My last blog

Hi, this is my last blog, I'm a little bit sad, but also released, I was tired to write every week about me and my likes, dislikes, stories or opinions, I'm actually a shy person. This semester I truly enjoyed English classes, despite having to stay every Wednesday, and not resting as much as I wanted to, I had fun at classes. With the blog, I learned a different way to communicate things that sometimes are harder to understand than to be told. I indeed practiced my writing and improved my grammar, but sometimes I got bored because subjects were really obvious and repetitive. Maybe that’s something to improve for next generations of English students.

In my house no one speaks English, so being there, I have no occasion to practice. Instead, in my university classes, it has been very useful because we have to read English papers all the time, that sometimes are simples, but without basic vocabulary  so you can't understand anything. Also, lately I’ve started to watch movies in English, and trying not to read he subtitles, just understanding by listening at actor’s voices. It’s kind of fun, sometimes I get it really well, and sometimes it’s a little bit harder. One last thing that I’ve enjoyed more since I learned English, it’s listening and then singing English songs, I can understand some lyrics and then sing them with actual mining. I’m very attached to music, I actually play piano, guitar, and I like singing, I think it’s very important to get really involve with the thing you like and do it the best you can, so speaking a little more English helps me to achieve this.

About 2014

Hi everyone! Today I am going to make a sort of evaluation of my 2014. This year was my first year at the university, and actually, when I postulated here, I wasn’t sure of that. I didn`t know very well what my career was about, and I wanted to do many other things, but finally I decided to enter to anthropology.

Now, when the year is finishing, I can say that I am happy of have taken this decision. In general, I have liked the career. I don’t know if it was the best decision, because I don’t know how had been if I were taken other options. But for now, I will stay here.

Of course, there are too many things that I expected, that I wanted to do and I didn’t. Maybe I have been short of time, trying to adapt at the university’s rhythm. At the start of the year, I wanted to take French classes, to traveling to Machu Pichu in winter, to take classes of “tela” (it is a type of air circus art), and other things. Of all of that, I just taked classes of “tela”, and I am very happy for have do it. I needed some more time to do the rest of things that I wanted. But I hope to do it at the next year, because I hope that I will organize my time better than now.

I couldn’t travelled to Machu Pichu in the last winter because I didn’t have enough money, but in exchange of that, I will travel to Bolivia at this summer, and I am working now to do it.  

So, I hope that the things that I couldn’t make this year, can be made in the next. And not just that, I really hope to have new plans and expectative to do it.

About a video

This video is about a woman arguing that social media applications are going to help to eliminate some stereotypes that we have as a society about gender.

The woman says that the most of media companies like the TV, the radio and others, use demography as a method to understand their audiences. They categorize us with restrictive labels to define us. So, they think that we become in something predictable.

All the people that participate in social media companies belong to these demography categories. But today these categories are not so useful than before for the companies, because now is easier to escape of that restrictions. We can connect with people with more freely than before, and we don`t need the company to do it.

Women use the social networking technologies more than men, so they become very important to these companies. Finally, the woman of the video says that women are going to be the responsible of finish with these categories of gender.

Actually, I thing that the technology is not the only factor in the categorization of gender. These categories have always existed in our culture, they have been constructed by different factors of our culture. Movies or publicity are some examples that influence in the way that we understand the gender.

I don’t think that the finish of these stereotypes will come for the decisions of technology companies. Actually, I think that even if the social media changes, these categorize will keep appearing in other aspects of our occidental culture. The change of this mentality has to come from the forms of education.

Facebook

Hi! Actually, I don't considerer myself as a facebook lovers or something like that. When I arrive to my house, I have never felt that I need to conect it. But, it is true that the first thing that I do when I turn on my computer, is logging in facebook. Maybe it is a excuse to postpone the things that we have to do, it's true. But actually, even thought facebook have a lot of bad things like the scarcity of privacity and other things, there are also some things that I like about it.
When I conect to facebook, I like to see some interesting publications of diferent pages like The Clinic, and to many others. Also, it is useful to recive important information, quickly and easily. For example, some news, the new date of a test of university, and other things.
Another thing that I like is that I can know about people when they are far. I can see their photos, videos and we can have virtual conversations to get shorter the large distances.
Now, something that I don't like of Facebook is the constant battle of egos. Ther are a lot of people that "compete" to have more likes in their photos, or things like that. But in the same time, I like the posibility of express diferent opinions, to make me think about other thinking, and vice versa.
So I think that facebook give you that posibility (there are many others too), and many others. But using it, you lose some things like your privacity. So we have to use it being carefull with the things that we publish.

Going green!

