I wasn't thinking, I just thought I was thinking...

I learn a new language like babies learn to talk. I went to a school in which English teachers were coming and going, and the English class was a “dead time”, cause there was nobody there to teach us something, so I never had a proper English training. that’s why all I have learn come from an early exposition to cable TV, that’s why I say that I have learn English like babies learn to talk by listening to others, I have also read books in English, and by those standars I would have to say that I’m in a “six years old girl” level of English, that’s how I mesure my progress. That’s why I really scary by the idea of having to come to this English course, cause even though I reach the four level in the English test I’m pretty sure that if the method were other I wouldn’t even have reached the first level.

 Now that I’m finishing the course, and I think I have done pretty well, I have to wonder why, was this luck? No, It can’t be that, I have never been a lucky person, with me is always the same, if something might go wrong it’ll turn out to be horrible, so no, it’s not luck. Is it that I’m  really smart? Mmm don’t think so, cause if that were the case I would do good in all my subjects, and I’m very much aware that I have to burn my eyes studying  and I have other classmates that read the texts one time, party all weekend and get the same results as I do in all the works. So, is neither luck nor intelligence. What is it then? I’m about to say that is balls, but that would be too rude for an essay, I’ll say guts, yes I think I have guts. I must be like that cause the way I’ve learn to speak English is the most unconventional way, and that is something that I do, or try to do with all the language.

 I listen to someone speaking in another language and something is activated in my brain and, like a cryptologist, I begin to decifrate the code, by context or things like that, and I’m sure that everybody is able to do the same thing, but no one dare, most people say “Oh you speak another language, I don’t understand it, I’m too lazy to do something about it… We are in a spanish speaking country, for god sake!! Speak to me in christian or at least bring a translator!!” and this is the same kind of people that think that the only way of learning a language is by taking a course. And this is the same kind of people that spend greats loath of money in English course and by end of it they know the very least of it. Why? Well because an English course gives you the tools to learn English, I mean, they teach you the structure of the sentence the syntaxis and gramatic, the kind of things you learn in the “castellano” subject on the school, and I think you would agree with me that if on one side that teach you to speak and write well in a “cult and formal” register  it does not teach you to speak it if you don’t know nothing about it, I mean we can’t put a baby in a school “castellano” class for him to learn to speak. So, what I’m trying to say is that the process of learning a language is very much a self taught task, you can not expect that someone force you to start thinking in English.

As I say I learn English by myself at home, with the TV on and with the help of some short story books of the greatest English writers, like Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain. By I haven’t learned the structure of English, everything I have to figure out things by context. I never learn by memory all the irregular verbs, if someone asked me for them I would be blank, by if have to use it in a sentence I would know easily how, on the other hand I know many people that know all the irregular verbs by memory but don’t know how to use them.

Maybe I should had taken the English courses from the level one, to know the mechanic of the English language, but all I need is to speak and write English I won’t ever teach someone English so I don’t need that, though it would be interesting.

Open letter to the everyday day guy and to the everyday gal

I’m being a rebel today (a tiny one). I’m not going to do what I have to do cause what I must do is to write about a Chilean person whom I consider to be the greatest one. And to be honest there is no one I can call like that, and I don’t need to have someone with that title. I don’t really understand this obsession with the image of a hero. Why do we need to have them? I think that is because to know that someone is willing to do what we do not dare to do make us, somehow, to feel a little more secure and awake in us a feel of admiration.

Therefore, as the title of today’s post suggest, this is an open letter to those Chileans who do the right thing and love what they do, and I’m not gonna call them heroes because they are just living their life, luckily the way they wanted to.

So, who are they? Well they are just the everyday person that you may see them on the street or in the bus, you might even share with them everyday and you don’t know it. What do they do? Well they stand up for themselves and for what they believe, and they are just good and caring.  If I ever meet someone like that I would like to ask them how do they manage to be strong enough to wake up everyday believing on themselves, especially in a country that is culturally know for having a traditional way of letting people down?  

Jesus! I just got too corny to even bear it, didn’t I? But I do believe what I just said (that’s the worst part). I’m sorry for not choosing an individual character, but  it wasn’t just because it was hard, is because there is really no one I consider to be the beholder of that kind of title, not a Chilean person at least. And is not a snob thing, because I’m not the kind of person who believes that there are countries that are better than others, I just think that a great person is a great person everywhere and that has nothing to do with the place where that person was born. I think that is all in the life experience they had.

So that’s it, good bye.

Burning light

Today I would like to talk about a film called “I hire a contract killer” of the Finland director Aki Kaurismäki. This film is set in England and tells the story of a French man that after spending fifteen years working as an accountant he get sack because the company needs to save money and, as he is French, the company decide to dismiss him. Because he had spend his youth working in a that horrible place, and he didn’t had anything else in life, he decide to commit suicide, but he fail at every attempt he made, or he get cold feet and resign from it at the last minute. So, because of that he decided to hire a contract killer.  And because of that, he doesn’t have the tinniest idea of who the hell is the killer or when he will be murder.

The film is from 1989 and is a little low budget so is not very good, is not that I think that a film needs to have a lot of money invested for to be good, is just that this film is a bit lost. but it has a plus (actually two great things) one the protagonist is the French actor Jean Pierre Leaud, and I like him a lot, he was the protagonist of the five films about Antoine Doinel of Truffaut. And two in one scene of the film the protagonist is running away from the guy he think it might be the killer and hide inside a bar and in the bar there is a singer on stage and that singer is no one else but JOE STRUMMER himself. If the film had turned out to be bad I would have mind just because of that scene, I love when things like that happen in a film.

The film in general is pretty weird, I don’t know what genre is it, but I quite like it. The actors play their parts weirdly, a bit like over acting or under-acting… I don’t know, but is weird. I think that is because is definitely a comedy but everyone acts as if it were the most tragic drama of the world, everyone is really serious, even the film is filmed in a dramatic way. At times I think the film get a little boring, but maybe is because when I watched I expected a lot more action, because of the exiting plot, but nothing like that happen in the film. And after all I think that the film is like life itself, everyone lives the most exiting drama on their own heads, but everything is a lot more simple that that, even if you hire a contract killer.

However,  this isn’t a great film but I couldn’t think in any other film to write about right now, maybe is because I was listening to The Clash this morning, I don’t know.

PS. Now that I’m finishing I come to realize that this post is really lame. But what the hell my job is done! is not like if my other post were good.