A MATTER OF FATE...

It was a rainy day in Oxford. I was on a trip to the city with my group of friends when all of a sudden I got shocked.

First of all I should explain what made me go to Oxford and where I was staying.

I was living with an English family in Worcester, near Oxford for the whole month of July. My host family was very nice to me, really polite and they made me feel like at home besides helping me learn a lot of English. My host mother was an English teacher and her two daughters, one aged 8 and the other one 12, liked to spend time with me and gave me conversation, so I practised pretty much my speaking.

As far as evening activities and trips were concerned, I met some students who were staying near my town and we organised several parties and excursions to different cities around the town.

The thing is that one day that I was feeling homesick. I missed my family and friends and I didn’t really feel like going out. My colleagues convinced me to go to the city to a farewell party with some Italian students. I went there even if I didn´t feel like enjoying myself.

Little did I know what the outcome was going to be. Once in the party I started to dance and I met new students from the outskirts. And there he was. One of the French boys I had met the previous yearon one of the trips my school had arranged. I was totally astonished. I couldn't believe my eyes. I stared at him for a while and so did he.

He was a special friend I had had a nice relationship  with. Suddenly I remembered how sad and weepy it had been to say goodbye to him. It was a matter of fate to bump into him again and I reckon this has been the thrillest experience in my life.

Since then, we have kept in touch. We chat each other from time to time and I'm really grateful to that second chance as I had him back and he is now one of the most important people in my life.

What do teenagers worry about?

Recent research has shown  that nowadays teenagers are getting more and more worried and live life more stressfully than before.

But which are the reasons for this to happen and why do they let themselves feel such a panic?

From my point of view, the answers are quite clear. The main two facts that teenagers most worry about are their physical appearance  and their future.

To start with, youngsters consider that appearance is an essential feature  in life.

Not only do teenagers worry, but also adults, even elderly people. The latter group find it very hard to realize they are getting older and they  go through surgery and try to keep healthy so that they don’t look their age and, at the same time, feel proud of themselves.

In the case of teenagers, it seems that this society has gone mad, as if we all should be continuously showing how “perfect” we are, hiding our imperfections, in order to be liked by the rest.

Likewise, this affects our appearance. Teenagers will always try not to act in a way that can be criticized just because it is different from the rest. We try to sell our image showing  the leak of personality we suffer.

As far as future plans are concerned, teenagers might feel puzzled and overwhelmed when having to decide their future studies at university since these decisions that must be taken in a short period of time, will be absolutely relevant for the rest of their lives.

It is pretty distressing  to know that our future depends on what we do as teenagers.

To sum up, I reckon that young people shouldn’t give too  much importance to what people think about them and do what they want, being straightforward people, enjoying every single minute of life, as if this was the last one! CARPE DIEM!

Malala Yousafzai

In many countries school is not free and parents who have limited resources choose to invest in their sons’ education instead of their daughters´. One would be able to understand that something like this would have been accepted as an ordinary thing in our society 50 years ago or even earlier than that, but it is quite unreasonable to think that nowadays a person should have fewer rights for the fact that you are a woman.

A few weeks ago, Malala Yousafzai,  a fourteen year old Pakistani girl, was shot by the Talibans. Dangerously injured, was rapidly taken to a hospital where she eventually was operated on to remove the bullet of her head. This girl, who had never given up her education , decided to attend school regardless of the fact that girls over an age are not allowed to do so. She was very determined and wrote about the value of educating girls. Some people were not ready to accept such a brave action and decided she deserved some kind of punishment and shot her.

No one would dispute the fact that it is totally unacceptable to deprive anyone of their human rights, and clearly this has been the case of Malala. In my opinion, what we should do is support and encourage these strong people who struggle to be heard and to be an equal part in a man dominating society. I strongly  share her point of view and  I would probably do the same in her case although I am not in her situation as we live in different cultures and she does not have all the opportunities that fortunately we are able to enjoy ourselves.

In conclusion, I would like to express my strong  support to human rights, more precisely, women’s rights. It is not fair to accept sexism in the 21th century. 

Dear Future Me

Dear FutureMe,

This is me in 2012 writing to you in 2025.

I’m writing  this letter so that you have some memories of your  past just in case you forget some of your ambitions for the future.

At the moment I'm having a look at some photos of myself and my relatives and I'm thinking about what I was like when I was younger, what I expected my future to be and in fact, these childish dreams and questions aren't so stupid, so I just thought that writing a couple of things, which will be read some years later, might be a nice surprise for you and you might be able to enjoy this time comparing life styles and seeing if my expectations came true.

I’m in my senior year in high school trying to make up my mind about what to study and what to do with my future.

I’ve got quite clear that I’d like to have a degree in business, so you will probably be in a company working in the marketing sector or in the financial sector.

I hope you will be enjoying the job and that you will become a well-known business woman one day.

As far as love and family is concerned, in 2015 I will be 30 so let me tell you that I believe it is time to settle down and have a family provided you have found the love of your life or somebody who will make you happy.

Try not to forget that you were also a teenager and don't ever let go your little child that is inside you which will really make you enjoy life with your kids and friends 

I hope by now you will have tried to make your dreams come true, travelled a lot and enjoyed your last years of freedom because from now on, you’ll have to bring up your children and let them to their own devices as your parents allowed you to do.

I wish you all my best for the rest of your life.

Take care,

'Present me' Maria.

How do you feel being 17?

Tired of being 17 and being treated like a child but also afraid of becoming an adult and considering yourself not being able to face real life problems?

Dear friend, I can understand how frustrated you feel.

It’s been a couple of years since I’ve noticed how fast life runs. Now that I’ve grown up and that I’ve become a mature girl I can see my last 17 years as if they were just 4. I had a wonderful childhood and fantastic teen years and it’s pretty sad to realize that it’s all gone, I will never have the chance to live it all again, indeed.

To be honest, on the one hand,  I would love to be a teenager  forever without any more worries than getting up every morning  to go to school, hang around with friends and a couple of love problems which make you drop a few tears from time to time but that will teach you and help you to become a mature person.

But on the other hand, even though I reckon being young  makes you feel on top of  the world most of the time, there is a wide range of things we are not allowed to do just because we don’t have the right age; such as, going into clubs or getting  the driving licence for moving from one place to another without depending on the public transport and their timetables, which occasionally drive me mad and get on my nerves.

To put it in a nutshell, as I said before, although I’d love to be young forever, life has its stages and we will have to learn to take the most positive aspects about each one.

I feel quite upbeat for my future, that’s why I feel we shouldn’t worry  about future problems any more and from now on, try to live each second of the life as if it was the last one.

TEMPUS FUGIT SO... CARPE DIEM!