A brief essay

This year, it has been many manners of using technology in our subjects, especially by Internet like U-Cursos, Facebook, Blogger or simply our e-mail directions. Technology, as I said in a past post, has served us, as the new generations we are, to reduce in certain measure the time used before in search personally some books or selected info. Otherwise, technology has helped me to communicate with my classmates when I’m out from Santiago. It’s also an efficient way to negotiate issues like test dates, marks percentages, be closer from teacher or just to make a strong union between students.

U-Cursos is an Internet tool designed for academic uses. Student community can, easily, discuss about tests, marks or can upload files to study. Also it can organize the semester by posting messages on a common wall. For me U-Cursos, an Universidad de Chile website, has become a favorable source of certainty in my messy life. Secondly, Catálogo Bello, an electronics books search engine facilitates us to know required bibliography, their physic location and availability. If we’re lucky because a book has the “General Collection” category, we may ask it by RONDA, a service which takes the texts where they’re asked from.

More informally, we have Blogger, Facebook, and our institutional e-mail account to receive messages or instructions from classmates, authorities or officials. Blogger is not just an academic tool to learn; it’s a website used for several areas, made to clash points of any topic. In our case we use it to practice the English writing ability in the same manner other people may use it to upload info or to write stories. Even Facebook has helped us to make solid student community, making classmates groups, discuss about contingent themes, and conclude meetings or just to increase our social life.

Finally, I guess how harder the student life of our past generations or teachers was without current tools which facilitate us our life, increase our free time and develop other kinds of abilities. In comparison with my high school technologies, these new ones are quite much better because now, aside from Hotmail accounts, we have websites only made to avoid the time loss in a bad bureaucracy like U-Cursos,

www.alumnos.uchile.cl (to know about marks, schedules and subjects), Catálogo Bello page, and our valorous TUI (Intelligent University Card). I think that we should be very grateful of enjoying these technology gifts.

Commenting the news

The news story which has impacted me on this year has been the Mapuche conflict, a not declared war in La Araucanía. This event has a long historical data in Chile, beginning the belligerence when Spanish conquers invaded América, destroying the pre-Columbian culture, and later 1536 when Diego de Almagro arrived to Chile and started a fight of never ending. This sad story is local, occurs in southern Chile, in La Araucanía region. Firstly were Spanish people who stole an alien land in the name of God and their kingdom. Centuries later the Chilean state does it in the name of sovereignty.

I have seen this sad story (that is not any news), through all my life, I think that everybody has seen it and believed it as news but this goes beyond a novelty. We have watched this unnecessary story by books, television, internet, newspaper and by all kinds of communication transmission.

This year the Chilean mass media have put more emphasis on those facts and they portray it as a no sense fighting, saying many times that there is not Rule of Law. However, before that there existed a State called Chile, there was a community called Mapuche, owner of rich lands which soon were the target of foreign buyers. From which point of view a suddenly taking of territories is seen as a legal act? Maybe it is normal for state, but if at any moment you are in your own house inherited by your grandparents and suddenly police enters in the name of state and takes off all which you thought belonged to you. It is very disconcerting at this example. How much for Mapuche people?

Many times we have seen how the government takes Mapuche signs and stamps them on coins and banknotes and both they cannot understand a legitimate defense from the pre-Columbian people when it is normal they feel violated and infringed.

For all Chile it must been a topic to talk because some times there is not respect to the only pre- Columbian which has fought against foreigners over centuries and centuries, and that is what we are for them, foreigners.

