My English Learning Experience

Hello people! This is my last post in this blog. Sadly I have to say that I’m finishing my last English course in the university. It’s sad because I believe that English courses should be given across the career. Well, to finish this blog I’m going to write a brief essay about my experience learning English at the university.

Today English learning is crucial to fit in the society. English is a must to get good jobs and to get a good status in the society. In the educational field English is really important to be updated. In science the last researches and discoveries are published in English around the world, and so on. English is becoming a tool to connect people, a language that provide communication between persons every place in the world. As you can see English is very important nowadays. ¿Do we have in the university the facilities and the method to learn English properly? ¿Is the course working Style the best for learn English? I’m going to tell you my experience.

In Universidad de Chile (my university) the English courses consist in 4 difficulty levels, from very easy to very hard (lol). When you enter at the university you have to make a leveling test that put you in one of the four levels. The courses are one per semester and it’s supposed to be focused in writing and oral skills. When I made the leveling test I scored enough to reach level 3. This level was not what I was expecting. I thought that level 3 would be a course to improve our talking skills, our major lack thinking that our country language is spanish. In spite of this I think that blogging was a very constructive experience for our learning. I had never used a blog before, and I think that is an excelent tool to improve our writing skills. Now this semester I'm in (and finishing) the level 4 class. English 4 was a more helpful class than English 3 to our English. The facilities were fine, but always could be better. For example it should be really good to have an English laboratory. Also sometimes we had problems to take a classroom. About the English contents is worth to mention that teacher couldn’t go quickly with the subjects because our class level was not the same.

I had heard many critics about these courses, like “We don’t learn anything new” or “The level is not what I was expecting at all”. But I really think that we have good English teachers, with true vocation for learning. The problem I think is that the academic load is too low. We only have an hour and half per week, if we count only the classes, and that’s not enough. I'm very satisfied with the English classes, but I would like to have more. I have the feeling that I have much more to learn.
Thanks for reading,
See ya!

Challenges in my Discipline

Hello my friends!! I’m going to talk about some important challenges that my career is facing at this moment. These are challenges that we have as psychologists in many areas, such as technology, social matters, education, etc.
I’m going to start with technology issues. Technology can be defined in few words as the application of science, in that terms we can us our science (Social and clinical science) to create new technology. I think that our principal challenge in this area is to create new instruments to evaluate in more effective ways (in clinical psychology). For example a few days ago in a psychological congress a presentation talks about the need of develop an instrument to evaluate child depression.
In social matters the psychologists have many challenges too. Sometimes we face the fact that we don’t make any real difference intervening one person. Actually we have to work on an entire community to make a real change. So the challenge is how to create plans to intervene a big community. Also in social psychology there is another challenge, how to truly represent people’s speeches. This is a really important task for psychologists because lend us to elaborate more efficient interventions.

Psychology has an education area too, and it has really big challenges. Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Education psychology works with educational establishments and with government to create educational policies. Educational psychologists work in teacher educational programs, intervening child with social disorders, solving classrooms conflicts, etc. For example, a big challenge in this area will be to eradicate bullying from classrooms.

Like in any other professional area challenges are constant in psychology, thus the real big challenge is how to affront this and how to reach the best solutions. Challenges are included in the psychology student profile, so we have to get used to it,

Thanks for reading.

Bye!

Activities I like to do in my free times

Well, I had been thinking and I realized that I have too much free time. The problem is that I “make” my free time, in other words, I have many things to do in my career but I waste my time. So I use many hours doing different activities that I’m going to tell you now.

The activities I enjoy the most when I waste my time are… certainly more than three (I have to talk about three activities in this post). Thus, I’m going to write about the activities that I spent most time.

In third place I’m going to choose theatre. Acting is an activity that I do since secondary. I spend like four hours per week in it. In my theatre academy I’m with another seven people. We are preparing a play so I spend a lot time in it.

In second place there is an activity that I spent many free time in it, I’m talking about watch movies and tv series. It’s the second activity I like most. Every day I download different videos from internet. From classic movies to new American series I see many things (except dead people lol). I spent like three hours per day in this.

And the most wasting-time activity in my life ever is… play videogames!!! I’m always playing a game in my free time. I’m used to play long games or never ending games like massive multiplayer online role-playing games. I’m a gamer because it’s very relaxing for me to play. I began to play videogames when I was eleven years old. Play games is my drug, my addiction. I know this is very nerd and geek from me but I’m fine with it. I play in average almost three or four hours per day. I know this is not good for me. I play alone and sometimes with my friends. I spent very good times in these “second worlds”. Now I’m playing two role games at the same time. I have to say that I’m learning how to manage my free time.

