the art of blogging

In the beginning of this cfg i thought "ok, this is like any other english classes, some activities from a guidebook and nothing else" but i was wrong, the first surprise was to spend lot of time talking in english with people like me, i did'nt use to do that like years ago and it was nice to meet people from other levels and careers from this university. The second surprise was that after the break we went to the computers and we had to create a blog, it was my first blog written in english.
This hole experience has been very good, and it has helped me to improve my talking and writing skills, the last time i had lost practice besides this last years has been very busy for me so i could spend enough time studing or something like that. Now i can say that i'm thinking in english again, that i can talk more fluidly and that i can write faster and using words that i had forgotten.
I enjoyed writing on my blog, sometimes i did'nt had enough time to be on time on my posts -like now, sorry :) - or sometimes i was a little bit uninspired. But i liked the idea of working in a computer instead of making exercices in a paper, posting in blogspot has been a new experience to get in touch with techonolgy, i enjoyed "posting" about my interest and watching the post and opinios of my classmates. I did'nt like the posts when i had to spend to much time researching or reading, because it was too slow to get them done, i just liked writinig about ted because what he said was really interesting but i got bored with the bbc's or the victory's posts (sorry Simon lol). The posts i liked most were talking about my favourite song and book.
I would like to be again in this class but there aren't higher levels to do :( , I expect that in the future would exist a level IV.
Thanks Simon for your dedication and your innovative way of teaching.

Blade Runner

I saw this movie four years ago in a free movie cycle at the Catholic University's East Campus. In that time i didn't ever hear about it, but after watching it, i really liked it. The atmospheres of the movie are amazing, its a world of high technolgy in some places but in others everything it old and decadence, everything happens in a distopic society where big companies rules the world and the globalization seem to apper everywhere, the story is about a kind of cop that must kill a group of rebel artificial humans.
As i said in a older post, i dont like utopic images of the future so i think this movie is good kind of advice that warns us about some future problems about technology, ethic, power, society, nature, etc. Lets face it, people in the past thought that our present would be almost perfect but in the reallity, still there is poverty, hungry, wars, etc. Maybe this things happens in a different way but we still been the same humans.

This movie reminds some movies like matrix or the fifth element that i like them too but this one its different, it's a little more realistic and darker also it`s not so comercial. A movie that an architech can miss because of the aesthetic and atmospheres.

Do schools kill creativity?

When i started to hear Ken Robinson, i though "this guy is very funny" and i laugh with many of his jokes, but then i started to hear him carefully and i notice that he had many intelligent and different ideas about education. He advice us that the actual school system in many countries doesn't help children to be more creative and to found and develope their fortress in different areas. I agree with him that schools doesn't help children to face their mistakes and go on, they make them think that they have to be winners all the time. Our society use to think that people who has reach the top are more intellegent or they have a kind of gift, but they dont think that those people had to effort and commit mistakes to be where they are. When he was talking i remebered when i was on high school and i had to choose like 8 academic hours beside the obligatory subjects, i'm really thankfull of my school, because i could choosed whatever i wanted, in other school you have to choose bewteen a biology, math or humanist program. But in my situation i had different interest (as many architects), so i choosed 4 hours of art, 4 hours of math and 2 hours of psicology, that helped me to satisfy my different interest, that maybe were a little kind of weird for other people. But as Mr Ken Robison said, people had many kind of different intelligences.
Now that children spend more time at schools, its a good oportunity to rethink the actual education system, to give more oportunities to children to develop all their different intesert and kinds of intelligences.

classmate website: ismael`s blog

I looked for an interesting blog to talk about, after seening all of them, i choosed ismael's blog because i think its really entertaining. I knew him the last semester in bendersky's workshop, he's very pleasant and outgoing. His blogs is called make it happen, i really dont know why he called it like that, maybe its because he considers himself a decided person that knows what he wants. He has eleven post. The post i liked most was the one about his favourite groups: Metric, i really like them too, their music sounds modern and "urban", the girl's voice is expresive, sometimes their music sounds fun, a little bit dark or very sentimental. It reminds me other groups like the cardigans or vive la fete.
Ismael blogs its very easy to read and its full of good stories, some jokes, intelligent comments and the most impotant, he express his point of view.
Well if i have to suggest something to improve his blog, it would be the design of it, its looks like an old wallpaper, personally I don't like but it's just my opinion.

