What is music? Based on my fundamental music class, music is a combination of sound and time. But based on the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer, music is an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color. In reality music doesn’t have only one meaning, music is different for every person. Music is math, is science, is history, is another language, but most of all its art. Music is important for us and our development as humans, even if we don’t notice it.

Where does it comes from? That’s a good question, what’s the origin of music? The thing is people doesn’t actually know. The oldest instrument recorded is name Divje Babe Flute and it’s believe that it was made by the Neanderthal in the Stone Age era. In the article “I’m singing in the rainforest” Dr. Henrik Brumm talks that the origin of human music has long been the subject of intense discussion between philosophers, cultural scientists and naturalists and that researchers have found a parallel similarity of human music and the song of small birds on the amazon. Nature is full of sounds and therefore music and we as human beings try to emulate them, that’s how we learn. As Dominic Basulto stated in his article “Humans Are the World's Best Pattern-Recognition Machines, But for How Long?” he says that we humans are the best pattern-recognition machines and the world it’s full of patterns, that’s how we live, create and improve.

Why music is so important for us? For the simple reason that we interact and communicate with others, music is a universal language, a form of expression, is a mode to express feelings and tell stories. Music is culture, is an identity, and it’s a mode to connect with our inner self, is a mystery. Music is magic. Not magic as the magician’s do in their act, those are simple tricks, magic as for the things people don’t see, things we as humans can’t explain. The magic of love and passion, music inspires people to do the things they dream to do. It is something we don’t usually notice but music change our life. I as a person can’t imagine my life without music, ever since I have knowledge music was by my side, because music is us. Think about the sound of trumpets, violin, piano, they are different and unique and you can hear them inside your head, because we make music, we are music.

Music is beneficial for everyone, even if you are old or with special needs, music helps you. A 1987 study of premature babies in a special care program involving music concluded that these babies had significantly higher mental and physical development over infants without the special care and not only that music helps with the self-confidence and helps you achieve other goals in life. It is important and beneficial for our development as humans because when we make and hear music we use our entire brain and helps us improve our memory and focusing attention, not only it affects your brain, it affect your entire body. Why I’m not specifying any type of music? Well for the simple fact that it depends on the person, if it’s personally enjoyable it makes positive effect on you. It can make you productive, it can relax you, music have many effects in people and that’s the magic about it.


What type of music is best? Does the type of music makes different effects in a person? These are general question and we can’t actually answer them, without having a subjective responses. Different type of music has different effects on different people. For example Rock music can you happy as classical music makes me happy. As the book of Avram Golstein “Thrills in response to music and other stimuli” subjects some studies compared different aspects of music with emotion and physiological responses.  Although there were some connections, for example, up-tempo music in a major key evoked similar responses to positive emotions, and consonant music was rated more pleasant than dissonant. It’s all subjective and depends on the taste of the person. This is another aspect of music, it has different types as for everyone can hear what they like, everyone in the entire world can have a variety of different kind of music. New music, old music, your music, my music.

Now, returning to the question what is music? For science is specific, is a paper with chards that tells you frequencies and intensity, volume, melody and harmony that requires coordination, merely vibrations that our brain captures. For math it is the subdivision of time in fragments, notes divided in those fragments of time. For history it reflects the society it was created, and tells the story of that time. For art is simply the expression of emotion, what science can’t duplicate, another dimension. But the answer of the question what is music? Can’t be a specific or concrete one. The answer to the question relies on every single one of us. It defines us, it changes us. We make music therefore music is who we are.
¿Qué es magia? Déjame enseñarte una o dos cosas, si quieres dejar tus falsas creencias y creer, tu vista debe ser mejorada. Magia es todo los que las personas no ven, magia es la sonrisa de los niños cuando sonríen y van corriendo en un parque, teniendo aventuras sin pensar que tendrán un fin, magia es las personas cerca de ti, que te aman y se preocupan por ti. Magia es esa chispa y sensación que te da cuando tú y tu amado unen sus manos y esa fuerza que va empujando a cada uno cada vez más cerca. Magia es esos pequeños actos que le haces a las personas, lo cual muchas no ven pero que no lo vean no significa que no exista, magia es todo lo que te falta, la vida, el amor, la alegría, tus deseos, tus sueños, esas segundas oportunidades, esos mundos enteros que nos has visto, es darte a ti misma y entender, eso es magia… en ti. ¿Ahora crees en magia?
El autor del ensayo “Retrato del Colonizado” Albert Memmi habla sobre la relación entre un país colonizador y un país colonizado, las características que distinguen a estos mencionados y su comportamiento. Sus observaciones se pueden aplicar a cualquier relación “colonial”. En su ensayo el destaca y resalta mucho las características de estos territorios que han sido colonizado por ende habla sobre las colonias. ¿Qué es una colonia? Colonia es todo aquel territorio alejado de las fronteras de un país extranjero y dominado por este administrativa, militar y económicamente. Estas colonias se dividen en dos, el colonizador y el colonizado. Un colonizador es todo aquel que provenga del país invasor poniendo su poder sobre el del colonizado, teniendo en él un efecto de preferencia que le establece tal estructura y los roles. Entonces los colonizados son aquellas personas pertenecientes al país ocupado por el país colonizador cuyos derechos han sido reprimido y tienden a sentir cierta dependencia hacia los colonizadores.

