THE POPPINS: BORN TO WIN

Sant Boi de Llobregat

Today, The Poppins are closing their circle. It started last April and during these months they have been working very hard to improve their English. They have created a big and unforgettable family and, obviously, they will continue their lives across different paths returning to the beginning and reconnecting with their dreams and proposals again.

The Grandma is preparing her summer holidays in Andorra, her hometown. She’s very proud of the Poppins and she knows, because she lived the same situation, that days like today seem very hard and difficult but they’re exciting because the most important is arriving to the exam and do it. This is the real prize, this is the fantastic triumph and this is the real meaning of this family: do things because we can do them, don’t resign in front of difficulties and don’t give up. Never give up.

We don’t know anything about our closer future but we can guess that it will be difficult, as difficult as it was for other generations but if they survived, we are going to do it, too. 

Some centuries ago, some little villages and towns started to grow up along an important and brave river: the Via Rubricatus. This Latin name was adopted because of the red colour of its water. One of these little towns became very popular and famous because of its natural beauty and the importance of its Roman terms. Years later, the city was an important site during the Succession War in the 18th Century and nowadays is recognized for being the Antoni Gaudí’s testing ground that helped him to create his wonderful buildings. The city is the result of a mix of cultures, like all its country, a directly consequence of growing up between the Via Augusta and the Via Rubricatus. 

Perhaps, some people know its famous doctor who battles against cancer day by day, its historical rugby player who practised this sport for the first time in the town, its popular fashion designer or its two famous NBA players but the History, in capital letters, will write that this city was the hometown of The Poppins, an intelligent, brave and funny family that has become unforgettable.

Come on Poppins! We have born to win!

 

Your town is very important - The Grandma

ANTIGONISH BY WILLIAM HUGHES MEARNS

Antigonish

William Hughes Mearns (1875–1965), better known as Hughes Mearns, was an American educator and poet. A graduate of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, Mearns was a Professor at the Philadelphia School of Pedagogy from 1905 to 1920.

Mearns is remembered now as the author of the poem Antigonish or The Little Man Who Wasn't There, but his ideas, about encouraging the natural creativity of children, particularly those age 3 through 8, were novel at the time. It has been written about him that, He typed notes of their conversations; he learned how to make them forget there was an adult around; never asked them questions and never showed surprise no matter what they did or said.

Mearns wrote two influential books: Creative Youth 1925, and Creative Power 1929. Essayist Gabriel Gudding credits those books with lighting a fuse under the teaching of creative writing, influencing a generation of scholars.

He also served for a time, starting in 1920, as head of the Lincoln School Teachers College at Columbia University. He was also a proponent of John Dewey's work in progressive education.

Antigonish (1899)

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn’t there.
He wasn’t there again today,
I wish, I wish he’d go away…
When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back anymore!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door…
Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn’t there,
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away… 

More information: Penny's Poetry

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie,
deliberate, contrived and dishonest,
but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.
 

John F. Kennedy

THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY BY OSCAR WILDE

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish playwright, novelist, essayist, and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. He is remembered for his epigrams, his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, his plays, as well as the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death.

The first version of The Picture of Dorian Gray was published as the lead story in the July 1890 edition of Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, along with five others. The story begins with a man painting a picture of Gray. When Gray, who has a face like ivory and rose leaves, sees his finished portrait, he breaks down. Distraught that his beauty will fade while the portrait stays beautiful, he inadvertently makes a Faustian bargain in which only the painted image grows old while he stays beautiful and young. For Wilde, the purpose of art would be to guide life as if beauty alone were its object. As Gray's portrait allows him to escape the corporeal ravages of his hedonism, Wilde sought to juxtapose the beauty he saw in art with daily life.

Reviewers immediately criticised the novel's decadence and homosexual allusions; The Daily Chronicle for example, called it unclean, poisonous, and heavy with the mephitic odours of moral and spiritual putrefaction. Wilde vigorously responded, writing to the editor of the Scots Observer, in which he clarified his stance on ethics and aesthetics in art – If a work of art is rich and vital and complete, those who have artistic instincts will see its beauty and those to whom ethics appeal more strongly will see its moral lesson.

He nevertheless revised it extensively for book publication in 1891: six new chapters were added, some overtly decadent passages and homo-eroticism excised, and a preface was included consisting of twenty two epigrams, such as Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.

