Dear all,
Our magazine The Rotten Apple has been conceived by a group of students from Pedagogía en Inglés, who have worked for one year and a half on this project, which finally has become a reality. Our aim is to provide students with a space to show their academic and creative work. The magazine has been entirely envisioned by the students and responds to their interests and their talents. We have finally decided on a digital magazine, since it provides us with a possibilty to interact and update information more smootlhy. We believe this first edition will be a starting point for many more to come. We encourage students and teachers to comment on our magazine and interact with our editors: Juan Carlos Faúndez
Fernanda Leal
Daniela Negrete
Felipe Oro
Matias Riquelme
Andrea Campaña
We would also like to extend an invitation to contribute with ideas and works to help us grow in years to come.
The Rotten Apple staff
We held our third writing contest on November, 2024. This contest was open to all majors in the country and this time students had to write micro-narratives on mystery and terror. Our contest jurors were Marlene Espinoza, Patricio Pino, Timothy Poremba, Richard Parker, Angela Morales, Cherie Flores and Alex Peterson. We thank them for their committed work!
We, as The Rotten Apple, would like to extend our thanks to everyone involved, both organizers and participants.
The Rotten Apple USACH’s Literary Magazine
Enjoy the micro-narratives and feel free to comment!!
“Chile, Where do we go now?” by Marina Vargas González
Have you ever found yourself wishing to bring something from the past to the present? Indeed, at a certain point, everybody has wanted to revive past events, things, or moments, but the question is whether this is worth it. Particularly, the poem Let America be America Again by the English writer Langston Hughes (1935) and my teaching motivation, made me reflect upon the past, present, and future of Chile.
In this retrospection, I remembered what my mother used to tell me about the past in Chile. Life, in general, was tough, especially for women who had fewer opportunities in every aspect of life. For instance, my mom always stresses the complexity of pursuing university studies. Furthermore, families in the past gave a prevalent role to the work of men only. When I hear my mother tell me these things, I feel glad not to have been part of that generation. I say this because today everybody has chances to study, men’s work and time is equally important as women’s, education is more inclusive and the spread and access to communication is faster. Now, as a future teacher and making the connection with a movie I recently watched by a Lebanese filmmaker, the question is what is next or ‘where do we go’ from here. From my point of view, there are three things that I yearn for in the future.
More supportive families are the first element that I would like to see in future generations. Before moving on, it is important to note that the concept of family will be understood as a person or people who are responsible for and take care of another person. I claim this because as a pedagogy student I see the importance of the family in the students’ lives. A clear example of this is the saying that, in the past
I did not quite understand, states that education ‘comes from home’. If parents disrespect teachers at home, students will do the same in the classroom.
Consequently, acknowledging teachers’ work and supporting their pupils from home will make an important difference in the education of Chile.
I also yearn for a second element for our country: free education. Every single teacher or teacher-to-be is delighted to see how solid public education is in other countries such as Finland, Germany and Denmark. Undoubtedly, as a future educator, I am in the right to wish the best for my potential students. In my view, free education in Chile could end up with the segregated society that characterizes
Chileans. For instance, there is a Chilean educational book published in 2013 titled
“Tell me the school you studied at, and I will tell you your IQ”. This is the clear example of the notorious educational gap today, and therefore, which I would like to change in the future.
A third element would be more counselling. Chile should invest more on students’ and educators' mental health so that we avoid problems that later nobody knows how to handle. When I mean more counselling, I am talking about more professionals or experts since right now this task relies on teachers. It is common knowledge that counselling is part of the academic program of a teaching or pedagogy course, yet it is not enough in the face of the difficulties that both teachers and students go through in a changing world. Thus, I would really like to find more specialized support in the near future in all educational institutions.
To conclude, it is evident that Chile has progressed in several aspects in the past decades. The Chile of the past is marked by hardness, which is not useful to bring back. Nevertheless, that past is needed to understand the present. In my own experience, I value the things that make our life better such as opportunities and more equality, but I am also aware that there are immediate needs that must be addressed such as family support, free education, and counselling for the school community. These improvements will definitely lead us where to go and make Chile a better place to live.
“The Symbolism of Words: From being unable to being able” by Sebastián Madariaga Disegni
“Let America be the dream dreamers dreamed” told us Langston Hughes in Let America Be America Again. We have dreamed about greatness, happiness and possibility for a long time. Countries have been carved according to their founding fathers and mothers’ ideals since the beginning of civilization. People have created and destroyed based on one, yet very complicated question: what is my dream for my nation? My country’s ethos has been strongly marked by the usage of words that aim to the concept of the impossibility of actions and decisions. Language has created a collective imaginary in the Chilean people that shouts the words “we can’t do things” and “we are unable to achieve of dreams, goals, and expectations”. I dream with a Chile that embraces language as the facilitator of our power and expectations rather than the executioner of our dreams.
Our language hides the secret to reach what we dream the most in this world. How many times have we ever heard the words “I am unable to do this”? We have adopted the negativity of the language as our guide and fellow companion. We have rejected learning new activities such as playing an instrument, going to a new place, or meeting new people because we believe that we cannot do things. Nevertheless, language is more powerful than we thought. I dream with the infinite possibilities that we can find in our system of words. What if we change our paradigm into one that invites us to believe about the power of capability? A simple set of words such as “I can do this” might not make you instantly proficient in what you want to achieve. Nonetheless, it is the first step to develop a new perspective: the power of positive ideals and words. I have always dream with the simplicity of a change of words to reveal our true potential in this world: being able to do what our mind dream the most.