Well thanks for reading,

Bye!!

Improving My Faculty Facilities

Hello people! I’m going to talk about my faculty, specifically about the needs that it has.

Well, I’m a Chilean psychology student. I’m studying at Universidad de Chile, one of the most important Chilean universities. My university receives a fund contribution from government but that is not enough to maintain in a good shape all the facilities. My faculty doesn’t have the worst conditions but still has many needs. I’m studying at Facultad de Ciencias Sociales (Facso), which in English means “Social Sciences Faculty”. This faculty has four careers, for each one there are many needs, I’m going to talk about psychology ones.

Talking in a macro term, the faculty need more classrooms. Many classes, tutorials, etcetera, can’t be done because the lack of it. Also, the university wants to increase the number of students per year but it can’t because the classrooms.

One big need in FACSO is the lack of good psychology laboratories. There is one but it doesn’t have the conditions to carry out good experiments and doesn’t have the sufficient infrastructure to admit all the class students. Also we need a Neuropsychology lab, this is imperative because the university is getting behind other universities in matter of scientific academic research.
We need also a good student room. We don’t have it so we are forced to go to other faculties to study or just to our homes.

To solve these major needs we have to send a petition to the authorities, and wait for the approval. This is very difficult because there are many bureaucracy in the university.
Thanks for reading.
Bye!!

Music in my Life

Finally an exciting post to do! Music is very important part of my life, so writing about it is a pleasure.

When I was a kid music wasn’t the great thing for me, but when I grew I started getting my own musical likes. Since that time I began to include music in my daily life. Like in any movie, background music has a crucial role in my life. I always take with me an mp3 player to listen music every time I can.

About my musical likes well... I have to say that I listen to a wide range of styles, from Jazz to Metal or Hip-Hop to Ambient I listen to lot of music. Besides I don’t like some styles. There is some music that I never listen to when I’m alone, like cumbia, reggaeton, salsa, sound, most pop music, folk, etc.

Well, I listen to a new disc or group every day. Being honest I think that I’m becoming an audiophile. I can describe how much I enjoy music. Every day I download tons of music from internet and I listen to it at least for six hours.

My music likes will depend on my daily emotional status. Always music is a pleasure for me, like chocolate but unlike this I never get bored with music.

Because I listen to so many bands I’m going to write here only two songs of two of my favourite ones, this is a very difficult task to do for me.

Angra- Carry On

Ivy – Lucy doesn’t love you

Thanks for reading.

Bye!!

If you only do one thing this week… avoid multitasking

Often considered the pinnacle of efficiency, multitasking can actually be a negative practice, according to latest research. So stop what else you're doing and concentrate, says Giles Morris

Original article: http://tinyurl.com/yau96j5

Although technology grants us to do many things at once, that doesn’t mean that we’ll do those things well. Concentrating on one thing at a time, it seems, beats multitasking when it comes to doing a job properly.

A study at the University of California found that multitasking impedes the brain's ability to absorb information, while research by Glenn Wilson, visiting professor of psychology at Gresham College, London, showed that people's problem-solving performance dropped by the equivalent of 10 IQ points when they multitasked, and their stress levels also rose.

Recent findings of researchers at Stanford University in California shows that people who routinely multitask are the worst at ignoring irrelevant information. Also they regularly switch between tasks and have poorer short-term memory – in short, all the skills needed to multitask successfully are diminished.

But why, exactly, does multitasking have such a negative effect? According to Dave Crenshaw, business coach and author of The Myth of Multitasking, the damage is caused by what he calls the "switching cost" – the time taken to switch from one task and refocus on another. "You actually take much longer to accomplish things, make more mistakes and increase your stress," he says.

So the experts recommend us to avoid the multitasking wherever we can, “"If you are doing something very important I would suggest it would be better to shut down all channels of communication so you can concentrate fully." Wilson says.

Thanks for reading.

Bye!

My Favourite Dish

Hello people! I’m going to talk about my favourite dish. In a world full of tastes and flavours everybody has their preferred ones. I’m going to talk about mine.

