My Blogging experience

My blogging experience has been good. I had taken some risks about “my English writing” and got to know what are some of my mistakes. It was possible thanks to the feedback the tutor give us every week. So, I really appreciate that opportunity.
Also, I’ve learn some new words to get to express myself better.
On the other hand, I’ve enjoyed this experience, because I’ve thought about some things about myself that I hadn’t thought or expressed so explicitly before. For example, I realized how much I love cinema or music. I could define what is my favorite kind of music and it was revealing, because I didn’t have thought about it before. Also, I had some new thoughts about Catholicism and Education and I got to articulate my opinion about them. And, so on.
In short, the advantages would be two: I improved my English writing and I got to know myself better.
Now I’ll write about the disadvantages. Personally, I think that talking would be better for me than writing. Because talking is my weakest skill. But that doesn’t mean that I propose that we’d have to stop writing; maybe we could do three or four posts in our blogs and the rest of time discussing in groups or doing some listening exercises. About this, I’ve always thought that listening to music or seeing movies, series or something like that (without subtitles) are very good ways to learn the language, because they are challenging, funny (at least for me)and maybe, the most important thing is that they help us to have a good pronunciation and we can’t learn that by blogging.

this is my favorite photo

My favourite photo

My favourite photo is one in which I appear walking in the beach. It was taken in Arica’s beach on the summer of 2003. I was there with my dad and my brothers; we stay about a month in Arica, in the house of my dad’s cousin and his family. It was the best vacation of my life, my aunt and uncle were really nice and I got along really well with my two cousins. We spend lots of time together going to beautiful places, going to the beach, eating lots of ice cream and doing many great things.

As I was saying, in the photo I appear walking in the beach and in the background is the sea, and there are two waves that are going to the shore and are on their highest point.

It was taken during the sunset. So the colors are really great, but they are not like in the common sunsets (with orange, purple or similar colors). It was a green sunset with a pale yellow, so it made a great combination with the sea.

Because of the sunset, in the picture my body looks almost black and also my footprints. So I hope you could imagine how beautiful it is. Besides it’s a great picture, it’s very special for me because it was taken by my dad and it was his favorite photo, he was really proud of himself for it and he was always showing it to the people. And of course, it is really special because it was taken in one of the best moments of my life.

a talk about education

Sir Ken Robinson thinks Education is going for a bad way. Generally what we expect of people is a ‘linearly life’ almost equal to other’s life: we have to go to school, and after that we have to go to universities to become professionals. If we don’t do that, people think we are “wasting our talent” or even “wasting our lives”. But, what Sir Kevin Robinson says is that human talent is extremely diverse, we all have different aptitudes. Education don’t have to make us part of a system based in linearity and conformity, education must help our talents to flourish.
He thinks that because of this linear system there’s a lot of people today that do things without enjoying it, “they are just waiting for the weekend”. What people must do is not learning things that they don’t really care. People must consider their passions: activities that they actually want and enjoy to do.
The great thing, says Robinson, is that while you’re doing what you often do you feel “an hour pass as five minutes”, because you really love doing that. And not than “five minutes feels like an hour” because you are really bored and not interested in what you’re doing.
Finally, he says education has to be and organic process, not a mechanical process. It has to customize to your personal and unique circumstances to make your talents to flourish. So, we have to pass from an industrial model to and agriculture model.
I think the talk is really great, I agree with him at all. I think today we value most studying a career that is lucrative for the system. And even, we value most studying after school that not doing. I think every person has to “do it at their own pace” and do what they really want to. Education must help to discover and develop our passions and talents.

MP3

Mmm I think one of my favorite pieces of technology is the mp3. Mp3 is a very small device which can be loaded with music. The great thing about mp3 is that it is so small that you can bring it anywhere, and you can listen to your favorite music using headphones whenever you want to: while you’re walking, playing sports, on the bus or even when you’re studying.
I have a black mp3 and I like it very much because it’s really small and it has enough space to fill it with my favorite songs.
My mum gave it to me two months ago. Actually it was from her before it was mine, but she didn’t use it, because she preferred to listen to music in her computer. She saw that I was using my brother’s mp3, because my old mp3 was broken, so she decided to gift me her almost new mp3. She was really nice!
The only thing I didn’t like is that my mum had lost the wire to connect the mp3 to the computer (to fill it with music) so when I want to add, erase or replace some songs I have to ask to the friend who lives with me to lend me her wire. Although she is really kind and always lends me her wire I’m thinking to buy one, because it’s not too expensive. But I don’t know where to buy it; I suppose I have to find a “technologic shop”.

Websites

I don’ really have a favorite career-related website. Most of the time, I got information from books that I can get in the library. Seldom, I got useful information for my career from the website “www.Psicothema.org”. I got to it thanks to a teacher recommendation. I think it is a very good website; it has very good articles about several topics.
Also, I like websites from which I can download complete books that there aren’t in the library. I think these websites are a very great tool for students.
There’s one website I use a lot to do papers: http://www.apa.org/ . In this one there are the rules of APA style. These rules are very important, they guide you when you’re going to write a formal paper and want to publish it in the “world of scientists”. I mean, maybe you can publish an article in a common magazine (such as “cosmopolitan”, “ya”, “caras” or something like that) without using APA rules, but not in a scientific one.
It’s an important requirement and it’s not easy to learn. Last year I had many stressful moments because of APA rules. But I’ve had to use it so many times, that now I’ve almost learnt all of them. I’m very proud of myself for that; some months ago I never thought that I’d get to learn those awful rules!

Music

I like music a lot, I think it’s a great way to express things.
Maybe my favourite type of music is Indie Rock, but it’s not the only kind of music I like. If I listen to a song and it makes me feel good, I don’t care what type of music it belongs to . Some people listen just one kind of music and think the other types are bad. I think just the opposite.
Some of my favourite groups are Arctic Monkeys, The Virgins, Old 97’s, Pulp, Blur, The Libertines, Nirvana, Jack Johnson, Andres Calamaro and so on.
Last year I went to a concert of Andres Calamaro in Santiago. I was expecting to listen to my favourite songs of him and he didn’t sing all of them. It was a little disappointing , but I enjoyed the concert and I’m waiting for the next one.
I’m waiting that my other favourite groups come to Chile too. I’d really love to see Arctic Monkeys in concert! . When they come I will be the first on file to buy the tickets!.
Unfortunely, I will never get to see Nirvana, It’s so sad!…