Thursday, 25 November 2010

DEDICATION

This little book would be inscribed with the name of a dear friend and colleague, if I did not feel how little worthy are my best efforts to be compared with his fine genius, his delightful wit, and surprising learning.
So CUTE!!!
This is Eustace Clare Grenville Murray writing on "Embassies and Foreign Courts: a History of Diplomacy" in 1855 - I'm reading the book as part of my research for the essay I'm currently working on: "When should one date the origins of diplomacy?"
I just really wanted to Share The Awesome :)

And given that I'm here on the blog already, I'll add a handful of random pictures I took a couple of weeks ago in the area surrounding Marylebone Station...mainly because I was walking to the station from Hyde Park, and I got lost, haha.
Have a good day peeps, hope to have time to come and write soon again!!!





Wednesday, 17 November 2010

TATE MODERN


is a fantastic place to be. I mean, it's all free apart from one or two exhibitions that you can usually watch a video about for free anyway (it was Gauguin this time, and the video was EXCELLENT, I can tell you) so basically, you have 4 floors of freedom and fun, 1 restaurant floor with an excellent view, and one extra interesting floor if you happen to have money in your pockets, which lots of people do, in this country.
How AWESOME is that?? That above is a freely, funly (just invented this word I think) -chosen selection of the most coolest things I've seen when I last went, last weekend. Thought you might like them, whoever YOU are!
To be honest, I'm not even sure what most of these kinds of modern artworks are meant to tell us in the opinion of the person who made them up, but this thought is already quite refreshing, don't you find? I LOVE not understanding what I'm looking at, I think it wakes up the brain cells at least as much as non-sense does. Oh wait, maybe that's because modern artworks EQUAL to non-sense according to my brain cells. Hahah. Nice one. I love non-sense.


Ok, now you might need an explanation of some kind. These are fake hand-made and hand-painted ceramic sunflower seeds. Tons of them. They're the work of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, and you can even send a video to him with a question or something like that, if you like. I did, I asked him why did he want to work with something so grey. I always thought that yellow, orange, pink and so on were prettier colours, and CAN YOU EVEN SLIGHTLY IMAGINE how spllllendid it would've been to have the whole room filled with happy colours?!?? but anyway...I wonder if he'll ever reply. It must've sounded like a stupid question to him...
...and there wasn't even just ONE layer of them...it was like four layers, and so huge!!!! oh my gosh, I've gotta go now but the Tate series hasn't finished yet, you're warned!! x

MORE STREET WORKERS (they are just so fascinating!) AND OTHER STORIES





Wow, this is officially the longest post title everrr!!!! On my blog, of course. Some other people might well have longer titles...well I don't mind. Everything's relative, isn't it? Oh, such an exciting thing to think about!! :)
By the way, I know, one of those guys up there isn't exactly a 'street' worker...I'm talking about the sumo-salad guy of course -I also got a photo with him in the end, it was SO FUNNY honestly!!! I couldn't help to getting close to him, under the amused eye of my boyfriend, and starting to pose with him showing muscles and stuff...hahahah NO, you are not gonna see that one! If I had more money, that is to say, if I managed to spend less money on chocolate, I would DEFINITELY go eat at that sumo-salad place in St Paul's shopping centre just because of the funny guy in the costume! Aww, I love him.
Anyway: I wanna write about something else now, so I'll make a new post. I know there might be no readers at all, but they say hope is the last to die and nobody else has died yet, so hope has certainly not either. I really feel like writing today, I have to add, so WHO CARES if no-one reads me!!! :D

p.s. I've had chocolate and vanilla cheesecake AGAIN. This time it took me even less than 15 hours to finish it...I felet so guily, so stuffed, but it was soooooo delicious!!!! Two pounds well spent, if you ask me. I'll just have to try and restrain myself from buying another one this week...

Wednesday, 10 November 2010

WERTHER

Irene Negri

Che libro ti rappresenta maggiormente?