Todos estos actos de los colonizadores influyen en el pensamientos de los colonizados haciéndoles pensar que no son nada sin ellos, que todas las facilidades y facultades que tienen son gracias a los colonizadores cuando en realidad todo esto es para cegarlos, para hacerlos creer que los ayudan y que sin ellos no son nada. Por esto Memmi contesta que es absurdo pensar que el desarrollo de un pueblo quedaría completamente detenido en el tiempo sino se diera el proceso de colonización y ocupación por parte de una nación más poderosa. Este proceso de colonización de los colonizadores a colonizados crea cierta dependencia y no permite que los colonizados como pueblo se desarrollen y maduren para poder hacer sus propias decisiones.

Memmi se concentra mucho en la descripción del colonizado, una es su imagen mítica lo cual se centra en la pereza o vagancia, y es generalizado a todos los colonizados. Además de este rasgo se le atribuyen otros, se desvalúa al colonizado y se le atribuyen rasgos como el de cobarde, dependiente, que le falta de memoria, que ama a lo extranjero y que desprecia lo nacional, construyendo falacias lo cual el colonizado repite y terminan creyéndoselas. De esta manera el colonizador reduce al colonizado, generalizando y ridiculizándolo. Proyecta también como el colonizado es incapaz de gobernarse a sí mismo y por ende se aleja del poder, se le niega muchos privilegios  y dice que los colonizados no tienen atributos de nacionalidad propia. Algunos colonizados rechazan su propia cultura y se van a favor de la del colonizador. Inclusive el colonizador está dispuesto a borrar o cambiar la historia del colonizado así removiendo en su casi totalidad al colonizado para así reducir la memoria de ellos, lo cual es más efectivo en los niños y las siguientes generaciones que van por seguir, ya que influyen a través de la educación colonial y la imposición del bilingüismo y no se le enseña su propia historia sino la del colonizador.

El colonizador controla a los colonizados como ya sabemos, teniendo poder sobre ellos en los días festivos, las comunicaciones e incluso en la bandera que ponen. Los que salen ganando obviamente son los colonizadores ya que para ellos las colonias son un lugar donde se invierte poco y se gana mucho sin esfuerzo. El colonizado es menospreciado en todo lugar, hasta en el país colonizador, aunque tenga un intelecto superior a la mayoría es considerado menos y mediocre. Mientras que el colonizado es despreciado, al colonizador se le dan privilegios, en otras palabras es alabado por el colonizado.

Yo opino que sí, se puede hacer una comparación de cómo son los puertorriqueños a como Memmi describe a los colonizados, me di cuenta que muchas de las descripciones que el dio sobre los colonizados se asimilaban a los puertorriqueños, pero a la vez no estuve de acuerdo con ciertos atributos del cual Memmi les atribuye a los colonizados comparándolos con los puertorriqueños. Con los puertorriqueños ha existido cierta resistencia a la cultura del colonizador y no ha disminuido la de ellos, al contrario la resaltan mucho más e inclusive han integrado la cultura del colonizador a la de ellos.

