Hi all,
You have now handed in your 1st assessment. I feel that the discussion on each others' 1st drafts could have been more productive, but due to technological problems you did not manage.
16 years ago
Wednesday, 29 October 2008
Monday, 27 October 2008
Early influence.
Early struggle.
Influence is something only felt when you´re exposed to an extreme feeling or situation .
The end of the world as we know it, the place where all ancient order collapses, hierarchies yet to be established, a generation faces the shape of a kingdom of frightening masters that share an ancient status, and stand as the guidance of this new generation.
It´s a scary day, the very one where you´re finally free from your parents guidance,where you´ll seek for your place in a new society, packed with friends yet to meet, the authority in the teacher figure, and then you realise, what major influence autorithy and established rules will have on the shape of your character .
Most kids tend love primary school, I did, but not everything regarding it. During the time I´ve spent in primary school, I´ve established relations that in some cases went far away as nowadays, experienced goodness, friendship, the spirit of companionship, learned how to share and why to do it, childish love, solidarity arose in our hearts as we faced injustices that threatened our coleagues and friends, suffering, mental and physical abuse, outrageous discrimination we saw, so anger and revolt filled our hearts and minds . We hated our teacher.
Her name was Adelaide, a plastic smile on a chubby face, who seemed to be the wife of some rural butcher or pig breeder, she knew all the religious chit chat, that old ladys always used to end a sentence, making you feel like you´re somehow guilty of some greater calamity, reminiscences of her past rural life, among pigs, priests,fascist and obedient peasants.
She would tell your mother that you´re a truly sweet and marvelous child as fast as she would slap you in the face ten minutes after your moms gone.
She only truly liked three or four girls, but I do not agree that the expression "like" it´s of justified usage when describing the relation of that woman with children under her guidance.
She used those children to promote herself, the prodigious child, whose capacities were far beyond the common knowledges of other students, was a sort of promoting card always to be shown to every teacher, sugesting how excellent teacher Adelaide should be to breed such a great pupil, it was superb for her ego. The brilliant girl wasn´t an easy one to domain, she knew that Adelaide only cared about her menial achievements . But there were other evil beings who served all Adelaide´s dreadful purposes, snitches, two faced, poisonous snakes, little girls to whom their colleagues mean nothing . They were just like our teacher, self-centered, hypocrites, and delighted by the suffering of others.
As the years went by, I´ve seen malevolence in all the beatings our teacher inflicted on the black kids, one wrong answer and the old and heavy wooden rule smashed their little children fingers as fast as hawk claws attack is prey . Her smile grew bigger as the tears flowed over the childs face. She often called them idiots and stupid.
She intend us not to question the why of such behavior, any rule or norm. Orders were not be questioned , she thought.
We used to argue a lot, that got us more damaged hands and faces, as well as the feeling that we were right.
Four year we´ve spent on her companion , blacks, poor, curious, non-catholics, creative, truly remarkable children with an elevated critical sense, suffered, were humiliated and repeatedly taught , that our way wasn´t the proper way, that we were to be no more than outcasts, that we would bend as the ruling party decided .
She was so odious that we kept her memory as the one of how wrong can someone be, and that we shall not let those persons ruin our life, judge us by our differences, despite all the power it maybe invested on them, we shall not bend.
It was with great satisfaction that I realised how this challenge helped many of my old colleagues, and myself, to stand for our convictions, to be te one we want to be, not the one that other meant us to be.
Influence is something only felt when you´re exposed to an extreme feeling or situation .
The end of the world as we know it, the place where all ancient order collapses, hierarchies yet to be established, a generation faces the shape of a kingdom of frightening masters that share an ancient status, and stand as the guidance of this new generation.
It´s a scary day, the very one where you´re finally free from your parents guidance,where you´ll seek for your place in a new society, packed with friends yet to meet, the authority in the teacher figure, and then you realise, what major influence autorithy and established rules will have on the shape of your character .
Most kids tend love primary school, I did, but not everything regarding it. During the time I´ve spent in primary school, I´ve established relations that in some cases went far away as nowadays, experienced goodness, friendship, the spirit of companionship, learned how to share and why to do it, childish love, solidarity arose in our hearts as we faced injustices that threatened our coleagues and friends, suffering, mental and physical abuse, outrageous discrimination we saw, so anger and revolt filled our hearts and minds . We hated our teacher.
Her name was Adelaide, a plastic smile on a chubby face, who seemed to be the wife of some rural butcher or pig breeder, she knew all the religious chit chat, that old ladys always used to end a sentence, making you feel like you´re somehow guilty of some greater calamity, reminiscences of her past rural life, among pigs, priests,fascist and obedient peasants.
She would tell your mother that you´re a truly sweet and marvelous child as fast as she would slap you in the face ten minutes after your moms gone.
She only truly liked three or four girls, but I do not agree that the expression "like" it´s of justified usage when describing the relation of that woman with children under her guidance.
She used those children to promote herself, the prodigious child, whose capacities were far beyond the common knowledges of other students, was a sort of promoting card always to be shown to every teacher, sugesting how excellent teacher Adelaide should be to breed such a great pupil, it was superb for her ego. The brilliant girl wasn´t an easy one to domain, she knew that Adelaide only cared about her menial achievements . But there were other evil beings who served all Adelaide´s dreadful purposes, snitches, two faced, poisonous snakes, little girls to whom their colleagues mean nothing . They were just like our teacher, self-centered, hypocrites, and delighted by the suffering of others.
