Learning English in our times

 Hi!

Well, this was my second time taking an English course. The first English course I took was in pandemia and at the beginning, I felt a bit afraid cause  I didn't know how it was going out and overall,  for the complications that online classes. But it went all right, so this time I was less worried about it. And I have learned a lot, especially because   I have remembered much of the knowledge forgotten about pronunciation. For me know when I can use some words it's a dilemma. But listening to the classes and writing the blog has helped me apply what we were learning, use and know other words.

The most difficult to me is speaking in English, and it's kind of funny cause I can understand most of the words but I don't feel comfortable when I speak them.  So all that I can do is practice more until the day that doesn't be so embarrassing. Once I get used to it, I hope to manage it better and add more vocabulary. For this, I usually search the lyrics of songs that I like in English and try to translate them by myself, so I can remember more easily their meaning and how to write them in the future.

Outside of English classes, I don’t use it, not as much as I would like. In fact, writing blogs was like my biggest opportunity to apply what I was learning or already knew and helps me to strengthen it. Although sometimes I try to watch movies with the language and subtitles in English to see how much I can understand, and also watch youtube videos help a lot too. Or listening to music in English without looking at the lyrics and recognizing some words and what is the meaning in general. 

Thanks for reading!

Changes to my study programme

Hi!

I began to study  Film and television career in 2019, in that year the study program was mainly focused on teaching us the basics, such as handling equipment of camera and sound. And also a bit of aspect of cinematographic language and how to use this to our advantage in the creation of the stories we wanted to tell.

And yet during the only year that I had face-to-face classes,  a recurring problem that I had was the lack of actors to make our short films, we had to look for people who wanted to participate in our work and they didn't necessarily have to be actors, but I feel that can limit you a bit artistically, even when sometimes it depends on what you want to express. Also with the little time we had between each turn-in assignment, I suppose it would have been much more effective for us that the Arts department was near the ICEI facilities and thus be able to carry out short films with acting students. 

On the other hand, since the quarantine began and the classes have been online, at first most of our practical subjects had to be adapted to a new more theoretical modality. And in this way the academic load began to feel quite heavy and difficult, also because I realized that some subjects required reading a different text every week, watching movies, watching asynchronous classes. In the end it was almost impossible for me to organize my times but I think this year has been a little easier in that regard. 

Thanks for reading :)

Time travel to the future

Hi!

Since I was little, travel in time has been fascinating to me. Even now, I usually found myself watching movies, documentaries and reading books about it.

 Recently I have been reading The Doomsday book about a young historian of the University of Oxford living in the year 2054 who travels to England from 1320, a few years before the Black Death killed most of the population in Europe. It's interesting because to travel at a specific time, especially in the past, they have to learn many things like; customs, dress, social norms, language, and way of speaking. In another way would generate a temporary paradox.

But Traveling in the future should be something surprising, independent of whether what you find is good or not, or apocalyptic even. It's just as imaginable what you can find or maybe not. If I travel in time to the future, I would go 1000 or maybe 2000 years to find a society so different from the one we know, much better, I hope.  

I would like travel to a time when we have contacted extraterrestrial civilizations, perhaps in which journeys between planets are as recurrent, as journeys between places in the world. I would like to see that, it would be crazy. And if there’s nothing apocalyptic going on, I’m definitely staying to live.

Thanks for reading :)

Arrival (2016)

My future job

Hi!

I usually avoid think about what I would work after finishing my film and TV career, it gives me a little nervousness choose just one thing I’ll be doing for a long time. It’s a little scary because I’d like to do a lot of things. 

I think my dream job would be to be able to work as freelance illustrator, specifically a horror novel. It would be a big challenge be able to do it. 

    Loré Pemberton.

What I love the most about illustrating is that allow me to work with the words and transform it into an image with infinite possibilities of using color, shapes, style of drawing, all based on the message of a story. Although I still have a lot to learn about, it's something that I would enjoy doing at some point of my life.

