A local hero: Justin Matthews of Matthews Wildlife Rescue

We visited Matthews Wildlife Rescue in Bradenton. We were touched by Justin Matthews' close relationship with and deep understanding of the animals. Justin rescues and rehabilitates thousands of wild animals each year. Thank you, Justin, for all that you do for the animals.



Justin with Bandit.

Presentation about my country - Czech Republic, Lucie

Journal - The Amish

On Friday we visited an arena in Sarasota where the Amish organized a chicken BBQ. I went there with my brother and his girlfriend, because I thought that was the best way to see the Amish. It was really an interesting experience. Before we visited the chicken BBQ, we made a small trip in a neighborhood where the Amish live. We saw a lot of people there. Men wear a beard and women wear a long dress and a hat on their head. We stopped on Bahia Vista Ave. where there is an Amish shop. When you are going to drive around, stop there! They sell there some products even from Pennsylvania. There was a beautiful cake 



After this visit we went to the chicken BBQ. I think that 90 % of the people there were Amish or Mennonite. It was impossible for me to distinguish who was who. But I discovered that it is hard even for the Amish. I spoke there with some people and one woman (Amish) told me that it is impossible for her too. This woman was really interesting and she was a big surprise for me. I sat next to her when we had dinner. She was Amish from Ohio. She told me that it depends on how strong the view of their congregation is. She decided not to marry because she wants to do what she wants. She travels a lot. She has visited many European countries. So she can use a plane. She can use a zipper and she has electricity at home. So, I was really confused. It was the best experience about a religion in my life.
Lucie

Eliska and the snake at Matthews Wildlife Rescue

SPECIAL GUEST SPEAKER: Hazeldean Meyers on Quilting

On February 19, 2010, Dr. Hazeldean Meyers paid us a visit with her prize winning quilt. A member of the Manatee Patchworkers Quilt Guild, Dr. Meyers appears in the photo above with her quilt that won Best of Show at the Manatee Convention Center earlier that month.

In preparation for her visit, we read "A Quilt is Something Human" from the Foxfire Books. In January we had attended the Amish-Mennonite Quilt Auction to benefit Haiti and became very interested in quilting (and in Amish-Mennonite culture as well).

During her visit, we learned so much about this traditional sewing art and how modern technology is used to expedite parts of the process. We even got to try our hand at quilting our own small pieces. Thank you, Hazeldean for sharing this special art with us.

For more photos of the prizewinning quilt and for more information about quilting, visit: http://www.manateepatchworkers.org/

Witness

We saw in Christine’s class the film Witness. It was directed by Peter Weir, whose goal seems to be to show the worst behavior from some people (urban American) in opposition to the best behavior from other people (the Amish).

Harrison Ford is John Book, a big city cop who knows too much. His only evidence: a young Amish boy, Samuel Lap, who witnessed a murder, while he was travelling with his young mother, Rachel Lap. John Book must go with them into Amish country to hiding from the killers and Book has to adjust to the new life style, and his feelings for the boy’s mother.

Weir emphasizes the way that people choose in our culture: the “bad” choose corruption, the easy way to make money, violence, and a lack of ethics, whereas the “good” have to break rules, and be violent in order to survive and maintain the state of peace. Things always seem to be twisted and out of control.

In other words, American culture, according to the director, always needs a superhero protecting the people from evil.

On the other hand, there are the Amish, a peaceful people, that know how to respect each other and their social, moral and religious rules. From the relationship between the grandfather and grandson, the film director shows how behavior is built as a cultural heritage. Everybody is a good person, everyone knows what his/her people expected from him/her. Rachel, although she had fallen in love with Book, stayed in her community. But this behavior doesn’t make her different from her people; she didn’t become a heroine.

Ivete

MEET THE 7

Hello. I'm Christine Lambert. I was born in Boston and grew up in New York. I have been teaching English as a Second Language for nearly 20 years. I love teaching because every day I learn so much from my students.





My name is Eliska Vrbkova. I’m from The Czech Rep. I came and joined to The University of Miami school in Sarasota to make new friends and have some fun with learning English.

