Post 10: English Language Challenges

 Dear Students,

This is our final post. I'm happy to have read your posts and comments. You have some very interesting and valuable insights to share.

The instructions are:

> How did you like this subject at university? What about the use of blogs?
> What aspects of your English need to be improved and how do you plan to do this?
> Outside the English class, how much are you using English these days? What for?

- wordcount: 300
- make comments on 3 of your partners' posts.

It's been a pleasure working with all of you.

Good luck in all your endevours

 Post 9: My Future Job
> At university, what major have you taken / are you thinking of taking? Explain why.
> What kind of job would you like to have? Describe.
> What aspects would you consider  when choosing your job?
> If you were asked in a job interview about your strengths and weaknesses, what would you say?

> Words: 280
> Leave comments on 3 of your partners posts.

Blog Post 8 (week 11) > Themed/Free post 3

Dear Students, today's themed post is How you see yourselves in 2 years.





You can mention the following thins:
-your goals for 2 years.
-The changes your life will experience.
-What you are doing right now to make those goals/changes possible.

-Challenges you will/have encounter(ed) in the process.

- Comments: Ask students to leave a comment on 3 of their classmates posts
- Word Count: 260 words

Here you have my post:

After you graduate, many things start to get settled in your life, so right now, there aren’t as many things as there were some year ago that I could tell you about the matter. If I had been asked the same questions back in the day, I would have run off for sure. However, goal setting, learning and personal development are an ongoing process that even though may vary its shades, it never ceases.

My main, or most tangible goal right now is to finish my master`s program – and I’m going hill down, heck yeah!!!– and that might bring some professional opportunities that may be obvious to anyone: salary raises, an even more suitable profile, etc.

Right now, I’m undergoing the third semester out of four, but I’m outlining the completion of it in five. This semester, I need to pass a Discourse Analysis seminar which is been one of the subjects with more reading assignments. Next semester, I need to take Methodology of Investigations and start doing my own research.

The challenges might also be obvious to you: less sleep, more work, therefore, more stress, less quality family time and fewer chances to hang out with my friends. Some assignments are hard to handle due to the level abstraction required, the amount of reading and writing to cover, and the complexity of the productive tasks themselves. But even though, my pals and I joke about the loss of a life and how nasty things get, we all know we are doing this because we have chosen to, and we all carry an inner drive to face the strife, and when things make sense and you realize what you can reflect about, the feeling pays off.

Post 7 (Week 9) >> HOW GREEN ARE YOU?

Dear Class:

The following is what you have to include in this week's post:

- Where do people learn about enviromentally friendly practices?
- Have you incorported recycling into your habits? Describe
- Do you use a bike or your legs instead of a car?
- Have you joined or supported any eco-organisations? Why/Why not?
- What else have you done /would you like to do?
- What have you done to reduce your carbon footprint? 
- What's missing in our society/Santiago regarding this issue?

Number of words: 250 - 280
Don't forget to make comments on at least 3 of your classmates posts.

Good luck.

Here's my post:

I don’t believe Santiago is a place that has many public places to develop environmental awareness. But I guess there’s a lot of emphasis on the subject on the social networks, such as Twiiter and Facebook. School should be places where this is taught, but even though there are some which worry about sustainability and that sort of eco-friendly concept, there are many which do not show much interest in it.

Regarding recycling, I have to admit that I do not do much about it, but since I started changing the oil to my bike by myself, I’ve been looking for things to do with it, because I know such chemicals cause a lot of damage to the planet.

When it comes to transport, I have to say that this which I learned motorbikes are on of the most pollutant vehicles, so I cannot say I watch much for the planet in these terms. I’d love to ride a bicycle to get around Santiago, but I wouldn’t be able to reach the different and distant places I need to go.

I’m the kind of person who don’t do many things to clean the planet, but I do try to keep it clean, I mean, I never through garbage in places I’m not supposed to, I also watch over nature, and don’t harm animals nor plants. I don’t watch my carbon footprint either, but it would be important to turn into that stuff.