Even though we have been blessed with the power of words and possibility, language also hides the key to make us feel numbed and unable to achieve our goals. Our wildest expectations for life might be next door, waiting for us to come. Unfortunately, a set of words such as “I think I can’t do this” has the power to paralyze our minds and decisions. Everyone has undergone through the paralysis of these feelings of impossibility of actions and decisions. We have been unaware of what language can do in our lives because we have justified the negativity of language with realism. Even my dreams for my country have been affected by my decisions to adopt a negative speech in language. “It is impossible to change this country” has been our excuse for decades. We have embraced the words “can’t” and “unable” as our brothers and sisters, waiting for us in every corner of our mind and language. Do we really dream with a country based on a pessimistic point of view? That is a question that we should think over and over until we understood what language has done in our lives.
There is no doubt that language plays an important role in our lives. Langston Hughes and I have shared the same discrepancy for our countries: do we really want to embrace what we have built although it does not share our dreams? We have come to this world thinking and looking for our answers and desires without noticing that we have a powerful tool: language. My dreams have taught me there is a secrecy in the symbolism of words. Being unable or able is a complex topic to analyze, yet we have the tools to decide for ourselves. Our dreams and goals are at war with society, but language is there to save us. We have been unable to feel how close are we from what we really want in this life. Think, choose, and believe. We can be able to feel the power of life and words if we really ask the right questions. There is a secret in language, but if we keep dreaming, we will reach what we desire and believe for Chile because we are able to fly as much as we want.
“Chile the Oasis that never was” by Roberto Arenas
On October 8th, 2019, President Sebastián Piñera deemed Chile a ‘true oasis’ amongst all the instability of the rest of Latin America (Baeza). Ten days later, Piñera’s oasis was —both literally and figuratively— on fire. The discontent over the $30 increase to the subway fare had been ramping up for a week, with high school students jumping over turnstiles in protest, until it reached a boiling point and our country erupted into chaos on October 18th. In the aftermath of the so-called ‘social outburst,’ Twitter users —along with columnists and political adversaries— were quick to point to the aforementioned comment as evidence of the president’s disconnect with the struggles of the people he is supposed to represent, and with good reason: Piñera’s vision of Chile as some kind of Latin American dreamland only served to underscore our country's abysmal inequality and abundant shortcomings.
For over a decade now, Chile’s pride and joy has been its economy. Afterall, our country represents one of the fastest-growing economies in the region, with an estimated GDP per capita of US$24.928 —the highest in South America (Cárdenas). This means that Chile produces over 20 million pesos for each of its inhabitants in a given year; unfortunately, this wealth is not distributed equally across Chileans. The richest 10% of the population concentrates 65% of the country's wealth (Molina). If our economy was a birthday party with ten guests, one of those guests would be eating two-thirds of the cake (how rude!), leaving only one-third for the other nine to share. This is particularly problematic in a highly privatized country such as ours, where people’s financial situation determines their access to housing, education, healthcare, transport, electricity, and water among other basic services.
It should be noted that Chile’s prosperous economy and outrageous inequality are two sides of the same coin, or rather two results of the same historical process; that is, the economic policies implemented during Pinochet’s military regime. These free-market reforms were arguably successful in recovering the country’s economy; nevertheless, this success came at a steep price. For one thing, the state delegated the administration of schools to municipalities and the private sector, granting them subsidies on the basis of enrollment with the aim of making them compete for students just as companies compete for customers. In a similar manner, the healthcare system was divided into two: the state-funded Fondo Nacional de Salud (FONASA) and the privately-owned Instituciones de Salud Previsional (ISAPREs). Apart from this, the pension system was completely privatized, giving way to our current —and much hated— Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones (AFPs).
These measures were at the center of the Constitution of 1980, which was promulgated under the military dictatorship. It is not surprising then that a new constitution became the main demand of the numerous demonstrations that took place amid the ‘social outburst.’ The most notable being ‘La marcha más grande de Chile’ (The biggest march of Chile), which gathered more than 1.2 million people in Santiago alone to express their hopes and dreams for a ‘new’ Chile (Villaroel and Flores). Without a doubt, the images from that day were awe-inspiring. After the rude awakening that represented the events of October 18th, the sight of millions of people from all walks of life marching peacefully together was heartening. It even turned the tide on the conversation around this period of social unrest, since the government could no longer characterize protesters as extremists who wanted to destroy the country when there was a sea of people showing otherwise a few blocks away from La Moneda.
As it can be seen, our country reached a breaking point. To paraphrase Langston Hughes’s 1935 poem “Let America Be America Again”: the oasis never was an oasis for us. Forty years ago, the state took a step back, so to speak, and left the wellbeing of its citizens in the hands of the free market. The private sector was indiscriminately welcomed into every aspect of people’s lives, thus creating an unbridgeable gap between those who could afford to join it and those who were relegated to what little was offered by the state. Just think of how different the prospects of a student in a municipal school in Puente Alto are to those of a student in a private institution in Lo Barnechea. We have endured far too long a system that not only allows inequality but actually encourages it, and so it is time for things to change —or at least that is what the 78% of Chileans who voted in favor of writing a new constitution believe (Labra). This oasis has never been an oasis for most of us, but perhaps one day it will be.
