It's time to say goodbye...

So, it’s time to say goodbye! This is the last post of the semester and also it is the last post for this class. I think it’s great to keep learning and practicing English at the university, because even though we learned a lot of English when we were in school or in an English Institute, it’s always necessary to use it, so you don’t lose it (it rhymes :D ) A good thing about the blogging activity is that we’ve been able to improve our writing skills as well as our vocabulary, because with the themed posts we had to learn words related to the topic we have to write about, and it’s possible that we didn’t know them.

Personally, I think that I need to keep improving my vocabulary, and I think a great way to do that is reading more things in English, so if on the text there’s a word I don’t know its meaning, I can look it up and make my vocabulary fatter. I have also learned a lot of vocabulary by watching English spook movies and TV series, that’s how you can learn how people use the language on ordinary situations.

Outside the English class, I use my English to contact to some friends that live in Canada. I actually met them because of English, so I believe it’s awesome to have the chance to keep contact with them on Facebook and other social media. I also use my English to talk with some relatives that live in United States, they left Chile decades ago, and now I have little cousins that are learning to speak Spanish, so I teach them some Spanish and they can understand my English, and I think that’s good because if children can understand what you are saying, anyone can. 

A future job...

In this post, we have to talk about our future Jobs. I think it’s pretty obvious why almost all of us are studying here: because we want to be lawyers (I said almost because I don’t know if any of you are here but you want to be something else). I want to be a lawyer because I think it’s a very interesting job. With the education we are receiving here, we can work in a lot of different areas, making this career a very complete one.

I'm not very sure in which area I’d like to have a job, because I'm just on second semester, so I haven’t been that much immersed to be able to choose, but I've always wanted to have a job in another country, so it might be something about International Law.

I think a very important aspect to consider when you choose a job is how comfortable this job would make you feel. Of course most of people look for a job to have a great income, but you can’t just work for the money you could win, and leave behind the amazing experience you can earn if you work in something that you really like.

 If this were an interview for a job, and if I were asked about my strengths and weaknesses, I would probably say that one of my strengths is that I'm a good group worker, because is important to be able to work with anyone that you have to, no matter if they are your friends or not. I’d also say I'm very organized, so I don’t let anything unplanned. About my weaknesses, I'm sure one of the most notorious is that I'm not very punctual, but that is something I'm working on.

Thinking about the future

New Thursday, new post! So, today we have to become some kind of psychics and mention in our posts how we see ourselves in 2 years. Honestly, I don’t usually try to see me in so short amount of time, I've always tried to compare myself today with the picture I can make of my life in 10 more years or something like that.

I believe in two years more I'll be studying here, I hope by that time I'm going to have approved all my classes, even though it’s too much to ask, but until now the plan is working. I'm kinda shy so I also hope by that time I'm going to be a little bit more outgoing, because it is very necessary for our career.

I expect to be working as an attorney to receive my own salary, so I could help more in my house or, at least, pay my own expenses so I wouldn't have to ask my mum for money :) , but I have to improve my grades in some courses in order to have the possibility to postulate to a job like that.

As I said before, I'm not used to think about myself in a very near future, every time I did that the things I wanted to happen never did, so that made me the less imaginative person about the future. But if I think back two years, when I was still in High School, and I see the picture I made that time of today, I can honestly say I'm accomplishing the plan! 

It's not that easy being green...

This week’s post is about being green, but not in a Kermit way J I think people are getting more involved to environmental issues today because it’s a global disease. The kids learn about recycling in kindergarten now, and they make their families to be more careful about it.

In my house, we are trying to incorporate recycling into our habits, reusing plastic stuff, and making fertilizer with organic garbage.

I have to be honest, I don’t ride bikes because I don’t know how to, but I try to use Metro and walk if the place I’m going is nearby.

You can have a vertical garden on any place

I don’t participate on any eco-organizations, but I think it’s important organizations like that exist. When I was in high school, I was part of the Students Council, and with my partners we created a project for the school’s community to participate. It was an environmental week, we wanted to have discussions for the middle and high school kids, and we wanted them to teach the elementary kids about how they could take care of the planet.

