FIRE PRINCESS

There was once an incredibly rich, beautiful and wise princess. Tired of fake suitors
who approached her to get her wealth, she published that she would marry
whoever gave her the most valuable, tender and sincere gift. The palace was filled
with flowers and gifts of all types and colors, incomparable love letters and poets in
love. And among all those magnificent gifts, he discovered a stone; A simple and
dirty stone. Intrigued, she called who had given it to her. Despite his curiosity, he
was very offended when the young man appeared, and he explained himself by
saying:

- That stone represents the most valuable thing I can give you, princess: it is my
heart. And it is also sincere, because it is not yours yet and is hard as a stone.
Only when it is filled with love will it soften and be more tender than any other.

The young man left calmly, leaving the princess surprised and trapped. She was so
in love that she carried the stone with her everywhere, and for months she filled the
young man with gifts and attention, but her heart was still hard as the stone in her
hands. Discouraged, she ended up throwing the stone into the fire; at the moment
he saw the sand falling apart, and from that rough stone a beautiful gold figure
emerged. Then she understood that she herself would have to be like fire, and
transform how much she touched by separating the useless from the important.

During the following months, the princess set out to change in the kingdom, and as
with the stone, she dedicated her life, her wisdom and her riches to separate the
useless from the important. It ended the luxury, the jewels and the excesses, and
the people of the country had food and books. When they dealt with the princess,
they were enchanted by her character and closeness, and her only presence
conveyed such human warmth and passion for what she did, that they began to
affectionately call her "The Princess of Fire."
And as with the stone, his fire undid the hard crust of the young man's heart, which,
as he had promised, turned out to be so tender and fair that he made the princess
happy until the end of his days
 PAPER ROCKET
Once upon a time there was a boy whose greatest illusion was to have a rocket
and fire it at the moon, but he had so little money that he couldn't buy any. One
day, next to the sidewalk he discovered the box of one of his favorite rockets, but
when he opened it he discovered that it only contained a small damaged paper
rocket, the result of a factory error.

The boy was very sorry, but thinking that he finally had a rocket, he began to set a
stage to launch it. For many days he collected papers of all shapes and colors, and
devoted himself with all his soul to draw, cut, paste and color all the stars and
planets to create a paper space. It was a very difficult job, but the final result was
so magnificent that the wall of his room looked like a window open to the sidereal
space.
Since then the boy enjoyed playing with his paper rocket every day, until a
companion visited his room and when he saw that spectacular scenario, he
proposed to change it for an authentic rocket he had at home. That almost drove
him crazy with joy, and he accepted the enchanted change.

Since then, every day, when playing with his new rocket, the boy missed his paper
rocket, with his stage and his planets, because he really enjoyed playing more with
his old rocket. Then he realized that he felt much better when he played with those
toys that he himself had built with effort and enthusiasm.

And so, that boy began to build all his toys himself, and when he grew up, he
became the best toy maker in the world.
 THE BOY WHO INSULTED TOO MUCH
- Oh, Great Magician! A tragedy has occurred! Little Manu has stolen the elixir with
the spell Lanzapalabras.

- Manu? But if that child is a rude person who insults everyone! This is terrible ..
you have to stop it before you drink it!

But it was too late. Manu toured the insulted city to all just to see how his words
took shape and his letters were thrown at whoever it was like ghosts that, when
touched, crossed them and transformed them into what Manu had said. Thus,
following the trail of fools, ugly, idiots, fat and old, the magician and his assistants
soon found him.

- Stop doing that, Manu! You are annoying everyone. Please, drink this other elixir
to undo the spell before it's too late.

- I do not want! This is very funny! And I'm the only one who can do it ha ha ha ha!
Fools! ¡Lelos! Bald! Old! - he shouted making a submachine gun.

- I have an idea, teacher - I say one of the helpers while escaping from Manu's
words we could give the elixir to everyone.

- Are you crazy? That would be terrible. If we are like this and there is only one
child insulting, imagine what it would be like if everyone did it! I have to think
something.

In the seven days it took the magician to invent something, Manu became the
owner of the city, where everyone served and obeyed him out of fear. Luckily, the
magician was able to use his magic to reach Manu during the night and give him a
few drops of the new potion while he slept.

