Post 11

Today I`m going to write about the challenges archaeology in my country is currently facing related to different areas such as technology, social matters and education.


Technology
I think this area represents the most important challenge to archaeology in Chile, because we simply don´t have any kind of technology at all. There isn´t any special archaeological center with laboratories or with the technology to work with archaeological material. And the laboratories in my faculty aren´t even laboratories, they are just classrooms with a big table and boxes with bones and pieces of ceramic. All the laboratory tests that the material requires are made in U.S.A. or Europe.
I believe the only solution to the technology problem is to invest money in technology, buy special equipment such as spectrometers, ICPs, HPLCs and that kind of stuff, but the government always has more important problems to solve such as transantiago or public education.


Social Matters
To me, social matters are a waste of time, but I think the most developed area in archaeology in my country is precisely the social area. Everybody cares about social matters and the only thing my teachers talk is about how archaeology can contribute to society, to make the world better and to solve all the humanity problems.


Education
This is another important challenge; it is related to technology because to improve the teaching of archaeology we need to improve the technology. Students need to work with archaeological materials, in excavations and in laboratories, so if we don´t have laboratories, we can´t really learn everything we need.
Another mayor problem is that Archaeology is a very unknown degree only four universities in Chile have this degree and the most important is Universidad de Chile, most of the people doesn´t even know what archaeologists does, so I think it is important to educate people about archaeology and about our history, that is the only way the people and the government will invest money to improve technology and education.


Take care guys

Anthropology and Money

Today I must write about anthropology and money, a difficult subject because when you think of anthropology, you can´t think in a lot of money, at least in my country.

About the question “what is more important anthropology or money?” to me is more important the money, because I didn´t choose to study anthropology, I chose to study archaeology, so I don´t care about anthropology at all and I think money is necessary to live, you like it or not. If you ask me about archaeology, my answer will be the same, because for me archaeology is like a hobby, I really like archaeology but if I want a house and a family I´m going to need money not pieces of ceramic or ancient bones.

In this country I think you can´t make a lot of money being an anthropologist (or an archaeologist) because it is not a necessary job in this society, it is more important to be an engineer, a lawyer, a businessman or things like that. By being an anthropologist you can make a little bit of money, but you won´t be rich.

When I chose to study archaeology I wasn´t thinking about money, but I wasn´t thinking about social science either, I was thinking about science, real science, a scientific job, I wasn´t thinking about social “science”, because for me, social science is not a science at all. Now I realize that everything in this faculty is “social” and I really hate that, I would like archaeology to be more scientific and less social, but in this faculty there is a lack of scientific things.

Finally, about the last question of the assignment, I must say that I still depend on my parents to live and to study, but I make my own money teaching Kenpo in the gym of La Florida, people pay me for the classes and I have a lot of students (that is more money). Additionally I work hard every summer, this summer I will be working in an office as a quality manager to implement the ISO 9000:2000, I`m going to make a lot of money. It is really cool to make my own money because it gives me independence and I can buy things like clothes or shoes or save money to go on vacations. Last vacations were great because I had money to spend.

My faculty

I really don´t know what´s the current situation in my faculty, because I don´t spend too much time in it, but I can´t say that for me the major problem in my faculty is the space. The classrooms are very small and it is very difficult to find an empty room when we need it. The library is also very small and when you need to study you must go anywhere but the library. Another major problem is that laboratories are very small and specialists need to keep anthropological and archaeological collections in order and it is very difficult to do in this little space.

So I think the University needs to improve the spaces in the faculty, because we need more spaces to study and professors need more spaces to research and to work with the collections.

The first step to improve this situation is building another place to put bigger laboratories to work and special rooms to keep the collections in order. Then the university should build a special library with a lot of books, real books not photocopied books and with a lot of space to study. Finally, the faculty should turn the laboratories and the library into classrooms in order to have more space to study.

Another problem I see is the lack of material and tools to work with the collections, so the university should worried about it and buy quality tools to work with, because professors need those tools to research.

Take care friends

Music

Today I must write about music, my classmates chose the topic but I must say that for me is a really boring topic because I don´t care about it.

I don´t have any preferences about a particular kind of music, I can listen jazz, or metal, or salsa, or romantic music, to me is the same, because if I have to choose, I prefer not to listen music at all. Music to me is a waste of time.

As I already said, I don´t care about music, so you can imagine that I have no favorite band or singer, sometimes I listen romantic singers as Alberto Plaza or Christian Castro, sometimes I listen rock bands as Guns and Roses and sometimes I even listen to classic music as Beethoven, Bach or Mozart.

I don´t have a favorite song, it depends on the moment, with my boyfriend my favorite songs are love songs, but with my friends my favorite songs are other kind of songs.

I have been in four concerts so far. My first concert was a Lenny Kravitz´s concert; I went to that concert because a friend invited me. Next year, the same friend, invited me to another concert, it was a Ska-p`s concert. My third concert was a Tom Jones`s concert; I went to that concert because my grandmother invited me. Finally, in march or 2008, my boyfriend invited me to a Sin Bandera`s concert.