Para Memmi uno de los rasgos significante era que el amor a la bandera y el uso de canciones patrióticas, es raro en los colonizados, lo cual es totalmente lo contrario a los puertorriqueños ya que ellos se desviven siendo patriotas y cantando canciones con sentido patrióticos por todos lados. Para la mayoría de ellos ser puertorriqueño es un orgullo y sin importar donde estén lo seguirán siendo. Pero a pesar de esto, muchas de las otras descripciones de Memmi y situaciones que describió, hablan sobre la realidad de Puerto Rico y cuando estuve leyendo su ensayo yo no podía imaginar otra colonia que no fuera tal.

Este escrito contiene una pertinencia perseverante para uno poder comprender la realidad en el cual vive un país colonizado, como lo es la del puertorriqueño. Ya que el colonizador influye en el modo de pensar y el comportamiento del colonizado, pero esta lectura nos da un acercamiento hacia la verdad. Como colonizado uno busca la aceptación del colonizador pero no ve las otras posibilidades que están más allá.

Gerald Graff in his article “Hidden Intellectualism” criticizes the way schools put the academic learning and how they do not value the “street smarts”. He insists that knowledge goes far more ahead from what you learn on school. To support his argument, he use his own experiences in his childhood and explain how his disinterest in the traditional way of learning was and then elaborates his loves on sports and how he learned to argument about the stuff he loved and had interest in without knowing he was doing it. Graff then insist the reader to take subject they have interest in and see them with “academic eyes” transforming one world into the other with analysis and debates.

I understand what Graff is trying to state and that we need to value our street smarts. In a sort of way put things that you have interest in academic views and if you do you will do a great work. One example is when in high school a teacher told us to write about something we had interest in and do an oral report about it. I wrote and talked about my passion in music and I felted like that was the best work I have ever done. But never the less academics stuff don’t work that way, Graff minimizes the importance of grades and they classified us on the academics grades we gain, and if you have good ones you can get to a good university and then to a good job. In the best situation you have the best from both worlds, good academic grades and it interest you. The thing is we need to learn how to study the thing we want but in the same time learn about other things with a little or the same passion as you do with the thing you love.=


            Las personas solo te buscan porque tú tienes algo que ellos quieren obtener, por ende en todo momento te necesitan para satisfacer algún deseo de ellos. Al igual que ellos hacen tal cosa tú también lo haces contra ellos. Pero es que esa es nuestra naturaleza humana, el punto es ayudarnos unos a los otros, ellos a nosotros y nosotros a ellos. Pero hay momentos en el cual te traicionan, solo buscan beneficiarse ellos solos y se olvidan de ti, en otras palabras te usaron. En este mundo existen muchas personas de esa clase, por ende deberías tener cuidado con quien interactúas, y con quien te relacionas. Yo he vivido esta situación en muchos momentos en estos últimos meses, es algo un poco inevitable pero deberíamos aprender a saber identificar como son antes de permitirles que hagan algo similar. El punto de todo esto es aprender a ayudar y ser ayudado pero también es saber identificar quien abusa de tus ayudas para el beneficio individual de ellos.
Consumerism is very extensive subject, and we can talk about a lot of stuff about it. The big question is, why do we consume? Why do we buy? Do we buy things because we need them or it’s because we want them? We live in a world of constant sensation, we are not surprise if we see advertising everywhere we go, telling us what’s best for us, telling us what we need. We mostly consume to be socially accepted.

Since we were born we consume to satisfy our basic needs, and this type of consuming comes natural for us, but as we grow we tend to gain new types of consuming, we tend to buy stuff we don’t really need, mostly to be socially accepted, to show our “personality” or to give envy to others. Companies have convinced us to buy one particular product even thou the other one it’s at a lower price or even better and we tend to be loyal to one brand, but why? We buy to give us that sort of appreciation to us that we deserve, sort of like a price. But are we really filling up that emptiness we have inside? This is what we call consumerism, the tendency to acquire stuff and compete.

At first we buy things because we need them, but mostly we buy stuff because we want them, because it gives us some sort of happiness, it makes us whole. But we keep living in that vicious cycle on buying stuff to fill that hole we have and that makes us mindless consumers. This video that is called “Being a good Consumer” makes us realize how we really our and we need to put our mind on this and consume what we need, because we can’t stop being consumers but we can be responsible ones.
          Trough out time, people have created this specifies ideas about how genders should behave. They are called “gender roles”. We learn about gender roles early in life. Girls are giving dolls and we teach them that they should be “girly” meaning they should be emotional, have feelings and boys are given action figures and taught to be strong, unemotional and be like a “man”. Sexism is embedded so deeply in our history even in the Bible holds many sexism views. Even in our daily basic people tend to do sexism stuff. People have implied “rules” about what a gender should do and most people believe this is how we should be. Why can’t there be gender equity?

