First terms: good points and bad points

I think the last semester was the most difficult period I've ever experienced since I got in this college, that is to say, it was difficult in the academic side. This is my second year in this career, and the hardest, because the first year was very easy compared with this. I learned a lot of things related with anthropological theories, specifically cultural materialism, and with different aspects of social sciences. For example, I had subjects like: linguistic, psicology, and physical anthropology. I was very stressed up, because in almost every subjects we had a lo of things to read and a lot of pieces of work, essays, investigations reports to do; and the hardest thing of all this was that the most of them were in group, so it was very difficult, because doing them took a lot of time.

Actually I was very tired, so I didn't have the chance to do other activities, besides I didn't have many free time, but when I had it, I listened a lot of music, I went out with my friends, I read things for my own and not for the college's subjects, I saw a lot of movies, and I went to Valparaiso to see my family. I didn' t do any sports!!!!, but I walk a lot during my daily life. I started to participate in a project of popular education (educación popular) called "la escuelita", doing workshops to kids. Sometimes I felt very bad, because I couldn't lay out my time in my family and friends, college and "la escuelita"; on the other hand, I'm a very "slow" person, and everything I do take me lot of time; but I'm trying to achieve my purposes of making things right.

Since I got into college, I haven't seen my family very often, but I try to travel to Valparaiso every weekend. Last semester I was so stressed up that I traveled to Valparaiso every time I could, because I feel very good and relax when I'm with my family and specially when I'm near the sea. Besides, almost all my friends live there, so I try to meet them when I go.

regards,
penny

This is the last blog of the year, I guess.We're ending this semester and the end of this english course is coming, so I think it's appropiate to talk about this "blog thing". Actually, I'd never had a blogg before, so it was a new experience to me, and I think I really enojoyed it, because it's a very good opportunity to write about, in this case, my career, and about my life in general...and because sometimes I was so stressed out that I needed to do something different, like writing in this blog, to clear up my mind. On the other hand, it was very useful, because I think I improve my english. I've always thought that the most adequate way of learning english is writing, and talking and listening to music, because you practice it and have time to think first before you write, or talk, and you try to make and effort to do it well. Maybe I'm not the best english speaker in tha country, or in the University, but I learned a lot of things and I hope to still learning more.
Maybe these are some of the advantages of having a blogg, you can talk about things you like, or write things to unberden yourself, and meet knew people as well (when they write comments in it). You can visit bloggs of other persons and find interesting things to read, or to watch. But,the fact that other people can see and read the things you "publish" could be very dangerous, specially when you put pictures of yourself; but, well, you have to be careful. But in general, I think it's very fun, when you have the time...I would be a very terrible blogger, because I'm not very persistent, and I usually never do this kind of things in internet, and the reason of this is because I get bored easily...though, I enjoyed it too.
Penny

I always think about my ideal job, but in a very utopian way...I've never thought about the real conditions of a job because I still don't know in what area I would like to work, or if I want to work in Chile or in other country. I think my ideal work it would be in an ONG, making investigations about different topics related with the population, and that can tell significant information, that is to say, useful information that can be used. In the other hand, I really like the practical work, that is to say, make interviews, talk to people, and make investigations using the information that people could give me. I think that the qualities that this kind of job requires are related with the research area, that is to say, I need to be a very good investigator, and in case of dealing with people it would be very useful to know how to make the right questions and how to treat people, not being so invasive.
I don't kow if I'm going to be a good anthropologist, that is something that nobody know's, but I hope and I want to be a very good one. Maybe I'm a little shy when it comes to talk and knowing other people, but with time I think that maybe it can change, and I'm always trying to improve.
I think that find this kind of ideal job is not very difficult, but I'm not sure, because I don't know how's the market of jobs. But in case of this, you always can adjust to a job, specially when you really like your career.
Penny

We're ending this semester and it has been really hard, maybe because we have a lot to do. I think that last year the subjects were a little bit easier than this, probably because it was first year and the subjects were introductories. In spite of the difficulty of the subjects, I've liked the most of them, but I think that my favourite subject is Anthropology III. The proffesor who teaches it is called Andrés Aedo, I think that he really likes to teach this subject and actually he teaches very well...sometimes he goes a little bit fast, but I think that all of us have learned with him (but I'm sure that there're people who doesn't like the subject).



