Reading Shakespeare and Writing too

This dialogue happened in the past: 
- Why do you study English? 
- I want to read Shakespeare in original. 
This answer was being perceived by me as a joke. 
Really, it seemed an incredibly difficult to read Shakespeare. But let's challenge you and try.

This is Sonnet one:

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And tender churl mak'st waste in niggarding.

Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee.

William Shakespeare
A few comments which were founded by me in the Internet:
from fairest creatures = from all beautiful creatures;
we desire increase = we want offspring;
riper = more ripe;
contracted to = bound only to. 
The sonnet one is addressed to the poet's breathtaking friend, whose identity is unknown, assuming he existed at all. The poet's focus in this sonnet is to persuade his friend to start a family so that his beauty can live on through his children. 

After reading Shakespeare, I tried to create my one sonnet with another interpretation. This is the result:

When beauty goes forward
In hope to keep this forever
The clever sees toward
It would be reached newer

Without idea
No chance to succeed
No matter well-being
When body with mind would be disagreed

If you catch your love
Your happiness is
Here and after the trouble
The Phoenix appears

And remember, please:

Without your desires this careless world
Would become not yours

Anatoly non-Shakespeare

Thanks to the teacher Alexsis for assisting me in this deal. The class with Alexsis in online English school albert-learning.com gave me inspiration for the friendly competition with Shakespeare.

The Giant's Causeway

The Giant's Causeway is a tourist attraction from Northern Ireland which I never heard before. We did a reading activity about it with a group of learners of English inside the virtual world Second Life (secondlife.com).



The Giant Causeway includes a lot of basalt columns which were made by nature and they look similar to each other. The name of this place is linked with a legend about giants from this place and Scotland. Origin of this natural phenomena gave the birth to many assumptions before the science made a final conclusion that it is the result of an ancient volcanic eruption when lava met the sea.

An area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO and a national nature reserve of Northern Ireland. The tops of the columns form stepping stones that lead from the cliff foot and disappear under the sea. Most of the columns are hexagonal, although there are also some with four, five, seven or eight sides.

This place was ranked in the top of tourist attractions in the United Kingdom. The way it looks reminds of the contrast between artificial and natural buildings. This brings the attention of people and makes me wish to visit this place.


This story was written after Marga's class at the Reading Circle in Cypris Chat.

Cypris Chat is a not-for-profit virtual world English language learning community located in a virtual world called "Second Life" created by Linden Lab. Cypris Chat is not a school, however, we offer “practice times” in the form of organized lessons, discussions, chats, events, and activities. Come see for yourself just how exciting this new way of learning can be. Join Second Life at http://secondlife.com and then teleport to Cypris Village.

This story was corrected by the teacher Alina during the class in the online language school albert-learning.com. The information about corrections was kept here.

What would you do if you knew that this was the last night of the world?

What would you do if you knew that this was the last night of the world? - this question was asked at the beginning of the short story written by Ray Bradbury "The Last Night of the World".



The writer described the conversation between the spouses about this news in a very routine manner. The feelings of the ordinary daily routine were completed in the last passage of the story when the wife stood up from their bed saying "I left the water running in the kitchen. I turned the faucet off." (faucet: a device that is used to control the flow of water from a pipe).

The readers would probably expect to see the dramatic effect, as a result of a turning point of their life's. The writer decided on another: nothing happened, they said good night each other and fell asleep.

It could be classified as an anticlimax (anticlimax – а conclusion that is unsatisfying because is does not meet the expectations that the narrative has been building toward).

The question posed in the title of the story seems dramatic, however, it is only part of the time related to the end of the period. Everyone understands that everything has a beginning and an end. It is very interesting how genius writer described details of everyday life for the purposes of giving the readers an extraordinary impression of ordinary acts.

This analysis of the Bradbury's masterpiece was discussed during the class with the teacher Varvara in the online school albert-learning.com

Talking about Panama

I talked about Panama with Montsi who is from this country and she told me about the top tourist attractions of this place.

