improving our english with a blog

Hello everyone, this is the end of a pretty fun experience. I enjoyed writing on my blog because I got to practice a lot more my english. I hadn´t had a blog before this one, so it was also a new experience from that perspective.
Letting your ideas written in somewhere is always a great exercise to improve your writting and expressing yourself, and it´s actually better if it is in english because it helps you to improve it doing something fun.
Tha advantages of blogging in the english class are many, you get to practice your english in a nice way, you get to know what other people think of many topics and it´s a great way to do something different to learn.
For the other side, I don´t think there are any disadvantages of blogging in the english class because there is nothing wrong about it.
I can surely say I had a great time blogging during classes. In the matter fact it was my favorite part of the subject. I wish we had a better infrastucture to do new and better things. The only way to learn english is practising it by talking and writing.
Thank you very much teacher for all the knowledges you have given to us, we will remember you and your classes.
Bye everyone I wish you a great end of the semester, do good on your exams so then we can party hard! haha

Many dreams to be fulfilled

Well, it´s kind of hard to imagine where I would be in the future, but I guess everyone has dreams and we just have to let them fly.
I see myself in 7 years from now finishing my career and looking for a job, maybe at the government. I won´t mind if it is at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it would be perfect! Because I would like to work at a foreign country, and that´s a great way to start.
One of my dreams is to apply to the Diplomatic Academy; my perfect job would be working in Africa, I´m realling looking forward to reach that goal. Most of the people who enter to this academy want to work in developed countries so they can get better opportunities of life and incomes, but I´m not interested in anything of that. I just dream about getting to know the African culture, I don´t care if I have to renounce to some privileges; however, as long as I feel comfortable and happy about what i´m doing I will learn more about myself and other people.
I have to be realistic though, and I know it won´t be easy to get to where I´m dreaming, but while I dream I have other options.
If I don´t work at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I would like to work at the private sector, having my own consulting firm. And this is because I´ve always had my own "business" as selling handmade bracelets, cookies,homemade icecream, nail polish, movies and whatever sounds good to make money. So I know, I won´t leave my "turco" side apart. Plus this, my sister and I have already talked about having a restaurant in the future, She will be the Chef in charge and I will do the administrative work (we are doing this no matter what, haha).
Some time ago, I was clear about not working in Santiago in the future, because I don´t want my kids to grow up at a big city as this one, I want them to experience what is like living at a small city, far away from "centralism", I want them to think as a region person, I want them to value the price of things, and the most important thing I want them to live at a beautiful city with trees and close to the country, mountains and the beach. But I have realized that what I´m studying will only give me the satisfaction I´m looking for if I work in Santiago or at a foreign country. Someones can say, "yes but you can work at the local governement in your city or whatever". Yes, I know, but I think we have to go further than our parents did, my dad left Chillán to study in Temuco and my mom left Castro to study in Temuco as well. And then destiny put them together in Villarrica. I think If I´m in Santiago it is for a reason, to build my own life. And even if it is not the city I would like my children to grow up, I like it and It´s the perfect city to develop myself as a Public Administrator.
Now, considering I have gave many options about how I imagine my life in the future, there is only one thing left to say: whatever I do in the future will only depend on my habilities to put in practice what I have learnt at university. No one will show up to offer me the perfect job, I´ll have to work hard to reach what I´ve been dreaming for a while.

THE COUNTRY OF WRITERS I LIVE IN

Reading is one of the best things in the world. I have always liked it because it makes you get inside new worlds and it lets your imagination work. It is incredible how you can be reading at home and at the same time, you feel like in anywhere else. The kind of books I enjoy reading are novels and fantastic ones. My favorite book is Harry Potter, I have read all of them. In fact, I started reading his books before he got famous. Also, the novels from Hernán Rivera Letelier are my favorite, I love the way He writes and how he made himslf a writer. I´m actually reading "Himno del Ángel parado en una pata" from him, but I haven´t been able to read it in a long time because of my studies. I wish I had more time to do it.

