Post 6: English Language Challenges

Honestly, I'm a little traumatized by English. Before studying geography, I started studying translation in English and Portuguese, but I did so badly with English that I left that career without wanting to know anything about it. Now that I am studying something totally different, it is a burden for me to have to take four English courses anyway, so my experience has not been the best. However, in Fau I have had good and understanding teachers, so it has not really been that difficult or that bad.

I think the use of the blogs has been totally positive. I love blogs and I love writing, in fact I have about three personal blogs where I write about other things. So it has been encouraging to practice my English through something I like to do.

However, since I'm more used to writing, I think I'm lame with the oral part of English, since I have a hard time expressing myself orally, and I also need to sharpen my bilingual ear, but for that I basically need to practice in everyday conversations. For that I plan to travel and find myself obliged to speak English in order to communicate.

Outside of class, I use English very little, I only use it when I listen to music in English or when I watch series that I see with subtitles anyway. So in general, I only use it more when I'm in class.

POST 5: CHANGES TO MY STUDY PROGRAMME

After entering college twice, and already finishing my second degree, I realized that higher education is super damaged, but in my career in particular I think there are things that could be changed.

For example, I would change the curriculum and add mandatory courses on gender, since currently (after the feminist demands of 2018) these are only as electives. I would also add more courses on methodology, or at the bottom, courses that help you prepare for your degree, since there is little to prepare you for that.

On the other hand, it would lower the academic load and demand and give more emphasis to field practice and recreational activities. It would change the evaluation system, because I believe that grades do not define what students really know and are able to practice, so rather than pressuring with grades, I would like to see a more real incentive.

It would add more field trips and classroom work and remove jobs that are sent home.

In addition, I would like to provide more material tools within the faculty, fix the infrastructure, and have more technology and tools to facilitate student work.

Finally, as I mentioned at the beginning, I would change education in Chile as a whole, but talking only about the career I study, I would start by changing teaching methods, giving a space for more inclusive and less hierarchical methodologies, where student learning is valued not through numbers, but through other types of responses. In simple words, I would add more pedagogical instinct, so that the classrooms become a space of shared knowledge.

Post 4

 What is your opinion about buying instead of adopting pets?

I think that buying a pet instead of adopting is for ambitious and pretentious people, people who don't really love animals but are looking for something that fits their image. Animals that live on the street suffer a lot and I think the best thing we can do is to adopt.

What is your opinion about climate change?

I think it is a consequence of the installation of a capitalist system that governs the entire world, and at this point it is super difficult to reverse, because even though we raise individual actions that care for the environment, big business continues to affect climate change.

What is your opinion about Immigration?

I think it is a process that will happen in a globalized world, therefore we should open the borders of our minds and accept that the migrant is a person just like us and with the same rights. Migration unleashes racism and racism must be stopped.

What is your opinion about the legalization of abortion in the 3 cases?

I agree with the legalization of abortion not only in the 3 causes, but in any situation, because the body belongs to the woman and it is she who must decide if she wants to be a mother or not. But to legalize it, we also need to make abortion safe and free, as well as to improve sex education to avoid reaching that point.

My future job

One of the reasons I entered to study geography is the work in which I imagined myself in the future. 

First of all, I don't like having bosses, or at least traditional bosses, or working in offices or closed spaces. I always imagined myself practicing my profession by traveling, getting to know new places, at my own pace and in my own time, without mandatory uniforms or too much pressure.

I don't like formal clothes, I like to feel comfortable while working. In that sense, geography opens that possibility to me, to carry out projects that do not require major rules and where the most obligatory thing is to have to travel and to carry out lands.

As for the salary, I have never been a big fan of big luxuries, but I would like to earn enough money to help my family and support myself. If the money wasn't necessary, I might not even want to get a degree, but my idea of working with a degree is just to have a decent salary for myself, my family and those who need it.

Finally, I like the freer jobs because that also means I have more time for other things. I wouldn't like to be tied to a job that consumes my whole life.

My favorite subject in school

 https://youtu.be/y5XxSas9878 

Pearl Jam in Chile

There was a time in my life when all the money I earned by working was used to go to concerts. It was my biggest goal, so I went to many; but by far, the best concert I have ever been to in my life was Pearl Jam in Chile almost ten years ago, in 2011.

It was the first time I saw Pearl Jam live and at that time I was hallucinating with that band. 

The concert was held at the Monumental Stadium of Chile located in the commune of Macul.

I went with my sister, my cousin and my best friend. We were all hallucinating in some way with that day and we were all a little crazy about the band. In fact, we arrived at approximately 7 a.m. in line to be ready when the doors opened and to be in a good location.

When they opened the doors, we ran as if our lives were going to end and we managed to get to the front row in front of the stage. However, during the wait, it was so crowded that you couldn't breathe, we were all cramped and there was even a moment when I was drowning and three people took me in their arms to get up so I could get some air.

It was a torturous wait, but it was worth every second. Since Eddie Vedder came out on stage and the concert started, it was as if I had been in another world. I forgot everything, I forgot about life. I sang, I shouted, I danced, I cried, it was a thousand emotions in such a short time.

When the concert started, my sister, my cousin, my friend and I dispersed, we were all alone in some corner of the concert, and each one lived different things.

I lasted approximately 10 songs in the first row, because I was so suffocated by the amount of people, the crowding and the euphoria I had, that I fainted for a couple of seconds; so between the audience and a guard they took me out and when I was between the fence and the stage I woke up, and I saw him there, in front of me, just a few meters away. The guard didn't know how to make me react and move forward.

Finally, I walked to a corner of the stage and there I stayed enjoying the rest of the concert.

When it was over and we were reunited with the others, we were all euphoric, my sister saw me come out and because she was behind me she jumped on top of the audience to be taken out and came out on camera.

It was the best concert of my life because it made me think so many things and feel so alive, so full of adrenaline and dreams and desires. Now I don't spend money on concerts anymore because I have other priorities, but I never forget that night and what that concert did to me.

The Socialist Homeland

 

Since childhood it has always been a dream to know the whole world, from the most hidden territories to the most visited cities. But I always wanted to leave from my own place and go to the most distant; therefore the first thing I wanted to know was the country where I live; and after that I went into Latin America.

However, there is one country that I have always said I would like to go to whenever, hopefully as soon as possible because I want to get to know it in its current situation: Cuba.

Cuba for me represents many things, especially in ideological terms. It represents the hope that I still have to build the place where I want to live and coexist. 

It represents the history of the revolutions that fought against the dictatorships; and that history is full of lessons for me and for our people.

In addition to everything else, today, after years of struggle, the State that rules in Cuba is socialist; they have one of the best health and education systems without privatizing them or taking away their quality of rights. That is why I would like to live in socialism for a while, since I have never done so. On the contrary, Chile is far from having political similarities with Cuba.

I would like to be in Silvio Rodriguez's concerts without big stages, but rather to see him with his guitar singing for free for the people in some neighborhood in Cuba.

Finally, I would like to go to Cuba now because I want to get to know it before, by some contingency of the prevailing capitalism, its history disappears.