“christmas"

Hi everyone! I’m going to talk about of my “christmas”.

Well, indeed, I’m jewish, but a part of my family celebrate Christmas in their own way. Anyway, on that date, we  use to celebrate the birth of my  father and my cousin on december 24th  and december 25 th, respectively.

Every year we are always the same. My Father, mother, sister and me, but this year a friend of my family came too. It was very nice because when we have visitors we get on better… like a happy family. I don’t saying  we aren’t  but  sometimes we are a chaotic family (haha). We met at my house in Santiago and we ate a lot of tasty food.  There were turkey and res beef and many types of salads. Later, we ate ice cream and fruits. I was very happy

My father recieved a new mobile phone and he spent the rest of the evening learning to use it. He is very enthusiastic.  

On the next day, we went to my cousin’s house and we ate more and more cake…

Well, it was fine but I think it was  one of the most sad celebrations we have had because my grandmother died recently, so we missed her.

The power of language

Hi! I watched a exposition by Mark Pagel which he talks about language. Pagel states because of language we can benefit of others’ ideas and the human cooperation is possible. I’m agree with him, but I think the true power of language is related with its  potential manipulation according to particular intentions. When he says that language is useful to promote a “free flow” of ideas I think he is too cynical because  isn’t a mystery that by means of language can be legitimized the most aberrant ways of domination. Moreover, flow of information is something different of “communication”. In a modern theory about this, comunication  is definied in relation with a  symmetric interaction between individuals where is posible a exchange of information.

I think language is a relevant element on the social construction of memory  and identity because by means of an ideological discourse a lot of aspects of the history can be maintained underhand.  Nowadays, when we can talk about “multiculturalism”, the social construction of identities is becoming important. On that sense, when Pagel talks about “a world with one language” in the future he only consider economical and political factors. I think he don't consider the diversity and his thoughts cover a dangerous eagerness of universalism...    

BBC

Hi everyone! Today I’m going to talk about a website: BBC. I’ts a excellent  english learning website. This afternoon I’ve done some activities to practise my english on this website. On this opportunity I put my vocabulary skills to use.

First, I responded a quiznet about books. It is a set of  six questions with its alternatives about that topic. I liked it because then you can check the correct answers. The topic was relatively easy so I did the right. Afterwards, I  responded a quizz about slang. I must to say it was most difficult to me because I dont`t know a lot of informal expressions, so I learned many new words. Finally, I responded a last quizz: BBC Word Master. This game is to practise your vocabulary too. You can to select the difficulty level and if you are stuck you can use clues but you have to consider clues reduce your time. I used it 3 times at least! I think it's a very good game because there are a lot of words to practise  and when you finish it  you obtain your final score and the score for each question.

Definitely it’s a website I’d recommend!

Second term

Hi, everyone! Today I’m going to talk about this second term and some of my perceptions about it.

Well, in this extremely short semester I took two subjects in the methodological area: Methodologies and Techniques of Visual Ethnography and SIG, a  interesting and useful course about geo-referencing of  data. Moreover, I took  a subject about Esthetic and culture. In these course we watch a lot of movies of  a same director to choice because the idea is to interpret his/her films. Other subject I’ve taken is about childhood and adolescence. These course is about young people as social actors. I think is very interesting in the current context.

Well, we know this is a very atypical term. After  six months we return to “normal” classes, so we don’t get holidays this year. Yes, it is so sad but personally, I’m resigned to studying in summer. I’ve heard many people to complain about it  but we knew this could happen, so I assumed it  a long time ago. This semester will be too short and intensive, so I hope be prepared to this defiance…

Students march for a better Chile

I think the article “Students march for a better Chile” by Cabalin shows how an external point of view is revealing with respect to an unacceptable reality that is assumed to be daily and is therefore naturalized. In that sense, this sentence appears significant:

“In fact, families finance 73% of higher education in Chile, a figure that greatly exceeds the average (16%) for OECD countries”

I consider very revealing data provided by the author about the disproportionate percentage of expenses generated by the education that is assumed by chilean families. It is indicative of how in our society, a consumer society, people are willing to borrow even decades, accepting this as natural. This society harvest individuals working just to pay their debts. Fortunately, today stands a critical spirit that calls into question the system that is not natural but a reflection of political and economic orientation has led the development of the education system over the past thirty years.

