Reviewing #1 - Anna Karenina (2012)

Hello !

This is my 50th post! wow !...just saying ! 

From January to February there's the winter session of exams. This means that I do not have lesson in order to focus and study for my tests. Being home this often, even in the morning when no one's around, means that I have the possibility to organize my days as I please. I started going to the gym, I restarted taking acting classes and, the rest of the time, I'm supposed to be studying. 

Truth is that, if I focus really hard, I won't leave my desk for 4h or more, but the rest of the time, is not like I can spend my day out with friends, in every moment. I rediscovered the pleasure to be home, reorder my bedroom, try to learn how to play the guitar...and watch movies. 

Recently I've seen so many movies, and the ones that I liked the most, I decided, are going to be the main topic of my next 2 or 3 blog posts. This ''reviewing'' of movies, may be something that I'll keep doing occasionally, or that maybe will end after this first post. 

I'll talk about recent movies, if I'll go to the cinema and watch them, or old movies that I've never seen before, or maybe that I've recently re-watched. 

I'd like to start with a movie released on 2012, but that I've seen only yesterday for the first time. Anna Karenina. 

* From this point: SPOILER ALERT !  *

I'd like to start admitting that I had no idea what the movie was going to talk about. Although it naturally was mentioned many times in high school, call me ignorant but I've never really known and studied the plot of the original ''Anna Karenina'' novel, written by Lev Tolstoj (original title: Aнна Каренина).

From the beginning until the end, in exception for few scenes, the whole story is settled in an old theater. The background changes on the stage, as well as the objects on the dovecote and the place where the audience sits. The scenes sets in environments for high society members are all built on these parts of the theater. Differently, the places where to find the poor population of Moscow or other Russian cities where the novel is set, are the backstage, the dressing rooms, the ''bridges'' where the technicians changes lights etc. The change of scene are incredibly fast and, although the place is always the same, they recreate very easily every room and situations by adding few essential but specific objects. 

The costumes are fabulous. Every dress that Anna Karenina ( Keira Knightley) wears is perfect ! In every details everyone's clothes are magnificent and I have absolutely nothing to say against them ! I can only wish that one day, maybe for a masquerade, I'll be able to wear one of those dreamlike-superclassyandrich dresses.

The story itself it's really interesting, you like the main character at the beginning, hating others. But than, after few but important twists of the story, you end up (or, at least, I did) hating Anna for what she does and for her behavior. 

Parallel to the main love story, there's another interesting character that, I have to say, was my favorite one. Kostantin Levin. Differently from the others, He's the one who lives and sees the relationship with a woman as something based on love, true love. And, in fact, at the end he's the only one who marries the woman of his dream, Kitty, and ends up living with her a wonderful life. 

The best scene, in my opinion, is the one in which Kostantin proposes to Kitty, for the second time, The first one he's bypassed by Aleksej Vronskij, but than, when he ends up with Anna Karenina, who cheats on her husband, Kitty remains alone, and that's when Kostantin tries again. They're both at Dolly's place (Kitty's sister) and they start talking using those wooden cubes with letters written on them, the ones that children play with. And they have a conversation like this, using the initial letters and slowly composing the whole sentences. With few words she apologizes and he proposes to her confessing her his love. 

The photography is amazing, every scene follows the basic rules of composition, also in terms of colors, I enjoyed the contrast created at the ball where Kitty and Aleksej dance together, both wearing white, and, on the other side, we have Anna with a black dress.

I highly recommend this movie ! Hope you liked this new kind of post, and I wish you all a pleasant weekend !

Fede

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Please Diana and random notes .

Good afternoon everyone !

Obviously I wish good morning or evening to all of you who are reading this post later or who live in time zones different from mine. 

As you may or may not have noticed,  I finally discovered how to change a couple of songs on the music bar on top of the blog, and that I found a background that I like more than roses. It wasn't flowers fault, it's just that they're the background on my phone and laptop as well. 

Than, I'd like to inform you that, with enormous surprise, this morning I saw that this blog reached 2K visualizations AND that this week I passed, with a pretty good mark, the language test I had in Uni to see if I was level C1 in English :)  

Now let's move to the main topic of this post. 

On Sunday morning, a friend of mine told me that, on Google+, he noticed all the links I posted about my blog. He was curious and he came into this page, read something and liked it ! It may seems quite normal for you, but it wasn't for me. Fact is, if I write in English and I don't post anything about this blog on Facebook, is mainly because I don't want people who live around me or that know me, to read it. There's nothing that I'm ashamed of or that is so particular that no one knows about it, I'm just both afraid and annoyed of their judgments.

