¿Academic year?

What’s involved in an academic year? Is it even possible to define where college ends and when extra-academic life begins? In the following lines I’ll try to answer these questions because in the present year college issues has been secondary in my life; so it would be very difficult to refer about something that has really been less important than other subjects such as future thoughts and life expectations. Of course, this hasn’t always been like this. I think most of freshmen and sophomore are really interested in their careers and eager to learn nuw stuff. I was one of them.
When you’re through that phase, your mind starts worrying about other things. Right now, and since the beginning of this year, I couldn’t care less about grades and subjects. I mean, I’m studying to approve my classes and so far I haven’t failed anyone…but maybe because I’m tired or maybe because my career doesn’t seem so interesting to me now, I just want this year to end, so I won’t have to answer any other exam for a long time.
But this “syndrome” it appears to be characteristic of this stage. Other classmates and friends are going through the same thing. Most of them are really tired, just thinking on to finish 4th year and start looking for a job or develop their thesis. Maybe when you’re about to end such an important stage of your life, anxiety starts to grow and consequently you just want it to end. We are so close of ending college that apparently we don’t wanna wait any longer.
Anyway, it’s not like I have had a bad year or something like that. I’ve done great in most of my classes, I’ve recently found a great job that allows me to study and win some money at the same time so I couldn’t say it’s been a bad year at all. There are interesting things going on right now; I’m returning to play music after a long recess and I’m starting to care about things that I had left behind because college.
After college, a new stage of life opens and…who knows…maybe it will be a better one.

Sociological Issues

Sociology is a wide field. to define challenges is to put an eye on what are the issues that need to be solved at a whole society level. therefore, challenges in Chile will probably be slightly different than in Argentina or Brazil or any european country. Here in Chile I think sociology is worried about two main issues. The first is a very complex one and involve many subjects: we're reffering to social structure and the intentions to analize the way it's changing according to the new world stage, globalization, deregulated economic activities and labor flexibility. Of course, this has a lot to do with inequity and poverty, but also with equal opportunities which leads us to the second issue that's "bothering" our discpline here in Chile. We are reffering to Education with everything that implies. Due to recent events, educational system has proved to be very unequal and moreover is broading social differences and therefore sustaining a certain whelth distribuition, that, at least in Chile, needs to be heavily corrected. In fact, that's one of the issues that goverment needs to put their hands to, in order to be part of OCDE organization.

Back to order in Honduras.

I've recently heard about Zelaya's possible restitution after beeing removed from his duty as Hondura's President by a Military dictatorship. The thing is, after almost 5 months of negociations it seems that democracy might have another chance in that nation. substitute president Roberto Michelletti is about to leave the seat and handle it over to legitimate president Zelaya.

What I just can't understand, is that forces behind Micheletti are simply retreating and facing the fact that the situation they tried to hold it's not possible due mostly to international political pressure. I believe that if they have come this far, I don't think they would just pack their things and go home, because it's supposed that things should go back as how they were before militar intervention... Really? Can't imagine that happening.

I mean, it would be really nice that things work out that way, but...c'mon, we all know that right wings forces when they feel something is bothering or attacking their interests won't just stay calm watching things pass by. Therefore, I believe they will actually handle power formally to Zelaya but they will pull their strings in order to achieve their main goal, which is, as always, to remain things exactly as they are right now, because right now, they are winning.

Our Faculty status.

I think our faculty has come a long way since I was a freshmen. Back then we didn't even had enough computers and the ones that we had were as good as a pocket calculator. At least, in that subject I believe we have improved a lot. Nevertheless there are things that need solution and aparenttly aren't as simple as one might think. such is the subject of not having a real study room. Recently named Faculty Director thought it will be a good idea to use the cafeteria as a quiet place to study and read. Of course, everybody were laughing about it; some others were really mad with what they think is disrespectful. Library has become small for the amount of students and we desperatly need another place to quietly study. It's suppossed that with "bicentenary project" a huge building will have rooms for every faculty in this campus. If that comes to happen, that could be a solution.

this leads us to a very important subject. this alleged project it's suppossed to introduce a lot of modifications to the campus, not only in terms of infrastructure but also rearranging way labor and work inside the faculties, afecting people who works here (important part of our comunity) and also probably affecting price of our carreers. . therefore, as students, we need to be very active to try to influence in decisions so when things are already done we won't be crying about how things were done and we weren't even ask for our opinion.

