2014

The past year has been an excellent one. One of the best things that have happened in my life is my admission in university. Despite all the bad moments when I couldn´t study in time for a test, I have had a good time in the college.

In the past year I have learnt hot to concentrate longer, how to improve my management of time, and have adapted to the university´s lifestyle. Also, I have gotten very good marks. And maybe the most important thing among all: I have learnt a lot of information to support my ideological point of view.

I haven´t begun drawing yet, but I hope to do so in the holidays. Also, I would like to continue writing my book.

I have been helping Boris Santander (my former archaeology teacher) to classify and to enamel bones. All that work is for his thesis. I have to admit that the tasks that I have to do are much less slightly than I though. I was expecting a micro-precision process, but instead, I have to manipulate the pieces with my bare hands, with no mask or mandil, and discerning quickly and with no special observation what piece is not-burned, burned, charred or incinerated. What is more, the "glaze" we use to enamel the pieces is in fact varnish. It is awesome! Maybe is for this reason that the anthropologists are sometimes called "the hippies of the science". I really like this flexibility, because I really hate to use a suit and to follow too many rules.

Painting

Painting is an important part of the human culture. Every society has a sort of painting activity, and even more than just one style in the cases of the larger human groups. This form of art helps you to communicate feelings and opinions to other people, and sometimes it can even be a great way to interact with yourself.

However, despite all what I have just said, I never have had any kind of passion for it. I didn´t like to draw or paint when I was a kid. Now of course that I would like to draw somethings, but I have no experience, and just hope to learn to draw in the future. I don´t want to paint things like modern art or classic art, because I don´t share the feelings of those arts. I just want to find something to feel comfortable with. Speaking about sharing points of views, I consider that the graffiti is both an art and an act of vandalism. For me is like vandal art.

I don`t like visiting art museums, not because I think that the artist are crazy, but because I don`t like that form of expressing ideas. For my pleasure, I prefer to read parodies and comedies about ideological issues.

I am not even very interested in the Soviet Union´s art.

The futurism is maybe the only art that have ever interested me. It was revolutionary with its idea of adding movement to the pictures. However, that was a fascist art, and promoted the use of the violence over speaking as a way to solve problems.

Still, I have no favourite artist, because I don`t like any kind of painting in particular.

Being a Green One

People can learn about environmentalist issues in the Green Peace web page. I do not check it very often, because I am too busy. Also, in my house we don´t make as many things as we would like to do (like participate in eco-friendly activities) because we are not very tidy, but at least we put the plastics in one bag and organic food in another in order to recycling it. If I had more time, maybe I would join an eco-organisation, but I can´t right now. So I think I am a Green-in-Between.

Since I enter university I don´t use cars or public transport very often. I live near the college, so I can just go walking. I used to ride my bike to reach the university, but it was very annoying to have to carry the chain, the helmet, the gloves and to have to worry about thieves. At the end, I wasn´t saving much time going by bicycle. With this I am saving a lot of gas (and preventing a lot of pollution).

When I was in school there were a recycling project in progress, so we had different garbage cans for different things. At the beginning, everybody was cooperating with the initiative. However, because the municipality didn´t have the infrastructure to recycling, when the garbage truck arrived, the stuff just dump the cans in the same container. Soon, everybody got frustrated and the project failed.

We also had a container deploy taps for further recycling in order to help kids with cancer. However, in a school´s event, the parents used that container as a normal garbage can, despite the pictures explaining it´s real purpose. I was very upset. In this society the enviromental culture is missing.

Friends...

Ah! Friends! Those guys who are always ready to make you have a good time. At least this is my basic perception of what a friend should be. Yeah, for most people friends means someone that will help you in any problem, but because me and my friends don´t get together very often in many cases we can´t help each other as we would like.

Maybe I am not a very good friend because I don´t talk to my mates very often, but if they ask me to help them I will do so.

I don´t trust frienships made in the internet, and that is one reason why I don´t make new friend very often. However, I am sure to keep the frienships that I already have, to the point that I "frienzoned" a girl once. Despite this, I have not maintained all my childhood friendships.

My best friend´s name is Lucas Nieto. Before we entered the University we used to get together to play videogames and to see movies. We also liked to comment "curious fact" about society, videogames and films. However, he is studying very hard in his medicine career, and I also have a lot of work in the mine. But it doesn´t matter, because when holidays season arrives we will regain our lives and get together again.

