because it's late at night and I can't sleep

I apologise. I really do.

news?

My hometown newspaper - the Christchurch Press - has a reputation for being parochial, especially among my siblings. I would like to point out that over half of my siblings live in cities with infinitely worse newspapers (the Otago Daily Times, and The Worst, oops, West Australian, and Penang's newspaper which basically exists as a government advertisement), and to point out that the World News section in the Press is not bad at all and that the movie reviews are very good.

Today, however, my opinion of the Press has been drastically altered when I saw the front page article: "Who stole this blind boy's bike?"

The article starts, "A near-blind Christchurch albino boy is appealing to thieves to return his bike, which was stolen the first time he took it to school." This article, plus a huge picture of the little boy, takes up about half the front page.

There is something about these type of articles that makes me want to throw up. Yes, it's unfortunate, but hello? It's a bike! And he left it unlocked! As sad as it may be for him to lose it, I think page three or four at best, with maybe a small photo, would be sufficient. It's shameless use of someone's personal problems to generate media points and to sell a newspaper by pity. If that makes sense. It's almost as bad as the Australian current affairs show I saw which featured a "special guest invalid".

Meanwhile, in the rest of the world, rioters in Serbia have just set fire to the American Embassy, inflation in Zimbabwe has risen to over 100,580% and floods and landslides in Indonesia have killed eleven and displaced 3500. And a boy in Christchurch who happens to be partially blind has lost his bike.

wish me luck

Last week I started working again - I'm an ESL teacher at a language school that deals especially with Korean children, but I've been away from work for the last six months because of my overseas adventure. Last week I started with two boys aged thirteen and fourteen, who have reasonably okay English. The elder has been here four years so he understands a lot. And I was surprised to find myself really enjoying it, because I had dreaded going back to work.

This week, though... my boss asked me to take on another couple of hours on Thursdays, and before I heard anything about it, I agreed - then found out it would be with two small children, aged five or six, who only speak very simple English and can't really read or write yet. *screeeeeech* As you can probably tell from my blog, I find it hard to say things simply. I love teaching English from a technical point of view, but I have to be able to explain stuff, and mostly I've taught kids who are aged ten and up. In this lesson I will have to somehow fill two hours with "Cat. Caaaaaaatttttt. C. A. T. Cat." Okay, so my boss has given me a few more ideas than that, and a few resources to help me with this, and I am also armed with a game of Memory in case I really lose it. But I am so nervous. I told my boss I'd prefer to go into this on the understanding that if I really couldn't handle it I could pull out after a couple of weeks. But I'd rather not look wimpy and incompetent. Wish me luck!

UPDATE (22 Feb): So I've done it. And it was difficult. I won't be so terrified about it in future, but I think the two hours I spend with these kids every week is going to be hard work. Their spoken English is worse than I thought it would be so it makes it very hard to communicate certain things to them. They're both rather bouncy, as indeed most five or six year olds are, but the little boy is just a little too bouncy to stay tuned for two whole hours, even one. Oh well. Some of the teachers at school have to have about eight kids at once. I'm lucky. And the nice thing is that another teacher takes them on Tuesdays, so I can chat to him about what works or doesn't work with them.

perfection

I have just turned the television off. There was a documentary, called "Under the Knife", with Louis Theroux. Basically he spent a few weeks in Beverly Hills visiting a few plastic surgeons and following a few of their patients. For me, the worst part was the 50 year old male who looked like a sunburnt mannequin with moobs, or perhaps the woman who wanted her breasts to look just that little bit more symmetrical where they already looked like bulbous plastic balloons - actually the worst was a cute girl with a nice body who went under the knife quite radically and was so happy when her ex agreed that yes, she did look more beautiful and he'd quite like to get back with her. Each and every patient this reporter spoke with talked about the inner change their outer change brought, and how much happier and more confident they were.

Over the last year I'm sure I've put on weight. Not heaps, luckily. But since I broke my heel, I have been restricted from all normal exercise, and have been feeling just a bit worse than usual about it. I've been trying to cut out less healthy food while I can't do much exercise - but here's some advice: if you must have that sort of injury which restricts you from exercise, try not to do it just before Christmas. So basically Allie has been a little bit depressed about body image recently.

