FAU - Cris Barra

There in the Internet we have a lot of websites related to our program like Archdaily, but my favourite is http://www.skyscrapercity.com/ This website was created in September of 2002 and counts with +900.000 users around the world. It's a forum where the people can talk about skyscrapers, urbanistic and other projects or updates for buidings under construction. The site are distributed in various forums (nearby one million)(98 million of posts) divided in themes and cathegories, as Sport and Stadiums (my favourite), Infraestrucutre in Mobility, talks about the cities and it's urban scheme. The forum where I'm involved for the moment it's related about Stadiums and Sport Arenas, there I can find the uptates of construction for the future Olympic Games and the process from it's approval until the construction it's finished and their doors are opened, now I visit the site every day to check the stage of construction of the New Tokyo National Stadium...

I'm going to talk about one of the most important hobbies in which I'm involved and how I started to follow it, the "Vexillology" The word "Vexillology comes from the word in Latin "Vexillum, which means flag, so this word means "Study of Flags". The first time I'm involved in the Vexillology was when I've seen the Closing Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, I was 6, for me was amazing the display of all the participant country flags in that ceremony, from that moment I've started to read about the flags and it's meanings, with a book that my mom has given to me these year. The moment has changed everything was four years lates before the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, at my school all my classmates included me, had the duty to make some presentation about one sport, my work was related about the Olympics and with my mom we made a model of the Athens Olympic Stadium with the 202 flags of the participating National Olympic ...

For me, this photograph has an immense value, was taken few days before Christmas of 1997, my parents was still married, but they argued all the time. At this photo I'm with my big sister, she's 6 and half years older than me, we didn't know what will happens at the following year, I was very young to understand the context of the incidents. When I see this photo, I become nostalgic with the time before the separation but not so much, because sometimes i think if my parents have never separated, my sister and I we've never reached almost all our goals. My sister suffered a lot at the end of the following year, she had an accident where almost died, but she was strong and only had aesthetic consequences, now she´s married and will be mother in September, I'm very happy for her. In conclussión the real nostalgic of this photo is the spirit of improvement that we had by the time.