My Future Job

In the future I would like to be an archaeologist. I think I will be travelling a lot and make some bureaucracy with bones. That job will be in both indoors and outdoors because the laboratory (boring!) part and the field work (exciting sometimes, frustrating the most of the time!).

I would like to travel sometimes, but not too often. Everything will be fine for me if I can stay in the same place for three or four semesters. I just don´t want to install all my stuff in my room time and time again. I am a bit lazy.

I rather prefer to work for the University than for the government or a company because I think in the former you will work to discover more, instead of trying to had the results that the politician or the boss wants to have. Both want the archaeologist to say that there is no evidence of past human occupation to prevent a business project to take place, If I am sincere they will probably not want to hire me again.

I don´t know what majors are available for my career, but I want to choose one related to animals, because they are a key part of the men´s environment. I am particularly interested in the llama, because it´s important role in the Andes´s natives.

Videogames

I use to play most of my videogames in the computer. I played my first videogame when I was like 7 years old. 

Since then I have played a lot of videogames, but most of them where from Cartoon´s  Network site.

It is hard to say which is my favourite game. Maybe Skyrim if you talk about first/second person games. Or maybe Civilization 5 if you talk about strategy games.

Anyway, I didn´t use to play with anybody. Just a couple years ago I began my first onlyne games.

I ignore how much time I spent on games. Maybe 6 hours a week now. In the summer... we... I just get really insane.

Because my games takes so long to end, I don´t use to skip sleep. I just delay it a bit.

Normally, i prefer to spend time with other humans beings, but if I have had an awful day I just want to sit down and play for a while. To play videogames is an exellent option if you need to be alone and want to forget your problems for some time. Of course, it will not help you to relax and fell better, like sports do, but it is a quick way to have fun if you have no much time.

My best holidays

In 2012 I went to Brazil in a study trip with all of my classmates (well, in fact with most of them). We spent 10 days in an hotel.

Here we visited the Beto Carrero World, a Fun Fair where I played all the big games. It was unforgettable, mainly because I am a single child and in vacations I always have to play alone in the Fun Fair. But there I had all my classmates. It is much funnier with more people. The same happened when we went to the beach.

We had most of our meals in the hotel, and in every single meal there were potato chips! The problem was that we were very thirsty all of the time to be able to eat much of this.

The only problem was that we had a hour for every thing, so it was not so relaxing. Also we done a lot of things in the day, reaching the bed very tired, so wake up in time was hard and very annoying.

It was also the first time I shared room with someone else, but it didn´t become a problem.

In the beach a man was doing temporal tattoos, and my classmates payed him to have some, so I make the same. Unfortunately, in my case it didn´t go away, and I still have, while my friends don´t even remeber how their tattoos looked like. Still, I do not regret my visit to Brazil.

Movies

The first movie that I really enjoyed as a child was "Looney Tunes back in action!". In that movie the cartoons were living with real people and had to prevent the ACME corporation for getting the "Blue Ape", a small statue with the power to turn humans in apes and viceversa.

I haven´t seen any movie recently, because of the homework, but I certainly prefer to saw movies in the cinema. In my house I do not have good pop corn (for some reason, the home-made pop corn is never as good as the cinema´s pop corn) or a giant screen. I think that this two things are enought to worth the lack of the ability of pause the movie.

I think the last film that I saw was "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug". The main actor was Ian Holm, who played as Bilbo Baggins. The movie was about the adventures of Bilbo and 13 dwarves, who seek to reconquer the Solitary Mountain and kill Smaug, the dragon who attacked it a lot of years before and stole all its treasure. Bilbo has to obtain a jewel from the dragon´s lair and to bring it back to Thorin the dwarf. Once with this precious ítem in his power, Thorin will have the authority to call a hugue army of dwarves to face Smaug. I would definitely recomend this movie beacuse all its amazing action and stuff. But in orden to enjoy it more, PLEASE READ THE BOOK BEFORE SEEING THE MOVIE!

Eager to visit the homeland of imperialistic states

Despite my hate against everything related to autocracy, i can not help having a lot of interest in the possibility of visiting Peru. The Huari and the Inca empires had their capitals there, and interacted with a lot of people (thought by annexing territories and murdering people).

