My best concert ever!

I still remember when I knew that VAMPS confirmed their concert in Chile. It was May of 2010 and I ran to buy my ticket, but I had to wait until November to see them. I was expecting the opportunity to see Hyde live in concert since 1998. He is the vocalist of my favorite Japanese band, L’Arc~en~Ciel, and I never imagined that dream to come true. It finally happened and I had to be there.

VAMPS is a Japanese band formed by Hyde (vocal), K.A.Z. (guitar), Jin (keyboard), Ju-ken (bass guitar) and Arly (drums). Hyde and K.A.Z. came from other bands and they join in this new project in 2008, while they left in stand-by their original bands. Nowadays, they are still working in VAMPS project, but they have their own bands at the same time.

The day finally came (November 6, 2010) and I arrived at Caupolicán Theater approximately at 5 p.m. The concert was starting at 8 p.m., so I had to wait a while with my friends. When it began, I was so excited and happy… I sang aloud every song that Hyde sang and I got a plectrum that K.A.Z. threw to the audience. I still have it J

The next two or three days, I was voiceless and my throat hurts a lot, but it wasn’t in vain! I enjoyed this concert more than every other. And the best thing was share that charming moment with my lifetime friends. 

The life has its own mysterious ways

The story about how I chose to study Psychology is, actually, very long.  When I finished high school in 2003, I had already decided to study Language Pedagogy at UMCE, so did I. Maybe that decision was made because my parents were both teachers, but during the time that I got initial practice I realized that I didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life, mainly because of the censorship to innovate in the educational system. But the disappointment that I felt was an opportunity to reassemble my priorities and my interests.

After I left that career, I worked for the next six years (2006-2012) and in 2011 I decided to study Psychology. This time, I took my time (long time!) to get the information that I needed and finally I chose this career because my interest in Education has never ended. I think that Psychology represents a rich field to innovate in our educational system, but its methodologies and scopes to reach it are very different. It is considered an auxiliary discipline, which complements and the work of teachers, but I think its potential is even more that.

I chose Universidad de Chile because of its pluralistic and secular tradition, but I believe this decision wasn’t really important three years ago.

So how did you choose your career? Are you satisfied with your decision?

Write your comments below :)

Have a nice day!

About dreamy trips :)

Hello everyone!

I’ve always think that travelling is probably the best thing you can do in your life, the best way to spend your money. Personally, I want to visit Egypt someday, because I have always been intrigued by its culture and its mysteries.

Few days ago, I saw a documentary in TV about the construction of the pyramids. They explained that none paranormal event had occur: in fact, the slaves had modeled every giant block and statues with sand and then they pulled them over wet sand with sledges. Furthermore, the sand of the blocks and sphinxes was wet too, so they were lighter and the mount of people needed to pulled them was fewer than we thought.

I can’t imagine how magnificent the pyramids are. And the temples! They must be wonderful. I want to visit the museums too, because the relics founded in the ruins of the ancient tombs, temples and cities are beautiful and I think they can tell us something more about the way the Egyptians lived their golden age.

It would be interesting to study the ancient hieroglyphs to learn about the perspectives and the ideas that Egyptians had about their own reality and how they were changing in time.

That’s my plan by now, but I’m really sure that there’s a lot of thing that we can see and learn about Egypt and its vast culture.

You can put your comments below.

Have a nice week! :)

The limitations of the national security

When we talk about our privacy, many people tend to think –or like to think- that we live in an occidental world where free expression is secured and legitimized, but the thing is that’s not true. Few weeks ago, a young man called Edward Snowden, ex-agent of CIA –the most powerful agency of intelligence of the world-, had to find a place to hide and tell the world that the US have been collecting confidential information for years from the European Union by spying. He alerts all of us about the danger of the social networks when we provide information about ourselves, our location, our interests, etc. Privacy doesn’t exist. We are living in a paranoid world that is constantly looking for people who represent a threat to what has been called “national security”. By now, he is a menace for security of US, so he has to escape and hide, just like Julian Assange, creator of the polemic Wikileaks website, because in their intention of promote the importance of free thinking, they became figures that, until now, have been subject of controversy, mainly because powerful institutions that pursue them have transmitted through the media the need to catch them for endangering peace and security of worldwide. Could it be in fact that they fear that people get information? And that question brings a second one: What are they hiding so jealousy?

I think when a nation proclaims policies and laws, they must think about common wellbeing. It seems to be that’s not happening. Proclaim an alleged national security means that there are enemies out there and we have to be careful. But the enemy, in fact, doesn’t exist and there are many examples about this (Al Qaeda’s case is one of them). Snowden and Assange aren’t enemies of common people; they are enemies of the status quo, the system that those who occupy the seats of power have been concerned to legitimize from generation to generation.

Noam Chomsky makes this clear and he shows us how the media have contributed to legitimize the status quo from the beginning, using extremely basic mechanisms.

I put some video links below.

I hope you can comment this J

Have a nice weekend!

