English language challenges

To be completely honest I came to the university already knowing English, and in here I only have practice my written and oral English.

So there is not a lot of things that I have learn and I really wanted to learnt some professional vocabulary related to my career, but we didn’t work on that, we work on the social English the one that allow you have a conversation with a person.

In relation to the blogs I think that they are a really good way to have some confidence when you’re writing, and it’s a really good way to express ourselves in English. We had the opportunity to write a lot of blogs of different topics and at the end I can say that this helps me with my confidence when I write.

The things that I need to work on my English are the fluency when I talk and expand my vocabulary, because I always use the same words and expressions.

Outside my classes of English, I use it to read some papers and news for some works on the university, I also listen music in English, So I’m always listening. My Facebook is in English, so I’m reading it every day and I usually talk to my sister for skype, twice or three times a week and we usually talk in English to try to improve our fluency and pronunciation.

To conclude this blog, I would like to have that English is present in my everyday life, whether in music, in the university, in my moments of fun and in my life in general. I think that is really important to know how to speak and how to read and write in English, because the whole world is communicating with it and we can`t be less.

Changes to your study programme

Now I am in the second semester of food engineering at the University of Chile, and in relation to my career, I have a very extensive curriculum.

My career is 11 semesters and I have to study many different things to be a good professional.

In the early years I have some common themes with other careers such as Biology, Chemistry, the way I have General Chemistry I and II, Organic Chemistry I and II, Analytical Chemistry I and II and a lot of different topics related to chemistry, Physics and mathematics.

But then I have the career topics as engineering in milk, cereals, fats and oils processes, among other processes, quality management, nutrition and more of other topics.

Personally, I think that my career is longer that it has to be, we have some subject that are useless in our field and my career should be much shorter than it really is.

In other part I think that we are being overload with all the subjects and our teachers don’t understand us.

Our faculty is really big, there are approximately 1 thousand students every day and I don`t think that the space that we have is being well occupied, we don’t have a cafeteria, we don`t have the enough places to rest or to study and in winter and summer it is horrible to be in the university.

But I have to say that I like to be in the university and I like some of my teachers like miss Natalia Henriquez, besides her subject is really difficult, she is a really good teacher, or mister Jorge Reyes, he explains everything really good and his subject are more simple for that.

To conclude I would like to say that the university should last less, maybe some four complete years or maybe four and a half, we should have a better infrastructure to be in the university and we shouldn`t be overexploited with our subjects.

Summer holidays

We are only 2 months away from holidays and I can’t wait to rest every day and charge energies for the third semester, but it is a little disappointing that we finish the semester in January, right after my sister birthday, so I don’t get to have so many vacations as I want and I don’t get to spend my sister birthday with her.

For this holiday I have a lot of ideas of things to do but nothing is concrete.

My first priority is rest and sleep as much as I can. I don’t want to do anything for some week and just be in my pajama all day.

Then I would like to go to Pichilemu Beach with my friends in February for one whole week by our own. We would rent a shack near to the beach and just enjoy that we are young and have fun.

I’m also want to see my friends back in Rancagua, I only see them one a month or so, and I really miss them, so we’ll catch up and talk about everything that we have lived this year. With my best friend have the big idea of climbing some hills in Rancagua, not so high and dangerous but with a beautiful view

And one of the things that I want to do the most is spend time with my family since I don’t live with them and I only see them two weekends a week. I really miss them and I miss our family reunions, games and long talks. Honestly family for me is the most important thing in the world. They are always there for you and they support you no matter what decision you make. So I really want to be with them as long as I can.

Addiction: From coffee and tea to drugs of abuse

Drugs are not something to mess around, according to the WHO, “drugs is a term of varied use which in medicine refers to any substance with the potential to prevent or cure a disease” and in a colloquial language, drugs are psychoactive substances and often even more concretely, to illegal drugs. there are drugs denominated hard and soft.

In my personal experience I have tasted some drugs, like marihuana, alcohol and cigar and what I can say about tasting them is that they make you feel better in some way, alcohol take away your inhibitions, marihuana makes you feel relax and calm, but cigar is the one that I don’t like the taste and sensation that it brings, you feel drowned and it leave a bad taste in your mouth, and a horrible smell in your clothes and hands.

