2015

This year was a very special one, it was very different because of many reasons, and has very good things and very bad things too. Nonetheless, it was a very dynamic year with very different things.

The year started very well, because the vacation before the classes again was very special, so it was an indicator that it was going to be a different year.

When the university started, one of the most important things was that I joined the group of “Nivelación de Estudios”. I started teaching the workers of FACSO, to accompany them in the process to finish school. In this activity, I do not teach only, but I’ve met a lot of beautiful people, including functionaries and the members of the group of “teachers”. In this experience I’ve learnt a lot!!! I can develop teaching skills, working in groups (you always learn!), and of course I’ve learnt a lot about the people I worked with. I’m so excited to continue next year, because I and the entire group have more experience, so we can keep improving!

Another important thing is that this year I started the first year of Archaeology, so I have a lot of new subjects more focused on this. The best thing has been that I I've had a lot of fieldtrips, so I can travel a lot and for the university, so it had been very good.

Bad and sad things always occur, but this year I learned that these are necessarily, because we can learn a lot about them.

The most important thing of this year was that I met a lot of new and beautiful people! So, I can say that 2015 have been a very good year. 

Summer plans

In the last time I think a lot what to do in my summer vacations, because I don’t have plans yet. Las summer was very special, I went to the south with my sister and a friend, and it was great. First, I don’t have money now to do anything, so I have to do something about it, because I really want to leave Santiago at least for a while. Maybe I try to work in something about Christmas or New Year to save money and be able to do the things I want to.  I really would like to go to the north, and if I can, go to Peru and Bolivia, to know a lot of places friends told me about, but I think is more a dream than other thing, but who knows, maybe I can save all that money in this time. I think maybe I go to south again with my sister and friends, so it be cool to! And also always my parents want to spend time with us, so is probable that we do something like family, so great to!  Despite of that, I was thinking to participate in a volunteer work in National Parks in south, so I can leave Santiago and helping reconstructing paths of this, and also learn about the flora and fauna of there (because I love a lot National Parks), but the period of postulation is not available yet, so I’m waiting of that!! Whatever I going to do, I really want to be in vacations!!!!!

How green are you?

Environmentally problems are very important in our time, especially because of the most of contamination from factories and people in general. For that reason is important to learn about enviromentally friendly practices, and you can learn about it everywhere, from a friend, from your family, from social networks, and of course, it must be (but isn’t) an important topic in public politics. In my family topics about environment are very important, so for example we pay a lot of attention about our garbage. Fortunately, we have a lot of space in our house, so we can have compost for organic garbage and then use it for plants. Also, we separate all we can, and the most of time we try to use it in other things (like carboard), or plastic bags, and time ago we did “ecoladrillos” but we let it for a while. Despite of that, I would like to have more order to recycling, and with my dad we want to use “clean energy” in our house, but we have to planned it well. I would love to use bike instead a car, but is very difficult to me use it every day, because a live so far away from university, but I use public transport a lot, and when some of our family come to Santiago, or go to home, in a car try to tell others to take an advantage of the travel. When I was a child, I  enjoy to a group of kids of “greenpeace”, but I don’t stay there for a long. I think every day I try to do more things to reduce my carbon footprint, because I think it is important for everyone, and is related to our way of life too.

In our Society this topic is not very important yet for everyone (is more like a “trend”), I think is important to realize that it is a problem in all the topics of life and not only the way we “take charge of our garbage recycling”. It is related to the way of the production system is propose, but I’m sure we can do a lot of things to change it.

Inquiry teaching

In other posts I said that maybe in the future I want to work like a teacher. Today I went to a pedagogy class, because a friend invites me, and I love it!!!!

It was about forms to teach that let the kids (and every who is learning) can learn, but not only from an “exposition” of the subject-matter (like the most of our class, where teachers are in the front of the class and talk about the subject, and we make notes in our notebooks, but is very static). The way that we are learn about is from “inquiry”, it means that the kid can discover from her or his own ideas the subject matter, and the teacher help them to learn more about it. The topic of today was “human body”, and we make 3 different activities. The first was to know about our bones, so I had to rest over a big paper and someone draw my silhouette, so then we have to draw in it all the bones we know about, and touch ourselves to discover where are the bone (like, we have to look our fingers and we can discover that in four of that we have 3 bones, and in the thumb we have only 2!!). Then the activity was to discover our organs, so we have images of that, and we have to positioning it in our own bodies to realize where it are! We do another 2 activities more, one about how our digestive system works and what we have in our mouth.

It was very fun and usefull to know activities that we can use in different situations to teach about! I was very interested about it, and I’m going the next week to the next class! J

Finding a job

Find a job a lot of time is a difficult situation. This involve different situations, you have first to find the job, a lot of times you have to pass different proofs and you have to have experience, among other things.

I said last week that I didn’t had an ideal job, is very difficult to me think about it, what I’m going to do in the future,  but I know that work is an important part of our lives, because we like it or not, we need to live with some money. So, find a work that I like, with all the things I wrote last week, and plus that it give me money to live, would be a very good thing.