Snowden’s Interview in Hong Kong (2013): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuV6eFg3l04

Julian Assange in TED (2010): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXeRZHEr2T8

Noam Chomsky talks about mass media and control: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Do8iu85yeik

10 strategies of manipulation by media: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQywx80gQp4

The ups and downs of indecision

I graduated from school in 2003. Ten years ago. Wow! When I say it, sounds like long time ago, but when I think about it, I feel that ten years are nothing (well, Gardel realized that 20 years are nothing, so I’m probably right).

When I finished school, I was pretty sure I wanted to be a teacher, so I did the PSU and I could go to the university I wanted: UMCE, as known as “Pedagógico”, among other nicknames. I began in 2004. After varied and interesting practical experiences in different educational institutions, I definitely left university. My main reason to do that was my deeply frustration and disappointment about teaching.  Teachers are intellectually mutilated and aggressively censored when they don’t want to fit to programs provided by the government, in their eagerness to train young women and men with reflexive and critical attitude about social reality.

Later, I started working in Movistar, where I remained for the next six years. I decided to go back to university in 2011, so I took some courses in pre-university, in order to prepare my retaking of PSU. At that moment, I was determined to study Psychology, mainly because I liked the area when I was studying Pedagogy. In a certain way, I think I still have the hope of being a contribution to the transformation of society, for the wellbeing of all its members.

The psychologists can create good instances of social interventions. In my case, I believe in a Psychology that may have a scientific development, because pure science, in its most basic intention, is the cradle of knowledge production. Obviously, scientific practice has been victim of distortions and it has been misused in different moments of human history. But this can also be modified if we take charge of what we are studying and we use it to let the people know how they are victims of social control. I think that an important challenge of our discipline today is to disseminate the information obtained from researches in a proper and massive way, not leave it in labs.

Once more, sorry for the extended post.

Have a great week! J

The importance of taking charge of our own reality

Today is time for us to turn off the T.V., the radio, the smartphones, the noise of all the mass media, because all of those devices are full of lies. They’re trying to make us ignorant, unconscious and alienated persons. This is an emergency call for all of us, for our minds. We’re in a world that teaches us all about individuality and nothing about community. Self-management and democratization of environments like workplaces, educational institutions, neighborhood councils, etc. are still light years away if we can’t generate instances that allow us to move forward and create a community that has its basis in the people who are part of it, and not delegate responsibility of its administration to authorities who don’t know that reality.

Every day, when I start my activities, I try to remember one of my main goals in life: I want to improve people’s well-being. My political action to achieve that is fight for a fairer, more equitable, friendlier and healthier society and I materialize that through participation in different instances of struggle, such as protest, denunciation and actions that are relate with direct demands to the State in matters which I consider part of social rights, like education, health, dwelling, decent work, etc.

In the current strike, I hope we can get the tools that allows us to have a clear and organized position to confront our current department’s administration, so that we can build together, with the other states (teachers and employees), a career oriented to social service and away from trade practices.

Obviously, this strike will affect us. We will not have the time we expect to have to study once we return to regular classes. Probably, this will affect our marks, but we can be self-taught and we can advance our study, using the programs that our teachers gave us to planning the subject.

By now, that’s all :)

You can put your comments below.

Have a nice week!

Correction

Original blog post with writing correction keys

About Santiago

Unlike some people, I like Santiago city. I like above all(WO) Ñuñoa, Providencia and Santiago´s center. I like these areas because in Ñuñoa and Providencia(WO) there are a lot of beautiful parks and the streets are surrounded of big trees, and sidewalks are wide and well lighting(WE). The parks in this area are my favorites, above all(WO) Sculpture´s Park in Providencia.

In Santiago´s center(WO) there are a lot of historical places like Londres 38, that was a torture center in dictatorial period of Chile, or the house of government, etc. Also(WO) there are a lot of bars, restaurants, different kind of shops, etc.  

Well, there are horrible things too, like inequality, smog, traffic issues and other social problems like drug trafficking(WW), poverty, etc. 

Inequality is the social problem that I hate most in(WW) Santiago. We can say that Santiago is a city of ghettos, because the areas in the city are so demarcate(WE) by social status and money ___(λ). In Santiago(WO) there are areas for lower class, middle class, and hight(WW) class.(P) But this situation only shows the kind of society (that) we are. I think it is not a problem of the city, is a problem of our society.

I think those are the things that we have to change of our city, but first we have to change society.

"Reassembly" of previous text

Unlike some people, I like Santiago city. I especially like Ñuñoa, Providencia and Santiago´s center. I like these areas because there are a lot of beautiful parks in Ñuñoa and Providencia, the streets are surrounded by big trees, and sidewalks are wide and well-lit. The parks in this area are my favorites, Sculpture´s Park in Providencia above all.

There are a lot of historical places in Santiago´s center, like Londres 38 -a torture center in dictatorial period of Chile-, or the house of government, etc. There are also a lot of bars, restaurants, different kind of shops, etc.  

Well, there are horrible things too, like inequality, smog, traffic issues and other social problems like drug traffic, poverty, etc. 

Inequality is the social problem that I hate most about Santiago. We can say that Santiago is a city of ghettos, because the areas in the city are sharply demarcated by social status and money of the people who live in them. There are areas in Santiago for lower class, middle class, and high class, but this situation only shows the kind of society we are. I think it is not a problem of the city, is a problem of our society.

I think those are the things that we have to change of our city, but first we have to change society.