Happy Easter!!!

Italy

I'm back in Estonia now. The trip to Italy was just amazing. I saw so many places I've seen in movies and read about in books and the weather there was just wonderful. The total length of the trip was 6,600 km and spending so much time on the bus wasn't bad at all. I talked to my "deskmate" Robert (he's a history teacher) and listened to music and just thought about life and things. It was like meditating :)

When we left last Saturday it was cold and snowy in Estonia. Luckily, spring has arrived in Estonia too now and most of the snow has disappeared. I'm back at work now and we've got 10 more weeks to go before the summer vacation.

I took lots of photos on the trip and here are just a few that I like the best.

 The Colosseum in Rome

 The Roman Forum

 Capitoline Wolf with Romulus and Remus

 The Pantheon

St. Angel Bridge and St. Angel Castle

 St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City

Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence

The leaning Tower of Pisa

 San Marino

 Venice - one of the most beautiful cities in the world

Venice

Me, the world traveller in San Marino :P

My next trip will be to Belgium in May. There's a big conference concerning the EU Comenius projects.

All in all, Italy is definitely one of my favourite countries and I would like to go back there in the future.

Spring, spring, spring!!!

Spring has come! At last! The sun is shining brightly and the temperature reaches 14 degrees Celsius. It's hard to believe that a few days ago we had frost in the morning.
Snowdrops are blooming, tulips and daffodils started sprouting... A couple of wild pigeons start warbling sweetly in the spruce outside my window... A new life is born... Again, the time for a new beginning has come...

All the best for you! Have a great time this spring!

Italy - here I come :)

It's the last day of the third term and I'm off to Italy tomorrow. During the next nine days I'm going to travel through eight countries - Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, Vatican City and San Marino. I have never been to five of them so it's going to be an interesting trip.

I'm not going to take my laptop with me but I'll try to post some photos on Facebook. I also promise to share some pics after the trip here on our blog.

I hope you're all doing well. I miss you a lot.

After the Storm Comes a Calm

For a few months my students and I worked hard on staging "The Tempest" by Shakespeare for the 4th Regional Contest of School Theatres in English, which took place on March 9th. The work was hard as it isn't easy to adapt the whole play to a maximum twenty-minute performance.



What is more, the rehearsals didn't go as well as we had planned as some of the actors fell ill. On March 5th we had a dress rehearsal and it turned out that one of the girls was in hospital... On Wednesday two more fell ill, on Thursday morning the student who played the Prospero part was sent home with an upset stomach... The contest was on Friday...



On Thursday evening, while ironing the costumes, I thought that either it would be a total bomb if someone couldn't turn up or an excellent job as, knowing my students very well,I knew they would be able to muster all their strength in the time of crisis.



Everybody turned up, four of them still feeling unwell... Yet, they did their best! I was so proud of them! They won the first prize, the second time in a row (last year we staged "A Midsummer Night's Dream"), and Prospero got a special prize for outstanding acting. But first of all, they did a great job! The cooperation, the great team spirit, and, what's the most important, A LOT OF FUN!!!




I wish you could see all the people who were involved in the play. The girls who made decorations and costumes worked really hard, so did the guys who worked on the sound. The girl who played the part of Ariel had composed the music for the song she performed, she also played the flute. 'What a brave new world that has such people in it!




I wanted to upload the video but I failed. At least I managed to upload the pictures :)




Have a great week! I'm sure I will :D

Estonian teachers on strike

Turkey - photos

I'm back in Estonia and haven't forgotten my promise to upload some photos of my trip to Turkey. I couldn't upload much in Turkey because of problems with Internet connection :(

Eskisehir

Our teachers and students meeting the Mayor - the head of municipality.

School lunch

 The Blue Mosque in Istanbul

 Basilica Cistern - the largest of several hundred ancient cisterns that lie beneath the city of Istanbul The cistern was built in the 6th century.

 Bosphorus Bridge - connects Europe and Asia

 Hagia Sophia - a former Orthodox patriarchal basilica, later a mosque, and now a museum in Istanbul.

 Grand Bazaar - shopping and bargaining :D

 Our Estonian group in front of Hagia Sophia

 Topkapi Palace - the primary residence of the Ottoman Sultans for approximately 400 years (1465-1856) of their 624-year reign

 :)

Turkey

It's my second time in Turkey. I'm in Eskisehir and we're having a project meeting here. We've been visiting parks and museums and we've also done some shopping. Tomorrow we're going to spend the morning at the partner school. On Tuesday we're going to travel to Istanbul and visit lots of famous places there.

I'm using my smartphone to write this post and it's not easy at all. Uploading some photos seems to be a very difficult task but I'll try to find a way to do it. We're at our hotel right now and we've got an hour to have some rest. We went to a huge shopping centre and I felt like an alien there cause they haven't got many blond women here so most of the men were just staring at me. It's nice to get some attention every now and then but this was a bit too much for me.