Manu woke up willing to have fun at the expense of others. But as soon as the
butler came in carrying breakfast, hundreds of letters flew towards Manu, forming a
flurry of words from which he only distinguished "capricious," "abusive" and
"impolite." Upon contact with his skin, the letters dissolved, causing him a terrible
sting.

The boy shouted, threatened and used terrible words, but soon realized that the
butler had not seen anything. Nor any of the new bursts of acidic letters directed
towards him. In a single day, word spells went from being the most fun to being the
worst in the world.
- It will be the magician's fault. Tomorrow I'll go see him to take the spell off.

But as much as he cried and apologized, it was too late for the antidote.

- You will have to learn to live with your two spells: word throwers and receive
thoughts. Well used could be useful ...

Manu could hardly go out. He had behaved so badly to everyone that, even if they
didn't tell him out of fear, deep down they thought horrible things about him and
when those thoughts touched him they were like fire. That's why he began to
always be alone.

One day, a little girl saw her sad appearance and felt sorry. The little girl thought
she would like to be friends with that child and, when that thought touched Manu's
skin, instead of pain it caused her a very pleasant sensation. Manu had an idea.

- What if I used my word launcher with good words? Will it work the other way
around?

And he tried to tell the girl how beautiful and smart she was. Indeed, his words flew
towards the girl to improve her appearance in an incredible way. The girl said
nothing, but her grateful thoughts caused the best of feelings in Manu.

Excited, Manu toured the streets using his gift to help and improve the people he
encountered. So he managed to change what they thought of him, and he soon
realized that from the beginning he could have done so and that, if he had been
kind and respectful, everyone would have won.

Some time later, the potions lost their effect, but Manu no longer changed his way
of being, since it was much better to feel everyone's love and friendship than to try
to feel better than others through insults and contempt.
 THE PHOTOGRAPHER ELEPHANT
Once upon a time there was an elephant who wanted to be a photographer. His
friends laughed every time they heard him say that:

- What nonsense - some said - there are no cameras for elephants!

- What a waste of time, the others said, if there's nothing to photograph here ...

But the elephant continued with his illusion, and little by little he was gathering junk
and gadgets with which to make a great camera. He had to do practically
everything: from a button that was pressed with the trunk, to an objective the size
of an elephant's eye, and finally a lot of irons to be able to hang the camera on the
head.

So once finished, he could take his first photos, but his camera for elephants was
so big and strange that it looked like a great and ridiculous mask, and many
laughed so hard to see him appear, that the elephant began to think about
abandoning his dream. Unfortunately, those who said there was nothing to
photograph in that place seemed right ...

But it was not like that. It turned out that the painting of the elephant with his
camera was so funny, that no one could stop laughing when he saw him, and using
a lot of good humor, the elephant got hilarious and incredible photos of all the
animals, always cheerful and happy, even the grumpy rhino !; In this way he
became the official photographer of the savannah, and the animals came
everywhere to take a smiling photo for a passport to the zoo.
 AN UNCONTROLLABLE ANGER
Once upon a time there was a young prince who had a secret that he himself did
not know: being a baby, he had been bewitched by an ancient enemy of the
kingdom. It was a very strange spell, for its only effect was that he managed to
annoy the prince every time he heard a secret word.

But that word was so normal, and so well chosen, that there was always someone
who said it. So the prince grew up with a reputation for getting angry very easily,
without anyone ever suspecting anything.

The bad thing is that, as happens to everyone, when he got angry he ended up
screwing up. He screamed or did the first thing that came to mind, which was
almost always the worst of ideas. And that, in someone who ruled so much, was a
very big problem. His mistakes caused so many problems that the clamor of the
inhabitants of the kingdom rose with such force that ... he left his own story! and a
lot of tiny characters ended up arguing with the writer of that story.

- Who comes up with such a prince? With how well we lived before!
- This is unfair!
- This writer has no heart. He will find out what is good!
- Now you will know what it is like to live with someone like that… you will live in
our kingdom until you fix it!

And, between shouts and protests, the characters kidnapped the writer to take him
to the story. There the surprised writer discovered how hard it was to endure the
prince's screams and his hasty decisions. Because the more he was wrong, the
more he got angry, and the more he was wrong again. He tried everything to calm
him, but the spell worked perfectly, and he only managed to take away screams
and punishments.

