Academic Twenty O Nine .-

We are now so close to the end of the year and many people are interested on buy their christmas presents or organizated their holidays.. am I too? NO! I'm now a little worried about the end of this academic year that seems a little more complicated than last year's ending. I thought that's because last year we had less subjects and that means less books to read, less works to do and less tests too. But now.. I'm really exhausted and I just want to end classes as soon as possible but without left any subject behind, of course!

I could describe my academic 2009 year as a rollercoaster in many ways. At first, I slept a lot sometimes and other times I went to University without sleeping even a minute the night before. Also, I red lot of texts to some tests and prepare myself to give my best, but in other cases I really don't care of the marks I get in a test and I luckily red the class notes. That point brought us to another confession I had to make. When I spoke of 'class notes' I don't mean that it was MY OWN class notes, because many times it was someone's class notes. The reason is very simple: I get used to don't go to classes because I couldn't wake up right on time to arrive well. My fault, I'm sorry.

This year, I also feel that we started having subjects that are more related to sociology than subjects we had last year. That made the career more interesting and I could check that I really like sociology! When this year began I was thinking of change my career and study something related with journalism or cinema, but after having some interesting classes that made me get into real sociology I definitively decided to continue study this and if conditions allow it, working on anything related with sociology once I graduate.

I couldn't end this blog entry without talking about friends I made this year. I believe that they are an important part of my academic year because, it's true that I've met them last year, but I realize just this year how much I love them and how important they are for me. Also, I get close t some new people and I lost another friends for different reasons (the most significant was a friend that decided to change her career and left sociology's studies before the first term end).

Finally, comparing the good and the bad points of this academic year, I must say - for sure - that it was a really good year. I have now more faith on me in topics related to sociology and, most important, I UNDERSTAND AND LIKE IT! Anyways I had to admit that my lack of organization is an obstacle I must get over as soon as possible because it probably will play negative on me. I should also regularized my sleep hours to arrive on time to classes next year. I said 'next year' because this year is almost ending and there are no many classes left, so I preffer now to sleep.. BUT NEXT YEAR IT WILL CHANGE! So, I really like this academic year, it brings me a lot of surprises (most of them were good ones) and I'm now very excited on continue learning more and more.

Thanks for reading this blog!
Be careful and happy!

The Socio Challenge.-

Sociology as a carreer in this University has to face a lot of challenges everyday. They could be organised in three principal points: technology, social matters and education. Let's talk about each one of them:

When I said that Sociology has a technology challenge, I mean that there are a little problems in the school frame. For example, there aren't enough computers for all the students, so many times you have to wait till someone left one behind and then you could use it while another student wait for one computer as you did before. In fact, this year a lot of new computers arrived to the Social Sciences Faculty, but they never considerated that there are some subjects of the career that needs computers classroom (for example: English Class), so many times there are no computers available to use just because there are some students in class making their blogs, papers or works to get high scores.

Other problem associated to technology is that Sociology, as career and as discipline, needs an statistical programa named SPSS. Computers of the Social Sciences Faculty has this program, but there are just 15 licenses to use it, so if you had the very bad luck of open the program number 16, you can't use all the functions and you can either save your advances. It's a little complicated considerating that each year has 40 sociology students, and that every class needs that program.

In order to talk about social matters, I have to say that before I enter to this career, I thought that, at least at this University, taking care of social matters was one of the most important things. I have to admit that there are a lot of instances to help social issues, but they aren't enough. I also see that there are some students that really don't care about social matters, and that's a little strange because it's contradictory with the sociology bases.

Finally, I have to talk about the education I received. There are a lot of goos teachers, but there are also some professors that sometimes I ask myself WHY ARE THEY TEACHING IF THEY REALLY DON'T KNOW HOW OR WHAT TO TEACH? Anyway, the good subjects and professors exceeded the bad so I don't have to claim anymore about that.


I believe that's all I have to say today.
Have a good day !