Because I don´t like music, I can´t play any instrument, but I really don´t care, I can do more interesting things than play an instrument.

Awful Topic

The keeper of London's archaeological treasures

The article I read, talks about the MoLa, the Museum of London Archaeology. The article says that archaeology is not just some “dusty, hole-in-the-corner academic pursuit but big business”, because MoLA archaeologists need to compete with other archaeologists for work.

In the article, James Morris, an animal remains specialist says that archaeology is "the devil's jigsaw – half the pieces are missing and the bastard won't let you see the picture on the front", a jigsaw that the archaeologists are determined to solve (but that they never will solve completely), even if they have to work “against the clock and with accountants breathing down their neck”.

In the next paragraph of the article, the Roman finds specialist Angela Wardle talks about a Roman brooch that she is studying and the things she wants to do, in her own time, in order to find more clues about the brooch. Then she says that she needs to write an article about the brooch, because she needs to “justify what she does, what archaeologists do”, because the irony of archaeology is that it usually destroys what it is attempting to preserve, which is why publication is so important.

Finally, the article ends asking Wardle if she misses her time in the field, but she says that she did miss the digging for a while, but now is used to the office work, because is dry, warm and clean studying the remains.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/aug/28/museum-london-archaeology-moss

A pleasure...

Today I must write about a really cool topic: Food.

My favorite food is definitely Italian food, I really love pastas, all kind of pastas, Spaghetti, Lasagna, Canelloni…well, you know what I mean. But I also like French food, with all the cream and butter they use to cook. Chinese and Vietnamese food is also good for me, but only some dishes, because I don´t like bittersweet things. Speaking of Asian food, I also like Japanese food; sushi is very good, but only for certain occasions.

I enjoy eating in every situation, with my family and friends…I don´t like to eat alone, if I´m alone, I prefer not to eat. With my family I enjoy eating Italian food, because everybody loves it and my father cooks really well. We also have some favorites Italian restaurants here in Santiago. With my boyfriend I enjoy eating everything, but mostly fast food (because we don´t have enough money to eat in a fancy restaurant).

As I already said, my dad cooks really well and he taught to me to cook. Now I can cook very a lot of dishes of Italian, French, Chilean and even Chinese food, but my specialties are deserts and cakes.

Food is a really important thing in my life, and sometimes some dishes trigger some memories of my childhood, like the pizza and Lasagna my father use to make, but not all memories are nice memories, I have an especially bad one when my mom gave me a vegetables cream… awful.

To me, the perfect 3 course meal should have:

- For appetizer: A good dish of razor clams with parmesan cheese.

- For the main course: maybe a margherita pizza (a good Italian pizza, not a fast food pizza), or some Spaghetti with quatro fromaggio sauce. A good dish of red meat with red wine and mushrooms sauce is also perfect for me.

- For desert: it´s easy, my favorite desert is Catalonian Cream but a good Creambrulee is also perfect (traditional creambrulee, not with funny flavors like honey or chocolate).

- Everything accompanied with a good “sangria” or a traditional coke.

Santiago

For me is a little bit difficult write about places to visit and things to do in my city, because honestly, I think Santiago is pretty boring. Here in Santiago, we don´t have beautiful places to visit like the south of Chile or interesting things to do for a foreigner, because all the things to do are common, there are no originals things to do.

I think the places a foreign should visit are probably Cerro San Cristobal, Cerro Santa Lucía, The National Library, Patronato and Quinta Normal Park.

Cerro San Cristobal is the biggest hill in Santiago, There are a lot of things to do in the east side of the hill (in the west side is the Metropolitan Zoo, but is a pretty ugly and depressing Zoo, so I don´t recommend you to visit it). In the weekends people go to Cerro San Cristobal for many reasons, some sporty people go up the hill running or riding a bike, and other people just walk. There are Tai Chi groups and a Medieval Wrestling school. There is a Virgin Mary statue in the top of the hill and there is a big mass every Sunday. Cerro San Cristobal is a beautiful place to visit and I recommend you to visit it on Saturday or Sunday, wear comfortable clothes and be prepared to walk.

Cerro Santa Lucía is another hill to visit in Santiago, is smallest than San Cristobal but is very beautiful. There are no many things to do there, just walk around and spend a quiet afternoon. In front of the Cerro Santa Lucía is the National Library, it is a beautiful place to visit too, because is a really old building, of colonial times and you can find a lot of books and news papers.
Patronato is a very different place, is a commercial neighborhood with a lot of different stores, mostly clothes stores. The neighborhood is very old and some time ago it was full of Arabian people, but now there are a lot of Chinese and Korean people too. I recommend you to visit Patronato with some money, because you will find a lot of beautiful (and chips) things to buy, but be prepared to walk all day long.

Finally, the last place I recommend you to visit is Quinta Normal Park. It is a very big park and there is the Museum of Natural History, founded by Claude Gay in 1830, so is very old. The museum is not so interesting, but you can spend a nice afternoon visiting the museum and then walking through the Park, enjoying nature and native trees.