Hello everyone. My name is Lucie Petrásová and I live in the Czech Republic. I wanted to have better English eight months ago, so I decided to leave the Czech Republic for the USA. My first plan was to stay here, in Bradenton, for four months but I love this place the school and my classmates. I have to leave the USA in 14 days and I really don’t want to. I will miss all of the magnificent minds.






My name is Ivete Santos. I'm from Sao Paulo, Brazil. I've been living in Sarasota since January with my husband and my 2 children. I came to the University of Miami in order to improve my English. Since then, I have had such a wonderful time with my 2 teachers and my 4 classmates, whom I consider as my good friends. Each one of them has taught me a little bit about her country, her life, her culture. Therefore, I am sure that I am finishing this course richer and happier than when I started it.I will miss all of you and I just have to say:" THANK YOU SO MUCH!"





















Hi, I'm Mari Takuno from Japan. I've been living in Florida for three years. I like the Bradenton-Sarasota area because it's peaceful and the nature is beautiful. The beaches, the sky, the stars and the weather are all awesome! I'm supporting Japanese people here in the area and I am introducing people here to Japanese tea, Japanese ideas about improving health and the Japanese-inspired jewelry that I make.

Poetry Analysis: Lieber Hans, The Creator and her Creature

Lieber Hans

Among the great and near great Hans waits the Judgment Day
Among iron grill and family vault, among marble crypt and
bronze monument
His sandstone slab stands six straight
Carved garlands, Christian crosses, proud names, proud deeds
are not for Hans

His inscription, brief to the point of tears, reads “Hier
ruht in Frieden mein lieber Hans”

„Here rests in peace my dear Hans. Unforgotten.” And the
Dates the fates allowed.

Hans who? Hans Helmut Eisenstein? Hans Schmidt? Hans Franz Schultz?
Or Hans short for Johannes Wilhelm Otto Seydlitz zu Seydlitz?
Hans loving father, good son, brave comrade, ever loving spouse?
Hans “gefallen”—at Stalingrad, in the Libyan desert?
Pastor Hans, the good shepherd, Bishop Hans who rests in God,
John Eleven, twenty-five comforting?

For Lieber Hans not even plain “auf wieder sehn.”

And Hans what? Hans butcher, baker, candlestick maker?
Herr Doktor Direktor Hans, chairman of the board?
Herr Doktor Professor Hans, doctor of laws, of lit, of phil?
Captain Hans of the Eleventh Hussars? Lieutenant Hans of
The Luftwaffe

Hans, my dear, dear Hans rests here in peace, his thirty-seven
years totaled and cancelled out,
His task fulfilled, his duty done, from inner turmoil now
Released
Hans whose tank rolled over Europe’s plains, whose plane flew
low over Britain,
Whose regiment marched through the Arc de Triomphe until defeat
Marched him to prision camp
East and West to freeze to death or starve or die on hospital
Bed or the broken at last.

The moving finger writes and having writ
Not all your piety or wit can add, subtract or decipher
more of it
The white hand that opened the purse that paid the stonecutter
To make of stone a moan has made a monument to a woman’s love


“My Hans lies here who was mine alone
Who was all the world to me”

Mildred Raynolds Trivers

The Creator and her Creature

The sample words carried into the grave: “Here rests in peace my dear Hans. Unforgotten.”

This sentence had changed forever what Hans represented.

“No carved garlands, Christian crosses, proud names, proud deeds are not for Hans”.
An American woman, a smart and sensible poet visiting a German cemetery, realized there was a different grave from the others. It inspired her to write this beautiful poem.

The poet met Hans. Two completely different lives had met each other in a curious circumstance: She, respectable, Mildred Raynolds Trivers and he…Who is he? At the time of the meeting, just Hans. She never met him, but she brought him back to the life again, immortalizing Hans through her poem.

So far from that fact, decades later, Dear Hans and Mildred are remembered together: the creature and the creator. It is possible because of the power of the words!


