Money Matters

I don’t really like to talk about money. I suppose it is kind of a taboo subject, but I will give my best effort.

I used to be really good with money. Administrating money was really fun when I was a kid. In fact, growing up I was treasurer of my grade. And later, I started to sell things in my school with my friends. I even did the job of treasurer, which meant to keep all the receipts from the things we bought and the money in order. I think it was fun because it was like a game.

When I was young I also used to save money, specially coins. This ability was lost with the years. For example, at the university we have to spend a lot of money in copies.

I think the fun was gone when the grown-up bills started. Of course it isn’t fun to receive money

just to go pay it somewhere. I can honestly say that I dread to manage the money, but I have to do it because my partner isn’t very good with money.

Like I said because I was good at saving money usually I had money when I was a kid. So my older brothers just to have to borrow money from me. I thought it was funny since they are 7 and 9 years older than me. Now they don’t need to borrow money from me. My mom sometimes borrowed money from me, but I didn’t like to lend her money. She usually didn’t pay it back because she would say that she had given it to me in the first place.

I pay the bills in cash because I don’t like the idea of doing it online and I don’t have a bank account (yet). And I say yet because I know that I will have to get one in order to get paid in the future.

I think that managing money is really difficult, so both, parents and school, should teach children how to do it. In the school with special projects and at home parents should help them administer their allowance. It is important to teach the children to be responsible with their own money.

improving your Faculty.

Right now one of the main problems at psychology’s program is the curriculum. This is because 4 years ago there was a change in the program and there are a lot of new subjects and other subjects disappeared from the psychology’s curriculum.
This is a problem because every semester they have to create new subjects and they are not sure if they are going to be there next year. They receive the current student’s evaluations to do the necessary changes. This means that this problem is going to be fixed in the future but it will remain a problem while the new curriculum is in probation state.
It is the same thing for the last year of school, where we have to choose from different courses to get a license in a specific field of our choice. I say it is the same thing because a lot of these courses didn’t exist before and they will just start next year. And the others that did exist didn’t receive students like us.
Another problem from this new curriculum is that there are a lot of courses. This means that in the same space where they just to give like 6 different classes today they have to give the double. The psychology’s department could use more classrooms. I remember that a teacher told us once that the university was thinking of building a new building. I think that would be a great idea.
If they did build a new building, we could have new bathrooms (hopefully with toilet paper and soap), new labs and a new library. But that needs a lot of money and I don’t think the university can afford to do it right now.
That is why I think we should start with little things like having toilet paper and soap in the bathrooms. It would make all of us happy and it doesn’t cost a lot of money.
Another small step would be air conditioning in the 4th floor because the classrooms get too hot in the summer and it makes concentrating really hard.

Where to go next…

Well today’s theme we choose to talk about where we want to do our practical experience before we graduate. Right now we are thinking a lot about this subject because we have to do it next year to get our degree. Every decision is up to us, where, when, for how long… those are a lot of decisions to make. Right now I have some ideas about what I would like to do next year.

First of all, I am thinking about doing two practical experiences instead of one. They would be each 20 hours a week. I like this idea because this way I can explore two things that I like, in this case studying about children and gaining clinical experience.

To do this, I have as an option to do my first practical experience on a charity foundation called Fundacek. This organization works with kids to help them developt their talent. In this position I would have the opportunity to investigate more about this field and I would even have a theme for my thesis. This seems like a good place to work because they are just starting so it is a little organization open to new ideas. The foundation is also in a good location, very close to the “Pedro de Valdivia” station of the subway.

Even if a I love the idea of learning more about children, I feel that if I only did this, I would miss

the clinical experience and because of that I am thinking about a second practical experience in the “DAE” where we would work with students of the Faculty of Medicine of our University. They come to consult for a lot of different causes so it would definitely be a good practical experience. I would learn a lot about treating patients.

Places to go in Santiago

Well, I am thinking about places to take my family that comes from Australia, they haven’t been here for over 30 years, so it is like visiting a whole new world to them. I think that it would be nice to visit Mount San Cristóbal because this will give them a beautiful panoramic sight of the city and after that we could go to the Zoo. It would be a good way to start the day, in this mount there is a park to preserve the nature that is truly great to spend a nice time with the family.

I guess afterwards we could go to eat a nice barbecue somewhere like “la cuca” or “parrilladas argentinas”. And for the afternoon we can go to “plaza ñuñoa” (ñuñoa square). This is a great place to let the children run and play. We can buy some ice cream at Filippo, the ice cream there is homemade and it is delicious. They have great flavours too like mango, marzipan and my favorite: “arroz con leche” (sweet rice with milk).

I think they would really like a walk around the neighborhood because beautiful old houses and even more because that is where they just to live, so I think they would enjoy to see how everything has changed.

