About the blog experience

In my opinion the blog experience was very useful to improve my English. As I went to English school I didn’t had to start “learning” but I had to admit that I had forgotten a lot in this years. I think that is very important to practice the second language frequently, because if not you start losing it. I had to admit that I only enjoyed some of the topics, for example the one of the football match was very difficult because I didn’t knew a lot about the topic so I had to start looking for information. Posting on other classmates blog’s I think that it was very good, because you had to read what other people wrote and give your opinion. I think that this task helped in the sense of understanding someone else idea and give an opinion on your own about it.

The advantages I think that were the ones I put in the first paragraph, to write once a week about a topic helps a lot to get fluency at writing. Another advantage could be that you are forced to try to write well so you start looking how do I said this, or how do I continue with my idea, I think that this point helps a lot because you learned some words or phrases you didn’t knew.

On the other side I think that there’re not any disadvantages, to write every week and couldn’t miss any post, could be a little bit annoying in the sense of the grade and that sometimes you had other things to do, but that doesn’t against the idea of improving your English. To be honest I think that if it was given the possibility for example to miss two, all of us would use it. So even do sometimes I hated the blogging experience in that sense, I had to admit that it helps to create the idea of “once a week” I had to think and write in English about something.

My classmate blog

Jorge’s Blog

www.youputthewords.blogspot.com is the link to enter to the blog I choose to talk about, it’s from my Classmate and friend Jorge, that is sitting right beside me.

It was very hard to find a photo that describes how I feel about my partner’s blog. After some time looking I think that this is the one. It is not only because he has a background with drops but for the entire blog, the colors, his photo etc. But I’m not saying that is a bad thing, for example my blog is more simply doesn’t have like any design at all so in that sense my partner’s blog has an identity.

He shows that he takes care of how it looks the blog besides just writing in it. About his posts, he always includes a picture that helps to understand better the text or just making the post more fun and no so monotonous.

I had to admit that I not always read all the text, but I always pass by checking if he had finished to post on his blog. A special post that I like it very much was the one about “The favorite place in Chile”. I found very funny the photo he uploads with his friend Carolina. Also the photo about the giant doll here in Santiago was very good and invites you to read what he wrote about it.

As a summery I invite you to visit and read his blog every Wednesday, well until this because is our last class, (I don’t think he would post again), but to can catch up reading old post that you missed.

chile v/s honduras

First of all I must say, I’m not that involved in soccer… or any sport at all, even I admit… I was very bad at sports in school. So with that fact we can assume that the FIFA World Cup is not so cool for me, but there is something I can’t deny, today the whole country was watching the soccer match at 7:30am.

I will choose to write about option 1, because even do I’m not so familiar with soccer I worked today with the TV on, so now I know all about it.

First, the schedule of the match was awful, so I didn’t watch the match, but all my family did. So I knew the results right away only listening to what was happened in my house.

Making a summary of what I had listened today I can say Chile played good, even one international journalist said they played the second better match of the entire world cup, just below Germany. This was the first match Chile had won in many years I don’t remember exactly the amount but is around more than 20 years. A funny fact is that occurred the same date years before. They played a fast, offensive game, while their greater weakness was to be effective and MAKE the goals. Also, the news said the most important players of the match were Sanchez (nominated player of the match by the Fifa), Fernandez and Beausejour, who scored the only goal. Although this made a lot of people happy I also heard that Spain lost and that complicates Chile to pass to another round.

My three favorite pictures

I'm not sure I can choose only one favorite picture, so I decided to upload three photos of different things. I'm not so familiar with photos, I don't have artistic ones, so I will upload photos that I like.

The first one (in chronological order) is froma trip I did two years ago. We went with two friends to deterrents beaches near Santiago. In the photo we were at “Neruda’s house” but I’m only with one of them because the other one pay for the tour and was visiting the house from inside. Meanwhile we took photos and visit the place from outside. By the way it was very stupid to pay because you could see almost the same without paying.

The other photo is from six month later, at Jorge’s birthday. As you can see in the picture is was a costume birthday, but now body understood mine. It was at Nadia’s house as always. The party was very fun, although I think Jorge remembers only part of it. This year we also celebrate Jorge’s birthday at Nadia’s house but with common clothes.

The third photo I decided to upload is with my boyfriend, we took it this summer in Peru. To this trip we also went with my friend (the one that didn’t appear in the first picture) but this time she wasn´t on a tour, she was only walking ahead of us. This trip was very fun and we visited a lot of places in Peru and Bolivia. The worst part of it I think that was when we stayed in La Paz, the place was very awful so we stayed only one night.

