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

jueves, 31 de julio de 2008

when the lady with her dragon refuse to be wooed by the troubadour





29th entry to the Colonel`s Scrapbook
July 30th

Born
1818 Emily Bronte, England, novelist (Wuthering Heights) died single and spitting out her lungs from tuberculosis, one of the greatest writers of the English language1863 Henry Ford Dearborn Township, Michigan, auto maker (Ford), a bigot, anti.Semite, lousy right wing capitalist and a prude, Hitler gave him a medal for his hatred against Jews
Deaths which occurred on July 30:
1914 Jean Jaurès leading socialist, assassinated in Paris.It is a capital sin to defend the working class
Events
1839 Slave rebels, take over slaver Amistad, which belonged to the hypocritical Spaniards
July 31st
1911 Macchu Piccu discovered
1777 Marquis de Lafayette, 19, made major-general of Continental Army
Deaths which occurred on July 31:
1556 St Ignatius of Loyola founder of Society of Jesus, dies in Rome , tremendous bigot with pains on his kness1811 Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla Mexican hero priest, executed by Spanish, who always have said to be so Catholic but have always been very unchristian in their actions
1944 Antoine de Saint Exupèry, French aviator and author of The Little Prince,disappears at age 44 off the coast of Marseille

LOVE IN TIMES OF INTERNET

It can be very ironical that in order to evoke those times of ladies in castles and troubadors trying to win them over-although the dame might already be a married woman with kids-I should quote a song by the American pop duo The Carpenters. “I knkow I need to be in love, I know I`ve wasted too much time, I know I ask perfection in a quite imperfect worls, and I`m fool enough to think that`s what I`ll find.” Of course you remember the song, faithful muse and reader, and by now you may be wondering whatever happened to me in order to broach this subject with you. Could ithave been more fit to cite Guillaume DÀquitaine, or Chretien de Troyes…? Back in the Middle Ages the troubadours went and came around singing,little more than circus jugglers in the backward social status of the epoch, fell in love with the lady of the manor and tried to woo her at a distance. Few were the cases when the damsel-not always in distress and maybe harbouring a fire dragon inside her nature-would leave bed and board in safety with the husband who had been chosen for her since before her birth and went off with the love smitten bard. It was unfashionable to be in love with your own consort, love matches almost never existed except among the very poor who had nothing to lose.
It was a very hard life back then, and these minnsingers and troubadours rarely got a kiss,let alone something else,from the woman they so sang in their verses and song. It would help if the troubadour came from a rich family with titles, lke in the case of the Duke of Aquitaine, Guillaume,France`s foremost troubadour, or of the fat Thibaut de Champagne, who wanted to woo the queen Blanche herself, one of the nastiest women in history. It was a guarantee for seeing his madrigals published the fact that Jean Aleixandre of Normandie was his own king Henri II`s favourite minion. The lady love and the troubadour almost never got very far,because even though in courtly love it was chic to be in love with anyone that wasn`t your own spouse, the consequences for women, as usual, have been always the same:eviction from the manor, getting disinherited, losing custody over kids, being stripped completely of the few rights she may have had. Men got off scot-free,as usual, after they got themselves paramours. The loving troubadour would at the most get a sleeves from his lady, wear her colors although he could barely afford new clothes, and maybe a remote tumble in the dung infested hay.
So where does this land us when we compare with our courtships, now in times of internet? I apologize again to my favourite writer, Colombian Nobel Award winner Gabriel Garcìa Màrquez, whose book Love In Times of Cholera was torn to pieces by the garbage manufacturing machine from Hollywood. If you haven`t read it yet, try to do so because you re missing a great novel. In the book, after the heroine has a disastrous fling with Florentino Ariza, realizes that being wooed through telegrams is not her thing and marries stable, debonair Dr.Juvenal Urbino. If she had had a PC connected to Internet, what kind of offers would she have gotten? Love in times of messengers and skype and webcams.
It is funny how crazy things can get. At a seminar for history teachers that I organized, I realized when we were discussing how to make the most of internet resources for research, that many people had had a few jolts themselves. For some of them opening the messenger to chat was the worse thing that ever touched their lives. For another, a history teacher from the southern region, chatting landed him his American wife, so it was a good experience. Chatting sometimes, I was told, can work like publicity for a product or just the same as when I, being the head musical programmer of 18 radios that were state-owned in Nicaragua during the turbulent decade of the 80s, created a superhit song just by repeating it so many times on the air that people had no more choice than to start humming it even while they peed.
“I have no necessity of catching a guy who looks more or less like 10 men per block in any Nicaraguan city just because he insists I have bedroom eyes, “chimed in a feminine voice. The fact that he is an exotic product already following the American dream which will turn soon into a nightmare as it usually does doesn`t mean the lady will leave her fortress-the modern equivalent of a medieval castle- just to follow this strange troubadour who promised progeny and endless submission to his appetites on the first chat. Completely d`accord with the woman, for whom an American visa is not precisely the panacea it should be for others. Here she is being bullied into accepting a product she has no need for, like trying to sell a Whirlpool freezer to a Lapp in the northernmost tip of Finland!
What about the unwelcome interruption when writing your works, if you have the messenger open, of someone walking uninvited, invading your privacy, uncalled for, howling like Whitney Houston in her theme song from The Bodyguard,”And IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII will always love youuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu”
Barging in like a bull in a crystal shop, tearing apart the fabric of your everyday life, a stepping rhinoceros pounding on the cobweb of your thoughts!And then threatening you because he “knows you are there” or sending dumb animations when you want to get down to business or your boss will fire you on the spot? Simple, close the messenger someone said. But if you are expecting response from someone which is working with you against time, trying to meet a deadline, how do you make a filter?