BUT, knowing that there are Italian readers or people that may know what I'm talking about, without too many descriptions...I can think about new topics that I previously considered useless to share.

Today, for example, I'm going to write about a music band. 

Thanks to a friend, I started reconsidering Italian music in October, discovering groups as the Gazebo Penguins, I Ministri and the ''FASK'' (Fast Animals and Slow Kids).

Randomly I saw that a group of guys, few years older than me and who live in my area, were in a band, won a competition and had the opportunity to make a CD, to record their own songs. When I heard a couple of them, I already knew that I really liked them ! The whole album, although it was their first one, turned out to be one of my favorites. They are known as ''Please Diana''. Some of the musicians are friends of mine, and I knew the others because, as I said, we all live in the same area. 

I don't know much about their history, but I bet you can discover more on their website, where you will also be able to find their Twitter and Instagram accounts, Facebook page, YouTube channel etc. 

You can download their songs and you'll ''pay with a tweet''. This means that, promoting their albums on both Facebook and Twitter, you ''pay'', and you can download the album (for free, basically). 

Although you may or may not understand the lyrics, I highly recommend you to listen to their songs, they're really great. I had the opportunity to shoot some backstage pictures, when they were recording their new music videos, and I had sooo much fun. 

I hope that you enjoyed reading, I wish you all a good weekend and have a nice day !

ℱede

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I'm back...for good !

Hi everyone !

First of all, I would like to wish you all a Happy New Year. Last time I wrote a post here was still 2014, and it wasn't even December, it precisely was two months ago. 

Not many things happened during thise period I haven't been around, I think I only focused more on study, evenings out with friends, Christmas holiday, scout trips and other adventures. However, my routine stayed the same, except for few occasions. 

I always knew that I'm one of those person with thousands of problems with their bodies, I can rarely stand the comparison with someone else, I find myself having so many defects I don't even remember them all. When 2015 started I noticed that many friends of mine, who wanted to lose weight, to run a marathon, to grow their hair, to leave this country and this city...they (almost all) achieved what they wanted. And why is that? Because they worked for their goals, they didn't spend the biggest part of their time complaining about what was wrong in them, they switched from passive to active. 

What do they have that I don't ? The strength and the will to try. Now, these are two things that I'm going to buy at the local shop and I won't find my size as always, it's something that I certainly have inside me, it's only up to myself to grow these two elements.

This is what I though when I took paper and marker (I don't usually find pens so easily in this house, same for pencils, that, I have to say, I'm enjoying using lately) and I wrote down my New Year Resolutions. Now, I won't write them here, mainly because half of these things are quite private and involves other person as well BUT it's enough for you to know that I want to take a better care of this blog. Last year, around this month, I decided that it was time to retake this internet page and make out of it a place where to share my thoughts, and so I did. Only because I didn't cure it, both in style and with new content, for two months or so, this doesn't mean I won't be able to restart from where I've left. 

As the title says, I'm back for good ! If I'll be able to I'm going to change the background image and the songs...but only if I'll find the way to! 

Bad hair, oversize jumper, glasses...this is me 80% of the time!
(Sorry for the poor quality, couldn't take a proper picture with my DSLR, and that's when the webcam came in)

I wish you all a great weekend !

FedeRS

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Real (better) life - Update #2

HeyHey

I need to say in advance that this is supposed to be a quick update, but the truth is that to write it down I'm taking more time than what I expected.

After my Bloggiversary, I had tons and tons of ideas for new blog posts. None of them has been realized, not yet. Everything is inside my head, I planned every photo shoot it takes to make every blog post, I have new materials (clothes, gifts, shoes...) to show you and books to write about. 

The reason for which all these ideas are unrealized is not a lack of time or ideas but because I lately thought about myself a little bit more. Some aspects of my life are changing in negative, others in positive, others are as they were before. 

The real update is that I'm changing, I'm going through a phase in my life that I've been waiting for a long time. If I need to quickly say what changed I can write you a sort of list.

- I have a best friend. A new one, surprisingly is a guy, we get along and he understands me. 

- I didn't stop biting my nails as I wanted to, but I'm starting to lose weight again. It may be a long journey, it may end in few weeks...I already lost 6 kgs and I'm starting to feel good with my body, I'm happy for what I've achieved and I'm looking forward to arrive at the body-shape I've always wanted.

