The wild journey

In this brief essay I must evaluate my academic year in order to see if I had a good performance through the course of it. First of all, I must clarify that this has been probably the most difficult year of my entire life, because it has been the one were the biggest number of changes happened. I am from a small city located in the south called Punta Arenas, which is very isolated from the rest of the country, so life is very different, compared to Santiago’s type of life. It has been a waved journey the one I’ve been through this year, so I will evaluate it next.
Like I said, this year I had to adapt not only to the university stile, but to the city and living alone as well. Therefore the academic matter is not the only one, nor the most important in my life this year, consequently I did not gave it too much relevance as I went through it, but now is time to evaluate it.
At the beginning of the year I was very scared and intimidated so I tried to study a lot, but as the year advanced I declined my studying hours and the intensity of them. Although my grades did not declined, so I think it wasn’t a bad decision, because I was able to do lots of interesting and anti-depressive things that helped me a lot with my adapting to the city and new way of life. But, back to the academic performance: about grades I did average going to good, it wasn’t the best performance but I did exempted from all of my subjects the first semester. I must confess though that this year I did not dedicated too much time and effort to my studies, I concentrated on other aspects of my life, but now I am much more focused on my studies and I work with joy when it comes to them.
Throughout this year I have come to realize that you need to be in a healthy state, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally, because that is the main reason why sometimes you cannot fulfill with academic responsibilities. This year I went through some very difficult times and I was emotionally unstable most of the year, and that caused that I did not go very well at academic matters, but the second semester has been extremely different; I have had some hard times as well, but it has not been that difficult to overcoming them. I have found wonderful people that helped me in the emotional aspect of my life and that influenced my academic results, which have improved a little bit compared to first semester, so my evaluation of this academic year is “good” and the one for my emotional year is “excellent”.

What Anthropology needs

Anthropology is a very complicated discipline. It needs constant evaluation and review, specially in our country where is a not very known area of study and it doesn’t bring that much money and recognition to the country and university.
In the first place, regarding to technology issues, anthropology needs it the most in the Archaeology and Physical Anthropology areas, because in order to get those studies and investigation done, there are many things kind of technologic that are needed to finish them. For example, in Archaeology you need sometimes a flotation tank to obtain the seeds and little pieces from an excavation and after thet, they must be analized in high technology laboratories and later, all the data must be entered in computers with complicated programs that convert the meaningless numbers into readable information with wich archaeologist can infer what happened in the place they digged.
In the other hand, in social matters I think that specially Social Anthropology needs to get a closer approach to the people it studies and not only as an object of study, but as people they are trying to help by doing the research that is doing. In strongly believe that that is one of the biggest lacks of current Anthropology, because the anthropologist puts him self in a different level that the person he is studing and that causes a very inconvinient situation to the person, because he or she feels like is on a lower position …. Of the anthropologist, wich finally will prevent the work to be done properly.
I also believe that we as social scientist must inform the community about what our degree is about, because very few people actually knows what Anthropology is about and what anthropolgist do. Specially what is their contribution to the world and country, I mean what is their purpose in life and in this society. I think this could be resolved by showing more of what we do in television, because that is the easiest way of getting in the mind of common people. They don’t read the scientific magazines where anthropologist write, so in my opinion that is the most important issue Anthropology specially in our country must resolve.

Archaeology or money...?

When it comes to money I have always thought that it is not that important, because I have seen that people with lots of money are not necessarily happy, which is according to my thinking the one thing that people must pursue in their life. So when I was deciding what degree to choose, I never took into account the amount of money I would earn in the degree I choose. For me, that is just a part of what my degree means, and a little one for that matter. I have never had much money so I’m used to be kind of poor, therefore I don’t think I will need an enormous amount of money every month to live and be happy. And when I chose archaeology I knew that it wouldn’t be easy but it is what I want and what really could make me happy, so if I had to choose between money and archaeology, I would definitely choose archaeology, my passion and one of the loves of my life.
However, I have to eat. So making money by being an anthropologist is one of the things I have to worry about. I believe that if you are good at what you’re doing you should not have problems to earn the money you want. The first step is to finish completely your degree in the time established; then you make you thesis and by the time you make your practice, you should have made several contacts that will help you through the course of your career. Once you finish all that, you must go to another country and have a postítulo there, preferably in Europe. That will give you status and respect between anthropologist and archaeologists.
At the moment I’m not making money, because I am too lazy and not motivated to do something like that at the moment even if it means earning money and being able to buy many things, like clothes and movies! I think that maybe at summer I could work to save money for next year’s archaeology congress and to travel to Valparaiso because someone very important is there…

My faculty/ my home

My faculty is currently a very poor place. It has a great lack of architecture and infrastructure. It needs more toilet paper in the bathrooms and liquid soap, a new painting layer on every wall, and specially needs to have a better organization between the high command. It needs an English laboratory, which means an exclusive room for English classes and the necessary equipment for it.
I think it needs a little change in the administration of it. That would be a good first step to deal with the situation and beside that I think a good “love your faculty” campaign could help to solve the problem.
This situation could be solved by using the money collected in “carretes” or the parties made in the campus to improve the faults of the faculty. If the student’s center organizes and at every party made in the campus, sells alcohol and food like choripanes, pizza and hot dogs. Almost every Friday there’s party in the campus, so within few months there would be much money to spend in improving the faculty, and it would be a great way to do it, everybody would enjoy and win.
The benefits and impact of these improvements would be to have a better place to study with adequate equipments and a nice place to get to, when you study. Because at the end, this is our second home and we need it to be cozy.What’s left to be done is to take care constantly of our beloved faculty and listen to what students have to say about it, because they are who use at the end

Just music!

