unfettered imagination

Lewis Carroll. whose real name was Charles Dodgson, was born in a small village and grew up playing in the family garden, constructing mazes and setting up puppet shows. Like his father before him, Carroll went to Oxford, where he excelled in Mathematics; he eventually took a master´s degree and became a rather eccentric, reclusive professor at Oxford. He remained there for the rest of his life and would not be remembered today had he not written two of the greatest of children´s books, Alice´s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

Alice in Wonderland was born one July afternoon when the Oxford don took the three young daughters of his college dean on a boating party. To entertain the girls - one of whom was named Alice - he began to spin together a series of tales dealing with the strange adventures of a young girl who falls down a rabbit-hole and encounters a nonsense world.

When published in 1865 the book was an instant success. In 1871, Carroll published his second and last Alice book, Through the Looking Glass, which recounts Alice´s dream of passing through a mirror and entering a world which is reverse of our own.

Through the Looking Glass is full of the odd humour and puns characteristic of Alice in Wonderland, but it also contains mathematical puzzles hidden under the nonsensical surface. There is a plot, for soon after entering the mirror world Alice is transformed into a pawn in a game of chess, whose goal is to become queen and win the game. After many strange encounters with the Red and White Queens and Knights - as well as with Humpty Dumpty the talking egg and other assorted creatures of fantasy - Alice does become Queen Alice, whereupon she wakes up wondering who it was that dreamed it all.

It´s essential to point out that Carroll´s work is immersed in the Victorian Age, time in which child labour flourished under brutal conditions. That´s why literature produced especially for children began to appear. Maybe the resort to a literature of fantasy means an attempt to escape a harsh reality or even the search for the lost innocence of youth.

time to unwind and... come back !

I do agree that it´s time to unwind for a while and forget our hectic routines, but let me tell you that a while is more than enough. Taking some rest is paramount, but being lazy is another kettle of fish for living at a snail´s pace is not healthy at all. It´s like flogging a dead horse and then ending up in a dog house. I know that we constantly look forward for a break, but putting our brains to work is also having a whale of a time, it allows us to get a move on and stay alive and kicking. It´s like being as free as a bird by letting our ideas flow. No, I´m not at a zoo, I just want you to be aware that I haven´t passed away, and I hope Alyne and Thay haven´t either. See you soon!!

new talents showing up...

as you probably know, we´ve got two new authors : Alyne and Thay. I already knew that they were great students, but it was a rewarding surprise to learn they are also incredible writers. I can even foresee their brilliant future. welcome, girls !!! You´ll rock the world!!!

The disillusion of an almost.

Even worse than the certainty of no and the uncertain possibilities of maybe, is the disillusion of an "almost". It’s the almost that bothers me, that makes me sad, that shows me everything which could be, but isn’t.
Somebody who almost won had loose, somebody who almost passed didn’t make the grade on the test, somebody who almost died still alive, and somebody who almost loved didn’t love yet!
The passion burns and the love drive us crazy. Perhaps these were good reasons to decide between joys and pain, but how can you decide between a good and a bad thing and choose the one which is not good but is not bad? You prefer to don’t feel anything? Or it’s good or it’s bad! Something that’s positive is good, something that’s negative is bad and the impartial thing, what it is? Is it nothing? Is it anything?
If virtue was impartial, the sea wouldn’t have waves, the days would be cloudy and the rainbow of different tones of gray. The nothing doesn’t illuminates, doesn’t inhales, doesn’t afflicts or calms, it just extend the emptiness that each one brings inside of itself.
I’m not saying that faith can move a mountain or that we can reach the stars, only the patience remain to us for the things that we cannot modify, however, to prefer the previous defeat to the doubt of the victory is to waste the chance to deserve it.
Don’t let the destiny guiding, believe in yourself. Spend more hours achieving than dreaming, making than planning, living than waiting because, although who almost dies still alive, who is almost alive is already dead!!!

Window to the world

Hi everybody!
Sorry for the delay...
My first post is a translation and adaptation of a text written by Martha Medeiros that has been published in "O Globo" sometime ago.
Sarah was a teenager who, as usual, couldn't neither understand nor be understood by her father. One thing that pissed her off was to travel to a neighbor city, cuz during the ride he insisted on praising the river beside the road, but when she looked through her window, she could only see a string of sewage. For her, her father was being ironic and fooling her…Oh God, she really hated that!!… Well, the years passed, Sarah’s father passed away before they could solve their issues.
One day Sarah was driving in the same road she used to hate while travelling with her father, but now she was not sitting in the passenger’s seat, she was the driver. When she looked through the window, she was able to see a gorgeous river and its pure water. In that moment she realized that her father has never lied to her, he was just telling what he was seeing through his window…and that, maybe, he didn’t even know about the dirty river on the right side of road.
It happens in our lives more often than we think. Many times we judge people cuz they don’t see the world as we do, or cuz they don’t agree with us and cuz we can’t understand why the act like they do, when the only difference is the window they use to look at the world. Instead of judging or pushing away those who think in a different way, we should try to look through the same window they use.

New Girl In The Area!!

Hey guys!! Took me quite long to show up,nut here I am!!
I promiss to post before sunday and hope you'll like what I've got for you...
xxxx