Keep going with your blog ismael, is really good.

Radio Zero's web site

One of my favourites radios its "zero", i like the different kind of music they play, like electronic music, indie, alternative rock, post folk, etc. there is always something new and different. I like too some of the programs and anouncers are really interesting... i like the website, i discovered it hearing a spot on the same radio, I visit it like two or three time a month.
I like it because its a friendly user web site, its really easy to surf on it and its visualy atractive.
In the section "Lo nuevo en Zero" you can know about the programs, the schedules, who is the anouncer and who will be invited, what they are gonna talk about or which music is going to be played. You can comment about that if you want. In "Archivos Zero" you cant find info of old programs. In "Radar Zero" there are some articles about movies, new places, trends, etc. In "Seleccion Zero" there is a list of recommended song and albums.
You can heart online or download podcasts of your favourite programs, so if you miss and special program or an interesting interview you can download it and here any time you want.
This website it really good and what i estimate more is to know which songs were played in which program and day.

favourite piece of technology

My favourite piece of technolgy is internet. I have been using it for many years, i cant remember well when was the first time i use it, i think it was like 6 years ago. I use it almost everyday, like one and a half hour. I really love to download music, because i like electronic and "alternative" music, and there aren't many radios that play that kind of stuff and its very difficult and expensive to get some albums at the shops. i like to spend time searching for new bands and singers. I enjoy watching videos clips that i have never seen on mtv and repeting or rewinding them if i want.

I usually use messenger to talk with my friends from school or university. I like to spend lot of time talking with someone without worring about the bill. One of the tools i use a always its google, it helps me to find anything i want about news, architecture, music, etc.

If i would havent internet and a computer i would feel a little bit more restricted to comunicate from my house with my friends, and to get quick and diverse information and comunication.

I think internet has changed the way we comunicate and get information. It has helped a lot of people to get equal access to information and comunication around the world.

Victory City

I dont like utopic models of cities i think its better to re-plan what is already made in our reallity with its problems and benefitis instead of creating a model of a "perfect city" or a perfect "society" that will never exist. Models are often imposed on us by just a little part of a society and sometimes they don't respond to the real needs of the people.
This model called Victory City was created by Orville Simpson, it's an entire city operated by private enterprise. This city would be placed in the middle of a countryside, that consist of 5 builindings 102 floors high that would give you everything you need under just one roof.
One of the things it bothers me most its that the model is supposed to concentrate lots of people in a smaller space and that would mean to eliminate 95% of the streets and sidewalks. I think that it´s a really bad decision because the sidewalks and streets are one of the most important places to relate with other people.
I think this model was thought as an object that you can put anywhere you need: "There will not be just one, but many such cities throughout the entire world"...instead of a real city made of diferent people, with different needs, ideas, ways of life and thinking, neither does this model repond to the possibles and diferent contexts of the world. Its almost imposible to respond to that with such restrictive model as this. This model its just a dream...

Life Map

i spoke with Max who is a nice and sportive person. He was born in the south of Chile, in la Union, he lived his chilhood there, he stills remember his old house there, his favourite room there was his bedroom cause his toys were there. His grandfather "Lucho" was a person he really admired when he was young.
He travelled to Rome, he really liked it, especially the roman forum. His biggest success was winning the national championship of hight jump, he left it but he stills doing sports, he really enjoies riding his bike. He likes to spend time with his dog Bruno that its very sweet. He would like to be a better student and being more responsible.

Nothing's gonna change my world

One of my favourite songs is "Across the universe" by Fionna Apple, this song was written by John Lennon & Paul McCartney and it was originally performed by The Beatles in the album "Let It Be". I first heard it around the year 2003, i was at school, sometimes my friend isabel and i used to hear music together, one day she was hearing an album of Fionna an she said...hey! Have you heard this song?. When i put the headphones on my ears i started to hear this beautifull song. it was like hearing someone talking quietly to my mind, the music inmerse me in a deep state of mind, everytime a heard it, provokes me the same feeling between happyness, sadness, nostalgic and peace.
I really liked that song, im still not sure about if i have heard that song before that time, i think it was in my unconscious. Maybe i heard it before because the Beatles will be always popular and i knew some song of her song but i didnt knew that she was the perfomer.
Like two moths after, at my birthday my friend gave me the album that she had. I really liked it.
Then i saw the video on mtv, it was like been watching the really it other way. i really love when everything its upside down, and she sings in front of the camera so calm and at the back there are lot of people around chaos and destruction.
A song that will always will remind me a stage of my lyfe.



