English language Challenges

I have learned a lot in my english classes, not only at university, but also in my school and when I was younger, since I went to english classes besides the ones from the school. I went to a place like an institute to reforce all the subjets from the school, like biology, chemistry and the owner of that, was Mister Raúl, and he had lived 20 years in USA, so he started english classes and I learned almost all that I know about english, because of him. However, it´s been really good to have english classes here at the university, because I can keep learning about it and I don´t get to forget some things. I really liked the use of blogs, because it´s really funny to write about different things and to read what other classmates write.
I would like to improve my speaking english, because I don´t get to talk that much in english, because it´s not thaaat normal to be talking around in english all the time jajaa but I really like english.
I would like in the future, have the chance to travel to other countries, and really get to use the english language, because that would the best way to learn how to communicate in english with their very own expressions!
I think that I don´t use my english that much, I mean I use it when I see my series, because I don´t read the subtitles, since I do understand what they say..besides from that, I used to help other classmates from university for their english classes hehe, and sometimes I talk in english just for fun! :)

Some reflections

This year have been a year with many changes, with good and bad things.
I started my complementary workshop, printmaking, and it has been a great experience, since at the beginning I didn´t  get it so well, but the second semester I started to realize about the expressive things that you can do with it. 
Another good thing that I had this year at the university is that I have a little more free time than the other years, because I had many subjects in my workshop, Photography..but this year it has been a little bit more flexible.
I also meet new friends this year and I became closer to the workshop Painting of Pato Visuales, jajaja, because   I have many friends there I always can go there to shill out and have a cup of tea or whatever <3
Some situations that haven´t worked so well, it´s a boring class that I have, it´s programmatic and I don´t like it, but we have to learn that and that sometimes there are going to be things that we don´t like.
At this time my only achievement is finish the university with good works and have a nice summer to relax from the stress that we have.
I really enjoyed the course of printmaking, because the first semester I did a draw that I made and the teacher is really nice and she helped me with all the techniques and those stuff. And the second semester I got to work with different fabrics, so it was a really interesting course.
I also liked Archive, it´s a subject from Photography and I could work with things that are really personal and that are part of my life. 

:)

My plans for this summer

 I´m lookinf forwad to be in vacations, since this year has been an exhaustic year. I´m hoping that 2016 be so much better than this year. So, I would wish that this summer last foreverrrrr jajaja :c 
Well, we will be in classes until january, so not a really nice way to start this summer. But, it´s going to be the birthday of a friend and my birthday on january 4, so I`m gonna have a lot to celebrate, besides christmas and new year´s eve. 
I would like to go some days to the beach, I hope that my uncles take me there with my cousins like other years jajaja, and I also was planning going a weekend to the beach with my friends, but we haven´t talk about it that much. If we don´t go to the beach, we will do stuff in our town, like go to a pool, hang out, go on a ride in bikes and those things.. 
This summer I`m going to spend it with my family, and I hope to see all my friends, and those who I haven´t seen in a while.
 I´m also going to rest a loooot, because I like been in pijamas for days ajajaja I`m going to see all my series that I haven´t ended this year jeje
I´m also a pinterest girl, so I`m going to be the whole day pining stuff, and I hope I could do some things that
 I`ll found there. 
I wanna go out my friends and start to ride my bike almost every day, so we don´t became in peppa pigs
 jajajjaa
I was thinking to work this summer, but I don´t want something that I would have to go everyday, I may go to the feria the weekend and sell some clothes, and also be a promoter for replace, because some friends work as that, and they can´t go everytime so they are always looking for replacements. 

Favourite TV / Series

I have many series that I like, and I don't have a favourite one. One of my favourite series is Gossip Girl and it´s about a group of friends with many privileges that lives on the Upper East Side. And there is a website called Gossip Girl that tells all the gossip of them and their people. I have watched this series so many times since I was 15. It has 6 seasons, and I really like it. because the places of New York that are in that serie are amazing, and I like the actors that are in it. I also like the theme, because it´s really girly and there are some things that sometimes happen in real life and it´s very funny and I like to see how things change every season. 

This serie is based in a novel with the same name and the principal characters are Serena Van Der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf. 

I watch this serie almost every night to fall asleep, because I already know the dialogues jeje so I just listen and I fall asleep. 

But, it's a serie that I like, because I watched since I was a teen. Now I watch other series that are really great like Game of Thrones, I can't wait to see the next season. 

I love watching this serie, because it's so breathtaking and the last episodes of every season are the best ones. This serie is based in a novel and it´s a fantasy drama serie. 

