Sonnet XVIII

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

William Shakespeare

- let's see who is brave enough to post some more "Learner's poetry after this" ;) -

Does it make any difference?

Barren as the souls of those
who wouldn't pray.
Barren as the wicked hunter,
he who's now the prey!
Barren as the morally blind,
There's no doubt in my mind.
I'm barren, empty, I'm plain,
Out of colour, un-sane. And then,
does it make any difference?

J.E.T.

all religions need a God...


Thanks for your "tremendous" and "amazing" words.

Thanks for reminding us that "we have the duty to fight for our past".

Thanks for reminding us that we won't ever be able to go "de copas con Shakespeare" (we all know you really did).

Thanks for believing in literature and for consider that it has "life in itself".

Thanks for reminding us that we need "critical minds".

Thanks for trying to "salvar cerebros y conciencias".

Just thanks for teaching us some valuable lessons for our hard and real lives.


and He is ours.

On Truth

We tend to think that we are fully right when we are discussing/arguing with someone about something, but how do we know that what we defend is the right position? how do we know it is true? What is the Truth? Why do we look for that Truth? Why is my Truth so different from yours?


"The idea of life as a quest and as a journey has been underlined in this work. Apart from the references to the quest in The Serpent and the Rope, we have found several references to it in European authors and works, such as that of T. S. Eliot and Homer´s The Odyssey. This is why we defend that we all want to reach the TRUTH, no matter whether we live in an Eastern or in a Western society (...)

(...) I'll show you what is missing here once you have read your 20th Century Literature readings... I don't want to spoil them (...)

Apart from being universal, the search for Truth is what causes conflicts among societies and individuals because we have different perspectives towards this Truth (in form of Christian God, of Universe, of Advaita Vedanta etc.). This has been so since the beginnings of the human race: What is true for one person can be false for another one and it is just a question of perspective (“Truth is a question of perspective”). This applies to religion and philosophy, but it can even be applied to politics. So, this quest for Truth has a consequence for our human relationships, because in our opinion it is the difference in perspective what causes the collisions and divides societies into irreconciliable worlds."



From the Conclusion of "When shall we cease from exploration?", an analysis of The Serpent and the Rope, by Raja Rao.



**My apologies for my poor English.**

The Room

This text has almost 4 years... my excuses :-)


When they met for the first time, Paul knew immediately that they would be good friends. She looked angry that day, as if something that always goes wrong had gone wrong, once again. The look in her face told Paul something about despair. 'Can I help you?' he asked. 'Forget about me', she replied, and continued biting her nails. Now Paul was not all that sure about their future chances.

'Could you just tell me what's wrong?' Paul was surprised. He never thought he could say something like that, with such a sweet tone, after an answer like the girl's. She looked at him with a furious expression, and after a few seconds of tense silence, she broke down into tears: 'I can't find it…' she cried.

The hotel corridor they were in looked now cold and inappropriate for the situation. 'Would you like to come into my room?' She looked at him. She was not angry anymore. Sadness was painted in her eyes, and Paul felt sad too. The room looked grey and impersonal, as all hotel rooms normally do. Perhaps they were comfortable, but they were definitely not warm, thought Paul. Not a "Home, sweet Home", you know. The girl walked shyly into the place and sat on the bed, fragile and beautiful; like porcelain. Paul did not know what to say first. Maybe a simple "what's your name?" would work… That's it.

'Wh… what's your name?'
'Mary.'
'Well, nice to meet you Mary -said Paul calmly. And what's that thing you've missed?’

She looked down and smiled.

'My heart.'

Is English an easy language to learn?

Let's face it, English is a crazy language:

There is no egg in Eggplant nor ham in hamburguer; neither apple nor pine in pinapple.

English muffins were not invented in England or French fries in France.

Sweetmeat are candies while sweetbreads, which are not sweet, are meat.



So far you have taken English for granted, haven't you? Anyway, let's continue exploring its paradoxes:

Quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea-pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. An why is it that writers write, singers sing but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth? One goose, Two geese. So one moose, two meese? One index, two indices?

Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?

If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on.



What about this?

The bandage was wound around the wound.

The farm was used to produce produce.

The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

We must polish the Polish furniture.

He could lead if he would get the lead out.

The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.

A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

I did not object to the object.

The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

They were too close to the door to close it.

The buck does funny things when the does are present.

A seamtress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

After a number of injections my jaw got number.

Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?



Sometimes, I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.


Definitely, I'm going to take up Arabic and Chinese... xDD

"Proper" English

There are some rules concerning proper English that we know and try to respect. However, the importance of style is something frequently done away with nowadays.

I personally find some of these rules quite annoying -and btw demand an opportunity to express my concept of proper-, but it is obvious that they are still important within certain contexts, so there is nothing left for us but a long and nice study of its conventions.

Some stuff on this topic:

Famous quotations:

- "Ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I will not put."
(Winston Churchill, writer and politician)


- In a letter to The Times newspaper:

"There is a busybody on your staff who devotes a lot of his time to chasing split infinitives. Every good literary craftsman splits his infinitives when the sense demands it. I call for the immediate dismissal of this pedant. It is of no consequence whether he decides to go quickly or quickly to go or to quickly go. The important thing is that he should go at once."
(George Bernard Shaw, playwright)


20 tips for proper English:

1.- A preposition is a terrible word to end a sentence with. Never do it.
2.- Remember to never split an infinitive.
3.- Don't use no double negatives.
4.- Don't ever use contractions.
5.- And never start a sentence with a conjunction.
6.- Write "i" before "e" except after "c". I'm relieved to receive this anciently weird rule.
7.- Foreign words and phrases are not 'chic'.
8.- The passive voice is to be avoided wherever possible.
9.- Who needs rhetorical questions?
10.- Reserve the apostrophe for it's proper use and omit it when its not necessary.
11.- Use 'fewer' with number and 'less' with quantity. Less and less people do.
12.- Proof read carefully to see if you any words out.
13.- Me and John are careful to use subject pronouns correctly.
14.- Verbs has to agree with their subject.
15.- You've done good to use adverbs correctly.
16.- If any word is incorrect at the end of a sentence, an auxiliary verb is.
17.- Steer clear of incorrect verb forms that have snuck into the language.
18.- Take the bull by the hand and avoid mixing your idioms.
19.- Tell the rule about "whom" to who you like.
20.- At the end of the day avoid clichés like the plague.

There you are, proper English :-P