Final post

Hi friends, classmates and teacher. This is my last post of the english programme, that makes me feel sad and happy at same time, because I think it was a nice experience and also a good way to improve english habilities. A lot of us came from schools and colleges where the development of lenguage habilities was so poor, so, we have the oportunity to learn more here at the university.

I think that is very important to learn how to speak in english, because is like the "universal language". Almost in all the world the people uses it and is very helpful to communicate to foreigners, just look to Alexis Sánchez (little boy, from Tocopilla, playstation 2, do you understand?), when I grow up, I wanna be like him.

But is very important to learn how to speak correctly, it would be very shameful to try to speak to somebody without the knowledges, as Lucho Jara o Carlos Tévez (very dificult, no?)

This cathedra was very interesting, also teacher Álvaro is so funny and best teacher in the world. The blog experience helped us to learn how to write better and develop some interesting things, also, we learned something about what our classmates thinks or likes.

The knowledge I acquire will help me if someday I travel to USA or United Kingdom (I want to it, maybe for study and/or work there). Usually I don't use english out od the class, maybe for searching music or something, but speak it (or even listen or read) is a good way to learn more)

Post 7 - Changes to my study programme

Hi everyone, today I am going to write about what I would like to change about my study programme. I must say that Public administration is an excellent carrer and I love it, educational quality is one of the best (and maybe, the best) in the country, but is necessary to fix some thing that students and even teachers doesn't like.

First, the building where we study is like a hole in the middle of the valley of misery, while we are walking through a field of legos without wearing shoes. We really need a place with better conditions, not only for students, also for teachers and workers of the university.

EGGP (View from above)

The ranking is made wrong, it doesn't allow to students who reprobated a subject to get a better position in the future, because they will be always at the bottom. Now it will me replaced by the "ranking of hapiness" which is used at Law Faculty, but I can't trust in it because it will make harder to be with your mates at some classes, hindering to work with people you like to...

Also, some teachers are very smart and have a lot of knowledge in their areas, but they have a lot of dispecable attitudes, as for example maleness, sexism and even misogyny. They were denounced but some them are still working here like nothing happened. It makes me feel angry (more than usual).

After all, I am happy to have the oportunity to study here, not all can study at Universidad de Chile.

Post 6 - My summer plans

Hi everyone, today I am going to write about my plans during the summer holidays. The first thing I will do is get out of this toxic city called Santiago, because the t° during Janauary is too high, so I will travel to my house in Puerto Varas with my father, or maybe Valdivia, where my mother lives. Maybe my grilfriend Sofia, who is from Santiago, will go along with me for some days or weeks, so then we will go to some places that she doesn't know, as Huilo Huilo or Frutillar.

I have another plans too, I will record some songs that I wrote with my band, because during the university period I just can't do for the time, even I could write some new songs or lyrics. Also I will read some books that I didn't ended yet, as The Shining by Stephen King or The Trial by Franz Kafka.

I really want to rest from the studies and see my family, because while I am studying, I am so far and I really miss them, so I will spend a big part of my holidays in Puerto Varas, Valdivia and also Osorno.

I will do another things too, as get my driver license, but first I must learn how to drive. I don't like it, but my father always tell me that I must do it some day, because I will need it. Maybe it is true, but I really hate to drive, I always say that I will lose control and kill everyone...

Post 5 - Dogs

Hi everyone, today I am going to talk about my favorite animal, the dogs. The dog is a member of genus canis, forming part of wolf-like canids, and they are mainly carnivore. In the past, the dogs used to be like wild wolves, but they were domesticated until be as we know it today. First human groups had dogs for helping them to hunt their food, protect them from bigger animals or another rival tribe.

When I lived in Puerto Varas, it was in a rural zone, so they were a lot of dogs at my house, in a moment were almost twenty. There was a lot of races, as boxers, bulldog, poodles, etc. but there was a lot of quadrants dogs picked up from the streets or highways. Some of them were hurted, so we helped them calling to a veterinary.

