Hollow...teen

                      The fat moon was sparkling up there in the pitch dark sky and not a single creature was ready to share a squeak or a hiss...

I was gazing over the old factory, passing the yellowish trees, the sandy playground -empty now -, running down the road towards the river, floating through the smoke-our neighbours were ready to burn the leaves-far away from here...An icy breeze touched my ear and hit the window. Silence again. 

I looked back, tried to remember if I had locked the entrance door, but then I heard Aky pawing the outer handle so I knew I was safely locked from the inside.I was just too afraid to move.

"What was that?" I couldn't help wondering again."I have only heard it once, but it was powerful, still not clear enough, like a scream immediately leashed into the void."Why did I even try to come here?This stupid nostalgia of mine for the childhood places trapped me ! My fear trapped me here!" I couldn't even light the stove to boil some water, drink a hot tea and let it flow through my veins;I was gripping the metal window sill waiting for the orgy replica, but I could only hear my dog scratching the door. 

                    Twenty minutes into the night and I was dozzing in the kitchen chair when it finally happened: the screamy wind had a slight shape of a voice, or two, or ten...there were voices, maybe whispers, words I couldn't make anything of. I stood up, opened the window, let the cold autumn air fill the room and tried to catch those distant mumblings. For a moment I thought I could hear something like "tea" but why would they have asked for tea, who would  do that on a deserted street and why ask for that aloud?

                  I ran into the corridor and pressed my chest to  the front door, I could hear my heart knocking and as a reply I heard Aky again trying to hit the handle and open the door. "Why didn't I let him come inside? I could have had an ally, now I need to take the fight alone" 

So there I was, statued to my feet listening to the mumbling voices aproaching, rewinding my life and cursing this swishing of the world, the tremble of my still voice.

They were close to the gate, now I could hear them "teeing" or something, pushing the gate, Aky running around, barking, "teee" and "teet" louder and louder, Aky was restless enough to hit the door, scratch and howl for me, the voices were too loud so I froze there palms on my ears hoping for a miracle. Then I could see a hudge shadow just through the door glass and the next second my heart stopped...The door opened: more than five smiling faces jumped on me, hugged me and yelled:

                                       "Trick or treat!"

When I felt Aky licking my palm I could actually cope with the terror and come to my senses.Then I saw my father smiling and handing the children a few candies.

" I imagined you might be here", my father said, " Long time no see, but still don't you know we are also part of this world?Small as it might be,this town has been lit with pumpkins, children started running around town dressed in vampires, we are catching up, my dear"

It was true, everything was changed, but celebrating Halloween was not something on my hometown to do list. 

                So I took my father 's hand and I walked down the road, gazing over the old factory, above the yellowish trees, not looking back...

Don't we all need a "respite from death"?