Election day

I'm not registered to vote. At first, when I was 18 years old, it was a decission made on the grounds of teenage disconformity with politics in general. Now that I'm older it has more to do with the fact that I don't trust in political campaign. I know that campaigns must have a certain lenguage in order to convince people so they are full with promises and cliche phrases. But that's exactly the reason why politicians discourse doesn't convince me at all. Regardless, I was supposed to register this year to vote in the upcoming election, but in the end, lack of motivation and long long lines of people waiting to do the process end up with me still not registered.

I don't think a politician should have any particular qualities. I mean, in the end, people it's not voting over their qualities as they vote for the party they belong to or according to how they were able to place the candidate as a realiable one.

Personally, I think elections and campaigns are more about propaganda and media workout than about proposals and ideas. Considering that, it's pretty difficult for me imagine as a politician. Although I did run for elections inside University and actually won it. I suppose as soon as I abandon my, still "idealistic" ideas, there's a chance that in the future I get involved in some minor party, in which I could have the possibility to influence politic line and strategy.

Crisis and profitability in UK companies.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/oct/07/uk-firms-low-profitability

Economic crisis has affected companies all around the world and UK isn't an exception. But apparently what's going on is even worst for industrial activity; namely, manufacturing companies. Acording to the ONS (office for national statistics), companies outside the financial sector fell their profitability to the level they were 8 years ago. Only in 2009, the number has decreased over a 12%.

Nevertheless, services sector seems to be recovering and has incresead it profitability increasing to 15.6% in the second quarter of 2009. If that number is compared with 13,6% obtained previous quarter, signs seem to be clear.

Howard Archer, important UK economist explain this situation blaming the deep recession that hit's companies' sales hard and limited their pricing power. Moreover, situation becomes more complex because economy has returned to growth in this third quarter, but recovery doesn't seem to appear to a lot of companies of the manufacturing sector, which is, by the way, the sector which offers the biggest amount of employments. So, it's recovery would increase consumption power to a lot of people, recovering that way a healthy economy. If this is not to happen, relapses could well occur.

Another important subjetc related to this is that fall in profitability means tax receipts will be lower aswell. consequently, public finances will be affected (in fact, they already are) and an important budget deficit is going to stay as a remain of this crisis, even when it's over.

Criminal Laws

I don't think capital punishment is a good solution to reduce criminality. There's no evidence that killing criminals will actually reduce crime rate. In fact, general tendency is going on to remove capital punishment as an actual corrective way to enforce the law. Moreover, I think that crime, as many other social issues, has more to do with prevention rather than repression. Therefore, I really don't see any pro's in capitol punishment. On the contrary, I think authorities should work on improve our actual jail system, driving initiatives to educate and reform criminals and therefore give a strong strike to criminal behavior and anti-social conduct.

Following the same argument, in order to reduce criminality there's no discussion about the role that police plays; but the problem can't be limited to that. I think civic education and a more equal society must have a main role in crime fighting strategy.

Now, about increasing crime rates, I think that's more a TV fiction than a reality. I mean, it's true, there's crime in Chile...but there's no evidence to support the general insecurity picture that mass-media often try to present. Comparing Chile with other latinamerican countries, serious crimes such as kidnapping, mass murderers, rapes, etc. doesn't appear to be the main issue. Probably crime rates increase during high unemployment cicles (there are a few studies supporting this) but, as I said before, there's no evidence to affirm that that is the general tendency. I tend to think that we live in a pretty safe country...and that's what most of european and north-american tourists travelling chile say about it.

Things to see and do on Santiago.

For a person that's currently livin' on Santiago, it's difficult to find interesting things to do. I mean, with the smog, the noise, the aparrently stressed living way that we constantly see in people I would definitely recommend a tourist tha leave Santiago right away and go travelling every other interesting place that Chile has. But if I must, I would start for telling them that they must go downtown and visit historical Santiago. There you can still find remnants of spanish period of conquest over Latinamerica. Then I would go for Bellavista neighborhood; almost every tourist that come's to chile want's to party and get to meet people. There's no better place to do such things as Bellavista.
Then, in Santiago you should go to metropolitan park and walk around it; you can get a beautiful view of polluted Santiago from it's heights. Moreover, you can go to the zoo and I don't know, get to see the animals they have there.
Another thing that I like a lot here in Santiago is to go to higher zones of the city such as La reina or Peñalolen during night time and find a nice place to see Santiago over night. In many ways, is like to be watching the ocean, only in this case it's a million lights ocean. Anyway it's feels very similar.
Last but not least, I would recommend a tourist to visit Colorado Sky park. I've never been there -not much of a snowsports guy- but I always hear about how great it is and how Chile it's known over the world for it's wonderful places to skiing and snowboarding, so it would be a mistake to not point Snowpark as a place to visit when you are a tourist and decided to come down to Santiago.