Risultato: I dolori del giovane Werther (J.W.Goethe)

Sei una persona estremamente romantica. Romantica, nel senso classico del termine: perennemente alla ricerca di qualcosa, senti dentro di te una forza e un impeto che a volte ti stanno stretti, e che vorresti esprimere scontrandoti però con un senso di “finito” che vorresti trascendere. Ti emoziona sempre lo spettacolo della natura, di cui di tanto in tanto vorresti forse sentirti parte, per assumerne la libertà e la potenza. Quando ami, lo fai con immenso trasporto, provi sensazioni uniche al solo pensiero della persona che ti fa battere tumultuosamente il cuore, al solo vederla, al solo udire il suono inconfondibile della sua voce. In quei momenti, c’è qualcosa che ti fa esplodere il petto, che sale e scende nelle tue viscere, che vive, pulsa, grida dentro di te. Attenzione a non cadere in una insoddisfazione da cui sarebbe difficile uscire. Non c’è dubbio: il tuo libro è “I dolori del giovane Werther” di J.W.Goethe.

Tuesday, 2 November 2010

WOWEE

New month, how exciting is that?!
Oh well, I just felt the need to write something today. Sorry I'm not organized with photos...

Hey, cool, look what I just found out!!! Sounds terrific, doesn't it?

Which Historical Leader are you?

GENGHIS KHAN

A very cruel man who is a believer in himself. Although he is a very underestimating man of others.

Tuesday, 26 October 2010

STREET WORKERS





are COOL.
It's just hard to decide whether YELLOW jackets are better than ORANGE ones
or the other way round.

Tuesday, 19 October 2010

MEANINGFULNESS

Stop looking for a reason to get up in the morning and start being the reason others get up

[cit. Minna Kathrine Larsen]




Photos were taken in August 2010 on Isola di San Pietro (St Peter's Island), Sardinia, Italy

Saturday, 16 October 2010

IDIOMS

Here is a small collection of English idioms I've learnt so far, together with three pictures of flamingos I took through a telescope in the Hamburg Zoo last June...

(I like them because they look a bit like lollipops)
[...don't you think flamingos are really cute, too?]

It doesn't flick my switch
*
It doesn't float my boat
*
It doesn't tick my box
*
It's raining cats and dogs
*
Bob's your uncle!
*
You're barking up the wrong tree...
*
Don't beat about the bush

Erm, I think that's it for now. Please let me know if you know other ones, I really want to learn them!!! :)
p.s. apparently blogspot doesn't want me to write in colour anymore...prrr @.@

Thursday, 14 October 2010

047813658087478564764038014432

I suddenly love MATHS!!!

Look at these (borrowed from the very interesting website that I highly recommend viewing "http://easycalculation.com/funny/interesting-facts/math-beauty.php")!


Sequential 1's with 9
1 x 9 + 2 = 11
12 x 9 + 3 = 111
123 x 9 + 4 = 1111
1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111
12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111
123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111
1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111
12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111
123456789 x 9 + 10 = 1111111111

Numeric Palindrome with 1's
1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321

Without 8
12345679 x 9 = 111111111
12345679 x 18 = 222222222
12345679 x 27 = 333333333
12345679 x 36 = 444444444
12345679 x 45 = 555555555
12345679 x 54 = 666666666
12345679 x 63 = 777777777
12345679 x 72 = 888888888
12345679 x 81 = 999999999

SO PRETTY!!!
Don't you agree?
Ok, now let's use maths to count how many strawberry pieces there are and then divide them equally. YUM :)


Wednesday, 13 October 2010

POEMS











Anyone can write a poem. Especially in their own language.
Here are some creations of mine...if you can at least read Italian you'll get the musicality of it, on which I actually worked a lot! You know, when you don't feel like reading, thinking, staring at the world around you and listening to music, there isn't much else you can do on a bus, apart from inventing poems :)

"Food Zapping"

Stasera, se riesco,
faccio shopping da Tesco.
Anche Sainsbury's mi piace,
ma li' dentro e' una fornace!
M&S e' un buon partito,
fa venire un appetito...
C'e' poi Morrisons, che
ti da' due al prezzo di tre.
Ma la Co-op sei tu:
chi puo' darti di piu'?