I think it’s important that all of us have a garden at home, even a vertical one if you live in a flat. It can help to contain our carbon footprint, and we can also use eco-friendly electronic devices that produce less carbon than a regular electronic device.

Our city isn’t designed to help the environment, because we live in a very low valley that has no ventilation. I think architects that are in charge of design those new skyscrapers that are being built in “Sanhattan” have to have “green facades” instead of mirror ones, so we can reduce the temperature of the city.

Knitting ♥

Hi classmates, today I’m gonna talk you about a kind of art I practice as a hobby, and that’s knitting. I’m pretty sure everyone relate knitting with their grandmothers, or old people sitting on a rocking chair, covered with a blanket. Well, let me tell you that this kind of handcrafting is a very good stress reliever and helps to be more focused and creative.

Yes, it's a Dobby amigurumi. Dobby is a free elf :) 

It’s complicated to think about the knitting prominent exponents, but instead of that I think I’ll write about the different types of things someone could do with knitting. For example, it is common knowledge that the people wear knitted clothes, but you can also knit things to decorate your house, useful things like pencilcases and messenger bags, and if you are interested in crochet, you can knit amirugumis, a Japanese invention which is about creating little knitted animals, even though in the present you can knit anything as an amigurumi.

I like to knit because, as I said before, I practice it as a sort of therapy, but I also like it because it gives you the chance to make things that identifies you. There aren’t two equal handmade knitted pieces; each knitter shows their own personality on the pieces they knit. I think it’s important for our generation to recover this tradition, because with the clothes made in machines we, as a society, had lost the idea of having a exclusive thing, not just something you can buy in a very expensive store but a thing that has your own spirit on it, and no one can copy it.

Incest: legal in Portugal, illegal in Germany

The article I read was written by Daniel Sokol, and it’s about a case of incest that happened in Germany, and how the German court handled it.

It begins talking about an imaginary case about a couple of siblings that decided to have sexual intercourse. It was sort of an introduction to the real case, which was about a couple of siblings too, but they didn’t grow up together. The brother was given to a foster family when he was three years old, and 20 years later he met his sister, who was 7 years younger than him. They felt in love and started a relationship that had as a result 4 children, three of them were given up to foster families, and just the youngest daughter lives with her mother.

The article presents the arguments from both parts: the applicant’s and the government’s case. The applicant argued that Patrick, the brother, and his sister didn’t grow up together or met before, so they didn’t have a brother-sister relationship. He also argued that this case is different than the cases related to the Electra and Oedipus complex, because there wasn’t overlapping family roles, like mother-son or father-daughter. The government argued that the incest is banned because is the German government’s role to protect the family structure as a base of the society.

Even though, the Court agreed with the accusation that the government was violating Patrick’s privacy, the rule which regulates this topic specifies that is just for relationships between adults, and in German you are an adult when you are 18. Patrick’s sister was 16 when the relationship started.

At the end of the judgement, Patrick was convicted of incest, and the Court didn't violate Article 8 of the European Convention of Human Rights, about the privacy.

The article’s author explains that, for him, the regulation about incest in Germany has loopholes. He placed as examples other European regulations, such as UK, where the incest between adult siblings is prohibited, and Portugal and Serbia, where the incest has been decriminalized.

He ends the article asking the readers some questions the incest topic can open, related to ethics and moral psychology.

This is the link to the article, on the online edition on The Guardian newspaper.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2012/apr/16/incest-legality-ethics

Up :)

My favourite movie is Up. It's a Pixar production released in 2009, and it was directed by Pete Docter, who also directed Monsters Inc.

The story is about Carl Fredricksen, an old toy balloon vendor who has been recently widowed, Ellie, his wife, was the love of his life. They had a dream since they were children: living in a colorful house above the Paradise Falls, Venezuela, but they couldn't make it because everytime they saved up enough money to do it, they needed to use it in other things. 

