Learning English at University

One of the most important things in our formation as psychologist is learning english as a foreing language, this is important to the extent that we are constantly reading, doing researches and contacting other professionals from different countries. Universidad de Chile have taken this as a responsibility and they have estructed their courses curriculum based on this necessity. And now we, as student, can benefit from this initiative.

In undergraduate courses, here in my University there are 4 levels of english that student must approve, these are: starter, begginer, pre-intermediate and intermediate. In my case, I’m on the 4th level of english, each level takes a semester to be completed and after the course a final test is taken to evaluate the knowledge, habilities and competencies adquired during the course. Once approved those three level we get a certification that confirm that the courses have been satisfied passed.

So far I have enjoyed and learnt things that I had not learnt before, teachers I’ve had so far have been very good, motived, patient, and they’re always ready to help us when we need. I think the methodology of class are really good, we can participate in many ways and we constantly recieve feedback from teachers at the class. One of the thing that I emphasize is the blogging experience which is a method that uses technology for learning. In relation to it my blogging experience was a very interesting experience, it was a new way of learning english that I never used before. It was fun and entertaining too! I honestly enjoyed it, because I could use my imagination and I could explore about topics related to my area. It also helped me to improve my englishn because I had to apply vocabulary and learn new expression while I’m writing. I also felt free to express my opinions about many topics and talk about my plans in the future.

In conclusion, learning english at University have been a good experience, I sincerely feel that I learnt many things and I can say that I have improved my english in fact, moreover I am sure that I am not the only one. Related to this, It’s very important that we have a good training in english, in that point Universidad de Chile have done a good work, because our future as students and professionals depends on it.

FACSO Facilities

I think the current situation in my faculty although is not the best, I think is not that bad and it could be worse. I think there’s a couple of things it could be improved as the number of the classrooms (for example, Education career doesn’t have their own classrooms), time ago we didn’t have enough computer for everyone on the third floor computer room and it was always crowded, now we have this one and another one computer room on the first floor, actually I don’t have problems when I need to use computers, there’s a problem with the bathrooms too, besides not having tissue in it, sometimes they’re closed or not available, on the other hand we have problems we the cafeteria, there’s not enough space for all student, teachers and workers of the faculty, sometimes we have to wait long time until a table is available. It’s pretty annoying.
I think there’s nothing that we could do to resolve this situation, I think we have to use what we have in the best way possible, I just try, for example, go to lunch early and be patient when I have to queue waiting for a vacant toillet. I think the main benefit of resolving this is a better quality of life and convivence. The impact would be positive, we’d feel more confortable and satisfied.
Despite of this problems I think our faculty has positives aspects as the elevator, for example, big spaces where I can park my car (and is free and safe too), green areas and places for sport.

Friends! friends! friends!

Hello! Today I am going to talk to you about a very special topic to me, about my friends!
I don’t think that I have only one closest friend, I wouldn’t like to rank them, I think I have many special friends, some of them I met at school, at university and others at my volunteer. I love them a lot in different ways.
I think I can make friends easily, I like meeting new people I am a very open and friendly person. In relation to it I even have made friends over the internet, actually I still keep them relatively close to me.
A friend should be someone who listens to you when your down or confused, who supports you in hard moments, someone to laugh (out loud!) with. In my opinion a friend must be loyal, cheerful, kind, nice, reliable, someone who wants you well, who are with you in hard moments and respects me. Friends are to make your life in this world a happier journey and to demonstrate you that unconditional generosity exists and it has a shape of a person.
I sincerely consider myself a good friend, I can sacrifice myself for making my friend happy, I’m a good listener, I’m always attentive to their need and for helping them with anything. Despite of my good experiences, I have had bad experiences too, I had friend who let me down, it hurt so much in that moment, but I got over it, it was difficult, but I did it.
I still keep in touch with my childhood and high school friends they are very valuable people, sometimes I miss them a lot when I remember when we were children, when we played and our long talks about many topics.
I think friends should be forever, they are like little angels who guide you and protect you. We must take care of them.