Ivete

Book Review: The Riddle of the Sands

I’ve just read The Riddle of the Sands. It’s a book written by Robert Erskine Childers, an Englishman and Irish nationalist. It was his only novel and was published in 1903. This book is recognized as one of the first great spy stories.

For me, that is what we have to keep in mind while we’re reading this book. We can’t analyze it under our 2010 vision, since the world, the literature, and the technology are completely different from that time.

Although the story seems simplified and impossible to be believed nowadays, if we think this is a story that took place in the beginning of the last century, it can modify our judgment.

Two common men, but determined as well. One of them, a very good sailor; the other, a fashionable young man. Two friends that had joined each other to a little sail. In the beginning, two different goals. Nevertheless, as the days went by, they agreed they had to solve the riddle of the sands. And, unless they were killed, they were going to investigate it…

They were not spies, and they didn’t have guns, only a strong desire to figure out what was going on in the North Sea. If you want to know more about this story, I suggest you read it!
Ivete

From Outsider to Participant: Reflections on our Community Participation Class

A LESSON FOR GOOD

As the number one in the world, the USA is a country about which most foreign people know something, for example the culture, the behavior. Nonetheless, when you are living in this country, you see things with another vision. You must face the routine, with the challenges which every foreign person lives with.

When I began my English class on January 11, I had made up my mind to stay in a school and learn the language as fast as I could. In the beginning, I didn’t think about learning English on field trips, going to local events. However, as our teachers told our class that could be very productive, I accepted this challenge and it was a good experience.

I was able to learn not only the language, but Sarasota customs and behaviors as well. After participating in social and cultural events, I could see beyond my foreign eyes. Here, seniors have a dynamic participation in Sarasota life. They are at every event, conscious of and interested in what is going on.

I could see the Amish and the Mennonite people living their peculiar life, using their tricycles around the city without any trouble with other people or other vehicles.

I was able to learn about the American System of Education, which is completely different from that in Brazil. I was able to learn more about the political system.

I could see more closely the changes that this country is facing nowadays, after financial crises, and how people are living with it.

I could realize that, although Sarasota is a small city, it’s multicultural, since there are people not only from other states in the USA, but from other countries as well. The people here are conscious about problems coming from the differences among people and are doing a good job to solve, or at least, minimize these conflicts.

I could see people very interested in any kind of arts, going to the Sarasota Film Festival, Art Exhibit, Dancing , Opera, like in big cities. It makes this city a very interesting place to live in.
Therefore, thanks Jan and Christine. You made me understand much more than I could if I stayed only in a sit in classroom.
Ivete


AN EXPERIMENT IN EXPERIENCE

This semester I have had the privilege of facilitating, along with my colleague Jan Holmes, a class of wonderful women with magnificent minds from around the world who were brave enough to take to take the risk to experiment with language learning in a new way. It has been infinitely rewarding to collaborate to create a class in which participants become a part of our local community, using English in meaningful activities to explore, debate, experience and participate.

This brings to my mind a Chinese proverb:

I hear, and I forget.
I see, and I remember.
I do, and I understand.

Thank you, magnificent minds, for creating this experience.
Christine

EMBRACING OUR DIFFERENCES: A Photo Essay of the Exhibit

This month an important event is happening in Sarasota: “Embracing our Differences”

Would you like to see it?
The place chosen couldn’t be better. Nature lends her amazing beauty . The sea, the sky, and the land are in perfect harmony, completely different from each other, but joined to make a wonderful world.

Perhaps, a person likes one more than another but certainly is able to see the beauty from others as well. That is the magic of life.

For me, Embracing our Difference is only possible if we are able to respect each other; beyond the color, race, choice, there is a human being!

Actions speak louder than words!

Who sees whom?? Who can see inside of a person better?

What a Wonderful World!

How the world needs people like her!

“…Narcissus considers ugly what is not in the mirror!”

If we don’t take heed of it, what is the way we are choosing?

Ok. We’ve seen it; however, could we think a little bit about that?
We can’t turn our back on this problem!

