English Language Challenges (another crappy title)

The past semester, some friends that were having English, told to me that in the classes they write blogs. At the time I thought that was so useless and boring, but being here writing them, I feel that it's actually useful, because it makes you think about something a lot, and when talking to another person, this can help to express faster your ideas. Usually writing them isn't so boring, except when you have to write about something that you dislike or something like that.

From my point of view, that's what I've learnt on the English classes, how to communicate better, and some words that didn't knew their means. Also I must say that the teacher is very... interesting.

I've started learning english when I was probably in 2° grade more or less, like 10 years ago or something like that, and it never stopped, but I still need to practice more. I think that I need to improve my pronunciation, because it really fails sometimes, when I hesitate or I'm just not focused on it. And sometimes I use wrong a verbal time or something like that, but I think that's practice and study.

Outside the English class I don't talk a lot of English (maybe just when singing), but I read and write a lot. I play a lot of videogames, and I have all of them in English (at least most of them) and some of the videogames are also with English-speakers players, so I have to write in English to talk to them. Also I read a lot, I'm practically always reading a book, and whenever I can, it’s in English. Right now I'm reading Dan Brown's Origin. I think that all these things help me practice everyday my communication. 

Changes To My Study Programme

The curriculum of my study programme is very variable, since it lets you know about the many areas of specialization you can pick. I don’t know if I a change could be made to the programme, since I don’t know about it very much, but the little I’ve seen about it, it seems like every subject you have to study prepares you to the next, so all the subjects (or many of them at least) are very connected and thanks to that, you don’t feel like what you learnt the past semester was useless.

I think that the workload is ok now, but the second year students say that’s very stressful and that they don’t have time for nothing, but I haven’t reached that point yet, so I don’t really know.  The only thing that I would change is the obligatory CFG. There isn’t always time to pick a CFG, and if you pick one, it works like any another subject, with tests, and obligatory assistance, so it could add some stress to those weeks where you have all the tests and exams.

About the faculty facilities, I think that they’re okay, at least the ones that I’ve seen or been. Maybe they could build an additional space to eat lunch or just to be there, since Anexo sometimes is very full and you may not find a proper place to eat out, like when it rains. About the labs that I’ve been to, they don’t have equipment in poor conditions or if they have, they fix them soon. At least that’s what I’ve seen, I don’t know how the other labs and facilities are.

About the teaching methods, it depends on the teacher. There are some very cool teachers that could make the most boring thing in the world sound as a fantastic thing, and there are others (won’t say names) that teach something very interesting but they’re so dull and monotonous that you can barely be in the class without boring to death. 

That’s definitively something that must be changed.

Summer Holidays

This summer my family is going to take a cruise trip, departing from Miami and visiting some islands near there, I'm not pretty sure where they are exactly going. However, my mom asked me I would like to join them, but sincerely, I don't really like having holidays with them, since sometimes they argue and my little brother makes tantrums and I don't like that, especially in holidays, and also I'm a person who likes "adventure". I love to take a walk and get lost in the forest and travelling in a ship is like something that I would do in some years, when I get older, not now, It would be so boring.

Despite the things you can do in it, like swimming in a pool, watch movies or other things, I get bored very fast, so I would do all the things like, the first day, and then the trip would be very tedious, so I told her that I'm not going.

After that, I told my girlfriend to talk to my mom to see where we could go, since she works in a travel agency and knows a lot about holidays trips, and I don't really care where to go, I just care about being relaxed and have fun.

However, they decided that we're going to Punta Arenas (or at least that's what I heard), and it seems pretty interesting since it's really far, and I love southern Chile. The Torres Del Paine National Park and a glacier are certainly must visit places. I don't really know what else we could do, but if we go there, I'm pretty sure that would be a nice holidays.

I also would like to go camping with my scouting group, I love it, but I'm not sure if I will do it. Also I don't know where would we go and when. I would like to go to the beach too, but just to rest. 

Cocaine: A dangerous drug of abuse

Drugs are an important theme in society, even if you or anyone near you doesn't consumes, you can see on the news about someone that did something while he or she was drugged. In my life, I've only tried one drug, marihuana. It's no big deal. Yes, I felt relaxed, and that's all, maybe it didn't "hit" me like it would, but it doesn't felt like something special. There are a lot of drugs, some of them are legal, like alcohol or cigarettes (and marihuana in some countries or states) and the most of them are illegal (like cocaine or heroin). Despite if they are legal or not, they're all harmful, more or less depending which one.

Coke leaves

The Cocaine is a strong nervous system stimulant, originally used as an anesthetic. It acts inhibiting the reuptake of serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine. The coke can cause addiction in a very short period of use. The observable symptoms include fast heart rate, sweating, and large pupils. In high doses it can also cause very high blood pressure and hyperthermia. The drug user also may feel loss of contact with reality, and intense feeling of happiness, and agitation. The consume of cocaine also increases the risk of stroke, myocardial infarction, lung problems in those who smoke it, blood infections, and sudden cardiac death. Also the cocaine sold by the drug dealers is commonly mixed with local anesthetics, cornstarch, quinine, or sugar, which can result in additional toxicity (fun fact: in 1879 cocaine was used to treat morphine addiction, later replaced with heroin).

