Post 10: ENGLISH LANGUAGE CHALLENGES

Today I will write about my experience learning English at university. This semester I had to go back to practice my English language, because to finish my courses, I have to also pass the Intermediate level of English, which is a require level that I have to meet in order to finish my study program of my career. So, when I was doing my blogs in this semester, the contents that they dealt with made me reflect on some topics that have always been in my mind, but that I had never written. For the same reason, I think that having carried out the blog activity, has been generally interesting, although some topics were boring, others I found interesting to reflect.

My experience learning English at university has been different in the two courses that I have been during this four year at university.
The first course that I had to do was course Pre-Intermediate, and that experience I did with my friends Belen and Alejo, it was a funny and long experience,because in that year that was 2014, as students we didn’t have any class break time, as it was this semester for some holidays. That year around fourteen days of class, much more than this year. This Intermediate English course was a quiet experience, perhaps because I am also in my fourth year of career and I am already moving away from this university, because all I want is to finish this process

To be honest, I don’t use the English language in my free time. I don’t listen much to English music, because I like Latin music more, Spanish music and I also like instrumental music. So, when I see a series of English origin, I try to see them directly in English so I can learn. This way I can practice my listening and reading skills, but I think that is not enough to achieve better progress with my language in English. Next year, I decided to do a deeper study on this beautiful language, because my intention is to expand my knowledge about cultures and societies and English I consider it a basic tool to start this way

Post 9: Changes to my study program

Today in this post, I will write more deeply about the career I am currently studying, which is social anthropology. As I’ve said in my previous posts, I'm in the fourth year of my career, and next year, I must do my final research, to finish the study program and get an academic degree. I’ll first start by telling you about the curriculum, and some subjects that we have studied throughout this study program. First of all, this writing will be based on my and my friends' experience, because we have shared some insights about the career and how it is structured and how it delivers different knowledge and skills through the courses. In my opinion, the structure of the study program is deficient in content and depth, because I think that the study program of my career doesn’t have some contents like contemporary anthropological theory, contents on methodologies and research tools more deeply, I also consider that the exits to field trips that we have in the career are deficient in what respects to what should be able to prepare an anthropology student to learn how to do ethnography. Talking about the workload that implies the time devoted to the courses in some semesters is heavier in some than in others, however, I believe that the readings are poorly distributed in the courses, because sometimes it exceeds in its quantity the possibility that a student who also has life outside the university has time to read everything. Despite the aforementioned, I believe that we have a program of studies that integrates various contingent themes, such as courses on anthropology of gender, anthropology of migration, politics, medical, cinema, religion, among others, which integrate interesting and necessary topics to form us in an integral way as professionals that we will be.

To the finish this post, I’ll like to write about the faculty doesn’t have enough infrastructure and buildings to do all the activities that are done in that space. I consider, that the faculty has precarious conditions for the educational community and workers. It doesn’t have enough rooms, laboratories, tools, an adequate research file catalog, an adequate library and according to the number of students of this faculty, to mention some of the deficiencies that it has.

Post 8: Summer Holidays

Today I will write about my plans for my next summer holidays. In different times ago, I didn’t know where would I go on a trip or what would I do in my summer holidays, but since two or three years ago, I always have planned my summer holiday and the next year it is not going to be different. My plans for the next summer holidays are taking a trip to Europe, to some countries like Spain, France, Northern Ireland, Netherlands and United Kingdom. I will do this trip with my sister Lorena who is seven years older than me, she is a teacher and my best friend too. We are so excited and happy for this opportunity, however, it’s the first time that I travel outside the continent and during so many days, unlike my sister who this year she is doing her third trip to Europe. I feel a little bit afraid about this trip, I think that the all the places, people, different cultures, art, music and so many aspects about those cultures that I will feel so strange when I have to come back to Chile again. I think that this trip will be not just a trip for my life, I think that will be the beginning of a new stage in my independent life… and for this and another things I feel a little bit afraid and anxious for that event.

Well… to write about the different activities that we have thought with my sister to do in these countries, I would like to visit the Louvre Museum in Paris, take a walk aroung the Eiffel tower and the Champs Elysées and the streets of Paris and also to spend a day in Disney Paris. In London we have thought and we want to visit Warner Bros Studio Tour London- The making of Harry Potter world, to visit Buckingham Palace, and to meet London's Eye too. There are so many places that we will not have time to visit, but I have a feeling that this trip will be a memorable adventure in my life.

Post 7: I will never know enough about Jazz; and that is why I love it.

