Book review

FIREFLIES 

The book called Fireflies by Ana Maria Matute was published in 1993. 

Fireflies narrate the story of Sun, a son of a well-being family who lives in Barcelona. The civil war surprised her in her adolescence. Sol is a shy, curious and lonely girl who is forced to look inside her to find the necessary force to survive the misery and barbarism of a conflict that doesn’t understand. During this process she will know the valour of friendship and love but also the pain of hunger and the injustice of death.

I read this book as an optative in Spanish class. 

I think that It’s probably the book which I have found it more difficult to understand, also the book more sad I have ever read and finally a book from which I have learn a lot. So this is a heavy, long, sad and confused book which I have liked a lot. This is not a book which you enjoy because is always talking about pain and hunger, but inside all this there are some hope and love. So this book surprised me a lot and I would like to read it again some years later. Also I recommended a lot because makes you think that the way you are living now is totally different to 70 years ago. 

your-say

GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE

There are some pages on the book (107, 4) in which say that habituation and routine makes us unhappy.
 I really agree with that because the routine makes us to do the same things in the same way and feel and think the same, so we get used to things and this makes us unhappy. It’s like when you want a thing and a weak after have bought it the emotion and happiness you were feeling with the idea of buying it has disappeared. So the key is to get out of your comfort zone, that no means to go to Africa and ride an elephant but doing small things that produce you pleasure and happiness. Anyway another way to feel happy, as the book mentions, is feeling adrenaline so producing feel-good endorphins which will make you feel happy. Is for this same reason for which when I grow up I would like to travel a lot, because this is a way to live new experiences and get out of habituation. But at the end is difficult to not fall in routine because you have a job, a family and a place and you can’t be changing all that twice a month. For these cases, the solution could stay in the small things because as the Theory of butterflies says, a little change can outcome in a big change, so maybe just changing a 1 per cent of things is enough.

Your-say

ONE MONTH AGO 

One month ago I went with my school class to Barcelona to do a Spanish project about a book we have read. In the afternoon, teachers gave us time free and my friends and I went to shopping. We came across a shop called Urban outfitter where among other things like nice clothes and shoes, there were some special books. My friend Aina told me she had bought twice there some weeks ago and she encouraged me to leaf through some. I quickly found one that caught my eye. The name of the one which half an hour later I was buying was called Get happy. I realise I will read it quickly as I love read so I ask to my English teacher to take this new one for an oral exam and she agree.  Now I have already read it and my purpose is to talk about some of the topics of the book in my following posts. 

News

SELF-DRIVING CARS IN THE STREETS

http://www.newsinlevels.com/products/self-driving-cars-in-the-streets-level-1/?utm_source=old

This news item was posted on 22nd May 2016 on a web site called English in levels. The article talks about a new invention that Google has designed and created in Detroit, USA. This new invention has been already tested with good results. The self-driving car is different and special. As the name says - it doesn’t need a driver as it’s programmed to drive by itself. However, engineers can take over driving in case they need it. Finally the article says that the speed of this new car is limited to 40 kilometres per hour.

In my opinion I think this is a very good invention because these new cars, if they are well programmed, they could prevent a lot of road accidents and consequently human injuries and deaths. Anyway I’m not sure about how safe you are inside one of them.