                                                     Midnight in Paris   

BRILLIANT! I really enjoyed watching this film. It confirms my idea again: Woody Allen is a great director, I also liked Match point very much, although I didn't like those depressive, erotico-neurotic films he starred in.
But let's come back to this great film. It has a wonderful idea and the whole plot is like a well-written book, it is like a vivid discovery of one's inner sensitivity, ability to dream and lust for love and passion and romantism.
I had the same feeling tonight as that year, that evening when I finished James Joyce's Ulysses.I could only understand it's a masterpiece, because it was something I hadn't read before, it was a universe, a sum of powerful feelings I had never experienced until that moment, most important, it was an intelligent and "strange" way of understanding LIFE and our role into this world. Two facts popped into my mind tonight: this Joycean flavor of Allen's film and the postmodernist view of the plot; the remembrance of the past, the need of re-living another era as a refuge from this "speed life",the need of the homo technologicus to feel, love and most of all be a part of his own cultural environment. The message I could take out was also related to the "cultural role" Paris somehow has established throughout centuries , the destiny of an artist in the modern world, choosing between an unimportant but wealthy script-writing job (in Gil's case) and the writing skills and passion that sets the real value of a writer timelessly.
The script is the one that facinated me most. There are so many lines that made me smile,think and really feel the magic of Paris(as a landmark not as a destination) -wondering the streets to enrich your soul with the magic sap of love and life people like Dali or Hemingway had the chance to,walking in the rain, feel the past and present together, lose your rationality and become a "poet" in your own life... all that made me enjoy the film even more.
"You'll never write well if you fear of dying"..." Have you ever made love to a truely great woman?"And when you make love you feel true and beautiful passion and in that moment you lose your fear of death?"...
"I believe that love that is true and real creates a respite from death"...
I don't know if it is just me, but I liked these words ...they talk about courage, the courage to live our lives and cherish every second , never let go...I would gladly recommend this film to nowadays teenagers, just because this film can give them a bit of confidence maybe, make them want to live and never try comiting suicide as easily as they do.And it's not just the film, is the idea of using books and these great artists as our respite from death, as our treasure that transcends these times, that makes us part of humanity-not part of a bunch of two-leg walking creatures, but creative and rational human beings.
The funny thing is I don't like Paris (the Eiffel Tower in particular), but I have to admit I saw some artistic pictures of Paris, such sparkling combinations of old and new features of universal art, a totally fresh and intriguing version of Paris, the one worth seeing and acknowledge.But for me Paris is a metaphore of Life in this film: the deeper you go, the more you understand, the less prejudice you start with, the better chance you have to get closer to the essence of things.
P.S. This film is an appetizer for culture...like that we should think of it, at least...

Teaching with a smile

I have finally found it! I have seen this video first time when our colleague showed it to us at the work-shop and I have been trying to find it for quite some time. I really think this is a nice video for all the ESL teachers in the world, especially because it speaks about a nice way of teaching, an efficient method, a visual one. I have experienced it on my students and it's 100% result-based. Just as Stephen Krashen says, even though we try to teach a foreign language through reading or writing excessively, we will only get results if we make ourselves understood. The more we move, the more pictures and visual or audio materials we use, the better and the sooner the progress is. During most of our interviews we usually like to ask this simple question" How would you teach  TODAY (Oggi,Aujourd'hui,Heute,Hoy) to your students?" We rarely found teachers naming the calendar. Everyone tends to go for the theoretical explanation, which in fact cannot really work for a beginner, because he doesn't know the language;how can you explain something in a language that person is just there to learn? :)) It's really funny and ironical.And most of all it's boring, terribly boring.And this is the last thing we want from our students...leave the room as if they escaped Alcatraz.
I guess there are are 3 basic rules we need to apply when teaching:
1. Smile (That's my no.1 rule! I know it has no methodological background, but it is extremely efficient). In order to keep ourselves smiling during the lesson we need to prepare the lesson as if we are also students, as if we teach ourselves in the same time, because if we don't enjoy it, our students definitely won't. Nobody wants a sad face standing in front of them and if we do have some problems, we can forget about them those minutes spent in the classroom, we can actually get detached and have a bit of fun ourselves.
2.Be creative and open-minded - try to think of the surrounding objects or events as potential class material; it's real, it comes from our daily experience so it will be appealing to the learners.
3.Talk less than your students! We are not there to give a speech, we are just their coach: we lead them to the understanding of things, words and we help them talk to the others (correct them when needed and praise them when they have done it great). The moment they share ideas, opinions in this new language we are teaching, we have achieved our first major success.
And I think the toughest lesson is to understand our students, learn how to read on their faces the lack of understanding, because they will rarely admit or even tell when something isn't clear.So we need to be prepared for this, change immediately the whole lesson plan, adapt it to them, find means of making ourselves clear.
And as you can see also in the video, jokes and good mood can relax them, give them confidence and even work as feed-back: if they laugh at our jokes they definitely understood; and if they understood and they don't laugh we need to change the teacher:)
Enjoy the video and good luck!