domingo, 28 de febrero de 2010

T.S. Eliot in Alcobendas


On Sunday evening a group of us got together and listened to a beautiful reading of T.S. Eliot's poetry.



Julie Davies and Jonathan Mellor have worked together to bring to the stage Harold Pinter plays.

Having them interpret The Wasteland, The Love Song of J. Prufrock, The Hollow Men was a privilege.


Eliot proved to be an excellent choice and suited the mood of these grey days we are living in right now.


We also had fun listening to some light hearted poems which were written by T.S. Eliot and inspired the musical Cats

Julie and Jonathan enjoyed the perfomance immensely, as did Nacho and Federico of El indio Mocaqua and we look forward to organizing more events of this nature.

So far in the association we've had Halloween party for children, a nature walk, a pub quiz and a poetry reading of the highest standard. I'm sure more good things will come of it.

sábado, 20 de febrero de 2010

Por tu amor me duele el aire...

¡Ay, qué trabajo
me cuesta quererte como te quiero!

Por tu amor me duele el aire,
el corazón
y el sombrero.


Que bonito...Lo siento, pero tenía que decirlo.
Estaba oyendo la radio mientras miraba que había de nuevo por aquí y oí a una mujer (no tengo ni idea de quién era) que cantaba estos versos y me gustaron. Tecleé en Google "me duele el aire" y me salió la canción completa, que resultó ser de Federico García Lorca.
Alguien dirá: Bueno, ¿y ésto que tiene que ver con el inglés?. La respuesta es NADA, pero es que no hay una belleza en inglés y otra en castellano, sino simplemente BELLEZA.

jueves, 18 de febrero de 2010

Delicious Quotes from Collected Works by Oscar Wilde/Citas

The state is to make what is useful.
The individual is to make what is beautiful.
El estado ha de hacer lo que es útil.
El individuo ha de hacer lo que es hermoso.

People are good if left alone.
La gente es buena si se les deja en paz.

All authority is quite degrading.
Toda autoridad es bastante degradante.

It is only in voluntary association that man is free.
Es sólo en la asociación voluntaria que el hombre es libre.

The only thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes,
La única cosa que se sabe realmente sobre la naturaleza humana es que cambia.

Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.
El egoísmo no es vivir como uno quiere,es pedir a los demás que vivan como uno quiere vivir.

The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man's intelligence.
Las emociones del hombre se mueven más fácilmente que su inteligencia.

A true artist takes no notice whatever of the public.The public to him are non existent.
Un verdadero artista no hace ningún caso del público. El público para él no existe.

A work of art is a unique result of a unique temprament.
Una obra de arte es el resultado insólito de un temperamento insólito.



La sociedad a menudo perdona al criminal, nunca perdona al soñador.

It is not selfish to think for oneself. A man who does not think for himself does not think at all.
No es egoísmo pensar por uno mismo. Un hombre que no piensa por sí mismo, no piensa en absoluto,

When man is happy he is in harmony with himself and his environment.
Cuando un hombre es feliz, está en armonía consigo mismo y su entorno.

Personal experience is a most vicious and limited circle.
La experiencia personal es un circulo de lo más vicioso y limitado.

To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty.
Then and only then, does it come into existence.

Mirar una cosa es muy diferente de ver una cosa. Uno no ve nada hasta ver su belleza. Es entonces y sólo entonces cuando cobra existencia.

Where the cultured catch the effect, the uncultured catch cold.
Cuando los cultos pillan el efecto, los incultos pillan un catarro.

Art creates an incomparable and unique effect and having done so, passes on to other things.
El arte crea un efecto único e incomparable, y al haberlo  hecho, pasa a otras cosas.

If we mean to understand a nation by its art, let us look at its architecture or its music.
Si pretendemos comprender a una nación a través de su arte, miremos a su arquitectura o su música.

In literature we require distinction, charm, beauty and imaginative power.
En la literatura requerimos distinción, encanto, belleza y poder imaginativa. 

It´s the spectator, and not life, that art mirrors.
Es al espectador y no a la vida que el arte refleja.

Anybody can sympathize with the suffering of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature, it requires, in fact, that nature of a true individualist,to sympathize with a friend´s success.
Cualquier persona puede simpatizar con el sufrimiento de un amigo, pero se requiere un carácter muy noble, se requiere el carácter de un verdadero individualista, simpatizar con el éxito de un amigo.

The best way to make children good is to make them happy.
La mejor manera para hacer que los niños sean buenos es hacer que sean felices

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
Cada santo tiene tiene un pasado y cada pecador tiene un futuro

.She lacks the indefinable charm of weakness.
A ella le falta el encanto indefinible de la debilidad.

Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.
La riqueza normal puede ser robada, la riqueza de verdad no.En tu alma hay las cosas infinitamente preciosas que no se te pueden arrebatar.

There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Sólo hay dos tragedias en esta vida. Una es no conseguir lo que quieres, y la otra es conseguirlo.

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
Algunas personas crean felicidad adonde van; otras cuando se van.

A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love her.
Un hombre puede ser feliz con cualquier mujer, siempre que no la quiera.

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
Vivir es la cosa menos común del mundo. La mayoría de la gente se limita a existir.

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.
Si uno no  disfruta leyendo un libro una y otra vez, no merece la pena leerlo.

For one moment our lives met, our souls touched.
Por un instante nuestras vidas cruzaron, nuestros almas tocaron.

 After all, there is nothing like nature, is there?
Después de todo, no hay nada como la naturaleza, ¿verdad?

We see that Death is mighty lord of all,

And king and clown to ashen dust must fall.

From the poem Ravenna


lunes, 15 de febrero de 2010

Una invitación...