Well, I really don’t have a favourite dish. I like many dishes but being honest the food isn’t an important pleasure to me. I’m not picky with food. But, I have to say that I’m vegetarian. Many dishes I eat I don’t know their names because are from Taiwan. But basically I really like omelettes and pastas. Also I like soya products, as hamburgers for example. So a really good dish for me will be a combination of that food.

My favourite taste is sweet. Thus, the food I like most are not dishes, but desserts I think. My really favourite thing to eat is bitter chocolate. I can’t imagine another food so stimulant to sense of taste than chocolate. Also I can’t resist a good cake, pancake, ice-cream or anything you could find in a cake store or ice-cream parlour.

I had had many good moments eating the last food I mentioned. It’s sound obvious but cakes are often eaten in birthday parties or celebrations. Everyone can talk about a good moment while a cake was present. Also I like to invite friends to eat ice-cream or cake and talk a while. Chat with a sweet taste is such a good combination!

There are many places to get a good dessert. But Bravissimo and Gatsby are very popular. I like that places too.

Well thanks for reading.

Bye!!

What to do and where to go in Santiago.

Hello! This time I’m going to talk about the places and activities that a foreigner can do in Santiago.

Santiago is the capital and the largest city of Chile. In Santiago the population reaches about 5.5 million people. Like any big city there are many things to do and places to go out. I`m going to talk about 5 locations/activities (there are so much more).

I’m going to be honest; I don’t go out often in my free times. But there are some places I really like. The place I like most is the Estadio Nacional. This is the main stadium of Chile, also is a big public park. I like it because I think that is a very peaceful place, to do sports or simple go around.

Another place is La Moneda, where the government is located. In that place there are beautiful parks and a wonderful cultural center.
Also you can go to the hills that Santiago has. San Cristobal and Santa Lucia are the principal ones. I really recommend these places because see the city from above it really worth it.

I don`t recommend it because I’m vegetarian but the Mercado Central is a typical place to go. In there you can eat all the fish and seafood you want.

Finally, I recommend El Colorado Sky Center. This center is formed of two interconnected villages, each one with hotels and refuges. Next to La Parva and Valle Nevado, is the major and best Ski surface in South America.

Well, that are the places and activities I`ll “recommend” to a foreigner.
Thanks for reading.
Bye!

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

Hello people! This time I’m going to do a movie review! I’m going to talk about “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”, a Jack Nicholson movie.

Well, winner of 5 oscars and another 28 wins and nominations this movie is a “must-see” classic. McMurphy (Nicholson) was a prisoner who wants to avoid the forced labor camp in jail by all cost. For doing that he pretended to be a mental ill person, so he was transferred to a mental institution. In that place he fitted in frighteningly well. But because his impulsive and explosive personality he had many conflicts with the Chief Nurse, who didn’t want that McMurphy left the place because she thought that he was really ill. For that reason McMurphys began his tries to escape from the asylum…

This movie made you think about what is to be “crazy”, Was Nicholson character really mad? Was he really faking his problem? Also this movie shows the life inside a mental institution and how is the common life for people with psychiatric problems.

I saw this movie in my home. You can do the same I did and download it from internet and see it. I really recommend this movie, especially for people who are studying a career related with the human mind or simple have interest on the subject.

I hope you had enjoyed this review,

Bye!!

Transantiago: Before and after

Hello everyone! I’m going to write about the Santiago public transport, specifically about Transantiago. This is a bus transport system that let people to reach every place in Santiago, the capital of Chile. Well, I have to say that this is a very recent system, implemented just in 2007.

Before that, and in my opinion, the public transport was awful. The old one had about six thousands buses and formed a very complex route system. The buses were very old and harmful to environment. The air pollution in Santiago was mostly formed by buses emanation. The bus drivers were very rude and violent, especially with students. Also the bus drivers made races against each other; they fought to take people in. Because that reason and many others the government implemented a foreign public transport system and called it Transantiago.

Transantiago has about two thousands buses less than the old system. The buses are bigger, more comfortable and friendly with the atmosphere. In the old system, people had to pay the fare to the drivers, now everyone has a special card with a chip used to pay the trip. Also the routes are connected with other public transport system, the metro. The trips now are faster and have a lower cost than the old system.

Well, I have to say that in the beginning Transantiago was a mess. But now, three years later, Transantiago is the best thing that has happened to the city (hahahah).

Thanks for reading.
Bye!!

