Best Times 20

When Santa was my age he had short hair and blue eyes. He was tall and thin. His favorite food was milk and bis-cuits. His favourite sport was jumping with his snowboard. He had a pet rein-deer. Its name was Saltarello. He had one problem:

he could only say, “Ho, Ho, Ho!”

Matilde di Vitto, A2 (T3)

Best Times

20

Best Times

20 Magaz ine o f

Learner Writ ing

Happy Holidays! This special Christmas 2011 issue is packed full a interesting work. This issue kicks off with the ‘Kids Corner’ adorned as is our school by the cards and decorations created during the annual Christmas project. Some of the best cards from last year are also included. Another special aspect about this issue is the abundance of articles by higher-level learners on themes such as “Following in the footsteps”, & “Rooms we live in” as well as classics like Time, Love and Family. Finally two books are reviewed. I’d love to hear your feedback on any aspect of this issue. All the best for the New Year! Melissa Wing, [email protected]

From the Editor

2020

When Santa was my age he had a lit-tle mous-tache. He

was very tall and thin because he liked vegetables but he didn’t like sweets. He could swim, play lots of sports and was a very good student. He had three pets: a cat, a rabbit and a fish. He played in the North Pole with the elves. Santa Clause was a very happy boy.

Cards & Decorations

When Santa was my age he was short and fat. He had long black hair, big ears, red eyes and a big nose. His real name was Giuseppe. He lived in Poland but he was from New Zealand. He couldn’t run fast, but he could swim. He had a pet shark. His fa-vourite food was red hot chili peppers. He didn’t go to school

(Continued on page 8)

Cards & Deco-rations

1 - 3

Rooms we live in

5

Following in the footsteps of 6 & 7

Love 11

Cards 2010 4

Time 9 & 10

Assorted thoughts 8

Reviews 12

Family 13

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

When Santa was my Age

Letter to Santa Dear Santa, I would like a lego train and village, please. I have been a very good girl and I have done lots of good things. For example, I have lis-tened to my teacher, helped my parents

prepare the house for Christmas and not an-noyed my parents. I will leave you some milk with cocoa on the kitchen table. Love,

Clara Rosini, A2 (P4)

For good girls and boys We should: help our parents

to prepare the house put up the Christmas decorations decorate the tree with our parents We shouldn’t: behave badly eat too many

sweets or chocolates

Linda Leonzini, A12(P4)

Christmas Rules

My Snowgirl She is wearing a big purple hat. She has got a striped scarf. There are five red tri-angular buttons. She can play tennis. She likes cooking.

Katje Angerame , A1 (P3)

Giulio: Hello! What’s your name? Magnaour: I’m Magnaour the snowman. Giulio: Is there grass on your face? Magnaour: Yes, there is. Giulio: Can you move? Magnaour: Yes, I can but I don’t love it. Giulio: Do you like eating? Magnaour: Yes, I like eating chips. Giulio: Have you got a magnet on your fin-ger? Magnaour: Yes, I have. Giulio: When do you get up? Magnaour: I get up in the winter. Giulio: Where do you go in the summer? Magnaour: I go to Winter city. Giulio: Thank you. Bye! Magnaour: You’re welcome. Bye!

Giulio Porelli, A1 (T1)

Magnaour

Santa Claus Santa Claus is from Scotland. He’s 444 years old. His birthday is in December. His favourite food is lasagna and his favorite sport is skiing. He’s happy and he isn’t cold. In his town there is a big church. There are houses and his house is very small but com-fortable. There is a rail-way station where there is a special train for Santa. There are some shops, but there isn’t a supermarket. There aren’t any beaches. A1

BEST TIMES 20

For Christmas I want to play with my sister, my brother and

my cousin. to sing a Christmas song. to relax and sleep in my warm bed. to visit my relatives I don’t want to do my homework. I should pick and decorate a tree. be happy, not angry. play a lot. not argue with my brother or sister.

