OBAMA'S SPEECH!

I think that Obama's speech was a success because he mentioned very important American values such as equality of opportunities and hard work. At the beginning he told the story of his family and how his grandfather had dreams for his father and send him to the United States to be successful. For me Obama embodies the American Dream, his father is an immigrant, his mother is from Kansas, he has an African name and the became the President of the United States, he is an example for the people, he is a city on a hill, and he is the President of the most important country of the world.

In his speech he mention the American Dream, the idea of America being a City on a Hill, hard work, equality of opportunities, community, how to succeed working as a unity, freedom of speech, helping each other, etc... so, he mixed important American values with values from John Winthrop's speech "A Model of Christian Charity" and I think that was exactly what Americans were waiting for at that moment, a person who embodied new ideas with old ones.

HUMAN BEING = IMPERFECTION

Imagine if human beings were perfect, that's the most boring idea ever!... the special thing about people is that we all are different, if everyone were perfect we all would be the same, because the concept of perfection would be the same for everyone. I think that people are equal to imperfection and that's what makes people competitive, interesting and different.... the spirituality of imperfection show us how to understand and accept our errors and I think that is our job to improve and learn from our mistakes!

SNEAKINESS!!!!

The question was what do you choose, FLIGHT OR INVISIBILITY... I chose INVISIBILITY!!!... for me people are sneaky by nature, so INVISIBILITY + SNEAKINESS are the perfect match! I think that's all about fun, so imagine the things that you can do if you were invisible... In class everybody said that invisibility could bring your bad side out, but sometimes being bad is super fun!!!!

THE GREAT DEPRESSION

It's amazing how a picture can describe the emotions of a person. Dorothea Lange's photos show desperation, pain and suffering of the people during the Great Depression. During this period of time the majority of people were living with no quality of life, people were really rich or really poor, there wasn't a middle class. For the poor people the situation was very extreme, they were living in the poorest neighborhoods, and from the pictures you can see the sadness and the desperation of the mothers. When I saw the pictures I felt all the emotions. The mothers were concern about how they were going to feed their children and they were desperate and extremely worried about the situation.

I think that the Great Depression was a very unfair time because there were a few people with a lot of money and a lot of people with no money at all.

MY POINT OF VIEW

I don't want to generalize or upset anybody, so I'm going write about what I've seen, it can be wrong, but that's what I think about this subject.

I think that the biggest difference is time, in Venezuela we live with our parents until we get married and sometimes many newlyweds live with their parents until they can buy a place of their own. In the US the kids leave home as soon as they come out of high school and they never come back home, they are independent. For me, because of that Venezuelan families are much close than Americans, because we have the opportunity to live with our parents more time.

I don't exactly know the meaning of family for an American, but for many Venezuelans family is the most important thing in the world, for me being away from my family these few months have been very difficult. My family mean the world to me and without them I'm nothing!!!!

100% MOTIVATION

For me when you love something it shows, so, when I was listening to Andy's presentation his emotions were transmitted to me, his excitement, his inspiration, his eagerness, I could feel all of his emotions. For me he is the typical American, a person who had a really good idea and he fought against adversity to materialize his idea, the real entrepreneur, a hero for American society and for many people around the world who want to have the opportunity of materializing their dreams.

I think that all of us (in the class) learned something really important with Andy's presentation besides knowing how to start our own business, it was perseverance, never give up your dreams, be surrounded with people who loves you, put a side your pride and ask for help and most importantly trust in yourself!

THE SIMPSONS

Yesterday in class we saw a chapter of The Simpsons called Brother can you spare two dimes? I don't know if somebody knows what this chapter was about, but for me was the perfect example of equality of opportunities. There were a bunch of bums in the dumpster talking about how they lose all their money, Homer's brother was there explaining how he lost his money because of Homer's stupidity but of all of the bums he was the only one who had hope and the only who believed in having a second chance. He didn't surrender, he made an effort and had a great idea, he was an entrepreneur, he thought about a innovative idea and succeeded, he became rich again and the conquered the american dream!... For me this is equality of opportunity because all of the bums had the same chance of succeeding, the only thing they needed was motivation, hope and a innovative idea!