MMR vaccine and autism

There has been concern about a likely link between combined measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (the MMR vaccine) and autism. A research done in 1998 proves the relation between being vaccinated with the MMR vaccine and bowels problems that might cause a new kind of autism. Anyway, the researchers said that their studies could not prove any such link. The research was not representative, it was done with only 12 children and it was criticized by other experts. But the results were published and many parents decided not to give their children the MMR vaccine.
Actually the scientists involved in the research have retracted about linking MMR vaccine and autism.
It’s hard to say that vaccine is completely safe, many vaccinated people get sick, but we cannot necessary relate vaccine with their sickness. To prove it is necessary to do a type of research called randomized controlled trial, in those kind of research some children would get the vaccine and some would not. Other types of studies have provided reliable evidence about the MMR vaccine and autism those are cohort studies and case-control studies.
There have been a lot of researches on the MMR vaccine and autism and there’s no evidence of a link between both. Unvaccinated children are just as likely as vaccinated children to have autism and the increase in autism did not start at the same time as MMR vaccination started.

Beautiful Pets!!!

Today I will talk about pets! Our dearest animals!
Well, I have a pet, it’s a nice little dog that I love very much, her name is Channel she came to our house in 1998 when she was 2 mouths, actually she’s 11, despite of her age she’s like a puppy, so lovely and tender, something that makes her very special is that she’s sooo polite! In that aspects she’s like a human being! In my home she’s so loved and cared.
So far I have had a lot of pets, between them, one rabbit, one cat, four hamsters, six dogs, four birds, two frogs I think that all I guess.
My life would be surely different without pets, I guess I would always feel that it’s something missing in my life, they’re like loyal friends, they accompany you and they distract you, that’s why I think is important to have a pet too, actually dogs are used for rehabilitation therapy like canotherapy, horses are used in hypotherapy and dolphins are used for the same reason.
I think it’s important for children to take care of pets because it can promove responsibility, it promoves love and respect to animals and nature and they can play with them.
I don’t exclude the possibility of adopting a homeless animal, actually I’ve done it before, his name was Bruno, but he couldn’t get use to live in a house, so he left.
It’s sad thinking about the animals left in Chaiten, I would never do something like it, I can't imagine make a animal suffer!! That was terrible! But their owners may had a powerful reason.

Santiago

Santiago is the capital city of Chile and is the city I live in, it’s a very interesting place to visit I totally recommend it for anyone who wants to know Chile. Within the metropolitan area of Santiago there are about 174 heritage sites between them we can mention: architectural, historical and archaeological monuments and even typical neighborhoods and areas that any foreigner tourist must visit. For example, palaces in areas surrounding República Neighborhood or others 19th century architectural structures as Equestrian Club of Santiago, University of Chile, Catholic University, Central Station and Mapocho Station, Central Market, National Library, Bellas Artes Museum, Paris-London neighborhood, etcétera.
In Santiago there’re lots of green areas where I recommend vistors to go, among those places I con mention the fortifications of Santa Lucia Hill, the Sanctuary of the Virgin Mary at the top of San Cristobal Hill there visitors can take a ride on “teleférico” and watch the city from the sky, it’s beautiful. Santiago General Cemetery, Forest Park, O'Higgins Park where people can take a walk by the “Pueblito” in there, and Quinta Normal Park.
Five of the greatest place in Santiago are: Bellavista neighborhood, here you can fin popular bars, cultural center and internacional gastronomy, I’ve been there, it's a great place specially at night, Quinta Normal Park where tourist can visit the Museum of Contemporary Art, MAC-Espacio Quinta Normal, Chilean Railway Museum, National Museum of Natural History, etc. Beautiful place to spend some quiet time, Moneda Palace seat of president of Chile, the most important place in country, Forestal Park the most traditional park in the city, there’re important cultural and recreational activities, very typical place! And Plaza de Armas the historical center of the capital of Chile, here Santiago was founded, visitors can find the Central Post office, National Historical Museum and the Cathedral of Santiago.

