Studying hard...or, at least, trying to...

Hello everybody!!

I'll just drop a few lines...just to let you know I'm still alive!! Yep, I survived...but I still have to face bigger problems!! My monograph paper!! I'm so late with my studies that I can see a lot of hard work is waiting for me...
Hope you don't give up on me!! I promise I'll write more about my experience and what is going on in my life lately...my blog used to be much more interesting when I started it!! Now I write just to say I'm busy...this modern life is quite hard to handle, huh?

Well...hope to write more soon...before X-mas!!
In the meanwhile...best wishes to evreybody and best wishes to me (I really NEED them :D)

"The New"

Hello guys!!

Again, it's been ages since I last wrote in my blog...sigh!! Those vacations in Rio seem so far away now! What am I doing at present? A lot of things, mainly related to work and university...nothing related to relax and vacations, sadly. Actually, I think I'm going through a very strange phase: everything is so new, and new things come up to me all the time! Sometimes I think I'm being bombed by all this new info...it feels good, anyway...I'm feeling more..."alive", I guess.

Well, I'm here mainly to tell you about my new experience: working in a REAL SCHOOl. I'm not saying that so far I have worked in fiction-schools or imaginary school (guys, you know me: i don't smoke pop! Not THAT much...just kidding...for those who don't know me very well: I really don't smoke it!I swear!)...the fact is that I have always worked in langage-schools and now, for the first time, I'm teaching Italian and Italian Literature at "Fundação Torino", a bilingual school in Belo Horizonte. The experience is just amazing! Actually, I got very frustrated at the beginning because everything was so new and my years at high-school seemed so far away (uh...well...to be completely honest, my years at high-school really are just a far remembrance) and I was only thinking: "My God! I'm not gonna make it! What will I do? I'm asked to teach something I never taught - or even studied, at times - and I'm asked to handle 25 excited students who want to learn anything but Italian literature". Then I realized I was being a little pessimistic: in fact, much of what i'm teaching is a little "new" to me, but I do have materials I can go back to and rely on; students are not always interested, but they are not completely alienated from the subject either; the other teachers...well, I'm dealing pretty well with those I got to know better. The worst part? Definitely it's lunch! For vegetarians like me it's always difficult to eat well at these "self-service" restaurants...so, I guess I cant complain that much.

The only problem is that now I really don't have much time...i practically don't have free-time...just now I wanted to share a bit of my experience with you because it's being a huge change in my life with a bunch of new perspectives on teaching, school, education, etc at every-second...sometimes I feel overloaded with input I can't actually process...so, i listen to "all of my love" by Led Zeppelin...this song is doing miracles for my anxiety! You should listen to it: I'm sure you'll love it too!

Ok, that's it...need to go back to work!!

Hope it won't take that long to come back :)

Wonderful city, real vacations: cosa voglio di + dalla vita?

Again, I'll be brief! I know, I know: it seems the only thing I can write about lately: my lack of time! If it's getting annoying for you who are reading...well, you can't imagine how stressful this has been for me! Anyway, let's talk of good things: I spent the last week end at Rio de Janeiro and i loved it! Well, first of all I had the chance to run away from my work (thank God! I really needed a few time off), then I had the chance to really see [part of] the most famous Brazilian city, I got to meet an old friend of mine, I had the possibility to train my spoken English with a German couple and some Americans and English and I traveled by ferryboat ;P Nice, ain't it?

Well, I can only say that everybody should visit Rio: it's a great city with a nice atmosphere...

Actually, I didn't actually see the "touristc Rio": I had access to another angle of the city, as you can see from the unusual pic of the famous Sugar Loaf...you don't find this kind of pics on postcards!

Well, that's it: thanx Elisa for the trip, thanx Alex for coming with me, thanx to technology for the photos and thanx Rio for being not too far from here!

That's it!

cheers :)

Hope you can take advantage of you holidays much more than I can...

We are the champions...

Campioni del mondoooooooo!!

Queen - We Are The Champions

I've paid my dues
Time after time
I've done my sentence
But committed no crime
And bad mistakes
I've made a few
I've had my share of sand kicked in my face
But I've come through
We are the champions - my friends
And we'll keep on fighting - till the end
We are the champions
We are the champions
No time for losers
'Cause we are the champions - of the world
I've taken my bows
And my curtain calls
You brought me fame and fortuen and everything that goes with it
I thank you all
But it's been no bed of roses
No pleasure cruise
I consider it a challenge before the whole human race
And I ain't gonna lose
We are the champions - my friends
And we'll keep on fighting - till the end
We are the champions
We are the champions
No time for losers
'Cause we are the champions - of the world!