I really like Jazz music, like, a lot. But I don’t hear it since a very long time. Is more of a recent taste, or one that, even if I liked it “all my life”, I haven't really got into it until recently. Maybe, that is a blessing;  since I don’t know very much yet, there is always something new, and wonder that surrounds me in ways that are hard to describe. The classics, Coltrane, Miles Davis, etc. were truly amazing to experience, and I couldn't get them out of my body -not that I ever wanted them to-, and new jazz fusions like Snarky Puppy seems to be music performances never fathomed by anyone before. They just make you either jump and give yourself to them, or just keep still in awe and enjoy.

Now I know a lot more than when I started listening to them but is still hard to talk about it with people that truly know about music in general and jazz. Even then, hearing them out, present what little do I know in comparison, is really helpful to me. Not only they make me feel relaxed, focused, or just allow me to “stay”, but they also help us to share and talk about whatever is on our minds. Learning from and with people will always be a productive experience. Jazz music is astoundingly varied, there is something -I believe- for everyone, and for almost every situation. These two reasons are fundamental to me; listening to jazz not only allows us to be there, but also open us to new experiences; and second, these new experiences are also new ways to be, since they are deeply important to others, and the way in which they are. They help us to cope with everyday situations, feelings and predicaments that would otherwise impossibilitate us. These songs relate to us in ways that are, sometimes, very subtly. I want to leave you all with one of them. It is probably nothing special -or a widely known piece- to a lot of you, but for me, in this precise moment, is very important. Hope you can also like it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbxtYqA6ypM

Post 6: POST GRADUATE STUDIES

In this post, I will write about what I have thought about the possibility of studying a postgraduate course in the future, after finishing the career of Social Anthropology that I study today. At this point, I don’t know if I will do postgraduate studies, because in this last period I have decided that next year I would like to take a break in my life and have everything that I couldn’t do due to the time. I had to spend so much time of my life being a student, since I was a six year old girl to this day; Some of the things I would like to do are: travelling, attending courses of alternative health therapies, learning other languages and researching community work in the city of Santiago.

However, if I had to talk about these hypothetically postgraduate studies that I would study, I have always thought that I would study something related to the discipline of Medical Anthropology, but... why am I interested in studying this?

Well... as I said in the previous post, to investigate about the field of study of health, but in a holistic way and to see health from a field of cultural study in societies, I have always been interested in continuing to learn, but from what I have researched, the countries that promote the study of this disciplinary field are: England, the United States and some Western European countries, so if I wanted to study a postgraduate course on this subject, I would have to travel to some of those countries and review the universities that have these postgraduate degrees.

Post 5: About my future job

What I have thought more this year, because I am in my last year of career as a student, was to think about how would it be my future job? Where would it be? And so many questions about ff I would work like Social Anthropologist here in Chile, or if I would have to travel to another country to work… there are so many things unknown about the job and the future, that to think again, makes me feel very afraid… but if I would can to tell you some aspects that I want to have in my future job and 

to have the possibilities of living would be this:

To travel around the world...

I imagine my future job like a continuous travel to different cultures around the world; I wish for the possibilities to learn different languages, cultures, and religion and history context. Also, a relevant aspect are the possibilities to insert in the political problems of each country, and what matters most to me, is that my work serves to contribute to the society in which I work.

A master that I want to study...

For my future job, I have been thinking about to study a master program for the continuity of my studies of my major, the specifically Interuniversity Master's Degree in Medical Anthropology and Global Health at University Virgili i Rovira.

                                   

Post 4: Medical Antropology

First, If I have to be honest, Anthropology is a really strange career. Actually, I study this career.

I am in my fourth year, and now I think that this career is the most strange, different, particularly of all disciplines of the social sciences but, why do I think this? Well… it’s a long way, and in this blog post, I can’t talk about all the way that I had to go during these four years, nevertheless I can tell you through this blog, as is the sub-discipline and in which I am interested in studying.

Anthropology is a discipline that is interested in studying the human being in a holistic way. It’s object of study is the culture and forms of social organization that has developed the human being through its history. This discipline has different areas of study, in my personal case the area of the Medical Anthropology is the theoretical line that interests me to continue investigating, but… ¿What does this discipline study?

The health, the sufferings, and the diversity of diseases are different in each culture. Each society socially constructed and means these elements within their cultural context, the study of medical anthropology, is to approach these ways of conceptualizing them, and the ways in which health is part of the cultural context of each society.

Today the biomedical system is the hegemonic model that predominates in the health in the western society. The ethnological studies to indigenous cultures and diverse cultures have contributed to consider different ways in which health is conceived in societies, establishing a more critical framework in the ways in which plans and programs are implemented in health and well-being of the human being