Changes to my study programme

First of all, I need to say that I´m on my first year studying my actual career, and it's obviously online so is difficult to talk about infrastructure or live methods, but I´ll try to talk about what have I seen and heard of other students that are in other years.

Three years ago the university changed the curriculum, making the classes a mixture between theorical and practical classes, thing that was separated before. A very good idea, following the thinking that the real learning process is a theory-experience thing. And that would work if we weren´t on quaratine, because most of us can´t train properly, about space or family issues. So we like it or not in this year we have had almost all theory, and very little training. The practical classes are mostly explanations of what we have to do on our free time, then that homework record it and send it to receive the teacher´s correction.

I sound like an ungrateful bastard, but to be fair, is no one fault. The teachers were not prepared to face this kind of work and is difficult to them too. Most of them are making their best to try new things and make our learning process the best way possible. Theorical classes like theatrical theory, dramaturgical analysis or aesthetics are great. Is in the actor and the colective or character construction, practical classes, that it make impossible to work, all we do is make some videos and send them. 

Drama school belongs to the arts faculty, but is in a separated department in Morandé 750, a very old building, with a beautiful glass ceiling. In summer is a real oven, and in winter is a freezer. As all arts related things in Chile, the department don´t have any money so things are falling apart. There are electric problems, pulled nails that more than one student have been injured, there is only cold water in the showers and for goodness, they buy heaters the last year. The space is not enough and teachers have to make classes in the hallway sometimes, and the students fight over classrooms to test their plays.

Structural issues don´t botter me to much, maybe next year I´ll change my mind but today I only want to have a normal second year, with live classes, face to face. I want to finally meet my classmates and my teachers. They have voiced that the only thing they want is to go back to face to face classes too.

Stray dogs: A serious problem for the environment

To get started I need to say that this will be a very unpopular opinion but I invite you to read this completely before you condemn it. I know by first hand this problem, because I have studied it and seen it. So having said that, let's begin.

A pack of feral dogs.

Stray dogs are a very dangerous problem. In the cities, many dogs make the streets their territory, having a very vicious behavior making them not only attack people that walk by but attacking other's people dogs injuring them or even killing them. That's in the cities, but in the field, the stray dogs problem escalate in dangeorus ways. In first hand, stray dogs usually are not vaccinated, so they carry deseases that can be passed to the native fauna. There are a lot of cases of foxes with distemper and rabies or huemules with parvovirus. Because of that in national reserves and national parks, they don't allow to enter with pets. In the second hand and the worst thing is that the dogs that survive to the field, make their own packs and become feral. And a feral dog is impossible to become a pet again. They attack everything that cross their path. Feral dogs are one of the principal causes of fauna deseases if is not the first cause. A capable pack can easely kill a fully grown guanaco or puma. And this events are more usual than someone can think. This packs are a very serious danger to the people too. In 2010 a mother and her daughter died in Talagante attacked by a pack of 7 dogs. Those dogs had an owner that barely take care of them, so they became feral, searching their own food.

                                            Feral dogs chasing a puma, cornering it in a cliff.

I firmly think that Chile needs stronger measurements to control this problem. Stronger punishment to people that doesn't take care or abandon their pets. Check and make official dog breeding places. Not allow to anyone without a license to cross dogs. Or even better, if you adopt a pet, it came sterilized. And sacrifice feral dogs.

Dogs and cats are not the only animals that need to be taken care of. Pumas, foxes, pudus and snakes are animals too. Is something we need to remember. Please don't go with your pets to natural environments that can interrumpt some bird nesting or chase a coipo or whatever. Let's be responsibles owners, your dog is not the only animal in the planet.

My future job

I'm currently studying drama. I´m in my first year, because I studied natural resources conservation engineering but I lasted one year, not because I didn't like it, just because I like drama more. It's exciting and also scary talk about my future job as an actor, because is a very wide labor field, but also uncertain. I would like to work making theatre and movies. Both are very different expressions and each one needs a very speciffic technique. Someone that acts like in the theatre in front of a camera would look overacted, and someone that acts on a stage like in front of a camera, the audience won't see him or her.

I never even thought about an indoor job or better speaking, a job with shirt and tie. I hate the idea being locked in an office. Even the engineering I studied before, was about being on the field. The actor's job is to always move, and try things so I´m preety comfortable with that.

I would like to travel with my job, a lot. I think because of that I'm so interested to practice my English with native people, to speak fluently and to do a good performance abroad. One of my dreams is to work in a BBC series or a Netflix movie or something like that. But that is something that time would tell.

I´m positive about my future salary, I know it will be difficult but is the path I chose and with enough work I´ll collect the fruits of my work. And about a major degree. I'm not sure. By now I'm not interested at all, I think that, in drama at least, there are things that you need to learn with the experience more than reading a book. But I'm in first year only so there's still a lot of time to change my mind. 

A really great anime

 Hunter x Hunter

A series that are animated in Japan are named "anime", and this in particular belong to the category of shonen, that literally means "young man or teenager". These kind of anime are mostly focused in fighting, but that doesn't mean that about a light theme.

