My year so far...

My year so far hasn't being as bad as you may think (with the strike and all). At first was attractive because I expose myself to an environment different of anything I had experienced before (U Chile, it's a jungle of personalitys), so, I was drawn to this type of breeding ground where relationhips develop (quickly, may I add) while new subjects were thrown at us and very literally, widening our minds. It was a intense begining of year. 

And then...Strike! 

That wasn't so good. The positive part of been six week with no classes is that I had time to do my stuff. I made a short video...But the videos I do, are animated so they take time for me to plan, record and edit, since they are utterly handmade. With the six weeks of strike I had time and made the most of it. I also had space to write, I wrote as I hadn't done in quite long. 

In academic terms I'm glad that my grades haven't been somethig to worry about, though I still study and stress out...and I don't know, I'm just happy, it's weird to say it like that, but maybe is the effect of be back at a classroom and interact with other human beings. It's harder to fall into depression when you go out every day, or it is for me and I'm just happy for that. 

My favorite subject this semester

I like this topic for a post, mainly because after all this time with out classes, I think is good to go back to the time...

A subject that I enjoyed studying this semester? My first thought was Discurso y Significación, just because I find it pretty cool, there, we basically analyze language and culture, the teacher actually made a feminist turn that I did not expect, but I liked it (sort of...women and the language culture). But, thinking it through a little more, I'm going to say that the subject that I most enjoyed this semester, so far, is Taller de Realización, that, I would call it a type of workshop. 

It didn't happend, for obvious reasons, but the workshop was suppose to go like this: one week the teachers make a presentation about some subject in the film-making world and give us a task (a video, I'm in film and TV, so it cannot be other way), and that task will be review next week, within the whole section, and so, on, and on. The first task they assigned us was to make a video that described your partner, they paired up the section, some of us knew each other, but others didn't, and for me at least was fun. We manage to deliver two tasks, then we had the recess week and then...

Well, what I like of this class is the conversation that comes up with the different exercises, from my classmates and me. So if it's your work in the projection, yeah, you receive criticism (always with respect), but also compliments, and is so much more meaningful coming from your peers. The teacher of the section says some things. 

I also like that, in the presentations of a new subject, the whole generation is in the auditorium, the four sections are mixed up, and so are the teachers. All the teacher have their moment to speak, show a clip of a movie or documentry and start the development of the topic from the reflexions of the clip that we just watched. 

Becauase of that is that I like the Taller de Realización. 

Super 8

 Today I'm going to talk about a movie that I really like, for a while now, and that is Super 8. 

This film (you can tell by the poster) is a science-fiction story, wich reminds me to an adventure similar to Stranger Things or even The Goonies, because is a group of friends who are in the wrong place at the wrong time (that's why it also gives me Harry Potter vibes). This incident that they witness is what triggers all the actions that follow in the film, and that incident is a train crash, but it was purposely done: a truck drove on the rails to make the crash happen. 

This group of friends were in the train station filming a movie of their own, and that's a interesting thing in the movie, at all times they are filming the movie for this festival they want to participate in, so they are always running with the make up and costumes, camaras and then revealing the rolls (the movie is set in the 80').

I watch this movie for the first time in inglish class, in a day that we had nothig better to do, we had no presentations or work to do, so our teacher, who loved this tipe of movies, put this in the projector. Because of the time we didn't finish it, but I liked it very much and I couldn't just left it like that, with out not knowing the end of the movie, so I went to Netflix and watched from where we had left off. 

Is a really good movie, I recommend it.

 

Mubi

 A website that I visit with some regularity (I would say like...twice a week, but it really depends of the week, for example now that we are in the mids of the walkout, definitely is more than just twice a week) is Mubi. I got to suscribe by the insufferable internet and its ears, because (and this is before I even matriculated to study film and TV) YouTube flooded me with ads of this website, those ads were basically little trailers of different films, foreign films, italian, asian, french and russian movies, and I watch them and said Oh! that looks really cool. Spoiler: I signed up to Mubi.

So yeah, is a plataform where you can watch movies, but like...cinema art (cine arte), and especially european movies. It has the films of the day (thirty selected titles) but you can also watch other movies, you can search by titles or directors, sometimes you can try by actors/actresses. There I watched Cold War (a movie nominated to the Oscars), Drive My Car (I really recommend it, is a beatiful movie, even if is three houres long, this one did won the Oscar for foreign film) and The Sacrifice (let me tell you it is a sacrifice to watch it, but if you are depressed and up for something sloooooowwwww and deeeeeeep (deep in the sense of philosophical questioning about life) then is totally your movie). Ignore my double parentheses. 

