Films n' Cinema

I love films and movies, and for me they're one of the greatest inventions ever. I've seen many movies throughout my whole life, so for me it's difficult to even imagine my life without films. I also like going to the cinema but this term I haven't gone for a while, because my university duties. In other hand, this term I can't rent DVDs because, the store that use to provide the movie rent service, went bankrupt. So, this semester has been very "poor" about movies and films, because I haven't seen many new films. I don't have a favourite movie, because there are too many films that I like, no matter the genre. Although one of my favourites ones, is "Barry Lindon". It's a period film by Stanley Kubrick loosely based on the novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon. It recounts the exploits of unscrupulous 18th century Irish adventurer Barry Lyndon, particularly his rise and fall in English society. Another film that I like is "Snatch". It's is a crime film by British writer and director Guy Ritchie. The film is characterized by an assortment of colourful characters, including Mickey O'Neil (Brad Pitt), Russian-Uzbek ex-KGB agent Boris 'the Blade' Yurinov (or Boris the Bullet-Dodger) (Rade Šerbedžija), professional thief-gambling addict Frankie "Four-Fingers" (Benicio del Toro) and bounty hunter Bullet-Tooth Tony (Vinnie Jones). This film is very hard to explain, but in short it's about a bunch of different people who are trying to obtain a diamond which is worth a whole lot of money.

The same situation that I explain before about choosing favorites movies, happened to me when I have to chose a director. There're too many good directors, but I have to admitted that I like a lot Kubrick's works. I like the obsessive and perfectionist nature of his films, that I think reflected his personality. I also like the visual style of his films and specially the meticulous attention to details. Kubrick was an American director, writer, producer, and photographer that made around just 13 movies, but in my opinion the most of them are masterpieces (he won several Oscars and prizes for his films).

Finally, I can say that movies are a fundamental part of my life and of our time. Many of significant moments of our lives are related to films, scenes, soundtracks, etc. so since Lumiere's brothers first films, we're united forever with the "big screen".

Mammoth remains from the Russian permafrost offer up rich bounty

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/11/mammoth-find-herders-climate-change


15 years ago, a reindeer herder called Vasily Ivanovich who lived in Russia's remote Yamal peninsula (a wide and wild place in the frozen tundra of north-west Siberia), found a mammoth tusk. After that great discovering, several other mammoth remains have been found in that area, becoming that isolated place in a special area for scientists interested in the evolution and extintion of the woolly mammoths. In May 2007 another reindeer herder found the corpse of a perfectly preserved female baby woolly mammoth (which he named Lyuba,to honor his wife).

Today the mistery of the disappearance of mammoths 9700 years ago is still unsolved. The only thing that is clear, is that they dissapeared at the end of the last Ice Age. Some experts pointed the climatic change as the guilty of the mammoth extinction, although others added to that explanation the "human factor" -: "Two reasons. First a changing environment. Second humans." answered Romanenko ( mammoth specialist and senior scientist from the geography department of Moscow State University)when he was asked about the reason that caused the mammoths death.

Sadly, nowadays the lasts remains of the mammoths (and the answers that they carried about their own mysterious extinction) are in dangerous. The mammoths aren't jsut interesting scientific issues, they're also a big business; every year teams of professional collectors (or fosil's thieves) scour the tundra by boat and/or helicopter, looking for mammoths remains to sell. Because of that and climatic change, a lot of remains of this incredible creatures have been lost forever.

I think that's important to protect those remains because they're a way to get insight about the misteries of the last Ice Age. Studing mammoths you could answer a lot of traditional questions about the paleoclimate, the evolution of mammoths (and their phylogenetic relationships), their ecological relationship with humans, etc. Maybe in the closest future with the DNA technologie, we might clone a mammoth (because we're already able to do it), helping us to understand the past of this animal, and also an important part about our natural history.

Sports

I love sports! and there're several sports that I like. Maybe it's because I've practiced and watched sports my whole life. The first sport I did (when I was around 5 years), was swimming. I swam for many years, but when I moved to my nowadays house I leave it. Then I started with Karate and I practiced it for around 6 years, but when I entered in the university, my academic duties force me to leave it. For one year I didn't do any sport at all (just some football matches the weekends), so I gain weight. At that time I felt heavy, slow, lazy, etc. so I decided to start doing sports again. I did some weight lifting at university gym, but I thought that it was boring. After that I began runnig and I truly love it (Actually it's the sport that I'm doing at the present time, although I have a Knee injury right now). In other hand, I'm a fan of a lot of sports either such as football, rugby, basquetball, etc. I also liked the car racing because when I was a child I watched the races with my dad every sunday (mostly the F1, but also NASCAR, Rally, etc.)
I consider myself a mix between a fitness freak and sports fan. I say this because when I could I practice sports (specially on holydays), but I also love to watch football or other ballsports on the TV. I prefer to practice single sports because you don't depend on anybody else than yourself, though I prefer to watch group sports (I don't know why).
I admire many athletes from diferent disciplines such as Ramon Dekkers on Muay Thai, Manny Pacquiao on Box, Steven Gerrard, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Fernando Torres and Alexis Sanchez on Football, Emanuel Ginobili on basquetball, etc. The list could continue for many pages but one the athletes that I admire the most in the last time is Usain Bolt, who's the fastest man on earth ever!. For many people fight sports should be banned, but for me they're great and an incredible exposition of bravery, mental power and hability.
I can't imagine my life without sports, because for me sports are very important: they're funny, they keep you healthy and they're an esential part of my life.

Santiago

I was born in Stgo and I lived here the most of my life. Although that doesn't mean that I know Stgo very well; actually I think that I just now a little bit of it. Maybe one of the reasons because I don't know too many places in Stgo is because I lived the most of my life in Colina, a little town in the north of Stgo. In this sense, I've never felt as truly "santiaguino", and actually I often use the expression -: "Im going to Stgo", when I want to say that I will go to the city. Nevertheless I don't feel as "peasant" either , because I know stgo better that the persons that come from other regions. So I think I have some kind of an identity issue with this.
However , if your're a tourist or foreigner I think that there're several places to visit and many things to do in Stgo. For example you should visit or do a tour starting in the San Francisco Church (built in the 16th century), one of the oldest architectonic buildings of the city. Afterwards, you could visit the Government Palace ( "La Moneda") and the museums that belong to it. Then a tourist should visit the the "Plaza de Armas" and some national monuments and atractions such as the Cathedral, the city Hall of Santiago and the the Central Post Office. Near those places you could try some chilean typical street foods such as “completos”, “motes con huesillo”, “sopaipillas”, etc. The trip could continue towards Santa Lucia Hill (the exactly place where Pedro de Valdivia founded the city), a small hill in the center of the city that is famous for its architecture and views. If you prefer the museums I recommend without any doubt the "museo chileno de arte precolombino", where you'll find an amazing institution created in order to conserve, study and diffuse the artistic legacy of the pre-columbian people of all America. Finally, I'm sure that the long walk will give to everybody a huge appetite and the best places to eat excellent chilean dishes are in the "Mercado Central". In other hand, If you end the walk thirsty you should try "La Piojera" and their traditionals drinks as the "Terremoto", "chicha", "pipeño", etc.