Don’t forget to help your mum. to have fun. to buy presents for everyone. I hope this Christmas is un-forgettable. Bea Gesso, A2(P4)

Christmas Wishes

Puzzy the Snowgirl Francesca: Good after-noon! What’s your name? Puzzy: Hello! My name’s Puzzy Francesca: Are you a bat? Puzzy: No, I’m not. I’m a snowgirl. Francesca: When do you get up? Puzzy: I get up at 9:30 a.m. Francesca: Do you like music? Puzzy: Yes, I like Christmas music. Francesca: What do you like to eat? Puzzy: I like eating strawberries, but I don’t like corn. Francesca: Is Santa Claus your friend? Puzzy: Yes, he is, for many years Francesca: Can you fly? Puzzy: No, I can’t. Francesca:Do you like riding elephants? Puzzy: No, I don’t. Francesca: Merry Christmas! Puzzy: You too and a happy New year!

Francesca Apollonio, A1 (T2)

Giada B

odigoi, A1

Aurora R

usso , A1(P1)

A1(P1) A1(P1)

A1(P1)

THE BRITISH SC HOOL OF FRIULI-VENEZIA GIULIA

BEST TIMES 20

Cards 2010

A good friend of mine is finally moving house next month. His dream came true, he will live the rest of his life in a big house in the country. An enormous villa sur-rounded by a huge garden is waiting for his family and the bank manager will follow my friend's mortgage very closely. This property is everyone's dream, he says, but I don’t agree completely. Well, if you can afford to employ a reliable butler who organizes a team of servants and gardeners, which will cost you a fortune, it is worth living in a house like that. But if you can’t, you will become the actual servant of your own new country lifestyle. My friend still does not realize that he will spend his weekends mowing the lawn and trimming the hedge. His dream might become his prison. He says he loves gardening; the prob-lem is that he leaves at 8 am and comes back home at 7 pm. I told him that gardening in the dark is not so much fun. I have moved house five times over the past 20 years. Be-fore one of these moves I lived in a luxury apartment on the third floor of a brand new building with an astonishing sea view. It was a three bedroom flat with a 35 m2 living room and a 60 m2 terrace. There was only one big problem: the owner of the 200 m2 penthouse did not pay the condomin-ium fees and the judge put up the whole building up for auction. Hence, I decided to sell my apartment and move on. The house I have loved most in my


“ Home Sweet Home” is the typical ex-pression related to the place in which we (usually) live. However home doesn’t always mean the place where we sleep and spend a third of our day. It could also have the significance of the surface inside which lives our spirit, this being our body. Although we cannot choose some of its features, we have many opportunities to change and transform it as we like. Because of the fact the body is the house of the spirit, we keep it fit and elastic. So it needs lots of care in terms of energy and maintenance. The clock which rules our me-tabolism asks regularly for food and drink, but not only that. The most important re-source we need is time to recover energy, and that doesn’t require only food but also sleep. As a house must be checked in every part for mold and damage, the body suffers from accidents and disasters. The less care we take of our house the worse and more rotten it becomes. On the other hand there exist people that use their house to express their feelings. No matter what sacrifices are necessary. Lots of the most important currents of thought were characterized by showy ways dressing: Hard metal heads usually wear truculent clothes to evoke fear and respect in others while flower children wore bright colours for the opposite effect. In this respect the house has not the meaning of an icon of respect. It’s role is to send a strange message to others. Finally the most common use of the body is to allow the mind to reach and feel incredible sensations during life. Some of these spec-tacular and risky actions like the use/abuse of alcohol and drugs are considered sports. Although there’s no way to consider them a necessity for maintenance, through the body the mind does reach new experiences in gen-erally considered wrong ways.