My first dog was called "Budi", a little cocker spaniel who died some years ago, he was so funny and loyal, also he loved to play with me and eat garbage.

Me and Budi

Nowadays, in my mother's house in Valdivia, she lives with my brother and a little poodle called "Cartón" (I know that the name is very stupid, It should be temporary, but finally it was not). I love him because he remebers me a lot to Budi, they are so similar in a lot of aspects.

Cartón and me at the last New year's eve

Post 5 - My future job

I never questioned what I will (or want to) do in my life. When I was a child I never weanted to grow up, but today I'm 19 and it depresses me.

Today, I have decided what I will do in the future. I want to be the dictator of Chile, something like Sacha Baron Cohen in his movie "The Dictator".

Why a Dictator instead of be a democratically elected President? Because is easier. I still don't know how I will achieve it, but I am sure that I will create a good plan.

I imagine that everybody is going to love me, because I will be the leader that all countries need, also, I will do good thing for the people, as for example "popular bars" (like the drugstores) with popular prices. Also , I will nationalize the best football players of this universe for win the World Cup (because peoples cares more about football than important things, as education and health). Also, I will change the national anthem for a funnier song, maybe this:

I will work in a humble office from my palace, but all people will have one. If all population have palaces, Europe will think that Chile is a developed country, at least more than Japan, China or United States.

I'd like to travel across the galaxy, developing interstelar relations with aliens, it will be good for the universal economy.

Today, I'm studying public administration, learning the necessary thigs to administrate public things.

Post 4 - My favorite music

Hi everybdy, today I am going to write about my favorite kind of music: rock and heavy metal. Usually people thinks that I like to burn churches, participate in satanic cults, wear black clothes, get high and kill babies only because I listen to heavy metal music, but that is not all true, I don't like to kill babies.

My friends and I in a satanic cult, listening to Bon Jovi

I started to listen rock and heavy metal music because my dad always listened to classic bands as AC/DC, Guns 'n Roses, Pink Floyd, Queen, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin Bon Jovi, Van Halen, Dire Straits, etc. Then, when I was like 12 or 13 years old, I started to search new music for my own, finding new bands (for me) as Metallica, Iron Maiden, Linkin Park, Megadeth, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Pantera etc.

Also , when I was a teenager, started to play the guitar and bass, so I should look for new bands to start to play "easier" music (because metal is so hard for begginers) discovering to another new bands as The Ramones (one of my favorites), Motörhead (they're brutal) or Green Day (They're good but their music is for kids).

Always that I listen to rock music, I'd like to die and go to hell, then I could meet some of my favorite musicians (because I know they're not in heaven), also I could rock with Satan drinking some beers.

The guy from "The pianist"

"Bread and roses" is an american film starred Adrien Brody, Pilar Padilla, Elpidia Carrillo and directed by Ken Loach. The plot is about labor exploitation of a group of latin immigrants in United States and their fight against an abusive system and employer.

Honestly, I had to go before the movie ends and I forgot to watch it again, but there was some interesting scenes that I liked. The first one was the beggining, because there was a lot of mexican people shouting, and in my opinion, they speak in a very funny way using words as "pendejo".

Now, talking seriously, I liked the scene when Berta was fired, not because I'm a bad person who enjoyed that, it was we could see how far can go the labor abuse when unconsionable people got the power (and it happens in everything in our lifes). It was a very sad moment.

Another scene which I liked was when the workers started to demand their rights, because they deserved it and were denied by a exploitative employer. In that moment that was very brave. I can imagine that the film has happy end, maybe someday I will know it.

In my opinion, social films help us to know and unsterstand how hard can be the life of some groups of persons. Almost all time we live in a bubble which don't let us see how reality is. Also in some cases, is give us a little more of awareness about our enviroment.

In chilean case, I have no problem with immigrants working here while they're not doing anything wrong or illegal. But the average chilean is racist and xenophobe with latins immigrants, thinking that they're only drug dealers and prostitutes, but that is not true. I feel so sad for the chilean mentality.