A country I would like to visit

Hello people! As you can see in the title I have to write about a country I would like to visit. This is a very difficult subject to me because I believe that the world is full of mysteries and beauties. You have to know that one of my dreams is someday travel around the world.

Well, if I have to choose a country to visit I would choose Japan. I chose that country because travel there is a dream that I had had for many years. I liked Japan since I began to read manga and see anime. Japan is an island country in East Asia who actually has a population estimated of 127.3 million. Japan is country with a rich and famous culture. Everyone has listen at least one time about samurais, geishas even karaoke. I really like Japanese culture, and I really love Japanese landscapes. That’s why I would like to visit all national parks I can there. I would like to visit many manga stores too; I would like to spend all my money in funny Japanese stuff.

I don’t want to live in Japan, but I would like to visit the country often in my vacations.
Thanks for reading.
Bye!!

Good and Bad Points about the first term of 2009

Hello everybody!! I am starting a new English course and I have to work in a blog again! So I am going to use this one to write the posts.

Well, today I have to write about the good and bad points of the first term, all in two hundreds words, too few words to resume the experiences I had lived. Thus, I’m going to try to be concise in each topic: university, free time, challenges, etc.

The last semester I learned a lot of things from very different areas and I had many subjects, the most important to me was Experimental psychology because that subject let me be a class assistant. Other very interesting subjects were Psychopathology and Neurobiology, where I learned about mental diseases and more about the biology of the brain respectively.

In my free time I did many things not related with the university. My principal activity was acting in a theater academy, I had been doing this for 6 years, and I really love it.

I love to do sports too, I practice Taekwondo regularly but the last semester I couldn’t because I have an injury in my hip. So I went to run every time I could.

Well I run out my word limit but I´m going to write about the challenges I had. The major one was to approve all the subjects in my career, which was particularly difficult because I had many extern activities to do.

That was all for now,

Bye!!

Let’s talk about my blogging experience…

Hello everybody! It’s sad to me to say that probably this would be my last entry in the blog. The semester is over and the English class too, so I’m going to talk about how it was my blogging experience.

Well, I wrote about many things here and that was very fun, I can say that I enjoyed this activity. Also I learnt more about my classmates, their thoughts and hopes, I really liked that.

Respecting my writing skills I think that I have accomplished mi initial goal, who was improve my English. Maybe I don’t have a perfect writing redaction and grammar but is something.

Blogging in an English class has many advantages, the students can improve their vocabulary, redaction and grammar, and why not, it could be a self-knowing experience. But it has disadvantages too, for example the correction feedback, to improve our English we need a constant check and revision about what we are doing, and during the semester we had only one or two corrections. I know that the Teacher has many students under her supervision but she had to solve that. It had been a good idea to give us as homework the correction of one or two classmates blogs at least, that It had been a good way to learn from our mistakes and to improve our reading comprehension too.

That’s all, thanks for reading my blog,

Bye!!

My ideal job…

Hello people! In this blog session I’m going to talk about what would be my ideal job. This is a very entertaining subject to me and I’m going to tell you why.

Now I’m studying psychology but my ideal job is not related with my career, ¿How is this possible? Well, since I was a kid that I was fascinated by World’s mysteries and beauties, so since I was young that I want to be… Explorer!! Hahaha. I mean an explorer who travels the world helping cartographers to do maps.

To do this activity I would need multiple skills, principally surviving ones, but being more specific I would need drawing skills to register locations, mathematical skills for register measures according to a scale, mountaineering skills for climbing mountains, etc.

And maybe more important than skills are the qualities that I would need as explorer. I would need to be very courageous to explore unknown places, and I would to be persistent to reach far places. I would need to be very confident of myself, having and iron motivation for not lose my “spirit” during the expedition. And the major quality that an explorer would have is: to be a child at heart.

I would be good at this job because I really would enjoy the adventure. I always had had a natural motivation for explore new places. And I think that motivation is the key to be success in any job or activity. I can say that I really have a vocation for explore.

In spite of my will, there are many difficulties to get this job. Principally, there is the fact that almost every place in the world is well documented and explored at this time. Also, there is not an “explorer career” in any university, so if I want to be an explorer I would have to prepare myself by my own.

Well, that was my unusual ideal job,

thanks for reading,

Bye!!

My Favorite Subject is…

Hello everyone, this time I'm going to talk about my favorite subject. This semester my favorite subject is, believe it or not, English.