Challenges in your discipline

I think that the challenges my discipline is facing are several. In the technology area we need to dominate it so much more than we are doing it now because in administrative issues is important to handle things faster and as a cause of that we would be increasing efficiency and effectiveness. Socially, I think that an important defy is avoid a bad bureaucracy and of this way rush the delivery of social benefits, sometimes the documents required for anything take a too long time in be available or they cost raised prices. In education is necessary to encourage probity to get subsidies where it is corresponded, many times directors spend the money given by government in other things without any kind of accountability and, as I have seen, they lie in students attendance to receive more money. Also, I think that there should be a rearrangement in money distribution because is urgent ensure a good and free public education. The state should work for people needs more then they could do for international enterprises. For example, to make water belongs to Chilean people and not to big multinational owners, to make all necessary things to get stopped the Chilean rivers drying. Otherwise, it would very good for our democracy stop charging to register independent candidates.
Finally it is important make free the laws knowledge, it isn’t acceptable have to buy “Diario Oficial” as it is done in Chile. Here it is conceited that everybody knows laws, but it is hard to get it if is not free doing it.

Improving your faculty facilities

The current situation in my faculty is not very well, but in my opinion our small space has helped us to build relationships with the higher grade classmates in the case of beginners, which doesn’t happen at other, bigger faculties like FCFM (Maths and Physics Science Faculty), for example.

Some things that need more than an improvement, but exist, are an access for physically disabled people, the library should open more time, make casino prices decrease and have a nursing room.

My first step to improve our current situation would be to ask everyone which things they would like to improve or to have. Next step, according to the budget available I could set priorities to start working. However, to get this budget, previously it should be appealed according to regular channels. Another solution to the current infrastructure problem is to leave Palacio Matte and then go to a reconstructed building definitely. What I said before just concerns the structural topic, but, for example, making the library schedule longer doesn’t need more than the authorities will, giving more salary to our officials. I think that Public Administration is a very important career which has not had enough and the necessary treatment deserved.

The impacts that these changes could cause to our faculty would be improve the performance of its students (since the union with postgraduate students), but otherwise it could make that the almost familiar environment given here would be lost, weakening our union when it is highly required.

A final recommendation would be to keep a good relationship at the foozeball table belling sound.

Free time

Nowadays, I think that people have more free time becuase there is more technology available. Always it depends on the life style we're having, for example, if we have children it is very difficult to take some free time to ourselves because we would have to be parents. In my own case I only have free time when I end my university obligations and I do them faster with a pendrive, for example, than without it. Technology helps me very much.

My free time in a week depends on the tests I have, if there are not, I just assist to classes and share more moments with my classmates, without stress. By the nights, then I can read and study relaxed. On those weeks I have entire hours for me and for going out to know Santiago. To say them exactly, I have never counted them.

I don’t know if “wisely” is a good word to define how I use my free time, but I can say that now I have learned to invest it and not to waste it. To me, helping social risk kids is a very good way to share and give my free time; it is a way of doing what I am studying for.

In my free time I like to be with my familiy and friends, share great moments as more as I can because they are far away now. In Santiago I use my free time helping to kids from Lo Espejo at their studies. If I am not doing that I sleep or I share my time with university friends trying to relax myself.

If I had more free time, I think I would use it working at something to help my parents and family to get our project as group, mainly. Also I would like to have some volunteer works to take there my sister, so when I already don’t have more free time, she could continue a good work.

Summary from a career-related article from The Guardian

UK to send more troops to Afghanistan, Gordon Brown confirms.

Wednesday 14 October. BST.-

The intentions of the prime minister, Gordon Brown, about fighting against terrorism in Afghanistan, were send there more troops to reinforce the ones which remained. Exactly, he wants to send five hundred troops. He said that he was sure that teamwork with Afghanistan president would give a good result. In Britain, these statements sparked the debate; from every side, the opposite ideas came. The main arguments were that the British population was not sure if it was advisable to send more British forces to a place were political and electoral processes were corrupted. Another argument was that the psychological support for soldiers was weak and poor.

Otherwise, Brown said that he was very moved about the lost men in the fighting place, giving a felt greeting to the families of them. To which it is added that the supporting of population to increase troops and keep war, measured by a Populus poll, has decreased from 36 % to 29 % in September.