Post 2 - The best concert ever

I have been in maybe three or four concerts, but my favorite one was Iron Maiden at the Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez on March 11th of this year. It was the greatest for me because I grew up listening to them, also, that day played Anthrax and The Raven Age too.

Iron Maiden

Iron Maiden is a british heavy metal band from London, founded ain 1975 and is one of the most popular bands on their genre since the '80s along with Metallica. They played a lot of times before in Chile, but maybe that was one of the last.

Their first concert had to be in 1993, but the christian churches and some partys as DC, UDI and RN prohibited their entry to Chile, because they think (even today) that "heavy metal music is satanic and immoral". That is why I think that they are a bunch of idiots who must be kicked off the country and sended to live on a desert island in the middle of the sea.

The atmosphere was great, we were a crowd of almost 55.000 people singing all the songs. The Raven Age is a "new" band, a lot of people doesn't know them but they have good music. All the people "exploded" when Anthrax opened with "Caught in a mosh", and when they played "Indians" was a Wallmapu flag on the stage (it was nice).

During the concert, they played some songs of the new album "The Book of Souls", and their greatest classics as "The Number of the Beast", "Powerslave", "Hallowed be thy Name" and "Fear of the dark". The visual presentation was awesome with a aclimatted stage and lot of pyro and especial effects. I never felt that excited before on a concert, it was the best experience of my short life. Is impossible to not enjoy an Iron Maiden's concert.

I remember that "Pastor Soto" was preaching on Grecia Av. before the concert, it was funny and stupid at same time.

The Raven Age and Anthrax

Post 1 - A country that I'd like to visit: England

Since I was a child, I wanted to visit european countries. Some of my options are Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Russia, but my favorite is England.

I know some facts about the England's culture. Their Government is a constitutinal monarchy, and the Queen is Elizabeth II. 

England have an important cultural influence in the rest of the world. Some of the most famous musicians and bands are english, as Elton John, The Beatles,The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin. Also, english created the football, the most popular sport in the world.

England's population likes to watch "Mr. Bean" during the tea meal at 4-5 PM. The really love tea.

In England, I want to visit the most important cities as London, Mancheser, Liverpool, Birmingham. I'd like to go to the biggest football stadiums (Wembley, Old Trafford, Anfield, Stamford Bridge) and would be really cool to attend to a match beetween Manchester United and Liverpool FC.

I want to know some museums and important places (as Big Ben or Stonehenge) to learn about their culture.

At last, I want to take a lot of pictures of famous english things, as the payphones or buses.

Old Trafford

I'm not sure if I'd like to live in England, I like their culture and weather but I don't want to be ther for the rest of my life. Maybe just travel or even study there for a season.

Blogging experience

In my opinion, the blogging experience was very interesting and funny. But some themes of postings was a little boring, as for example "my favorite piece of technology". It would be a good idea to write more about things like art, music, movies, sport, etc. Also it would help us to learn more about some new things that will never be teached on university.

I feel that learned a little bit more. Write in english is so easier than before for me, and I'm sure that a lot of my classmates learned a lot too. But some of them had problems, because not all have a good english level because didn't learned anything at school. Maybe because in Chile, english is not a priority for the educational system.

In my opinion, we should have more free post. Some classmates wrote really interesting post and we want to read more of them. In the future it could be included to write some brief stories created by ourselves, I'm sure that some classmates will do a good work with it.

I'd like to include the options proposed by the students.

Also I think that two hundred words are too much for this post. There's not much to write about it and I hope to complete it with this sentence.

Free themed post 3: My favorite movie "The Shining"

My favorite movie of all time is "The Shining", released in 1980, directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on Stephen King's homonym best seller, written in 1977.

"The Shining" is one of the most popular horror movies in the history. The story is about Jack Torrance (starred by Jack Nicholson) a writter who had alcoholism problems in the past, affecting to his family. He decided to take a job as winter caretaker of Overlook Hotel, isolated on the mountains of Colorado. 

