This is The End

The end of the line.

“And so it is”, says a Damien Rice song. “This is the end”, says The Doors’ famous song. “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make” says the famous mantra from one of The Beatles’ most unknown songs. And this is the end.

This is my last post in this blog (or I hope so), finishing one semester of learning English in two sessions every week, and I think there were the most useful way to improve my English level since I studied at Norteamericano Institute, two years ago. At this time, you won’t study for example past simple, past participle and all that kind of stuff, but you'll obviously learn much more about the two most important things that I think you should learn in order to, for example, know how you can’t get lost when you go to a foreign country, or if you have a better level, to keep a conversation with a English native speaker. These two things are to learn new words to improve your vocabulary, and to pronounce them rightly (The highest satisfaction for an English teacher is that he can make that their students stop speaking English like Tarzan).

I really appreciated the Blogging experience, since I could learn much more than other kind of teaching methods about how English is being used currently, and obviously, to explain own ideas about the large amount of topics that I had to write about.

But in my case, I probably won’t make the teacher’s satisfaction real, because I still speak like Tarzan, less since I started the lessons obviously (I can’t deny that I haven’t been the best student, I forgot a very large amount of homework and I'm still asking for mercy and clemency), but I think that I still have some hope to talk more fluently in English. My passion is music, and I love English music, from Bob Dylan to Pink Floyd, and I don’t have many problems to play and sing songs in English trying to imitate the original accent from the artists, so by that way I think I would divorce definitively from Tarzan, to sing more appropriately, and the main objective, to be a better English speaker.

That’s all. Thank you very much, Merci Beaucoup. It has been a pleasure. See you next time :D

My Future Job

Today I’m going to write about my current major at the University. First of all, I’m a freshman at Universidad de Chile Law School, and I have been here for about 8 months (trying to be a survivor).

Only In Law School.

Since I was at school, I always liked to study Law. Although I had doubts about studying Music or Literature, I finally decided to follow this career after having some conversations with elder people that joined their artistic and professional career together, so I could probably do that too (I hope so).

Although I haven’t got any experience in the most important law aspects; right now my three most important subjects are Roman, Private and Constitutional Law, I think I would like to work at the Public Service, and being a professor in my university. I think I won’t be happy being my whole life sitting in a desk in front of a computer all day long, and therefore I would like to have a future job that I can be the most time outside of the office. I won’t have a problem if I have to walk long distances or go from the same place to the same place every week, but if I can go outside long hours, It would be very fascinating.

If I had a job interview and they asked me about my strengths and/or weaknesses, I would say that I’m a hard-working person (I think), and I would contribute by thinking of new ideas about increasing the “work-level”, but I would also say that I’m not the best speaker and my speeches would be a little bit confusing. However, I would be much more useful writing documents rather than speaking. But I still don’t want to spend all day sitting in front of a computer, so If I’m not my own boss, the real one would fire me or ordering me to make different tasks, but I think I’ll be fired.

Green stuff.

'Cause I'm green.

“’Cause I'm green” says the chorus from Kermit the Frog (the Muppet) in his cover of Radiohead’s “Creep”.

Honestly, I think that is one of the few things that I know about “Green Stuff”.  But what’s the problem with the real “Green Stuff”? Everybody has heard about increasing pollution, accumulated trash, and all kind of “stuff”, and the idea about teaching environmental topics in schools is only a recent activity. Nowadays, people learn about the troubles of excessive pollution by social networks, films and TV series, but apart from feeling sorry about the world and the poor children of the future that will suffer our mistakes, we do nothing more meaningful.

Personally, I'm one of those people that don’t do anything to try to make a cleaner environment, but some weeks ago I had a strange experience in the supermarket, where while I was carrying the bags to the car, the guy that was packing the bags next to the cash register brought probably 200 plastic bags and kept packing. Although it was something normal in every supermarket worker’s day, for me it was a little bit shocking. How many trees had to be turned down for packing a single bottle in a single bag?

These thoughts would sound as false modesty, but I think that after thinking all day about the plastic bags, I (think I) changed my mind about Green Stuff, and started to change my daily routines in order to improve a little bit my environmental consciousness, starting obviously to use less plastic bags, stop using my dad’s car excessively on weekends, trying to walk more and to recycle paper in the supermarket next to my house.

Although the minimal carbon footprint that every person in Santiago might have by making a more “environmental life” would be probably less than the 0.1% that an international industry would contaminate in one single day, environmental knowledge must be increased not arguing that if we don’t change our minds, our planet will be destroyed, but thinking that our life quality doesn't depend only on economical stuff. It depends also on our relationship with nature and how dangerous this relationship could be  for us and for the planet.

Gay Marriage & law

The American law & the American political system is a little bit "strange" for us, because they have an special way to decide their judgements, which consists in that courts judgements are not applicable only for the particular case but they are considered also like a "new law". Also the opinions of the different courts from each state apply only for that state, according to the federal system.