Works Cited
Baeza, Angélica. “Piñera asegura que “en medio de esta América Latina convulsionada, Chile es un verdadero oasis con una democracia estable”.” La Tercera, 8 Oct. 2019. https://www.latercera.com/politica/noticia/pinera-asegura-medio-esta-america-latina-convulsionada-chile-verdadero-oasis-una-democracia-estable/851913/. Accessed 30 November 2021.
Cárdenas, Rodrigo. “FMI: PIB per cápita de Chile es el más alto de Sudamérica y será el primero en llegar a los US$30 mil”. La Tercera, 6 April 2021. https://www.latercera.com/pulso-pm/noticia/fmi-pib-per-capita-de-chile-es-el-mas-alto-de-sudamerica-y-sera-el-primero-en-llegar-a-los-us30-mil/KLVZXGEQKFE2VILZBXDI5YK5LM/. Accessed 30 November 2021.
Hughes, Langston. “Let America Be America Again.” 1935. Poets.org, https://poets.org/poem/let-america-be-america-again. Accessed 30 November 2021.
Labra, Alberto. “Histórico plebiscito y 50% de participación: Chile aprueba por amplia mayoría tener una nueva Constitución.” La Tercera, 25 Oct 2020. https://www.latercera.com/politica/noticia/en-historico-plebiscito-chile-aprueba-por-amplia-mayoria-tener-una-nueva-constitucion/3E4Q4CBD3BCYRMCISEOEII3KXU/. Accessed 30 November 2021.
Molina, Tomás. “Banco Mundial: Chile es el décimo país más desigual de Latinoamérica y el segundo con mayor PIB per cápita”. EMOL, 5 Nov. 2019. https://www.emol.com/noticias/Economia/2019/11/05/966244/Chile-decimo-mas-desigual-Latinoamerica.html. Accessed 30 November 2021.
Villaroel, María José and Jonathan Flores. “Plaza Italia reúne 1,2 millones de personas y se convierte en la mayor marcha en 30 años.” BioBioChile, 25 Oct. 2019. https://www.biobiochile.cl/noticias/nacional/region-metropolitana/2019/10/25/comienzan-a-concentrarse-manifestantes-en-plaza-italia-para-la-marcha-mas-grande-de-chile.shtml. Accessed 30 November 2021.
"A Country Called Green" by Valeria Alejandra Inostroza
Have you ever wondered how humanity would change in a loving, freer and more equitable world? When I was 5, I used to dream about a country which I called ‘Green’, where everything was made of cardboard and everyone was happy. I had cardboard friends and a paper-thin family. But my favorite place was my cardboard school. They taught us how to laugh and how to hug, we also learned how to write and do math. When I opened my eyes, I was sad to see my reality, everything was dark and cloudy. I think Langston Hughes would have understood my dream. He also wanted something different from his own reality. He wanted his world to be free and equal. He wanted to live in a place that was built on love, not violence or injustice. I also think that he would have understood why I wanted to be a teacher to make a difference in today’s world. My dream for Chile starts with a benevolent, humane and well taught education. I think the Chile that I dream of is the one that has been on my mind since I was a little kid.
Hughes was tired of the discrimination he and his people suffered. He never felt like the American dream was real. He saw America the way it really was. A country that killed, abused and discriminated against people of color. He was everything America was against, not only for people of color but also poor people and immigrants that searched for the same dream as he did. Seeking every bit of hope is the same way I felt when I had to dream of a different world. Chile is not far from what Hugues described in the country where he lived. Also, my dream is not far from what Langston dreamed. These past years have been sort of a revelation, the people of my country have become aware of many things that have been swept under the rug. The same ones Hugues mentioned were the ones that got up and fought for what they believed in.
Is it possible ‘To build a ‘homeland of the free’ (1936) as Hughes hoped for? I believe it is possible if we give equal education and opportunities to all Chilean kids. I’m a clear example of this. I grew up with a lot of vulnerability and so did my friends, but there was a difference. I was given the opportunity to study at a better school, but they were not. They stayed in the same place and something unfair happened. I was freed and they were not. My life would look so different if that opportunity never existed for me. Therefore, the answer lies on equity and education. I want kids to not be disregarded like my friends were. Chile never was Chile to them although it should have been.
Hughes expressed his desire for redemption: 'We, the people, must redeem’ (1936). Every country should redeem those children who were not seen, waiting for someone to pay attention to them. Every kid that tried to find an inspiring teacher but instead got an adult that lacked humanity; every single one of those kids needed a country like the one in my dreams. And I still need Green, I think about it all the time. Hughes also wanted to be freed from that never ending cycle of injustices: ‘Tangled in that ancient endless chain of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!’ (1936). We are tangled in the same old ways, where the poor keeps being as Hughes said: ‘crushed by one above’ (1936). That ancient endless chain that Langston describes is merely based on racist and colonialist education and it is still present today. We must redeem ourselves. Our dreams should not be ‘brave’, they only should be ‘strong’ and ‘true’. We should not be brave in order to claim our basic rights. Children should not be dreaming about a country named Green made of cardboard people and opportunities.
