Post-War days

I'm reading "La cripta de los Capuchinos" by Joseph Roth and it's giving me a much clearer and personal picture of a regime change than I used it have.

I grew up reading Empress Sissi's stories, and I never thought of Austria in a different way except for the current Austria. In SL I live in post-war Berlin (1929) and I get that picture, but I'd never put things together as I'm doing now by reading this novel.

It must have been such a big change, so confusing to live after WWI...that now I get why it's called world war.

Some examples of art that took my breath away...

Art in our lives from Beatriz Lupiano on Vimeo.

Emotions

What moves us? I think as I walk the UWA Winthrop displays in Second Life. The entries for the contest need to fulfill only one condition: to take our breath away.

It seems simple enough as a concept, and yet as I look at the various entries I wonder why some skilfully created pieces don't make me feel much (while I appreciate their design and excellent craftmanship) while others just do take my breath away...

I don't have the answer. But I suppose all art is like that. Why do I like the abstract pieces by Kandinsky better than Miro's? What's different? Well, a lot but that's not it...there's something inside that tickles when I see one and not the other...

Just things I ponder on.

Impressions

I've been in Second Life for a little over two months now and I'm enjoying it terribly.
I explore, take photos, build, learn and I've recently started to moderate a conversation class in English.

One thing that really strikes me is the strong presence of Italian-speaking sims and groups, especially when it comes to the arts, and how passionate they are. I like that a lot.

Another gem is the 1920s Berlin project, conducted single-handedly by an amazing woman/female avatar.

And the immense potential for teaching and meeting interesting people. Some friends have told me their experiences in SL have not been all that good and I believe them, but fortunately it's not my case. I think getting involved in activities is one of the key factors to enjoying SL. So far I've had only one nasty situation, with someone inviting me to participate in an orgy -I made it clear I wasn't into that, and when he insisted I just left. I know that's not what SL is about and I've found really nice people with whom I enjoy spending time frequently.

Meanwhile I continue teaching in real life (first life), face to face, and getting ready to teach online. I'm learning to speak Dutch, I plurk....but I'm not reading as much as I'd like to. I miss being engrossed in a good novel. I am, however, listening to music a lot, especially jazz and classical, which is what I like best. 

Things on my mind these days...

Today's quote

Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand

                                                                                                     Bodie Thoene

Informal learning

I've been wanting to write about this topic for a while now...

I remember reading about informal learning during my training, and not really grasping the concept; I'd find it difficult to envisage the shape it would take, especially.
I'm now listening to an interview (well, listening and watching...attending) in Second Life and it finally prompted me to come here and express my thoughts and feelings...Because it is in Second life (SL) that I've finally understood the value and the concept of informal language learning.


In SL there are informal learning programs (yes...bordering on oxymoron, I know!); for example, Virtlantis holds tea-time sessions from Monday to Friday where you can speak in English and there are no preset topics. There's also a "teach me -teach you" program where people interested in learning and/or practising other languages can pair up with someone interested in their language (for example: I'd like to practise my German and a German speaker would like to learn English or Spanish -then we can pair up).

But SL offers cultural and linguistic informal learning opportunities with no previous organisation as well ,and that's one of the things I love the most about it. I visited a Japanese tea house and spent about two hours speaking in English with a geisha apprentice; during the conversation I learned some Japanese words...I wanted to thank her in her own language and so I asked, then I started using it -she also named the different stages in her learning in Japanese and explained what they consisted in. I saved the chat log and now can consult it if I don't remember. All the words came up out of curiosity...just like when I meet one of my seconda lingua group mates: he's Italian and so we speak in Italian but when I don't know how to say something I ask (first I guess!! If he understands sometimes I let it be some other times I want to know and ask). Italianiamo is the project we both belong to and where we met, and it's also a space for informal learning. Our coordinator is a teacher, but the activities involve creating and filming a story in SL in Italian. Group members are both native speakers and non-native speakers with an intermediate level of proficiency as the threshold. We discuss plot, characters, scenery, create the dialogs....all in Italian.


I love all these opportunities -what I notice after reading my own post here is that informal learning seems to require a high degree of involvement, you need to take an active role (or at least that's the way I'm doing it). I could probably count the number of times I've said "I asked" and get quite a high number!!!