I know a lot of things about Peru. I have studied its wars, its political conflicts, etc... However i am much more interested in the native cultures that lived (and still living) there.

If i visit Peru i would like to stay for a year or two if possible. I should not have many monetary problems if i save enough cash, and the money exchange favours me! I would visit as many museums and ancient places as i could. I would specially travel by the roads of the Inca, imaging of should be the life as a citizen of the empire. The different peoples not only had to deal with the incas, but also with other people as well. I think being conquered by the Inca empire should have let the previous conflict in Status Quo. I wonder if the incas know that they used to be under Huari empire´s rule!

I would like to study there, and if i can, i also would like to work for a museum as an archaeologist. There a lots of thing that i want to learn here. However, i am not thinking in to live more time there. Maybe i could change my opinion, but for know i do not want to live too much time in a country with such levels of violence, insecurity, and with a lot of dangeours bugs. I am not used to live in that conditions.

My blogging experience 

Until this year I had just posted one blog in my whole life! It is interesting to write your opinion without fell that you are in a test. This activity  has helped me to practise and improve my writing abilities. I still have to practise more, but this activities are a good help. However, I feel satisfied with my progress.

If I could suggest something it would be to read articles of other people and then to write a post about my personal opinion about them. Also, I would suggest to be able to use some words that are part of the daily life of most common English-speaker adult. Sometimes the "bad words" help to express better your truly feelings.

I would love to write more about fictional creatures (vampires, werewolfs, goblins, orcs, etc), alternative time lines (what could have happened if...?), native cultures (this is why my blog is called like that), empires (how they rise, decay and fall), wars (causes, stages and consequences of the war), economy (theories and the real effect of it´s application), conflicts (for example inter-cultural conflicts), etc.


Well, as a conclusion I have to say that to blogging is a comfortable activity, because I do not feel pressed and help me feel that I am doing something worthy, instead of just to put in the right place some words in an activity.

Zombies: the most wanted apocalypse of all!

Zombies (also named zed, ziips, undead, walkers and infected) are living corpses that have been reanimated because of magic, a virus or a radioactive exposure. The commonly wander trough the world, trying to consume living humans (for some unknown reason they never attack other zombies) using their number advantage to corner they enemies. The first time I hear about zombies was when I was seven. It is difficult to say what is better and worst about zombies. If you are eager to test they hunting abilities the better thing about them is that they never give up. They never get tired. The worst about them is they lack of intelligence and the fact that they are so slow that even walking fast is enough to evade them. However, if you are a human pursued by zombies then the "better" and "worst" facts about them are the opposite.

I don´t think that zombies exist yet. Maybe more that a company would be eager to develop a virus that attack your brain, so they can sell it as a biological weapon. I neither think that someone believe in zombies, but i know that some people want zombies to exist because they want to smash, burn, shoot and cut some zombies for fun. However, I have never heard about a zombie cult.

When I was a child I was afraid of zombies, but now I will like to survive a zombie apocalypse just for the adventure. Each time I ask people if they are afraid of zombies either they say that they do not believe in zombies or they do but they are not afraid of them.

Michael Jackson reminds me of a zombies in some of his videos, like The Thriller.

An expert I admire

Well, I would like to mention Lévi-Strauss. He was a French anthropologist who was born on 1908 and was deceased in 2009 (he lived more than a century!). He has made lots of essays about native americans and made a lots of theories that improved the anthropology. The main reason I "admire him" (I don't really believe that there is a reason why a human being should "admire" another human being, because we are all equal) is because reading what he has write I was able to solve the paradox between "be relativistic and because of that do not judge anything, neither in my society nor in another" and "be ethnocentric and be able to ask for changes in your own society". The answer is "to moderate the opinion". This solution is crucial if you ant to be a good anthropologist, because it let you to speak, think and theorise without fall in a contradiction. Also, Lévi-Strauss make me regain the good path to be a good professional, because i was becoming a bit altercentrist, and he explained in one text how to be neutral again.

Books... Just books...

My relationship with books is not very active lately. When i was a child i use to read a lot, but since i started the University i just read some chapters of different books (however, these "short" lectures appears to be a kind of "swarm" specifically designed to overwhelm me and my classmates; and that swarm is becoming a complete success).

