Learning English at the university

Nowadays the english language is important in every part of ours professional lives especially in areas like veterinary medicine because all the main researches and development are in english so is truly necessary have at least the basic knowledge of this language. Through this advantage we can develop a better quality in our works because we will be available to learn more and that way we could be more prepare in each areas if we study constantly for new data. This is one of the main reason for me to learn this language but I have another reason too, in general I enjoy learning new languages so since school I always had interest in learn english a real english by the way not the one that teach in most of chilean school that is a really basic english. So the opportunity that gives our faculty is a chance not to be waste.

When I pass the level of “Pre-intermediate” I thought about the opportunity of take a higher level and through this improve my english skills and beside this was my chance to finally take a “general elective” that had make me so many headache because our “always free” schedule.

During this elective I really had hard time but not because the class but because of our “horrible academic load” I remember when Miss always talked about our sleepy faces and our low motivation and this was only because most of us stayed all night studied for big tests. But I really enjoy writing the blog especially because we were capable to improve a lot though every session that we wrote. The topics where always fun and related with important issue about our career and our thought about meaningful stuff so I could improve how express my ideas in these areas.

In conclusion, I would love to have had more time and focus to apply in this class so this way I could take more advantage to the knowledge that the teacher give us and have a better interaction with my classmates and with the teacher as well. So for me this is only one more step in the learning of this language so my next goal is improve even more my skills and of course take the “big test” that would give me more chances to become a really good vet because my main goal is travel and expand my studies in a foreign country.

Veterinary Challenges

When I think about the situation of veterinary medice in Chile I realize that we lack of many things if we compare to USA or the European Union and I think this happend because in this country in general all the animals areas like animal behavior, rehabilitation and wildlife are not so relevant like in others countries so all the improvements are always related with people needs, that is why we always see how the vets are improving in areas like animal production or food safety. I really dont like areas like animal production so the challenges that I think the vets have are:

-First, build a "Veterinary hospital" instead of build so many clinics. I hate the fact I can find a clinical vet each one block. So my idea to contrast this is have the best tecnology and service in only one place (or two if we could build another one ;D).Of course it have to include a lot of specialties to give the best service that we can. In my opinion some vets can search for good and rich business partners who like the proyect so they can create this kind of hospital.
-Second, make laws for "responsible ownership and animal abuse" otherwise the government will continue blaming animal for people mistake and will continue allowing some people to not take good care of their pets or even worst let them punch their own animals. In this case we need to have senators who commit with this cause and approve legislation to protect animals lives.
-Third, we need to invest more in investigation and conservation of our own fauna so this way we could offer more veterinary jobs and protect our animlas as well. In this case we need a government and private companies that really cares about the environment and people lives for that matter because in the end we cant survive without a safe nature. So we need more people with "green consciousness" :D

And the last one that is related to the Education system is the lack of the universities in the specialities areas that they offer because we need to leave the country if we want to have a greater variety of PhD and magister, we only have the classical areas restricting to the student to study only a few specialties.

Guardian´s news

The following report is called "Being sociable is good for your health – if you're a baboon" and is about how animal behavior can influence in their longer-lived offspring. The reserch was made in a female baboons population so the scientists tried to relate this situation in our own behavior and how this could improved our mental and physical wellbeing. I like this news because one of my favourite areas in the career so far is "animal behavior" specially in wild animals like primates.

The scientits ahead Robert Seyfarth and Dorothy Cheney from the University of Pennsylvania obtained their conclutions after 15 years of studies in a population from Moremi Game Reserve in Botswana .The observations was really long and consisted in 7 hours per day, six days a week all this in a period of 15 years and they observed specially 66 adult females and their reproductives lives.The analysis published by Joan Silk was that the females who create more social bonds had the chance to live 5 years more than the female with weaker social bonds.Silk said "Being sociable means that you spend more time close to others, and this makes you safer from predators so they they might be able to forage more efficiently and nourish their offspring".

Also in other work the scientists have shown how strong social bonds can improved stressful events in female baboon´s lifes and how short benefits can become into long benefits creating better fitness.The measured of strength of social bonds in Silk´s work was the "Friendship" that every female development including factors like frequency and duration of grooming others, how often a baboon requested grooming from others and the approaches between animals.

Andrew King a behavior ecologist at the University of Cambridge who also studied baboon social behavior said that the research can supported the link between baboons, humans and their ancestor and the fact that all have a common role "creating social bonds" and this event could have helped to the human evolution.

News link : http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/jun/10/social-bonds-health-baboons

Improving your faculty facilities

This is a big topic! mainly because you can improve things in almost every area or thing you can imagine and especially in our faculty because I think we lack on many things... for all that I think is a great subject but is even more interesting when you are capable to propose ideas that could help to improve this lacks.

I only can think about things that I have seen so far but the first thing that came to my mind is our classroom or more specific the number of students in the classroom!! Is very annoying have class with 100 or 150 people in a small room especially because not everyone can understand to the teacher in the same way and because is really irritating being in a room with so many people especially in summer!!! with 30 or 40 degree!!

Other thing that I think we need is an appropriate "study room" because our library is so noisy that doesnt look like one because is never quiet so I cant study there :( For me the only place I can really concentrate is in my house!

