Still employed.

I think I still have a job... just.
I've just had a brief chat with Steve about this month payment, account number, payslip, taxes and so on and he mentioned that I'm going to start having 3 more extra hours from next month (2 classes, one with one person and the other with 8, all intermediate), this time at the Bank.
He also said that he's going to be there to introduce me to the big class next Tuesday. Then, I said that I hope it'll go better than the last one he attended and he said "ahhh!... we need to talk about that".
I can write a whole entry here about the ways Brits can use the "ahh!" exclamation. To start with, the way Steve pronounced it, it sounded as it has 4 syllables and was so charged with meaning that you can feel it entering your brain. Maybe that's my imagination going wild... don't think so.
Anyway... we agree to meet tomorrow to talk about the incident. What does he expected me to say? I know I totally messed it up and I'm still kicking myself about it. If I could, I probably would fire myself. I don't think he will, though, they really need another reliable and qualified teacher and they're hard to find. But I bet I'll be on probation for donkeys years now.

I don't want to go so he can tell me off. I feel like I'm back to primary school and I hated primary school!
We agreed to meet tomorrow.

Total disaster!

Yesterday we went for a walk in downtown Barcelona. Just a stroll down the Rambla (the most loves street in Europe according to one survey in the Guardian), a stop for lunch at a local restaurant where I ate grilled cuttlefish, divine. I actually though that it was squid the first time I saw one but the taste is slightly different. Apparently they're more closely related to slugs and snails than fish or squid, a fact that fascinate my fact-finder son. If you ever see "sepia" on the menu, ask for it, just grilled with a dash of lemon, really delicious.

It still amazes me that we can take the train and in 45 minutes we're in the centre of such a beautiful town.
On our way back we stop at the ATM machine to get some cash ans we had quite a shock to find that we were out of money. Last time we checked we still had there all of our savings for P. that we're still deciding where to put. It was a nasty shock to see our account empty and that almost ruin a wonderful day. I could hardly sleep at all!

So, I've just had a tough Monday.

I'm starting to have more teaching hours and Mondays are by far my busiest day of the week. I start at 8am and you know that I'm most definitely not a morning person, so I truly struggle with my first class anyway, but today it was worse because I was itching to go to the bank and see were all my money was.
After my first class I just went straight to the bank to complain about the disappearance only to be told that all our money was transferred to a special account. It took a bit of time to find out that the very helpful but brainless new girl in the branch opened a special saving account for our money without our agreement!! I mean, she mentioned to me that there were a few accounts that were giving more interest but we wanted to place the money in some sort of a local ISA and we were still searching, and she though that she was doing us a favour.
I just wanted to kill her. She gave me a total fright.
The banks here are totally crazy and unpractical; on the one hand, when you open an account you have to ask to get a card, otherwise they're not giving you one; but then they do move your money as they please because they want to help you get some interest.

With that mystery solved I could carry on with my busy day. And god knows it was busy. On top of the classes I have to go from one side of the valley to the other and I do hate to use the motorway, as it stressed me a lot, but that's the only way to be on time to all my classes. So but the time I was going to my last class of the day I was pretty knackered and totally forgot that my boss was due to attend it!

Damn it!
I swear to god that I prepared today's class. That doesn't mean much because I'm an atheist but I did prepared it!!
I checked the grammar and made sure to know all there is to know about countable and uncountable nouns, there is vs there are, any and some, all inserted in the context of the workplace. Beautiful. I even had a few offices pictures so I could point to prompt my students to create sentences such as "there are 2 computers in that office". I even checked that my tape recorder's batteries were charged.
The class started smoothly, my students were (for the first time ever) on time and my boss was there sitting in a corner jotting away on his notebook. The intro went fine and I got the students to produce good enough sentences as we remember what we did in the previous class. Then I introduced the new subject and everything went fine until I started doing the grammar bit when I started to mumbled something or other... and soon enough I was talking utter nonsense and getting my students (and even I) totally confused. I totally panicked, couldn't explain the difference between any and some and finally went quiet, then I said, "ok, Steve, help me out here, please".
He did took it from me and with looked to me as terrific ease untangled the grammar knot I've made and I felt a total idiot. Then he handed the class back to me. I picked the pieces up and went on with the class as planed and he left soon after that.
As soon as he left I laugh the situation off and my students were totally supportive and said that nobody does his or her best when you have to do it. Funnily enough, the class went on smoothly after that. Of course!!

