Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Rate it!

Today's post is about a classmate's blog... so i have decided to write about the blog that i've read it the most, and that is the blog of Natalia Ortiz, called Lost in Transaltion

It's actually a very simple blog. white background, simple font, no gadgets
At the moments has 9 post and 20 comments total, and my personal favorite is the one from the 22 of may, when she speaks about "If you want to study architecture, please remains this..." there, in very simple words it define what it takes to study our career, and she does so as a warning for all the people out there who actualy thinking to choose it, in my case, i kind of knew a little bit about it, but honestly... i have never imagine that it would be THAT much
When i star to think about what aspects of english shoud she focus on more, i can't really tell, even though i remember seen a few grammar mistakes or... just things that sound weird, there was nothing like... specially wrong that she needs to focus on. the only thing that comes to my mind for improving her blog is to try to make comments a little bit more longer, i know, we all want to finish quick and everything, but she has enough english for doing it better. and finally even though my blog is not a good example, you should try to add somthing to your blog, to make it nicer on his "appearance", white is ok.. but is that it? xD

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

good but not great...


Today at 9:15, all of chileans got the satisfaction of seen their team won his first world cup match, not only of this cup, but in 48 years. what they did today was amaizing, they brought us happiness and hope to all of thoose who lost everything. But i must say that there's still a lot of work to do, eventhough we saw a team that was eager to attack all the time, to move and to control the ball at will, we must admit that this is not yet a team that can actually win the world cup, because of all the "bad luck" that we could see on the edge of the enemy goal, a really good team, capable of winning everyone, must be able to make goals, after all that's the way matchs are won, we can keep saying "is because we have bad luck", is because we lack of definition! we lack of the skill that Suazo provide to the team, and that is unacceptable, a whole team can't depend on just one player! in the case that his injure would been a little bit worse, we would be screw... this can sound a little pesimistic, but is the true, and we all know it, the reason why we miss the last 3 world cup is that, because during this last 12 years we haven't had a decent "goal maker" in our team, not since Zamorano and Salas. chile now more than ever will need Sauzo if we want to defeat a now very strongh Switzerland, and of course if we want to have a opportunity against a very desperated but not dead Spain.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

home sweet home...



This are pictures that reminds me many many different feelings that i had while i saw this....
i took them all, and believe me there are plenty more, while i was in Weimar, Germany, doing an exchange semester in Bauhaus Universität. This was the sight that i had from my window in my room, the first time that i saw this sunsets i was skiping with my parents, and suddently i realice that my whole room was orange, and when i look out, i remember that i said to my parents... "the sky is burning...". since that day, i start to collect every day that i, for coincidence, end up being on my room at the time of the sunset, so every afternoon that i work for the university on my proyect or anything like that i took a picture of the sunset, although there were many days that the weather didn't help, like when it rain for 3 days non-stop and sun never actually "rise" and of course never "set", but any way, the days that you can see here are only few of many other that end up been as beatifull as this. Everytime i see this pictures again it remainds me all my trip, all the people i meet, all the time that i saw that sunset and i said “ !#%& i’m late to met …” or “i think is enough work, it’s time for a beer”, don’t forget that even though in this part of germany the sunset is really early, it means that it’s time to party. But also remainds my all the moments that i was homesick, and i miss my family, girlfriend and friends that i left in chile for while.
So i like this pictures, because they are beautyful, happy and sad for me, all at the same time

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

"All kids are born artists...


but we educate them out of it...", i thinks this is the first time i heard somebody speaking of such a complex group of ideas about education without making me yawn, and actually make me laugh about it. when you are able to explain your thoughts with regular everyday stories, you not only get the idea better, you get interested in the topic.
Now about that line that remain in my head for a while, i agree with allmost everything else that he said, and this is true, you have tonces of kids, teenagers and even adults, that live their lifes unhappy because it doesn't ... fit... 'cause they study things that don't want, they work in jobs that don't like... they made their whole life around a career that they never wanted. BUT, there're although people that there is happy... there are people that like what they studied.. their careers fits with them, and they are not even close to being artists. If someone is a lawyer and a good one, and since we was little ke like to speak and discuss everything, he may have born been a lawyer, maybe not born been, but born to become. Like for saying, is it possible to think that einstein was born musician, and not a physic? ok, maybe if he had a different childhood the stoy would been that way, but anyway he had an extraordinary capacity to understand how and why everything happend, and an extraordinary capcity to make relations between subjects, and that lead him to the physic, and we was not only great, but happy.
so besides from applauding everything else Ken Robinson said , i will correct him, that kids are not born ALL artist, some of them are born something that you can consider normal (like university normal) but even then, we sometimes educate them out of it.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

From me, to architecture student, to architect, and back...