When it comes to music I don’t know what to say. I don’t have a favorite band or stile, though I do have a favorite song, well, actually two.
The kind of music I prefer to listen has to be according to my state of mind. If I am happy and full of energy, I normally like listening dance music; if I am sad I listen slow songs, romantic or rock when I’ve got anger or frustration to free.
Like I said, I don’t have a favorite band, but I can name the ones I like the most: I really enjoy listening Linkin Park, I love them; I also like old singers like Frank Sinatra, I like romantic groups like Los Nocheros and singer like Axel, and finally some dance music like Calle 13.
About concerts, I have been in some: three times at one of Los Bunkers. And beside those, just in free concerts with no important artist.
However, my absolutely favorite kind of music has to be soundtracks: the music from the movies, those that are specially made for one movie. I can even say that from the CD’s I have, a great part of them are soundtracks, instead of albums of bands or singers. My favorites are “Amélie” by Yann Tiersen and “The Phantom of the Opera (2004)” by Andrew Lloyd Weber.
My favorite song of all times is “Strangers in the night” sang by Frank Sinatra. I can listen to that song a million times and I never get tired of hearing it. The music, the lyrics and his voice! It is just perfection in 2 minutes and 38 seconds of pure wonder and emotion. The story it tells, is so romantic and beautiful; it’s about two strangers that meet one night at a club or a party, by the end of the night they kiss and at the end, they spend the rest of their life together. That is simply love, pure and real love. And I love it for that.
The other song I really love is “The point of no return” of the soundtrack of “The Phantom of the Opera (2004)”. This song is just so so so passionate! You can feel the tension and passion coming out of it. And when I hear it it reminds me of the movie so is like if I were watching it, and that part of the movie is (again) SO passionate! That it can bring out your deepest emotions and unleashed them all.

My favorite food

I would have to say that my favorite food is pizza, besides that, I really like raviolis and spaghetti. I really enjoy eating those foods at friend meetings and family context. I use to like that my mom cook for me, so now it reminds me of my home and it makes me melancholic.
But the problem is I don’t like to cook. I can only make a few things, but the raviolis I make, I really like them, oh! And I really like how I spice salad.
I have a little tradition with my mom: every Christmas we eat anticuchos and I really enjoy it… I miss her a lot.
My perfect three course meal would be:
1st course: palmettos with ham and avocado. My mom use to make that for me and I love it!
2nd course: meat, chicken, fish I don’t care, but I have got to have meat on my plate, with potatoes maybe, or rice, or salad. Mmm… I really like tomatoes and cabbage and I like to spice it with oil and salt, nothing else. I hate lemon! And everybody spice salad with lemon! I mean, what is wrong with people? Anyway, that is a good main course.
3rd course: my favorite dessert is babaroa, but only the one my mom prepares. Besides it, I really like ice cream, cream flavor with chocolate chips: delicious! I would finish any meal with fruits like apple or banana. Another dessert I love is rice with milk, with cinnamon.
But, at the end of the day, what really matters is that you have a meal with people you love.

What to do when your in Santiago

If you ever find yourself in this great city, you should definitely visit Cerro Sta. Lucía, Cerro San Cristobal, Palacio La Moneda, the Cathedral and the Pre-Columbian Museum.
In Cerro Sta. Lucía you must see the magnificent ancient architecture and the wonderful view you get from the viewing-point where you can see the city almost over the buildings, it is amazing! And in the Cerro San Cristobal you can go up in the “little eggs” that are cable cars and it is a great experience. In that same place there is a zoo, where you can see a tiger, a polar bear and the recently brought, lions.
The most important building of the city is Palacio La Moneda, located in front of Alameda Avenue between Teatinos and Morandé streets. It is the government palace where the president makes important decisions and where foreign politicians go to meetings with Ms. Michelle Bachelet our first female president.
Another place you should visit is the Cathedral, located one side of Plaza de Armas. It was built at the beginnings of 1900’s, and it is the place where the hearts of the heroes of Battle of Concepción are guarded and some aristocrats were buried there. It has a beautiful design and as you walk through it, you can feel the weight of history above your head and under your feet.
And finally, another place you must see is the Pre-Columbian Museum, where pre-Columbian art is exhibit there, such as diaguita culture, mapuche culture and others, so if you like Archaeology you must definitely visit it.