MY LIFE IN QUOTES - CHOOSE KIND

“When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind”  -  Wonder by R.J. Palacio

                                                                                                                                            

Driving through the narrow  streets of my town on my way to school,  caught in a long, slow serpentine of vehicles, I focus on the beautiful song coming  from my phone, it's one of my Youtube lists. Sufjan Stevens  Should Have Known Better  casts a hopeful glare even to the very grey sky above. 

Here we are. Two endless processions of teenagers flow on both sides of the street. They procede slowly but, anyhow, faster than my car.  Ok, patience, not yet there, but almost there, the school is not that far. A quick look at the car clock: 8:01 I’m supposed to be giving my first lesson of the day in 14 minutes. Will I make it in time?

Sufjan Stevens is now singing Futile Devices and I wish I could stay in the car listening to music all morning long. But that’s not me, no, not really me. I’m not lazy, I love my job, I can’t wait to see my students. What’s this sudden wish of having nothing to do or nobody to see?

I  really don’t understand what  happens to me sometimes. For example,   why  have I  been obsessively listening to the same songs these days?  I should stop and I blame them for  my recent exceptionally moody mood.  But they are just beautiful love songs and my mood must certainly have some other reason to be. I decide I  don’t actually want to know.

SCOTLAND, AT LAST!

Loch Lochy, the Highlands, Scotland

After an exciting experience it is not easy to go back to your everyday life. After a journey, you download, order and archive the pictures you’ve taken and look at your travel notes: all those beautiful moments flew at the speed of light and left you astonished,  with beautiful memories but also the awkward impression that you dreamt and have just woken up. Maybe writing can help you fix them somewhere in a safer place and make them somehow more real.

Scotland, at last!

Eilean Donan Castle 

Scotland is the 3-M land: the land of magic, mist and myth. How could one resist its charms? I simply couldn’t.  Last year, after a very brief visit,  I had to promise myself I would soon go back to see more of it. I did it in July and here I am,  back from an incredible tour,  which has been as magical, misty and mythical as Scotland in my dreams.  In our 10-days’ schedule an unforgettable series of fantastic sites, a variety of wonderful places, which I had the opportunity to visit  in the company of four of my anglophile friends.

One of the themes of our  tour was Outlander, the best-selling saga set in Scotland written by Diana Gabaldon,  as well as its TV adaptation.   We managed to visit a few of the main locations they used in seasons one and two or important sites mentioned in the books.

DISCOVER YOUR TALENT, DO WHAT YOU LIKE - YES, I'M LUCKY ENOUGH TO DO WHAT I LOVE (PODCAST)

When my American friend, Don Hutcheson, asked me to join him on skype for an audio interview I was puzzled: what could I possibly tell him which could sound interesting? And, especially, how could an English - speaking audience appreciate anything uttered in my awkward English? I know my accent is definitely foreign to mother-tongue speakers' ears, so I was worried and a bit scared and couldn't make my decision easily. Once he sent me his questions and the description of the aim of his new podcast site, I was even more worried and more scared. 

Discover Your Talent ~ Do What You Love is a daily podcast series hosted by Don Hutcheson. Every day of the week Don interviews someone from around the world who has discovered her true talents and abilities and figured out how to use them doing work she loves.

 The podcast series is designed for people of every age and background who are looking to build a life and career that uses the best of who they are to enjoy a life of success, satisfaction and freedom.

Don has been a pioneer in the field of education, career and life planning for 35 years as an inventor, entrepreneur, author and coach:

"Every one of us is born with unique talents and gifts. They are hardwired into us. We don’t learn them and we can’t ignore them. They are just a part of who we are—our DNA.

“Some of us discover our talents at an early age, some much later in life. Whenever we discover them and use them in our lives and careers, we do not merely survive, we thrive in every way possible.”  

THE GOOD AND THE BAD OF BEING A TEACHER

In the latest days I have been writing two very different pieces which contain reflections connected to my job. They are about students and teachers, not about methodologies or technicalities. In fact,  what I am most interested in in my job is the chance we have to build relationships, to communicate and interact with young people. 