Transantiago

I don’t take buses usually because I drive a car, I either can say how was the system of buses before Transantiago System, because in that time my dad used to take me to the school. I use Transantiago eventualy since its implementation, but my experiencie had been awfu at the first timel! Some background I can give tell about it are that Transantiago is a public transport system born to improve the old yellow buses system in Santiago, it would be a big chance for everybody in the city for best, but despite of the great plan of the creators of this system it was a chaos. In the first day of operation only 1400 buses took to the streets, a 72% than the total of buses, the lack routes generated chaos in various parts of the capital, which continued in the days following, agglomeration, travel delays and widespread discomfort between cityzens, faillure in implementation of recovery rate system. When I was a user of this system I hated, buses was fulled I was always delayed and as secudary effect Underground became a jungle!! It was horrible! Today Transantiago is better than before there’re more routes, the system is more coordinated, there’re more buses, the frecuency is better and the system of recovery rates is working without any major problems.
Some things that I would like to change from this system is frequency of the buses It could be more regular and quality of the machines it could be better adapted for older people and handicapped people and that buses could have their own way on the streets.

Favorite music

Actually I don’t have a specific favorite kind of music, I have a very diverse taste. I like classical music, rock music, dancing music, chill out music, blues, movie soundtracks, brazilian music, etc.

In classical music one of my favorite composer is Tchaikovsky, he is perfect! In relation with that, when I was younger I studied flute at the Conservatory of Universidad de Chile, I dreamt of becoming a good musician, but I quit, because I had to study something else, a traditional career. My favorite flute player was James Galway.

Well I love dancing all night long! So I like dancing music, regeatton, for example and also I like a little bit of electronic music. I love chillout music, New Age, piano instrumental songs played by Jim Brickman or Emile Pandolfi. It’s very relaxing, makes me think and calms me down. I love movie soundtracks too, some composers that I like are most are James Horner and Ennio Morricone, their music are very dramatic. In relation to rock music, I like progressive rock as Dream Theater, sometimes they sound quite heavy, but they are great musicians anyway, they’re very talented. Other singers that I like, I can mention Norah Jones, Eva Cassidy and Sarah MacLachlan.

A country that I would like to visit

One country that I would like to visit is England, specifically the city of London, I’ve never been there I only have seen pictures of it, but I dream to visit that country. I love its history, its architecture, its monuments, the people seem to be quiet nice and the culture is interesting. If I go there I would take a lot of pictures of the greastest places there as the Big Ben, Thames River, Buckingham palace, London Bridge, Westminster Abbey, Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Street and its beautiful parks as Green Park, Victoria’s park, Saint James Park! Of course, I would like to buy souvenir for my friends and family. I’d like to travel with my family and with my boyfriend too. I’d love to eat different kind of foods, I’ve never heard about english food it’s such a mystery to me, I hope I like it.
I think I am a very open person who loves meeting new people, new cultures and doing new things. Another thing that I would really like to do is going to see the London Orchestra. I like classical music.
When I was younger I dreamt of living in London but I changed my mind maybe I'd only study there, because I think there’re good universities and it’s a good place to do a postgraduate course.

Experiences during the first term

My experience during the first term was good, I’ve learnt a lot of things and I got good marks, that made myself feel proud. I studied about specific areas of my career, for example, educational psychology, clinical psychology, organizational psychology, community psychology, forensic psychology and some other general things as english, which I improved a lot. While I had good results, however I end up the term a little bit confused about my vocation, but I’m better right now, at least I’m trying. Despite of anything I had company of my friends Carolina and Constanza, without them everything could be worst.
In my free time I did volunteer work at Teleton, my passion, actually. Working with families and handicaped children, I felt fulfilled and motivated!
I also passed good times with my boyfriend, we hung out, we went to dance and gathered with other friends, we traveled together and we did many fun things.
Some challenges I had to face was the academic load, sometimes I couldn’t do some things that I like most, because I had to study or do many works for university.
The worst thing I had to face was the death of a very dear friend one mouth ago, it was veryhard. Well another bad things were my car crashing and when I had all my documents lost (ID, drive lincence, etc).
Well, I hope I have a better term, but I am happy anyway!

My blogging experience

Honestly my blogging experience was a very interesting experience, it was a new way of learning english that I’ve never used before. It was fun and entertaining too! I honestly enjoyed it, because I could use my imagination and I could explore about topics related to my area. It also helped me to improve my english, of course, because I had to apply more vocabulary, learn new expression while I’m writing, por example. I also felt free to express my opinions about many topics and talk about my plans in the future.