- I met new persons, I have fun with them, laugh a lot and I'm always looking forward to spend a night with them, even if it means to spend money playing billiards and darts at the Pub. 

- I have new friends at the Uni. Some of them, almost everybody, are older than me, but this is not a problem at all, I find myself talking with someone way older than me as if he/she was my age.

- I often drive and even if I'm alone in the car for 10 minutes, I really enjoy this time by myself, I think a lot and listen to good music, of every king.

- I have a special friendship with my cousin that, for me, has become a sister.

- Yesterday, with my scout group, we went in Tuscany and picked some chestnuts. We than ate them in front of the fireplace. Really nice day out.

- I got a new haircut. Nothing special but still, something new that makes me happy.

- I like to workout

- I'm using less make up

- I finished to read '' And the mountains echoed'' by Khaled Hosseini and I found it amazingly beautiful.

- I finished ''Breaking Bad'' and just started ''Game of Thrones''

- I went to the Eurochocolate with my friends, here's a picture of us

Sofia - Giulio - Chiara - Me - AnnaMarta

These are small and big events that made my life a little better this month, hopefully everything will stay as it is now, or will improve in November. 

I didn't mentioned certain aspects of my life that, at the moment, are not in their ''rose period'', but I really do hope that I'll solve them out soon.

On the 10th of November I'll have my first exam, and for this reason, until that day I may not be able to post anything. Being so cold outside, I think I'll have more time to stay in my home and write something down. 

In the meantime, I wish you all an amazing week, enjoy autumn !

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University, here I am .

HeyHey

I know, I always start out like this...but I apologize (again) for the lack of posts. 

I recently (on Wednesday) started University. It's a completely different thing that leads to a whole new organization of my daytime. I rarely wake up before 9 am, I often have to take both train and Minimetro, a sort of small tram that goes around Perugia, which is the main city in my region, where more or less all the Universities are. I'm completely alone in my new class, I always need to change room, I sometimes have to wait some hours between the first lesson and the second one...BUT I like all this because it's new !

As I wrote in my ''presentation'' I would like to become and Italian teacher abroad, and this University (University for Foreigners) is perfect for my future project. My class is composed by only 25 people or so, the majority are Japanese or Chinese students, and all the others are Italians, Moroccans and one American. I can honestly say that I had no words with anyone in my class, I spoke with nobody, I'm terribly shy...and this is not something that happened to me before. I usually am very friendly, extrovert...but in this new class, I have the feeling, that I'm the only one at my first year, I feel like I'm the youngest and I'm afraid to start a conversation with older people, although we may have only 2 or 3 years of difference. I hope I will make friends soon or it will be pretty terrible for me whenever I'll miss a lesson or anything else.

A part from my class, I enjoyed the few lessons I had this first week ! 

I want to share with you this lovely post that my Mum successfully published on my Facebook Wall ! So proud of her...it usually takes 20 minutes or so, in her case, to understand how to do anything on the internet ahah

1 Settembre 1997 Fede il primo giorno di asilo
1 Ottobre 2014 il mio pulcino apre le ali...e va all'università.
Fede, vola in alto, raggiungi i tuoi sogni !
 Ricorda che se la tua strada è in salita, è solo perché sei destinata ad arrivare in altro.
Con l'affetto di sempre..        

Mamma

Translation (more or less): 1st September 1997,  Fede her fist day or kindergarten. 1st October 2014, my chick opens her wings...and goes to Univeristy. Fede, fly high, reach your dreams! Remeber that if you're way is hard, it's only because you're bound to arrive really high ! With love... Mum''

I'll try my best in posting new things this week, I have a haul on his way and a couple of other ideas, hopefully I'll write something at the end of next week, you'll see if I'll wake it or not...you can always check my twitter for updates :) Have a nice Sunday !

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Sensational Umbria by Steve McCurry .

HeyHey

Thursday afternoon I went in Perugia, one of the biggest cities of my region. As last year, the famous photographer Steve McCurry (that you may not know but you surely know this work of him, appeared on National Geographic) is doing an expositions of his works there, and this year the theme was my region itself. Known as ''Sensational Umbria'', the photos collection is composed by pictures of local landscapes, medieval and traditional festival and events, monuments etc. . McCurry was around in the main months when the cities have their main traditional festivals and events, and he was here to catch almost all of them. 

