Carlos Sánchez Criado

“Review”

This last easter holidays, I visited the city of Burgos, located on the Northern part of Spain. One
of its biggest attractions in the Altamira Caves, the biggest archaeological and anthropological
site in the World. Hundreds and hundreds of bones were discovered in these caves, and even a
new species was discovered: The “homo ancestor”. After the visit, all our guides were telling us
to visit the “Museum of Human Evolution”, located just in the city center of Burgos.

Driven by curiosity, we decided to visit such museum. The ticket was just 6€, but if the place
was as good as it was said, it would have been worth, although we were told that Tuesdays,
Wednesdays and Thursdays from 19:00h, the entrance was free. The distribution of the
museum was like nothing I have never seen. The building was a huge white square, almost like
a box with very large windows at the entrance and the sites. It could seem like it was hollow,
but once inside, three not very tall rectangular shapes receive you, all three of them with what
seemed like a representation of the steppe that surrounds the city, with a few bushes here and
there.

The entire place is a perfect complement of the caves. All the information you need to know
about the site is written down, using a very casual and easy to understand vocabulary, using
pictures at every moment to represent it. There were some parts, like the one that had all the
spear tips, where one could touch them (obviously, they were not sharp) and at one-point,
different species of human being were exposed, using very highly detailed mannequins, up to
the point that it looked that they were about to start walking.

Both the caves and the museum are very recommended, especially if you travel with kids and
you visit the museum when the entrance is offered free. Everything is highly interactive, easy
to understand and culture really needs places like these to encourage people to learn a bit
more from our past as humans.

“Letter”

Dear Editor,

My name is Carlos Sánchez Criado and I wish to add my point of view on regards of the article
written in this magazine last week about different nationalities and the stereotypes that come
with them.

As a Spaniard, I am aware of the image other countries may have about us. To just name some
examples, many countries think that in Spain we are all about 5 feet tall and not very smart or
not very educated, just like as it is with other countries located around the Mediterranean Sea.
Another common misconception is that Spain is a third world country. The funniest clichés
about Spain come from the US, where most people think that we are part of Mexico or that we
wear sombreros and ponchos and that we eat tacos all day long.

In general, I do not tend to like stereotypes, at least if they are negative or could have a
derogatory meaning, specially nowadays in which the trend is to be as family friendly as
possible, making sure nobody feels offended by any kind of comment or opinion.
Without getting into dangerous waters, I will name just a few examples I could think of our
dear European comrades. First of all, France: Of course, they only eat cheese on a baguette
with butter and have croissants for dessert, and of course, they are the laziest country in the
whole Europe, but it doesn´t mean that they are an elegant and proud people.

Germany, on the other hand is known to be a country where they almost work for the entirety
of the day and it is reflected on the quality of their products, especially in cars or home
appliances. But the fact that they are good workers does not mean they like to have fun,
listening electronic music, drinking tons of bear and partying until dawn, not without eating all
kind of sausages that exist.

I hope that the tone of this letter was perceived as ironic and non-harming. It was never my
intention to offend anyone, I just wanted to show how having preconceived ideas it not always
the healthiest idea to avoid toxicity against other countries.

“Report”

The aims of this report are to make suggestions on how the directive structure of the School of
Sound and Image of Madrid could improve towards future years and courses.

Based on my experience of 2 years in that school, most of the decisions made on the top
management are many times heading towards earning more money instead of taking care of
the students. I guess this choice is based on the fact that in order to maintain the facilities and
all of the material, money is needed, but getting to the point where we as students could
complaint about structural damages of the building, but at the end, these words were received
as empty words.

No matter how many negative reviews the school could get online, or how many bad
comments (I must clarify that all these were constructive and at no point hatred comments)
were written down on the school webpage, the attitude of the director would not change. As it
was said before, money is important in this situation given that is a public school, but when
you see the director arriving to the parking lot with a Mercedes, it seems quite suspicious.

At one point, and talking directly with teachers who would hear us students, a meeting was
organized and the defendant ended up being removed from his obligations as a director. A
new person has been chosen to occupy this role, a person who has proven many times that he
is a professional and that he knows what he is talking about when referring to sound and
image. About the management, the new director has confirmed that the method that will be
used is more of a group directive and not leaded by a single person. Also, all comments and
complaints are completely free to be made in order to improve the experience for the
students, and will be studied and taken into consideration.