hi! this is Carmen's blog

I'm trying to write in English and I thought this could be a nice place to do it

Entries from 2014-07-01 to 1 month

Baran (a movie review)

Majid Majidi; what a fun name for a director. I’m about to watch my third movie by him and I still don’t know why or how I’d never heard about any of his famous pieces before. Every now and again I get the feeling that I’m living in a smal…

A plan for tonight

Tonight I'm feeling like having sushi (and maybe needing one or two spoons of nama cheesecake) so why not have dinner with the honorable Kiyohiko Azuma. After all, I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him yet, so having dinner with him to…

About teaching adults

I guess making a change implies a major turnaround. I think until now I’ve not spun far enough to change other people’s lives, or even my own, really. But this period of my life is like the anteroom for that spin, and I couldn’t be more ex…

Lost in Venezia

My brother Manuel was taking what we call a year off from his major. It was not a gap year, like Americans would say, but an Erasmus scholarship program, which in terms of leisure is pretty much the same. This kind of option, that I never …

Life is like a movie (a fanta with J.Cano)

Whenever I meet J. Cano I know he’ll be carrying some gadgets of extremely high value. Last time, he was carrying a tiny cute drawing pad from which he instantly uploads his scrawl. I can’t forget the first time I saw an iMac computer comi…

Human birds

While some people swing their entire lives on the same branch, others stay in constant flight. If I had to put myself in one of these two groups, I guess it would already be too late to get a nest nearby. That doesn’t mean I hadn’t enjoyed…

A glorious state of mind

12th of September, Philosophy and Letters campus, green building, second floor, 3:50 pm. Eyes and hands moving at an incredibly high speed between the papers in my folder. I’m searching for a concept. Never figured out it was going to be l…

Why people work (the actual reasons)

To have a job is a natural thing, and it is said that we humans spend around 60% of our lifetime working. It’s not something to question. We are born, we go to school, we work, and we die. However, when the natural chain of events gets dis…

A piece of advice (a sinking story)

That was an odd meeting: my middle sister, her childhood sweetheart, my aunt Encarnita, and I, on a windy summer afternoon, borrowing my father's rickety van and going for no reason to one of the most hostile beaches of the region. Sometim…

Losing a kite (a movie review)

“So, Carmen, what do you think the movie was all about?” I somehow love this kind of question, especially when it comes from someone who already knows the film. If there is anything better than watching a movie, it is doing it with someone…

Ordinary life, extraordinary people

If I had to describe someone who I admire, I would probably talk about Diego. Diego lives close to the train station of a grumpy southern town. He likes waking up early, combing his unkempt eyebrows and allowing his feet to gently guide hi…

Platero and me (not an appropriate book review)

Don Gonzalo was the name of the feared Spanish teacher that we got in sixth grade. He was not exactly a Spanish teacher himself, though he was definitely Spanish; I mean, from Spain. What I am trying to say is that his professional field w…

October

It has a revolutionary flavor and it comes always after a long summer. The streets filled with students, the theater billboards packed with intriguing films and the smell of the newly printed ink flying out of the bookstores as though it w…

Levant (nowadays no more summer breaks)

Summer breaks, those unending periods of time in my childhood days, three long months of sun and waves during which alarm clocks, teachers and rain boots were a vague memory, almost non-existent. That natural border between the fourth and …

Negar's charm (a movie review)

Persian cinema series keeps on going, and I was kind of scared of not being able to find pieces in the same standards of Kiarostami’s. Once your expectations reach a certain level, it’s hard to switch the name of the filmmaker and venture …

Cuba

If I had the opportunity to travel to a foreign country for two weeks, I would love to go to Cuba. I’ve always felt attracted to that little island, its landscape, its people, their nature, but especially, their music. The first time I saw…

Knowledge from books vs knowledge from life

When I think about the priceless teachings learned from the source of experience, when I think about those essential trial and error processes that I’ve gone through, when I watch proud and pleased the winding road I’ve dragged myself on… …

Roommates (the good ones)

Good roommates are a rare species. They hide in the most unexpected flats, usually in inhospitable districts, dwelling in the smallest rooms, sharing their orange juice and living peaceful lives. For the last years I’ve had a bunch of room…

Film knocking book (enjoyment and tuna cans)

It is said that reading fiction is more enjoyable than watching movies, but actually I could share a few evidences that it is not always like that. David Cronenberg was one of those geniuses that I began to discover through his old works. …

Employment crisis (just a random conversation)

Last night Rosa and I were throwing stones at the sea, this is one of my favorite times of the year, when it is past 10:20 pm and you can sit on the shore and still see brief glows of sunlight in the skyline. “We serve nobody,” Rosa said, …

TOEFL prompt: Define success and provide three examples. Me: Sure!

Success is a relative concept. The term may broadly refer to satisfactory results due to the achievement of certain goals, but there is a huge range of possibilities if we talk about those. Mainly, everyone could agree that success is the …

Palestinian cycle (a twice watched movie)

‘Paradise now’ was the name of the movie scheduled that day at the university film club. I still remember when I used to go every Tuesday and Thursday to that old theater on the Science campus. Sometimes my brother would go to see Italian …

Time travel rocks!

If I had the opportunity to travel to the past, just one trip would not be enough to satisfy my ambitions. There are so many D dates to witness, so many lost cities and so many cool people to meet, that I don’t even know where to start. Bu…