Internationally, Brown has been looking for help and holding with Barack Obama and with Hamid Karzai, Afghan president. The first one said, elusively, that he would do his best and would give an answer in the coming weeks. Especially if we consider that recently he has won the Nobel Peace Laurel. The second one said he would also do his best to fight against al-Qaida together with Brown.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/oct/14/gordon-brown-davidcameron

A world of Sport

The sport is very important for individuals and nations. The importance of sports is that we could have less stress and feel better (at personal level) because we have more resistance and, obviously we improve our body state. For a nation, the sport is important because it is a way of having a common identity, for example the Brazilian case because all people use to think that Brazil is the country of football since Brazilian have won several world football cups. That helps to the population cohesion. Currently I don’t practice any sport because I dedicate my free time to other things; my only physical activity is walking from university to house around 20 minutes and dancing when I party. The great benefit I get from it that I feel less stressed, especially dancing.
The status that sport should have in a country is of a daily topic. I mean, having a Minister of Sports and Recreation. With this, it is pretended to give a real budget to promote it and make that every person in Chile has the right of sport and a free access to.
Every time I see people angry or stressed I wish I could invite them to run or dance. I would say them: “Don’t prefer to smoke, don’t prefer to eat, don’t prefer to get angry. Just prefer sports.”
There are some sports which have been stated as cruel and I hold it. For example “rodeo a la chilena” is just the demonstration of the habit of having fun damaging to someone else. It is like when a child makes fun of other one and the rest of friends enjoy that. While more suffers a cow, more points we gain.
Some other activities which should be eradicated is free fighting and All worth (Todo vale) where just one part takes benefits losing stress because of winning and the other one just has to go home bruised at all and with the defeat stress.

What to do and where to go in Santiago de Chile

What to do and where to go in Santiago? That is the question when we arrive for the first time in San Borja or Los Héroes terminus. With the little time I have lived here, I would recommend visiting places like La Moneda, Fantasilandia, Huelén and San Cristóbal hills, to the Zoo and many other places which aren’t in a native city. Obviously, what a tourist should do in Santiago, depends on where is he or she comes from. If a tourist is from other Chile region, he or she should travel by Metro, go to La Moneda, Farellones or El Cajón del Maipo, etc. Also a tourist should go to the tomb of a recognized Chilean, etc. If it was up to me, I would take a tourist to:
• Parque O’higgins to show them where is the place of Military Parade and where “ramadas” and “fondas” are in September.
• Fantasilandia, a place where we can have amusement with mechanic games and we can distract our minds.
• Huelén Hill, a beautiful place full of nature and peace. The exact spot where Pedro de Valdivia and Inés de Suárez arrived to conquer Chile. Also it is possible to see a good part of Santiago from the top of the hill.
• La Piojera, a place where you can happily celebrate drinking “Terremotos” (Earthquake, a cold drink that erases you from he world for five minutes, it is made of wine, pine ice cream and grenadine) and where it is also possible to relax and forget problems. A very popular place.
• Universidad de Chile, a place full of knowledge and with a very important space in Chile History. Beyond of being the best Chile university, this is which helped to get Chile independency in many ways, giving it professionals to the country. The Andrés Bello house is not to give it up if we do not know Santiago de Chile.

The role of Music

Music plays an important role in my life. First all because without it, life would be very sad; to me it is an escape way… a ticket to heaven. I like singing everywhere. Particularly I like listening to folk music or trova, I don’t have problems with other styles of music, but they both are my favorites. Usually I get my music from internet or from my friends compact discs. Also I like Chilean and Latin music, for example Silvio Rodríguez, Violeta Parra, Mercedes Sosa, Los Jaivas, etc. In general, I like music with social sense and if it is about love, it is of my preference that lyrics are deep: ¿Qué he sacado con querete? (What have I gotten loving you?) by Violeta Parra or El breve espacio en que no estás (The brief space where you are not) by Silvio Rodríguez. Everytime I am studing I play Silvio Rodríguez or Los Jaivas. When I am sad I make an exception and then I play Metallica or Guns and Roses. When I am very angry my favorite is Maldigo del Alto Cielo (High Heaven Curse) by Violeta Parra, the mother of Chilean music and the first Chilean rock star! But when I am happy I like whatever, every song is a good choice to smile. I have always thought that music is and must be an accompaniment, we also have poems, pieces of arts, etc., music is just a way of getting art, but it is not the only way. If we become it in a unique mode of art, we will forget the other ones.

