its the final countdown

i did well on today's exercises, but i had already done most of them back when i messed up class' instructions in november. I made a mistake in the first listening exercise, because i didn't really get the difference in pronunciation between three and tree, and i also got some reading comprehension questions wrong because i didn't pay much attention to the text. My forte is definitely vocabulary, and maybe even those text-with-gaps kinda exercises.

Also im pretty confident in my speaking skills, even though i realize i have an accent and take weird pauses in between words. I can still get my point across if i want to, so it's ok.

did someone say nerd

Im not really reading any book at the moment, because usually when i pick one up i tend to keep going until it's finished, and that's just not very doable while in university. I read a lot of short things online, like articles or essays on many topics, but nothing that might take up more than 30 minutes.

I guess the only thing i read constantly are comics, more specifically webcomics. I love illustration and design and there are many artists whose works i've followed for years. Right now the comics i'm following that update most frequently would be Prague Race, Shoot Around, Witchy, and Knights Errant, by Petra Nordlund, Suspu, Ariel Ries and Jenn Doyle respectively. These four comics are pretty different from one another, the first being about a group of friends that crosses over to a weird fantasy world, the second about a team of female basketball players and their coach caught in the zombie apocalypse, the third about a young witch that hates the system she's forced to be a part of, and the fourth about a soldier and his prisoner plotting against the margrave of their province. Since the authors make these on their own there's about one to three pages uploaded a week, so it doesn't take much time to keep up with the stories, but i'm usually finding new comics to read and i don't let go until i complete them, so actually i still end up using a lot of my free time on that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

all around me are familiar faces worn out places

There are many places i like in this city, but none that i feel particularly strong about. I mean, i love many places, like plaza de maipú, plaza de armas, the eurocentro, rosas street, balmaceda arte joven, the la moneda cultural center, the diana games from merced, etc. but it's not as if any of those is my favorite place, i mean, some of those i don't even frequent. What i like about places in general is when they have distinct athmopsheres, like when you can tell it's a lived-in place, where people don't only work or sleep, but enjoy. This is something that usually happens in places that work as hubs for people in their free time, because you can see what they do for leisure and how they interact with the environment, and even after the people are gone you can still feel like, the pulsations of the place? i don't know. On the other hand, I also like places that are derelict, and have been reclaimed by everyone and no one. Near my current home there are many places like this: empty lots, abandoned buisness, half-demolished stores (recently a completely burnt one!) and half-built streets full of rubble,  and all of these spaces have been tagged and painted by street artists, or used by kid skater gangs and the like. I feel like it might sound like i live in a wasteland, but it's not like that, because despite that all my neighbourhood is always brimming with people, because it's a really commercial area. I guess that's what i like about those places, that even when everything moves so fast and there is so much people, the "abandoned" places remain calm, but not  lonely because they are full of reminders of the people who do reclaim them.

(i answered only about 2 questions, sorry teach :'))

´・ᴗ・`

there are a lot of things that make me happy, but speaking of today, i guess what made me the happiest was the lunch at the arts' canteen. today the menu was grilled porkchops with brown rice and mushrooms, and a side dish of chilean salad with purple onion and potatoes, with panqueques with jam for dessert. it was so good.... i lied in the ground for about 20 minutes afterwards thinking just about how great that lunch was. plus the weather was really nice while under shadow so it was all nice. it made me happy because i was famished and even if i hadn't been, food tends to have that effect on me when it tastes good (nice weather also has that effect although i usually prefer cooler days). maybe it's like an instinctual response to being fed? i don't know, but a nice flavor always makes me happy. in this case tho, i'm also happy because the arts' canteen has a pretty good money-to-food ratio.like, i got all that stuff for 2 lucas (plus a beverage and bread) and it was all tasty, while on the icei canteen it's slightly more expensive and way less savory. I think i found out about the canteen's quality about 2 or 3 months ago, and i haven't looked back.  some other lunches from that canteen that have made me really happy are: beef cazuela, grilled zucchini, stuffed potatoes with tomaticán and the always present mote con huesillo for dessert. i suppose happiness is in the small things.

a link within a link

I did pretty well on the assigned exercices, i don't think i had any trouble with them.

