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During his early career, Eliade was a prominent journalist and essayist. He was a follower of the far-right journalist and philosopher named Nae Ionescu; he was a member of the “Criterion” literary society. He also had the position of cultural attaché to Portugal and UK. During the 1930s, Eliade often expressed his sympathy towards a Romanian fascist and anti-Semitic political organization called “The Iron Guard.” These early political involvements became the subject of criticism towards Eliade after the 2nd World War. Despite his controversial early-life political views, Eliade was and still is highly appreciated all over the world due to his vast erudition, fine intelligence and deepness of spirit. Eliade knew very well 5 languages – Romanian, English, French, Italian and German. He could also read in Hebrew, Persian and Sanskrit.

His prodigious memory enabled him to acquire such impressive amount of knowledge. But his memory also helped him remember many childhood episodes that he referred to in some of his writings. Here is a quotation of his referring to such unusual childhood episode: “I practiced for many years [the] exercise of recapturing that epiphanic moment, and I would always find again the same plenitude. I would slip into it as into a fragment of time devoid of duration – without beginning, middle, or end. During my last years of lycée, when I struggled with profound attacks of melancholy, I still succeeded at times in returning to the golden green light of that afternoon. [...] But even though the beatitude was the same, it was now impossible to bear because it aggravated my sadness too much. By this time I knew the world to which the drawing room belonged [...] was a world forever lost.” Indeed, this understanding of the impossibility to return to the childhood and adolescent state of mind and experience might have inspired his myth of Eternal Return.

When the Communist regime began to show signs of taking hold of Romania, Eliade decided not to return to his native country. Thus, in 1945, he moved to France also taking his adopted daughter Giza there. Arrived there, Eliade came again into contact with Dumézil, who enabled him to recover his academic position. Following Dumézil’s recommendation, Eliade began teaching at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Practical School of High-Studies) in Paris. At that time, he is said to work even 15 hours per day. In France, Eliade married the second time to Cristinel Cotescu, a Romanian exile. There in France Eliade rallied with some Romanian expatriates including Emil Cioran and Alexandru Busuioceanu, who helped him publicize his anti-communist point of view to the eyes of the Western European readers. Eliade also got briefly involved in the publication of “Luceafarul” (“The Morning Star”), a magazine written in the Romanian language. Continue reading »

Did your teen fawn over Twilight? Did she read that entire brick of a book in one night? This could be because she loves the idea of vampires, but it is more likely because it is a compelling romance. Romance novels for teens are a huge hit because so many of them are just trying out their first romances and they want to know how it’s done. Plus, many of these couples in young adult romance novels face situations that just aren’t fair and that keep them apart unnecessarily, and young adult readers tend to really respond to those themes. If your student devours romance novels, some titles to consider are the Perfect Chemistry books by Simone Elkeles, Forget You by Jennifer Echols, and The Truth about Forever by Sarah Dessen.

Science Fiction/Fantasy

If your teenager grew up with Harry Potter, there’s a good chance, he or she is mourning the end of the series as well as the final movie that came out this year. Rather than read the whole series again, there are some great science fiction and fantasy novels out there that will have your students taken away to a new world in no time. The best thing about science fiction and fantasy novels is that they usually come in series of multiple books, so it is really easy for your child to pick up the next book in the series when he or she is done with the first. Some books in this genre include The Dark Side of Nowhere by Neal Shusterman, A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, and Graceling by Kristin Cashore.

Memoirs Continue reading »

A poetry slam is an event during which several poets perform original poetry to an audience. These slam poets compete against each other for points, though there isn’t usually much of a prize to be won, and the judges are randomly selected audience members. In this way, slam poets need to be really good at crowd appeal. They can’t just get up to the stage and read a poem; rather, they must include a performance aspect to catch the audience’s attention. Props are not allowed in poetry slams, however, so the performance must be about the poet and the poem. Poems are sometimes sung, rapped, shouted, or whispered depending on the poet’s style and the tone of the poem. During a poetry slam, poets compete in three rounds. The first round is usually all-inclusive with as many as eight poets performing. The second round has four participants, and the final round has two. There are usually five randomly selected judges, and they score the poets between zero and ten. The lowest and highest score are dropped to give the poets each a score out of thirty. The highest scoring poets advance to the next round, in which they perform different poems than their first rounds.

How Poetry Slams Started?

In Chicago in 1984, Marc Smith started an open mic at the Get Me High lounge where poets started performing poems rather than just reading them. Despite the poetry community scoffing at the idea of poets performing rather than reading, this method gained popularity. Two years later, in 1986, the poetry slams moved to their current home at the Green Mill Jazz Club in Chicago. It didn’t take long for poetry slams to gain national attention; the first national poetry slam was held in 1990 – just four years later – in San Francisco. Since then, poetry slams have taken place across the country and around the world, and slam poets have been featured on HBO, in films and books, and in some English classrooms.

Responses to Poetry Slams

Academic poets and poetry teachers have had mixed responses to poetry slams. Some of them look down on the idea of performing poetry because, they believe, poems were meant to be written or simply read. Incorporating pop culture and hip-hop reduces the integrity of the poems, some say. Others truly enjoy this revitalization of the poetry community and are excited about the opportunity to use slam poetry to get young students interested in poetry when they might otherwise be unmotivated to study it.

Here is a list of traditional Japanese musical instruments.
•Hichiriki
•Hocchiku
•Horagai
•Hyōshigi
•Ichigenkin
•Ikko
•Junanagen
•Kakko
•Kugo
•Kokyū
•Komabue
•Kagura suzu
•Kane
•Nohkan
•Ryūteki
•Shakuhachi
•Shamisen
•Shō
•Tsuchibue
•Tonkori
This was all about traditional Japanese musical instruments. Some of these instruments like the Koto, Shamisen and Shakuhachi are still played extensively in Japanese music. However, there are only a few musicians who still play Japanese musical instruments like Kokyū and Ikko.

We all know how hard it is to learn our lines, the lack of time given to memorize the lines, makes things more difficult for us. Here are some tips that you can use to make things easy for you.

Believe in Yourself
Many people just lose their spirit if they find a long monologue in their script. They just develop a prejudice that the lines cannot be memorized by them, this hinders all their attempts to learn the lines. So, it is very important to have faith in your potential. Believe that you can achieve everything you want, if you try. The belief in your abilities will keep you motivated, even when you feel that it is impossible to learn your lines.

Character Key
Before you start your attempts to memorize, you should try and understand your character in the play. Understand what the character demands from you, and comprehend the emotions that you need to portray. This will help you understand your lines better, which will help you memorize the lines quickly.

Loud and Clear
When you rehearse your lines, make sure that you say the words aloud. When you do this, you are aiding your memory. Your pronunciations should be clear, and you are bound to realize the flaws in your pronunciation only when you say it loud. This technique will help your mind register the lines speedily.

Picture Perfect
I agree that everyone does not have a photographic memory, but visualizing the scene when you are rehearsing at home, will surely make memorizing faster. In addition to this, you can use inanimate objects to represent other characters. You can also use pictures as a prompt when you practice, then eventually you will remember all your lines by just imagining the pictures in the appropriate sequence.

Mirror Magic
Here is one of the oldest tricks to assist the pace of memorizing the lines; use a mirror! When you practice your lines, just look into the mirror (be loud and clear), this gives you a feeling that you have company, and will reduce the probability of getting bored quickly. Thus, you can maximize the time for practicing in a day, thereby reducing the days required to memorize the lines. Seeing yourself emote, can be quite amusing too!