Session 12... The Great Challenge

Well I have to say this has been a great class, but also a challenge, one that at moments had me very frustrated and specially when it comes to talk in public, that is something that I have realize to be very hard to do, in English of course. For me it has been a real exercise of the mind, to really use the language, to speak and to write correctly.

The blogs have been very useful but I still wish I could talk and write more easily in English. But anyway, I have tried my best and been using it a lot, practicing with my boyfriend and using apps in English, playing games in English and watching more movies English with English subtitles... it is amazing how sometimes I don't even notice it, but I understand everything, but when a get lost I hate it... but good thing that happens fewer and fewer times.

I have now been learning this last month with a lot of practice the things that had me the most worried that I would never understand. Things like: “have had”, and “have been” or, “would have” and “would have been”, and possible futures and pasts, specially with conditional futures like “could be” instead of “would”… I now understand why and when to use them correctly, but sometimes I get a little confuse, I am getting the hand of it, or at least I am trying. Also when some phrases are formulated and they mean something in Spanish that has fewer or a lot more words, because reading it is easy, but trying to say it correctly from scratch... that has been very hard, specially when talking in English.

I will continue to learn and practice and keep learning languages because I use to think it was a very hard thing I would never achieve, but now this last moth I have really started to think differently.

Session 11 "Year 2013: Good & bad points"

This year has been Ups and Downs...

The experience this year has been for me. This has been a very special year for me because is my last year of classes. Because I studied another career before this, and problems I had in the way, it will be nine years of my life studying at the university... which of course, is a very long time.

So this year had ups and downs, with good moments, but it has also been a very stressful year and I am most tired. I can wish for it to be over all ready... but this is now my last weeks of classes and now it seems like forever. I had great things happen to me this year, I traveled to New York with my boyfriend, and after that, we moved together, that is great... but it is also sad to go away from my house, I love my parents, and miss them… of course, but who I miss the most is my dog, Pascual, he was my guardian during the nights and he use to sleep over my bed, him I miss a lot, he is the sweetest.

A bad thing this year that was a lot of stress was that my dad was operated from the heart, and since he had a lot of problems in the past it was a very delicate medical procedure. But fortunately everything went ok, and now he seems to be very good. Another bad thing was the first semester classes were very disperse and it was hard to follow and we almost went to do the exam all by ourselves, which was a shortfilm. But it turned out to be great a thing, we were a great team together with my classmates and did a very fun and good shortfilm.
Now all I can say is that I am happy this year is finally ending and a new and great phase in my life is just starting. Hurray!

Session ten... the last free session...

Today I will take the time to write about the last free post and talk about a theme I love, spirituality. Yes... a complicated and personal theme, so yes I take advantage of the freedom of the blog session... but in good spirit, of course.

First of all, there is to much discussion in the world about God, so I will skip quickly this theme, yes I believe in God, and no, I don't think he looks like an old man in the sky in a golden chair with long beard. I think it is the opposite or the impossible, which is actually really all possible. For me the face of God is in the ocean when you hear it like it is breathing or when the sunrises seen in the top of a mountain, in the people you love, in the challenges and in the beauty in life.

For me the spirit is something so complicated and so simple, depending on the day. But in any form I always relate it with the contrary of fear, I think fear drives people in so many wrong ways. Like if fear makes you closer to something, that approach is bad, and can be aggressive (fear as in not bravery, not the fear you conquer) and when it makes go away is bad because obviously you are not dealing with something that affects you. The fear can be good if it deal with but then is bravery.

When the year started I was so afraid of speaking English, I was always afraid of that, and I don't think I have conquer it, but at least I understand it now. And the fear has become a challenge, and that is beautiful and magic, and fills my spirit with joy... yes, I still fear of it, but in a way I deal with.

Session Nine!

Another free post, great!
I like it so much when we have this free blog sessions because it is a great moment to express myself, and sometime it is so hard to express your feelings and thoughts. And well... that is the theme I will write about: the choice of expressing myself against being a pleaser.

Normally, in real life, not in the blog, I can not express myself with freedom because I feel that I will hurt someone's feelings or maybe someone can be offended by what I say. And it is so comlicated when we create this barrier, it is like a jail we put us in. Because lately I have realize that I live my life pleasing people and living in a mental jail, so I can not express myself with freedom.

But this go even further, with pleasing people, not only that, but we force our feelings to please also, is like you can not be sad or angry or feel anything that can alter the feeling of others, unless they want to feel that, and then you have to please them with that feeling. And of course if they feel bad or sad you have to listen and share the emotion and end feeling sad, but if you want express your feelings... no way! Is like: "Don't make me sad, please" "Oh OK, OK, OK..." but they do not really listen.

