LEARNING ENGLISH

This  is the last post of the semester and  for this reason It's a good occasion to do a review about how we learn English, what importance it have in our life and how we can improve the knowledge of this language.

I started  to learn English at the school and later I entered to The Norteamerican Institute to keep learning English and as a form to to reinforce  the education of the high school.  In those moments the English served the function  of be a simple academic obstacle to pass the years. I felt  the English that I learnt was  very distant of my every day life.

But when I entered to the University , I could have contact with a deeper application of this language. In my experience, the English became in a useful tool because it opened a  giant current of new information. Also it transformed in a possibility to express and  disseminate and idea because it reaches a wider audience of many different places.

In the University the first courses were boring, they used many books. The knowledge was  very mnemonic, mechanic  and based in a old methods. But the superior levels are funnier. There are a connection with the interests of the student and his reality. It can  talk an develop about topics that I want . In this sense, I think that I approved phonetic  and grammatic but I should focus in expand my vocabulary, This my principal lack but I'm  trying  to develop across of activities as listen music  and see movies in English.

Finally, In my opinion the teaching of English should be connected with the reality and actions of the student, helping to him/her to develop skills and expand his/her world.  This form, the English it transformed in a useful tool and not in a obstacle.

"Bolivian women are breaking down barriers to seek political power"

In the last years in Bolivia has existed an increasing tendency in which women have begun to participate in politics. Many of them have similar history, begging as leader in a social organization and achieving a local public office.

“The principal obstacle to get a public office is the domestic duties and economic issues” express Lucinda Villca, a council woman of Santiago de Andamarca. She is a aymara woman who has seven sons and she is leader of her ayllu. She participated recently in a national meeting of woman leaders of rural zones, realized in Cochabamba.

Another experience of feminine participation in politics is it realized by María Cuñaendi. She is a Guarani council woman of Urubichá, one of Bolivia's poorest areas. Her politic career started working with a women`s organization and planted rice and corn to support her children and husband. She never thinks to have a public office. “There is no time to organize or have interest in politics” says her.

In San Julián, another municipality of Santa Cruz, Yolanda Cuellar, a Guarani, was deemed to be "too young" to hold a municipal position. She was 21 years old and she participated in the Without Fear Movement, opposing the Movement to Socialism party, which is part of the government. But, her husband supports her and he gave energies to achieve to get the office.

However the last cases, there are many bureaucratic barriers and a lack of support to implement the politics of the woman.  But the bolivian government have implemented a law that obligate that the 50 per cent of the public offices will be for women and they are applied the Semilla’s Programme as a way to helps women in rural districts exercise their economic and political rights

I choose these news because I consider that the Social Anthropology have many things to investigate in the politic dimension. The discipline should show interest for understand numerous forms of integration.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2012/aug/06/bolivian-women-barriers-political-power

J. DOMINGO GOMEZ ROJAS :  Working Class Poems

Today the task is talk about the greatest Chilean of all time.  This is exercise I consider very pompous because it stands out only a minuscule figure inside of a giant historical period. I consider that any me or women is product of his context and the collective action of their pairs.

However if I should remember someone I tell the story of José Domingo Gomez Rojas as a way to make known his life.

José Domingo Gomez Rojas is marked for his terrible death in the decades of 20’s in Santiago but he has a wonderful experience behind this success. He was a young anarchist poetry, who he participates in many syndicalist and artist circles. His publication Rebeldìas LÍricas is loaded of love and compromise with the struggle of the Chilean working class. He understood his art as a form to express the suffering of the people and a little contribution to the liberation.

But he didn’t stay at the letters; she was active member in the student circles of the anarchist generation of the FECH and in the process of change of the Constitution in 1924. For me,  he combinated being a letter’s man with being an action’s man. The myth tells that he climbed to a streetlight during a strike in Alameda and he gave a speech of one hour, inflaming to assistants.

Finally, I was arrested by police and he was tortured since the madness. Later of this episode he was sent to a psychiatric center where he died insane a years after.

If he would live, I think that I don’t ask him anything, all the answers are in his actions and his poems. 

