What is art?

Art has its own language. We are in contact with art every day: we listen to music, we watch movies, we read books, we appreciate paintings, sculptures and even structures. But how we see it is different for each one. So, its definition is different for all of us.

For me, art at all levels has played a very important role in my life but especially painting. Since I was a child I have been interested in the world of paintings. When I was 8 years old, my parents signed me up for drawing classes, but I didn't like it. The teacher was strict and you had to do the drawings as she said. I mean, she limited our creation process, at least mine. And the drawing is the opposite. It must be creative and innovative. It has to make you feel free and not as if you were following some type of rules.

When I started high school, my favourite subject was plastic arts. That was when I created my first self-portrait. Here you have a picture of  it:

Also, I had some sketches. Here is one of them:

Since then, I became more interested in paintings. Every time I have had the opportunity, I have visited a museum. The last time I went to one was last summer in Copenhagen. It was called Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek. It barely had any paintings, but it had an impressive collection of sculptures. That was really amazing!

These days are being a little bit blue for me and for many people. Without being able to go outside, without seeing our relatives, without meeting our friends. But the paint makes me feel better. Here is some stuff I have recently painted during these days in quarantine:

I really couldn't define art. I guess it's about creating something without words, but that can speak for itself. But this is just an opinion about what art means to me and how it makes me feel.

How being creative can help you during hard times

When I was thinking what to write here, I couldn’t find any topic in my life very interesting, but then, as I looked around myself and saw the situation we are in, I thought about how many of my hobbies can help people’s sanity and they are currently helping people all over the world to endure the quarantine.

First of all, I like to draw, read and write, and now I’m learning lettering, which is a discipline to learn other types of handwriting or calligraphy.

My attempts at drawing and lettering these last days

These days many people are doing live streams and videos showing their works as musicians, writers or artists for free. This shows us how creative matters can help someone to be happy, relaxed and peaceful in very stressful times, like mindfulness does in our classes.

As doing sport can help us realise our inner energy, drawing, painting, writing, reading and some other creative activities can help us to focus our mind in just a single task, forgetting the anxiety, sadness and stress caused by the coronavirus, and kill time.

All we know that, when we have a lot of free time, it’s very difficult for us to distract ourselves and, in the situation we are living right now, that difficulty has increased. We live in a world where we are used to do many things a day, going out and keeping always our head busy. But now, we can’t. At all.

So, here comes creative activities as a solution. Doing thes kind of stuff can help us mentally by letting us rest from the high stimulation we were often involved in and reducing the boredom. Also, by doing this we can active our memory, create bonds with other people living the same situation and with similar hobbies (virtually, of course), disconnect our minds from the alarming news, benefit our self-esteem or even reduce stress.

Although these activities are not taught as much as science and languages in schools, now we can see their real value and recognise how much they can help us emotionally and psychologically.

As for me, these last weeks, in the lockdown we are because of COVID-19, I have discovered many things that can calm myself like bakery and lettering. I have attend some live streams to learn to do flower crowns, mug cakes or tips for writing a romantic novel, for example.

Drawings of flowers for Sant Jordi's day

My attempt at homemade churros 😅

This has helped me a lot to get through the days, and maybe some of these activities can help you too. So, if you want to try and know how to spend this hard time at home, you can visit some of the following accounts:

• Lettering Album (on Instagram, different classes at 5 p.m. every week).
• Tombow Spain (on Instagram).
• Escuela Cursiva (on Instagram).
• YoMeMuevoEnCasa (on Instragram).
• Bonappetitmag (on Instragram; they are also on YouTube).
• Focus Features (on Facebook). This company do every Monday, or Friday, live-streaming events where you can watch some of their films.
• Puck Editorial (on Instagram). It has shared six free ebooks these last weeks.
• LIONSGATE LIVE! A NIGHT AT THE MOVIES (on YouTube and their website, during four Fridays since April 17).
• Stay Home #WithMe (on YouTube). The most popular videos are reunited by categories.
• Explore.org (on YouTube). It shares livestreams featuring animals from across the world.

Even you can practice English in some of those accounts!

Now, tell me. What are you doing during the quarantine to distract yourself? Can you recommend me or all of us something to kill time?

Please, leave a comment.

Team Feeling.

A team is a group of individuals working together to achieve their goal.

As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School, " team is a group of people who are interdependent with respect to information, resources, knowledge and skills and who seek to combine their efforts to achieve a common goal".