It feels strange then, that after seeing these "perfect" specimens of humanity onscreen, I suddenly feel like this weight has been lifted off my shoulders. These people, with all their imperfections observed, identified, marked on with a Sharpie, and treated - these people look abnormal, even bizarre, or at best unnatural. They have lost their natural contour, their identifying features. They are still unhappy with themselves; although they say they're not, they still think they just need a bit of a touch-up in future. Right now (I'm sure it won't last but I want to document this) I feel almost delirious with joy that I am a very, very normal person, that I have a lot of external imperfections, and that I am aware of the person inside me who is independent of what people see. And that I don't live in Beverly Hills.

a contradictory me

I like to consider myself a reasonable person but have begun noticing a whole lot of inconsistencies in me, which are:

1) I want to challenge myself and become a better, more interesting person by forcing myself to be outgoing and adventurous. However, the moment I get the chance to do so, I freak out entirely and the same old same old seems so much safer. Example: I recently came to the agonising decision that I wanted to look for a new church. Decision made, now is the time for action. Have I acted? N. O.

2) I want to travel everywhere but I love my home and I miss it and crave it whenever I go away for a significant period of time. Example: by the time I came to the end of my stay in Perth, I couldn't wait to get home and almost disliked Perth. Flies, ridiculous heat, no rain, not fitting in with all the Peroxide Barbie inhabitants. Now I'm home, and I have been for a couple of months, and I've started thinking about some of the nicer things in Perth that I will miss. Gelato ice cream at Cottesloe Beach, the Swan river, the Cottesloe tea shop, the great church I attended there, not least my niece Ruby.

3) I want to travel here (Iceland):
just as much as I want to travel here (Dead Vlei, Namibia):

4) I miss having all my brothers and sisters around... but I really love not having to fight for the shower, or who gets to finish the Whittakers Hazelnut chocolate, or what TV show I'll watch.

5) My Big Dream is to be an author, but it's scary and hard work and sometimes I wonder if I believe in myself enough. I think I do - but I want to be convinced of it when I already am convinced of it.

6) This year I'll be doing Honours for History at uni. I am so glad to be leaving English behind me - the essays I write because I know they'll get me good marks, not because I believe them; the lecturers who think they are so superior to the rest of the population (not all the lecturers, I hasten to point out); and especially the constant snarky little comments about Christians or God by either the lecturers or the other students. All the same, I'll miss not being kept constantly on my toes. There's something invigorating about not-quite-persecution.

7) I want to earn money and spend money and save money and give away money - but I don't want to work. At all. I start again this week and am not looking forward to it.

Anyone else?

fueling my unrealistic expectations of life?

I mentioned in another post that I had been very naughty and ordered three DVDs from Amazon - adaptations of two Austens and one Bronte. They arrived on Saturday and I have been enjoying them so much for the last week. I am such a dork, and I live in fantasyland - but I LOVE it!!

Persuasion is my favourite Jane Austen novel and so it was always going to be difficult to find the perfect film adaptation. I thought the actress who played Anne Elliot was quite a strange choice (although Captain Wentworth was dreamy), and I really disliked how they tried to use both endings - a bit inelegant really. (Jane Austen wrote one ending to this novel, scrapped it and wrote a second one, which is much better.) Still, overall I thought it was lovely. Some of the characters were very well cast, especially Sir Walter Elliot and Captain Wentworth. It was beautifully filmed. A lot of adaptations of this book have been a bit awkward because the book includes a lot of inner thoughts which are difficult to show on film, but this adaptation dealt with them very well. By the end of the movie I was thoroughly enjoying myself. :)
Northanger Abbey is high up there in my favourite Austen stories too. And this adaptation was almost perfect. I watched about half an hour of it and then started all over again because I just loved it so much and wanted to savour it! JJ Feild as Henry Tilney almost lived up to his character, who is in my opinion the most attractive Austen hero. Felicity Jones as Catherine Morland was almost exactly as I imagine her, very naive, very charming, very sweet. My one problem with it moved a bit too quickly through a few scenes at the abbey which are some of my favourites in the book. But with limited time, et cetera, I can understand why they chose those parts to shorten. All in all, it is a very pretty and lighthearted movie, which is SO good to see at this point of time when all these Austen movies are coming out full of heaving bosoms and melancholy music, which is just not how they are written, in my opinion.

Finally, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. This 2006 adaptation showed on TV in New Zealand last year and I adored it, so finally got round to getting the DVD. It was TOTALLY worth it. I have been waiting for a good production of Jane Eyre for so long. Every other one I have seen has had huge problems with it. My initial objections to this were that Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson are a little too good-looking to play Rochester and Jane. But by the end I so did not care! They were absolutely wonderful in it. I have a HUGE crush on Toby Stephens now. Goody, another male actor almost twice my age to salivate over.

