Course Verdicts

Child Law: excellent, interesting, useful
Lecturer: Mrs passionate & organised

Phil: not bad, often mind-stretching
Lecturer: alert, twitchy dwarf :)

Aboriginal Studies: tolerable - I did actually learn some stuff! a little bit
Lecturer: hardened cynic.. but not without reason

SWRK: blerg (more than less)


Goodbye 2nd yr of uni!!

Tales from Outer Suburbia - Shaun Tan

the nameless holiday

the nameless holiday happens once a year, usually around late August, sometimes October. It is always anticipated by children and adults alike with mixed emotion: It's not exactly festive, but still a celebration of sorts, the origin of which has been long forgotten.

All that is known are the familiar rituals: the laying out of one's most prized possessions on the bedroom floor; then choosing one special object - exactly the right one - and carrying it carefully up a ladder to the roof and leaving it under the TV aerial (already decorated with small shiny things such as chocolate wrappers, old CDs, and the tops off tubs of yogurt, licked clean and threaded with string, tied with special slipknots).

Then there is the traditional midnight picnic in the backyard, front lawn, or any place with a good view of one's own roof - across the street if necessary, which is why families sometimes gather by the roadside on blankets. Here are born fond memories of freshly baked gingerbread crows, hot pomegranate juice as tart as a knife, and small plastic whistles, inaudible to the ears of both humans and dogs. Not to mention all that excited chatter and giggling, all that polite shushing, everyone struggling to observe the convention of silence.

Those who stay awake long enough are rewarded by a momentary sound that never fails to draw a sharp intake of breath - the delicate tapping of hoofs descending on roof tiles. It is always so startling, so hard to believe at first, like a waking dream made solid. But sure enough, there he is, the reindeer with no name: enormous, blind as a bat, sniffing under the TV aerial with infinite patience. He always knows exactly which objects are so loved that their loss will be felt like the snapping of a cord to the heart, and it's only these that he nudges gently until they become hooked onto his great antlers. The rest he leaves alone, leaping gracefully back up into the cool darkness.

What a remarkable, unnameable feeling it is, right at the moment of his leaping: something like sadness and regret, of suddenly wanting your gift back and held tight to your chest, knowing that you will certainly never see it again. And then there is the letting go as your muscles release, your lungs exhale, and the backwash of longing leaves behind this one image on the shore of memory: a huge reindeer on your roof, bowing down.


copyright Shaun Tan, 2008

Harry Potter MLIA

Harry Potter madness hit the Canary household a couple of days ago with all the force of a flock of stampeding hippogriffs. Grand plans for a Christmas party were made, involving dreams of copious amounts of butterbeer, pumpkin juice, pies of all descriptions, every-flavour beans, quidditch-playing, and assigning of dress-up characters to those present (and every other friend that entered our heads)!

Then in the thickest of procrastinatory moods, my own personal HP fever combined with OCDish trawling of MLIA (mylifeisaverage.com*) to bring you this selection:
Enjoy!

'Today I was doing some research and typed into Google, "Where is Hogwarts..." and the suggestion was "Where is Hogwarts located in real life?" I'm glad to know that Google knows that Hogwarts is real. MLIA'

One night my boyfriend was driving me home from his house. When we pulled into my driveway we both saw an owl sitting on our fencepost. He instantly slammed on his brakes, looked at me with wide eyes, and shouted, "Your Hogwarts letter came!" I knew I loved him.MLIA

Today, I realized that everytime I take my cough syrup (it's not the greatest tasting medicine), I pretend it's some sort of Harry Potter potion. It makes it a lot easier to take. MLIA

Today, I was trying to explain to my son why we couldn't give him everything he wanted. Finally, I said that if we did he'd end up like Dudley Dursley. He shut up immediately. MLIA

Today I changed my name in my mother's cell phone to Ron Weasely. About an hour later I texted her. She came into my room screaming excitedly. I feel too bad to tell her she has been conversing with me for the entire day. I don't want to break her heart. MLIA

My aunt is from Mexico. So today when I went to brush my teeth, I found toothpaste. It had Harry Potter on it saying "¡Yo combate las caries con la magia!" Which in English, means "I fight cavities with magic!" Needless to say I know what I want for Christmas. MLIA

Today was celebrity day for the spirit week so naturally i dressed up as Hermione Granger. I was walking through school and losing heart because of the some 1000 odd Justin Beibers, Lady Gagas, and Nicki Minajs i couldn't find another Harry Potter character. Then later during lunch i was sitting, kind of sad, when Harry, Ron, Draco, and Cho ran up to my table screaming "There you are Hermione!! We all have potions homework due next class and we need your help!" We all took a picture together. Easily made my life. :) MLIA

