Hey everyone! Today's post is about how did I like this subject at university and about my English language challenges.

First of all, I did like it a lot this subject because it gave me the opportunity of practicing my English skills, and to learn more about this language, specially the practical part that we can’t get to practice a lot outside the classroom. I also learnt a lot about my classmates through their blogs, what were their thoughts and opinions about the topics, it was very interesting. Though sometimes I didn’t have much time to dedicate it, since I had tests or homework for my other classes, but I always enjoyed coming to the classes, at least on Tuesdays when we got to talk and practice our oral skills.

Actually I think this should be a mandatory class, because knowing a second language will help us a lot during our career and our jobs.

My English has a lot of grammar voids, so I need to improve that part, maybe checking some old English books from high school or trying to catch up with it. Since I want to take the TOEFL test next year I need to fill the voids.

I haven't used my English in a long time,  I mean sometimes I Skype with some friends from my exchange year or I chat with them on Facebook, but I realize, since I don't do it often, that when I do my English get kind of rusty and not as fluent as before. College doesn't give us much time to do something to improve our English since everything we read or listen is in Spanish, but maybe now that we are close to summer break I’ll read some, watch some movies or listen to music in English to improve it.

Hey! today's post is about my future job. Well I'm just freshman in college this year, so I haven't taken many elective courses yet, but I know what I want to take in the next years. I want to work helping to preserve the environmental, so I'm thinking of working in a copper mine helping them on all the judicial stuff to get everything done in order to not have any trouble with the environment ministery or with the administration and convence them to take sustentable decisions to help our planet, because at the end of the day we all care about living in a clean planet,so everybody should care about it, and more the people who's taking economic advantages of our natural resources.
The aspects I would consider at the moment of taking a job are, first of all, if they are looking for someone who can help them to respect the law and not to cover the possible actions they might against it. Then, of course, the schedule because some of the jobs the mines offer, you have to spend half of your time up in the mine and I wouldn't do it, cause I like to spend time with my family and if I have my one, I mean children and  husband I wouldn't feel good about leaving home for that long.
If I were asked for my strenghts and weaknesses, i would say that im very responsible with my jobs and I try to do my best in everything, but one of my weaknesses is that if i don't agree about the thing i have to work on it is really hard for me to keep doing it, i keep strong on what i believe even though sometimes i might be wrong.

Hey everyone! Today's post is about how I see myself two years from now. I don't usually think about how I see myself in the future because I kind of like to live the present and i'm afraid of what destiny have for me. But i guess i would be in school, stressing out about how much reading i have to do and everything. I guess i'll be more mature, i mean, I'm working on that, trying to learn about my mistakes and making the best of my time. I hope i can be more comfortable and confident about my career and my skills. I don't really like oral tests, and i don't do well on them, so a goal i have for the next years is to get better at it and, to be able to not get nervous.

I hope my relationships with friends and family stay the same, because they are the most important part of my life now. So the upcoming years i'll work on that to keep the strength of them, specially with my family, since I'm far from them i don't want to come to a point where we don't speak anymore, it would destroy me. So i will do my best to keep in touch with my family and friends from my hometown.
I also would work on my grades, because i want to spend a semester abroad in my fourth of fifth year, so i need to get good grades to apply for a scholarship, I would like to go to somewhere in Europe, so i need to learn a third language. Two years from now i hope i do, at least learn the basics so i can make myself understood.

Hey everyone! Today's post is about being friendly with the environment. I really like this topic, I hope someday I could dedicate mi career to help us to learn how to live in a healthy environment. I think it's a hard task, we've gotten used to throw everything to the trash, knowing that it takes, years to degrade.
Now days there are many ways to find out about environmental friendly practices, I think the most important is the social networks, people spend so much time on facebook, twitter, I think through them is great  a way to educate the community.
It's important to take into the account the fact that if we don't start doing something about it now, probably in 50 years we won't have a place to call it home anymore. The facts speak for themselves, we need to start taking care of our planet, to make sure our next generations have a clean environment to live in.
I live in an apartment, they recycle the paperboard, boxes, bottles and any kind of paper. I don't have a bike, but i usually walk to and from school. If i have a long distance to cover I take public transportation, there are too many cars in Santiago, we don't need them all. They help to live in a contaminated city.
I've joined a non governmental environment organization called Greenpeace, its goal is to "ensure the ability of the earth to nurture life in all its diversity".
I know it's hard to change people's mind about this, i mean, people agree about the idea of the need to to something about it, but it's hard to start changing our habits.

