Christmas

Since the last essays' topics were rather heavy and because it is less then one week away, I thought that today I should share my thoughts on Christmas with you.

Although I was brought up as a catholic I am pretty far away from being a religious person. I am not an atheist, but no catholic either. This made me wonder, why christmas is still so important to me. It turned out, that Christmas for me is about the people I care about.

This time of the year is about calling people you have intented to call for months and to spend quality time with your beloved ones. We sent out cards, celebrate christmas parties and meet for christmas dinners. All to show: Hey, I still think about you and want to catch up. Usually all these events end with a promise of meeting more frequent in the future and in too many cases this promise is broken.

Many people think Christmas is about gifts and in a way it is, but think about it closely: What do you enjoy more giving gifts or receiving them? Of course everybody likes to receive gifts, but most of us are in the situation that we can easily get ourselves the jewlery, DVD, book or whatever. I find that the true joy is in giving. The happiness I feel, when I find the perfect gift for someone I love. Often a gift they were not aware they wanted until the unwrap it. Also when receiving gift what is most important to me is not the material value, but that the person thought about what I would enjoy or remembered something I said months ago. It is about knowing each other and this way showing our affection.

These are beautiful concepts, right? But what makes me sad is, why do we need a certain time of the year for this? Wouldn't it be better to have "christmas" all the year?

With these thoughts I wish you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Children - a promise to the future in need of a promised future

When it comes to children it seems likely that everything has already been said at least once, but what matters is not what has been said, but what we listen to. In one way or another, there is one repeating statement: Children are our future. But do we also give them the help they need to face this future?

First of all I want to state that I don't have children. A lot of parents will now think: Oh great, here comes another person thinking she could do so much better. Well, this might be one way of seeing it, but I consider that for this reason I can be more objective. I will use the occasion to tell all parents how much I admire them, because you have the toughest job in the world. But as with all jobs there is a decision to be made: Do we want to get through as easy as possible, with just enough effort to cope or do we have a certain exigence to ourselves as to how good we want to manage this challenge?

Since I am an aunt and often surrounded by children I have a pretty good idea of what a difficult task parenting can be. It is a tough job, with endless shifts and no leave. Still it is the biggest responsibility of all. Our children are our promise to the future and when I see the generation that is growing up now I feel sad. I fully understand that sometimes all becomes to muck and you place your kids in front of a video game to get a relieve. Trust me there is nothing wrong with that, as long as it is not the usual way of dealing with the situation and I am avoiding the word problem on purpose as children should never be considered a problem.

When we take a look at the children of today we can think of many things, that are going the wrong way, but a friend of mine who is school teacher put it in a simple but accurate way: During the break at school, when our generation played together tag or double Dutch, now every child sits in a corner with the newest smart phone playing games on its own. Don't get me wrong, I am a huge supporter of technology, when used in a proper way. But do our kids really need smart phones at such a young age? Aren't we depriving them of a childhood like the one we experienced? One of my dearest childhood memories is, when my friends and I decided to build a shelter from the rain for worms and insect. We used all sorts of twigs, leaves and stones. Today's children would never even come with such an idea, unless they googled a proper design and ordered previously parts on the internet.

By the overstimulation our kids receive, we are killing their creativity and isn't that the most important thing for progress? Because progress is also change and that can only happen if someone comes up with something new.

I am not one of these extreme people saying children shouldn't watch TV until their teens or anything alike. Actually I often watched TV as a child and I think I turned out quiet right. What I am actually saying is, that it is about balance, like pretty much everything in life. Let your kids watch TV, but make sure what they see has a certain "quality". It is really easy to turn almost everything into a useful lesson. For example, if you watch a movie with a dolphin in it discuss it with your children afterwards. Ask them if they would like to one day feed a dolphin and tell them to find out what they eat. This way you can channel TV and the use of a computer into the right direction. Nothing about this approach is new, as even shows like "Dr. Who" juggled the idea of children developing interest in history through entertainment.

But there are also a lot of aspects about education, where we have learnt a lot in the past twenty years. An example is nutrition. While our parents, were not aware of the influence nutrition in young years has on us for the rest of our life we are now very well aware of it. A mistake often made is to use food as a method of consolation or gratification. Never wondered, why so many of us girls grab some chocolate when feeling down or why we order pizza after a hard day? Please don't get me wrong, I am not judging our parents generations, as I have not doubt they did everything as best according to their knowledge, as we should do now.