Teams normally have members with complementary skills and generate synergy through a coordinated effort which allows each member to maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. But for me to be part of a team is more than that. 

Here I'm going to give my point of view about my experience. I started playing basketball because of my mother, she used to  play it when she was young and instilled in me this taste for basketball. After three years playing and training I couldn’t go on because there weren’t enough girls to make a team. At that time my course as a player was in stand by, even if I was still playing at school or in the park. 

In 2013 my chance to play basketball returned, my brother´s coach ask me if I would like to join the team since they were looking for players and I said yes!

When I play basketball, I feel great, even though I’m not the best player. I learned that your deficiencies can be filled with your teammates and theirs with your strengths. The connection that is created within the court is transferred to the outside and you share with them everything about your life. Teammates became for me the best support inside and out, sharing so much time between us, of good times like when you win a game from bad times when you don’t have your best match or training. The best moments to reinforce this connection and friendship is the shower time, the bus trip or in the wardrobe where we tell our stories, worries, share anecdotes, learn to change ourselves, discuss, cheer up, recriminate and point out situations that lived in the court. 

As well form part of a team teaches you to find a harmonious balance between remaining eager to play the sport, while simultaneously being focused on your academic goals can be difficult.

Overall, being an basketball player has been my fun and unique best experience. In addition to teaching me a deeper sense of time management and prioritization, it has come with many great things, including awesome teammates, friends and experiences. I miss play and train almost every day and would like to relive this experience a thousand times more. 

Visiting NYC

This beautiful story began the 9^th of November of 2019. When I arrive at home, my brother, his girlfriend and a friend of us asked me if I wanted to travel to New Yor City. Since that day we started to look for flights and hotels. But, instead of what we thought, that was the easiest thing to do. After we have bought the tickets and payed the hotel, we have to organize the whole trip. To did that we spent a lot of nights visiting McDonald’s like our office, also we spent many nights at home, planning our trip, it was very hard.

 The day arrived; it was 4^th of February. They picked me up in Ourense during the evening and we started to travel to Madrid, in love and company. We arrived at night and we take off really nervous, excited and without sleeping to JFK airport.

When we arrived at the hotel in Queens, we left our stuff and we went to the near metro station in order to go to Manhattan Island. It was late and we could not see any interesting thing, but we could try the most delicious slice of pizza of our lives.

In order to not made this so longer, I am going to summarise the most “interesting” things.

We visited the Madison Square Garden, which was the stage of many events like basketball and hockey on ice matches, boxing fights and live events as performances of very famous artists.

That day something spectacular happened, we had the pleasure of have a cup of tea with the Queen of England… Unfortunately, she was made of wax because we were at Madame Tussauds Museum.

When we were visiting The Empire State Building and suddenly, we were attacked by King Kong.

We froze during our visit to the Statue of Liberty, but we enjoyed it very much and it worth it.

We were able to take a ride around Central Park. I have to admit that it is huge and when we finished, we were really tired. But, the views and the contrast between the nature and the buildings were amazing.

When we were going to Brooklyn Bridge to crossed it, my brother and me started to look for restrooms inside the metro station and we had to went out. When we try to entry again at the station, it was impossible and we lost the train. At that moment, his girlfriend and our friend were in their road to the other side of the river. Then, this way, we had to run through the bridge in order to meet with our trip partners.

"Click here" to see us running through the bridge!

We were also able to visit a building made only by stairs, The Vessel, located at Hudson Yards.

Another funny and curious anecdote that happened to us was to meet Naked Cowboy. We were eating something inside McDonald’s (almost the whole days we ate at a McDonald’s, we are guilty) and we saw him at walking at the street and we should get closer to saw him. Although it was very cold, he did not matter.

As an interesting fact, I leave you a sample of our healthy diet during our stay in New York. Enjoy our performance of our Gregorian singing ;). 

I hope that you have enjoyed my particular summary of our travel to the Big Apple, although I have shown you only a little. If you are planning to visit it, I recommend you to be prepared to walk, to walk much more than in your whole lives.

Jokes apart, I think that if you have the possibility of travel to NYC, you must do it at least once in your lives, it has so much to offer us…

Here I say goodbye… Well, we say goodbye to whole of you guys. Thanks for your time and your attention.

