POLITICAL ISSUES

About foreign political issues and the local ones, I used to care a lot about them. I used to be always informed about what was happening, what was going on and I was always concerned about the situation in my country and the world. 

But as time went by, I learned that I was happier if I just stopped trying to be aware of every single new. I just stopped caring so much about the issues of the world for myself to be happier.

The thing is, it’s not like I don’t care at all about the issues of the world, but I’m just not constantly trying to know what is going on. 

It’s always nice to know what is going on to be able to give your opinion in a debate, conversation, etc. 

The Mapuche conflict is an issue really close to me. I have a spiritual connection with the Mapuche people, so I care about the conflict in some way. But I don’t really go deep into what is going on at the moment. I just know that what is happening is sad and unfair.

News from other places are hard for me to believe because, usually, when we receive any news from anywhere in the world, it comes way too one sided. We only get one side of the story and that is no good if what you want is to really be informed.

The same thing happens with local news. Local national news are always, always very one sided, we only get one version of the story, so we are not really able to criticize and debate about any issue. For example, about the Mapuche conflict, we only get the version of the elite being affected by Mapuche attacks or protests; we don’t get the bloody images of the shootings executed by the militarized police in the Araucanía against the unarmed Mapuche people, we don’t get the full picture of anything that happens in the world so we can’t debate, we can’t create conversations about any issue or conflict, we can’t really be informed anymore using mainstream media. 

That’s why I don’t try as hard anymore to know what is going on, it is way too hard to know who is telling the truth, and it is simply way too frustrating. And also I don’t have time to do it. 

ENGLISH LANGUAGE CHALLENGES

About learning English at university I think that is really useful, because we don’t have a lot of time (or any) to practice and improve our English, and I can say that in name of all my classmates. 

About the use of blogs, I don’t really know what I feel about it actually. Because there are topics that I know exactly what to say, and I can write a lot about it, but there are topics that I don’t even know how to develop a sentence. And also it takes me a lot to write a post, because I don’t want to make a mistake. But I think is good to improve our writing though.

I have always enjoyed to learn this language, even when I was in kindergarten was my favourite class and moment of the day, so I can say that it’s easy for me to learn it, because I enjoyed it. I wish I could speak it better though, because I think that my pronunciation is the worst (also my boyfriend is always laughing at me, because of that –he is really good at it-), but also I like to think that at the end of the day the important thing is communicate yourself. Or, have you ever seen a “gringo” with a perfect Spanish? Nah nah.

Before I start my life in the Fau, when I had free and enough time to have a life. I was always improving my English, I was always practicing, watching movies, videos on youtube, talking with friends on skype (English speakers) and also reading a lot, I have books in English that I always enjoyed to read. But now I can’t do it anymore, because I don’t have time and I feel that my level in this two years that I have been in the Fau is in decrease, and it makes me really sad. Also I was starting to learn French and I already forgot all that I learnt. 

What I use now to improve is watch movies and listen music, also I read random stuff sometimes in English to still practicing and I write sometimes to my friends via text messages, so I can have conversations were I have to remember things. Also my father is trying to learn it, so I have fun with him and my brother sometimes speaking. I would like to practice with my boyfriend but he’s too bully with me about it, and I’m a little bit shy. 

MAPUCHE CULTURE

“Mapuche people is and has always been one of the original ethnic group most important of Chile, for their social influence and demographic as well, for their strong feeling of cultural identity. They have found through history ways of resistance and adaptation to the dynamic of the borderline contact with Spanish and Chilean people.” 

I have always been an admirer of the Mapuche’s culture. Because of their bravery, that they have shown since the beginning of their existence (in books) with the Spanish that tried to conquer them and couldn’t and now how they make to the Chilean people things hard. I think that Chile hasn’t treated them like they should, they are part of our roots, and we owe them a lot more of respect that we as society are giving them. 

They are people from the earth, they respect mother earth as everyone should and are an example of this, they use natural medicine and are so spiritual that it makes me love them. 

When I was in a trip in another country, someone read me “my guardian” and told me that was a Mapuche, one of my ancestors that was a very powerful Machi. After all of this reading the person asked me what was a Mapuche and I told her all of this. Also, after this reading, I love even more the Mapuche people because it helped me find my real roots, it helped me find and connect with my ancestors, with my past. 

But what I highlight the most out the Mapuche’s essence is their spirituality and their respect for our mother earth.