This in particular was written first as a "manga" (a japanese comic) in 1998 by Yoshihiro Togashi and is still being writing until today. The first adaptation to anime was in 1999 and ended in 2001. But I want to focus on the latest version from 2011, because it last more and have better color quality than the older version. 

The story talks about a 12 years old kid who's name is Gon, that live in a small village in an island with his aunt. He want to find his father, because when he was little he found his father's apprentice and after saving his life, he tells that his father was alive and to find him, he will need to become a hunter. The hunters in this world are people that have special skills and status to make things that other people can't do. And to become one of them you need to pass a secret test, that require ability, strenght, cleverness and luck, because, as usual shonen, you can die.

In this test Gon know his friends who will have a lot of adventures. Like Kurapika, the only survivor of the extict clan of Kuruta, who is focused on get revenge from the people that killed his clan and to recover the eyes that stole from his clan´s bodies. Leorio, who want to become a hunter to get rich and pay the medicine school to become a doctor and save lives, that's because when he waas little he was very poor and when a friend of his get sick, he couldn't help him, letting him die. And finally, my personal favorite: Kilua, that have 12 years old, like Gon, but he comes from a assassins family and run away from home.

I think this is my favorite anime because the veracity of the things that happens, the characters don't have power ups or special powers just because they get mad or someone give it to them. They really worked for it or else they did a really dangerous pact to get that power but with an enourmous risk. The other thing I like so much about this anime is the grey zone that are all. The protagonist group are not interested in justice or in evangelize (Naruto) someone to become good. They have their own goals and if someone dies and it doesn´t affect them directly they are not gonna do very much.

So finishing I let you all invited to watch this anime, you will really enjoy it. If you saw Naruto this is the next step.

PS: All the plot I gave doesn't count as spoiler because that happen between the first and second chapter.

the concert I enjoyed the most

 REC: Rock en Conce

REC is a music festival that take place in Parque Bicentenario in Concepción, the first one took place in 2015 and it have been keep going on until today. It begin at 11 AM and ends around 10 PM, usually take place 2 consecutive days, on saturday and sunday.

The whole festival is completely free and in open field, so you can come and go whenever you want. The park is next to a mall so you can step by the supermarket or the churros carts and then lay down on the grass to drink some beers or eat whatever you want, even smoke whatever you want. There are some cops around but because of the density of the people they don't nag too much. They are mostly for serious things, not for some drunken or high dudes.

The version I remember fondly is the 2016th. I was in cuarto medio and stay the whole day with my friends, dancing and drinking. The first day of the festival I experienced my first mosh in my life. And with nothing more than Molotov. I was preety drunk and without noticing, when Molotov start to play, I appeared in the center of a mosh pit, at first I got frightened and tried to escape, but was impossible. In my attemp to run away I almost fell. In that moment I thought I will die stepped on, but no, some stranger grab me firmly by the arm and pull me up to get up again. And then I realized that the same people that punch you and kick you will not let you die, because is a dance, not a fight.

 At the next day even more drunk, and with so much confidence about the mosh I waited patiently to my favourite band at that time: Chancho en Piedra, a chilean progressive funk band, that have a lot of disks and good songs. The environment in that concert was the best thing I felt in much time, the Chanchos Juanito (the band's pet) on the air, me and my friends drunken like nothing else matters, jumping and dancing in the mosh pit with no shirt and throwing beer to everyone. That was a really euforic party. I remember some shirtless dude, who was really fat and jumped from the fence to the public and we tried our best to make him swim on the people but he was so heavy that fell really quick.

At the next day I was with a terrible hangover and no voice at all. But I have not regrets at all.

I would like to visit...

Don't drink coffee, I drink tea my dear...

(I prefer coffee tho, but that's the way the song goes)

England is an island located in the west of Europe and conform, with other 3 countries (Wales, Ireland and Scotland), the United Kingdom.

But why I would like to visit England? Well, for many reasons. One of it is that I want to perfect my fluency and pronunciation by speaking with the native people. As I think is the only real way to learn and internalize any new language. 

The second reason is that I love history, and England have a lot of it, with so many towns and different cultures converging in the island. For example they have the celtics and romans, then the britons and the saxons, then british and northmen, etc. Each conflict left a little of culture and history to appreciate and learn. 

The third reason is about the big cities they have, the pubs, the multi-cultural environment and the art that inspired the whole world, and I'm not talking about of only one kind of art, but every expression of it. Like the architecture in London`s Eye, the parlament, Oxford's university, etc. The music with The Beatles, The Cavern, Abbey Road, Queen, The police, and so many examples. Finally (and not mention every kind of art because it would be annoying) the theatre with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and The Globe. The last two things I mentioned are the things that get my attention the most, because I'm studiying theatre and want to know and watch at live the experience of the real british theatre.

I would like to visit the UK when the quarantine is over and visit a friend of mine that invited me to Wales and then visit England. It would be really great to work in London in a pub (I love beer and chat with different people so it would be my perfect job) and to take theatre classes. Even for a few months.