English Language Challenges

English is an interesting language, and the most international. Most of the scientific publications are in english, including scientific studies about everything you can think of. I think that english is a pretty simple language. But I also think that in simplicity we can find the "perfection".

Regarding to my english learning experience at university, I think it was a nice experience because I could practice my pronunciation. I almost never practice my english pronunciation at home, or at any other place, and that is because the people I live with don't speak english.

Making blogs is probably a really good idea to practice our grammar and to learn more vocabulary. The making of the blog forces you to think of an idea, to finally develop it.

I always have thought that my weakest aspect in this language is the pronunciation. For me it is easy to write and read in english. If I don't know what a word means, I can discover its meaning through the context of the word in the text or sentence. 

Obviously If I want to improve my pronunciation, I need to talk in english more frequently. The experience gives you knowledge. I really would like to talk in english sometimes, because I think that to read and write in english is not enough, I have to know to pronounce correctly in this language.

I use english almost each day. That is because I like to read books in english, or watch TV series with english subtitles. For me this is like a challenge that makes me learn everyday, for example: searching words that I don't know. I also like to listen music in english. I think that this is the only source of "pronunciation practice" that I do, because I like to know the lyrics of the songs, what they mean, and try to say them by myself.

Like I said before, english is a very interesting language, based on the simplicity, but full of meaning.

Changes that I'd do to my faculty

The Faculty of Dentistry of the University of Chile is known to be one of the best of the country and latin America. Its prestige is based on the quality of the professionals that graduate from there, being this a common thing on all the faculties of this university.

But nothing is perfect. Some students say that this university, specifically the Dentistry Faculty needs some changes. And I agree with that. 

If I would had to do some changes, the first thing that I would do is kill the filler subjects.

The filler subjects are only a distraction from the "real" subjects. They are supposed to complement the learning through extra knowledge that could help us at some point, but I think that this extra knowledge doesn't need to be an obligatory subject that will take time that we could use to study another subject. Instead of filler subjects there could be some optional extra classes.

Honestly, I think the workload of study is high but adequate to the requirements that we need to be health professionals. In regard to the infrastructure, I think that we could say that it is decent. But we should have green areas to make a more friendly ambient to the students.

The food in the faculty, including their service, is pretty mediocre and overpriced. Also, we are talking about a nutritionally poor food, most of the time noodles or rice with anything. So, we have poorly fed students without time because of the filler subjects, trying to find a nice place in the faculty, because we don't have green areas.

In conclusion, yeah dude, we are in a "good" university, but at what cost? There are some things that we have to do to change this situation.

Favorite band

I don’t really have a favorite band or artist, but I want to talk about a band that I listen frecuently.

Deftones is an alternative metal band from Sacramento, California. They formed in 1988, founded by the vocalist Chino Moreno, the guitarrist Stephen Carpenter, Abe Cunningham at drums and the bassist Dominic Garcia. Their lineup has been relatively stable over the years, only changing at the first five years and at 2013, because the death of the bassist Chi Cheng, being replaced by Sergio Vega.

The sound of Deftones is known for being experimental, aggressive and atmospheric at some times. We can see an evolution in their discography, being at first a "pure" nu metal band, to then move to a more experimental sound, maintaining its aggressiveness.

Songs as "Engine number 9" (1995) show his pure nu metal phase, and songs as "Prayers / Triangles" (2016) show how their sound has changed to be more experimental.

My favorite album by Deftones is "Diamond Eyes" (2010). I like the progressive rhythms and the guitar tone that this album have. Although some people say that this album is just a mess, I think that it is very entertaining.

I think that this band is very interesting because of his lyrics. Deftones lyrics are open enough to have multiple interpretations.

"This place is death, I know you feel the same"

If you have time, you should give a listen to this band. Probably, you will not regret it.

Summer holidays

Summer holidays are awesome; there is no university, we can sleep correctly and we can really have fun. For this summer’s holidays I would vacation in Chile for sure. I think that I need to know Chile before I start to know the rest of the world.

