Archive for April, 2011
Inside Outside
I have asked the group’s members to write what they find exciting about coming to Greece and I also feel like writing what it is that I find exciting about this trip of which I have been the local coordinator twice already and tried to help students experience the Greek way! Russell in his post […]
Horse-people and Wine Gods
“I want to be the blue one, she’s beautiful! “No, I’m the one with flowers in her tail…” “…but why, Emma, I called it first…” “How ‘bout I be the blue horse-woman, and you can be the wine-guy on the donkey?” “I’m not playing, then.” “Fine, fine…why don’t you be the horse-girl, and I’ll be […]
Memorials to an Absent Past
After the group’s members published their first post (telling how each of us recalls first learning about a place called Greece, whether ancient or modern), our local coordinator, Vaia, sent us a message and proposed the topic of our second post. She wrote: “I was wondering what are you expecting to learn these three weeks, […]
What’s the Story, Wishbone?
Wishbone. Yes, the tiny Jack-Russell Terrier on PBS that captured the attention of American third graders from 1995-1998 . Every single day after school I watched joined Wishbone on his many journeys through literary “classics.” Who else would come to mind but Wishbone when I was asked, “Where or from whom did you first learn […]
Craftiness and Cannibalism
So I remember hearing stories about wily gods and goddesses in the Greek pantheon, but “Greece” as an identifiable thing brings two images most clearly to mind. Both are books. First: my father is an artist and an art history professor, and I remember the book From Abacus to Zeus: A Handbook of Art History in […]
I’m Greek
I suppose when you are asked to remember the first time you realized you were of a certain nationality is not that easy. I’m Greek I was born in Athens and grew up in Thessaloniki and it sure fills me with pride when, as a local coordinator of this trip, I’m asked to show around […]
Know Thyself
It’s hard to say where my interest in Greece originates. I honestly can’t recall becoming aware of Greece, but I know I did at some point. Whether I had some idea of it as a child, I can’t say, but my increasing interest in Greece, well Ancient Greece, came from studying Greek and Roman mythology […]
Oedipus Rex: How to Appreciate your Mother
Anything and everything I know about Greece is from mythology. When I was but a young, impressionable lass, my parents used to coerce me into reading for a half hour before bed in order to help mold me into the genius I am today. Upon my mother’s instruction, I read a picture book about the gods […]
The Mighty Hercules
I was born in 1961, the youngest of four (the oldest of whom was born immediately after Word War II), so that puts me at the tail end of the baby boom. Television predated me, of course, but I was a member of the first generation weaned on it; so there’s a good chance that […]