Final Comments

I think that the university English program is far more interactive and entertaining than the teaching methods of my school, and I’m sure that is the same situation in most of the Chilean schools. When I was in school classes were so boring, that many of my classmates now hate the English language… I think I’m saying the same than the last semester XD. Anyway, maybe the Chilean education system should make some reforms in the government English program for schools, I think it will help a lot.

Blogs are a very interactive and creative way to promote the use of English in students, personally I enjoyed writing stuff and reading other people stuff to comment on their blogs. Plus the use of English, you can share some opinions with your classmates and you can know more about how facso’s students think about many topics, so you can make a general idea about it.

I think that I need a lot of practice to improve my spoken English, sometimes I’m able to understand very quickly, but I can’t answer that fast. So I think I need to practice my spoken English with other people. Normally I use English to put captions in some social networks like photography platforms that I like, reading books that I want to read in its original language or when I can’t find the Spanish subtitles for some series or movies, reading papers for university assessments, I don’t know, to understand the music that I listen to and many many other things.

See you around, I can’t say in the next English course but anyway. I hope you all have success in the end of this semester!!!

My year: 2014

Let’s say that this definitely is not my year. It hasn’t been bad, but it hasn’t  been good neither. I might sound a bit negative, but the truth is that this is a year of nothing, I could say that is very alike with last year. Maybe I could mention some positive stuff from this year:

My vacations were fabulous, the most amazing holidays till now.

This year I’ve had a lot of time to sharing with my friends, I don’t know why, maybe this year the academic load has been more light than the other years. Anyway, this is very important to me J

My grades have been fine till now, I hope I can keep that pace to finish this semester.

I have realized of a lot of things, so this has been my year to make some important decisions that would probably determine what I’m going to do next year.

I finally found a camera (not a digital one) at a reasonable price, I’m starting to make some photos and learning about this beautiful hobby.

I like old-fashioned stuff and this year I bought a second handed sewing machine, my purpose is to make my own clothes or adjust  old pieces of clothing. I must read the manual and watch some youtube tutorials yet, but I’m working on it.

I’ve watched a lot of movies this year too, and that’s important to me because I’m mad about movies, so this year has been enriching in this area. Even more, I’m lucky to say that I have tickets to watch “A Clockwork Orange” and “Pulp Fiction” in HD the next month :D Sadly I couldn’t get the tickets to “Taxi driver”, they were sold out.

And a lot of little things that make me very happy, like doing hiking, being with my family or cycling on Sundays.

This is a resume of the positive things in my year, and I’m able to say that it has been a regular year. What about yours? ;)

A great Hobby

When I was in school I used to play violoncello, and it was more than a hobby, it changed my life, I'm serious. Since I was in 6th grade in primary school I wanted to join the school's orchestra, so I went to the audition and I started to receive my cello lessons, three times at the week after classes and one practice with all the orchestra. If you stay at school after classes voluntarily you really have to love it, even my parents didn't wanted it because I arrived home late and I was only 11 years old and nobody could carry me home, so I had to wait for my dad to picked me up till 8-9 pm sometimes!!! I did this hobby till the third year of high school because the school "didn't have more funds" to keep on with the orchestra (wich was an absolute lie, of course). I retaked it the last semester here in a course of FACSO, but as I'm a part-time worker, didn't had enough time for studying.
This really marked my life, I had many beautiful experiences with this, because we traveled a lot and we were always meeting people from other orchestras from different parts of the country.
I think that hobbies are very important in a person's life, they tell you about them, how they are, what they like and many other things, some times they form your character through habits. When I was a child I used to be very disperse and hyperactive, so this practice formed me as a very orderly person, responsible and patient.

How green I am

First of all, I don’t think that smoking is that much contaminating, I think that there are a lot of other sources that contaminate more crudely in the presence of all.

Well, a few months ago my mom and I decided to recycle because we have a recycling park near the house. I made 4 mini containers to separate the waste and make it easier but you know, there are always people who doesn’t follow the rules, so my sister insisted in leaving her waste all around the house, especially in the kitchen because she was too lazy to go out and leave it in the right container, so this initiative failed because my mom complained about the mess in the house and one day she yelled at us: WE ARE NOT RECYCLING IN THIS HOUSE ANYMORE BECAUSE IT’S BECOMING A GARBAGE DUMP!!! And she was right. I don’t know maybe when my sister moves to her own place we can start recycling again :/

Inspite of that, I try to be the most concious about this matter, because I really care. At home, we are always trying to save water, electricity and fuel, we all use public transportation or bicycle, and if you’re very aware you can do a lot of small things to help on this, like using an ecobottle of water instead of buying plastic ones or bringing your own flask of coffee/tea instead of buying disposable cups and, cut the water when you’re brushing your teeth or washing your hair and so on.