I watched the marathon of this serie when was on the HBO and then I watched all the episodes again.

I'm now watching a new serie that it´s really good, and it´s Reign, this is a serie of fantasy and historic. It´s about the Queen of Scotland, Mary who is sent to France to wed the next king, Francis, so they can keep with the alliance between Scotland and France.

But there are problems in the castle and around it, like the forces of darkness, the pagans and the problems with the power.

How Green am I?

I guess people learn about environmentally friendly practices for themselves, or at least people should do that, because we have to take care of our planet and we all should be conscious with the place that we are living in.
At least I learned many friendly practices in the school , because I was in a school where the teachers were interested in those things and we had a big place with many trees and we used the space for environmentally stuffs like vegetable patches and compost with worms.
Well, I did those stuff in the school, but I also have a little vegetable garden with my mom. We have different things like cilantro, celery and many others. We also have some seeds of tomatos, carrots and bell peppers, that we are going to seed this summer.
I like to use my bike when I am in my town and I have to go to see some friends or just to have, I would wish that the university were near to my house. so I could go in my bike. but it isn´t. so I have to use the bus every week.
I haven´t supported any eco-organizations, because I don´t really trust in those things that sometimes care more about the money than about the good for the environment. And I think that I don´t need to join an organization to help the environment, since I can do little things that means a lot.
I also try to use biodegradables bags, I don´t toss the trash in the street, I prefer have it in my bag and when I find a trash bag I throw it away. I try not to use many light and water, because those things also help and can reduce my carbon footprint.
People of Santiago mostly are missing the green of our planet, they are not taking care of the trees and the green places, people should take care of those places and start to be more actives with this problem, like starting with little things, go on the bike, stop using the cars, and saving the electricity and water, so we can have a better place to live now and for our next generations.

My Future Job

I haven´t really think about what would be my ideal future job, but of course it has to do with arts and photography. I guess that in the near future, I would take avantages of the technics of photography and take pictures for books, magazine and all those things to get money for my own projects. 
I would like to have the chance to be in the art world and make expositions of my works and be able to work with other artists. 
I would like to have an studio with the things that I would need, like flashes and those things. 
It would be an amazing job, since it would be very independent and I would have the opportunity of working outdoor and indoors. 
And I hope that I´ll have the chance to travel a lot in my job, so I don´t have to use all my money in travel jaja :P
I wouldn´t like to work in an office, since it´s not really the kind of work that has to be doing it in an office, because it´s all about moving around and see different things and captured them.
I would like to study more about photography, because I feel that I need to learn more about it. 

I`ll work hard to get a job with all the ideal things that I want.

Last Movie I Saw

The last movie I saw was this weekend and it´s called Love, Rosie.
It´s a comedy and romantic movie and it´s based on the novel Where Rainbows End
The actors are Lily Collins and Sam Claffin and they play the characters of Rosie and Alex. They are best friends since they were five and they live in England. When they were 18, they decided to go to United States to study, but life gets on their way.
 Rosie has a child from another guy, and Alex go to US to study medicine in Harvard.
The movie shows their relationship and all the changes that they have, due to distance. Alex has a girlfriend in US and Rosie get together with the father of her child. But Rosie and Alex always thought of what could have happen between them.
It´s a good movie, not the best one that I have ever saw, but neither the worst.. It´s that kind of movie that you can see a sunday, when you want to stay in bed and be relax all day.
It has moments of happiness and other moments of sadness, like the death of Rosie´ s dad.
I liked this movie, because I like both actors, and this movie reflects the changes that happen in life, and how some people may not be together all the time, or been constantly separated, but at the end of all, they always find their way back.

My Pet

I really like all kind of animals! If I could have any animal as a pet, I would like to have a seahorse, because I really love everything about them, I find them an animal very interesting and misterious.
However, I do have a pet. I have a cat named Florencia. I remember that my mom gave it to me when I was 9 years old. So she has been with me for a long time. A friend of my mom found her, and she knew that I wanted a cat, so she gave it to my mom and she gave it to me. the funny thing it`s that the first days, we thought that she was a he! jajaja and her name was Tom by then.
She is my grandfather`s favourite, he works in our house fixing machines, and Flo is always there with him.
She is a cat really smart, playful and a really fighter jeje, and a little bit fat too jaja. Now that she is older, she let´s that other people like my cousins and aunts stroke her in the head, but when she was a little cat she always bit their hands.
Besides all that, she is still my one and only Flofita :)