Today, in my spanish class a girl jokingly called her friend a muggle during free time. My teacher responded my promptly jumping out of his chair and yelling, "Don't use that foul language in my classroom!" She has a two-hour long detention now. MLIA

One night quite sometime ago, i had fallen asleep watching "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" and left it on repeat, well i woke up in the middle of the night and went to turn on my other side (away from the tv) when voldermort exclaims "Don't turn your back away from me, i want to see the lights go out in your eyes when i kill you!" I seriously screamed and ran out of my room. MLIA

Today, I changed all of my contacts in my phone to Harry Potter characters. For some people, I couldn't figure out who to put them as, so I texted them, asking them who they want to be. The usual was Harry, Ron, Hermione, Fred, Sirius, etc. But one friend said "either Fluffy or The Basilisk." New best friend? I think so. MLIA.

Today a guy came to my work dressed up like Spiderman. A little boy ran up to him and told him that he could never beat Harry Potter, then cast a spell on Spiderman, and ran off. I hope my kid will be that cool.MLIA.

Last night the power went out at my apartment complex. I texted my girlfriend, asking her to keep me company, and she told me to light a candle and pretend that I was in the forbidden section of the library at Hogwarts. She's a keeper. MLIA.

Today i was talking to my mom and told her we needed to get some Bertie Bots Every Flavor Beans (i was meaning Jelly Belly Jelly Beans) She just nodded and wrote it down. Im glad she understands my mind always relates to Harry Potter. MLIA


*MLIA is a site where you can post 'average' experiences and thoughts from your average life.. however somehow it has become a pooling of often hilarious (allegedly true) episodes brimming with pop culture (well, pretty much harry pothead, pirates & ninjas, with some gratuitous twilight-bashing thrown in) and fairytale endings..

On Wagging.

Some thoughts* :

To get the full pleasure from wagging a class, it must be one which you generally feel you should attend, and thus generally do attend, so that when you don't you have a heady, soaring sense of freedom (wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!) - and a slightly wicked joy at your own naughtiness.

It helps if you pick a class which is going to be terribly boring, because afterwards you haven't missed anything whatsoever and you can snigger inwardly at the poor suckers that went along (when later your suspicions of its dullness and utter uselessness are confirmed).

If you happen to be pretending to be sick or fiendishly busy and sacrificial by taking your 2nd cousin-twice-removed-who-is-at-death's-door to the hospital, don't go on facebook. Or wander up to uni to get the paper or a coffee when your class/es are still on.

Last but not least, if you're going to wag, make the most of it! Sleep in! Run, jump and be merry! Climb a tree! Eat cake! Find a hammock and read a book in it! Nap! Sing a song! etc..

*not that I would ever wag a class, you realise...

Fridge Fragments

these were invented with one of those magnetic word kits that you make poems (and other forms of ridiculousness) from.
...created by the canaries and friends!

It is always essential chocolate day.

Sing friend
and spray purple juiceness

music
his raw chant
rain's powerful
wind over the forest

use mother's leg
as car

be a live gift

I am not the flood
wanting beauty like blood

trip
o
u
t
man

dreaming
is love true or are you drunk
weak
sweet

I have the urge to eat the girl from TV
but she would club me on the head

a vision of a frantic fiddle storm symphony

please take my ache

though thousand ships fall
let's swim by time
but stare not.

part of me is ugly with lies

one may ask by worship

whisper love
shine a light in life together
eternity

near this black void
were those who cry

sun
spring
your delirious summer peach goddess
winter

i scream at sad sausages..........

bit o' faith

a prayer of the Northumbria Celtic Community:

Lord, you have always given
bread for the coming day;
and though I am poor,
today I believe.

Lord, you have always given
strength for the coming day;
and though I am weak,
today I believe.

Lord, you have always given
peace for the coming day;
and though of anxious heart,
today I believe.

Lord, you have always kept
me safe in trials;
and now, tried as I am,
today I believe.

Lord, you have always marked
the road for the coming day;
and though it may be hidden,
today I believe.

Lord, you have always lightened
this darkness of mine;
and though the night is here,
today I believe.

Lord, you have always spoken
when time was ripe;
and though you be silent now,
today I believe.


So true, but still hard to remember to trust, - in big things, but even in the little things too like last-minute assignments.. !

sea

really is a baptism of the ocean on your skin.
especially at night when the moon is splashing silver light all over you, and the waves, and the shiny beach.
and the water is in your ears, in your hair, down your face..

life explosion.