The world needs inspirational leaders like Langston Hughes. He had a great mind and spirit. It was his distinguished soul that inspired millions of people of color to fight for their rights. I believe if he were still alive, he would continue to believe in that dream. A dream does not mean impossible, it means an alternate reality to what we are living. In order to achieve our dreams, we must look at our present and figure out how to change it. As I have said, I believe all change comes from education. I will be a teacher in two years and I can not wait to have the chance to make a difference, make my dream come true and see those cardboards become a reality.
We held our second essay writing contest by the end of November, 2021. This time we had the contribution from our Dean Cristina Moyano who supported us with the wonderful prizes for our winners. Our contest jurors were our professors Gabriel Romero and Miguel Farías and Francsico Matus and Ricardo Luna, alumni from The University of Santiago de Chile.
We, as The Rotten Apple, would like to extend our thanks to everyone involved, both organizers and participants; this event would not have had the success it had without all of you.
So, from our mushy peel and dried-up stem to the centre of our rotten core, we thank you.
The Rotten Apple
USACH’s Literary Magazine
First Prize
Valeria Alejandra Inostroza/ “A Country Called Green”
(Universidad Diego Portales)
Second Prize
Roberto Arenas/“Chile the Oasis that never was”
(Universidad de Santiago de Chile)
Third Prize
Sebastián Madariaga Disegni/ "The Symbolism of Words: From being unable to being able”
(Universidad Central)
Honorary Mentions:
Marina Vargas González/“Chile, Where do we go now?”
(Universidad Adventista de Chile)
Paula Lisset Agüero/“Allow me to Dream”
(Universidad de los Lagos)
Constanza Nicole Fernández Bahamonde/“Let Chile start being Chile”
(Universidad San Sebastián, Sede de la Patagonia, Puerto Montt)
We held our first essay writing contest by the end of November, 2020. The event was the result of a joint effort between Professor Andrea Campaña García, our magazine’s leader and driving force; SONAPLES, who provided the prizes; and Natalia Arévalo, Daniela Avello, Felipe Chandia, Valeria Flores, Diego Mendoza, and Oscar Salgado, alumni from The University of Santiago de Chile who acted as jury for this contest.
We, as The Rotten Apple, would like to extend our thanks to everyone involved, both organizers and participants; this event would not have had the success it had without all of you.
So, from our mushy peel and dried-up stem to the centre of our rotten core, we thank you.
The Rotten Apple
USACH’s Literary Magazine
Now, without further ado, the award-wining essays:
First Prize
Sebastián Madariaga’s ‘The Shadows of a Pandemic World: The Piano as a Metaphor’
[Universidad Central de Chile]
Second Prize
Daniela Contreras' 'The Awareness of Breathing'
[Universidad de Santiago de Chile]
First Honorary Mention
Paula Lisset Agüero's 'Life Has Always Been Simple'
[Universidad de los Lagos]
Second Honorary Mention
Bárbara Venegas Fuentes' 'Decades of Pandemic'
[Universidad de Santiago de Chile]
Third Honorary Mention
Francisca Alejandra Mosqueira's 'Surviving: Life in the Middle of the Pandemic'
[Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción]
'The Shadows of a Pandemic World: The Piano as a Metaphor', by Sebastián Madariaga
Have your ever thought about how different life has become during this pandemic? I have done it, and it has been quite difficult. After months of quarantines and lockdowns, I’ve realized that we are surviving in this context. Following a certain routine such as waking up, working, cooking, and sleeping are the new normal in today’s life. Fortunately, I’ve come across to an old friend of mine: the piano. Its melodic but tragic notes have accompanied me through the last months. Playing the piano during those cold and dark nights or at the morning when the sun shines taught me an important lesson. The piano speaks the language of the world. Each of its of key shows us how similar life and music are. I have learned that the keys of the piano represent the light and darkness of living in a pandemic context.
I discovered that the white keys of the piano symbolize the light of this new world. Devoting time to understand how a piano works made me wonder about how a couple of notes can give you peace and quietness. Even touching a couple of notes is enough to transport you to whatever your mind is. Learning to play songs such as Bach’s Prelude in C major or UP’s theme song Married Life gave me this warm feeling that you see in movies: everything will be alright. I’ve been able to forget what it needs to be forgotten just by repeating a set of chords over and over again. Listening to these white notes such as a C or G chord made me feel that this light in the world is in front of us. Chatting with one a friend of yours or watching a movie are aspects that this pandemic has given us, whether we like it or not. The simplicity and lightness of these activities are similar to the white notes of a piano. It can bring calmness in a couple of seconds, and that is valuable. Nevertheless, light has its counterpart that has been extensively presented in everyone’s lives.
I learned that the black keys of the piano can represent the darkness of living in a pandemic. After experimenting being in lockdown, isolated from your people and loved ones, the piano showed me that melancholy and sadness are inevitable. Going through these notes and listening to these low and tragic sounds made me realize that light needs its opposite: darkness. Understanding how these sounds worked was difficult because it forced me to ask some questions: who am I after all these months? Is the world going to be okay after all? What is the cost of living in a pandemic? Nights of learning how to play Chopin’s Prelude in E minor or listening to Erik Satie’s Gnossienne No. 2 unsetting calmness erased all my thoughts about myself. It was just the piano and I, trying to understand each other and the context that surrounded us. I understood that after being overexposed to all the death and sadness of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world sounded like a black key, sometimes like a Db, or maybe a Bb. It’s too hard to know what the world’s sound is, but I am convinced that the piano has some answers that will be revealed to me soon.
