Yoga, nothing to do with the physical exercise!

I've been told since when I started University!
"You should be able to assess yourself."

I'm not! Or, at least, not without great effort! But I perfectly agree that is important to know how to assess your personal ability in order to reach new goals!
To assess my personal intercultural competence was particularly difficult, because there are many things that work in our mind without we are conscious of. Schemes, stereotypes, help you to comprehend the world around you, and they are not always a negative thing, but we are not always conscious of how much they influence our perception.

So, to assess my awareness of negative reactions to differences was quite a problem, how can I be sure that I do not think my reactions are due to the cultural differences when it is so?
Our mind sometime reacts in a very particular way (take an exam of social psychology if you don't believe me!) and we cannot be aware of that.

Anyway, I really reckon it is useful to value these different things (Awareness, Knowledge, Attitude, Language Proficiency and Skills), to stop and think about it let you know that these kind of mechanisms exist, and then maybe next time you'll be able to suspend judgement, or just to be aware that your judgement is due only to the cultural difference!

About technology

There is only a thing...

Today I've been talking for an hour with a girl who lives in the USA, thanks to an exchange organized by my Language course at the University.

This morning I had to take a train To go to Padua to pick up a piece of paper to do my Easter homework for my Language course at the University.

Technology is a strange thing!

Hello, are you there?

There? Where?
I don't know, but that was the first thing that came into my mind to be sure that our phone call started! at the beginning it was...awkward! Because we do not know each other, but we were supposed to talk about several things!

We started in English, so that Elena could feel at ease, and talking about University, and why she decided to study Italian, I understood that her family (or rather part of it) live in a city very near to my Rovigo!

Then we went on talking about the new topic: terrorism and immigrants. I learnt a lot of things!For example, I thought that the"typical" immigrant in US came from Europe, or China, but now there are a lot of people coming from Mexico!
I appreciate the opportunity to ask her how did she feel about 9/11, because in Italy we saw it was a tragedy, but probably we felt it as a thing very far from us. I think she was a bit disappointed for my answer about terrorism, but she asked me about an "experience" (my own or my parents') that I could not tell her. It is quite strange but these are events so recent that we didn't study at school, and we are too young, so we didn't experienced it!
We talked a bit about election too, because Iraq is an important point in the candidates' programs, and it is time for election in US.

It was a nice experience! Really I was worried to succeed (technology problems of any kind could emerge!), but everything was all right!
I enjoyed it.

Padova-Dickinson: task 3

Ok group,
our task for Monday is to come up as a group with an interesting question about American Culture, looking at the answers they've given to the questionnaire!

We can start from my blog, where I'll suspend "moderazione dei commenti" for this week, and then we will post to our course-blog the question!

Looking at the wiki, I read that two topics we were interested in are politics and immigrants, and those two are the more different visions between Italy and America.
Then, there is another interesting observation written by Alberto about the idea of individualism...

The thing is Sarah pointed out we should come up with a question that could provoke interesting discussion, not that easy eh?
So, start making comments to say what you think could be an interesting topic!
I'll be waiting for your answers!

listen to the music....

I'm working quite hard, and I have little time to write... But I'm not only studying... the 7th of March I will have a concert, so my sister and I are studying, or at least trying!!

We'll perform a very particular duet: bassoon and guitar! we'll play this Paçoca, among many other works of Brazilian authors. I particularly like Brazilian music, and so to make you forgive my absence I post this video, obviously a flute and a bassoon are very different, but I hope you'll enjoy!

That's why I'm not blogging...

Have you ever heard of "Le sudate carte"? Leopardi knew how hard University can be !

That's what is keeping me busy!
Hope to finish soon...

Viva Viva la Befana!

As far as I know La befana is a whole Italian tradition, and once it was the only occasion in which children were given gifts! The Coca-cola hadn't provide Santa yet! (Before I was born, of course!)
When I was a child I accurately chose the socks to put near the window (we haven't a fireplace, so...). They had to be long, and strong enough to stand the weight of all my sweets... Before the 6th I wrote a letter to her explaining what a good girl I had been, but I've always found a bit of coal inside, which is the gift for those children who didn't behave very well, probably it was a way to explain that we can always improve!


Once, I saw her coming to our house, she arrived not flying on a sweep, but with an old Fiat Cinquecento; me, my sister and my cousins were outside in that very moment, playing something or running, I cannot remember, but what I cannot forget is that I was so scared... My cousin, who was a little older, and couldn't believe in such things, went on claiming that she was a fake, but the thing was that all our relatives were there, so it was hard to identify her real identity. To my eyes she actually was the real Befana, and I think that was the better gift I could receive!

...something like 10 years later we finally managed to understand who she was, anyway that's not important, our parents organized a marvellous surprise!

La befana vien di notte
con le scarpe tutte rotte
col vestito alla romana
viva viva la Befana!

Merry Christmas!

I was quiet sceptical about writing a post to describe my Christmas celebration before reading the comment to my last post, but now that I'm sure there's at least one's going to read me, I can't avoid!

This has been a very lucky Christmas, I had marvellous presents, such as time to reflect on what this Christmas means to me, chance to look into my friend's eyes wishing them a merry Christmas... I've seen my little cousins opening their presents as if there is nothing else they want, I've made some of Christmas presents by myself, and I saw how surprised was who received them, while I was afraid they could consider them too poor as presents...

It has been a Christmas full of joy, and I managed to organize what I usually have to do for this celebration in order to have time enough to do everything! And that was the great present I made to myself! I've seen so many people around me to remember me that I'm so lucky!

I wish all my Christmas could be so full of joy and laughing!

And I wish you are spending great time during this holiday!

What about Christmas?

I was wondering around the blogosphere, and of course reading many posts about Christmas, when I started thinking about writing my own post about Christmas... Then I realized that I 'm supposed to use English to write in this blog of mine, and I was considering how hard it could be to write down all my thoughts about Christmas (my feelings towards this celebration, what I'm doing for it etc, etc...).

To use a second language to express yourself is not that difficult, if you're not describing the way you feel; then you have to make an effort to find the right words, and it always seems to me that there are no words to translate exactly what you mean, because there are so many shades of meaning you're aware of when you're using your mother tongue, that you inevitably feel uncomfortable translating them!

On the other hand, that forces me to think before start writing, instead of writing whatever comes into my head! Which is of course an advantage for people who read my posts, they could never find a subsequence of words that means almost nothing... I hope!

I know that it has not a lot to do with Christmas, but it was thinking about Christmas that I made this sort of thought! So, I'll write something about the celebration during Christmas Holiday!

Our last activity... or just latest?

Hi guys!

Have you seen Sarah's post? We're going to work hard during Christmas Holiday!!

Anyway, she suggested us to get peer feedback before sending the papers, so... probably it would be useful to know our e-mail addresses!Thinking about it... you can send a comment on this post with your e-mail address, as you now perfectly know I read them before publishing (moderazione dei commenti is active on my blog), so I can read your addresses, then I'll send you an e-mail with our group's e-mail, and then I won't publish your comment, so that I'll be the only one able to read them!

Hopefully it will be easier to do than to explain!

Let me know whether you agree or not!
bye