About social bookmarking

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Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking where people can save and store webpages according to what they find useful and interesting. In this way, you are not supposed to waste your time visiting many websites (even if you have to trust in their choices) and you can always find what you saved, no matter the computer you used.
I looked for something interesting to share which deals with language learning and blogs. This is what I found:

Tips for Formal Writing, which gives you some suggestions about formal writing. It was written focusing on the most recurring mistakes of students. I like the remark in the introduction: "It is a long list. People have a lot of problems" :) Yeah!Because optimism is the salt of life!

George Orwell: 6 Questions/6 Rules, which presents some helpful suggestions focusing essentially on one verb: to simplify. It may seem quite paradoxical, but this is one of the most important things I learned during these years of university. And it's the easiest way to avoid mistakes, too, it's true ;)

English Through Stories, where you can find some episodes to read and to listen to in order to improve your language skills. The plots seem quite interesting!

How to Use English Punctuation Correctly...now comes the worst part :) Well, punctuation is something that it's not so easy to use even in your mother tongue, just think in foreign languages... :o

Dictionary of English slang and colloquialism of the UK, which I found very very nice. If you read some pages, you realize that, for the most part, many words are sexual references. Anyway, let's try to guess some words, just to put you into test:

• Fassino cannot be properly defined a babe magnet
• Uh, my boyfriend is a ball and chain! (I don't think he's going to read it but..you never know so..ehm, just joking ;)
• Jim went to Egypt last summer. The place was amazing, but he got Montezuma's revenge ;(

Hope you enjoy them!

Earth hour

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This saturday 28 march at 8.30 pm you can vote Earth by switching off your lights for one hours

from http://www.earthhour.org

This year, Earth Hour has been transformed into the world’s first global election, between Earth and global warming. For the first time in history, people of all ages, nationalities, race and background have the opportunity to use their light switch as their vote – Switching off your lights is a vote for Earth, or leaving them on is a vote for global warming. WWF are urging the world to VOTE EARTH and reach the target of 1 billion votes, which will be presented to world leaders at the Global Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen 2009.

This meeting will determine official government policies to take action against global warming, which will replace the Kyoto Protocol. It is the chance for the people of the world to make their voice heard.

Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007, when 2.2 million homes and businesses switched off their lights for one hour. In 2008 the message had grown into a global sustainability movement, with 50 million people switching off their lights. Global landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Rome’s Colosseum, the Sydney Opera House and the Coca Cola billboard in Times Square all stood in darkness.

In 2009, Earth Hour is being taken to the next level, with the goal of 1 billion people switching off their lights as part of a global vote. Unlike any election in history, it is not about what country you’re from, but instead, what planet you’re from.

VOTE EARTH is a global call to action for every individual, every business, and every community. A call to stand up and take control over the future of our planet. Over 74 countries and territories have pledged their support to VOTE EARTH during Earth Hour 2009, and this number is growing everyday.We all have a vote, and every single vote counts. Together we can take control of the future of our planet, for future generations.

VOTE EARTH by simply switching off your lights for one hour, and join the world for Earth Hour.Saturday, March 28, 8:30-9:30pm.

Michael Nyman - The Heart Asks Pleasure First

This is one of my favourite composer..enjoy the music, it's enchanting!

Feeds and feed aggregators...eh?

I couldn’t attend the lesson last week for reasons of health, but I succeed in creating an account in Bloglines, adding feeds and a playlist.In this process, I was helped by the video, which I found very nice (the voice sounded so relaxing) and easy to understand. I am not very fond of technology, but it was not the first time that I heard talking about feeds. Anyway, I didn t know their use and their different typologies...but now I do :)

As regards other blogs, their links and their updating, I have to say that I had already decided to put something similar in my blog. I added a list of my favourite blogs from the gadgets proposed, so that I could always be informed of new posts.

However, I think that feed aggregators can supply this function better than a simple list, because you have the opportunity to read every new post from the beginning to the end without opening the entire webpage every time. It is easier to keep it under control, too ;)

Personal reflections

First steps

In spite of some initial problems, I really enjoy having this blog. This is a creative and pleasant way to practice languages using different registers

Anyway, I think that interaction is the most precious thing it can offer to me, because I would like to improve a sort of written production which implies the negotiation of contents and ideas.
Moreover, the chance to choose topics (nearly always :) and to comment others’ posts makes me feel more stimulated and spontaneous.