...I don't think I need any other words to describe this moment! It turned out that Elisa, Sylvia and Emmanuele were right after all - thank God! That was the spirit Italy needed! Congratulations both to the team and their supporters :)
PS. I have to say the team should be congratulated for two reasons: they were good players on the one hand, but the were above all very, very, very HOT men! At least this time the World Champions look very nice in the pics! - I think all the girls agree with me ;)
(photo taken from www.repubblica.it)

In Italy we trust...in Brazil not any more...

Hello!!
Here I am again...Time is something we never find...at least, not as much as we want, but I had to make some efforts in order to write about Brazil (sad news come first) and Italy (the good news).
Ok, about Brazil there's not much to say...there's just a lot to be angry about! What the he** was that? Do they call it a game? For most Bazilians it was just a shame...a shame for the team, a shame for what they call the best players in the world, a shame for everybody who trusted in the HEXA (and I can tell you a lot of people wanted it badly)...Well, I just think the players should think more of the support they get from the people than of the money they get from the brands they wear...not to say the illegal money they may have gotten to lose the game that way...Ok, nobody can prove anything, so let's just drop it and think of the good news...ITALY!!
I must say it was quite a surprise for me: Italy in the finals? Well, evrybody must agree with me that Italy didn't show any excellent performance in its first matches...who would have ever thought it would go so far?
Well...let's see what happens tomorrow between Portugal and France...hope Portugal wins, because France...well, I don't like it!
And for the finals, I can just say I'm starting to trust Italy again!! As Elisa said: Go Italy!!!

picture taken from www.corriere.it

Germany 2006

It' s been ages, I know!! I feel terrible about it: I mean, when I was writing frequently, a few people read my posts...now that I don't write anything, I guess no one will ever have a look at this blog any more!! Anyway, I'm an optimistic spirit - at least sometimes - and I decided to share with you the emotion of this World Cup. So far, I haven't decided exactly what team I am going to support: Italy? Brazil? Japan? Croatia? Austalia? In Italy we have the handsome Cannavaro, in Brazil there's Kakà, in Japan there are all these little cute Japanese, in Croatia there are the Kovac - Robert and Niko - and in Australia there's Kewell.
Finally, I'm starting to see soccer from a new perspective - a much more girlish and interesting one. Before, I used to be interested only in the results: who won was everything that mattered! Who wants to waste time watching a 90 minute match with 22 men trying to catch the ball? Well, the ball is still as unintresting as it was before...but some of the men really catch our attention, don't they? Especially this trend of exchanging the t-shirt uniform at the end of the match...very, very interesting indeed! =P
Ok, my time is running out...I need to catch some sleep...
Who will win the Cup? What do you think?

MIX: classes, monkeys and golden keys

Hey guys!

This time I won't write much (I always say that, and then I got myself carried on by the stream of my thoughts...^.^ But this time is 4 real: in 15 minutes I have to be dressed up and out of the door!). What I wanted to say is that from now I won't be able to write my posts with the same frequency (gasp!) as I did in these past months. The fact is that...oh, my god...my classes are going to start soon :/. As you can see I'm not very happy...as you know, I work as a teacher, and "classes starting" for me sounds as "A LOT OF WORK to do", not only as a student, but also - and mainly - as a teacher...

Anyways, as they say here in Brazil, my vacations should finish "with a golden key", which in my case means a week-end trip to a countryside town (or should we say village?): "Macacos". Yes, the name of the city in English would be : "Monkeys"! Maybe in this occasion my boyfriend will be willing to take pictures and actually post them in his multiply album...who knows?

Well, I told you it was to be a short post, haven't I? It is too short a post...I will regret of ever posting it maybe...

Anyways, let me go to my recommendations: don't study too much! Enjoy your spare time! Go to the movies! Learn a foreign language...Elisa I envy you so much for learning Spanish! You know, you should meet Lele's sister-in-law: she's from Cuba and she's very nice!

TEST: How much do you know about movies and the weird translation of their titles in other languages? Test your knowledge and have fun!

U2

I'm writing briefly of one of the biggest events that ever happened here in Brazil: the U2 concert in Sao Paulo. Well, as I wrote in previous post, I should have gone there, but getting the tickets was almost impossible: we tried, tried for almost 2 months and finally gave up! Well, if I could only go back in time, I wouldn't have given up the chance to see the U2 for the world! Instead of being there and see Bono and his band in flesh, I watched everything on TV and every second ofd the show I bitterly regretted not having made an extra effort to go...well, this is the lesson I learnt: NEVER give up the things you want...and, specially, NEVER GIVE UP THE U2!