Chile has a lot of beautiful places to go. I think that some of the best places in Chile are in the south. The best region for me is the sixth region (O’Higgins Region), located right at the south of the Santiago Metropolitan Region.

Chile’s sixth region is known for the quality of its wines, its rural/agricultural territory and the kindness of its people.

A place that I would like to visit is Pichilemu, obviously in the sixth region. His cold sea and nice food is what I want for this holidays. My cousins live relatively near Pichilemu, so I can go there with them, drink and eat a lot, enjoying the beach and his beautiful sight.

This is a special place to do surf. In fact, Pichilemu is known as the “surf capital” in Chile. There you can see a lot of people enjoying the sea doing surf with his friends and family. Also, like the most of the costal cities in Chile, you can find excellent sea food directly extracted from the sea.

Obviously, this is not the only place I want to visit, but for now it is the place that I really would like to visit in this summer’s holidays.

How to survive SDLE

If you don't know what "Semana de la Escuela" (SDLE) is, in the dentistry faculty of Universidad de Chile, I'm gonna explain you what is this serious act of brotherhood, promiscuity and perversion. SDLE is a week between september 5 and 9, full of the best entertainment that you can think of in a university, includying alcohol, some dance and stuff like that. In summary, SDLE is about not being sober. If you are sober, you are not in the SDLE mood, and you probably know nothing about the importance of this event that commemorates the creation of the faculty.

"People waiting for alcohol and music to start the holy ritual."

If you want to participate and survive this marvellous and magnificent event, you should know some things that you have or don't have to do.

First, please don't die. If you want to have a good time with your friends, and maybe, new friends; control yourself, you have to resist five days of this "holy ritual". Maybe you can prepare your body eating something before each ritual, or simply you can drink less than usual.

You should meet some new people. This is a good instance to meet new people, includying some mates from other generations in the faculty. Also, alcohol can make people be more "lovely", this being a plus to the act of meet new people.

"The holy ritual has started."

And that's all. The rest is only enjoy this moment, destress and be nice with your classmates.

Postgraduate studies

Well, to be honest, I don't know yet if I will keep studying after my undergraduate studies. It's really hard to say that I'm gonna keep studying, because a lot of things can occur meanwhile I do my undergraduate studies. But, if I would have the opportunity and the desire to keep studying, I will probably study a Master of Sciences (M.Sc.).

The reason is very simple, I want to expand my knowledge. By this way, I will have the needed skills to be a better professional. Also, this give me the opportunity to keep studying and be an academic at the university in which I study.

Keep studying seems to be a good way to be have more knowledge to apply on the work, but like I said in my previous post, my main objective right after my undergraduate studies is to work, hopefully traveling from place to place.

If I chose to keep studying, I would like to have Inmunology and Patology subjects in the University of Chile, they seem to be pretty interesting, but difficult. They would be a nice challenge.

I would take face-to-face classes for my Master's degree, because I don't like that 'distance learning' systems. I think that distance learning is not an committed study.

My future job

I'm a 18 year old boy, studying dentistry at the University of Chile. As you can guess I want to be a great dentist in the future. But the idea that I have about being a great dentist is not the conventional one, I mean, wanting to earn a lot of money and stuff like that. When I talk about being a great dentist I'm talking about being an honest, friendly and caring person with everyone, all kinds of patients. I want to be a dentist that people can trust.

I want to travel working to different places. For example, I really would like to go to rural places to know what actually dentistry is. I'm pretty sure that working on a clinic is not what dentistry is. In my opinion, the "truth" behind the chilean dental situation is not on the rich's mouths.

I think that working on rural places and wanting to be a friendly and honest person, probably will be very difficult. But I'm accepting the challenge.

As most of the people know, dentists don't have so many money problems, so I don't think that I will have problems traveling or buying the necessary materials. Also, I will probably have some money saved for this time.

If you are a dentist or a dentistry student, you should question why  you are working or studying this. People need us, and we need people, remember that.