Listening to my little piece of technology

Because I've never live near my education establishment and since a lot of time I've to travel more than an hour on a bus or subway, I anxiously needed some kind of entertainment during the long trip.
I used to use a little radio with earphones but half of the trip I was undergrounded so the radio signal couldn't got caught. So it didn't cover all the function that was assigned to.
But that was until I received a mail from an uncle who lives in France where he told me that he wanted to gave me a present for this Christmas (last one). He made me the complex question "what would you like?" so I had to think deeply and then I realized that this was the perfect opportunity to change my old and big radio.
I answer him if he could give me a MP4 or something like that (anything but a heavy radio with earphones). Then he said "OK, wait until your grandmother travel to Chile and you'll see".
Well she brought me the long waited present. It was a 4 GB Sony MP4.
My life changed from that moment when I could listening to my music everywhere (on the subway, on a bus going out from Santiago, etc., watch videos, see pictures and even listening to the radio station in a high quality.
Now I go on the bus and the subway with more happiness, I even noticed that the trip is shorter and I can focus more in what I read on my way to Uni.
What more can I say... the battery last like 5 days and the MP4 fits everywhere I want to put it.
I love it!
And all thanks to my French uncle and his good intentions.
I think if you have to travel a lot, you'll understand the importance of this kind of hearing aid.

Waterfalls and Caipirinha!

Clear sea, hot beaches and my high school classmates, what a nice combination.

In 2008 January my class and I had our study trip in high school. We went to Brazil for 10 days and we were like 30 people. We worked trough all 2007 collecting money to pay the cost of the trip.
Of course we didn't collect enough money to pay everyone's ticket, so we shared out what we have with our classmates who had the biggest economic problems.
In Brazil we went to Camboriú, a seaside city with amazing beaches and a humid weather. We had parties every night and we knew there the famous "Caipirinha", obviously I didn't drink a drop. During the day we visited some historic and some entertainment places of the city.
After a few days we went to another fantastic place: Foz do Iguaçu. There we visited the rainforest (actually almost everywhere in that city is a tropical rainforest) and the Iguazú waterfalls (an amazing experience, just look at the picture and you'll nearly understand).
This falls was truly the best of the trip. You look at them and you start to fell a mix of respect, fear, love and a lot of other feelings. Something wonderful.
There we stayed for two more days and we get back to Santiago. I remember on that day I slept like 24 hours on a row. The trip let me really tired, but it was worthy.
One of the better trips that I've had.

U-Cursos???!!!

Well, it's my first year at the university and I really don't use a lot of websites for studying. But there's a website that I use, not specifically about sociology but it makes me easier the organization for all my subjects. This site is U-Cursos.
At the beggining I was very uncomfortable with the system, but it was because I didn't know how to use it very well.
If you didn't know U-Cursos was created by engineers of the University of Chile for making a database, calendar and a comunication system for the Beauchef Campus and the students in there. Later it was spread and extended to all the students of the University since the good results.
U-cursos have been growing troughout time. Now they have a calendar, a forums system, a space to be in touch with the teachers and classmates, another to share documents, to write a blog and even check your e-mail.
The problem that I see it's that not all the teachers here in "Sociales" use the system because they have their own website (Moodle). Actually it's been a bit annoying to change every time from one site to another.
Anyway I have to say that U-cursos have been a very useful website and I'm going to take the opportunity to recomend it.

What a earthquake!

Fortunately i was in my home. I just got sleep when I felt the starting tremor and I thought "Fuck! I hate to be awake like this", then this little quake became a "super" earthquake and I got up immediatly. When I got to the doorframe I saw my parents coming trough the kitchen door (they sleep in a room outside). I ran to get with them and we stayed at the doorframe of the kitchen. We saw our van move one side to another like a horrible dance. In the meanwhile my mother remembered my sister who was on the beach with some friends. She started to cry.
The earthquake stopped and I went to find my Mp4 looking for some radio station which were broadcasting at that moment. I listened to Radio Cooperativa and then I hear that the epicenter was to the south (my sister was to the north, so we were more calm for that).
My house resisted pretty good the earthquake, some stuff fell down, but nothing important. We talked to my sister a few hours later. Just in that moment we could fall sleep again.
After that we didn't have electricity for 5 days, during that I went to the houses of some friends to recharge my mobile phone and my Mp4.
When we recovered the electricity I saw at facebook that the FECh (Federation of Students of the University of Chile) was recruiting people to help the real victims of the earthquake, so I went there looking to do something helpful.
I went to Paine one day to recolect rubble and others days I traveled trough the streets of Santiago collecting money to send to the south.
On those days I realize that the poor Town Halls couldn't make anything useful, we saw them overloaded and trying to do something useful, but they couldn't cover all the damages. This made me notice that the poor Town Halls can't do pretty much by themselves. They needed (and need) a huge "hand" from the State to be useful.
This is a son of the inequality that we live everyday here in Chile.
What a earthquake!

meee

I'm Matías Flores and I'm studying Sociology. This is my first year at university and so far it's has been good.
I like to play basketball, eat a lot and sleep long hours.
I'm also learning french at university, but I'm going just as a lintener because they don't give me the chance to take for real, as a CFG (N).
Also I hope that this blog help me at my english.