Tras haber creado mi anterior blog cecilmundo varias personas, muchos de ellos mis alumnos, me sugirieron que creara una secciòn dentro de cecilmundo para publicar mis obras de docencia de idiomas. Dado que la cantidad de documentos de explicaciones, ejercicios y exàmenes de inglès son muy numerosos porque tengo màs de 30 años del ejercicio de la docencia, preferì estrenar blog con mis alumnos a como ellos realmente merecen. En este blog planetcecil no solo iràn mis documentos didàcticos de inglès, sino tambièn la producciòn literaria de varios alumnos que se destacan en las letras. Tambièn darè oportunidad a aquellos que tienen excelentes obras pero que no han logrado publicarlas ya que en mi paìs Nicaragua todo se mueve por la marrana polìtica, y si una no pertenece a determinado partido no verà jamàs publicado su opus. Tambièn tenemos la desgracia de contar con seudoeditores quienes al no conocer verdaderamente de literatura se convierten en mercenarios de la imprenta solo para llenarse ellos mismo de dinero y fama a costillas de los escritores. Todos aquellos que deseen participar en este blog, denlo de antemano por suyo. Aunque lleve mi nombre en un arranque de egolatrìa, yo soy sencillamente vuestra servidora.Cecilia

Las alas de la educación

Las alas de la educación
La educación es un viaje sin final.

La lección de física

La lección de física
Casi aprendida

sábado, 12 de julio de 2008

Patriots



17th entry to the Colonel`s Scrapbook
July 12th

Born on a day like today:
100 -BC- Julius Caesar Roman dictator,general and historian, one of the most famous bisexuals in history, lover of Cleopatra Filopator VII, pleasure boy of King Nicomedes of Bythinia and inamorato of Vercingètorix, who after being brought to Rome as a trophy of the conquest of Gallia, never wished to bed Julius. I hate this bastard-Glad he got killed in such a noisy way. He deserved a few more stabs.

1817 Henry David Thoreau Concord Mass, naturalist/author/pacifist,author of Walden who said “The squirrel that you kill as a joke dies seriously.”
1854 George Eastman Waterville NY, invented Kodak camera, what would I,former cover girl,, have done without his cam?
1884 Amadeo Modigliani Italy, Jewish painter/sculptor (Reclining Nude),made ladies with swan necks and was a great womanizer
1904 Pablo Neruda Chile, born as Ricardo Neftali Reyes Basoalto. poet (Residence on Earth-Nobel 1971)”I love it when you`re silent, because it seems like a kiss closes your mouth.” Teacher Gabriela Mistral(also poet and Nobel prize winner) considered him her star pupil.
events
1290 Jews are expelled from England by order of King Edward I Longshanks, who swindled all their properties.1543 England's King Henry VIII weds Catherine Parr (6th & last wife)who was in love with another guy and twice a widow
1191 The armies of the Third Crusade (1189-92), led by England's nasty and cruel bigoted King Richard ('TheLionhearted' although he ran scared from his wife Berengaria on their wedding night), captured the Syrian seaport of Acre. He loved wading through puddles of Maronite blood.

1843 Mormon church founder Joseph Smith announced that a divine revelation had been given him sanctioning polygamy among his newly-organized religious followers, who were delighted for having a chance to enjoy authorized lechery.

