martes, 28 de febrero de 2012

FINE-TUNNING OUR WRITING 2

It was very early in the morning, exactly 5:20 am, earlier than usual for the retired Martin and for any other human being, taking into account it was Sunday. After a whole life waking up at 6 to arrive on time to the high school where he imparted Literature lessons, he would now choose to relax comfortably in bed until the sun had risen and began to penetrate through his bedroom window. But that spring day a strange and uncanny feeling had come into him; it was a sensation of anxiety that invaded his body and he felt he should get up at such and inopportune time. Martin didn't know exactly what to do so he dressed up with the clothing he had left the night before on the small settee by the window, took the book that his daughter Clare has gifted him in his last 83 birthday and started reading it by the bedroom window. The nightingales were singing outside, in the garden that formerly had been the untidiest and wild of the neighbourhood and now was one of the most envied since the old teacher dedicated many of his free time to take care of it.  This twitter was mainly concentrated  all over the great old willow which Martin's great grandfather had planted some 150 years ago, according to the family record. Suddenly, there was silence, such a deep quietude that Martin was profoundly affected. He stood up as a spring and looked through the window. Under the centenarian willow there was a, let's  say, fragile boy, probably under ten, dressed in poor old clothes, reading a book. The vision was so shocking and out of the context that Martin rubbed strongly his eyes. For a long time that seemed endless, he stared at the boy, who was deeply absorted in his book, as it was his habitual place of reading, his space to enjoy novels and fantastic stories, a corner of his own garden. Then Martin crept carefully downstairs, without making a noise, opened the glass door onto the blooming piece of land and again padding softly so not to disturb the lad, he approached the tree. Coming near the ground, he inquired: "It seems a very interesting reading, doesn't it?" For the first time, the boy looked away from the pages and, smiling in a shy but charming way, said: "It is the book of my life". When the boy raised his head and they eyed each other Martin perceived that it wasn't the first occasion he had seen this child. Even his clothes were familiar to him. "Do you live near here?", Martin asked curiously. "I do", said the boy. "What about your parents, do I know them?" "Of course, you do". Martin began to suspect and with a hint of trembling in his voice stuttered: "is your-your name Ma-Ma-Martin?" "It is," answered him beaming openly. The astonished teacher stumbled and fell when he reacted to such an answer: It was himself.

All of a sudden he realized how quick life had passed, how ephemeral we are. His life had been a full one, he had enjoyed family, friends, travels,... With literature as a goal he had gave lessons, he had written inspiring books advicing people on how to take pleasure in plain things of life, such as he had done all these years. At this very moment he was content, satisfied of his trajectory and watching all his memorabilia passing before his eyes, he understood that the non desirable but on the other hand awaited hour had arrived. Now, he reckoned, is high time I wrote "The End" in "The book of my life".


sábado, 18 de febrero de 2012


Last week I watched a funny comedy called "Jumping the Broom" (as you can see my friends, and as impossible it may seem, I did find the time to watch a movie) but I couldn´t guess the meaning of the tittle until scarcely had it finished.

Since the subject grasped my attention I decided to look for information in the Internet and that is what I found:

Jumping the broom, as it name indicates, means to jump over a broom (when you have just got married).

The origin of this costume is a bit confusing. Historically, "broom-stick weddings" were first known in Wales. There has been dispute among scholars over whether the tradition originated among the Welsh people themselves or among Romani living in Wales. A commonly held belief is that the practice has roots in West Africa and as the film is played by black people I will take this for granted.

In Ghana brooms were considerated spiritual symbols and were wawed above the heads of newlyweds and their parents, and since ethnic groups in Ghana were prominent in the Atlantic Slave Trade, it is possible that this practise passed along.

Most marriages between enslaved blacks were not legally recognized during American slavery, as in law marriage was held to be a civil contract, and civil contracts required the consent of free persons. In the absence of any legal recognition, the slave community developed its own methods of distinguishing between committed and casual unions. The ceremonial jumping the broom served as an open declaration of setting down in a marriage reationship. Jumping the broom was always done before witnesses as a public ceremonial announcement that a couple chose to become as close to marriend as was then allowed.

And this is one more aspect of slavery (racism) of which I was ignorant of.

I do hope that this piece of information will be useful, or at least peculiar for you.

domingo, 12 de febrero de 2012

NO DICKENS, SORRY

Here I am, Sunday night, and still involved in C1 tasks, it's gonna be my divorce!!! (just kidding :))

I have let my thoughts wandering but I cannot find words, expressions or even a piece of a story to write in a similar way to Dickens, it is a very daring and awkward task, at least for me, I have never read Dickens before, anyway.

Maybe I am able but not inspired this weekend, I don't know, the thing is that I try to have the blog updated and I should to write something to do so, that is because I'm writing about what I am not going to do.

All this sounds like a paranoia, better to give up by now. 








domingo, 5 de febrero de 2012


My writing of this week has nothing to do with terrorism. I´m going to try to write a story using inversion and passive voice. Let´s see what happen.

While living in England I was taught a lot of vocabulary and expressions from Lady Rosamund Newborough, a charming and nice old lady for whom I worked. One of the words that grasped my attention during a conversation with her was "balaclava". Do you know what a balaclava is? Here it is the definition: close-fitting garment covering the whole head and neck except for parts of the face, typically made of wool.

Never have I heard such a word before. It sounded like Spanish but the origin was unknown to me. Which was the etymology of this curious word? Was it coming from Latin or maybe Spanish? In that moment it was impossible for me to check where was it coming from and I forgot about it since it is a word not frequently used.

Little did I imagine that the answer to my question would appear unexpectedly  while reading "To The Lighthouse". Let me explain myself, there is a sentence on page 22 that reads at follows: "...he turned sharp, and rode off, to die gloriously she supposed upon the heights of Balaclava."

What a surprise! Here it was again, "Balaclava", after so long. Being written with a capital B made me to be suspicious of and then I took my monilingual dictionary and looked up for such a word discovering that there was a battle with this name.

Battle of Balaclava: a battle of the Crimean War, fought between Russia and an alliance of British, French and Turkish forces in and around the port of Balaclava (now Balaklava) in the southern Crimea in 1854. the battle ended inconclusively; it is chiefly remembered as the scene of the Charge of The Light Brigade. 

So I discovered that balaclavas were worn originally by soldiers on active service in the Crimean War, hence the name of this cloth. What a relief! What a thorn remove from my mind! What a joy!

The ways in which we learn a language are always unsuspected, you just have to be in the right place at the right moment. If I wouldn´t come to EOI to do the C1, hardly would have I ever thought about reading "To The Lighthouse" and never would have I found this word again, but I did, and now I´m proud and happy of knowing where the word balaclava is coming from. Isn´t it cool?