The job consist in take care of Overlook Hotel during the winter while he is living there with his family (his wife Wendy and his son, Danny), but they can't get out of the place, because the snow and storms will block the highways and keep them isolated from the society. Also, Mr. Ullman (hotel manager) warns him two things. the first is that they will be completely alone, because the Overlook is closed during the winter. The second one is the "syndrome of restless loneliness", a mental disease which results as consequence of social isolation. Mr. Ullman tells Jack about and old caretaker who took the job ten years ago, and in the middle of the winter, he became insane and killed his wife and twin daughters, after that commit suicide.

After being alone, Mr. Halloran (a worker of the Hotel) notices that Danny got a very special power which he calls "the shining". Halloran have the "shining" too and explains to Danny that it will help him to keep away from danger and caution from risky situations from the future.

After some months in the hotel, Jack starts to suffer the syndrome of restless loneliness and abstince syndrome of alcoholism. His behavior changes strangely and his family is a serious danger.

A subject I've enjoyed to studying this semester

My favorite subject that I studied this semester is "Estudio de los fenómenos políticos" (Study of political phenomena). The classes are on Wednesday and Friday at 12 to 13:30. The teacher is Ximena Soto Soutullo and her assistant is called Diego Rojas.

In the class we usually talk about important concepts of political sciencies and some examples, as "democracy", "population", "citizenship", "politic", "power", "state", "partys", etc. We read texts written by famous scientis as Macchiavello and discuss another classic authors ideas, as Karl Marx or Weber.

In classes we try to answer and explain why some things related to politic and society are happening around the world, especially in Latin America. The most interesting cases are the brazilian crisis, Venezuela's situation and the Presidential elections in Peru. We did a very interesting (but hard) homework about this last case.

I like this subject because I think that politic is a very interesting and important part of our lives, is more than "a lot of corrupt bourgeois stealing our money". Also, the teacher is didactic, friendly and always help us. Diego is a very nice guy too, is almost like a elder classmate.

An expert on administration: Max Weber

Max Weber (1864-1920) was a prussian (german) sociologist, economist, philosopher and jurist whose ideas influenced social theory and research. He studied in the University of Berlin and University of Heidelberg. 

Weber is the father of bureaucracy, one of the most popular system of administration, which consist basically in the realization of standardized processes for invest resources with higher levels of efficiency. These processes must be executed by a set of people with special and specific competences.

Is important to emphasize to Weber was one of the founders of the sociology, with Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx. He developed new theorical currents as the methodological antipositivism, in oposition to the positivism (known as "empirism" too), founding the "Frankfurt school", a new wave of social investigation.

I like their ideas because I think that antipositivism is an useful way to do social investigation. Is very important to considerate some things that we can't appreciate with our basical senses for a good work in the investigation. Also, I believe that bureaucracy is good system, but sadly, is hard to implement it on "real life" because people don't "make it work" as it should be. Most of people thinks that bureaucracy is a dreadful system.

Free themed post 2: Metallica

Ulrich, Hammet, Hetfield and Trujillo

Metallica is an american heavy metal band from San Francisco, California and was founded in 1981 by the danish drummer Lars Ulrich and the vocalist/guitar player James Hetfield. The other current members are Kirk Hammet on lead guitar and Robert Trujillo as bassist.

Lars was a talented tennis player who moved from Denmark to California at the age of 16,  for make easier his training and development. His another passion was the music and play the drums, so then he decided to publish an advertisement  in the newspaper, looking for musicians to form a band. Thanks to that, he met to James and his friend Ron McGovney (bassist), and Lloyd Grant (guitar).

In 1982 Ron and Lloyd  were replaced by Cliff Burton and Dave Mustaine respectively, two of the best heavy metal musicians ever. In the same year, Mustaine was replaced by Kirk Hammett because he had some drug addiction problems. After that, they released their first álbum “Kill‘em All”.

In 1986 the band suffered a bus accident and Cliff Burton died. He was replaced by Jason Newsted some months later. Newsted played the bass until 2000, tired for the band’s behavior, being replaced by the mexican Robert Trujillo.