Now I feel like sending a text message to Steve saying: "do I have ANY job from now on?" then at least he'd known that I know how to use the wretched thing.
Back at home "the husband" was totally supportive as ever and he said that nobody would be as hard as I already am with my own performance;, he said that I take everything far too seriously and that all and every teacher has to learn the trade and mistakes are inevitable. He's a dear and I feel a lousy teacher.

Now I'm off to sleep. Luckyly tomorrow is a quiet day and I'd be ironing and shoping all day long. I do need a rest.

Strawberries!

Can you believe it? Fresh strawberries in February!

Every greengrocer in town and, of course, the supermarkets, are starting to sell strawberries. They look ok but I'm really trying to buy seasonal and local products to be more in tune with nature, plus they're cheaper and better quality most of the time. Whatever, the strawberries looked tempting and the prices were increasingly cheaper but I though that it was far too early for strawberries so I was bravely resisting the temptation to buy what I though were cheap imports from a third world country.

Then on Saturday I asked the very nice girl at the greengrocers around the corner if the strawberries were local. She said that actually local, they aren't, but they are from Murcia, which is local enough for me as it's a province in the same country just a few hours drive down south. She said that this winter has been really mild and that they're a bit earlier than usual but only a month or so.
So, my conscience assuaged and in peace with my green good intentions, I bought a big wooden box of them. They were pretty big strawberries and they smelled strongly and fresh and they did taste divine. By the time the guys were back home from rugby I've already started and they loved them too.
We had strawberries with cream, milkshake, on their own, with a dust of sugar on top, you name it. We had a pink weekend!

dream job?

(Ladies at Filton Lib. I miss you!!)

I don't mind teaching English but I'd like to work in a nice fix place (I think that all this travelling around with a big bag of books will tired me after a while), as part of a team (this is quite a lonely job) and in my ideal world that job also has to be part-time and well paid. It also has to be something related with books, languages and using my brain.

Well. I fully believe that any future starts with a dream and the creation of a goal so I daydream a lot. Then, I try the best I can to search or create possible ways toward my goal.
One thing that I do most everyday is to check a couple of web pages with jobs adds. Today there was one that looked pretty good.
There's one famous (in the Spanish world) publishing house called Editorial Planeta (check their website) and they placed an add today. They're looking for somebody with a language degree in English or Spanish (my BA's in both), with good level of both these languages plus Portuguese and Euskera (the language of the Basque country, which I don't know at all), good writing skills, some experience in publishing (I've got the Oxford dictionary on my belt), capable of working as a team and computer literate.
I think that's me!! Or that could be me if I learn some Euskera...
Whatever.
I sent my CV with a nice cover letter as soon as I saw the add, and some hours latter, when I was back from work, I've got an e-mail saying that they got it and that I'm already shortlisted but also saying that the process may take at least 4 weeks, so not to worry to much.

Now, I'm checking the add and it says that they have 85 applicants and it's already closed to more applications. That is popular because it was up there for less than a day!!

The funny thing is it doesn't really say precisely what kind of job is, the wording is quite vague, something about needing a teacher who can answer phone queries and work in the creation of teaching material. It's also a part-time job but it doesn't mention the salary.

So... now, to wait and hope for the best. Keep your fingers crossed for me!!