Some benefits of these drugs are

Alcohol: reduction of the risk of heart attacks, protects against diabetes  

Marihuana: Treat migraines and premenstrual syndrome, delays tumor growth, it prevents Alzhaimer’s, pain, calm the OCD and Tourrette, between others.

But there also some risk that people take when they are addict to this drugs just like addiction to alcohol can break a family, a financial stability and brings a lot of damage to the body and organs.

And marihuana have some bad effects to in de addiction to this drug like, tachycardia, disorientation, lack of physical coordination, and it take to depression or drowsiness.

Personally I know a person that is addicted to take pills, and I can say that her life is so miserable right now, she lost her family, her job, her husband and she only have her kids supporting her and her mother, but she is not living a good life, she is always in depression and she isolate from everyone.

Drugs abuse is bad for health, social life and wellbeing, people change their life for drugs and they should be more careful before being an addict.

Post Graduate studies

In Chile studies, a person can have a lot of different degrees, professional, technical, magister, doctorate, among others.

Right now I´m studying to get my professional degree as a food engineer and in the future I want to have a degree after my professional one that is related with my career.

There are a lot of different reasons for me to take one, like being a better professional; a lot of employers only hire people with studies after their professional degree, like master or PhD degree, so I want to do one to have better opportunities in the work area and also I want to take one to know a lot of different things and in specific, having the resolution to a lot of different problems.

I would like to take it abroad because there is a world of thing that we don’t see here in Chile so I would like to see and learn all the different ways of working, marketing, likes and dislikes and a lot more in others countries. In specific I would like to go to USA, as I always wanted to, but I would also go to any place in Europa just to learn how their system works.

I would like to study in the university of Harvard or Berkeley, because they are one of the best in the area of engineering and science but if it ony other besides USA I would love to go to Oxford just because it is one of the best universities in the world and for the amount of different scientist that have graduated from that university.

If I ever study a master o phD degree, I would like to be a full time study, with classes in a classroom, with other students and if it is needed with laboratories.

To end this blog I would like to say the other degree that I would like to study but I´m not sure about what study and actually I don’t even have a clue about what to do with my life after graduation in other 5 years.

Your Future Job...

The career that I’m studying, food engineering, has a lot of different areas where to work, and at the point of where I am right now, I don’t know anything about it.

The food engineers can work in marketing, administration, management, quality of food, investigation and a lot more, and I’m still not sure what I want to do, but I really like quality of food and investigation

I would like to be able to tell people the healthy food that we can consume but without losing the good things, I want the people to know where is safe to eat and how to stop food infections and diseases and the most important is that I want to be happy doing it.

I would love to work outdoor and indoor I think that it is important to see and experiment with the environment and with the thing and people related, but that it is a little bit exhausting and it is necessary to work in an office or a laboratory.

About the county I will like to work, I don’t have a specific one, But I do know that I don’t to be my whole life in Chile. I want to know as many countries as I can and that way decide which is the best one for me to live and

 
work and make my life.

I’m not interested about who much money I’m going to make, I just want to live a calm life with no preoccupations about money and happy life that it is more important and we all know that money doesn’t buy happiness so I just want to have a happy and calm life.

Right know I can’t thing about a major that I would like to take, first things first, I have to end my career and see if this one is the one for me, see if I want to make my life out of it so, I don’t want to rush things and talk about a major.

To conclude I am not sure of what I want and I think it's a little rushed talk about this in my case, but I do like my career and I hope that in the future I will be sure of what I want to do with my life and career.

Digressing about music: songs, dances, melodies, groups, films...