I am not saying that all chat must end up like a version of Looking for Mr.Goodchat, and may the author of Looking for Mr.Goodbar,Judith Rossner,also forgive the
paraphrasing. I personally have found real, honest, authentic friends through the internet, people who don`t promise to send you the presidential plane to land you naked in a cage at the foot of the Giza pyramid, guys who are interested in your mind, in your writings, who want knowledge and not a belly dance performed by you in stark nakedness in front of your webcam so they can satisfy their carnal pleasure without having to buy porn. How many promises that you get through the ether of internet become real..?The percentage is so low it doesn`t even deserve statistical attention. But I am thankful for the handful of people whom I have met that way and whose respect, solidarity and good will I still enjoy.Finding a soulmate can happen this way,dearest reader, and you best of all know that this is true. You may dream of meeting and someday it shall be if kismet allows you. I even found the most beautiful of models for my artistic graphic designs in Dubai, a young and warm young man with his head well nailed to his shoulders and his feet on the ground. But for each true gem you find along the complex lines of internet you find bucketfuls of weirdos and creeps who only want to use you for their macabre purposes.
Which brings me to the following question:is there an unwritten code of behaviour and manners to be made about relationships on the web? Some kind of etiquette to follow to overcome the sudden doorslam on the nose from your chatmate when you start asking questions that may land him or her on the wet towel, something to refrain nuts from calling you strange names, or some kind of bar to halt abuse. Is it against some unwritten rules to shade the text you are getting and paste it on a word document and then use it as the raw material for a short story?Is it an infidence? Who sets the rules if any rules are to be set?
And what about grammarians who are so shell-shocked at seeing the barbaric monstrosities committed against languages used on the Internet, particularly English with the new vocab slangs such a lol, luv ya and other aberrations that are not even sexual to be enjoyed. My perfect teacher James Martin would have a double heart attack if he read some chats. There are so many pseudoromantic skunks in the Pepe le Pooh style lost in the turbulent woods of internet. It unbelievable how many idiotic freaks on a leash are allowed to be near a keyboard., but on the other hand I have news of some extraordinary courtships in the best style of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett , both wonderful English poets, that have been conducted and fulfilled through messengers and email. But the imp of my sense of humour questions: but how many failures can you have? Is the lady of the manor always ready to leave everything behind at her castle to go and live in a seedy concrete hut with a guy who ends up recriminating her, over the years, for having done exactly what she did out of love, or delusion ,for him? How many kilos of disappointment could you swallow per day?
Life teaches you all sorts of lessons, heart of my heart- and one of them is the one of survival. Rebukes and lies and disappearances-less interesting than the one who denied the world more works from Antoine de Saint Exupèry after he never came back from his last flight- may hurt for a while, but they are not stones to break your bones.
Reality always brings you back from the murky clouds of irreality, or virtual reality to avoid insulting some people who deem internet to be the new deity. Feet anchored on the ground avoids having you swept away and grabbed by the neck by an invisible hand that may come out the monitor. Virtual flowers, like those given in a real bouquet, also wilt. Even the most frenzied mutual masturbation session cam to cam loses its élan if it ever had any, and sorry if I hurt your feelings or taste by being so brash, but as you know I will never change and that is what usually keeps you coming for more from me because you know I will never bullshit you..
I cannot fuck pictures, said a gentleman once while he chatted. He pointed out to a very solid reality about love in times of internet. He couldn`t have been more exact, dearest reader, and that is why I should give him credit in here, whatever kismet or karma decides to make of whatever we do. Love was dangerous in times of cholera,as Gabriel Garcìa Màrquez said when he ends his novel with the elderly couple of Florentino Ariza and Fermina daza navigating endlessly on a river boat. It is even more dangerous now in times of internet where the same medium can be the unbridled cholera to tear our lives apart.





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