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Hi. This is my first day in quarantine. It’s my first time and all it’s new and a little bit strange. I’m at home but I don’t know what’s the matter with my job. I’m teacher in a high school of Mataró and on first, I didn’t send anything to my student, but then I received a message from the education department that I could send tasks to my student, but just to study past topics, not new. So I spend all my morning preparing tasks for them.

Then, for the lunch, it was the fisrt time that I have had time to cook at home. So I prepare something special, a pizza. In the afternoon I spent time to see one of the movie that I bought I didn’t remember when, Muriel’s wedding. When the movie finished it was just four o´clock pm. I decided to spend time taking care of my plants and when I finished it was just five o´clock pm. But I’m sure I will find activities to do to spend time and not thinking in that terrific and surrealistic situation.

I try to not see news about the Coronavirus all the time, but just some information selected to know the situation and the evolution of the problem. It is starting a difficult time but I trust that it won’t be very long.

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Second day. This morning, after i’d sent exercises to my student, I had read an interesting article published by The Guardian. It was a series of tips to save your relationship in quarantine. It’s possible that the life locked in a little space could be very difficult. In the article there are few psychologists that give us advices to survive in quarantine. They explain activities to do at home. I don’t have problem to stay at home with my partner, but it was an interesting text because it provides ideas to make forced coexistence more enjoyable for both of them.  The main problem that these tips can help you to solve is learning how to handle the confinement with normality.  

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Second day. This morning, after i’d sent exercises to my student, I had read an interesting article published by The Guardian. It was a series of tips to save your relationship in quarantine. It’s possible that the life locked in a little space could be very difficult. In the article there are few psychologists that give us advices to survive in quarantine. They explain activities to do at home. I don’t have problem to stay at home with my partner, but it was an interesting text because it provides ideas to make forced coexistence more enjoyable for both of them.  The main problem that these tips can help you to solve is learning how to handle the confinement with normality.  

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Hi. This is my third day in quarantine and I’m ok. I want to go out, the day is stunning, I need to walk, but It’s ok. I can wait. I try to find activities to do during the day. I organize my day and I create a routine. Next week my students and I will try to do a online class with a new application, Zoom, that I have used with the others teachers and it is very funny and useful. What an application.

Each day I call my family that lives in Italy, to know about their situation and how they feel with it. It’s not easy but I’m convinced that the end of the quarantine is near.

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Fourth day

Hi. Yesterday officially finished the winter and started the springs. The days are longer and we have more light. Trees and plants are returning to the life and we are more energy. With this change the life in quarantine is more difficult. I need to go out and walk under the sun, but it’s impossible, it’s not responsible. We need to wait.

For this reason and because I don’t want to lose this favorable change, I have prepare my terrace to enjoy the sun and I’m trying to do the majority of my activities out. It’s not the same but it’s good for me and I can enjoy, in part, the spring. In my free time I am reading books and some of them are in English and watching movies that I bought during the winter and I still haven’t time to see. My favorite, until now, is a French movie, “Une belle fille comme moi” a François Truffaut  comedy: I highly recommend it.

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This is my fifth day at home in quarantine and, actually, I feel better than I tought.

Before the quarantine at my high school we used to meet with others teachers on Monday afternoon to talk about the student and their academic performance. One of the teachers, the school’s secretary, has proposed to us to use an application, Zoom to have the meeting. It’s just an application but it was an enriching and sensitive experience because I could see my colleagues and I had a conversation with them.

For this weekend I want to propose to my student a meeting online to talk with them and to help them to do homework.

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Every day, in that quarantine I receive a lot of memes or video about the coronavirus. The majority of these videos are funny and nothing serious but this morning I’ve received an Italian video where a boy pretends to be the virus and decide to write a letter to the humanity explains the reason of his pandemic attack. It is a very interesting video because it makes you think what it really is important for us, for the humans.

In these day when can see on TV how Barcelona is invaded by wild boars, Madrid by peacocks and how Venice’s canals appear clean without human activity.  In his letter the Italian boy says that the virus has given a break to the planet. I think we don’t have more excuses: after the coronavirus our life and our approach to our planet must change.

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Seventh day

This morning I have had a meeting with my students. It was very funny and sensitive at the same time. They are afraid about their academic situation and about the quarantine. They have enjoyed the meeting. We could exchange our opinions and wishes about the situation.  We have spent a part of the meeting to do class and explain ideas and topics useful to do homework.

Tomorrow I will have more meeting with others groups of students.

This is the first day that I could enjoy the sun. I have a little terrace and in one little angle of it you can enjoy the rays of light. My cat Antonia enjoys it too.

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Another week is ended and we will start two weeks more. It seems that the situation is going better and the number of infected is decreasing.

The confinement is not very bad as I thought. I thought I was doing things and activities all the time but not at all. I enjoy this confinement to learn to relax. For the first time I have free time and I have started to enjoy it.

