The Starry Night

I never had art classes in my life, but I know some pieces of art, the most famous. One of these is the painting called The Starry Night, an oil on canvas done by the Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent Van Gogh. It was painted in June in 1889 while Van Gogh was living in the Saint-Remy-de-Provence sanitarium.

While he lived there, Van Gogh painted approximately eight hundred letters. Around six hundred fifty was for his younger brother, who gave him help to paint giving him selfless monetary assistance. With his younger brother he had a close relationship.

I like this painting because when I look at it I think in the Vincent’s sadness, sadness for stay in the sanitarium alone, maybe wishing be out, with another people, or sadness for wanting to feel better. He died in France, in July in 1890.

The last year, the English teacher shows to class a song about Vincent Van Gogh, played by the singer Don Mclean, called Vincent (Starry Starry Night).  It’s a very beautiful song, next you can read my favorite extract.

Now I understand

What you tried to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

And how you tried to set them free

An oasis in the chilean north

One of my favorite photos is this. It was taken by me in the autumn, the last year.  It shows a beautiful place called Alto del Carmen.  Alto del Carmen is a town located in the third region of Atacama, in the Chilean north. How you can see, geographically is a valley surrounded by mountains.  Although is in the north, characterized by being dry, here you can find a lot of kinds of native vegetation, besides a significant portion of the population work as farmer. This place is like an oasis in the desert, but not for a long time, because water scarcity threatens with finish with the vegetation and the life there. Yes, that is very sad.

I like this photo for two reasons. First, because I live there with my family since fifteen years ago, so I like that others know my home. And the second reason is because it shows a general view of the place, the mountains, the vegetation, the houses, the trees and the clouds. I think is a very beautiful place.

I hope you can visit it any day.

A super power!

If I could have a super power, I would like to have the power of remember everything. Maybe most of people think this a boring super power. But I think is not only fun, is very useful. Imagine that you can remember all that people say you in the day. Imagine you can remember all that you read, see, listen, smell, think in the day. That could be an amazing quality.

If I could remember everything, I could learn a lot of languages. This would allow me to communicate without problems with people around the world. Besides, if anybody would teach me anything, I would not forget it ever, or if I would read a book I would learn it forever.

Of course I would not use it for earn money or do “bad things”. Nobody could lie me, so, a lot of people could trust me. Well, there´s a lot of things I could do. It could be great!

Ecuador

In a short time, I'd like to visit Ecuador. This country is located in northwestern South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west.

I’m interested in travel to Ecuador because I've heard very good things about this country, especially about the people and the food. But what really I want to do there is know the culture, in every way.

In this country exists an important indigenous population, then in prehispanic times, here there was located part of the Inca Empire. Many indigenous traditions still remain, so I would like know it.

But nevertheless, I would like to know too beautiful in Ecuador, like Guayaquil, the most populous city and the Galápagos Islands, where exists a biological marine reserve. This Islands was visited by Darwin for their vast number of endemic species.

If I do my trip, I think that I will work in Ecuador, because I’d like stay six months, but I don´t know, maybe I can stay more time and study there.

My blog experience

Hello!, well, today I going to talk to you about my blog experience. In general, I don’t have a good formation in english, even when I was the best in my grade when I was in the school. I consider that write is a good way for learning this language. Is very useful, and if we are constant, the learnings can be impressive, although is very difficult meanwhile we are studying. We can't learn quickly and efficiently. The time for an student is very short, but if we are decide, we can do it. Write, think, search the words to construct the sentences is a nice experience, in special if we like the language. The topics that we can talk are so many, almost of the time we are thinking about differents things and can do an exercise of introspective.

An other way that likes me to much is the program in internet, DUOLINGO, is a good way to lean english and other language in general. After learn english I wan to learn french, I think that the french is a beautifull language and the country like me very much, I dream that one day I can travel to Europe and visit the principals countries. Go to England and Germany and see all the places and his history really like me, maybe because I am an anthroplogist, but is not the only reason.

Well, this is for today, see you later.

Some Movies

In this ocassion, I want to talk about some movies that my family likes. First, is Nacho Libre. I showed their this movie two or three years ago. This is a 2006 american comedy film directed by Jared Hess. I think is really funny, but after watching five or six times, I don’t wanna watch it again.

The second movie is Life is Beautiful. This is a 1997 italian tragicomedy film directed by Roberto Beningni. My mother really loves it, she always cries and she is able to watch it one time and again.

Third movie is The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttom. This is a 2008 american romantic fantasy and drama film directed by David Fincher. This likes specially to my mother, mi sister and my brother. They flock to watch it and make food like french fries or somethig delicious.

Fourth movie is Kill Bill. Despite violence, we love this movie. This is a 2003 ameican martial arts film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The bride’s story fascinates us along with his thirst for revenge.

I like all this movies, but if you watch it as often you get borred. 