I could talk and develop ideas about my career, It made me reflects on issues related. I could also talk about my favorite areas in psychology as neuropsychology, neurosciences, clinical psychology with children, and so on. We could interact with our classmates and with our teacher too, who gave us feedbacks constantly about our performances and supported us for a better learning, resolving doubts and helping us every time we need.

The main advantages are: this method of learning uses technology as a new way of teaching and learning, actually it helps us to improve our english very much, it’s a interactive, fun, dynamic and innovative method, it motivated me to participate in english class and kept me attentive about the topics we have to write about each week. Some of disvantages are, it takes too much time, sometimes we are very tired this moment of the day and it’s hard to think creatively hahaha (just kidding) well, another disvantage is, we have to be connected always even when you lose a class, because it’s continuously evaluated, sometimes the topics are not so diverse and it gets boring sometimes. But despite of every distavantages I evaluate the blogging experience positively, I liked it and I suggest this method has to keep being applied.

Education kills creativity!

This video is about a conference made by Kim Robinson who sets up the importance of creativity and how tradition education undermines it. He shows his interesting about education and how this topic is one of those that goes deep with people like religion, money and things like those.

He emphasizes children capacity of innovation and how many children have tremendous talents. He talks about the importance of creativity saying that it has to be taken in the same status as education. Another thing that he says is children are not afraid of being wrong, which doesn’t mean creativity is the same as being wrong, he means, if you don’t take the change you may never come up with nothing original, that’s why we should be prepared to be wrong. The thing is, children start losing this capacity when they grow up because education system sees the mistake like the worst thing you can make.

He talks about the hierarchy of subjects at schools which is the same all over the world, mathematic and languages, then humanities and the bottom are the arts and within the arts there’s a hierarchy too, normally music and art are given high status than drama and dance. But then he wonders, why dance is less teached than mathematics? The body has to be considered as the head is considered in education.

In this regard, public education seems to be focused on producing "university professors" who are disembodied and who live in their heads. This is because public education responds to the needs of industrialism. He says that we need to rethink our concept of intelligence, because this is diverse, dynamic, and distinct.

Finally he says he believes that our only hope for the future is to adopt a new conception of human ecology where we can reconstitute the conception of the richness of the human capacity and rethink the principles which the education of our children are based on, and above all thing we should take as a responsibility making children develop their precious gift of imagination.

Clinical Psychology

Well, I like all subjects of my career, it’s hard to choose one of them, but I can say that my favourite one is Clinical Psychology and is teached by a group of teachers who are experts on this area, they are psychologists and psiquiatrists. This discipline is responsible for doing research about all the factors, assessment, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, rehabilitation and prevention concerning mental health, but not restricted to mental disorders, but all conditions that may cause discomfort and suffering on a person. I like it because that’s what I want to do in the future. This subject shows as how important is to know about how to work in a clinic and how to deal with patients. We’ve learnt about function of the clinical psychologist, legal and ethic aspects, psychology in the ambit of heath and educational institutions, preventive and therapeutic interventions and so on. Personally, I’m keen on children psychology and I’ve been able to learn more about it. I love it!!

Travelling in time (and dreams)

First of all I would like to be happy and satisfied with myself and with my achievements in professional area. I will still be very young and probably I will be studying, perhaps doing my specialization in other country… that’s what I would like to do sometimes.
Personally, I don’t know… actually I must confess that I’m quite scare about future, I’d like to be with my boyfriend until then, maybe living with him!! hehe and getting independence from my parents hehe. I will be a children psychologist (I believe! unless I decided to change my career) I will love what I was doing… above all things I will feel that I found my vocation in life.
My ideal future is with my family healthy, living with my boyfriend (happily together, of course), working in Teletón, travelling every year, doing researches and getting fun (of courseeeeee…), I mean happy, fulfilled and learning every day about how to fight in this world and how to be a better person and how to make this world a better place.