I like fictional books of almost any kind. Since adventure books like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, to books of social criticism like "Cien Años de Soledad", satirist novels like "Rebelión en la Granja", distopian futures like "Un Mundo Feliz" or apocalyptic stories like World War Z.

I am reading World War Z. It is difficult to read daily because all the papers and articles that we have to read to the University, but i started it a month ago, and i think it will take another to finish it. It is about a zombie apocalypse which started in China and spread almost all over the world. The book tells in interviews the story of the infection, since the first cases, trough the Great Panic (when people realised the true nature of the "African rabies" and that the supposed cure was in fact useless) and the human counter attack. I enjoyed how all was so consistent, although i could detect some nationalism (the author is from USA), because in the book the Zionist were the "good guys" who were trying to protect Palestine from the infection, the USA´s soldiers were in other countries "fighting the drug trafficking" instead of occupying the country for USA´s interests, the infection begin in an enemy of USA and the refugees were praying to be able to enter Europe or USA to be safe, the interviewed people often says how USA is more democratic than his own country and how the CIA were trying to protect the people and democracy (that was very disgusting for me, knowing how the CIA help to replace Latin american democracies with dictatorships). I would recommend this book to any person who likes books about apocalypse (my friends like video games about zombies, but they are too lazy to read this book).

One of my most special photos

In this photo i am with some of my ex classmates and with my main teacher. It was taken by one of my ex classmate's mom, in the Saint Mary Joseph School in March 2014. That was the first class day of the year and we were visiting our ex school for the first time since we graduated. This photo is important to me because every year y saw how every generation came back to greet the new students and i never tough that one day i was going to be the one who greets.

I remember how jeaolus i was every time that the ex students came in the first day. I wanted to have already finished the secondary school. Now that i did it i miss the people of my ex school. Well, maybe not everybody, but most of them.

That photo shows one of the key moments of my life, and i will never forget that special experience.

Animals and pets

Have you ever feel the happiness of receiving a dog for your birthday or for Chrismasts, after been a long time asking for it? Do you remember the first time you went for a walk with your new dog? Have you lived the experience of feeding your own dog? All of these are unforgettable moments on the life of many persons. Sadly, i never could have any of these cute life episodes.

All my life i have wish to have a dog. The reason because my wish has never been accomplished is the fact that i have lived in flats all of my life.

It is said that dogs are the man´s best friend, and the better pet. I really agree with that. They are always eager to play. They also know when you are sad, and they can comfort you.

Yes, i know that other animals sometimes want to play too, but the dog is the only one that will not exclude you. For example, hamsters, rabbits and cats only see you as their food source, but not as a friend who they can play with. The would be more interested into exploring the area, and will no pay attention to you.

Also, dogs have the advantage of been large enough to play safety sports games. They are not as fragile as other animals. One day i played with a friend´s dog and it bitted me playing, but i didn´t get hurt.

I have only owned hamsters. They are best option for someone who lives in a flat. They were funny and active at the beginning, but soon they turned into slow and sleepy creatures. Almost all of them died tragically:

-Two died because diarrhoea.

-One accidentally treading by my mom.

-One poisoned by the water of Antofagasta.

-One died for unknown reasons. We found it dead when we come back to house.

-One died because its age.

The most tragicomic thing is that when i told people about my hamster´s deaths some of them just laugh.

Well, at my infancy i tough that go the circus could be a funny experience. However, now i have changed my point of view, after i read an article about the how cruel is the life of the animals in circus.

I am not against the zoos, but i think that some animals need to have a bigger space. Also, i believe that security should be increased, because some visitors often annoy the animals with impunity.

The only think that i hate more than animals in circus, is people who likes to use fur coats. How they are so unconscious? We have the damn technology to make synthetic clothes. There is no reason to kill animals with this purpose anymore. Are not enough all the animals that die every year to feed us? And some people want to have  that luxury, when millions of humans are dying because the lack of resources and a lot of species are in danger of extinction!

Well, i if i could choose to be an animal i would like to be a dog, because all the fun that you can have with so many energy.

My favourite Piece of technology

Well, i think that the piece of technology that i like the most is my computer. However, i must say that in a few years the new winner will be a tablet. I already have a tablet, and it has several advantages over my computer (is more portable, has no virus and has a more dynamic picture view), but by the other hand, it needs to be connected to wi-fi to have operative important widgets (You-Tube, Facebook, Wikipedia) and is not designed to play a lots of games. But maybe, in a short time, new tablets with more advanced software will be researched and will make computers useless in comparison. But let's back to the computer issue.