Before Ellie died, Carl bought the tickets so they could finally go to Venezuela, but she got sick, and then she died. When Carl found himself alone in their house, he decided to attatch thousands of balloons to it, and travel to Venezuela to place the house at the top of the falls. During the trip, Carl met Russell, a boyscout who was at the porch when the house was elevating; Dug, a dog who had a "human language-barking translating dog collar"; Kevin, a female tropical bird and Charles F. Muntz, Carl’s biggest idol from his childhood.

I love this movie for several reasons. First, when the movie began, I couldn't help myself from crying on the first 5 minutes, when they show Carl and Ellie’s love story. It was very moving. Second, I have an old uncle who looks a lot like Carl and his wife’s name is Ellie, so it’s kinda cool to relate the movie to them. And last but not least, I love Dug and his attention deficit disorder when it comes about… SQUIRRELS. For those of you who don’t know this amazing dog, I leave you his first appearence in the movie 

Let's hear it for New York!

Hi dear classmates!

I went to New York, USA, in 2007, after I graduated from 8th grade. I have relatives living there, not in New York City, but in Westchester, which is a county located at the north of the Manhattan island. That (Chilean) summer, my grand aunt and grand uncle came here to a wedding and, when they left, they took me with them. I spent two months there, half December, January and half February. Yes, I spent Christmas and New Year's Eve too. 

I went to Manhattan almost everyday, it was like 30-45 minutes from Westchester by train. During the "trip" to the city, you could visualize all the different landscapes on the way. 

I have to say this, I couldn't visit as many places as I wanted to, because of the very low temperatures that city has in winter. And unfortunately, the day I could see a little bit of snow, it looked like powder sugar on the grass from my bedroom's window. When I woke up the next day, the snow was gone, so I realized I should've gone out to play with it when I could. It snowed the day before I arrived and the day after I left. I guess the snow didn't want to share some time with me. 

Here's me @ Rockefeller Center Ice Skating Rink, and you can see the Chilean flag  :)

And me again, with the Manhattan Island as a background

These holidays were very important to me because I had the chance to meet, not just a new place but a part of my family that I didn't know before, except by pictures.

I really think I will have the opportunity to go back there, and see all the things I couldn't see that time. Central Park is more beautiful in summer than in winter.

London Calling

This week is "travelling week" so we have to write about a country we want to visit.
That's right! You are brilliant! I would love to visit England, actually United Kingdom, but I prefer to visit England than Ireland. I've always loved the English mannerliness. If you ask me what would I like to do there, I'd say I will visit all the important London landscapes, but there's a thing I HAVE to do once I'm there, and that is visiting the places where the Harry Potter saga was located. Of course I know I can't go to Hogwarts :( but I can visit some of the remarcable places that do exist, like the Oxford Cathedral or the Leavesden Studios. Oh, I almost forget this, if I ever go to London I'd take a picture of a little house with a blue door :D

Back to reality, I would like to live in London, because it's a city that reunites people from all over the world, but is more quiet that other cities like New York City. I would also like to study some time there, but just once my english is improved to a better level

Blogging experiences

Hi! so here's the first official post for the class. 
I used to write my own blog before, I used it as a journal, but I ended to publish things because I posted the blog's link on my Twitter description and a friend read it. She though something I wrote was about her and she apologised to me about something she never did. I erased the link from my Twitter so she couldn't read whatever I wrote, but at the end I didn't keep it.
I think the best thing about writting a blog in English is that you can keep a record about your writting progress, but what might be a little challenging is that, at least in my school, we didn't practise a lot this skill. This could be an amazing opportuniy to increase our vocabulary and improve our grammar.
I think a good topic to write about are movies or books we like or dislike.
Well, I think this is it for this week.
See you next thursday :)

PS: please, feed my fishes! they are on the left column. You just have to click on the light green background :)

Welcome :D

Hi readers !
Let me introduce myself. My name is Gabriela, I'm 19 and I'm a Law student (freshmen year) at Universidad of Chile.
This blog is an assignment for my English class, so I'll be writting once a week, starting next Thrursday.
As this is just a trial post, I'm gonna end it now, but I hope you to come back and read the new posts.

Greetings!

Gabby