The ideal job

I’ve always thought that when we choose what we want to do with our life, we have to think about something that makes us happy, mainly because we’re going to spend a lot of time doing it.

So, when I think in my future as psychologist, I always think about a job related to educational contexts. That would be a job that could possibly become a passion, because –like I said in some posts before- I’m very interested about education and how to implicate myself in those contexts to propose and proceed with innovations on the area.

I’m interested about researches too, so I also would like to participate in develop some studies related to learning processes and how we can introduce some changes in the current teaching-learning models.

Surely my job will be doing in academic centers, but I would like to move around other institutions, with the purpose of knowing the educational processes in the contexts that occurs. I think that take a look of what’s happening in the micro level is essential to develop innovations in macro level.  

I know that to achieve all this goals, I have to continue studying. When I finish my career, I want to find a good PhD program in some national university, which allows me to work in research and academy.

That’s all by now.

You can post your comments below.

Kind regards! :)

When a strange place must become home…

Traveling is a very nice activity, we all have a special country or city we would like to visit someday or maybe we would like to live in. Nevertheless, it’s hard to leave our country (even our own city) and venture to live in a new place. In psychology, some related phenomena have been defined and one of them has been called “culture shock” or “traveler syndrome”.

The culture shock is defined like a personal disorientation that a person may feel when facing a new context (new country, new culture) and has to experience a new way of life. Four phases have been described in this phenomenon:

 - Honeymoon phase: in this first moment, the differences are seen like nice and interesting. This period lasts a few weeks and the person feels delighted with new places, new food and new way of life.

- Frustration phase: this second moment appears around three months later, when the individual feels anxiety about the differences between the old and new culture. The people in this phase usually experience some changes in their circadian rhythm, and may get sick. The most important factor is the feeling of loneliness and lack of communication only worsens that sensation.

- Adjustment phase: after some time, between six and twelve months, the individual begins to adapt to new customs, adjusting his behavior to new culture, because he has learned more things about it. This adjustment allows the individual changes his attitude about the new culture, because he feels everything makes sense. 

- Mastery phase: in this moment, the individuals feel ready to fully participate in the host culture. It’s like a bicultural phase, because there are elements from both old and new culture in the person’s behavior.

I have never experienced a culture shock, because I have always lived in Santiago and every time I went to other cities or countries only for vacations.

What about you?

J

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