Ivete

Special Guest Editorial
Leo Huber
March 25, 2010

Opinion Essay

I think Norman Cousin’s laugh therapy is a very good idea. I think there is a lot of truth to the idea of a mind-body interaction. The mind can always help you and in my opinion the mind is the first step in reaching any goal in life. Without positive thinking, the body can’t improve. With positive thinking, your body gets energy, gets stronger, gets positive feelings, can perform better, and, as in the case of Norman Cousins, can even help cure disease.

In my eyes, laugh therapy is really good because it doesn’t cost you a lot of money. A patient should have the right to choose any treatment they want. There are a lot of different options in how to do laugh therapy, for example watching movies, doing fun activities, reading humorous books like Norman Cousins did. I think everything starts in the mind, so laughter is in your mind, too. Just as people with special religions don’t have to go to the doctor to be cured, people can use laugh therapy as a medical treatment. I can’t say that I have any medical experience with laugh therapy, but I have worked a lot with it in my experience with sports. Although I play a lot of tennis and I was often in the situation to lose, positive thinking helped me to change the course of the game and perform better. In my Mental Conditioning course at IMG Academies, I have learned how the mind can help you to reach your goals, not only in sports, but also in relationships, illness, school, and all of life.

In the end, I think laugh therapy is a really good idea because it can really help you. It helped Norman Cousins overcome his illness. If he had not found the alternative treatment, he probably would have died. Because of this, you can see how powerful the mind can be. If I had not learned about the power of positive thinking, I wouldn’t have been so successful in tennis. The mind-body interaction is so strong that it can help you to succeed in life.

The 7 open minds - OUR INTRODUCTION

In the beginning it seemed impossible.
How could we do a blog? A blog made by 7 female minds???
Block! Nobody knows how to do it.

Can we do it???

We can!! Absolutely!!! We can do it!

A blog in an English course, especially, at the end of the course? If we have to do it, we must do it well! Come on girls! I’m sure all of us have had bigger challenges than that. It’s a piece of cake!
We started trying to choose a name: a huge staff and some fun. We were not inspired. Never mind! We will figure out some satisfactory title. Although it was difficult to find the 7 mind agreement, at least, one word was unanimous: 7… 7… but 7 what? We need more…the happy 7. Is it?? Ok. Nobody wanted to heed it anymore. Would you mind? But we haven’t made up our mind yet.

Finally, at least, a title – 7magnificentminds!
Seven women and one blog: Do you think a blog can be mind boggling?
Readers, now you can make your mind…

Book review – The Good Women of China

I would like to write today a journal about one interesting book that I am reading right now. This book was recommended to us by our teacher. I have read just forty pages; however, I can recommend the book too.

This book is called The Good Women of China and was written by Xinran. She is a British – Chinese journalist and broadcaster, born in Beijing in 1958. She worked in Chinese radio and became one of China`s most successful journalists. Later she moved to London, where she started to work on her book. The stories from the book she heard while she had her own radio show in China, “Words on the Night Beeze.”

The book was published in 2002 and has been translated into over thirty languages. The book is full of interviews from her radio show. However, she also used her own experiences as a woman in China. The stories are about women`s rights, roles and suffering. This book shows us key issues in China such as son-preference, rapes, suppression of sexuality, homosexuality etc.

The first story is called “The girl who kept a fly as a pet.” It is about a young girl who was raped for many years, since she was 11 years old, by her own father. He told his daughter that she couldn`t tell anybody, especially not her mother. So the girl kept this terrible secret about a relationship with her own father. She started to hate her father and one day her mother discovered the terrible secret. The poor girl expected that her mum would rescue her and started to hate him too. BUT her mum just told her not to tell anybody. The poor girl found only one way how to escape from her home. She started to injure herself. Most of the days she spent in the hospital, where she kept a fly as a pet because she was so alone and had been in that place for such a long time. There were flies everywhere and the staff in the hospital tried to kill them because they transfer illnesses. When a doctor told our poor girl that she looked healthier, she found out a new way how to be ill again. Because of putting her baby fly in some open injury she started to be ill again and more than she was before. The poor girl died because she didn`t want to return home. This is a really sad story and the most horrible part is that it is true.

by Lucie Petrasova