English language Challenges

For me it is very difficult to speak English. I think the methodology at university English is not very good because at the end of the course you are not an expert English speaker. However, the use of the blog is very useful because this way you can practice your English writing and at the same time helps you to read better in English

One aspect that is I need improve is my writing in English. My plan to improve this is to practice and practice, namely I keep trying to write in English because is the only way to improve my writing. Another aspect that should improve is read in English. I can hardly read English, is one of my great frustrations. It is one of my biggest problems in life and will remain an obstacle but improved. Also to improve my English in general I will do an English course this summer

Outside of classes in general English usage to read my university teaching materials because all readings are in English. So much use outside the English class.

First term: good and bad points

I learned many things in the last term. It was very hard because I had two difficult courses: Etnología Andina and Prehistoria del Norte Grande. I spent many hours studying and had a lot of stress. But after finishing those courses I felt like I knew better what it was to be an archaeologist.
It was also very important because I took two decisions concerning sports, which is an important subject in my life: i quitted Capoeira and the basketball team of my campus. It was a good decision, because it gave me time to think about what I wanted to do.
There were many challenges in my personal life, but they were not that bad at all. I think they helped me to know myself better.
The only thing I regret is that the student movement was not that active during that time. But I guess it will come back with much more energy next year!

A foreing country

My Future Job

I would work for lifeguards. WHAT’S INVOLVED?

The job of a lifeguard is to keep swimmers safe. This means providing general first aid, saving people from drowning, ensuring the safety of the pool area and its water (if you’re working in a swimming pool), and stopping any dangerous behaviour. You’ll be required to keep a close eye on everything that’s going on, and make judgements about anything you might consider hazardous or unsafe.

If you like to work with people then you’ll get to meet and greet hundreds by working as a lifeguard. The job can be flexible too, so you can work in the day while the kids are at school, or at nights or weekends to earn some extra cash on top of your full-time job. Also, there is a possibility of promotion, and career progression.

However, there will always be silly people making your job difficult, diving where they shouldn’t and breaking pool rules. You’ll have to deal with these people calmly and responsibly. You have to keep a watchful eye on what’s going on at all times, you can’t just quickly nip out to the shop. If someone’s in danger they’ll need your immediate assistance.

There are two types of lifeguard:

• A swimming pool lifeguard – who would be employed by a leisure centre, private club, local authority, hotel or holiday centre.
• A beach lifeguard – who would be employed by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI).

Unless you live right by the sea, you’re likely to be working in a swimming pool environment. Even if you do live right by the sea, there’s not much call for beach lifeguards in the winter months so it’s a good idea to get in with the local swimming pools anyway.

I am a strong swimmer and physically fit. Don’t even think of doing this if you can’t swim!

Mapuche student leader’s arrest a disgrace

Tuesday, 07 February 2012 18:06

Written by Brittany Peterson

Whether it was police carelessness or intentional, any human deserves better treatment.

José Ancalao, spokesperson for the Federation of Mapuche Students and member of CONFECH, suffered a broken nose when police arrested him in early January after trying to speak with the officers violently arresting a fellow Mapuche at a protest in Temuco. The protest, held on the fourth anniversary of the murder of Matías Catrileo, saw a total of 16 arrests, including Catrileo’s mother and sister.

"I only went toward [the police] when they detained Diego Saldivia Mankilef. I didn't even insult them when they started to hit me and say 'Talk now, Indian, you piece of shit,' and other allusions to my position as a student leader," said Ancalao.

If found guilty of public disruption at his trial on Feb. 14, he faces a possible 341-day prison sentence.

With this incident and the pending trial, the Chilean government is clearly confusing, perhaps intentionally, its self-preservation with pursuit of justice. When a government fears losing its power or influence, it kicks into survival mode to fight off any imminent threat. This is a basic form of self-preservation. As the Sebastián Piñera administration faces power threats inherent in many legitimate demands by the Mapuche and student movements, it employs the token undemocratic response of actively oppressing, in many forms, these movements and their leaders.

It is this threat to its power that moves a country’s police force to violently arrest young people. While Ancalao has recovered from the relatively minor injury, the most unsettling part is that the police brutality toward this young man came as no surprise for several reasons.

