Chile's bicentennial year

The 18th, September of this year, 2010, was birthday of Chile. But this year, this celebration was very special, because our country celebrated 200 years as republic.

To celebrate this important date, Chileans planned to do big celebrations, because 200 years is an important age; people around the country were prepared to do it the best way. Obviously, Chilean government had planned many samples of celebration throughout the country, to leave in memory of the chilean people an unforgettable memory of the celebration of Chilean Bicentennial.

First, the year begun with massive celebration and fantastic fireworks in a lot of places of the country, but the most spectacular was in Valparaíso, Viña del Mar and in Santiago, but in many other places of Chile we saw fireworks. For example  in But the  La Serena, Puerto Montt or Iquique.
But the fireworks were not the only way to celebrate Chile's bicentennial year. In many towns of our country, the  Founding of Chilean Orchestras prepared a lot of concerts in September, the month of the country. These concerts were conducted by the best orchestras in the country, such as Simphonic Chilean Orchestra or the Filarmonic Chilean Orchestra.

Another very important and known celebration is traditional “pampilla”, a celebration that takes place in Coquimbo, in fourth region of Chile, where you see Chilean games, and where you eat a lot of Chilean foods, such as barbecues, empanadas or anticuchos.

Obviously, were a lot of celebrations in the country, many important and interesting.

But in this year also happen terrible situations, such as the earthquake and tsunami that happen in February in south of the country, were many people die, and were other persons lost her home. We also remember 33 miners were trapped in the mine. They were trapped over one month but happily they were saved of the mine.
And lastly, a traffic accident in Sun Expressway, the way that join Santiago and San Antonio.

Chile's bicentennial year, was very special, because we were witness of a lot of important events as the appointed before, and other such as that the Chilean Football Team was to World Cup Soccer in South Africa; or the change in politic tendency of the government, changing from leftist government to right government. But Chileans are happy to celebrate the birthday of their country, because all of people are patriots because they love their country despite any adversity. 

...a travel experience

Hello everyone!

This week, we must talk about a very interesting subject. Travel experiences!

To be honest, this is a very complicated topic; because I've done several travels that have been very special to me, and you need know that I love travel, and is very difficult to me decide about experience that I will tell you.

Well, I think I'll tell you about one of my trips to the north of Chile.

During high school, I participated in a chamber orchestra in my town. A chamber orchestra is an orchestra that only have string instruments, such as violin, viola, cello, and bass. And in 2008, we had scheduled a tour of the Atacama’s region.

This tour was scheduled for December of that year, and my classmates, who were also my fellow musicians, and me, were worried because at that time we had to pay PSU test. But finally, tour was after this test, and we were very happy because we would not have a study tour but if we would have a tour with our band.

So after PSU test, we started our tour to Atacama’s region. First day, we stayed in Huasco, where we played our orchestra’s repertoire. And then we went to see the rest of the city and at the end o the day we travel to Copiapó, where we went to sleep. The next day we got up early, because we had a concert in Music school of Copiapó. This was a wonderful concert. The same day at night we took the main concert of the tour in the chair of Copiapó. This concert was spectacular, there were many people and the sound was wonderful.

The next day we got up early again, because we must travel to Caldera, where we had a concert at “Cultural Center Station Caldera”. This was a wonderful experience because the cultural center resembles a train station, and inside there is a marine museum.

After this concert, we had rest, and we went for the rest of the day the beautiful resort of Bahía Inglesa.

At the end of the day, we had to go back to Copiapó, because the nest day we had to return to our city, where our tour would conclude with a great concert in the theater district.

This tour was an unforgettable experience as we share with our friends; we met beautiful places and show our work as a team to show our music.

Classmates, I hope you enjoyed my post, is a bit long but I could summarize this experience so beautiful to me. See you in class.

about movies...

Hello everyone!