Panama is a very modern city with a lot of skyscrapers.

One of the tourist attractions is the old town, Casco Viejo.

Casco Viejo (Spanish for Old Quarter) is the historic district of Panama City. It was built following the near-total destruction of the original Panamá city when the city was attacked by pirates and it was burned afterwards. It was designated as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

A particular thing about this area is that it has many churches. One of them is the most prominent point of interest in the old city. It is the Church of San Jose which is home to the famous Golden Altar.

Golden Altar, Iglesia San Jose.

Now, about economics. Panama canal is the main financial resource for the country. It was owned by the US. The free trade agreement with the United States is expected to boost economic expansion. Nevertheless, Panama remains a country of stark contrasts. According to the report of the World Bank about a quarter of the population lives in poverty. 

Panama canal is one of the wonders of the world. The most interesting thing is to get a boat and travel around the canal. On the weekends, upper-class locals also like a lot to go to different islands around the city by yachts.

San Blas Islands include 400 islands. They are one-hundred percent virgin islands. It means there are no any types of modern conveniences such as electricity. They are populated by indigenous native group Guna. There are no luxurious hotels. It could seem that staying it this place is not an expensive type of beach holiday but it is not true. The taxes were imposed by Panama's government which made this tour quite expensive. And what we have instead? Since there are no showers nor bathrooms, tourists need to pour water from water tanks. If you are ready for that kind of holiday, you should try it.

I talked about Panama with teacher Montsi in online English school engoo.com

Taste of Serbia

We talked about Serbia with Mariah who is from this country and the information about raspberries was quite interesting.

Did you know that raspberries which we eat are probably from Serbia? Serbia has the largest share of export raspberry around the world. 95% of the world's raspberries came from Serbia.

Raspberry is my favorite berry and the fact described above added an additional attraction of this country :)



This is a link to the article about 22 interesting facts about Serbia you've probably never heard before:

http://www.serbia.com/22-interesting-facts-serbia-probably-never-heard/

We talked about Serbia with teacher Mariah in online English school engoo.com

From Port of Plymouth to America

The city Plymouth is located on the South of England. Ian who is from this place told me about his home town.

Plymouth became famous in the time of discovering the New World. The Port of Plymouth is where the Pilgrims boarded the Mayflower in 1620 to set sail for America.

It is why many tourists attractions are dedicated to this event. One of them is a granite block which marks the entryway to the famous Mayflower Steps dated by the time of the 17th century. Next, the Mayflower Museum represents an exhibition about an epoch of exploring America.

Tourists can buy in the museum's shop Pilgrim-themed souvenirs and other attractions such as Smeaton's Tower (a 1759 lighthouse) and the Elizabethan House (a sea captain's home built in the era of Sir Francis Drake).

It is still a very busy port for fishermen.



Because it is a port there are a lot of transatlantic yachts there.

The impression about Plymouth is that life here is flowing slowly. Seaside town with a cold sea is a very different from a town on the warm sea. If you want to find the calm and peaceful place, this city corresponds to such wishes.

We had this conversation with the teacher Ian in online English school engoo.com

Purple Cow with Cash

The teacher proposed that after class of reading poems the students will decide to write them.

This is a poem which we read:

Purple cow

I never saw a Purple Cow,

I never hope to see one;

But I can tell you, anyhow,

I'd rather see than be one.

And this is a sequel which was written by me after the class:

And better have cash cow

Than living a poor life

And happiness just now

Much better than beside

For information:
Cash-cow is business jargon for a business venture that generates a steady return of profits that far exceed the outlay of cash required to acquire or start it. Many businesses attempt to create or acquire such ventures since they can be used to boost a company's overall income and to support less profitable endeavors.
Wikipedia.


This poem was read during the class in online English school albert-learning.com with the teacher Alexsis and the student Sebastien.