Post 10: English Language Challenges

As you can see, first semester 2017 is ending right now! And English Intermediate is ending too, our last English course. But English in our daily life is not the end, because we’re overwhelmed of this language in every moment.

English Intermediate was a good experience, because I think that I could improve several English skills: writing, reading, speaking and listening-comprehension. This is the main reason that I love this subject, because I had to practice different abilities with creative and pedagogical methods. I think the use of blog was funny, because we’ve created a little blog community with our faculty’s classmates, and I’ve read a lot of amusing and interesting blog posts!

Some aspects of my English must be improved, particularly my awfully speaking and listening-comprehension skills. Anyway, I’m very young so I have a lot of time to practice, like hearing podcasts and talking with friends.

Indeed, I met a Faroese girl that speaks English, and outside the English class I’m using and practicing with her. She doesn’t talk native English, in fact, her first language is Faroese and Danish, but English is very easy for her.

The life has a lot of projects, maybe when I’m a sociologist in some years; I’m going to need an excellent English if I want to read or write any updated social sciences investigation paper, because all the scientific literature is in English, or if I want to travel to any English-speaking country. Otherwise, I will die in trying! Maybe I will get lost in a foreign country if I can’t communicate with someone!

See you guys and I hope that you’ve enjoyed in my English blog.

Post 9: Changes to my Study Programme

Recently, in our career programme, Department of Sociology has implemented new changes in the curriculum. Honestly, I’m not very informed about the details, but I know some main changes: principally in the first year in sociology, so these changes won’t affect me in the next years.

Anyway, I think it’s important to have a constantly renewal in our curriculum, because we need to update about new sociological knowledge and methods. In our case, we are much updated about that, but I will make changes about the structure of our optative courses. First, all the “specialized sociologies” like sociology of culture, sociology of organizations and economical sociology must be optional, in the same way of the other optative courses.

About the workload and length of studies are fine (I’m unaware about the final process in my career: titling and thesis), but I will recommend about the possibility to get the master’s degree in our faculty only in one year, if you come from our faculty: so, you could have your sociology degree + master degree in only six years. Maybe, our department could implement some modifications in fifth and last year of our degree, like doing one thesis valid to degree and postgraduate. But now you can do this in seven years.

Faculty facilities are fine too, but I think that we need a bigger library, with reading and study rooms in groups.

The use of technology is important in our career, because when we learn about quantitative methods we use computer programmes, but we don’t have access. We need a free access in theses computer programmes.

Finally, about teaching methods it depends on each teacher, but I think that it’s important to have several instances in our learning, like field visits. In addition, teachers must complement other ways in evaluations and not only do writing exams.

Post 8: Winter Holidays

Winter holidays is coming soon! I think that I've been waiting for holidays since about one month ago. Sometimes, the university dynamic is tiring, because you must do and achieve a lot of responsibilities in short-term. Anyway, I like my career and the university life, but I think that we need to rest.

First, in my winter holidays I want to go to the South of Chile. Maybe I’m going to travel to Puerto Varas and Valdivia, because I love these cities. In Valdivia, I want to visit Fog Fort, the Archeological Museum of the Universidad Austral de Chile, take a cold swim in Llanquihue Lake and then drink a hot cup of coffee. Finally, I will visit and have a trekking day on National Park Vicente Pérez Rosales. To read a good book while I'm enjoying in these wonderful landscapes.

At the same time, I want to visit my friends in these cities. To have a good time with them telling stories, talking about several issues, drinking beer and cooking “chorrillana” (French fries with sausages, bell pepper and onion). Perhaps I will go with my girlfriend, Daniela, if she doesn’t work in July.

I’m not planning to work in winter, because I want to have a relax time with my friends, but at the end of July, probably I’m going to give a lecture in a biblical and theological school, so I need to prepare the study material and the expositions about that: I must prepare the lectures, contents, powerpoint presentations and learn with others.

Post 7: My favourite TV show

Certainly, I don’t watch TV every day, only when I’m dinning or having lunch in my home… in these instances, you always watch any news programme on TV, but in general it’s on TVN (Televisión Nacional de Chile) or Canal 13.

