A Healthy Snack!

By Laura Sofía Grueso (4th semester undergraduate Social Communication student, level 4 English)

There are some people who think that eating healthily is unpleasant and tasteless, but that isn’t true! 

There are many delicious and healthy recipes that give us nutrients and benefit our bodies.

I want to show you how to make a super healthy dessert without sugar or flour.

All you need is yogurt, a mango, stevia and lemon juice. Blend all the ingredients then put the mixture into the freezer. After two hours, you can enjoy a delicious ice cream, one hundred percent natural!

This dessert goes well with peanut butter, which you can make yourself. All you need are peanuts and olive oil. Put these ingredients into a blender until you have a smooth consistency, then put some of this mixture onto the dessert.

I hope you enjoy it!

St. Valentine's Day... Just Another Stunt (Ink online exclusive article!)

By Sebastian Espinosa (undergraduate FIGRI student)

Thanks to Valentine`s day February seems to be the perfect getaway for the partner who is constantly watering their relationship. For others it is a month where love propaganda and corny street scenes give are just too overwhelming. We all fail when getting to “the one”, I wonder if she really exists…or if it is just another commercial publicity to make us buy more clothing to look interesting or to keep on growing intellectually just to know what to say when meeting  “the one”.

You can`t get enough in love…it`s like if you live to get someone`s approval to behave. From morning text messages to long cheese phone conversations and finishing up with that inevitable phrase “How was your day?”. Mom is wise enough when affirming that logic is lost when shooting up on your love dose. Rumor has it, and experience has taught me that it`s true, we all lose our dignity and even being aware of that, we like to make each other feel stupid, we pledge to the idea of taking the “interesting” mask off and showing our retarded persona (real one).

Psychologists and in some cases psychiatrics determine that there is no better feeling than to love someone…however, do we really know what it is to LOVE? To love someone it`s not only to desperately chat or talk 24/7 or to give gifts or even to have climax sex, let me tell you my dear friend that if you think you love someone because you fulfill any of the three patterns I just mentioned, you are SCREWED! You are just enjoying the moment but not literally loving.

Throughout time we have always thought that “the one” truly exists somewhere but somehow exists. It is relevant to say that as long as you have every aspect of your partner well acknowledged and few things surprise you, then you are on the path of truly loving someone.

We all need to stick in our minds that in order to love and know someone we have to love and know ourselves before. Things like the real interpretation of solitude (single-time) give us the tools to value when finding “the one” or the prospect of the one.

Until now it had all come down to stay true to who you are and remain positive. Social pressure neglects the idea of particularities, however, you gain nothing by living what others want you to live and patience is the wisdom of properly and positively waiting.

A false alarm

By Helena F. Amórtegui B. (undergraduate FIGRI student, level 4 English)

When I was six years old, I had a nightmare journey.  I traveled with my mother, my cousin and my aunt to Gama, Cundinamarca. Gama is a small town with many mountains and it has big forests. Few people live there and in the past, it had little public transport, coaches or motorbikes. At this time, Gama was a violent place because the FARC had arrived.

One day we were going to town when we saw a big traffic jam. My cousin thought that there was a car crash or road works, but the military said that there was an old car on the bridge and the people thought that the car had explosives. Then, we looked at the town people who were running scared. But we had to go to the town urgently because we had to buy medicine for a sick cow. So, we had to cross the river in an enormous digger and, I was really scared of the big river.

After two days, we heard on the radio that the car hadn’t had explosives, but it had been stolen. In the end this was one more bad experience in my life.

Animal trafficking in Colombia

By María Camila García Bodoya (undergraduate Business Administration student)

Who doesn’t love baby animals?  Who doesn’t admire the colorful feathers of a Colombian macaw?  You see them on TV and you want one in your house. However, do you know what happens when you take them out of their habitat? Do you wonder how they arrive to your country?  Of course, you wouldn’t accept the idea of human trafficking in Yemen or you wouldn’t receive illicit substances from anyone. So, why would you like to keep an adorable exotic animal in your house, when it is not even from your country?  The activity you’ll be supporting by buying them is called animal trafficking, which is a global issue that is growing at an alarming rate.

Colombia is one of the countries affected by this activity because of its biodiversity. The saddest part is that the people who buy exotic animals aren’t aware of the many repercussions this activity has on the following: the environment, psychological wellbeing and human and animal health.  When it comes to the environment, nature has its own balance and it depends on several elements, like animals for example. When a species is hunted or taken out of its habitat, nature loses this balance. This also happens when a different species is introduced to a new habitat.  To make this point clear, you should know that in the Caribbean Sea, some of the gorgeous colored fish and coral reefs are disappearing because of an invasive species called the “lionfish”.

When it comes to the psychological aspect, animals suffer trauma because of the way traffickers catch them in the wild and deliver them to illegal pet shops in other countries. These methods are unpleasant and perplexing! The most common way traffickers catch animals is by getting them when they’re babies, so they kill their mothers and put them into boxes. Then, they have to travel a long way in small dark boxes on a bus and then on planes; one conservationist has said that in Bogota, one animal out of ten arrives alive because the others die of stress or malnutrition.

Another point is human and animal health. In general, animals tend to carry microorganisms that can be really harmful or lethal to human health – and this happens the opposite way as well. There’s the case of a Colombian child who got a lethal virus - which his doctor couldn’t help him with - from an ape that lived with him at his house.

In conclusion, despite the government's actions with the environmental police and law 84 of 1989, like drug dealers, animal traffickers are hard to track down and stop because they're part of a multi-million dollar industry. A sloth can be sold for 400 US dollars and a macaw for 600 US dollars. So, maybe the best way to stop the growth of animal trafficking is to generate awareness in consumers, through big advertising campaigns, conferences in universities or schools as well as educational TV programs.

