One of the main problems of the Portuguese education system isn't the lack of quality of schools, teachers or anything else. The main problem is the lack of interest of the students. A Portuguese student usually doesn't mind if he has bad marks. The main concern is to get a positive mark… one that allows him to pass the class, and if he doesn't pass the class, it won't be a great shame, it won't be a big deal and he won't be seen as a failure.

It's true that nobody likes to fail, but it's also true that everyone has a different perspective of failure, and that for the majority of the Portuguese students the definition of failure isn't the bad marks or the losing one year in school, but the lack of social acceptance. Unfortunately the social acceptance isn't achieved (at least in Portugal) by having great marks, but for having a great mobile, a cool outfit, or being able to drink large quantities of alcohol in a very short period of time.

The problem is more obvious during the adolescence, but the beginning of the problem comes from childhood. The Portuguese public schools don't have the level of demand that they should have, and parents are also not free of guilt. There are two great problems on primary school. The first one is the lack of knowledge / availability of parents to accompany their children studies and the second is the low demand of schools with their students.

I'm not defending a military kind of school for Portugal , but there is a middle term between what happens in a military school and what happens in a Portuguese public school.

There should also be a more effective accompany of students, with support classes if their teachers saw that they wore staying behind.

I don't know how to achieve all this… but I know one thing, if the education system doesn't change, we'll continue to stay on the “tail of Europe ”.

Last week I had to go to the ER in a hospital of Lisbon because I twisted my big toe during a karate practice. As I was entering I was thinking to myself that maybe all the bad things I've heard all my life about the Portuguese Health System wore exaggerated, and that my passage through the hospital would be brief… I couldn't have thought something more distant of reality.

As I entered, I realized that I would have to pay €6.90 just to be admitted… Ok, I know that it isn't too much money, but there are two huge problems… the first one: In Portugal there is almost 1 million people that have pensions that don't reach €250. The second: the Portuguese constitution says the health system should be free.

Let's proceed… I just had a twisted toe, but 1 minute after I entered, enters a guy that was saying that he was having a beginning of a CVA (cardio-vascular accident). Instead of being assisted immediately, he was instructed to go and pay his admission. He entered the queue I was in and if I didn't let him have my place he would had to stay behind me, and as I wasn't the only one in the queue, a women that was also at the queue refused to let him pass, and he had to wait until it reached is turn. There was a moment when we wore about seven on the queue… and there was just one guy attending us.

After paying I had to go to triage, so I could be given a colour that would define my waiting time. I was given green (that should be the colour that would wait more), and an old lady behind me was given orange (there was yellow between us). We both went to the X-ray witting room… my name was called first (after an hour and thirty minutes), I took the X-ray and then was asked to wait in the same waiting room until a doctor had time to see me. As I found myself a place on the wall to stand (there wore no available chairs), I looked around and the old lady was still there waiting to be called to the X-ray room.

I was called to a doctor about 40 minutes after my X-ray was taken. He asked to show my foot, and looked at it 10 seconds... than said my foot was ok, but I should do some physiotherapy because all the ligaments of the toe wore affected. I asked if I could do it in a public clinic, and he replied that there isn't such a thing… According to him, there wore only two ways… I had to pay for it or I had insurance… as I didn't have insurance…

When I left his office I got lost on my way out, as there wore no signs indicating exit. I found myself again in the waiting room of the x-rays and as I was asking a nurse the way out, I heard a name being called to the x-ray room and saw the old lady that entered the same time I did going in the room (Yes she had ORANGE … and I had Green). The nurse said to me that before I leave I had to pay for the x-rays.

I went to the balcony and I was presented a bill of almost 10€ of x-rays. I looked at the price table and there it was… each x-ray €1.70… I looked again at the bill and there was x-rays on the foot (2), to the arm (2) and to the wrist (2)… I complained and after 30 minutes I had a bill of just two X-rays (unfortunately 30% of the Portuguese population is analphabetic, and would have paid almost €10).

So I walked out after 3 hours and 10 minutes… with no solution presented by the public heath system for my problem, and with €10 less in the wallet…

Yesterday as I was getting ready to sleep, something drove me to my bookcase and I'm still trying to understand if it was me that pulled that book out of the bookshelf or was it the book that pulled me out of bed.

The book I'm talking about is “The silence of the sea” or in it's original name “Le silence de la mer”, the author is Vercors. It's supposed to be a book of the French resistence that was written during the II world war, but fortunately for all, Vercors missed the target and wrote one of my all time favourite novels. It's a very simple history about the relations between persons, and if I may say so, in a very strong way.

Yesterday I read the book again, and although it has a very hard ending (I'm not being a spoiler, everybody know how the war ended), it gives the reader the ability of feeling everything a bit more grey… a little less black and white.

And I'm glad I re-read it… I sure needed to feel things a little more grey!!!

When I entered 7th grade I became the best student in the class. That happened only because I came from one of the top schools in Lisbon , were the level was much higher.

With that new status, I became convinced that I was much better then any other kid in class. Fortunately I had great teachers that realized and made me bring my feet back to the ground.

On the end of the year, I missed a test, but as I was a good student, the teacher dismissed me from doing it. One week latter he turned the tests and there was a girl that got 100%, I replied immediately that the test was too easy and anyone could do that… my teacher heard and challenged me to do it, in the next class. I accepted! I studied a lot during three days, always with the illusion that I would have 100%. When he gave me the test, I thought to myself: “This is really easy!”.

The test was the same that all other kids had done two weeks early. I done it, and I didn't achieved 100% (fortunately :D ). My teacher called me apart when he gave me the test, and said: “See??? No one is better then anyone in this class… all you have is better background, and on this test you had a little bad luck. But you are not more or less intelligent that any of your colleges.”

Thanks to him, I learned not to think I'm better (or worse) than others. If I always try my best, then I'll have no need to feel ashamed not to achieve something, and if my best wasn't enough, there's always something (probably someone) that will help me to achieve my goals.

PS: Wouldn't the world be a better place if there wore more teachers like my 7 th grade math teacher

I love music. It makes me feel good with myself. It makes me feel alive. When the sound enters my body, my soul…I feel the need to move my body, to melt with the sound that's entering my body, to jump, to scream… to be just another pone that's being controlled by the rhythm…

And when you look around you see that everybody has entered that state… everybody is leaving there body being controlled by the music... they're moving without thinking, performing without having rehearsed… just letting flow the music through there body's.

When dancing, people tend to be more sincere, more humble, more human… it doesn't matter if your rich, pour, black, white, fat, thin… your just dancing... your just another pone on the dance flour… nothing more, nothing less… and I love that felling!!