VioNet

Chili red Bulgarian peppers

Parodies on The Great Gatsby

A Parody on Parties and Figurative Language in The Great Gatsby

The bob-hair style
women featured with a smile
they tossed glasses of wine
and fell asleep under the ivy vine
of Gatsby's famous house
that hosted jazz, champagne and Tom's spouse.

A Parody on Figurative Language in The Great Gatsby

"Your place looks like the World's Fair"
is what Nick told Jay, not Chicago's mayor.
Nick was from Chicago and he knew well the site
that became a landmark of the US 1890s might.

A Parody on Creating Mood in The Great Gatsby

Sad mood in the vally of ashes
through Myrtle's miserable life dashes
the color grey Fitzgerald uses
and his diction affects our fuses
filled of compassion and pity and grief
but that's the author's choice of sadness motif!

He creates a gloomy atmosphere
and let it later interfere
with mood jaunty, drunk and high
that to the old and new rich we apply.

Reading a parody on The Great Gatsby, Feb 18, 2005

Apple cider instead of champagne was served during the presentation about parties in The Great Gatsby and Fitzgerald' style, Feb 18, 2005.

St. Valentine's Day, February 14, 2005

It is St. Valentine's Day today. Students were exchanging gifts today. A boy was carrying a red rose in a glass bottle, a girl was hugging a crocodile, two other girls were holding posters thay had made for their friends. Some students walked in the classroom with balloons and flowers. During my thrid period today there was a call from the front desk for a girl who came back in a while with flowers, balloons, candy and a toy. In the staff room there was a party for the teachers given by one of the students' clubs. We had cream fluff, candy, cookies, strawberries and blackberries. There was a Happy Valentine's Day Raffle from Dr. DePrez , our school principal. We had to put our name into the box provided, and take a chance to win one of the following:

$20.00 gift certificate from Cold Stone Creamery

$30.00 gift certificate from Harkins Theatres

$50.00 gift certificate for dinner at Garduno's.

I told my students that in Bulgaria it is St. Trifon Zarezan's Day - a day of vineyards, 
grapes and wine. We have been having this holiday since 1968. On this day wine producers 
trim the vines, water them and celebrate their great expectations for good harvest in the fall.
They drink wine and choose a king of the vineyard.

Christmas Mood in Chandler, Arizona

It is Saturday, December 11, 2004. At 2:18 p.m. it is 73 F (about 22 C) and the sun is shining. In 5 hours we will be at our first Christmas party in the USA. The school I work at is the organizer and it will be a cocktail party. Before the party I will be at the Saturday evening service of Chandler Christian Church together with Cheryl and Boyan. I feel good and would like to tell you about the spirit of Christmas.

The Christmas decorations throughout the city, the TV commercials about Christmas sales and gift giving, the church service tonight, my new dress, the remaining number of days to Christmas, 14, the greeting cards that we started sending today to friends and family in Bulgaria and some other countries - this all charms me and contributes to my Christmas mood. Had I ever dreamed of Christmas without real snow?...

Most of the houses in our neighborhood are in their Christmas outfit. There are garlands of lights on the facades, bushes, cacti, and citrus trees. Santa Claus, his sleigh and branched-antler reindeer, plastic Christmas trees, and the red star of Bethlehem get lit up in the evening. In fact, the tradition here is to put the Christmas decorations at Thanksgiving. From Ben, one of my students, I know that he had put about 10 000 tiny Christmas lights on the roof and around the trees and bushes of their house. The neighbor opposite us is trimming their bushes and his son is helping with adding lights to a Christmas gate built right on the sidewalk in front of their house. They have already "planted" numerous red-and-white Christmas canes along the cobbled path to their front door.

Our house is decorated, too. Farah and Kent keep on adding new decoration almost every day. About two weeks ago when we came back home in the evening, we found new cushions, porcelain and ceramic Santas, snowmen, candlesticks, wooden deer, red paper stars, kitchen towels, an apron, baskets of plastic cones and apples, plastic flower pots of red flowers and garlands of plastic conifer tree branches interlaced with mistletoe electric bulbs. There are two “Magic winter” mats in the kitchen. The Christmas stockings are hanging at the fire-place. At the front door there are wooden road signs to Christmas and snow. Some of them read "Holiday highway," "Let it snow," "Mistletoe trail," and "Snowy hollow." Even at this moment Boyan is helping Kent in adjusting some additional lights in the front of the house. He is actually giving a hand with the ladder which is so big and clumsy that last night Kent broke his windshield with it.

Life is beautiful and living in Chandler, Arizona proves it. We are surrounded by beautiful Christmas decorations both inside and outside our house. I dare make a Christmas wish to keep the beauty of Christmas spirit with the help of my students, fellow teachers, husband and friends while I am in Chandler.

VioNetBlog

Welcome to VioNetBlog. I am launching this site following one of my ex-student's recommendations. Dimiter goes to university in Germany. He is a freshman there. I am on a Fulbright exchange and teach at high school in Arizona, USA this school year. I am going to share with my friends my everyday life and professional experience in the USA. I am going to use both text and pictures. I will appreciate your comments and questions about my impressions of the USA.

Violeta

Boyan with an Indian horse rider, Auction, Phoenix, Feb 13, 2005

Violeta is helping out with lunch in the kitchen of the Bulgarian Church, Phoenix, Feb 13, 2005.

Nelly and Boyan are talking about the celebration of Bulgaria's National Day, March 3.

Wheel-back bench, Auction, Phoenix, Feb 13, 2005

On a rainy and gloomy day in Downtown Chandler, February 12, 2005

Violeta at Dr. A. J. Chandler Park in Downtown Chandler, February 12, 2005.

The flags of the US, Arizona and the City of Chandler in Downtown Chandler, Feb 12, 2005.

Boyan at the Car and Hot Rod Show in Downtown Historic Chandler, Feb 12, 2005.

Cooking at the kitchen island on the day when we first made yoghourt with yogourmet (http://www.yogourmet.com), February 12, 2005.

Geo Milev's life and contributions to literature impressed the juniors at HHS on February 8-9, 2005.

The students joined the actress Jill-Williams-Kasabova's in reading the poem September (February 9, 2005).

With Geo Milev's poem September I illustrated Espressionism in literature in the 1920s.

A lesson about modernism in the 1920s in Bulgaria, February 8-9, 2005

Grading essays for the Academic Decathlon, February 4, 2005, Hamilton High School, Az

When I was in Washington, D.C. I visited the headquarters of National Geographic. My friend Cathy Healy and her colleagues gave me some interesting and useful journals for my students. It is February 3 in Washington, D.C. now and in my thoughts I am with Cathy. I am sending her all my love. She needs it.

We have just finished shopping at Sprouts, a farmers market in Chandler, AZ. We bought Granny Smith apples, parsley, dates, tomato basil wraps, trail mix, olive oil, vegatable chips, and Jewish rye bread.