Pieces of My Unconsciousness

CAREFULLY COOL DOWN THE GUTS
POSSESSIVES NOUNS VERBS
COMMUNICATIVE TALKATIVE EASYGOING
NEVERTHLESS WHATSOEVER
PLAYGROUND BLOOD STREAM CARETAKER LOVELY
SENSITIVENESS HEADLIGHTS CORTESY
HOMEFUL HANDFUL
ANTHENNAS SATELLITES ROUTERS
EARTHWORMS CANDIDATES BOTTLED SUCCESS
TRUFFLES BITTERNESS FRUITLESS
CURVES BRAINCELLS NUMBNESS
CONTRARY ANALYSIS DIVINITY PINK SKY
SHADOWS NIGHTMARES DARKNESS GUTURAL
SANITARY FORCING TEMPTING SPINAL CHORD
MORTGAGE STUDENTS' LOAN PRAXIS END

How to show that you love what you do!!!

Hey there!
I haven't posted anything new for a long long time. As I said in my last post, my days are shorter and my spare time inexistente. So, it is getting harder and harder to update my blog. Although, I do not use it to register my daily routines or to overshow my personal things. This spot wasn't intended to be about ME, it's dedicated to things I like or even love!
Today, I have found the need to talk about my profession itself. Especially, I have been teaching great folks who boost my energy towards compentence and great reasonigns. My students are my powerful "pills" to keep my mood up. They are too special to me and to our school. They are assorted - different ages and backgrounds- but they have something in common: they all love English and love being taught by us (pbf teachers).
This January, I had gone through an exquisite experience. Something that I had never imagined it would happen to me. In a calm afternoon, someone calls me. It was one of my students' grandmother. Well, maybe she needed a translation to be done. In fact, what she wanted was greater than that. She called me to ask if I could anticipate this year's class start. And I asked why??? The answer surprised me the most.
Her granddaughter (MARIANA) and her granddaugther's friend (MARCELE) couldn't wait any longer to get started at their English course. They were more than ready to be here in our school learning and enhancing their language skills. I couldn't think twice - I announced to both parents that English classes could start even prior regular school schedules.
Down below you can see them. My sweetest young students who always do their homework, who always struggle to get the best grades, who are doing their best they can to become great English speakers, and who are everyday doing their best to overcome all learning difficulties.

I love you two - MARIANA and MARCELE

WELCOME TIBBY TO OUR HOME!!!!

THIS IS TIBBY FARINELLI

This is Tibby! She was born two months ago and now lives with us.
I hope our friendship works fine, even though I've notice in me clear evidence of strong cat allergy. I am typing this with runny nose, puffy eyes and itchy hands.... Oh L-o-r-d!!!

PS: That picture above is one of her latests. She's today "one year and a half old."

Back to full-time work...

I certainly miscalculated my schedule today. I started an email to a friend saying exactly that. These days I feel needed to write an introspective kind of post. It has been a while I don't put words together in order to speak my mind. Today is probably the right time.

After meeting a new friend through the web, we have known each other for almost six months now, I figured that it is possible to construct a deep friendship by this cold medium. However, things can get a bit disturbed when mixed up feelings show up. My point is, I do consider this person a truly friend of mine although "internet" relationship seems too unreal.

Let me be more clear. I am an open-minded person, oh well, at least I try to be, and that estimulates in me to be a good listener. I listen, listen, and listen. Most of my online friends are books that I can read, scan, upload on the web, and print them out to read them all over again. I don't really mind about this. In fact, that inspires me to come up with characters when it comes to my fiction writings. Then you might think, "Man, she's exposing them in her texts!" I would say "no" to that. Normally, artists do not even use their real names on the cover of their books sometimes...

I wouldn't ever expose anyone. I wouldn't ever look down on anyone. I wouldn't ever judge any individual by his/her own words. Those are simple words. Above all, some stories may not even be true.

However, I consider myself a bit lucky to have encountered intense people, with lifestyles that are absolutly different from mine. That's actually amazing and fullfilling to me. Then, I am writing all this "shitty" post to let them know, if by any chance they end up reading it, that I care for them as I care for everybody who respects HUMAN NATURE.

Being back to the ground reality, I will soon be found overwhelmed and under stress because of all classes which will start this Monday. I will be hopefully blogging once a week. I don't truly believe that I have any frequent reader, however I must apologize for any possible delay.

If you're reading this post not knowing who I am, not having a dust of idea of what I do for a living, you may learn that I teach English to Brazilian kids and adults too. My husband and I own a language school (pbf) that it is located in one of the major cities of the south of Brazil. This place is called Caxias do Sul and the school is known as PBF - an acronym that means PINK AND BLUE and FREEDOM.

A new season has just started for schools, colleges, and universities in Brazil. Our students will be back to their classes in the morning, afternoon, evening... Tests, exercises, compositions, fun acitivities will be in my mind throughout the semester. Lucky me if I don't get sick. Lucky me if my new students are just great individuals as they all have been. I say a prayer for good times and not so hot days like the last few months. Drought and dry weather are emptying the local rivers and lakes of this region. I just feel sorry for the vinyards which cover the hills of this place so-called SERRAS GAÚCHAS!!!

Well, I deliberately escaped from the topic I first started writing about. Honestly, I didn't want to say much of it, just wanted to be straight to my point. That is normally hard to me, anyway. I know. Please, it's not that difficult to forgive me, coz I am this type of person who spends half of his/her precious time in a certain place known as the TWILIGHT ZONE - my friend, d'you know what I am talking about???

FRIENDS from all these parts of this planet: JAPAN (Yayoi, Yuitichiro, Naomi), MOROCCO (Nadia, Zak, Naima), USA (Melissa, Candy), FRANCE (Marceau, Alex, Guillaume), VENEZUELA (Luiza, Afonso), KOREA (Joon, Yup, Sanghee Lee),Taiwan (Shuping), THAILAND (Toyota, Joon), SWITZERLAND (Rolland, Cédric), MEXICO (Margarito, Fernando), HOLLAND (Hans), SAUDI ARABIA (Ahmed, Nasser, Faissal), URUGUAY (Ariel), ECUADOR (Eddy), PANAMA (Porfírio, Gallo), BOSNIA (Amir), BULGARIA (Antonia), CROATIA (Davor), RUSSIA (Regina), BARBADOS (Andrew), PHILIPPINES (Ben), VIETNAN (Phong), INDIA (Apuh), SPAIN (Javier, Manuel), CÓTE D'IVOIRE (Jean), SOUTH AFRICA (Jennifer), ARGENTINA (Marina), and BRAZIL (Wow, so many...) ->

You all had better know that I dearly care for all of you so much from the deep inside of my soul... And, don't take me too seriously when I cross the line or when I seem not to have enough patience with you. I do want and enjoy listening to your words of experience. I will definetely continue being all ears, just not as often as I used to during the last two months...