Music is a very important part in my life, I love listening music in every part of my day and if I'm not listening I will probably sing a song.
My favourite kind of music has to be the pop and the electro I'm listening this kind the whole day, when im studying, in the shower, when I'm cooking etc.
About music I love the solo piano and the solo guitar either acoustic or electric and I love to play guitar it is really relaxing to play

I actually don't have any favourite group or solo artist but I'm obsessed with a singer called Shawn Mendes, He is a canadian solo artist that plays pop music and he is really good, and also I'm obsessed with MØ, a solo artist that Plays Indie Pop
When I was a kid I used to listen to this pop band named Jonas Brothers, I was a fan girl and I went to every concert they made in Chile but they are separated now and some other members have some band or solo albums but I prefered them when they were together because their music was so much better than it is right now.
About music on films that I love, there is this one movie called "If I Stay" with this amazing soundtrack with a Band created in the movie named "Willamette Stone" they play some kind of soft rock and they have a lot of songs but my favourite is "Heart Like Yours"
I'm always listening this song I think that it is really pretty and deep that everyone should listen 

Our Amazing Human Body: ... The Smell

The senses in our body are something amazing, life without our five senses, taste, smell, sight, hearing and touching, would be really hard.

But for me the smell is something really special, because without him I couldn’t feel or experimenting sensations, or making memories with scents.

I love to walk through my house on the weekends and smell my grandmothers cake, my mom and dad perfume, smells the flowers, the freshly watered grass and a lot more of things.

The smell is the sense that detects and process the scents. It is a chemoreceptor in which act as stimulants aromatic particles that are processed by the olfactory system. The nose it is the organ of the smell and our human nose distinguishes between more than 10,000 different scents.

The nose it is located in the medium of the face between the eyes and the mouth and the average size of the long of the nose are about 51mm.

There are a lot of injuries and illnesses that affect this scent such as:

-Cold

- Deviated nasal septum

-Polyps

- Rhinitis

-Fractures

And there are so many different ways to keep it healthy just like, not inserting foreign object to the nose, see a doctor if there is any anomaly, try not to inhale dust, etc.

So to conclude the smell is really important in our life, and thanks to it, we can remember different scents and moments in our lives. 

Your best holidays ever

I have a lot of good memories of concerts and holidays, so it’s really hard to pick the best one so far. But there is a Holiday that I will never forget.

They were in the summer of 2015 and I spend them in Reñaca, Viña del Mar, where my grandmother has an apartment.

I usually go to Reñaca every year but this time I went with two of my best friends and also with my mother and sister. 

We stayed in the apartment for almost two weeks in January, and we did a lot of awesome things, like discovering a little beach near to ConCon where we were the whole day alone. We also tried to go to every ice cream shop we could, to taste all the different flavors in the shops. Besides we tried to walk a lot and we actually did, we walk all the way from Reñaca to the Sheraton Hotel in Viña del Mar (approximately 7 km for the waterboard) with and awesome view and weather.

We went to Maintencillo, Zapallar, Quillota and Rauten during the two weeks. 

And there are so many fun things that we did, that I could be talking the whole day about them, so I will never forget that summer.

I have been in Reñaca so many times that it isn't that funny as it should be, but this time I did a lot of things that I've never done before and I’ll remember them for all the little stuffs that we did.

A country you would like to visit.

Traveling around the world is something that I have to do at some time in my life, there are so many places that I want to visit and I really have to think about the Top 1 country.

To be sincerely honest, my favorite country has to be the United States (A country in the north of America, and the most influent country in the world), I would love to go because of different spots in the country, the history, the art and modern things that it has and how it is always connected to the old things.

There are so many places in the states that I want to meet like the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State, Disney world, the Grand Canyon, La Vegas, Times Square, the Central Park, Broadway, the White House, Hawaii, and a lot of more places that this beautiful country has.

Living in there, has always been my dream, having a family, a job and literally my whole life in there, if I ever have the opportunity to studying in the US I would definitely say yes, with no doubt, because it is so different to doing it in there, you have a lot more of opportunities around the world, I would meet a lot of people, I would get the chance to practice my English and to meet a lot of places that I would always wanted to see.

So to conclude this blog you could notice that I’m really in Love with the United Sates and I can’t wait to have an opportunity to go again and have another amazing experience.

