I am a machine

Just for you, Stacy!! At the Church of the Holy Innocents. This wasn't the nicest piece of stained glass in the church but it wasn't the easiest light for taking photos.
One of the rather rainy days we encountered.
My nephew Sam wandering through the grounds at the church, on Boxing Day.

I have just powered through one 1300 word essay - in two hours! Congratulate me. Of course I still haven't proofread it and so on but it feels quite encouragaing. Especially as I have two more to do before the 9th. This essay was on "the notion of the littoral" (yes, it's spelt that way) which is apparently something to do with the foreshore or beach and is often used in imagery by New Zealand writers. It's a bit worrying that I still don't know exactly what it means but I'm not too fussed. I'm just glad to have finished!

One of the poems I wrote on I really liked. I thought I would share it. But you have to read it aloud. Okay, so I will let you mouth it under your breath if others are around. Here it is:

Wild Iron, by Allen Curnow

Sea go dark, dark with wind,
Feet go heavy, heavy with sand,
Thoughts go wild, wild with the sound
Of iron on the old shed swinging, clanging:
Go dark, go heavy, go wild, go round,
- Dark with the wind,
- Heavy with the sand,
Wild with the iron that tears at the nail
And the foundering shriek of the gale.

It's been nice doing this course because I've never really read much New Zealand literature before except for children's authors like Margaret Mahy or Sherryl Jordan or Maurice Gee. Some of it wasn't really me, but a lot of it was great. A nice surprise.

I'm not sure if I could say the same for the History course I started yesterday. It's on Gandhi and that stuff is all interesting - but on the very first lecture yesterday, our lecturer managed to slip in what she thinks of modern day Christianity, as if we were interested to know. It made me very annoyed because it had absolutely no relevance to what we were talking about. Argh! I've learnt to handle that stuff from English lecturers, even when it's not on topic, because that's what they do, but up until now History lecturers have always been unbiased or at least backed up what they were saying, which makes me think she isn't very professional. It's also annoying that you are essentially a captive audience with no way of defending yourself. Oh well. I've got over that now...

Because...

One of my photos has been published in our city newspaper! Yay! See last post back, of Finlay and the Big Tree. They had a competition to send in holiday photos, so I did. I am now in a draw to win $150. Money always alleviates annoyance. Although funnily enough my Dad says I shouldn't have sent that one in because people weren't actually meant to clamber around on it and we could get in trouble with the Department of Conservation! But I really doubt it. They have more important things to do with their time than stopping four-year-olds from having fun.