So - I recommend ALL of these DVDs. No disappointment.

favourite moments in Austen

It's pretty obvious I love Jane Austen. Sometimes I'm not sure why; as Virginia Woolf said, 'Of all great writers she is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness'. All I know is that I enjoy her writing more and more with every reading. It's the package. It's generally not something you can pick out and show people which can be very annoying when you meet someone, usually male, who grunts out some inadequate criticism like "Jane Austen, why would you want to read her? Everyone knows they're going to get married at the end of the book!"

But today I want to share a few of my favourite funny moments from Jane Austen writings. (My very favourite passage isn't a humourous scene and is also the climax of Persuasion, so I don't want to share it with you and ruin the book for you, if you haven't read it.)

One is a recent discovery, from what is called her Juvenilia. She wrote a very short novel as a teenager called Love and Freindship [sic], which is a parody of some of the very OTT and unrealistic novels of the time. I love this moment, when Edward, who has just married someone imprudently, is being asked by his sister Augusta to reunite with his father for the sake of support and money.

“Never, never Augusta, will I so demean myself,” (said Edward). “Support! What Support will Laura want which she can receive from him?”
“Only those very insignificant ones of Victuals and Drink,” (answered she.)…
“And did you then never feel the pleasing Pangs of Love, Augusta?” (replied my Edward). “Does it appear impossible to your vile and corrupted Palate, to exist on Love? Can you not conceive the Luxury of living in every Distress that Poverty can inflict, with the object of your tenderest Affection?”

Silly but hilarious.

Another favourite moment is from Sense and Sensibility. The two sister heroines, Elinor and Marianne, are waiting in a shop for a long time because a young man is spending a ridiculous amount of time choosing a toothpick case. Finally...

At last the affair was decided. The ivory, the gold, and the pearls, all received their appointment; and the gentleman having named the last day on which his existence could be continued without the possession of the toothpick-case, drew on his gloves with leisurely care, and ... walked off with a happy air of real conceit and affected indifference.

Another is from Persuasion, involving the ridiculously vain Sir Walter Elliot.

‘He had never walked anywhere arm in arm with Colonel Wallis, (who was a fine military figure, though sandy-haired) without observing that every woman’s eye was upon him; every woman’s eye was sure to be upon Colonel Wallis.’ Modest Sir Walter! He was not allowed to escape, however. His daughter and Mrs Clay united in hinting that Sir Wallis’s companion might have just as good a figure as Colonel Wallis, and certainly was not sandy-haired.
‘How is Mary looking?’ said Sir Walter, in the height of his good humour.

And finally, here's one from Pride and Prejudice, with Mr and Mrs Bennet:

“Mr Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.”
“You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.”

So - there you go. I'm off to watch my new Northanger Abbey DVD which I very extravagantly ordered from Amazon and which arrived with Persuasion and Jane Eyre the other day. Hooray!

weddings weddings everywhere

We-ell -the last few days have been big busy days but none bigger and busier than yesterday, Jane Doe's wedding. Jane and I spent a lot of time together this week, going to collect flowers, petticoats, etc, which was great. Here is Saturday, though:

Jane Doe herself - this photo makes her look nervous but she was actually scarily calm until about half an hour before the wedding!
Moi. When looking at this photo please consider that I had not had time at that point to utilise my Hollywood Fashion Tape, bought expressly for the occasion.
I didn't really get any photos of me in my full length dress so I've included this one to show the dress on Cat, the maid of honour. It was SUCH a pretty dress and we all felt great. Got so many compliments! :)

Being a bridesmaid prevented me from getting any photos of the service and following events up until the reception, but the basics are:
They got married.
It was a lovely service. I'm not just saying that. One of the nicest I've been to.
Great speeches, great afternoon tea.
Fun photos but it was... er... an experience hobbling around the Botanic Gardens in high heels.

After photos, we had a space of about an hour until the reception, so we went round to the newlyweds' new flat. This is Mr and Mrs Jane Doe on the threshold of their new home.
Mr and Mrs Jane Doe at the reception dinner - which was very, very nice. It was only family and the bridal party, so most of the speeches were made at the afternoon tea which came after the service.

Congratulations, Mr and Mrs Jane Doe!

Oh - and by the way - this is my 400th U2 vs Jane Austen blog post. Wow.