Contemporary reviewers and modern critics have postulated numerous possible sources of the story, a search Jershua McCormack argues is futile because Wilde has tapped a root of Western folklore so deep and ubiquitous that the story has escaped its origins and returned to the oral tradition.

Wilde claimed the plot was an idea that is as old as the history of literature but to which I have given a new form. Modern critic Robin McKie considered the novel to be technically mediocre, saying that the conceit of the plot had guaranteed its fame, but the device is never pushed to its full.

Download The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

 Nowadays people know the price of everything
and the value of nothing.

Oscar Wilde

CREATING A STORY: SUSANA POPPINS

WHO? Susana Poppins

WHERE? Kenya

WHEN? In the past

WHAT? Kenya

I was remembering when my boyfriend said to me that he wanted to go to Kenya for our honeymoon.

First of all, I hate animals!!! I never do anything bad to them but I don’t like animals, I’m sorry.

When I was a child, I lived with my parents and my grandparents in the same house. My grandma and I went to walk and if we found a dog, we must change the street because she had panic and then, nowadays, I have panic too…

However, I began to visit web sites and I liked this country a lot and its people and its culture.

While we were looking for more information about this, I enjoyed a lot and I began to find more interesting things to do and to visit.

Finally, we got married and went to Kenya. It was fantastic!!! I think this travel was a big present for my husband and me. We could see a National Geographic Program with ours eyes, in a first line and it was an experience that we can not forget.

When you go somewhere like Kenya and you see how the children don't have pencils and pens, and all of these things are considered luxuries, and what a privilege they see education as and how hungry they are to learn, I wanted to give my brother and sister long lectures. That definitely stayed with me.

Naomie Harris

CREATING A STORY: TONYI POPPINS

Yorkshire Terrier

WHO? Tonyi Poppins & Yoko

WHERE? In my city

WHEN? Nowadays

WHAT? Yoko, my dog

I like dogs. I have got one. She’s a Yorkshire, an original British dog! She’s little and funny and she likes playing with her toys. She doesn’t disturb at home because she’s very tidy and obedient. I like animals and I would like some better laws that would protect them. Animals are part of our society and we must respect and take care of them. If we want to be an advanced society we must respect environment: nature, animals and recycling.

The more I see of men, the more I like dogs.

 Clara Bow

CREATING A STORY: ISA POPPINS

WHO? Isa Poppins

WHERE? Egypt

WHEN? In the past  

WHAT? A great confusion

We were in a hotel in El Cairo, the capital of Egypt. The weather was hot and dry and we wanted to rest before going to visit new places. We stayed in the room and called the room service to demand some towels. Our English wasn’t too good and we demanded in Spanish. I said to the boy that we needed “to-a-llas”. The boy returned ten minutes later with a bowl plenty of ice… It was a funny confusion!

I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion 

Jack Kerouac

CREATING A STORY: NÚRIA POPPINS

WHO? Núria Poppins

WHERE? Nubia, Egypt

WHEN? In the past

WHAT? Discovering Nubian culture

I was travelling around Egypt discovering ancient cultures. We arrived to Nubia in the south of the country. Nubian people are different from Egyptians and Sudanese. They’re another culture with another language and other traditions. They’re another ethnic. I travelled by camel along the Nile and I arrived to a Nubian village where I met Sara, a beautiful local girl with enormous green eyes. I was fascinated. She demanded me help for her poor family. I gave it. I promised that I would return next year. I did it. She was there, waiting for me. 

  

Contemporary Nubian is a spoken language only. When its speakers want to write it they have to resort either to the Arabic or to the Latin alphabet.

CREATING A STORY: LULÚ POPPINS

WHO? Lulú Poppins

WHERE? Barcelona

WHEN? In the past

WHAT? BFW

I was in Pedralbes, a suburb in the north of Barcelona. I assisted to The Bridal Fashion Week. The place was plenty of famous people who dedicate their lives to fashion. I want to work in this world. This is the reason because I loved this experience. One day, I will return there to expose my works. I’m sure. I can.

Fashion fades, only style remains the same - Coco Channel

CREATING A STORY: CARMEN POPPINS

Prague, Czech Republic

WHO? Carmen Poppins

WHERE? Prague

WHEN? In the past

WHAT? Holiday

I was in Prague, the capital of Czech Republic, with my family. It’s a wonderful and beautiful city plenty of incredible monuments. We had read a lot of it in a guide and we wanted to visit a special place. We looked around the city for hours. We didn’t find it. Finally, we did it and we had a great desolation when we discovered how ugly it was.

