What I Learned, My Goals, My Future….

Manifesto

     Out of the 17 years I have been alive, about 14 of them I have spent at school. The rest of my time I used it either for sports, reading, music lessons, or spending time with my family. I consider that through all those years I have learned a lot from my friends, teachers and family. Without them I wouldn’t be the person I think I am today. I see myself as an independent, passionate, respectful young woman who isn’t afraid to be herself and who will pursue her dreams.

     Students spend most of their conscious time at school. As a student in school I learned from my first words to complicated calculus problems. Most of the things I know now are attributed to the years I have studied in this great school. I also grew up as a person and set my values during the time I spent at school interacting with my classmates and listening to my teacher’s life lessons.

     In the past years I have learned a lot about accepting yourself and others and about friends. For example when I was a little girl, in pre school the other kids bothered me because I watched boy TV shows. I was supposed to watch girly shows with fairies or ballerinas. Or when I was in sixth grade, when some kids bothered me because had good grades, they called me a “pepe” or nerd. Little things like that made me want to change myself into another person. I was afraid of people making fun of me so I kept music (singing and playing one or two instruments) a secret. I also started hiding the things that weren’t accepted, like having good grades, reading books for fun, or things that didn’t look “cool”. But all those problems don’t matter now, they all helped me grow up as a person. Even though there were mean kids, I have always had friends who help me and accept me. With time I realized that being you is better than living behind a lie. I showed little by little who I was and in fact, my friends didn’t stop liking me. I know now that all those struggles are a normal part of growing up, and wanting to be accepted.

     I also had a lot of problems regarding my academic life. I had lots of issues with teachers in eight and ninth grade. I always thought that they hated me, but I realized that it was all in my head. I learned a lot of what happens in the world today thanks to social studies. Thanks to the books we read in Spanish I learned about Colombian reality, in the Llanos Orientales. I really liked a lesson in eleventh grade about stereotypes. After my teachers showed in class videos about the stereotypes in the Disney movies. Or after they showed how little kids differentiate the black dolls from the white ones . Being the black ones bad and the white ones good. I saw in real life how the media shapes people’s thoughts. How people are taught to think in certain ways since they are born. I started listening to stereotypes in my daily conversations, such as “ all the costeños are lazy,” etc. Lessons like that were the ones that helped me understand a little bit better the world I live in today. A world that is full of inequality, a world where things are not strictly black or white, a world where is difficult to differentiate the good from the bad.

     I have been a student at Colegio Panamericano for about 14 years. Now I am on the last days of my senior year and I can say that my experience in this school has had great positive outcomes. Since I was four years old I began to form part of this great family at school, formed by my classmates, teachers and counselors. I can affirm that growing up with my friends and my teachers was an excellent experience. It’s sad that in a few months we will all be growing apart, each one of us going to different cities to universities, or staying here in Bucaramanga. Most people are marked for their whole life by the experiences they have in their childhood. I am proud to say that thanks to the school, friends and family, growing up was a great experience, even in the bad times I have always felt supported and loved.

     At the beginning of my senior year I had one goal, to seize the most I could of the year. I said to my self I didn’t want to have any regrets, I wanted to be a smart girl who had time to be involved with music, and also spend time with her friends and family. Now that I am finishing high school I can say that I have no regrets, everything was perfect, and thanks to that, I am who I am today. I am proud of who I am, my friends and my family.

     I have no idea what the future has for me. I only have one main goal, I want to be happy. I want to be happy with my self, my choices, the people around me. I want to choose a profession that I am passionate about, even though many disapprove it. I want to be a complete person, like the following quote from a book I like, "I want to be brave, and selfless, and smart, and kind, and honest," (Divergent, Veronica Roth)

     My main inspiration is my family, the people in it are always unconditional and love me no matter what. I am also inspired by my books, which make me travel to different worlds and make me forget the reality. My friends, who make me want to become a better person also inspire me. I want to keep learning, and in a metaphorical sense plant a seed in every people I know. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “ be the change you wish to see in the world.” I will try to be the best of me with everyone I know, that’s how I can make the world different. I am no one to say I can change the world, but I believe that it is a work in progress and that step by step it can be better.

Works Cited

Roth, Veronica. Divergent. New York : HarperCollins,

 2011. Print.

Lightbulb Conspiracy

This week in social studies class we started watching a documentary called The Lightbulb Conspiracy. The film basically showed us the history of planned obsolescence and the struggle to end it. The movie showed us how the oldest lightbulb has lasted 100 years, it was produced in Ohio and invented to last. A lightbulb like this, of course, was not profitable because it lasted too long, it was too good. So the companies built a cartel around it, they started producing lightbulbs that don't last as much, so people have to keep buying them again and again. 
The video also talked about the printers and nylon stockings. The printers that are designed by engineers with a chip to stop functioning after a certain number of impressions. Or the nylon stockings which were a great invention at first but because of planned obsolescence that started making weaker fibers. We saw all about the ethical debate around this. The film said, " An article that refuses to wear out is a tragedy for business." It also talked about how they wanted to make planned obsolescence a law but at last they opted for making it a cultural thing and "seduce" people with products. Planned obsolescence is something that still exists today in the world and from one part people say it generates work and all that. But on the other hand it makes people slaves of the economic system because they won't ever stop buying things that won't last and paying money for a bad product is kind of unfair. 

Colombian Monetary System!! :O

In the last post I explained a little bit about how the US banking system works, now it is time to explain how this system works in Colombia and how it assimilates and differs from the US system. After researching a lot I found out that Colombian system is regulated by the Central Bank or the "Banco de la República" which is in charge of the production of cash and controlling how much of it is made.

