My experience learning English at univrsity / a reflection

Hello, this is finally my last blog! I can deny I’m happy…write this blog has been a very exhausting activity to me. Especially when you have to do this for two semesters!
Today I’m going to talk about my experience learning English at the university.
Last year, in my first day of class, when teachers explained the courses they told us about English course too. They said it consisted in four levels: Starter, Beginner, Pre-intermediate and Intermediate. But we had to give a previous exam to take the corresponding level to each one.
I stared in level two, Beginner. That was a great course because I learnt a lot. The teacher has an excellent methodology. I think the best part was note the huge differences between the kind of English classes that I had in my school and comparing them with English classes at the university.
For years I trained my listening and writing English skills, but during this course I had to talk in English. Just what I needed. Because even you know how to write in English or even you understand everything that someone told in this language is useless if you don’t know how to keep a conversation in English.
Pre-intermediate level forces me to talk. Big parts of the activities were related with develop our oral skills. I have to say sometime these were so frustrating to me because I’m pretty sure about my knowledge in this language but I never had the opportunity to talk with someone and practice before. So, face up those new situations was quite dramatic.
Intermediate level was awful, at first. First month was horrible because I was with classmates who entered to this level immediately. The differences that we have were so obvious. And they were enormous! I was very depressed. I didn’t want to go to classes because I was feeling out of place. Then I decided to change my attitude and tried to do my best.

Let's do excercise!

Hello everyone, today I’m going to talk about doing exercise.
The idea of physical activity is referred to all intentional natural body movements made by humans in a period of time, resulting a considerable increase in energy expenditure, and also to interact with others and the environment.

Health and physical activity concepts are closely related, because if you want to have a healthy life you need a balanced diet and physical activity. These two ideas are essential to maintain necessary body balance.

Physical activity is very important for a healthy life because this provides great benefits for our organism if you do it regularly and systematically. Some benefits are: increased coordination, muscle mass gain which produce an increase in the basal metabolism, body fat decrease, less body fatigue, an improvement in blood circulation, regulation of heart rate, blood pressure decrease, improvement in lung capacity and the subsequent oxygenation, muscle strength development which produce an increase in bone strength, better body position by strengthening lumbar muscles; diseases prevention such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity and osteoporosis.

Regular physical activity produce an improvement in organs functions, creates a sense of emotional wellbeing, which has positive consequences directly related to confidence in development of daily tasks and also a strengthens self-image,

Probably you could say that you don’t have any money to expend it in a gym, but that is not the only way to do excercise. You don’t need to go to the gym to do any physical activity. You just could walk in the park or run in every place you like. Maybe it could be an instance to share with friends and family. This is a great opportunity to do something all together, like play football or basketball.

Chile has high sedentary levels. 91% of the chilean population is sedentary, and most of them don’t see the problem.

We are young and we are able to change this statistics. As futures members of a health team, we must to contribute changing these levels, promoting physical activity and a balance diet as a lifestyle.

The Big Bang Theory, one of my favorite tv series

Hi everyone! This time I’m going to talk about one of my favorite television series: The Big Bang Theory (TBBT), on Warner Channel.

The sitcom is about two geniuses who work for California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. Both are brilliant in their work areas, However they have a remarkable deficiency to interact with other people, especially with women, resulting funny situations.

They share an apartment and across the hall from them lives an attractive neighbor who has aspirations of a career in show business.

The Big Bang Theory’s main characters are Sheldon Cooper, a theoretical physicist, and Leonard Hofstadter, an experimental physicist.

The first one, played by Jim Parsons, was a prodigy child who started college when he was 11 years old. He has a master degree, two Ph.Ds and an IQ of 187. He loves maintain a routine in his life, he doesn’t understand irony, sarcasm or humor and he shows a complete lack of humility. He also is uncapable to lie and keeps secrets. His logical vision of each circumstance forces him to do things with strictly scientifics results. Sheldon Cooper features’ are the focus of most of the serie’s episodes.

The second one, played by Johnny Galecki, has an IQ of 173 and he recieved his Ph.D when he was 24 years old. While Leonard is much more sociable than Sheldon, he never has been successful with women. He is in love with his neighbor, Penny, who eventually had a short love relationship with him.
Kaley Cuoco plays Penny, a beautiful blonde actress who hasn’t had success in spite of having a thousand of auditions. Meantime she works as a waitress at The Cheesecake Factory.

Friends group gets complete with Howard Wolowitz, an aerospace engineer and and Rajesh Koothrappali, a particle astrophysicist who can't talk to women.

The funniest thing about this serie is watch the intellect and lack of common sense of this four guys contrasted with Penny's social skills.