But it would be wrong to push the responsibility only to the parents. We all are responsible for the following generation. It is us aunts, uncles, neighbours, teachers that will influence them. This is why I always feel like screaming when I am reading about budget cuts for schools, increase in university fees, cancellation of support just to name a few. What is more important to invest in, then our children?

I grew up in a working class family, while we weren't poor, money was an issue, when decisions had to be made, as we were three children. Luckily I had two adult brother who supported me, beside from my parents, when I was in university and still I had to work on the side. I am not looking for pity or anything alike, as I was luckier than a lot of people.

Martin Luther King once started a speech with the words "I have a dream" and I want to borrow this words now. As I too have a dream, where education and studies is not a luxury but a given right to every child.  

Moral Values in the past, present and future

Don't roll your eyes because of the title, I am not about to bragg about good old times or conservative ideas, but I still think that sometimes it is important to look back and check for things we might have lost along the journey.

Not everything our grandparents considered values or important qualities have been outdated, on the contrary. I strongly believe that we should regain some of the past qualities, though always with moderation. As I recently read: A virtue is only a virtue as long it is exercised in moderation, everything going into the extreme turns into a flaw. Imagine a tolerant man starting to tolerate other people commiting crimes or someone thorough checking things so intesively that he never comes to an end.

I consider loyalty to be good example for this. Loyalty is important in any sort of relationship: friendship, family, work just to name a few. But what happens, when loyalty is everything that counts and turns us blind? In this case we might end up following people or ideas, without ever questioning them. We should never forget: Everything worth our loyalty is able to withstand it being questioned, no matter if it is an idea or a person or a group. Unfortunately these days most people barely grin at th idea of loyalty ridiculing it.

Another value that we are loosing more and more is courtesy. Everyday we can expirience that, from kids yelling at their mothers to people barking the waiter for more coffee instead of kindly asking. Why does this happen? How can it be the kindness seems more and more to be outdated? Don't we prefer to be treated kindly and politely ourselves, then why don't we render other people the same courtesy?

But how do we know, which values of the past are still worth adopting? I guess this is one of the most difficult questions ever and everyone has to answer it for themselves. Our parents have given us the values they considered important and it is our duty to carefully question them and maintain those important and let go of those outdated.

Also we need to consider values they may not have taught us, for example tolerance in many cases. Unfortunately this was not a virtue of past generations and this is, why it is up to us to make it a value of the future. We are the ones realizing its importance, developing it and passing it on to our children.

This is what makes us human beings, to become more that the generations before us, by holding on to their good parts and adding more of our own.

Environmental Protection: Ten Commandments to help save our Planet

When it comes to environmental protection most people consider it impossible to make a diference being a single individual, but actually it is the other way around. Because that is what humanity is:

Many single individuals and the efforts of every single one added together are what makes the world change.

Everybody or at least the vast mayority of people would agree, if asked, that the ecology is one of their main concerns. We are slowly killing this planet, but while people seem to care it is only a small minority that actually tries to stop it or even reverse this process.

The problem is that most of us are not aware of how easily we can start being active regarding ecology, without too much effort. It might not be sufficient to save the planet, but it will slow the decay down, if we all do our share. It is just 10 points and trust me, if we all follow them we can start to make a difference:

1. Reduce the showering time per day to 10 minutes. No worries, this is more than sufficient time to be clean afterwards, it is better for your skin AND it will safe you money down the line.
2. If you are not in the room, turn off the light (unless it is a neon lamp; with those the energy waste might be higher if often turn on and off), also avoid leaving TVs and laptops on standby. This will safe a lot of energy and money!
3. Before taking the car consider public transportation or walking. Isn't it ironic we spend money and time in the gym to work out, while we use the car for a trip around the corner, instead of walking 5 minutes?
4. If you work in office consider carefully what you need to print. In case you have "fail prints" try to re-use them as note paper. Many offices already do this and even have a printer drawer filled with paper, that has been printed already on one side. Also here the saving for the ecology equals to a significant saving of money.
5. Recycle at least your paper and glass. Check in your town, what other options you have to recycle, as most middle sized towns (at least in Europe) offer the possibilities to also recycle stuff like batteries, tins, plastic etc. If you think this is just annoying and not worth it, consider what kind of world you want to leave your kids. A world full of trash, where breathing fresh air is a luxury or a world where you can still enjoy nature!                               
6. If you have a garden consider the possibility of a compost pile. This will take some extra work, but the soil is excellent and you have an ecological way of disposing swill.  
7. When you go to the grocery store take reusable shopping bags with you. You can get those made of cloth or you can even use the average plastic bag a few times or you can use a shopping a basket etc. No matter what you use, just try to avoid a bunch of new plastic bags every time you go shopping.
8. If you decide to buy a new car don't only consider looks, price and extras, but also things like milage and inform yourself about alternatives like hybrids, electric cars etc.
9. In Winter use the heating carefully. If you are leaving the house for several hours (e.g. when you go to work) turn it down, so the energy isn't wasted. Also if living in an old building make sure that the windows' sealing is good. An new one might costs some money in the beginning, but the savings in engery costs make it worth quickly.
10. This is probably the most important point: Try to teach other people more awareness of environmental protection!