High School Experience

First of all I must say that I did high schools on two differents cities. Therefore I was able to experience two totally differents educational systems. The first one, on Chillan, was the classical school, very strict and severe. They made us to cut our hair very short and if we refuse then we were suspended for a week or so. In fact, it was a mason school, maybe that explains this behavior in teachers and autorithies. In the opposite side, here in Santiago I went to "francisco de miranda" school which it's known for it's "alternative" way of teaching and actually raising, that is in fact what a school should do. It's interesting how two completely different educational system can affect you. Here in Santiago I was always told that what's more important over every other thing is that you must be an "integral" beeing. It's not about just getting high grades and beeing best on your class. There's no point on beeing best in maths if you can't be the best person you can be. furthermore, here they teach me how to express my self freely, without feeling guilty or embarraced for my feelings and beliefs. In the other hand, this school always lacked of discipline. I mean, not that I was expecting a cop on my back to tell me what I should do or what I shouldn't do, but when you're -as I said before- raising childs or teenagers or whatever, it's necessary to show some discipline from time to time, because world often works in ways that we can't always deal with it if we're aren't properly prepared for it. Anyway, it's interesting how I was able to experience this two differents ways of teaching, I think it helped me a lot to grow and learn things that you don't usually learn in a class room.

Transantiago, now and then.

The new public transport system has brought a lot of trouble. Nevermind political ones, the main issue is the fact that making such an important modification should be gradual and not in the way that it was made; this is, with alot of "inside" planing, making sure of everything works in "paper" but not realizing that things in the "real life" are a lot more complicated than engineers think. This sort of things requieres that people who design the program go out and experience how is to travel in a public bus at pick hours and when you're late for work. Anyway, things have come a long way since the first day of transantiago. Slowly we're starting to see a modern public transportation system. City ways have been adapted and travel time is going down comparing it with what it was in the beggining. I think things will begin to get more organized as politics realize public money should be invested in public transport, so we can demand for better service, and also because it's very unlikely that only private investment would make this sort of things work.
An interesting thing about transantiago, is that we are starting to see busses all night long. This is very helpful to people who want's to go out and have fun and want's to go back home late at night. Things like this never happened with the old system, so that's a good thing that can be atributted to transantiago.

Countries I should visit before I die.

To choose just one country that I'd like to go to is impossible. I mean I definitely want to go to Europe and hopefully travel and visit most of it Countries. But there's no way I'm going to die without going to India and travel through Asia and Oceania; Cambodia, Laos, even China, those are places that I just need to visit someday. A good friend of mine went to New Zealand and spend almost 3 months picking up kiwis which gave her enough money to start travelling for another 3 months. She has been on Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos, Cambodia, Phillipines, Thailand, Vietnam among others I don't remember right now. Interesting thing is that she would go back right now if she had the money. So our plan is to finish our carreers, work for a year or so and then get on a plain to India, go to China through Nepal and then start the same trip she did before but backwards.
I don't really know if I would like to live in any of those countries. They are so far away from home and people is so different. However, maybe travelling getting to really know people, lenguage, etc. I'm able to find a job or something that put a hold on me there and then it would be a whole different story. Right now all I can say is that I refuse to live in a cold place. I can't stand even the cold here in Santiago so if I can I'll look up for a place which is warm, sunny and friendly to get a job and start a life.

English IV Blog.

Good and bad points: First Term Review.

Among the things I've learnt in first term I must include all the issues related to Latin-American societies that we studied on "TESAL" (transformaciones en la estructura social de américa latina) optative subject. We studied stratification theory and how it can be used to understand processes of differentiation and evolution of class structure.
That and a very complete narration of each country contemporary history made a really interesting and relevant subject, which gave us essential knowledge to the development of our discipline.
When it comes to sports, first half of the year was very busy for me. I played on a soccer league almost every sunday and trained every wednesday until I got injured and had to stop for a whole month. Other than that, I hope to continue with this because we still have chances to become champions this year.
In addition to all this, I started looking for a job since my savings began to run off. My intentons are to continue living on my own so sometimes not having a regular income was hard to deal with. Fortunately, I've recently found a job that allows me to keep on with my studies along with my desire of not living at my parent's home. Nevertheless, I must say that I have a very good relation with my folks and if I decided to leave their place it was not because we argued a lot or anything like that. It was just my independence will that led me to take that decision.