Frequently asked questions
These are questions that I get asked frequently by different people. I didn't put them here so people wouldn't ask me anymore, in fact, I like being asked questions. The
only purpose of this list is to post some personal information about myself, and since I found interesting that I get some of this questions asked a lot, I posted them
in the format
of "frequently asked questions."
I also include some frequent responses to my answers or further questions
in some cases.
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Q. Where are you from ?
A. Chile.
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Q. What language do they speak in Chile ?
A. Spanish.
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Q. Is the Spanish spoken in Chile the same that the one spoken in Spain
?
A. Yes, formally, it is the same language. There are a lot of words that
are different, especially foods and clothing, and the accent is different,
but the language is the same.
Q. So if you speak to a Spaniard you can understand each other
perfectly ?
A. Well, pretty much yes. But if we speak with using slang, we would have some
difficulties. If I speak in "Chilean", probably no one can understand me
if he is not Chilean.
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Q. Do you speak Portuguese ?
A. No. Portuguese is spoken in Brazil. Although Portuguese and Spanish are
similar and I can understand some, especially reading.
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Q. What is the weather like in Chile ?
A. Chile is very long, so we have different types of weathers from North
to South. In Santiago, where I come from, we have well defined seasons:
hot and dry in the summer, and cold and rainy in the winter. Not as cold
as in Canada of course. The lowest temperature it can get to is around -1
or -2 Celsius.
Q. So what season is there now ?
A. The opposite from here. In easy terms, let's say we have a function
f(n) that goes from {0,1,2,3} to {summer, fall, winter, spring} as:
f(0)=summer, f(1)=fall, f(2)=winter, f(3)=spring. Then if the season in
Canada is f(i), the season in Chile is f((i+2)%4).
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Q. How long does it take to fly there ?
A. About 12 hours.
Q. That's a lot!
A. Well, Chile is very far away to the South.
- Q. So, Chile is very long and thin.(ok, not a real question)
A. Yes, that's true. Chile is more than 4200 km long and less than 180 km wide on average (the minimal width is 90
km). To the East we have the Andes and the Pacific Ocean to the West. Here is a picture in which you can see the Aconcagua mountain (its tip is in Argentina) from a few meters away from the ocean.
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Q. Where did you get your Masters from ?
A. I don't have one.
Q. So you come directly from Bachelors ?
A. Yes. Well, our system is different. In Chile, we study Engineering
for six years. After the first four years you get a Bachelor of Science
degree, and after two more years you get an Engineering degree in Computer
Science. It's like a professional title. So we take a lot of courses and
have to do an undergraduate thesis work, so it is like a Masters, but not
officially one.
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Q. What is your thesis about ?
A. It's about theoretical modeling of computation in parallel multicore architectures. You can read this paper if you are intersted in knowing more about it.
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Q. When you finish your PhD, are you going to go back to Chile ?
A. Maybe. Maybe not.
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Q. Is your wife also from Chile ?
A. She was born in the Soviet Union in what now is Kazakhstan, but she moved to Germany when she was 12. And now she's lived in Canada for 2 years. So no.
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Q. Is your wife's name Natasha or Natalia ?
A. It's officially Natalia, but her friends call her Natasha.
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