Tag Archives: Italian language

Blogging ☆ Painting ☆ Comments ☆ Thoughts

Posted on July 2012 | 21 Comments
Art Contest

That’s my picture on the right. I participated and won fifth in a local art contest.

Hi guys. How do you know when I’m going to post? I don’t even tell anyone on facebook when I post but I tell you my stats went up five times when I got back from my vacation.

How do you know? Isn’t that weird how people know when you write and then they come visit without me telling anyone? hmmm.

That’s a good thing! It means people actually are reading this.

Big news!

I participated in a town event. It was an art contest where you have to draw a picture. The way it works is you go in the morning with a blank piece of paper, pay the entrance fee, about $10, you get a coupon towards dinner.

Then you have until 3p to paint your picture, turn it in by 4p max and judging takes place at 5p. It was a nervous exciting day because I get scared to paint and be judged although I am learning to overcome those fears. It helped to have children in the garden with me as I painted and my ipod playing music.

What the mind can conceive the body can acheive.

There’s my painting.

Music rocks by the way. Amazing how it can transport you.

So, I’m painting in the garden, I finish the piece when three of my friends decide to write nice things about me. I tell you, they came in as a rockstars because it was just what I needed at the moment where I literally was flipping out over colors.

I mean I have no idea what I’m doing painting. Especially a landscape.

Still, I did it. I framed the picture using a frame I had on the wall. I took it in and they put it up for display immediately with a number on it.

Then this guy walks over and starts taking pictures of it. I hid in the background on a chair. I ran into a friend too, thank goodness. I didn’t tell him I was competing whilst we were chatting.

The judges come by and confer. Then as they were putting up the nine awards out of 25 entries, they came right next to mine and attached a number nine on the painting to my left. Then these two ladies sifted through the numbers looking at my painting and looking back at their list, then they walked away.

I wanted to grab my painting and run out before anyone recognized me.

Then they came back and stuck a number five on it! I was thrilled. I won a bunch of stuff, that included a huge salame! ha ha ha. We are in Italy!  A salame. How classic.

Better light.

Better light.

The HANDS’ DOWN best part was as I took my painting to go home when a man nearby stops me and asks me if I was the author. I said yes.

Then he introduced himself as one of the judges and he said to me the magical words:

I thought this should have won first prize. I tried to convince the other judges. He said to me, The others are good work, what to expect in a contest, but your work had that something extra.

He called it a ‘hand’ in Italian, or mano. I think I get that from my mom. I am sure of it.

I came home and celebrated with family and friends. Great day.

The end.

J. Angelos, Award Winning Artist ;)


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Updating My Status #blog #blogging @jbuliesblog

Posted on January 2012 | 2 Comments

Hi friends. How are you?

Nice to see you.

I’ve been working hard and hardly working. Ha ha!

Such a beautiful building. The Istituto Salesiani a Bologna

Such a beautiful building. The Istituto Salesiani | Bologna

Basically, I have been taking care of myself best I know how. I’ve gotten back to work as a teacher and lecturer. I miss my school kids from last year although I’m happy to see them on facebook.

I’ve been teaching a super cool Adult Educational Graphics Course at the Salesiano School in Bologna and it’s going well. We are working on CVs and Resumes and a newsletter.

It’s been challenging and I keep pushing my students to their best, suggesting new ways of doing things. I’m really working hard on pushing the third dimension trying to get their designs to pop off the page. I like shades. That is shadows.

Little League Baseball treat when we were growing up.

Little League Baseball treat when we were growing up. Go Mike!

As we near towards the end of the course, I think of all the things I wish I could have taught them. We are really down to the wire. I’ve given them deadlines. What we did was first write a CV following European Educational Community Guidelines then I asked the students to find a cool graphics platform and tweak it into their own style.

Hope I’m making sense here.

One of the students found a site online that had some super cool resumes. BTW we call Résumés CVs in Europe. They also write Stage instead of Internship and it drives me mad. I also find that they were writing Mother Tongue Italian instead of Native Language is Italian.

I think we got some good results though and when I see them I am going to ask their permission to link them here to my blog so you guys can see them too.

I think this student did an exceptional job at coordinating her cover letter and resume in a professional way. It really shows off her talents.

I think this student did an excellent job at coordinating her cover letter and résumé in a professional way. It really shows off her talents.

What really surprised me as I got to know this class better was their hidden talents while reading their resumes. I discovered that one of my talented graphic design students has been featured twice in the Resto del Carlino, one of Italy’s national newspapers, for designs she has done.

Another girl made an amazing sculpture of a guy sitting on a train made completely out of scotch tape!

She showed me a picture. I was shocked that she didn’t have a website or publisher. I’m going to get the picture and share it for her here so you guys can see it too.

