Your experience learning English at university

When I started the University I knew that I have to put all my energies into this because the University it’s not the same that school. I mean that University it’s more difficult that school because you have to think about things more than remember stuff. My first problem was that I have to read in English some texts. In the school I read in English but not this kind of books, so I needed much effort. I did it and I read the book but I thought that if I practice the English reading, with the time it could be easier. Then I knew the English classes and I liked it because I think that English is a very important language but the classes were some slow and without a lot of practice exercises. I think that English is necessary at the University and the classes are important but we have to make more practice classes.
The English is needed because the entire world is talking English. If we want to be professionals that travel and meet a lot of people we have to know how to communicate with them. In my case I am studying Anthropology and my future job is to know people from different cultures and the English is a great tool to talk with them. To know English today is to have the information. In my case it could mean information from people, talking with them in English, or more access to books from other countries because not all the good books are written for Spanish talkers.
The classes that we have taken are a good start for learning English. The classes are appropriate because we have remembered the things that we learn at the school and that is a great form to practice. The English that we have learning is focused in the writing. In the school it was the same so I think that the classes have to be more focused in other skills like talking or reading books. I believe that the writing maybe is the skill most developed and the talking is a big failure in the Chilean people. If we practice more talking we can talk more fluid and with better accent. Also we could read some books because a thing that the students of Social Sciences made is to read in English so it could make better our understanding in career classes.
As a conclusion I have to say that the classes at the university need to be more practice because the students require this element or tool to learn better the topics of their own career. Also if we practice English more we could use it for the future and to talk with different people and cultures around the world. The English is an amazing tool of communication and we have to know use it in the real life more that write it perfectly at class.

How green are you?

The present times need that people focus on environmentally practices. The people can learn about this from their parents or even in our town council. Town council offers a lot of courses to learn different ways to recycle. Also you can learn in your school to care about your environment, the teachers make us think about our actions in the world. I would like to incorporate recycling into my habits but I can`t. I try to make it but it is very difficult because you have to have a big backyard to collect garbage to recycle it. Besides that I would need more time to do this and I don`t have that time. You have to classify and put in order all the things that you have. I haven`t joined or supported any eco-organizations because I had a bad experience with one of them. I called to the people of Greenpeace to know if I could help them with something and they told me that I have to pay to be a member and also collaborated with some money every month. They didn`t need my help, so I felt that nobody could help because they only want our money. Actually I didn`t do anything to help the environment. Maybe the only help that I do is that I don`t through the garbage on the floor. I have never got dirty my town because that is a very little gesture that we all can do. To reduce my carbon footprint I started not to buy things in spray because they through a lot of free radicals to the sky that destroy the ozone layer. I think that our society, in the same way that I think, have no time or forces to recycle. But that thing that they don`t know is that we can do a little thing to help like being a clean person and do not buy contaminating things like sprays or detergents.

My age of High school

I lived my high school between 2005 and 2008. I went to Santa Cecilia high school in La Florida. It was a little place with 200 people and about 15 teachers. During the high school I discovered my love for the humanities and specific subjects like History and Philosophy. I loved History because I had a great teacher that made us think about the experiences that the people lived in other times. About philosophy I like it, but not in the way of History. The philosphy teacher was an unstable person so I didn`t learn in a constant way. In that time I understood that you couldn`t focus in one area of kwnoledge so I started to feel interest in Maths. I really love Maths because you don`t have to think, it is all very mechanic. That is what I love because it is like a form to relax myself. My school wasn`t very good in technology , we had only 3 computers and one big screen for all the school. Also the overhead projectorwas always in bad conditions, we could never use it. My theachers in a general way were very good professionals but like every place there are people that are not very kind. I had a teacher that was very lazy, he never wanted to do class and he only liked football. My school didn`t affect my dessicions in life later on because they never taught me about Anthropology or never mentioned it. I think that my dessicions depended on other persons that I met during that time. I met an anthropologist that showed me everything that we could do for the people.
To make better our education system I would propose structural changes like improving the training of teachers and finding a way to ensure that the person who is going to be a teacher really likes it. Also we have to change the way of teaching the present subjects, we have to make students think, not only repeat thing by heart. They have to find solutions, to make things and use his or her imagination. Also about this topic we have to think in the responsability of every person in her or his own education because if we don`t want to study any person can make us change. But it is true that we can learn tol ove studying from a very young age.

