Changes, changes and more changes

That if I would change anything about my study programme or my university? Definitely. And not one, but a lot of things. Universidad de Chile is an excellent university with a horrible administration: the money is not well distributed between the different faculties (just look FEN next to FAU...), some careers are collapsed and they keep getting more and more students (Laws is completely full and they're getting 200 more students next year), if you fail in some subject, it's almost impossible to take the classes you want (and need), there isn't a good psychological help for students, etc. So yes, I would change some things. I would change the money distribution; I think that it's fair that faculties like FEN or Beauchef receive contributions of privates, but it's not fair that they also get the bigger percentage of the money that the University hands out between the faculties. If they get money from outside and inside the institution, there will be always a major difference between the different study places. Maybe we could make some kind of common fund and finance the needs of less lucrative faculties (like mine).
Also I would create support classes for the students who are getting stuck, and alternatives to get their classes passed, because when you fail two or more subjects, it affects you the rest of your career. Maybe I would do the schedule less tight; it's very exhaustive to have that much of classes that the first year students have... My classes starts at 8:30 am and finish at 8:00 pm almost everyday!
Well, is that and many more things, but I have to admit, even with all this bad things, I like my university a lot!

My most freak trip on the Transantiago

Santiago public transport is crazy; you can find almost everything in there! There are a lot of weird people who talk to the doors or fight with the air, travelling dogs that knows the journey better than everyone, drunk guys singing, dancing and doing stupid things, and the best and the worst musicians you can imagine. If you go on a 210 to Puente Alto at night, you will probably find a heavy, distorted party at the back of the bus: loud cumbia music (you could find reggaeton sometimes, but it’s not common), an improvised dance floor on the center, and a lot of drunk people making friends with anyone just because they share the bus. Or the 502; a bus that goes through the graveyard and the psychiatric hospitals. At night, you could find a lot of creepy, crazy people, but don’t be alarmed, they are harmless the most of the time. The most of the times, but not always…

I remember one of that times when I was on that bus (the 502), it was like 3 or 4 am because I was partying in a friend's house in Santiago Centro. I just had my cellphone stolen by a guy in the street (he just took it, ran, got into a car and flee) so I just wanted to get home as soon as possible. But when I get into the bus, it was nearly empty, and there was this old woman singing something that really freaked me out. It was not a normal song, it was more like she was crying or something. She was talking about her baby, and how she had suffocated her to death. It was so freak! I listened to her words until I get off near my house, and I was just horrified! 

Pearl Jam 2015

I have gone to many concerts in my life; Muse, Black Sabbath, Guns n' Roses, many music festivals, but if it's one that I will remember all my life is Pearl Jam's in 2015. Pearl Jam was one of my favorite artist since I was 15 or 16 years old, and it was my dream to saw it on concert, but when they announced their visit to Chile, I was out of money because I was saving it to travel with my friends two months later. I have lost all faith on going to the concert, but, just three days before the show, my best friend called me on the phone and said: "Domingo, do you really love Pearl Jam? because I got an extra ticket". It was the best thing ever, I was so excited! (Thanks Vale, I love you).
The concert was awesome! They played all the songs that I wanted to listen, and some more from other groups, like Pink Floyd's "Mother" and Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World". Eddie Vedder was so fun! He drank two entire bottles of wine on the time he was on the stage, so he started joking and talking nonsense, like when, after the song "Even Flow", he said "and remember to listen to Sonar FM 105.3... Sonar FM, Sonar FM, música caliente" and he began to dance salsa or something like that.
Now I'm just waiting to see them again someday, and if they come, I'm willing to sell one of my kidneys to buy the ticket!

Bolivia 2018!

For the last three years, me and my friends have done a three weeks backpacking trip to different places inside the country. We save money all the second semester and work in December, and with that money we have already travelled to Chiloé, Puerto Varas/Cochamó and Valdivia/La Unión/Ranco. But this year we are planning something bigger. Much bigger. We want to go to Bolivia for a month, maybe pass to Peru or Brazil too, but the main objective is Bolivia.

We are still planning the itinerary, but it’s difficult because we have never done one, the other times we have went right to “the adventure”, without any plans or something like that, and only asking to the local people where to go. That has worked quite well so far, but now it’s different, because we don’t have the security of being in our own country, and we don’t know almost nothing about Bolivia and their culture. But well, there is the fun of the backpacking trips; nothing is certain, you are constantly surprising yourself with new things that appears spontaneously to change your plans upside down. This is what we want and why we wait the whole year for our January tradition trip.

In fact, we have a planning meeting tomorrow (well, if we can call it a meeting, because it’s more like talking and searching for places while drinking beer). I hope we can solve all the doubts before buying the bus tickets from Antofagasta to Uyuni, our first destiny. I can’t tell you much more, because tomorrow we see what happens. So now, just saving money and waiting for months to pass quickly!

Postgraduate Courses: Study after I finish studying… uff

I don’t wanna think in more studying at the moment, but that’s because I’m exhausted about all of the projects, classes and stuff that I’ve been doing this first year of university, not because I don’t wanna do a postgraduate course. In fact, I do want to do one, but I don’t know in what subject specifically… It could be arts, history of arts, urbanism, sociology, anthropology, there are so much things to study!