Inside Colombian Films

By Laura Marcela Santiago (undergraduate FIGRI student)

When you hear about Colombian movies, there are two types of films that come to mind. The first one and not my favorite, is the type of movies that involve drugs and terrorism, for example the movie: "María llena eres de gracia", and the second one is the type of movies that satirize Colombian people. The second type of movies usually show the traditional customs of a typical Colombian family, but maybe their mistake is that they display the culture in a way that isn’t well appreciated, like in the movie: "Mi gente linda, Mi gente bella".

In the end, these Colombian films try to represent Colombian lifestyles, but with a huge lack of meaningfulness in their stories, and this does not make them interesting to watch. Why is the industry making these movies? My hypothesis is that they are afraid to show Colombians as normal people, who go through many troubles in life; people who have to deal with delinquency but that can also have good values, morals and ethics. 

When you go to theaters in the main cities of this country, each year they present a typical film that most of the time is about laughing at how Colombians live. We can find many examples like "In Fraganti" or "El Carro", where they stereotype a family from this country as people of low education, but having high incomes, and make reference to Colombians as easily impressed by luxury. 

Furthermore, the way they show these families is highly wrong, and it is very rude, because it gives the wrong idea to the international audience of how we are. Additionally, the industry continues to make these movies, despite the fact that they have not been successful in theaters.

Colombians do not want to be mocked on at the cinema; instead, we would like to watch stories about how we fall in love, why we are recognized for being very good friends, passionate and kind people.

It would be nice to have a movie at theaters with well-recognized actors and a huge budget that shows why Colombians are considered to be people who have a great commitment to society, and have a great sense of patriotism for their country. Just like that, it would demonstrate to the world our essence as Colombians.

It is interesting how the cinema industry has made very good films that have been best sellers, with beautiful landscapes and excellent actors from Colombia. Nevertheless, these ones have not been written by Colombians, but by foreign writers. As an example of these movies, we can find "La Cara Oculta" or "Gallows Hills", which are thrillers and drama films that truly represent families in everyday situations. However, this is an ironic topic of discussion, because foreigners are indicating that they can write better stories about Colombian culture than Colombian screenwriters.

These examples leave us with the reflection of how anxious we are to show the world that we have issues with delinquency but that we also have good stories about challenges, love and drama, like any other country around the world. It’s important that people around the world start to consider our country as one with great potential. One way we could demonstrate this is by making movies with purposeful and relevant stories that are not about drug dealers, trafficking, etc. 

Getting Over Your Ex!

By Nicolas A. Moreno P. (undergraduate Social Communication & Journalism student, level 4 English)

Everyone has been through disappointments in love. In movies and books they are always telling us how to love, how to have a good date, and how to manage every other aspect of our relationships, but they never give us the answer to the big question: “How can I get over my ex?”

It must be mandatory for everyone in the whole world to make a list of steps to get over your ex successfully. Let’s do it.

1. You will never get over your ex if you don’t spend time with your friends. They’re like your family when you’re out of your house, so try to keep your mind full of funny thoughts with them.

2. You have to shake off all the bad things that you’re keeping inside. This is why you need to have a drink and dance with somebody else, but after you’ve made sure that you won’t call your ex when you’re drunk. WhatsApp messages are not acceptable either!

3. Block your ex on every social network in the world. If you see their updates on Facebook or Instagram, you’ll probably just get depressed. So let’s be “immature”, because it’s okay.

4. Let’s take out the trash! What was treasure in the past, is trash today. Put your ex’s gifts, love letters, and everything else they gave you, into a bag and take it out of your life. In fact, burn it if you can!

5. It’s time to make a change! Go shopping, try a new hairstyle, travel to the place that your ex never wanted to go, but you did. Have fun, and get better.

Finally, if you’re ready (and only if you’re ready: please don’t make another mistake), and if you’re feeling good and like you’ve finally got over your ex, start dating somebody new. The relationship world is even better than the last time you visited it, and the big difference is that you’re single now, so enjoy your free time!

If I Stay

By Larissa Tovar (undergraduate Tourism & Hotel Management student, level 4 English)

If I Stay is a drama movie, which is based on a novel written by Gayle Forman and was directed by R.J. Cutler. In the cast, you can see as the stars of the film Chloë Grace Moretz and Jamie Blackley, as well as Mireille Enos, Liana Liberato and Lauren Lee Smith. This film’s premiere was on August 22^nd, 2014, in the United States. It was nominated for a People’s Choice Award.

Chloë Grace Moretz plays a student called Mia Hall, who is 17 years old and loves to play the cello. She lives with her parents and her little brother. Jamie Blackley plays Adam, who is Mia’s boyfriend, and they both live in Portland, Oregon. Adam is a rock star and he always needs to travel around the USA with his band.

In the movie, Mia competes to study playing cello at Juilliard, but if she goes to study there she will need to leave her family, her friends, and her boyfriend. One day, a snow storm invades Portland and all the schools close so Mia’s family decides to go on a short vacation. During this trip in just a few seconds their lives change forever, and now Mia has to decide if she wants to stay in this world or go away.

I think that this movie has a really good plot because it is a romantic story, and so many interesting things happen between the couple, and with Mia’s family. I learnt about family unity and romantic love from this film, but I also entertained myself watching it. I recommend this film, because maybe your thoughts about family and love will change in a positive way, and because it’s my favourite movie, I will always recommend it.