Anyway, I often watch TV series on Netflix. My favourite is “Sherlock”, a crime drama based in Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels of this famous Britain detective: Sherlock Holmes, and his adventures with his best friend John Watson. Sherlock series is a co-production with BBC and happens in the modern England, affected by complex and crime cases, but Sherlock with his awesome abilities will resolve them. For it, Sherlock uses the inductive method when he talks with different witnesses and his prominent logical thought. As you can see, the main characters are Sherlock and Watson, this last character is a doctor who recently left the war.

My favourite episode was a special episode released in January 2016 called “The Abominable Bride”. It continues the storyline, but in an alternative timeline: the Victorian London like the original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. The storyline is about a public murder committed by a bride to her husband. But I’m not going to tell you the entire chapter, because if you want to watch it, I recommend it.

I like watching Sherlock because it’s a synonym of free time, where I have a relax time.

Post 6: Postgraduate Studies

I want to confess something, and it’s just about this matter. I think that to do postgraduate studies is a real prospective option in my life, and I thought it several times. Well, the reason of this situation is simple: Actually, it’s very important to consider this option, because in my knowledge area (social sciences) there’s an unfortunately fierce rivalry between your workmates. So, the labour market priories and make selection of professionals who do these types of courses, because it’s an indicator that you’ve good skills and demonstrates about your specialization.

However, in my way the main reason is to reach a personal development like social scientist. Of course, I want to study subjects like sociology of religion and sociology of knowledge, because I love this issues in my career.

I would like to get an international postgraduate course, because in countries like USA, England or Germany, the postgraduate course has less time of length (master degree: one year) in comparison of Chilean postgraduate (master degree: two years), and the international postgraduates are more prestigious than local postgraduates. In addition, you can travel and have some little vacations in another country.

I would like to study a full-time course, but I hope to juggle with a work, because I need incomes if I want to fund it. The postgraduate studies are very expensive, but it's necessary! :-(

Post 5: My Future Job

I think that to talk about the kind of job that I would like to have is a little bit prospective, meaning, to think about a future relatively far from me, because immediately I think about a stable job and denying the partial jobs: its conditions and experience that I had in these partial jobs that I had.

Anyway, if I start to think about this ideal job that I would like to have, I’m imagining it related to my career. Well, everybody knows that I’m studying sociology, so I want to work as it. Once I finish my studies in sociology, I want to migrate to Valdivia, a city located in the south of Chile in the XIV Región de Los Ríos, about 750 km from Santiago de Chile. In Valdivia you can find Universidad Austral, one of Chile's seven original traditional universities. I have a vocation for teaching and investigation, I like when other people learn and acquire new knowledge, and if I am an instrument for that, It's an honour for me. So, the kind of job I would like to have is in the education area, to train persons being a teacher, to contribute like a researcher in a multidisciplinary team work of any topic of sociological studies. However, I think that to be a teacher in a university is a very competitive area.

I think that it isn’t very important in my preferences about outdoors or indoors in the way of my job, but I would prefer a mixture about this. Probably, I often travel in this job, because the academics usually give several lectures in other universities. Finally, I think that this ideal job will use a bit of time in an office, but it isn’t a problem for me.

Welcome!

Welcome to my english blog guys! 

My name is Matías and I'm 20 years old. This is my second year in sociology in Faculty of Social Sciences (FACSO) of our university: University of Chile

I think my main weakness in english are listening and writing abilities, so I hope to improve it during this semester. On the other hand, my main strenghts in english are vocabulary, reading comprehension and speaking abilities, so my principal expectatives about that is test it.

See you! :-)

Post 3: Election day

Well, first it's a very controversial issue, because in Chile we are living a politic crisis. Actually, the great chilean population don't want to vote 'cause we are in a generalized atmosphere of distrust, and the people is angry about this. I think that although we are living in bad political moments. We need motivation to participate in politic, on the contrary, the same people will stay in the politic power perpetuating the corruption and injustice in our country. So, I will vote in the upcoming elections because we need great changes in the traditional forms in the chilean politics, and voting is a form to participate in the social change (not the unique).

