our challenges

I think that the biggest challenge for psychology is to be able to say what the mind and the emotions are. There are different theories and they all postulate different and opposite things about this subject, that is why there is not one psychology. If someone asks to a psychologist what are the mind and the emotions, they will answer from the approach that they apply and believe in. For example, if I ask about the mind to a behavioral psychology, the answer will be that the “black box” can`t be studied, so is not considered in the theory, but if we ask to a cognitive psychology, the answer bill be extremely different, it will say that with the mind we significate and interpretate what we live as animals, creating the subjective experience. The necessity to be able to agree with all the approaches of psychology is the biggest challenge and the weakest aspect of my discipline, but is also the best part of it. For me, is fun and necessary that in a profession coexist different ways of seen the word and the human being, because it allows flexibility and freedom to choose which one makes more sense to you, the one you like the most, the one that will help you to accomplish what you want as a professional and as a person. I think that is no solution for this “problem”, which I think is good, but I also think that it can be improved. In the time that I have been part of the program I have observed that the people are not very respectful with the psychologist that do not agree with the way they think, that goes for everybody, even me.

I think that teaching respect for the “different thought” it will improve the relationship that exist between the many types of psychologist, which will help to create a better, solid and complete knowledge created with cooperation and respect.

I think that the other big challenge of psychology is the social role of this discipline. Some people say that the psychologist could be a generator of change or a reproducer of the power relations of our society. I think that we as an active social actor have to question our role in the society and discover what we want to do with it. We need to be aware of what we do, not only in our consult with our patients, but also as a person who participates and influences the social order, so we could know what our actions mean and what we have to do to accomplished our personal goal, as a discipline and as individuals.

The money

I consider myself as a person that knows how to handle money. I have always helped in money issues in my house, I have always been responsible to pay the bills, deposited the checks, distributed the money on travels, control de expenses, etc. This means that I have a lot of experience handling money on a on a daily basis.
I usually don’t have to borrow money from other people, only to my mother that is the person that supports me while I´m not able to make money for myself. But if I ask someone else for money is because I need to by something immediately and I left the money at home, like lunch, copies, etc. And I´m not very good at returning the money, not because I don´t want to, but because I have a very bad memory for that, so If I ask for money I also ask that someone remind me to return it. When I don´t remember in a long time and the persons that borrow me the money ask me for it, I feel very embarrassed, that’s why I always prefer not to borrow money. The big problem with my bad memory for money issues is that I also don´t remember when I lend money to someone else, so If the other person doesn´t remembers, I never get my money back.
A long time ago, I used to pay my bills making very long lines, a few times a month, to pay them , It was a big waste of time and energy, and also very boring. Now, with the technology I pay my bills bay PAC, that is a system that discounts the money directly from your bank account, the company only lets you know how much you expend and why. The other method is paying the bill on the web side of Servipag, you ask for the bills that you owe and you pay them quickly and easy by internet with you bank pin.
I think that the responsibility of teaching us about the money, hoe to use it and the big responsibility that implies, is the responsibility of the family and the school, all the knowledge combined helps people to know better how to manage their finances.

my faculty

I think that the faculty is now in an “upgrade”. Recently they have improved the computer laboratories and the structure of some of the departments. About the computers, I think that is positive that know we have more and better computers, but they are very often used for classes which means that they are not available for the students that needs to work in them. Also, I think that a big improvement would be to be able to print without limit, a 1000 pages a year is insufficient for us, that’s why at the end of every semester we are begging for extra pages or we end up paying to print some else. Also, I would open new study spaces, because we only have the library and is always clouded and noisy, and the study room/casino that t`s a really but joke pretend that a casino is a appropriated place to study just because it has internet and plugs for the computers, that’s why I always end up studying on the grass or in the faculty floor. For all of these reasons, I would like more benches, chair or sofas in the faculty so we could sit, rest, study, work somewhere comfortably. I think that some changes to the faculty it would be positive, because it wouldn’t be some place to come, take the classes and leave, It would be a place for us and ours, where we could develop ourselves as students with all the elements and spaces necessaries.

