Lipica

This past weekend at a Concours de Dressage Internationale (CDI) competition in Lipica, in the southern corner of Slovenia.  What a beautiful spot for such an event.  The stud farm at Lipica was founded in 1580, and is the birth place for the renown Lipizzaner horses, known for their spectacular movements.

Now the farm has over 400 Lipizzaners, most of them kept at the farm, some for a riding school, some for carriage competitions, few for sales.

It's not a bad life for these horses, with over 1000 acres of fields.  The foals are kept in an open barn (not stalled) and expansive fields with their mothers, until weaned. Then they are separated by sex and turn out until they are four years old.  In the pasture, they can practice all the moves they are famous for, and later they will learn how to do them on command.

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Here is the Romanesque arena where the competition takes place.  The final day concludes with the Dressage to Music, a spectacular event to watch.  You can see all the flags of the competitors:  Switzerland took first place, followed by Estonia, and then Russia.  Excellent riding all around.






Here I am at the entrance ~ what an afternoon....I couldn't get my video clips of the competition to load, but here's a taste, for those of you who have never watched such a performance ~

June and School's Almost Out for Summer

It's hard to believe June is here, chestnut buds have turn to small fruit, and I enter my final Fulbright month.  Classes finish up, final papers are due.  All my students have worked so hard; I'm proud of the way they have embraced me and my interactive teaching approach - so different from listen and cram for exams.  They started the semester looking at their shoes or desks a lot - now they smile and join in class discussion easily.  They started by asking me a lot of questions about requirements.  They ended by asking me if they could improvise an assignment. 

My Creative Writing class has been particularly rewarding. We are a small seminar group, and the level of honest and thoughtful critique has been extraordinary.  They have also produced some stellar words and some are even ready to try and publish a piece of two.  We also have a spot for a group reading at the Young Rhymes poetry festival here in Ljubljana during the last week of June; an ideal closure for our class.

Here we are have a meeting at Cafe Barabuk - even after class is over, they enjoy writing together and sharing our words:)

My Media and Literature class has also really impressed me.  We read - A LOT - a  text on Seeing and Writing (McQude and McQuade), as well as Ruth Ozeki's novel, My Year of Meats, and Inverna Lockpez, Cuba:  My Revolution, a graphic novel.  Students kept thoughtful reading journals, did exemplary group projects on Media making, and are now handing in some super last work.

I couldn't be happier with their work, and our rapport ~