In the last elections in my district (La Florida, Santiago de Chile), the politics candidates was Rodolfo Carter (current mayor in La Florida, ex-UDI and independent with a liberal and conservative thought), Juan Zurita (Partido Ecologista Verde), David Peralta (Partido Comunista de Chile). María Morales (Unión Patriótica) and Alexis Schumacher (Partido Progresista). It was difficult in my context, because no one represents my political thought and projects for my district: Carter and Peralta goes in the coalitions Chile Vamos and Nueva Mayoría respectively, so they represent the old chilean politic, the same as Schumacher (Partido Progresista keeps near relationships with Nueva Mayoría); I thought that Zurita and Morales don't have enought faculties to assume the mayor position in my district and I'm disagree with booth ideological convictions that Zurita and Morales represents, but finally I voted for Zurita.

In the presidential elections I'm going to vote, but I want to wait the final candidatures and then I will make a decision. I think the main qualities should be a public vocation and a great politic competences, making good decisions and having a real sense of social justice.

Finally, I have consider to get involved in politics, but the current parties don't represent my political thought. I think my current politic action is mainly in the social movements, and I think that it could be to stay in this sphere in the short time.

Post 2: The best concert ever

I want to talk about the best concert ever in my life. Yann Tiersen was in Chile, a french musician and composer of contemporary classical and post-rock music. Yann is famous because he composed Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain (The fabulous life of Amélie Poulain)

Constanza, a school friend of mine, invited me about seven years ago: exactly 28 May 2010! It is the last time when Yann Tiersen involves with his beautiful music in our country, so I remembered that it was a great night in “Teatro Nescafé de las Artes” (Arts Nescafé Theatre). This theatre is located in Manuel Montt, Providencia.

I enjoyed a lot, because in this concert (and Yann Tiersen’s music in general) included several instruments: melodica, xylophone, toy piano, accordion and violins, so he played it each one. I liked it because he demostrated a minimalistic composition with avant-gardist details.

Other reasons that I enjoyed a lot was when Yann played one of my favourite song called “Sur le fil”. I remembered that it was a very exciting situation, because when you heard your favourite song in live version, you only stay amazed because the experience is different, in contrast when you heard your favourite song in the studio version.

Enjoy it if you want:

Post 1: A Country I would like to visit

A country that I would like to go is Iceland. Do you know Iceland? Iceland is a island-country in Atlantic Ocean between Canada and England. Yes, It’s very far far away.. but I love it! Because it had incredible and unique landscapes.

Daniel, my nephew, told me about this place. So, inmediately I searched it in Google and I only stood amazed when I saw an unbelievables photos of differents places of Iceland

I would like to visit their characteristic volcanos, wonderful spots of panoramic seeings, the famous Aurora Borealis, any other sightseeing activities. Finally, I want to take a relaxing bath in the Blue Lagoon and have dinner with a local family.

Well, I think that Iceland could be a great place to live there, because it has several great social and economic indicators related of life wellness. Maybe, I’m going to migrate to Iceland when I will become elder. But, the unique condition to live there will be that my house must to have a big chimney, because the weather in Iceland is very cold: an eternal winter with snow all the year!

Post 4: Someone I'd like to meet

Today, the post is about a person who I want to meet. I think it's a very difficult decision because I'd like to meet a lot of different and famous people. So, I did an effort selection, and I chose a very well-known person. If you allow me to begin, it’s about Arturo Vidal.

As you know, Arturo Vidal is a chilean football player and he has 29 years old. He lived in San Joaquín, a district in Santiago, and his first steps as a football player was in Rodelindo Román (local amateur team in his neighborhood), playing like midfielder. Then, he was in Colo-Colo (Chile), Bayer Leverkusen (Germany) and Juventus (Italy). Actually, he is playing at Bayern München (Germany). Obviously, he represents our Chile national team being a key element in the midfield.

I think Arturo Vidal is an extravagant person, as you can see, he has a special haircut. In add, he has a daring personality and is very tall (1,8 meters). Once, he had problems during 2015, because he was driving under the influence of alcohol.

In spite of, I admire Arturo because he had a particular style of play. He stands out for his versatility, because he can play in several positions in the football camp, and he is a very hard-working player, because he does a great tackles against his adversaries.

The main accomplishments of Arturo are two-time champion of Copa América, champion in Italy (Serie A) and Germany (Bundesliga).

I hope to meet him, maybe playing a football match and drinking a cup of wine or beer with him… but I wish that the driver won’t be Arturo ;-).