The Mapuche activists have regularly been targeted as terrorists under Chile’s Anti-terrorism Law N°18.314, often receiving unduly harsh punishments. While the law initially applied to a few cases of arson over the last decade, it is now being used to target important Mapuche leaders.

Additionally, the demonstration that took place on Jan. 4 was unauthorized. As we have witnessed in unauthorized demonstrations associated with the student movement, this means police can get away with arresting anyone who even slightly gets in their way. In an act of peaceful civil disobedience, a few protesters hung a banner from the roof of City Hall to demand justice for the 2008 murder of Catrileo by a Chilean police officer. The officer, Walter Ramírez, was granted impunity by the Supreme Court in December 2011. Although Ancalao, who was not actually on the roof, acknowledged attempting to peacefully intervene with police officers in the street outside of City Hall as the protesters were arrested, police apparently considered his effort to converse with them a crime.

Finally, Ancalao’s unwarranted arrest comes as little surprise when considering his important role in the student movement that swept across Chile in 2011. There appears to be little disagreement among government officials about the influence of Ancalao, his Mapuche and student peers, their well-researched and rational arguments, and their influence upon the majority of Chileans. This past year, the student movement effectively called into question key laws, political institutions, and the neoliberal economic model that has allowed Chile the social and economic stability that made it South America's first OECD nation in 2010.

Clearly, the government is concerned.

The same day as Ancalao’s arrest, Camila Vallejo tweeted, "Chile continues abusing its power to repress all social fighters. Strength, Ancalao."

The world is replete with examples of governments, both democratic and non-democratic, that have deployed a heavy-handed police force as a means to defend the government’s interests and its supporters. The countries of the Arab Spring plus Greece, England, the U.S., and others have seen this story play out again and again. Yet in democratic nations, it is the responsibility of the people to speak out and yell “shame!” to their representatives who use any tactic--be it aggressive or playing deaf--to repress a social movement.

I am not Chilean. I am a grateful immigrant trying to build a life and a career for myself here. The responsibility is yours, queridos Chilenos, to say “basta!” and to support those who support peace and justice.

While we hope for the best, if Ancalao is found guilty of public disorder on Feb. 14, I invite you to join me in calling la Moneda and peacefully taking to the streets to show our intolerance for such unjust actions.

By Brittany Peterson (editor@santiagotimes.cl)
Copyright 2011 – The Santiago Times

http://www.santiagotimes.cl/opinion/op-ed/23373-mapuche-student-leaders-arrest-a-disgrace

About Discrimination

Discrimination is commonly defined as any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, gender, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Discrimination lies at the root of many of the world’s pressing human rights issues and no country is immune from it.
Direct discrimination is a little bit different: Direct discrimination is when a person treats, or proposes to treat, someone with a protected personal characteristic unfavourably because of that personal characteristic. Direct discrimination often happens because people make unfair assumptions about what people with certain personal characteristics can and cannot do.
People discriminate out of ignorance and Selfishness, because they don't think about how it would make other people feel to behave like that. In some cases, discrimination even makes discriminators fell better.

Changing discriminative behaviour is about providing for everyone's needs when planning care (such as wheelchair access, meals for vegetarians, information in other languages etc.). But the first thing to do to transforme discrimination into tolerance has a lot to do with the way people relate to some social problems: for example, many people discriminate peruvians in Santiago because they are said to 'take the jobs a chilean would make for more money'. In that and in many other cases, it´s about informing people the source of the problem - unemployment, in the example - is not in the discriminated people, but on a structural problem.

Here are some practical things each one of us can do.

- Help people who are treated badly because they are different.

- Tell people what it is like to have a disability.

- Make friends with people who are different.

- Try to understand people who are different.

 

HOW GREEN ARE YOU?

I think people don’t learn environmentally friendly practices. I think that, as well as values, people acquire these practices. You have to grow up with these knowledge of taking care of the environment: only like that you get concerned about the environment in your house, with your family, or your closest community. School helps at it only if it teaches you new techniques to help the environment such as different ways of recycling; but you don't become environmentally friendly there. Personally, I didn’t have the chance to learn these techniques at school but I got to learn them on the internet or TV programs. 
The problem about recycling, now that I have mentioned it, is that the recycling service is only available to a few people. Only rich parts of our city have the propper places where to easily deposit you garbage; in my commune there are almost no such things (and if there is one, there's no way to know where it is or how to get there), and my garden is not big enough to have a compost place. I also live to far away of the university, so I can´t walk or use the bycicle to get there.
So the thing, for me, is to be concious that being environmentally friendly has a lot to do with social segregation.