I thought that confinement and the pandemic could help us to change our style of life and the relationship between country but it not. In a difficult and dangerous situation like this we need more solidarity between us but some countries of EU have shown their egoism and many politics take advantage from the occasion to critique their adversaries, like in Spain.

This is a critical moment and we could take advantage from it to learn more about our life and try to build a better world. Many people have shown us their courage and how there are involved to resolve and fight against this strong  situation, like health workers or farmer, but I think mine is just a dream and, finally, we take off this new opportunity.

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I have watched the BBC video with the message of the prime minister of UK. It was similar to the messages that prime ministers of many country send to their population. The main idea of the message is the same around the world. Stay at home to no infect and not been infected by other people and fight against the virus.

The UK prime minister is simple and easy to understand. I think his message has been sending late. Boris Johnson’s attitude is the same that we can see in others politic leaders but, in my opinion, too simple and elemental. In their words I can’t see drama related to the world situation. Many countries have not been take seriously the problem. They decided to take action against the virus late, too late. China, Italy and Spain show to all the world how the virus could attack humans and how is necessary take action against it, but there are many politics not interested in humans, just in Capitalism.

Is not time of protecting capitalism, but humans. There are leaders, like Macron, that compare this situation to a war, but I totally disagree. This is not a war, this is biology. Nature is showing us we are not indestructible and omnipotent animals; we are not the owner of the world. We are the only animal that just destroy for destroy. Nature teaches us that we are simple animals, and we need to take care of our environment, no destroy it. A virus is threatening the whole world.

I hope Coronavirus teach us to be more generous, supportive. I hope we can learn to communicate with our inner self, to be able to reflect.

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How did Spain get it coronavirus response so wrong?

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How did Spain get it coronavirus response so wrong?

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I’ve read the article of the Guardians and I agree with the journalist, but only in part. I agree that Spain reacted late to the virus when the country had the Chinese and Italian examples. The virus is spreads between the populations quickly. Spanish government reacted late to the pandemic and it had caused that the Coronavirus expanded all around the country.

Of course it was a mistake by Spain. Of Course the country should react more forcefully. But it is true that this is a new and difficult situation. We were not ready to face this situation and Spanish health system has been affected by social cuts promoted by the previous government. Spanish prime minister has reacted and has tried to repair his miscalculation. I think he is doing a good job and I disagree with the journalist because in this circumstance we don’t need criticism and negativity. Spanish government and population are showing force and solidarity, not like other countries in Europe, like Austria or Holland, that refuse to treat it as a real crisis and support the most affected countries; or reaction of countries such as UK or USA, that have been slow to take security measures after the Chinese and Mediterranean examples.

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During this quarantine I enjoy free time to finish a book that I bought last summer in a bookshop of Philippines. This book was a discovery. The main character is Circe and the book narrates her story  but the point of view of the writer is totally different and new; Circe live between two world: she is a nymph so she live as a God but she prefers live between the humans and her choice caused her a lot of problems. The writer, Madeline Miller narrates us the story of a woman who was rejected by her own family for her choices and who was betrayed by her lovers. Circe was forced to live isolated in a island but, even so, she lived many adventures.

I love Greek mythology and I recommend this book to everyone because the point of way of the writer, the way she describes and introduces us the main character is stunning:

“Tell me,” he said, “who gives better offerings, a miserable man or a happy one?”

“A happy one, of course.”

“Wrong.” He said. “A happy man is too occupied with his life. He thinks is beholden to no one. But make him shiver, kill his wife, cripple his child, then you will hear from him. He will starve his family for a month to buy you a pure-white yearling calf. If he can afford it, he will buy you a hundred.”

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Teleworking: Pros and cons of working from home.

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Teleworking: Pros and cons of working from home.

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All workers have been affected by Coronavirus and confinement and many of us have started Teleworking, but not everyone is ready for it.

For instance, I am an high school teacher and many of my students have learning problems so I have many difficulties to do an online class whit all my students at the same time. It is very difficult.

The most important idea is that this outbreak will also imply a change in the way companies have regarded Teleworking because many employers are realizing that Teleworking is more efficient and cheaper that face-to-face work. I’d hazard a guess that this confinement will mark a change. What a change. Many companies will switch to Teleworking to save additional and unnecessary costs.

I agree that teleworking is a cheaper and efficient way of work for many companies but, in my case, there are a lot od drawbacks. I’m a school teacher and my students are adolescents, so many of them aren’t self-sufficient, many of them are unable to study alone at home. With teleworking many of them lose the support of the class and additional help that they need.

