Happy Halloween!

(Photo sources)

If you want to have some ideas on how you could celebrate Halloween, have a look to this Halloween site: you can find costumes, decorations, masks, crafts, movies, photos, and scary stories of course!

On wikipedia, I found some interesting information about the symbols and the origin of Halloween. As you can read on the site, traditional activities include trick-or-treating; Halloween festivals; bonfires; costume parties; visiting "haunted houses"; carving jack-o-lanterns; and viewing horror films.

Last year, I tried to make a carved pumpkin, lit by a candle inside, by myself. It is useless to say that the final result was very modest (as to use an euphemism); anyway I had my try.

For those of you who are interested in fantasy, horror and mystery books I suggest you a blog I found amazing: the BookForKidsBlog. It is written and very frequently updated by GTC who recently retired after spending more than 32 years as an elementary librarian. The blogger says that he/she really misses the joy of bringing together the right book with the right reader at the right time. What a good activity!

As a matter of fact, the blog offers book reviews for young people of preschool to high school ages by a children's librarian with decades of experience in reading guidance.

While reading through the posts, I was immediately impressed by this effective title: “Love at First Bite: The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula by Eric Nuzum”. I suddenly start reading the review which I found very interesting and amusing. Last year I watched the original German film "Nosferatu" by directed by Murnau in 1922. Actually, since it was a very old black-and-white film it was not scaring at all. However, I think it is one of the most brilliant film I have ever seen.

As I have already said, the review of the book is very enticing but if you want to know more on this book, let’s listen to an interview to the author on npr. The author of The Dead Travel Fast: Stalking Vampires from Nosferatu to Count Chocula, Eric Nuzum, is very fond of vampires and we can consider him as a true specialist in this matter. He toured Transylvania and even drank his own blood in hopes of understanding the fascination with vampires!

Now I must go to get ready for my Halloween party! So, have fun and enjoy your parties!

Happy Halloween to you all!

Cheers

Making a good post

Hello!

Here they are some useful suggestions to improve your English and to make a good post! Based on our observations in class, we've come up with a list of what makes a good blog post. You are welcome, of course, to do what you like with the suggestions, but we all agreed they make reading blogging posts easier. Yesterday, our teacher, Sarah Guth, gave us some pieces of advice in order to improve our English by avoiding mistakes and being more careful at writing! I think I’ll frequently have a look at them and I hope you’ll find them useful. In the end, remember that when you write a post you should check it over and over again.

Hope it helps!

Martina

Checklist list before publishing

- check spelling by using advanced search on google. Look for authoritative sites such as American universities (edu); British universities (ac.uk); or files in pdf, written by professors

- Don’t overuse present perfect

- Pay attention to punctuation

- Be careful at word-order

- Avoid run-on sentences: you cannot put too many clauses and too many commas in one sentence

- Avoid spelling mistakes

- Typical errors:
COMMENT TO ON
MAKE SOMEBODY WRITING WRITE (make somebody + base form)
TAKE PART TO IN
SUBJECT- VERB AGREEMENT

- Before publishing something, read it out loud!


Making a good post by Sarah Guth

- keep it short, not too long

- clearly structured in short paragraphs

- 1 paragraph per idea / link /concept

- keep paragraphs similar lengths

- do what you can to catch the reader's eye

- space between contents

- only center a title or a poem/song lyrics, etc.

- justify a text

- links: not the url but just a clickable word

- links integrated into the text

- use of colors to catch reader's attention, to organize, to define titles and content, but use yellow, orange, red and pink sparingly on a white background as they're difficult to read

- check the size with a preview before publishing

- use bullet points for lists

To sum up: make it readable. English is a writer-responsible language, i.e. you, writer, are responsible for making what you write easy for your reader to read.

My first two weeks as a blogger

Hi guys!

How are you? What have you been up to?

I want to give you a brief report on my first two weeks as a blogger. To be honest, it was a new experience since I wasn’t used to read blogs and I’ve never created a blog before! You’ll never believe me... but this is the pure truth!!! So I feel thrilled and excited at the same time for the big amount of things I’ve just learned in these two weeks. What’s more surprising is that I was used to write in a very academic style last year (when I did a huge and tough work with Mr Falinski, Mr Garfield and Mr Scott). Now, I find it odd to write in such an informal way but I will catch up soon, I promise!