LOTSA LUV and WISH THE BEST OF LUCK TO YOU ALL

Poetry by Pessoa

Meantime
by FERNANDO PESSOA

Far away, far away,
Far away from here...
There is no worry after joy
Or away from fear
Far away from here.
Her lips were not very red,
Not her hair quite gold.
Her hands played with rings.
She did not let me hold
Her hands playing with gold.
She is something past,
Far away from pain.
Joy can touch her not, nor hope
Enter her domain,
Neither love in vain.
Perhaps at some day beyond
Shadows and light
She will think of me and make
All me a delight All away from sight.

Understanding Greek Theater

I will post here a paper I wrote about GREEK TRAGEDIES AND COMEDIES to a college course called "WESTERN HUMANITIES I" at Saint Petersburg College.

"Greek plays or dramas (tragedy and comedy) were a single performance in theaters (arenas) at Athens, spoken and acted by costumed actors and in part sung by a chorus of dancers to the music of a piper. The theaters were mostly located in places called AGORA. In this research paper, we are going to discuss the main elements of the Greek tragedy and comedy and its universality/contribution in arts and scholars of all times.

Theater as we know it in the West today was invented in Ancient Greece, in classical Athens more specifically. The zenith of the Greek Theater coincides with the great moment of its democracy and military power in the fifth century BC. After defeating the Persians in 460 BC approximately, the Greeks developed senses of competitiveness and rivalry.

In 534 BC, the Athenian tyrant Pisistratus founded the festival of the City Dionysia (or also called The Great Dionysia), one of the most popular events, whose main purpose was the presentation of plays and dithyrambs as a sacred competition. Competitive athletic sports and games were also Greek inventions at that time. The play-festivals served as a device for defining Athenian civic identity, which meant exploring, questioning and confirming what it was to be a citizen of a democracy.

The culture of Athens during the Classic period may be viewed as a “performance culture”. In the Dionysia and Lenea festivals there was competition both between the plays or rather groups of plays. Comedies as well as tragedies were performed publicly in local theaters. The Greek plays of the fifth century (BC) were very directly part of a rite, acts of worship offered to a mysterious power. The Greek god Dionysus was this power. He was evoked and even animals were sacrificed to his worship. In Greek mythology, Dionysus was the god of wild and uncontrolled ecstasy. He is too considered more specifically the God of wine. Perfection was the goal of classical Greek art.

Tragedy also reached its great moment in Greece. It was originated from Epic and Lyric poetry, dominant literary forms of artistic expressions from the late archaic age. With the rising of the democratic spirit and changes in the polis, epics were transferred to the stages, featuring the Greek tragic theater.

“The tragedies were primarily based on the legends of royal families – usually the dynasties of Thebes, Sparta and Argos – dating from the Age of Heroes of which Homer sang in his epics. Since the audience already knew these stories, their interest focused on the playwright’s treatment of a familiar tale, his ideas about its moral significance, and how his language shaped those ideas (Matthews, p. 62).”

The main plots in Greek tragedies constitute a grandiose set of variations on a relatively few legendary and formal themes that is not casually or occasionally intertextual, but always and inherently so. “The word tragedy in Greek means “goat song,” and this word may refer to a prehistoric religious ceremony in which competing male choruses sang and danced, while intoxicated, in homage, to the god of wine; the victory prize may been a sacrificial goat (Matthews, p.61).”

The essence of the tragedy was in telling stories about divine and/or humankind weaknesses, pains, sorrows, failures, and also acts of heroism. The conflicts in tragedies were mostly a consequence of fate. The Greek Tragedy passed through four distinct forms such as: the Thespian lyrical (the primary form which introduced the use of masks, with only one actor,) the early Aeschylean with two actors (also called the Old Tragedy,) the Sophoclean with three actors (also called the Middle Tragedy,) and the late-Euripidean drama (also called the New Tragedy).

Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripedes are the best-known Greek tragedy play authors, explaining why the classical periods were named after them. Each of them wrote over ninety tragedies (although only few survived) and won several festivals in Athens.

Aeschylus (525–456 BC) was born at Eleusius, near Athens. He fought for Athens in the great Persian Wars. His first victory as a tragic dramatist was gained in 485 BC. He won twelve times more. He elaborated over ninety plays, his masterpiece, the Oresteia, is the only trilogy that has survived. In his drama, “Aeschylus confronts and resolves the opposition between several seemingly irreconcilable polarities – Olympian and chthonian gods, divine and human justice, religious cult and civic ritual, and fate and free will (Matthews, p. 63).”

Sophocles (496-406 BC) was born at Colonus Hippius. He wrote 123 plays, of which only seven survived, all written after his victory over Aeschylus in a dramatic contest in 468 BC: Ajax, Electra, Women of Trachis, Philoctetes, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone. Sophocles inaugurated the Old Tragedy adding one more actor in scene. He sees not the simplicity but the complexity of life. The Sophoclean hero, because he is complex, not single-minded, must be seen from more than one point of view, so it is important the role of one more actor on stage.

Euripides (480-406 BC) was born in Athens. He abandoned painting for literature. He wrote about 80 dramas, of which 19 survived. Some of his masterpieces are Alcestis, Medea, Orestes, and Electra. His works became more popular in Athens after his death. The Euripidean tragedy got more involved by the Peloponnesian war and by the Sophist philosophy. He introduced what it is called the New Tragedy, a more intuitive work. His plays are reflections about human experiences, traditional mythology, and human consciousness. Macbeth of Shakespeare has a strong influence from Medea.

Drama was not necessarily an original feature of the festivals at which it was performed. Comedies were performed in the Dionisya Festival just as the tragedies were. Tragedy had first place, occupying the theater for three days, on each of which were performed three tragedies and followed by a satyr-play (presenting indecent behavior and strong language) or a comedy.