Paolo Marocco, C2.2

Rooms we live in

I ’ve never thought of following in somebody’s footsteps, but I’ve

always been fascinated by explorers and exploration. So the ‘proposal’ reminded me of a book I’d read some years ago, “Sad Topics”, by Claude Levi-Strauss. This book is a classic in the

field of anthropology: it deals with the experiences and the studies conducted by Levi-Strauss in South America in the middle of the 20th century. A particular statement struck me when Levi-Strauss regrets the lost “purity” of the places and the populations he was going to meet. In his opinion they had already been touched, and con-taminated by their contact with the “Europeans”, and nobody could hope to see their world again as it had been. Levi-Strauss also notices that among the populations living in the thick forest it is possible to find signs of our civilization, and expresses the impossible desire to know (to study) their original status, now lost forever. I liked Levi-Strauss’s mental at-titude: he is curious about hu-man diversity and critical of the so called achievements of our civilization. He bravely unveils human contradictions, but he ac-cepts and understands them deeply. He describes the tropics as “sad”, building a hall of mir-rors reflecting an imaginary gar-den of heaven forever lost and the problematic achievements of modernity as the two comple-mentary faces of the same hu-man nature.

Maria Grazia Kurris, C2.2

I t may sound a bit out of date but I must admit that I’ve been following in the footsteps of my parents for the last 15 years. They are my role models when thinking of family and work. My parents met at university because they used to write for the same students’ journal. It was 1968, they were 20 years old. Despite the fact that initially my mum didn’t like my dad very much, apparently because of his manners, a few months after they met, they fell in love and got married. Since then they have been happily to-gether for almost forty years. They had two children, my younger brother Giovanni and me, and we are both extremely grateful to them as we have had the luck to grow up in and be part of a strong family. Even now if I asked my mum why I was born, she would reply that it was be-cause she was in love with my dad. That’s so sweet! Looking at my parents, I strongly believe that ‘loving each other’ is the key ingredient for a couple to set up a stable home. To be fair on children, a family should be the consequence of being in love and if I had a daughter I would like to tell her that she was born because I was in love with her dad. Outside the family, my parents have both worked as teachers. My mum studied foreign languages, especially French and Russian, at the University of Venice and she has been teaching French in a high school for more than 30 years. My dad too has been teaching for over 30 years Maths and Computer Studies, although he stud-ied sociology. Thinking of how they used to talk about work at the dinner table and the long hours they spend to prepare their lessons, they have shown such dedication. They passion for their work makes it seem as if it has been the most fulfilling occupation they could have had. Beyond the interest for the subjects that they teach, I think what gives them pleasure is the feeling of contributing their best to society. So even if I have different job, being passionate at what I am doing is their legacy (and credit).

Stella Bernardi, C2.2

Following in the footsteps

BEST TIMES 20

W e, the people, are all very similar but are deeply dif-ferent one from an-other. This makes it really difficult to fol-low in somebody’s footsteps. Moreover there are too many factors that mutate as time passes making it even harder to emulate somebody’s achievements. If I had to look back on a successful career I would choose that of Bill Gates. The business magnate, chairman of the worldwide famous Microsoft software company has pursued, professionally speaking, all goals. Due to his brilliant mind his career began at high school with the first computer projects and continued on as he ac-cessed the prestigious Harvard Univer-sity, from which he didn’t graduate be-cause, during his studies, he had given birth to the “future flourishing” software company named Microsoft that required his full-time attention. In 2011 his net worth is estimated to be $51 billion. De-spite his great wealth the best quality I believe this philanthropist to have is gen-erosity; especially towards poor people. Since 2006 he has given up working full-time at Microsoft to dedicate himself, to-gether with his wife, to the “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation”. The main aim is to enhance healthcare and reduce poverty, and in America, to expand edu-cational opportunities and access to in-formation technology. This foundation has an endowment of $33 billion. My studies aren’t based on computer studies but on law and civics. I would really like to achieve remarkable goals starting from scratch, like Bill Gates. I believe to have all the means to succeed but I have to work hard. The most im-portant thing to do is never put business in the first place, it must always be sec-ondary to the family which is the most important thing in life because it lasts forever. One surely requires money to live but as an old Tuscan saying goes… “money is like fingernails, it grows back”.