However what i did mess up were the class instructions, because i had headphones on when Teach told us we didn't need to do ALL the exercices in the links :') In my defense, I had put on my headphones at the beginning of the activity because the class was kinda noisy and it distracted me.

Some of the other exercices were kinda tricky tho, because the reading material wasn't too engaging and some questions were purposefully misleading. 

shes beauty shes grace

After much thought about the people i admire i've chosen an artist whose field might not seem that deep or revolutionary, but it actually is. Not in the convoluted way of academia or fundamentally politic works, but in how it relates to their intended audience, and it how it shapes the worldviews of children (should we like it or not). This author in particular promotes equality, kindness and self-expression through her art, she's Rebecca Sugar, the first woman to ever create and direct an animated show on tv (namely on cartoon network). Her show is called Steven Universe, and it currently has 2 seasons and has another one already in the making, and since it's premiere in 2013 the show has constantly broken many unspoken rules of mainstream child's media. It was the first kid's show to include an openly lesbian couple who actually get to kiss on screen, the first on CN to portray a boy wearing a dress without making him the butt of a joke, it has the most non-white characters of any american kid-aimed show on tv right now, and it features the most diverse cast of female characters I can think of in children's media. All of this comes from the efforts of Rebecca, who has said on multiple occasions that she strives to be as authentic as possible with her show, and to make something she had needed as a kid. 

I believe mainstream media tends to be so toxic, and so formative in today's society that an artist who strives to make something a little more genuine and kind is a huge deal. I first learnes about rebecca from her work in another CN show, Adventure Time, where she story boarded and composed songs for some of the best episodes of the series. I was a fan of her episodes because they always stood out because of how heartfelt they seemed. When she left the AT crew in 2012 I was eager to see what her next project would be and she did not disappoint. 

this is a short film she made while still a student!

shower me in gifts, thanks

ok so this is just creepy because just the other day i had been thinking like "what if we had to write about the best present we've received in the english blog". I literally sat in my bed thinking what would i write if the question ever came up and now im like ???? ?? ? ? ? the good part is i already have my answer but ??????????????

At the time, my conclusion was that the best present i had ever received was one from about three years ago on my birthday. I was still at high school at the time, and since im a June child my birthday fell right in the peak of the student mobilization. The school was in strike at the time, and that particular day there was an assembly, then votes, then the public counting of the votes. Everything was a little chaotic, and since i was part of the student council I didn't really got to hang with my friends much, but one of them showed up at the assembly and gave me a cute tote bag with a medium sized cardboard box inside of it, which was decorated with a puffy ribbon made out of newspaper and the face of piñera glued into it. Right from the start everything about the gist was great, but she told me not to open it right there, because she doesn't like to see people reacting to her presents. So i waited until the day relaxed a little, and when i was having lunch with the rest of the student council i opened the box, and the fist thing i saw was a HUGE pair of like, anime eyes. She had gotten me a little mamegotchi plushie, which is the main mascot you can get when playing with tamagotchis, and at the time it was a really nice gesture because even tho i didn't talk much about my love for them, i drew a lot of those little guys in class, and apparently she had noticed and found the toy while thrifting in bandera! But it wasn't the only thing, and when i pulled out the plushie there was a tupperware under it, so i lifted it as well and realized it was full of little pink butts (i love butts as a concept), which was great. Turned out they were cookies, so i found myself with a handful of butter-flavored edible pink butts. Finally, i pulled out a square of paper form the box, but before i could even register what it was, something glued to the bottom of it caught my attention. It was like, a bust of Willy sabor from the doña carne ads, but the face had been folded over itself, so his eyes were directly above his big, grinning mouth, and his catchphrase "Su vecina mas rica" had been replaced with "Feliz cumpleanos feñita". I've always hated everything about willy sabor as a character so obviously my friend's gesture was completely sweet and heartwarming.

Right now, the mamegotchi rests atop of my shelf with an assortment of marine themed plushies, the paper rectangle turned out to be a drawing that's now taped into my dresser, the willy sabor cutout is pinned to my cork board, and the cookies are in their rightful place among the fallen.

mm m mmmmm

After the last entry education seems like a pretty dense theme to tackle here on my blog. I feel strongly about many aspects of it, from it's structure to the way it relates to the bigger picture of society as a real time capitalist hell, and so, as it happens with all themes that engage me, i find it pretty difficult to articulate myself on the topic. 