When the drug is discontinued immediately, the user will experience what has come to be known as a crash along with a number of other cocaine withdrawal symptoms, including paranoia, depression, exhaustion, anxiety, itching, mood swings, irritability, fatigue, insomnia, an intense craving for more cocaine, and in some cases nausea and vomiting. Those symptoms can last months. So, it's a very dangerous drug.

Drugs of abuse are a very important theme in the Pharmacy career, because it's a chemical that interacts with the body (like a medicament) and it's in our hands to help preventing the addiction to the drugs of abuse.

Post graduate studies

It's my first year studying Pharmacy, and although I'm loving the career, I'm not very informed about the post graduate courses you can choose, maybe because I see them like very far away things to worry, but If I'll had to make the choice right know, I'll probably take a course that can be useful to what I want to do in the future (obviously), and that's probably doing research or working in a lab or something like that, something where you don't have to still sit all the day signing papers and stuff like that, that would be very boring.

After a sneak "research" about (some fliers handed by the teacher), I'm considering taking a PhD in Pharmacology someday. It seems like an interesting and useful course, since it allows you to work doing research and participate in the making of a new medicament. Another post graduate course that I found interesting was a diploma in organic instrumental analysis. I think that taking that course may help to know about lab analysis, which is something that I'm interesting in. Also the second one can be blended system, so I can study while working.

About where study those courses, I don't know a lot about Universities, but maybe taking a post graduate course in the University of Chile doesn't seems to be a bad idea, but doing it abroad it's still an option.

Anyway, like I said at the beginning, it's my first year studying Pharmacy, so anything can change.

Post about a job (Maybe temporal low effort title)

Pharmacy has a big labor field, with many different jobs. You can work in a drug store, a hospital, a clinic, a lab, with the police and even doing research (the last one isn't very reliable in the country). I'm not sure which one I'll be taking in the future, but definitively not the first one, unless it's very necessary, I think that it’ll be boring. 

I want a job where I can do things, with my bare hands, not an office work. Working in a lab is an option, running tests and stuff like that. I think that it'll be fun. Another option could be working in a hospital or clinic, helping and orientating people. I think that it may not be as fun as working in a lab, but it’ll be more satisfying. Anyway I have many years until I'll get to work as a pharmacist, so I have time to choose. Despite the work, I wouldn't like one where you have to travel to work, since you can be with your family and also, travel for work? No thanks, I like to travel to know places in my vacations, not to get stressed and miss the entire local attractive. 

According to what I've listened, a pharmacist wins $1.000.000 CLP average, and that salary can be increased due to the years you have working in a place, your position, and other things. I think it's a good salary.

When I graduate, maybe I'll study a major. I don't know the area yet, but I think that it has to be something according to what you want to do in your life. Maybe in some years, when I'm next to graduate from pharmacy, I'll have a better view about a major.

Those things we do in freetime.

Hobbies are basically activities that we like to do when we have free time, maybe to distress, to keep your mind away from your day to day, at least that is what hobbies mean to me.

I don’t do a lot of things out of the University since I don’t have too much free time, but there’s always time to play video games.

I started playing videogames when I was a kid, maybe in 1^st or 2^nd grade, when my mom gave me a PlayStation. It was the best gift ever. I had a lot of games, since they were cheap (obviously they were not original games, did anyone had original games for the PlayStation?). I enjoyed playing games like Gran Turismo, DanceDanceRevolution, Harry Potter and Crash Bandicoot, among others. Actually I play games in my PlayStation 3, mostly with my brother, and in my PC.

As there’s always time to play video games, there’s also time to watch TV series. I don’t see a lot of TV, so it’s mostly in Netflix or some internet page. I don’t see a lot of series at the same time, I don’t like it. I prefer to watch one or two at a time. Actually I’m watching Grey’s Anatomy and waiting the thirteenth season of Supernatural. I don’t know since when I have this hobby, because when I was a kid I loved to watch anime in the ETC channel (I still watch it sometimes), but I don’t know since when.

I don’t know how much important are they for me, since I just play videogames or watch TV series when I don’t have to do anything or I’m not in the mood to do anything, maybe it’s important because it helps me to clear my mind.

Among all the things that I could do, I would definitively never be a collector. I think that I’m a little obsessive and that I wouldn’t enjoy those hobbies.

I don’t know what hobbies I will have in the future, but I know that they will be cool (and definitively not collecting related).

Our biological detoxifier

Our human body is a very complex perfect machine (when healthy) that keeps everything balanced, and when something happens, finds the easiest way to fix it. It has many organs that work together in systems to keep things the way they’re supposed to be. But maybe one of the most important (among the Heart and the Brain) is the liver.