[random pictures taken in Roma, Italy]


"Giorno Y"

Crumpet tostata, burro ed aranciata:
e' cominciata una nuova giornata!
(Suvvia, patata, via l'aria assonnata)

Svuota il lavello, riordinare e' bello!!!
Scegli un orpello che s'intoni al mantello,
prendi le chiavi e dimentica l'ombrello.

Una volta uscita procedi spedita:
bus numero quaranta e lettura preferita,
profumo di vita e menta piperita.

Sandwich all'una, con humus o tuna;
svolgimento di taluna mansione opportuna
per passar dalla cruna e andar sulla Luna.

E' un fatto, oramai: studiare dovrai
parecchio ed assai, per evitare guai:
su forza, dai, vai a svuotare i calamai!

Pane, pesto, pasta e il resto
non sara' poi cosi' mesto.
Fai un bel gesto e dormi presto.
[Leggi tosto. Scrivi un testo.]


"Ungaretti-style"

A. Il vetro
mi morse
porzione
di dito.

B. Padella
ustionante
bollo' pollice
ignaro.


"Terzina Dantesca"

Al pian di sopra dei grossi bus rossi
ci si diverte un po' come si puote:
gli scarabocchi, si sa, vengono mossi.

Io penso al lavorio delle ruote
che portano imperterrite il gran peso
di borse piene zeppe e teste vuote.

Il passeggero medio e' alquanto teso
si affanna, impreca al tempo che scarseggia
nel suo profondo, lui si sente offeso

perche' l'ineluttabile troneggia
e a nulla vale la sua indignazione.
In questo brodo Irene si dileggia.


"Sul ponte di Londra"

O fiume limaccioso
limaccioso fiume
sarai pericoloso
o salverai le mie piume?


[to be continued...I really enjoy writing fake poetry!!!]

Tuesday, 12 October 2010

BACK 2 BLOG





LOVELY PEOPLE!!!

I am baaaaaackkkk and apart from this I have to confess I haven't got much else interesting to say, maybe because I'm trying to do about two dozens things all together at the same time, and my head is kind of virtually banging on the wall and spontaneously activating a self-destruction control in order to prevent the virus of madness from spreading all over the universe...but ANYWAY!

Here is a series of pretty pictures I took on the plane, to start with. I ADORED this vision of a cloud valley up in the sky!

Hope to hear from (at least some of) you very soon!!! Let me know that you read me.
(Ok, well, I'll keep posting even if no-one does, but IT WOULD BE NICE to feel like someone is actually out there reading me, got the message? THANKS.)

love love love
and peace peace peace
and chocolate.
:D

ZIA ELENA

This post is for you Auntie!!
And that's why now I'll switch to Italian (sorry guys)

ecco le foto che avevo allegato all'email, come promesso
1.cameretta prima delle decorazioni

2.cameretta post-decorazioni (ma manca ancora qualche elemento)

3.tre dei miei coinquilini, quelli che vedo piu' spesso a partire a destra verso sinistra...il quarto non lo vedo abbastanza da potergli fare una foto senza vergognarmi!

4.questa in realta' agli altri non l'ho mandata perche' non ci stava...weekend a Leamington Spa, puoi notare gli alberi-fiamma al parco, il frigo dei ragazzi e la passeggiata lungo il canale, nonche' il viaggio in treno


Se clicchi sulle foto le puoi vedere in grande!
Un bacione
Commenta qui sotto se sei soddisfatta ;D

Friday, 11 June 2010

ARTWORK: BUTTERFLIES







Note: I was 9 when I did this, the other day I only refreshed the colours :)

ARTWORK: SUN & FLOWERS