- What nonsense I made inventing that spell just because I was angry that day. If I
had written the secret words or the way to cancel it, now I could fix everything, the
writer said. But I no longer control the story, much less the prince's humor ...
And go if he did not. That same day he was with the prince when his bad mood
attacked him. When looking for someone with whom to unleash his fury he noticed
the writer and he, dead in fear, could only remember the words of an old freezing
spell from one of his stories. Instantly the prince was locked in a huge block of ice
and quickly the writer was captured by the guards. These left him right there in
front of the prince, to receive his punishment when the block melted.

But by then the prince's anger had already passed, and that was the first time in
years that one of his anger had not caused any problems. The prince was the first
to be disturbed by the nonsense he himself did when he was angry, and he was
happy to have discovered a way to avoid them. The following days he kept the
writer by his side so he could freeze him when his anger came, and in a few weeks
he only learned to control himself so as not to do or say anything while he was
angry. In this way he managed to succeed in his decisions and the kingdom was
once again a happy and prosperous place.

And the writer? Well, although he was happy to be famous in the new kingdom that
the prince was now leading so well, he realized that he had to fix many of the
stories he had written while he was angry. And so he returned to his old desk, with
the firm intention of writing and doing other important things only when he was in a
good mood.
 ELEPHANT
The elephant is a very large animal that belongs to mammalian vertebrates. This
means that it has a skeleton with a spine, in addition to other bones throughout the
body, and also that it feeds its young with the milk produced by the female.

Elephants live in Africa and Asia and three species are known, Africans, Asians
and African elephants of the savanna. Although they are similar in appearance,
their size, the size of their ears, or the length of their tube varies. But shortly, the
Asian elephant is smaller than the African one.

One of his most characteristic physical features is his trunk. It helps them breathe,
bring water and food to their mouths and lift objects. In rural areas, many elephants
that have been trained by men help them with their logging and wood harvesting.
With their powerful tubes they collect the logs and take them to the sawmill.

Although elephants are seen in their natural environments in jungles, savannas

and deserts, the truth is that they prefer to be close to the water. Elephants are
herbivores, this means they only eat leaves and plants.

Adult elephants do not have predators, but small elephants can be victims of lions,
hyenas, and tigers. These little ones are close to their mothers from birth until they
are three years old, and the females are the ones that form herds taking care of
other little ones. Males move away from the pack when they become teenagers
and usually live alone or with other males; They only return to the herds to find a
mate to mate.

Elephants can live up to 70 years in the wild, and both African and Asian elephants
are a vulnerable species that we must protect. Ivory hunters have decimated the
numbers of these animals; Ivory is the material from which the horns of elephants
are made and is a very precious material for some cultures.
 THE EARTH
Earth is the planet where humans and animals live, where there is water and
plants. It is one of many planets in the universe, but it is the only one where, until
now, it is known there is life thanks to its atmosphere and climatic conditions,
among other characteristics, it allows.

The earth is the third planet from the sun, and revolves around it for a whole year,
at the same time that it rotates on its same axis. This means that in 365 days, or
what we know as one year, twelve months, the earth revolves around the sun. This
produces changes in the climate of the hemispheres through the seasons
(summer, spring, winter, autumn), among other natural phenomena.

At the same time as this route, the earth rotates on its own axis in 24-hour cycles,
or what we know as a day. When a face of the earth is looking at the sun there is
daylight in that part of the earth, and it is decreasing (sunset) as the rotation
continues until it gets dark when that face is no longer looking at the sun.

In different places on earth, at the same time, some people have daylight while
others do not. For example, if in New York, the United States, it is 11:00 am on a
spring day and there is sunlight to go out to play, in Tokyo in Japan, although it is
spring too, it is 12 midnight and no There is sunlight.

7,714,576,923 people live on earth! Those are many millions of millions of people
like you and me
 TEETH AND MOUTH
The teeth in your mouth are a fundamental part of the digestive process. Thanks to
your teeth you can chew all meals so you must take care of them and give them
proper care and hygiene. Also in your mouth is the tongue, palate and gums.

With your mouth you can talk, smile and make gestures that communicate your
mood. You can also breathe through the mouth.

The palate is hard in the front and separates the mouth from the nasal cavity that is
above; The soft palate is behind and closes when swallowing to prevent food from
returning to the nose. On the soft palate is the bell and on the sides of these are
the tonsils (which are membranes that can be inflamed and in some cases must be
operated to remove them).

