My running nose and I salute you

We do, at least I do! I haven't quite caught my nose yet, it's so incredibly fast that could probably win the 100m race and make a fool out of the current champion, Mr. Usain Bolt! No matter, it will come back to me if I think of all the paracetamol and vitamin C I've been ingurgitating on daily basis ever since last Friday...

It's annoying but not tragic...plus...a little bit of fever has always made me such a calm serene person...I do envy all the kids in school who get to stay home cause they're ill! I wish we'd have a system which could allow teachers to just phone the school to say "I'm taking today off cause I'm ill!" Theoretically it's possible and some people do it with a smile on their faces and with no apparent bug in their body either... In reality, there's no substitute teacher to come rescue your classes so you just go to school and teach. So what if I took some extra work this year and today I had 8 (eight!) classes? No sweat!

Ha ha ha! Anyway, will see what tomorrow brings, at least now I can't pass the flu on since the famous 72 hours are gone. Important thing is I'm in good spirits and right after I watch a movie I'll come here again to do some more paper work for school.

In the meantime...if by any chance you get to meet my nose, please send it back home, I promise I'll be really nice to it. Really.

European Day of Languages

Yes, I only found out the day before yesterday that such a day exists (since 2001) and that there is going to be some kind of a poster contest supervised by the modern languages teachers. I was a bit upset at first that I hadn't been notified in advance like other colleagues had been, but I think that in the two hours 5 kids and I took to create a poster we did a great job. We'd have liked to add some font colour or our fan but we didn't have any time left.

European language diversity was supposed to be celebrated and the only "clue" that these kids study Italian was that we wrote the title in Italian. Then I looked on the internet for how people say "hello" in all European languages and that's what kids wrote on the little stars...The other posters were beautiful, but...different because they posted photos of wonderful monuments and such of the countries they study the language of and quite frankly that would have been much easier...we'd have printed some photos too for that matter...I loved this one on the right, made by the colleagues who teach German, also the "French" ones, similar to this.

The important thing is kids had fun, I had fun and I needed it because I've got such busy days these days... They all won, of course, even though they were highly disappointed that no awards were given, I guess their little competitive sense is not so little anymore...:)

The first photo was supposed to be posted at the bottom of the entry, but oh well, I still haven't got Blogger...It's a funny pic of me and 6th graders who made the poster. We were saying "formaaaaaggiooooo", "cheese" that is in Italian.:)

As for blogging...I moved here because I like this format and because I know that the people I care for from my old blogs will come here to be updated about me...I'm done reposting, I only reposted a few entries from one "challenge" I used to participate in, "Writer's Block". I will probably miss "Picture Perfect", who knows? All the rest will stay on the old blogs, being rather personal, and my friends already read them anyway.

So this is a fresh new start in blogland. Cheers!

Roundabout (October 28, '07)

I've been walking straight ahead
passing by crossroads
my own
others'
others' and my own...

Crossing woods of words
seas of whispers
rivers of tears
mountains of happiness
and valleys of despair...

Taking my time,
ignoring time,
denying time to time itself
and to creation...

Walking slowly
and running fast
towards...some place, some...
place
love
towards...new crossroads.

And now I'm here.
Out of the woods of words
Out of the seas of whispers
Out of the rivers of tears
Down of the mountains of happiness
Up from the valleys of despair...

It's time to take a roundabout.

Welcome to my Wordland (October 4, 2007)

The survey my wonderful friend Tina has just posted gives me the possibility to talk about me and words, words and I...as you know, I teach languages and I work with words at all times...words are my daily bread and I am fully aware of how much power they can be endowed with...I remember having taken a PH-certified test about what is my best skill...and well...it tuned out to be linguistic...what a surprise!

They say I started to talk properly before I even walked and it seems like I only had only one twist of letters which I corrected quickly and which was pretty unusual...of course, we're talking about Romanian here so it will be a little harder to explain...I used to invert the "F" with an "S", rather unusual since these are two wholy different sounds...So instead of saying "cafea" (=coffee) I used to say "casea" and instead of saying "Ce faci?" (=how are you?) I was saying "Ce saci?"...Anyway, it seems that soon I loved to talk all of the time, I was unstoppable, but it seems like I only used to say words the meaning of which I already knew or it was deducible...

Then it seemed to me that foreign languages weren't that foreign and I chose to study those cause it was not a great effort at all...Then I started writing things, for myself, but never using meaningless words, just trying to respect them at all times...No form without meaning for me, it's too easy the other way around...

Anyway, I'd like to write more but before I'll get to bore you good people to death I'll just take this survey...my answers won't be that spectacular...first because I'll have to adapt them for English...and second, because there are so many words spinning around in my head all the time...sometimes mixing the languages...which is so funny and which is why my friends say that I'm like a TV aerial antenna reproducing foreign channels...

Oh, I watched a documentary once and they were saying that for each language that a person learns a new centre for speaking is developed by the brain and they proved it while operating on a lady's brain...and she was awake so they won't damage some important centres...That lady could speak English and Spanish and the moment they touched her speaking centre for Spanish and asked her a question in Spanish she answered in English that she couldn't understand that language...wow!

I also talk very fast but I keep that under surveillance (which is an effort) and some people might say that sometimes I talk very slow! It's just when I happen to be an interpreter...with the headphones on...you really have to be fast!

OK, my survey answers:

1. What word (or expression) do you use far too frequently?
In English it would be "just"...since I often tell people what I was "just" doing or...to soften things a bit I use expressions like...I "just" want to know..., I was "just" wondering, that's all...etc...etc...etc...Of course, being a word that I use too often, I hate it.