Aristophanes is a very important name of the classic Greek Comedy Theater. In his works, he attacked the Athenian system of law, ridiculed politicians of that time, and caricaturized the intellectual and ordinary men. Aristophanes helped creating what it was called later ‘the old comedy’. This term means comedy produced in Athens during the fifth century BC. Eupolis, Cratinus and Aristophanes are its main exponents, but had no doubt that Aristophanes was the greatest of the three. Here is the beginning of one of his great plays: “Lysistrata:”

“[A street in Athens before daylight]

LYSISTRATA – If anyone had asked them to a festival of Aphrodite or of Bacchus or of Pan, you couldn’t get through Athens for the tambourines, but now there’s not one solitary woman here. Except my next-door neighbor. Here she’s coming out. Hello, Kalonike.

ALONIKE – Hello, Lysistrata. What are you so upset about? Don’t scowl so, clear. You’re less attractive when you knit your brows and glare.

LYSISTRATA – I know, Kalonike, but I am smoldering with indignation at the way we women act. Men think we are so gifted for all sort of crime that we will stop at nothing –

KALONIKE – Well, we are, by Zeus!”

In Old Comedy, plays had a strong element of criticism, even though free speech had its limitations in Athens. In Lysistrata, Aristophanes points out the absurdity of the prolonged Peloponnesian war. “In the play, Lysistrata, an Athenian matron, persuades the women of Athens and Sparta to withhold sex from their husbands until they sign a peace treaty (Matthews, p65).”

How important is the Greek tragedy for later Western literature and thought? The production of plays such as Medea or Oedipus the King is made until recent times. The intellectual and aesthetic contributions of these works are infinite. Greek tragedies influenced not only plays (Shakespeare and Goethe) and operas, but also thinkers as varied as Freud, Sartre and Nietzche. A book on Greek tragedy may be a work of historical documentation or of literary criticism, although the relationship between anthropology and the Classics (tragedies), for instance, has brought more than that. The studies in tragedies have explained the idea of ritual and of, so called by anthropologists, “magic thoughts”. The critical understanding of Greek tragedy is extremely flexible. It is possible to explore them politically, historically, in psychoanalysis, in linguistics, in philology and so forth.

Plato and Aristotle developed extensive thoughts concerning tragedies. In Aristotle’s work called Poetics, he affirms that the essential thing in tragedy was not the characters but the events, the fable, the mythos, and the action compounded from it. For him the preeminent example, which he repeatedly cites as model tragedy, was Sophocle’s Oedipus, in which the action, the “destiny”, takes precedence over character. This is why the Greek drama perpetuates in History. The capacity of becoming modern lies in its actions. According to Aristotle, tragedy plays are eternal for conceiving and portraying man in his universal conflicts such as: surviving, death, human justice, humiliation, sexuality, power, free will, weakness, fears, and so on. It consists in the simple idea that it is no accident that the Greek tragedy survived as creative stimulus in the drama of later eras.

Bibliography

1. KITTO, H. D. F., “Greek Tragedy.” Barnes and Noble Inc., 1968.

2. MATTHEWS, T. Roy and PLATT, F. Dewitt, “The Western Humanities.” Michigan State University, 2000.

3. ARISTOPHANES, “Lysistrata.” Chandler Publishing Company, 1961.

4. RIDGEWAY, William, “The Origin of Tragedy.” Benjamin Blom Inc., 1966.

5. HAMBURGER, Kate, “From Sophocles to Sartre.” Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1969.

6. “Greek Tragedy.” Cambridge University Press, 1997

7. LATTIMORE, Richmond, “Story Patterns in Greek Tragedy.”

The University of Michigan Press, 1964.

8. SANDBACH, F. H., “The Comic Theater of Greece and Rome.” Norton and Company Inc., 1977.

9. ARISTOTELES, “Poeticas.” Editora Siciliano, 1985.

10. AYLEN, Leo, “The Greek Theater.” London and Toronto Associated Presses, 1985.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN MONTH

While reading an excellent novel named "The Color of Water" by James McBride, I felt needed to write about what this month represents to all African-Americans. I don't even know exactly where my roots come from. Every time someone asks my heritage, the only thing I can say is "I AM LATINA." For those who have eventually read my other post already know that I had spent 5 years in the USA (1998-2002). There, I had the unique chance to learn so much about their civil rights heroes, names such as: MALCOM X, PAUL ROBESON, JACKIE ROBINSON, MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, THE BLACK PANTHERS. They were exquisite minds of the 50's who made the difference for the African-American people. The fact that touched me the most is the one known as The Montgomery Bus Boycott. I will paste here a summarized text about this brave black woman - ROSA PARKS - also a very important character for the 50's. To me, as being LATINA (once part of the USA minorities), I do believe I needed to mention this so interesting moment in the western history and especially in this month - FEBRUARY - when African-Americans celebrate proudly their heritage and origins.

Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

On the 1st of December 1955, Mrs. Rosa Parks, an African-American seamstress, was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for not standing and letting a white bus rider take her seat.

It was an "established rule" in the American south (at that time) that African-American riders had to sit at the back of the bus. African-American riders were also expected to surrender their seat to a white bus rider if it was needed.

When asked to move to let a white bus rider be seated Mrs. Parks refused. She did not argue and she did not move. The police were called and Mrs. Parks was arrested
Mrs. Parks was not the first African-American to be arrested for this "crime." But she was the first to be arrested who was well know in the Montgomery African-American community. She was once the secretary to the president of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery. He and other African-American community leaders felt a protest of some kind was needed. A meeting was called and an overflowing crowd came to the church to hear his words. Dr. King told the crowd that the only way they could fight back would be to boycott the bus company.

On the morning of Dec. 5, the African-American residents of the city refused to use the buses. Most walked, those few with cars arranged rides for friends and strangers, some even rode mules. Only a very small number of African-Americans rode the bus that day.

Dr. King and the other African-American community leaders held another meeting to organize future action. They named their organization the Montgomery Improvement Association and elected Dr. King as its president.