On the tongue, which is a muscle, are the taste buds that help you perceive the
taste of food. In the mouth there are also the salivary glands, which secrete the
saliva that keeps your mouth wet and helps to wet the food you eat and form the
food bolus.

The teeth are made of four types of tissue, pulp, dentin, cement and enamel. In the
mouth of an adult there are 32 teeth, and in the mouth of a child there are 20.
Around six years of age, a little later for some, children begin to lose baby teeth
and these are replaced by Adult teeth

The teeth are divided into incisors, canines, premolars and molars. Not everyone
has the so-called "wisdom teeth" that come out in the back of the molars and
sometimes cause a lot of pain and therefore must be removed by a doctor.
 THE INSECTS
Insects are everywhere. Think for a moment that this species makes up 90% of the
life on the planet. To give you an idea, it would be like saying that for every person
in the world there are about 200 million insects.

When you go out to the garden or go to the beach, you are in the mountains or you
go to a jungle, there are insects. The specialists who study insects are called
entomologists.

These are invertebrate animals, that means they don't have an articulated
skeleton, or bones in the body, like you or your friends. Insects have antennae,
three pairs of legs and two pairs of wings. Most insects are very small, from less
than half a centimeter to three centimeters in length.

Insects can be herbivores, and eat only plants, or they can be carnivores and eat
other animals. There are others who are scavengers, meaning they eat carrion, or
the remains of animals that were hunted by other animals.

Insects play very important roles in our ecosystem and are not just the annoying
mosquitoes that bite you in summer. Insects help pollinate, meaning they carry
pollen to plants so that they germinate or produce seeds. Also, as other insects
eat, they help control pests. Even so, they can also harm our crops and ruin many
of these when there are pests.

It is not known with certainty how many species of insects there are but it is
estimated that they can be more than one million.
 WHERE IS THE DNA?
In organisms called eukaryotes, DNA is found within a compartmentalized area
within the cell called the nucleus. Because the cell is very small, and because
organisms have many DNA molecules per cell, each DNA molecule must be
packaged very compactly and accurately. This super-packed form of DNA is called
a chromosome.

During DNA replication, the DNA is unwound so it can be copied. At other points in
the cell cycle, specific sections of the DNA are also unwound when necessary for
different sets of instructions to be used in protein manufacturing and for other
biological processes. But, during cell division, DNA is in its compact chromosome
form to make it possible to transfer to new cells.

Researchers call DNA found in the nucleus of the cell nuclear DNA. The complete
set of nuclear DNA of an organism is known as its genome.

In addition to the DNA located in the nucleus, humans and other complex
organisms also have a small amount of DNA in other additional cellular structures
known as mitochondria. Mitochondria are the factories of the cells, generating the
energy that the cell needs to function properly.

In sexual reproduction, organisms inherit half of their nuclear DNA from the father
and half from the mother. However, organisms inherit all their mitochondrial DNA
from the mother. This occurs because only the ovules, and not the sperm, retain
their mitochondria during fertilization.
DNA contains the instructions that an organism needs to develop, survive and
reproduce. To perform these functions, the DNA sequences must be transcribed
into messages that can be translated for the manufacture of proteins, which are the
complex molecules that do most of the work in our body.

A discrete sequence of DNA that contains the instructions for making a protein is
known as a gene. The size of a gene can vary greatly, from approximately 1,000
bases to 1 million bases in humans. Genes only form about 1 percent of the DNA
sequence. Other DNA regulatory sequences dictate when, how and in what
quantity each protein is made. Most human genome sequences do not have a
known function.
 A LONG LONG TIME AGO

Long, long time ago, I wrote these two fragments, you're welcome.

There was a time that was not necessary to think about time.
There was a time that in time there was no man.
There was a man who created a God.
There was a man who was in time.
There was a God who was never God.
There was a man who said, he saw God.
There was a person who claimed to be God.
There was a son, who died for the world.
There was a world that believed God and disappeared.