As I told you, I will write briefly...even because there is not much to comment on the show: it was FANTASTIC, WONDERFUL, GREAT! Actually the U2 had two concerts in the Morumbi stadium in Sao Paulo: the first was on February 20th (monday) and the second on the 21st (tuesday). The one I saw on TV was the first, and the one I was supposed to go to was the second.

Well, since the show is simply indescribable, I will send you to some places so that you can have a look at (and die of envy):

1. some minutes of the first show. The video is not very good, but it gives the idea (a very poor one, actually, but better than nothing at all, right?)

2. Bono singing "Elevation". Again, the video quality is not high at all, but it's funny because at the beginning you can hear Bono saying in Portuguese "agora é a nossa vez", which means "Now it's our turn".

3. some photos (39) taken on the two days. Here the quality is pretty good and in the last photo you can see the woman that Bono called up to the stage. He sang "With or Without You" hugging her...it was sweet, but I hate that woman! Can you believe that when she left the stage she KISSED Bono on his lips? And she's not beautiful...and she's married... It should have been me!! (just kidding, of course!)

4. the list of the songs they sang on both days. This is a Brazilian blog, so everything's in Portuguese...but the guy who owns it promises to give a complete feedback on the show as soon as possible.

That's all for now...don't study too much, ok, guys?

Rock and Pride

Hey guys! I'm sorry it took me such a long time to write another post, but I have been quite busy. Not VERY busy, because I'm still on holiday (yes, a three-month holiday...I'm feeling some envy around now that I said it...^.^) from school. However, I did start working already...the work is fine: I was expecting something better actually, but, you know, "you can't always get what you want"...we always have to learn from the Rolling Stones, don't we? Speaking of them, yesterday there was their concert here in Rio de Janeiro. It was quite something actually: have a look at the pictures! It's quite a happy moment for rock fans in Brazil: Pearl Jame came in December, The Rolling Stones now, the U2 next week, the Oasis next month...I only wish I had the money and the time to see all of them! I was quite sure to go to the U2 concert, but sadly I had to give it up because of the tickets: it was SO hard finding them!
These days I was wondering: what can I write in my next post? Can I write about manga? about anime? about my readings? about movies? about music? about sitcoms? about holidays? about carnival? about the gym?
Well, I finally decided: i'm gonna talk about the past, about reading and about movies. And all of this in little space 'cause I know nobody has plenty of time to read my huge posts any more!
When I was young (oh, my God, I'm getting so old!), in my 15s, my teacher (one of the best I've ever had), Tiziana Bonamico, gave us a book to read: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I simply loved the book, I loved the way jane Austen wrote, I loved the characters... Pride and prejudice was my first Jane Austen, and my favorite too!
Now the movie was released, with the beautiful Keira Knightley and the handsome Matthew Macfadyen...and I really LOVED it! I admit the effects are not the same as the ones I had when I read the book (gosh! does AGE play any influence on this?)...but the movie is very sweet! Besides, D'Arcy is way more good-looking than the one I imagined and this, of course, can't hurt!
Ok, other suggestions for the cinema? Well, yesterday I saw Matchpoint, last Woody Allen's success, and I strongly recommend it. I also recommend "The secrets of Brokeback Mountain" and today I'm gonna see "Good night, good luck".
To see what's new in Italy click here.

I got it!

No, it's not a miracle, it's called "my dad out of my house". Just kidding...the fact is that, wasn't it for certain "events" I can't fight against, I really WOULD write more often in my blog. It's true, as you can see.

I realizes my last post wasn't very successful...almost nobody wrote anything about it. Just a tip: click on the links, the trailers are worthy to be seen! You don't to read everything! Anyways, I think I got it! It, what? Well, why nobody reads my posts: they're too long! Nobody wants to read that much! So I'm here just to let a brief post on...language!

Everybody knows of course that every language has its own idioms, sayings and proverbs. So, when we study a foreign language, we can't rely on simple word-by-word translation from our first language to the foreign one, because the result might mean absolutely nothing in the foreign language!

Let's make it simple: an example! I was writing a comment to Emmanuele in my very blog and I wanted to use the Italian saying "prendere due piccioni con una fava" ("catch two pigeons with one bean", which doesn't make any sense in English), that corresponds to the Portuguese saying "matar dois coelhos com uma paulada so' " ("kill two rabbits with one blow of the stick", which also doesn't mean anything in English). So, word-by-word translation is quite tricky in these situations...the only way out is the INTERNET! There, we can find lots of sites on proverbs and translations of proverbs!

Do you think you would be able to express the idea of "prendere due piccioni con una fava" using an English saying? Wanna see the answer? Are you curious? Ok, then you can click here and simply have a look, or you can test your abilities with this quiz and letting us know your score afterwards (I got 10/10!!^.^)

Ok, I think I should go now, otherwise this post will be as huge as the others. Anyway, I wanted to wind up saying that idioms are one of the taughest and yet most interesting aspects of a language. Today I found out a very interesting English idiom: "beer goggles". Click to know what it is...