To end the day, I think it would be nice to go dancing. “Bellavista” is a known place to do this, because it offers a lot of options and there is also a nice Arts and crafts fair really close, and it is something to do before go dancing.

Hobbies

Usually in my free time I read fan-fiction, knit, watch TV-series and listen to music. The last two can accompany other activities, for example I like listening to music while studying and doing the house chores. I usually watch television while eating or knitting, I also do it before going to bed. Some of my favorite shows are Grey’s anatomy, Lost, Supernatural and One Tree Hill. As for music I will name some of the singers and bands that are on my mp3 player currently: morcheeba, Coldplay, Jump Little Children, Josh Groban, Kate Voegele, Bethany joy Lenz, Keane and snow patrol.

Now knitting and reading fan-fiction are different because first of all they are very time consuming, but I like them both very much. Knitting is also expensive, but the good thing is that I get to wear or give as a gift the things I make.

Last but not least, fan-fiction. I have to say that reading it is what first introduced me to really wanting to learn English because I couldn’t find any good ones in Spanish. At first I tried using online translators, but they made them sound funny and stupid (kind of Tarzan) so I learned English to be able to read those stories. At the beginning I had to look up a lot of the words, but after a while it became easier and easier to do it. It is a very good method to learn English I recommended to my friend Abigail, who didn’t know any English at all after school and now she can read really well because of all the practice that fan-fiction gives her. She has also improved her vocabulary. She can also listen to music and movies and understand what they are saying now.

Wikipedia defines Fan fiction (alternately referred to as fanfiction, fanfic, FF, or fic) is a broadly-defined term for fan labor regarding stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator. Works of fan fiction are rarely commissioned or authorized by the original work's owner, creator, or publisher; also, they are almost never professionally published. Fan fiction, therefore, is defined by being both related to its subject's canonical fictional universe and simultaneously existing outside the canon of that universe. Most fan fiction writers assume that their work is read primarily by other fans, and therefore tend to presume that their readers have knowledge of the canon universe (created by a professional writer) in which their works are based.

While looking for pictures for this blog I found this article that is really interesting Fan fiction sites take beloved movies, books and TV shows in new directions

Transantiago

I think this system is better for the students in first place because in the old system a lot of the time the “micro” (bus) wouldn’t stop for us since we pay less for the service. Now there are no differences between the people who pay the whole fee or just a fraction of it like students.

I also like the idea of using a card to get on the bus; it is quicker and better for the driver because now he doesn’t have to collect the money. This way the drivers don’t get robbed. This system forces us to be more organized, because we have to keep the card charged since it can’t be charged anywhere at anytime, so people should tried to remember to keep the card with a little credit on it all the time. But if you don’t have enough and it’s late at night or too early the system lend you money on your card.

One think that I hate about the new system is that it overload the subway system, because it had such a bad start and even still have a lot of problems, so now take the subway is an awful experience in opposite at how it was before when the old system still worked.

Another thing that I think is really bad is the design of the new buses, they have really narrow hallways at the beginning and end of the bus, and because there aren’t many of them at rush hour if someone is standing there, it is really difficult to get on the bus and even harder for people with overweight problems. Also the seats are too far away, especially those for people with problems of mobility, for instance older people who can’t go so far because there is a really big part with nothing to hold on. It is also very hard to seat in the “tall seats”. And there are some seats where you have nothing to hold on. I would really change these buses.

I have heard that the buses take too much time to pass, I haven’t had that problem but I think a lot of the time people lack the patience; because this new system was suppose to take 10 to 15 minutes for the “troncal” and 15 to 20 minutes for the “alimentadores”. And in this culture people doesn’t like to wait, but this system requires it and you need to be prepare to go out of your house with enough time to wait for the bus and still be on time where you need to be.

First entry

Well I just started my last semester as a student in the university. It’s a really weird feeling, but I am really happy with a lot of my classes. The last semester I took a course about “Técnicas Proyectivas” (projective techniques) that was very interesting because we learned how to take the Rocharch exam and it is a truly useful tool for our profession.
In my free time I really enjoy watching television series like grey’s anatomy, lost and medium, they are really interesting and I love to wait each week for the following part. I also read fanfiction online; there are many great authors on the web who publish truly amazing stories. The first part of this year I took up knitting again. I learned how to do it when I was very young but I wasn’t so interested in continuing with it then, but when I was expecting my son I started to knit again because I really wanted him to have some things done by my own hands. For the lack of time I had to stop for awhile but since March I decided to start bringing my knitting projects with me to the university and I get a lot done here. In fact, I think this year I have done many great projects.
I have a son, Maximiliano and he is going to be two at the end of this month, so he is getting to an age where he is always getting in trouble and trying to invent new games, which takes a lot of my time when I am at home. He is really sweet and he loves to get hugs and kisses from mommy and daddy.
I would say that my biggest challenge is to find time for everything I have to do and the things that I want to do.