As the boycott continued the white community fought back with terrorism and harassment. The car-pool drivers were arrested for picking up hitchhikers. African-Americans waiting on street corners for a ride were arrested for loitering.
On January 30, 1956 Dr. King's home was bombed. His wife and their baby daughter escaped without injury. When Dr. King arrived home he found an angry mob waiting. Dr. King told the crowd to go home.

"We must learn to meet hate with love" he said.

The boycott continued for over a year. It eventually took the United States Supreme Court to end the boycott. On November 13, 1956 the Court declared that Alabama's state and local laws requiring segregation on buses were illegal. On December 20th federal injunctions were served on the city and bus company officials forcing them to follow the Supreme Court's ruling. The following morning, December 21, 1956, Dr. King and Rev. Glen Smiley, a white minister, shared the front seat of a public bus. The boycott had lasted 381 days. The boycott was a success.

FROM: http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0214631/

Nine Inch Nails

I've never thought that I would add a song* into my blog. Don't know about you, but I can only listen to it when I navigate on Explorer browser. Any other browser isn't running the song I've chosen. Can't explain exactly why I chose "THE PERFECT DRUG", however NIN is one of my favorite bands. I don't really have a list of my all-time favorite musicians, even though I have added some of them in my blog profile. I am not into music mostly, so I am the type of person who sticks with a CD of any band and like listening to it countless times a day. That's not the case of this song frankly speaking. The words in that music are tantalizing, that is probably the reason I've decided to have a connection between my words and theirs (NIN). Finally, if anyone can explain to me why I am not able to listen to this song in other browsers, please contact me or post any comment - I'd really appreciate if you could do that!


"The Perfect Drug"
by NINE INCH NAILS

I got my head but my head is unraveling
cant keep control can't keep track of where it's traveling
I got my heart but my heart's no good
you're the only one that's understood

I come along but I don't know where you're taking me
I shouldn't go but you're wrenching dragging shaking me
turn off the sun pull the stars from the sky
the more I give to you the more I die

and I want you

you are the perfect drug
the perfect drug
the perfect drug
the perfect drug

you make me hard when i'm all soft inside
I see the truth when i'm all stupid-eyed
the arrow goes straight through my heart
without you everything just falls apart

my blood just wants to say hello to you
my fear is warm to get inside of you
my soul is so afraid to realize
how every little bit is left of me

take me with you
without you everything just falls apart
it's not as much fun to pick up the pieces

*Note - After having several problems with other browsers and poor quality at the music reproduction, I've decided to remove it either temporarily or permanently.

MY COMPLETE PROFILE

WRITING

ABOUT MY

SUPERFICIAL

ME...

ABOUT ME: PROFILES AREN'T GREAT TO DEFINE WHAT A PERSON IS OR ISN'T. ANYWAY, THEY ARE AT LEAST AN ORGANIZED MATERIAL TO POINT OUT WHAT IT MIGHT MATTER FOR THAT PERSON. I CARE FOR KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM, MY SISTERS, TEACHING, WRITING, READING, INTERNET, FOOD, DRINKING, MOVIES, CLOSE FRIENDS AND CONVERTING ACCOMPLISHMENTS PLUS DISAPPOINTMENTS INTO WORDS IN FREAKO POEMS.

MORE ABOUT ME: I TRY TO BE IN A GOOD MOOD ALL THE TIME BUT SOMETIMES I FAIL. I PROCRASTINATE DOING WHATEVER I HAVE TO. I DON'T USUALLY REMEMBER PEOPLE'S BIRTHDAY THEREFORE I GET REALLY EMBARRASSED WHEN THEY REMEMBER MINE. I LOVE MY ENTIRE FAMILY ESPECIALLY BECAUSE WE TRADITIONALLY LIVE APART. I PRODUCE BETTER WHEN I'M ALONE, I GET THE BEST IDEAS WHEN I'M SURROUNDED. I DON'T LIKE ARGUMENTS AND MISSUNDERSTANDINGS. I DISLIKE THE SILENCE ALTHOUGH I DON'T LISTEN TO MUSIC VERY OFTEN. I DREAM OF HAVING A PUBLISHED NOVEL.FINALLY, I HAVE ALREADY HAD MOST OF MY GOALS TURNED INTO REAL PROJECTS, AND I AM ONLY 28 - THAT'S SOMETHING I AM PROUD OF.

NAME: LAILA CHRIS

MARITAL STATUS: MARRIED, NO CHILDREN

D. O. B.: JANUARY 29TH

BORN IN: BRAZIL, STATE OF SÃO PAULO

OCCUPATION: FULL-TIME ENGLISH AS A SECOND LANGUAGUE TEACHER

PASSIONS: *WRITING/ *Teaching English to kids and teenagers/ *Learning new words in English, Deutsch, Français, Español, and Português!/ *Meeting fun old friends / *Monty Python's Flying Circus / *Sleeping until late / *Having Bolla wine and bites of camembert cheese topped with roasted red bell pepper /

BOOKS: Torah/ Qur'an/ Tira-Teimas de Português, by J. Milton Gonçalves/ A Questão Judaica, by Jean Paul Sartre / The Battle for God, by Karen Armstrong / The Arab Predicament / A Questão Alemã, Vamireh Chacon / The Future of an Illusion & The Interpretation of Dreams, by Sigmund Freud /

MUSIC: Polka, Indie Rock, and Quarashi (a kick-ass Icelandic BAND)

MOVIES: CECIL B. DEMENTED / AMARCORD / ED GEIN / ROPE / MEMENTO / FARGO / 8 1/2 / BICHO DE SETE CABEÇAS/ THE BIRTH OF A NATION / DONNIE DARKO / THE PAWNSHOP / DER HIMMEL ÜBER BERLIN /

HATE: SUMMER TIME AND ANY SORT OF WARM WEATHER, RACISM, LACK OF INTEREST IN THE WORLD AND IN PEOPLE, DISRESPECT, DRIVING, MANICURING MY NAILS, IGNORANCE, WAKING UP EARLY, LOOKING DOWN ON PEOPLE, OTHERS TELLING ME WHAT I HAVE TO DO, INSECT BITES, PHYSICHAL PAIN, BRAGGING AND VOMITING.

