English Language Challenges

Being honest I never have liked English classes very much. I really like to know other languages and the capacity of understand something "stranger" and foreign, and I know you have to learn the theory first to be able to put it on practice but I always get bored studying grammar or things like that, even if I try to keep concentrate. I remember when I was at school, that it was hard to take attention in English class while we were doing the same exercises every time. This semester, however, the classes have been more likeable for the reason that we are using blogs and games to learn, even the video records have been something not so hard and not annoying. 

About my knowledge of English language, I think I need to improve the practical part, I mean, speaking. Even if I don't know all the grammatical rules I can write and read without big problems, but sometimes when I have to speak I forget how to use some words or I get tongue-tied. Nevertheless, I think in this semester I have progressed on that, I am, still, a little bit shy when I had to talk in English but not so much as before, and I will keep practicing.

Maybe the reason is that I practice too little speaking, outside the English class I am always reading articles of magazines or newspapers on internet, or other little texts that can be interesting. Also, I like to listen music and most of the bands or singers that I like are American or British, so I think that also can help to practice listening.

Have you had a good year?

I appreciated every little happy moment of this year and even if there had been hard times, after all, everything is going well. Reconsidering, I had to say a big "thank you" to my family and friends because they never had caused me any troubles. 

If I had to mention all good things that have happened in my life I think it would be a lot, for example, the birth of my brother, my family, the scholarship I get last year to study abroad, the fact that I could study in the university where I wanted in first place and live in another city, etc. I'm not saying that I have not passed for bad moments but I hardly stop to feel sorry about oneself or regret them, I think if they happened, they were caused by our own actions or maybe for inexplicable reasons.  

This year was the first year that I live alone and with responsibilities, so it was a little bit harder than when I was abroad, I had have to pay bills, organise my money and my time, be responsible with the studies and a lot of other things that I never had to be worry about. Thinking about how the things had been going, it had been a good first year of university, I had meet a lot of interesting and likeable people,I had made friends and visit new places. Even when I complain that I don't like to study some subjects, the stressful periods with tests or investigations and the fact that I won't be able to spend Holidays with my family, I have to say that I'm happy and I don't regret my choice.

Money

Hello people! Today's topic is money. 

Well, I don't consider myself as a person who is always worried about money, actually I would like that the economy works by exchange of products made by ourselves and reusing the things that other people rejected, but in the real world you only can get most of the things buying them. 

So, I think money is important to buy the products we need for living (even if you can make your own organic vegetable garden, for food for example, not all people can do that because of the places they live or other reasons) but we don't have to allow the money to became our owner, I mean, we have to be careful to became dependents of buying. 

Most of the money I spend is for food and transportation costs, but occasionally I also like to buying other things like clothes, books or accessories, I think when you grow up and have people depending on you it is more difficult and you have to organize your money differently, being more responsible and paying bills before spend it buying things for yourself. 

If I were a millionaire, maybe the first thing I would do is to pay the studies to all my family (that are very expensive in this country), buy nice houses where they can live for the rest of their lives and then I would put away a big part of the total amount in order to save it and no waste it. I also would like to donate money to non-governmental organizations and work with them, and in a more individual way I would like to spend the money travelling for the world.
I think is a little bit difficult to think if I had to pawn any of my belongings because generally in movies the people pawn gold things, furniture and even their houses, but I don't have any accessories made of gold and I live at my aunt's house so I couldn't pawn it, maybe it would be clothes or my cellphone, I don't know if a hockshop would pay properly for them. 

How green are you?

Punta Alcalde's 
thermal power station.

I think that most of the people of the modern society have not developed eco-friendly habits with their environment and in a certain way it is the fault of a society that worries more about the material production than the natural life, a good example of this are the dykes built on the southern part of Chile or the thermal power station of coals on almost all the northern and central area, two types of industries that produced a lot of electrical energy but are highly destructive to the ecosystem and the people who lives in that places. 

Recycling bins

Personally, I don't do great environmental activities, like the people of eco-organization groups, but my family have always teach me to be more conscious about the nature with little but helpful actions: not trowing the food wrapping at the floor when I am out of home and  far of a trash can, walking to near places (not using the car just for commodity), picking up the pieces of paper or wraps that other people trow out or separating the garbage at home between plastic, organic waste and paper, so that once the trash collector has picked up the garbage, it will be easier to recycle and reuse the useful remains.

Nice ideas of how reuse
a plastic bottle!

I would like to learn or incorporated to my habits new ways of recycling so that I would be helping to reduce the     pollution on the planet (or at least in our community) but I think that it is also necessary that all the people became aware of the situation that even if we can live with the environmental pollution, the nature can not, and that will inevitably affect us. 

Article from The Guardian

The article I choose take place in the context of Hajj pilgrimage's week that starts yesterday, when more than 2 million Muslims visited the Saudi Arabia's Mina Valley in order to follow the footsteps of the prophet Muhammad. While they were arriving, they realized all the changes on the sacred places of the city that the authorities with foreigner influences have been making, as the director of the UK-based Islamic Heritage Research Foundation says, the authorities are trying to destroy all the prophet's heritage in the Mecca, Grand Mosque and others important places for the community. In this way, with the influence of the globalization and the purpose of simulate the big occidental cities, the authorities have been destroying the consecrated and historical monument, building in  it's stead luxury hotels, public lavatories, underground car parks and metro lines, they already have bulldozed the Muhammad wife's house, forbidden to pray in his birthplace and demolished a group of 500-year-old columns that used to show Muhammad's poetry and journeys.

It shows one more time the constant struggle of the modernity against the material culture remains and in certain way also against the culture itself, not allowing the people do their religious practices in peace in their sacred places. It is important to remind that this pieces cannot be recover once they (or when we allow these people to) destroy them. 

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/oct/14/as-the-hajj-begins-the-destruction-of-meccas-heritage-continues