Well, at least all of my interests are, in some point, near between each other; there are all related with arts and social science. And all of them will help me to improve my skills as an architect.

Now, at this precise moment, I think I would go for the arts course. Arts was always my second career option, and I would love to do some courses or something like that after I finish with architecture (If this career wasn’t so exhausting, I would do parallel careers with arts… but that’s not humanly possible). I think I would like to go with sculpture, it’s a subject that has always fascinated me. It might be because of the use of the space, the importance of the full and the empty, the textures… but more important than that; the level of expressionism of the technique. I really want to study some of that!

But, back to the subject; yes, I want to do a postgraduate course. Where? I think I would like to do it in Spain or France maybe, or another country that haves that amount of fine arts cultural weight. And well, I would love to live on this places too, it’s not only because the course.

But I think I will wait until I finish University to start thinking on more studying.

What to do?

I don’t know what I want to do in the future, I guess it would be related to architecture, design or art, but what? I don’t know. A year ago, I would have said that I was going to work with another architects in a little office, designing houses and stuff like that, but when I entered to the career, I realize that there are many things you can do studying architecture! And I can’t decide what would be the line I will follow.

I have been thinking a lot in urbanism; the design of the city for the people and their healthy development, giving order to it, making it sustainable, creating spaces where the people join and lives in community... It’s a very interesting area. But what about the design of houses and buildings? That would be an interesting area too, and there I can release all my creativity, and I would love to create things, things that would change people’s lifestyles (for good of course).

Well, I have like 5 more years to think about it, and if it’s something I know, it’s that I will work in something creative, because I think that’s the thing that moves my mind. And other thing that I take for sure, is the fact that I don’t want to give classes… I would be terrible!

Uff, workshop is killing me this semester! This week has been horrible; I have been studying a lot for my tests, and the workshop professor keep sending work and work to do, and my body can't take that much of stress! I have been sleeping like 3 or 4 hours a day, so I look like a zombie all day, and going to classes that way is not so useful, because my mind hardly records like a 10% of the information given by the professor. I’m falling sleep everywhere I go! In my kitchen, in the library, in workshop’s classroom… the other day I fell sleep in the subway, and I get to San Pablo! (that is like 15 stations after the one I was going). I need vacations.

Well, I can’t complain… I knew what was expecting me when I decided to study architecture. All of my friends and family told me that I wouldn’t have any time for the first 2 or 3 year of the career. My friends even did me a farewell party the last day of vacations (I hope it was a joke). And well, I like the career, a lot, and it worth all of the suffering (but please, give me some days off or something, my brain needs it).

When I was young, like 11 or 12 years old, my favorite music gender was rap. I don't know why I liked that horrible music (in my opinion), but I really liked it. I listened to it all day, I knew all the lyrics, even I dressed like my favorite rappers; huge basketball sneakers (much bigger than my size), baggy trousers, big jackets and a snapback cap. What a ridiculous kid. Now I cannot stand that kind of music! I don't know when I have I changed my tastes in music, but I think it was when I was like 14 years old. I started with indie rock (arctic Monkeys, The Killers, soft rock mostly), but then I started to put more and more harder (in rock), listening to Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold, that kind of stuff. I think it was in my sixteens that I had started with more classic rock, listening to old 60s', 70's and 80's music, and it was a friend that introduced me in that vast gender, showing me bands like the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and many others that are now part of my repertory. Wow, I went from Dr. Dre to Led Zeppelin in a few years, that is a big change... (thanks God).

Lately, I’ve been thinking on traveling around the world. There are so many places I’d love to visit! I want to travel to Asia, Africa and South America, I want to learn new languages, know different cultures and make new friends… Traveling is so fantastic!

But, at the end of my journey, I want to stay somewhere, somewhere far from Santiago. Maybe Russia, Czech Republic or France. Or Spain! Spain sounds great. I went there with my family when I was 16 years old, and it was an awesome experience. I’m sure it’s a great country to live, and it would be easy for me to develop, because I already know the language. Spain is a good country, it has a lot of big cities, like Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Bilbao, and many others, so I can choose where I like the most. I think it would be Barcelona. Barcelona is a city with attitude, it has a lot of night life because of the bars in La Rambla or La Barceloneta, a great art and architecture culture (Both gothic/medieval influence and modern, like Tàpies, Miró and Gaudí), a very good public transport, a lot of places to see (Park Guell, La Sagrada Familia and Santa María del Mar churches, the Fabra observatory, etc.) and the most important thing; a great life quality. I would live near the Rambla (and the metro too), go to the University of Barcelona, and maybe work half-time in a bar or a restaurant, so I could pay my bills.

So it’s decided: I’m going to Spain.

When I finally settle down there, I would like to travel around Europe for a while, because there it’s so easy to travel! You can be in the other side of the continent in less than a day! I would grab a backpack, put some clothes, a sleeping-bag, an extra pair of boots and some cash, and just go. From there I would like to go to France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium… There are so many places to go!