Patriots

I am a patriot. Well, that is old news for you, I guess, because you knew it from the first day we met. The incandescent, fiercely possessive, unreasonable even, everbinding love that I harbour for my country has no measure, as my ancestor Jean Aleixandre de Normandie understood when he told his king and lover that the measurement of his love for him was to love him beyond measure. The same happens with me and my Nicaragua. So it is not to be a surprise that my heroes have always been people who were so in love with their countries that they left everything behind to fight for freedom. Maybe the one to blame for this passion that I feel for freedom fighters and nationalists was my own dad. He worshipped the teenaged Avernian general who almost defeated Julius Caesar when Julius, being a mature general, went to conquer Gallia Vercingètorix was more loved by my dad than the colourful Joan of Arc, perhaps because my father thought she had been some kind of religious cuckoo, and he, being an atheist, had no patience with religious obsessions or stuff like that. But he brought from France a little plexiglass statue of his hero, and you could fit a candle inside the transparent figure. He put it on my night table and told me that Vercingètorix would be like a guardian angel for me. Having no Shaddai or Adonai to pray to, my father had a strong faith in Vercingètorix. I learned to love the rebellious, often rash, decidedly bold young warrior who almost defeated Julius Caesar, heard my father say that he had sacrificed himself by surrendering to Julius so the Roman legions wouldn`t continue killing the Avernian tribe, and had ridden up to Julius` tent to offer himself and surrender. Julius had instantly fallen in love with the beautiful teenager and taken him and Vercingètorix`s horse Addi as war trophies to Rome. Once there, Julius constantly harassed his prisoner sexually. Until one day Julius lost his patience , took Vercingètorix out on a procession and had him executed in public. Legend has it that Julius had an expert scalp the dead Vercingètorix, keeping the hero`s long blond tresses. Julius kept the scalp and hair as a macabre wig, and he would lock himself up, wear the wig on his now almost bald pate and play with himself remembering the guy who never wished to sleep with him. Vercingètorix was dead before his 22d year of life. The habit grew in me. Just before I entered a test or went to a track meet, I would invoke the Avernian`s name in French. It worked. I guarantee you it did.
Another of my favourite childhood heroes was the aboriginal chieftain Diriangèn, also because of family reasons. My mom descended from him. He had fought the Spanish conquerors, but had ended at the bottom of an abyss after he threw himself there with his body on fire. I don`t know if his already somewhat diluted blood in my veins called for him, but I was always a feisty little brat who always refused to obey. Even now, at age 48, Diriangèn stubborn pride wells up in me when I am facing any kind of situation in which I might lose face, and I attack first as a wounded mountain lion, but then again, dearest reader, you already know that. You had a taste of it today, didn`t you, most faithful of readers? The Code of Bushido applied to aboriginal skin, rather dead with my honor intact than alive without it. Flee if you might cry or lose control. Almost did. A hero `s code.
And these codes can make life so bitter, so difficult, so full of explanations about having worn a mascara on your lashes that you are allergic to, in case there has been a tear spillover. Worse, when nobody is asking you and you feel so ashamed and guilty of having your feelings untie their knot and come out screaming. It takes so much self control to be a hero.
Sometimes, in the middle of the night, after I have had my daily quota of nightmares-because I have two every night, there is a tear in my psyche that my gentle shrink could never mend-my thoughts go to Willy. William Wallace, much better in real history than the grotesque personage played by dwarf Mel Gibson in the blockbuster but garbagey Braveheart. Willy, who was tall and strapping and redhaired and never knew anyone named Murron, nor married any gal because he was wed to Scotland. Marion Braidfute`s lover, who never married her but made her a baby girl. The guy who showed Robert the Bruce where to find his balls and guts to fight for Scotland after Willy was betrayed by a thief, taken to jail and executed by Edward I Longshanks. Willy was bound to lose his guts and balls when they were torn out of him in public execution in August 1305. What did he think while he was tied to the execution table, stripped naked, ready to die for his beliefs?
Would I have left aside this body so full of inner scars, latent pains that never quite bloom, the origin of the most beautiful woman in the world(my daughter), with still unsagging breasts, enormous ass that refuses to droop, weightlifter`s ruins of muscles, and the strangest color of eyes anyone has seen, would I give it up for my homeland? Would I sacrifice it in the altar of patriotism? Is my admiration for heroes like William Wallace only skin-deep? Or my devotion to Tipoo Sultan, the Tiger of Mysore, who was the last to resist the invasion of British devils to India, dying in 1799,where will it take me?
Once I wrote a short story about a military officer who dies fighting for our San Juan River, which is so beautiful and useful that the cowardly Costa Ricans want to take it away from us. It is a romance between the colonel and her river, Juan, who is the most perfect male for her, so perfect that she gives her life for him. I dream of being that kind of patriot. I want my heart to be thrown into the San Juan River once I die. And my ashes spread from a helicopter over the Range of the Maribios-the volcanic chain of Nicaragua.
Patriotism for me has always meant a love greater than that we have for our own bones and flesh, compared only to the attachment a lioness has for her cub. Your homeland is your mother and child all in one. This was what made a difference for patriots like Vlad III Tepes Dracul and his nephew-in-law King Stefan Cel Mare III of Moldavia, driving the Ottomans out of their territory-or Duchess Anne of Bretagne making her utmost effort to keep her peninsula out of the reach of France, although at the end she failed, specially after having married one king of France after the other for political reasons.
The lessons taught to us by patriots and heroes are never to be forgotten. They are useful in every walk of life to show us how capable we are of great deeds. They show us how great we can be, and how much sacrifice we must go through to reach our highest goals and those of our people. It is also a class in itself of how to hold back tears, overcome weaknesses and how to master fear as a trainer must keep control over his lion. In that sense, our heroes and patriots will always be the candle of light inside the plexiglass figure that we are as fighters for our self-determination. Nothing can change that, even if we have to walk around wounded with our hearts dripping joy in our own hands.

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