How I wrote last week, I’m studying archaeology. If I think in two years more, when I suppose to finish it, I think I’m not have a lot of experience, but it make in the practice! so I can go to teacher projects to learn more. A problem to find jobs sometime are that there is no so many field available, especially if we realize that since last year the career (and other universities) grow the annual quota to study it, so the employment field going to be smaller. I don’t know so much about the work test requirements to work as archaeologist. In any case, I would like to work in different places, a job let me travel and be outdoor. 

Ideal job

If you ask me what is my ideal job I'm not very sure if I have an answer exactly for that. I think I don't have "an ideal job" but there are some things I would want to do, and if someone pay me for that, don't be bad.

First, I would like to do something outdoor, I don't really support in close spaces very long time. I am studying archaeology right now, and it let me spend a long time outside, we have to prospect (walk in a space of land watching if you see something may be a remain), and be in the excavation, so it’s not bad for me.

Also, I really want to know new places, so I would like a job that let me travel. But travel knowing the place and the people, not like “business travel” you can see in movies.

Recently I also think I maybe would like to teach something in some moment of my life. I think teach is one of the best things you can do, because it`s not only about “provides” knowledge for someone, but you learn a lot in this process too as a “teacher”. Also, it let you show a lot of things other people don’t know about, showing new things and obviously it happen from student to teacher too. 

Mil tambores

Last weekend I went to Valparaíso with two friends and stayed there for the weekend. We like that city, but we went there for a special reason: it was the "Mil Tambores" carnival. Last year I went with my sisters, and we liked a lot the experience so I wanted to repeat it. We travel from Santiago to Valparaíso on Saturday morning and arrived there almost lunch time. That day we went to a parade in the O’Higgins Hill. We don`t really know a lot the streets and public transport of Valparaíso, but asking you can arrive everywhere! When we were close to the parade we knew it because we started to heard a lot of drums sound, thanks to that we knew where we have to leave the bus. We saw and heard there almost 10 groups of drummers and batucadas, with their dancing groups. All the people who live there came outside of their houses to see all this show of colours and sounds. The next day we woke up with a lot of drums sounds, because the apartment we stayed was just in the same street where the carnival be carried out, so we had a privileged view and position. We stayed in the carnival all day long; we saw and heard a lot of murgas, tinkus, comparsas, tinkus, clowns, people disguised, and dancing groups. We danced and enjoy a lot, we had great time, and next year we plan to go like one of that group in the carnival!

 the view from the apartment

tinkus

 a costume I loved

Birds photos

Last weekend I went to the national park called "Río Los Cipreses" with my father and a lot of people who like to take photos to birds. My father loves birds so I accompany him like a birthday present.
There I realized  a camera is a really good piece of technology, I knew it but I never gave so much importance. We didn`t have one, so we dedicated to see the birds, but the other people had really good cameras, so we were impressed of the professional ones.
After that, we decided that we want to buy a good camera to take great photos, and we want one that we can use to take details and far or in movements things like, of course, birds. Even though we had a great time watching birds without a camera, we could not satisfy entirely, because we couldn't bring any photos about our experience.

The cameras were like this                 They share with us some photos, here you can see a "torcaza".

Ecuador

One of the best holidays in my life was when I went to Ecuador. It was last year, on August and I travel around the country. I was there since 10 days and I really love all the places I visited with my family.

We visited a lot of places, experiencing almost the three ecosystems characterics of Ecuador: coast, mountains and jungle (I didn’t have the lucky to be there, but I have been very close to, I really like to return there, and know the jungle).

I like a lot of things of this country, because there are all very new for me, I have never been in a similar place before, but one of the best thing was the people. There are beautiful, very friendly, and  well disposed in every moment you need help.

We did a lot of things, and travel a lot in bus. I have been in the middle of the earth, in the 0’ 0’’ 0’’’ point, so there I could balance an egg in a nail. I saw beautiful landscapes, like a lake in a crater or a lot waterfalls (like one in the garden of an old man who likes hummingbirds and have water in fountains fot them).

About me

I am María Alejandra Chávez Mallea, one of the three “Marías” of my family. I’m the youngest of four siblings, so we are 6 in my family, a big family.

I was born on September 8th, 1994, so two weeks ago was my 21st birthday. I live in Nos, a little place located in the south of San Bernardo, and I had been there since I was 4 years old, before that, we live in the center of San Bernardo, near to my school. I love my house because I have a lot of space, and the most important, this let me have a lot of trees and dogs. At this moment there are three, Almendra, Snoopy and Luna, but all this time a lot of dogs have been lived there.

I study Archaeology at University of Chile, and I am in third year, although, this is the first year of specialisation. I like it because it let me work a lot outside and let me travel to.

I like a lot and diverse things, I enjoy painting, dancing, playing music (I try to play ukulele), reading and walk around, experiencing new places.