I found all his works magnificent. I can honestly say he's my favourite photographer, mainly because he can perfectly compose a picture that looks normal at the same time, and he is also able to use the colors in the best way.

These are some pictures I got to take at the entrance of the exposition, that was divided in two buildings, Palazzo della Penna and the ex Fatebenefratelli. I found this last building having the best pictures, mainly because they were exposed in the nicest way ever. Dark room and panel on the floor with the pictures on them. Loved it ! 

These are the pictures I took out of the Ex Fatebenefratelli, the view was lovely!

These are the stairs inside Palazzo della Penna. It is quite an old building but the inside is modern as you can see. When we entered, there was a conference about the reading public of the city, I didn't quite get what was the main theme of the speech of the lady, because we were heading downstairs to the 2nd part of the Steve McCurry's exposition and also because this reading club organised a photograpy exposition as well. All those lovely pictures of the city contained people or a single person reading in the corner,at the center, everywhere basically.

The quality of the pictures is not the highest because, as you can imagine, I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside. I had time to collect some quotes before going inside the expositions, and you car hear them in the promo video that the photographer himself made.

I hope you like this blog post, I wish goodluck to everyone who's starting or restarting school tomorrow morning. Have a nice week :)

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The National Route 2014 .

HeyHey

So, since when I was 8 years old I've been a scout. Not a ''boy scout'' as we're called worldwide, but just a scout. I started because my parents were both scouts when they were younger, they both went in the group we have in Assisi and so did I when it came my time. After me my brother and all my 5 cousins started this journey.

 I spent 4 years with the ''Lupetti'' that is the first group in which you play, do several activities and slowly get involved in the mentality that is required to be a scout. You learn to share things, to help the others and when you finally think that you understand how this all system works, than you change group.

In fact, on the 2nd year of middle school, I started the ''Reparto'' that is another group that lasts for 4 years, that I left on my 2nd year of high school. Basically this is where the stereotype of the average scout is created. You walk a lot, you sell calendars and other things for charity (not biscuits, sorry!), you sleep in tents and you cook and eat on structures that you build with woods and ropes. Also in this case, when you know everything it's time to move on.

And here I am, at the end of my 3rd year of ''clan'', the last group in which you learn how to be yourself in society, to help the others out. 

I started this long journey, that can be defined as a lifestyle as well, back in 2003 I believe, and this year I had the opportunity to be part of one of the most amazing scout experience you can live: the National Route.

The ''vacation'' of 10 days you do when you're in the Clan, is called route, mainly because you walk, change location almost every night and you carry on your shoulder everything you need (the essential). It's a period that you spend with your group...but this year was different.

In 1975 there was the first National Route; all the Clans (or at least, the biggest part of them) that existed at the time in Italy, all went together in Route. In 1986 the same thing happened. And finally...after almost 30 years, in 2014 we had the opportunity to live this event on a National level.

We were 35.000 scouts, we were divided in 460 groups composed by guys from different Clans. Every group was composed by 70 to 60 people. From the 1st to the 5th of August, the different groups walked in different parts of Italy, on the 6th everyone traveled to San Rossore, a park near Pisa, and there we met, all 35.000 !

My group was the Route 190. My Clan hosted the others, this means that we walked and did our activities in the territory close to Assisi (where I live). The Clans that we hosted where from Alba, Cava dei Tirreni, Pescara and Gorizia. This last one is a city located on the bound between Slovenia and Italy, so they all speak fluently both Italian and Slovenian. We were in 67 and I miss every single person.

On the 6th all the buses left from a city close to Assisi, so we went there, traveled for 4h or so and finally arrived in the night in Pisa! And when we met all the other 35.000...well...let's say this picture doesn't give you the smallest idea of what it was!

I want to thank everyone! It was an amazing experience...and it makes me emotional to think that I was so lucky to be one of those people, one of those that had the opportunity to be part of such an amazing event!

Probably this blog post wasn't as interesting as you expected, it was different from what I normally write about. The quality of the pictures is not high, none of us had a DSLR camera ofc, and these are all photos taken by friends of mine. Hope you liked this post in any case, maybe you learned something new, who knows? If you're a little bit more interested in the event now, you can google and look for information and videos on YouTube about the event. There are lots of them, and they'll give you the idea of what it was better than all the words I wrote to describe it. Have a nice week everyone :)

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