Right now I can hear the 4th call to prayer. They have tall towers by the mosques here and you can hear a man singing in Arabic and calling people to say their prayers. Actually, Eskisehir is a university town so most of the people here are young and not religious.

Greetings from Turkey

It's my third day in Turkey. We're here with some teachers and students from Estonia and Spain and we've been so busy that I haven't had any time to write. I'll try to post some photos in the evening. Take care :)

Poetry again

As you all know, I'm crazy about poetry. This time, my students wrote haikus - famous Japanese poems whose tradition dates from 9th century. Actually, haiku is more than a type of a poem - it's a way of looking at the world around us and seeing something deeper. Haikus' subjects are nature and feelings. They are simple in form and their pattern goes as follows:

1st verse - 5 syllables
2nd verse - 7 syllables
3rd verse - 5 syllables

Easy, right? Well, try and see... My students already experienced how deceptive appearances may be... :D Still, they had lots of fun!!!


water flowing slow
but when liquid starts to boil
the vessel could break


she is my cocaine
laughter like a butterfly's
never let her go


you said Valentine's
I call it a shitty day
it is just Tuesday

your eyes are so blue
your arm - so strong, your vow - real
your heart - why so dark?

fight for your belief
don't fight for others' belief
let it be their own


snow covers your trail
white flakes fall mercilessly
silent rejection

Have a great week! I miss you so much...

Happy Birthday Estonia!

Google celebrated with all of the Estonians the 94th anniversary of our small state.
The independence was declared on 24th of February 1918, but the real independence was won only after being at war for 2 years and the Tartu Peace Treaty was signed between Russia and Estonia on Feb2 in 1920.

The Estonian television channel always broadcasts the speech of the President as well as the formal reception that everybody  in Estonia calls: "the Parade of the Penguins".So, everybody in Estonia spends about two or more hours in the evening being envious and criticizing the clothes of the ladies and gentlemen  having been invited to the reception.
And there will be another week when we can read about it all in the local magazines and newspapers.
However, we are happy and wish:
Happy Birthday Estonia!

Let's hope there won't be any invasion until the end of the world...

Happy Valentine's Day!

“You meet people who forget you. You forget people you meet. But sometimes you meet those people you can't forget. Those are your 'friends.'
Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.”

Every day I'm thankful for finding you...

My Different Classroom

Last time when I wrote about my school, you could see water pipes running along my classroom, just below the ceiling. I've been thinking all the time how to hide them. Well, I finally found a way... :)

Footprints on the sand, ripples on the water...

Alejandra's and Kristel's beautiful poems reminded me of my favorite one when I was in high school and, as a teenager, I was looking for an answer to the eternal question: "How shall I live?"
The poem was written by a Polish poet - Leopold Staff, who started writing during the Modernism period and remained active until his death in 1957.
This is the only translation I've found and it's quite good though I prefer the definition of life in the original version: 'Lo, this is life: nothing, but still enough'...





TO LOVE AND LOSE

To love and lose, to thirst and pity too,
To fall in anguish and rise up again,
To cry ”away!” Yet longingly to woo-
Lo, this is life: mere vanity and pain.

Men traverse parching deserts for one gem;
For one great pearl, the ocean they explore;
Then die, and all that lingers after them
Are footprints on the sand and ripples on the water.

How do we learn?

We learn from our mistakes and failures.

Long time no see...

I'm sorry I haven't written anything for a long time. And Tea, thank you for reminding us to post something :)

I've been busy working. 28 classes a week is a lot but I've still managed to find time to rest and have fun. I've even had time to read the books I bought in the States. I love my Nook :) As Tea already mentioned, the weather here is just freezing and I'm getting a bit tired of the cold and snowy winter we have here.

My second youth novel was published on January 24th. Here's the cover of the book. The title of the novel is Tortured Souls.

You've posted many great poems here so I thought I should share my favorite one with you. It's written by an American poet Edgar Lee Masters.

George Gray

I have studied many times
The marble which was chiseled for me --
A boat with a furled sail at rest in a harbor.
In truth it pictures not my destination
But my life.
For love was offered me and I shrank from its disillusionment;
Sorrow knocked at my door, but I was afraid;
Ambition called to me, but I dreaded the chances.
Yet all the while I hungered for meaning in my life.
And now I know that we must lift the sail
And catch the winds of destiny
Wherever they drive the boat.
To put meaning in one's life may end in madness,
But life without meaning is the torture
Of restlessness and vague desire --
It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.

Hugs and kisses, I miss you all :)

I love winter!

