entre le travail passif et le travail actif. Pour faire un travail passif ce n’est pas nécessaire prêter beaucoup d’attention à ce que l’on fait, par contre quand on écrit on doit forcément produire quelque chose unique et personnelle. C’est que l’on écrit, les paroles, sera plus facile à apprendre une fois écrit. Notre mémoire n’a pas besoin de mémoriser toute une parole pour l’écrire après, elle travaille avec la mémoire visuel que nous permet de reconnaître un mot immédiatement sans savoir tous les lettres qui le font. C’est curieux parce que le même se passe avec notre capacité pour apprendre une langue : la première chose que l’on développe plus facilement c’est la capacité auditive, et la dernière c’est l’écriture. Si écrire est si difficile comme ça, il faut commencer le plus vite possible.