Maybe a little background on my trip through education as of now can help understand my perspective on it, because the realities i've been exposed to are instrumental in the shaping of my opinion on the matter.

My first contact with education was at 3 years old, when I joined a private school, with tuition fees at around 150.000 pesos. It was a strict place, which enforced authority but also promoted arts and public speaking. After that, due to my tuition fees falling on my mom I had to leave that school in favor of one she could afford. I remember being shocked, both by some teachers and the way they spoke and treated alumni, and by my classmates who didn't know how to read and write yet. At this point i started a trend of not paying attention, because, as the video pointed out, it all became boring subjects among too many children for me to care. With just these two first examples you can already tell how badly education works. I hadnt even moved between opposite ends of the educational spectrum and with 6 years of age i still could identify all the surface differences that arised when you changed how much money you were putting into the equation. After 5 years of that, i got into a liceo emblemático, which was even bigger, and where i payed even less attention to what i was doing, but where two important things happened: i got the chance for the first time to make friends from other parts of santiago other than my own comuna, and i got the chance to participate in as many extracurricular activities as i wanted. Only then, after about 5 years, I started to get involved in classes, paying attention and participating, because for the first time I found some meaning in schooling, if only so I could score enough points to get into my desired career.

I actually wanted to delve deeper into the differences between systems (private, half state-funded, and municipal) but I already used up too much time writing only about the surface issues (and my post is already too long!) The bottom line is, I suppose, that when there’s a directly proportional relationship between money and quality of education you can’t deny something’s really wrong about your system, socially speaking. But the thing is: school as a concept is already an institution made to homogenize people, be it by crafts, knowledge, morals or whatever else. Norming people’s relationship to knowledge is already wrong in my opinion, since it’s impossible for any kind of institution to know what every single individual needs to reach their full potential.

I feel really bad about going on such a big curve with this entry… if we ever get another free post I swear I’ll continue my original idea for this one :’)

vidya gams

hey so since today's topic is up to me i guess i'll write about some independent game makers i like.

first off, i gotta say that i love video games. I love every way people have found to tell their stories, and i think the possibilities that video games offer are endless, because they are in a realm where everything is virtual, and therefore, doable. There's nothing fixed in video games because they are completely fabricated, and to me thats incredible. I think most people believe video games to be either silly and childish or violent and graphic, and actually i couldn't deny that it actually is the case of many games in the industry, where the need for profit dictates what kind of games get made and their contents. But, while this is true of commercial games, it doesn't apply to the games being made outside the industry, which usually get produced by very small teams of people, if not by a single person, and which can delve into more personal topics, or experiment with their narratives and art styles in ways that games shaped by money don't really explore. 

so, with that in mind, some game makers whose works i admire are:

Toby fox. he's actually the reason why i chose video games for this entry, because he recently debuted with his game Undertale, which made a huge impression on me. it's an RPG (role playing game) that offers and encourages the option of resolving all conflicts with mercy instead of violence, drastically changing the story according to your method of choice. I love the fact that the game dissuades the player from killing every NPC (non-playable character), and chooses to promote befriending them instead.

Mason Lindroth. Mason has an aesthetic thats pretty entrancing to me, because his mix of stop motion animation and pixelated filters with small color palettes appeals to a lot of my tastes. His games usually have a slow rhythm, forcing the player to explore and discover rather than to fight.

Anatola Howard.  Her works are amazing. Right now she's working on her third game and it looks great. She has a narrative flow that's very pleasing, and touches deep themes in simple ways within her games, making them all about feeling and empathy. 

how green me be

i feel pretty bad about this entry because i do right about nothing to help the planet in regard to the environmental issue affecting it :') i mean i pick up papers from the floor but that’s more about curiosity than actual concern about the earth so i don’t think it counts.

The thing is, i know about measures one could take to be greener and help with the problem, which I learnt about at school (not in actual classes, but clubs) and from the internet and tv mostly (shout out to juan carlos bodoque), but i don’t actually apply any of them. In my case it has to do mostly with laziness i suppose, like i know i could try to gather nice trash and take it to a recycling point or something like that, not that i know any near my home, but i just don't think about making the effort? Maybe if i were in charge of my own household i'd try to manage better in that aspect.