I consider myself a good reader since I was little. I have always had a book near me to be read. However, I believe kids from now haven´t got the habit of reading yet. The fact of having internet at home keeps them connected to the computer all day long. Kids only read the books assigned at school. Anyway, i don´t think they will disappear with the advent of internet. Internet can give you many options, entertainment, games, homeworks done, among others, but it will never give you the pleasure of having a book in your hands. I read a long time ago an article from La Tercera called "10 things that will dissapear with the time", and one of them was the paper book. Right after I read it I thought they were wrong because not everyone has the posibility to read a book in a digital format, and some of us, like me, definetely don´t like reading books in the computer. We all like technology but the true is that at some point we wil get full of it.

Right now, we need to promete reading among the young. The state usually asks why kids don´t read? why "pirateria" increases so quickly? and it´s because books taxes are really high. Common people don´t have money to buy authentic ones, and what does the government do? they go after the people who makes copies of them! They better regulate the prices of them. Plus this, It´s not acceptable that in Argentina you can find cheaper Pablo Neruda´s books than in Chile. We live in a country of poets and writers, we should have a better "reading system".

Equality? our big goal

The world we live in has experimented a lot of changes about equality between men and women. I would say that today, we are more likely to say that we are finally reaching equal rights. Our history has given us a lot of examples of a strong unequality in the society. From the beggining men have always been in charge of everything, they had the "only knowlegde" about politics, justice, and pretty much everything related to leading a country. But the story has changed, after the globalization started women have felt braver about themselves and they have started taking part of this important process that make our society a better one. And it´s not because they didn´t want to do it before, it´s because our own society didn´t let them do it. We can see this kind of things with the scientifics, because some of them didn´t even discover what they patented later, but their wives did it.

I think public policies have helped to give the same opportunities for both, men and women, because they create mechanisms to set them under the same scale, otherwise, we would kept being controlled by men. One example of this is what Michelle Bachelet did with the election of her ministers, because she thought about parity. A half of them were women and the other one men. This shows us how important this issue is if it starts from our own government.

This career will help to obtain equality only if we are sure enough that we need it to progress. It´s not enough if we start working and sit all day long waiting for parity to come, we need to feel part of it and start making changes, that´s our big goal as students. Make it true!

.

Living with a camera

My favourite piece of technology is the camera. Actually, the first thing I bought with my own money when I was younger was a camera, I would say that I was 10 probably. My sister and I safe money for a long time and then my parents put the rest. It felt so good having one just for us! My parents have always loved taking pictures so I guess I was born with it, they taught us that a great picture is worth it than anything. You can always keep it with you as a memory.
Everytime I go on a trip or there is a celebration I take my camera with me, I can´t concieve not having a picture of a good moment, that is why I always put my camera on my purse as the first thing. In fact, before I decided to study this career I wanted to study photography, but I knew my parents wouldn´t let me because they said than I had to study something that I like and at the same time, something capable of making money in the futere.
There is something though that I always felt badly about, and it is that when digital cameras arrived to Chile, my family decided to buy one, and one day, my sister and I were taking a picture and I unconsciously dropped it. It was what a shame! The zoom got absolutely broken, so the camera was no longer useful. After that, we had to come back to use our old camera. However, I safe money for a long time again and I bought a new one. So from there, I really take care of my camera, when someone asks me to borrow my camera I´m not willing to do it. I always see how my friends treat their cameras, and I try to tell them how important is to take care of them, but I think a camera doesn´t mean the same for everyone.
Life wouldn´t be the same to me with out a camera, there has always been a camera along my life, so It is already part of me.