Transantiago: before and now

My opinion about Transantiago is that it’s a good Transport System compared with which I used in my region. Usually I’ve seen that Santiago citizens use to complain about it. When Transantiago started operating I wasn’t here, but I was watching by T.V. that the anger of population was taking levels of the highest caliber. However, when I came here on March I realized that compared with Copiapó Transport System this was very cheaper and convenient. I am so glad that near of house there’s a Metro station and when I have to go anywhere, there’s always a road. As far as I’ve seen and felt, the Transantiago fails on mornings; that’s why Metro collapses. Many times I’ve had to wait around of three trains to get one because they’re always crowded.

By television I watched that people were complaining for a low frequency of busses and by the way, the driver did not stop because it was impossible to transport any ant else. Now, I see more frequency. In this way I think that Transantiago has improved. When Transantiago started it was worse than before because it was a heavy change in the transport system and it wasn’t well implemented. Now it has been more implemented as with many kind of busses as with money. If on me it depended, I would write at every bus stop all the next and previous ones.

I’d like that the same money invested on Transantiago was invested on the regions transport system. Santiago is not Chile, and that’s why every Chilean deserves to pay two travels for one. The Bip Card is very useful and if it was inserted along Chile, all our system transport would take a big step.

A country I woud like to visit

I have always dreamed of visiting Perú or Cuba, but if I had to choose one country of them both I would visit Perú, exactly the Machu Picchu ruins.

I had a biology teacher who traveled to there and she told us she could feel a great sensation of magic and freedom there. When she came back to Copiapó she was full of energy and humor. According to her it was as if the own Incas people were there working or laughing.

Other things which excite me to be at Machu Picchu are the poems by Pablo Neruda, sung by Los Jaivas in the record Las Alturas de Machu Picchu. I think that Spanish invasion harmed a great advance in the Inca culture because it stopped a pure race and it showed the dark side of globalization: the predominance of one culture and lifestyle over other one.

I know few things about this place, but they are good enough to want to go there. Machu Picchu means in Quechua Old Mountain. This place is near from Cuzco, the capital city of Inca Empire. It began to work as a urban center once discovered by Pachacútec, first Inca Emperor. He saw the physic and climatic character of the place and decided to become it into a religious and civil center.

Currently, Machu Picchu is one of the Seven Modern World Wonders. I wanted to be there to feel that magic on the air, maybe feel the rituals mystical, feel how the Inca people thanked to Pachamama (The Land Mother) for the land fruits or feel them thanking Her for the good hunting times.

I would like only visit Machu Picchu because I don’t think it is for living. As far as I know that place is only for tourism and not for remaining a lifetime. But if I could live there, I think I would not because I’d miss Chile a lot.

To know more about Machu Picchu visit: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machu_Picchu
http://www.machupicchu.perucultural.org.pe

Last Post!!

I think that the Blogging experience has been very fruitful. It helped us to have a less traumatic instance of class and an easier mode to learn than, for example, Chile’s Political and Administrative Institutions History. Actually I have never worked in a Blogspot page. I have other one but I don’t use it frequently. Honestly I enjoyed it because I learnt more than the few things I knew about English like sentences structures, infinitives, gerunds or grammar.

Also I think that it helped me to improve my English skills, especially reading and writing. If I had to give an opinion about this experience, it would be that it is a great mode of knowing our classmates, what they think, why they think of anyway and who they are. Another advantage was that we had the chance of correcting our mistakes and learning a little more. Otherwise, if I had to make a critic about, I would say that computers were not good at all and sometimes I used to lose my whole works. What I didn’t like it was the signs that the teacher used to make us realize of mistakes like WW, WS, etc. I often didn’t understand them.

