“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…