Welcome to the first newsletter of the new school year. Last year we had some excellent

contributions and I feel sure the high standards will continue. Have a look at the news section of the website if you want to find out how the school is doing this year. On a personal note, the biggest change for Angie and I is that our son Tommy has switched

continent and is spending the year at Beijing Univer-sity! We will be joining him for Christmas so will pre-sumably have stuffed Shih Tzu rather than the more traditional turkey. Our other son Jamie is currently preparing his application to study Structural Engineering in the UK from September 2011. It’s great to see them grow-ing up but the house is going to be spookily quiet! On the subject of the paranormal I’m afraid I have no personal experience and therefore remain a huge sceptic. All I can say to you is, if you do happen to make con-tact with the spirit world, please make sure you communicate in English!

By Sara Morettin The word “paranormal” refers to experiences that lie outside "the range of normal experience or scientific ex-planation”, yet nowadays science has made many ad-vances and things that years ago seemed strange, have now been solved and look simple or trivial. Nevertheless, some para-normal experiences have a different meaning that sci-ence can't explain: for exam-ple, unusual appearances in ancient places are connected with old myths and folk tales that are linked with our ori-gins and traditions. Many

people are attracted by the paranormal because, in my opinion, they want to feel a different thrill and to experi-ence an irrational emotion.

Even so, I don't believe in “ghost stories” - for me, they're just stories, not real.

If you do happen to make contact with the spirit world, please make sure you com-municate in English!

Kip Talking

I N S I D E T H I S I S S U E :

The Appeal of the Paranormal

1

Do Ghosts exist? 2

Local Paranor-mal Activity

2

Spooky Experi-ence

3

Clairvoyant Ex-periences

3

Magical Powers 3

My Grand-mother’s Strange Experience

4

Halloween Story 4

The Curse of Miramare Castle

5

Jinx 5

UFOs 6

Why do people still turn to psy-chics?

8

The Appeal of the Paranormal

K E E P T A L K I N G V I A R O M A 6 0 ,

U D I N E

0 4 3 2 5 0 1 2 5 2

The Definite Article presents…

The Paranormal D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 0 I S S U E 3 3 S P E C I A L

P O I N T S O F I N -T E R E S T :

A word from the Director

A crossword puzzle to chal-lenge you over the holidays

Lots and lots of articles writ-ten by you, the students

Some spooky idioms

P A G E 2

“If there’s some-thing strange in your neighbor-hood , who you gonna call???”

Local Paranormal Activity

Do Ghosts Exist? by Flavio Lorenzon

Do you re-member the famous 1984 film, Ghost-busters ? It shows a team of men who go to haunted places to find ghosts. That was just a bright idea to

make up a funny story. In real life, people who do this unusual job are called ‘paranormal investigators’. Actually, there are experts seriously undertaking these sorts of investiga-tions all over the world. They use special equip-ment to determine whether a place is haunted or not. Unlike the men in Ghostbusters, paranormal

investigators don’t hunt or trap ghosts. They just try to collect evidence of paranormal activity in pho-tographs, on videos and in audio recordings. Unsur-prisingly, a lot of people hear or see things they can’t explain and think their home is haunted. In many cases, those people lie or are deceived by strange events which are eventually discovered to be nothing but “normal”. However, it is alleged that at least one per cent of the places investigated have been really haunted. Apparently, there are places where the same thing recurs every time, at the same time every night. That means there was an incident that was so trau-matic that it just seems to

be embedded in this one place and keeps repeating over and over. This is usu-ally the place where peo-ple passed away. For in-stance, the Tower of Lon-don is supposed to be haunted by Anne Boleyn and they see her walking at a specific time every night. On Gettysburg Field, it seems that soldiers re-enact the same battle every night. In conclusion, even though there is no scientific evidence that ghosts exist, the causes of many mysterious phenom-ena remain mysteriously unsolved. Indeed, this is what makes the paranormal so fascinat-ing for us.

ing the full moon. These ghosts are the souls of a mother and her children who, many years ago, were killed by the father of the children. At the moment there are a lot of scary movies at the cinema. I think Paranormal Activity II is the most popu-lar but... please, don't watch it! If the trailer says that this movie has scared all of America, don't believe it! Or maybe it means that Americans are easily

by Raffaele Cain-ero If I talk about "The Paranormal", I think

that the most common reaction is to think about houses with ghosts and the devil inside. Here in Friuli we have a legend. In Mor-tegliano, quite a big village situated near Udine, there's a big old house. The old people of the vil-lage say that the house is haunted by ghosts, which come out of the walls dur-

frightened. Instead, if you really are looking for something scary, I recom-mend you go to the house in Mortegliano during a full moon rather than wasting your money at the cinema on Paranormal Activity II.