Piergiovanni Cravera, C2.2

I was bored sitting on the riverbank with my sis-ter when I noticed a talk-ing coated white rabbit with a pocket watch running fast. I tried to follow him, but it quickly dis-appeared from my view. Suddenly I lost my balance and one second later I was falling through a long rabbit hole. But I wasn't scared and, above all, the rabbit was there too. I reached the ground quickly and touched it softly. On my left there was a long, long way to a funny hall with many locked doors of different sizes. I found a small key that opened a door so small, but un-fortunately too small for me to get through it. Peeping through the key-hole, a colourful, fantastic garden was waiting to be explored, but I didn't know how to get there. I was too tall. I caught a glimpse of the old table in the middle of the hall and a curious bottle drew my attention. A pink label on it said "DRINK ME”. I opened it im-mediately and drank a sip. Strawberry syrup. Delicious. But something strange was happening. Things around me were becoming bigger and bigger. No, it was the other way round. I was shrinking. What a strange sensation. This new dimension would have al-lowed me to enter that door, but un-fortunately I had forgotten the keys on the table. From my new perspec-tive the table was higher than an an-cient oak. How could I get to the top? Climbing? Quite impossible. I was sure there was an antidote to my situation in that room. I was turning to the right side of the hall when I saw it. A slice of chocolate cake with the label "EAT ME". As I took a bite of it I began growing. Ouch! I hit the ceiling with my head. I was about three times taller than usual. It is always a matter of centimetres ... but I had learnt how to manage it. I put the keys in my pocket, took another sip of the potion and finally walked through the door. That magic world was as colourful as it


THE BRITISH SCHOOL OF FRIULI-VENEZIA

Last week, during the speaking part of the lesson I had to discuss a ques-tion mark. I didn’t know what it meant until the teacher told me that I was free to talk about whatever I wanted. For a moment I was aston-

ished but then I was speechless. I couldn’t say a word due to the fact that that was one of the most challenging tasks I’ve ever been asked to do. As soon as I came back home I thought about the whole thing and I came up with this idea: our daily life is full of question marks to which we are to-tally unable to give answers. Indeed this is the source of most of our problems: find-ing answers to all of the questions, the situations that are unsolved. This is an ev-erlasting research, however, it gives our lives their typical, spicy taste. Otherwise we would be bored and our lives would be meaningless. I n the movie “On a Clear Day you can see Forever”, Yves Mont says that answers make us wise but questions make us hu-man. Perhaps I’m not that wise yet or maybe I’m just a normal human being in search of her personal answer. I believe that sometimes we don’t want to get that answer because we are afraid of it, we are afraid of the ugly truth that is behind it. Although it’s hard we should avoid this situation while knowing the truth can re-lease our minds giving us peace and, con-sequently, happiness. To conclude, we should try to be wiser by being fearless of the big answers to our questions and their consequences.

Nicoletta Pinesich, C2.2

A Question Mark I would like to be… I confess I was quite flummoxed when asked to write whatsoever I wanted, let-ting my mind “butterfly” around. Without a topic, my brain goes blank. However, I de-cided to accept the challenge and test my writing skills on this sheet of paper. When I was five, on my first day at school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. With no hesita-tion, I answered I would like to be a ballerina. Until my last year at high school, I hadn’t moved that much fur-ther and my answer was always the same. I wanted to be a ballerina. I re-call I loved imagining me on a stage, dressed up in a sparkling white ballet dress, dancing Swan Lake’s Grand Pas de Deux. I used to spend hours watch-ing old videos, enchanted by the sub-lime grace of Carla Fracci in Giselle or dazzled by the spectacular jumps of Mikhail Baryshnikov in Don Quixote. But my hero was the great French art-ist Sylvie Guillem. Technically perfect, artistically superb: she was my model, the one I most looked up to. Pursuing my passion, I trained hard almost every day. The dream became much more than a fantasy, it was my purpose in life. And I had my chances of realizing it. I had the opportunity either to join the ballet company of the Vienna State Opera and to enter the school directed by Carolyn Carson in Roubaix, France. I was even invited to audition at the famous Juilliard School in New York. But I rejected all the offers. Why? Beats the hell out of me. I don’t know. Despite all my child-hood ambition, I suddenly realized I wasn’t really interested in following a dancing career.

