What I need is some free time to study. Looking back, not in anger but with some concern.

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I started this blog -together with some others- one year ago. I've worked a lot to learn the basics of blog editing and I am quite proud of what I've been able to achieve. Apart from my personal comments on aspects of grammar language and communication, I've experimented quite intensely with comic strip design. I'm convinced that comics are quite useful to explore language not only in terms of reception, but also of production if one feels creative enough. For many years now, one of my main goals has been to be able to use English as if it were my first language. In my view this does not mean prejudice toward my native and near native languages, even though the adoption of a foreign language as main way of expression -as a way to protest about the injustice and oppression lived in one's motherland- is something attested once and again in history. I wrote my thesis on Joseph Blanco White; this means that I am well acquainted with this kind of intellectual revolt. However, this is not my case. I rather see English as a scholar could see Latin and Greek in the Middle Ages or, rather in the Renaissance, when the humanists all over Europe tended to combine both the vernacular and the classical languages as legitimate ways of expression. I like using difrent languages in my daily conversation. If you're not pressed by need, the possibility of testing their expressive power -as if they were musical instruments for instance- is a very rewarding intellectual and personal experience. If only I had some more free time! Unfortunately, the present circumstances make me work on my courses and related activities about twelve hours a day if not more, and I know that my case is not unique. Paradoxically, the introduction of the new technologies has made us teachers work more hours to get trained in computer programs and to incorporate and apply the new methods and activities. Besides, in many cases, the results are not yet completely satisfactory. You cannot start a completely new system out of scratch and expect to get positive results the first year. Students, people in general, do not change that fast when used to previous study habits. Unfortunately, some teahers can be affected in terms of their reputation, professional projection and even health. This is why the intellectual move of searching for personal gratification in literature and in humour -Cervantes among many others, for instance- is that important.

Yesterday, I decided to create a "strip generator strip" again, after I stopped using it some months now to have a rest and get new ideas. I hope you like it. I could use it to start a discussion on clefts and pseudo-clefts in a grammar class.