In Italian I use too often "allora" and my friend Sonja knows what I'm talking about here...People just (!!!!) use it all the time when they start saying something, anything...ot when they just (again!) want to inquire about everything and nothing..."Allora?"...

In Romanian...is just... "Ce faci?" (see translation above)

2. What word do you use not frequently enough?
Ah, that's an easy one...I don't use frequently enough the expression... "Sorry, can't help you" and sometimes I wished I would have.

3. What word do you use when swearing is not appropriate?
When swearing is not appropriate I don't swear...I rarely do and most often...when I drive.

4. What's the most recent new word you learned?
I'm not really aware of what exact word I've recently learnt...

5. What's a word you've invented? (alternate question: What needs a word but doesn't have one?)
In Romanian when it's a hailstorm and there are all those little ice pieces around...we don't have a word for it...we say "It's raining with hailstones"...and because in Italian one can say it with one word ("Grandina") I say "grindineste" in Romanian and people always laugh at that.

6. List five favorite words!:
In English I love all those adverbials ending in a "-ly"....really really truthfully loving them, the sound of them...then...I like the word "marvel"/"marvelous", then..."Supercalifragilisticespialidocious"...I totally adore this one...then..."espresso" pronounced by the English speakers....well...I like all words, really...

Shape of my heart (June 29, 07)

Shape of my heart...

My heart was wide open when I was born, like anyone else's

It didn't want to beat at first, but the care and love of doctor and nurses made it work in a heartbeat
And it stayed that way
expanding and exploring new horizons
'cause this is only natural for a heart to do.
It had no shape.
Or more likely its shape used to change...all the time...from butterfly to cloud
to wind
to fire
to earth
to all those small and great things around
seeking love, demanding love,
offering itself.
Unselfishly.
Then the natural course of life made it withdraw and close.
Its twin heart stopped beating,
'cause that's what hearts do when they're tired.
They rest
for eternity.
My heartbeat carried on, took over,
and my heart finally found a shape:
a pond lily at sunset.
And it was only a perpetual sunset my heart lived for.
It occasionally reopened.
Again and again...
But being a pond lily was so convenient...
And then it was aware that dawn had come for it too.
It opened, streched and perfumed the morning air with its new passion.
And then it expanded...all over...again...
It had no shape again and yet it could take any shape...
...any shape but the pond lily's...
My heart has no shape.
And it's scared

of a new not wanted and not welcome sunset.

7 wishes for yesterday, today, tomorrow (July 7, '07)

Wish I didn't look back
but I do.
Wish I didn't have regrets,
it's not fashionable.
But I do.
Wish I could love less
but I can't.
Wish life had been more fair to me
but this is life.
Wish I could take back things I said without meaning them,
but they were said
and sometimes we stumble into words.
Wish I could fight less and surrender more
but it's not easy to lose battles.
Wish you were here.

It was a dark and stormy night...a short short story (June 15, 2007)

Alan challenged us for a little literary contest...and I love these little things...and I've come home from school, got a free hour and wrote this...The short story was supposed to start with "It was a dark and stormy night..." I'm sorry if my English is not as good as the native speakers', but it's only for fun! Here it is:

It was a dark and stormy night...but only because the guys at the electrical company really had messed up, so they announced on the radio...Well, at least the storm wasn't their fault...so half of the frustration and impotence Alice was experiencing was all nature's playing tricks on her...Oh, yes, she could have bet her life on that one, she was thinking, while contemplating the new dress and shoes she was supposed to wear at her company's cocktail party that evening...an outdoor cocktail party...which got canceled irrevocably..."Damn this storm, I can't hear myself thinking"...She was really counting on this opportunity as she was going to approach the boss of all bosses and present her new idea of a project she had been working on for the last few weeks...and which didn't seem to appeal to her direct boss...so much like the one in that movie..."The office"...

She had lit some candles and she was preparing to go to bed...at 9pm!...as she couldn't really stand all her thoughts roaring in her head, leaving blood stains on her tremendous ego...

Apparently Buck, her friend's dog she had had in care for the last few days, wasn't of the same opinion...as he was desperately grating the entrance door in the obvious attempt of freeing himself...on every possible level, if you know what I mean...Only that Alice had no intention to get outside in the storm for a bear necessity she didn't have any understanding for..."I'll just let the dog out and I'll stand in front of the door while he finishes", she thought and she put on her raincoat over her silk orange bed gown. She unlocked the door, got out and watched the dog who was happily running in circles, without seeming to be really bothered by the rain, thunder and lightening show...

"It's really chilly and windy, I should go back inside now", she said to herself and turned back to the half-open door...only to watch it slam in her face!..."Damn it! Damn it!" she screamed while hitting in vain her forehead against the door...Needless to say...she didn't have the keys...and Buck...oh, well, was nowhere to be found...She got out in the rain, calling the dog and thinking she should go and ask some neighbours for help. She really didn't know anyone in that neighbourhood but she was sure someone would do something on a dark and stormy night for a young, attractive and obviously intelligent soaked woman...She was standing on the sidewalk cursing the storm, the perfect darkness, Buck, her boss, but mostly her towel orange slippers!

Right at the moment she was thinking there is no God whatsoever a Rolls pulled over, the right back door opened and she heard a voice asking: "Is that you, Miss Carmichael? From the Marketing?"..."Er...yes, it's me...er...yeah...who...who's asking?" Useless to tell you, dear readers, it was the boss of all bosses...oh, well, the happy ending is near and then you can all sleep tight...she got invited in the car, she presented her project, a locksmith was sent for, the electricity came back, she was promoted at work, Buck was safely deposited in his owner's arms and house provided with an entrance door designed for dogs...And of course Alice changed her mind about dark and stormy nights...