a little place to call my own (art and fashion blog)

 Hello everyone! Happy Back to School! With the start of September, I always feel like a new year is starting. For us educators it means the beginning of A Brand New School Year! However, it is not a phenomenon that only students and educators experience. With the end of summer vacations and holidays, many are starting to gear up for work and embrace new projects. Seminars and conferences are being sold out, people are making gym appointments, taking on new hobbies and so on.   Whether you're returning to work or school, you can probably feel that 'back to school' atmosphere. I suppose in a way we are all students in the school of life. Every year is a new opportunity for learning. I wish everyone all the best in this new school year, whether it is attending the school of life or a regular educational institution.  Summer is not over yet, but the end of Summer is in the air. Officially Summer will be over on the twentieth of September. Still, with the start of Septem...

Hello readers and fellow bloggers! In this post, I shall review The Long Petal of the Sea, a novel by Chilean-American writer Isabel Allende. I bought this second hand copy in Split this Summer, and read it in a heartbeat.  Published in 2019, A Long Petal of the Sea is one of Allende's more recent works.  Allende herself describes it in her Preface as 'a story of displacement and love, of sorrow and hope, of a couple trying to find their place in a world torn apart by violence'. The novel is told by fictional characters but it features real historical figures such as Pablo Neruda whose poetical description of Chile the author borrowed for the title of the novel. Yes, it was Neruda who described Chile as the long petal of the sea. Despite being a minor character, the famous Novel winning poet at times plays a key part in the novel's plot, from organizing the flight of Spanish refuges to embodying Chile's national spirit.  Moreover,  The Long Petal of the Sea,  ...