I joined Greenpeace too, years ago but I had to get out because of personal reasons. And I don’t know, I felt like I was doing nothing anyway.

I think that Chile is a POORLY developed country in what environmental public policies means and I feel very ashamed of it, I learned a lot about this in a forum that I went to in the INAP faculty in June, here I left you the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjWfu3v4Kf4 If you have the time you should watch it because it’s reaaally interesting and informative. By the way, this guys from INAP are light years away from us in this topic!!! ;)

 We have to consider our condition of south american country, we are being treated as a global dump and there are not regulations to stop those malevolent practices, not even taxes to this people that ruin our environment, and we must stand up against that!!! Be informed, care about it and move your ass for it xD

See you, guys 

What would my Friday be without the English class in the afternoon?

I have maaany possible answers for this. As my classes finish at 12 pm on Fridays, I would probably go home to have lunch, take a nap and study if it’s necessary, but yeah, that sounds a little fake, perhaps in rainy days I would do that...

The other invented scene is “me working”, and that’s true because it happened last year, and it WILL NOT happen again (it was taking my life and my youth away).

In other case, I would meet or go to visit some friend that I haven’t seen in a long time. Sometimes I have meetings with my old friends of school on Fridays

I could go out for a drink with my boyfriend too, but that isn’t possible because he has classes till 11 pm on Friday nights!!! And here I’m crying because I have classes till 6 pm.

Maybe I could go to watch a movie in the cinema, but you know there are not always good movie listings. I think it’s better to buy some interesting movie in the facso’s bridge and watch it at home with a bowl of homemade popcorn, and it’s cheaper of course

Or I could take my mom out for some ice cream or having dinner. Or just take “once” with she.

Another option and the most accurate in this case, is that I probably have lunch here, study a little bit and then I would stay here having fun.

My future job

I’d like to say that I love my career and it’s all I ever wanted but sadly that’s not true. In fact, I like STUDYING this career (or maybe any other career) but I’m not sure if I want to work as a psychologist because I don’t really like any of the working areas of this career. Actually, since I’m here I don’t believe in higher education and I’m very unhappy living in this society (or maybe this country), but that’s another story.

The truth is that I want to be something like a nomad, I want to travel around the world and staying in different countries or cities here in Chile for a couple of years, and you know the difficulties of getting job as a psychologist in other locations, because of the differences in culture. I have no problem in working in anything meanwhile, preferentially of course, I’d like to work in an area related with human relationships. I’ve been working as a waitress currently, and I’m able to say that I like being in contact with people, and knowing other life stories. And when I finally find the country or the place where I want to stay, maybe I’ll put my own restaurant or coffee, or something like that, I don’t know and I don’t really care at this moment hahah.

I know that everything that I’m saying now sounds crazy, but I’m here studying a career because I made a promise to a very important person in my life to get a professional degree, and now I’m achieving it. But as soon as I finish this project, I’ll leave this ugly city xD or maybe not. One never knows :(

BEST CONCERT EVER: Maquinaria Festival 2011

A couple of years ago, in 2011, I went to Maquinaria Festival at the Club Hípico in Santiago. It wasn't my idea to go that time, because the tickets were so expensive and I didn't have money to pay for them. But Suddenly, a friend asked me if I wanted to go, and I answered: OF COURSE I WANNA GO MAN, I WANT TO SEE FAITH NO MORE, BUT I DON'T HAVE MONEY!!!. Here is when the miracle happens: This friend of mine had an option to enter without paying any money, as a volunteer of a recycling campaign.We only had to put ourselves on some silly clothes to enter. Here, have a photo of ridiculous me...

