How to improve my english?

Some years ago, I was talking in english with some friends and this girl (she was from New York) told me "you're from latinamerica, right?". Apparently my "H" sounded very spanish-like and it gave away where I was from immediately. I didn't take it as a bad thing, but it made me more aware of our different accents and some sounds that we "borrow" from our mothertongue when we speak english.

My biggest practices on the language are reading and listening. Internet is an insanely huge source of information, and english is preferred in almost all areas of knowledge. When I'm unsure about a topic, I'll most likely search it on the english Wikipedia rather than the spanish one, for instance. There are also many more sources for university assignments and thesis in english than spanish, so it's a great tool. When it comes to hobbies and free time, I also follow plenty of english-speaking YouTube channels, such as vlogging, science videos, sketches and so on. One of my favourite YouTubers is VSauce. VSauce explains several topics of physics, chemistry, maths and psychology in such a way that you get hooked by the video regardless of what your interests are. There's something for everyone.

And due to all these pages and channels, I also tend to write every now and then in english. I even contributed in a videogame page at some point, creating posts such as these ones. Those were quite challenging as I needed to use correct language, be precise and funny at the same time.

The best (and maybe only) way to get better at something is to do that often. Speaking a language follows the same idea.

A few things about my study programme

Oh man, this one hits me on the soft spot hahahaha.

Since 2013, the Faculty has been working on the CIC (Comisión de Innovación Curricular) to improve our courses and our overall progress through the years, seeking for newer and more updated classes, deleting the old ones, and so on. I joined CIC around July this year, when they were planning on how to create a new study programme for our Natural Resources Engineering.

A common critique among my classmates is that we lack many social-focused courses. We study plants, animals, chemicals and legislative systems, but when it comes to society, we are very "do it yourself" and we don't really have the tools to approach a group of people and work with them. Also, since we do plenty of things with satellital images and remote sensing, we need many new courses about these topics. However, we are stuck with a programme made in 1998 and the softwares and updates have been a constant struggle for many of us through the years, so we're also thinking about upgrading that area and giving us useful tools to work with as engineers.

Talking about Law, we have only one class solely focused to environmental law. Back in 1998, it was enough. But today many things have changed: we have a Ministry of Environment, a new energy policy that will end up in 2050, an improved environmental impact assessment, and so on. So perhaps one course in only one semester won't be enough anymore.

And many other things. It has been quite interesting to be part of CIC, because I really feel that I'm understanding my whole programme.

My summer plans

I haven't made any plans for my January yet. Maybe I'll do my internship at a company that helps other companies with their environmental programs. I went to an interview last September and they were interested in me being part of them. However, they were looking for a full-time practicant, so they told me I could join in during December and January, after I was done with classes. They also said that they want practicants to become regular workers with them once they finish with their studies, so so if everything goes smoothly on January I could actually get a job! :D

On February, it might get a little more relaxing. My grandma has gone with my aunt and cousins to this cottage for the past years, and they invited me to join in now. It's a swimming pool, lying on the floor, sleeping without guilt, and nothing else to worry about. It would be a nice a change of air and I'm looking forward to that. Besides, I haven't seen my cousin in quite a long time, so it will be a good way of catching up in our current adventures

For me the summer is the story of me running away from the heat and the sun, so as long as I can accomplish that task, it will be a good summer for me. My dream summer would be in Antarctica running with penguins and enjoying a -5ºC on average, but I would have to content myself with a swimming pool for now.

Addictions

When I was in high school, I wanted to be a psychiatrist. One of the reasons were addictions, I thought it was fascinating that a substance or object could have such an impact in someone's behaviour that people end up losing friends, loved ones, and life over said addiction.

To understand addictions we need to remember something we all seek: joy. We want to be happy, we want to feel joy. And in order to do so, our brain releases certain hormones into our nervous system. The most well-known "happy" hormones are endorphin and serotonin. What it's interesting is that these hormones don't care about the "source" of happiness. So sex, being in love, doing sports, eating chocolate, listening to music we like, dancing, and addictions are all equal in chemical therms. Our brain knows they come from different sources, but once it's happy (full of endorphins) it doesn't care. Because being happy is great and it's a good thing that we seek happiness, right?

