Learning English at the University

Now that I´ve almost finished my english course, it´s time to write about it. Passing four levels of a foreing language is required in university to get a degree, but I just did two because my english level was good. I had both courses on 2009, Pre-intermediate and intermediate, and they were quite easy for me. But I learned a lot! It was definetly my funniest english course I´ve ever taken, because at school was too easy and boring. Also now I´ve got new friends, and we had great times on classes. It was a long journey and one of my best memories of University.

When I started the course, I was angry. I had my rhtythmic gymnastics training at the same hour than english classes, and I was so sure that I didn´t need them. But as I said before, they are required to get a degree, so I had to take them anyways.
First term was the easiest one. I can´t say that I didn´t learned at all, because I practiced and remembered things that I haven´t seen in years, since school times.
But, during the intermediate course I learned different weird words that I´ve never listened before. It was more interactive than the first course, because we were less people taking it and the teacher was funnier. We did different activities like games, with music and analyzing songs, we even created an island.
People was really important too. The english group is so nice and fun. We had great times before classes, because we had like three hours free to waste. We played, went out for ice creams and talked a lot. I´ll miss a lot those free hours we had, they were so relaxing.
And bad things... the courses were so late!. Going back home at eight o´clock it not nice. On winter was definetly the worst, classes were cold, dark and sometimes really boring. Being responsible was the hardest part, because I had no motivation. I´m glad I overcomed it.


I have great memories of the course, specially of the second term. I´ll miss the amazing times we had. The worst situation can become fun with nice people there, and it happened here.
Next tuesday we have the final test and I´m really nervous about it. I hope me and my partners do it right.
And then, on thrustday we are all going to celebrate it´s over! We are going out to drink and eat, still don´t know where.
The only thing I can say now... Finally it´s over! I´m so glad. Now I´ll focus on my career and studying french, I love languages and I´ll be never tired of learning them.

Challenges

People may think journalism is getting easier everyday, with the new technology. But that’s not true. Our job it’s fun, dynamic, important, but difficult and we still have challenges to deal with.

Technology has become so important, that now is difficult to work in my area without some elements like microphones, computers, recorders and cameras. I do not have them all, so I have to borrow them sometimes. If I had all the technology that I need, everything would be easier for me.
But if a journalist wants to make a good work, he would do it anyways. Journalism it’s all about communication and investigation, so for good reportage, you just need a good research and finding a simple way to explain it. Paper and a pencil is enough, just how old school journalists used to do it.
It’s nice to have tools to make our work easier.

Social matters are getting more difficult everyday, because our work is underrated. People compare us with paparazzi and they can’t see how important journalism is. They think sometimes that journalism is for people who want to be on television. But they are not right; it is a serious job that deserves respect. Some people say we are the fourth power.
It is a big challenge to change the opinion that people have about us. Being a journalist is not easy as they believe.

Education in journalism is the most difficult part I think. There are a lot of private universities that have journalism as a career and they are not good, and there are a lot of weak journalists over there. So, there’s a real challenge for serious journalists to find a nice job and stand out. Our career is really competitive, so education must be competitive too.
I think bad schools of journalism have to close, because they exist just to make money. There is not a real commitment with students, in my opinion.
I think me and my classmates are in a good school. We don’t have to worry about it.

Seasons

This time I have to write about seasons. It`s easier to me to write about each one of them.

Summer:
My favourite season! . I really like warm light days, going to the pool, staying out until night without being cold. Also It`s time to celebrate, xmas, new year and my birthday are on summer. And of course, it`s vacation time!!!.
But sometimes, hot days could be really annoying if you don`t have a way to have fun. Being at home all day with 30º it`s awful. It`s so much better to go out to drink something or a day out in the pool.
When I was a child, my mother and father got a really really small pool for me and my sister. Every day in summer we had fun there.

Spring:
I don`t like it as summer, but it`s also fun. I love flowers and fluffs that come out the trees, even though everybody hate them. I don`t like weird weather, one day is raining and the next one is sunny.
The most terrible month is always on spring. It`s the one that I have to study a lot and get stressed, Octover or November. I also started my relationship with my boyfriend in september, so we celebrate and remember that day.

Fall:
I hate it. I have the worst memories. When I was like 13 years old, I helped my aunt with the cleaning of her field. So I had to sweep the leaves of the grass. It was a huge place and I used to get so tired.

Winter:
I also hate it. I hate rain, feeling frozen, wearing big coats and having a cold. But a hot coffee and nice company can save my day. I`ll always remember my last winter, because I went to the south and It was snowing. I used to spend my time playing videogames, eating empanadas and playing out with snow. I had so much fun!!!!

Poor ICEI

Oh my gosh. Our faculty needs help!
It`s quite difficult to study here sometimes because we have to deal with the absence of elemental things, like cameras, space and computers. We have to bring our computers of huge cameras, and that`s dangerous. They could break down on he bus or something like that.
Computers need improvement. Our PCs have to be fast, with basic programs like Word, audacity and photoshop and with internet access. But that`s now our case. When I have a class on the lab, I run to get a nice computer. I`m so lucky this computer is actually working xD
When we had to print pictures on the photo lab, we had to struggle again. The lab is so small. We had to be five people in there to work properly, but there are sixty students in the class. With 40 degrees of temperature. It was uncomfortable and people started to act stupidly. I`m so glad It`s over.
We need more cameras. All kind of cameras. In the future, we will work with cameras everyday and we have to get familiar with them. I don`t know any, just the little one that people have in home. For making our photography homework, we needed a big camera. But there were just two here. How can we work with two cameras if we are sixty people?
It`s so hard to deal with this situation because there`s a big problem with money distribution. I have no idea where the problem starts. I`m sorry, but I`m not really into improving this place or something, I just come here to study and that`s all. If I had the answers, I would be interested in politics and being part of the CECo.
If we had improvements, studying here would be easier. We could make a better work.