Anyway, they gave us armbands so we could go out and enter to the place without being registered by the authorities there, so we went buying some beers and drinks... well, a lot of them hahaha. We had a really good time, we talked to people from other cities and the most important part of all this was the concert: WAS SIMPLY INCREDIBLE. We saw Megadeth, FNM, Alice in Chains, Down, and many others bands. They were marvelous, the 2 stages were properly conditioned and the sound was great too. And all this for free :D

Definitely, this one was the most amazing concert I went to, and I have been in many amazing concerts, but for the circumstances, this was specially amazing

Midnight cowboy

The other day I saw "midnight cowboy", I had this movie pending to watch since 4 years ago!!! but I didn't had the opportunity to download it, because I could't find it. Luckily I found it at this website called Kickass torrets ;) I think that this film is very interesting because touches many topics. First of all I'll make a rewiev of the film: The film tells a story about a Young texan called Joe Buck, that decides to move from Texas, where he Works as a dishwasher in a restaurant to New York, to find a better future, but the problem is that he tries to find success as a male prostitute for old women in this city. He doesn’t knows the business so he’s constantly failing at this (even more, in a case, he ends up paying to the woman who starts to cry because he was claiming his money for the service). Anyway, as innocent as a boy can be, this Young man keeps trying and meets a crippled man who says to know a guy that is in the business, of course, this crippled (Ratso) was a street man and he was only looking for money, so he steals it from Joe Buck.

A few days later, Joe Buck starts to stay out of money, and he founds Ratso, after a Little fight they finally become Friends, and Joe moves with Ratso to the place he was occupying, at an abandoned building. Their friendship becomes stronger as they found Company and support in each other, but Ratso’s health was getting weaker, and his last wish was to move to Florida, so Joe makes everything to make his dream come true, and when I say everything, I mean things that you could never imagine that this innocent guy could do.

Anyway, the course of the movie is constantly making flashbacks to Joe’s complicated life history. Wich includes a romance with an insane woman that ends tragically and the life with his grandmother after his mother abandoned him.

I can’t tell you how it ends but, trust me, you must see it. This is a classic movie winner of many awards. And I simply loved it, even its a bit raw. 

Here I left you the trailer link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2yBydiEJrI

Thailand

Well, first of all, hi everyone! :)
A place I'd like to visit someday is Thailand, this is because when I was younger  I saw a movie called "The Beach", there I saw the most beautiful place ever, and then I knew this movie was filmed there. So this is the main reason, the beautiful places, beaches and of course the weather, wich is mostly warm and the days are clear, also I'd like to visit Bangkok, one of the biggest cities in the country. Another reason is the culture, I think that this country has a way different culture from ours, but isn't extremelly different, so I'd like to know the people there, their traditions and the buddhist heritage that they have. The architecture is another reason to visit this country and meet places like the Bangkok great palace, I like this kind of architecture because is so rich in details. Finally, the food, Thai food is really delicious, tasty and has a lot of veggies, but I'd like to try it there, I don't know, maybe is a bit different from the chilean version of it.
So here I left you some pictures of this amazing place, I'm sure you'll like it too.

Feel like a blogger OMG

Normally I do not use blog, I used to have one to publish short stories that I wrote, but that was in 2010 and now I don't have time to do it, so I was out of practice. And of course I used to write in spanish. I think that this working methodology is a very good alternative in our times, considering that people is always using computers or cellphones, and even more when we are in an era where the social networks are part of our lives. I found pretty interactive to work with this type of websites, because you publish your entry in english, so you have to think in english (it is difficult at first but then it becomes easy) and then you have to read your classmates entries, in english too, to comment on their blogs. I like to read other people's opinion or experiences about a topic and comment about them :) I think that my writing skills have improved widely, because normally we don't write in english, we are more used to lisen it or read it. In the traditional way, I mean like in school with completing sentences, and all that stuff you don't develop this skill. Maybe this kind of methodology should be introduced in schools, to make the classes more entertaining for children, and avoid a bad experience with this language. The most of the people that I know who hates english it is because they found boring the subject at school. 

I don't know, I think that the topics were quite diverse but I think that we shouldn't talk about career related topics hahah I know that maybe is part of the course program, but I found it boring, because we are the entire week studying and learning things about our careers and sometimes is exhausting. 