My Best Holidays

I really enjoy all my holidays, even when I just stay in home.But i guess, that my best holidays were when I went to the sourth of Chile with my classmates from the school, for our trip.
We went there the 2012 and we were there for a week.
we stayed in a hotel in Puerto Varas for two days. And then we stayed in some cabains really awsome in Villarrica.
We did a lot a things over there, we visit many places like Frutillar, Chiloé and Pucón.
Every night we did different things. I remember the first night,we went to swing in the lake of Puerto Varas. It was really cold, and only 8 of my classmates got into the water. ( including me jeje).
Another night, we made a campfire with another group of people that were on their trip too. It was really nice and fun.
We always got together in the same cabain, it was the cabain number 7, and we have fun all nights. The funny part it`s that in the morning we had breakfeast really early and everybody was with sunglasses all morning.
It has been the best holiday, because we really got closer with that trip, we had amazing anecdotes and stories from that, and even though there were some little fights, we forgot them and we loved each other like sisters and brothers! And we are still closer to each other!

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The Country I would love to visit

There are many places I would like to go, but if I have to pick one, I guess I would choose United States. 
I think that it´s a big country with many different places, and there are several things to do over there.
I ´d like to go there, because I would like to know Los Angeles, Texas, New York and those places that are well known, but I would also like to go to the states that aren´t so famous, like Kentucky, Colorado, Oregon, and others.
I know about US, because it´s a place that has many history, from economics to culture.
It has many subjects to talk about it, like Obama, Martin Luther King, Warhol and other things like Hollywood, the movies, their parties and the places like Times Square, the bridge of San Francisco, and some tours based on series or movies.
I would like to go on a road trip crossing the whole country just like in a movie that i love, called On the Road, that way I would know the country by my experiences and it would be really awesome to make a project from that.
I would also love to go to amusement parks, because I really like the adrenaline of those games, and I would also like to Mckarney Manor, which it´s known as one of the most extreme haunted houses in the world, and it´s located in San Diego.
I would like to go to United States to study something related with photography, and also work so I can do all those things jejeje. 

My National Holidays

This september 18th I spent time with my family at my house. Everyone came in the morning to start cooking the vegetables and my uncles made a barbecue. I spent a lot of time with my cousins as always, and my mom and my aunts were at the kitchen. 

After they made the salads, we were all at the backyard eating pasties and drinking juice and my uncles and grandfather were drinking wine.

We spent the whole afternoon eating a lot of food and later night they put the music really loud so everyone started dancing and we made "terremotos" for drinks.

When it was like 10 pm, my cousins and I were to the "Fondas" and we got together with our friends.
After the "Fondas" we came back to my house and we slept the entire night.
The others day, I spent time in my house and I went to the "Fondas" with my friends every night.
I enjoyed my national holidays, because I had a really nice time with my family and my friends. I didn´t have any homework from the university, so it was a very relaxing, fun and a great weekend.
The only thing is that I would like that the holidays last a little bit longer. :)

Evaluation of my blogging experience

Wooow, we are at the finaaals! If I have to think about my experience with blog, I would have to say...that I loved it !! It was really good to  write about different things, about my life. It is an incredible experience to write about my thoughs and things that sometimes are not easy to say, or people just don't care. It was really cool, I think that it's very relaxing and is an art expression to be able to write without worries and just let it go. I get very excited every week, wondering what was the next post going to be about, because the things that we had to write were really great and funny, and I get to know myself a little bit more. Amazing, right??    
I think that my writting skills have developed a lot with the blog, because I was a little out of practice. Jijiji So, yeah, this really helped me with my writting.
I don't know what else I would like to include, but I certainly would like to write about others things like food and sport, but also work with themes more cultural and reflexives, like education or differents cultures of the world, etc.
     So far, this has been a really nice and fun class :)

My best friend

Wow.. I can not think about my friends, without thinking in the word family. All my friends are part of my family. People say that friends are the family that we chose, I couldn't agree more. I may not share the same blood with them, but the loyalty and the love that we have among all of my friends is what makes us a family. But I do have a best friend, and I consider her like a sister. Her name is Karen. I met her when we were studying at the school, in march, 2009. We were classmates, but the year that we became really best friends was in 2010. So, we have been friends for only 5 years, but I hope that we stay as friend forever. She has been going through a lot, we became friends when her mother loss her sister when she was 8 months pregnant. :( I tried to be there for her even when we were only classmates, and that is when I realized that she was, and still is an amazing woman, really strong and just, an angel from heaven <3 And she also aprecciated the affection that I had for her. And since then, we have been inseparables. Every moment with her is great, so  I don't know if I have a best memory with her.  We have so much fun always, we hang out every month, and she is always there when I need her. <3