NAMES THAT HAVE INFLUENCED ME: J. M. GONÇALVES; FERNANDO PESSOA; GARCIA LORCA; LUIZA VALENZUELA; MAIAKOVYSKI; TOLSTOY; UMBERTO ECO; FRIDA KAHLO; FAULKNER; EDGAR A. POE; CHARLES SPENCER CHAPLIN; CLARICE LISPECTOR; ALLIGHIERI; FREUD; EDNA PURVIANCE; MARIO PRATA; ISAAC EPSTEIN; DAVID BOWIE; ALAIN TOURAINE; KUBRICK; NIETZCHE; JUDY DENCH; POLANSKI; HEMINGWAY; BEAUVOIR; SHAKESPEARE; JOHN CLEESE; PIERCE; BARTHES; SAUSSURE; DRUMMOND; SUSAN SONTAG; MARLON BRANDON; SAMUEL BECKETT; OSCAR WILDE; FRITZ LANG; NOAM CHOMSKY; GOYA; MUNCH; MIRO; BURROUGHS; BORTOLOTTO; MAGRITTE; KANDINSKY; NERUDA; POLLACK; DALI; CHICO SCIENCE & NAÇÃO ZUMBI/

My listening skills...

Untittled so far...

Fuck all the arguments for and against it
but I won’t give up seeking my inner self
my deeper beliefs
my own true personality
Love to relish the small domestic
details of life: obvious chores and
even sharing nightdreams
I like close-up shots of others' stories
I love observing beings out there
I care for helping and listening
However I don't recklessly do those
I don't randomly give out my attention to
those who can't add in me something intense,
emotional, fullfiling, and dazzling
I may say that I choose carefully
I handpick the ones who deserve my time
My time is only mine and not yours
So, don't mess with it
Because I don't.

Surrealism...

Surrealism, strategically at this point in my life, has fascinated me. In order to understand this style of art making, I decided to visit the Salvador Dali Museum back in 2001.

That museum is located in Saint Petersburg - USA, the city where I used to live in the USA. The Salvador Dali Museum is a fantastic place that everyone must visit. It has the world largest permanent collection of Dali’s paintings. It helps us understand how the surrealists depicted things from the artist personal life, historical facts or everyday situations and their connection with psychoanalysis studies.

Surrealism is an important movement in modern art and literature, which started between the wars, mainly in France. The idea was to free the artist from the demands of logic and to penetrate beyond everyday consciousness to the “super-reality” that lies behind. Dali was not alone in this movement. Magritte and Tanguy are also famous painters who used the distorted way to register the reality.
Surrealist artists wanted their work to be a link between the abstract spiritual realities and the real forms of the material world. To them, the object stood as a metaphor for an inner reality. Through their craft, whether it be painting, sculpting or drawing, artists could bring the inner realities of the subconscious to the conscious mind, so that their meaning could be deciphered through analysis.
Salvador Dali was born at Figueras in Spain. He studied in Madrid and moved to Paris later, where he joined the surrealists and became one of the principal figures of the movement. In 1940 he settled in the USA with his wife Gala, and devoted his art to symbolic religious paintings. Dali became also a wealthy man through commercial works in design and advertisement fields.

My visit at the Salvador Dali Museum made me realize how connected Freud’s theories and his paintings are. However, Dali experienced different genres and perspectives in his works, from impressionist to classical surrealist . The galleries of the museum are divided by these genres (or art periods): “portraite”, “landscape painting”, “the figure”, “still life”, “the grotesque”, and his huge “masterworks” – also known as the classic period.

The division in his works in these six categories allows us to visualize the full development and diversity of Dali’s creativity from 1914(age 10) to 1980.

His classic phase impressed me the most. It is located in time from 1948 to 1970. During this period, he executed eighteen large oil canvases that are now called the “masterworks”. Some of the titles are “The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus”, “The Ecumenical Council”, and “The Hallucinogenic Toreador”. Dali became more interested in religion, history and modern science during that time. Diego Velazquez and Raphael had influenced him mainly.

As an artist, Dali was complete. He painted, sculpted, designed jewelry, clothes, accessories, furniture, and turned himself into an icon. He made his living with his inspiring artwork. He became famous when still alive. Salvador symbolizes the surrealist movement. His contribution to the modern visual arts is infinite.

Visiting the Salvador Dali Museum I could verify his excellence as a creative (almost crazy) painter that will influence art genres of artists still to come.

My personal impression about surrealism:>

Don't know yet whether I am influenced by this style. What I know so far is that artists such as Magritte and Dali have encountered power and madness through their strokes on their canvases that can modify people's deep concepts of life and the world. The thing is that I deal with language and I haven't learned how to give to it a surreal feature.

I haven't been able to declare to all men that that style is the only possible way of making art so that he/she may make a fully Surrealist use of it. To the extent that I am expect to make me understood, I try to offer in my writings an ability to the reader for speaking my poetry, as he/she would be reading a letter, or providing him/her written images to carry on a conversation (for the pleasure of conversing) with someone (with me)...

LONG LIVE SURREALISM!!!

Adrienne Rich

Love discussing literature with friends.

Having this talk to Andréa Martins, one of my long-term friends who happens to be a writer and an advertiser too, I had this insight to go back in writing in Portuguese as well. That made me conclude that a good thing would be to start a new blogg entirely in that language.

Don't know whether I can digress powerful texts in my own language as I used to. However, that is some kind of ability that we don't lose as it would be a material gain. It is a talent that is conquered, that can be modeled, remodeled, painted, vanished, polished. It's never gone. It just stays there asleep prostrated in some corner of our unconscious.

Gotta wake it up and it will come up as a brand-new force on me.

No, no, no. I won't give up writing in English. I will not kill this blogg. I am going to have to sort out my collectible vocabulary and previous learned writing skills for both languages. There will be another challenge to me. I love being dared. I was born to it.

Meanwhile, I have read a terrific female American poet called Adrienne Rich. She has done prose and poetry. To read and understand her, it is something that has to be appreciated as a continuous process, just like any other good famous writer. What I love most about her is that she shows us a clear poetic vision through powerful and simple words.

I try to write following the same style. Wait a minute there! I am not comparing her to my writings because that would be way too pedant. Quoting a book about her: " reading through her poems we may sometimes wish for more relaxation and playfulness, for a liberating comic sense of self almost never present in her work. What we find, however, is invaluable - a poet whose imagination confronts and resists the harsh necessities of our times and keeps alive a vision of what is possible."