Undoubtedly, the world has changed, and we cannot do anything. I’ve had long days and nights in which the answers were difficult to find. Missing my prior life or enjoying a TV show while I’m trying to concentrate on my duties have been a duality that I’ve faced during the year. The piano has presented me the perfect metaphor to understand my new life: light, for those beautiful moments of this year, and darkness, for all of that oppressive fog that we’ve been fighting against off. Some days sound like someone is going through the white notes, but other days sound more like a finger touching these black notes. Perhaps it’s a combination of both parts considering that most of the songs include white and black notes. In the end, isn't life made up of positive and negative moments like a piano? There’s still a lot of thinking to do, but thankfully, my piano will help me to find answers like everyone else who is understanding this pandemic world.
'The Awareness of Breathing', by Daniela Contreras
During this year, humanity has witnessed a ‘flash never-ending year’. A flash year, in the sense that the pandemic has caught world wide’s attention and it seems that it has been a blink through time. On the other hand, a never-ending year for those who have undergone the long-lasting grief of illness and isolation being a heavy burden to bear every second of the day. Although this polarity may be perceived as uncertainty, the pandemic still sheds light on people’s lives, and it is possible to envisage the positive aspects that human beings ignore. Since there exist two sides of the same coin, it is necessary to recognise that not everything is lost. However, it depends on which side people seek first. Thus, paying attention to the less favourable edge may lead humanity to desperation; society should spotlight the positive over the negative. The unawareness of recognising the positive attributes may be directly compared to somebody drowning in the sea unable to breath freely. Probably, never before had that person been aware of the capability to breathe freely but until that moment about to sink. Considering this, the pandemic has provided human the awareness of breathing not only physically but also socio-emotionally.
The covid-19 respiratory symptoms have raised the awareness of breathing physically. As we have already heard, the virus attacks the respiratory tract. Countless times, we would have just woken up in the morning without noticing that we were blessed with the innate ability to breathe with no external instrument such as a medical ventilator. Hence, that is one reason to be grateful even throughout tough times. Of course, this thought must not be seen as selfishness but as the perception of our own physical wellness. Secondly, when we wear the face mask, we are also aware of breathing. The unpleasant sensation of wearing it makes us want to feel the liberty of breathing without the mask. Even though it is quite uncomfortable, it still helps take care of our health and promotes consciousness of breathing. Consequently, the conditions that the pandemic has enabled let us be mindful about the physical ability to breath.
The awareness not only includes the physical but also the socio-emotional aspects of life due to the time left by the pandemic. During the months we have experimented at home, it has been possible to take an emotional rest for the daily routine we lived before the virus arrival either work, study, or other activities. This situation stressed how we were living the everyday fast lane. Most of the people learned how to spend time with their families: they were not aware of the treasure they had in their own home with their beloved. The socio-emotional need was spotted with the new wise use of time. People did not know how much time they wasted in worthless affairs. Furthermore, it is not only a matter of sharing with our families but also with ourselves. In the eagerness to fulfil the daily tasks, we also lost the recognition of ourselves in the reflection of our behaviour and personal expectations. For instance, for those who have spent much time sheltering alone, it has been a great chance for retrospection and the appreciation of family and friendship and their value. The compulsory pause we all did to start breathing gives us to enlighten us about the other individuals' needs in the socio-emotional field. Over time, face-to-face interaction has been losing standing because of social networks and technology, now we can start giving it a higher value once again. Finally, when using public transport, we share the same air we breathe with the rest of the citizens and still, it seems that everyone is lost in their own inner world. Nevertheless, the awareness that we can reach may help us to change this situation. Thinking in the rest as people like us fosters us to be empathetic. This acknowledgement may be a wonderful opportunity to change the cold mood that characterises the average citizen. The fast lane of life had drowned many people of living with the ability to breathe in the social and in the emotional, but we are on time to reconsider life through this awareness.
To sum up, the pandemic has enabled the conditions that offer the chance we needed to be more aware of different dimensions that we as individuals manifest in our nature. Not everything has to be adverse; we also have got the chance to seek what is good for us even in such difficult times. We do not have to be washed away by the negative flow of the world. Thus, we must be responsible for acting according to the result of our awareness.
'Life Has Always Been Simple', by Paula Lisset Agüero
It was a serene and sunny morning when I reached the conclusion that we all are experiencing loneliness even if we are surrounded by people. During that quiet morning, I felt lonely and I asked myself: has life always been like this? With this question, I am not referring to the pandemic situation but everything else that people forget about. Many things were going on in my life before this began, that I never paid attention to things I had in front of me.
As days kept passing, I realized that the time I was spending in my room was unreal. I never witnessed the 4 seasons of the year passing through my window. Each of them with their unique characteristics; the warm summer days, the tinted fall and all the leaves it left, the long, cold, and blurry winter that I intentionally chose to forget, and the beautiful and intermittent spring, which is still fighting to be noticed. Lately, I have found myself looking at the sky a million times without having a thought in my mind. White clouds, pink sunrise, red sunset. Isn’t it hard to string thoughts together when you have so much to think about?