Today i want to write about my "green" habits.
As everyone knows, now more than ever is important that we protect our planet from pollution, extinction, global warming, etc. Because of that, new tendencies have reached our homes and  veciandarios. "going green" is about making a change in our habits to protects as many ways as possible our planet. One of the most commun going green habits, is recicying. Now there are "green points" in almost every comuna, you can leave tetrapack boxes, plastics, glass bottles, etc. In my house we recycle almost all the things, me and my brother we bought three different containers to make things easy.
Other going green habits can be taking shorter showers to save water, also save electricity by turning off the lights if you're not using them and make composts to avoid throwing away all the organic trash.
Another thing that is gettin more and more popular is riding a bike instead of taking the bus or car. It has double beneffict, you do excersice, wich is good for your health, and you help the planet by not polluting in the street.

About reading

I don’t consider myself as a person who has read a lot and knows a lot about literature. But I really like it and I enjoy reading and writing. When I was a child I used to ask my mother to buy me different books to read, additional of the books that I had to read for the school. When I was a child, my favorite book was “El jardín secreto”. I had to read it for the school and I liked it so much that I read it again. When I grew up, I started to read less than before, maybe because I didn´t have enought time, but I have allways enjoyed to read.
It is difficult for me to choose one favorite book. Maybe, two of the books that I have enjoyed the most are "La invención de la soledad", written by Paul Auster, and “La elegancia del erizo” of Muriel Barbery. I read "La invención de la soledad" the last year, and "La elegancia del erizo" in the summer of 2011. I liked them very much. 

I don´t remember very well which was the last book that I read, without considering the books that I have had to read for the university. I thing that it was a book of the Victor Jara´s life. The name of the book is “Victor, un canto inconcluso” and it was written by his couple Joan Jara. I like it very much also. 

a spontaneous holidays

Hello everybody! Today I want to talk you about a very special holidays. I don't know if they was the best holidays in my life, but I had a really nice time there.
The last summer I was in Santiago with some friends, and we were boring. We were talking about something to do, that doesn't require a lot of money or previous plannig. So we decided to go to Valle del Elqui. My father lend us a tent, we bought some food and two days before we set out on Valle del Elqui. We were six firends triyng to arrive "a dedo" to La Serena, it was dificult but we did it.
We stayed there for one month almost, and we were in diferent amazing places like Pisco Elqui, Cochiguaz, Montegrande, and many others. The people was amazing too. We made friends of a couple of french people. They were artisans and they had come to visit Chile and they loved this place so much that they stayed there to live.
We didn't have any plans, so we were knowing places and people without necessary of hurry up our journey, it was a very spontaneous trip and I think it is the aspect that I liked the most.

"Un vasito de ron"

Hi everyone! Today I am going to talk about a text that I readed de last semester and I liked it so much. It wis called "Un vasito de ron", by Levi-Strauss.
He speak of the etnographer as a individual person that studies the different cultures of the world, trying to understand all of their cultural aspects. He take the problem of the influence of the own culture and how can we "take of" it to really understand the other culture. Also he makes question about the necessity of occidental culture, to study and try to understand the rest of the cultures, as if we were THE big culture, unsatisfied actually with our own progress.
I really liked this text because it is like a dificult challenge for the the antropology and it is very interesting. I think that is importnat to read it, not just fot antropology, also to the rest of the world, because it help to eliminate prejudice of other people or countries, and it help us to evaluate equally all of the cultures.
I really recomend you to read.

travel dreams

Hi! My name is Beatriz. When I was a girl I didn't have a big motivation of travelling. Actually I had never travelled so I didn't have the idea. When I was 12 I went to Argentina with my family and I really loved it. Not necessary Argentina, I loved to know different people with different culture, words, foods and customs.

Now I want to know a lot of countries. First of all, I would like to know all the countries of Latin American, to talk with a lot of different people of different cultures, and know about the common aspects and the varied styles of life that coexist in our continent.

I would need a long time to do it but I really think that I will. I plan to go travel for a year and know all of these countries. And in the future, when I finish my career I would like to continue my studies on the University of Mexico. After that, I don`t have any more plans, for now.

My blogging experience

Personally, I had never used this system of blogs. But in general, It hasn't been difficult and I think I have progressed in this.
I think that it's a good way to develop the writing skills in English. In the school, the English classes were very focused to learn to speak English. But it´s different speaking and writing , and both skills have to be developed in the same extent, with reading and listening, the four necessary aspects to communicate.
Also, in the blogs system, everyone may write their own opinions and read about the classmate's opinions too. This becomes the learning more dynamic.
Respect to the topics of the blogs that we had to write week to week, sometimes I liked them and sometimes I didn't. I would like that in the future, the determination of the topics were more open, so nobody would have to write about a subject he doesn't like.
But in general I have to say that I liked to use blogs.

