Post #10

Having an English course here at the university has been nice, specially the blogs part of the class.
When I'm at the computer, most of the time I'm looking at blogs or forums that are written in English, and the channels that I'm subscribed to on "Youtube" are mainly in English too
When I'm in the forums I just lurk through them, but I never participate in them so I don't get to practice pronunciation or writing and in regards to that aspect the classes and the blogs have helped me to express myself more freely when writing or speaking in English, or at least it comes off easier now than before.

Regarding the use of English for academic related purposes, to be honest I almost never use it that way, only when I'm studying and don't understand something so I'm kinda forced to resort to the papers written in English that are uploaded to "U-Cursos" sometimes.

The aspects of English that I still need to improve are mostly speaking and writing, as I tend to stutter a lot when phrasing as I'm speaking and when I'm writing I spend too much time thinking how to express myself correctly.

Outside of class I almost never use English. Besides the forums and the use of youtube, one way that I commonly practiced English is that I used to talk via Facebook to friends that I met abroad during 2011, friends that are from mainly German and Brazilian origins, but sadly we've lost contact and don't speak as much nowadays, so over time my English became duller and duller because I didn't get to practice it naturally.

Post #8: Favorite band/artist.

Hello everyone, for this Wednesday's topic I'll be talking about one of the bands I like the most as I don't really have a favorite, it's a pretty hard choice in my opinion.

Black Sabbath

It's a British metal band that was formed during the late sixties and early seventies by Tommy Iommi, Geezer Butler, Bill Ward and it's most famous artist, Ozzy Osbourne.
It was originally meant to be a Blues Rock band but they ended up adopting the Metal style of the band that is generally shown in their albums.

One of the things that I'd like to highlight is that despite the dark lyrics that they often composed, they also criticized topics such as social injustice and instability; political corruption; drug abuse and the tragedies that war left behind.
Related to the last topic, the war, one of the band's album "Paranoid" was intended to be released with the name "War pigs" but the company feared the possible negative feedback from the public due to the ongoing war at the moment in Vietnam.
And related to the substance abuse, the lyrics speak of how the constant use and therefore the abuse can lead the addiction to take over the individual free will and ultimately ending in one's misery, as opposed to the popular belief that music generally glorifies drug and substance use.
These guys are often referred to as pioneers of the heavy metal genre and it's also said that they helped define the genre at the time by releasing three albums in a two year period between 1970 and 1971.

Post #7: Summer Holidays

Hi everyone, in today's blog I'll be talking about on how I'd like my future holidays to be.

First of all, I'd prefer to stay in Chile for these holidays and go to Pucon, the reason being that I've never been there and as far as I know, it is a great place to visit.
My parents during most of my childhood went and stayed with some relatives at Maitencillo, near the beach, or we would go to the beach ourselves after those visits.
It was fun, but back when I was a little kid I would have liked to go somewhere else every now and then, as going to the beach got kind of repetitive when I was little.

I don't want to visit anyone in specific, just go out and stay somewhere nice with my family, maybe in a cabin around the place.
Something I'd like to do is to climb the Villarica volcano, do some kayaking or even some water skiing if possible.
Places I'd like to visit are, the "Ojos del Caburga" waterfalls, the "Los Pozones" hot springs, the Caburga lake and as I already said before, the Villarica volcano.

About the dishes, I've always had a liking for seafood and if I'm not mistaken the variety of seafood that one can find in Pucon is pretty great and the taste must be delicious.
Apart from that kind of food I too like most kinds of meat and soups to enjoy at lunch,

Post #5: Postgraduate studies

Good news, everyone.

In this post I'll be talking a little about a postgraduate course that I'm interested in:

Geriatric Dentistry, also known as Geriodontics.

Why? Well, if you take a close look at the demographic in Chile you can see that the population is experimenting some notorious ageing, so doing a little specialization in geriatrics (health care for elderly people) seems pretty logical to me.

One of the main subjects that I want to study is the caries in elderly people. 

For example, the elderly have an increased risk for root caries due to gingival recession and use of medications that in groups produce xerostomia (feeling that your mouth is dry).

Personally, I'd like to study this course here in Chile because as far as I know the revalidation process (if the studies are done out of the country) to practice this profession is way too harsh here, up to a point where the difficulty is just absurd, according to many people that have experienced this process.

If possible I'd choose to do a part-time course, the reason being that I feel I understand more and it is easier to keep concentrated because of a face-to-face interaction between the student and the teacher, things I won't frequently experience in a distance learning course.

