So, is my English good or bad?

                I have always liked English; even if when I was like twelve or something, I wanted to learn ‘German’ (Instead I got two years of French… I only remember how to say ‘My name is…’ and the marseillaise, I still want to learn some German).

          I have better English that most of my friends, but I still get pretty nervous while talking it so I confuse words, but mostly the pronunciation of said words. That is my biggest problem talking English, I keep repeating ‘I’m going to say something wrong, I’m going to say something wrong’ like a mantra in my head and get even more anxious than I regularly do talking in public. I wish there was and Internet website where I could improve my pronunciation, because being afraid of saying something stupid, keeps me from saying the actual things. For example, this year, in English four everyone talks pretty well, so I feel kind of bad every time that I mess up a word while reading out loud and I make bigger mistakes because of it, something that didn’t happen in English three.

          I think that I have a good enough vocabulary; I have it because I read a lot in English (Most of the time I only use this language to read for entertainment).

         One of my biggest problems writing in English are the words that look the same but mean really different things, like thought and tough, because I know what I want to say and how it sounds, but when I’m trying to write it, I have to think about each word and how are they spelled.

         While I listen to someone talking in English, the most complicate thing is listening to slangs that I don’t know (Even if I do know a lot of them), like Australian or Canadian slangs (Because I’m more used to British and American English), especially if the dialect is a little complicate like Welsh people talking English.

In general, I really like the English language and I would love to keep improving it and, if I get the opportunity, learnt a third language as well. 

The best concert ever. Can I really choose?

                Well I have been to a lot of concerts: from pop to rock, from Chile to Asia, some of them were free, some of them pretty expensive, but I have loved every single one of them.

               


               I can’t really say if I have a favourite one musically speaking because I have enjoyed all the experiences, but there was one from a Korean pop band that came to Chile that was especially lovely because my friends from Argentina and Peru came to see the same band (We are all fans of them) and I got to see them (And if in that concert I got front row and one of the singers gave me a handshake, noone has to know... but yeah… my lovely friends from Argentina and Peru).

          
                I saw once ‘los jaivas’ in Puerto Montt, I was there visiting two of my friends and they got tickets for free, I think it was their anniversary (The city’s one), that same day I saw Manuel García and Bordemar as well (Bordemar is the band that does the music from ‘Tierra adentro’ or ‘La fiera’).

                Now, I have tickets for the Arctic Monkeys at the end of the year, for their concert at the Movistar Arena and tickets for the Lollapalooza next year (Both days), I’m happy.

Good and bad points about 2014.

Well, so far the year has been relatively nice to me, a lot of things that could have gone wrong ended mostly in ‘OK’, or ‘Good’.

            Some good points have been getting to choose all my teachers, my ranking did ok last year, so this one I got all the teachers that I wanted, a bad side about that is that my friends took different ones so I’m alone in some classes (And then I get in the awkward position of being alone for group works), it’s gets a little bit lonely.

          Another good thing is that academically I have done well this semester, nice grades, nice works, some investigations; My CFG (Curso de formación general) is interesting and I just got a seven yesterday in a work about the movie Metropolis (Fritz Lang 1927), a movie that I loved. But on the bad side of that, I didn’t did well in my macroeconomics’ test, and I really love that one so, I’m still kind of gloom about it.

                A bad thing that did happen this year was that some thieves robbed my mother, they had a gun so, it was a complicate situation… but luckily nothing happened to her. On the other side, I got to celebrate my birthday at home with my friends and, just a couple of weeks ago, I went with them to Valdivia for a one day trip, it was a really nice travel.  

                Internationally I’m not so sure of how good this year has been, like… we got wars, conflicts and the ébola, It can’t be such a nice year for a big part of the world, hope that it gets better. 

My favourite food.

                Well I’m really picky about food; I have a habit that most of the people think is weird, I don’t like to mix different foods, the only one that I enjoy mixed is the traditional ‘Completo’ (The Italian hot-dog that we make here in Chile), but in general is like one side rice, one side meat, one side spaghetti etc.

  

                I have some favourite foods but, if there is something that I enjoy a lot, and I mean it, A LOT, those are potatoes.

                Obviously, my favourite form for them is fries/french fries, thin and crispy, they are kind of a guilty pleasure for me, because I supposed to be on a diet so, I shouldn’t be eating them, at least daily (Just joking, I haven’t ate them in more than a month).

