Good and Bad Points.

When i was at school, the English subject was very basic, and i wasn’t interested in learning the language. Afterwards I did an English course at downtown, in an institute, and that experience makes me observe the importance of known to talk and understand the language.

Here, in the university, I took just a few classes of English , so I just can write about my experience here in the Intermediate course. And it was good, the exercise of writing in English and explain myself in the blog has been good for my learning, but I think it's very necessary the presence of the professor, because it's easy to make mistakes, and if I don’t know, and I don’t have a correction, I could fail when I’ll express myself, so maybe that’s the risk, but I didn’t feel empty spaces in my learning.

In addition, I am not used to talking in English, just when I am with some friends who talk too, or if I chat with an Australian friend. So, it’s important to have some time in the week to learn and talk in English, and I want to learn more, and, in a future, to see movies without subtitles, and read books and academic articles in English.

I have to improve my creation of phrases, the conjugation of verbs, and learn more vocabulary, steps necessary to take this language to a mind state, a natural thing, where I won’t use it every day –I think- but I'll use it comfortably.

I’m convinced the key is to practice consistenly, and much better if you have a guide who knows it.

Hobbies

If we think hobbies as things we like to do, i have some activities i frequently do, but I don’t use a lot of time in developing these. For example, I like to read, I can read all day, but not every day.  

I like to read novels and poetry, over all classics and Latin-American authors. Now I want to read ‘Los detectives salvajes’ by Roberto Bolaño, but with the university it’s difficult to found the space of time to read something different of academic texts.

I like to draw too, it’s a relaxing activity, it could be something abstract, or animals, but human body is the hardest theme to draw (but also the most interesting), I have some draw books with some drawings, it’s weird to see it after long time.

When I was in school, I was in the theatre academia, where I was just one year and a half, but I learned a lot of this art and some artists of drama and acting. Also, to act is an activity very difficult, but very beautiful, because make a scene involve an soul state or an exhibition of your own sensibility what results a challenge, and when the spectators can see that and maybe feel it, that’s a satisfaction very strong.

Another thing I do in my daily life is participate of scout movement, but I don’t judge it like a hobby, it’s a lifestyle, an educative movement, from you can get along with another people, hopefully at nature, with the idea of “Leave this world a little better than you found it”.

How green are you?

I might confess I’m not very green (environment-friendly), or maybe my vision about the ecology is not about the actions that we can do, it’s about a lifestyle.

Obviously, each act counts, the recycle is one of the most important things, but here in Chile, specifically in Santiago, we haven’t got a good (or green-efficiently) system for the residue treatment. Firstly, we should have some division between the different materials that are able to recycle (like glass, paper, metal and plastic), the organic waste and the general waste, whit which you cannot do anything (I think, I don’t know).

On the other hand, some local governments have this initial division, but we can doubt about the treatment of those materials, because the recycle industry is limited in Chile, maybe it isn’t beneficial for business people.

But the question is ‘How green are you?’ and I can say I’m green because I use the public transportation, I avoid using plastic bags, I throw waste in trashbins (and not on the street) and I like nature (I visit regularly parks.) But, being self-critical, I don’t separate the recyclable waste, I don’t know recycle-points, I don’t like to reuse some stuff because I prefer buying another one, and a long etcetera.

I want to finish this post stating about some changes (what we have to do) depend on us, and other ones might be a responsibility of the authorities of our country, because we need a system which supports every little help, contributing to the recycling circle.

Friday afternoon

Ok. If i didn't have english class in the afternoon, i could to do a lot of things.

I don’t want to say that I don’t like English classes, because I like to learn this language, but I think that all we prefer to do another things a Friday afternoon, and specially in this warm day.

I want to see a lot of friends, but in my disorganised life that’s very difficult. Today I wanted to see some friends playing football soccer, meeting with a friend that I don't see in a long time. Moreover I ‘ll go to a friend’s house, to prepare some stuffs ‘cause tomorrow we’ll go to Manquehue Hill, and it’s not like to just go and climb a hill, you need to prepare yourself, to get hydrated, to have a good health and rest the day before. In spite of everything, I will do that things, but it’s complicated to organise your social life from six o’clock in the evening.

And, for all who had class at summer, like us, we know the difficulty to study in warm days. Probably the only thing that you expect is to drink a cold beer, a melon with wine, a soft-drink or to swim in a cold swimming pool. That’s the reason because the summer holiday exists.

Hey, I’m not saying that I want vacations (again); it’s just a dream of a warm day.

My future job

Probably we won’t find our dreams job, and maybe we don’t know which it is. It’s easier to explain what things we like to do, the most part of the vocational tests are focus on that. And for me the humanities and the outdoors activities are part of things I really like.

Thinking about it, the sociology was the career where I could find a place to develop my interests, but one of my fears is this wasn’t a good election, mainly for the type of job I’ll have. About the subject I want to study or develop, my interests are about culture, education and public politics, and probably for that I will need to work in an office but I prefer to travel and make relations between work groups.

A sociologist can work in many places, from state organizations to private organizations, including non-governmental organizations. Some of good opportunities that I see are to work in some state direction, council or another organization doing studies and public interventions. Another good option is making classes or to do investigations in academic institutions.

Actually the field work is wide, and there is a possibility I don’t work as sociologist all my life. I like diplomatic work and I wish to have some proximity with it someday. 

The best concert

In 2012, i had the opportunity to see probably one of the best concerts made in Chile. The previous year, when i saw the new and the confirmation, i knew than I had the obligation to assist. I talked with my parents and i worked to join the money for the ticket, I heard the songs and I saw the movie many times. Do you know what I’m talking about? Ok.

At national stadium there was a big engineering work to assemble the structure of the stage, what had the extension of the stadium’s width. The workmen put brick by brick for that purpose. A surround sound system, on all the stadium’s edges, and a little plane for the end of the first song. Not yet?

Ok. I went to the Roger Waters presentation called ‘The Wall’, the famous opera rock. It was an amazing experience, where Roger took advantage of talk about the historical importance of that stadium, for the all political prisoners who was tortured or die because the military dictatorship. The concert was dedicated for Victor Jara.

‘The Wall’ is a movie, a concert, an album, but is a concept too (very wide to explain here), a perfect context to do a big social critic.

The Doors

My favourite music band is The Doors, an American group of psychedelic rock from the end of the sixties. Their members are Jim Morrison (vocals), Ray Manzarek (organ), Robbie Krieger (guitar) and John Densmore (drums). They met in Los Angeles, California.
The idea to do a music band was because Jim was thinking about that a lot of time, and in a casual metting with Ray, he told him about that idea, and Jim sang to him the lyrics of ‘Moonlight Drive’, probably the first song written by Jim. With the Ray's help, they contacted to John and Robbie, who had special characteristics and experience to make The Doors, one of the most important sample of the airs of revolution and chaos of that time, in USA and the world.
The difference between this band and the others of those years, was the dark sound and the show than they displayed in the stage, near an indian ceremony where people could to feel a special connection with their spirituality (or that is what many testimonies say). It was the Ray's virtuality, the John's improvised percussions, the blues-soul sound of the guitar of Robbie, and the Jim's poems, what make to The Doors my favourite band, whose songs, in my opinion, are magical.