Imagine and Build the Future

By Daniel Felipe Bohórquez V (undergraduate FIGRI student. Level 2 student)

Imagining the future is not easy, because some people are afraid of being wrong or talking too much. It is something that surprises us constantly and we would like to know about it, so we can find the solution to some of our problems.

Imagining the future is an exercise that lets us grow constantly. As we know, technology goes hand in hand with progress, so why don’t we imagine the technological revolution? This is similar to the industrial revolution years ago: an age of positive changes for human beings and the planet as well.

Technology will always be accepted because it helps us to save time, simplifies our work and generates a certain order. It is something that we use constantly.

The future is something that we can’t stop, and it always generates the question, how are we going to be tomorrow, or next year? How will our personal lives, or our economy change?

Trying to imagine a better future for ourselves, means building a better tomorrow for society and the world.

Imagination has no limits, and it always lets us grow.

My Pet

By Paula Barragán (undergraduate FIGRI student. Level 2 English)

Three years ago my best friend gave me a puppy for my birthday, but there was a problem. My mom didn't like dogs, but I didn't care. I called the dog "Duff", like the beer on The Simpsons.

At the beginning, it was difficult because we had to teach Duff, but every day he damaged things all over the house. My mom wanted him out of the house but as time passed, the dog learned to be well-behaved and obedient and my mom was more loving, as she shared time and went out to the park with him.

When Duff was a puppy I remember that he broke my favorite vase so then he was punished. He couldn’t go on the bed for a week. Duff didn't like it when it rained because the winter was cold and he crawled under the covers.

Today, Duff is a smart and well-behaved dog, although sometimes he damages some little things.

Easy, Quick and Delicious Desserts

By Valentina Roa Díaz (undergraduate Social Communication student. Level 4 English)

If you’re bored, you can make a delicious dessert in only five minutes and you don’t need a lot of ingredients.

Here, you can find two easy, quick and delicious recipes: Banana in Caramel Sauce, and Chocolate Cornstarch Pudding.

Banana in Caramel Sauce

Ingredients:

½ cup butter

1 cup superfine sugar

1 & ¼ cups heavy cream

4 bananas peeled and halved lengthwise

Instructions:

1)      Melt the butter in a large, heavy skillet over a medium heat. Stir in the sugar and cook, stirring until the sugar is melted and light brown. Slowly stir in the cream – the mixture will bubble up.

2)      Let the mixture boil for one minute, then reduce the heat to low. Place the bananas in the pan and cook until heated through, about two minutes. Serve hot, and serve with ice cream if you’d like.

Chocolate cornstarch pudding

Ingredients:

½ cut white sugar

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

A pinch of salt

¼ cup cornstarch

2 & ¾ cups milk

2 tablespoons of butter at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:
1)      In a saucepan, stir together the sugar, cocoa, cornstarch and salt. Place over a medium heat, and stir in the milk. Bring to a boil, and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a metal spoon.
2)      Remove from heat, and stir in the butter and vanilla. Let the mixture cool briefly, and serve warm, or chill in refrigerator until serving.

And that’s all – two easy, quick and delicious recipes. I hope you like them!

Predicting the Future?

By Camilo Molina (undergraduate FIGRI student)

When I was young, I liked to watch movies that took place in the future and I always wondered how those innovative gadgets would look in real life. As time passed, and I started to see some similar devices, I realised that in some way, the film industry had predicted the future.

One example is in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), in which the robot HAL 9000 talks with humans with phrases such as “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” and other things, which are similar to the well-known Apple programme Siri. This is a programme that you can have a conversation with, and which helps you with many things on your device.

In the same movie, the actors have online conversations on some kind of screen while far away from each other. Obviously it was much less sophisticated, but the concept is the same in all the real-time video chats we have nowadays, like Skype or MSN. The director Stanley Kubrick was very accurate with these predictions, but they took almost 40 years to become real.

In another movie called Minority Report (2001), the actor Tom Cruise uses his hands to control various devices without pushing any buttons, but instead using a touch interface. Some years later, all the technology companies such as Apple, Samsung and Hewlett Packard, launched a line called touchscreen, which lets you control your device with your fingers. There is even technology now that needs your fingerprint when you want to unblock your device.

