The royal wedding

As the last time I talked about marriages in France, now I want to talk about one big mariage in the United Kingdom. Do you have any idea? Yes, this is the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton and all the madness around this event. 

First of all I want to emphasize that the royal family has a big importance for British people.

The impact of the Queen to make any impact on the running of the country is rather limited. Her role is more symbolic nowadays. There are British people who love the tradition and spectacle connected with the royal family. The others think that this is the relic of the past which takes a lot of tax payer money.

Before the marriage there is of course the engagement.

The engagement took place in October 2010, during a private holiday in Kenya. Kate obtained the same engagement ring that the father of William had given to William's mother, Diana. It is made from white gold ring with an oval ceylon sapphire and 14 round diamonds.

The wedding day was a bank holiday – the day off the work. It had place the 29 th of April 2011. The price of the wedding was reportedly £20 million, but with the security and flowers it was around £32 million. The Royal Family and the Middletons themselves got to the expense of this event. However, the costs of security and transport were covered by Her Majesty's British treasury. I like very much the idea of William and Kate for the gifts. Instead of traditional wedding gifts, they asked that donations be made to charities. 

Four marriages for one honeymoon

During my holiday in France I was watching a TV program of which name can be translated as “Four marriages for one honeymoon”. It is the French version of "Four weddings". There are 4 brides and we can observe the wedding of each of them. When one bride has her wedding, three other women give their opinion and mark five things: decoration of the reception place, food, ball opening, ambiance and bride's dress.

They use a 0-20 scale. The woman who has the best score, wins a honeymoon for which she does not have to pay. I like this program because I can see the wedding tradition in France.

There are very few weddings in church, the majority is in the mayoralty. There is even something called “non-religious wedding ceremony”. For me it has no sense. I think that the wedding in the church has the greatest value and I would not like it in any other place, and if I had to marry me in the garage, like one bride, I would cry.

It is obvious that a wedding is a very expensive event and not everyone can afford to have the best things. But in general people try to give as much as possible, and they put in a lot of work, taking care of every detail and putting their heart. And then, at the end someone publicly tells on television that you dress, food or in general, all the events were awful and he judges the investment that you gave for example on 5/20. I think even people with very strong character could be hurt. There are many young brides who cry during the last episode when they see what other brides have said

 about them.

I have watched some episodes few days ago and it was very pleasant to remember this time of holidays. I knew some tendencies about wedding in France and maybe one day this knowledge will be useful for me.  

Earth Hour

Last Saturday, the 25 of March from 8:30 to 9:30 p.m. the annual action was carried out. The name of this initiative is "Earth Hour". It is initiated and organized by WWF - the World Wide Fund for Nature. Every year on the last Saturday of March WWF calls individuals, communities, households and businesses around the world to turn off their non-essential lights and electronic devices. 

For the first time the action took place in 2007 in Sydney, then 2.2 million people took part in this event. In the following years, this action was gaining an enormous support. In the graphic below you can see the summing-up of the last Earth Hour. This year, it was the biggest number of countries and territories which participated in the action – 187 countries.

I heard about Earth Hour for the first time in the begging of its appearance in Poland and I was very enthusiastic and I participated in and I appreciate this worldwide action. However, this year I read some critic's opinion on this subject. One of them is presented by a physicist. He said that as a result of a sudden shutdown by many receivers the system can be damaged and consequently, it can lead to break of power supply to consumers for many hours. After all, for an hour you can not turn off the power plant, and then, after an hour, what to do in order to massively turn on lights, computers or televisions so that the network can stand the overload. In addition, physicist noticed that energy-saving bulbs recommended by ecologists use much more energy than normally when they are switched on.

I really don't know what to think about it, which attitude is right, but I think that we should always save energy, not only during one hour on the last Saturday of March.

Meeting with Frank Andriat

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"Never forget, in life, even in the darkness, the life is always present"

Tuesday, the 21 of March we had the meeting with Frank Andriat, the author of the book that I have talked recently. He arrived to our university from Belgium.

Before I had read some critics about his book Rose afghane and people have written that in his book we can see a big love that he has to all the people. He showed us that Afghanistan is not just the war, the burqas and the Taliban. It is also a country where people sing, love and laugh. With his sensitivity he touches the humanity of this people that we tend to forget.

What was striking for me that since he had entered to the classroom he did not stop to smile! He is such a positive and optimistic person. I liked him so much. He is not only the writer but also the teacher. He was talking a lot about his work and we could see that he is very involved in his work and he is very good in it. I wish I could be her student. He was also talking about the circumstances of writing his book. In general, he was telling a lot of anecdotes.

Andriat is very intelligent, wise, inspiring and understanding, just wonderful. I think he is one of the people who are not very numerous in our society. I am happy to meet him and I will have the good souvenirs about him for my whole life.