CV's results and reflexions on languages

Wow. Having a CV out there in the net is really working as 2 separate agencies contacted me asking me for an interview for teaching jobs. The demands for EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers for adults is enormous and increasingly so as this is a sort of international language and up until now it hasn't really been taught in schools here.

I'm not sure how it works in the rest of Spain, but here in Catalonia there's a feeling that the Catalan language is under threat of disappearing and the local government (after a sort of devolution such as the one in Scotland here they're quite separated from Spain) dedicates loads of resources to maintain the Catalan language alive. That's all very good for diversity and local culture but in an increasingly connected world monolinguals and people that are proficient only in a minority language stand at a disadvantage from others.
I'm proficient in 2 languages and quite ok with a third, but still struggling to get the job I'd like here because I lack a fourth! (in order to working the local library one must to be proficient in Catalan).

My son attends a local school where the main language is Catalan followed by Spanish and a few hour a week of English. I think is only fair for him to know the local language if we're going to live here but not at the expenses of our other 2 languages, which happens to be on the top of the most spoken languages of the world (Chinese is the first, then English and Spanish the third). So, I'm starting to think that we'll try and send him to a bilingual school when he starts high school in a couple of years time, so he can be really proficient in the economically strong languages. That's expensive, so we've been saving for ages and are willing to make sacrifices to get as much opportunities for him as possible. I think the poorest people are those without any chance of choosing in the making of their own destiny.

All this reflexions on languages started because I've just read that yesterday the UNESCO declared the international mother language day and that there are nearly 6,000 languages and half of those are considered to be endangered. I'm all for keeping the diversity in the world, and I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is and learn Catalan, even when I could go on without it as some Spanish people do here. However, I'm not willing to linguistically isolate my child. The more languages the better.

And, going back to the job offers, I declined both, because they're offering me the same as I'm doing, ie. to be an itinerant teacher and if I'm going to change jobs will be for a more stable one. But, I'm still searching for a more convenient job.
Anyway, I'm having more teaching hours starting next week.

The burial of the sardine

That's the name of today's fiesta. The picture here is in a museum in Madrid and it's called "the burial of the sardine" from Goya.

I missed the show at the central square here in Sabadell because I was working but the fiesta is actually called the burial of the sardine and it marks the end of carnival. Some said that the tradition is really ancient, from pagan times and it was incorporated as part of Catholics closure of carnival (another pagan tradition).

To make matters more confusing, there is the figure of a sardine, but it doesn't get bury but burned as you can see in the other picture taken from the local council website.

In some villages there's a tradition that are a sort of open air panto. The sardine is taken to be buried (cremated) and is followed by his widows (actually men dressed as women in black), the priest and his helpers. Then the devil enters and tries to take the sardine and is stop by the police (not the real one), then a mock fight ensues, the widows and the police restore peace and the sardine is finally burned.

After that people used to go in droves to church to the Ash Wednesday mass, where the priest mark a cross with ashes in people's forehead and remain everyone that "we came from ashes and in ashes we will turn" or something to that effect. There's a church nearby and it was packed when I return from work so the religious part of the tradition is still very much alive.
The Spaniards play hard but also pray hard. (pun intended)

Another excuse for a fiesta!! Nevertheless, we're going to shove pancakes tomorrow and we'll eat them with some maple syrup that we still have from USA. We're truly citizens of the world!

General complaints

Today my students cancelled 3 hours of lessons. This month there's been loads of cancellation, so far more than 13 hours gone.
I'm currently working with 2 agencies, with different policies regarding cancellations. In the first agency they said that classed cancelled with more than a day in advance are not to be charged. The second agency said that the teacher has to offer alternative days to recover the missed time but all classes are to be paid regardless. My problem is that I've got more hours with the first agency, so when my students cancel, I don't earn any money. That's resulting in my monthly earnings fluctuate accordingly and I have empty hours in which I feel I could be doing something more productive.
It's hard not to take it personally, as I spend time and energy in preparing my classes. And is definitely the worst part of a job that I quite like.