Also, i do feel a lot of respect for people who get themselves to care and act towards a gentler relationship with earth, however i can't shake the pessimistic thought that as long as the world is run with a capitalist structure there is little people can do to solve the problem. Like, you can care all you want, raise your own vegetables, recycle all your waste, make composts and plant trees and everything but, just by virtue of living in a certain space and consuming goods inside our society you are validating the process of abuse towards earth. we all are, and so, the green movement becomes more of a personal mindset (which i endorse!!) than an actual accomplishment, and just like any collective initiative that aims toward change, it invariably becomes a tool to the system, which readily promotes the idea of individuals being green on their own to divert the responsibility away from enterprises (there's also the issue of the green movement being aimed primarily towards high classes). More to the point though, and despite everything, i think there is a point in being green, because no matter why or how you are helping little by little, and i find that mindset to be really healthy, and just about what people need to be better.

Everything being said i still suck, because i've never joined any organizations out of sheer sloth, and in complete honesty i don't think i will in the near future. I guess i kinda symbolize what’s missing in our society :') :') :')

Even with my bleak outlook about the future of earth i still think many things can be done, and should be done, but being green and ignoring the political factor that determines the over-abuse of the environment is pretty much like being vegan without condemning all unethical consumerism so yeah. Maybe what we can do as a community is try to tie together both aspects of the problem and work on disassembling the power structures that allow such exploitation.

(yeah, right :’))

National holidays

I'm kind of on a tight spot with this particular post because it's been kind of a long time since my family has actually been in chile for the fiestas patrias. My mom is kind of a hipster so she usually takes her vacations on september instead of doing it in the summer, and so, the september holiday is more of a big trip opportunity rather than a national celebration for us. This year however we stayed here because she was sick, and i got to celebrate on my own, but i think it'd be a little lame to write about that when i'll have to record myself doing the same thing in a couple of days. 

In any case, there's a particular anecdote which i guess might serve the purpose of this assignment. It happened in school, when i was around 14 or 15 years old. We had this really great teacher who was in charge of our class, and she was really fun in a strict and intimidating way. For the last class of september she told all of us that we had to attend her class in China or Diablo de la tirana costumes, and whoever didn't would have to leave the classroom (keep in mind: this wasn't a school policy or anything, it was all her idea). So ok, we all got the costumes, changed clothes between classes, and showed up dressed up to hers, only to find that she was wearing her regular white lab coat just like any other day. We were all kinda pissed, and about to start complaining when she suddenly stops us, and just smirks to the whole class as she gets her purse (which was really big), while saying that we shouldn't get mad because her costume was right there. And what she pulled out of it was one of those huge realistic plastic horse masks that really look like they've got issues and she just put it on her head and started dancing cueca brava very menacingly at all of us (who were part terrified and part exploding with laughter). 

After the shock wore off she took the thing off and told us she'd brought empanadas for all of us so it was a pretty great deal overall. To this day all my friends still crack up about this because of how absurd and unexpected it was, but it's also definitely heartwarming to think about that teacher and how she went about her job with us.

(bad) photographic evidence of the event

somewhere else

ok first off I think most people can agree that it is pretty difficult to choose just one place you'd like to visit. I believe people are curious by nature, and right now we live in a context that allows us to know so much, to grasp the idea of places we would have never heard of if it wasn't for the connections we've managed to make thanks to technology, that those natural urges induced by curiosity are inflamed even more. 
in accordance to that way of thinking, there are many places i'd like to meet, all of them very different from one another, which makes it really frustrating for me to find an answer to the questions posed (even more so because they look really simple).
i guess i will choose one based on how soon i think i might actually get to go, so i'll say Peru, since it's close by and it has an amazing culture to bask in. there are plenty of well known places to go marvel at, from Machu Picchu to the Gold Museum, and even more places to go eat to your heart's content. I would also love to explore the less known historical remnants of the Incan empire, as well as the art scene of the cities. However i don't think i'd stay there for a living, since it wouldn't feel as a challenge to my current views. If i were to choose a country to study or live at for some time, i'd prefer somewhere that has a world view very different to mine.

                                                                   
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