            How can there be gender equity if we preform sexism every day? Both females and males executes sexism even on the simplest forms. Sexism is a form of prejudice too. Sexism is present in our jobs, schools, sports, streets, and even in our households. For example, the gender roles have implied that a women should stay in the house and do all the house work, clean, cook, and take care of the kids. While a man should work and work. Why can’t a man stay home and do all the house work, clean, cook, and take care of the kids while a women go and work? If this happens, and the cases are very rare a man is called a “modern man”. Why a man that do the housework it’s called a “modern man” and a women it’s called “housewife”? Because we have this mindset of stereotypes on what genders should do, and because they always have been there since the day we have consciousness and is very hard for us not to do it.
            Liu told The Huffington Post "Women today are trying very hard to fight against [these] stereotypes, which is a very important process on the way to reach the equality between the genders. And there's still many things to be done, but on [the] other hand, during this process, we become scared to face to the fact that men and women are just different in many aspects." I agree and disagree in a way with what Liu said. She said “Women today are trying very hard to fight against these stereotypes” women are not the only one fighting against them, many man today too. She also clarified that in the process in looking for this “equality between genders” we face the fact that men and women are just different in many aspects. The thing is we shouldn’t be looking for equality, we should be looking for gender equity for the simple fact that men and women would never be the same but we should be treated equally. So why can’t there be gender equity? Because of the thing we were teach and told as a child. I believe that if we all teach our children that we can do anything and be anything, and banish all those stereotypes, little by little we will accomplished this gender equity and it will bring joy to many. The day that we can be who we are and not what society wants us to be, that day we will be mark in human history.

           El día que nos conocimos fue muy especial, fue raro y ahora es que me vengo a percatar. ¿Ella? Ella es estupenda, es brillante y muy simpática pero nunca se lo diría por que solo sonreiría y me lo pondría en cara cada vez que tenga la oportunidad. Rápidamente creció en mi, cada vez competíamos mas y mas hasta que nos convertimos en mejores amigos. Fue como si la hubiera conocido anteriormente...resulto que si, la había conocido anteriormente. No solo una vez si no dos veces y nos volvimos a encontrar. Las tres veces no nos recodábamos que anteriormente nos habíamos conocido y las tres veces que la conocí me pareció espectacular. ¿Es curioso no? Me encanto la forma en el que ella se interesaba en mi, en como yo le importaba y la forma estúpida en como lo mostraba y no lo admitía pero me gustaba. Bromeábamos, tonteamos y mejoraba mis días. Yo estaba ahí por ella y ella estaba ahí por mi.

          El problema es que nos pasábamos mas juntos, y ahí es cuando comienzas a apreciar cada detalle de ella, en la forma que habla, en la forma que come y la forma en como levanta la mirada justo antes de hablar. Comienzas a ver sus defectos pero no dañan su imagen, al contrario la complementan. Un día común, me encontraba con ella, ¿por que me miras de esa forma? pregunto y me percate que la estaba observando muy directamente...ese día particular mientras miraba a sus ojos me percate de mis sentimientos hacia ella. Pensé "no no no, esto no me puede estar pasando" entonces cada vez que sentía mi estomago revuelto, y mi cabeza a punto de explotar lleno de sentimientos los escondía, lo ponía en lo mas profundo, pasando etapas y ahí los dejaba...donde nadie los podía encontrar, ni yo mismo. Pero cada vez era mas lo que tenia que esconder, cada vez que mi corazón esquipeaba un latido, cada vez que me miraba y decía mi nombre. Te llegas a preguntar ¿hasta cuanto puedo? ¿Cuanto mas puedo fingir? Cada vez mi guardia bajaba mas y mas. ¿Ahora? Ahora me percato que ese juego de no enamorarte, de esconder todo en los mas profundo de tu ser, te destruye. Terminas queriéndola mas de lo que supone, cuando solo es un amor imposible, algo que no se puede cumplir. Que la realidad es que solo existe en tu cabeza y en el único lugar que lo puedes presenciar en tus sueños...hasta cuando te levantas y te sientes feliz solo por los primeros segundos y luego te das cuenta que estabas dormido. En realidad ella es y seguirá siendo mi chica inalcanzable...mi chica imposible. ¿Cuanto mas puedo fingir que todo anda bien?