As far as my personal life goes, I’ve been working on a Little League Baseball Website for my sons in Italian and its store too.  It’s challenging to figure out statistics, times, classifications, and stats and all.

Luckily I grew up watching my brother play with my mom in the score box and a microphone shouting, Go Mike! I remember most of all growing up on the little league field that was once an onion field and now a McDonalds, that we always had the best snacks, like Red Licorice and Abba Zabbas.

I’m super sad that I wont be able to make it to my high school reunion as the cost of the tickets for my family is exhorbatant from Italy to California. It’s a shame.

On a good note, I have a great vacation planned here. I cannot fathom complaining about vacationing in Italy.

ha ha.

For my loyal blog readers who have followed my regardless of if I post or not, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Blogging continues to be a muse to me as well as you do too.

Thank you for following and have a nice day.

Julie

I loved words. I love to sing them and speak them and even now, I must admit, I have fallen into the joy of writing them.— Anne Rice

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i ♡ u

Posted on November 2011 | 2 Comments
Jacqueline Kennedy throwing the bouquet at her...

Image via Wikipedia

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them. ♡ John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Sent from where I’m at.

I’m thinking back to a few months ago before I used facebook and before I had a blog. How simple was life then? I see how the internet is changing our lives. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Like my dad once told me, You can’t stop progress.

I’ve always been big on computers and technology. Couple that with me being a bit of a book worm and not too bad in school and that I like to read everything I can get my hands on. It only makes sense to start a blog and work on social networking.

While I was on vacation I had the pleasure of getting away from the computer. I think that was necessary. Necessary to see what I didn’t want to become: someone who spends his or her life infront of a computer screen. I want to live.

I’ve made some decisions and I’ve made some changes.

I’m spending way less time on the computer and much more time outdoors with my family. I just sometimes look outside and listen. That doesn’t exclude the fact that I love to write, to share and to connect. I like to watch my kids play. :)

♡ A house is a home with a soul. ♡

Blogging is a strange new place for me, lovely, yet newish. Let’s say I was a purist. I would write just for writing’s sake. Because I love to write. I also love to connect. I love that feeling when I am relating to people who read this and I hear back from them.

I like the comments. I love your comments. I think about them. I can’t believe how wonderful it is to communicate so fast and free. If you were far from home before email, you’d know what I mean.

Do we define ourselves by what we write? Or by what people say to us about our work?

I thank God for my teacher who told me on my first essay I wrote when I was a little girl that it was excellent. I wrote it in my journal and I’ve kept it. I’ll look it up for you if you’d like.

Today I got back an essay I wrote yesterday. I did it in one night and Mrs. Lannes gave me an "excelent." ;)

"excelent." ;)

Is it just me or is there a lot going on? Did someone say popcorn?

How do you organize or categorize life? I just do what comes naturally to me and that is to write it down to try to make sense of it all. Then I can come back to it later and say, yes, that is exactly what is going on, what I have to do.

On my list.

Two big things right off the top. One is back to school on Tuesday. It will be the first time in six years that my two sons will be at the same school. {Wipes sweat off of brow.} That should make my mornings a little bit simpler.

New website in the works.

My husband is a cook and a masseur. He liked my blog so much he asked me if I could make one for his business. Sure.

Here it is:

So I did. It’s super cool and I love it. I have it in the fine tuning stages, but soon all of you can see exactly where we have our little shop. I’ll get information in there for how to get there, store hours, pictures of the four little rooms. It’s a Day Spa he runs with his mom and their assistant. It’s cute. You guys will love it.

The house

Our house is a blessing all the way around. I don’t think one day goes by where I don’t thank God for having a house.

The Italians are much different then Americans when it comes to staying close to home. That’s just my opinion.

Our house needs attention ♡

It’s a 100 year old house that we have restored. If we leave the house for a week, it seems unrecognizable. I can’t get over how something like a house that seems like it is just walls, a roof and floors seems to be a living creature. Houses have their own souls. If you leave them alone, they’ll mesh with their surroundings.

The reason I’m telling you this is because I find our house needs constant love and affection. Just like my husband, myself, my family, my friends and my work. You have to give of yourself if you want your life to thrive.

Again, that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong. I’ve been wrong in the past.

I have been working on changing light bulbs, retouching here and there, adding some plaster if needed, buying things that get old and need replaced, refurbishing what I can and constant sorting of things. Everything has a place. Little hands seem to like to move them. Or perhaps there are night time sock and shoe parties where I’m not invited?

Hope this post finds you happy, lovely and in love.

Julie

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Posted in happiness, Inspiration, Italy, journal, learning, motivation, teaching

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