Today's activity :D

Well I found pretty interesting this activity because there are a many things that I didn't know about this topic, and it's really helpful to learn some other tips and information.
What I know abut the 3Rs is anything else but the name: recycle, reduce, reuse. I try to do my best at this. I'm lucky to have a municipal recycling park near my house so I can go walking to it (we don't have a car anyway). When we do this, about two times in the month, I realize how much waste we produce, and believe me, it is A LOT. When I go with someone else (any volunteer? haha) we both carry 5 bags in each hand full of recycling material, so 20 full bags. And it take us half an hour to deposit all in the correct container, plus the hour at home organizing the material in the different bags. So normally I spend the entire sunday morning doing this. But I don't care, I'm happy to do it, and when I go there and I see a lot of other people doing it makes me happy and keeps me motivated. And of course I'm always trying to reuse things, give them to other person/organization or sell them, I don't know. In fact I buy a lot of used clothes in the market instead of buying it in the mall. I use my flask to bring tea to uni instead of buying disposable cups. And many other things, you just have to be attentive to the things you do or use. For example, when I take a shower I try to cut the water while I'm washing my hair, sometimes it gets cold, but I rather prefer save water.
So I think this is a very important topic, and I believe that everybody should care and be informed about it, but sometimes I think that the government is not prepared to deal with it, there are not enough recycling parks, available information and I don't even want to mention the environmental public policies in Chile, that practically don't exist or are poorly developed :(

When I finished school I really didn't know what to do because I liked so many things, specially the health area, but I was not sure, I was thinking in biology, biotechnology and marine biology too, so I was really confused. I took a year to prepare psu but didn't helped me, in fact I was more confused. So I when I got the psu results I went with the vocational advisor to help me decide because I only had three days to make the postulation. She told me that maybe the bachelor program was appropiate for my case hahah. So I entered to "bachi", finally there I realized that my area was the social sciences, I always thought that this area was related to history and maybe because of that I dismissed this option. So then I choosed psychology because of the relation with the health area and because I liked it. 

Well, psychology is a very versatile career, there are a lot of contributions from psychology in the educational area, child development, clinical tratments, laboral area, and there are also contributions to the community health, a very small brach but very interesting and with a lot of potential

In the future, maybe psychologists will have to change the way they treat their patients, this is refered to clinical psychology. It is a very personal view but I think the traditional way we are doing it at the moment is not as effective as it can be, I mean sitting in a room talking an hour per week with a patient maybe is not the most efficient way to help people. I believe that practice is really important, because life is not only in our minds, is in the relation with others and the society. Plus the constant renewal of the knowledge in our area, knowing the fact that things around us are always changing, and faster than ever, new phenomenoms and new diseases will develop considering the lifestyle we are having, so we must adapt to those changes and find new ways to manage those problems.
My favourite subject at this moment is judicial psychology, I don't know why really, maybe because there is a lot of praxis in that area and a lot of investigation and contributions yet to do.

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Plaza Jalisco

Hi everyone! Today I'll tell you about a restaurant that I love, it's called Plaza Jalisco and is located in La Florida, in the Enrique Olivares street, near the Bicentenario Stadium. I've been watching breaking bad lately with my boyfriend so we started to crave on mexican food (if you watch this series you'll understand why) and found this place on internet, because the only place where we eaten mexican food before was on Taco Bell and you know that place can throw down your expectatives :(
So we went to this marvelous place, Plaza Jalisco, very famous in the county and I definitely loved it. The food was simply great, I ate burritos and tacos and they were delicious and spicy. The atmosphere was very nice and homelike, they put mexican music all the time and the waiters gave us a perfect atention. When I told to a friend about this, she told me that she knew the place and she went with her family long time ago, she had the same impression as me, the place is simply great.
In brief, I recomend you this place if you wanna try REAL mexican food and have a good time.
See you soon.

18 Km :)

Well, hi everyone! When I first saw the task in the class blog, I didn't know what to tell you about, so I started thinking of what happened to me this week, and then I remembered my last week goal, this made me sooo extremelly happy so I will tell you about it. I really love riding my bike, my parents gave it to me in my ninth birthday and it was a complete surprise, it is a very resistant machine, believe me ;)  Anyway, the last weeks I was seriously thinking in riding my bike to uni, it was a very hard decision because I live in Puente Alto and there are almost 18 to 20 km. to the campus, in Ñuñoa. So every night I gave myself the encourage to do it but every morning I got scared, and during the breakfast started to think "what if...". The main problem was that I didn't have helmet and a strong chain to tie it, and that made me feel unsafe, so I decided not going on bycicle and do it when I could buy those implements, wich would be next month (in May), a very sad decision. But one day I woke up with enough time and I found no excuses, I could go slowly by the sidewalk and be very carefully. I put my sneakers and took the bike. If you ride your bicycle often maybe you'll understand what I mean, it was a completely exciting trip, and I could feel the chilling wind in my face...  I just couldn't stop smiling. When I entered in the campus I felt completely victorious, I was competing with my own fears and I won. Then I did it the next day, and I felt just the same :D So now I'm planning to go to uni on bicycle everyday but first I will buy a helmet and a kryptonite u lock, because they're more resistant. The most important part of all this is that I will become one more of the people who doesn't take the public transportation, wich I personally hate, and that will reduce my carbon footprint :D
My family and I are always trying to be "earth friendly", you know, we recycle (there's a recycling park near my house) and we're very concious about the water use and the energy saving, so this is very important to me and a big step forward.
Hope you're enyoying this long weekend, see you soon.