            People have develop an idea over time, that a child should be raised by two parents. Through the years, children raised by a single parent have been marginalized, they have been treated just different. To many people, raising a child with only a single parent is almost impossible. Because people believe that a child need both parents. Do they really need to? Do a child need a mother figure or a father figure to become emotionally stable? Many people believe so, they claim that a child need both parents, to be emotional stable and have a normal life. Even so they believe that most criminal people are from a family structure of single parenting.

            People believe that children of single parenting may lack attention and therefore have emotional problems, and that is difficult for a single parent to raise a child for many reasons. But in the recent years it’s have been more common to have a single parent families, every time more families are being divorces and more children are being raised only by their dad, mom and even relatives, on the other hand crime rate are getting lower each time. So why is there more children with single parents and less crimes each year? Because is irrelative, single parenting are not the cause of crimes. To support this in a recent post, "Single Moms Can't be Scapegoated for the Crime Rate Anymore," Philip Cohen tries to correct what he sees as an injustice in the way the United States' crime rate is discussed. He writes how people believe that the wave of crimes in the 1980 to 90’s was caused by an increasing number of single families. Even so he explained in his charts that crime waves began declining in the 1990 even while the single parents starts growing.   People must understand that raising a child doesn’t depend on the family structure, it depends on the values that are taught by the family member. Children that are raised by a single parent can be as progressive as one raised by both parent.


Sure, it can be difficult but not impossible, I know from personal experience that isn’t. It may even  be beneficial, because you learn from a younger age that everything must be earned, you learn values that you must fight to get what you want and you see how your parent struggle to get you everything you need. People must learn that not all families have the luck to have a healthy family structure but they can be as progressive as one. It all depends on the parent, even in a normal family whether it’s a mother and a father, a single father or a single mother, the children needs that parent figure, they need guidance. They will become a product of the values and morals the parent teach them. They will become a mirror of the love and compassion they are showed from a young age, to then pass it on.

       Somos victimas de la sociedad que nacemos, nos comportamos como nos han enseñado que debemos comportarnos, somos como nos han enseñado que debemos ser, actuamos también como debemos actuar. Seguimos leyes cuales llamamos "sentido común" pero todo es  influenciado por un poder mayor, un poder que reside en el lugar que nos toco nacer y vivir. Un lugar donde existe este sistema establecido los cuales nos manejan. Me cuesta trabajo creer en el destino cuando bailamos siendo controlados con hilos como títeres. Pero el problema es que no podemos ser la diferencia por que seremos marginados.

      Ahora, algo interesante es que nuestro concepto de que esta "bien" y de que esta "mal" también depende de donde crecimos, de donde se nos enseñaron nuestro valores. Ya que en algunas sociedades y en algunas culturas esta bien tales cosas y en otras esta mal. Hay diferentes costumbres de una sociedad entre la otra. En donde vivo se acostumbra que la persona que viene llegando salude a los otros. Como también en Francia se acostumbra que los hombres se salude con un beso en la mejilla. Uno observa eso y ve un tabú (por lo menos en el lugar que vivo).

     En conclusión, a pesar de que nuestro comportamiento depende dramáticamente del lugar donde nacimos y crecimos es interesante ver las diferentes culturas, distintas a las tuyas. Si tienes la oportunidad de viajar y experimentar los comportamientos en otros lugares del mundo te recomiendo que no la pierdas y siempre observe tus alrededor por que cada detalle es muy importante tal vez te sorprenderás con lo que encontraras.