I hope to succeed in putting something interesting to you guys, I'm looking forward to read your opinions!;)

Prima o poi se fa anca le sucche!" (Sooner or later, even pumpkins mature!)

This is a typical Venetian expression, it means that you don't have to give up hope and to keep on trying, making mistakes again and again. (It plays with the double meaning of pumpkins and maturity). It's something I thought, to take heart, during the latest class, when I found I still make mistakes with some English phrasal verbs and constructions.

For this reason, my main learning target to achieve thanks to this blog is the improvement of my writing skill. My weakest points are:

· punctuation
· past tenses (even if I'm going to follow Sarah’s suggestion: present perfect doesn’t exist to me anymore)
· the order of many different elements in the same phrase
· sometimes, lexicon: in order to avoid repetitions, I use synonyms which are quite far from the meaning I want to express (once again, as Sarah told us)

This blog represents a good occasion to put me to the test and dispel my doubts, once and for all.

Work in progress

During the past week I took the opportunity of working both on my listening and writing skills.

As regards the first one, I have to admit that it's something I put to test almost every day, as I usually watch some nice and easy television programmes like Roomraiders, Next and Made on MTV, trying not to read subtitles. Sometimes I understand strange things, I don t know if it's because of my language limits or because they do or talk about freaky things :)

The perfect occasion to test, on the other hand, my writing skills, was given by my boyfriend. He read my favourite book, The Monk by M. G. Lewis, and he enjoyed it very much, so I decided to print the degree thesis I did about it. I had not been reading it for a long time and I realized that I could have used better some tenses and constructions. I noticed for the first time some imperfections and I corrected them. I'm glad to know that these two years have been useful to me. (Ehm...I had to use present perfect..but I think I could do it in this context :P)

What's interesting around

Theatre

from 17 to 22 March - Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Verdi Theatre, Padua
from 18 to 22 March - God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza , Toniolo Theatre, Mestre (Ve)
from 25 to 29 March - Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Goldoni Theatre, Venice (and from 12 to 17 May, Verdi Theatre, Padua)

from 7 to 11 April - Notre Dame de Paris by Riccardo Cocciante, Palaturismo, Jesolo (Ve)
from 15 to 19 April - Candide by Voltaire, Goldoni Theatre, Venice

Exhibitions

until 22 March - Italics, Italian art between tradition and revolution, 1968 - 2008, Palazzo Grassi, Venice
until 29 March - Magritte. The Mistery of Nature, Royal Palace, Milan

until 31 May - Egypt Sunken Treasures, Venaria Reale, Turin

until 31 May - Masterpieces of Futurism, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice

until 7 June - Futurism, 1909 - 2009. Speed + Art + Action, Royal Palace, Milan
until 28 June - Déco. Art in Italy 1919 - 1939, Palazzo Roverella, Rovigo

Photography

from 3 April to 24 May - 10 Fotografi d'oro, Diocesan Museum ,Padua

from 4 April to 24 May - Douglas Kirkland. Portraits,

Town Museum at Saint, Padua
from 4 April to 20 June - The Oxford Project, Fotografie di Peter Feldstein, Galleria Sottopasso della Stua , Padua

So you want to be a writer?

If it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything,
don't do it.
Unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut,
don't do it.
If you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your typewriter searching for words,
don't do it.
If you're doing it for money or fame,
don't do it.
If you're doing it because you want women in your bed,
don't do it.
If you have to sit there and rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
If it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
If you're trying to write like somebody else,
forget about it.
If you have to wait for it to roar out of you,
then wait patiently.
If it never does roar out of you,
do something else.
If you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.
Don't be like so many writers,
Don't be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and pretentious,
don't be consumed with self-love.
The libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleep over your kind.
Don't add to that.
Don't do it.
Unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder,
don't do it.
Unless the sun inside you is burning your gut,
don't do it.
When it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.
There is no other way.
And there never was.

Charles Bukowski

Hello to everybody!
I decided to start my blog with this poem. As you can imagine, one of my greatest ambitions is to become a good writer but I know that it's very difficult. I like this poem because it always reminds me that the essential element to do it is the strong impulse that you cannot manage to control. When we spoke about ideal job, during prof. Taylor's first class, on emerged that I'm not the only one to have this passion so..hope you enjoy Bukowski's suggestion :)