Also, as I don’t have Internet at home, many times I had to stay at University checking and ending the posts, but that isn’t the problem, the problem was that sometimes we had to take quizzes or listening activities and the time left wasn’t long enough to make a good work. The blogging idea has been good; it helped us as classmates to make a better union as a new generation. But the outcome is great and rewarding: as a result I learned to use Blogger. Anyway I keep preferring Facebook: more functions in only one page I mean: pictures, writing, chatting, videos, music, posting, tests and games.

My ideal job

My ideal job would be near my home and family. In my case, I have parents at many places in Chile, so my ideal job would be one which has me traveling across the country but with an unique place where I have to stay a longer time. I would like to supervise how the job is improving in the different cities where my company works. I don’t know which institution I would join, but that is the direction I would like to take. The skills and qualities I need are mostly of direction and reporting because if there are branches offices, they can’t forget or lose which is the north of the Institution that we are representing eventually. I think I would be good at this job because sometimes I have taken works where I direct and the outcome has been successful; and because I like advising people about what it would be better at the best choice. Also I like traveling and knowing new places. Actually I think that it is not difficult to find jobs of that nature, when we have a new law for instance, we need to implement and train workers for they can make their job governed by this new eventual law. It would be easier in Santiago because here it is the center of political decisions, but from where I come, the task turns a little bit harder.

Hombre con Guitarra (Violeta Parra)

The artist who made this piece of art is Violeta Parra, a Chilean singer born in San Fabián de Alinco in 1917 who died in 1967. Besides singing, she painted in oils, wrote poems and made wove tapestry. I saw for the first time this piece of art called Hombre con Guitarra when I accompanied my parents to visit Centro Cultural La Moneda here in Santiago. Since then I liked it. And I like it because on this piece of art I saw reflected all the humility that art requires. What else does art require? Express our feelings. Following this line, if we listen to some songs of her like Una Copla me ha cantado, Maldigo del Alto Cielo, ¿Por qué los pobres no tienen?, Run run se fue pa’l norte, etc., easily we will find that the green and violet birds that are hanging on the guitar represent the sadness and bitterness a human being could have because of loving or social injustice. And exactly, when she killed herself with a gun to her head, her brother Nicanor said “She let the blue birds that were flying inside her head, fly away”. If you would like to know more about Violeta visit www.violetaparra.cl

Ken Robinson

The main idea of the Robinson talk was that schools should let all the abilities develop as much as possible. In this way, students would be much more prepared to make a better choice in the future. He says that we can´t let arts go away , drama or music, just because we think that the most important subjects are Math or Literature. He also talks about new ways to teach and make of class a funnier instance to learn. In my opinion, Education is a very important element to be happy. I think that its importance goes beyond what we teach inside a classroom, or which is better: that students learn. Education must be made at home as at school. Government must provide all the tools possible for making our country, a good citizen place. A place where we cannot notice difference due to a lack of a good education, which must be one and the same for everyone with no distinctions.

Pamela Jiles

I think that the best person in my field is Pamela Jiles. And I say that because I’ve seen that she’s the one woman who has been brave enough to say what she thinks and why she thinks it and because, like me, she doesn’t believe on that moral amnesty which Chilean people talks about or when they try to steal all the damage that Military Government did. She’s a journalist and writes articles in “The Clinic”, a daily left, where she warned her presidential candidacy. Pamela has written Fantasías Sexuales de Mujeres Chilenas, where she explains her feminist position and why it is relevant. She has also written about politics and televison scandals,for example Crimen bajo Estado de Sitio, 1986 with Maria Olivia Mönckeberg y María Eugenia Camus (Crime under State of Siege) and Maldita Farándula (Damn T.V. Entertainment), 2007 respectively. I like her for a reason very simple: she has my own political ideas and she’s a great professional that has been excluded from the political and journalist circle just because she says what she thinks and practice that wherever she can. That’s why I think she’s the best and whoever does whatever he or she thinks is always the best because in that way the person is making his or her own choice.
To know something else Pamela Jiles visit: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Jiles