Today, we must talk about our favourite’s movies.  I’m not really sure about what movies talk you, because I have a lot of favorite movies. But I decide that today I talk you about two of my favourite films. First, I talk you about of “Les Choristes”. This is a French drama film, and tells the story of a boarding school for “difficult boys”, which comes a new supervisor to the boys, Mr. Matthieu, a musician professor, that work like supervisor because his work as a musician has not been recognized. But in this school, Fond de l’Etang, he will find a lot of talent in these naughty children, with which to carry out his project of forming a choir. This is a beautiful movie that I recommend watching because has an interesting history and a wonderful soundtrack.

Now, I talk you about another of my favorite films. This film is called “Pirates of the Caribbean”, this is a series released from 2003, and tells the story of Captain Jack Sparrow, the hammer man Will Turner and the aristocratic Elizabeth Swan. First part of the series is called “The curse of the black pearl” and this shows the search of hidden treasure on the island of death. Second part of the history is called “Dead man’s chest”. In this part of the film Captain Jack Sparrow is pursued by Davy Jones and the Flying Dutchman to settle her debt. In the third part of the series, “Pirates of the Caribbean at world ends”, Elizabeth and William  are joined this time the captain Barbosa to go to the end of the world to rescue Jack that had to pay his debt to Davy Johns face the Kraken, the fearsome beast from the sea dominated by Davy Johns. Well, a good new to fans of  Pirates of the Caribbean is scheduled to be released in 2011 the fourth part of this saga, “On stranger tides”.

I hope that you enjoy my post; I like both movies many of which I speak to them and I recommend you see them if you have not.

See you in next post.

Myths of the human brain...

Hello everyone!

As you remember, last Tuesday, we had a class with Dr. Pedro Maldonado, an ICBM’s teacher, in which he talked about the myths in relation to the human brain.

These myths to which Dr. Maldonado’s referred, was about all people think about the human brain. Dr. Maldonado’s exposition was very interesting, because he talks about subjects that we, as health students, we must study, as is the structure and functioning of the human brain.  

I think it would be nice to relate to several myths which Dr. Maldonado’s referred, because all of these myths have a component of our thoughts, that is, some things we can still believe myths.

  The human brain is the responsible for the human senses, memory, thoughts and the control of our body. In an adult human, brain weight about 1.4 kilograms, but is very strong because use about 25% of the Oxygen that the body have.

But, what are the myths about the brain?

Well, one of these myths says that the human brain is special, unique; different of the brain of the other animals, but if we look and compare the brains, both have the same parts.

Another interesting myth say that every brain function is localized in an specific place of the brain, but when we do an action active many sectors of the brain to do only this action. There is a sector with more activity like others but is not a single place to do this action. At the same time activate a lot of place of the brain.

One last myth about which I would like to discuss is the comparison of the human brain with computer.  This is a false belief, because while the computer has a localized memory, human brain has a distributed memory. While computer has a lineal operation, human brain has a parallel operation; while computer has a binary system, human brain has an analogy system, and while computer hasn’t history, human brain if you have.

Well classmates, these are the points that I consider most important of the Dr. Maldonado’s exhibition.

See you in class

Are you stressed?

 

Hello dear classmates

Today’s topic is not the most pleasant. But it is important to take into account because we suffer because of our lifestyle, work, and the requirement of the university. Stress in our subject today.

Stress is the way of human answers when faces to extreme are emotional, psychological, or environmental situations.

Manifestation of stress are commonly state of alarm and adrenalin production, short-term resistance as a coping mechanism, and exhaustion, as well as irritability, muscular tension, inability to concentrate and a variety of physiological reactions such as headache and elevated heart rate.

Stress can significantly affect many of the body's systems, as can an individual's perceptions, and reactions to stress.

Stress can affect anyone. But most affect people is who can work all time, students, or people doesn’t have time to do activities different from their normal, such as sports, travels during the day, or simply stay in home and watch television.

Responses to stress include adaptation, psychological coping such as stress management, anxiety, and depression. Over the long term, stress can lead to diminished health or increased propensity to illness, to avoid this, stress must be managed.