My little group

Today I'm going to tell about my eperience with traditional Galician dance and the impact it made on me. But first: what is Galician dance? It is a kind of popular cultural demonstration made by corporal movements, most of them improvised, on a melodic or rhythmic song.

My experience started on 2003, when I was 5 years old. That year I had moved three times, so I had also changed from one school to other. I have always been a very shy girl, so I have never made friends too easily.

As in my school it was taught Galician dance, I decided to try it in a group called Xamaraina. As you can see, I started when I was a very young child...and I wasn't too good on it.

                 

Over time I was improving and when I was 14 years old, I promoted to the biggest group. Since that I realised that I enjoyed more Galician dance that I thought and instead of being part of a group we had created a little family.

                                                                                                                                                

As I said before I have always been very shy and I was afraid of speaking in public and also of the "what are people going to say about me?". Thanks to have started with the dance I found that it could be a way to evade myself from the rest of the world and the problems for some hours, and it also helped me to improve my self-confidence and to understand that those fears I had were stupid. This happened to such a point that I felt confident talking in public, almost as much as on a stage.

Another good thing that being part of a dance group taught me was learning the meaning of perseverance and that you can't give up, because hard work and the, sometimes endless, rehearsal hours turned into great things, like this:

"Carballesa no Auditorio San Benito.A Guarda"

But, as we use to say, "all the good things have to end" and when the university arrived and I had to live far from home, this activity also had to do it.
Since I left the group, four years ago, I haven't danced again. But I still have many beautiful memories of that time and, sometimes, it's ok to remember them.

My own bet

I love music, during all my life I´ve been listening a lot of types of songs: rock, pop, fados, jazz...etc. But when I was 11 years old, I began listening only rap songs because a friend recommended me a very good songs. Artists like Zpu, Nach, Kase O or Eminem, made me a really lover of rap music.

Instead of this, since many years, my friends and me have organized rap battle events. In fact, we have created an organisation called HorusRap.

This name was created by a friend, and he explained that Horus is an egipcian god who represents the king of the heaven, the hunt and the war. For this reason, with this concept, we can represent the rap battles in our city like Horus reprensent the war. However, the most important cause of this name, is the beautiful logo that a friend made to us. 

For me, it´s a real job that I am really proud of it, because I´ve met a lot of good people who had supported us since at the beggining. Furthermore, we are the only organisation in Ourense!!

Our most important event was the "10° Horus Battle", a regional competition which came people from all cities of Galicia!! We had also an especial guest, called Kensuke, a famous competitor in Spain, who was part in many competitions in our countrie, like the national championship of Red Bull! This is the poster of our event!!

In addition to our events, sometimes we are invited to do some competions to another organisation of other cities, like Vigo, Lugo, Coruña, Marín, Santiago...etc. In addition to colaborate with another cities of Galicia, our idea is to have a possibilty to do rap battles in the rest of the places in Ourense, for example Verín, Maceda, Xinzo de Limia, Carballiño and Ribadavia. We have already met people from these villages and everybody want to enjoy it in these sites!!

I think that this is a really entertaining thing to watch. Moreover, to improvise improves the ingenuity and the cretivity. You have to think that while you want to answer to your opponent and to follow the rythm of the instrumental, you have to think the possible rhymes of the last word that you have thought!!

To sum up, I want to greet you for watching this entrance!! I hope that you want to see some of our battles and I invite you to try to see them!! You can see our channel here.

DRAGON BALL

Hi, everyone!!

Today I´m going to talk you about my favourite anime Dragon Ball and. It is part of my childhood. Dragon Ball was created by Akira Toriyama between 1984 and 1995. This anime is one of the most viewed around the world. The series has 739 chapters that are divided in different saga:

Dragon Ball: In this saga we watch the life of a child called Son Goku. He was looking for the Dragons Balls and prevented the enemy from getting them. He meets friends like Bulma Krillin and his martial arts master called Mutenroshi. Besides Goku competes in three martial arts tournaments of which he wins one

Dragon Ball Z: In these episodes Son Goku is already an adult and he realizes that he is of the Saiyajin race. He defends his planet from enemies like Majin Buu, Freezer and Vegeta who would be his partner in the end. Besides, a similar saga was made for the anniversary called “Dragon Ball Z Kai”.

Dragon Ball GT: In this saga Goku protects his planet from dragons of Dragons Balls. Furthermore he has to fight an enemy called Baby.