Here it is my favorite of her poems...

PLANETARIUM

A woman in the shape of a monster

a monster in the shape of a woman

the skies are full of them



a woman 'in the snow

among the Clocks and instruments

or measuring the ground with poles'



in her 98 years to discover

8 comets



She whom the moon ruled

like us

levitating into the night sky

riding the polished lenses



Galaxies of women, there

doing penance for impetuousness

ribs chilled

in those spaces of the mind



An eye,

'virile, precise and absolutely certain'

from the mad webs of Uranusborg

encountering the NOVA

every impulse of light exploding

from the core

as life flies out of us



Tycho whispering at last

'Let me not seem to have lived in vain'



What we see, we see

and seeing is changing



the light that shrivels a mountain

and leaves a man alive



Heartbeat of the pulsar

heart sweating through my body



The radio impulse

pouring in from Taurus



I am bombarded yet I stand

I have been standing all my life in the

direct path of a battery of signals

the most accurately transmitted most

untranslatable language in the universe

I am a galactic cloud so deep so invo-

luted that a light wave could take 15

years to travel through me And has

taken I am an instrument in the shape

of a woman trying to translate pulsations

into images for the relief of the body

and the reconstruction of the mind.

I LOVE THE WORLD

Today, while talking to some friend over the web, I discussed that when I truly appreciate some work of art, I tend to identify with it so much. My connection with the piece sometimes goes beyond admiration that I feel like having made it. I wonder how it'd be to walk on that artist's shoes or even better, how it'd be to be in that person's brain... This thing happens to me when I read those lyrics that I typed right below... It's one of the songs of New Model Army...


I LOVE THE WORLD


The roll of distant thunder breaks, the afternoon of silence wakes
They hurry through from Petergate as if they know this dance
In fury blind, I drive at night across the moors, the open roads
Beneath the freezing starry skies, racing in some trance
These cities are illusions of some triumph over Nature's laws
We've seen the iron carcass rust and buildings topple into dust
And as the waters rise, it seems we cling to all the rootless things
The Christian lies, technology, while spirits scream and sing
Oh God I love the world


Well I never said I was a clever man but I know enough to understand
That the endless leaps and forward plans will someday have to cease
You blind yourselves with comfort lies like lightning never strikes you twice
And we laugh at your amazed surprise as the Ark begins to sink
This temple that is built so well to separate us from ourselves
Is a power grown beyond control, a will without a face
And watching from outside
I wish that I could wash my hands of this
But we are locked together here, this bittersweet embrace
Oh God I love the world


And if one day the final fire explodes across the whitened sky
I know you've said you'd rather die and make it over fast
With courage from your bravest friends, waiting outside for the end
With no bitterness but an innocence that I can't seem to grasp
I know somehow I will survive - this fury just to stay alive
So drunk with sickness, weak with pain,
I can walk the hills one last time
Scared and smiling, dying slow,
I'll scream to no one left at all told you so, I told you so, I told you so . . .
Oh God I love the world

2005 Resolutions

Gosh... what a cliché topic!
Who cares? It's almost new year and it is important to set some goals for the next 12 months!

FITNESS
Work out and lose 3 pounds;

INTELLECTUALLY
Read more and organize my study notes;

WRITER
Post in this blog more often, write more poems in Portuguese and finish up my book;

FRIENDSHIP
Neither take offense and nor accept being offended easily;

PROFESSIONALLY
Catch up with all teacher's duty at my school;

HEALTH
Drink more water and less wine (that will be difficult!);

HOUSING
Take care of my place as it was a little spot of Heaven;

FUN
Listen to music more usually and see even more movies at theaters;

HYGIENE
Don't allow the dishes get pilled up on the sink (Hard one too!).

Collection of English Poems

It's been an interesting moment for my creative motor... I think this has been the time to teach others that we are all limited, fragile, and vulnerable! That means if WE keep taking those who love us for granted, we've just been wasting our time on this planet.

I will post here some of my latest poems in English. Have been taught this language and have been able to communicate using this code for such a long time that it's way much easier to me to generate verses using the yankees' phonems, spelling, and pictured sentence structures such as idiomatic expressions, idioms, and even slangs.

I am not excusing myself for having chosen English to write my posts and poems. I am trying to tell myself that being a writer (regardless it's for mere fun...) who writes in a language which is not his/her mother tongue isn't an easy task and it takes a great deal of responsibility. I guess I can handle the obstacle for its difficulties and I am filled with responsibilities...totally.

TIRED OF THE SUN…

COVERAGE IS MY AIM
FORCING THAT, IT WOULDN’T BE WORTHWHILE
NATURAL SHIELD
PURE PROTECTION POWERED BY AN ANGEL,
A FIGURE JUST LIKE YOU
BRILLIANT SCHEME
COVER ME UP, COVER IT ALL UP
TENDERLY, SWEEP MY DUST
ORGANIZE MY PICTURES
FOLD MY CLOTHES
HEAT MY BED
BRUSH MY HAIR

BEING TOUCHED IS MY ULTIMATE GOAL
WOULDN’T MANIPULATE THAT, IT’S JUST NOT THE CASE
SIMPLE STARE
STERLING SOUL FREE FROM SINS
EXQUISITE TRUST
DRINK MY MILK, WASH YOUR PALE FACE WITH IT
CHEERFULLY, CONDUCT MY HANDS
SEW ME WINGS
WASH MY WOUNDS
PLANT SOME DAISIES
AND LET THEM BLOSSOM ONLY IN JANUARY

A SOFT TEAR WIPER IS WHAT I WANT
JUST A DELICATE KISS WOULD DO
AN UNPRETENTIOUS BIRTHDAY PRESENT…
TO BLOCK THE SUNLIGHT TOO

FORTEEN YEARS

CAN’T STOP ME
CAN’T CHOKE ME TO DEATH
THEY MAY EVEN TRY
THEY MAY JUST WISH FOR

SIMPLY CAN’T
SIMPLY CANNOT
CONSEQUENCES WILL BE GREATER
SEDIMENT FALSE APPEALS

BUILT-UP STEREOTYPES
CAN’T CONTROL ME
CAN’T CONTROL MYSELF
HOLD ME AND DO IT FIRMLY
THE ONLY WAY TO KEEP ME OFF

SET DESIRES
ENHANCES MY CREATIVITY
MANAGES MY ANGER
CONSEQUENCES WILL BE AWFUL
CONTRADICTING THAT - IMPOSSIBLE

TERRIBLE HABIT
CAN’T POUR ME ANOTHER ONE?
OH, SAY! CANNOT, HEY!
THAT’S NOT THE WAY
THERE IS NO UMBIVALENCE
I’M IMPRESIONED
RECKLESSLY COMDEMNED

