Christmas

I think I’m not form a normal family. We never celebrate Christmas like the rest of the people. First, we never make a Christmas tree or decorate house for the holydays, and we don’t get crazy buying gifts, we just make some little presents. What we usually do is go to my aunt’s home –she’s more “Christmas spirit”-  and spend a very lovely night whit all the family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and more) and share a simple meal and open some gifts. But the most important is share with all my family this celebration.

But this year was different. Maybe it was the worst Christmas ever. First, I spend my Christmas in Santiago, far away from all my family. I thought I could spend it whit my brother, but he was in Chiloe. So I was just with one of my best friend because she could spend it with her family neither. So, we made a simple meal and was not for Christmas, we we’re just hungry. Then we talk about “the real sense of Christmas” (in an ironic way) we conclude that it is really a cruel celebration. Just think about it: Jesus was born in a crib, because nobody helped poor Maria. And thinking well, a crib is a dreadful place to born, because that maybe it is very unhygienic place. I think people forget about it, and dedicate just to celebrate buying gifts, so we are part of a cruel society since Jesus was born to now.

Well, but maybe we just thought this because we were sad and upset because we were far from our family, and next day we had to study or make stuff for University and Monday classes again… It wasn’t a nice Christmas, but New Year will compensate it :)

How language transformed humanity

Mark Pagel talks about language as a tool to communicate and make possible the cooperation between humans. According to that, language would be the main reason of the evolution and adaptation in human beings, because is thanks to language that we developed the ability of social learning; this is the ability from learning from other’s experiences. So, language allows us to communicate and share information and knowledge. And this is very important to avoid what Mr. Pagel calls “visual thief”. So, we don’t transfer information by stealing from other’s experiences, but we use language to make agreements. But I would like to mention that the possibility of agreements is not always possible, and in that case rises conflicts between humans, and that seems to need “other kind of languages” to resolve. So I think Mr. Pagel is showing just the idealistic and simple part of the language in human history, omitting the different conflicts, wars and more; just because language is a tool, but is a tool useful (or manipulated to be useful) just for some of the humans, the ones that holds the power. So I would like to ask if you think that language is a “democratic” or egalitarian tool?

This last is also related with the possibility of “One world, one language” that is also mentioned by Pagel. Because if language is not egalitarian, that means that there is one language more powerful than others, a “hegemonic” one. And besides to be the verbal language (Mr. Pagel doesn’t talk about other kind of language) I think that it would be the language of those who has the economic power to control and impose their language until makes it the universal one. But now I just know that Spanish language is very powerful too, especially for its ability to change and evolve, so I don’t think it could disappear under English.

Learning English in the BBC web

Learning English on websites can be a very useful tool, especially because it makes more fun and interactive the way we learn. In that way, the BBC website is a really good site to learn and practice your English; and besides that you can learn a lot of other things, like news and actuality from the whole world. All these you can find in the section “Words in the news”, where reading news you will learn vocabulary, grammar and some expressions that are very usual in English, but more interesting is the topics of the news. One of the most interesting ones is about the scientific found of new 208 species in Southeast Asia, because that makes me wonder about evolution, especially because one of the recent discovered species is a female only lizard that reproduce by cloning, so maybe true that males are going to disappear someday… (?)
But returning to the main topic, in this section of the BBC website you will learn words and expressions because there is a vocabulary at the end of the news where the words are explained into the context of their use.

Other section that results very interesting for me is the one called “How to…” In this section you can find a program to learn a lot of tips for having conversations and to know how to communicate in some situations, like giving good/bad news, or use language when you’re chatting. And besides, at the end of the program you’ll find a test to check your new vocabulary.

So I think the BBC website is a great site to learn English in a very fun and interesting way, making more interactive and participative the learning process.

The end of a year without end....

Finally is December. For everyone this means the end of the academic year and that summer vacations are coming, but that’s not our case. We are just beginning the second semester, so we will be studying during this summer. But really it is not a big deal or a problem for me. Obviously I’m going to miss a lot of things, especially because I will be far from my family during Christmas, but I think we have to be consequents and assume the cost of the strike, even if the results are not what the country needs. And just because of that, I think that studying during this summer could be in our favor.

We have to assume consequences that are more superficial like stand the heat during classes, or miss to see our friends. But having this extraordinary (and very short) semester also means more sacrifices for those who are ending our careers. I just hope that this semester will be productive, but not extremely stressing, after all this is an extraordinary term.