Today on a Friday in January of two thousand, a doubt grows in my heart. I was

never very religious, and maybe never. Gradually I see the days go by, and the
wars, I see the hunger with which half the world lives, I see how ... like pigs hungry
for filth; they go to the money and the richer they are the richer they want to be and
throw away everything they don't like or what the "fashion" imposes on them.
Meanwhile in another part of the world thousands of children die. They die of the
creepiest scourge that exists in that world. The cruel hunger martyrdom for the
sufferer, an insignificant sob for the one who looks from afar. That he doesn't even
deign to do something to ease his grief and hunger. And to be able to relieve his
own soul.
 CUT! CUT! CUT!
Yesterday I cut my finger, it was a small cut, right on the tip of the finger.
I was hungry and the only thing available was a vegetable and an old lettuce in the
refrigerator.
Although I know how to cook, I couldn't do too much with what little there was, so I
decided to make myself a salad. I like salads with lemon, I tolerate little the taste of
vinegar, I do not put pepper, of any kind. Lemon, salt and olive oil is for me perfect
and for enough vegetables.
I drain the lemon in the salad bowl and add some salt. Of all the onion goes first
because it needs more cooking then the tomato and lettuce, which we all know that
it cooks very fast. And let's not forget olive oil.
Known this only needed to cut the above vegetables. Tomato and lettuce are easy,
large pieces at last, in a few cuts they are ready.
The problem is the onion, which, as you know, has different ways of being cut, and
it usually disarms in its layers when it is not properly held. The cut that I particularly
like for salads is what cooks call "juliana." It is not an easy cut. For those who do
not know with this cut the onion should have approx. a millimeter thick so it
requires a very sharp knife, a lot of practice and coordination to remove the fingers
when the knife arrives; the problem undoubtedly, by the facts, was there; My right
hand was faster than his partner.
The cut was not deep, I just sliced my skin, half a square centimeter to be exact
and on the tip of the middle finger. The pain was not as much as the blood that
started. Of course, I saved the salad and with a band-aid on my finger I finished it.
 SALT AND SPICY

We remain as friends,
after a long talk,
many discussions,
good kisses and
best nights together

We remain as friends,
nothing could be done,
And it was better that way.
I wanted to kill her and she to me
and yet how warm is your skin.

We needed some sugar,

and another salt,
but we passed the hand,
with the spicy and so much what;
we end both with heart injuries,
But being friends

I don't complain though,

Well, in the name of a good friendship,
sometimes:
we destroy the sheets and the bed,
remembering those days we had left over,
the sugar, salt and spicy.
 STRANGE REALITY

It usually happens that in moments, certain moments, while I let the world
happen around me I can think of the most wonderful ideas, the best dialogues,
very funny situations; But above all the ideas. It also happens many of the times
that I have no way to save all that creative boiling. Everyone knows that it is
impossible to write in a notebook mounted on a collective (however this text was
written as well).

Maybe I should buy a voice recorder, I don't know how I would look with one
of those talking while traveling, I don't know.

I close my eyes and think things that can happen, and I don't talk about
trivial or imaginary things, I talk about possible things, the bad thing is knowing that
everything I imagine will never happen.

Given what was said in the previous paragraph, I am not saying that
unthinkable things happen to me, but if I want something to happen I should not
think about it, sad.
I am one of those who feed on thought, dreams, that when he closes his
eyes he enjoys as if he really lived in a dream.
 PAPER MOON

Another July 19, and over the years I am passing, without ton or are, inexorable
towards oblivion.

I've had all day to write "something." I could not, I have not wanted.

These days everything happens normally, without grandiloquence or subtleties. My

most desired desire is to have my friend Luna who takes my sleep away, but she
does not take it for granted, or avoids me in the most elegant way.

My friend Luna sometimes tells me "I love you" again she ignores me. I don't know
whether to believe or ignore her, although I can't ignore so much beauty. So far
she lives, this friend of mine, the moon, that I never miss her as if all my life had
known her.

The other night while talking with her, I hinted, silly, that it would be beautiful to live
a lifetime with someone like her; Clouds of doubt covered her and she said
nothing. Maybe she is right, she is so far away that something between us would
be impossible, however, the distances are shortened, I can fly and go to her. But
maybe she just wants me as a friend and I want her to guide the ways of my life.

It is the Moon that I hope to find in dreams. The same as when I look into her eyes
dazzles me with her shine. So bright is my friend Luna who looks like a sun.

Sometimes I wonder, what is the use of continuing to dream. That dreams will
come to an end so much and without any, at the end of my days, I will stay