They call it intensive for a reason

Phew! Back from the Latin Intensive School (formerly called residential school)..... 9am -5pm  Latin for 3 days. 

Our lecturer supports the immersion method of language acquisition so all our text and a great deal of the teaching was in Latin. And of course we had to answer as much as we could in Latin - OMG!!! I must say though, I had a ball. I much prefer Latin over Linguistics or English so far.

What an interesting weekend..... 

Accommodation wouldn't have been a problem if I'd been going alone; I could have just stayed in one of the colleges but...... Huon is going through an anxious phase (he's afraid to be on his own and afraid that either Ian or myself won't come home) so we all drove up together very early Friday morning.

Apparently it was an auspicious date for holding events as, in addition to the Intensive, there was a music in the vineyard style concert which meant that every motel room and stable had been booked since December on the Saturday night. We were able to find a room Friday but had to head 40km out of town to find a room Saturday night. The motel on Friday night was close to the main road through town so not only did we have the local hoons squealing tyres and revving engines we also had lorries going past. Tired doesn't come close to how I felt for Saturday's class. 

You couldn't have swung a cat in the second motel room and quite unintentionally, I'm sure, it was back in vogue, being seriously vintage....including the bed. So, feeling as if I was living in some slightly out of phase reality I made it back for day 3. I was so tired at this point that I cared not a jot whether I made an ass of myself so I actually did better than previous days.

On arriving home, Sunday night, I all but passed out fully clothed on my beautiful, glorious, ever-so snuggly bed.

Today I nearly feel normal (whatever that is).

Deer in the headlights

I knew that uni was going to be a lot of work but....holy shit! I'm doing a 75% load and that still requires 45 hours a week. That's 9 hours a day if I only work 5 days or 7.something if I spread it over 6.  Jeeeeezus I'm glad I didn't sign up for the 4 unit trimester gig.

Studying by distance does have it's advantages but if I had a choice I think I'd rather be an on-campus student. We have forums where we can post questions or discuss the subjects and all the lecturers except one are really good at checking in at least once a day but I think it's a poor substitute for face to face input.

There appears to be a problem with our Classical Languages dept. or rather someone in the uni has caused a problem for them. I have no idea of the politics or whatever but our poor lecturer is having to teaching all the Greek and now the Latin stream as well. Why the uni wouldn't allow the prof that was going to take Latin to do so is anyone's guess.

When I'm not feeling like a deer in the headlights, I am really enjoying getting stuck in and ****brag alert**** we had the first of four Linguistic quizzes today.......results 23.75 out of 24. Only worth 10% but it's a start.

It's all go, next up is res school for Latin  - which should be loads of fun (and I'm not being sarcastic).

Liebster Blog Award

My very good friend and belly dance teacher Jade has awarded me the Liebster Blog award. Wow! My poor blog is such a starved and neglected little thing, I never thought anyone would think of awarding it (or is that affording it) more than a passing glance.


The conditions of receiving this award are that I mention Jade , that I leave her a comment and that I award 5 other blogs with less than 200 followers. 


So (drumroll please) here they are:

• Cotswold Peeps (gorgeous photos of the Cotswolds that make me homesick for England)

• Greenspirit Arts (beautiful natural art and photography)

• Snapper and Griffin (fabulous stories)

• Expvlsion of the Blatant Beast (although this blog is by invitation only and I'm not sure how its author will feel about accepting it. I feel it may be just a little too cheesy. I'm sure I'll be told. :) )

• Menopausal Old Bag (her humour often has me weeping with mirth)

It's a shame that I can't nominate Notes from the Fae Side or Moonlight and Hares but they have too many followers to be eligible.


Thank you Jade.

New Life as a Student

Well, the first steps have been taken. The excitement on receiving a letter of offer in response to my admission application has worn off. The enrollment is done and I am now officially a student. Books have been ordered - I just hope they arrive before teaching starts. Now I am just nerves, nerves and more nerves.

2012, here I come

Couldn't resist this image

Happy New Year! If I can still be saying that at this late stage of January. Let us hope that 2012 will shine as an outstandingly good and happy year for us all.

Those that are in the business of prophesy, scrying, card reading etc have promised a year of great changes. Well, the year has certainly started that way for me. I have made a decision that, had you told me a month ago, I would have thought you mad.

Having been disappointed in my attempts to gain even an interview let alone employment (despite what I think is a very good resume), I have decided (cue drum roll) to go to uni. I understand from the media that I am not alone in changing careers at this seemingly late stage. I'm hoping to enroll in a combined Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Teaching course but am yet to hear whether my application for admission has been accepted. I should know by Friday - fingers crossed.

OMG! A fortnight of trawling the internet, of hair tearing and gnashing of teeth over poorly designed websites and worrying over my application and all I end up with is one tiny paragraph. *sigh*  The bureaucratic hoops that have to be jumped through are enough to put all but the most fervent future student off study forever and I admit that the Centrelink application form for Austudy was sufficient to bring me to tears. I dare say that it won't be the last time either.

"Why be happy when you can be normal?"

There's a book I want to buy. It's author is Jeanette Winterson and I've borrowed its title for this post. Despite the recommendations made by friends, I have never read any of her work......that is until today. An edited extract appeared  in the magazine section of today's paper and it was this question that struck a chord. Except that I would (and have) asked it the other way around "Why be normal when you can be happy?"

 It was this question that had me leave the corporate world and Sydney and move to a little town in regional NSW where no-one looks askance at hippies, ferals or any other non-normal person. Art and music proliferate and there is a grass roots movement to a more positive, sustainable, community centred approach to life. Yes, it's all very idealistic and the competition for who has the biggest income/superannuation fund/house etc has been replaced with who has the most sustainable lifestyle, who buys the most organic and how big your permaculture vegie patch is and whether you have your own chooks*.......(sigh) Nevertheless, I am happier here than I ever was in the city, wearing the corporate uniform and playing the role (which I think I did quite well) while in my quiet moments I felt lonely, out of place and living a lie. I wanted to grow my hair long and let it knot into dreads (not that I did), I wanted to wear tie-dye dresses and leave my face devoid of make-up, throw my basic black courts in the bin and run barefoot and wild along beaches and take dips in almost pristine creeks and feel that I had found my "tribe". To an extent I have succeeded. 

So it saddened me the other day when I went shopping for an interview outfit to find, despite my stated intent to buy bright and colourful clothes that could pass for appropriate office wear, myself back in the corporate uniform and immediately feeling the heaviness and dread from memories of that earlier time.

Colourful is, I suppose, another word that could be used to describe this town - most of the time. As a result of visioning workshops run by Transition Bellingen we now have a new festival. One to celebrate the river that runs through our town. It was held last Saturday, a perfect Spring day. There were canoe races, entertainers, musicians, storytellers, interactive circus for the children and in the evening there was a loy krathong ceremony (which, unfortunately, we missed) and lantern parade led by carnivale style drummers and dancers.  We had a great day and I for one hope they hold it again next year

(This post was meant to be put up in October 2011)

*Chickens, for those not up with Aussie slang. Googs are what they lay, (Don't ask, I have no idea.)