CHANGES THAT COULD BE MADE TO MY STUDY PROGRAMME

As many classmates, I started my life here in the Fau last year and after an entire year of classes and stress I failed workshop. Everything was going relatively fine till all the people that failed a class from the first year of architecture (including me) had to take all their classes.

We just could take our classes from the third semester and the classes that we failed had to wait. At January we had different talks about the new programme and that we had to take because: one “it was better” and two “we just were late one semester and not an entire year” because of the length of the new programme with a semester less.

The only bad thing about signing that paper that makes you change of programme was (in my case) that you could only course in this year the class that you failed and the optative ones. I decided to change my programme and that’s were my nightmare started, I had to drop the classes of the third semester that I had taken and wait till the first day of classes to know what workshop I will have.

I’m really sad about all of this situation that me and the classmates that are in the same situation have going through this year, almost all of us feel stuck, with no motivation and the worst of all is that we’re in the first year again, all of our effort last year was for nothing. I think that the university could manage this situation better, I only feel that they made this to take our money.

So, as I have lived both programmes I could say that the classes are the same but with different names, the teachers (“Gods”) are the same and the information is the same as the way they teach (making you feel dumb and miserable) is the same, and this is my most important critic, I don’t believe in the idea of learning using those methods, Why can’t they be less egomaniacs and think about how we feel?.

About the infrastructure is a really common debate, we don’t have the better one as other faculties of this university and is really a shame of the way it is because we’re the architects lmao. 

“I can’t believe that you prefer to sleep that finish the work”- Workshop assistant.

“If you have pending things in another class, forget it. Workshop is the important class” – Workshop teacher.

    

THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT

My thoughts about feminism are really clear I think. I’m against every kind of oppression, so every movement that treat us like equals would be one that I will support.

I have a sister that is 12 years older than me so when I went to first grade she was going into her first year of university (she studied pedagogy in parochial education). She has always influenced me and my brother because the differences of ages (she’s 15 years older than him) she is our role model and because of that we learnt about the movement very young I think, at home she was always talking about equal rights to me and my brother.

She taught me that I shouldn’t let anyone think that could pass over me because I was a woman, also she taught my brother that we are all the same and if anyone told him that he was better than women because he was just born as a man, it was wrong. 

Till today we practice all that she taught us, my brother is always defending women against assholes that think that are superior to them (he defends anyone that is treating like it shouldn’t actually, as I do too). About my side I have never felt less beside a guy because I’m a woman, and I don’t think that anyone should. 

We are always teaching to the youngest all this things that we learnt and obviously my sister as a pedagogue does the same.

POSTGRADUATE COURSE

I didn’t think about doing a postgraduate course before, because I think I should finish this career first, and it’s not sure if I will.

So, if in the future I imagine myself traveling, a good postgraduate course that I would consider taking could be anything related to traveling, maybe tourism (I don’t think so), languages or anything else.

I like to study and learn new things but I don’t prefer the reading learning method, I prefer to get the knowledge from the empirical realm, so a course that I would take would be one out of the normal system. Maybe it would be just traveling because of the need to communicate with others you learn the language. 

Also I’m really into the spiritual and energy things so one of my plans is to learn about reiki, reading the aura and everything in that area, but I don’t know if that applies as a postgraduate course.

I would prefer to do this imaginary course in another country, because of the reasons given before and because I think it’s better for the curriculum, also I could do a part-time course or an online one, it would be easier for me and my plans.

I’m not really into thinking about the future though, I prefer to live the day. 

SUMMER HOLIDAYS

Honestly, I don’t really know what I will do this summer vacation because of the student’s strike that we had this year, we will close the semester the last days of January so we will have just one month of summer vacation, and that restricts us in what to do.

I have a lot of family that live in the North of the country, and before I started my life in the FAU almost every year I would travel to stay in Caldera with an aunt and cousins (even though that I don’t really like Caldera). My family and I spend from January to the last days of February, almost all summer we went to a different beach every day. 

Playa la Virgen

This January I couldn’t go because of the same reasons that this year, I had just one month of vacation (we finish the semester in January 15th) and I stayed in my town because I wanted to stay with my boyfriend, maybe this year will be the same. Also, I have two dogs at my place in Machalí and one of them is 16 years old, he’s really old and I can’t leave him, and he can’t go with us because is really scared of traveling in the car.

I try to travel almost every weekend because I want to spend all the time that I can with my dog. Another reason to stay in my town is that I miss so much my home and bedroom that I want to spend my summer there. 

Casona Sanchina Machalí