                My second most loved form for them is mashed potatoes; I specially enjoy a good ‘Purée’ with a lot of milk, cream (My mother does it like that) or butter; nice, creamy and soft, with a side of pork or some kind of tasty meat.

                With the mashed potatoes, come the boiled ones. I love them, most of the time I eat them without a side food like meat or sausages etc, only with a little oil and salt, the ones from Carahue (A city near Temuco) are awesome.

                I love as well them with mayonnaise, those are called here ‘Ensalada Rusa’ (Russian salad), they have some other ingredients like carrots or coriander, but I enjoy them just with mayonnaise (The problem with mixing food).

                There is some other options like ‘Papas duquesas’ (Duchess(e) potatoes), I have some good memories attached to those but I don’t enjoy them as much as the others, or you could use the potatoes in other dishes. At the end of the day the thing is… that I love potatoes :D they are awesome!

Videogames

I actually like videogames a lot, since I was little I have loved to play them with my cousins, father, or my little brother. We used to have a Super Nintendo and at that time, Mario world was the best thing ever that could happen to me, Omar, one of my cousins and me used to play almost every week that game, those are pretty lovely memories. I used to have a Playstation as well, but is not as dear as my Nintendo.

Now, I’m more into online games, from the really basic ones on my phone like Candy crush (This one has become an obsession), ‘Preguntados’ (That I play with my mother, or more like… she forces me and my brother to play with her) to my favourite, World of Warcraft, a game that I have been playing since 6 or 7 years ago (I don’t actually remember how much, could be less, could be even more). 

WOW is a mmorpg, a multiplayer game, you can be from two different factions that are in conflict in this fantasy world, the good thing is, that even with both factions having pretty complex history on both sides, none of the two can be catalogued as the ‘Good’ or the ‘Bad’ faction.

I play Horde, most of the times a Blood Elf or a Undead, I play with some friends that live here in Santiago but that I got to know online when I was still living in Temuco.

I like playing games, I don’t have the time that I used to have, but I still play them. 

How green are you?

                I think that the environment is important, and that we actually need to be immersed actively in protecting it for future generations because we are not getting another one to replace it (Yet) , but the true is, that I’m not as eco-friendly as I would like to be.

                Here in the university, I try to separate the garbage between: Glass, paper and cans, because we have trash cans for all that different types of garbage, but at home, we only have one trash can so, all the things that I do OK here I’m not actually doing them as good in my apartment.

                The place that I live now, does not has solar panels, and that is kind of a shame. All the things in my apartment use electricity to function (Even the kitchen). At home, I try not to leave the electrical appliances connected because even when they are not on, they use energy.  

                At home (The one in Temuco), my father has some eco-friendly devices in our bathroom that save water (Like a second charge of water, a smaller one, in the toilet or a shower that distributes better the water that you use), I like that, but still not as good as I would like it to be.

                I think that there is little things that you can actually do to be more eco-friendly, like saving energy and water and that if all of us do them, then we could do a mayor improvement in the conservation of our planet.

My future job.

Public administration is a multidisciplinary career, and because of that I don’t have an absolute idea of what I would exactly do in the future.

If there is something that I don’t like, is having a job where you only work in a little office doing the same thing day by day, seeing the same people, a routine. I know that a lot of the people that get into public affairs end like that, I could easily be the same, having the job that I hate, but the true is that I don’t really want that as a future.

                My dream job (a job that the people who get into this career can have), would be in the area of International relations, maybe in an embassy, or an International organization, but mostly somewhere out of Chile. I have always wanted to get into a position that allows me to travel around the world, get in contact with different cultures, situations and people, and get to know things that I never knew in person, things that I wouldn’t knew first hand if I stay here in Chile.

                I want to be able to cooperate to the public service of the international community in a lot of aspects more that I want to only do in a small place, I wonder if that is selfish…

Favourite Movie or Series.

I like a lot of shows right now, and all of them are pretty awesome, good plots, actors, even their budgets are good, shows like Game of Thrones, Sherlock, Doctor Who, Criminal Minds etc.

But the one that has a little place in my heart was probably Roswell, not because it was an especially good show, or had the best plot or actors, is it simply because I watched it when I was little and I’m still nostalgic about it.

Roswell was released around 1999-2000, and I watched it on Fox. It’s based on a book series called "Roswell High” by Melinda Metz.

Aliens, apparently.

If you ask me now, is a pretty weird plot, Aliens and High school in Roswell New México? Pretty weird, and if you add to that the problems with the government, clones and the power to resurrect people and animals, you have science fiction plot like no other.