My friends ask me “how have you been coping with the pandemic?” I just do not have an answer for that. I just wanted this to end once and for all. Some days are quiet, others not so much. Sometimes my house does not feel like part of me and I want to run away. I started to have odd feelings that suffocated me, I was overwhelmed but I constantly said to myself it was ok, it was normal to feel this way; we have never been in this position before, and I guess I was not the only one feeling like that. News all day had me full of information and worry about what was going on in the world. I decided to purposefully avoid reading the news every day to cut off the negative input and it worked. On a rainy day, I asked my mom: what happens if the world as we know it comes to an end? She did not say a word, just raising her shoulders left the room leaving me alone with my scattered thoughts once again. Each day was a new opportunity to overthink something.
Being quarantined made me do some other things that I was not interested in before, like gardening. I have never been fond of plants, but I had a cactus that my dad brought me two years ago. My mom used to water it. One day, I looked at it and I felt bad about it. It was there, alone outside without any protection, but what called my attention was that it was so beautiful, and it grew a lot and it started to have little cactuses on the top. All of this made me think about how was it that the cactus survived like that being alone outside? I could not understand. Perhaps, it was used to being outside on its own, enjoying the sun and the rain, the good and bad days.
I choose to be alone sometimes where I called it solitude. Perhaps that was what my cactus was experiencing. It was not “suffering” by being alone. It got used to it, that was its place. By looking at my plant, I learned that we have to adapt ourselves to the conditions in which we are. Even if in these last months we have been through a lot, many people have discovered that life is simple, and it is better when we focus on the little details. Being with our family, finding a new hobby, appreciating our surroundings, being isolated, among other things are becoming more important than ever. Life has always been like this. It has always been there in the little things that we do not pay attention to.
It seems to me that being isolated at home is not that bad. It allowed me to find beauty in simple things such as observing the seasons through my window or taking care of a plant. I would call this an eye-opening experience. I realized that the only thing I want is to have my family with me and being in my house even if sometimes I want to run away from it. It is my fort. Is it that bad being socially distanced? I do not think so. I have been trying to figure out a way to put into words what I have been doing lately while I stay at home, and what I discovered is that I am prioritizing living.
31st of December around 23.50. I cannot believe how 365 days have passed in just a blink of an eye, and again, just like another year, I find myself gathered in a particular situation. Me, surrounded by my family and most loved ones turning on the radio to listen to the countdown that will welcome a brand new year when the clock strikes midnight. It is funny how every human stepping foot on earth excitingly awaits a specific day of the year to set their mind up, write their resolutions, and hope the odds are in their favor in this new journey to try and achieve their goals. But what happens when the future does not have the best things prepared for you, and instead we all have to go through a pandemic and a 10-Month lockdown that delayed the plans we had set up for the year?
Life is fragile. One day you are here: happy, enjoying how every sunrise brings surprises and challenges for your day to day; the next day you are there: sick, in a waiting room of a hospital hoping the worst news is not announced yet. That is how I would define 2020, a year that has been greatly spelled out by the strike of the novel Coronavirus and the worldwide lockdowns, economic disruption, and social consciousness it brought. Most importantly, I will remember 2020 for the chances it has given me to appreciate the little things, those details that were not moving at all but this year we all learned to cherish in some way. It has not been easy, I must recognize. I remember listening to the news about COVID-19 spreading in China and I simply thought it was a lie, some fake news that would not turn to be real in any case, especially in Chile. Unexpectedly, or advisedly, the virus arrived at the country and that is when the course of bad things spiraled.
Being almost an entire year on your own helps you rethink some of the aspects of your life. You start reflecting on the relationships you have established and the things you were used to doing. Commuting to university and spending time with my friends was something regular for me, just as visiting my grandparents, going out to the supermarket, or simply walking the dog. I was so used to it, up to the point I took all of it for granted. I had everything I wanted, no worries or problems, no reasons to preoccupy, right? But when you turn on the TV and start listening to how families are suffering for a dearest that got hospitalized because of the virus, how a father that was in charge of providing his house loses his job, how an old lady spends 8 hours a day outside the subway trying to sell candy so she can pay the rent, or even how a teenager has to borrow her neighbor’s laptop so she can connect to her online classes; that is when reality hits, your heart melts and becomes one with the beatings of an entire country. The beating of poverty, the beating of inequality, the beating of the outcasts.
Quarantine has shed light on all the problems a supposedly successful society had. The struggle of Chilean families to buy everyday food, pay the bills, afford basic needs…all of it, fragile as a snowflake being snapped out of our hands in a second. As it was not difficult enough trying to survive a deadly infection, that is when all this fantasy of a Latin American “oasis of stability and opportunities” fell down and showed its true colors: nothing but lies. At this point in life it is almost amusing to look and analyze our situation; no matter if we go through an earthquake or an epidemic, life will continue being hard for us, for the people that do not count in this country, for the ones that do not work to live but instead do it the other way around.
Then is when it comes to my mind. Despite all the bad things we all have gone through, we will always decide to hang on and appreciate the smallest details. I started this year thinking it would be great, and I will not lie, it was to some degree. I got over so many bad things and left them behind, which unquestionably helped me. But I also learned that no matter what I go through, my family will always be there by my side supporting me, just as if they were my cure. It has been almost 21 years since I was born and have been trying to survive a pandemic, how could not I survive a few more months until a virus stops spreading?