The films of my life

I really enjoy watching films, because it is a good way to entertain yourself. My favorite films are based on suspense stories. They make you stay the whole film wanting to know what the end is going to be because they make you think and you can always bet how it is going to end up.
If I have the change I prefer going to the cinema to watch an interesting movie, but I completely like watching films at home also, with a good company as my boyfriend, my family or my friends, and some yummy food. The next film I want to watch is Alice in Wonderland, it sounds like a very good film to me.
I would say that my favorite films are not suspense´s ones, but the ones from Harry Potter because they are my favorite books too, I read the first one when I was in 6th grade, so it´s been a long time I have been liking everything about Harry Potter. I am so excited about the new film, I can´t wait to see it! It should be arriving this year.
Chileans films don´t really like me that much, but I have to recognize that I loved Machuca and the newest one, Ojos Rojos. They are really good films because they represent important things about our country, and also, the quality of them is excelent. I have seen both of them at the cinema. I wacthed Machuca with my family some years ago, and I watched Ojos Rojos with my boyfriend last week. If you get the chance you should go to the cinema and watch it as soon as you can.

Music :)

Well, firs of all I have to say that music isn´t that important to me as it is for most of teenagers. I mean I can walk without listening to any music or I don´t need to be listening to music everytime I´m on the computer. But anyway, that doesn´t mean I don´t like. I do like it, but I don´t need to be listening to music all day long. It´s kind of a "when I feel like listening to the music I like" relation.
I actually like a little bif of everything, but I´m more of a past times music follower I would say It´s because I grew up listening to the music my parents liked, which means Los Jaivas, Silvio Rodriguez, Schwenke & Nilo, Mercedes Soza, Sol y Lluvia, Quilapayún and many other "protest bands".
But my favorite music band is Soda Stereo, I love the way they lived life and they created so many good songs. I always said I was going to pay whatever it costed to see them once they come back together, and my dream came true when they got together in 2007. Unfortunately by the time they came to Chile I wasn´t here and I liked it or not my dream was gone. I have always felt sad about it.
Well, not everything is from the past though. I do like english rap, even if it´s kind of dirty I like it. It makes me happy and it fills me with energy. My favorite rap singers or groups are Akon, Lil Wayne, Black Eyed Peas, Rihanna and Usher.
When I´m studying I don´t like listening to music unless I´m writing because I can´t get focus. And when I´m happy I listen to everything I have on my computer and so do I when I´m sad, because if I´m sad I don´t like to listen to sad songs. It´s better when you distract yourself.
Most of the music I have I get it for free on the internet (I hope no one related to author´s rights is reading this). I download the songs from Ares and I play them on Itunes.

I think music is an accompanyment to me because it makes me feel good, but it´s not really important.

The EARTHQUAKE

The night of the earthquake I was at my boyfriend´s grandparent´s house in Valdivia. When it started I thought that there was a truck passing by the house, but then it kept trembling so I got up as soon as I could and I realized that the only thing it could be was an earthquake. My first thought was "lucky me, I´m in Valdivia and the 1960´s earthquake was right in here" .It was such a terrible moment because I thought my life was going to end. It´s funny because you always hear that "at the end" you realize how much you love your family and the people who are always with you; and it´s true. In those minutes I felt so sad because I wasn´t going to be able to say bye to my family. And I was also worried because pretty much all my dad´s relatives live in Chillán and we couldn´t get to talk to them easily. But anyways, thank god my whole family was fine and no one got hurt. And even if it sounds a little bit selfish I´m very grateful the earthquake wasn´t before because my family and I had just come back from Pelluhue five days before. I´m pretty sure if we would had been in there the story would had been a different one.
And as many Chileans did after the earthquake I helped with money and food. I have to say though that my younger sister did a better job than mine because she helped as a volunteer at the Hogar de Cristo.
This earthquake made me think that we have to enjoy every moment we have with the people we love because you never know how much time left you have in this world. So now, when I´m talking on the phone with my family or when I´m with my boyfriend and we argue, I like to resolve it right there than going to sleep mad at them.

About myself

My name is Carmen Paz Lara, I´m 20 years old. I come from a beautiful city called Villarrica, which is located in the south of Chile. I´m studying Public Administration at the Universidad de Chile in Santiago. I chose this career because I wanted to study something related to History and the fact of working with people directly.
I really expect to improve my english with this blog and get to practice it with other people. I also expect to get to know most of my classmates and what they think.