"Rose afghane"

One month ago a professor asked us to read the book of Frank Andriat untitled "Rose afghane". I was unhappy about it because in general I am not interested in the subjects like war or in the novels for teenagers. The book is composed of six chapters, one chapter tells one story. The stories are different but there is one point in common – the war in Afghanistan. However, this book picked my curiosity and I am glad to have read and learned some things that are described in this book, things I was not aware of, for example the brutality of the Taliban. During their reign girls could not study on the university. Or a person who was homosexual could be ran over with a military machine in the middle of the street.

But it is undeniable that this book is sad and I sometimes had tears in my eyes when I was reading it. The consciousness that they have lost of their family members, that they have to live in a foreign country with different customs is very sad, even if theoretically they are no longer in danger.

The subject of war is present in each history, because it constitutes the base of all these events. As war is a very difficult subject, situations that concern it are also difficult. There is a girl who knows that her mother is going to die and she can not even say goodbye, because every second is precious and her mother gave her life so that she and her brother could escape. For me, this situation is unimaginable and so sad. Then, the wars that took place in Afghanistan still allowed to be happy for its inhabitants, but the reign of the Taliban did not allow this. They were really violent. Afghans live in constant fear by not really knowing who is their enemy. There are suicide bombers everywhere, they blow up even during the wedding party just to hurt the most of people. Even children can have the bombs, because they are innocent and above suspicion. In Afghanistan there are violence, blood, bombs, gunpowder, the noise of airplanes that are constantly passing... Innocent civilians are killed and this is called collateral damage. Afghanistan is a minefield. The Taliban hate beauty, joy and love. However, there are some individuals that are capable of human behavior despite war and rivalry. For example, the Soviet soldier who took a little girl out of the street into her house with a big smile on his face. He didn't hurt her. Or another soldier who offered a chocolate bar to an Afghan girl.

In brief, I am very happy and grateful that someone made me discover this book which is really beautifully written. 

Interview with Jodi Picoult

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I have read the interview with one of my favourite novelist, Jodi Picoult. Bryony Gordon, the journalist presents her first meeting with Picoult.
The first part of the article contains her previous impressions about Jodi’s books. She thinks that the reading is long and easy, perfect for holiday. However, it turns out that her books deal with serious subjects like domestic violence, diseases, eugenics, the Holocaust, high-school shootings and many others.

The author of the article starts  with a description of their first meeting in a hotel. She feels miserable compared to Picoult who is a ball of fire. At the beginning, they talk about whether her books are really written only for women. Picoult explains that once she tried to write under a man’s pen name. Then, she was furious because she could not release her book. She heard that it was too well written for the male romance genre. She had the feeling of injustice because men who write about love are more appreciated and they feel special.

Even though the stories written by Picoult are indeed interesting, her real life is not so. Born in Long Island, she moved to New Hampshire when she was a teenager and she still lives there, with her husband and numerous domestic animals. She met her husband during her studies in Princeton. Her adventure with writing started when she was pregnant for the first time. When she already had 3 children and her career took off, her husband quit his job to help her. Now he is occupied with charity work and Picoult thinks that he is the kindest person she knows. She has also 3 children: a 19 year old daughter who is studying psychology and pedagogy, a 21 year old son who is a senior at Yale and also a lover of music, and her oldest homosexual child, who is a teacher at inner city schools and he is getting married to his boyfriend.Then, she gives her opinion about some sensible questions concerning the American society like abortion, gun control, gay rights or death penalty which are not always compatible with her liberal views. Finally, asked if she wanted to stay into a permanent book tour around the world, she answers that she did not want but she likes the benefits of having an American passport.
Usually, I read the books of this author and it's the first time I've read the interview with her and I'm happy that I could know her more and I saw that some aspect of her private life appear sometimes in her books.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/authors/jodi-picoult-its-really-hard-to-love-America-sometimes/

Spiritual retreat

The Ash Wednesday on 1st March began Lent. It's a very important time for Catholics. The time of concentration on the spiritual preparation to live the Resurrection, the biggest holiday for Christians in the best way. The three big questions which concern Lent are: feast, prayer and charity.

During the Lent, in all churches the priests organise the retreat.

Today retreat began in my parish. They will last to Wednesday. The priest have told us a story that can make you think about the participation in retreat. So, he always saw a family in the Church and during retreat there were never the father of this family. And one day, during the pastoral visit in their home, he asked this man why he was never present on retreat in church. The man told that he was just 40, he didn't need to go there and he would go to retreat when he would be old. Three days later, her wife went to the parish office to this priest. She told that she wanted to order a funeral. The priest was surprised and asked for whom would be the funeral. She responded that this would be her husband's funeral. It turned out that two days after the pastoral visit he has a strong heart attack and he died. He didn't have the possibility to participate in the retreat which are very important and can enrich the wait for Easter, but we can do it be happy of the fruits of it.