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Hot Information on Freezing Antarctica-Quiz and Article

antarctica-79827_640pixabay

We are fully in winter now and although there have been some cold days here in Greece, no snow has been really seen in most regions of our country, apart from the high altitude ones. I know we would all like to have some “white days”, but until the weather makes us this favour, jump in here to do a quiz and learn amazing facts about the really freezing landscapes of Antarctica.

The whole site offers fascinating information, images and resources for students and teachers:  http://www.discoveringantarctica.org.uk/

photo credit:http://pixabay.com/en/antarctica-snow-ice-icy-men-79827/

A Taste of American and British Poetry

 

“How Do I Love Thee?”, Elizabeth Barrett Browning 

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. 
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height 
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight 
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. 
I love thee to the level of every day’s 
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. 
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; 
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise. 
I love with a passion put to use 
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith. 
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose 
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath, 
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose, 
I shall but love thee better after death. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861) was British and one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era.

“Daffodils”, William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. 

 William Wordsworth (7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch theRomantic Age in English literature with the 1798 joint publication Lyrical Ballads.

“If”, Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you   
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;   
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;   
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936) was an English short-story writer, poet, and novelist. He is chiefly remembered for his tales and poems of British soldiers in India and his tales for children, the most known of which is The Jungle Book.

“Hope is the thing with feathers”, Emily Dickinson

254

“Hope” is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I’ve heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me. 

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (December 10, 1830 – May 15, 1886) was an American poet of unique unconventional poetic style for her times. 

“A Clear Midnight”, Walt Whitman

THIS is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou
lovest best.
Night, sleep, and the stars. 

Walter “Walt” Whitman (May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.

 

“The Road Not Taken”, Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day! 
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

Robert Lee Frost (March 26, 1874 – January 29, 1963) was an American poet who received fourPulitzer Prizes for Poetry. 

“Dream Deferred”, Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore–
And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance.

Past Habits and States with used to and would

 Juvenile - Illustration - Children's gardening 1 - small

Here’s an excerpt from a well known short story for kids:

The Selfish Giant, Oscar Wilde

“Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant’s garden. It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. ‘How happy we are here!’ they cried to each other.”

Listen to the rest of this story that speaks of sharing, companionship and selflessness. (scroll down the page a bit to the stream audiobox, choose the story and click on play )  

Do you recognize the function of the highlighted syntax?

FUNCTION

We use USED TO to talk about things in the past which we don’t do now or are not happening now and they were past habits or states or repeated actions.

  • We used to live downtown but we moved to the suburbs a few years ago.
  • I used to play football every afternoon when I was at school.
  • There didn’t use to be a supermarket here.
  • Did you use to watch “Thundercats” when you were a child?

We also use WOULD about situations in the past, which are finished now. However, we use WOULD about actions or situations which happened again and again. WOULD cannot be used about past states.

  • The children would go and play in the Giant’s garden every afternoon.
  • They would stop their games in order to listen to the birds.
  • ·        They would be very happy.    

FORM

(affirmative)                    subject             +                used  +  to  +  infinitive

(interrogative)    did  +  subject             +                 use  +  to  +  infinitive ?

(negative)                        subject  +  did  +  not   +   use  +  to  +  infinitive

PRACTICE

Look at these relevant pages here and here

 

photo by  http://vintageprintable.com , portions of Vintage Printable by Vintage Printable/Swivelchair Media, licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. 

 

Παράξενοι συνειρμοί…

Από τη μια επείγοντα νομοσχέδια, επιστρατεύσεις, προαναγγελίες απεργιών και ανακλήσεις αυτών. Από την άλλη η άνοιξη να οργιάζει έξω από το παράθυρό μου με τη μορφή …βερικοκιάς. Για δες καιρό που διάλεξε…

 

O

Αθόρυβη, ήσυχη, ασταμάτητη αλλά και αμείλικτη η φύση επί το έργον. Πόσο κοφτερά το είπε και η Emily Dickinson…

 

 

 

 

 

Apparently with no Surprise

Apparently with no surprise,
To any happy flower,
The frost beheads it at its play,
In accidental power.
The blond assassin passes on.
The sun proceeds unmoved,
To measure off another day,
For an approving God.

 

Emily Dickinson