http://www.theclinic.cl/2009/05/15/el-puno-derecho-de-arrate/#more-5825

Public Administration

I am studying this career because I think there are some areas at hands of private sector which shouldn’t be, for example Education, Water Rights, Health, Housing, Transport and other which should be at State hands completely or partial kind. And for that, Public Administrators are better at because our career is more integral and complex than just Laws, Economy or Political Sciences. Ours pick the necessary aspects of everyone and links the other ones in just one. A lawyer doesn’t always know about numbers, an economist doesn’t always know about laws, and a commercial engineer doesn’t always know about State.
What professionals in my area contribute to society is professionalize the State, making that officials improve on methods and so improve on people’s quality of life, giving a main importance to maximize people benefits than to have few utilities invested on. The tools a professional will need are: good sense to find people’s problem, math skills, an understanding of society and much empathy.
My favorite subject in this first year is Fundamental Elements of Law; I really enjoy it and learn a lot.
As Public Administrators we can help to society below the State ceiling, especially when new-liberal and capitalist systems have showed us their complete incompetence regulating our lives.

The photograph I like

This is the photograph I like the most. It was taken by my uncle and it shows my vacations on summer 08. I like it because I can remember that I was alone that time and my family had to go to Copiapó for some days and I had to be alone there taking care about the house we were living, on that moment, my family has just come and I was so happy for. I was there in Puerto Viejo, a beach one hour from Copiapó, my hometown and it is where I go every summer to have some rest and make some family time. I really enjoy it!

90%

Plataforma activities

Of those suggestions, I am not following anyone because I don’t think that I am taking a harmful kind of life, but if something came to change my life and point of view about I think I will read these suggestions because I think that are very useful, for example stop drinking alcohol or lookout for my medical conditions.

Your puppy fat has gone and you have your own place. I think this sentence means that when someone who is bothering or makes oneself feel uncomfortable goes away, we feel better and free.

Give your liver a breather: it could mean stop drinking alcohol or toxic substances.

•Quaff beer with your mates: it means, I think hanging out with friends and drink some ale. •Stock up on plump, fresh fruit: I think it could mean getting fat with fruit and vegetables, in a sane way.

•Do regular hamstring stretches: I think it means to elongate

•Many blokes regard their 20s as their cowboys-don’t-cry decade: that the main young people think that their twenties are a time when nothing bad could happen

A University website

The website I enjoy the most is http://catalogo.uchile.cl/web2/tramp2.exe/log_in?setting_key=bello, (Catálogo Bello website). I found this website in University, when a teacher taught us how to search books she asked us to read. So she entered on this web and made a search as an example; that way we learned how to know at which library of University a book was and it served us for don’t going in every Faculty of Universidad de Chile asking for it. I visit the link every time I have to find for an issue in particular, for example I used it to find the book: Comercio Chileno y Comerciantes Ingleses which was in Laws Faculty, and we can also ask it for Ronda, a service that takes us the book directly to our Faculty, but it is a more complex process.
I like this web because I can quickly know where I have to go and where not.

(23/30; 77%)

My favorite piece of technology

Definitely, my favorite piece of technology is my MP4. A MP4 is a small device like the fourth part of a picture used to watch movies or listen to music as a personal stereo or walkman, but the difference is that this is more comfortable and practical because you can play it everywhere hidden in your pocket. I got mine in August 2008, when I was in Copiapó. And, how do I use it? Well, very easy: First all, I download music from Internet to my MP4, I turn it on, select the song I want to listen to and put the phones in my ears; so the world is a little happier without silence on(I don't watch movies because it is not comfortable being with the MP4 at hands). I use it almost every day, but not the entire day at all. I like it because I am living alone, and sometimes, when I miss my family I just play it and sing, and that way I try to forget, because life in silence is so boring. My life without my MP4 would be very sad and boring because T.V. doesn't matter to me now, just music. Without it I think I would go crazy because in silence I remember I am alone and that is too sad.

1º

Well classmates, I am Diego Castillo Guaita, I am 18 years old, I come from Copiapó and what I hope about this web tool is we could be more communicated and know each other as the family we are and we are forming. I don’t have that much to say right now. I hope you are very fine and see you.
Siphon off
Oversight
Uproar