Stress condition can affect all areas of our lives, because when we are stressed, we can’t put all our attention on what we are doing because we feel tired, overwhelmed or even desperate by the very fact of having many things to do. Therefore, in order to avoid affecting our work or academic performance, we need to prevent, control or prevent reaching a stress condition

Responses to stress include adaptation, psychological coping such as stress management, anxiety, and depression. Over the long term, stress can lead to diminished health or increased propensity to illness, to avoid this, stress must be managed.

So, dear friends, to prevent an stress condition we need realized activities different to our normal activity because we need distraction to relax and enjoy the life. Not all is work or study. We can family and friends with whom to share and enjoy life.

See you in next post.

A healthy lifestyle...

We must remember despite the time is short, we can do a moment to care our bodies, although this moment be short, because we need to release the tensions of the day, to stay healthy, without forgetting that we do some physical activity to keep our bodies in top condition, complementing this with a balanced diet.

As an example to follow, we can take people who live the sports as a lifestyle. For these people, do sports is a way to maintaining a healthy body, because with a healthy body we can have a healthy mind.

To maintain a healthy body we can do a lot of things, such as go to the gym, run in the park or simply go to walk after work. Other good idea is cycling in the park or does a run into the city.

Another issue to consider to maintaining a healthy lifestyle is complement sports and healthy and diet eating, to give to our body the tools to have a good functioning, and obviously all activities will be beneficial to cope with the stress of modern life.  

This balanced diet should have variety in types of foods, nutrients, colors and flavors. We must not forget that eating healthy is to eat tasty too. 

Well dear friends, I hope you enjoy my post and I invite you to have a healthy lifestyle, with sports and tasty and healthy food.

See you in next post.

My favourite get-away ...

Hello dear classmates

This time we talk about our favourite get away. This is a very interesting topic because is an opportunity to learn more about our classmates.

In my opinion, travels are an opportunity to live new experiences, to know new places and people.

In childhood I used to travel to Puerto Montt every summer, because my grandmother lived there. And obviously I loved travel there because I used to visit her and my uncles and cousins.

I love this city because I love Chilean South because is a place in we can find beauty places, nature, clean air, and a very important thing, the food. In this city we can know a place call Angelmó. Here, we can eat a lot of traditional Chilean foods, or traditional foods of the Chilean foods, such as Milcao, Chapalele, or the best traditional Chilean south food, Curanto. I love Curanto. Is my favourite food. 

To continue with the topic of this subject, I want to tell you that other place that is my favourite get- away is my hometown, Vicuña, in Fourth Region of Coquimbo. I love travel to Vicuña every time I have an opportunity, because here stay my family and a lot of friends. Vicuña is a touristic town. And I like this town in winter, because it has a temperate climate, that is to say, is cloudy, but the cold is not as drastic as in Santiago, the rain is low and sometimes it snows in the mountains. Moreover, near Vicuña we can find a lot of interesting places to visit, such as water reservoirs, museums, astronomical observatories, and a lot of places to find traditional foods or crafts.

Well, I could continue writing about my favourites get-away, because are many, but I think that the post would be too long.

See you in class classmates!!

pd: the pictures were taken for me!

The First blog publication of this term: about the music...

Hello classmates. This is the first blog publication of this term. I'm very happy to take this English course with you, and I'm happy too, because this is our last English's term. 

This time we could talk about a free topic, and as we agreed, we will talk about music or books. And I decide that I talk you about music. Although, I like both subjects but music is easier to me because I have a lot of things to tell.

Well, to start, I want to tell you that I love rock music, but not just any kind of rock music. You must ask why? And the reason is very simple. During secondary school, I participate in a chamber's orchestra. I played violin in this orchestra, and I love classic music. Obviously this taste for classical music is not over, as opposed, every day I like this music. And this is the reason that I love the Symphonic rock music, and Melodic rock music. 