The liver is located in the abdomen. It’s part of the gastrointestinal system. It’s like a deformed triangle, and on average, is 26 cm width and 15 cm height. It does a lot of important things, it basically keeps you alive.

One of the very important functions liver has is that it produces bile. The bile is a bright yellow-green liquid that goes into the small intestines and help digest food. Another is that it metabolizes toxins (like alcohol or waste from the body) so thanks to it we don’t die intoxicated. The liver also stores vitamins, minerals and glycogen and releases them if we are in need.

There are many other things that liver does, and there’s no way to compensate the absence of this organ in the long term, so the tranplantation is the only option for complete liver failure . Also there’re many liver diseases, like Cirrhosis. This damages the structure of the liver and makes it not work properly. Also you can get liver cancer. It’s very common to have metastatic cancer there, because the liver “cleans” the blood, so the carcinogenic cells can reach there easily.

You can keep you liver healthy by don’t over-ingesting toxins (like alcohol) and eating properly when you have to, because maybe it will not cause an instantaneous disease, but maybe in some years, it will payback.

和: A Spirit of Unity

My mom works in a tourism agency, and thanks to that I've traveled a lot. Maybe my best holiday was in July 2015. I'm a scout, and each 4 years, we have like a global camp, called Jamboree where scouts from all the world meet in a certain place. That year was in Kirara-hama, Yamaguchi, Japan. But we arrived Japan some days earlier to know the place.

We went to Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Ube and while we were at the jamboree we visited Hiroshima. The travel lasted 2-3 weeks. We were divided in patrols of ten plus our leader, so we were eleven. We did a lot of things. Visiting the cities, we went to most known places and temples (we didn't had much time) like the Shibuya Crossing, Tokyo Tower, and other places that I don't remember right now.

In the Jamboree, each day we had a different theme. We learned about scientific advances and about caring about our camp place. One day we went to the Peace museum in Hiroshima(very shocking place). We had a water games day, a day to know the other cultures (we had to make a display about our country, so we did some Sopaipillas with Pebre to give to the people from other countries and we danced El Costillar es mio. We even went to a primary school where the kids received us and make an act. They had an Orchestra group and played some wonderful songs (it's no joke that japanese can do everything better) and we visited a cave which name I can't recall, but it was beautiful. There were also 2 concerts, one at the beginning and the other at the end of the Jamboree. The first time there was a group called Dadadadan Tenko and a boring singer after, and the second was a famous japenese singer.

It think it has been my best holidays because we get to know many people from other countries and it was fun, for exaple that time while we were traveling in a highspeed train, we got to know a polish named Paveł and talked about how was his country or while we were walking to a ceremony, we enjoyed singing with some omani people. The only bad thing about the trip, is the time we spend on air. It was horrible.

A place I would like to visit

If I had to opportunity to choose a country to visit, despite the money, I would visit Italy. Mainly the south, Venice, Naples, Florence and of course Rome. I don’t know too much about Italy, but it calls me, I feel that it has something special, in the architecture, the history and the monuments.In Venice, I would take a gondola ride with my girlfriend on the back canals and in the Grand Canal. Even more, I would like to be the Gondolier. I think it's romantic and something that you must do. In Naples, visit the Herculaneum and the Mt. Vesuvius and of course eat some Pizza Napoletana. In the south of Italy, The Mezzogiorno, especially the Greek Architecture that you can found there, due to the colonies that were established long time ago. In Florence, I would visit The Palazzo Vecchio, see the sculptures and the Dante Alighieri influence. And in Rome, I would visit probably all the churches, and the whole Vatican City. 

If I had the opportunity to live there probably I wouldn’t do it, because I think it’s a place to visit, to be a tourist, not to live there, at least not now, maybe older (like 80 years old) my mind could change, but if could choose a country to live, it would probably be the UK.

A little about me.

Hello there, my name is Matías Ahumada, I was born in Santiago, Chile in 1998. My father passed away when I was 3 years old, so all my life I've lived only with my mother, until in 2011 when my brother, Santiago, was born. I studied in Liceo Instituto Nacional, where I got to know wonderful friends and teachers (not all of them, but many). I'm studying Pharmacy in the Universidad de Chile (first year here).

My hobbies are listening to music (I'm nearly all the time doing it), playing video games, mostly Osu!, League of Legends and Hearthstone, and scouting (I'm scout since I was like 8-9 years old, so it's something very important in my life). I also like to play with my brother and watch tv series or movies (mostly by Netflix)

I like to visit new places. I hate beach. I've travelled a lot. Mostly of the time, I'm very lazy, but I like to keep things in order. I'm not really a social person.

My favourite music bands are Radiohead, Gorillaz, Blur and some others unknown power-metal groups.

I have a cat, her name is Cleo, she's 2 years old. She's white and orange.