Mapuches didn't accept the government's proposition

Today the hunger strike that 34 mapuche citizen started 80 days ago, hasn’t found any solution. Mapuche prisoner’s spokesperson Rodrigo Curipán, said yesterday that they rejected the government’s offer, because of the Public Ministry position on that theme (the Public Ministry ruled out the idea of closing the lawsuit over the mapuche’s prisoners). This institution also had the intention of keeping applying the Antiterrorist Law. That’s why mapuche’s demanded to the Public Ministry and the Judiciary to become part of the negotiation committee. The Concepcion’s Monsignor Ricardo Ezzati, who had been the mediator between the strikers and the government, said that he had carried out his cycle in the negotiation and called to the other state powers to help in the solution. On the other hand, the Secretary of the Interior, Rodrigo Hinzpeter, pointed out that the government had done all that was in their hands, and that the mapuche’s petitions were going too far.
In my point of view, the meaningful thing is that the government hadn’t been capable of making a global proposition of reform in the Antiterrorist Law, ignoring the structural problem and assuming it as a particular decision of people that tries to attempt to their own lives. For example, Ena Von Baer said that if some mapuche citizen would die now, it would be caused by their own intransigent position.
The people involved in this news were those who were in the negotiation committee: Ricardo Ezzati, the prisoner’s spokesperson, and Claudio Alvarado, who is the sub secretary of the General Secretary of the Presidency.
I think that this piece of news will affect in my community, firstly by the position that this hunger strike had shown from the part of government, which has practically ignored the theme and the political issue beyond the fact. It’s worrying that legitimate demands in a democracy have kept invisible and ignored from part of the mass media too.

Places in Santiago

I think that a foreigner tourist should visit Plaza de Armas. Many people like painting sellers, chess players, religious and immigrants meet there every day and there are a lot of cheap restaurants and bars where you can eat typical food. He could also go to the Parque Forestal. It is a very large park, with a huge variety of types of trees where friends and couples meet. It’s parallel from the Mapocho River. At night it is enjoyable to go there and the streetlamps look nice. If he go there, it would be nice that he could visit to the Museo de Bellas Artes. It is a museum from the 19th century, and it has a lot of paintings from Chilean painters and sculptors. In the permanent exposition, he could find some paintings of Roberto Matta, for example. He could also visit to the Biblioteca Nacional, where you can find almost all of the Chilean publicated books. You can read in the library all of the books that they’ve got there. It’s also a loan’s section, and they lend you books for two weeks. Another special place in Santiago is the Parque Quinta Normal, which is a park where families share with their children.

Some asian countries

I would like to travel to Japan or China some day. They are very old countries and have some thousand-year-old traditions, which (specially in Japan) coexist with some aspects of the Western way to live and have experienced the globalization process in a particular way. For example, in China they live with a dynastic regime from 2100 BC to the beginning of the 20th century. They have a peculiar alphabet and philosophical expressions as the Confucianism and Taoism. I would like to go there because I feel interested in their culture and their thoughts. When I have read some Japanese writers or directors I think that they express some particular way to see the world and I like to know how these people can experience their traditions now.

What I made last semester

Last semester was funny. I started studying Sociology, so I had subjects as Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, and Contemporary World History. I think that Sociology and History were the ones that I liked the most, because professors were really stimulating and clear. A meaningful thing was that subjects had to deal with similar problems, so we had to study to the same or similar theories and authors in almost all of them. For example, in the Sociology subject, we studied to the classical authors of that discipline, but they were also included in the methodological course.

Honestly, I didn’t practice any sport constantly last semester and in general I was very lazy about doing exercises. It wasn’t because of the academic demand: I guess that I become accustomed to be sedentary, and after all, my family and friends were very comprehensive about time, and they possibly thought that I was really stressed of “studying at the university”. Anyway, I spent my free time playing the bass with my friends and sharing with my classmates.

The principal challenges that I had to face were to become more responsible and studious, because I think that I still don’t get studying habits. After all I could be relaxed and lazy at school and I get used to don’t make so much effort.

Finally, I feel really happy about being at the university: I like my career very much, my parents have been supporting me since I choose it and I have met so many friends and special people here.

Second term, 2010

My blogging experience

Today I’m going to write about my blogging experience. I think that blogging was –sometimes- funny and- always- easy because I could talk about my interests, opinions and themes of my career. Although sometimes it was a little boring to write so many words, it wasn’t very difficult to talk about myself. I have to confess that I was always thinking about the minimum words to write and I had to pad out with reiterative ideas and . I think that the hour of the course influenced in how I expressed my ideas, because sometimes I felt tired and I only want to finish my posts. I think that to had classes before writing helped me too because I learned sometimes about grammar, ( even when I don’t used it here) phonetics and I learned more vocabulary in the classroom.

Finally, I think that this course was very good, because we made exercises about writing, listening, speaking and reading and finally I could improved these abilities. I think that it was very important to write constantly, because it is necessary to develop these habits if I want to improve my english. When I was at school I couldn’t develop these abilities and writing was always a temporary activity. So I think that this is a very good way of improve our english and posting to the classmates made things funnier. I value that Belén was always making new activities and trying to promote the group’s work. I could know what my classmates thought too and to know their interests and to discover that sometimes we liked similar things.

I think that writing here I improved my English and I got more facilties in the end of the course, and writing more wasn’t a problem at all and this is a very good way to learn.

Good bye. Relax and have a nice vacations!

Paz Errazuriz's Psychiatric Hospital of Putaendo

Today I’m going to write about a picture that I like. It was taken by the Chilean photographer Paz Errázuriz and it shows a couple of the Psychiatric Hospital of Putaendo (actually, the Philippe Pinnel Hospital). They are embracing themselves and watching. The protograhper shows the love and affection of the people in the hospital, who expresses their loving and care to the others. She took it in 1994. She included some texts in the exposition (where appeared this photo), trying to emphasize in the sense of it: wonder about loneliness, lack of communication and tolerance in our society. Errázuriz wanted to show how we see the different people.

The photographer wanted to know the feelings, thoughts and, in general, how “the outsider people” live. She thinks that this people represents the non official speech, doesn’t have to adapt to the rules of the society. And she thought that people in the hospital were more honest and spontaneous. The photographer opposes the spontaneous and sincere life of people in the psychiatric with the ruled and false relationships of the “normal people”.

I like it because I think it’s very important the diversity and tolerance in our life and in the society to wonder why those people are (still) treated as objects. Errázuriz says that all the intents of classifying them are a way of keep our safety, be calm and forget about an uncomfortable part of ourselves (our society).

When all the people talked about “tolerance”, Errázuriz tried to know why the society put a frontier into the normal and those people who must stay cut off. I think that it’s really important to know what thinks people that aren’t included in our society.