Aleksandr Romanovich Luria

In my opinion there’re many important people in my field, it’s hard to say or choose one of them.
Whatever, as it’s known, I like physiological psychology and I can’t not to mention Aleksandr Romanovich Luria. He was born in Russia and he was an intellectual who conducted important research in the field of general psychology, special education, psychogenetic, ethnopsychology, psychophysiology and psycholinguistics. I think he’s the best because he gathers all the element of psychology that I like most… he has contributed to the development of psychology in many ways.
One of his contributions is in the area of neuropsychology; he’s the father of it. He worked with brain injured soldiers from the World War II and he bases his studies on damaged cortical functions, that is to say, language, attention, memory, executive functions, perception, literacy and numeracy.
He studies symptons, localitation of cortex functions, diagnosis… I believe he did a great job! He’s such a genius!

My career, my future...

I’m a psychology student, I study this because when I was younger I started to be interested in this area when I had the subject of philosofy at school, I thought it was an amazing area where you can do many things, but above all things I was interested in helping people to deal with theirs problems and helping them to have a good mental health.
In society we can be agents of changes in many levels, I mean, educational level, communitary level, and helping people to get a better quality of life.
The main tools that we must to have are the ability to contact with the other person deeply, it means, being emphatic, tolerant, comprehensive, impartial, frustration tolerant (you CAN'T save the world, even when you want it from the bottom of your soul), good listener, patient and to know when or how to talk, and one important ability is being strong and not so sensitive, because there’s a cruel reality outside where we will intervene and deal with.
My favorite subject is clinical psychology I like that area, I’m keen on health area and making therapeutic interventions, also I like clinical neuropsychology which treates neurological patients .
I’d would like to work with handicapped children and with their parents helping them in the rehabilitation process either in adaptation process to desease or neurorehabilitation in fact.

Leaving everything behind

Well, I will tell you about a nice image that I catched with my camera. This is one of my favorite picture, it was took by me a couple of years ago. I took it in Parque Forestal with Priscila a brazilian cousin who was visiting Chile.

This picture shows a girl who is walking through a park on a cloudy and cold afternoon. Personally that day was a very sad day, I was feeling blue and a little bit disappointed about preview facts in my life. In some way that girl symbolized a part of me that was longing to leave everything behind, that’s why I like that image. It’s quite special to me.

Nowadays I look back and I still feel weird about the moment I was passing through , maybe I had no reason to feel the way I felt in that moment.

Well I hope you enjoy my picture.

I must confess I got depress once again hahaha… I’m just kidding =D

Clinical neuropsychology and rehabilitation!

I use to visit many websites, because I’m interested in several topics related with my career. I’m quiet nerd sometimes, I know hahaha. One of the topics that I like most is cognitive neuroscience, especifically clinical neuropsychology which is the science that studies how the brain works, basically studies superior cortex functions or also called cognitive functions(memory, atention, concentration, perception, language, movements, emotions, etc) evaluation and its rehabilition after a traumatic fact, tumor, encephalic accidents or any kind of brain injury and how to manage pacients with those problems.

The link is the following http://www.neuropsicologiayrehabilitacion.net/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=21

I found this site one day when I was searching for information about rehabilitation techniques and about brain damages. I visit this site everytime I want to read new things about rehabilitation, the web site it’s about clinical psychology and neuropsychology and is a medical web that provides us more information about neurologic and psychological problem. Very interesting, I love it!

My lovely mobile

My mobile it's one of my favorite piece of technology, I got it before last year, my mom gave it to me. It's not the lastest fashion, but it's pretty, small and soooo useful!

I use this device the most of time, it's useful for to get in touch with some many people, I use it for to tell good morning to my boyfriend at the morning, to call my mom and dad, my friends, etc. We can always be located and if you get lost you can call wherever you are and you can be found, for example, hehe. But you can also use it for to be connected on internet, to get pictures (my favorite function) and to record videos... I love my mobile!

My life won't be the same without it, it makes life easier... one of the best invention ever!

My introduction!

Hello miss Laura, welcome to my blog!

I'm Jennifer, I study psychology on the thirth year. I'm a student from Universidad de Chile. In my career we have english class and my level of english i think, is good, but I have to improve my vocabulary and don't be shy when I have to speak to someone else, maybe I have to be more fluent in a conversation, but I can understand a lot. I really like english and languages in general, I believe it's very important for me, we can travel around the world and communicate with many people. In my career is so relevant to learn english, because it's a tool that we need as professionals.
This is a little introduction of myself.
Good bye! take care!!!