Schools killing creativity

I think that the topic Mr. Ken Robinson was speaking about is very interesting. As I was listening to the conference he gave, I realized that I had never thought of school that way. I never doubt that math and literature were more important than dance for example, because that was how the school was programmed. I think if a school provides 10 lectures a week of dance or drama and 3 of math, no parents would like their children studying there. So being agree in the fact that the occidental way of thinking punish mistakes and that they are the worst you can make, I think that the problem isn’t in schools but in our way of thinking. For example is someone is good at piano, and she/he plays a very good song, we would say, oh! That’s beautiful, but only thinking like in a hobby or something to do in free time. I think that the idea of not accepting mistakes is from society and that is reflects in schools. For example is a mother ask her daughter “how was school today”, beside if she is ok and all that, she would be worry about math, literature and so on, never thinking in how the sport class was. There are some subjects that as society we “learned” that are more important and even do if schools try to change that it will have to go throw 2 or 3 generations to start thinking in maybe changing the way people think nowadays. So is like a cycle that never end because the society thinks in a way and that society was taught in a minute to think that way, so I think the step to break the cycle is very difficult.

Internet

To choose my favorite piece of technology is very easy, because is the only thing that I use every day and I get crazy if it go wrong for some reason. This will be the computer. I spend hours a day in front of it without notice how many time has pass. But I think that not the computer itself, but obviously connected with internet. I really think that a computer without it is very useless and in my personal experience I use it without it only when it’s extremely necessary if not I get bored really easily.

The first time I used internet it was using the telephone wire. I can only be connected after 8:00pm, because it was very expensive. I remember that we didn’t had a connection upstairs so we had a wire trough out the stairs, so more than one trip over with the wire. Every time that happened we were disconnected (very often), so it was very annoying.

After some time, luckily my father decided to get an unwire connection, so now we can use internet every time we want.

I find amazing the amount of different things you can do connected to the web for example download music, series, movies, talk to your friends, work and find work too, buy different kinds of thing without even get out of the house. I’m not saying that internet could replace all kinds of interactions between people, but I think that we have to learn to combine both things. On one side we have to assume that internet makes our lives easily, but we can’t depend on it in every situation, because as we all have experience at least one, sometimes and for “no reason” it collapses and you have to adapt and continue living without, although it’s difficult sometimes.

About studying architecture

I’m Studying architecture and I think that one of the most important skills you need for this career is perseverance. It’s common for people to think that architects are creativity and that’s all, I think that this is not true; although it helps having original ideas quickly it takes more than that to finish the career, at least at this University.

We are commonly full of work, that means that not only you have to be working all the time, but also that you have less time to spend with your family, or friends. I think that this is something that not all the people is willing to do, so they just leave the career or have to start finding ways to combine both things.

I think that you born with creativity, but you can help yourself watching and searching for new things for example in magazines, internet, TV etc. So although if you didn’t born creative you have the chance of seeing so much that you don’t came up with something new, but you remember something you saw and from there you start designing putting thing from your own.

For perseverance I think that you just born with it, you can’t learn how to fell when you work all night and you get a bad grade, I think it depends of how you take your life and things that happened in your life, and there’s no lesson for that.

I believe the University gives as skills but depend on us to use it and to learn from them, I think that is possible (It happened to me also), that you pass a signature without really learning anything from it. So I think that the process is very personal and depends on each student to get all the abilities the University is willing to give.

Places I Visited

I usually go on vacation to the north of Chile. That is because my mom's family lives there. When I was younger all my cousins lived in Iquique and I loved going there, I spent two months every summer living with them. I went with my family (parents, brother and sister), but they spent less time because they had to go back because of work, my sister was too young to stay alone and my brother didn't like my cousins very much.
I don't remember dates, but we visited many places near the city, for example "Pica"(hot baths) or the "Salitreras". This was because on year my family decided that we had to know these places because of all the history they had. So we went by car with my 4 cousins, the trip itself wasn't very comfortable but as we were young and excited because of the new places we were going to visit we didn't claim.
I really didn't find these places so beautiful, as the "Salitreras" were not longer in use, the place was desolated and the constructions were very poor. I know that this should be what makes it cooler from other places but I didn't find it so nice. Even so, I had a great time during the trip, laughing and playing with my cousins.

Now a days they moved to Antofagasta so this summer I went there, but we really didn't went on a trip, was only sharing time in the city as being in Santiago, but with seashore.

favourite website

I really don't have a favourite website related to my carrer, in fact I really don't know many pages of my carrer. I know this sound as if a didn't pay much attention to a topic it's suppose I like the most, but the true is that I don't search the web so often about architecture. But obviously I know some pages related to my carrer, although I don't visit them so often.