'Surviving: Life in the Middle of the Pandemic', by Francisca Alejandra Mosqueira
The pandemic caught us off guard in the most broader sense of the word. Some of us were thriving, living our best lives, engaging in new work-wise horizons, decisively building towards our future. Unexpectedly, the world came to a halt. The certainty of not being the only one noticing how it affected every nook and cranny of people's day by day, assisted our mental health during the first months. Nonetheless, the feeling dissipates when the scenery remains identical or even worse to what it was in the beginning, while news pass and the head of state and its associates display openly their desperation on broadcast networks. Then you realize that there are people dying, losing their monthly income, their loved ones, and some other their soundness. Suddenly, you are not living, you are surviving.
The system has been contributing for years to the survival experience, and now shows its worst side, confronting the government leadership, defying their competence. As a chilean person this is not a new feeling, is a ceasless headache in a political representative crisis, in which a pandemic only enhanced the usual predicaments, and the current social crisis shared with the rest of southamerica.
Chile, as other third world countries, does not have egalitarian policies in matters of health, economy, education, and so on, which added an element of difficulty in the dystopian experience we are trapped in. If it was challenging before, the pandemic manages to complicate things more, especially for those who are less fortunate. The new normal implies wearing masks, lockdown for months, health cordons, and hand sanitizer to minimize the risk of contagion among citizens. However, regardless of the latter mentioned features we have incorporated into our lives, the surviving feeling is triggered by the current trials and tribulations stacking inside our minds.
Surviving means existing in spite of hardships, but it also means continuing to function, enduring, and live through a situation. The pandemic prompted a feeling of weariness and numbness, hijacking the pleasant experience of life, making difficult to even survive. Working from home has become a burn out ordeal, often forcing people to work after hours to achieve the perfomance of a day; regarding schools and universities the situation replicates. According to psychologists, the lack of time to adapt to the situation causes stress, anxiety and distress but nothing seems to stop for the ones in charge, disregarding personal tragedies. Protocols and formalities continuing to apply in what the youth have defined as “the end of the world”. In addition to this, the usual burdens of life like paying bills, housework, and buying groceries represent a new level of diffculty, alongside the fear of becoming a biozahard danger. Weekends, designated to unwind and relax, no longer serves its purpose cornered in your home.
The survivor in ourselves comes to play when our parents’ uneasy attitude warns us that not everything is right, when you are feeling the stress soring your body, when the blue light filter no longer helps your sight, when the walls around you overwhelm the senses and the buzzing of the nonsensical news in the tv are feckless. Subsisting now means trying to not lose control, overcome panicking over what is already been piling up, clutching your stomach with an anxiety knot, and nervous perspiration in your hands, while studying, working, or even just breathing. Salvaging your mental health at the same time as your physical.
Survivor mode, as I have been calling it, does not imply solely negative outcomes, notwithstanding the feeling can be tiredsome. Discovering talents, spending time with your pet, creating a new bussiness, watching the tv show you could not watch before, can create positives experiences that were postponed before the lockdown. Grounding people, make them stop to observe what is really of importance, conducting them to comprehend where they want to be. I personally believe that the instinct of protect and survive along with our loved ones, drive us towards surmounting challenges that might hinder enjoyment. Hence, it is important to gather collective strenght, supporting each other, staying close even in the distance, finding a light within your people.
To finalize, the flaws in the system are now full on display, we have to resist a little longer, and compromising individually to make this world a better place, a place worth living by any means necessary, we owe that to ourselves, and to the future generations. Otherwise, the survival experience, the isolation, and the corpses of our loved ones, will be fruitless. To err is human, to persist on the mistakes leads to cyclical errors that can affect everyone’s life. Be resilient.
• We accept work written in English from any English major in Chile.
• Entries should be in standard manuscript format (double-spaced, one-inch margins, 12 point Times New Roman, Arial or similar font).
• Do not double space between paragraphs. Use indent.
• The essays must be entirely original, and must not have been published before.
• Your name and contact information must not appear on the manuscript. Send a separate file with the following information: Name, Institution, email, and telephone number.
• Word Count: 600-800 words.
• Theme: Life during the pandemic
• Deadline: November 29, 2020.
• The essays will be judged by teachers of English graduated from Universidad de Santiago de Chile.
In August last year we had a photography contest opened to all the students of our program. The theme was Nature and its Symbols. The idea was to encourage students to develop closer bonds with nature and appreciate it aesthetically. Photos were judged on originality, technical excellence, composition, overall impact, artistic merit and subject matter. Here are the entries. The winners will be announced soon!
The Image of Witches throughout time, Part I: Introduction
By Daniela Negrete
When we think about witches, maybe our first ideas of how a witch looks like and behaves can be those given by fairytales, and that can still remain in our psyche due to the fear and scary image that these characters had in our childhood. Old concepts of witches were disgusting and frightening for dwellers, due to assumptions that dealt with the Devil and for that reason, they were able to obtain supernatural powers and perform sorceries. After that, the image of witches changed to the memorable definition of an old, ugly and wicked woman. Now, we know that the concept and image of witches has changed considerably through time, as societies and people’s beliefs have changed as well. However, all the witches portrayed in time maintain some patterns in common or at least fulfill one of them. There are those who transgress in some way the boundaries that society has accepted for women, both in terms of power (when they are too powerful, intelligent and witty) and in their physical appearance (they might have different aspects: haggard, dazzling, or an average). Also, they can be analyzed according to their different motifs (revenge, use of tricks, use of magic for favorable or dreadful actions) and if they live in the mortal world within restrictions or not. These patterns are going to be analyzed giving examples from literature in different historical periods, and for modern times, the analysis includes examples of witches found in movies and TV series.