I used to see a lot of TV when i was child, but that changed when my father show me some computer games like eleven years ago. Gradually, i begin to play more computer and less TV, until the computer replaced the TV in my life. Even the Playstation 2 couldn't undone the fact that the computer had become my favourite piece of technology.

Two or three years ago, my father bought a new computer, and at first, i though that it was a waste of money, because the old one still operative, but later i realised how faster the new design was.

I like my computer by all the things that it can do. Yes, it is annoying to wait every morning to it turns on, but the programs are more dynamic than in the tablet and the cellphone.

Well, i use my computer to write do my homework, to write my book, to play games, to watch videos and for sending e-mails.
I use it at least four times every week. Without it my life would be at least three times harder, because not having a computer now brought you so many problems like be an illiterate person three decades ago.

Expectations for a new semester

Well, this is my first year of university and a got a lot of subjects. By the way i am studying anthropology, and i want to graduate as an archaeologist. The first subject that i had the first day was Philosophy. In that class my teacher is Alberto Mayol, a sociologist and a politic annalist. He is relatively famous, but even that is enough to have a wikipedia article and a fan between my classmates. Every class we study a philosopher who invalidates the arguments of the philosopher of the last time, so i don´t know what to think, because everything that i learn last class seems to have nonsense. Another subject if Latinoamerican History. In that one is important to be one of the first persons to reach the classroom, because the teacher is kinda deaf (what makes him speak quietly), and if you don´t get the first seats then then you don't learn anything. It is a Darwinian race for academic survival. At Anthrophology we have a teacher who likes to speak loudly at any time and with no warning. So it is a little bit stressing. In that class we study the difference of the points of view about anthropology. At Archaeology we have another Darwinian race, but this time is for to take notes of what is in the power point, because the teacher doesn´t upload any ppt, arguing that if he does so, nobody would assist to classes. I learnt that the archaeology is one of the few sciences which destroys what it studies.

Antother subject is English. In that class the teacher makes us to speaks to each other in English and after a break, he makes us to write this blog. I am surprised by the fact that my blog has been seen by someone in Germany and for another person in Unites States.

Also there is a subject called Biology. We are studying some aspect of the cells and the virus. That is one of the subject that i understand more. It will be sad the next term, because Statistics will replace that subject, and i hate maths, but really!

The last subject is Methodology, a class where i learnt that the deathly potential of a non pasteurised cheese is determined by what every person thinks... What kind of things have i been learning?

Well, all that subjects take me too time to be able to take and extra class. And, by the lack of time, i am not able to take part of an extra activity of the university.

Well, i expect to approve this year, and the next one i will be more participative.

My autobiography

Hi, my name is Gabriel Alberto Montenegro Castillo. I was born on July 1, 1995 in San Fernando, a city in the south of Chile. I am an only child, and for some time, I really wanted to have one little brother. However, this wish disappeared over the years. I realised how much I like my privacy, and having a younger brother could have felt like having an intruder. Please, do not thing that I do not like people, but when I close the door of my room I like to be sure than nobody is going to open it suddenly, breaking my privacy. When I was four, I travelled to Spain with my parents. In that country I learnt to speak the language of Valency (although I have already forgotten it). Here I started the kinder garden (I went to one called “Los Ángeles”) and when I was six I came back to Chile. When I was seven I started primary school at  Florence Nightingale. I kept going to this school until 2008, when I went to Colegio el Encuentro. That was a very disgusting experience, because there was no control over the students. My classmates used to break the walls using the tables and then take the pieces of the wall to throw them to the other students. All this in the middle of the class! The teachers simply did not care. When I left that school I started secondary school at Saint Mary Joseph School. There, I had the better years of my educational life. My classmates were empathic and friendly. And in 2014, I started university at Universidad de Chile, after all the work for the damn and classist PSU. That is all about my education.

With regard to my family, I have my two parents and two grandmothers alive and just one of my grandfathers is in this world now. I have four uncles, an aunt and like five cousins (my parents and I have don’t see some members of the family very often because of the distance).

As to my hobbies, I like to play video games, like Starcraft and Skyrim. I also like to go for a ride on my bicycle and to go to the cinema from time to time.