Final Session: Self evaluation of my academic year

My academic year didn’t start as good as I wanted to. It is never easy to recover from a disappointment like failing in several courses, but there’s nothing to do about that once it happends, you just have to move forward and do what you got to do. So my year started away from my friends, who took other courses that correspond to the fifth year. Meanwhile, I was taking the reproduction course, Reproduction Biotechnologies course and Hematology, plus other course, the only one from the fifth year.

It was bad to be alone, and it was worst because two of my best friends went traveling and working far away. But I wasn’t the only one in this situation, so that kind of made me feel better. I just did what I had to do and I passed through, even though it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Finally, in my last exam, when I was sitting in my table, ready to give the test, I was excused because of my grades. It was great, I passed everything!

The second semester it was great. I took six courses but my schedule was very relaxed, I only had classes on wednesday, thursday and friday. There's only one fear this semester: Medicine. It's an annual course, and if you fail, you loose a hole year. But I did great, more than great, I even got a 62 in a test (the best grade on that test). But nothing is for sure, because I need to get a 40 in the next exam to pass the course. If I don't get a 40, I will have to take the last test, and I am really concern abut it, because a have lots and lots of stuff to study. If I do well, I will have vacations on december 20th. I keep my fingers crossed.

In summary, I think this has been a great year. Hard but relaxed, I just did what I had to, and never got really stressed about anything, one day at the time. I really took advantage of my free time in the best way that it was possible. I think this was the perfect year to prepare myself academically for the next year, my last year! that surely will be hardest than this one and all the others that I had before, but I am not really scared, I'm actually excited, and I just really hope that it will be the last one. I love my career, but I really want to finish it

Session 10: Challenges in our discipline

Our career, as many other career in Chile, faces difficulties precisely because we live in Chile, and this is a country that doesn't have the education with the things that are related to the veterinarian aspects, like, to not go further, the issues related to the responsible ownership.

But there's a lot more than that:

In technology: we usually know how to do things properly, and by that I mean, that we, as veterinarian, for example, know that the best way to do a proper diagnosis is by an antibiogram, if we want to know the exact bacteria that a pacient has. Or, if we want to operate a pacient with fracture, we first need to take x-ray, but in most of the cases we don't count with those kinds of tools, because a matter of money, and other  times, when a hospital do have those kinds of tools, the cost it's so high, that the owner can't pay, so it's difficult to do things properly, as it should be done.

In social matters: this topic, as I said before, it's one of the most important in our country and, in my opinion the one that needs to be work on it.
The social problems that our career have to face are mostly related to small animals, the way that vets use to refer to pets. It's true that in production of big animales, such as cows and horses there can be problem with the ignorance and irresponsability of the owners and it's not rare to find animales in the worst condition because of these. But still, is the pet area that causes the biggest problems to vets.

There's thousand of examples to start with just here in La Pintana, where people, luckly, feed their pets. They don't care about diseases, vaccinations, sterilization, and if they do, they don't have the money for it, wich results in an increased on animal population, both canine and feline, and increased in zoonotic diseases, and many other problems as we've seen on TV, as attacks from dogs to people, and the list goes on.

These are problems that can only be solved through education of the population

Sesion 9 Guardian Article: SAS parachute dogs of war into Taliban bases

One of the biggest and silliest things of human kind are wars. The news that I would talk about tell us that no one  can escape from it, not even animals.
UK special forces in Afghanistan decided that it was really stupid to die while they try to spy the enemy, so they decided that they will send dogs instead of humans. Yes, the special forces are sending german shepherd in parachutes and with cameras attached to their heads to search talibans insurgents in strongholds. Eight of them have died in action so far. "but that would be eight SAS men" tell the source to the Times.
Of course, the people who is always there to defend animal rights stand up an expressed their outrage. But it's not the first time in history that human use dogs for war, or for stupids, suicidal things like this. In world war two the Russian military trained dogs with bombs strapped to their bodies. Of course, when the bomb detonated, killed the dog that was trained to get close to enemy tanks.
In my personal opinion, there can be no greater betrayal to man's best friend. The animals died because they serve and trust in their masters.

Here is the link for this tragical news

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/08/sas-dogs-parachute-taliban-afghanistan

Sesion 8: Improving the Faculty Facilities

These days, the Veterinary Faculty has been improved in several aspects, such as remodeling of the classroom, remodeling of the bathroom, a new hospital, and a place to sleep for the night shifts.
With all these new stuff, what things need to be improved?  In my opinion there are three places that need remodeling: the cafeteria, the area of the CEV and photocopies and the place where the lockers are. This three places need improvement because of their bad conditions and poor utilization of space.