I am very well aware, that we have all heard these or similar points and that although all of these are important, non will reverse the process that has already started. The important thing is to increase the awareness with people and to get them willing to do their part.

It is not about being perfect but about the attitude. Keep in mind, every piece of trash avoided is one piece less polluting our planet.

For those replying: It is none of my business. Just tell them this: As long as you live on the planet it concerns you too, because there is no escape.

So let's try to do our bit and keep your eyes open, then you will see lots of oportunities to help save earth!

Politics and critics

When it comes to politics there is an infinty of possibilities of how to deal with it and it seems to as many different types of people. But if you take a closer look you notice that it is only three kinds of people.

First we have the activists. Some of them simply carefully decide who to vote for or they work voluntarily for the party they believe to be best suited for the job in question. Others choose to run for an office themselves or maybe to go the unortodox way of protesting to make their voice heard. Although these people are often different in their approach to the matter, they all have something in common: They care about society and try to help it to move into the direction they think is the right one. It is them who make the world progress.

Then we have the passive folks. They are not interested in politics and have made peace with the fact that someone has to do take care of it. They don't constantly complain about politics and accept that sometimes they win and sometimes they loose. They appreciate that there are people who take care of things like public health systems, job creation, infrastructure, evironment protection and kindergardens just to name a few, so they don't have to deal with it.

Finally we have those, that are constantly complaining about politics but cannot even be bothered to vote. Their usual argument is "all parties just suck". These people behave like the annoying sport's fan that watches from the side line and believe he could do everything better, without ever daring to perform.

"The Diary" reposted and critics

Unfortunately that I can post "The Diary" again means that the short has not made it into the final of the competition, but this is ok, since I found the e-mail from the editor encouraging, as it basically said that they liked the story, but it is not what they were looking for.
The story is pretty dark and I am eager to know what you guys think of it. I am aware that this is most likely my most controversial work and I am aware that not everybody will like it.
So I am inviting all of you to give me a critic on the story (No worries, I can also take a harsh critic) by using the comment function. I will not delete any comments unless they are ofensive to other people. So let me have your thoughts!
To get to the story just get to the right side on the English writings section.

Home and "chronicles of the shadow wars"

As some of you are already aware of I grew up abroad. This lead to a very special connection to the concept of "home".
While to most people the concept is clear (e.g. "where you live", "where you are from") for people like me this has become a more complex issue. What is home?
When I am in Germany I am the "spanish chick" and when I am in Spain I am the "german chick". So the question is do I have two homes or none?
For me home has therefore a less literal meaning. It is not necessarily where you live or where your family is from, but where you feel safe and loved. It can be a place or the company of a person. A place where I can totally be myself and let down my guard. This is for me the definition of home. After all we say I FEEL at home. So down the line we all sense home rather as an e-motional state then an actual place.
Sometimes I find "home" in the least expected place and for me that is the beauty of it. On the other hand you sometimes don't feel at home in place you actually should or want to feel at home.

After this little philosophical excursion a little update on the "chronicles of the shadow wars". Since the concept is becoming very extense I have decided to break the stories down, so the new title reads:

The chronicles of the shadow wars - Part 1: Claudia

Despite the interruptions the book is developing nicely and my test readers are giving positive feedbacks. I have set myself the deadline of the 31st of March to finish the book, so I can sent it to potentional editors (Although I already have one that seems interested).

I will keep you posted.