With time passing by i have come to realice the huge amount of skills that an architectect require and after that i realice that most of the skills that i have learn for surviving to this career, are only for the studing of architecture, and not necesarly for practicing architecture itself.
A person that study architecture needs perceverance, creativity, huge amounts of determination for not giving up everything every week, needs to be able of talking to somebody for explaining his idea and if necesary, be able to defend it against other arguments, but also needs flexibility when tries to integrate new variables in this idea, needs to learn to administrate his money, knows the limits of endurance that his body has when speaking of sleeping time, knows the kind of thing that needs to eat for saving time and last longer awake and healthy, the hability to put in pause a proyect while working in another and realice in that moment that doing this you always get new ideas for the first one, and finally (but not less important, and i have probably forgot a few) need to know how to relax, choose days to say for real "today i'm not doing anything", leave a few day in the mont to see your family and friends, this is fundamental for not going nuts.In the other hand, the skills that an architect need are for me two basic one, or divide in two big groups, first and architect needs enthusiasm for his work, feel pasion for the work that is doing; and second, an architect, specially one of The University of Chile most be ethic, when a doctor in a hospital made a mistake can ruin or even terminate someones life, if an architect made a mistake, can ruin or also terminate a big number of people's life, we most always consider that somebody is spending a lot of time and money in building this, and someday someone else will spend even more money to live in it, and our work is to make proyects that make spending this money on it worth it

Thursday, May 13, 2010

feeling dry?

This is honestly one of the most beatiful places that i've visited in the world (and i've visit many).

It's call "Cordillera de la Sal" or "Range of the Salt" located a few kilometeres to the west of San Pedro de Atacama. This is a panoramic picture that i took this summer, i went there with my girlfriend for 5 days, we stayed in a beatiful hostal in San Pedro's centre. I like this place because of all the beaty you can find. The dust, the rocks, the salty air, while you are looking at this place you can begin to understand the way the whole geography of our country took form millions years ago.
Acording to cientists life is imposible in a place like this, because of all the salt in the ground, but you can still see a whole valley full of green and life across this rough piece of land, deep inside the driest desert in the world.
The feeling that you experience by looking at this scene is similar to the one you feel in front of the ocean, you feel small, part of a greater picture that you can't even dream of.
I strongly recommend to everyone to visit the north of our country, it's true, it's not as GREEN as the south, but you will find the beautiness of another kind of nature, you can see the same geography icons without any trees or forest of any kind interfering with it, you will see the enormous amount of colors that dust and sand can create, showing to your eyes the most amaizing pictures you can imagine.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Just to be clear...

This ain't a website that I enjoy visiting, it's actually a site that I MUST visit, at least this last months, 4 times a week minimum. You may think this is exagerated, but considering all the things they ask us to do in workshop, and all the data that you can get from this website in a very clear, fast and organised way, you will understand it all.


The site it's call Observatorio Urbano (urban observatory)

(you can imaging what this is all about)


The site it's supported by the MINVU (ministry of housing and urbanism) and was made for the distribution in the most effective and simple way possible of the data collected for the INE (nacional institute of estadistic).

Surfing through the different areas you can find information of population data, urban planning, georeferences, norms and documents of the ministry, and links to related sites

Of this options, the ones that I visit more often are "Instruments of Planification" and "Urban Indicators". The fisrt one mainly looking for the Master plan, sectional or regulatory plan, of a determined area or city. Urban indicators is by far more interesting because you have a lot more data where to choose (considering all the data that the government collect in census and stuff like that), from numbers of people in a determined area, city, or even block, to the percent of a determined quintil (of social indicators) inside a determined area, city or block.
All this, from every city in every region of the whole country.

Now that you know what this site is all about, and how accurate and fast you can collect a otherwise impossible data, you realize why I visit this site that much.
even though I don't actually "enjoy" visiting it, I do like it a lot. at the end of the day, it makes my life a little easier =)