I can say that the reason of why I like this subject is because is a theoretical subject,and though I like the practice ( although we haven't had any practice since we're in the University) of anthropology,I really enjoy learning about anthropological theories; maybe because when you learn theory you can put it into practice more easily. Besides, this subject is about materialistic approches and I think that I share most of the ideas of them, maybe because I find them very "logical" and with a big empirical support. In the other hand, as I said before I think that the professor, altough he goes very fast sometimes and it's difficult to follow him, explains very well and always has an aswer for our questions; he knows a lot of economy, and these theories are focused in the economic part of cultures, so he always gives us examples about the "putting into practice" of the theories, the implementation of these approaches in real examples; that is to say, he gives us examples applied to reality. With this subject I convinced myself that I really like this career, and though sometimes I think that it's very difficult I really enjoy it.

Do SchOols Kill crEatiVity?

After watching the Sir Ken Robinson's talk about how schools may kill creativity, a lot of ideas get into my mind. First of all, I think that it depends a lot of the kind of school we're talking about, because there're a lot of schools, maybe not in Chile but in other countries, that encourage the art's development in children. Actually, in other countries exist schools of art, and these allow the development of their artistic capacities, like musical, painting, dancing, etc. On the other hand, the "common" schools, just like Sir Robinson said, are made to "prepare" kids for College or University, so if a kid wants to be a doctor, for example, the school and his/her parents tend to distance him, o her, of arts, because "she's/he's not going to be a dancer, or a musician". Besides, it's very common that some parents and "conservative" schools teach children that arts, or even the humanistic careers are not "profitable", because they are not good paid...they teach that the only reason why you have to go to school and to University is to earn money.
I agree with Sir Robinson when he says that there are a lot of ways of understand the concept of "intelligence", there are kinds of intelligence, and different ways to see the world: that is to say, creativity exist and we don't have to kill it but promote it. If a person doesn't want to be a lawyer, or a doctor, or an engineer, or if a person doesn't like maths or language, or doesn't understand that subjects the answer is that she, or he has other kind of intelligence and wants to develope his or her creativity and the most important thing is that we have to be able to promote the childen's abilities. Maybe their abilities are not in maths, or science, but in music, painting, dancing or acting.

I think that "future" is a very recurrent word in my life, I'm always thinking about it, wondering what fate has in store for me; but I think we always have an "idea" of what we would like to be doing in the future, an ideal future. What would I like to be doing 5 years from now??, the first thing, I would like to finish my career more than everything, and maybe applying for a postgraduate course in other country, if it's possible, or in a good university of Chile. After doing my thesis, and with my anthropologist title, I would like to work; but I still don't know in wich area, maybe in politics, education, or economy. I also would like to work in an ONG, making studios related with the topics I named before. Well, maybe it's a little bit ambitious, but I'm thinking in doing a trip, and maybe work in other country. I think is very important to know other realities and places, specially when you're an anthropologist; but I need money and resources, soy maybe this goal can wait.

Personally, I'm always thinking in having a family; but I'm not thinking in getting married because I don't believe in marriage as an institution. I think that if you love someone, you don't need a paper that confirms you that, and you can share lifes with the person you love without being married. Thus, I would like to have children with someone, with my boyfriend...that would be my family.

Nowadays, I live alone with my sister in a flat in Santiago, but in 5 year from now I would like to live in a place far away from Santiago, with my family...but this depends of my work, my boyfriend, my family. Maybe it would be nice to live in other city, or in other country with my family, but if this couldn't happen in 5 years I would like to be real after that.

The best in my area

It's very difficult to decide who is the best in my area, because actually I don't know many chilean anthropologists, except for the ones that are my teachers in the university, and I don't know very much about them. I know a few archaelogists, but I think that a lot my class mates are going to talk about them, so I decided to talk about Marvin Harris. I don't know if he's the best in my area, because I think there's a lot of good anthropologists, and because I'm just starting in my career, and despite I've lerning a lot, I don't know if I'm qualified to decide who's the best in this area. Marvin Harris was a north american anthropologist of the XX century, he developed his theory in the middle of the 70's. He's a very important figure, since he was the creator of a theorical approach in anthropology (and sociology), an anthropological research paradigm called cultural materialism. The reason I like him, is because of "his theory", the theorical content of this paradigm, because it gives and explanation of the progress and evolution of a culture, most specific, he proposed that the social life of a culture and its ideology is the response to the practical problems or the material conditions. I think the cause of why I think that he's the best, is because he always put into practice his theory, since he not only proposed it. All his books and works are testimony of the application of his theory, like an attempt of explanation of a cultural phenomenon through the cultural materialism. Besides, I think he's the best because this theory can explain a lot of phenomena associated with the ideology of a culture in materialistic or practical terms,that is to say, the Marvin Harris Theory can explain irrational practices as the result of infrastructure problems.