I think Santiago needs to give people the changes to start doing more things. Some cities offer ways to classify garbage for example. It also needs better regulations in terms of factories, and most of us need to start thinking a bit greener, don’t you think so?

Post 6 (week 8) >> 2nd Free/Themed Post

Dear Students, we have themed posts again.

The options are two:
Arts/Sports:
-What is it?
-Historical background
-Prominent exponents
-Why you like it?
-Do you take part in it?

- Comments: Ask students to leave a comment on 3 of their classmates posts
- Word Count for post 6: 230 words 

Well, my post this time will deal with both options at the same time, because what I’m going to tell you about is originally an art, but today it is been modified to be sport too. That is Karate.

Karate is form of martial art originated in Okinawa, but you can trace it back to India, then Chine. The word is a compound that cames from Chinese transliterations meaning empty (kara) and hand (te), that is to say empty hand, but after adding do, which means path – in a spiritual sence you may say – it is something like the path of the empty hands.

The type of karate I’m familiar with is a variant of one of the four traditional schools from Okinawa (the former been called Ken Shin Kan and the latter Go Ju Ryu). Go Ju Ryu was brought to Southamerica by Sensei Akamine, who modified it to what the Ken Shin Kan (or School). In Chile, the biggest representatives are Brothers Fernandez.

I like it because of many reasons: its aesthetics, mind and body benefits, playful features, etc. And yes, I used to do it. Well, I actually started with an Americanized version of karate, but then, when I entered university I had the chance to do this type for a year, and then I had to decide between my dojo and professional opportunities, and guess what happened. After that, my Sensei didn’t take it right so I just chance paths, but I do miss this beautiful art.

POST 5 (WEEK 7) >> SUMMARY FROM A CAREER-RELATED ARTICLE FROM THE GUARDIAN (ONLINE NEWSPAPER)

Go to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/

> Select a piece of news connected to your area of studies / future career.
> Write a summary of it.
> Provide the link to your piece of news.
> Leave a comment on 3 of their partners' posts.
> 220 words

Post 4 (week 6) Themed post

Dear Students:

Today we have our first themed post, or in other words, this week we get to choose!!!

And as we decided, you'll get to pick from 2 options: movies and places to go in Santiago this time.

Here you have the outlines:

Movies:

-say what your favorite movie is.

-give background information.

-say what the movie is about.

-say why you like it.

 

Places to go in Santiago:

-say a places you like to visit in Stgo.

-activities you can to here.

-how you came acquainted with it.

-why you like it.

In any case you have to make sure you do the following:
- Comments: Ask students to leave a comment on 3 of their classmates posts
- Word Count for post 4: 200 words

These are my examples:

1) My favorite movie is the trilogy The Matrix. The first episode of this movie was released in 1999 and the movie was directed by Larry and Andy Wachowsky.

This movie is about a young man, Neo, who lives unconsciously connected to a matrix of machines which had conquered the world long ago. Most humans are in the same situation and are used as energy sources by the machines. A group of people that fight to set free mankind believe that Neo is the prophesied Mesiah that would come to save humanity and stop the war.

I love the movie because it resembles many things that I questioned when I was a teenager, and it also finds a way to combine old and current philosophies. In addition to that, I love the fighting scenes and the special effects.

 

2) One place that I really enjoy is a bar in Bellavista named, La Casa en el Aire, and it actually has two branches, but I like the one on Antonia Lopez de Bello. 

This place is the kind of bar where you would see Claudia from Los 80 hanging out with here friend, at least in terms of music and theme for the decoration.

Here you can find a lot of live trova. tributes and covers of famous song writers are frecuently played. In addition, other things are held, such as story telling. 

The first time I went there was a failed attempt to go to La Maestra Vida. We arrived at about 10pm and they told us to come back in about an hour, and we walked around, taking pictures of the neighborhood. At 11pm, we went back and they said they weren't ready to open yet, and since we were starving we decided to pick up something to eat. So one of my friends remembered the name of this place we had seen on the internet before, so we decided to try it out.

As I set my foot in it, I fell in love with its atmosphere: the music, the walls, the pictures, the food, etc. what can I say? It's a great place for a nice chat.