I'm still looking for a more stable sort of job but I'm handicapped by my lack of the Catalan language as most jobs required at least a basic level of it.

So, I went to the local council to find a Catalan course for immigrants as I've heard loads of politicians on the news talking about the need to integrate immigrants and the value of the language, etc etc.
Well, the council does run free Catalan lessons for foreigners but the timetable is totally idiotic, there's classes only during working hours, so you cannot work normal hours and attend the classes at the same time. I complained and then I've been told that most immigrants are not supposed to be working yet as they don't have proper visas to do so; thus equating immigration with illegality. (A bit of what some newspaper do in the UK when they talk about "asylum seekers" when they mean immigrants). Then, after talking a bit, the person that gave me the information told me that for her I'm definitely not an immigrant because a- I have a British passport and b- I'm Argentinean. She mean that British here hardly ever even try to learn Spanish, let alone Catalan, because they usually live and work within their own community and that Argentineans are not really immigrants either because we have the same cultural background (I also think she meat racial as well). The girl meant all this as a sort of compliment to me!!

I was, and still am, flabbergasted.

I've always known that there's a fine line to distinguish an immigrant from an expat, I had that in my introduction to this blog! But I never expected to be that thick, meaning that the difference is bot blatantly racist and discriminatory and stupid, total nonsense. It reminds me of Winnie-the-Pooh "wrong kind of bees", apparently I'm the wrong kind of immigrant for the person who timetable the classes.

Sometime ago I suggested in this blog that the Argentineans are perceived here in some ways as the Indian community in Britain, now I've changed my mind and agree with "the husband" who once said that we're perceived here in the same light as Australians are in the UK: a sort of long lost cousin, a bit foreign, with funny accent and words, but part of the family anyway.

Whatever. Now, I have to choose between working or attending the classes. Or wait to see if they change the timetables next term. Or I could go to another town and check there. It must be another choice, I've just have to find it.

Carnival!

During the past few days it was a common sight to see people walking around in fancy dresses, mostly kids, a few selfconscious teens and some adults (maybe teachers? since P. told me that the teachers at his school were all dressed as dominoes) but today it was the official carnival day with parades and all the party that this town can muster, so almost all children and many adults were dressed up and that's just the normal people who went to see the parades.
The picture is the actual poster from this carnival in Sabadell. Is, as usual, very pretty and colourful.

The parades were due to start at 4pm at one end of the city and finish at 6 at the other end. This being a Latin country... we were one of the few to arrive to the central square, and we arrived at 5PM!! Anyway, we had sometime to have coffee with the traditional Carnival cake (there seems to be a cake for every occasion here, and so far, all delicious).
First to arrive were the families with toddlers and babies almost all dressed up. So cute!! Everywhere you look they were tiny babes in pushchairs and cute toddlers dressed as in those cute calendars.
Then most families arrived, almost all the children were dressed, from some odd stuff like a family of popcorn bags (all 3 of then, including dad) to families dressed matching each other (like the Beckhams do) as the characters of Wizard of Oz: dad was the no-brain scarecrow, of course, then mum was the tin-woman, a little girl was Dorothy (P. point out the shoes were brown, thus, wrong. He knows movies) and the toddler brother was the cutes lion ever.
The array of dresses in the crowd were lovely, from the typical pirates or red devils for boys to princesses and fairies for girls, then TV characters (spiderman to pokemons) and all sort of stuff.
The last to arrive, fashionably late, were the teens, some dressed up some ... well... you're never sure with teens these days. :) In this crowd the dress were more gear to impress the other sex, with the girls dressed as cat women and boys dress as... well... boys!
The crowd in itself was something to watch. So we just strolled around looking and trying to figure who or what they were.

Then the parade arrived. First the police opening it with 2 bikes, not even policeman are serious here, and those 2 were obviously local boys as they were waving around and getting some back slaps from bystander. That alone remind me that we are, after all, living in a smallish town!!
The first 2 lorries carried the small children and babies, all dressed up and looking quite puzzled as they don't have a clue as what's going on. It amazed me that no-one was crying, even though the music was quite loud, and i saw at least one that was totally asleep, fancy dress and all!