The bad or ... they say it is because they are bored

My husband comes into the kitchen, sees my laptop on - I'm writing final reports for the end of the school year - and he just drops there: when you have a moment, google "baby doccia" (Italian for "baby shower"). Why? What is it? I ask, but he takes his coffee and goes away without adding one word more. He knows me well. I immediately stop, whatever I'm doing, and google those words apparently meaningless together. I click on the first link and I'm immediately disturbed by the picture. I don't want to see a video of young people having sex in a toilet! But I start reading the article and it announces a TV programme about teens and sex...at school. Ok, now I understand my husband's suggestion.  I work with teens and he knows how interested I am when it comes to school and education.
This is a shocking report from a woman journalist which will be on a Sky Tg 24. It's not the first one, there have been similar ones recently.  It's the story of a few girls (14-year-olds),  going to a private school in Milan and having sex between lessons in the toilets with any boy who asks them via txt messages. Baby prostitutes, not for need but for their own choice, for fun they say, because lessons are too boring. Not enslaved, nor bullied, nor forced.

THE ONLY THING WORTH SAYING: WHAT ONE FEELS - FROM VIRGINIA WOOLF TO FABIO STASSI.

“Peter would think her sentimental. So she was. For she had come to feel that it was the only thing worth saying – what one felt. Cleverness was silly. One must say simply what one felt.” 

I love this quote from Mrs Dalloway and day after day Woolf's melancholic heroine becomes dearer to my heart.  Mrs Dalloway's suggestion of saying what one feels simply and plain  is something I can agree with. Not an easy task, though. To reveal one's own feelings makes a person fragile but,  if you think twice, it makes a person stronger as well. 

Cleverness may help you look stronger, but it may be silly on certain occasions in life. What ones? Those Woolf calls "moments of being".  It is not your brain nor your cleverness which help you through those moments. It is not a question of sentimentality, but one of honesty and truth. 

I may have become a tiny bit sentimental in my old age, I can't deny it,  and that is something,  I hope,  understandable. However, I think this is the time to say what we feel, because ...  if not now, when? How we feel is important, crucial, vital and we have not much more time to waste in lies and not much more space for regrets. 

I started writing this post after meeting,  for the second time in less than a year, a man who dares to share what he feels, not only what he thinks: gifted writer and extraordinary man, Fabio Stassi. He is highly communicative,  grounded and self-deprecative, smiling and direct, simple and astonishingly deep. 
Second meeting and second epiphany: this man and his words can make my heart melt and my brain  work out a flow of thoughts quite like ... fireworks. So many inputs that my mind's reaction is an explosion of ideas and feelings. You see?  I'm just telling you what I felt, the only thing worth saying.  

So what did Fabio Stassi say that was so thought - provoking and emotionally strong? He discussed his book, Come un respiro interrotto, with an audience of readers in a town not distant from mine and I was there with friends. He managed to surprise me with the analysis of themes, motifs and ideas which were different from the ones we had discussed when I happened to listen to him for the first time last summer. 

ROME - A MUSEUM, A FILM, A PIZZA

Going to Rome is in itself a very exciting occasion for me. Being with friends, visiting a museum, watching a good film, having a good pizza, made my going pretty special.

Musei Capitolini at Centrale Montemartini 

Situated on Via Ostiense on the left bank of the Tiber, opposite to the former General Markets, the Centrale Montemartini is an extraordinary example of an industrial building transformed into an exhibition space. It was originally the first public electricity plant in Rome, named after Giovanni Montemartini; now it is the second exhibition centre of the Musei Capitolini, and contains an outstanding collection of classical sculpture from the excavations carried out in Rome at the turn of the 19th century.

BACK TO SCHOOL: MAY THE ODDS BE EVER IN OUR FAVOUR!

