Last Blog Session? D:

Wow! I can’t believe I survived to this semester! I thought I wouldn’t pass it, especially this subject, because I didn’t have English classes at high school (so I forgot a lot of things I knew). I must admit that when I came here and I saw that English classes were at the computer room, I felt upset, because I really don’t like computers. But when I started to work on the blog I realized that it wasn’t so unpleasant as I thought, and I even enjoyed it! Because we had to talk about things we like, so that makes English classes much more funny and comfortable J

I feel that working on the blog helped me to meet again with my English, and to learn some new words and expressions. One of the advantages of this way to make the class is that allows us to express ourselves about things we choose, and by doing this we learn written English, but I think it would be better if we could have more moments to practice our spoken English (because in real life, we will need both learning ways to have a significant language acquisition). That’s why I liked the oral lecture, and other classes in which we had to talk in English.

I liked the way we had to discover answers in web sites, because I think it’s useful, it’s as we were looking for something for real life, it was like a ‘reality game’. Other thing I liked, is that we learned about different topics, from ecology to chauvinism, and don’t forget we had to find some London tube stations (Can you see how useful could it be for real life?).

And the last thing I’d like to say is that now we are finishing this semester, I’m getting along fine with computers, and I don’t hate them anymore!
It was nice to share a part of my world with all of you J

My Favorite Book

     The last book I read (although I still don’t finish it) is my favorite book, it’s called TODA MAFALDA, that was wrote (drew) by Joaquín Salvador Lavado (also known as QUINO), an argentinian comic book artist. I have chosen this book, because it’s really special to me: I worked a lot to buy it! And I bought it with my girlfriend in a great day we had. We bought it in Feria del Libro J

     It’s about Mafalda’s life. Mafalda is a five years old argentinian little girl that grows during the 60s, and that doesn’t know how the world works. She wants to understand everything that happens around the world, so she makes ‘strange’ questions to her parents and friends: about Cold War, social inequalities, latin american political tensions, consumerism, sex, music, modern life… or whatever you can imagine… she really wants to know EVERYTHING!

     Mafalda has a group of different friends: Manolito, Felipe, Susanita, Miguelito, Libertad and her little brother Guille.

     I'm still reading this book, so I don't know how does it end, but the only thing I know is that I enjoy each and every page I read...

     I admire the way Mafalda links diferent elements, and then she mixes up everything in a very intrincate question, making her parents or friends feel uncomfortable.

     She loves to listen to The Beatles (me too), she thinks they would be presidents!

     She really hates to eat soup, she even thinks it’s a bad word. Always she’s angry she says ‘SOUP!’. Once she said that this world is a soup, meaning that this is a bad world.

     She has some quotes I like a lot, my favorite one is Start your day with a smile in your face and you’ll see how fun is to walk across the world clashing with everyone!

     I recommend you to read this book, or any other about Mafalda (there’s a lot of Mafalda’s books), I’m sure you’ll enjoy it! J

One Photograph I Like

This one is a photograph I like, it’s called “Heaven”, and it was taken by a girl called Sarah (I know nothing about this girl, or when did she really took the photo.  I don’t know where does she live, or how old is she. I only know that she uploaded the foto this year to a web site called “Deviantart” under the name of “Dark-and-Dreamless”).  I usually don’t upload photos to facebook, so I had nothing personal to upload here. But, when I want to find amazing photos, I always look for them in
www.deviantart.com (if you want to have a nice time watching beautiful pictures and photos, I recommend to you this site).

I like this photo, because it shows a special moment I really love: Sunset.  It shows the moment when day ends, and the sky turns pink and orange and purple, moreover clouds seem to be made of fire. It’s like a flaming sky, burning day worries over the horizon to recieve the night with arms wide open. This moment means Feedom to me, because it coincides with the end of university classes, so I can go home and rest for a little while.

I like the colors of this photo, and the fire-shaped clouds. It makes me feel relaxed.  Sometimes I’d like that all the day were a sunset, because of the colors in the sky and the smell in the air. Have you ever noticed the sunset smell? (Normally, the air turns fresh, I think it’s nice).

The Little Prince liked to watch sundowns just when he was sad, however, I like sunsets when I’m sad or when I’m happy, it doesn’t really matter.

The Best Day Of My Life

I think the best day of my life was between april 29th and 30th of this year.

It was between Friday’s afternoon and Saturday’s evening.

First, my girlfriend invited me to her cousin’s birthday party.

The story started when history classes at university ended and I went to my girlfriend’s house  (although, I must admit that each day I spend with her is a great day).

Well, the first interesting thing is that we didn’t know where would the party be, so, finding the apartment was an adventure! We had some instructions to find the place, but we didn’t know exactly where it was.

When we found it, we noticed that there was a lot of noisy people we didn’t know. That made me feel uncomfortable. In the middle of the night we had some troubles with apartment’s neighbors because of noises, so each and everyone of us had to go out of the building AT 4 AM!

We were scared. Santiago is not the same city late at night. I had a lot of money in my pockets (all I saved selling alfajores and handcrafted wallets), and I thought somebody could have stolen it.

We took a taxi and we went to an apartment we didn’t know (that belongs to a person I met in the party). It was a kind of office, so it didn’t have beds inside. We slept three hours on the floor, but we were together. :B

Saturday's morning, we woke up early and we didn’t find food, so we went out to have breakfast.  We bought a box of milk and some cookies in a supermarket, and then we came to the university VERY TIRED to learn some things about the Rengalentun vegetable garden, and we spent all the morning there (we painted our hands green to make some signs).