my practice

Today the topic that I’m going to write is about my practice. I haven`t thought about it until last week, when I saw that the meeting with the teacher in charge of the practices was schedule for thin week. Unfortunately I couldn’t go.
I have always known that I wasn’t motivated to do a regular practice, like the ones that the students do just for obligation without enjoying them. I also know that for my thesis I want to do an investigation about an interesting subject, which means a lot of time and work. So I have decided that I want to do my practice outside Santiago, It doesn’t matter if it is in another city or in another country, the only thing that matters is that I`m not going to do it in my home city.
The main reason to do my practice somewhere else is because is the best option to do a lot of thing that I want to do all at once. First, it allows me to live a few months alone, outside my house, which means, without the protection of mom. It would be the first time that I would live alone, I have stayed in other places for a long time but on vacations; living and working, outside home is a whole different thing. Second, when someone does the practice far away from the university, they give you more options, for example, they could accept that you didn’t completed all the 700 hours of practice for the fact of been away. They also give you more freedom to invest the hours of work in other tope of activities. In my case I could be able to invest some of the time doing the investigation that I want to do and do activities that the people that I’m working with needs.

I suck as a tour guide in Santiago

I have to admit that I don`t really know very much the tourist part of Santiago, so if some friend comes to visit me I think I would ask a friend of mine about what to do. She has been visited by a lot of friends from another country (Ecuador), so she has a lot of experience as a tourist guide. I think I would start de tour in Cerro San Cristobal in a very sunny day, and hopefully in a free smog day, so they could see the city. I would also take them to the best Chilean restaurants, for them to taste our typical food. If it is winter, depending on the budget, I would like to organize a trip to Farellones, Colorado so they could ski and enjoy the snow. If it is summer, I would prefer to go to Valparaiso, Viña del Mar to enjoy the beaches, or maybe take them to the south, to the country. It shows, but if someone came to Chile, I definitely wouldn’t stay in Santiago, is a city like any other, I think is a little bit boring as a place to stay having some many wonders just two hours from here.

I`ve never enjoyed very much reading, I don`t know why, but it makes me sleepy. That has been a really big problem this last few years, because in psychology we have to read a lot, for that reason I had to invent methods to be able to read without falling sleep or lose concentration, reading standing up, listening music or with a strong light, etc. Once in a while I found something to read that keeps me awake and entertain, my resent discovery is Jodorowsky. I had to read his book of “Psicomagia” for a paper that I had to do (with my friend Carla) for a humanist curse last semester, and I really enjoyed the process of reading it. I found very interesting the content of his book, his proposal, the thing that he says and how he says them. I liked so mach, that now I`m reading his other book “La danza de la realidad” just for fun. So far, I have been even more fascinated with his experiences in life and his way of signify the reality. Now I’ve already in my hands, and waiting to be read, his book about the Tarot of Marsella, subject that I found very interesting, especially because I read the Egyptian Tarot, and it could be, not only important to my life, but also a significant way of been a better reader of the tarot .

Transantiago

I think that Transantiago, in the beginning was a chaos. The system was not enough for all the people, everywhere and in every time everything was full and hot. But in time, fortunately it has been improved, slowly it has been getting better. The thing I hate the most about transantiago is that now we have to be changing busses all the time, which makes the travel to be longer than before. The positive thing about it, is that now the busses are more save, before they were very old, and broken, and the bus drivers were faster and fearless than now.Since Transantiago started, I fortunately haven’t used a lot, a few months after it started my mother gave me her old car, so that made things a lot easer to my to get round the city, especially to avoid all the chaos of the firs year. Before thansantiago, it was faster to get to places, but it was very difficult to be a student a that time, I didn`t had a student pass so I had to fight a lot with the buss driver to pay the student price, now is easer, because everything is more organized than before. And now I have a student pass, so I don’t have to be fighting any more.
I think, that I would invest more in the busses, they broke all the time, there is always a bus on the street waiting to be repaired. I would also invest more in security, to the buss drivers and to the people that uses thansantiago.