Back to work, which  in my case is back to school, of course. Honestly, I can't remember what it meant for me as a student. My memories, influenced by the nostalgic mood typical of the middle-age syndrome, makes me recall my teenage self as longing to go back after an endless boring summer. But, perhaps,  I was nothing like that. Maybe I was just like them, my half-resigned, half-bewildered, totally "I'm happy but I mustn't show it" students. Poor kids (they are not exactly kids, but they are to me)! What do we want? Do we want them already alive and kicking after coming back from the summer holidays country,  where night is day and day is night? You know, jetlag can be tough to deal with. 

AND, THEN, THEY COME BACK ...

I know,  I've been often very critical to my students here at FLY HIGH! Who can forget my disappointment while in Dublin or Malta on school trips! There are posts here and there about school and about my constant sense of frustration or disillusionment, if you click on the tag school. To be honest, there are also rare ones in which I write about successful moments, lessons or activities, but as I just said, they are pretty rare. 

What I want to discuss today is a part of my job I still feel quite uncomfortable with. To be a teacher includes a very stressful task,  which is to  assess  and evaluate, and that is what makes everything so complicated in terms of relationship. If only I could give my lessons and avoid tests, marks, reports and final decisions that would make my job perfect. Education without evaluation. This must sound irrational or utopian to many of you,  but that would make everything much, much easier, you know. Will the students learn, anyway? I'm sure they will,  somehow.

MOTHER & SONS

Today is my son's birthday. 23, a young man.  Don't worry, I'm not going to bother you with my memories of when he was just a baby in my arms, how fast time has passed, how kind a boy he is and neither I'll post a picture of him blowing at candles. Even less I wish to start crying on how old that makes me feel. Not. at. all.

It is just a special day which brought some special thoughts to me.

I have been thinking about what to be a mother to sons means. And my idea is that it is quite different from having daughters, at least, with my indirect experience,  it seems different. With my two sons, I sometimes lack the understanding I've got with my nieces, for instance, or the different relationship they have with their mother, my sister.

WRITERS & ACTORS - A HALF SERIOUS, HALF BORING REFLECTION ON WHY I AM FASCINATED BY THEM

Richard Armitage as John Proctor in The Crucible

There are two kinds of people I am particularly fascinated by, writers and actors. Not for the glamour surrounding them. In fact, I'm not interested in the extremely popular ones, the very famous. Honestly, I'm more attracted to their jobs, than to their popularity or personal life. I consider good acting and good writing the result of meticulous craftsmanship, artistry and, only rarely, art. I'm particularly drawn to these two categories of people, widely known or not,  since their professions are somewhat magical to me. 
They've got the power to create life, to give life through words.

I know actors use their whole bodies, so , let's say, mostly through words. Most of an actor's job is based on words, and they are very often essential to the achievement of the main goal: a successful performance. 

Meeting author Fabio Stassi 

Writers and actors create life through words, they give life to characters, and characters do not only represent people, they are people once the actors lend them their bodies and voices.

I love to think  that , more than stories, actors and writers create personae (persons in Latin, characters in English)  and they,  the characters, interacting, contribute their story. They are not mere fiction, they are not unreal. They live,  and they live on long in certain cases,  in our minds and hearts. Longer than the human being who created them. 

As for actors, once they are in a movie, for instance,  they never actually die. The go on living in their characters, in those frames. They go on giving them life and voice. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see ... in Shakespeare's words.

TEACHING SAROYAN, READING CASSANDRA CLARE

Teaching Saroyan

I’ve been flustered and terribly emotional these last few days. What’s going on? Is that the “getting older” mood? “I’m going soft in my old age”. This is  a quote, but I can’t remember where I heard it. It was a TV movie or series, can’t tell you more.   OK.  Add "has bad memory" to "gets flustered and emotional". 

These last days I have been giving my last lessons to my last year’s students (doesn't that sound really final?) reading them a couple of chapters from The Human Comedy by William Saroyan,  which I had chosen to say good-bye and wishes good life to them. And what happened?  I just couldn’t avoid it: my voice went broken,  my  eyes filled with tears.  Problem is they were all so silent and so focused on me and some girls had tears in their eyes too. Boys? They must be tough, you know.  But they were not giggling, nor being distracted. They looked, let’s say,  surprised?