That's why addictions are harmful. Our brain likes endorphins, and it will start to demand its daily dose of them, and the addiction is an easy, safe, proven way of getting them. Why would someone spend time and effort with loved ones or doing sports if a substance gives him/her an instant result?

The line between being passionate about something and being addict might be blurry sometimes, and that complicates the issue. We're not machines, we're humans. We have will, we have the ability to choose. That's one of the reasons I wanted to study addictions when I was younger: it's an incredible balanse between science and power of will.

A post-graduate study

There are many foreign universities that have Master's Programs and further studies in environmental sciences. I know the University of Humboldt in Berlin has a Master's in Renewable Energies, a friend of mine wants to go to Tel Aviv (Israel) for a degree in political sciences with an environmental approach. Also, there's Paulina Aldunce, a professor of our Faculty who's an agronomist that did a Master's in Sociology afterwards. So there are many options out there and said options aren't restricted to our field as pure engineers, maths and technology.

The one I'm interested the most nowadays is a Master's named Development, Environment and Cultural Change, at the University of Oslo in Norway. I believe those three elements are very tightly together, as poor countries suffer the most with environmental hazards, and a cultural change (such as usage of cleaner technologies) comes along with the technologies and the economic factors that influence development in countries, cities and neighbourhoods. So a Master's blending those three aspects is quite appealing.

Norway as a country also has many things on this area as well. For instance, all of the electricity produced in the country comes from hidropower and bioenergy, and electric cars are very common. And the regulations for house heating are very strict as well, so no energy is released and wasted, but it stays indoors.

And who knows, if luck is on my side and we don't destroy ourselves with a nuclear war first, I'd like to seek a job over there and see what's available.

My dreamjob

In this era of social media and streaming, many science-related projects and organisations have gone online to promote what they do and to teach people about science and technology. In particular, NASA has done some live streamings from the International Space Station (ISS), where the astronauts answer questions people posted on Twitter or Facebook, and also talk about northern lights, climate change or related topics that they've been able to spot from space.

And I would like to be up there and be that person in the ISS answering those questions.

Today, there are many scientists, physicists and even biologists who have gone up there to do research or to test instruments, it's not "so" elite as it was back in the 70s. Of course, it's still a lot of work, both intelectual, mental and physical in order to get selected by the NASA and go to space, but it's easier.

There are many planned missions as well to do longer trips to colonise Mars or Jupiter's moons, and who knows...maybe they need an engineer in natural resources to figure something out, so I may find a place at NASA. And considering the humongous distances between Earth and Mars, I have plenty of time to do that scene from "2001: A Space Odyssey" I've always dreamt of.

Climate Change

I think Climate Change is one of the biggest crisis mankind has faced through its history, together with the Ice Age and the Black Death. It's a problem that affects us all and we're all somehow responsible for this issue. It infuriates me to listen to people such as Donald Trump and Mike Pence (US vice president) saying that it's not real or that it's only another Earth cycle. It is not. For the planet, it took around 250 million years to warm up the planet in 2.5ºC. It took mankind 150 years to do the same. Natural? No way. 

However, I also believe that Climate Change is sometimes too demonized and it looks like our doom. There's a huge amount of people around the planet working to solve this crisis. Tesla Company creating new technologies that don't use oil as main source of energy, and thus creating cleaner, smarter and more reliable cars. Sweden and Germany are doing tremendous advances in the waste management and electric energy areas. In Chile, for the first time in mankind history, solar energy is cheaper than coal because of our huge radiaton index in the Atacama Desert, so there's an unique opportunity waiting for us. The hurricane that struck USA a few weeks ago is a reminder of the severity of Climate Change and everyone understood it as such. And so on. 

We're not oblivious to it. Now should be the time to do something about it.