Then there was a bit of everything, from a Chinese dragon followed by geishas (?) and some sort of imaginary animals of some sort, to a Trojan inspired group with horse and all. Of course, all dancing load Latin tunes and dancing as if the were Brazilians anyway.
My favourite was a group of people dressed as nuns, guys and girls, dancing to tunes such as "like a virgin" and doing all those hands-in-the-air stuff that is mostly seen in those American evangelist programs. They were hilarious.

As it seems to be the custom, there were some sweets tossed from the lorries, but nothing like in other fiestas, but, of course, they were also busy throwing confetti all over the place.

What amazed me the most was the fact that all sort of ages were involved in each and every group. There was not one group with just young people or just oldies, all groups has such a mix of ages that it was lovely. you could see sometimes a mother and grand-mother dressed alike and dancing while the husband was a few paces behind banging a drum or the younger boys were doing something else, such as running the dragons between the Geishas, who will playfully smack them with their fans as he passed by. Look at the lady of the picture here!!

Another thing that is unusual is that nobody was drunk. No beer cans all over the place and overflowing rubbish containers, not one person that I could see that even looked drunk. Is not that people don't drink here, if anything they probably drink more wine than in England, but they drink it in another fashion, and they definitely don't need alcohol to have fun.

Of course the parade finished well past 8pm and then I know that a band started playing in the central square and the party just went on.
We decided to go home just after the parade, I was feeling miserably during the whole weekend and when I arrived home founded out that my blood pressure was terribly low even for my usual low standards. No surprise there that I was on the brink of passing out and with a killing headache.
"The husband" reminded me that my GP already told me that I need to exercises regularly and that I was meaning to start yoga for the past month or so. I hate it when he's right!!
Here I don't walk as much as I used to in Bristol, and my fitness is going down the drain and it was only a matter of time before I started to feel the consequences.
If this doesn't motivate me to go and pay for my yoga tomorrow, nothing will do it.

Get the party starting

P. went to school yesterday dressed in a English devil costume . It took me some time to understand what he meant when he told me that he wanted to go to the school carnival party dressed as an English devil. He has to show me one in a TV program that he watches, Raven, where there's some characters that are the demons and they're dressed as inquisition monks, something like the picture here.
After I understood what he meant, it was easy to find a brown Monk habit with a large enough hood to hide his face. There were selling fancy dresses for children and adults all over town.

Is the tradition here that in Friday before Carnival weekend, all children go to school in fancy dress after lunch (most children go home to eat lunch). P. stays and eat at school, so he had to take his fancy dress with him. So, when everybody is back at school they parade, starting with the youngest and everybody clap, them they have a fiesta, with dancing music. The oldest kids, 11 years-old, have to take a dummy with them. No idea why.

Of course, during the whole week they didn't talk of anything else and P. was very exited because it was his first carnival ever and he reported that it was great fun, even though nobody guesses what he was supposed to be, his schoolmates kept asking him if he was Death himself.

It was really nice to see all the kids going home after school in fancy dresses all over the place, very colourful and cute.

The most incredible news today

Officials paint mountain green

Local government officials in China have been criticised for spraypainting a barren mountain face green.

Laoshou mountain, near Fumin in Yunnan province, was left an eyesore by quarrying.

But instead, of re-foresting the mountainside, forestry officials hired seven workers for 45 days to spraypaint it green.

Nearby villagers have been driven from their homes by the strong smell of paint, reports City Times.

They claim the workers told them the work was being done to improve the view from a newly-built government building.

Local businessman Huang said: "At first I was glad to see the green mountain, thinking the government was paying more attention to the environment.

"But then I noticed the great contrast with the surrounding mountains."