(In the Pictures we can see 

1: The White House, Washington D.C

2: Hawaii, Honolulu

3: The Statue of Liberty, New York)

My blogging experience

In my personal life English is really important, me and my sister always speak in English while we are at home, and talking it is not a problem at all for me, but it is a little bit more difficult for me at the moment of writing . This is my first time writing a blog and specially in English, so it was a weird experience at first, but now, I got used to write about every topic.

Write this blog definitely helps my writing skills, I can improve to write everything that I want, My grammar is better and I don’t need the dictionary so much as I did when I started and in general it not only helps my writing skills, but also my creativity, by thinking in different things

Hopefully this next semester I can have English IV, finish it and finally be very good at English. what I expect for this next semester is that I can Learn some technical English like compounds and elements, Vocabulary often used in my career and a lot more and I would also keep the blogging process of talking about funny topics like music, movies, book, likes and dislikes, etc

So to conclude this was a different experience from what I have lived, but I love it and I can’t wait for more :)

From the invisible to the visible world and back...

As you might know I´m studying Food engineering in the University of Chile, this is my first semester and I love this career, even though it is a little bit hard for me. In here we do a lot of different things, most of them in the laboratory; we have done distillations, filtrations, recrystallization, extractions and more.

But there are so much to do and one of the things that I would love to do is the fermentation.

The fermentation is a Bichemical process by wich an organic substance is transformed into another, usually simpler that the original one, by the action of a ferment (yeast, mother masses, between others).

It was discovered by the scientist Louis pasteur and in the field of the foos engineering it has a lot of utilities like:

-Enrich the diet with variety of flavors, scents and textures in food substrates.

-Preservation of substantial amount of food through lactic acid, ethanol, acetic acid and alkaline fermentations.

-Enrichment of food substrates with protein, amino acids, fatty acids and vitamins.

-ETC.

Some of the advantages that might have are for the human purpose, since they are to satisfy need and tastes. 

But they also are good in our system, fermentation helps to restore and retain the intestinal flora, it also helps to the food preservation and it helps to digest other type of food that are eaten.

I chose this technic because is something that I want to do in the future and also because I would love to learn how the beer and wine are made, since I live in a city where the wine it is a big source of income.

When I started this career I saw myself in the future working with this type of technics.

The most enjoyable subject this far ...

This year have been a crazy one for me this far, I’m living in a new city, with a lot of different people all around the world and I began to study in the university, but all this stuff has something good in them, like living by my own in a new place far from my family has given me liberty to do anything that I wanted to do, also responsibility and maturity.

Studding in the university is not that bad as it sounds, not all the subjects are that bad and with a lot of effort you can make miracle.

My favorite subject so far has been chemical laboratory techniques, I found it really fun and we learn to do a lot of different stuff, in this class we learn all the basic stuff to laboratory, at first we learn all the cautions, all the material and how to use it, but at the end of this subject we get to work with a lot of different acids like potassium dichromate, hydrochloric acid and more, doing stuffs like distillations, leaks, recrystallizations and a bunch of different things.

This subject gives us all the techniques to work on the future labs, the ones that include milk, meat, chocolate, drinks and a lot more.

But this subject is not only practical is also a theoretical one, we have to understand the process of things and then we can make them, it is not that easy as it sound but I love it , is the most fun and the only one that we can do something beyond the books.

I love to see the way that all the chemicals work together to do something really different like our first distillation It was a little bit scary, but we made a lot of different stuff with so little that we have.

I also love that the teachers and auxiliaries are involved with everything that we do, they are open to any question that we have and they are so experimented with every they do.

