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.

Music

I remember that Nietzsche said something like "life without music is a life without sense" or that "life without music is an error". I really agree with those words, because for me music is one of the greatest things (and unbeliebe phenomenon) in the world and I also think that it's one of the things that distinguish human form other organisms. Of course there're other animals that use sounds to comunicate between them, but we (as human beings) interprete that fact as music. Only humans use sounds as an art and as a way or medium to create and comunicate their feelings, thoughts, etc. Although it's important to remember that music (and it's creation, performance, significance, and even its definition) vary according to culture and social context. Actually some kinds of music are for some people just noise and for others incredible music.
I heard music almost everyday, manly when I'm walking or travelling in the city. At those moments, i feel that music makes my travels shorter and funnier. I also heard music in other contexts, and always the power of music is evident. No matter what kind of music is, for me it always creates an atmosphere that could be good, bad, fun, etc. Because of that, I like almost every kind of music, because it depends of the context if I like a music or not. In may daily life I heard music such as metal, hip hop, jazz, classic, reggaeton, reggae, ethnic, rock, etc.

Transatiago

The Transatiago system started in 2007 and it was design to be one of the greatest projects of the "Concertacion's" governments. However, it didn't work well maybe because it was designed and implemented too fast because of political reasons.

Before the implementation of this public transport system i didn't travel too much by bus, because i lived near my school, so i don't think that i have a lot of "micro amarilla" culture. Anyway, if I compare the new and the older system, I see some positive things; the older system polluted more than the new one, and nowadays there aren't robberys against the drivers, because the new system doesnt use cash to pay. In other hand when Transantiago began, the people (me included) used to wait (and wasted) a lot of time a the bus stop, and the routes were terrible designed (I really think that the people that created the system have never been on a bus!!). I said that because the transantiago system eliminated some routes that used to have many buses because they go to popular places , and created new ones that went to no man's land.

In my opinion the main thing that should be change in the transatiago system is the time between buses of the same route. For example, sometimes the buses pass all together and the people have to wait (and waste!!!) a lot of time to take the next bus. So it's really necessary to have a "schedule" for the buses in each bus stop. Although, I'm a pessimist person and i don't believe that the things would be better, though it could.....maybe if we buy some japanese robots-bus drivers that are nice, quite, fast, etc ...haha i'm getting mad....

A COUNTRY I WOULD LIKE TO VISIT

I would like to visit many places in the world, however if I have to chose one I think I would like to visit Egypt. I would like to go there because this country has an amazing culture and history that begins nearly the 10th millennium BC. This long history is reflect on the millions of archaeological remains that are spread in the whole country. Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Today Egypt is one of the most populous countries in Africa and the Middle East, although the great majority of the population live near the Nile river (the truly heart of this nation), the only place where you can find agricultural land. About half of Egypt's residents live in urban areas, with most of them spread across the cities of Cairo and Alexandria

As I said, the Nile Valley was home of one of the oldest countries of the world. So Egypt is widely known and famous for its ancient civilization and some of the world's most famous monuments, including the Great Sphinx and the pyramids of Giza. Other famous places are the city of Luxor (that contains numerous ancient artifacts), the Valley of the Kings and the Karnak temple. Other things that are famous in this country are the wall paintings done in the service of the Pharaoçhs (for example Tutankhamen or Ramses II) and their monumental tombs. Egypt is widely regarded as an important nation of Northern Africa and the Middle East.

I would like to do many things in Egypt, but the principal one would be logically visiting all the museums that contain the ancient remains of this country. In the same way, I’d like to visit the great ancient architecture that was developed thousands of years in the past. I also would like to try the Egyptian food that has also a history that goes thousand of years back into the past. Some archaeological excavations have found that the workers that made the pyramid used to eat bread, beer and onions. Nowadays, Egyptian cuisine has as its mainly ingredients legumes and vegetables that came from the crops of the Nile valley (though the cities that are near the coast cook their dishes with fishes and sea food).

I would like to go to Egypt just to know more about the incredible culture and ancient remains that are there, and because I truly think that this country influenced in several ways the western culture. Although, if somebody invites me to work in Egypt in something related to physical Anthropology, it would be a dream became true.