"Aces High"

Maybe my dream job is not as impossible as other people's, but since I've always wanted to do it, and I'm not actually doing it, I think it's a good choice (along with being a game tester, which I think would be my other dream job hehe :P). My dream job is to be a fighter aircraft pilot.


Since I was a child I've always dreamed about flying! Either by flying in a figher aircraft or by gaining a super-power (xD), my dream has always been to fly, to fly higher and faster than anyone, and then say "Yeah, I'm goo as f*ck! (H)".


Of course, this is a fantastic and idealised view of what I THINK IT MIGHT BE that job. But, come on! I t can be far from it! Testing new aircrafts, doing some recon, and living as any other military profession. As far as I know, being an officer of the Air Force means a very good wage.

Who I'd like to work with? Don't know, I guess with anyone I'd meet there, or with anyone who share my passion to fly. When I was younger, maybe I had a chance to do it, but I didn't just because I was too f*cking stupid and coward to step forward and say "Yes, I'd to do this". I also was stupid because I chose friends from that time, instead of doing that, and well .. I have no more those "friends". Life's a bitch! But anyway,  every time I heard the song "Aces High" from Iron Maiden, I imagine myself flying a fighter aircraft, chasing the enemy's crafts, doing lots of loops and twists, feeling the adrenaline of being inside the cockpit, being the best god damn pilot the world has ever seen! Something between those WWII dogfight pilots and Top Gun haha. And in top of this, I'd be constantly travelling around the world, and that's something I've always wanted to do too!

"All of this has happened before, and it will happen again"

I’d like to talk about Dragon Ball, which is my favourite TV show, but I think I’d have to write too much to explain the characters and the different aventures Goku and his friends pass through. So, I will talk about my favourite TV show after Dragon Ball, and this is Battlestar Galactica.

Humanity live in twelve different worlds in an unknown part of the galaxy, named “The Twelve Colonies of Kobol”. Their names are similiar to our zodiac signs (Aerilon, Tauron, Scorpio, etc.). Anyway, forty years before, humanity had created artificial intelligence called Cylons, who rebelled against their human makers and waged a war against humanity named “The Cylon War”, which conclude with the sign of an armistice between the two factions and the exile of the Cylons to unknown space. After forty years, no one have known anything about them, until they came back, with a few surprises for mankind. Cylons have not only the ability to look exactly as humans but they have feelings and there’s no way to distinguish them from real humans. Without any warning they infiltrated and wiped out humanity in a nuclear holocaust, with the death of 50 billion people in the twelve planets.

But there are survirvors! Aproximaly 50.000 people have survived on civilian ships in space at the moment of the attack, and an old war ship named Galactica, which was about to be decommisioned. Now they have to scape from the Cylons, and to face the fact that anyone can be a potential Cylon agent. These are the last remains of Humanity.

. They now have to flee from Cylons and find themselves a new home in the galaxy. However, in their religion, there’s an old story who most people think it’s pure fantasy, about their past. The story tells that humanity flee from their homeplanet Kobol, and separeted into thirteen tribes. Twelve tribes went to the same direction but the thirteen tribe went to a completely different place in the galaxy, to live in a legendary planet called Earth.

So the story it’s about the exodus of Humanity of their homeplanets, their search of a new home and the mythical planet Earth (to be their new home), and the struggle against Cylons (I think I got too excited talking about the plot of the show :P )  

This TV show is full of different characters, but one of the thing that atracted me the most was that characters are not just “good guy” and “bad guy”, but every of them has characteristics of both. You can even think in some situations that Cylons are doing good on pursuing Humanity or that humans do not deserve to live. There are good and bad people in both sides, and it’s also very intriging the fact that anyone can be a Cylon even without knowing it! For example, Liutenant Kara “Starbuck” Thrace is one of the main characters, and she is so quick tempered, and her relation with Cylons is very ambiguous throughout the story. Or Captain Lee “Apolo” Adama, whose role changed a lot of times in the story.

Another thing I like of this TV show is that, despite the fact that is a science fiction show, it is not so over-the-top. Humans travel through the stars but thatdoesn’t means they have laser guns or they met any alien weird-looking race. Things are simple: life in space is not easy, there are no friendly alien races, there is no super advanced technology (except for the space travels), there are no plasma beams but guns with bullets. Humanity is supposedly on the run; they have no reinforcements, no help at all! Ships are not like Startrek ships, clean and tidy, but they are dirty and almost claustrophobic, like a submarine. And people is not perfect, the main characters are not always heroes as “bad guys” sometimes assume the role of “heroes” and so on. The characters are not flawless, they are real human beings fighting for their lives and dealing with different issues. Another important factor of the show is religion, because there’s a religious clash between Cylons (who believe in one true God) and humans (who believe in the Greek Gods, like Zeus, Apolo, Athena, etc.). Religion has a great impact on the show because (SPOILER) through the story, there are some “divine beings” who help both humans and cylons on different things which are all part of a greater plan which is revealed in the last episode.