Aquí dejo el póster que diseñó Melanie para el evento del domingo 21, así como una invitación para todo el que quiera asistir. Por supuesto que la asistencia es libre y gratuita.




jueves, 11 de febrero de 2010

Estatutos

Para todo el que quiera conocer más detalles sobre de la asociación, aquí dejo un enlace desde donde se pueden descargar los estatutos en formato PDF.

domingo, 7 de febrero de 2010

T.S. Eliot

Some of Eliot's most famous lines from The Hollow Men:

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

T.S. Eliot (1888-1965) was born in Missouri U.S.A. He went to Harvard University and La Sorbonne. He moved to Oxford in 1914 and acquired British nationality in 1927.His poems articulated the disillusionment of a younger post war generation.
The Wasteland (Tierra Yerma) is considered to be one of the most influential poetic works of the twentieth century in the English language.
A leading poet of the avant -garde, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.

To edify and fortify you through these winter days

Come and enjoy the poetry of T.S. Eliot, read to you by Julie Davies.
This will be on Sunday February 21st at six thirty in the evening.
The venue will be El indio Mocaqua Av Madrid.

viernes, 29 de enero de 2010

Some background information

Near where I live there’s a lovely little state school with a big playground which  is lying unused, in a state of abandon. When I pass by I always remember Oscar Wilde’s story of The Selfish Giant who would not  let the local children play in his big beautiful garden, even though they had nowhere else to play.

I thought, ‘If the local authorities don’t know what to do with this place I’ll give them an idea.’

Teachers of English in the schools here in Spain are doing a wonderful job and the idea was to offer evening classes to help schoolchildren consolidate their learning and to extend teaching of the English language to reach a greater number of people by offering classes to adults in the morning and late evening.
The teachers would come from any of the many English speaking countries in the world.

The idea was to create a warm learning environment with attractive activities and teaching methods. The beauty of the language class is that it brings children from different schools, different backgrounds together and they are all equal. They could have playground games in English in that wonderful playground.
Families of low income and people who are long term unemployed would be able to bring their children too and come themselves to improve their chances of finding good employment.
To quote a former pupil in a debate about the right of parents to choose and pay for the best education for their children,

‘All children have the right to the best education.’

We cannot underestimate the importance of the ability to communicate in the 'lingua franca' of global research  and the need for young Spanish learners to master English in the contemporary world of increasing internationalization.This school would aim to have high quality teaching open to all because a key E.U. policy is that access to knowledge is a right for everyone and it must be promoted.

Together with my friend and neighbour, Ascen, I approached the local authorities with this proposal. We were told that the school was being used for offices by the local government in Madrid and that before they could do anything with the idea we would have to prove that our interest was not for personal gain but for the community.

Thankfully, my neighbours José and Ascen had the courage and goodwill to join me and form this non profit making association.Together we could get it moving and time will tell if is a good idea and a viable one. Right now we are taking it step by step.

At this stage we are connecting people who are interested in any aspect of the English language. This is a very broad definition but it covers those who have always wanted to learn the language and those who, like myself, have it and want to use it in a social context. We have had shared readings of Oscar Wilde's wonderful plays and stories at the local library already.

We have introduced into the association the idea of bringing together those English speakers who live in the area and would really enjoy a space where they could exchange books, meet people and pursue common interests and those English learners who have invested a lot of time and money in classes but have no opportunity to practise outside the classroom context. A lot of people just need someone to organize the activities for them and that is what we propose to do in ASEDOW. I’m sure our paths can meet.

The lovely thing about this project is that it is not top down.
People are pushing it up.
We are going about this in a happy way. Please don’t come worried about your level of English. Leave your worries at home.
Relax and enjoy the activities that are coming up.

Hopefully these activities will lead us back eventually to the original idea of
 la escuela de inglés de  Oscar Wilde.

Asociación Educativa Oscar Wilde

By naming the association after Oscar Wilde we raise our hats to this gentle giant because - how many of us who have read his works would like to have been the stranger who did just that, the one man among the crowd of people who raised his hat, as Wilde was being escorted to court from the prison cell handcuffed between two policemen, his head bowed?

From De Profundis:
‘I store it in the treasure house of my heart. I keep it there as a secret debt that I can never possibly repay. That lovely little silent act of love.’

Oscar Wilde’s writing is beautiful, sensitive and deeply Christian. It would be a wonderful destination for all lovers of the English language.

There is another reason why the name of Oscar Wilde is perfect.The name crosses the barriers of race, righteousness and religion. He was born in Dublin. He went to school in Northern Ireland. He was an Irish Protestant from an upperclass and highly respected family.From his mother he learnt to be proud of his Irish heritage and the social impact of literature. He went from fame to infamy and suffered the humiliation of imprisonment in England for his homosexuality. He was a master of the English language and to see, act and perform his plays may seem an impossible task for second language learners but it has been done.




Our first three events:
A children’s Halloween Party
A beautiful walk in Cercedilla
A pub quiz in San Sebastian de los Reyes

They give a taste of things to come and reflect the spirit of the association, also reflected in our logo.
Lifelong learning in a relaxed environment.

lunes, 18 de enero de 2010

Helpful hints for a .....

Happy New Year!! Peace and Prosperity to you!!

HANDBOOK for 2010
Health:
1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants.
4. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy
5. Make time to enjoy yourself
6. Play more games
7. Read more books than you did in 2009.
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day
9. Sleep for 7 hours.
10. Take a 10-30 minutes walk daily. And while you walk, smile.

Personality:
11. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12. Don't have negative thoughts of things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13. Don't over do. Keep to your limits.
14. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
15. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.
18. Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner of his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. Don't hate others.
20. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

Society:
25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything..
28. Spend time with people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.