When I was in school I was a good student. I had very good marks in many subjects, but in one subject I had always seven (the max score in my country, like A plus), It was English. Even my friends thought in that time that I had plans for study English because my motivation.

English language plays an important role in my life, I use it daily. For example, I read many science papers in English, I see a lot videos and movies in English and I often listen music and play games in that language.

I don’t have many friends that speak English, so for practice I try to think in English every time I can. I really want to improve my English, which is one of my goals in life.

That’s why I like English and even is my favorite subject. In class Miss Zagal (my English teacher) teach us the basics to improve our speaking and writing English abilities. I had learnt a lot, and I want to learn more.

Thanks for reading,

Bye!

Do schools kill creativity...

Hello people! In this opportunity I’m going to write a brief review about Sir Ken Robinson's talk video "Do Schools Kill Creativity".

What can I say about it? Brilliant, is a clever and entertaining way to show the actual educational system reality, that doesn’t nurture the creativity and restrict the dynamic, plastic, natural intelligence of children.

We have to think about what is the function of the educational system, is to make people more intelligent or creative? The educational system is built to help people to fit in a particular economic system, to make good workers. It restricts the human capacities to a certain “kind” of intelligence according the interests of the market. The students commonly are mere listeners in this system, forced to retain the information given by teachers. The schools system doesn’t help to develop the critical thinking in children, they are punished if they have different ideas, and things like this undermine the creativity.

Well, remember to see the video, and always think by yourself!
Bye!

My future...

Well, I don’t have many expectations about my future; I prefer to live the present, so I don’t know certainly what I will do in five years more.

Nevertheless I have some idea about my future, a vague one. In five years more I will be working, earning money to pay my university debts (about six millions of Chilean pesos), therefore it’s very probable that I would be still living with my parents, saving all the money I can (food, rent, etc.).

In five years more I will be working as a psychologist, I don’t know what specialty, but I know what approach, the cognitive behavioral one.

Personally, I will be single, because I don’t want to marry in any future. Maybe I will have a girlfriend, or two hahaha, the future is very unpredictable.

An ideal future will be one where I have good health and job. It will be ideal that in my future I would be practising Taekwondo, my favorite sport. And finally the most important issue about my future, I really hope to be alive in five years more.

Thanks for reading,
Bye!!

The best in my area...

Choose the best in Psychology is like to choose the best man in all time sports, very difficult because psychology, like sports, have many different areas. Nevertheless, if I have to choose someone I will choose B. F. Skinner.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, author, inventor, advocate for social reform, and poet. In few words I chose him because his contributions to the Experimental Psychology development and by his efforts to make psychology a science. By the way, he founded his own school of experimental research psychology—the experimental analysis of behaviour. He discovers the power of reinforcement on behaviour and develop the operant conditioning. Also he was a prolific author who published 21 books and 180 articles.

Well thanks for reading,
Bye!!

My Career...

Hello my friends!

For me, it is difficult to talk about my career because sometimes people think it is not useful. Everyone assumes that they can talk about ‘my’ career as if they were professionals and without having studied it, but I personally think they should learn a little bit more about this beautiful career I am studying: PSYCHOLOGY. Everything they talk about Psychology is full of prejudices and I do not like that.

Although Psychology is a ‘new’ career, it has been developed in many ways, in the last century. Actually, Psychology is not only the clinic part. There are many other speciality fields like Organizational Psychology, Educational Psychology, Experimental Psychology, and so on.

Finally, Psychology is a very beautiful career. I have learnt a lot studying it, but there are many things that I am sure I am going to learn.

Thank you for reading, again!

Bye!

Memories...

Hi everybody! Today, I am going to tell you about an important aspect of my life and some memories about it.

The image that you can see on the top is the ATIN logo. ATIN is the acronym for Academia de Teatro del Instituto Nacional or in English Instituto Nacional Theater Academy, the place where I have been an actor since 2002.

I really love the ATIN. At that place I grew as person and student. I made many good friends and also I met my first girlfriend at ATIN.

Actually, I love ATIN so much than I came back this year to that place,.I missed it so much than I had to join up again.
Now, at ATIN, we are preparing the play "Death of a Salesman", an Arthur Miller's work, and my role is Willy, the main character. I am very happy to take part in such a good play.

I cannot describe the good memories and feelings about ATIN,. I can only say that it has become a part of me.

Thank you for reading.

Bye!!