So in the end, our emotions are the emotions others decide for us, because we have to please the rest and not make they uncomfortable. But I am tired of that, I want to start living under my own emotions and feelings and wake up in the morning and be and feel who I am. Because nobody cares to please me, so why should I be that. Of course the people I love do that, and I will please them *in some ways, but when you start dictating your emotions with the emotions of the people you don't really know or that they don't even care about you... then is time to stop and be yourself.

Session 8- Going Green

Going green.

When it comes to environmental themes, I have to talk about the most important theme right now, which for me is Monsanto and how is being pushed into our country.

First of all I have to say that transgenic food, plants and seed are very suspicious to me, and it doesn't seem like a "solution" of progress or sustainability, we all know what it's about, it's about making more money with less resources, and what really bothers me is that they are not only being pushed to us and we are forced and obligated to consume them by publicity, but laws are being created, strings are being pulled and people get paid to really force us to consume it, and in this case, is actually really serious, with Monsanto.

Monsanto has been known as a try-out of transgenic seeds, and where ever it has been pushed inside it has caused a lot problems to citizens (health problems) and of course a lot of money to producers, politicians and business man that include themselves in the process.

I find it so low that they let something like that get inside our country, letting us become guinea pigs of this horrible mutant seeds, that maybe in 20 to 30 years more they will be actually perfect and non-decease producing, but right now it has been banned from many countries such as Mexico, Canada and Peru, because of it's low quality standards, shown in long-term deceases.

I hope people in this country would wake up and end this circus; because how can it be that it will become illegal to plant your own seeds and to have a choice of non-transgenic seeds. It just seems so silly to me.

I hope this gets clear, spoken and fixed... but... to bad that politics and health are about money and not about people (in this country, as in many parts of the world)... then it would be so much obvious that the important things are the human citizens’ health, security and freedom, but instead is a few politicians and business men making more money than they need (even more than what their grandchildren need).

Blog entry Number Se7en

In this post I will talk about the movie Seven (Se7en by David Fincher), which is about the seven capital sins (yes, blog 7 and the movie called the same, word choices). But the entry is not only about the movie, it also about the relation the movie has with one of my favorite books, The Divine Comedy.

The movie looks for relations with the book because the killer of the movie is a fanatic of the book, and in his Psychopathy he believes that it is his duty to punish the sinners the same way the movie punishes the sinners that committed the seven deadly sins.

The fact is that this information is given in portion of the book, during purgatory chants. And for the relation with the movie becomes symbolic because the city where the action occurs is never really identified, being it so like some sort of Purgatory for the characters a young and full of life policeman and a old and tired one (Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman), both of them have to live the in very different ways.

The funny thing is that, even with the whole intellectual references from Dante's colossal book and all its relations to mythological punishments and tortures, the killer is finally found for that, the book, and the relations with other written essays and books. The policemen illegally use a CIA way to see who rented those books and essays and the fin the killer John Doe. But then again... maybe that was part of his plan... Spoiler?

Good movie, good readings, a bit on the macabre side... but great, and related to the number seven.

Blog session 6- Summary of career related article- Section: Art and Design

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2013/nov/08/faces-3d-printing-prosthetics

This week in London, there was a fair called "3D Printshow" that showed different elements and applications for the avant technology of 3D printers. Among the common uses of figurines and what not there was a particularly interesting use for this printers, which shows a promising development that could have an important application.
What seems in first look, described by the writer of the news, like a booth of noses, faces, ears and every face part in part or in whole, scattered, in every color or skin tone, was a marvelous idea worth of writing about.

Industrial designer Tom Fripp, first brought a 3D printer to his office to make quick model products, being an industrial design office. But then the University of Sheffield asked them to print something that resembled soft tissue, and after years of development and the inclusion of "Wellcome Trust", they came up with a whole new concept and made the first series of 3D printed prostheses.

- "Conventional maxillofacial prosthetics are incredibly laborious and expensive to produce," says Fripp. "You have to take an impression from the area of trauma, cast a plaster positive, then make a mold, carve the desired form in wax, and cast it in silicone. The end result of this handmade process costs between £1,500 to £3,000." - (between $1,200,000 chilean pesos and $2,500,000 chilean pesos)

The last paragraph is taken directly from the news, I thought it was important to put it as is, because of two points, first being the fact that it explains the whole news and its importance to art, science and technology, and the second fact being that the importance of this development is that the execution of the process leaves a lot less space for the person's trauma to be a part of the process, a few snapshots of the patients face, then uploaded to the 3D program, and then printed... that for me is the future, in art, design, technology and science. Digital modeling makes it a lot less complicated and cheaper, with less pain and trauma.

So the final product, being a print in silicone doesn’t cost more than £150 ($125,000 chilean pesos) per model.
Only a small fraction and very more suitable for a person who suffered a trauma of this kind.

They hope this to develop further and become common. Prosthetics usually wear out and besides the waste, is also expensive and hard to have options if you have a sun-tan or need options, but with this development it becomes easier and cheaper.

After this medical usage, this will easily become prominent in art, film and theatre.