I particularly think that the first thing that we need to do to improved this areas is make a plan to dispose better of the spaces. The locker area used to be a study classroom for students. I would buy new lockers, clean the spaces and bring down a few walls that belongs to the old private area to study, a space that no longer is used.
Even though the cafeteria has been improved the last years, it needs to grow in size, because it can ussually get crowdy, specially in winter. It also needs a system of air conditioning, to keep it fresh in summer and warm in winter.
The so called "cuchitril" area, it used to be a recreation room, but the students have no respect for this area and it doesn't get the best treatment, so it's always dirty an messy. This area only needs to be organized, with the recreation area well stablished and the resting area aswell.

In my opinion, this are improvements that doesn't need too much money to be done, so the thing would be to present a simple but well thought project to the authorities, and see what can be done about it.

Sesion 7: My favourite movie

There's lots of great movies out there, but I would like to speak of a relatively new one that I absolutly adore and I think is a neo-classic on celluloid. Curiously this movie does not come from Hollywood, it comes from France, the name is "Le Fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain", or just Amelie.

This movie it's clasified as a romantic comedy, but is so much more than that and it is so far away from romantic comedies from Hollywood. It tells the story of Amelie, a good girl that want to do good things for other people, without them notice, but with this generous attitude she forgets a bit about herself. She falls in love, but she is a little coward and she had a hard time trying to express her feelings. Finally, to find her own happiness she must dare to face love.

This movie has a lot of magic, and sometimes is described as a tale for adults. It explore the very basics of human behavior, those particular details that each person has, things that you like, things that you don't like. It has a lot of nostalgic scenes that remind the happiness and the simplicity of childhood. Additionally, to make this movie an exquisit experience, the music, by Yann Tiersen, and the photography are a pleasure to the senses.

Sesion 6: My favourite animal

This is reaally hard for me to decide, because I really love cats, dogs, horses, and many other living creatures, but I think this time I will talk about one of my latest love, the Chinchilla.

The Chinchilla is a rodent, endemic from Chile and Argentina, that is endangered in the wild, but 100 years ago started the breeding in captivity, and therefore, there's two kind of chinchilla: the wild one, that it's protected, and the captivity breeded, that it's the one you see on pet-shop and it is used for fur.

They are a bit smaller than a rabbit, and very fast creatures. They also have nocturnal habits and they are known for having the higher density of hair in the world, one of the reasons that led the near to extinction. Their natural color is grey, but along the years in captivity, there have been mutations and now exist different colors like black velvet, white, ebony and charcoal, and many others.

I actually have three chinchillas: Clementina, Tomasa and Ramon. Clementina is a grey and sweet chinchilla, who loves petting and corn. Ramón, also known as "Moncho" is my beautiful white chinchilla and the only male in the group. He scaped once and have a really hard time because of my dogs, but he's fine now. And last but not least is Tomasa, my black velvet chin that is the less sociable of all, but I love her anyway.

I think the chinchillas are a great pets, because they are lots of fun, specially when they take sand baths and run on their wheel. The chinchillas are very clean animals that doesn't smell bad (unless you never clean their cage), they don't bite and they are very sociable and perfect for people who live in flats and doesn't have much space to share.

The chinchillas can live 12 years and they never ever get sick so they don't need a vet, but I would really love to breed them as pets, never for fur!

Here, some picture of my chinchillas!

Sesion 5: Where to go/What to do in Santiago

I love Santiago, despite the polution, the traffic, the sometime angry people that travel in the subway, I think Santiago is a really good place, but not exactly the best place for a tour. Still, there's some great places that you MUST visit if you come here. Here is my personal choice (in no particular order):

1. La Piojera: because is the real, one and only place to drink an "earthquake", and also enjoy of something especial in the air, and I don't mean cigarrette or alcohol, but something of a traditional flavor, that comes from the typical and ancient life of Santiago.


2. The Metropolitan Park: Is the best place to walk, and gives you the chance to see Santiago in a panoramic view. You can also visit the zoo, watch the image of the virgin mary and take the cableway that is so much fun.

3. The Barrio Brasil: because of its unique, beautiful and classic architecture.


4. The Ahumada walk: If you like crowdy places, that's is the place to go, because it can lead you to fantastic places, because is in the center of the city, but I don't recommend it to stay there very longer, just pass by.


5. Fantasilandia: Is the best amusement park in Chile, by far, even tough it's not even close to others in the rest of the world, but I really like it, it's a great place to hang out for an entire day.