Roswell had around six principal characters:

Max, Isabel and Michael are the tree enigmatic characters of the series, they kind of try to get unnoticed by the people, two of them are the perfect little sister and brother (Max and Isabel) and they are all adopted, they were found just wandering around in the dessert... little kids in the dessert near Roswell, yeah, so common. Their counterparts are other 3 kids called Liz, Maria and Alex, three normal kids that have lived all their life in Roswell.

The plot starts when Liz get shoot in a disagreement between two customers and will eventually die if not treated and Max, well, he kind of gets her back to life; that is the beginning of the whole plot of the series. People die, more characters get added into it and ‘aliens’ (Do I need to say more?).  Roswell is a nice series to watch if you are bored. It has only 3 seasons.

The song of the opening is ‘Here with me’ by Dido, I always loved this song.

A country that I'd LOVE to visit.

There are a lot of countries that I would love to visit: Norway, South Korea, Japan, USA, Iceland, but if I have to choose only one that would be England without a doubt. Since I was a Child, England has being one of my favourite’s countries in the world, if not the ‘Favourite’.

There is just ‘something’ about England and Great Britain in general. I like the accent, the places, the shows on tv, some of the food, but specially… the music.

Leeds.

The thing is… I have always wanted to go to a Music Festival, a big one… Soooo, why not Lollapalooza in Chicago? Why not the ones here in Chile? Why not Rock in Rio? The answer to that question is quite simple: I just want to have the whole experience, you know? Bands that you go to see only ‘because’ and most of the people there don’t even know, camping, friends and a place nowhere where I can actually disappear for a couple of days, be free, feel like I’m still in that magical age where you can just forget the world for a little time, even if is not real.

Glastonbury.

My dream job.

I like my career, I really do, but the true is that it was not always my dream job, especially when I was little. Before I got into this university I was in one in Temuco called ‘La Frontera’ and studding something in the medical area, that something doesn’t really have a simile in most of the countries but it has a lot to do with medical exams and blood, you could call it ‘medical technology’, quite a literal way to translate it from Spanish to English, so, the thing is that when I was little I used to dream about going to other countries and help people in need of medical assistance, help them in their illness, cure their diseases, that used to make me really happy, I was a kid, war, hunger, guns and lots of things that I know now where not the same for me at that moment in time, but the true is that when you get into the university that changes a lot. I’m not longer in that university, but I still want to help.

Now, with a lot of ‘new’ things in my life, new career, new city, new university, etc, my dream job is most likely to be a different one, a ‘new one’. In the future, I want to work in diplomacy, I would love for it to be in the field of international affairs and politics, because I like them more than the national ones, I dream about traveling around the world learning different things, helping people to improve their lives and solve their problems, that is the future that I want, that is kind of my ‘Dream Job’ right now. 

In the end, is still a big dream about helping people around the world… 

The blogging experience

            I quite liked the experience with the blogging. I like this assignments a lot, and I wish that could keep doing them. (I probably will try it) because is good exercise for this class and my English in general.

            I actually have another blog already, but it’s a blog that has mostly the stories that I write, is not a personal one. This blog could become a personal one if I try hard enough (I’m not that good at keeping a journal, I never was).

This blog helped me a lot, it kept me in ‘English mode’ at least once a week, and that is actually pretty awesome. The good things about it are that you can expand on your own thoughts about several subjects in a language that is not your own, but I would love to have more days with free themes, because I didn't like to write about some of the things that I wrote, for example the web site (Something related to the career) and I would pretty much love to write about music etc. (I have to do things for my career in every other subject, so I would like to escape that in English).

Chile: A country that I actually love.

Chile is the country that I was born into, while I grew up I didn’t liked it that much, I always dreamed about going away, travel the world, I still do, but I came to like it a lot. I can say with conviction that I love Chile.  

Santiago.

I love the weather of Chile, especially the one in the south (This one not that much), traveling around the country is beautiful like the travel that I got to tell you guys about in my last entry.

Torres del Paine.

I don’t like the inequality in the Country; I wish we could have a better way to share the money, the educations, and the health. That would improve the quality of life here a lot. That is what I would like to change, doing better public reforms, having politicians that actually care about the situation and don’t want to just stay the same. Beginning with the education, because the education is what builds a country.

Rapa Nui, Easter Island.

I have been to Argentina and Brazil. I specially loved Argentina, the true is that the country is pretty much the same as here, but don’t tell them that, because they will not like it. I love their south is stunning. I didn’t enjoy Brazil that much because of the weather, tropical weather is not my thing, Rio de Janeiro was beautiful, but the Favelas were heart breaking.