For those of us imprisoned in Poland, the Prague Spring was a harbinger of hope.

Adam Michnik

CREATING A STORY: SAHARAY POPPINS

WHO? Saharay Poppins

WHERE? Vietnam

WHEN? In the past

WHAT? Problems with a guide

I was in Vietnam with my family. We were enjoying the Asian country and we wanted to visit different places. People try to live in their best in that country and they are sometimes dishonest. One day, we travelled to the mountains to visit a beautiful village and we contracted a guide. We realized that the guide wasn’t a real one and we decided to reclaim when we returned to the city. We discovered that the guide was the travel agent’s sister. All was a terrible fake.

Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood.

Henry Miller

CREATING A STORY: ESTHER POPPINS

WHO? Esther Poppins

WHERE? Rome, Italy

WHEN? In the past

WHAT? Enjoying life

I was in Rome, the capital of Italy, some years ago when I was a teenager. I went to there to learn and speak Italian. It wasn’t possible. I lived in a flat with some partners. They were from Alcoi. We spent the entire trip talking in Catalan. I returned to my home. The trip has been wonderful, Rome is a beautiful place to visit and stay and I lived fantastic experiences but I didn’t improve my Italian. I would like to come back again. 

Rome has not seen a modern building in more than half a century. It is a city frozen in time.

 Richard Meier

CREATING A STORY: JENNIFER POPPINS

WHO? Jennifer Poppins

WHERE? At home

WHEN? Nowadays

WHAT? Reading & Writing

I like reading. My house is plenty of books and my mother is always saying to me that there isn’t enough space for them. I like all kind of books and I can stay reading during hours. I like writing. I can spend hours and hours in front of a paper creating stories. I haven’t got a special theme because I can write about whatever I propose. I can’t understand my day by day without reading and writing.

Learn as much by writing as by reading - Lord Acton

CREATING A STORY: ISA POPPINS

WHO? Isa Poppins

WHERE? Jerusalem, Israel

WHEN? In the past

WHAT? A great confusion

I was in Jerusalem with my friends. We were visiting a Jewish place. A woman offered me a Jewish Bible. I accepted it. We continued our trip and we visited a mosque (or Arabian church). There were some incredible security controls. When we tried to enter, a man pointed me with his gun and shouted me in Arabian. I didn’t understand anything. I was scared. It’s forbidden to enter with a Holy Bible in a mosque. This was the reason of his reaction.

Fanaticism comes from any form of chosen blindness accompanying the pursuit of a single dogma.

John Berger

CREATING A STORY: ELI POPPINS

WHO? Eli Poppins

WHERE? In the net

WHEN? In the past

WHAT? A web page

I’m a very creative person. For this reason, one day I decided to create a web page with the help of a friend. We wanted to talk about allergies and all this kind of things that affect children. The web was a great success and we are attending lots of questions nowadays. We want to improve the web and dedicate more hours but it’s a little more difficult being a worker mother.

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. 

Scott Adams

CREATING A STORY: IRINA POPPINS

WHO? Irina Poppins 

WHERE? Havana, Cuba

WHEN? In the past

WHAT? Beautiful country

I was in Havana, the capital of Cuba. I visited the Caribbean island and I enjoyed a lot with its places, its culture and especially its people. Cuban people are very kind and nice and they live their lives with intensity and joyful. Travelling around the island was an excited experience because I felt like if I was living a dream or inside a film. I love Cuba and I know that it is going to change very soon.

Cuba is such a beautiful country, and everywhere you go, there's music and people dancing - especially in Havana.

 Julia Sawalha

CREATING A STORY: LAURA POPPINS

WHO? Laura Poppins' friend and his patient

WHERE? In the hospital

WHEN? In the past

WHAT? A great confusion

I have a friend. He’s a doctor. He’s a good and nice person who loves his job. When you have a profession like this you have lots of stories to tell. He always explains me one about an old woman. She was in the hospital and my friend demanded her all her radios (x-rays). Some days later, she appeared in the doctor’s office with an enormous bag plenty of… radio cassettes! It was a great confusion, of course.

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity,
and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

Isaac Newton