We can see how the emphasis on the problem of access to higher education of previous governments has only operated as a shelter for the marketization of education. We believe that inadequate attention to the quality of education is not only serious impediments posed to the country's development restricting the technological innovation, for example. Moreover, this deficit in quality implies a lack of civic values ​​that translates into the reproduction of a frustrated professional army without a future vision.

This publication made ​​sense to many readers, some of them Latin Americans, who compare the situation in Chile described by the author the educational system of their own countries, finding similarities. One of them says:

“All Latin American countries which follow the Anglo American education model have the same problems because education is solely regarded as merchandise which opens the door for all shades of corruption”

Other discussion which is installed with this article is the media coverage has had the phenomenon in Chile. How “Chilean media is showing only what our government wants”. How the movement for quality education has been criminalized in the media as a strategy to divert attention from what really matters.

Education and Creativity

Hi everyone, today I’m going to talk about the relations between education and creativity exposed by Sir Ken Robinson.  I mean the need of incorporate creativity in education. He says that all educational systems are based in a hierarchical idea of intelligence. This means that educational systems encourage certain capacities of individuals while other skills are undervalued, such as dance or music. Like he said, there is a view dominated by academic ability and the preference for scientific subjects.  This is in addition to the educational system that stigmatizes the mistake, without which, according to Sir Ken, we are not prepared to come up with something original. The result of all this is that “we are educating people out of their creative capacities.”

When I was in high school I can see this very markedly. In my school always potentiated the good results in the sciences and mathematics. In penultimate year, when you could choose one area of ​​the curriculum related to your interests, the common was that they formed only two humanities-oriented courses and rarely came to constitute art courses. The rest of the courses were six or seven, were mathematicians and biologists.
For this speaker creativity in education should be as important to literacy. He defines creativity as: “the process of having original ideas that have value -- more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.” This includes the elimination of hierarchy between the disciplines that lead to artificial divisions...

My specialty meant having more hours of language, history, literature and visual arts. I remember it was hard for me to make that decision because if you were good at math and chose another area they called you from the school guidance department to make you reconsider your decision. Personally I felt quite depressed and I knew some colleagues who changed their original decision yielding to those pressures. Fortunately it was not my case.

Toys...

Hi everyone, now I’m going  to talk about a place I visited today. At midday I went with a friend to the exposition about national toys  in Cultural Center Palacio La Moneda. There more than 600 toys made in Chile between 1915 and 1975 are exposed in a sample divided into two rooms. All these items belong to a collector called Juan Antonio Santis.

The tour of the exhibition offers an emotional voyage to childhood itself and it is a very intense experience for those who are nostalgic of their childhood. The instance of the game is very attractive because it offers the possibility to live without your actions have real consequences. The games tend to have clear rules, without ambiguity. Surely most people miss the fantasy of childhood games, I think.

Toys tend to be associated with a fictitious reality, a child's world but it is very interesting how the toys are historical artifacts that reflect the global and national reality of other times. For example, in the exposition "National Toy" many objects appear obsolete for today's children. I’ve seen how aircraft, tanks and combat helmets are exposed reflecting an era marked by global wars. In turn, you see how these toys help-reinforced social constructions related to gender roles imposed by society. Toys reproduce values ​​through socialization. On the other hand, among the toys "for girls' dolls and kitchen items associate the image of the feminine with domestic activities. The exhibition which opened the first days of May will continue to receive visits until July. I must say that there is a discount for students and if you arrive before midday, you can enter for free! This is a great opportunity to see something interesting, I recommend it!

Websites!

Hi everyone! Today I’m going to talk about websites that I often visit. It’s difficult to me to choose a favorite website because I’m a huge fan of a lot. I’m a frequent user of internet, I must admit it. Much of my free time I dedicate it to surf the internet looking for interesting things to disconnect me of my sad existence… haha Well, apart of that  sites  all  we usually visit daily as gmail/hotmail/yahoo or youtube, I’m aware of the humor blogs updates.  I think we must find or invent reasons to laugh a while!

The first one I discovered was www.filosofosos.blogspot.com about three years ago. This is the website of a guy who recreates famous scenes from movies or TV series with a very personal style. The protagonists of his cartoons are always sarcastic, politic, existentialist and extravagant bears... He also works with your own scripts and the results are sometimes disturbing…

Since a couple of years I visit the website www.dosisdiarias.com. I visit it almost daily because as its name indicates offers daily updates. Montt is better known, perhaps you've heard of him before. Montt has the ability to parody whatever; policy, religion, art, movies, novels. Everyday situations and speeches are subtly ridiculed. I can remember that a friend recommended me and I strongly recommend it to you now

Finally, I usually visit the website of Liniers, argentinian strip cartoonist. Liniers is a classic and never ceases to amaze me. I think his characters are fascinating, especially the penguins. (http://www.macanudoliniers.blogspot.com/)

Notable of these websites is that you can leave comments to the artists, including suggestions. I hope you like it!