And the last thing but the most important to me is the horrible management of the farms animals . For me is a huge disrespect to have only 3 or 4 people in charge of so many animals and the fact that they have an awful infrastructure in every yard but even more horrible is what happened the last week when a horse died because of that!!!! The thing that I cant understand is we suppose to have good profesional in every area but in this case I really doubt of their capabilities.

I think one way of resolve all these situations is to consider all the students and teachers needs and not olny think like a business problem if we are lack of money then make more programs or cheaper community services to earn more money and for the farm animals situation they can create students group like an obligatory subject to help to the management of this animals and through this increase the numer of workers. So in my opinion people in charge need to commit even more with the faculty to keep calling "The best university of chile".

Best Movie!

I love this topic so much! :D althought I had some trouble choosing my favourite movie(because I like it so many movies *O*) is a entertaining topic. I like it because you can know a little bit more about every person through their personal taste in movies. Like I said in the class I have a kind of obssesion xD with a unique studio, this producers had made the best movies ever!! Their called "Studio Ghibli" and their speciality is to make Animations movies.The people that work in this studio are a group of geniuses director that make every movie like it was a piece of art because they can transform great topics like magic animals and characters, environment protection and social criticism into great scenarios, plots and entertaining movies. I think they became famous with "El viaje de Chihiro" but that movie is only one of their fantastic list of movies :D

In the end I choosed only one because the plot definitely goes with my point of view and how I thought about life and the respect we "need" to have to our forest or even more to our environment. The name of the movie is "Mononoke Hime" that means "La princesa Mononoke" and the plot is based on a warrior called Ashitaka that travel to the west of his village to find a demon who destroyed a far forest and threat to destroyed his own village and because he need to find a cure to save his life from a deadly curse that the same demon made to him. In his journey he find out that the reason of the demon anger which actually is a protective spirit from the forest was caused by an ambicius woman called Lady Eboshi lider of a clan who is cutting their trees and causing bigs problems to every animals that live in there. So in the end he and a young lady called Princess Mononoke that was raised by a family of wolves try to bring the peace again to the nature.

I loved this film so much and specially all the Ghibli movies xD because they know how to medley strong arguments based most of the time on social criticism,fantasy worlds and great music at the same time so they can create amazing scenarios and characters that I denifitely enjoy watching :D

This is a trailer so you can also enjoy some parts of the movie :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkWWWKKA8jY

Favourite Animal :D

The topic of this week is very difficult to me because I really love all the animals xD but talking seriosly I have two animals that I like the most... because of that I will talk a little bit about both but in the end I will choose one to work with because has been my dream since always!!

The first animal that I am going to describe is Raccoon.This is a very funny information but i love this beautiful animal since I watch "Pocahontas" when I was a little girl :) so with Meeko(the character of the movie) I end loving all the raccoons =P. I love their little face especially the black mask that cover thier eyes, I love their ring tail and their little nose. But mainly I love their little hands wich used to steal everything they found in the american yards xD

The second and most important animal that I love are the Raptors Birds!! In fact I like all the birds because it fascinates me watch them fly but if I have to work with only one I would definitely choose raptors bird principally with eagles. I find them so elegants and majectic. One of the thing that I am more attracted is their anatomy, great vision and the way they capture their prey.So working with them would be definitely a good way of make money and enjoy the life as well :D. My dream is work in a Rehabilitation Center making all that I can to return them to their environment. This animals are benefical to ecosystem balance so this is a good base to work in addition to save them just because they belong to the wildlife.

Finally I hope I could work in a place where I can take care of animals and return them to their natural habitat without any problem or even working to help them in general would make me feel like I am doing a good job.

Good places in Santiago!

This subject is quite fascinating for me... because unlike many of "santiaguinos" that really dont appreciate the city where they live in either for their stressing type pf living or because they are used to see the same view all days I really enjoy a lot of good and amazing places in Santiago.

The most magic place to me to visit is "Barrio Lastarria" is in the center of the city near to "U.catolica" underground station. There are a lot of coffee shop and unique restaurants. In the middle there is a beautiful church, a museum and a little Antique Fair with a lot of old books and old stuff.Other place that I visit very often is the "Bellas Artes Museum" is a very special place and always have good exhibitions, plus is in the middle of "Parque Forestal" so all the atmosphere is good!.

Another good place is "Cerro Santa Lucia" is a green spot in the middle of many building.Is a history place as well, you can do a very good tour going there, also there is a Mapuche`s Fair down the hill so I really enjoy going there. Another hill that is very nice to visit is "Cerro San Cristobal" there is a Telesferico to climb to the hilltop if you enter by Pedro de Valdivia Norte from there you can see all the city so is an amazing way to know how the city look from the top :D but is you accede by Pio Nono you can find a Zoo in the same hill :). The last place that every tourist have to visit and even ourself is "La moneda" especially now that have built a sort of museum under the palace.I enjoy walk in that area and go to cultural center too.

I chose this places because there are full of our history, good architecture and each one identified the esscence of our city. This way every tourist or the chilean people never be bored in such beautiful city ;)