Symphonic rock music is a kind of rock that shakes components of classical music and components of rock music. In songs of Symphonic rock music we can find instruments of the string quartet such as the violin, violas, cellos, and bass, and obviously we can find another instruments that we can find in a classical orchestra. Moreover, in this kind of rock, we can listen to groups that use like singers, males, females or both, that have lyric register, in women can be sopranos, mezzo or contralto, and in males can be tenor, baritone or bass. Besides, we cannot forget the rocker pieces of this music. We always find instruments such as electric guitars, bass drums and keyboards. This mixture of sounds is very exciting to me. I love the energy and the emotion that this music conveys. I invite you to listen to this music. Obviously I listen to a lot of music group but all are in the same on line music.

If you decide to listen to this music I can recommend my favorite group. This group is called Epica, and I think that is one of the best exponents of this kind of rock music. 

So classmates, I hope that you enjoyed my post. See you in class!! Kisses.

My blogging experience

Dear friends, in the post of today I’m going to talk about my blogging experience in English class.

This year I take English level III, pre intermediate. I will be afraid for this.

The first complication to take this course is that we travel from North Medicine Faculty to Occident Medicine Faculty to our University, but the benefit is that this Faculty is 20 minutes to my home.

In this level of this course my classmates and I must be write blogs, in English, obviously.

At first, I feeling so complicated with this, because I haven’t custom to write in this language. I think that the new experience will be very difficult to me, because we will go to talk about different subjects, and we must write long texts.

When I start to write English blogs, I feel afraid with this; because I can’t write the minimum of words that we should writing. But then, when we wrote various blogs, I realized that I can write most of the minimum, and I felt happy for this.

I enjoy this experience because I like English language, and I think that this works give us the opportunity to improve our English written and also our English speak.

From my point of view, the blogs, gives us more benefits to disadvantages, because, also hand over the opportunity to improve our English level, deliver us the opportunity to exchange opinions with our classmates, share experiences and likes with them. Moreover, I can think about the comments that my classmates post me, because these comments give me opinions to improve my written, and my English knowledge.

My favourites post of the blogs in this semester was blogs with free topics, but these was no my favourites for this reason because in both opportunities I didn’t know what I could write. But in one post I wrote about my experience in Gabriela Mistral Orchestra. This post brings me memories of this period of my life. I felt happy with them and I miss them all the time.

Dear friends see you in class. Kisses and hugs to all.

I invite you to Vicuña!

Hello dear friends, as in the last post, today I’m going to talk you about a free topic, and in this opportunity I decide talk about Vicuña, my hometown. 

Vicuña was founded in 1821 and currently has about 30.000 inhabitants. Vicuña is located in Fourth Region of Coquimbo, 60 km inside La Serena, and 540 km from Santiago. Vicuña is the capital of Elqui Province.  

Vicuña is 700 meters above sea level, and have Mediterranean climate, and has an average temperature between 18°C and 20°C.

The most important economic activity is based on agriculture and livestock. The principal economic activity is based in grapes growing, because it is exported from Vicuña to Europe, U.S.A., Asia, and many other places. Moreover, the grapes are processed to create high quality wines and piscos. Also the grapes are converted in other products such as pasas, jams, juices, and more products that I don’t remember in this moment.

Other important date of Vicuña is that this city is the hometown of Gabriela Mistral, the national poet that won a Nobel Prize.

Vicuña is a touristy town. It has many beauty places to visit, principally in summer. You can find places such as swimming pools, places with entry to some part of the river where you do swim.

In summer you can find many touristic attractions in Vicuña as Observatories. Here you can find Mamalluca or Tololo Observatory. Other interesting attraction is the vintage. A traditional event, that begins with grapes works, continue with the harvest and ends with a big carnival. Here you can see people dressed, allegoric cars, and also you can buy many things, curiosities, traditional things, fruits, food, etc.

Well this is a bit of which I can tell you about my city, I invite you to visit Vicuña, especially in summer.

See you!!

Orchestra's times

Hello everybody!

In this time, I have the opportunity that talks you about a free topic, and I decide count you about my experience in Gabriela Mistral Orchestra.