          I was running my bike without knowing what could happen next, not knowing who he was, but something was pushing me forward... Let me start from the beginning. My friends and I took the habit of running bikes all weekends. We went to different places in the city, making an internal tour, visiting people we knew; simply hanging out. We decided to go to the beach, therefore we could not take our bikes, so we hid them in the bushes and we had a good time sharing and socializing. It was getting dark and we needed to return to our homes, so we went to get our bikes to leave and to our surprise, three of six bikes were not there, they went missing! 
“Dude…why are they only three bikes here?” I asked.
"What!” Gabriel exclaimed surprised because we had them chained.
All my friends were getting desperate, Marializ was cursing the seven seas, while Hector was trying to calm her. Katiria was so mad she would have knock down a tree with single punch. While I tried to maintain my calm I saw some people nearby.

“Have you seen some people carrying some bikes over here?” I asked desperately.
“Yeah, a man and woman were carrying three bikes while riding theirs about 10 minutes ago” They said.

I went to tell my friends about what I was told and instantly Gabriel grabbed a bike to go after them. I didn’t have time to think, so I gave Katiria my phone so she could phone us if something happened. Then I went with Gabriel to chase after them. I was way behind him but I was trying to catch up to him. He was my friend so I wasn’t going to leave him alone.  It was so dark that I saw Gabriel vanished increasingly, as I was getting tired of running at my full speed. I didn’t know how much time had passed, I began to see a silhouette of a man, nearly a figure. Instantly I thought it was him…and I was right. When he notice me, he stopped.

“Something’s wrong?” He asked.
“Yeah, those bikes you’re carrying… I’m sorry but they belong to us” I explained.
“You’re wrong this bikes belongs to my child and wife” He said getting nervous.
“Really? Well may I ask something, why are you carrying them this late at night?” I asked trusted.

He began to curse and threaten me, and he didn’t have another choice than to throw one of the bikes over me and fled. I didn’t know what to do. I had two choices one go after him and two go back with the bike I recovered but it was far away, so I hid the other bike and went after him. I was running my bike without knowing what could happen next, not knowing who he was, but something was pushing me forward and another figure show on the horizon, it was one of my friends… it was Hector! As I rush to go to him and explain what happened I felled to the ground. I notice he was talking on the phone.

“Katiria, I see someone… I don’t know who he is…” He said worried.
“Oh my God, he standing up! He’s running forward me” He said terrified.
“Hector! It’s me, Michael!” I yelled.


Out of nowhere Gabriel showed up, he explained to us how he was threaten and yelled at. I shared my part of the story too and we decided to go after him again to give it another shot. We saw a police car and the three of us though the same thing “Our salvation!” so we went after the police car but he outrun us. We decided to surrender and head back to one of my friends home, that’s where Katiria, Marializ and the others were. After we were half way there we received a called from the police headquarters.

“We have found your thief, you may head to our headquarters to identify your stolen bikes” a man said.
“What? We will head there right now!” I said surprised. 
Hector received a called from Katiria and Marializ and they explained how they called the police and they identify the man who stole the bikes. We were happy so we went fast as we could to the headquarters.

“They’re lying I didn’t stole any of their bikes” He lied.
“That’s one of our bikes, but there’s one missing” Gabriel said.
“Bring them their bikes” The Policeman said.
“I will return with more bikes but if none of them are your, I will head back home” He said while leaving.

We were waiting and we explain everything that has happened to the police man. The thief returned with some bikes that were clearly not ours and he was going to head back home.

“Wait! That bike you’re on, that one of ours” I said confidently.
“This bike it’s mine, you don’t have any prove” He counter attacked.
“Oh yeah? Then how do I know that the seat has a marking on top?” I asked

The police men make him stand up and there was a marking on the seat so he was force to give it to us. Afterwards we headed back to get the other bike I hid and head back home with the others. We safely retrieved the bikes and none of our parents knew this ever happened.

This are one of the things you will never learn by reading or watching it on TV, the adrenaline, the fear of the unknown, the way you feel obligated to act as fast as you can. That night I learned that I wasn’t alone, I had my friends always on my back even if they were far away.

About me

Just in case Soy un chico fiel a sus principios y a sus amistades,soy violinista y quisiera ser nomada,soy un onironauta, muy pero muy arriesgado y no me da miedo serlo, al contrario lo disfruto, eso me ha hecho disfrutar mi vida al máximo, siempre como si fuera el último día,soy un idealista frustrado que no sabe vivir en el mundo real. Solo soy un chico con inspiraciones en la vida. Y este es mi pequeño blog donde pongo mis pensamientos, desahogos,trabajos,ensayos y entre otras cosas.

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