This has actually hardly ever happened to me before. Not that it was a bad experience, it was just … weird. That’s all. Here are the “guilty” words:

CELEBRATING SHAKESPEARE IN A VERY BUSY FORTNIGHT

Another busy fortnight has passed at work. The end of the school year rapidly  approaches with its haunting burden of deadlines, decisions to be made, reports to be written. A nightmarish fortnight ahead and then some relax, I hope. 

What have you been dreaming of or  actually doing these latest couple of weeks? Unfortunately,  I could grant  myself very  little rest, hence I didn't have enough time for proper blogging, reading or reviewing but I could watch new TV series, go on with the ones I had started seeing and even go to an event in Rome to celebrate old Will's anniversary. I must do something different from the housework and schoolwork,  if I want to remain sane.  Women on the brink of a nervous breakdown has never been one of my favourite titles but it is simply perfect to describe my life.

MY BOOKS & MUSIC SATURDAY

My love for books is known beyond borders, since I've been blogging in English for a while now and I have been sharing my passion with readers living in so many different contries. 

What has happened is that in the last years,  I've read many books,  but not so many in my native language, which is Italian. That's a pity,  of course,  but as we usually complains in the book blogosphere, "so many books, so little time!"

Today has been pretty special as for books & me and the outcome is ... there are a few Italian books I am going to read soon. 

I'll be in the panel of reading judges in a literary contest, we are 29 and have the task to choose the winner in the fiction section. I'll have to read 3 novels, debut releases by new authors for important  Italian publishers. The event, Fieramente il Libro is at its second edition here in my town and I'm flattered and honoured to be involved. It'll take place on 27/28/29 June 2014. I can't wait! I'll keep you informed, of course, and I'll start reading soon. 

MUCH ADO ABOUT ... MY WEEKEND

It's been long since I last did so many different things in only one weekend!  But this weekend has truly been pretty busy and special.

On Saturday morning I was at school. What's so special for a teacher? Nothing but it is unusual for me, since Saturday is my day off. I had to be there since I was involved in a project and had to take part in two different meetings with two groups of our students to whom I  presented our "Project Anita B."  for the celebration of the International Holocaust Memorial Day (27th January). I'll tell you more about this possibly tomorrow.

WORDS, WITCHES & WOES

A movie, a book and bits of my real life are the topics of my  first post in the New Year. Let's hope it is a good one, without any tears. What? ... Yes, those words are not mine.

1. A Movie: The Words 

Plagiarism, writing, life and fiction ...The Words. I've seen this movie a few times in the latest weeks since it is running on my satellite TV channels. I was attracted by the title first and started watching it without knowing much about cast and plot. Positively surprised at discovering it was about writing, writers and books, I went on watching,  discovering one by one its protagonists: Dennis Quaid, Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Irons and Ben Barnes.

I liked it very much! Have you seen it?

A BIRTHDAY GIFT

Yes, today it's my birthday and all I want is to forget about it. It makes me quite melancholic (or I'd better say sad?)  It is not any birthday,  it is a turning point in life and that's quite scary, you know. I don't feel like celebrating,  I feel more like escaping. Something I can't do, though.  I must stay here and face the ugly truth.

Anyway,  I have just found something which can console me a bit:  a  poem.  I'll  consider it the perfect gift arrived at just the right time.

A quote  from it has just been posted by a blogger I follow on tumblr.  I googled the name of the poet and found the whole poem. I like it, it touches my heart just in the place which hurts.   Thanks a lot for this beautiful gift, darling unaware blogger. 

IT IS FAR MORE HONOURABLE TO FAIL THAN TO CHEAT ... AT SCHOOL AND NOT ONLY THERE.

Respected Teacher,

My son will have to learn I know that all men are not just, all men are not true. But teach him also that for every scoundrel there is a hero; that for every selfish politician, there is a dedicated leader. Teach him that for every enemy there is a friend.

