And everything I say is accompanied by large expressive facial expressions and actions. Oy!!!! Again I shall say that I am absolutely not cut out to be a teacher, but when the children are quietly working or performing, I just want to pinch their sweet little cheeks.
Iàm very glad that its the weekend and do not have any plans other than sleeping in. Tomorrow I think Assunta (my house mother) will show me about Milan (without the children), and Sunday I hope to sit in the large park and finish my (dismally boring) book Suite Francaise so I can go buy another at the English bookstore here....
Sorry this has been so short and unexpressive, but teachingleaves me EXHAUSTED!
Talk to you all soooooooon!
K.
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3 comments:
I'll be so happy when you get back. Then I won't be the only person gesticulating wildly with my hands whilst I talk. I'll have you doing it too! Miss you muchly.
Glad you got some internet time to blog. Oh, I love your writing! It is so immediate...
Yes, teaching is exhausting and when I got my TESL cert one of my TESL profs told us that teaching ESL is the hardest thing there is to teach. Aarrgh... and I have been at it now for two years. Sending you energy sweetheart...I know that you need it.
Tomorrow is Lon and Andy's wedding event, and Lon and I are all exhausted getting ready all week. But it looks beautiful and I am sure it will be a joyful celebration... I was thinking about you today when I laid the table covering on the head table on "your" spot.
Anyways, you and Lon in toilet commiseration will be featured on the slide show, along with a shot of Andy on the toilet too - natch.
Wishing you could be there, but this cultural experience in Italy will also be fabulous for you too.
Try to get to see Leonardo's Da Vinci's Last Supper. MILAN is where it is! It started to disintegrate very badly soon after he did it because he had experimented with the painting medium, but the DRAMA of it will blow you away -- if you can get beyond the technical issues.
And look for the adrongynous Mary figure ( http://www.tickitaly.com/galleries/davinci-last-supper.php)
:
Henry James called it ‘an illustrious invalid’ while Aldous Huxley called it ‘the saddest work of art in the world’. Neither were talking about the subject matter of one of the world’s most important and moving works of art, but about centuries of appalling neglect, which saw Leonardo’s Last Supper assume the condition of a fly-blown poster on a subway wall.
You’ll find the painting in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. In a permanent process of restoration, due to its state of decay, first sight of it makes it clear exactly what James meant. People visit the painting ‘with leave-taking sighs and almost death bed or tiptoe precautions’ he noted, and such is its peeling, crumbling state that you cannot believe the painting will still be intact should you choose to visit again.
The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci
A large part of the blame lies with Leonardo da Vinci himself of course. Quixotically he chose to complete his masterpiece with oil paint (a far less reliable medium in Renaissance times than today) rather than with the fast-drying and stable watercolour fresco technique. Within five years the painting was crumbling. Two hundred years later, Napoleon’s troops were using the wall and painting for target practice. A Second World War bomb flattened most of Santa Maria, leaving only the wall bearing Leonardo’s painting … a miracle perhaps?
Two hundred years of restoration beg the question: how much of what we see is actually Leonardo’s work? And restoration, of course, was markedly more intrusive in past years than is the fashion today.
And yet it still fascinates visitors, a fascination only increased by its central role in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. The parlous state of the painting makes it all the more tantalising trying to work out whether that is a man or Mary Magdalene. The publication of the book seems to have achieved the impossible, to make The Last Supper Leonardo’s most famed and viewed painting, outstripping the Mona Lisa.
http://adventuresinitalian.blogspot.com/
Glad you got some internet time to blog. Oh, I love your writing...it is so immediate...
Yes, teaching is exhausting and when I got my TESL cert one of my TESL profs told us that teaching ESL is the hardest thing there is to teach. Aarrgh... and I have been at it now for two years. Sending you energy sweetheart...I know that you need it.
Tomorrow is Lon and Andy's wedding event, and Lon and I are all exhausted getting ready all week. But it looks beautiful and I am sure it will be a joyful celebration... I was thinking about you today when I laid the table covering on the head table on "your" spot.
Anyways, you and Lon in toilet commiseration will be featured on the slide show, along with a shot of Andy on the toilet too - natch.
Wishing you could be there, but this cultural experience in Italy will also be fabulous for you
Try to get to see Leonardo's Da Vinci's Last Supper. MILAN is where it is! It started to disintegrate very badly soon after he did it because he had experimented with the painting medium, but the DRAMA of it will blow you away -- if you can get beyond the technical issues.
And look for the adrongynous Mary figure ( http://www.tickitaly.com/galleries/davinci-last-supper.php)
:
Henry James called it ‘an illustrious invalid’ while Aldous Huxley called it ‘the saddest work of art in the world’. Neither were talking about the subject matter of one of the world’s most important and moving works of art, but about centuries of appalling neglect, which saw Leonardo’s Last Supper assume the condition of a fly-blown poster on a subway wall.
You’ll find the painting in the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. In a permanent process of restoration, due to its state of decay, first sight of it makes it clear exactly what James meant. People visit the painting ‘with leave-taking sighs and almost death bed or tiptoe precautions’ he noted, and such is its peeling, crumbling state that you cannot believe the painting will still be intact should you choose to visit again.
The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci
A large part of the blame lies with Leonardo da Vinci himself of course. Quixotically he chose to complete his masterpiece with oil paint (a far less reliable medium in Renaissance times than today) rather than with the fast-drying and stable watercolour fresco technique. Within five years the painting was crumbling. Two hundred years later, Napoleon’s troops were using the wall and painting for target practice. A Second World War bomb flattened most of Santa Maria, leaving only the wall bearing Leonardo’s painting … a miracle perhaps?
Two hundred years of restoration beg the question: how much of what we see is actually Leonardo’s work? And restoration, of course, was markedly more intrusive in past years than is the fashion today.
And yet it still fascinates visitors, a fascination only increased by its central role in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code. The parlous state of the painting makes it all the more tantalising trying to work out whether that is a man or Mary Magdalene. The publication of the book seems to have achieved the impossible, to make The Last Supper Leonardo’s most famed and viewed painting, outstripping the Mona Lisa.
http://adventuresinitalian.blogspot.com/
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