Finally, in the movie Back to the Future II (1989), the main character Marty McFly uses some innovative devices, like a time machine and a flying skateboard, which are pure science fiction. However, in one part of the movie, he uses some glasses that help him to watch TV, play video games and answer calls. Recently, the big search engine on the web known as Google has launched glasses that can do many things. They work with word commands, can record videos and take photos whenever you want, can log onto blogs, show the weather, work as a GPS device, set events, arrange your agenda, and search for any information on Google in real time. These glasses will be launched in more places this year because they are testing this device at the moment to make them as useful as possible. Unfortunately, we don’t know yet how much these sophisticated glasses will cost.

In conclusion, these are just a few examples of what the film industry has been putting in movies for years, and we now have in our markets and affordable for us. Nevertheless, the question remains: do you really think that the film industry predicted these devices, or might it be that technology companies copied these ideas, and made them real in order to make a profit?

Animal Abuse

By Jessica Catherine Jaramillo (undergraduate Tourism & Hotel Management student. Level 4 English)

Many institutions help to protect and care for animals, but unfortunately this is often just words. In Colombia, there is little to no control over cruel behaviour that harms animals. People are generally not interested in protecting animals, or controlling the thousands of cruel acts happening every day in Colombia.

Within the main acts, we can see things like beatings, abandonment, mutilation, the failure to provide adequate water, food, shelter, or the necessary care. There are also the “sport”-based forms of abuse, like bullfighting, cockfighting, dogfighting and circuses.

How much longer will we allow animals to continue suffering from these atrocious acts? Today, it is more common to see animals on the street and this shows that there is no respect for animal life in our country.

To conclude, what I want is to make people aware of animal abuse, and respect the lives of these wonderful beings.

What’s behind this graffiti?

By Juan Camilo Peña (undergradute Social Communication student. Level 4 English)

Throughout our lives, we pass through many places, and without much thought, we let ourselves miss out on so many of the things around us, both big and small. This is the case with this marvellous piece of art that takes the form of graffiti. What we have here is a love story in the most unlikely of places, known as the Bronx, in downtown Bogotá. This graffiti is a replica of a photograph taken by a photo-journalist, Hector Fabio Zamora.

This piece of art narrates the full expression of love between two homeless people, Hernan and Diana. During the Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos’ visit to the Bronx, this couple decided to express their love in the form of a kiss, paying no mind to the amount of security that swarmed the entire city. Their only thought was to give the best of themselves to each other. Hernan and Diana had known each other for more than six years, during which they were only able to see each other for three. That is, until they met again during a drug buy, and since this accidental run-in, they have not dared to part from each other. This shared addiction is what drove them both to the street, without any money for anything as basic as a place to sleep at night. Most nights, they would find themselves sleeping on the streets of Bogotá, joining their bodies for heat as they waited fo the sun to break the darkness of night.

This representation of love covers the side of a building that stretches eight stories high, on the corner of 26^th Street with 15^th Avenue. The artists given the task of creating this piece of art were members of the artistic group known as Vertigo Graffiti, which won a contest held by IdeaTres. This company, IdeaTres, is an advertising agency that adorns architecture with new designs and images as a form of visual communication. The scene of love expressed in the painting lets us accept love in all its forms, because this love blossomed in the harshest of places between two people who were never expecting it.

The Eskimo and his Particular Love Story

By Duvan Darío Borda Basto (undergraduate FIGRI student. Level 2 English)

There was once an Eskimo living in the North Pole. His house was an igloo. One great day, he decided to walk and walk, and after taking many steps in the snow, he suddenly found another igloo. That igloo was very unusual. It was completely solid and made of clear ice. Inside it was a beautiful woman. This woman looked perfect through the ice. She had blue eyes that were perfectly visible from far away. The woman had been there for so long, and the Eskimo really wanted to be the one to take the woman out of her igloo, but he did not know how to break the ice. He tried once, then twice, and it looked like he could not try any more. The Eskimo loved this woman, and wanted to give everything to her.

The Eskimo was tired of trying to break into the igloo, so he returned home. He thought that if he went and rested at home, after a few days he could try harder to break the ice and win the love of this beautiful woman. After a few days of rest, the Eskimo went to look for the lady. When he arrived, he saw the woman he loved with another man who had managed to break the ice.

Moral: Do not let that person you care for get away because you don’t know how to break the ice.