Another villager complained: "We thought the workers were here to spray pesticides before planting saplings. But it turned out to be green paint."

New approach to motivate myself

I was searching for one of those motivational tapes such as Paul MacKenna's I can make you thin; something in the lines of I can make you pay for your yoga but no luck. Then I founded a podcast that's called "motivation to move", as usual, it's been marketed to people who want to lose weight and a bit on the fake-positive just-keep-going American style, but once I'll get over that... who knows.
I'll give it a go and let you know.

Valentines

There's a big discussion out here regarding Valentine's day. Some say that is one more foreign festivity invading and competing with local traditions. A sort of globalization menace.

(There's a tradition to give roses and a book on St. George's day here in Barcelona, so Valentines sort of compete with the local day of "lurve". However, there's many shop windows decorated with a Valentine's theme but nothing like St. George's.)

Others say that is a purely a commercial day, geared up to sell whatever seems romantic. And even some other people will embrace whatever just to have an excuse to party. So, this being Spain, loads of us are going out for dinner. Whatever. It's just nice to go out to eat here.

PS: No, so far in the day I still didn't go to yoga. Maybe I am lazy and knowing myself I'm not willing to pay €100 for just one class because I'm not going to go but once.

Mind games

Ok. for the past few days I was playing all sort of mind games with myself.

Firstly, I refused to buy my favourite magazine UNTIL and UNLESS I joined and started the yoga class. Then I got increasingly anxious because it's a foreign magazine and the shops in downtown Barcelona only stock a few and they sell quickly sometimes and judging on how things were going, I risked missing it altogether (not even I believe in me anymore!!).

Then: I finally caved in and went and bough my Vanity Fair fooling myself with the following: I'm not allowing myself to actually read Vanity Fair UNTIL and UNLESS I join and start the wretched class.

That was 4 days ago and so far I'm virtuously not reading it, not I that I'm doing any yoga yet.

Damn it!! I'm truly devious!!

(or far too clever/lazy for my own good)

So, time for plan B:
I'm not allowed to write anything else but this subject into this blog and any personal e-mails.

Can one fool oneself on porpuse?

I'm still not able to go an pay for the damn yoga thing!
It's stronger than me.
I have cash here and all ready but there's always something happening and I'm not joining.

Why am I procrastinating so much?

What's wrong with me?

not yet.

well... not yet.

I cannot bring myself to do it!!!

Too expensive.
Too tired
Too stingy!!

Far too many silly excuses.

ahhh (sigh!)

Exercise

I'm one of those people forever planning to go to the gym, yoga, swimming pool, whatever will make me fit, and never actually doing it more than twice in a row. The only exercise that I manage to keep doing for the past 2 years was to walk from Home to the library most days but since I moved I'm not doing even that.
Mi list of excuses is as long as my arm, or better said as long as the diameter of my upper arms, whatever is the longest. The first and most used excuses is that the gym is always too far away, so I have to drive there, the second one is that I couldn't possibly leave my baby son home alone and the list goes on and on.
Now, however, the situation changed. There's a yoga place (How do you say that? yoga's gym doesn't sound right, not yoga parlour, although I like this one). Whatever, there's a sort of alternative centre just two steps from my building's front door and they do have yoga classes and all sort of alternative things such as acupuncture, chakra massages and so forth. Then, my son is 10 now, he's commuting to school, travelling 40 minutes by himself everyday and he can well stay home alone for an hour a day, so my excuses no longer work.

Of course, been an imaginative person, I created new excuses. I'm not earning enough yet, etc, etc, etc.

So, money is the issue now. I'm totally aware that is this sort of a mummy thing, meaning that I'm happy to spend money in whatever the guys need or even want but very stingy with myself. I totally know that is wrong but I can't help feeling guilty. Now I've got the money to pay to join the yoga classes but I kept on thinking that with that money I could pay swimming lessons for my son. So it feels like I'm taking something from him.