here are the lyrics

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass, they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind
Possessing and caressing me
Jai guru de va om

Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes
That call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe
Jai guru de va om

Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world

Sounds of laughter shades of earth are ringing
Through my open ears inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which shines around me
Like a million suns, it calls me on and on across the universe
Jai guru de va om

Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world

Jai guru de va om, Jai guru de va om
Jai guru de va om, Jai guru de va om
Jai guru de va om

Jai guru de va om
Jai guru de va om

Modernity and Contradiction -CCTV building-

Nowdays its very important for cities to have modern and amazing builidings to reflect their power and future. But what happens when that means to destroy the past?. Dutch Architect Rem Koolhaas tells Jonathan Glancey why even he gets nostalgic.

Koolhaas is one of the most famous architechts in the world, he was born in Rotterdam (1944). He lived four years of his childhood in Indonesia and in 1956 returned to Holand, to his home city. Rotterdam was in reconstruction because it was destroyed by the germans, probably many people in that time could think about being an architect. Firstly Koolhaas was a journalist but he left that career and started to study architecture. Koolhaas is responsible of some of the most challenging, controversial and critically acclaimed buildings of the past decade like Seattle public library, Casa da Musica and many more.
Koolhaas its actually working in a very ambitious project on the new headquarters for China Central Television (CCTV). due in time for the Olympics next August
The tower its ambitious: 230 metres high, designed in the shape of a 3D Chinese character, its steel structure forms a continuous spatial loop climbing up and around the volume of the building.

This architect has to face with being the constructor of a new image but at the same time to be part of the destruction of the old kind of life at the "hutongs", these are tight webs of hotchpotch homes and alleys gathered around wells from the age-old courtyards of Beijing. The olimpics will find the hutongs old fashioned and unnecesary, most of them will be gone. Those who live there are being given new high-rise flats.

Koolhaas shows to the reporter some old photos of the streets at hutongs and he looks at them with affection... He`s a complex and intriguing architect, a man who thrives on free thinking and seems that his heart belongs to a world closer to Beijing's hutongs and old cities but the next day he can be design the architecture demanded by ultra-capitalism or absolutist governments.


taken from

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/architecture/story/0,,2156966,00.html

Himno del angel parado en un pata -Hernan Rivera Letelier

Last holliday i started to read this book, i havent finished yet cause i been busy but i`ve liked.
its the third book that i read from this writer. He's one of the most famous writers in Chile, he was born in Talca and he grew up and worked in the saltpetre deposits from the Atacama desert -north of Chile- .
I like his books because he recreates diferents ways of life from the contemporary past of our country. I really enjoy how he describes places and situations on his storys, it makes me imagine the streets, the houses, the landscapes, etc. The character are always taken from the everyday life but at the same time they are unique.
This book is about a boy who was born in a satlpetre deposit and when it was closed he had to moved with his family to a city. There he lives his adolescence and starts to learn about love, his first dreams and wishes appears and starts to survive by his own. A very deep and at the same time entertaining story.

BBC Learning English

This web site is made to help people to improve their knowledge about english language. There are many kinds of interactive-activities, where you can see videos, photos, cartoons, read texts, play games, etc.
I really enjoyied the section watch and listen, specially the activitie called "welcome to london" because its very usefull for people that is going to travell or going to live to countries like U.S. or England. There you can learn how to act in situations at the city.
The flatmates its a cartoon where you can read and listen about a story between friends, i think it a good idea, and the texts are ok but i think that the design of the characters is bad.
I played the crossword, i think its a very good tool to practise vocabulary but i got bored quickly. the news section can be very interesting for people who wants to learn english and at the same time to be informed about news around the world.
Maybe the website could include in the future a new section focus in children and teenagers. Because its easier for them to learn english faster.