But, if I'm being honest, I mostly suscribed because now that I'm studying film and TV I have the moral need to watch more movies (and for the discount I had for being a university student).

The link: https://mubi.com/es

A memorable trip

 In the middle of the pandemic my dad came up with the idea of going out on a trip (this was when you were allow to go around the contry). The selected place was the beach Ventanas. At first I was like...Why are we goig to that place if you watch everything they say in the news? But my dad replied that it was actually one of the most beautiful beaches in the contry, so, if we didn't get too close to the water we were going to be ok. So we went. 

We went with one of my aunts. I was not such a long car trip and I read from the start to the end of it. The first beach we saw when we arrived was really desappointing, I told my dad that that wasn't what I was expecting and he started to tell me all the good memories he has on that beach...The reality was that there were not sand left, all of it had been swallow by the sea, so, it was a cliff with the blue tongues of the water at the bottom of the stone wall. After that we whent back to the car and went to the real beach. 

This other beach had sand and parking, even picnic tables. There my dad, my mom and my sister sat down on a blanket they had brought. As for me and my aunt, we take off our shoes and we went for a walk. In that walk we talk a lot, and it was really refreshing...I think that mostly beacuse it had been such a long time in confinement that being in the world, breathing clean air did me good. It was like a recharging trip, I enjoy it very much.

Laura Gallego

 When I turn fifteen one of my aunts gave me a trilogy, a fantasy trilogy. That fantasy trilogy was "Memorias de Idhún", written by Laura Gallego, this trilogy was what introduced me to this author. 

Laura Gallego is a Spanish author. She strated publishing at the age of twenty-one after winning the Barco de Vapor with a novel called "Finis Mundi". Now she has near twenty books and five trilogys/sagas, but for me is clear that "Memorias de Idhún" was made her one of the most sell authors of fantasy right now, is what made her known. Her latest book is "El ciclo del eterno emperador", but the last book I have read from her is "Los guardianes de la ciudadela" wich is part of the trilogy of "El bestiario de Axlin". 

I wanted to write about her because I don't know how she does ti, but every time I submerge in one of her stories everything is so...I can't even put ti into words...is so perfect, the plot intrigues you and you inevitably fall in love with the characters. Her books usually are thick (four hundred pages at least) but I always finish them in a few days, they are so good! And my aunt in my fiftieth birthday was wicked. Her present were the three books of the trilogy, so right after I finish the first one, I had the second one, and when I had already eaten up the second one, I had the third one in my power...I don't think that I was capable of resist more than three weeks, in less I had read the whole trilogy (the first book has five hundred pages, the second seven hundred, the third nine hundred). 

If we are talking about a book of Laura Gallego, I'm a complete mess.

Though I haven't read all of her books. I can only do it when someone gives me one of her novels as a present, also when I have money (reading in paper is very expensive) and time. 

One book from her that I really recomend is "El lugar donde los árboles cantan" is a beautiful story in a medival setting. 

A photograph that I like

 

This photograph is from the book of Seph Lawless (Seph Lawless Abandoned: hauntingly beautiful deserted theme parks). All the photographs in the book are from different abandoned theme parks, as Disney and also one that seems like Jurasic Park (among others). The book was publish in the 2017. 

This whale reminds me of a bouncy game that used to be in the beach, in Viña I think. It was just next to La Picá del Loro, and my dad had a friend who lived there, becuase of that we went on numerous occasions to the place, and I  loved when I was allow to play on the gigantic blue whale. The tirck of the game was that the jaw of the whale often got close and you were "swallow" as you slip dawn it's throat. 

That is more like a happy memory and it doesn't quite fit to the photograph of the gloomy whale in the abandoned theme park...Anyways, sometimes when I look the to the photo I like to imagine that the whale's big mouth is aportal or the door to some secret place. It's stupid but I can't help it. 

I can't tell why is that I like this kind of things, I guess that is for the same reason I like dystopic stories and depressing songs...I'm attracted to this type of esthetics, but many people are, if not, there wouldn't be this much content of this genre.