I have seen this TV shows, its four seasons, about 5 times, and it never get me bored! It makes me think a lot of things, about our history as human kind. I personally think that we humans came from the stars to this world, and for different reasons we have forgotten this. Every ancient culture tell us about Gods that came from the skies and create mankind. Why can be these Gods humans themselves, coming from the stars? At least that’s what I think and believe. And every time I watch this show, I feel so true this thought. Because at the end of the last season (SPOILER), it is stated that we Earthlings are actually  the descendants of those brave people who came from the stars to this world about 150.000 years ago, fighting and running of the Cylons. As a famous sentence of the show stated “all of this has happened before, and it will happen again”, the history it’s cyclic. People from Kobol created their own robots who rebelled against them, then Colonial people did the same, and in the last scene of the last episode, there’s a TV on a store in New York showing the “advances on cybernetics”. I think story it’s cyclic, and it is very possible that our civilisation may not be the first human civilisation on this planet. Who know? All I know, is that every time I watch this show, I feel I’m not the only one who think these things. 

OR, IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ALL THE THINGS I HAVE SAID, YOU MAY WATCH THIS TRAILER TO SEE WHAT THE SHOW IS ABOUT :D 

Movies: A hell of a boring world would be without them

So this week's new topic is movies. Well, what can I say about movies? What a hell of a boring world would be if movies weren't created!

If I'll have to choose my favourite movie genre, I think I'll choose science-fiction movies. I do like movies from different styles though, it just depends on the movie itself.

Science fiction is the choice I would make, because science fiction movies make me feel so imaginative. Every story about space travels, the future of mankind, unknown species, or things like that make me questions myself about our reality: and what about those things are not fantasy but reality? Could it be, why not? Just because we don't know we can't say it's not possible all the things exposed in science fictions movies.

I don't have a favourite movie, but I do have a favourite science fiction serie, which is Battlestar Galactica. When I watched the first episode, it seriosly blew my brains off! The idea was so original (I'm not giving any spoiler so that way people who get interested may watch it on their own), the visual effects, the characters, the plot, etc. The whole idea got me going long time, and I couldn't believe that it was the same serie I used to hate because of all the advertisements on TV! My first impression after the first episode was "Gotta watch all the episodes now!". And so I did. I can tell Battlestar Galactica got me from the first episode to the final one, which was outstanding. That's the most remarkable thing of this serie, because there are lots of series (specially science fiction ones) which have excellent plots, but crappy endings (if they give them an ending). This is the case (in my opinion) of the Stargate series, The Event, Terra Nova, etc. All of them excellent plots, characters, etc. but lousy endings. I use to think that either Yanks have shit on their minds that refuse good plots and supports those stupid yanks comedy series, with almost no humor at all, or writters seriously enjoy by doing great plots and then ruined them by writing bad endings. I don't know, maybe both. Anyway, that's what I can say about my "favourite" series =)

Cultural clash

What's a cultural clash? A cultural clash is the result of a misunderstanding between two or more different cultures. This can be seen in practically every cultural aspect, from music to every day habits, and it's occasioned  when people are not accostumed to someone else's culture. There are lots of examples of this all around the world, but if I have to choose one, I'll choose the case of indigenous people here in Chile.

Mapuches are known not only for their different culture from the Spanish descendant culture, but also 'cause they keep their culture still alive. We can see this in names, typical foods, costumes, words, legends, etc. I think it must be shocking for both Spanish and Mapuches people when they first encounter. In one hand, Mapuches might have thought that Spanish people were some kind of beasts or in the best case, not human beings like them. On the other hand, Spanish surely thought that Mapuches were sub-humans very different from them, almost considerably slaves. This kind of cultural clash has happened all over the world though. It happens every time a culture meets another, and it could be devasting if one of the culture is stronger than the other.

I chose this example, because it's something that has happened through all the history, and what a better case that the one that happens in the country where we lived. There are still differences between Mapuche and Chilean cultures,

Personally, I don't recall to have presenced any kind of cultural crash. Not as severe as I stated though. When I travelled to Argentina three years ago, I experienced this cultural clash in misunderstandings with Argentinian people for the difference of our way to speak. Another difference were some daily habits or meals, but it wasn't a severe cultural crash.