Celtic Dream

Hello! Today I going to talk about a book that like very much. Is about an england cónsul that travel from England to the Congo and Bolivia-Perú,if  I remember correctly. His life is like that traditional life of an anthropologist of the last century; even when he has not the studies. His job consisted in supervise the labour of extraction of resources in the colonies of the empire, and watch that no injustice has been committed involving indigenous, obviously, the respect for the life of the indigenous, in the mayority of the places, was none. He sent reports to England. But, more that this reports, what impressed me most, was the experiences that he had in his travels, the things that he saw, had to did, had to hear, had to say.

After his travels, that taked many year of his life. He come back to England an participated in the liberation o Ireland.

The book and the history of this man is very interesting for the Anthropology, even when is a book wrote by some a writer. The book name’s is Celtic Dream for Mario Vargas Llosas.

American Journal of Phisycal Anthropology

Hello again, today I want to talk a little about my carrer. Next year I have to choose mencion. In anthropology we have the option to study archaeology, social or physical anthropology, I am between the last two options. About this, I want to tell you about a class and some web sites that interest me. During this semester we had to do an investigation from the fisical anthropology about the violation of the human rights and violence, and it was interesting read some papers (a lo of they in english) about the topic. The web site is the American Journal of Phisycal Anthropology, is this page are many papers from many journal, and is a good place for obtain good scientific information

The topic that we develop was relationated with the exumation of individuals in Spain. The corps were from the people that died during the civil war. This is still a sensitive subject for the society.

Even when the next year I don’t know what I going to do, it was a good experience can learn this kind of topic and some areas of development of the physical anthropology

Free time

There are a lot of things that you can do with your free time. What I like, among other things, is play the guitar.

Play any musical instrument sometimes is hard, but I think the guitar is easy because you can be perfectly self-tauht. Besides, guitar is not an expensive instrument. Ok, a cheap guitar will not have the best quality, but you can begin to learn.

Besides, I think guitar is a very good musical instrument to learn because you can play your favourite songs. Play and sing it is very funny, I love it.

By the other way, What I’m doing with my free time is learning to play viola. It is a very similar musical instrument to violin, but is more deep than it. I think the viola sound is very sweet and nice, but it’s so hard. 

I play two musical instruments, one is very easy, the other is so hard, but I like both.

A dictatorship

Well, today I going to talk to you about our history, about some moment that changed radically the course of of our lives.

This picture represent the attack to the Palacio de la Moneda, the president house. This mark the start of a serie of changes in Chile with the dictatorship of Pinochet.

All the advanced and development of the chilean people is destroyed until the root. Pinochet started a systematic persecution of the people and installed a political of terror in Chile. The legacy of the dictatorship is the constitution, with it’s laws, that reproduce a serie of injustice with the chilean people.

In Chile, the dictatorship not only bring us pain and death, he brought a number of structural problems that today we are fighting to change.

My Home

Today I want to tell you about the best place of the world. This place is called Alto del Carmen.

I live there, with my family (my mother, my young sister and my young brother).

In Alto del Carmen lives almost five thousand persons. Is ubicated in north of Chile, in the third region of Atacama. Despite being a dry place there are many trees, flowers, and a river where children play in the summer. In this time; the summer, arrive a lot of people to work in the grapes. There are many farmers who grow grapes and then exported it to countries like Japan, United States, China or Germany. For this reason people ern a lot of money here.

In the winter, however, the situation is different. There are very few people, because there is not work, but for me is the best time because rain, and four years ago it snowed. It was so beautifull.

I reaffirm it, is the best place of the world, is my home.

My favorite piece of technology

Sometimes, when I`m bored, I usually ask myself which is the best technological invention. Conclusion is, definitely, I can`t decide about that. It´s a hard decision because there are a lot of things I use every day, every moment, and always are very useful. However, I thought for a long time a super list of very of best inventions.

First, for me, is internet. We have a lot of things to do, to look for, to learn. I love it, because it seems to me we can access knowledge that were previously restricted.

Second, in my list is the refrigerator, because keeps food fresh and allows ice.

Finally, is a thing that is known in Spanish as ‘calientacamas’. I am dependent on it, because I usually feel very cold and I don`t like it.

My expectations for a new semester

In the university, the work that teacher give us is much. For this reason, the last semester was very stressful and complicated. My marks were not very good and I had some difficulties to deliver the work on time.

However, I must say that I have a great responsibility in this situation, because I was very disorganized, I missed to classes often and I studied little. So, for this semester, my expectations are be responsible, sleep early, get up early every day, including weekends,  be punctual and do things on time.

I think that if I fulfill my expectations I should not give exams at the end of semester, and I will have more vacation days.

About danipi

My name is Daniela. I am an anthropology student who must write, every week, a post in a blog for English classes.

I don´t really like English, but I think it´s important I can learn it, because in university classes, I usually must read texts in English, and I don´t understand.

More about me? I would like to learn to play an instrument, be really good at it, but now I don´t have time.

Also, I like read literature, but in the subjects of university, teachers give us many texts to read, then, usually I´m too tired. Even, I have many books waiting to be read.