English Language Challenges

It’s hard for me learn english, I learn a little when I was in the school but for myself, never had a english class really good. I learned listening music like the Beatles and then watching movies without subtitles.  At university I had a english class again, but I’m still very bad in the language.  

The other day I was in a interview for a job in a newspaper, and they required me good english, good pronunciation, good reading and good writing.  They also were demanding me certificates showing that I know something of english. Bad news, I don’t have any certificates, and my pronunciation is really bad.

This makes me sad, I think when I finish the university, I will have the time to take a course of English at an institute. But I don’t know if the courses start at beginner level for everyone or not. I would like to take the course from an intermediate level to keep what I was learned at university.  

My partners at university, said that the best thing that we can do for learn a new language it’s travel to another country for a while. In fact, there are English courses for latino-american people in foreign parts like Australia (Latino Australia Education).

I don’t know, but I hope that in a year I can start studying English, because English is very important for the career of a journalist, you need it to find a good job in a newspaper. If I knew English, I would be more competent than other journalists who do not. Anyway, I have to learn English as quickly as possible.

The good and the bad of 2014

The good: I think the best thing of this year was my travel to Valdivia for the 21° Festival of International Cinema.  In this time, Valdivia became a city very culturally. You can see movies and listen music all day, and in the afternoons walk and see the river, the nature,  the popular market.

The movies that I wash were independents, and  the public had to classify them.The movie with the higth score in the festival  was “Los Castores” by Nicolás Molina y Antonio Luco. A documental that talks about the enviromental problem of overpopulation of beavers  in Tierra del Fuego.  Originally,  the beavers don’t live in Chile, they were introduced by the textile industry, and now they are the cause ecological catastrophe.

I put a 7.0 to this movie, I like very much. And a 7.0 to Valdivia, because I never see this city before. It’s very beautiful, the river across everyplace, the botanical garden. Other good thing that I do in Valdivia was taste the beer  make in the city called “Selva Fría”, that won a second place in a competition with all the drinks of the country.

The bad:  This year I had to finish my internship in journalism. And I don’t have idea that I will going to do. This is make me crazy, because at this time I have to know something, I had to take wherever I found, and the soon as possible. The other bad thing, really, really bad, at this time are the tests of the end of semester. I had a lot, and the worst thing is that I don’t studied yet. I’m so nervous! 

Latin-America: Women in power

In most places of the world it’s very rare that woman takes a position in a high place in government and doesn’t have the same chances that man to become a president of a nation.  However, there is good news for the gender equity.

In Latin-America happens something very strange, because it’s assumed that we were in the land of “machismo”. But in this land  woman has the power. In fact in the last forty years ten women have become presidents, and four of them are in government at this time: Michelle Bachelet, in Chile; Dilma Roussef, Brazil; Cristina Kirchner, Argentina; Laura Chinchilla, Costa Rica.

This situation shows that we are in a situation of political transformation in which women brings fresh air in our countries, for clean the image of corruption throughout Latin America.

The first woman that became president in Latin-America was the argentine Isabel Martinez de Peron in 1976 when her husband died in a military dictatorship.  A few years later in Bolivia Laura Gueiler Tejada take the power and became the first woman elected president for her people.

In Chile, Michelle Bachelet won elections in Chile in 2006, which made ​​her the first woman to become president of his country. She is daughter of General Alberto Bachelet, who died in prison after the 1973 military dictatorshis. Bachelet is very feminist and ran the United Nations women's agency.

Environmental issues

A few years ago I became to worry about environmental issues, and for all the things that happen now with the economic system in which we live. You Know, the power of destruction of the Industry and the criminal way in that is performed the exploitation of natural resources.

In Chile, this picture is not very good. The state doesn’t care about the nature. The production of copper is more important that the destruction of the environment and even more important than quality of life of the community. You can see that with the town of “Ventanas” in the north of the country. Ventanas is located near Codelco S.A, company that has contaminated every place, the houses, the sea. But not only this, Codelco contaminated the human and animal life in neighborhood. People consume metal waste in the air and workers of this plant had a strange cancer that leaves their skin green. People of the community call them “Green man”.

I’m worry about this issues because happen in every place, and in every time. The things that we consume are contaminated, the air we breathe. And the industry has no mercy. Monsanto destroys agriculture in the whole world.

And more close in Chile, the water going to be a problem. Industry need to take the control of the rivers to create more and more hydroelectric systems no matter what people think.  

And for all this I think the environmental problem, is not only talk about recycle and sustainability. It’s talk about human rights. 

My future job

I have the image of the journalist who travel a lot writing news and chronicles. Knowing different cultures in their trips, interviewing people with another point of view. 

If I have lucky I want to be like this type of journalist. But I think that is quite difficult. (It's really a dream. But if I think my future job in a realistic way, I like to work in a writing media. 

For the journalist, the ability to write about things, and specially the chronicle and report can be developed in a magazine or in a newspaper. 

However the newspaper is so stressful for a junior journalist. You don’t have a life running from one place to another for a story. And the publishers don’t have much patience. 

I prefer the Magazine, is a great media, maybe when I ended my career I can work in a magazine doing reports about social issues and culture like I want, or maybe can do photographs to illustrate the writing. I love photographs, I would like this too! 

But wherever I do in future I hope that was great for me, and that I can learn of the people who I'm going to work with. I hope my writing and reports improve over the years. And who knows, maybe can write a book one day! 

Blindness by J. Saramago

"That's the way we are made, half indifference, half evilness", this phrase of the book resume the thought of José Saramago when he brote 'Blindness'. José Saramago is a Portuguese author who wins the nobel price of literature in 1998, Blindness in one of his most famous novels.

The novel talks about the darkness inside the human being. The story begins when an unexplained mass  of epidemic blindness impact the  whole world.  Most of the people fall in and become blind, and when that's happens, people shows their ugly face. The society is lost in chaos with the disorder, looting, robbery and even worst with rapes and murders. 

The principal characters are a doctor with a group of pacients, they try to survive in this environment. But the group has an advantage from the rest,  becouse one of they, the wife of the doctor, is the only person who can see everything whats happens. 

The thesis of Saramago focus in the moral of the humans. When nobody see whats happens there is no one to judge you, no one to control, and people lost in crime. For Saramago there are a evil essence inside all of us. 

The concert of Pink Floyd

I like go to concerts, once I went to see Pink Floyd, one of my favourite bands. I earn the ticket in a contest of the Emol newspaper. I was so happy because the ticket was one of the most expensive, and I stayed close to the show to watch the musicians. The only bad thing, that I had to go alone.  

When I sat in my place, I see a lot of people smoking, and happy. You can imagine why. And next to me, was the actor Alvaro Rudolphy an he was really mad with all the smoke. A rare situation.

 The stage was so great, you can saw psychedelic ligths, and colors everywhere. In this occasion, Pink Floyd came to Chile to play a classic album in their discography: “The dark side of the moon”, one of their most famous albums and a masterpiece in rock music.

The music  was perfect, and the scenery was a crazy thing. In a moment a giant triangle was burning and a balloon shaped like a pig flying through the air. I think this was my best concert, and the most strange of all.