An entire world was falling apart, a world that I had taken for granted until that moment. And I began ask-ing myself the same ques-tion my teacher asked me


because he didn’t want to go. He was rich and so he had the elves as enemies. There were a lot of elves in War-saw. One day the elves went to his house and burnt it down. He went to them and said: “I want to cease this fight with you.” They accepted. He was very happy so he drank lots of coca cola, ate and went to bed and fell asleep.

Gabriele Bossi, A2 (T3)

(Continued from page 1)

When Santa was my Age

BEST TIMES 20

A Question of Time Time is a very important agent in our lives. It is just a convention, but we need it and we couldn’t imagine a dif-ferent time structure. Someone says that by the time they are 21, all young people should be liv-ing independently of their parents. I agree it would be great, but it’s really difficult. The problem is that you need some money to live inde-pendently, otherwise your parents would have to pay for you, and that’s not liv-ing independently. As regards a typical week-day morning, I’m always pushed for time. In fact, I’m always late, even though I live really close to my school (going there takes me more or less one minute). I’m usually late because I wake up late, as I always switch my alarm clock off, or I don’t hear it at all. Anyway, I’m late also when I have to meet my friends in the afternoon or in the evening, and in this case I can’t blame the alarm clock. The question is how, even though I have quite a long time to make my face up, get dressed and get ready to go out, can I use all that time, and when it’s time to leave, I’m still not ready. However, I usually don’t bother when other people aren’t on time, because they usually have to wait for me, so I’m not in the right condition to criticize them. In fact waiting for my friends doesn’t happen very often, because even though they’re late, I’m usually later than them. There is something about time that makes me a bit worried. That’s the fact that time flies, and we cannot stop it. As we get older, each year


Time and I I have to admit that at a certain point in my life Time and I started to get on badly!! I lived with my parents till I was eighteen, then I decided to leave my comfort zone and I moved to Tri-este so that I could live on my own (even if my rent of course is paid by mum and dad...). When I lived with my parents, they used to give me a hard time for this bad habit of mine: I couldn't wake up in the morning to go to school. They had to tell me to get out of my bed some-thing like ten times in ten minutes: it was very annoying for them. Now that I live alone I’m supposed to be able to wake up in the morning to go to follow my Law lessons, and in fact things have changed: I do wake up at the first ring of my alarm, but only be-cause I know that no one would enter in my room telling me to stop sleeping. The problem is that now that my par-ents can't control me, I tend to spend a lot of time doing useless things (I don't know why my breakfasts and my show-ers take up so much of my time), so that the result is the same as when I lived with my family: I'm never on time for my lessons. I would really like to ar-rive earlier in the morning at the Uni-versity, so that I could have some time to spare having a coffee or checking my notes before the lesson begins. What is worse is that I’m bothered when other people are late, and I think it's quite rude. But none of this happens when I travel: if I have to take a train or maybe an airplane, I arrive ages earlier than the departure, so that I finish with killing time in the most absurd ways at the


Time

For the First Time When I was 14, for the first time I had to fly alone because I went to a college in Cambridge. Before I arrived at the airport I was fine; I thought it would be funny and exciting. The problem arrived when I said goodbye to my parents after the passport check and check in. When they called my flight, I was scared and sad. An flight assistant helped me with my handbag and found my seat. I sat near an old woman who slept all the flight. It was awful! All the flight I thought how the college would be, what kind of people I would meet, who would be my roommate and would he be funny, in-telligent, unpleasant or stupid. At the end of the flight and when the teacher came to pick me and the other guys up, I was sad. In the end I remember that “the first flight alone” and my “first college vaca-tion” were absolutely amazing!

