Post 10: English Language Challenges

I use to have and speak a lot of English at school. But when I enter to the university in 2009, I stop talking English and I didn’t use it or need it at all, so I lose all the practice that I use to have. In my school, we use the classic text book. We use two of them, one was the student book that contents the concept and the theory or the vocabulary, and the other one was the workbook, in that book we made exercises that have coherence with the matters of the student book.

When I arrived to journalism I did the test and start at level 4, so I can´t talk about the others level of English, so I only talk for this level. I think that blogs aren’t the best way to learn English, because there are a lot of help that you can use online. I think the best way to learn this language is talk more and practice that way.

I normally don’t use English in my life, sometimes I saw short videos without subtitles, or learn some things in English and understand them. I think I have a lot of troubles when I need to conjugate verbs, and change the times, I need to work more on that.

Anyway, my plans now it is going to Australia. I am going to be there in 2017 and I hope to practice there and learn the things that I need to improve the skills that I already learned in these class and in all my years in the school.

Post 9: Changes to my study programme

I always said that journalism in the university is too long. I think (without taking credit) that this career is more a job that you learn in the practice that one in that you need to study five years. It is too much! There are too much filling courses and some of them aren’t useful for the future and the profession.

Also, you have some semester with three courses and A LOT of free time. I mean it, A LOT. So, why instead of five years, we concentrate the courses in less semester? I think that even if the university do that, we still have free time.

Other changes that I would introduce in the study programme, would be to put more history course, because a lot of times (me included) the students don’t know important facts of the Chilean history. Other subject that I think interesting to learn are some juridics terms and constitutional matters that will be very helpful if some day as a journalist we must cover things in the justice courts.

In the infrastructure, I don’t have issues, because in the final years the university has built a lot of buildings and sport infrastructure so if I compare the things when I arrived in 2012 with the thing that we have today, there are a lot of improvements. With the ICEI equipment is different, we are always short with cameras or other electronics stuff that we need to use and that’s been a problem all this years and I hope they find a solution.

Post 8: My Holidays

I have a paradox in my life. I never make plans for the summer because I have a routine that consist in working in January and be in Valdivia in February. If something comes up when I was there I go and travel with my friends but only in the south, because the weather is better and there are a lots of greats places to visit.

However, for this summer I was planning to go somewhere else, I don’t know, maybe Peru, Bolivia, San Pedro or Torres del Paine. I was planning to work in January and then in February, spend all my money in a journey with my friends.

But, for this summer, the luck is not with me. I accepted (I don’t know what I was thinking in that moment) a job in La Tercera and in that moment, all my plans go away. I think that the weekend of new years it is going to be my only vacation because the job is a practice and finish in March.

So, my plans can’t be anymore, but I hope that maybe, if luck is on my side, I will be able to go and report a topic to some entertaining place. Maybe I volunteer one weekend only to go away from Santiago and the weather. I still thinking that maybe I can´t handle the weather and quit, and go to Valdivia and be happy.

Post 7

I am not ones of those people who regrets so much. In fact, I have to do the exercise now and its very hard for me to remember anything to regret or a decision who affected me so hard that follow me until today. I can only think in one, but at the end that decision creates what I am now, and the things that I am doing with my life and, by the way, makes me happy and satisfied.

Anyway, when I was 20 I was studying law in Valdivia, in Universidad Austral de Chile. That was my second year and I hated my career. I really did. I was inscribed to do the PSU for that year (2010) and I did it. My score wasn’t very good but I wanted to study History at that time and my score was enough.

I even signed up in the career, but in the last moment, I talked to my mom and she convinced me to keep studying law one more year, to gave the career a second chance. I didn’t think too much and say yes.

In March, I wanted to kill myself, one more year studying that evil career… In that moment I think that I was made the worst decision ever and that I should be studying History. Looking back, I am very happy that I keep in law one more year because if I didn’t do that I wasn’t here writing for this blog, month before I end journalism.