Viking Metal ImI

Greetings! Today I’m going to talk about my favorite type of music.

Well, usually I listen to rock, heavy metal, folk (Celtic, Nordic, Irish), progressive rock-metal-folk, etc. I think I like all the possible combinations of these four elements. However, the sound of my heart is heavy… like heavy metal (bad joke). There is a song of Tenacious D, the band of Jack Black who has a song about Metal and I always sing this part: “You can't kill the metal. The metal will live on… New wave tried to kill the metal. But they failed as they were stricken down to the ground”.

But today I’m going to refer to one of the genres of heavy metal: Viking Metal, a genre of Black Metal and Folk Metal.

First of all, heavy metal is a genre of rock music that emerged between 60’s and 70’s.  It is recognizable because their extended guitar solos, distortion, heavy drums… a lot of noise for the ears to someone with no taste in good music (I’m totally joking). Black Metal is like… more hardcore. Melodies with faster tempos than traditional heavy metal, a lot of distortion and chaotic lyrics and extreme voices: with screams, guttural sounds or pitchy voices. Initially related to Satanism, misanthropy and anti-Christian and a visual imaginary that cause a lot of polemic. As a rejection to Satanism and occultism to a way to oppose to Christianity, in 1980’s Viking metal was developed as a new opposition from the paganism and Nordic tradition. A fusion between Black Metal and the beauty of Folk music with lyrics associate to Nordic mythology and the “Viking Age”. Battles, swords, paganism and other types of northern landscape are represented in this genre. Is the perfect combination between mythical lyrics, Viking drums and instruments and the power of Black Metal.

I like this kind of music because I’m a fan of the Nordic culture and the “Viking Age”, their mythology is awesome and very complete. Also I like the “noise” and the brutality of Black Metal, is weird I know, but for me is music and I love it.

That is all! Thanks for reading!

Goodbye!

Not Green...

Hello everybody, I’m going to talk about the environment. And today’s question is ¿how much green I’m? The answer: I’m not very green. I haven’t included recycle practices to my life yet. But some day, I will recycle my trash, I promise or at least I will try to use different kind of products “eco-friendly” like deodorants who doesn’t harm the ozone cape.

For example, I never use any kind of bike, because I have a special talent for falling down. Nonetheless, I usually walk from mi home to the University I study at, so I don’t contribute with the noise pollution or the pollution itself. That is one of the big problems of Santiago, the big amount of cars and pollution. We need a solution about that, but with this economic system I seem difficult.  

I haven’t joined any kind of ecological organization because I don’t have time. The University takes all my time (I don’t have even time to breathe the pollute air sometimes). Anyway, as you probably can see, I’m not kind of a green girl, but anyway, I’m interested in the topic (ok, maybe I’m not), but I have great ideas, like, more bikes, or plants, or trying to burn all the companies that destroys the environment throwing their radioactive waste (well, not to burn exactly because if the companies are nuclear stations, probably if we burn them they will cause a big radioactive explosion or an acid rain. That could mean probably our extinction). Ok, maybe I haven’t great ideas. But what I have, are good intentions.

 For example I’m very sad about the fact that polar bears are dying in the North Pole because of the pollution, so, I’m trying to learn and understand all the physical and biological processes that cause the climate change. Maybe with all this information I would think or prepare a possible solution. What have done to reduce my carbon footprint? Perhaps avoiding the use of any type of transport that contributes to generate a lot of pollution and energetically waste. Also I’m eating more fruits than meat. But my problem is the electronics artifacts; they consume a lot of energy. I can say that my carbon footprint is high L.

That is all! Thanks for reading!

Goodbye… 

My experience in the field

Hello, today I’m going to talk about my experience in the field. Specifically, about the part of field work. Because the ethnographic method is very important for anthropology, in fact, is the special thing of this discipline. Ethnography means to do a lot of observation of people we don’t know. The objective is to observe other people in their routine and study a process or identify a problem in their cultural context.  

Well, my first experience was in Pomaire with my boyfriend for the course “Anthropology II”. We were there all the day and we made contact with a lot of ceramic workers who told us about their dreams, their fears, etc. The difficulty that we had was the initial part of conversations, I mean talk to someone. We didn’t know how to talk with them, how to gain their trust. So we entered in the stores or in their room work and we act like tourist so it was easier because they wanted to sell their ceramics. It was a great experience but too short.

My first true ethnography I did it two weeks ago, in Pocuro, a rural town in Los Andes. I was there during an entire week so I have to move and do a lot of things. I worked with elder people in an investigation about health. Our team went to the houses of a lot of strangers, we ate with them, and we laugh and cry with them. We helped to organise a benefice bingo, we went to their meetings, we met a lot of places and we took a lot of pictures and we made a lot of participant observation. It was a true ethnography experience.  After that I decided I didn’t want to be a social anthropology because I don’t like to talk with people. I felt much stressed and the anxiety consumed me before to try to talk with someone. But I met a lot of nice people, too kind, with a lot of experiences and beautiful stories. I’m really grateful and I promised to come back one day and visit them. It’s the human part of this job, because in the end of all, we are there for that reason, to recollect experiences and stories of humans who see the world in a different way and live their lives trying to be what they really want to be.

Well, that is all! Thanks! Hope you like it.

Goodbye