Best Concert I have seen

If someone ask me about my best concert, I don´t have to think about it so much. The best concert I have gone was the music festival Lollapalooza on March 2014.  It was on 29 and 30 March in Parque O"Higgins in Santiago. It was two days of whole music and fun and a lot of concert in one place.
I went with my friend from the university, Valentina. We met the first day at 11 am at her house and then we took the subway to get to the festival.
I remember it was a sunny day and we had so much fun during every concert. There were different stages for different bands… and we could go to see all the singers and bands that we wanted! That day I saw many of my favorite bands and singers such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ellie Goulding and Phoenix. We were very squashed with so many people screaming and jumping during every song…but it was definitely worth it. 
After all that day we went to her house very late..like 12 pm! We were exhausted, so we slept like babes, because the other day was going to be another day of music.
So the next day, we went again to Lollapalooza and it was amazing, I saw another favorite singer…Lorde, we were so excited to see her, so we went to her stage very earlier, and we end up very close to her stage. 
 I loved Lollapalooza, because there were so many people happy and enjoying all together. It was an incredible experience, an adventure that I would like to repeat.
It was really cool and fun.

An Expert on My Field

If I have to choose an expert on my field, I would pick Vivian Maier. She was a street photographer, but most of her life, she worked as a nanny.
She was born in New York, on February 1, 1926. But when she was 25 year-old, she moved to Chicago, where she worked as a nanny for the next 40 years of her life.
She worked for two different families  the Gensburgs and the Raymonds. In her free time, she went to Chicago's streets and took photographs of the people and architecture , with a Rolleiflex camera.
In 1959 and 1960, Maier took a trip on her own, photographing different places like Los Angeles, Beijing, India and Italy.
She took more than 150000 photographs, and she had many boxes of her materials.
Two years before her death, she didn't pay her storage space she rented on Chicago's North Side. so her negatives, photographs and all of her work, were auctioned.
 Three photo collectors bought parts of her work: John Maloof, Ron Slattery and Randy Prow.
Her work was known on the internet, because of these collectors, and it has been in gallery exhibitions, several books, and two documentary films.


I like her, because her photographs are really special, and she could capture the people on her images. Her photographs, also show the history in the streets and the city, in a very beautiful way. And she is a real discovery in the area of photography.
Besides, I think that her life was one of the kind, because she didn't care about the fame or the money, she only wanted to take photographs.

My Favorite Movie

I have a lot of movies that I love…so choose one it´s very difficult.
But one of my favorite movies is Girl Interrupted.

Winona Ryder plays the main character as Susanna Kaysen, a young girl who was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder in 1967 and was sent to a renowned New England psychiatric hospital, named Claymoore, where she spent the next two years in a ward for teenage girls.
There Susanna loses herself in a world of seductive and disturbed young women: among them Lisa, who is played by Angelina Jolie, who is a charming sociopath who stages a disastrous escape with Susanna, Daisy, an antisocial, pampered girl with an eating disorder, and Polly, a remarkably kind burn victim. Ultimately, assisted by the hospital`s head psychiatrist, Dr. Wick, and a ward nurse, Valerie.
Susanna, such as Dorothy in the OZ, resolves to leave this OZ world and reclaim her life.
I think that my favorite part is at the end of the film, when she leaves the psychiatric hospital Claymoore, and she gets into a taxi, and she is released back into society.
She acknowledges in voice-over that by the early 1970`s most of her friends in the ward has been released. Some of them, she saw, some of them…never again. But regardless, she will never forget any of them and she will always have a place in her heart for them.

I really like this movie, first of all, because it is based on Susanna Kaysen`s memoir.
And I like this kind of movie, real and with topics like psychology and madness. It is the type of movie that makes you think about life, the relationships… and the instability and intensity that there is on them.
I love the characters of this movie, especially Susanna, because I feel related to her, since we can drive ourselves crazy sometimes, but it is our choice to get over with it.
And, I also love Winona Ryder. I think that she is an amazing actress and her performance in this movie along with Angelina Jolie, it is perfect and full of emotions.
I don´t know that I would change something in the movie if I could… but I know that there are parts that actually didn't happened in Susanna`s life, like the escape with Lisa…so maybe, I would´t put that, on the movie, because I would like it to be real and honest with the Susanna´s memoir.
But, I understand that sometimes the directors fill in with more drama their movies to gets more  attention from the public, but that would be it.