Watch movies for free

Well, I know that the law doesn't allows it but I'm pretty sure that my intention isn't that bad as it seems. Furthermore, I don't even pretend to make money with this so I don't feel that guilty. I think that movies are a modern kind of art, culture to me, and I think that culture must be open to all persons around the world, sorry but I don't buy the fairy tale that actors and directors will be poor if you don't buy their films and discharge them for free from the internet. Also I think that cinema is a great and easy way to get close and meet another cultures, it isn't difficult to understand and you don't have to read if you don't like it (well, maybe you'll have to read the subtitles).
First of all I wanna make clear that this is not a website, it's a discharge platform called uTorrent, you can install it on your computer once and then you can discharge movies from everywhere at any time you want it. You can get the program here http://www.utorrent.com. You can discharge music or other stuff too.
Then you can use many websites to find the movies that you want. I don't recomend any website for this but I usually visit the "7mo Vicio" page on Facebook and the guy is always recomending excellent films and if you are lucky you can find the link below the publication (sometimes he leaves it on the page and sometimes he deletes it, for security reasons I guess).

Sometimes this is a very slow way to watch a movie because it takes a lot of time to discharge one and I use the Cuevana.com site. I think that this is a great website, it's simple and fast but you can't always find the film you want, it's more like "Hollywood style" movies and of course, series! Anyway, that's a website I frequently visit when I haven't discharged the movie with enough time :) 

Today i’d like to share with you my last journey to “my favorite place in the world”, I call it that way because it is. In fact, i’m always trying to find a place that I like more than this one, but I can´t find it. This place is in the north of Chile and maybe you’ve Heard about it, it’s called Tongoy. Tongoy is a touristic place located about a  450 km. From Santiago. This is a very very small town, and when it isn’t holidays eve you see very few people there. I don’t know why, maybe because of its geography, its long and beautiful shore, the view from its hill, or maybe just because its tranquility and magic I like so much going there.

The  last year, I went with my boyfriend to Tongoy. I was always talking to him about this magical place in earth and he was always telling me that we had to go togheter someday. We went on September vacations and it was just amazing, there was a lot of people in town, parties everywhere and people seemed so happy and easy that I felt very comfortable. We cooked anticuchos on a grill made by ourselves because there was not, and we expend the most of the days going over the bay, walking on the beach (even we swam one day, the water was too cold) and meeting the nearest places like Guanaqueros, where we eated empanadas.

This was the firs time I went on September vacations and I really liked it, I guess this year we’ll go too because my boyfriend told me that he really liked, he said that it was a very quiet and beautiful place

Well, and here is a photo from Tongoy, hope you like it.

About Myself

My name is Francisca, I’m 22 years old and I was born here in this ugly city, Santiago. I live in Puente Alto with my family. My mom, Ivonne, my two older brothers, Fabiola and Felipe, and my Little niece María Esperanza. And of course my two cats, Mandy and Carlota. Sadly, my dad passed away in 2012, and we miss him so much that you can even imagine.

 I’m a psychology student and now i’m coursing the third year of my career, I like it more now than when I started haha.Three times at the week and the entire Saturday I work at a Sushi restaurant as a waitress. I really like reading books (especially the mistery ones and crime novels), listening to music (mostly rock and metal music), watching movies and series, meeting new places, trying exotic food, being with my family, my boyfriend and going out with my friends (actually what I like is staying here in the University with my friends after classes on Fridays). Lately i’ve been retaking my cello lessons because I had the opportunity to take a course here in FACSO on Mondays, and that makes me very happy by the way :)