SOME SAY SORRY
OTHERS SAY NOTHING
ANYWAY
CAN’T JUST TAKE A BREAK
MY FEELINGS GET JUST FAKE
MORE THAN ANYONE CAN TAKE
THAT’S IS A BIG OLD MISTAKE

W-O-R-D-S (...to a friend)

WORDS ARE STROKES ON CANVAS, ARE NOTES IN MUSIC, ARE SHAPES IN OBJECTS, ARE BLOOD IN PEOPLE. WORDS CAN BE SHARP, AS SHARP AS RAZORS. CAN CUT DEEPER THAN A FAST STAB, AND A STABBED SKIN IS A MIND FILLED WITH TRUE THOUGHTS, WRITTEN THOUGHTS RHIMING ON A CHEAP BAR NAPKIN. NAPKIN PLACED ON A DIRTY MAN'S LAP. WORDS CAN BE POWERFUL AND PAINFUL TOO. CAN HIT HARDER THAN A FISTED PUNCH - PUNCH OF DRUNK WANDERERS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. WORDS CAN KILL, CAN MURDER LOVERS AT DAWN, CAN HURT AS BAD AS DEADLY SHOT GUNS... AND ALL BECAUSE OF THE EVIL THAT LIES IN EVERYONE AND IT IS KEPT INSIDE. THAT EVIL THOUGHT WHICH CAN'T BE HIDDENCAN'T BE DISGUISED. WORDS CAN BE SPIT, CAN BE SAID AS IT WOULD WEIGH TONS. THEY OFFEND THE SPINAL CHORD OF THE PURE LISTENER. WORDS ARE MEANT TO DESTROY WHEN ONLY USED THAT WAY...

Polivox

Mind your business, I should say
Care about your own wounds, if that might help
See for yourself, in case you are not able to believe
Show me the money, since you are all that
Never stop the music, if your senses can handle
Surprise others sometimes, for crying out loud.
There are gaps among cultures, as you may have noticed
Relax and don’t insist
Cheering yourself up is easier than you might think
Force an entrance and be the spotlight
Divine is your soul and you know it
Take it, grab it, squeeze it, and burst it
Elevators won’t lift if you don’t press the button
Is he, she, it never there when you need the most?
Take a hike, dump a load and say “FUCK OFF”
Feel the breeze which fall has brought us
Check out your surroundings…
…and splash it all from your urethra
Serve as you wish you were served
It is simple care
With touchy chores
Absorb shyness from somewhere
Brilliant tactic without hurting a shadow
Turn false impressions into pure appreciation of beauty
Rustic Aesthetics Senses
Necessity of art making
Mood, sentiment, techniques, contemplation,
Manifest your greatest poisonous consumptions
Feel the need to do the real digging…

My ideas of teaching ESL and being PBF franchisee in Brazil

PBF is a dream that came true...

My love affair with PBF schools started way before I was even born. My parents have been English teachers, just like me, since they were really young. They first set up their own Pink and Blue English School in Presidente Venceslau in the beginning of the 70's.

I used to live in the school building itself and even being that young, my mind was just filled in with English stories, songs, grammar, etc. I can say that I was once the mascot of my parents' school.

I grew up and was raised in that little town. I studied English with my parents the entire time I spent there. I even had the chance to teach English every now and then my parents would need my help, either tutoring or actually lecturing full time. My first given lecture occurred when I was just 14.

After moving out of town, I continue taking English classes in other private school and even taught at another famous private school in Brazil. In 1998, when I finally moved abroad (US), I kept helping student friends when doing their compositions and preparing themselves for proficiency tests.

In January, 2005, Roberto and I are celebrating the 2nd year of our business - PBF ENGLISH/ESPAÑOL - Caxias do Sul Unity, RS. The first two years were not easy, however these were the times when things fell on the right places. We started with an excellent number of students and next year an even greater number will graduate.

Having the first graduates stimulate our will to become more and more successful.

Teaching English to all Ages...

Being an English teacher isn't an easy task, especially when that is not your first language. What I do sometimes is to pretend that I don't understand very well my students' native language. Whenever my pupils derail into Portuguese, I try to rephrase the ideas in English to bring them back on track.

I hardly ever translate words, and my students can get really mad at that. I'd rather explain words in simple English and illustrate their meanings with examples. It's nice to have them thinking in that language. My principle while teaching is to add a great deal of cultural facts along with the language.

I also like to talk about economics and politics acting as a businesswoman when teaching businessmen.

I appreciate talking about movies, music, sex, and even drugs to teenagers so we can have an open-minded communication.

I can even become a teenager when teaching teenagers and play and laugh like a child when teaching children. Love teaching students of all ages!
Link to the site of the best English School ever!

THE CITIES OF MY LIFE...

Definitely I've learned so much for having the chance to live in so many different places...
HOW LUCK I HAVE BEEN!!!
Shut the fuck up, Laila. It has been all a matter of choice... And you know it!!!

ME - My first name is Laila and my second is Christina... I don't appreciate sharing my last name because they are many. Teaching is my main activity, although I do other things such as translating, interpreting, reading, writing poems, posts in blogs and flogs or making up English quizzes for tests or practices. I also do the dishes, pay bills, comb my hair once in a while, and scratch my ear canals with soft cotton swabs after shower - a sensational blast. My favorite pastime is getting in touch with friends, that I've made throughout these 30 years I have lived, through the web.

HOME TOWN - Originally, I am from a small town located in Sao Paulo state - a state of Brazil. The town is called Presidente Venceslau. What? Are you surprised? Yes! I was really born in Brazil, one of the most beautiful countries in the world. This country is really huge, there are about 200,000,000 inhabitants, and all races and beliefs can be found here. On the other hand, my hometown is so small that people hardly believe that it exists.