If I Had to make a guess, I’d say that be a good teleworker is not easy. If is true that work from home have many advantages: you stay at your own home; it is a chill and comfortable place, more than the office; you can enjoy stay at home to do homework while you are working. But there are many disadvantages: staying at home is a trap: the comfortable and chill ambient could slow down your tasks; if the office is your home, you have a lot of distractions.

My finally thought is that teleworking cannot be applied to any kind of discipline. It is impossible for many jobs as bakers and all crafts that produce basic necessities or, in my case, school teachers have strong limitations with the teleworking: They cannot help and attend all kind of necessities of their students.

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Good evening everyone

Yesterday night I started to watch an American series, The Nanny, with Fran Dresher. I remember I saw this show when I was 17or 18 years old. It is a comedy show. When I was young I saw it in Italian. Yesterday I started to watch it in OV. In the American version the story is different. The nanny, Fran Fine, is Jewish and the series give us a satiric point of view about the traditions and habits of the Jewish community of New York.

Maybe The Nanny isn’t the better comic series that applications like Netflix, HBO or Prime video can give us, but I think it is very funny and interesting because it dares to offer us a satiric point of view of a Jewish community closely linked to its tradition and very useful to learn and improve English. In fact this series offer us a lot of examples of American English and British English, many examples of informal language and it permits us to improve our listening. I recommend it for these reasons.

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Good morning , everyone

Today I have discovered an ONG that safe animals from human exploitation or abandoned because they are not yet useful to product meat, milk or just entertainment. This is Fundación Santuario Gaia. I discovered them by Instagram. It is an association that can rescue and safe animals in all national territory with voluntary found.

I’m animalist and I collaborate with a lot of associations and, sometimes I do active voluntary with WWF. Discovering this kind of association is very grateful for me. In this surrealistic and negative clime there are people who fight against animal exploitation and not forget about them.

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We are ready to finish with the lock-down. Or not?

Today, 26th of April 2020, Spanish government raise up some restrictions and leaves children go out for one hour between 9 am to 9pm. Children can go out to the street with one of their fathers or someone who is authorized to supervise them. This is one of the step that Spanish government adopt to moderate the quarantine to Spanish people.

It would be good news but, unfortunately, someone doesn’t respect the measure and endanger public safety. 40 days of quarantine it would be useless for the irresponsibility of someone.

26th of April could be remembered ads the day of the irresponsibility. When the danger is less, when in Spain not has many death and less contagious, some people don’t respect security measures and critic the government for its actions. I think the government isn’t the only one to do that this quarantine could be useful in the fight against the virus. Each one is called to fight against the virus. This situation is really surrealistic but necessary to reduce the danger of contagious.

I hope people could reconsider it.

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Today I have seen a DVD that I don’t remember when I had bought, but surely a year ago. It is  “Die Geschichte vam weinenden Kamel”,a coproduction German-Mongolian. The plot is the story of a Mongolian family who raised camels. One day, one of the camel doesn’t accept its child and it would be a problem for the family and for the life of the little camel. The Mongolian family, who live in the Gobi desert, call a traditional musician who, according to the habit, with his music can speak with the animals and resolve the problem.

This movie-documentary offers us the possibility to know properly the life of a typical nomad family of the desert of Mongolia. The movie invite us to live a week with them and know and appreciate her habits and traditions. Apparently, we live different lives, but it isn’t true.

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Today it was a sunny day and I have basked in the sun for first time in weeks. It was stunning and offer me a wonderful moment of chilling. Unfortunately, it is very rare to me have sun in the terrace. When I was basked in the sun, I remembered my last trip: it was in Philippines.

It was my last international trip and I enjoyed it a lot. It was my first trip to an Asian country and I recommend it to everyone. Maybe The Philippines isn’t the best country in the world; maybe it hasn’t touristic attractions like Thailand or China, but it offers a singular and unique attraction: a mix of paradisiacal places without tourists and pollution and amiability of people: I could meet extraordinary people in each island I could visit: they didn’t have our comforts or money, but they offer me all they had constantly and, of course, their smile.

It was impossible visiting all the country in a month. I hope I could return to the archipelago as soon as I can.

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I have invented excuses, I have tried to eat healthier y control my diet but the moment to do sport is comes.

Before this lock-down turn me in a lazy and overweight man, I have decided to do sport at home. I was looking for some video-class in internet and finally I found a Korean group of crossfitters that offer class for different levels to do exercises at home. It is very funny and useful. In each video there are a group of five/six boys and girls that show a series of exercises easy but effective.

I have started this afternoon and I hope to do it with continuity.

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This virus and how Spanish government work to control it and this crisis that it caused, the necessity of help national net of hospitals, solidarity and respect will be useful to Spain to leave definitely its internal struggles between political parties, its destructive policies of the opposition, the pathetic and arrogant nationalisms, its regional leaders who take advantage of any situation to make interested and sterile politics, unnecessary? I

I doubt it very much but I still trust this nation that has offered me and continue to offer me many opportunities. I remember what Otto van Bismark said about Spain: “The most important nation of the world is, without a doubt, Spain. They have always tried to destroy themselves and have never succeeded. When they stop trying it, they will be at the forefront of the world again.