Simone Veronese, B2.1

The First Time I… The first time I ever wore heels was for a wedding of my uncle Claudio. My mother didn’t agree because I was only 15 years old and she was convinced that I wasn’t able to stand, but I insisted because I wanted to look bigger in the photos. So we went to buy them and I waited for the big day just to wear them. After 2 weeks spent stroking and rub-bing them, Sunday morning arrived. Fully dressed I was finally able to wear them. Going down the stairs was a chal-lenge and after an hour of the celebra-tion, my feet had turned purple. I was however in all the photos with the danc-ers. Those heels have been in a box since then. It was my first and last time

My First Time The first time I ever worked was last year. I worked as a waitress in a small hotel in the mountains near Cortina

d’Ampezzo - Crodo del Becco, near Croda Rossa. I worked a month and a half and received lots of money. It was very hard because I I woke up at 7 o’clock and I went to sleep a 11 o’clock; I worked every day and all the time. From there I could communicate only by mobile phone because I didn’t have a computer and so internet. In that period my parents came to visit me twice and my friends, but they stayed only one day. I liked this new experience very much but I don’t believe that next year I’ll go again. I want to spend my summer holiday in another way.

Marina Tunia, B2.1

life though is my aunt's cottage. I rented it for 2 years and I really en-joyed it. It is a very small dry-stone-wall cottage with tiny dark green wooden windows and a dark red roof made of very old clay tiles. On the ground floor there is a kitchen and a storage room. On the upper floor two small bedrooms are fitted with simple wooden furniture. The cottage is very old and built to last. Almost all the walls are 1 meter wide in order to keep the cottage cool in summer and warm in winter. All the casement windows are south-facing and the sunlight warms up the rooms during the winter. In summer the cottage is sheltered by the branches of a giant oak. I had to leave the cottage when I got married because of the lack of space; the cottage is 42 m2, definitely too small for a family. But if I close my eyes and go back to that period, I can feel a deep sense of peace and beauty which are the foundations for a house to be-come a home.

'Alessandro Lega, C2.2


Rooms we Live in

BEST TIMES 20

THE BRITISH SCHOOL OF FRIULI-VENEZIA

A Love Letter to the Sea When I lay down you speak to me, I can hear your whisper about your long jour-neys, your encounters, your life which is intertwined in that of others’, in the eter-nal exchange of experience, of joys and sorrows. You can be calm and peaceful, rough and cruel, fierce and tender like any other lover and I must take you as you are: you don’t belong to anyone, but now, in this instant, you are only mine. With love

Maria Irene Cimmino, C2+

I don’t know why I’m writing a love let-ter to you, but I think this is the best thing to do, even though you will never receive it, nor read it. Just feel it. When I sit on the beach, my body stretched in the sand I can feel your soft touch, your waves, light and delicate, stroke my limbs, caress my soul, become thoughts and words. In your relentless moving you are what life is: unpre-dictable and full of surprises.

seems shorter. That’s because when you are one year old, that year is all your life. When you are two years old, one year is half of your life, and so on. In this way, one year is always less relevant in rela-tion to our whole life, and so it seems shorter. Already now it seems to me that a year passes too quickly, so how will it be in five or ten years? I’m always wor-ried about not having enough time. Enough time to do what I have to. Enough time to do what I’d like to. Enough time to say I enjoy the life I’m living.

Cristina Melchiori, C1.1


A Question of Time was freaky. The white rabbit kept on running and asked me to find the Duchess's gloves. On a mushroom a blue caterpillar was smoking a hookah. A cat appeared on a branch and imme-diately disappeared, but its grin re-mained floating in the air. Straight af-ter I became the guest at a mad tea party, where everybody bombarded me with stupid riddles, those with no answer. Then I met the Queen and the King. In the garden of their castle liv-ing playing cards were painting the white roses red because the Queen of Hearts hates white roses. She invited me to play a game of croquet with live flamingos used as mallets and hedge-hogs as balls. Afterwards I attended a trial, the jury of which was composed of various animals. In the middle of it I started growing and because of this I was ordered to leave. But I didn't want to go away. Dozens of cards were marching in my direction. I tried to stop them. It was impossible. There were too many of them blowing around. I heard the Queen shouting. I woke up. No Queen, no cards. Just the leaves of our tree falling on the ground and my mother calling me. It was tea time. But that’s another story ...

