My dreams

Dear Ms. Guilana;

          As you know, I'm José Yépez, and I'd like to introduce myself by explaining you my life goals. My biggest dream is to achieve the knowledge to help as many people as I can. It can sound like a stupid goal, keeping in mind that there are a lot of people who hurt others because of fun, revenges, or even by error, or whatever. But for me, it isn't.

          I feel really well when someone become happy. Of course, my intention of helping people is completely universal, because all people deserve to be helped (understanding "help" objectively, applicable to all kinds of human). First I though about being a doctor, but I recently decided to become a psychologist. You know, if the body's "broken", you can still live (bar comma cases, perhaps), but if the mind's "broken", all becomes... "distorted", making the person's life a hell or a non-sense. Also, I find psychology much more interesting than medicine (I didn't realised that since I've decided to study it), so I think that I chose correctly.

         Well, with this little chunk about me, I hope that I've presented myself properly. Oh, if I've talked ambiguous, just tell me to fix it. Sometimes I do that, not intentionally, of course. Hope you enjoyed my presentation!

 Big hugs,

                                                                 Jose

Podcast: Short joke

Here you can listen a little joke that we recorded in class. Hope you laugh!

listen to ‘Jose’ on Audioboo

Milgram's experiment and the limit of psychological experiments

Milgram was a psychologist who did an experiment to check what was the influence of an "authoritarian" person on people's behavior. The experience consists on a memory test: One person tells a words line and other person (an actor) has to repeat it. Each time he/she fails, the "speaker" send a volt discharge to the one who failed, and every time elevate the voltage. Sometimes the "speaker" doubts, but then, a person with a white coat (like a scientific) tells him "It's safe", "Continue", and things like that, and then the experiment continued.
The results had a signification: 65% of the "speakers" "killed" the actor because of his errors. I think that people was too influenced by others. Does that mean that people doesn't think by themselves?

Well, this was actually an experiment that tried to find an explanation for the Holocaust, and it did. You can see a representation of the experience on the film "I comme Icare" (1979):

News: "Second coronavirus death reported"

A second person died from a respiratory illness similar to the severe acute respiratory syndrome virus. All the died ones are "linked" to Qatar or Saudi Arabia, but the World Health Organization still don't know where the infection came from. There are some studies that show that the virus is related to another virus found on a bat specie.

I'm thinking about a question... Where the first virus come from? They're not "alive" in the word's strict sense, and that confuse me, but this it's not the issue. The mortal beginning of a new discovered virus is bad news. What about if is it already expanded worldwide? What a big deal. This doesn't affect me directly - at the moment, and I'm hoping to not be affected as well as don't wanting others to be affected -, but it's a problem that can easily grow to catastrophic consequences if not stopped.


New words
Acute: Agut
Spread: "Extendre"


News & photo source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20468478
"New words meaning" source: http://www.wordreference.com/es/

News: "Are these animals too 'ugly' to be saved?"

Animals which are worldwide known as endangered ones tend to be conventionally aesthetically pleasing or cute, but there are ones that are more threatened than then. Although they're not as beautiful as the others in the orthodox sense, they have physical characteristics that make them unique.
A project run by the Zoological Society for London is trying to fight for these "less appreciated" animals.

A very good intention apparently without lucrative purposes. It's true that humans don't really have the obligation of taking care of environment and animals (there aren't any "divine obligations"), but this kind of (supposed) disinterested help for the needy ones is definitely a light in this society that mostly focus on individual issues. It's true that this issue doesn't affect me directly, but it's true that I've never focused on wanting to help "beautiful" animals, and I wanted to help all endangered ones in the same manner (sounds kinda hypocrite, but I've wanted to help on this for a long time). Since I don't have any resource to help them at the moment, I'll have to wait.
Why is it every time the same? The not-conventionally things tend to be always isolated only because they're not "socially good", and that's all. They don't have a life like pandas or tigers, they're like a monsters, don't they? Jeez.


New words
Doe-eyed: "De ojos saltones" (castellà)
Echidna: Echidna (Like an "spiky ant eater")
Pangolin: Mani ("Scaled mammal")
The needy ones: Els més necessitats (while writing)
Lucrative: Lucratiu (while writing)
Disinterested: Desinteressat (while writing)


News & image source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20323753
"New words meaning" source: http://www.wordreference.com/es/

News: "'Fat' drug could treat epilepsy"

Researchers in London came up with the idea because of the ketogenic diet (high in fat and low in carbohydrate diet) used by children with drug resistant epilepsy to try to help them with their medical condition. The diet has attracted criticism because of its side effects - such as hypoglycemia or retarded growth - but by pinpointing fatty acids in the diet that are effective in controlling epilepsy, they hope they can develop a pill for all kinds of people that could provide the same benefits without the side effects.

Good news. A worldwide health problem finally has hopes of conclusion. In my opinion, it's a great advance on medical investigation. It's true that this doesn't affect me directly, as I don't know anyone knowing that she or he suffers because of this, but it's good to see that some people will become happier because of human team work.


New words
Carry out: Portar a terme
Fatty acid: Àcid gras
Pinpoint: Localitzar
Breakthrough: Gran pas endavant


News & image source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20417144
"New words meaning" source: http://www.wordreference.com/es/

News: "'Ice cream' murder woman gets life sentence in Austria"

Estibaliz Carranza, nowadays known as "the ice killer", buried in concrete her ex-husband and her lover after killing them. When discovered, she tried to flee, but was caught and judged. Psychiatrist agree that she suffered from a personality disorder as well as serious mental abnormalities.

Well, maybe these horrific things can be avoided if people with this kind of serious mental disorders are treated at time, but I'm not sure if "the sick ones" realize they're are not healthy... Even if someone tells them that, I think they won't take it seriously and will just negate to be treated. These things doesn't  affect me at the moment, but maybe I'll encounter some people with this while working and, if I can do it, I'll try to "fix" these disorders.


New words
Concrete: Formigó
Trial: Judici
To plead: Suplicar
Guilty: Culpabilitat

News & image source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-20453491
"New words meaning" source: http://www.wordreference.com/es/

News: "Gaza and Israel begin to resume normal life after truce"

After a lot of military attacks between Gaza and Israel, they begin to resume normal life. Israel launched a final offensive against Gaza, with the killing of a Hamas military leader. Also, the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire agreement came into force. Finally, Israel has agreed to end hostilities, same as Palestinians.

It's true that if someone attacks they'll shatter in conflict again... Well, it's good to see war end - even if temporally -. This doesn't affect me directly, but seeing that people can still agree with things when religion or economical issues "come into the show" it's enough to give me some kind of "hope" about a future without those things, specifically the conflicts they provoke.


New words
Truce: Suspendre les hostilitats (castellà = tregua)
Resume: Reprendre
Ceasefire: Alto al foc
Overnight: Durant la nit
Under the deal: "Sota" el problema (dilema)
Staging: "Posada en escena"
Sheltering: Refugiant-se
Shelling: Protegint-se (?)

News & image source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-20444499
"New words meaning" source: http://www.wordreference.com/es/

Trying to improve mental skills

I've been searching a lot of information about improving "mental skills", such as concentration, memory, and stuff. Then I started to apply it.
First of all, I searched for "meditation's psychological and biological effects", as I believed that there was a connection between the obviously high concentration rate of Buddhist monks and the time they spend meditating every day. I was right: focusing your attention on one thing - acting as "meditation base" - improves your capacity for concentrating on other things. Once mastered, this "actualized" skill can be applied on mostly whatever.
I'm giving it a try, and I can focus more on reading books, for example. I don't know if I'm doing it right or it's just placebo effects, but I'm happy with the results.