English Languages Challenges

Well, I didn't like this class very much, but is not because of the subjects or anything like that, it's because I had a lot of classes this semester and I got a job, so I was kind of busy and I couldn't pay attention or focus in this class.

I also already know some english, I came from a school that demanded me to learn english from a very young age, but when I have evaluations I get really nervous, so I can't prove that I kind of know something about english already. I mean, I'm not the best english speaker in the world, but I can manage the use of english in my career.

I think I have to improve in my speaking, because is a part of inglish that I can't practise every day, like I can with listening and reading, in fact, I have to read papers and texts in english because my career demands it.

I use english a lot, like I said before, I have to read in english for the majority of my classes, because the investigations are written in english in order to be published in  prestigious cientific magazines that are internationally recognized. I also use english to watch new episodes of tv shows that are not translated to spanish yet, or some movies that their translation to spanish is not very good.

I guess I can practise my speaking talking to someone in english, but I think that's kind of a weird thing to do, specially because I have no one to talk to in english.

Changes to my Study Programme

I am a second year student of Antropology in Universidad de Chile.

My career has two "periods" of courses, the first two years all the class has to take the same courses, and then in the third year we have to choose a major to specialize in. There are three options, social antropology, archeology and biological antropology. The first two years are supposted to give a common knowledge for all the students, it's also supposted to give some introduction to the three specialities. 

In this two years I coursed in this university, I have noticed some things I would like to change in the curriculum. The principal problem that I see in tje curriculum is that the objectiive of the first two years is to introduce us to our major, but in reality all the classes (or most of them) are only useful to the students that are going to specialize in social antropology, there are a couple classes that are useful to archeologists, so they are not really left out, but there are almost no classes that can be useful for biological antropologists. Im in the second semester of my second year in this university and I want to take my major in biological antropology, but I feel like im going totally unprepeared to the major, because I have barely had classes of this area in two years. Two years! 

In adition to that, we have to take classes in the faculty of medicine, because here there are no enough facilities for biological antropologists to work in, so I guess the university is not really prepeared to give a good education to the people taking this major.

Summer Holidays

In summer vacations people usually get out of the city they live in and go to a beach or some place nice to avoid the heat, but I don't really like to do that. Usually I go to the beach for maybe one week and then spend all the rest of the summer vacations in Santiago, city where I live and study.

This summer is not going to be very different, I will go to Valdivia in february for a week, but then I'm staying in Santiago for the rest of the summer. I'm going with a couple of friends from university, so it'll be really fun to see each other without worrying about our studies and all that stuff.

The rest of this summer vacations I'm planning to work. Now I'm working in a candle store in a mall. My boss already gave me a lot of shifts in January, so I'll be busy working and making money to save for the future. Well, selling candles is not really difficult, and the shifts doesn't take too much of my day, so I'll be sleeping and going out with friends too, I work and study at the same time, so being on vacation, in spite if working all summer, will be very relaxing. 

I will be able to read all the books I couldn't read during this semester, I had no time to do anything very fun, because of all the classes I took and working all weekend, so I'm really looking forward to this summer vacations and for this semester to end.

Someone I'd Like to Meet

Someone I would really like to meet is Hermione Granger, from the book series Harry Potter.
I know she's not real, but since I was little she's been one of my role models.
Shes a witch born in the United Kingndom, she's doughter of two muggles, people that are not able to do magic, both of them were dentists. She had large teeth when she was little and studies more than any of the characters in the whole series.

I really admire her inteligence, well, I admire the hard work she does to be inteligent, because she makes a great effort to have all this knoledge, is not a talent she had since she was born, it's a talent that she made herself.
In the books she's always the one that does the intelligent thing, without her Harry would have died in the first book. In fact, Harry would have survived none of the years he spent on Hogwarts without her.

I would also like to meet Harry Potter himself. I don't think he's a character that I can really "admire", because almost  all of  his archievments were thanks to his good luck and his friends, but he was my hero when I was little and he represents a big part of my childhood.

I would like to meet all the characters in this book series bcause it is my ultimate favorite. I know is not really "good literature", but I cannot picture my childhood without this books and all of it's characters.

Postgraduate Studies

I had never thought about studiyng after I graduate my actual carrer, in fact, I don't know what subjet related to my carrer I could study after I have my title. Taking all of that in consideration, I think I will not continue to study antropology after I graduate. But, however, if I had the money, I would like to study another career. I would love to study mathematics, I've always like math, ever since I can remember, I had the best grades of my entire generation in school when I was little. When I was sixteen my school made me choose an area to specailize for the PSU, they made me choose between history and science, I chose history. Because of that, I stopped having so many math classes, and I missed them very much. In my last year in school, there was a course that I could take while I was studying history, it was a calculus class, and I loved it. I thought about dedicating my life to math, but I wasn't sure what to do with my life when I was eighteen, I barely knew some stuff that I liked, and because of that I got in here, thinking that I could dedicate my life to archaeology. Now I know that it isn't really my area, I can't understand how the archeologists can write hundreds of papers saying nothing at all, I'm not saying that all archaeologists are like that though.
I would like to study here, in Universidad de Chile, because I already know the campus and the university in terms of courses and organization, but I could consider studying in another university.
After studying math, I think I could work being a teacher, I'm not bad a it I think, I am one of the assitants in the course of statistics and, in my perspective, I'm not so bad at teaching, at least whith people my age.