São Paulo state is located in the Southest of this country, where the weather is enjoyable. But, unfortunately, my hometown is not the capital of the state. My town is located inland, something like eight hundred kilometers from the sea coast. It seems far, but Brazil is so big that those long distances are never amazing.

Presidente Venceslau is the name of the town where I got born (as I had mentioned before), a name that not everyone can easily pronounce. There are only 40 thousand people living in there. Its kind of boring place to me, since I enjoy living in bigger cities with more options for fun. Yet, my family still lives there. I left the city when I was very young, for obvious reason: that place was too small for me.

SÃO PAULO - By the age of 17, I had the chance to live in São Paulo city - the capital of the state with the same name. My parents sponsored my studies there. I used to live in a section of the city called Bela Vista. It's an area near downtown, very interesting although quite dangerous. It's hard for me to say whether I liked or not living in there. I just know that São Paulo city, with its 17,000,000 freaks all together, is more than just a city, it's an astonishingly vibrant spot on earth. I bet the astronauts from NASA may sense it from the outerspace.

LONDRINA - Later on, 1994, I had to move to another place. Why? College matters. Where? PARAN state. Be more specific please: Londrina. Just another city in Brazil whose name is a reverence of London. No! Not just another city in Brazil, that is completely wrong. Londrina is my second home. Londrina is magical. Little London, that's what the name means, is infused with great minds and free spirits, talented musicians and espectacular actors, theater actors. And I won't forget the views of that place which would elevate in me the wish to be hedonistic for a lifetime. Well, after saying all that, you may ask yourself, "Why aren't you living there, then?" I'll answer that question in a few paragraphs below.

I'd kept myself in Londrina until the end of 1997. I even got a bachelor's degree in MASS COMMUNICATION from the local state university named UEL. For all those years, my parents afforded my living and study expenses. I can say that I had an excellent education and received a great deal of love from them. I owe all my success to them with all my heart. At UEL, I ended up graduating in journalism, although I have never worked as journalist professionally.

SAINT PETERSBURG - In 1998... Well back then, I moved to Saint Petersburg - USA along with my sister Jennifer, and after Roberto arrived there. There, we lived together in an international student housing where we could make friends from different parts of the world. I still keep in touch with some of them and that helps me have clear in mind all the good memories from Saint Pete. Few months later in that year, Beto and I decided to move out to our own place. The day we officially got into our home was on October 31st - Halloween holiday. Our apartment was cozy but we didn't have much stuff in it, like television, VCR, etc. However, we wouldn't stay much time without stereo. In the very first week, Beto got ourselves a nice JVC stereo system which gave us some joy until we finally settled down. At that time, I started my Associated in Arts studies at a local school called Saint Petersbrug College. I graduated a few years later, meanwhile I could work and enjoy the "American Way of Life" which was unique and very helpful to my inner self: by going through all that gave me the chance to grow mature and become self-assured. I've learnt that the world up there resides within. I am here, on Earth, therefore I am everywhere.

Everywhere can be magical and dreadful simultaneously. Any place is soaked in good souls and evil spirits. We've got to learn how to manage with these contrasts!

My stay in Saint Pete can be defined as a REFRESHING "SICKENED" EXPERIENCE.Loved having known and lived in such a mixed cultural city...

NOW - I am 30 and now I live in Caxias do Sul, back in Brazil... I'll leave to talk about it later in another post... IT'S BEEN SO CALM THESE DAYS... Let's not mess with it!

Words for Thoughts about LOVE

DAY 1 -> Again... Don't want to get started as I always do, saying: " Oh my! It's been a long time I don't post in here." Despite the fact that I have already started doing that... I would like to say something else, something deeper and more delicate to talk or write about. At least, it's something very difficult for me to construct a trail which will take to a person's heart gate.

I normally don't write about love, unless it is my personal feeling, the love I feel regarding relatives, my sweet partner (Beto), my students (I'm a full-time teacher), arts, etc. I was assigned to write about it because of my own will. I have been discussing this issue with so many friends and they all complain about some of the things listed below:

• The person I love doesn't want to see me;
• I don't even know where this person is or whether this person exists;
• I possibly love someone who's already engaged and knows no bean about my feelings towards him/her;

Well, if love were hell of an easy topic to digress, there wouldn't be so much art work dedicated to it. That's the beauty of it - its complexity, mystery, fragility, and supernatural force to destroy people's mind and make people lose their interest in everything else. They just keep thinking about the significant other.

DAY 2 -> My second day trying to come up with something that may convince someone else that his/her love is closer than he/she might think of. It's a very difficult task indeed. I normally don't take that long to write poems or simple posts in this blog.

The thing is that this is not a simple post and the poem I first intended to write was dedicated to a person whom I don't know in person, haven't talked through MSN, ICQ, not even exchanged e-mails at all. This person's name is Sandy... This is to you! I am a Brazilian friend of someone who apparently cares a lot about you.

I feel that it's my duty to let you know that I appreciated your photographs and the imagery you explore is easy to be infatuated by, therefore I decided to write something about them. Besides that, there is someone who's trying to convince you that you and him are meant to be together... I've chosen to convince you of the same thing, but using a different strategy - Read this, please:

Thought of you as a bird
Or a little fragile cub
Thought of you as a cold breeze
Or blue as heavy rain
Thought of you as a fraction of a second
You are all that and more…

Thought of your pictures as masterpieces
Photographs with rhythms
Thought of your pale hands holding the camera
Never thought of you as being brighter than the flash
Though wrong thoughts cross our mind every now and then

Your fuzzy lines
They’re exquisite
You shine
You sign

Thought of you as a fresh loaf of bread
As soft as molten snow
You are the seed of an endangered flower
Something that doesn’t happen every day
Someone one simply doesn’t let go away

Your art is direct
Nobel yearning for affection
Acceptance

Thought of you as the trace of human existence
Clear calm thunderstorms
Silent smooth earthquakes
The lenses seemed to be place backwards
The furiousness isn’t detached from kindness

There is no boredom
There are only impressions
There are no vague linear images
There is only intelligible beauty

If I could see them that way,
That means someone else could too.
That means, his eyebrows would elevate in awe
Because no matter what you say or do
It’s being made! Love is there!

You must realize the other side
You must see through the other person’s eyes
You should know that there are more than photographs saying: “Register me”