A Lucky Baby .-

A few days ago I saw on TV news that a baby carriage, with a baby inside, fell down to the subway rail just seconds before the subway arrived. As I heard, that horrible thing happened in Australia and it was really shocking because the mother was on the side of the baby carriage but she left it alone a few seconds and the carriage moves to the rail. But, definitively, the most surprising about that new is that the baby gets away of that unharmed. How many people have died in the world because of the subway? So.. how is possible for a little baby in his carriage to get away from that incident ALIVE and UNHARMED?! I was really shocked with the images, but after I knew that the baby was still alive and that he has no injures I was even more surprised.

As you could see on the video below, there were a few people watching that situation. I thought, there was the mother, who run behind the carriage when it started to move, and there were another people that were probably waiting for the subway to take it.



I don't think that this piece of news affectes my community, city or country, because it's just a situation that happened to somebody in specifical. Maybe that after that news, mothers and father will take more care of their children's carriages to avoid the horror of see their baby knocked down by a subway or any other transport.

I don't really know what piece of news I would like to hear, read or watch on TV, because I think that life just happens and you can't live expecting something to happened. Anyway, sometimes I like to dream and I think that it would be funny if one day a friend of mine appears on TV saying that he or she will be the next Chile president.

Yes, we can!

In Chilean legislation a citizen can vote when he (or she) gets to age 18. I am now 20 years old so I could vote if I wish to, but I'm not registered to do it because I actually don't believe in that way of make political acts. I think that there are other ways to became a country into a better place to live in, for example: just go out and help people who needs you even if the helps just means listen to them for a while.

One thing that it's related to elections and that makes me a little angry are electoral campaings. Candidates that had money never starts electoral campaings when they are allow to do it: they began to do it many weeks before, and I really hate that. I also hate that the streets are plenty of papers with those candidates and the city seems more dirty than it really are.

A person running for president must be, after all, an honest person. He or she may also had another qualities, like charism and, I hope so, the necessary knowledge to take care of the whole country problems.

I've never consider to became a politician, actually it's not an idea of my perfect life. In fact, it makes me feel vary lazy. Anyway, if I should work on a ministry I would like to do it on Cultural Department, because I really like to implement the culture on Chile.

Nowadays, Chile has a lot of problemas that requires attention, for example: poverty, delinquency, violence, education and health. I hope that the next government can solve them in a good way.

Goodbye!

Importance of pets and fridges.-

Today I'm gonna talk about a news I red at Guardian.co.uk.


It's headline says: "Social workers to check pets and fridges during suspected child abuse cases".

That piece of news talk about the new precautions that some councils are taken after the death of a baby that was just 17 months old. That children is known as 'Baby P'. In that dramatical case, some agencies that should have noticed the signals of child abuse, didn't do that. So, after that, social workers are being instructed to check carefully some basic elements of houses that might show child abuse cases. For example, social workers have to check the contents of the fridge or recent make-ups of the house.

All this elements are now considerated because the environment when the children grows says a lot of the way the family take care of that children and of all the general family. The way the parents take care of their kids is represented in the way they take care of the house at all.

Besides, social workers are now allowed to take some pictures if it's necessary. They had to check how is the care given to the pets because it is considerated as an indicator to see how much abilities to care the family had.

So, as a summary, it's very important to have social workers well-formed to avoid another dramatical case of child abuse like Baby P's case.

Criminal Laws .-

Capital punishment should not be allow because it's not really a good solution to reduce criminality. Why isn't it? The answer is very simple: because it goes against the Human Rights, specifically the one that talks about life right. If the government don't respect the Human Rights and, for that, they don't gave the example to follow... who will do it then?

Nevertheless, there are some criminals that definitively don't deserve to live, like pedophiles that screw up the life of innocent kids. They are probably the ones that must be condemned to die. That doesn't mean that capital punishment is a good way to fight criminality, but people that don't respect other's rights shouldn't be allow to claim their own rights.

The principal problem with capital punishment is that sometimes is not the right criminal who is condemned. There are some examples of people who died by capital punishment and they were found innocent a few years after, but nothing in the world could bring them back to life.