F/Fs

My realitionship with my family is great. We live just three women in my house, because my parents are divorced. So, I live with my mother and my little sister. We have two dogs and two mices, that are like part of the family too. We have so much fun together, we have really long conversations. Also we share almost everything.
They know almost everything about me. If I`m sad, my sister and my mother know it immediately, even when I`m trying to hide my feelings. I love them.
But I can`t forget my dad. He is awsome. He`s there everytime I need him. We don`t live together now, so I go to visit him to his office or we go out together on weekends. He`s always happy to see me and my sister.
They are very important for me because they taught me everything. My personality is a reflection of what I`ve learned from them. They are also one of my biggest suport, they are always there for me.

I don`t have a lot of friends. I got really closed to my classmates in college, I`m part of a little group of fun lovely people. We are always together in classes and out, we always go out to drink coffee and have nice conversations. They are Camii, Yoyi, Valentina and Nacho. They are so important, they listen and understand me. Without them I would be always bored and alone in university, too.
My best friend is Nacho, part of my group. We have a special kind of trust, because I can tell him everything I`m thinking. Talking to Nacho it`s like speaking to myself.
We are friends since just a couple of months. We are studying the same career, but we were not classmates and we never talked. Past term we started to be together in some subjects, and we realized that we have fun together. It was quite weird, because we got really close in just a few weeks. But thank god it happened!

Family and friends are both important. But being honest, I can`t keep friends for a long time xD. I think the real reason is that I`ve never had close important friends as I do now. So family have influenced my life more than friends.
I had a best friend before, five years ago, called Juan. We started to get really close, until we fell in love. Now he`s my boyfriend and we`ve been together for 4 years. He`s my biggest support and nobody else knows me better than he does

Talking about Music

I don´t have a favourite artist. I have periods of time when I become addicted to some bands or artists, but It has never been one in particular. Now, I´m obsessed with a german industrial band called Oomph!. I´ve been listening them since last year, in november. I like them because they have songs in english and german. Even though I can´t understand a single word in german, I think music it´s a language itself. The lead singer has a special expressive manly voice, that I like because It´s versatile and he sounds different in every song. They have very interesting videos, all of them tell stories based in a book or movie. For example, for the song "Labyrinth" they used images and characters from Alice in the wonderland.

My favourite song is "Night after night" from The Rasmus, a rock-pop band from Finland. I like it because I was listening it during a very special moment of my life that I will never forget. Also, It reminds me the concert, the first time that TR came to Chile. And I was there, on the first row. It was awsome to listen my favourite song, played in front of me.

Music is very important in my life. Actually, there are things that I can´t do without music, like studing, reading, drawing, and traveling in a bus (It´s quite boring listen people´s conversation) . When I need to think, I listen to music. It´s like my little own bubble. I prefer music than silence.

Also, music it´s important to me because it helps me to remember. There are moments or people that I recognize with a song or band. For example, I hate Coldplay because It reminds me a person that I don´t like (speaking really politely).

The best concert I have been is was last year, when Within Temptation played in Teatro Caupolican. They are a metal band from Nederland. I was there on the first row (again. I came to the theather at 8am in the morning, and spent my entire day there). with my boyfriend, listening to the most beautiful female voice ever. I screamed like insane and I stupidely cried. I knew all the lyrics, so I sang all the songs. The next morning my arms were full of bruises (people there were crazy and fanatic like I was), I felt tired as hell and I didn´t have voice. But whatever, It was freaking awsome.

I would like to go to a Linkin Park concert. I love them since I was eleven. Now I´m going to see Armin Van Buuren, my favourite dj ever next month, and Panic at the disco two days later. I´ll try to survive, I promise.

Red Lips.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/12/lipstick-red-alexander-mcqueen

Today I`m going to write about a fashion trend, that Cleopatra started many years ago, but It`s still used. Red lips. I love it. I used to wear a really really bright red lipstick everyday, like two years ago. But now I don`t, because I feel that I look so adult. I prefer to look childish in university, it makes me feel young haha.

This trend is popular because so many celebritys and fashion icons have used it. Elizabeth I, Marilyn Monroe, Coco Chanel, Audrey Hepburn. And even Robert Smith and Marilyn Manson.

The article I found is an opinion about it, written by Maggie O'Farrell. She can`t understand why all fashion designers used red lips on their runways. If there are many colours to pick, why using red?

Some anthropologists sayd that red lipstick is a display of fertility. But O`Farrell doesn`t think so. She agrees that red lips creates an effect of energy, women look less tired. Moreover, she thinks we can look glamorous easily, just with a coat of red on our lips.

She also writes that she though red is not for everybody. But she changed her opinion. Women have to find the right red lipstick for her skin colour, even if they are extremely pale or ginger.

I agree :D wearing makeup is really fun and It can make a person look soooo much better (just see some famous!). Red lips are really flattering.