Well, my post this week is about Lacrosse, this is a team sport played mainly in north America (United States and Canada). It's a rough sport, since you need physical contact to win the opponent. To play it you need equipment; gloves, helmets (for boys) and a lacrosse stick, which is designed to catch the ball, hold it and then pass it to your partner. The objetive of the game is to score by shooting the ball into the opponent's goal.
This sport dates back to the year 1000, comes from America as I said before, but the original game was different from the current one, it usually lasted 3 days or so, and they played in ceremonies.
This is not a very popular sport, so it doesn't have many exponents, but in America there is a national Lacrosse League, which is the largest men's post collegiate club lacrosse league. Nowdays the 2012 champion is a club called Magerk's.
I personally like it because is one of the few sport I can watch without getting bored, it keeps you busy and alert to all the players' moves. Even though it is a rough sport, it is not dangerous at all, because it has clear rules to keep the players away to hit each other.
I'm not part of a lacrosse team and I've never been, but there was a lacrosse team in my high school and I really enjoyed watching the games, and cheering for our school team!! I would've love to play it but i suck at  any kind of sports so they would've kicked me out of the team haha.

This news is about environmental issues. How current laws about protection of nature are not working, and how we need something new to innovate and help us to stop destroying our Home.
Ecosystem services are not exactly the first thing that comes up to our minds when we think about saving our planet. Usually we think about Greenpeace and other non profit organizations.
According to economics, people respond to incentives. Activicts don't make profits or create jobs from this organizations. So someone came out with the idea of payment for ecosystem services (PES) that tries to save the world and make money at the same time.
Nevertheless some activicts think that this project is just another way to give more power to the rich corporations. They think that moral values about our nature can't be treated in economics terms, beside the fact that nature can't be priced.
Another problem with this corporations is the fact that, for example the system will pay landowners to plant some kind of seed and, since people respond to incentives, they might plant gennetically improved trees.
The transaction costs of this kind of companies are higher than other ones, so it would be more likely to work in development countries.This issues should be resolved by the government, who is in charge to provide the common welfare and not by the companies who work for their own interests.
The question is, do we have another choice? I mean apparently, old ways to save the world are not working, but is that the only way to make it better? because leaving it all up to the private market could be a very dangerous ans risky way to do it.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/18/what-wrong-price-on-nature?INTCMP=SRCH

If I have to think about one special trip i've made, the first thing that comes up in my mind is my study trip. We were in sophmore year when we took the trip of our lives, we will never forget it.
We all were between 15 and 16 years old, just kids, so excited to travel on our own, to have a good time and make memories that would last forever.
I remember it was in September of 2008, after the hollidays for independence day we all met at the airport to travel to Santiago, we had to sleep there 'cause our flight to Camboriu departed very early that morning.
Once we got there, we had an amazing time. The weather was great, not too cold, not too hot. The beach was just awesome it was nice to swim in a warmer ocean than the pacific.
I remember we were fascinated by every single thing, the landscape, the sea, people speaking Portuguese and us trying to keep up with that and learning new words.
It was one of the best trips of my life, first time i went out of the country without my family, with my friends and classmates so I tried to make the best of it.

Since I was a little kid i'd wanted to visit Denmark, I remember watching a documental about all the countries in Europe, when they talked about Denmark they rated it as "The happiest country in the world" so I told my mom " someday I'll live there" It sounds silly, but now that i've grown up I still woull like to go there someday, maybe doing a semester abroad.
I know many things about this country, one of the things i like about it, is their concern about environmental issues,this has historically taken a progressive stance on environmental preservation. Actually a couple of years ago in Copenhague, the capital, took place the united nations climate change conference where they talked about global warming and the Kioto Protocol. Another thing I like about Denmark are their social programs, you as a citizen pay really high taxes but you have social secury programs, health care and quality education for free. Their culture is very open minded about new cultures and people from different countries. When I was a kid I didn't understand why they said it was the happiest country in the world but now I kinda do, I mean if you live in a country that is environmental friendly, if you dont have to worry about health care or education, if your normal working week is way less than all the other countries (about 37 hours) and you have more time for entertainment and fun, I surely would be happier :)Well as i said i would like to study there, maybe do an exchange program for a semester to learn more about the country and get to know the culture a little bit better.

I used to have a blog two years ago, I kept it for about one year. I wrote about my year as an exchange student, originally I created the blog cause I think our memories are fragil and i wanted to keep track of my experience so I could  read it once it's over, so I wrote about the people I met, the places I went, how different was from chile and everything I wanted to remember.

Well, my expectations are being able to improve my writting through this blog and also to read my classmate's blogs so I can get to know their experiences and learn as much new vocabulary as I can and improve the way I express myself in english.

The grammar will definetely be challenging, cause I usually make grammar mistakes.

Through this blog I want to increase my vocabulary, practice my english so I can get better. And hopefully we can all share our experiencies through this blog so we can help each other and improve as much as we can cause being able to express ourselves in another lenguage is a great tool for our career and our lives