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, 24 de enero de 2009

monarchs to ourselves




88th entry for the Colonel´s Scrapbook
Birthdates for January 24:
0076 Publius A Hadrianus 14th Roman Emperor (117-138)m the lover of Antinoo, animal assassin through his circus shows, oppressor of the Jews 1705 Farinelli "Carlo Broschi" Andria Italy, castrato, favorite of King Philip V, whose melancholy his voice drove away1712 Frederick II (the Great), king of Prussia (1740-86), the perfect man, great historian,soldier,philosopher…too bad he left no issue 1732 Pierre de Beaumarchais France, playwright (Barber of Seville), a man of great wit 1746 Gustav III king during Swedish Enlightenment (1771-92) Gustav was assassinated by a conspiracy of noblemen.Gustav III was a benefactor of arts and literature

Deaths on January 24:
0041 Caligula [G C Germanicus], Roman emperor (37-41), assassinated at 28 ,he got stabbed in the balls,and he was the guy who named his horse Incitatus consul of Rome0661 Ali ibn Abu Talib kalief of Islam (656-61), murdered, was the cousin and son-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, who ruled over the Rashidun empire from 656 to 661
events

1328 King Edward III of England marries Philippa of Hainault, but in her old age he would yank her jewels away to have them worn by his mistress
1568 In the Netherlands, Duke of Alva declares William of Orange an outlaw, because for Spaniards back then being a patriot was a sin

THE PRIVATE KING WE HAVE

One of the men I have most admired in history is Frederick II of Prussia, the Great, the enlightened despot, my Fritz. Once he told his friend Voltaire that we all had a king navigating inside our bloodstream, and that once or twice in life the ordinary man or woman were liable to feel the weight of this kingship. After many quarrels between monarch and French writer, after time has not totally faded the memory of those deeds left behind by this extraordinary king, I tend to agree with Fritz. His kingship went unhampered until he died, but before that he had lots of ways to show what stuff he was made of.
I sit alone at my PC, where I should always be left alone as a matter of elementary decency and respect for the privacy I am entitled to as a living creature, and meditate over my kingship. I remember another sovereign, Louis XIV th of France, who managed to keep his sense of monarchy even when surrounded by courtiers and cronies who would pester him even when he was grunting at the chaise perceé. Hoe many papers can you sign when you are having trouble relieving yourself? How valid is it when someone says he is going to the place where the king goes alone? The toilet? Was Louis ever alone there? Is kingship a trap like any other, stifling like marriage when your body doesn´t seem to get rid of the hormonal Alzheimer and continues feeling after you should be decorously indifferent? Is it like being a pillar of society, a stout matron who shouldn´t be wearing miniskirts after she removes her work clothes? Is it like a ball and chain similar to the married name, furthermore stifling when you have become famous under the husband´s name, the scar on the Miura bull ´s shoulder pr haunch? Atrocious, dearest reader, the Miura bull goes to the bullfight where it shall die with that mark, drowning in his own blood while only one person in the crowd-me-cheered when the bull drove his horn into the matador´s ass and nearly sodomized him in public. Silently my husband´s cat comes in to this room where I write to you, and he passes his tail over my legs. He doesn´t poke his head into the PC as others do. He sits amiably next to me and he starts washing, grooming, cosseting himself. He is a sovereign unto himself. Is he also seeking refuge from the loud invasion of cheap ranchera music that invades the living room, violating our exquisite taste for Vivaldi and Shankar? Kingship has often been raped and mutilated, in everyday ways and greater ones too. Remember the iron hot rod pushed into King Edward II of England´s ass? Or the imprisonment of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine? Or poor widowed and white-haired Sha Jehan imprisoned in the Red Fortress by his son Aurangzeb? Kingship has its own inbuilt trappings. Being a public figure runs the same way. It is a cage. No way out, not being able to fart silently while walking on the street even though gases may be killing you.
Kingship is funny. It teaches you to play god until you become addicted to the practice, unless you are wise enough to stop the jump midway. It is a mortal jump. Sometimes you are already mid air when you realize there is the abyss that pride always lays at your feet for it to swallow you alive. No net below, you kill yourself instantly. Overbearing helps you jump over the cliff. The blows and bruises I have gotten over time have shown me you can never be too stubborn. There are never higher walls than when you build them around yourself, and the first thing you must know is that if you built them from inside out it will be worse. We often paint ourselves into the corner, and we don´t always have the wings to fly way above our footprints of mistakes.
Kingship is not for everyone, which is perhaps a rather harsh thing to say. Kingship is not the same as the condition that leads someone to be a tyrant. Being a dictator is the utmost vulgarity that can exist. Nicaraguan men have a strong proclivity for this, although they would rather die than confess to it. They still mistake kingship for dictatorship. It is throwing the soup into their wife´s face because they wanted a masculine meal with lots of cholesterol and animal death in it, a meal “fit for an engineer” as rudely expressed by my stupid maternal uncles to my weary grandmother when once she had the temerity to serve delicious spaghetti. It is imposing rules with no sense in them, or trying to control the economics of a household even when they are not the main breadwinner. Not kingship, sir, only dictatorship, and we all know how dictators end up, pathetic shadows like the sad finale of Fidel Castro or Nicolas Ceaucescu, echoes of their worst times shitting into a colostomic bag. Only kingship can dignify most decisions, dictatorship alone demeans us.
Kingship is rising above our nimious details of everything suffering, shedding the old dry skin of past complexes, dusting your mind freely without being able to run scared from your own mistakes. Kingship gives a crown to our most minimal intentions,a nd puts us apart from all the miseries we have as a natural burden. Kingship is not god given,we snatch it from kismet´s hands and wear it as a crown.If the crown has thorns, well, it is up to us to goldplate them.





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