Hi,

vals is a dictionary containing the values to create a new record or write to a record in the model. 

I hope you are working in Odoo 8 new api.

In that case, if you want to override create():

eg:

class AccountJournal(models.Model):
    _inherit = "account.journal"
     
    @api.model
    def create(self, vals):                
        rec_id = super(AccountJournal, self).create(vals)
        ...        
        ...     #do your stuff    
        return rec_id

and for write():

eg:

class AccountJournal(models.Model):
    _inherit = "account.journal"
   
    @api.multi        
    def write(self, vals):                
        res = super(AccountJournal, self).write(vals) 
        ...        
        ...    #do your stuff
        return res

Hope this helps