If you’re looking for something really scary,

don’t waste your money on Paranormal Activity

II—go to Martegliano during a full moon.

T H E D E F I N I T E A R T I C L E P R E S E N T S …

Spooky Experience by Stefano Zanette

P A G E 3 I S S U E 3 3

I'm very sceptical about the paranormal, even though I really like playing scary video games on my PS3. Resident Evil and Silent Hill are the best! Now I want to tell you some-thing strange that happened to me when I was a teenager. Back then I didn't have a Play-station so I wasn't easily influ-

enced by it. At that time I used to sleep completely under the blanket and without any lights on... in the darkness. For a week every night, while I was sleep-ing, something or someone woke me up. I didn't have the courage to poke my head out from under the blanket and anyway it held on to my legs

very tightly. I wasn't able to move!! It lasted for 10 or 20 seconds... It felt like an eternity in a very short time. I still don’t understand what it was, whether it was real or a nightmare. The only one thing I’m sure of is that when I woke up on the morning my legs hurt!

to transform something by magic is very great. “Good luck charms” only become lucky when we believe in their power and potential. A good example is my neighbour. He is a nice old man in his eight-ies. He loves my children very much and they love him too and call him grandpa. He would like to

What are magical powers? They are particular powers that allow you to live better. Perhaps every one of us may have some kind of “magical power”, but we aren’t able to look inside our-selves, we are too busy thinking about our problems to listen to our hearts. In actual fact, our mind’s capacity

do everything possible for my children and every time they have any difficulty they go to him to ask for his spiritual help. Does he have magical powers? Nooo! I don’t think so, but he believes in himself and in what he does with all his heart.

and their colours. Each colour has an effect on an emotion. So yellow is for delight, pink for femininity, green for calm, red for power and white is pure light. She gave me some coloured stones because their energy could help me and calm my pain. I liked the stones a lot and I put them in my house, but I didn’t receive the help that I hoped for. Last summer I went through another awful period. I had problems at work and with in my love life. My best friend has a colleague who reads tarot cards, and so I decided to try to find out about my future. I had the cards in my hands when a card fell down on the table. The woman picked up the

card and said: “this card wants to speak. You are having some problems with a love affair”. Oh my God! That was true and she didn’t know anything about me. She read a lot of things about me, this man and our relationship and it was all true. At the end she told me that the right thing to do was to break off the affair. In fact, I knew that the relation-ship was no good, but I also knew that I’d make the right decision when I was ready. I can believe in clairvoyant predic-tions, but I want to be the only protagonist of my life.

I began to write about “why I’m a sceptic” be-cause, usually, I’m sceptical about the paranormal. I believe only in the things that I can see and I like to think that everyone can decide their own fate,

through what they do or don’t do. But when I’m too afraid or I'm stressed about my life, I need to think something exists beyond our day to day experience that can give me some answers. Some years ago I met a person who believed in the angels and in the power of the crystals. The first time I met her, she told me that she could speak with the angels and I thought that she was crazy. More interesting was the part about the energy of crystals

Magical Powers by Maria Gallo

Does my neighbour have magical powers?

Clairvoyant Experiences by Tiziana Testa

P A G E 4

“Suddenly the

electricity went

off. They heard

footsteps

coming from

their room…”

Halloween Story by Irene Zuccolo

My Grandmother’s Strange Experience

This is a true story which I heard from the lips of my grandmother herself. I was young when I heard it for the first time but I remem-ber it very well. My grandmother was nine years old and she was go-ing to school with her best friend. The building was at the top of a hill and to reach it they had to go through a wood. That day the weather was awful - it

was raining and the fog was thick. The two girls were not afraid be-cause they were used to that kind of weather in winter, and so they started their walk as usual. However, when they reached the wood they came across some-thing that they'd never seen before. In the air, there was an enormous green snake with two thin black wings which was flying above them. It was making circles

in the air, going up and down, but it seemed not to see the two girls. These two gazed at the strange scene for more than ten minutes till the monster disappeared into the wood. "I don't believe you!" I said to my grandmother more than once, but she always replied saying: "Do you think I tell lies? Why should I lie? The story I've just told really happened to me!"

rang again. He went to open it again and, as before, there was no one there. Since it was Halloween, he thought it was a stupid joke. Mary and Jimmy were scared, and Jonas too. They were alone, without their parents, without any adults to reassure them. So they decided to change the film and watch a car-toon, but suddenly the electricity went off. They heard footsteps coming from their room and sud-denly the light came back

on and Jonas saw his brother and sister lying on the floor with traces of blood everywhere. He was terrified, he wanted to escape but, when he tried to run away, he stopped in front of a dark shadow. He was paralysed and didn’t know what to do and then, right at that moment, he woke up and realised that it had all been a horri-ble nightmare.

