Summer plans

This summer won’t be much different than the last one, as I always work during january and go to my mother’s house on february. During january I’m going to work as a paralegal in a law firm, replacing the current paralegal whom is going on holiday during that month, every year I save part of that money to pay for my tuition fee on march and the rest I spend it on holidays in february. My mother’s house is in arica, she lives in an apartment near the beach with my sister and our dog, it’s great because everynight we walk on the beach after supper and we take the dog to walk with us, he doesn’t like the water however so we try to stay on the sidewalk. Also every year we promise to ourselves that we will run everyday in the morning, however we do so for a couple of days and just forget about it, last year we ran for 8 days, quite an accomplishment for us! I also enjoy being there because we get to see my cousins and childhood friends, a couple of years ago, a neighbour found a box full of old photographs of all the kids that used to live in the block and we realized that most of us still keep in touch with each other, I remember that we went to get drinks and look at the pictures and it was so weird seeing ourselves as such little creatures! I think that that is the best of going home, feeling like you never grow old and that you don’t have to become a responsible adult just yet.

My favourite movie

I don’t think I have an absolute favourite movie, I think that our perception of films changes as we grow older and watch them again, however there are a couple of movies that I’ve watched repeatedly over the years and I still enjoy them.  One of them  is High Fidelity, starring John Cusack and based on a novel by Nick Hornby; the film is about a record shop owner in his mid thirties who breaks up with his girlfriend and tries to make sense of the situation by making lists or rankings just like he ranks the music that he sells on his store. The first time I saw it, I was thirteen years old and enjoyed it firstly because of the great soundtrack and secondly because I thought of it as a light and funny romantic comedy, however I watched it again when I was sixteen and found a deeper meaning to it, I realized that the movie revolves around loneliness and escaping that loneliness through shallow relationships. Then I watched it again at 25 and found that the movie also talks about purpose in life, how every person is secretly responsible for their own happiness and how there is no pre-established meaning other that you can do whatever you want with your terribly short life. I quite like watching movies like this, I like films that don’t expose everything so blatantly, films that may seem shallow but the whole meaning is there and you just have to look for it. I enjoy black comedies (Monty Python and the Holy Grail was the first movie I owned on DVD), science fiction and drama; I also enjoy the film noir from the 40’s and 50’s and I love horror films, my older sister and I used to watch horror films when my mom was asleep.
The last movie I saw was Aquí no ha Pasado Nada, a chilean film based on a real event. In 2014, son of a senator was driving drunk and killed a person on a hit and run accident, however because he is the son of someone important he didn’t spent anytime in jail. The movie focuses on his friends, particularly one who took all the blame because he was intoxicated to the point of not remembering anything. I though the movie was great but I wouldn’t say I loved it because I left the cinema enraged and infuriated at the social injustice, the tag line for the movie was “there is a 2% of the chilean population that no matter what they’d do, they’ll never go to jail” and that’s true... That's why I was so frustrated when the movie was over.

Your favourite book

One of my hobbies is reading and writing so I can’t choose a book as my favourite. However I have lots of books and authors that I tend to go back to when I’m having trouble choosing a new book to read. One of my favourite authors is Edgar Allan Poe, when I was 13 years old I saw “The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror I” in which Lisa reads The Raven, a poem by Edgar Allan Poe (and one of his most notable works) and Homer acts as the lead character; I loved the poem so I started reading more of his works and he became the first author that I listed as my favourite. I remember one Christmas that my mother gave me a book which contained his most notable works and it was so heavy that I woke up the next day with a sore back from carrying with me to the car and to my room... I wasn’t a particularly strong child.
I like books of mystery and fantasy, historical novels and coming of age stories. I also like early century european social novels, like David Copperfield and Charles Dickens. I don’t have a “favourite book” but there are two books that I often read and that, even though I know them by heart, everytime a read them, I get something new out of them. One is called “The Secret Garden” by Frances Hodgson Burnett and it tells the story of a little girl whose parents never really wanted her so she grows up bitter and spoiled but finds a secret garden and her personality changes and becomes a likeable and charming person; the other one is called “High Fidelity” by Nick Hornby and revolves around a music shop owner in his thirties who breaks up with his girlfriend and tries to make sense of the situation by remembering his past girlfriends and why those relationships ended. The last one was made into a (great) movie starring John Cusack with one of the best soundtracks I have ever listened to. The last book I read was Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84, and I loved it, I had read it before but I was 19 so I didn’t appreciate it that much, mainly because I didn’t understood it. Nevertheless, I wouldn’t recommend it if you aren’t particularly self conscious about the purpose of the universe or the goal of human existence because it might cause an existencial crisis.

The Best Concert

I love music so I’ve been to a lot of concerts, however the best concert that I’ve ever been to was the 360 tour by U2 on the 25th of march, 2011. The venue was the National Stadium and it was full, so there were a lot of people waiting for the band from very early hours. U2 is one of my favourite bands, they’re from Dublin, Ireland and have been active for 40 years, and during most of those 40 years they have maintained their original formation: Bono is the vocalist, The Edge is the lead guitarrist, Adam Clayton is the bass player and Larry Mullen plays the drums. They have a lot of hit singles but my favourite is “I Still Havent’t Found What I’m Looking For” from the album The Joshua Tree (one of the singles in that album is dedicated to Victor Jara, as Bono has always been a politically vocal person and endorses that artists should be more active in political current affairs).
Since there was so many people, the atmosphere was amazing, everyone were singing their songs, listening to them respectfully and overall really happy to be there. The reason it has been the best concert I’ve ever been to is because the show that they put is really thought out, the stage can be seen clearly from wherever you are seated in the venue (hence the name 360 Tour), their vocals and instrument playing is great and they have a lot of interaction with the public, but the most amazing thing is that they put a giant screen made from smaller ones  that expands in a beehive-like pattern and allows everyone to see everything in great detail. I also enjoyed it because I got in early so I could be in the Red Circle right by the stage and could see it all up close, I took great pictures of it, in fact, herenis one that I took of Bono and Larry.