Tolerance

For a few days I wanted to write a new post, but today I felt the URGE to write one about tolerance.
While surfing on the web I learnt about the "NOH8" campaign and I must say I totally support this. But this let me also to read about the sad story of the death of Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14 year old boy who took his own life as he could not take anymore bullying at school for being bisexual. This story touched me deeply, as the concept of intolerance it totally foreign to me as a person. I never understood, why I should hate another person for being different than me.

I want to state here that I am not gay, not because I would mind being gay, just because I am not and I want people to understand that supporting what is right does not have anything to do with the cause connecting to you directly. I am not gay, but I still think gay couples should have the right to get married and live their life as peaceful as straight couples.

I grew up in a foreign country and while most people were friendly there have been moments, where being a foreigner was  disadvantage. Since I grew up here I speak the language without any foreign accent, but my parents do have a foreign accent and it happens too often where I see how people raise an eyebrow and get this "learn-the-language-properly-you-dumb-foreigner-look". This hurts me deeply and to quote the movie "a walk in the clouds": "Don't think that because I speak with an accent I also think with an accent". Isn't it a least worth an acknowledgement that I am making an effort to speak to you in your language? As a matter of fact I am writing this blog in english although I am not a native speaker. People in the USA, Australia and Canada (to name a few) can read this blog, because I took the effort to write in their language. Would it be fair then to judge me for spelling or grammar errors?

While intolerant people take pride in what they call their "values" and think everyone has to adopt their ways, they have shirts in all different colours and have everyday different food. The love variety in all parts of their life, except of other people. Would the consequence not mean that the could only mingle with people with the exact same values, the same colour etc. So their favourite person would be themselves, right? So let me guess these people would like to clone themselves, so there is nothing to hate about the other person, as it doesn't differ right? But then they had to start dating their clone (as no one else agrees with them a 100 %) and they would end up in a same-sex relationship!

This last paragraph I know was pretty sarcastic and made this whole intolerance thing sound ridiculous, but that is because to me it is! To what intolerance leads is horrible and the "intolerance" itself is ridiculous. Imagine a guy being bullied for liking blond girls or someone for being canadian!

Human Rights

I know the title sounds really BIG, but this topic has been haunting me for a few days now.
For a competition I have been writing a short story and due to the idea I had I ended up thinking about human rights and such things as death penalty.

Recently there was a case here in Germany all over the news. A man had kidnapped a little boy for ransom and he was caught, but refused to reveal the kid's location. The police threatened him with torture and he ended up revealing where the boy was. The boy was already dead as he had been killed right after kidnapping him. The guy was trialed and sent to prison. Now he has taken the German state to court because of the torture threat he had received and he seriously has received an indemnation.

My gut feeling tells me the police was right and that the guy shouldn't have received an indemnation, but I also know that threatening someone with torture is against human rights. So find myself asking myself: What are human rights? I mean a guy killing a little boy in cold blood for money that is inhuman. Right? So someone whose actions are inhuman, does the person still quality for human rights? I know I am walking a thin line here and I thank god, that I am in no position to have to decided over such things but I still think point of view should be reflected upon.

I am sure you will understand, why I have been thinking about this issue so intensively lately, when you read the story. It is called "the diary" and it is published in the english writings section. It is very dark (the competion's theme is "blackness"), but I still kind of like it. Let me know what you think!

Creative process

These past few days I have been stuck at a crucial point at chapter 2. You may wonder how it could be a crucial point that early at the book, but it was important for the character definition of my lead character.
I have been juggling around ideas for days and whenever I came up with something I ended up remembering the have read something similar in another book or have seen it in a movie and therefore I started thinking of something else.
Although I have read some books and seen a couple of movies it may still be less then 0,0001 % of what humanity has created. I then wonder is it possible that we have run out ideas? Millions of people over roughly 7000 years of humanity writing music, writing books and painting. Is it possible that everything has already been done at one point? No!
When people ask why I right, especially when I am writing fantasy, I say: Because everything is possible! In my mind everything is possible and I can create the most amazing things. For me this is the true beauty of being creative. You are not bound by anything like money, time, law, fisics....
And to conclude this post: Yes, I have found my character detail and I have never read or seen something similar. :)
Next week I will post some of my short stories here and I hope you will enjoy them.

the chonicles of the shadow war

Ok, this is the title of the book I am currently writing. So far I am right now working on Ch 2.
As you can judge from the title it will be take time over several 100 years. I will try not to spoil but can already tell it is scifi/mystery. I know I know, this is no surprise!