A Person or Expert you Admire

When I started thinking about a career, I did not know where to start. I was very lost; the only thing I knew was that I wanted something that could involve working in a laboratory. 
In one on my family reunions I was talking to my uncle about this, and he told me about his friend, who is a food engineering (in that moment I have never heard about the career). Luckily, I had the chance to meet this man (my uncle’s friend) some time ago (basicly a month before giving the PSU), it was great and that is why today I am talking about him.
This man has been always around my family, he is very close with my uncle and my grandmother. His name is Mario and he is 59 years old. He graduated from food engineering, from the same university that I am studying now which is the University of Chile. Currently, he is running his own business with his wife ( who is a pharmaceutical chemist,also from the University of Chile), together they have a pharmacy in Rancagua.
He built his life around the career, at first he worked in various places like Luchetti, Lider, among others, but then he realized that the most important thing to him was being around his family but also working in something that he liked and enjoyed, and that was the moment when they decided to begin with this business which is the pharmacy.
To be honest, he was the man who introduced me to this beautiful career; we spent an entire day talking about it and it was amazing. He is a very nice and genuine man, he gave me the coolest speech about the career, he told me the good things and not so good things. He inspired me to work hard and not to give up, and in the future I also want to run my own business just like him.
Unfortunately I do not have any picture with him, or any pincute of him either, but I just had to talk about him when the oportunity came, so to  fixing it up, here there is a picture of a very famous character here in chile, Dr.Simi that it actually looks like Mario 

About pets, love and friendship...

To be truly honest I don’t like animals, I have really bad memories of them.

When I was little I used to live in a farm and my dad had huge dogs, every time that I came home from school these huge dogs came running towards me and they usually pull me into the grown. I was a 6 years old girl with 5 dogs all over me, liking my face and barking at me.

They scared me to dead and I couldn’t be around them, but I remember every dog name.

The biggest one was called “Bombero” (my dad’s favorite) and his brother was called “Bandido”, their mother and father was named “Luli and Tata” respectively. All of them where German Shepherd, but there was another dog that was a “Kiltro” named “Chola”.

When I grew up we came to live into the city and all the dogs stayed in the farm with my dad and my grandfather, so I barely see them and my fear to them slowly went away.

But since then I don’t have pets and I only like little animals that can’t pull me into the grown.

Unfortunately for one that is reading this, I don’t have any picture with these dogs but now there are only two of them alive “Luli and Chola”.

I really hope that one my fear someday goes away and I can be a normal girl who has a lot of pets.

PD: All the dogs in my house look like the ones on the picture and for a 6 years old girl they were really scary.

A Photograph you Like.

About one year and a half ago I went to Miami with my mom Alejandra and my older sister Francisca.

We took a 2 week holiday in Halloween of 2014. We decided to go to Miami because my sister was born in there and she wanted to see the place where she was born.

In particular this photo makes remember the day we took the tour.

It was the third day that I was in Miami, the day of Halloween and everyone were wearing costumes, even the captain (by the way he was wearing a Ninja Turtle costume), after we lunch, we get into the boat. The trip took 2 hours to end and we all were dizzy, trying not to throw up our lunches and by the time that I can’t resist it any more, the boat stay still, showing us the beautiful view. That was the exact moment that I took this picture.

This picture shows some buildings of the city, the beautiful sky with clouds and the sun leaving slowly.

I love this picture because it brings me so many good memories I spend beautiful times with my family, I made memories that are going to last forever and I saw places that I always wanted to see, like Miami Beach, The little Habana, Coral Gables, etc.

I’m waiting for the time that I can travel again and visit somewhere else with my family and make memories like the ones that I made the last time I travel abroad.

Timeline of a Human Development

1.       About 800,000 years ago, fire was controlled by humans

2.       About 6 million years ago most early humans species became bipedal

3.       The homo Habilis used to live in Eastern and Southern Africa

4.       About 12,000 years ago, humans managed to control the growth and breeding of some plants and animals

5.       The Sahelanthropus tchandesis is the earliest human species from the time line

Answer these questions:

1.       What´s been the role of climate change in the development of humans?

Climate Change is a very big role for humans, it make them change their geographic locations, change their way of living and most important is that  make them change depending on the area in which they were

2.       In your opinion, what is the most significant milestone for human evolution? Why?

For me the most important milestone is that the man could stand up straight in two legs, because this means a clear evolution in human history, this was the thing that separates us from animals

3.       Which early human species was thought to be the first to use tools made from stone?

The human species that are considerate for being the first using stone tools was the homo habilis

4.       Who were the first human species to travel to and live in Europe? When?

The firsts one were the Homo Heidelbergensis, and they did it 700,000 and 200,000 years ago

5.       Which species survived the longest time? For how long?

The species that survived the longest time was the homo erectus, the survived more than nine times that our species.