Martial arts

Hi! Today, I’m going to talk about one of my passions: the martial arts.

Since I was a child, I’m a big admirer of the martial arts in all its ways. Some people say that certain kind is better than other but I have the highest regard for every manifestation. I can remember how my father used to teach karate to my sister and me when I was 4 or 5. He was who passed on me his enthusiasm for this, I think... and I`m very grateful to him. My heroes always have been Bruce Lee and Jet Lee, both famous martial artists. I’ve seen all their movies, I swear.

When I was 12 I started to practice Tae Kwon Do, a korean martial art in a serious way. When you practice a martial art you realize it’s more than a sport. Martial arts are as a philosophy of life. Martial arts introduce me to values such as perseverance, tolerance and self control. Before I played many disciplines and I never was constant because I to become disheartened quickly.  In turn, I`ve practiced TKD for years and let’s carry on. I’ m still enthusiastic as ever.

Many people seem to be prejudiced against these disciplines.   Some people say that they are violent too competitive. I think that is debatable and unfair.  These people should give it a chance because it’s a beautiful discipline.

Lisandro

Hi! Today, I’m going to talk  you about a lovely picture. It is a famous picture too at least in my neighbour. Probably you are deeply interested and moved with the charm of this feline face.  Well, the model in the photograph is Lisandro. He is like a son for my parents and so, when I wanted to select a photo for the post I found only photos of the cat!. Despite of this my family is very normal, I swear. I like this photo because it shows his unequalled beauty and subtle haughtiness, I think. He is mysterious and he’s not interested in anything. He’s very nice.  My sister took this portrait a few months ago, when this splendid cat was still a good boy.  We found alone in the streets and We decided to take with us.  Anyway, when that guy was lost on January, we used it to look for him.  I can remember how awful was those day. My sister and I scoured the whole neighbourhood looking for him. After this, we shouted his name for hours like insane persons and streets was plastered with this photograph.  I suspect that our neighbours hate us because this dynamic usually happens, I must to say it. We never thought that this photo would help us to find him. Finally, our friend turned up and we were a happy and complete family again.

“No future without education”

“No future without education” was one of the slogans of yesterday. On  Thrusday May 12 took place a demonstration by the  college students. Students organized a strike and a national demonstration for  the recovery of public education. Their demands can be summarized in three claims: increase public funding  in higher education, equal access for all and democratization of higher education intitutions. Their demands are ours too. Many of us feel represented since we need to resort to  eternal debt in order to study. It's a shame you have to sell your soul to the devil for a chance to study in this country... so, I joined this cause and I went to the march yesterday. The route of the march was from Plaza Italia to Parque Almagro, where took place a political-cultural act. I must say with satisfaction that the number of people attending the march exceeded all expectations, I think.  I really hope this has not been in vain. Since Lavin and education ministry have been incompetent in solving those problems, Piñera ideally should say something about in his speech of May 21. I hope that at least this time he not plays the role of clown...

Web Quest

Hello everyone, today I’m going to talk about an activity we did the last English class. This week the individual activity of laboratory was a “web quest”, a learning strategy based on internet resources through links to websites about places to visit. The task consisted in looking for information on line to fill a table with required information about attractive places in London regarding its localization or prizes. So, it’s a search with a clear purpose in mind, a defined topic, takes place in a bounded time, so It was a little stressful. The use of this dynamic educational tool is highly recommended because it allows to develop abilities like selection and organization of information, discriminating relevant data set from the data that are secondary to the search, mainly. Finally it’s a valuable tool for differentiating instruction. The dynamic activity is very useful  like exercise poses a cognitive challenge, I think.

Greetings!

In Bloom!