Well, that you know I’m from Vicuña, in Fourth Region of Coquimbo, and I came to Santiago to study. Since childhood I had interest in music, and at school I participate in a folk orchestra. But, when I was in third grade at Secondary School I had the opportunity to go to orchestra audition, and, this time I decided do violin’s audition.

I felt so happy because I got into the orchestra.

Through two years that I was in the orchestra I did many things. I played in many concerts. I played in graduations of schools, cultural shows, and one most important concert was Christmas Concert in Vicuña’s Church. This time, we played some soundtracks of movies, such Harry Potter, Forrest Gump and Jurassic Park; we also played The Storm, a wonder and beautiful classical piece. The most important in this concert was the Christmas songs, because we played as a whole with a child chorus. This was a wonderful experience.

Another important thing that I did while I stayed into the orchestra was participate in Gabriela Mistral Atacama’s Tour, at 2008. This time we played in some cities of Third Region of Atacama, such as Huasco, Copiapó and Caldera. In this opportunity we played soundtracks music such as Pirates of the Caribbean, The Lord of the Ring; music of The Cure, and other classical pieces. This experience was very important to me, because I Knew new places and I shared with my friends.

To enter in an orchestra is an enriched experience, because you can have new experiences, know new places, and share with other people that love music. Now, I miss my friends because I shared many situations with them, but I feel happy because I study a beautiful career, and here I know people that right now are very important to me. But, obviously I miss the Orchestra.

I hope that you enjoyed my post. See you at next post.

 

P. D.: I leave you a link with a presentation of Gabriela Mistral Orchestra. This is the Pirates of the Caribbean Soundtrack. Is my favourite!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Kt2F_yZm8g 

Midwife and education ...

The midwife’s works cover many areas of health. This is a reason to want to improve the health of the community and is a possibility that we, as midwives, don’t let it go. Exist many forms to promote a healthy life style into community and midwives are responsible for educate the community.

These forms to educate can be implemented at individual, familiar or community level.

At individual level we must give information to usuries about many different topics, such as sexuality, preservative methods, nutrition, physical exercise, hygiene, or many other subjects that do not escape to our imagination. But, in this case the importance is the form that we give the information to usuries, because our activities, our position, and our security to deliver the information about the topic which is of importance to user because this will determine whether we did a good job, and from this we can implement more attitudes to improve our performance into the educational area.

Other form to educate our usuries at personal level is promote some activities that learn to our users to follow into the responsible and healthy life style, in the areas of sexuality, alimentation, physical exercise and all the areas of her life where we, as midwives, can intervene.

Moreover, we can’t ignore the education at familiar level. In this case, we can educate to mothers, because educating them, we can get the information for families.

Another way we can deliver information is at community level. And in this case we can perform activities as expositive demonstrations, where we can promote community activities, or give relevant information. Another idea for education is going to schools to promote healthy life, in the areas of sexuality, nutrition and others.

The Male Midwife...

From start, Obstetrics has been a women career, I think because it first objective is give care to women along your life, and then women are who give care to women.
But, from some years ago, men have joined at career. This creates a new situation into Obstetric area, because so far it was strange to see a man in a traditionally female career.
Find a man in a women career, is as obstetrics, is a controversial topic into the health area, because it often causes discomfort among users, or sometimes they do not want to attend with a men because they feel shame.
Analyzing it from inside the career, I think that there are still many prejudices to men that study Obstetrics, because most often put into question their sexuality or is believed that because they never live birth may not assist women in this process. I think it's the same situation as live male nurse.
Currently, the number of male midwife been increasing, and this situation that should begin to be considered a normal situation to which we must learn, because in spite that they can not live a birth, they have all the capabilities to deliver comprehensive care to women, giving all care that she and her child need.

In my future as midwife...