It's not that yoga is that expensive, as it costs €43 monthly for 2 classes per week, good value for money. But one has to cough up one upfront payment for membership and insurance and that takes the whole amount to nearly €100. And that's the problem, spending anything more than €20 on myself totally freaked me up.

Seeing things in black and white made them sound even more silly.

OK. Here's the deal: P's already going to rugby and that takes some of the family resources (time, driving, money, etc), so, I can invest some resources in yoga because my well being will be beneficial to the whole family as well as myself.

Sound good but, yeah.. still feeling guilty as hell.

Should I'd be able to go and join the yoga gym?

Found out tomorrow on this space.

Oath of honor

My Freecycle newsgroup is about to be authorized by the Freecycle people. They own the trade mark and, fair enough, don't want anybody using their name and idea for purposes other than recycling. So, they need to approve the international groups and their owners-moderator.
However, together with the info and FAQs they sent me an "oath of honor" (American spelling, not mine!). Americans are funny that way, in the UK people will puke at the touchy-feely, sentimental, cutie and quaint stuff.
Here it goes:

Oath of Honor

You are now ready for the oath of honor: [read after me]
I, (my name here), pledge to be a really nice and patient person when moderating our Freecycle group.

I promise to use the Freecycle name only for our noncommercial yahoo group.

I will remain open to input from members or the occasional democratic polling of your members, but will know when to make the tough calls and decisions in order to spare the rest the long debates.

With great honor I shall also keep spam, ads and money-makers out of our group with the "two strikes, you're out" rule.

And, finally, I shall come clean of my pack rat ways and clean out my own garage before asking the same of others.

What do you think about this?

I decided to get some business cards (found a company on the web that makes them for free, with the hope of selling you some other stuff along the way) and then I thought that they should also have the url (web page address) to my CV just in case (I'm still a bit short of the amount I want to generate monthly).
So, the first step was to build a web page. This was on my to-do list for a very long time (actually since I graduated, almost last century) but never got around to actually do it. Typical.

Now I really had no excuse, so I build a basic web page in a less than half an hour, so I could add the url in the cards. So my CV is here: Claudia's CV
Because it was build in haste, I need your validation and eagle eye for detail. What do you think?
1- do you think it should be in English? After all is for the Spanish job market, but I am advertising the teaching of the English.
2- do the links work for you?
3- do you like how it looks?

and for the people able to read Spanish: does it reads too informal?

Thanks.

Done it.

The power reduction was a sort of success as many people did turn off their lights during those 5 minutes. Now let's hope that the politicians will get the message.

However, I was thinking that in order to be truly more green we're going to need to agree to cut some nice things, like driving around with just one person in the car, having long hot showers everyday and so forth. How many voters would agree to that? How many politicians will have the guts to ask for sacrifices?

Are we all doomed?

5 minutes protest today

I think this is a great idea to show politicians that "normal" people care about the environment and it's high time to do something.

Check this out:

Participate in the biggest mobilization of Citizens Against Global Warming!

The Alliance for the Planet [a group of environmental associations] is calling on all citizens to create 5 minutes of electrical rest for the planet. http://www.lalliance.fr

People all over the world should turn off their lights and electrical appliances on the first of February 2007, between 1.55 pm and 2.00 pm in New York, 18.55 for London, and 19.55 for Paris, Bruxelles, and Italy. 1.55pm in Ottawa, 10.55am on the Pacific Coast of North America.

This is not just about saving 5 minutes worth of electricity; this is about getting the attention of the media, politicians, and ourselves.

Five minutes of electrical down time for the planet: this does not take long, and costs nothing, and will show all political leaders that global warming is an issue that needs to come first and foremost in political debate.

Why February 1? This is the day when the new UN report on global climate change will come out in Paris.

This event affects us all, involves us all, and provides an occasion to show how important an issue global warming is to us. If we all participate, this action can have real media and political weight.

Please circulate this call to your utmost ability to your network.