Fabiana Sodnik, C2.2


Following in the Footsteps

railway station or at the airport. I wonder what will happen when I retire. I will have so much time on my hands that I think it's quite impossible that I will still be late to my appointments: when I have teas with my friends (as old as I will be), will I arrive when tea is al-ready finished? I hope that, by then, Time and I will have stopped fighting.

Orsala Grismani, C1.1


Time and I

BEST TIMES 20

Book Reviews

The Count of Monte Cristo The Count of Monte Cristo is a novel by Alexandre Dumas, published for the first time in 1844. Edmond Dantès, a Provencal mariner and future husband of the Catalan Mercedes, is imprisoned in the Château d’If with the false accu-sation of being a Bonapartist, a poly concocted by his companion sailor Danglars and his love rival Fernando,

with the complicity of the deputy crown prosecutor Vil-lofort. In prison he meets an old scientist who knows the secret location of a treasure; before dying, he tells Ed-mond. After escaping from the Château, he unveils it and becomes the devious

Count of Monte Cristo. From this mo-ment on his entire life and his efforts are dedicated seeking revenge. The book, which is a tome, is very fasci-nating. Although Dumas has not a con-stant style in writing (that is why there are rumours he did not write it alone), and sometimes it is so descriptive that you go on reading just waiting some-thing to happen suddenly, I really en-joyed it, I found the story marvellous and I sympathized with the Count, for his sorrow and loneliness.

Jacopo Zucca, C2.1

Jane Eyre Since I started studying at university my spare time has been considerably re-duced and therefore I have less time to spend on reading books just for me rather than those useful for exams. The book I am going to write about is considered a masterpiece in the his-tory of English literature and, not by chance, one of the best known novels due to several film reproductions; that is, “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte. First published in 1847 as “Jane Eyre: An Autobiography”, the first part of the plot arises undoubtedly from Charlotte Bronte's life experiences in her childhood, while the rest of the story is the result of her notewor-thy imaginative ability. At that time, the in-dustrial revolution had already begun but the progress had also negatively affected the social texture: women and children were overworked and underpaid in the name of economical prosperity. However, agriculture was still predominant in England. The author sets the story in the Midlands as well as in a few other places of northern England and provides a vivid portrait of rural society, which was in those days still feudal. Jane Eyre is a ten-year old orphan who lives with her wealthy aunt, Mrs Reed. Unwanted, she is sent away to Lowood, a charity school whose principal is the mean Mr Blocklehurst. Here, she suffers from hunger, cold and se-vere discipline: till after an outbreak of ty-phus when the school is improved, and Jane Eyre becomes a teacher. When her beloved Miss Temple, the new principal, retires, she decides to leave and accepts a job offered her by Mr Rochester, a lord of a manor house called Thornfield. Her duty is to teach, Adele, his eight-year child. On her arrival she is welcomed by Mrs Fairfax, the house-keeper, as Mr Rochester is absent. One day she meets him accidentally on her way to the village and even if he immediately shows his particularly strong personality, she soon falls in love with him. Neverthe-less, he is expected to marry a wealthy girl, Blanche Ingram. Jane is informed of the worsening health condition of Mrs Reed, who on her death-

bed reveals to the girl that an uncle, Mr Eyre of Madeira had offered to adopt her but he had been told that she had died at Lowood. When she comes back to Thornfield, Mr Rochester offers to marry her but the wed-ding ceremony is interrupted by a lawyer representing her uncle, who accuses Mr Rochester of having a wife still living. Jane has long suspected a strange presence in the manor house and she finds out that the shouts coming from the third floor belong to Mrs Bertha Rochester, a Creole from Ja-


This is the reason why I consider I’m lucky: family is a help, for me, not a trap. Nevertheless, I know some people can’t say the same; rather, they suffer

because of their families’ ten-dencies not to allow them to have some experiences in other counties or cities. However, this current image of the family is often due to mass media con-veying a bad message about families and the “thirst for es-

caping” the family. From my point of view, family is, or should be, or could be, a “launching pad” for children; parents certainly have to love them, but it doesn’t mean they can consider their kids their property: they are their children, but children do not belong to parents. Every new baby changes the world; after his/her birth, nothing is as it was first; therefore, we mustn’t “stop” our children: their actions belong to all of humanity, not only to parents.

