English Language Challenge

To be honest, I used to think that English at university won’t do any change on my English level, but I have improved it, especially at speaking (discounting isolated experiences, I have never had the opportunity to speak English like at this subject). Blogs also helped me to express myself. In summary, English have helped me a lot in communication abilities. In another hand, relative to reading ability, I have learned a lot of that from papers that I have to read for my career (I use English in that cases, of 100% of things that I have to read maybe the 10% is in English, last semester was like 30%) I’ve improved a lot my lecture comprehension doing that exercise that, at the beginning, was very difficult. At first months I couldn’t understand English papers very well, I could only catch isolated ideas. Now I can understand papers almost totally, so I’m happy about that. I still have to improve my listening ability, I can understand English at exercise or at classroom because is more slowly, but sometimes at movies without subtitles I can’t understand everything.

I think that English subject that this University has is not a bad subject, but maybe is not focused in the right way. I mean, at communication abilities It performs very well that objective. Communication abilities are important and crucial because English is the global language. But, relative to reading comprehension in more difficult levels (that is the ability that we’re using for the other subjects), there’s no preoccupation, and I know that is not fault of professors, but of the English department planning. There are a lot of classmates that can’t read papers at English, and they have to wait for people who translate them. At Diego Portales University, English subject is focused depended on the abilities that careers needs. For example, at political science, obligatory English subject is focused on reading comprehension and if they choose International Relationships on the following years, they have to take an English subject that is focused on communication abilities.

Have you had a good year?

I have to say that I don’t know if this current year has been a good or a bad year. This year has been both things, like all years, I have had great and bad moments. The good things of this year are that I have learned a lot of things that I like, I have strengthen my familiar and friends relationships, and I have known a lot of new and cool people.

This is my first year of university, I live alone and I’m of course more independent than last year. I used to think that that part could be the more difficult, but is not the case. It’s and achievement, I think. Technology is so awesome that I haven’t lost contact with people that I really care, and I love my friends and family more than ever.

The other face of the coin is the most difficult part of this year: the fact of meeting new people. It’s difficult to me to trust in people, even when people have shown to me that they’re good and cool people. It’s difficult to build a new world with different people from the ones that I’m used. For some this process is not that awful, and is also a fast and normal process. But for me is a very slow process, iIt’s just a matter of time, I think. After all, people around me are not bad people. Although this part is the most difficult one for me, I don’t think of that more than necessary. Another achievement of this year: nothing is so important, and present is the only important thing (and I'm saying it very truly. Now I care about much more about my mentally and emotional welfare than thinking about stressing myself with grades, for example. Someone that I love told me this summer: "You don't have to worry about anything than ending this day in a good way" and I have practiced it a lot)

The only thing that still lacks in my year is to know the surroundings of Santiago, and have a great summer.

Childhood series

When I was a child I used to watch a lot of television, mostly Nickelodeon, Cartoon Networks or Fox Kids. I couldn’t watch Discovery Kids because I have older siblings and they used to bother me if I watch that “little kid TV” (even when I actually was a little kid)

One of my favorite childhood serie was Hey Arnold! –well, it is one of my favorites until today. I think that I liked and like so much Hey Arnold because it was a very real story, Arnold was a child who lived with his grandparents because his parents were lost, and he doesn’t have superpowers or something, he just went to school every day. This year I saw a “Hey Arnold” special on VIAX program “7mo vicio”, and Gonzalo Frias –the animator- talked about things that I haven’t noticed when I was a child, but now I realize that was that kind of things that made me love so much this serie. For example, Frias said that the Arnold’s world was a “low class” world, at the suburbs of New York. I mean, Arnold’s life is a very normal life, and was also the life that me and my friends were living: we were discovering the world with our little friends and with our little adventures at the city. But when I was a child I didn’t enjoy my life as it was, I always were thinking about magic and all that stuff (Harry Potter is the guilty). Now I realize –and Hey Arnold embodies that- that routine life is also beautiful.

Another serie that I liked was Invasor Zim, I like it until today and I also like the comics and art of Jhonen Vasquez, the animator of Zim. I like that serie because of the strange humor, I’ve always enjoyed that kind of “bizarre” animation and humor.