The reasons exposed above explain why I haven´t supported any eco-organisations. I don'd have money to give to them, and I don´t trust such big institutions.

I think there are many good projects that are developed in some places in my city that do not depend on the local government or NGOs. Once I find one, I'll certainly contribute to it.
People in Santiago should do the same.

Regards!

My favorite class

Hi Classmate!

Today I like to tell you about my favorite course. It´s one I'm very closely related to, and that I've decided to take very seriously because of it´s importance.I'm talking about social history.
The most beautiful thing about it (and generally about my career) is that we learn to know about us as a culture by studying those who are different. It helps to have an open mind about how are the people in the world, and to be more tolerant.
The  social history studied by the concept of culture helps to understand the social movements and popular groups of our times. Social history is essential to anthropology because it helps to understand the conformation of these groups to help them later on their social and emotional development.
One of the professionals that I admire and teaches about this is Daniel Fauré Polloni. He dedicates to study this groups and help’s by the popular teaching to make them up socially and politically to be able to confront difficulties that capitalism represent in our country.

I think it is thanks to this subject and course that I am how I am, and that I have my own way of thinking.
There are many current things going on where social history as a discipline could help a lot. One of those many situations is the case of the mapuche resistance in the southern part of my country.

I include here a picture made some months ago, that tells about a march that took place in Santiago in order to support the fight and cause of the mapuche.

I hope you try to find out more about these subjects!

Regards.

A job I would like to have

About Stars Wars

Hi classmate!

Today I like to take about the movie Stars Wars. 

Star Wars is an American epic space opera franchise that consists of a film series created by George Lucas. The film series has spawned a media franchise outside the film series called the Expanded Universe including books, television series, computer and video games, and comic books. These supplements to the film trilogies have resulted in significant development of the series' fictional universe. These media kept the franchise active in the interim between the film trilogies. The franchise portrays a universe which is in a galaxy that is described as far, far away. It commonly portrays Jedi as a representation of good, in conflict with the Sith, their evil counterpart. Their weapon of choice, the lightsaber, is commonly recognized in popular culture. The fictional universe also contains many themes, especially influences of philosophy and religion.

The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year intervals. Sixteen years after the release of the trilogy's final film, the first in a new prequel trilogy of films was released. The three prequel films were also released at three-year intervals, with the final film released on May 19, 2005. Reactions to the original trilogy were mostly positive, with the last film being considered the weakest, while the prequel trilogy received a more mixed reaction, with most of the praise being for the final movie, according to most review aggregator websites. Some of the films in the series were also nominated for or won Academy Awards. Asequel trilogy was rumoured at one time but never materialised.

All of the main films have been a box office success, with the overall box office revenue generated by the Star Wars films (including the theatrical Star Wars: The Clone Wars) totalling $4.49 billion, making it the third-highest-grossing film series, behind only theHarry Potter and James Bond films. The success has also led to re-releases in theaters for the series.

Well that all

Regards

My best holiday

Hello classmate!

I guess my best holiday was the one I spent last summer in Bolivia and Peru with my boyfriend.
We were travelling for about five weeks, starting on monday 5th of february. It was a lot of time for me, but it was the first time in my life I left Chile, so I would have travelled a lot more if I had more time.
As I said, I went there with my boyfriend, but we managed to meet a friend of mine in Coroico, Bolivia, so we wer not alone all the time.
I visited many places, and spent finally much more time in Bolivia than expected. We started in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, and then went to Calama to wait until a bus could take us to Uyuni, the first place we visited in Bolivia. After going to the saltflat, we carried on to Potosí. We loved that city, even though the people in there were not the most lovely. We wanted to go to Oruro after that, but as the carnival of Oruro was taking place there were no buses available. So we went to Sucre and Santa Cruz, afterwards.
Santa Cruz was not specially interesting, but that´s because we did not know where to go and had to improvise for two days.
After that, we arrived at La Paz, where we spent the most of the days visiting many places in the near (like Tiwanaku and Coroico) and buying books. Then, we travelled to Copacabana, in the Titikaka lake, and went to the Island of the Sun, were we camped (even though the rain was very strong!).
After taking a last trip to Cusco, in Peru, we decided to go back to Chile, but not before stopping in Iquique to enjoy the beach and the warm Sun of the north.
I guess this holiday was so good because I lived a lot of new things, and visited places I hardly knew even existed! But most of all, I think I will always remember that time because I got to know myself and the places I had to study during that term at the university better.

