I know, I know,
Apr. 2nd, 2007 11:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zcat_abroadI don't update often enough. It's a case of brain-freeze: I have great subjects for posts, even occasionally deep thoughts (very occasionally), and then when I sit at the computer, my mind goes blank. I spend a lot of time reading other people's posts, instead.
The first half of semester is drawing to a close, and I still have not had many students come to visit me during my office hour. This worries me. Am I not friendly enough? Are they really understanding the material, or are they failing so fast that they think there is no point? I'm choosing to think that they are all confident about their first assignment, and hoping this confidence is not misplaced. I'm also worried that I might have scared (or scarred) some of them with my rather blunt interpretations of the Wife of Bath. I remember what I was like in my second year at uni, and I'm not sure I could have coped with the Wife's checking out the legs of her nextvictim husband while he carried her previous one to the grave. It took a bit of explaining to get the idea of 'netherpurse' across to one group as one of the things one wants a man to be well endowed in. Class was more fun with Dame Ragnell and Sir Launfal: though I still have to deal with the Wednesday group, who are harder to get laughing.
As an interesting aside, out of 37 people, 8 of the class are American exchange students. This puts an interesting twist on pronunciation of Middle English (which we don't really focus on much), but I just realised today that I'll have to be lenient about American spelling in the essays. I have always maintained that I don't mind which spelling you use, as long as you are consistent, but I have noticed myself having trouble accepting it in real life. Though I don't tend to mind in novels, it depends greatly on how gripping the plot is as to whether it bothers me or not. However, I am aware of spelling with regards to these essays, so it shouldn't catch me by surprise. Interestingly, this is not one of the problems the American students have come up with when trying to figure out how to write essays for this university - for some reason there are other issues with what an essay looks like or does. Curious.
In my own work, I have to email a huge heap of words to my supervisor sometime soon. Like yesterday, or the day before. The words are still not quite finished, but that's what tomorrow is for. Though I have figured out that I have now written 20,000 words of my thesis. That's a quarter of the way there! In half the time. Hmm, not so good: I really did waste summer.
Autumn is here, and so far it has been really nice: warm and wet, just how I like my weather. Apart from that early cold snap, it is letting us down gently. In fact, I only really noticed it was autumn when walking down Symonds St the other day: the great big drifts of leaves have arrived. Must now buy boots so I can wade through them.
Easter will be good. Having had no chocolate, or anything deliberately sweet for 40 days, we are planning to pig out slightly on Sunday. Also, I will not be picking up the essays until Wednesday, so I will have five, that's right, FIVE whole days of holiday, during which time I am planning to spend a lot of time sewing: finishing![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zcatcurious's Christmas present; my medieval dress which is lacking sleeves; and getting started on soon-to-be sister-in-law-in-law's wedding dress. Also there will be Buffy games, and maybe a trip to the movies to see 300.
We return you now to your regularly scheduled programme.
(Quick quiz: How do you pronounce "schedule"? Did you react to the spelling of "programme"?)
The first half of semester is drawing to a close, and I still have not had many students come to visit me during my office hour. This worries me. Am I not friendly enough? Are they really understanding the material, or are they failing so fast that they think there is no point? I'm choosing to think that they are all confident about their first assignment, and hoping this confidence is not misplaced. I'm also worried that I might have scared (or scarred) some of them with my rather blunt interpretations of the Wife of Bath. I remember what I was like in my second year at uni, and I'm not sure I could have coped with the Wife's checking out the legs of her next
As an interesting aside, out of 37 people, 8 of the class are American exchange students. This puts an interesting twist on pronunciation of Middle English (which we don't really focus on much), but I just realised today that I'll have to be lenient about American spelling in the essays. I have always maintained that I don't mind which spelling you use, as long as you are consistent, but I have noticed myself having trouble accepting it in real life. Though I don't tend to mind in novels, it depends greatly on how gripping the plot is as to whether it bothers me or not. However, I am aware of spelling with regards to these essays, so it shouldn't catch me by surprise. Interestingly, this is not one of the problems the American students have come up with when trying to figure out how to write essays for this university - for some reason there are other issues with what an essay looks like or does. Curious.
In my own work, I have to email a huge heap of words to my supervisor sometime soon. Like yesterday, or the day before. The words are still not quite finished, but that's what tomorrow is for. Though I have figured out that I have now written 20,000 words of my thesis. That's a quarter of the way there! In half the time. Hmm, not so good: I really did waste summer.
Autumn is here, and so far it has been really nice: warm and wet, just how I like my weather. Apart from that early cold snap, it is letting us down gently. In fact, I only really noticed it was autumn when walking down Symonds St the other day: the great big drifts of leaves have arrived. Must now buy boots so I can wade through them.
Easter will be good. Having had no chocolate, or anything deliberately sweet for 40 days, we are planning to pig out slightly on Sunday. Also, I will not be picking up the essays until Wednesday, so I will have five, that's right, FIVE whole days of holiday, during which time I am planning to spend a lot of time sewing: finishing
zcatcurious's Christmas present; my medieval dress which is lacking sleeves; and getting started on soon-to-be sister-in-law-in-law's wedding dress. Also there will be Buffy games, and maybe a trip to the movies to see 300. We return you now to your regularly scheduled programme.
(Quick quiz: How do you pronounce "schedule"? Did you react to the spelling of "programme"?)
