English language challenges

Hi everyone!

This semester I finish my english classes and now I’m going to talk about the challenges I that I have now on to speak and know the language really well.

I think that I need to improve my pronunciation, because is the thing that bothers me the most of my English. Anyway, I believe that the best way to do that is to talk a lot with someone that understands, so I spect that when I travel to a country where English is spoken mostly or spend some time with English –or American, Australian, etc- people, I will improve my English speaking.

Also I think that a way to learn constantly and get some vocabulary is to surf the internet in English web sites and watch series in English, sometimes even without subtitles.

Listening to songs in English also is a good way to practice and remember new words, and the melody is a better way to keep it in your head all day, so sometimes I’m thinking in English all day long.

With the things and the grammar that I learn in the English class added to the daily practice I constanly do I believe that I will continue learning and speaking a better English and when I have the possibility to travel to a English speaking country I won’t have any trouble understanding and talking to people fluently.

Anyway I’m very glad that my university gives me the possibility to improve my English and graduate from college with an important tool as it is English in these days.

2014

The year 2014 has been different from other years. It started very well, in January I did a lot of things here in Santiago and in February I went to Viña, Algarrobo and then spent a few days in Tunquén. Overall it was a fun time.

In March, when I returned to classes in college, I was stressed from the beginning. Fourth year of journalism has certainly been the most tiring year and with more responsibilities, the exigency for each class is much higher than other years, but still, despite of all of that, I enjoy most of my classes and it motivates me to know that I’m getting closer to the end of my college years.

Also has been a year where I become much closer to my friends and family, I spend a lot of time to sharing with them.

Now I only think that there's still a month of college and winter makes everything more challenging and difficult and doing things requires a lot of effort, but it motivates me to think that tomorrow starts the World Cup, that I probably watch the matches with my friends and after that comes the winter break where I can relax and do whatever I want, forgetting about  college and responsibilities for a while.

I hope the second half of the year isn’t so tiring as this, because I also have to do the practice and hopefully I can go out a few weeks on vacation to start well the year 2015.

Personal fears

Many people have fears or phobias that without a reason terrorize them and keep them from doing things. Fear of some animals, things or situations.

Personally there are certain things that scare me or make me uncomfortable sensations sometimes, like spiders or some patterns in certain things (it's called tripophobia), but I think one of the things that has scared me the most in my life is my imagination. For example, many times when I was younger when I watched some movies I was weeks after dreaming or imagining that things happened in the movie could occur in real life.

The Ring, The Others or The Mummy are some of the movies that scared me days after seeing them. With The Ring, for example, I was afraid because I belived that the main character, Samara, could appear to me somewhere or hide under my bed. I remember that in the morning when I wake up I jumped because I was afraid that there was water (because when Samara appeared there was always water because he had died in a well), and obviously I was counting the days to over the seven days after seeing the movie, because I was supposed to die (what a loser).

I have now overcome my situation and I don't imagine weird things when I watch movies that scare me, but sometimes my imagination is stronger and have dreams, that although no longer disturb me, wakes me up and forces me to turn on the TV to get back to sleep in peace.

Going green

Care for the environment is a thing that becomes really necessary now a day, because we can actually see every day the effects of the pollution and our lack of concern for our planet.

Reading some blogs and internet information I realize that there are a few simple things that we can do to improve the conditions of the earth and that won’t take a lot of time or money –sometimes we can even save money doing these little things-

One of the things that help is stopping the standby waste. This means unplug the electric devices when we’re not using them. This will reduce the amounts of carbon dioxide that go out to the air each year and we will save money in our electricity bills.

Another little and meaningful change is to stop using traditional bulbs and choosing the energy-ones. They last longer than the traditional bulbs and don’t waste energy. Also turning off the lights when we leave a room is a habit that we had to learn and apply.

The 40% of the water used in our home goes down the toilet, to prevent this situation we can put a plastic bottle inside the tank and fill it with small stones, rice or beans and the space that is used by the bottle will reduce the amount of water needed to fill the tank, and we will save water with every flush, and money in our water bills too.

While I was writing this article I realize that being green is not that hard and does not involve major changes in our daily routine, but it is really important when  we look up for solutions and improvements for our planet.

Blackfish, the documentary

Blackfish is the name of a documentary directed by Gabriela Cowperthwaite, released at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013.

The documentary focuses on a killer whale in, Tilikum, that killed 3 people, including his trainer, Dawn Brancheau, on Sea World in the U.S, and shows the consequences and questions that come up of the captivity of animals.

 In February of 2010, when Dawn Brancheau dies after the attack of Tilikum, the hipotesis to explain the accident was that the trainer tied her hair in a pony tail and the whale has a reaction because of that, but Cowperthwaite, by doing interviews and researches with people related to the case and former trainers from Sea World, concluding that the ways to capture Tilikum and the conditions of captivity contributed to his aggression.

Gabriela Cowperthwaite also questioned the entire Sea World speech about captivity, that ensures that marine animals live longer in captivity than in the sea.

In the documentary one of the thing that shocked me the most was the testimonies of the former trainers from Sea World, because they explain how they bonded with the animals. Also they tell that in the shows, when they do the tricks with the whales, they have to explain that whales lived in good conditions, and after they retired and with the death of Dawn they can question that speech.

The existence of documentary as “Blackfish” helps create awareness of the limits that we should have, as a species, for our entertainment.

Gravity space novel author sues over Alfonso Cuarón's Oscar-winning film

(original idea from www.theguardian.com)

Tess Gerritsen is the author of a novel titled Gravity (1999) about a disaster in space and she is suing the makers of the Oscar-winning film which shares its name for $10 millions of dollars and get a part on the credits

Alfonso Cuarón's drama won seven Academy awards in March, including best director, but now prolific American writer, Tess Gerritsen, whose novel is also about a female astronaut trapped in space, wants what she believes is her cut.

Gerritsen is asking for $10m plus damages from studio Warner Bros, which backed the $716m box-office smash. She also wants a "based on the book by Tess Gerritsen" credit.

A blog suggests Gerritsen previously distanced her novel from Cuarón's film, and some plot details do appear to differ. The central character, according to the author's own website, is a brilliant research physician sent to the international space station in order to study living beings in space.

The author lawsuit said that Gerritsen have a optioned book in 1999, that includes scenes very siimilar to the movie directed by Alfonso Cuarón.

Cuarón and Warner Bros have yet to make a public comment on Gerritsen's suit.

The Notebook

Since I have memory I always liked to watch movies, a lot of movies. So it’s been hard for me to define my one and only favourite movie of all times.
But today I decided to talk about a movie that I really like, and it’s the only romantic movie that I can watch a lot of times and won't get sick of it (and don’t make me cry like a lot of my friends).

The Notebook is a movie based in a novel of Nicholas Sparks (who has other novels that became movies too) is a love story that one old man tell to an old lady in a asylum, so the story happen as a flashback. 




The old man tells us about Allie and Noah, a couple in the 40’s of different social classes, how they fall in love and are forced to be separated by Allie's parents.

In the years that they spend apart they do a lot of stuff. Noah goes to the war and Allie get engaged with a guy that her family loves. But finally they end up together.

Finally we can see that the old couple in the asylum is having dinner and the lady remembers: the story is about them, they’re Noah and Allie. She has alzheimer and most of the time doesn’t remember anything, but thanks to Noah, some days she can remember the great love story that they share.