Myth, Manners and Memory: Photographers of the American South

The American south has been seen in an unrealistic way in literature, film, popular music and photography. This images and representations have colonized our collective imagination and given us a different image of the reality of the American south.
In photography, there are two viewes. The first is from the inside of American south with native photographers like Eggleston, William Christenberry and Eudora Welty. The second one is an outsider group. The photographers here are Walker Evans, Carrie Mae Weems, Alec Soth and Susan Lipper. All of these artists, except Welty, are involved in the project Myth, Manners and Memory. This group shows their art in De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill.
Walkers Evans’ photographs are taken between 1935 and 1938 during the Depression and it shows the poorness and struggle that the people suffered in that time. It changes the image of South America in the world and in the American south itself.
Christenberry and Evans went to Hale County, Alabama and took photographs of that place because it was their muse for them.
Eudora Welty, other photographer, shows a different way of seeing American south. She cares about the artistic and mythical resonance that it is in landscapes, cityscapes, street scene and roadside scenes. She saw this place like a mystic world but this is accepted with familiarity.
Weems is the most political photographer because he portraits the racist history in the American south. He contrasts all the negative ways of racism with the refined social etiquette of the rich plantation families.
As we can see there are many ways to discover the real American South that is full of old and new stories that make this place mysterious and magical but with a social point of view.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/oct/03/myth-manners-and-memory-review

Amost Famous

My favourite movie is Almos Famous, a movie from Cameron Crowe. The movie starts in a small town and ends in New york when the tour of a rock band finishes. It is about an adolescent who likes to write about rock. He writes for an important magazine and one day the editor of Rolling Stone calls him and tells him that he wants him to write an article about a rock band. He knows a band called Steelwater and makes the tour that the band is doing. During the trip he meets groupie called Penny Lane and falls in love with her; also he really knows how the rock band is because he sees all the egos, the infidelities and the drugs. The principal characters are William performed by Patrick Fuggt who is a very shy boy but a good writer. Russel is the guitar player who William admires represented by Billy Crudup, he is a good person but is unfaithfull to his girlfriend with a groupie called Penny Lane. Penny Lane is stared by Kate Hudson. I have a lot of favorite parts but the one that I love is when William introduces Penny Lane to Russel. The scene is very funny but romantic because they have met before a long time ago, they were lovers. In that scene Penny Lane tells him her name and act like if she doesn`t know him. The scene is very beautiful and the images is amazing. I love this movie for the story and over all, for the music. In the movie there are songs from Bob Dylan, Simon and Garfunkel, Led Zeppelin, Elton John and a lot of other rock bands of the 60`s. The other thing that I like is the character of Penny Lane. I like how is she and her lifestyle, she is a free soul. I wouldn`t change anything to this movie because every time that I see it I discover something new.

That horrible image...

The last piece of news that I heard and surprised me was that “Café Torres” gave to the president Sebastián Piñera the "honor" to have a sandwich with his name. The name of the sandwich is “el sandwich Piñera”. It happened yesterday in a ceremony for the Bicentenary at the “Café Torres”. The people there were the diplomatic corps of Chile; they were there to make a toast for the bicentenary with the president. The shocking part for me is that Piñera is not a good person and he doesn`t deserve all the popularity that he is having. Also I think that it is like giving him more reasons increase his ego, he thinks that he is an important person and I don`t agree. I think that this piece of news is not so important but for the people who know “Café Torres” it would be terrible because it is known as a place where the intellectual people go, so to have a sandwich with that name could make a reflection of the change that the intellectuals are living in Chile. Besides I think that Piñera is becoming a cultural referent very important and it is not very good because he reflects values that are not the right ones. He is not a sincere person. I would like to hear some news about more cultural projects because I think that the Chilean people have to do more things for their own and not to depend on the state. We can create a great city with a cultural population movement, not with public figure like mister Piñera who wants to impose his way of being.

Let`s go to China!

I would like to go to China because I love all the culture over there. There are a lot of different food and condiments; I would like to know about how to cook it. Also I would like to learn a little of Chinese and about all the ceremonies that they do, like the tea ceremony. I know that China is a difficult country because the people are very shy and it is a communist country so they are worried about what kind of people travel there. I also know that they are very worried about the manners because they are people who respect each other with a respectfull attitude. If I were in China I would like to visit all the monuments and the historical places like palaces and beautiful gardens. And how I say at the beginning I would try all the food because I really love the things that they do, like use different ingredients from us and weird condiments. I am not scared about trying new food because I learn that we have to try everything we can in this life. I would like to live there for a while, not for a long time; just the enough time to learn some of the culture. I would like to live there and have long walks for all the places of China, even the unknown little villages.