As the years went by, I´ve seen malevolence in all the beatings our teacher inflicted on the black kids, one wrong answer and the old and heavy wooden rule smashed their little children fingers as fast as hawk claws attack is prey . Her smile grew bigger as the tears flowed over the childs face. She often called them idiots and stupid.
She intend us not to question the why of such behavior, any rule or norm. Orders were not be questioned , she thought.
We used to argue a lot, that got us more damaged hands and faces, as well as the feeling that we were right.
Four year we´ve spent on her companion , blacks, poor, curious, non-catholics, creative, truly remarkable children with an elevated critical sense, suffered, were humiliated and repeatedly taught , that our way wasn´t the proper way, that we were to be no more than outcasts, that we would bend as the ruling party decided .
She was so odious that we kept her memory as the one of how wrong can someone be, and that we shall not let those persons ruin our life, judge us by our differences, despite all the power it maybe invested on them, we shall not bend.
It was with great satisfaction that I realised how this challenge helped many of my old colleagues, and myself, to stand for our convictions, to be te one we want to be, not the one that other meant us to be.
Sunday, 26 October 2008
assessment task 1
Hey everyone, sorry for my delay, been having some complications with my internet connection. Hope you're all doing great, please let me know if you find any mistakes or sentences that don't sound that good.
A great night to you all.
Ana
I am not going to talk about anybody from my family, but it is almost as if she was, because she is like a sister to me; my best-friend in the entire world, with that status for almost 14 years now. We met in September, the year of 1995, first grade, first day of school. Our adventure started then. Since then we have done pretty much everything together. We always had our own especial world in which was hard for other people to get into. Everyday we would get home from school and her grandmother, one of the most sweet persons I have ever met, would be in the kitchen waiting for us with the table set, full of cookies, sandwiches, and everything two little girls love to eat after coming home from an exausting (like we would say) day of school.
Everything we did, we put all of our hearts to it, even when it came to do a decent funeral for her dead fish. We had been watching some movies, so we came up with the idea of cremating it, and then throwing the ashes to some really symbolic and meaningful place. For that, we grabbed a match-box and put the fish inside. Then we came down from her apartment directly to the garden, where everything would happen. We said some words, trying to be as good as the people from the movie, and then we set the match-box with the fish inside on fire. We waited quite some time, half an hour I would say, but all we got was a completly destroyed box with a cooked being inside, and a terrible fish smell. The fish ended up burried.
We had a lot of stories like this one, but it was not only on the good moments that we stood up for eachother. Everything that happened throughout our lives until now. Even when she had to move to Lisbon, we kept talking everyday. She was always really important to me, helping me make decisions, helping me with everything that would come up. It is great to be able to share all kinds of adventures and stories with the same person for 14 years. We always recall the same episodes, the same memories, it is really nice to have someone who understands perfectly how you feel when you talk about something that happened, let’s say, 10 years ago. She had a great influence on me, in every situation she would be my shelter, my protection, almost as if nothing would happen to me if she was around, and that's a great feeling for one to have. Like that really known song (at least at the moment), " 'cause these moments don't mean anything, when you got no one to tell them to". Friends are one of the best gifts you can get from life, and I already got mine.
One should always have someone special around to share every single moment, those which stay in our minds forever. Everything has a different and better taste if you can share it with someone that really understands and sees you, in a way that probably no one else can.
Ana Cardoso
A great night to you all.
Ana
I am not going to talk about anybody from my family, but it is almost as if she was, because she is like a sister to me; my best-friend in the entire world, with that status for almost 14 years now. We met in September, the year of 1995, first grade, first day of school. Our adventure started then. Since then we have done pretty much everything together. We always had our own especial world in which was hard for other people to get into. Everyday we would get home from school and her grandmother, one of the most sweet persons I have ever met, would be in the kitchen waiting for us with the table set, full of cookies, sandwiches, and everything two little girls love to eat after coming home from an exausting (like we would say) day of school.
Everything we did, we put all of our hearts to it, even when it came to do a decent funeral for her dead fish. We had been watching some movies, so we came up with the idea of cremating it, and then throwing the ashes to some really symbolic and meaningful place. For that, we grabbed a match-box and put the fish inside. Then we came down from her apartment directly to the garden, where everything would happen. We said some words, trying to be as good as the people from the movie, and then we set the match-box with the fish inside on fire. We waited quite some time, half an hour I would say, but all we got was a completly destroyed box with a cooked being inside, and a terrible fish smell. The fish ended up burried.
We had a lot of stories like this one, but it was not only on the good moments that we stood up for eachother. Everything that happened throughout our lives until now. Even when she had to move to Lisbon, we kept talking everyday. She was always really important to me, helping me make decisions, helping me with everything that would come up. It is great to be able to share all kinds of adventures and stories with the same person for 14 years. We always recall the same episodes, the same memories, it is really nice to have someone who understands perfectly how you feel when you talk about something that happened, let’s say, 10 years ago. She had a great influence on me, in every situation she would be my shelter, my protection, almost as if nothing would happen to me if she was around, and that's a great feeling for one to have. Like that really known song (at least at the moment), " 'cause these moments don't mean anything, when you got no one to tell them to". Friends are one of the best gifts you can get from life, and I already got mine.
One should always have someone special around to share every single moment, those which stay in our minds forever. Everything has a different and better taste if you can share it with someone that really understands and sees you, in a way that probably no one else can.
Ana Cardoso
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