ALAS, the Congress in Buenos Aires

Hello fellows, today I`m going to tell you about my last trip to Argentina. I attend (as most of my degree classmates) to a sociology congress in Buenos Aires. ALAS (Latin American Sociology Association) organized the congress. It took place in the UBA (Buenos Aires`s University), specifically in the Medicine, Deontology and Social Sciences, from August 31st to September 4th 2009.
The weather in Buenos Aires wasn`t the best. The day we arrived it was so hot you hardly can breath, and the next days were cold and rainy. Lots of places were flooded! That was one of bad points about the congress. The organization wasn`t good. Formal aspects were really a mess.
Anyway, the best conference I went to was “Women`s movement and the fight for legal abortion”. I liked it because -however you agree or not with the exponent’s opinion- you could learn a lot both historical and sociological aspects about the topic. The people who gave the conference (mostly women) were super prepared and where very clear, beside a critical opinion about our patriarchal society.
The highlights of the trip were not only the good conferences, but share a lot with my classmates for a few days. Because of I`m in my first University year I haven`t spent too much time whit my generation. Knowing them better was great!

Transantiago :/

Hello friends, today I´m going to talk about Transantiago. This system was applied during Michelle Bachelet´s government, but it was planned since Ricardo Lagos´s government. The idea was to change the old transport system, the one with the yellow buses, for a new and technological one.
The change was a little bit precipitated, so at first everything was disorganized and chaotic. People were angry because they couldn’t get to work or to school at time, mostly in the poorest areas. Nobody knew how the system worked, the buses routes or where the bus´s stop where. Transantiago has been a big alteration on Santiago´s citizen’s life. It functions with a couple of principal line buses and with little ones in every suburb, so it is difficult to remember all the routes.
Since it was applied some years ago, Transantiago has improved a lot, I haven´t had much problems these days, I only think it’s a little slow and “pick” hours are terrible, you hardly can breathe when you are inside a bus! Millions of dollars has been spent on making the service better, but always by private business who makes money with this kind of projects. Although Transantiago doesn´t function too bad, I think public transport should be financed by the State, as should be education and health. Good bye fellows, see you next time.

A country I would like to visit.

Hello again, today I´m going to talk about Greece, a country I would like to visit. Greece is a European country situated in the south of the Balcanes Peninsula. My interest on visit this country begun when I was just a little child. For my seventh birthday my father gave me a lot of books about Greek mythology. I learned who the Gods where, the classical myths and a little bit of Greece´s geography, but it has always been my dream to visit the country. Last year, I saw the classical film “Zorba, the Greek” and loved it, the music and landscape where incredible. Maybe I have a romantic idea of the Greek people and their country, I admire their culture a lot, and that’s why I would love to visit the Hellenic Republic. It´s possible that my dream never comes true, because the trip it´s too expensive and I don´t have any friends to visit there. Anyway, I would love to go there for a few months and travel around Greece, I even would enjoy studying there in order to learn the language and getting to know people and their way of living. Well, it´s lunch time so that’s all for today. Bye!

"Chewing Batteries" has begun!

Hi, I´m Carla. Today I´m in my english class, and I have to write in this blog about my self. I´m 18 years old. I´m writting with Domingo because he doesn´t have a computer for him self. But lets talk about me. I was born in San Rafael, Argentina. I live in in Santiago, Chile with my brother and my mother since 2002. I love to read, watch movies, listen to music, hang out with my friends, ride bikes and roller skating.
This year I started University to get a Sociology degree. I´ve learned a lot of new things and had a lot of fun. University is like a new world for me, with new people, new books, proyects, challenges, etc.
My subjects during the first term of 2009, were Sociology, Anthropology, Psicology, Contemporary world´s history and Methodology. Beside my regular classes I took a circus class. It was so fun, I learned to do pirouettes and also learned some tips to be a clown.
This year I moved, now I live in Ñuñoa, like twenty blocks away from the University building. Now I can get to my Faculty by bike!

Well, I have introduced my self so it´s time to go. Bye bye, see you soon!