In the afternoon, we went to the center of the city (again) an we bought Toda Mafalda, a giant book I was looking for...

Finally, we went back to her house… It was a very long day, but we enjoyed it.
It's special to me because we were together a long time, and we did a lot of things together, it was a kind of adventure...J

My Cellphone

My favorite piece of technology is my cellphone.

I got it to my eighteenth birthday (it was a gift, obviously) one year ago.

I use it as an alarm clock by the mornings, and I usually use it to call my girlfriend and my parents. Sometimes I take pictures with my cellphone, and rarely I use it to listen to music. It’s not common for me to receive calls from my friends.

I use it everyday, and I must admit that I feel a little desperate when its battery is dead.

I like my cellphone, although it’s a basic one, because without it I couldn’t coordinate some  activities with my girlfriend, and most of the times it would be impossible for me to call my parents when I’m late at street and I won’t go home early.

But I’m not obsessed with my mobile phone, I’m sure I could live without it (because I’ve alredy done it), but it would be a little bit slow to do the things I do very fast right now (for example, to call my parents when I’m late I would need to find a public phone).

Maybe, life would be better without cellphones, and doing everything slowly. My grandparents were happy, and they didn’t even dreamed with a cellphone.  

Maybe, if I didn’t have to come to the university, I wouldn’t need a cellphone. I hope one day I can live without electricity, as the Himalayan sages . J

Switzerland, a place I’d like to visit :)

Switzerland is a beautiful landlocked country, placed in Europe, between France,  Germany, Austria and Italy. It’s one of the richest countries in the world. It didn’t  take part in the world wars, even being between every belligerent countries!

Its neutrality attracted a lot of inmigrants, so it has a lot of cultures inside.  Swiss people speak french, germany, italian and romanche.

It’s famous because of its mountains, watches, chocolates, penknives, banks, trains and cheese.

I’d like to visit this place because I like chocolates, and there I could find the bets ones!

I would go with my girlfriend, I know she would love that place (she loves chocolate as I do).

Also, I like mountains, and here lies the Alps mountain range (don’t you remember the place where Heidi lived?)

I’d like to live here, milking cows in the heights of a mountain, singing old francophone songs and sleeping far away from city noises.  I could have a peaceful life in there.

But, it’s nothing but a dream, because I don’t have money to travel there, and I’m not saving at all. But maybe, one day I’ll win the lottery, so I’ll do everything I want, even the trip to Switzerland! :D

Daydreams are free ;)

...Radiohead...

When I'm sad I always listen to Radiohead. It's an English alternative rock band, formed by Thom Yorke (the one from the picture, who sings and plays the guitar and piano too), Jonny Greenwood (who plays the main guitar and a lot of other instruments), his brother Colin Greenwood (the guy who plays the bass), Ed O’Brien (guitar and second voice) and Phil Selway (drummer).

They started playing at 90’s, and they’ve done eight albums. I like the first one (called ‘Pablo Honey’, released in 1992), but my favorite album is the second one, ‘The Bends’. My favourite song is ‘Just’.

I always listen to them when I’m sad, ‘cause their music is sad. It really doesn’t make me happy, it just make me feel worst. But I like it, and after feeling sad and listen to them I start to feel better. J

I know them since I was twelve years old, but I started to listen to all their music when I was sixteen. I’ve seen a lot of their videos, I’ve heard all their songs, I really love them.

In 2008, they came to Chile, but I didn’t have money to go to the concert. :P

Maybe one day I’ll see them playing live J 

Watch a video!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_qMagfZtv8

Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget is the person I admire. He was a swiss psychologist, known for his studies about how children learn while they're growing up. He placed great importance on the education of children. He was also a biologist, an epistemologist and a philosopher. He was born in the Francophone region of  Switzerland in 1896, and when he was young he started to identify common cognitive patterns on kids, young people and adults. Long after that, he propounded the Theory of Cognitive Development, one of the theories that I studied at school. This theory says that our knowledge is developed in four stages [sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete opreational and formal operational]. He wrote a lot of books about his studies. Finally, he died in 1980, and every year it's commemorated (every september 17th) in the 'psycho-pedagogue day'. I admire him, because he was one of the first people that studied the children's mind, and I think that's what I'm gonna do in my future job. Apart from that, I like two of his quotes: "Intelligence is what you use when you don't know what to do" and "Only education is capable of saving our societies from collapse". 

Ponyo

The last movie I saw was 'Ponyo' (also known as ''Ponyo on the cliff by the sea'', or ''Ponyo, and the mermaid's secret''). It's a japanese animation movie, directed by Hayao Miyazaki (the one who did ''Marco'', ''Heidi'', ''Chihiro's Trip'', ''Howl's Moving Castle'' and ''My Neighbor Totoro'', he's a kind of japanese Walt Disney). It's about a five years old little mermaid that falls in love with a human boy, defying the forces of her evil father, but supported by Mother Nature. It's a beautyful movie, full of color and strange ways of life, it's like a little child's dream :)

Well, I'm trying to do it right.

Hi everyone! My name is Ricardo, and the only thing I can think right now is 'how I hate computers'. When I was a child life was so easy, we woke up early to milk some cows. But since computers appeared everything must be done with them: nobody can live without them, no one knows how to write a letter without a keyboard .___. I think we should get back to the origin, and start again :) I Study psychology at Universidad de Chile, I'm 18 years old. First time I wrote in this blog I had some problems, that's why I wrote in spanish (I was angry, and I just can think in spanish when I'm angry) :P