In these dark and raining days I was longing for a wave of life and so I took up surfing on the web. I read through many posts you sent me and I found out that I can learn a lot from what you write and what you think. I appreciated your comments on my posts and your compliments very much (I hope they were sincere!!!). You wrote me many compliments but I didn’t feel flattered because you also highlighted the weak points of my posts! Thank you!!! Don’t stop showing me my mistakes...Your constructive critics are more than welcome!

In order to make my blog more interesting, useful and effective I’ll create two boxes: help box, and friend’s box. In the first box, I’ll cajole the best links I can find, in order to divulge the kind of information you would never find in any other blog; in the second one, I’ll put the links of my friends’ blogs, just to enlarge our community! In my page, you’ll read the most enticing topics, featuring everything you need to know about what is going on, here in the fantastic university of Padua ;) Excited? You will be! So, for those of you who demand adventure, excitement and allure and look for interesting sounds, exotic tastes, odd stories... this is the page for you!

Every week I will regularly write a post on a specific topic you may find interesting. For those of you who are still wandering around Padua, looking for a decent room to share with “the perfect housemate”, here they are some Priceless Tips on Picking the Perfect Housemate. I’m offering you a brilliant page that will enable you to find out a way to cope with housesharing. If you want to find more on the argument, keep on visiting the fabulous site of the University of Aberystyth,Wales. And I am delighted to announce you that I will keep on adding many pictures, videos and stuff to my page, so remember to visit my blog frequently =) Oh... don’t forget to jot down the tips and links I will generously give in my posts.

I want to have a look outside myself and my life, I’d like to know what you like and what you dislike and also if you agree with me or not. I’m writing to you not because I need to get things off my chest but just because I want to share with you everything it comes on my mind ... and I hope you may find it interesting! I want to let you know that whatever opinion you have, I am really interested in reading it. Tell me everything and anything that’s on your mind. Far from laughing at you I will answer you. =) So, what are you waiting for? Just write me!!!


See you then!

Photo Source: Martina Urbani

hello, welcome to my blog!

Picture of the National Library of Wales- Aberyswyth

by Martina Urbani

Hello! I’m Martina Urbani, I'm 23 years old and my dream job is to work as an Italian teacher for foreigners. I spent last winter semester in the University of Wales at Aberystwyth, a tiny but fabulous town situated on the Welsh coast. For me, Aber represents simply wonderland! There, I felt completely at ease, I found many friends and I enjoyed campus life very much!!! =) For me it was a wonderful experience!

I am still in touch with some English, German, French, Polish, Spanish and Chinese friends. Due to the distance which separates us, we cannot meet anymore and so the only way to communicate is internet. I belong to two online communities of students or people who are friends or just met randomly. The first community I joined is studiVZ and it is composed mainly by German people. A few months ago, I joined also Facebook, a community where you can meet people from all over the world.

Last year, after having applied for assistantship, a Spanish friend of mine started working in UWA as a language assistant. Unfortunately, the Italian department at Aber is closing because of the low number of students studying Italian. Even though Italian is not a very popular language in the world, it is still taught and learned in many universities. That is why I would like to become an Italian teacher for foreigners. Since I still need much experience and training, I would like to undertake a traineeship or a Leonardo program.

In the university of Padua I could also enrol in the master “Didattica dell’italiano come L2”. I think that course could enable me to become an Italian teacher for foreigners, but I need more information about it. In addition, I usually have a look to the British council’s site and the Italian site of pubblico ministero. In these sites, I find information about the partnership between Italian and English universities. As a matter of fact, the selection is very tough and hard.

During my stay in Aber I got to know Welsh traditions, which date back to the Celtic civilization. Welsh people are very proud of their origins and their language; therefore they try to preserve and to defend their cultural heritage from disappearing. I think that a language does not represent only a way to communicate but is also reflects our culture and tradition. Therefore if it disappears, it will bring our memories away.

At the beginning of this semester I set my goal for the new academic year: to improve my English. We know that no language has ever been taught so widely in the world (neither French in the Middle Ages, nor Latin before it). For this reason, I think everybody is compelled to study and learn English also because it helps to overcome international barriers. I think that English can help me to develop a cosmopolitan, outward-looking attitude to life and I think that every language is a precious resource in our life!

Hwyl!
(Welsh for “see you”)