A interesting link to know more: http://grupogomezrojas.org/

 

It’s difficult to choose one of the numerous gifts that many people  had gave me along  my life because if I remembered,  I always have had a present to Christmas, My birthday, the Children’s Day, etc. So, there are many occasions where I can choose.  Well, but you always have in the memory a special opportunity. I at least have two unforgettable presents.

The first, my fathers gave me in a day of summer  when I was six year. 

This day, I were at the garden, playing in the grass or be around. My mom is approached to me and she say that the next month we –with my uncle, my aunt and a cousin- are going to go to Cuba for three weeks. For me, this information was beautifully impressive. I didn’t  anything about where or what was Cuba but it sounds extremely entertaining -for a Little boy- and I was so  glad. As we can see, the trips are very relevant for me.

The second gift  was a wonderful surprise. When I was twelve. I asked to Christmas a swimming pool to cool down in the hot summer with friends. I didn’t have any expectant around this request because it was a enormous present for a small garden.

 The Christmas passed  unnoticed but It didn’t matter, I received many entertaining gifts.

But the next morning, when I woke up and I went down stairs I founded a giant assembled swimming pool in the garden and my fathers so exhausted next to it. This day I stayed –easily- six hours at the water.

A Comment of Mark Pagel: How Language Transformed Humanity

The presentacion of  Mr. Pagel deals with the trouble of how we interpret the polemic topic of the lenguaje in the human evolution and particulary inside the Social Sciences.

I think the author introduces important points in the discussion about the social role of language and its power to construct reality. But I desagree with the form to define the lenguaje. He only understand the lenguaje as a fonetic/writing expression but he doesn't consider the no-verbal lenguaje that it is  utilized by animals as gestures or chemical manifestations. I consider the lenguage as a exchange of information in diferentes ways.

Also I think that Pagel starts his tesis around a myth: the learning social is a exclusively skill of the human being. This is false. Ethologists have been demostrated that Big Primates can imitate and learn actions of their pairs. So, I feel that Pagel dont take in count the process more biological as a point important and  his analysis is according anthropocentric criteria.

Nevertheless, I agree that the language constructs identity, being  very evocative the interpretation about the passage of the Babel's Tower in the Bible.

Finally, I take conscience that this tool can transformed our conditions and transform reality only with a sound but I totally desagree with the option to create a language in common for all the world, because this process supressed all the nuances  and forms of expresion diverse that each comunity have to name and create thier his enviroment social.

 My National Holidays.




Personally, I don’t used to celebrated the National Holidays because politically I disagree with the interpretation and signification that they had taken all throughout history. For me, we shouldn’t to celebrate the Independence of the country because is not real. I do not believe in the story of the “chilenidad” or something that it sounds similar to this concept.

But the Holydays also have a good side, and is that it gives the possibility to share with the family and you can take a rest in middle of the year.  In this sense, in my family we have a tradition that we tries to carry out all the years. This activity is organizing a meeting at house of someone of the clan to eat delicious empanadas and drink a little or big glass of chicha or whine depending of the energies of the guests.

I remembered with special affection the encounter of the last year. We went to my sister’s Daniela house in Casablanca, a beautiful valley in the fifth region. In this occasion, my mother made the empanadas and my sister the barbecue. Also, there were two special persons: my uncle died and my another sister. It was beautiful situation.   I couldn't help bursting out laughing with my aunts and uncles, sisters and fathers.
The best was the end, a fresh dessert of peach and a long walk around a close vineyard.

 My Best Friends.

Today, it is a perfect day to talk about my best friend and besides it is the activity for my class of english.

Well, I don`t have one best friend. I have two until I can considerer as best friends three or four persons because I think that there are many people in diferentts places and circunstances that they  had achieved a deep relation with me.  But If I have to choose, I would mention two  of my friends. They are Luis and Carlos. They’re were my classmates at the high school and  we shared for four years togheter.  

We have many things in common. I feel that we have the same sense of humor, we like tell jokes and talk about any stupid topic. I think that the way that we developed to break up with the rutine when we were at the school and we were bored in the class. Also, they are my parteners to play pranks. I remembered that we played soccer inside the art workshop of the school o we run only with underpants –with another friends- when we graduated of high school. We are very insteresting group xd.

Now, Carlos is studyng History at the USACH y Luis Civil Construction at the PUC.  

Sometimes we tried to meet us to remember old times but the time is not enough always.