Dragon Ball Super: This is the last saga in which new universes appear. There are twelve universes and each one has a god of destruction but Zeno Sama is the god of all universes. Goku and his friends are from universe seven. Zeno Sama decides to organize a strength tournament in which nine universes participate. Goku gathers the ten fighters and he goes to the tournament. The winner universe won´t be destroyed.

Actually, I still like this anime. I think that this series is very entertaining . Me and my friends saw it a lot in our childhood and we enjoyed rating Dragon Ball.

I hope you like it!! 😀 

THIS IS MY PIPE BAND!

Hi!

In my case I’m going to introduce you my pipe band. To begin, pipe bands are groups of people united to play their music. Music as well, is a way to represent and show to other people the culture of a place, because music is culture.

Santiago

Some countries like Scotland, Ireland, Galicia, Portugal, have their own type of traditional music and all of them share the bagpipe as the typical instrument to represent it. Maybe one person of a pipe band from a country doesn’t knows other person that plays in other pipe band from other nation but the musical culture makes that two people have something in common.

Luchon (France)

I really like music and since I was a child I’ve been in contact with the traditional music. I’ve been in two pipe bands in my whole life and I helped many others too. I have to say that the first time that I met the people of the pipe bands I was very shy and I didn’t talk too much with the people there but, of course, that was the beginning. Now we all are friends. Furthermore, my band has a lot of performances during the year and this performances are the best way to make new friends and improve the friendship with the musicians of the pipe band.

Balaídos’s stadium (Vigo)

In fact, we all have the feeling that we are like a big family because of the travels, situations, experiences and many other things that we share with each other. This makes me feel really happy because I realise that I can count on them and I’m thankful of that. Anyway, our band, Verea’s pipe band, has 20 musicians but we belong to other band that it’s bigger and it’s called Redegaita.

Strakonice (Czech Republic)

Redegaita it’s composed by 3 pipe bands from different places: Verea (Galicia), Lubián (Zamora), Aveiro (Portugal) and when we all are united to go abroad and performance together we’re like 70 musicians. In Redegaita you are able to play bagpipes, drums, kettledrums, bass drum and tambourines.

Luchon (France)

As I said, my pipe band has a lot of performances so, maybe you could find me playing during a wedding like in the two pictures below…

Ourense

Asturias

or performing in a village or a concert.

Ourense

Porriño (Pontevedra)

Not all times it’s funny to be musician because I met a lot of people from different villages or cities that didn’t care about us and saw us like a CD-Rooms that plays music all the time. But in general, I’m proud of been a musician and do all the things that I do because I met different people, played with important musicians as Carlos Núñez or The Chieftains. But the most important thing it’s that I made a lot of friends during this ten years as a musician.

International Bagpipe Festival
Strakonice (Czech Republic)

ONE OF MY BEST DECISIONS

I was too optimistic making plans for this summer. Last year someone told me about working for a company as a child entertainer, and I said yes, obviously, because I love play with kids. In fact, I would start to work this summer and I already met my future boss and partners. 

But first, I need to be prepared. In January I found a training course for that job so I sing me up and this was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I've made a lot of friends and I've had a lot of fun.

The course started on February and the first day was weird because we were 25 people who didn’t know each other talking, dancing and playing games together. However, at the end of the day we felt as if we’ve always been friends. 

We do a lot of activities, some of them more interesting than others but funny all of them.

This day, we were making strange questions to our partners, for example: If you could be an animal what would you be? or What would be your super power? I think this is a funny way to know more about your friends.

Also, we do roll-playing games very often. In this picture you can see some of us pretending to be animals. I am the one in a blue jacket and I was pretending to be a fly.

This day was cold, but we were dealing with nature module, so we did hiking. It was hard but it totally worth it because we learned a lot about Ourense’s nature.

The day before the sports module we were all worried about how it will be because we didn’t want to be tired at the end of the day. Nevertheless, that weekend was the best. We play a lot of games, we learnt about new sports and at the end we were tired but we had enjoyed a lot. In the picture you can see how we were playing with a ball, that game is called “football crab”, as you can see I am the one away from the ball because I am too lazy and that game was very tiring.

Finally, I would like to show you our pet. It’s a flip flop and its name is Chancli. It is like a dog, we take it with us all the time and people ask us about it, especially the children who always want to play with it. However, we also have to be careful because of the dogs which sometimes try to bite it.