English Language Challenges

Back in the school, I used to have a lot of hours dedicated to english class, more than a normal high school usually has, so I can say I used to have a good english level but  it got lost because of  lack of practice, even when I keep using it in activities like listening to music, on the internet, or playing videogames.

 Learning English on University is a very good way to keep improving my knowledge, at the begining I didn't know what to think about this class, I thought that it would be kind of boring like in school, but after all I realized that the best way to learn is the practice and that is the course about, if I think about every class the teacher find funny and didactical manners to make us to speak english, sometimes very hilarious, but that is pretty good because that makes you keep attending to class even when you have work to do for another "more important" subjects but you can't and then you feel bad for being absent. I was pretty impressed about the use of blogs, I was accustomed to the traditional way on an english class writing down as if there wasn't a tomorrow; I felt very confortable seeing that we can use technology to learn at the university.

Currently my pronunciation is not really good, and sometimes it's hard for me to speak english fluently, sometimes in Online videogames I have to chat with english speakers of other countries, so  I can keep practicing but in online chats you have time to think about what to write and check it but in real life is not the same and this doesn't make you improve in fluency and pronunciation, maybe in the future I will have to pay for an English class, but some people say that the best way to learn a language is travelling, instead of paying english classes I like more the idea of travelling and learning the language from native speakers.

Changes in my program

I love studying architecture, I love my facultee even with the bad things it has, I think that there are more good things than bad but today I will complain about everything I don't like about FAU. 

Currently in the architecture career, in general terms you have 2 or 3 theoric subjects and 1 or 2 practic subjects like Workshop, in this subject you are supposed to apply the contents you learned from the other class but this doesn't really happens, when you work on your project, there are things during the design that you have to solve for your own, sometimes even you will never apply things you learned, or yes but maybe in the future, something I would like to happen maybe for one semester its too teachers agree too work in only one project, so you can really feel how to work on the application of the knowledge acquired in the class room. Is kind of hard that things like that happened because of teachers schedules and some administration troubles, with these I'm not pretty sure if  workload will get soft or even harder, I hope everything gets easier.

At these days the infrastructure and facilitys in facultee are really poor, we need better workplaces, like special workshops to save materials or storages, even more important than that, places to take a nap, every place where you have to study or read or work, like college, university, etc. should have beds or something, if it doesnt has it, then is not an university.  Even all of this my facultee its still a beautiful place and I love it.

A person I admire

The title says "A person" but I will really talk about a band that I had a great impact in my life, this band is called Have Heart. Have Heart was an straight edge hardcore band formed in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 2002, straight edge is a subculture whose adherents refrains from using alcohol, drugs, or any other recreatiional drug in reactional of the excesses of punk culture.

 I love this band because of the topics of  their lyrics, when someone said the word "hardcore punk", you think in big guys with chains and mohawks drinking, destroying and fighting listening to noisy music, this band reject all of this, they sing about self-control, respect, pacifism, youth pressure, perseverance, self-destruction, friendship and family in very powerfull songs with some screamings and melodic riffs and of course some noisy melodies.These lyrical themes have allowed them to have a commanding force in at least the possitive hardcore scene, and even the scene as a whole.
Have heart's last show was played on National Edge Day in Rever, Massachusetts along with o

ther bands, it was a really short show with a very few people, beacuse they weren't o much popular and famouse. I don't share too much that straight edge ideology but anyways their lyrics really gets to me.  Maybe my favourite song is Watch Me Rise, it talks about self esteem and improvement, but my favourite album and I would recommend to everyone who is reading this its Songs to scream at the sun.

Summer Holidays

I believe is kind of evil to make us write about our holidays when you know that we were two months on strike and we only had one month of vacation, please tell me that you didn't knew it .

Well, if everything would be ok and nothing would happened during the last semester, I would like to move to my mother's country house, I currently live in Buin this is like 30 kilometers to the south of Santiago and the house is in Valdivia de Paine, this is really close to Buin but it take a while to get there,  I like to visit her because her house is in a small road laddering a big hill in the middle of the country, so is kind of relaxing being in the nature, listening the birds, cows and other animals and you totally disconect with the rest of the world, obviously I will share with my mom because I rarely see her during the year. 

Also, I want to spend the summer with my friends, I don't have too much time to spend with there, and also they hasn't too, so the summer is the only real time we had to share and hang out, and obviously I would try to party with them and have fun this summer, in brief, all I wanna do this summer is to relax and party hard.

Special Talent

When I was young, I mean really young like 9-10 years old, I started to play the guitar. I think that actually my special talent is to sculpt, but I writed about it in a previous entry, so playing the guitar is my special talent not so special or just a talent.

In the begining I was really bad playing it, awful I would say it, so I give up learning but in a short time I had to start again because in school I needed to play an instrument. With time I realize that I was a very good guitar player it took me a couple of years to gain experience in that, I started one or two bands with my friends in school that didn't last too much. 
Before I enter to the university I had a metalcore band called Reverof with some of my best friends, we had a demo in youtube if you would like to listen us.

Naturally I had to leave the band because I didn't have enough time to dedicate, we used to play in small yard-basement concerts with friends. Playing the gutiar is maybe a kind of frustrate talent, I still have my guitar in a corner with dust and spiderwebs but when I am boring or in my freetimes, rarely I play it.

Postgraduate Studies

When I was in highschool my parents told me I had to choose a career to study like if it were marriage, according to them you only had to be dedicated only in one think for the whole life and the rest are only hobbys. I think they are totally wrong.