Francesca Danese, C1.1

Considering family as a trap is, in my opinion, a rather modern way of thinking of this particular group of people that family is. Phenomena such as global-isation or the development of Inter-net and very rapid transport made the world smaller than it was just some years ago; because of this, we are more and more inclined to think we must move, go away, leave our home, our country, to get something we couldn’t obtain here, where we live. Everything that can hamper this target is thought as a “trap”, as some-thing bad we have to remove. Family can enter this group of “obstacles”. Even if I admit that I really would like to go and study in another city, but, unfor-tunately, this opportunity depends on the exams I have to do to enter the fac-ulty, not only on me. I have to also un-derline that I’m happy with my family. It’s not to leave them that I want to go away; furthermore, I strongly believe my parents are doing all they can to help me pass the exams I need to enter a univer-sity in another city.

Is Family A Trap?

happily together. From a stylistic point of view, it appears clear that by using the first person narration and the device of some questions addressed to the reader, the author's intention was to lead the reader to share the thoughts and feelings of the narrator. The style is extremely dy-namic somehow ironic, and a sort of symbol-ism and supernatural atmosphere are per-fectly set. In the whole story the temporal dimension is tightly connected with the emo-tional one: the passage from a season to the other is in perfect accordance with a precise order of events and the seasonal colours of the landscape and the climate reflect the feelings of the main characters. Last but not the least is the theme, which focuses on the emancipation of a woman and on her devel-opment on the way of independence, a sub-ject which still today is extremely relevant.

Patrizia Degasperi, C2.1

maica, who lives in a locked room in a pure state of madness. Mr Rochester tries to ex-plain to her his behaviour but Jane runs away on a long secret journey till when, pen-niless and homeless, she takes shelter with two sisters, Diana and Mary and a brother, St. John. Then it turns out that they are her first cousins, whose father was the uncle dis-posed to adopt her when she was at Lowood. He has left all his properties only to Jane but she insists on sharing everything with the other three. Before leaving for India as a missionary, St John asks Jane to marry him but she hears strange call from Mr Rochester and returns to Thornfield. There she finds the house almost totally destroyed by fire, Mrs Bertha has died and Mr Rochester has been blinded. At the end she joins him in another of his country houses and at last they live


Jane Eyre

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Ti porta nel mondo che conta

Hide and Seek 1.Where’s the

yellow pencil? 2.Where’s the

brown book? 3.Where’s the

orange ruler? 4.Where’s the

white cup? 5.Where’s the

white cat? Silvia Calgaro (P2), A1

British Council “Learn English Kids” Website—Speak and Spell section http://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/en/speak-and-spell Learn how to speak and spell English words with Sam and Pam, the super space spies. In this section improve your English pronunciation through fun ac-tion songs, stories and games. Discover spelling rules and practise your English spelling in the tricky words section. Enjoy our phonics games and stories based on Letters and Sounds. Have fun learning English with Sam and Pam!

Answers: The yellow pencil is on the chair; The brown book is on the arm-chair; The orange ruler is in the cupboard; The white cup is in the cup-

board; The white cat is under the bed

when I was five. What would you like to do when you grow up? The answer arrived unexpectedly. There was nothing else I was inter-ested in but to become a doctor. What a change, isn’t it? I believe we all have a path to fol-low in life. And we are allowed to make our own mistakes, and learn from them. Because this is what growing up really means, right? I thought I wanted to be a ballerina and I ended up becoming a doctor. What will happen now? The future is not ours to tell. But facing up to the facts, I know I made the best choice. Being a doctor is who I am and I couldn’t imagine a different (or better) life than this one.

Marina Troian, C2.2


I would like to be…

Best Times 20

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