Post #1

Well, the country I'm interested in visiting is located in the western area of Europe, west of Germany, north of Belgium and south of the North Sea. 

This country, or group of states is the Netherlands, known in spanish as "Los Países Bajos". My main reason to visit has to be the mentality these guys have: They seem to be very progressive and liberal, being the world's first country to legalize same-sex marriage, abortion, prostitution, euthanasia and they have a tolerant drugs policy. All these topics are still some kind of taboo in the countries of the west (American continent in general).

And the capital, Amsterdam is one of the most visually pleasant cities I've ever seen.

I've never met anyone from this place and on top of that I don't speak Dutch at all, which seems to be a problem but it really isn't much of a big deal as plenty of the residents have a good English level.

The first and really only problem I can think of right now is the population density in there, but other than that I think it would be an enjoyable experience

Post #2

The best vacations I've ever had took place during the Summer of 2014-2015

It was around a month and a week in total, the first two weeks, we stayed at a friends place in Algarrobo. 

These two weeks were pretty great: at around noon, after lunch we would go to the craft market and take a look around and sometimes buy a couple of things; in two occasions we went to El Canelo beach and just outside the beach there was this food stand where we could order churros at 100 pesos per unit only; during the first week we would bet a little every now and then at the local arcade machines and most nights we went partying at the local disco or drinking in the beach.

But personally, the time during those vacations that made me feel the best were the three remaining weeks, which I spent at Mirasol with my parents, and since we don't go out a lot it was nice to finally see my parents take a break and just enjoy their free time, especially my dad since my mom retired a few years ago. 

Nonetheless it's good to go out and grab some fresh air every now and then.

Post #3: Hobby

My main hobby is music, playing guitar and bass but to be honest my favourite is the bass hands down.

My interest in these instruments started around 8th grade in music class. Up to that point, the only instruments the whole class was allowed to play for evaluations were the flute and the xylophone. 

I played the flute for a few years but I wasn't really into it, I mean, outside of class sometimes I played the flute to pull out some popular songs, just for fun but that's it, I didn't like the flute too much really.

One day at class the teacher said we had to go to the classroom that he used in his free time because the room we usually occupied was under maintenance. There he had a bass, which he let me play every now and then.

So over time I developed a fascination about it until I decided to get one of my own.

After that I was playing on my own free time, I started out playing some of the popular songs, rock and a little bit of metal mostly and when I was playing somewhat decently I decided to try out more rhythmic music, kinda funk music and the like, as I felt it was more challenging, but also more enjoyable to play.

Post #4:

Hello, for today's post I'll be talking about how my ideal job would be:

To be honest, I'd really like a job that doesn't consume much time besides the working hours and I'd like it to be an outdoors job as I’m not too fond of the idea of staying inside all day from sunrise to sunset.

I’ve considered jobs related to botany because I imagine that line of work to be less stressful than most. 

My job options went from grower to agronomist, which were good options because I'd spend most of my time around green areas and in template climates (I really can't stand hot temperatures)

Even though I’d like my job to be outdoors I’d prefer one in which I won’t have to travel much because I'm not used to it so I can't really say that I'd be okay with the idea of moving constantly over time.

About the salary I think I may be lacking some ambition really. I’d be fine as long as I can pay the bills, the basic monthly shopping at the supermarket and still be able to do some investments in the long-term. I’ll be fine as long as I’m not stressing out about making it through the month and dreading for the next paycheck.

Blog #6: SDLE

Well, to start off I'll explain: SDLE stands for "Semana De La Escuela" and it is a kind of annual celebration that takes place here at the University during a whole week and a lot of it consists of team competitions in which there are many ways the students can earn points for their team. It's similar to what "alianzas" used to be at school.
It's a very fun week full of group activities, presentations and the like. According to me, one of the most memorable days in that week is the trip to Lonquén, trip which starts at around lunchtime and ends at around nightfall.

During this week you can meet lots of new people, or if you ain't the social type, you can still have a great time with your friends.

Although it isn't necessary to drink to have a great time, some of the most remarkable events that happened are highly related to alcohol: e.g. ass-eating.

This thing actually happened during the 2016 SDLE celebration and it was caught on cam, and later the video got to the head teacher's hands and he wasn't too fond of the idea of this happening at the faculty AND in public, so the people involved in this event got into trouble for participating. Apart of these kind of events happening every now and then during this week, it's a pretty chill and kind of needed "mini vacation" to enjoy during the start of the second semester of class.