About Books and Films

-One of my passions is reading, I have read a lot of books, all of them with different content, but the best so far I read it 4 years ago and it has to be Veronika decides to die.

It is a Paulo Coelho book that talks about a girl that of a short age who decides to commit suicide, giving reasons like being bored of monotony and feeling satisfied with what she has lived. But her suicide doesn’t works and she ends up in a psychiatric center with a lot crazy people that change her life. Personally this book means a lot to me because there’s a Veronika in all of us, we all get bored of monotony, but we are the only ones that can change it, making something about it, and for this it is so special for me.

Besides books, movies have a big space in my life too, I can be watching Netflix all day long and never get bored. The movie that I’m in love right now it is called If I stay…

It is a love movie that shows that the only thing that keeps us alive is love, parental love, romantical love, friends love, etc.

I love this movie because the main character it is not a perfect girl who has everything or the typical popular girl but a girl that has problems like normal people and a pretty normal life and it shows that love can literally safe lives and move mountains. This film has been my favorite for two and a half years since the first time I saw it.

I recommend this book and this movie because their meaning can change lives, as it did with mine, I realized a lot of thing after reading and watching this book and movie respectively, so if you are interested in doing something good with your life you should read and watch these things that I recommend.

Your Favorite Piece of Technology.

As a teenager of the 21st century, I have seen a lot of different technology as smartphones, laptops, televisions, tablets, radios, DVD’s, etc.

Personally my favorite piece of technology is my cellphone, in there I have all my life, contacts, apps, conversations, images, videos and a lot of different memories. The one that I’m using right now I got it on the first days of March of 2016, but it is not the first one that I’ve ever had.

 My first cellphone was gave to me when I was 9 years old on my birthday it was a black one with lights on the edges and it had an awesome game of a snake and it was my first love.


Going back to the reality my actual cellphone is almost everything that I need (except for my laptop) to survive in technology, I do homework’s, talk with my family and friends, watch series, movies, youtube videos, play lots of games and search for things that interest me and knowing all that it is clear that I’m on my cellphone 24/7.



I love my cellphone because it allows me to keep in touch with everyone around me, it also allows me to keep my life going and not die trying it. For this, life without it wouldn't be the same I would have to be carrying a big laptop around, and my back wouldn't appreciate.
Hope you enjoy reading it :)

Why did you Choose your Career?

When I was a child I though on being a doctor, medicine it is a beautiful career and saving people life was something that every child of my age loves it.

But when I was growing up, I realized that medicine was not my thing, because I cannot handle blood and nasty wounds so I didn´t know what to do with my life.

In high school I liked a lot of different subjects like biology, chemistry, philosophy and of course English, but most of them where really different between each other so the decision was every time harder. I had ideas like being a Biochemist, a Nutritionist, a Biology teacher and medical Technologist, but nothing attracts me to study six years in a row.

So I looked for all the different careers in Chile (each one of them, and apparently they are a lot) to see if something liked me and like a miracle I found Food Engineering, which has Chemistry, Biology and English if I want to.

Food engineering it is an uncommon career that almost nobody of my family had heard, the study program was interesting and there were a lot of workplaces after graduating.

So it started to like me more and more every time to the point of wanting to make it my profession finally I applied to the University of Chile in Food Engineering and with hard work I managed to get in.

And here I am in the present studying this beautiful career that I luckily found in the university that I wanted.

Getting to Know Each Other

Hello, my name is Micaela, but you can tell me Mica

I'm from Rancagua, Chile a city known for the rodeo and the good wine.

I have two siblings, one is older than me, her name is Francisca and she is an English teacher and she works at an English formation center, my other brother is younger than me, his name is Facundo and he's still in school.

I come from a big and loving family with a lot of cousins, uncles, grandparents, godparents, etc. I see them every weekend, because we love being together.

Now a day I live in Providencia, Santiago in a residential with other 10 people, that by the way is really fun, I get to know a lot of different people all around the world.

I study Food Engineering at the University of Chile, I’m on my first year of the career and it is really cool, because I get to know a lot of people and I can learn a lot of things.