The government should apply some basical measures to reduce criminality rates in Santiago. For example, they should fight the poverty and unemployment so people will have things to do instead of doing criminal acts.

As it's said in the previous point, the origin of increasing criminality rates in Chile is probably the unemployment and the poverty, but there are probably some other elements that have influence on this point.

Fortunately I have never been a victim of a crime or felony. I have been so close to that situations but I've always been lucky in those cases and I get out without troubles or consequences.

That's all my friends !

Let's travel

Transantiago is the newest transport system that exists in Santiago of Chile. The original idea was to take off from the street some of the buses that previously exist and the idea was also to solve, in some way, the air polution trouble.

I think that the original idea was great, but the trouble was that the government didn't realize the impact that this change will produce on the people. People don't like changes and, of course, they began to grumble and to demand that the previously public transport system came back. Obviously, that never happened. But, in spite of, authorities decided to add more buses to the system, so finally, transantiago didn't reach one of its original goals. In that way, we could say that it's not very different from the pre-transantiago system.

Actually, I don't have bad experiencies with transantiago since it started to work. It's true that the buses and the subway are crowed and horrible on the peak hours, but weren't they horrible on the previously transport system? It's true that sometimes you have to wait so long for the bus that you need, but didn't it happen with the previously system? I think that people forgot how the previous system was and, because they don't like changes (me neither), they prefer to fight for the return of the 'yellow buses'.

I think that one of the advantages of transantiago that make one of the biggest difference between it and the previous system, is that you can travel for two hours paying just one ticket. In that way it's true that now you need to transfer from one bus to another or from subway to a bus, etc., but some people also had to do that before transantiago, and they were force to pay anytime a new ticket. Transantiago allows that now they pay just one ticket and, in that way, the travel should be cheaper than before.

Another one of the advantages I found is that now the bus drivers don't make bus races to catch more passengers that the other one. That was a horrible thing that happened with the 'yellow buses' and I'm very grateful that this don't happen anymore.

I really don't know what changes would be applied to the transantiago system in order to make it better. I just think that next time, people should find out the necessary information before start complaining about changes.

That's what I thought.
Thanks and good bye !

SECOND TERM !
Inglés IV

My blogging experience.

Hello there! This is the last post I'm gonna write on this blog because the english course is almost finish, so I will not have to write any other post in english.. at least for a while. I'm a little tired of writing about the topics I did write here because it made me think about some things I never thought before and that makes me feel a little dizzy sometimes.

Nevertheless, I enjoy having an english blog, because I like to write in some blogs but I always made it in spanish, not in english as here. I think it is a very funny way to learn how to write correctly in english, because I enjoyed writing in this blog in a language that's not my natural one, and so I easily learnt some things about the english language that I didn't know before. So I think this blog really helps me to improve my english, maybe there is a little difference between the things I knew before and the things I know now, but it's a difference anyway.


One positive point about having an english blog is that you practice all the things that you learned before in the classrom, so you put your own knowledge in the real world and that is a very helpful way to learn another language.. and to learn anything!

Another aspect that I thought necessary to talk about is that this blog made me realize the english subjects I'm weak at, so now I'm more careful when I'm writing in english to don't make the same mistakes over and over again.

I actually don't know what could be consider as a disadvantage of doing an english blog. In fact, I thought that this way of learning english would be applied at schools so childrens would enjoy to learn english because they probably will enjoy to stay in front of a computer. That would made a more funny learning.

That's all I have to say about my blogging experience in this English class. I enjoy it so much. I hope you enjoy reading too!

See you soon!

I-ma-gi-na-tion *

Today, I'm not going to talk about myself but about an interesting talk I watched online. If you click right here you'll see the video I'm going to talk about today. In this video you can see Ken Robinson giving an interesting talk about creativity and education.