It will take time, I know; but teach him, if you can, that a dollar earned is far more valuable than five found.

Teach him to learn to lose and also to enjoy winning.

Steer him away from envy, if you can.

Teach him the secret of quite laughter. Let him learn early that the bullies are the easiest to tick.

Teach him, if you can, the wonder of books... but also give him quiet time to ponder over the eternal mystery of birds in the sky, bees in the sun, and flowers on a green hill –side.

In school teach him it is far more honourable to fail than to cheat.

... BUT YOU MUST KNOW THAT YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO AN UNRIGGED RACE ...

I have been having a nightmarish time these days with some of my best colleagues and my best students. Everything we had  taught our pupils and we strongly believed in was betrayed. 

We have always insisted in teaching them that rules exist and must be followed to guarantee everybody's rights. 

Together we have witnessed how many people just don't share that  fundamental belief. 

One of my colleagues wanted to share with our sweet,  very disappointed, hardworking students (girls) these words by Miriam Mafai (Italian journalist, writer, politician) which I totally agree with and I'm going to translate for you all:

CONQUISTARE IL SUCCESSO SENZA TRUCCHI NE' COLPE 
To achieve success  without tricks nor faults

Corri, bambina, corri, tu che hai buona la testa, le gambe e il cuore.
Run, little girl, run, you with a good head, good legs and heart
Corri senza rallentare davanti agli ostacoli, alla stanchezza, alla nostalgia
(che pure talvolta ti coglie) 
Run without slowing down before the obstacles, the tiredness, the nostalgia (which yet sometimes you feel)  
del tempo della lentezza e della protezione.
for  the time of slowliness and protection 

ON ROBIN HOOD, HISTORICAL ACCURACY & BOOKISH MEDIEVALISTS

Those of you who have been following  my activity online for a while, are well acquainted with the fact that I am a teacher, that I love my job, that I also run a blog for my students and what I usually do is teaching English as a foreign language or English Literature to Italian students.  What I want  to share and discuss with you today is something which happened to me on LearnOnLine, after posting a lesson  with video clips taken from BBC Robin Hood, addressed  to  a group of 15-year-old students to whom I teach grammar and language, as well as to a second group of 16-year-old students to whom I teach grammar and language but also "pills" of literature (from the origins to the Elizabethan Age). 

It was not the first time I used those materials, as I usually don't teach my younger students literature or history in a very academic way. My approach is rather  focused on what teenagers may like more than on the accuracy of information (which I respect as much as I can). I may be wrong, but this is what I generally do. They are not really interested in sound devices or rethoric figures at their age, they hate being forced to memorize facts and dates which they consider useless. They do like stories, legends, heroes and myths. They also like when the lesson is not merely listening to the teacher speaking or reading in front of them. That is why I use videos and music, multimedia tasks and sources quite often in my lessons.

That happened also in my lessons about the medieval popular ballads. I don't want to bore you, but I'd like you to understand before I ask you to join me in the discussion.

FOLLOW YOUR HEART - LIFE LESSONS FROM TWO SPECIAL WOMEN

"As you grow up, you’ll often get the urge to change things, to right wrongs, but every time you do, remember that the first revolution, the first and the most important, has to take place within yourself.  Fighting for an idea without having an idea of yourself is one of the most dangerous things you can do.”   

This is a quotation from "Va dove ti porta il cuore" (Follow Your Heart) by Susanna Tamaro a book I loved, an Italian one by an Italian writer. I remember reading it bursting into tears here and there,  feeling as if  that long letter was really addressed to me by my own grandmother (none of the personal story of the protagonist was true to her but the words and the suggestions just sounded like hers) .  The idea I may lose her,  who was the person who had brought me up, who had given me the chance of a very happy, optimistic childhood in the warmest family environment, simply broke my heart.  
I can tell you very little about the book since I remember very little but  I can tell you why it has come back to my mind just these days: my granny passed away as well as my mother - in - law, both in little more than a month.