A photograph I like

I don´t think that this is my favorite photograph, because I have many, but there it is a whole story behind this picture, and that it is what I like about it.

Even though this picture it is just a photograph of The Lorraine Motel, it has an important meaning to the history of the humanity, since it was in this motel where the Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination happened. 

This photograph was taken by Henry Groskinsky on April 4, 1968, the night that Martin Luther King had been shot.This Motel is located at Memphis, and now it`s the Nacional Civil Rights Museum. 

I like this picture, because it´s a great photograph, but more important, I like it, because it is a reminder of Dr. King, a symbolic leader of his race, but also a world figure, who fought for his civil rights.

This picture make me come back to that night, where the horror, the injustice and the hate was most important than the union of the human race. 

It makes me think about the actuality, the changes that has been made, but also about the same injustice that happened before and it`s happen now. It makes me think on how some people cannot understand that we are all the same, with the same rights, no matter what color is our skin, our where we come from.

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."

Martin Luther King, Jr.

My favorite festivity

If I have to choose a favorite festivity for me, I think I would choose Christmas, since it`s a time to spend with the family, to think about life and it`s a time to be thankful for everything that we have.

Christmas is a catholic festivity to celebrate the birth of Christ and it`s celebrated on 25th December.
So, I`m not very catholic, and most of my family isn´t either, but my grandfather is, and we understand the meaning of the celebration.
I really enjoy been around family and the people I love. Me and my family have dinner together every 24th December, and we wait for the 12 o`clock to gives each other a hug and gives the presents.
We have a very nice time that night, we always laugh and remember the last Christmas.
For the dinner, ussually the parents do the meal, but me and my cousins cook the desserts, so it is funny when we eat them later. Besides we always celebrate in my house, and my mom loves to decorate the house, so it`s very beautiful everything.
However, I don`t like the consumerism of this festivity, because it`s gives it a wrong meaning to this  festivity.
I hope that all the family of now, understand the real meaning, that it is to spend with the family, share a nice moment, to love, to forgive and realize of the beauty of life, when you have people to love.

My favorite piece of Technology

Well, my favorite piece of technology it´s my camera. The first camera I got, was a gift from my mom on Christmas. But the camera that I have now it`s my favorite one, and my mom gave it to me last year, because I need it for the university.
It is been really helpful, since I am in the specialty of Photography and I always have to be taking pictures for my homework's and projects. Even though, I can use a camera from the university, it is so much better to have my own camera, and I can get to used it whenever I want.
I`m always taking photos for the projects that I have to do for the university, however I would like to have more free time on the week, to take other pictures. But in
my free time, I do try to go out and take pictures in the city or whatever I find interesting to photograph. And sometimes, I hang out with my friends or family, and I am always with my camera to take them pictures and keep those memories in the images.
I love my camera, because I can express myself by taking pictures with it, and the camera have many elements to make different techniques. I like it, because it is my way to make art and make images to think and show my visions and ideas. :)
I can`t imagine how life would be without my camera, because it is essential for my work of art. It is a way to express and make people think through the images. Besides, it is a piece of technology that let us keep the memories of our life in the pictures that we take.
So thanks to the human that created it :D

My expectations

This semester I am doing photography as my especiality, just like last year. I particuraly love photography, because I think that the images have several meanings and I have three distint subjets of photography, like ilumination, programmation and teoric.
  I am also taking classes of metal carving as my complementary. I really like carve, because it's really cool, I get to draw whatever I want and I can do many things with the metal.
I also really like draw, the classes are very relaxing, however I have to be very focused in it.
I don' t take other classes besides the university, but in my free time I take pictures, do some photos for my friends and I like to read. I would like to have basketball as a sport class, but I guess I will take them next semester.

I hope that in this semester I get to learn more about photography and my others subjets, since every year it's more important and complete than the other. I personally like the teachers that I have this year, they understand the vissions and the ideas, so the homeworks that they send are very interesting and great to work.
So far, this semester has been good to me, and I hope next semester to be the same.

Autobiography

My name is Valeria Paz Yáñez Barros. I'm 20 years old. I was born in Talagante, on january 4, 1995.
I live in Talagante with my mother Claudia and my grandfather Humberto.
I studied primary school in Alcántara school and secundary school in Nehuén school.
I study art at the "Universidad de Chile" since 2013.
My hoobies are photography, watch movies, draw, listen to music and learn different languages.
 I like to hang out with my best friends Karen, Alicia and Nicole, and we always do new things like cooking, dancing, etc.
On the weekend I spend time with my family, I do my hoomework and I always try to have fun when I have free time.