Not the same.

I’m not sure if the international community knows what a Chile is, if they are not talking about food or Mexico. Maybe they know about Pinochet, Allende, the miners… probably the earthquakes. So, pretty much the same that they think about the whole continent? For them we are the same, but we are really different.

Pretty place is pretty.

I would live in the south in between the IX and X regions, I love the weather there, the rain, the beautiful landscape and that is the place where all my family is. Still… I wish Santiago was down there, because living in ‘the big city’ of Chile has a lot of advantages. 

Travel experiences in Chile.

Travel experiences in Chile.

I know Chile from Viña del Mar to ‘la Laguna San Rafael’ (San Rafael’s pond). In between those I have been to the ‘chiflón del diablo’, a really big copper mine near Lota, Coyhaique, Tomé, Concepción, Puerto Montt, Valparaíso and Ancud, also when I was little I spent almost all my summer time in Valdivia or Caburgüa (A nice lake). 

This one is from Ancud.

But my favourite travel around Chile was the ‘Cruce Andino’. Is not only Chile on it, but Argentina as well. You begin the experience on the X region and the travel takes place between Puerto Varas and Bariloche. You basically go from one country to the other, so… What is so awesome about that? Well, you don’t really do it on a bus as always but in between the lakes, on a boat.

On a boat~~

I went there with my brother and my mother three years ago. It took us the whole day to get to Bariloche and in the end we were exhausted, but it was worth it. Beautiful, that is the only word that I can say to describe that experience, everything was beautiful in both countries.  

Career related... Kind of.

The webpage that I would like to talk about is Scielo, and this is the link: http://www.scielo.cl/

Scielo is a webpage that basically is a Scientific Electronic Library Online (That is what it actually says in the web). I used to go there a lot more in my other career, because we had the ABP system there (Apredisaje basado en problema), and we used to read and need papers for every class. I don’t use it that often now, but still helps me when I'm in need of a paper. 

I like that I can look there and have a reliable source of information without going to the big libraries online (Like Medline in the health area, a database that I used a lot), but I like it especially because it has papers in Spanish (More than the rest of the databases) and you can put the page in Spanish as well.

You can search by author, subject or key words. In general is a good place to start an investigation and a good place to go back when your are lost in all the information available in english.

A picture of my life.

This picture is special for me because that place right there is my home, or at least it was my home when I was little (until I was 4 years old, that was the time when I had to go live in Temuco for school). I used to live in the countryside of Chile, with my parents and my great-aunt. It was an interesting time for me, my parents were still together, I learned everything from them, and even if I didn’t had that many friends (Because there wasn’t any child near my home), my cousins used to go see me at my birthday and other important dates.

When I was little, the house used to look bigger...

This picture was taken by me, but a year ago. The house collapsed with the earthquake in 2010 and now no one can live there. I miss it, and I wish my brother was alive at that time, so he could have the experience of living there with me, but he was born when we already where living in Temuco.

My great-aunt passed away four years ago, I miss her as well too.

This is were the house is located.

Favourite Movie... or not.

These are the leading actors.

I don't really have a 'Favourite movie' per se, I haven’t really thought about it, so I’m just going to talk about one of my favourites. The name of the movie is ‘The perks of being a Wallflower’ and is inspired in a book by Stephen Chbosky.

Is set in the 90’s even if the movie is from 2012, and some of the leading actors are Logan Lerman (Mostly know for Percy Jackson), Emma Watson (The one from Harry Potter, she is awesome in this one as well), and Ezra Miller (My favourite in the movie).

The plot is kind of complicated. The ‘Hero’ of the movie is called Charlie, and he is just a regular guy that gets into a new school, he is mostly really shy and not good with people, but gets to know two step brothers, Sam (A girl) and Patrick. They become friends, and the plot goes around their friendship and problems with the rest of their friends and people that surround them, from cheating and love to homophobic rants and being in the closet. In the end in a shocking plot twist we get some information about Charlie’s family that is kind of disturbing and explains why he is so shy. The movie is mostly about friendship and discovering yourself, facing your problems and pretty awesome music.

There is one song that is kind of important in the movie from David Bowie, they call it ‘The tunnel song’, but the name of the song is actually ‘Heroes’.

I love how the movie is made, the actors and how Charlie is kind of a really nice guy that you get to love through the whole thing. 

My favourite quote from the book and movie.