Some examples in literature are going to show us how the first appearances of witches differ from the modern stereotypes we already know. It is important to mention that some old works may accept more than one version of the story as they have been retold by centuries. Therefore, we are going to mention some features they have shared or some that have changed over the years, rather than telling in detail the stories included in the analysis.
References:
Bergman, J. (2015, October 30). A Literary History of Witches: Scaring Men from the Immemorial. Retrieved from http://lithub.com/a-literary-history-of-witches/
Credits: Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash
The Image of Witches throughout time, Part II: Origins and Medieval times
The Image of Witches throughout time, Part III: Renaissance times
The Image of Witches throughout time, Part IV: The Witch Image within Fairy Tales
The Image of Witches throughout time, Part V: The Witch Over the Last Centuries
The Image of Witches throughout time, Part VI: The Image of Witches in Popular Culture
The Image of Witches throughout time, Part VII: Conclusion
Heroes & Heroines: A Journey Through Myth (Introduction & Index)
By Felipe Oro
Introduction
Before everything is said and done, I would like to tell you about what I have set to do here. Over the course of 2016 I gathered and selected some essays and stories and books that were, for the most part, about people. There were people from the past and people that never were. Gods, demigods, fae folk, women and men and whatnot. All of them very remarkable, often courageous or fearless or straightaway foolish. Common folk called these beings Heroes and they told stories about them and they eventually came to write them down and to study them. They were real then and they are as real now.
Now, both the ideas of Hero and Heroine are exceedingly broad in their scope. I could drone on about Heroic figures in all kinds of media and from every time period and corner of the world and quite possible never finish. Attempting to define what makes someone a hero can be troublesome as well. For instance, Harvard University Professor and author Gregory Nagy, writes on his book The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours: “In ancient Greek traditions, heroes were humans, male or female, of the remote past, endowed with superhuman abilities and descended from the immortal gods themselves” (Nagy, 10).
Often, the status of Hero of many of these entities is questionable and even that may well be an understatement. For Heroes are often associated with wars and violence, which eventually leads one to pick sides. Are both Achilles and Hector heroes, even if they fight for different sides? Or is, perhaps, one of them a villain? Nagy writes: “The sadness of Achilles’s song is just as the hero’s death, his mortality, is necessary. The hero, the story of the hero, cannot be complete if he lives on. For in death the hero wins the ultimate prize of life eternal in song” (50). According to Nagy, the Greek hero is one who carries “the burden of two different fated ways [keres] leading to the final moment [telos] of death” (51). The hero must then deny their safe homecoming [nostos] and embrace death in battle to “have a glory [kleos] that is imperishable [amphiton]” (51).
There are also those who most definitely walked among us, people who breathed and lived and died, and who were chanted and vilified and summoned into the long-stretching halls of heroic-hood...
As it goes well beyond my current skills to unify all these diverse heroes into a single common thread, what I will do here will be next best thing: The Monomyth or Hero’s Journey.
What is the Monomyth?
It is a template, a set of stages most hero myth narratives have in common. Its study dates to 1871, when anthropologist Edward Taylor observed common patterns in the plot of hero’s journeys. However, it was not until the publication of Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, in 1949, that the study began to be recognized as such. In fact, it has become so popular that, in 2011, Time listed it as one of the 100 most influential books written in the English language. It is so influential that many writers use it as an actual template, where each step is to be followed if success is to be attained. In short: it has been done to death.
So, Why the Monomyth?
We live in a culture where the fear of things being spoiled is ever-present. We relish the thought of knowing what we should not know for now, like casks of wine hidden away in the darkness and cobwebs of a cellar, aging until they are ripe for drinking. The Hero’s Journey is, in a manner of speaking, the spoiler of spoilers. Once its patterns are known and recognizable to you, a good deal of stories will cease to surprise you. As writer Neil Gaiman puts it: “I think I got about half way through The Hero with a Thousand Faces and found myself thinking if this is true—I don't want to know. I really would rather not know this stuff. I’d rather do it because it's true and because I accidentally wind up creating something that falls into this pattern than be told what the pattern is.” Personally, I think that if a story follows every step of the journey to the letter, then it is not doing a very good job. Then again, I also think that a story’s value lies more in the little, deeper details than on its convoluted, shocking plot twists.
Nevertheless, the Hero’s Journey does not escape neither scrutiny nor criticism. There are many stories that do not fit the pattern, as well as alternatives that branch out of it or appear nearly independently. One of such criticisms has to do with the vastly predominant presence of male heroes, in lieu of their feminine counterparts. While heroines do appear from time to time in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, it would seem that, for Campbell, the journey itself was more of a man thing. Because of this, I will be comparing Campbell’s Hero’s Journey with Maureen Murdock’s model in The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness and Valerie Estelle Frankel’s From Girl to Goddess: The Heroine’s Journey Through Myth and Legend.
Index
Part I: Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Part II: Maureen Murdock’s The Heroine’s Journey: Woman’s Quest for Wholeness
Part III: Valerie Estelle Frankel’s From Girl to Goddess: The Heroine’s Journey Through Myth and Legend ( 1 / 2 / 3 )
