Countdown to Italia-Florence to be precise!!!

Life is smiling at me from every angle.

My students have done very well, my children are all set up to start new lives and I am ready to experience life as a student once more!!

I am getting ready to go to Florence where I will be for a whole month. I got a scholarship from the Italian Institute in Edinburgh to study Italian Language and Culture (History of Art). I am really looking forward to it. The Language school promises a very full programme of lectures and visits to museums, galleries, churches and neighbouring towns to study different art periods.

Think of all that and another aspect of Italian culture: Food, glorious food!!!!

Summertime approaching!!!!!

I love the light and the smell in the air. It is so fortunate that I am so near the Botanics and Dean Village where I walk and think, relax and work.

Someone (my ex) once told me that because I enjoyed my work it didn't really count as work. I have been thinking about it and funnily enough, just by chance, I met a friend today, who in the course of the conversation said: "you can't make your hobby your work". This started me thinking again. May be it is the case that a a job is something to be taken seriously and a hobby is something you play at, to take your mind of things such as ... a job!! I am not sure but the more I think about it the more I am inclined to see my jobs as something I enjoy tremendously.

The tourist season has started. I had my first 3 tours and hope there will be many more!!!
I definitely love my jobs, all of them.

Blessed and energised

I feel as if I have been born again!!!. May be it is the case and may be we should renew or recycle ourselves every so often!!!!

I have had the most wonderful experience at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival. I used to be a regular many moons back but for some reason put my harps aside for too long until this year. I joined 2 classes this year, one with Patsy Seddon (on Technique) which was just what I needed at this moment in time, specially after not having been playing for so long. Patsy is great, such a good teacher, very methodical and encouraging. The other class which I took was with Diego Laverde on Arpa Llanera. It was great fun. Diego is from Colombia and lives in London where he performs and teaches. Check his website http://www.arpalatina.com/

On the last day of the Festival, after the afternoon concert, I invited home some people I met during those glorious five days. Amongs the guest there was a venezuelan musician who has been living in Paris for the last 27 years. What a man!!! He exuded vitality and above all an overflowing joy "un torrente de alegria". He was staying with his niece who has a gorgious little boy called Marquito. The other musician was a Paraguayan harpist who has been to Edinburgh many times as a teacher at the Harp Festival. He is a Guarani speaker, very proud of his culture but with a big heart open to everyone. These two fellow musicians filled me with joy and laughter . Thanks to them both !!!!!!! for what was truly "una noche inolvidable"

Entangled

What a day!!!

I have been looking at technologies to introduce in my teaching. Came across Moodle which seems to answer (theoretically) to many of my questions and intentions. Someone from Hawai got in touch and gave me wonderful feedback on the uses of Moodle in language teaching. I have spent hours looking at it. But....got completely lost at the installation stage!!! How frustrating and how exhausting. I am giving up for the moment.

Tomorrow is another day! Who knows? I might get a surprise and everything will be clear (as mud?) and I will be asking myself the question: What was all the fuss about?

Things to be done

Never before have I slept so soundly!!! I must have needed it.

Off to the Botanic Garden to collect leaves, multicoloured autumn leaves for our current project at the Botanics. We are to produce a library page of leaves, that will give us the opportunity to examine different structures, shapes and venation, which we will then paint. The whole process is so much fun. The drawing, that becoming familiar with the subject, the colour analysis, the mixing of colours to get the right hue and tone!!!. The fruits of our labour will be exhibited at the Images of the Garden Exhibition which takes place every year in January. Put it in your diary!!

Reaching out

I have just been to a workshop on Blogs and here I am, blogging!

I am a Languages teacher, very excited at the possibilities offered by new technologies and social tools in Education. I want to find new ways of engaging my students in the use of Spanish outside the classroom. We have formed some exchange groups taking advantage of the fact that at the college where I work there are lots of Spanish speakers learning English. The problem is that some of my students are shy and don't feel confident enough to make "face to face" contact.

This is where the blogs come in, they could start using this tool to reach out for Spanish speakers in the virtual world and...who knows, there might be someone out there willing to talk.

Any comments, ideas, suggestions would be appreciated!!