August 23, 2010

Whether the Weather be: Fair (72F/22C)
In the News: Phillipines bus hijacking (Source: AP).
Events of Note: Seminar 7

* For the first time in a couple of months, I had a relatively quiet and 'me'-oriented weekend, this past weekend. To wit, the weather sudddenly turned into the most glorious and sweet sort of an Indian, late-summer, early Fall, with sunshine-filled days, with soft breezes and mild temperatures. Sometimes, I need to do something different; I just get too wrung-out and off-track. It's good to re-center, again. Being back blogging at "Rose-Tinted Ramblings" helped a lot, too. It's my private venting space. In terms of Comp II, I gave quite a few Peer Reviews. Time to step back and let others take a turn, I think. It's also time for me to do some revision work on my own paper.

* Today, though, I thought that I'd share a little-known aspect of my life. I love to sing-although, mostly in private, despite the fact that I like the adrenaline rush that goes with performing in front of an audience. I like music with a traditional Celtic or folk basis to it. Although, in senior high school, it seemed as if we were always singing popular or Broadway Show tunes. I guess that I was in the Kiwi equivalent of what here in America is popularly referred to as being, "Glee Club". I was christened in the Church of England as a baby, and while I no longer consider myself to be religious (more spiritual), while I was an undergraduate college student, I used to regularly attend the Choral Evensong service at Christchurch Anglican Cathedral. The cathedral is located in the center of the city, and is a vast, stone structure, built in the traditional Anglo-Gothic style. Evensong typically began at around 5 or 5:30pm, lasting for an hour. It was always such a reflective and peaceful way to end my often extremely stressful college days. Consequently, I have a lot of Enya in my music collection. I'm also a huge fan of the 80s Australian band, Icehouse.

* Back when I first started college as a University undergraduate student, I really, really struggled with my academic writing style. Very quickly, and much to my dismay, I just couldn't seem to stem the tide of failing "D" grades for papers that I felt as if I'd really worked hard on. For one, I invariably felt overwhelmed by the huge set, Required Reading Lists for all new English Lit majors. Adding research reading for the purposes of writing a minumum of three, graded papers per paper, per Semester on to that just compounded my difficulties even further. For another, I found myself trying too hard to express myself in the academic style. Added to this, my first year classes were huge-600 students in Philosophy 101, and about half as many again in Literary Theory 101. Just by the numbers, getting any attention from my Professors at all was pretty much a hit and miss exercise. Thankfully, I was able to pick up a Foundation paper in Fine Arts, and several more in French Studies in Translation-two subject areas that I found to be far more engaging, and where I ultimately did much better in. Which likely gives credence to the idea that you should study and major in what you're most interested in.

See you in class, tonight!.