Hello dear friends, this time I want to talk you about that the things that I will like do in my future as midwife.
At present, I stay at second year of Obstetrics, like you know. But I have many dreams and many objectives that I could do at future. During this to years in Obstetrics, I feel that I need help people to feel fine with me. When I finish my career, I will want continue with my studies, because I think that we need improve to give the best attention to people, because they put all your trust in we. For this, I want to improve in obstetric attention to give maximum security to my future usuries, for the reason that I feel that I have all the capacities to offer a great attention to women. Furthermore, I will want to improve at high risk pregnancy, for the reason that this situation is currently common, for example at adolescent pregnancy, and in this situation women need many supports, psychological, physical and emotionally, and we, as midwife, can give us. However, and the other hand, I think that the public health is area that need many professionals to enhance the health attention in our country.
So, only that I can say you, future colleague, is that only we can improve the attention to women, improve her reproductive life, and also be better the health public in our country. Is a great challenge! But together, we can do this!

The most important decision...

Hello friends!
This time I'm going to talk you about the most important decision of my life...the choice of my career.
When I was in high school, I thought that I wanted study a career related health area because I wanted help people. I felt this was an important form to contribute to society. Because of this I wanted study Medicine, but I felt that this career was not what I wanted.
So, two years ago, came time to make the final decision. I had to decide my future. This moment was very stressful because I did not know I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
I had seen many options, but nothing convincing. So, the day before published PSU score, I started reading about midwifery. After thinking and analyzing the option, I decided accept this, thinking about changing the option if I did not like.
And... I enter to study Midwifery at University of Chile. At first I was afraid, but over days, and over the first semester I realized that midwifery this career I liked.
During the second semester, in the course "Introduction to the Profession", with my classmates, I visited some Hospitals such as Lucio Cordova, Luis Tisné, etc. Because of this opportunity to visit these Hospitals, I realized that my true passion was the health of people, and help people.
However, in the Hospital Luis Tisné, I realized that the women is the most important factor to keep the health, because it is she who brings new life. This way I realized that this career was the right for me.
At enter to study this career at this University, I met many people with their experiences I have noted that this profession is best to help community, because as a midwife we can help women, since they are the backbone of our society, and also we can help newborns, since they are the future of our society.
To end I can say that Midwifery is the best career to me, because as a midwife I can make great contributions of our society, and I can conclude that midwifery is the best profession of the world.

See you next time.

Site of Chilean Midwives College

Internet is an comunication medio that give us many opportunities to know the world.
Many sites are at our disposal.
Chilean Midwives College´s Site is my favorite career related website. Because in this website give us many news about national health area and give important worlwide cience information, not only midwives news.
In this site we can find many section such as Colegge history, legal texts, news about desease investigations, information about professional development and obviously they report about the activities in college calendar. And we don't forget the job offers.
Graphically, this website is nice, because have aesthetics that mix text, pictures, icons, and all have soft colors that are nice to visit.
I recommend this website to my friends because here they can find many interesting and updated information that can serve as dates in their lives, and I recommend this website to my classmates to share information and to share opinions about many topics career related.
I give you the link of the website of Chilean Midwives College. I hope you enjoy the website.
http://www.colegiodematronasdechile.cl/

Earthquake in Chile: total destruction

On Febuary 27,2010, at 3:34 in the morning, Chile was shaken for a tremor of big magnitudes.
The earthquake was 8.8 at Richter Scale and affect at least six regions of the country, from Valparaíso in the north, to Araucanía in the south. This also affect other regions but with less intensity.
On February 27, I was at home, in Vicuña. Here, the tremor was 5 at Richter Scale and do not cause damage. The only effect was that light turn off.
When electricity returned we learned about the damage on the Chilean South, the earthquake damage and the tsunami.
This episode of our history it was an opportunity to show chilean solidarity and I hope that Chile could overcome the destruction.

Welcome to my Blog!!

Hello all the people!!

My name is Claudia Villanueva and I am a student of Obstetrics of University of Chile and I create this blog to my English class.

My objective with this blog is share my experiences and all my ideas with you.

I like exchange opinions about different topics regard to our career and obviously others subjects.

I'm be happy to stay here! I hope that we can exchange experiences and take all the best ideas from ourselves.

Welcome!!