The first page that come to my mind when I read the topic for today was www.plataformaarquitectura.cl, this is very far of being "my favourite", but when I have to look for a project as an assignment for a specific class I visit this page.
The page is divide in different sections "front page" "materials" "universities" "publications" between others. This is a characteristic I just notice, because when I usually use it I just put the "key word" on the searcher to look for a project or information about a specific topic. I really don't know if it is a "really good page" but it gives a summary of what the projects are about, some important details and in some cases you can download the plans of the project, that are very useful if you want to start working with it.
Another page that came to my mind is www.estudiantesdearquitectura.cl, that was created by my boyfriend with some friends. (He is really going to hate me if he read I'm writing about his page, but as I only knew few pages I had to). I really don't know what the page is about, but I do know that some people of the Fau, not the ones that created the page, write about anything that come up to their minds (I think related to the carrer), and they upload it. Now it has published some articles for example 2 about the recent earthquake in different locations (Iloca and Constitución), one of modular education, other about a "sant" here at the university (of which I'm not very devoted I may add), between others. Now that I'm cheking the website I can say is like a mixture between spreading common issues about the carrer and what happens here in the FAU.

bbc learning english

The page for learning english is very good, not only because it has a los of activities to practice english with, but also because on each section it gives the oportunity to listen the pronunciation and I think that helps a lot if someone is not familiar with the language or if there is a word that is difficult or sound weird.
One of the sections I liked was the flatmates. I think the apearance of the characters is very funny! An aspect that helps a lot, in my opinion, is that they represent dailylife scenes so the expressions they used are very common, so it's very useful to listen and read how people speak in their common life.
Other section that I liked was, I don't remember the exact name and I dind't find it when I look back to read the name, but it was a quiz. But the good thing it has was that as you were answering they not only tell the correct answer also add an explanation telling why that was the correct answer and what does it mean. I think this is reaaly great! Because if very common that you make a quiz and you know wich answer is correct r wrong, but you never really know WHY that is the correct answer and not the one you chose. I think is a good way to learn not only from mistakes, but also to learn something more of what we already knew.

my favourite movie

I really don't have a favorite movie, I haven't watch a movie in the cinema in years, but if I have to chose one, I think I would chose "Gladiator". Yes I know, is a very old movie and everyone have watched it more than once, but still, I like it.
I don't remember the first time I watched it, but now I have seen it like 10 times. I don't know exactly what is about this movie that I like it so much, but I enjoy every time I watched it. From all the scenes there is one that I like the most, the one when he took off his mask and showed who he really was to the emperor.
I think the setting they managed is amazing, the atmosphere they achieved is very real and together with the customes they created a scenary that comlpements the plot at all time.
Other Aspect of the movie that I really like is the music. I don't remember the name of the song, but the one of the last scene, where they moved the body from the coliseo and he "went" with his family, is very powerful and makes the scene very strong.
The movie was directed by Ridley Scott, part of the cast were: Russell Croew, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, as I don't know many famouse actor/actress, these names mean nothing to me, but I think some of you could recognize some of them from other movies.

The best commercial spot

I don't know if it is the best commercial spot but it was the first one that came to my mind when I read of what we have to write today, but I think that it's funny. The post I'm talking about is the one of Heineken, I think a lot of you must have seen it on tv, is the one where a woman was showing her new apartment / house to her girlfriends. The commercial started when the women were getting to the best part of the new place for them, the walking closet, in wich there was a lot of space for shoes, clothes, accesories etc, they get excited because of the greatness of the place for them, so they started shouting. Mean while her boyfriend was doing the same thing with his friends, so the screaming of the women mixed with the other one and suddenly they realized the one of the boys was stronger so they went to see what had happened. When the camera change of place, it showed the boys shouting was because there was an especial room only for beers, heineken.

I thin it's very funny and shows a caricature of the differences between the two genders. I don't know if after watching the commercial you are going to buy the beer, I really don't think so, but when you do, you laugh and then remember the mark. I can bet that more than one group of friends had talk about the spot in parties or when they are together, and now I'm writing about it in my english class.

February 27th

I wasn't in santiago that night, in fact I wasn't anywere near the V-VIII region. I had just arrived from Perú and was still travelling in the north of Chile. However, all my family was here so when I found out about the earthquake I called everyone to see how they were. I was sleeping as usuall, but an unusuall call at 6 o'clock in the morning woke me up. It was my cousin, thinking I was at home, was trying to reach me since the earthquake took place. She asked me how I was and if all my family was fine, I told her very confuse I was sleeping and that I think they're ok, then she told me about the earthquake as she realised I didn't have any idea of the recent events.
Then, obviously, I tried to reach my family to know how they were, fortunately, I could reached them almost inmediatelly, they were all together in my grandmother's house.

I didn't realized the devastation until the next day, the cable went wrong all morning so it was after lunch when I saw the first images of all the affected places. It was horrible, all the people crying and looking for their families that were on vacation on those places. I felt very lucky to know that all my family was fine.

Days past, although I wanted to continue on vacations I had to come back, but Lan wasn't changing all airplane tickets so quickly (I was supposed to arrived to Santiago that same day), but I was very lucky and when I went to see when I could travell they told me they had one ticket for that same day. I was very happy:D.

A question to my partner

I have a really good and important question since the year started. Why crovari? why? Now I know you are regret but it's too late, I'm alone with a strange group.

I really don't know what else to write, I'm in fourth year of Arquitecture and I don't have english since school, so I have forgotten a lot of words and ways to say things, so I took this class to learn more and remember what I have lost.

I never had a blog because I don't fell comfortable writting thoughts, feelings or comments in the internet so It's going to be very hard to start doing that.