This bank isn't part of any of the branches of power (legislative, judicial or jurisdictional), the constitution gives this bank the power of being autonomous without being linked to any branch of government." Esta entidad se creó como Banco Central de Colombia mediante la Ley 25 de 1923, definido como una entidad de derecho publico económico de naturaleza única, con autonomía administrativa especial. " This quote shows the law that defines the Central Bank of Colombia autonomous and with unique nature. This is similar to the us that has a federal reserve where the governmenent asks for money to them. I think the money in Colombia is created the same way as in the US so this makes them similar.

Watch the following video it explains the power and how the central bank of colombia works.

mla citation: "Panorama monetario y financiero | banrepcultural.org." Panorama monetario y financiero | banrepcultural.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Apr. 2014. <http://www.banrepcultural.org/blaavirtual/

Fractional Reserve Banking System all messed up…

This week in Social Studies class we saw a video called Zeitgeist, it is a documentary that explains the fractional reserve banking system in the US and how it all works. At first we understood little because in the video lots of economic terms are used, that many people don't know. The main conclusion I got from the video is that people will always be in debt because of the capitalist system we all live in and that money is created out of nowhere. 
Watch this video it talks about how money is created in this system it will help you to understand what I am talking about in this post and to understand better the documentary that is linked bellow at the end of this post. 

The documentary basically explained that the almost all the money that is floating around in the US is mostly digital and that only the 3 percent actually exists. It appears that the US government asks for loans of money to the federal reserve which gives them the money. Then that money goes to a bank, where only 10 percent of the money gets kept as deposit the rest is for loans. Actually the money doesn't exist it gets created by the federal reserve. When the people go to the banks to get loans they have to pay for interest which is money that doesn't even exist. This way the system is based on debts so everyone will always be on debt. By creating money out of the blue inflation starts and everything goes wrong. This shows us how messed up this system is because it only benefits the people that are on the top of the pyramid because they have money, but for the ones of the lower parts of the pyramid prices will keep going up while they won't get more money. 
Here is the link so that you can watch the video it is really interesting I recommend it.

Egyptian Detainees Misery.

In a former post I talked about Egypt's political situation and about how kids were arrested unfairly. I found a very interesting article in aljazeera.com (a online news website) about this very same situation. The article I found didn't talk about kids in specific. It did talk about how was life for Egyptian detainees. I learned from the article that Egypt's police tortures physically and emotionally the captives by beating them up or humiliating them.

The article described the case of a 22 year old young man who was tortured and RAPED inside a police station in Egypt. It appears that the Egyptian government (which should take care and make sure that the rights of the people are protected) doesn't have a word to say about this. Even the media in Egypt is ignoring this huge issue. The victim was tortured with knives and electrocuted and then raped after denying he was related to the "Muslim Brotherhood." The article also describes how an activist is asking for help to the civil rights organization. I believe this is something really huge to ignore. It is the duty of the human rights organizations to intervene it is clear that Egypt isn't a save environment to live in. The government let all that mess happen and it is out of control and in my opinion for other countries and entities to intervene. 

Click HERE for a link to the article I just described, there, you can watch a short video and learn a little bit more about this theme. 

PHOTOCREDITS: http://www.aljazeera.com/humanrights/2014/04/egyptian-detainees-tortured-raped-201441165823978172.html

MLA citations: "Egyptian detainees 'tortured and raped'."- Human Rights. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Apr. 2014. <http://www.aljazeera.com/humanrights/2014/04/egyptian-detainees-tortured-raped-201441165823978172.html>.

Food, Money & Power Related?

Last week we saw a documentary about how food industry is managed in the US. I was very surprised to find out how corrupted this industry is. The movie we saw talked about Monsanto a company that patented the genetic code of some seeds and how this company has taken over the food system. It is of common knowledge that some plants reproduce by polinization which arrives to them by air, or other animals can serve as vectors to transport pollen. Monsanto makes every farmer pay for their seeds (the patented ones) and the farmers who want to grow their own plants still can get pollen from a patented plant so therefore Monsanto owns every crop.
We can se how this part of the industry relates to money, power and politics. In the movie we can see many examples of farmers who tried going against  Monsanto, but they end up loosing because of lawyer fees or Monsanto finds a sneaky way to win. We find the winning of the court cases by Monsanto very influenced by all the money and millions of assets this company has. This is really messed up, to the level that Monsanto made it illegal for people to ask what is in their own food. This issue related to everyone constantly and food is something every human needs to keep living so this has to be addressed soon. I watched a long documentary about this theme. If you want to know a little bit more about this theme watch this video that talks about corruption and capitalism in Monsanto company and how it uses its power to manipulate the government and the farmers.

ONU Intervenes With Colombia's Internal Conflict

   As a Colombian I feel that I should make a post about my countries internal problems. It is of common knowledge that Colombia has internal conflicts regarding the different guerrillas (such as FARC and ELN)  and internal warfare. Last week the armed group FARC killed governmental officers. I found a very interesting article in semana.com that talks about how the ONU decided to intervene.

    It appears that the ONU demanded the armed group  "FARC" to give the killers to the "Fiscalia General" or a governmental office that will judge the killers of the police officers. We all know the Colombian judicial system is super messed up and corrupted but at least the intervention of the ONU is a little step towards change. It is true that many of the actions the FARC does, violates human rights and its about time that other countries or at least he entity that is in charge of defending human rights throughout the world start intervening in a conflict that its clearly out of Colombia's government hands.

Click here to take a look at the article.. 

Here is a video that appeared in RCN Noticias that proves and shows the exact demands the ONU gave to "FARC"