The Job I would Like to Have

I think I would like to have a job that doesn't take too much time of my life, because I like to live, not just force me to get up in the moring, be all day wasting all my energy to a job that I, for sure, won't like just to get some money that will cover some necessities that I maybe don't have. Truly, I don't want to have a job, I want to live. But apparently I can't live without a job. I would like it to be indoors, maybe in a laboratory, where I don't have to talk to people every day. 

I am taking a major on Biological Antropology, because I kind of like biology and I can't change my career, I don't know what I want to do in life, so  I prefer to just be here.
 I would really like to travel, but not all the time, I like to have determined habits and if I travel a lot I can't have that.

If I had the opportunity to live without a job I would take it, well, only if I could not depend on other's job and money.
Anyhow, the things I can do with the major I'm takig are very limited, so I think I will aim to just ascend in the job I already have, selling overpriced cadles to people who can afford buying a candle that cost 23.600 pesos.

Election Day

Today I'm going to talk about the upcommig elections. I'm probably not going to vote, the reason why is that I don't know what are we suppose to vote now, and even if I kew, I won't vote either, because all the piliticians are basically the same, they don't represent us in any way. The majority of them are just lookig for making money out of being in a position of power. Another reason I'm not goig to vote, is because where I live it's obvious that RN is going to win, I live in a nice but not fancy neighbourhood in a very fancy district, wich is kown for very specyfic political tendencies.

I hate electoral campaigns because of basically two reasons. The first is that they use a lot of money that could be used to improve social services, like public hospitals or schools, but no, they use all that money to put their gigant faces all over the city, wastig money and resources like paper, wood and other stuff just to be thrown in the garbage after, causing a bad impact in the enviroment. The second one is that the politicians usually only appear to do somethig in the period of the electoral campaigns, but throughout the course of the year I don't see anythig being done, or even their faces, excluding some news about corrupted politicians in facebook.

The qualities that a person should have to run for a public position are essentially knowing how to handle people, not being a dishonest person, preach for the well being of the people and no for the high society, and having the real support of at least half of all the citizens, not just half of the ones that are going to vote.

I have never considered becoming a politician, I hate burocracy and I don't know anythig about handeling people, and even if I did, I think nobody would vote for me, because I am not really the stereotype of a politician.

I really don't like the electoral campaign in my district, it's obvious who is going to win, some members of my family are only going to vote because they want to show that Lavin is not the "king" of my district, but I really thik is not worth it to get up early just to see the same people win again. All I see is nothing but giant faces with empy promises.

My Favorite TV Show

My favorite TV show is Inuyasha. It's about a girl that lives in a temple, who falls into a magic well and travells to medieval Japan. She accidentally breaks the Shikon pearl, a magical object that can make true any wish. All the peices were lost through all Japan, so she has to find them all before they fall in the wrong hands, specially in the hands of Naraku, a powerful youkai. (Japanese supernatural being who usually takes de form of an animal or sometimes, if it's really powerful, a humanoid form).

The principal character is Kagome Higurashi, a normal fifteen year old teenager. She finds a hanyou, a half human youkai, that had been put in an eternal sleep in the Sacred Tree, because he wanted to use the Shikon pearl to transform himself into a full youkai. She woke him up by accident and they travelled together to collect all the lost peices of this powerfull gem. In their adveture they met a few people who joined them in order to find all the peices and kill Naraku.

It's impossible for me to pick a favorite episode, I love the majority of them, there's really not a single episode that I dislike. I really like it because the story is very interesting, it shows the mythological aspect of the Japanese folklore in a very entertaining way, even though not everything is completely accurate, for a six year old girl was enough. 

The Best Concert I've Ever Seen

I haven't gone to a concert since about three or four years ago, but the last one I went to was really good, probably the best one I will ever get to see in my life. It was probably in 2012 or 2013, when I was still in school. The band, Evanescence, was one of my favorites at the time, and when I knew they where comming I begged my dad to take me to see them. He really liked them too, so it was really easy to convince him to go. When the day came, I was really nervous and excited at the same time, I was going to see the group of persons that I admired the most, and in real life, not just videos on youtube! I couldn't sleep the night before.

We arrived at the concert really early, maybe an hour or two. My dad bought tickets in one of the last rows of the Movistar Arena, because they where really expensive. They played all my favorite songs, and in the moment they played the last one I started to cry, and my really annoying dad took a video of me crying and singing really badly, a video that he still shows at family dinners just to make fun of me.

A Place I Would Like To Visit

A country I would really like to visit is Chile. I have always lived in Santiago, Chile's capital city, but Santiago is not Chile, even though it concentrates a big portion of the Chilean population. The history contained in this country is very diverse, it holds a large number of different traditions, probably because of the many different regions, each one with a particular geopgraphy, mixed with the invasion of the European culture, that contributed to create a particular mix of different traditions. As a student of a social science, is important for me to get to know Chile in a more profound way not only by books, but also having experience in the place where each particular culture was developed.

If I could, I would go to the extreme south, because is not as investigated as other regions of the country, and for the little I know, it has a lot to tell, at least in the archeological side.

Level 4 Second Term 2016