As it’s a work that can be done digitally and analogously implies on the one hand greater ease, as it can be done both indoors and outdoors. Although draw in digital is more flexible in that sense wich is good, cause stay at home sometimes is really relaxing and pacific to me, but after a time is a bit suffocating.

I don’t know how much an illustrator will earn, Maybe i wouldn't matter if it was little, as long as it was enough to pay the bills I guess. Anyway, it's difficult to devote full time to something artistic in Chile and well, it is a privilege to work in something we like  but it would be nice to try.

Thanks for reading :)

Baba Yaga

 

Hi!

The slavic folklore has an extensive mitology full of magical creatures and mysterious forces which ruled the societies prechristian. Within their tales we found a witch called Baba Yaga, althought her name can refer to one of three witches. She looks like an old women with a big nose that use to smell her victims. Also can change the way she looks to trick them and devour them more easily. Lives in the depths of the forest in a hut supported by one or more chicken legs, and  flies in a mortar holding a broom.

The origins of Baba Yaga or a faithful transcription of the myth, as well as the rest of folk tales, is difficult to establish because were stories  transmitted orally. So the nature of this witch is ambiguous in her representations, mainly because of her duality between the threat of destruction as a form of release of the victim. One of her most famous appearence in literature, is from a tale compiled around 1800 by Aleksandr Nikolayevich, a Russian folklorist who collected the story of Baba Yaga together with other Slavic stories.

In the tale of Vasilia the beautiful, her father married again with the sister of Baba Yaga. One day the stepmother, conspiring to kill her, send Vasilia to the Baba Yaga's hut for one of her shining skulls. When she comes there Baba Yaga give to her multiple seemingly impossible tasks, if she makes it will get the skull in otherwise will be eaten. To Baba Yaga's surprise Vasilia makes all the tasks. Back to home, her stepmother’s plan to kill her is discovered by her father. However there are different versions of how it ends, in one the skull ends up incinerating the whole family of Vasilia, in other she becomes a seamstress and reunites with her father.

Thanks for reading!

Wong Kar-wai

Hi!
One of my favorite filmmaker is Wong Kar Wai. He is a Chinese film director, born in Shanghai in 1958. He never studied cinema, so all that he knows about how to make films is for the influence of his mother, which loved the seventh art and took him to watch a lot of movies. He is mostly recognized for his films; Chungking Express (1994), Happy Together (1997), In the Mood for Love (2000) and 2046 (2004).  

In his films, he use the time as narrative element, either with slow motion and jump cuts. Frames with saturated colors and elements. I admire his capacity to tell this wonderful stories, trought this exploration of the cinema resources.  Sometimes it seems that is confuse to understand, cause the way he structure the story it is. For me this is great to involve the viewer making pay attention to the details and in the absence of dialogue, understand what the images express. And one last thing about the dialogue, is that he use it just when it's necessary  to establish closeness between characters. 

  I think his filmography is like a portrait of human in modernity, the loneliness surround. Every time that I watch some of his movies, the pictures stay fixed in my memorie, the warm colours, the music and the melancholy characters.

Thanks for reading! 

My best holidays ever

Hi!

My best holidays were actually my best little holidays. I can't remember exactly when it was, maybe beteween 2017 or 2018 in august. I'm really bad for remember dates so it's probably that it wasn't in that time. But well, with my family went to San Sebastian ubicated in the region of Valparaíso just for the weekend. It was a whirlwind trip because a work colleague of my mom told her she had a house that she rented in summer vacations and how that weekend my mom had saturday and sunday free, she decided we should go.

I went with my mom, her boyfriend, my grandma, my sister and my pet Millie Lu. I don't remember if we arrived on Friday or Saturday but I remember the first day we cleaned the house, they made homemade bread and at night we went for a walk. The house was on a kind of hill so to go down was very simple but not so much to climb. Anyway, it was very nice to tour the place at night, almost all the food stores were open and there were many people walking along the beach, walking with their pets or alone.

Unfortunately, all the photos and videos I took were lost on my old phone. Anyway, I think it was my best holidays because i had the opportunity to go with my pet and I spent a good time running with her on the beach.

Thanks for reading :)