Ken Robinson starts his talk saying that creativity is very important in education but nobody actually cares about it. Kids are not frightened of being wrong and that's what they do many original things, but as people grow up, they started to became frighten of their mistakes and they just do what others say that's right. Education plays an important role on this, because it's where the "right things" are introducing.

The topic Ken Robinson talks about is very interesting because it's about something that all people are involved in: the education. As he says, education kills creativity and it's very important that we take care of it and of the childrens that had an amazing capacity of creativity and imagination that we may incite instead of just giving a pill and say they are sick.

So watch it and comment !
You'll not regret about it.-

Back to the future.

If I had a delorean to travell in time, I probably will be able to write this without any mistake. But the sad true is that a machine like that only exists on movies or dreams. Anyways, there are some things that I would like to make with my life and I hope they came true someday.

In first place, I hope that in 5 years from now, I had finished my career. I would like to finish it without any troubles so I could study another career that I like. So, after I finish sociology I'm going to study something like cinema - to make my own movies with the dreams and thoughts I have on my mind - or journalism. I thought that I will not get so much money with any of these carreers, so I still will be living with my mother on the same house we live now.


It's hard for me to think about the future because I luckily know what I'm going to do tomorrow, but if I had to choose something that I would like to be doing in a few years from now, as I said before, I choose movies. I would like to make and direct my own personal films.

That's what I would like to do.

The flashes blinded us in the photobooth.

I actually LOVE to take pictures. As you can read a few posts before, I love my photo camera and like to go out with it everywhere. I have a lot of photos on my computer and that's why it was very hard to choose just one to write this. Anyways, I finally decide to choose a picture taken by other person that represent a very important moment in my life:


This picture was taken by my uncle on a family trip we take to Salvador de Bahía on September 2007. On the picture you can see my cousins and I at a viewpoint on a very beautiful and sunny day. Unfortunately, my face was the worst photo face around the world, so I had the duty to censor it with a blue smiley face (yes, I am the one behind the blue square). I also find it kind of funny, anyways.

I like this picture for two resons. First one is because that trip was so cool for me so any reminder of it is great. Second one, because I am with my maternal cousins and I love them very much in spite of we don't see each other very frequently, because of the physical distance.

And, that's it. Good bye!

Sociobible [dot] net

When I use the internet, I visit a lot of different websites, but I actually do not visit one that is reffer to my carreer: the sociology. So, I started browsing for one website that could help me to understand this incomprehensible discipline and so I could get better marks than my classmates. That's how I ended up in SOCIOSITE, a website that is specially focused on provide sociology's information. This site is pretty good because it gives many tools to the users that want to know more about sociology around the world. Besides, you can find information about the most important sociologists of the history and also some links where you can browse for more information about them. 'Sociosite' also has a directory with many places and websites where you can find information about an special topic, any topic that you want to study about! It's wonderful!


In conclusion, 'sociosite' is a very useful site for potential sociologists that want to understand the sociology and to learn more about the studies that have been maked under this social science.

Turn the camera on.

I can't go out without my digital photo camera. Nowadays, it is my favourite piece of technologic. I got it on christmas 2007 as Santa Claus' present and from this time till now I never stop using it. I actually use it everyday to catch funny images of my friends making some stupid stuff that will remind me the laugh in a near future. I love it because I can take some pictures while I am bored. I can make some videos too where people is laughing or dancing or telling a story or something else. It helps me to remind all this funny things that I will probably forget with the pass of the years and the ageing of my memory. Withouth my camera I should not remember a half of the little things that made me happy everyday.

That's all, folks !

This is me.-

Hello everyone! I'm Paula Bell (no really related with Graham Bell or someone like him) and I am 20 years old. Nowadays, I'm at second year of sociology in Universidad de Chile and I'm in an english class too. Everybody in this english class had to make their own blogs, and that's how porky's bread was born.

Actually, I had have many blogs before where I wrote some stuff about my life, but I've never had one in which I wrote in english. I hope this new blog helps me to write in english in a more natural way, so then I could read some text that are written in english with more fluency and less complications.

So... let's see if it's gonna work.