How Green are you?

Things that we can learn about ecology are mostly at internet. There are no much campaigns about that, or, at least, there are no real effective campaigns about. I could say that here in Santiago there’s more “green conscience” that in another cities, but I think is not enough, it’s far from enough.
I recycle plastic and paper/cardboard. I make “ecobricks”, plastic bottles that you fill with plastic. I don’t use them because I don’t have where, but I give them to people that build dog houses or things like that with ecobricks. My family have never had a car, so I always walk, use bike or public transport. I would like to make a blog to teach people how to re-use things. People use to think that everything that you don’t use has to go to thrash. But there are some beautiful things that you can do by re-utilize wrappers, for example. At school I had an art teacher that taught me how to make wallets with wrappers. Things made by “eco design” are very original, by the way.

There’s a lot of way left in this issue. Is not just about people that through garbage in the street. Is about that “green conscience” is lacking. Just few people are conscious, for example, about the great amount of plastic that they use every day, or about the contaminating that cars are. Government, at the other side, is not interested in this issue, or not the way they should be. For me, this is an urgent aspect and we can't ignore it anymore.

The Scariest Monsters

I think that everyone has seen a black spot by the corner of the eye, and then turn around and there was nothing. Well, when I was a child I heard a story about a guy that used to saw a black thing by the corner of his eye. When he turned around, the black spot always disappeared, so he really didn’t pay much attention about that. Once he turned round but the black spot didn’t disappear, and instead of that, there was a strange “man”, a large and white man with long legs and very big black eyes. I don’t remember the whole story, but at that part it wasn’t different from others, it was just scary but I will forget it. Then, when the guy saws the black spot again and turn around, the man didn’t disappear. He was just looking at him, and he didn’t talk. When the guy woke up at night, the thing was there, looking at him. And okay, it was scary. But the worst thing was at the end, the guy got crazy and get inmate. And the thing was with him, of course. I don’t remember well how this happened, but then the “thing” shows –I don’t remember how- the guy that every person has a “thing” like him, but just a few persons could see it.

And that was the thing that scared me so long hahaha. My house in Calama has a long corridor, and when I was walking through it I used to run because I remembered the man hahaha.

Movie Review: Inside Job

Inside job is a 2010’s documentary that talks about 2008’s financial crisis and shows investigations and interviews that reveal the real causes of the crisis, putting emphasis at corruption, for example, the interest conflict that exist inside the financial industry, the relationship between state politics and economy pressures, the elevated wages that year by year are increasing at the industry or even the connection that exist between universities and crisis. The film got an Oscar at 2011 for Best Documentary Feature, and also was very well received by the critic. Inside Job don’t talk just about a punctual issue, it talks about how people that are at the top of financial industry, and, because of that, have the obligation and responsibility of administrate almost everything –state budgets, pensions, etc.- that influence on our daily living, don’t really put people benefits above their personal benefits. The film talks about selfishness and an aggressive careless about the other, it shows the “white-collar criminals” and how state and authorities don’t make justice about it. It’s a calling for reflection about who are those people and how true is what they are saying.

My future job

I really don’t know what I want to do when I get my grade at university. I want to do something outdoors and indoors, I like both. I also want to travel a lot but not pretty sure if I want to do it because of job. Before start studying anthropology I wanted to study Hispanic literature and being a Spanish teacher, I have had really good teachers in my life that left important learnings. I’m still thinking about it.  I don’t want to be an anthropologist, not for now. If I had to do something related to anthropology, I think I would get the social and the physical anthropology mentions, and then I would specialize myself at human ecology, the topic that talks about the relationship between human being (his culture and biology) and the environment. Or maybe I’ll finish this career and then I’m going to study another thing, I don’t know. I have nothing for sure, and even when sometimes future bothers me, I never think that I’m “losing my time” cause I’m not losing it. I'm getting experience, and I’m enjoying this career even when I don’t know if I want to keep in. Before start university I used to think “I won’t know if anthropology likes me if I never study it. To know if something likes you, you have to taste it” and I wasn’t wrong, I think. A close friend once told me that the only thing that has to bother me about the future is to end this day in a good way. It has work for me.