Metallica is one of the most popular heavy metal bands in the world. They released more than ten albums and also are the only band which played in all the continents.

A photograph that I like

One of my favourites pictures was taken by myself the past year. It shows a dying butterfly that I found after the  football training with the team of my career.

When we finished the training, I picked up my things which was behind the field but then I noticed that a little orange thing was moving over my bag. When I realized that the “thing” was a butterfly, I decided to take it carefully and set it free, but was really wounded. I still was wearing my gloves at that moment, so finally I took it and taked care until the butterfly died.

I thought that the butterfly was so beautiful and took it a picture. Minutes later, the butterfly died. I really like this picture, because in that moment I noticed how short, beautiful and delicate can be the life, even human life.

When I see the picture I feel a little bit sad, but is nice at same time.

Free themed post: My favourite TV serie

Is hard to choose a favourite colour, flavour, animal, song, etc. But in my case, is not hard to decide which is my favourite tv show, “Breaking Bad”.

“Breaking Bad” is an american drama and action TV show created by Vince Gilligan and starred by Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul as Walter White and Jesse Pinkman respectively. The story is about Walter White, a family guy who works as chemistry teacher. His family is composed by his wife (who is pregnant) Skyler, and his teenager son Walter Jr., who has cerebral palsy. Also they are their brothers in law Marie and Hank, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

Walter always was a good guy, but at the age of fifty he started to suffer a lung cancer, fearing to die and leave alone to his family with their debts. In a very strange coincidence, he meet again to Jessie Pinkman, a former student who makes and traffics drugs. He offers to Jesse to work together to earn some money for pay the treatment and his debts. During the process, Walter get into the raw world of drug trafficking, trying to not be discovered by his family and fighting against his disease.

My favourite piece of technology

My favourite piece of technology is not something electronic, mechanical or very complex, it is very simple: The goalkeeper gloves. They were created by soviet goalkeeper Lev Yashin (the best in his position in the history of football) during their first years as football player, being the first goalkeeper who weared that kind of gloves.

Lev Yashin with their gloves

The reason why goalkeepers wear them is because they protect the hands from injuries and also from extreme weathers, mainly cold ones (Lev Yashin played his entire career in Soviet Union, where the temperatures are usually under 0° C)

My father bought me my first gloves when I was a little kid. Some years ago I bought a new pair of gloves that I used in the school. I still use them when I play a match with my friends here in Santiago, or with my family in Puerto Varas and Valdivia.

I like it because they allow me to play better and protect me from injuries on my fingers (I like to play guitar, so I really need my fingers…). My life wouldn’t be very different without goalkeeper gloves, just would be a little bit harder to play football.

Why did I choose this career?

Public administration

It was so hard to choose a career and where study it, but finally I chose Public Administration at Universidad de Chile, because I always wanted to help people, and this career will allow me to do it, solving public problems in education, health, quality of life, etc.

Also the Public administration is a multidisciplinary career, which includes topics as administration, economy, history,  political science, etc.

Finally I decided to study Public administration because my other options were not too good as a I tought, as sociology or anthropology which have a very reduced laboral camp.

I’d like to work in the government, maybe here in Santiago, but in the future in the south of the country, in the zone of Puerto Varas.

When I was a child, my dream was to be a football player, a wrestler or a Power Ranger.

When I was a child, I wanted to be a wrestler

My auto biography: Who am I?

This is me and a prehistoric creature

“Who am I?” is a very hard question which can be answered by the existentialism, but I will do it in a easier way.

My name is Vicente Díaz Arteaga. I was born in Puerto Varas, a southern chilean city in 1996. My parents are Marisol and Edgardo and I have a teen brother called Renato.

I studied all my life at Colegio Felmer Niklitschek in Puerto Varas and now I’m studying Public Administration at Universidad de Chile.

In my free time I like to play the bass with my heavy metal band “Bersek”, also to play football (my favorite positions are goalkeeper and centerback”) and practice wrestling. I like to read too, my favorite writers are Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, Horacio Quiroga, Arthur Conan Doyle.