Zombies

Are you afraid of zombies? Do you thing they exist?
Zombies are a really interesting topic, present in a lot of movies, books, games, and others. Today I will talk about them. Bur first, we have to know what zombies are.
Zombies are the representation of a dead body that resuscitated because of different reasons. According to Vudú beliefs, a "Houngan", "Bokor" or a Vudú sorcerer, would be able to resurrect the dead body in a special ritual. But the body would be submitted to all the wishes of the person who returns him to the life. 
I don't remember the first time I haired about zombies, but I can remember different movies of them that I saw when I was a girl. I didn`t like them so much  because it really scared me in that time, but now I don`t. Actually I like them. 
It is not the case of my brother. When we saw this movies together, I really wanted to continue seeing even I was afraid. But he didn`t, and he invented a lot of excuses to stopping the movie, because he was ashamed to assume that actually he was very scared. So he said that he was boring, or that my mum would arrived and she would give us a reprimand. Nothing true, he was scared.
In the school, I had a teacher who somoked a lot. Her face was like a dry and crumpled paper, and her voice sounded like a retired metal singer. So, she really remind me of a zombie. I remind my movies and my brother, it was difficult for me to concentrate in the class. Actually, I thing I had really bad marks in this class.

An interesting website

http://antropologiaseimagem.tumblr.com/

Hello everybody! Today I am going to write about a career-related website that I enjoy visiting. The link of this website is specified at the final of this post.

If you enter in this website you will see that it is formed for a lot of different photographs. I have always considered interesting to use the photography as a method to communicate different ideas. Although it requires an interpretation more deep for the part of the reader, it can also give us important information. 

This website presents a lot of different images that give us valuable information about anthropological aspects. Most of them also includes a brief explication or an interpretation of the content, the year it was taken and the respective photographer.

The first time that I searched this website was the last week. My mom showed me a very interesting photograph of an African woman, who were impressed seeing the body of a white woman. It caught my attention, so I searched the site where this image came from. There, I found many other interesting images. Since that day, I accessed this site several times to see new pictures and read what they write about it. 

A photograph that I like

There are many pictures that I like so much. Photograph are a very good way to record important moments or even people who maybe they are not anymore. It is difficult for me to choose only one photograph that I like. But looking for it in facebook, I have found one that I really like. This picture has taken the last summer and the persons who appear are my best friend and me, when we went to Chiloe. After we had walking a lot, we were sitting in front of the sea and we started to talk different important things for us. We stayed there a long time. Another friend who was behind us, took this photograph with her cellphone and then showed us. I liked it, and now it is very significant for me because now I haven´t seen my friend for a long time and it brings me records of a happy time.

Animals and pets

If I could be an animal, I would choose the seagull. When I was a kid and I went to the beach I thought that it would be wonderful flying over the sea like one.
Frequently, human think that the life of animals worth less than our lifes, and we abuse of them. For example, keep animals in the zoo or use them for a circus act, is stealing their freedom, I hate this.
I had a dog, who lived until it was 14 years old. It was born in the same time of me, and I loved her. Her name was Tambora. When she was born my sister thought that it was male, so they called Tambor, but later my parents said that it was female so she stayed like Tambora.
 When Tambora died, a friend gave me a little dog, who we called Tsukiko, because of a character of a Japanese book. Now he is not little, he is big and very fat. He is unusual, because he is afraid of ants. But I love him too.

My favourite piece of technology

Hi! Today I am going to talk about my favorite piece of technology. The truth is that I don't know much about this subject. Actually, I prefer reading and writing on a paper, to do it in a screen. But if I had to choose a piece of technology, I would select the cellphone. 

Also, because of the cellphones we can make spontaneous decisions and we can communicate instantly. Not like before, when the people had to always be planning everything before, and many times the message was late. 

Another thing is that cellphones bring people closer, when they are far away. But something bad is that cellphones bring people far, when they are closer, because each person is concentrate in the cellphone and not in the real person who is in front.

So, I think the cellphone is very useful and I like it very much, but we have to know when and how to use it. 

Expectations for a new semester

This semester I started studying anthropology at the University of Chile. I am taking very interesting subjects. “Historia Latinoamericana” is the subject that I like the most.
Now we are in a pre-test period, so I haven’t had much free time. But after that, in the remainder of the semester, I am interested in practicing fabric and trapeze, circus arts that I practiced before, and I had to leave out because of the time and other things.
At the end of the semester, I hope I have passed all the classes and hopefully exempted the exams. If everything is ok and I have enough money, in winter holidays I want to travel with my friends to Perú and visit Machu Pichu.

My autobiography

Hi! Today I am going to tell you somethings about me.
My name is Beatriz María Dolores Rodríguez Gutiérrez. When I was borned, my parents didn´t decided for one name so i have three names. I was born on March 3, in Calera de Tango, Chile. I grew up there, and when I was four years old I came to Santiago and I started my studies in Monjas Inglesas’s school. I graduated from the same school last year.
I have a big family, and most of the time it is a lot of fun. My family is made up by my parents, my two brothers, my three sisters and me. But I live with my brothers, sisters and my mother.
I really enjoy doing things like sleeping, eating, reading, writing and painting. I wanted to study art or be a teacher of history until last year, but one day before the nominations, I decided to study anthropology at Universidad de Chile. I really don’t know why, but I am glad for that by the time being.