Hi everyone! Today, I transported me back to the past for tell you about a memorable song for me. Now, I don’t hear music in english practically but I like it. When I was younger I used hear grunge music,  the most popular music style of 1990’s, I think. That’s a popular subgenre of alternative rock emerged in Seattle and  sometimes a misunderstood style. My favorite grunge band is Nirvana because aphaty and disenchantment are reflected in their lyrics but sarcastically. When I was 13- or just like that- my father gave me Nevermind, second album of this fantastic band. I can still remember how good is this album and the many times I heard it. Those  years, those signs of subtle irony  and changing sound delighted my ears and I can to feel a little of those desire of freedom  and rebelliousness very well expressed in their songs.  Well,  although my musical likes have been diversified I still consider myself a big fan of this genre. I have good memories of every song of that album but I think  those called In Bloom  is a  good sample of that I’ve say. It’s a remarkable parody about musical performances of 1960s. Good music and funny video, I think. I hope you enjoy it! ( but mainly I hope work put up the youtube link…)

My computer

Hi everyone, today I’m going to talk about my computer, my favorite piece of technology. I don’t like technology so it’s the only exception. I received my first computer when I was 11 and it was the best gift I received, I think. Today, I can’t conceive of life without it. When that computer died I needed to replace it and my father bought other one, three years ago. Now I need to buy a new computer because this one is old and slow and to have a computer is essential for me. I almost always use the computer because I need it for everything I do.  My computer is my main tool of study, for example. But the most important thing I do with my computer is to spend my time, I must to say it. I always ask me, how I can live before without it and I don’t understand it. I love my computer. In my computer I have my music and good books and since I hate the phone I use my computer for to talk with my friends. Apart from that I love games on line like Dofus or Grepolis where you can to create your own virtual world  with characters included and creating a strategy to destroy others gamers…

Anthropology

Hi!
Today, I'm going to talk about my career: the Anthropology. I decided to study anthropology many years ago, when I still was in the school. I was very interested about the discipline because I read some books written by classic anthropologist like Malinowsky or Evans-Pritchard before and motivated by their interesting ethnographies I chose this career.  In general, anthropology is not a well-known career and many people ask me all the time "what is anthropology?"… and it’s very difficult define it, so I won’t to do it. But if I must to say something about anthropology I’d stress how different is the perspective of this discipline if you compare it to viewpoint of other disciplines.  Anthropology allows revealing social realities and to wonder about social aspects commonly naturalized, I mean, those that for custom are established without questions.

An anthropoligist requires knowledges about methodological aspects for obtaining information from the people and then to process and to analyze it.  Besides a good  anthropologist must to being a systematic and  emphatic  person  in the field work.

Now, I’m a student of social anthropology but at the first I decided   to study archaeology, other specific area of the career and changed my mind. When I started to study archaeology, I felt a little lost and I realized that I don’t liked it, so I thought about to choose other thing to do.  Then, I chose social anthropology like area of specialization the next year and I have no regrets.  In this area I’ve found some topics of research very interesting for me, mainly those related with urban anthropology. Many people think that anthropology is about to study the “exotic” or “distant” people and this area shows a different application in anthropology, I think. Other subjects I’ve enjoyed were the ethnologies, mainly Mapuche.

A place...

Hi Everyone:

Today I’m going to talk about the most recent trip that I’ve done. I went to San Pedro de Atacama in springtime, the last year. I can say after this, San Pedro become my favourite place, at least among those I’ve visited in my country. Some people say that to stay there is just a mystical experience… I think that it’s a place with a singular atmosphere, a very quiet place. So, I love it.

This time I went with four classmates- and closed friends- of the university and I really enjoyed their company… the most part of the time, I mean.  Our aim, in theory, was be present in the VII Athropology Congress, but We really were very interested to take this opportunity to know or re-visite some emblematic places, too.  Fortunately, though we had too much things for to do, finally we did almost all we wanted. We visited the Moon Valley and the Dinosaurs Valley in a cheap tour, for example. But, doubtless, the activity that I loved was to ride a rented bicycle and to go calmly for the town’s streets.

It’s a place I’d recommend, all the way. San Pedro de Atacama is an attractive place especially for anthropology students like us. Here We can to find beauty and impressive landscapes as well as places with a historic/ cultural value, and it’s a good place for visit in anytime of the year.

So, I’ll come back there as soon as possible, I hope so. 

First Post

Hi,  everyone! in this, my first post for this english course, i'm going to talk about me. Yes, it is booooring. But here we go... my name is Catalina Leiva and i'm 22 years old. I'm a social anthropology student in the social sciences faculty in universidad de chile. I like my carreer.

My english is bad so i’m very interested in improve it...and i really hope to learn more in this term.