Anxiety and mental health stigma

In this notice, the author talks about the stereotypes that surround the mental disorders` issue in our society, focusing specially in the stress and anxiety related disorders, which can be defined as a maladaptive pattern of feeling this emotion in situations in which this emotion is not needed. Anxiety –say the author- is an emotion that has been shaped through evolution to letting us respond efficiently when we percieve dangerous stimulus, so we can execute appropiate responses. The problem begins when this response is activated in situations that is not needed, disturbing the person and impeding him from enjoying other aspects in life.

"mental patient fancy dress costume"

These kind of disorders are, according to statistics, more common that we may think. The numbers say that about 25% of people will experience in one year some kind of mental disorder, and the numbers related to anxiety disorders specifically  reach the 10% in England.

Also, the column talks about the neuroscience behind this problems, exposing the way in which some particular encephalic structures are activated when people experience anxiety and that kind of stuff. But the main purpose of the author lies in the critique that he makes about the way in which our society see the mental disoders, and the disastrous consequenses that this has to the same people. For example, a few days ago, some shop started to sell a mental-ill custom for the halloween holydays, reproducing the stereotypes and prejudices surrounding these people. The scandal was so big, that the shop had to apologize in their Twitter and even made a donation to a mental-disorders organization. The custom was called “mental patient fancy dress costume” and it was on sale for 20 euros. 

The link: http://www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2013/sep/27/neuroscience-psychology

Book based movies

We all know the fact that book-based movies are ninety nine percent of the time worse than the book itself, because of many reasons: they are usually made only for commercial purposes (they think that if the book has succeeded, a movie will bring a lot of people to cinema, and that means dollars), they are made by people that don’t know the real intentions that the book´s author wanted to express; and, most importantly,  they lack the complexity and possibilities that only the reading can bring, by encouraging the reader´s imagination and letting him picture the words in his mind.

In this way, I think that, in some cases, it is necessary for the film-makers change some aspects of the book in order to adapt the story into the big screen, but the director has to have always in his mind that the changes must be as minimum as he can, in order to show some respect to the original idea.  

I think that it´s not necessary to read the book before seeing the movie. In fact, if you do this, mostly of time you will get disappointed, because the movie probably will not has the quality that the book has. And I think that this is the main reason by which these kind of movies are generally criticized as “bad movies” by the audience. However, there are some cases in which the movie overcomes the book, even if the movie is not related at all with the book. For example, The Shining by Stanley Kubrick is considered these days as a masterpiece of the horror movies, even when in the beginning it was considered real garbage by the specialized audience. Even Stephen King (the book´s author) was angry because the movie was not what he was expecting. But I think that this only can happen with Kubrick in the camera. Generally book based movies are real trash.

Music that break Parameters

First of all, I have to say that, in my opinion, there is only one band that must be considered as the ultimate broken-parameters band: The Beatles. You like them or not, you cannot deny the fact that they have influenced almost every band since their formation, changing their musical composition dramatically through their active and short period as a band. The band from Liverpool was received dichotomously by the audience: from one side there was the female young girls that built the “beatlemania” thing, shouting and crying when the musicians were in front of them and making everything that was needed to stay closer to the Fab-Four. And, from the other side, there was the specialized critics that considered the band as only a teenage-thing, that it was not anything more than that. And they was right. I mean, the only revolutionary thing that had The Beatles in their beggining was the histeria that brought to the (mostly female) audience. The real revolution came with the years, when this guys started to experiment with psychotropic drugs while they were composing their music, and by this time they started to be considered as a mature and psychodelic band that left behind the commercial pop side to make an incursion to more complex and deeper music.

I think that the bands that break parameters have generally a well stablished political side: the side opposed to the traditional conservatism, because they have to have necesarilly an opend mind to new things.

Finally, I think that in the national scene Los Jaivas could be considered as one of this bands, because they mix in a interesting way the folk latin music with the progressive rock, with a beautiful outcome that can be appreciated in Cds like El Indio or Alturas de Machu Pichu.

A Country I'd like to visit

When I was in school, my English teacher showed us a video about an unknown country for me at that time. The video showed a country in which there were a lot of castles and green fields that I considered really beautiful and, since then, I`ve been waiting to travel there. Of course, I’m talking about United Kingdom, but specifically England. 

I`d like to go to England because I like the accent of their language, the monuments that exist there, and essentially I’d like to visit places related with English music (like the Beatles` album cover, Abbey Road), because I have to admit that I’m a big fan of music, but English music in particular. If I was there I would spend my time in music`s stores, concerts, and underground pubs (to catch out emergent rock bands and get drunk and start a classic pub fight haha).

I think that I wanted to live there, but not in London, because it would be like escape from one irritating city to arrive into an irritating and expensive city xD. I think that it would be perfect to live in a peripheral but beautiful city, or to live in another UK country, like Wales.

My ideal job

I think that my ideal job would be essentially like this: work only the time that I´d like and get well paid by it. This job would consist of taking care of nature so I´d be able to breath clean air and watch the trees and stuff like that. Also, I would live near my place of work (or even better: I would live IN my work´s place), so I would not need to struggle everyday with the annoying highways, the delays, the hurry, and everything that makes irritating the city.

In this job, the only quality you´d need to have is love to enjoy relaxing times in nature, nothing else. It is, in fact, a very easy-to-qualify job, because you do not need to have an extremely large curriculum to work in here (and you will get paid!). 

I think that I would be good at this job because I already have a beach´s house, and when I am there I love spending time taking walks to nowhere in particular and feeling the breeze in my face. I also enjoy to pass time with animals, so I think that this would be a great job for me.The saddest part here is that no one, I think, would pay be for doing practically nothing. I mean, seriously, who would spend his/her money in giving me money for taking vacations?