That´s all!

Regards.

P.S. I´ll include a foto of me in the ruins of Tiwanaku. I hope you like it!

10 Reasons Why You Should Visit Italy

Hi classmate!

Today I'd like to talk about Italy because is a country I´d like to visit.
Here are some of the reasons why I would love to visit it.

The good food and wine
Italian food is naturally not only about pizza or a cappuccino. The ingredientes of the mediterranean coast and it´s climate make italian food very tasty. I´ve also heard italian 'gelato' (italian for ice cream) is very good.
I would enjoy to eat a plate with fish, herbs and olive oil. But, of course, with a cup of the famous Tuscan wine in my hand!

Cities
Italy has many cities that are not only very beautiful, but also very interesting from an historical and archaeological point of view. I´ve heard that if you rent a car it's quite cheap to go around the country and find many little villages founded hundreds of years ago. And there´s, of course, Rome, Venice and Florence, with their iconical buildings and fountains, or, in the case of Venice, the channels and 'gondolas' that give the city it´s unique look.

History
The history and archaeology of the place deserve a special place in this post. The ancient roman imperium and the Etruscans make me want to go there and learn as much I can of them.

 
That´s all!
Regards.

Something you'd like to learn (Original version Paula)

Hello everybody.

Well, today I´ll tell you about something that I´d like to learn.

Really, exist a lot of things that I´d like to learn, but I think that it is a bit difficult, because I don’t have mucho time now. For example, I ever want to learn play piano, but I don´t have time and money for do this, another thing that I ever want to learn is dance tango and salsa, but I’m not a good dancer, and for to be a good dancer you must to dedicate a lot of time, and now I don’t have enough time, but someday I’ll do this. Well, when I studied in the school I danced in a group called Dance; they are similar to the Cheer Leaders, but Dance only works in the floor; the problem was that I couldn’t continue to dance there, because in my last year in the school I must went to the Preuniversitary and my horary didn´t coincide with the Dance’s horary; it was really sad, but anyway, it’s the life, I think.     

Well, the others things that I want to learn are speak French, Italian and Portuguese, and I´ll do this as soon as I can, because I want to go to Brazil, France and Italy someday =).

They are some things interesting for me, but what about you? What do you want to learn?

Take care =).       

Hello everybody. (correction version Paula)

Well, today I´ll tell you about something that I´d like to learn.

Really, exist a lot of things that I´d like to learn, but I think that it is a bit difficult, because I don’t have mucho (much) time now. For example, I ever  want (W.O= I have always wanted) to learn  (Ỳ=to) play piano, but I don´t have time and money for do this,(P=.) (A)nother thing that I ever want (w.o= I have always wanted) to learn is (N A= to) dance tango and salsa, ( ) but I’m not a good dancer, (P=.) and For( )  To be a good dancer you must to () dedicate a lot of time, () and now I don’t have enough time,() but someday I’ll do this.

Well, when I studied in the school I danced in a group called Dance; (p=.) They are similar to the Cheer Leaders, () but Dance only works in the floor ;( P=.) The problem was that I couldn’t continue to dance there, () because in my last year in the school I must went to the Preuniversitary and my horary didn´t coincide with the Dance’s horary ;( P=.) It was really sad, () but anyway, it’s the life, I think.     

Well, the others things that I want to learn are speak French, Italian and Portuguese, (P=.) and () I´ll do this as soon as I can, () because I want to go to Brazil, France and Italy someday =).

They are some things interesting for me, but what about you? What do you want to learn?

Take care =).