Movies

Ok, I won't apologize for my terrible delay this time, otherwise all my posts will look exactly the same. And I don't think this will be nice, will it? I spent the last 15 days in a quite chaotic situation here at home, but let's not talk about it otherwise I'll get upset, or even angry. Nope, this won't happen, we won't think about it: I finally have a few minutes for myself and I have to use them wisely ^.^

Let's talk about movies!! Yuppieeee! This is one of my favorite topics...this doesn't mean I'm always at cinema or always watching movies or that I remember all the movies I've seen or all the actors I like (faaaaaar from it, actually ^.^)...I wish my memory was better, but sadly I was born this way...=/

Well, anyways, yesterday, after ages of abstinence, I finally went to the movie theater again and it was to see an awesome movie with an awesome actor, whose name, by the way, I DO remeber: how could I forget the name of Jim Carrey? My memeory is bad, but not THAT BAD! ^.^ The movie was Fun with Dick and Jane (click to watch the trailer) and it was so funny and quite insightful...well, I mean, it's funny but not silly! It really has a point and it is not a ridiculous one: it is about losing your job and looking for another one. Well, maybe I'm just a little sensitive to the subject because, in spite of not having lost any jobs yet, I'm having a hard time in finding one! Well, you know, you always listen to people saying that it's hard finding a job, but if you're NOT looking for one, you don't really care about it, do you? I mean, I knew it was hard, but just now I'm actually realizing HOW hard it is. I'm not saying you should watch the movie with this kind of spirit: c'mon, it's a commedy, it's for you to laugh! But, after you have laughed a lot, you still have something to think over...this, in my opinion, is what made this movie worthy to be seen (and, sigh!, payed for).

After all this free advertisement of Jim Carrey's movie (sonypicture should pay me for that...this is just the job I was looking for ^.^), let's have a look at the other films that are coming out here in Brazil and that seem quite good (and by that I mean I'm planning to watch them).

1. Broken Flowers

2. Oliver Twist by Roman Polansky (the same director of "The Pianist"). I don't know about the movie, but I LOVED the book

3. The Producers, which seems to be quite funny, good cast, quite metaliterary (or something like that) and a good chance to practice my German listening skills!

4. Jarhead, by Sam Mendes (the same director of "American Beauty"). I don't like war films, but this one...the trailer is just great and I really feel like watching it. Besides, "American Beauty" is one of my favorite movies...

5. Ae Fond Kiss, European movies are known to be particularly deep and full of xxx scenes (^.^). Well, this movie seems to be interesting anyways, and I'd really like to watch it. It's being released here only now, but it was released as a dvd in Europe in 2005...European movies always get here in Brazil ages after its releasing everywhere else...

Ok, readers...I hope you haven't given up on me, in spite of not proving myself very constant on my posts lately. So, if you are still following me, please comment on the movies I suggested (you can watch the trailer by clicking on the title) or suggest some others for me (and others) to watch, ok?

PS. Elisa, my mail address is still the hotmail one. Please, send me an e-mail so that I can contact you again, ok?

Traveling

Again, ages of silence! By now I think you have understood I have problems with schedules...hehe! I always plan my day to do several things and I end up doing just half of them! This is very frustrating and at the end of the day I get very upset, so my boyfriend tells me: "You know, you should plen less things to do, this way you will certainly manage to do everything and you'll feel happy at the end of the day"...maybe he's right, but there are always so many things to do...

Anyways, this is not the point! Today I wanted to talk about travels... Why? Well, first of all to link this post to the previous one, which was also introducing this idea, but mainly because yesterday I went to the airport to take up my dad, who has just arrived in Brazil. Well, it was strange: my dad misse the flight and I had to wait 4 hours at the airport...I saw a lot of people going and coming...it was a funny feeling to see everybody with their suitcases. The fact is that, while I was looking at people going to the gates to take flight to Sao Paulo, Rio, Salvador, Miami, I was thinking: "It should be me taking this plane"! Why? Because I LOVE travelling, I love the feeling of the plane when it goes up the sky, when it doesn't touch the floor any more, when you are practically in no man's land.

Now it's your turn, readers: lately you've been proving me you're not as imaginary as I thought you were...let's keep up the good work, ok? Do you like travelling? why? where would you like to go (if you had money, time, vacations, etc.)? ( it doesn't need to be the US, it can be anywhere in the world thi time).

PS. Elisa, I don't know how else to contact you: can you please send me your e-mail address again? The one I have doesn't seem to work...