Dealing with stress at the university

The word stress has become one of the most popular of recent years. Many activities can cause us stress. For example, have you heard about stress at the work, or post vacation stress or even Christmas shopping stress? Apparently, stress level increases proportionally to the number of activities you have to do. In my case, I’m a university student so you can imagine what kind of stress I have.
Stress is an organism physiological reaction in which a lot of defense mechanisms act to face a situation perceived as a threat. It is a natural response but the most of the time we confuse it with a pathology because, in certain circumstances, it triggers serious health problems.
University is a very demanding place. I think you need to be committed with the courses if you want to pass them with good marks.
This semester has been exhausting. I have at least three evaluations a week, so I have to study every day. In addition, students who study health related-careers are very competitive therefore if you want to stand out from your classmates you have to make efforts and sacrifices.
At these days another thing is bothering me...I live far away from the university, so the distances drive me crazy. During the first semester it didn't matter. But now I can't take it anymore. It is awful. Especially the subway, with all the heat inside of it.
Well, I suppose you notice I'm quite stressed...but I have my own methods to feel better.
Spending time with the family because into the week there is no time enough to talk with them all I want. At least once a week I go out with friends. Sharing experiences about what happened to each one in the week is a great therapy to de-stress. I like to do exercise, so I try to do it as often as I can. I like many comedy series on Warner Channel so I watch them when I have free time.
These are some of the activities I do to avoid daily stress. But one of my favorites is sleep.

DISPELLING NEUROMYTHS: There is no time to lose as everything important about the brain is decided by the age of three

There are many information explaining that the child’s first years are crucial for his/her neurological development and that practically everything is decides at this age.
Some physiological phenomena that take place during brain development can, lead to beliefs that the critical learning stages occur between birth and age three.
Neurons are the basic component of information processing in the brain. Humans have 100 billions of them which are interconnected. Thus, information can circulate in several directions at the time. This process is known as synapses. Synapses allows skill development and learning capacity, if we consider that learning is a creation of a new synapses or the strengthening or weakening of existing synapses.
Compared to an adult, the number of synapses in newborns is low. However, when the baby is two months, the synaptic density of the brain increases exponentially and exceeds that of an adult, with a peak at ten months.
For a long time, science believed that the maximum number of neurons was fixed at birth and weren’t thought to regenerate and each individual would then lose neurons regularly. Now, is known that new neurons can appear at any point in a person’s life.
I think this neuromyth is pretty common. I’ve heard it a thousand of times. There are so many products to stimulate babies in this stage of their lives like music, food, even special training to develop their intelligence.
In relation with the use of these products, studies have been inconclusive. Although, is scientifically proven that the number of synapses in children under three years is higher than adults. But this discover doesn’t imply a relation about the density of neurons in early life stages and the ability to improve learning.

A healthy lifestyle. Is it possible? How?

What is a healthy lifestyle? A healthy lifestyle is when you have a good diet, do sports, don’t smoke, sleep 8 hour at least...
Do you think you have a healthy lifestyle? I think I don’t. In my personal experience, as a student, I sleep like 4 hours a day so I feel tired all time. I don’t smoke and I drink alcohol in especial occasions. I like do sports, in fact if I have free time after my classes and I don’t have to study for the next day I go to the gym. But it doesn’t happen to often. I consider I have a good diet. I really like fruits and vegetables and I eat them everyday. I am informed about how many calories I have to eat to keep a normal weight, considering my height and my body mass index. Therefore I have a balance diet which includes the proteins, carbohydrates and lipids that I need.
Like I said before, I enjoy do sports but I really don’t have much time. I have to say that is not just for all the subjects that I have and need to study. I think the real reason is I am a disorganized person. That is one of my biggest defects. During all my life I have been like that and it is hard to change it. But it is not impossible.
Of course having a healthy lifestyle is possible. In my case, I need to get adapted to all my daily activities and organized my time. For example, since like a month ago I have being avoiding the weekend study. That is too bad for me because I rest on weekends and enjoy them but my weeks are being very stressful and exhausting…I think that is my main problem. And the main consequence: I’m always tired.
So, I need to organize my time. In order to do this I need to make a big effort. Changing a habit is quite difficult. Just like if a smoker person wants to quit it. Thus, I will have more time to get distracted, go out and do more exercise.

My best childhood memory

When I think in my childhood a lot of good memories come up on my mind. A long time ago, I lived for three years in La Serena. I remember this stage as the best one of my childhood.
I'm an only child, so my two cousins were like my older brother and my younger sister. They went to visit me every summer I spent in that city. We used to go to the beach every time we could.
We never got bored because we always created new games to play. One time we put a tent in my backyard just to do something different at night.
We loved to ride a bike and go around the city, because is smaller and safer than Santiago.
In those years, during my days’ class I was a cheerleader. That was a nice experience. I really enjoyed representing my school. Each championship meant a big effort for all the girls in the team. We used to practice three times a week at the school' gym. Our trainer was the main creator of the choreographies. We also helped her with that. When she was young she was a cheerleader too, so she was very pleased to work with us.
As a team, we were very close and we always had fun. I met many different people from another schools and I made many friends. I still have contact with them.
I think I could never forget this stage of my childhood because I enjoyed it so much.
All the memories and lived experiences define what you are.