Public Lecture

HUMAN MOVEMENT IN THE PERCEPTION AND COGNITION OF MUSIC, was the topic of the public lecture that I attended on McGill University. It was given by Rolf Inge Godoy a professor at the Department of Musicology in the University of Oslo.

In my presentation I tried to explain a little bit about the issue of "Music Related Movement", that was the term used by the professor Godoy to refer to human movements that reflect characteristics of the music. In the beginning of the presentation he pointed out that we see people moving to music everywhere, and that all the listeners seem to be able to reproduce some features of the music with their movements. Therefore, the professor Godoy and the researchers believe that Human Movement is an essential part of Music Perception and Cognition. They made observation studies to understand the role of movement in the perception and cognition of music.

The topic of the lecture was really interesting, but it was difficult to understant because it's very scientific. Since it was my first public lecture in Montreal, in english was a good experience that I enjoyed.

Happiness...

"You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life". Albert Camus.

It seems that the happiest people are those who experienced something that the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi called "Flow", experiences in which the person is totally immersed, since they are apppealing and motivating to the person. If a person is totally involve in a experience is not self conscious, neither thinking in the pass or future. The person is living in the present. Western psychologists called this "Mindfulness".

This idea of being totally engage in the present is so interesting to me , because imply that one is not thinking (something really hard to achieve), you just become a witness, an spectator. The person is living the experience without judging. The duality between self and object disappear to become one. I agree with the accurate words of Albert Camus, happiness can not be defined, pursuit. Happiness has to be with being consciuos only of the present, here and now.

Road Movies

ROADS are an important component in our lives, indeed a part of our artistic expressions. As a consequence, there is a film genre called "Road Movie" or "Road films" in which the film´s storyline take place during a journey. This is the object of my research project.

The origins of Road Movies are in spoken and writen tales of epic journeys, such as the Odyssey and the Aeneid. In Road Movies the main character changes, grows or improves over the course of the story.

Some of the most remarkable road movies are The Wild One, Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Thelma and Louise, Natural Born Killers, Wild at Heart, Rain Man, Y tu mamá también, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Mulholland Drive, Into the Wild.

Since most of my favourites movies are Road Films I´m very excited about the topic, and eager to learn more about it.

Oral Presentations

ORAL PRESENTATIONS are one of the most intimidating task for people, whereas they are a neccesary part of university and professional life. Personally, speaking in public makes me very nervous. So, how to make a succesful oral presentation? Here, there are some convenient tips to have a good performance.

First, knowing very well the content of your topic helps to conquer the nervousness of speaking in public. Basically, this is what the audience wants from you. Then, organizing your presentation will allows the audience to follow easily the ideas introduce in your topic. You should leave the audience with a clear understanding of the topic and the sense that they have been given a well estructure presentation. Finally, involving the audience through different strategies like encouraging questions, working in group, playing roles and demostrations, will make the audience more interest in your topic and you will connect with them.

In conclusion, to deliver your presentation successfully rehearsal is an essential part of speaking in public. I hope that these tips will help me to do a better job in future presentations.

DEJA DEAD

DEJA DEAD was the first novel of the Bestselling books writer Kathy Reichs. Thank to DEJA DEAD she won the Arthur Ellis Award for best first novel. As well, the TV show Bones is inspired by her writing.

Temperance Brennan is a Forensic Anthropologist from North Carolina recently divorced that move to Montreal.The murder of a woman found dismembered triggers a chain of events. Temperance gets immerse in the hunting of a killer, when she find a pattern among two murders. This will jeopardize her life and the lives of her loved ones.
DEJA DEAD is a mystery novel. Temperance Brennan is a very intelligent and brave women with a very tough job. The novel become enjoyable the last quarter of the book.The final confrontation between Temperance and the killer is one of the events that come to my mind, since was one of the more exiting parts of the novel. However I felt that the end was pretty much a cliche.

Male and Female Comunication Patterns

COMMUNICATION PATTERNS go beyond genders and vary widely among people. Although, genders can play an important role there are several factors that influence communication.

Personality is a main influence for communication patterns. Some people are talkative, they like to speak a lot and get into details while others are less eloquent and prefer to remain silent and speak when is strictly necessary. As well, the circumstances regulate communication patterns. Is not the same a conversation with friends than with strangers, or a conversation in a business meeting. Moreover, the age of the speakers affect the way they talk to each other. For example, a conversation between mother and daughter may be quite different from a conversation between peers. Finally, different nationalities changes the communication between people.

In conclusion, many different factors can modify people´s communication patterns, so constrained them only to gender differences would be narrowing. Communication is a quite broad and complex phenomenon difficult to approach.

Language Learnes

Somehow to learn a new language is not easy for everybody, some learners advance very quickly while others make slow progress. Thus, who is a good language learner ? It seems that some personality traits are beneficial to be a successful language learner.

Try to get a message across, even if specific language knowledge is lacking is the attitude of a good language learner. In fact, it is vital in order to progress as a language learner, since it will open a channel of communication. Actually, the main reason to learn a new language is create a new channel of communication. In my particular experience when I speak with people, although most of the time I don´t have all the vocabulary, I try to make myself understandable by using different resources. For example explaining the idea in different ways, using body language and so on . This can result very exhausting, but is better than just give up.
Willingness to make mistakes is also an important characteristic of a good language learner. Commit mistakes is part of the learning process. Throughout the examination of the mistakes learners become aware of their weak points, and this allows them to fix it and advance more rapidly. Personally, I don´t like to find myself in the failure, it makes me feel really stress out. However, take the risk is the only way to progress.
Many different characteristics can favoured language learning, but is difficult to determine what make a language learner successful. In the end, is important to remember that having a good disposition and be motivated to learn the new language is all that matters.

Are Super Skyscrapers Beneficial?

SUPER SKYSCRAPERS are in essence the symbol of status and power of the big cities. As they are difficult and very expensive to build, many different opinions have emerge about whether super skyscrapers are a good idea or not. However is well known that currently several cities all over the world face many problems due to overpopulation. Personally, I think that super skyscrapers could be the answer to some of the most common problems that are affecting big cities.

Urban sprawl represents a huge problem, since left very little open space with so many buildings withing the cities. Thus, this reduce considerably the valuable green spaces and the land for agriculture. Naturally, so much concrete surrounding the cities contributed to pollute the environment. As well, commuting is tremendous problem to big cities, where people spend many hours traveling from their homes to their jobs. Basically, this is unproductive time. However, the construction of environmentally friendly super skyscrapers would make a better use of the urban space and the land. As a result, the urban sprawl will be reduce significantly. Furthermore people will spend less time commuting.

Super skyscrapers will be the solution for a great part of the problems created by the fast growing of population in the big cities. Thanks to new technology more and environmentally friendly super skyscrapers will be build in the world´s cities.