It was a cold, rainy Hal-loween night and three children, Mary, Jimmy and Jonas Smith, were alone at home because their par-ents were out with old friends. They were watch-ing a scary movie, “1408”, but only Jonas liked this type of film. While they were in the living room, suddenly the doorbell rang and Jonas, the oldest, went to open the door. He opened it but there was no one there, so he went back to watch the film, and just as he sat down, the doorbell

Caption de-

T H E D E F I N I T E A R T I C L E

“In the air was an

enormous green

snake with two

thin, black

wings...”

By Isabella Onofrio

P A G E 5 I S S U E 3 3

Miramare Castle is certainly the symbol and pride of all Trieste. There is no guest who has not been taken to visit it. Overlooking the sea and sur-

rounded by a park, it looks like a fairytale castle, but perhaps it is cursed. Those who lived there were the victims of a tragic destiny. The cas-tle was built by Maximilian of Habsburg for his young wife, but unfortunately,

four years later Maximilian died at the age of 34, shot in Mexico. Charlotte, his young widow, went mad. From this sad story the legend of

the curse of Miramare Castle was born. It is believed that whoever lives there will perish prematurely of a violent death in a foreign land. Indeed, it seems that, throughout history, the curse has inevitably come to pass. There are those who believe in the curse and those who do not. According to some, the curse strikes engaged couples too, intending to leave after a romantic walk in the park. So if your lover vanishes inexplica-bly, blame Maximilian and Char-lotte... he has no doubt been taken by curse of the castle!

ror you’ll have 7 years of bad luck… I used to think that living like that would be difficult but not impossible, until last Friday.

I was in my car and I was going home when a black cat crossed the street from right to left in front of me, I couldn’t believe it. Superstition told me

When I was young my grand-parents told me many folk stories, and I was fascinated by the superstitions. So when I grew up, I enjoyed following these superstitions. For exam-ple, when you see a nun you have to touch iron otherwise you will have bad luck, and you must never walk under lad-ders, otherwise you’ll be jinxed, if you see an owl you’ll be jinxed, if you break a mir-

that I had to stop the car and wait for another car to go past. I couldn’t believe it. This street is the only street I can take to get home, and my house is the only house in this street, so from that day I have decided to be a sceptic.

turned into a bit of a witch-hunt.

I don’t normally drink spirits.

With it’s extraordinary lyrics and haunting melody, it’s a song everyone recognizes.

That’s the spirit! Come on!

She doesn’t stand the ghost of a chance.

Have you had some good news? You seem in good spirits.

Are you ill? You look like death warmed up.

There are several idiomatic expressions in English with paranormal connections. Can you work out the meaning of the phrases in bold? Hunter Davies works as

Wayne Rooney’s ghostwriter.

My old car finally gave up the ghost last weekend.

The investigation

Caption describing picture or graphic.

Spooky Expressions

Do you believe in bad omens?

“It is believed

that whoever

lives there will

perish

prematurely

of a violent

death.”

The Curse of Miramare Castle by Maria Manuela Veglia

Jinx by Andrea Maurutto

P A G E 6

The ‘alien autopsy’ at Roswell, New Mexico

The Paranormal—UFOs by Luca Rossi

Most people all over the world believe in paranor-mal phenomena, like ghosts, vampires or haunted houses; just in case you don’t know what I’m talking about. ‘Paranormal’ is a word used to describe events that science can’t explain, some of the most famous and striking events are crop circles and U.F.O.s – ‘unidentified flying objects’ in case you don’t know!