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Spain path out of Covid lockdown complicated by polarized politics

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Spain path out of Covid lockdown complicated by polarized politics

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Until four months ago all west European countries and USA considerer pandemics not was their problem and a fact far from their borders. It was an African or Asiatic problem. But Covid showed them that nobody could save himself from a virus. All countries around the world had adopted strategies to fight against Covid, like Spain.

First of all, Spain, like Italy has adopted extreme measures to fight against the virus, as a lockdown to control and safe people from the contagious. Countries like UK consider unnecessary this measure, extreme, until the virus cross their own border. Lockdown look likes an extreme and strong measure, but Spain was not prepared for the arrival of the virus and lockdown seemed the most effective strategy.  At the beginning all the parties of Spanish government seemed agree to approve the lockdown.

On the other hand, when the contagious was fallen and Spain was preparing to leave the lockdown, Spanish right party, PP, and Abascal and his far right party Vox  left their alliance with the government and it didn’t approve new measures to leave the emergency state gradually. They accused Sánchez to manipulate information and to use the emergency state to control the country. In addition to this, the pro-independence Catalan party Esquerra Republicana didn’t approve the new emergency plan of the Spanish government. They critiqued Spanish government measures suggesting that they had done better in a free Catalonia.

So, if in many countries government and opposition collaborate to fight against Covid, in Spain initial collaboration turned it into a war between parties. Right and nationalist parties seem to want to take advantage of the improving situation and they are trying to make politics of the pandemic.

To sum up, Spanish left government have to fight not just against Covid, but against an opposition that seems not understand the emergency situation, but seems to want to take advantage from this situation. Spain seems the only country with this problem, not like Portugal, where left government can count on the opposition.

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Many people use Google translate or other applications to translate from one language to another, for job, to study or just for entertainment. All of them or many of them know that translation by applications like these is not reliable.

This week I found an article on Facebook talking about translations and applications and it was very funny and shame at the same time. One journalist translate surname of Casado, a Spanish politic into English. The result has been ridiculous. This journalist has showed his lack of professional ethics and how dangerous these translation applications could be. Unfortunately, this attitude is not common just professional, but in students too: yesterday I discovered that one of my students translates her homework from Catalan to Spanish. I cannot understand these kind of translation from one language to another so different, but translation from Catalan to Spanish is unacceptable, especially from one native student.

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Yesterday afternoon I’ve watched Hamlet 2000, a movie whom plot is related to a Shakespeare’s tragedy, Hamlet. It was a charming and unconventional movie because the director could be able to tell a tragedy from the universal literature in a modern story try to save the importance of the original plot.

It was unconventional because the director, to adapt the story to our days, change Denmark kingdom for Denmark corporation and the prince of the kingdom is a young and poignant student who discovers his father’s soul near the bar of his office. The entire movie is a reflection about human nature and how we could be repugnant. It was a thought-provoking and stylish movie that I recommend.

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Accident like the assassination of George Floyd, committed by an American policeman invites us to the reflection about humanity, in general, and if we are living in the world that we really want, in particular. We live in a world preoccupied to discover another planets, a world that want to know who  are waiting for us in the universe, but it is the same world that not knows himself, not respect himself;  the same world that not try to improve from its fault, but it keep making the same mistakes again, and again and again… What has truly horrified me is not only the death of George Floyd, a deplorable fact, but the reactions of public opinion, which condemns popular reactions, which condemns riot in support of the Black people rights and justifies US president. I do not think it is about justifying or denouncing street violence, it is about eradicating racism from our society.

To start with, the assassination of George Floyd shows us that humans think that some life is more important than another. We believe that we can decide who can die and who can lives with all kind of rights and all conformabilities. We decide who can climb the pedestal of power and who must continue to suffer. In addition to this, US was seen as the country of liberties, but it is so further from reality. In last years, US show us that there is a difference between white people and black or Hispanic people. For instance we can listen or reading any speech of Donald Trump, Us president.  We have appropriated the right to decide that we are superior to others, simply because of the color of our skin, for our sexual orientation or for the faith we believe in it.

At the same time, two days ago we have been astonished and horrified by the news of some young people who have fed explosive-filled pineapples to a pregnant elephant, causing her immediate death.  How can we pretend to live in a world in which there is mutual respect between all ethnic groups if we are not able to respect animals, if we are able to kill them for simple fun?

In conclusion, until we are able to understand that there are no human races, until we are able to understand that we are all of the same species, black, white, Hispanic, gay, Muslim, etc. we will continue to live in a continuous could war, facing each other us to be able to climb the pedestal of power.