 I'm currently studying architecture but in the begining I wasn't too sure about this proffesion, even I still have doubts about it but I really want to finish my studies and get graduated. Well, as I told you in a previous entry I love visual arts and work with my hands, I've been searching information and I would like to study something related with Design, Industrial or Graphic Design specifically.  I would try to convalidate some subjects like maths, physics, and geometry so I would have less academic charge and it would be easier to me to study, of course I will keep being here at FAU.

The hard part of this choice is I have a debt for one year of university, and it still a lot of money, so I will have to take several years to get to money for debts and obviously starting to study again, probably I would have to work and study at the same time but I don't think it will be terrible in the future, when you do something you love you will never work any day of your life.

My Future Dream Job

I'm currently studying architecture at Universidad de Chile, Architecture is my kind of dream job (or nightmare sometimes) so if something would happened and I can't continue with my studies probably I will try to start living from sculpting.I’ve been always good with crafts and working with my hands, since I was a child I used to play with clay and plastiline and this remains on time, currently I do sculpture as a hobby, in my bedroom I have my clays, tools and materials to work.

Sculpting is a practical work but I only need a desk and also I can do it in the outside, so is up to you if you want to do it in an office or in your workshop in your house, perhaps in an industrial job I will have to sculpt designs for toys in an office. Maybe I won't travel too much because I will be working on some Project, but if I go somewhere it will be for conventions or exhibitions, this give me the opportunity to know people from other cities or countries, know another artists and interesting people to work with.  

 To sculpt you don’t need formal studies, I only have my hands and motivation, but there are schools of arts and crafts where you can improve your techniques or learn more about art, so obviously studying architecture has helped me to improve on my work. The only things that worry me about this is the money, I can get between $250.000 to $500.000 but it has to be a BIG commision like ultra realistic work of several months and of course painting and that are some skills I must keep improving. 

 I think that sculpting is the only thing that I can’t get bored about it and I can do whatever I want and whatever I am.

 

 

A movie I recommend

Whiplash

I really like watching movies, it's hard to me to recommend only one but I believe that everybody in the world MUST watch Whiplash. The plot its basically the story of Andrew Neiman a first-year jazz student and drummer of a prestigious Conservatory in New York and the relationship with his abusive, sadic and famed teacher Terrence Fletcher.  In the movie you constantly see Andrew stressed trying to improve his skills as a drummer while he is taken to the edge by his teacher.

The ambient is very tense and thrill, you dont know what is going to happen, you always think in any moment the main character will freak out and this keep you staring into the screen.

There are good things you can learn from the movie, like hard work and being constantly but it makes you thing about how much far you can go to keep improving and doing things better? Terrence test the limits of his students to see what they really can do, that's his philosphy of improvement, even *spoiler not spoiler* in the end of the movie, Andrew gives the right to the teacher when he plays the solo drumm like if his
 methods where always right.

I really, really really recommend you this movie if you think you are not doing enough at something or if you need some motivation in your life. Its a whole experience to watching it :)

A Great Festival

I have been to a lot of concerts in my life, from big festivals to small concerts of unknown bands in my town. Last year, on September 27, I went to Santiago Gets Louder festival one of the most exciting experience in my life. The festival  brought together most of the national and internationl iconic Heavy metal and Alternative metal bands like Gojira, Lamb of God, Deftones, System of a Down and Faith No More. The event was on hangares Suricato in the Cerrillos ex-airport.

 

 
The festival have an asistance of 40.000 people and more than 14 hours of live music. I didn't know too much about all of the bands at concert, personally I really wanted to see Deftones, Lamb of God and System of a Down on stage

System of a Down is an Armenian-American alternative metal. The band's currently members are Serj Tarkian, Daron Malakian, Shavo Odadjian and John Dolmayan. They came to America after a civil war in their country and this influence their topics on lyrics. Theirs style is often oblique anda dadaist, and their music have a lot of critic to society, politics, drugs and sexual intercourse.


Deftones its also an alternative metal band from USA that consist of Chino Moreno, Stephen Carpenter, Frank Delgado, Abe Cunningham and Sergio Vega. Deftones has a very unique style, sometimes their songs can be rude and agressive, and sometimes soft and slow with a very dark atmosphere.

On stage, that day Deftones was kind of lazy, their show was too short and they only played the slow songs in a speed and energic context of music, maybe that show was a "pause" to relax and take a breath in that place. On the other hand System of a Down gave everything they had on the stage, a great performance, great music, everybody was so excited and they could share all of his energy. A great surprise I had was Lamb of God, I didn't knew too much about them until I saw them live, a powerfull trash metal music.

I didn't go alone to the festival, I went with one of my best friends, but at the moment that we enter to the enclosure there waere so many people that we lost each other and we couldn't find each other until the end of the day :(

A country I'd like to visit

Some day If I had the chance or the opportunity, I would like to  visit Japan.

If you don't know it, Japan is an island located in the far east of Asia, neighbour to China, South and North Korea. I really love the japanese culture, their perception and sensibility of nature and the way they see the world. Also they have weird manners and traditions, like the kabuki theatre, the sumo fight and of course the food. There is ball-shaped snack takoyaki, it consist of wheat flour, batter cooked in a special moulded pan filled with octopus meat, its really tasty and it's special because there in Japan you can buy it from street vendors. I would like to be in a  teahouse ceremony, it's kind of spiritual experience in a small house of tea. It would be interesting to live and work there, but very difficult because of the language and the habits they had there.

 We always said that asians are always experts on everything they do and mostly of the time it's true, thats because they used the method of Kaizen. Kaizen its an expression of self improvement, the word literally  means "change for better", but in their culture is deeper than that, it's about being constant and practice everyday on whatever you want to do or be, everyday a bit of work. As an architecture student thats very important for me to be a better profesional and it's something I really admire of Japanese culture. Japan also has really good architecture that's another reason  I want to
visit the country.