U.F.O.s and crop circles are both related to the same origin: aliens, be-cause those who believe in them think that U.F.O.s are alien spaceships and crop circles are either messages sent by these aliens, or landing-strips for U.F.O.s. There are a lot of stories about aliens: people ab-ducted by them, aliens that live among us, U.F.O. crashes and others. By the way, we can talk about the most famous U.F.O. crash ever, the case of Roswell. Roswell is a city in New Mexico, USA, where, in 1947 pieces, allegedly of a U.F.O. were found. Immediately the government broadcast the news that there hadn’t been a U.F.O. crash and that it was only a weather balloon. However, despite

all that, many tourists visit the site of the crash near Roswell every year, be-cause the story is sur-rounded by a veil of mys-tery. Especially in the last 30 years U.F.O.s have been sighted very often all over the world, and scientists have begun to study this phenomena in order to understand more about them, so they have formu-lated many theories, al-though none of them has been demonstrated scien-tifically. Nowadays, with the invention of the inter-net all “U.F.O. fans” can share their experiences, videos, and news about U.F.O.s, so such stories have become popular eve-rywhere.

T H E D E F I N I T E A R T I C L E

Prize Article!

The English county of Wiltshire is reportedly the most popolated area for crop circles. They can be incredibly detailed. However, the one in the picture was most pro-bably computer genera-ted.

P A G E 7 I S S U E 3 3

Pit your

wits against

the KT

crossword!

KT Crossword Number 33 You can find all the answers to the crossword clues in the article in this edition of the newsletter.

1

2

3

4 5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

Across 4. a popular festival where people dress up as monsters. 6. a scary dream 8. a monster that sucks your blood 9. strange things happen when this is shining in the Sky (2 words) 14. frightening, spooky 15. someone who can see into the future 16. a ghost that moves things around 17. e.g. Merlin or Harry Potter 18. a meeting in which people try to comunicate with the dead 20. 1984 kids’ film about catching evil spirits

Down 1. something that causes bad luck 2. describes a house that is full of ghosts 3. one of the bad omens in the photos on page 4 5. someone who tells the furture by looking at the stars 7. unidentified flying object 10. mysterious patterns in the fields—caused by aliens? (2 words) 11. some people believe these stones have healing powers 12. someone who doubts the existence of the para normal 13. something unexplained, e.g. “a murder ______” 19. a magic spell to make bad things happen to someone

future and to what semiotics call “semantic evaporation” or loss of meaning. This growth of uncer-tainty is caused by a combination of many factors. One of them is the affirmation of an individualistic culture among the people in our society, due to the overwhelming role of mass media in general

and television in particular. In our culture, everyone thinks of themselves as the main (or unique) purpose of his life. Con-sequently, due to the lack of stable human relationships and to the global economic reces-sion, many people think their future will highly probably be worse and lonelier than the pre-sent. Therefore, in order to try to control their anxiety, they look to psychics to forecast

By Daniele Cortolezzis In spite of the ascendance of rationalism, which philosophers claim to be the defining charac-teristic of our age, the use and abuse of psychics, astrologers, and palmists, is in fact rising among people from all walks of life. The reason why this is hap-pening may be linked to our growing uncertainty about the

their personal destiny. Of course these phenomena are not unknown to humanity. One of the roles religions have al-ways played is to comfort peo-ple about the future, before and after death. But religions play another fundamental role. In trying to define what truth is and what is good for human beings, they play the defining role in “giving a universal sense to your life”. The loss of this “sense of life”, through the evaporation of reli-gious significance, produces a further increase in uncertainty and of insecurity nowadays. The paradox is that people who consider religions to be super-stitions, chase after metaphysical certainty that has even less chance of being true than the ancient religions. It seems to be a very amusing law of reaction-ism.

New Faces in 2010-2011 This year we are very happy to welcome two new teachers to the school, Charis Pol-ley and Ruth Tadina.

Why do people still turn to psychics?

Charis. comes from a town called Taunton in the south-west of En-gland. She studied French and Italian at university and as part of her course she spent a year studying at Trento University.

After that, she says, she couldn’t wait to come back Italy to live! She joined us at KT in September 2010, having taught in Brescia the year before. In her free time she enjoys music and singing and she even sings in a choir in Udine. She also loves watching films - espe-cially independent and foreign ones - and travelling and exploring places she’s never been before.

Ruth moved to Friuli seven years ago and has been with us at KT since September 2010. She has a business background and met and married her husband whilst working for an Italian Construction

Company in South America. She now lives in the mountains of Carnia and has three ‘lively’ children. When she’s not racing around after them, or teaching at KT, she’s a keen sportswo-man, playing football with her local team, “Val Aupe Girls” or snowboarding in Pramollo.