This happens now with Gay Marriage: in some states it’s legal (for example in Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire & New York). However, in some another states is considered illegal (like California, New Mexico & New Jersey).

In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the famous (actually infamous) Defense of Marriage Act, that defines the word marriage as “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife”, and therefore excluding any same-sex marriage or union.

Today, an appeal court in New York declared this definition unconstitutional, because it denies legally recognized rights to current gay unions by the Constitution.

What’s going to happen with gay marriage from now? I think that this debate is going to be probably the second most important criteria in order to vote for the new President of the United States, after the economical crisis. If one of the states that allow gay marriage now considers unconstitutional a federal law (being the worst legal consideration to a law), probably the rest of the citizens will change their minds about this topic.

I also think that arguments for this debate should not consider religious or so-called moral beliefs, because now it’s not a question about how many gay people will go to heaven, it’s a debate about how much law can protect the rights of his own citizens.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/oct/18/defense-of-marriage-act-unconstitutional.

Driving around Terra Incognita

This post will be about my best holidays. Two years ago, in 2010, me and my family had the opportunity to visit Punta Arenas, the capital of the XIIth region of Chile. We were invited by one of my father's friends, who works at Cervecería Austral in the city.

It was a very interesting tour, because we had the chance to visit the two main cities in the region (Punta Arenas & Puerto Natales), and many places that were located near them, such as Torres del Paine Park, the Milodon cave, Bulnes fort & Puerto Hambre.

Bulnes Fort, located a few kilometres from Puerto Hambre

We could divide the trip into two parts: the first one, related to learn about the history of Punta Arenas, the colonization process and the development of city life in the Chilean Patagonia, historically called the Terra Incognita. There was a very “shocking” moment, that happened while we were driving from Punta Arenas to Bulnes Fort, where in the middle of the road we found and old graveyard, where the tombs of old sailors and their families were located. Even in one tomb, there was an inscription telling about the ship that wrecked, made probably by the captain.

The second part of the trip, we travelled to Torres del Paine, and made a trekking session inside the park, walkin' about 10 kilometres in order to reach a waterfall located under the main peak. We had another shocking moment, because we rented a car that didn't have good conditions to be driven, so while we were driving coming back to Puerto Natales, one wheel fell down and we stayed for about three hours in the middle of nowhere, waiting for help. Finally, we could get home safely, but without the car.

Despite this actually funny situation, I loved those holidays because I could learned many things about the southern culture, that usually aren't considered in history books, and therefore, new topics to be discovered are things that you won’t forget ever in your life.

That’s all :D

Paris est une mètaphore

"Paris is a metaphor", a famous quote by Argentinian writer Julio Cortázar of his masterpiece Rayuela, is the title of this entry, because it's the topic of this week, a country that I would love to visit. This is France, and specially Paris. 

Why I would like to visit this country? For many reasons. I think it's a country that every thing their inhabitants do is something unique in this world. From the language to their architecture, France is the country where la vie en rose is possible to dream. Paris is specially the city where big writers of all time thought and felt the emotion of a "dream city", where Cortázar made one of the most beautiful love stories (Horacio Oliveria & Maga in Rayuela), where Jacques Prèvert made his surrealistic poems about birds and cats, where in May 1968 an intellectual movement became one of the most powerful protests trying to make this world a better place to live.

If I was there, I would take a cup of wine in a boulevard, writing a poem while watching the river and the people walking, and also visit old churches, drive around the county and try to speak to the citizens.

However, I wouldn’t like to live a long time outside Chile, so if I can go to France, I would go for holidays or studying, if I get a chance to study in a local university.

And finally, one thing is missing: my French level is too basic for even ask for a place. So I would need to study the language if I don’t want to have a bad experience while traveling.

That’s all, until next time :D

Des milliers et des milliers d'années

Ne sauraient suffire

Pour dire

La petite seconde d'éternité

Où tu m'as embrassé

Où je t'ai embrassèe

Un matin dans la lumière de l'hiver

Au parc Montsouris à Paris

A Paris

Sur la terre

La terre qui est un astre

(Jacques Prévert, Le Jardin)

Interesting: my First Blog

Is my life interesting? That's probably one of the most important questions that every man should ask himself. Is Blogging a chance to answer it? Probably yes, probably not.

I've never had a blog before this, just only an old webpage made for an unnecessary class in the old school days. So, this is my first time trying to say something interesting in a different language. 

I could think that this blog could be just a way to "do correctly and quickly my English homework", but it's much better to consider  this Blogging sessions as a new chance to explain new ideas, in order to improve my actually-forgotten language level.

I am a big fan of literature (I usually write short stories, sending them to literary contests) and music (Until last week I was member of a cuban music band, but that's another story).

And so...C'est moi :D