Although we have -25 to -35 degrees Celcius temperatures in Estonia... I LOVE WINTER! I love the fire in the stove. The sound the wood makes when it burns. The Snow covering everything. The sound of snow below your feet when it's really cold. I love winter!

A Cat in an Empty Apartment

Do you remember the poem "Nothing Twice" I read in the hotel lobby during our Reading Poetry Aloud Evening? The poet, Wislawa Szymborska, who received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1996 for " the poetry which, with its ironical precision, allows the historical and biological context manifest itself in parts of human existence", died last night in her sleep in Cracow, Poland, at the age of 89, surrounded by people who loved her. Beautiful death, I think, one that must be deserved...
But still, there are people left behind, bereaved, in a sense. That's why I decided to share with you one of my most favorite poems of her:


A Cat in an Empty Apartment

Die? One does not do that to a cat.
Because what's a cat to do
in an empty apartment?
Climb the walls.
Caress against the furniture.
It seems that nothing has changed here,
but yet things are different.
Nothing appears to have been relocated,
yet everything has been shuffled about.
The lamp no longer burns in the evenings.

Footsteps can be heard on the stairway,
but they're not the ones.
The hand which puts the fish on the platter
is not the same one which used to do it.

Something here does not begin
at its usual time.
Something does not happen quite
as it should
Here someone was and was,
then suddenly disappeared
and now is stubbornly absent.

All the closets were peered into.
The shelves were walked through.
The rug was lifted and examined.
Even the rule about not scattering
papers was violated.

What more is to be done?
Sleep and wait.

Let him return,
at least make a token appearance.
Then he'll learn
that one shouldn't treat a cat like this.
He will be approached
as though unwillingly,
slowly,
on very offended paws.
With no spontaneous leaps or squeals at first.

Conditionals

I've been thinking that one of the ways I've learned languages is through music. So I'm compiling a page where people could listen to songs making use of conditionals types 0-3. Check for yourself and suggest other songs!

Free Rice Campaign

Make use of the games and also help end world hunger!

American Literature syllabus

I have been really busy at school and new chores and obligations pile up continuously.

I've been working on the syllabus of American Literature course (which actually focuses on the literature of the USA). The title of the course is deliberately broad :)

The course itself consists only of 35 lessons, so you can imagine, I cannot really introduce the whole mountain of good literature that has sprouted from the United States which is a great pity.

I would really like somebody to comment on what I've put together this far and maybe help me make this course a bit better for next year. It's a work in progress. We have had about a third of the lessons thus far and I've only been able to cover SO LITTLE. I feel overwhelmed.
They do have to read one book and make a presentation - so that will be about 3-4 lessons as well.

The address is here: http://iamkirjandus.pbworks.com/w/page/49659057/IAMcourse12
Feel free to use the materials that are useful and give me advice on the ones that need improvement.

"Moment"

I'm reading "The Freedom Writers Diary" (which I bought at the ASU Bookstore, together with a pile of other books, now resting comfortably on my bookcase) and I'd like to share this beautiful poem with you. It moved me deeply.

"Moment"

Let him wish his life
For the sorrows of a stone
Never knowing the first thread
Of these
Never knowing the pain of ice
As its crystals slowly grow
Needles pressing it on the heart

To live forever
And never feel a thing
To wait a million lifetimes
Only to erode and become sand
Wish not for the stone
But for the fire
Last only moments
But change everything

Oh to be lightning
To exist for less than a moment
Yet in that moment
To expose the world to every open eye
Oh to be thunder
To clap and ring
To rumble into memories
Minds and spines

To chill the soul and shake the very ground
Pounding even the sand
Into smaller pieces
Or the mountain
Brooding, extinct
Yet gathering for one fatal moment
The power to blow the top clean off the world
Oh to last the blink of an eye and leave nothing
But nothing unmoved behind you

Vincent Guilliano - January 9, 1991

What would you choose: to live an eternity and not change a thing around you, or exist for the blink of an eye and alter everything?

DESERT FLOWERS

On New Year's Eve, one of my cacti gave me an unusual gift: a flower. It lasted for just one night, so as to say goodbye to 2011 and welcome the new. I admire its fragile, delicate nature, springing from rocks, a hard soil, and very little water... and I think that we humans are sometimes a bit like that. We can bloom where we are planted, no matter how adverse our surroundings may be.

Interesting

Hello, well school is about to start, and these two days we have received some workshops, today's workshop was interesting, they talked about homework and how to be careful with things like directions, and that it has to be meaningful. Then they showed us this video:

I liked the whole idea, and I liked the fact that students advance at their own pace, and that even though in classes we can have students of the same age, they will always be very different.
It would be nice to use these kind of web pages to let students practice in their house.

You can find very interesting videos on http://www.ted.com/ they have different subjects, so if you are ever interested, check it our :)
I hope you like the video :)

2012