How To Speak Like a Kiwi

A couple of posts ago, I ranted and raved about how English spelling shouldn't be simplified, and happened to mention one of the differences between New Zealand English and other forms. Sarakastic and Jenkneebee commented that they'd like to hear more - and as today is Waitangi Day, a national holiday and the anniversary of when the Maori tribes and the English Crown signed a treaty about land distribution etc, it seemed very appropriate!

It's difficult to know exactly where to start - perhaps it should be with this. The ways we are different or the same. In general, New Zealanders have lost some of the slight differences between sounds that most other English-speaking countries have, probably because we tend to speak very fast and aren't exactly strict with our diction. For example, when I was in Australia, people kept asking me if my name was Allie or Ellie - but in New Zealand we wouldn't hear the difference between them, so it took me a while to figure out what they meant. We would say both names as Allie.

Specifics:

1) New Zealanders are a little like Brits in that we say words like path or dance or can't with the same "a" sound as in hard, not as in ban or can.

2) As I mentioned in that other post, we don't use a "non-prevocalic r" - which means we don't pronounce the "r" in words like beard or hard, although obviously we still pronounce it in words like right, because it's at the start of a syllable. [Exception: those Kiwis who come from the very bottom of the South Island still pronounce the "r" in hard because there were a lot of Scottish settlers in that area.]

3) Non-NZers find it hard to understand us when we say words like bed - they sound more like bid. Likewise, bid sounds more like bud. :) Hence, Australians take the crap out of us for saying "fush and chups" whereas we think they say "feesh and cheeps". Also, if you want to say the word New Zealand and sound like a native, DO NOT say "New Zeeland". You'll immediately sound foreign. Most of us say "New Zilland". Horrible, but true.

4) We've lost differences between similar words such as pool and pull. Both come out sounding like pull. Words like tour and cure are starting to have only one syllable.

5) The difference that is probably most famous to linguists is that we no longer say the difference between the sounds in the words near and square. So, hair, hear, here, hare are all pronounced exactly the same, unlike in British English.

6) Another famous oddity of NZ English is that our sentences sound different, inflexion-wise. Most speakers of any language, when asking a question, will slightly raise their voices in pitch at the end of the sentence, so that people know it's a question. New Zealanders do that not only in questions but in a lot of statements.

7) We tend not to say the difference between woman and women.

8) We're quite casual about the less important words such as 'to' and 'the', so when we say a sentence like "I'm going to the shops" it generally comes out as "I'm going t' th' shops". That might be universal but NZers really do talk so fast that that's the norm.

9) The 'eye' sound often comes out sounding like 'oi' - this is what I like least about my accent, actually. So "nice" becomes "noice", etc etc.

Those are most of the differences I can remember but there's sure to be more! Here's some examples I found on YouTube for you:

This video is about thirty seconds from a Flight of the Conchords episode. It is a very funny demonstration of the bed --> bid confusion. (Basically if you want to hear a NZ accent, watch any Flight of the Conchords episode and you'll get an excellent example, but this one is particularly about the Kiwi accent.)

This video is just one example of how Australians make fun of us! One of my favourite shows while I was living in Australia was The Chaser, a group of comedians who go and make fun of everyone. This is one of them trying to make Helen Clark, the NZ Prime Minister, say "six" - which to Australians, sounds like "sex".

And I haven't actually watched this video, but apparently it's a Channel One News item on how the NZ accent has changed over the last thirty years.

Other than pronunciation itself, New Zealanders have a lot of words we use all the time that no one else understands. I thought you should learn at least some:

Bach (pronounced 'batch') is a holiday home. Must be slightly rundown.

Togs = swimsuit.

Lollies = candy.

G'day. Aussies use this too, yes. Pretty self-explanatory - a shortening of "good day".

A hard case is someone who's a bit of a joker.

A hissy fit is a tantrum. Not just for toddlers, though.

To be knackered is to be exhausted.

To kick the bucket is to die.

To pack a sad is to get moody or morose.

Tramping is the equivalent of hiking, and is usually an overnight affair.

Mana is a Maori word, but is used widely to signify prestige, status or authority.

Mate = friend. Very very widespread.

Pakeha = non-Maori person/people. Usually of European descent. (Maori has no "s" sound so the plural is just Pakeha too.)

A Pom is an Englishman.

Scroggin is a mixture of anything, eg nuts, chocolate, dried fruit, that you take with you on tramps to eat as a snack.

Sweet as = A kind of equivalent of "no worries", "fine", "great".

Wopwops = isolated rural areas.

For more, visit this website.

Another major feature of New Zealand English is the Maori place names. Obviously places like my hometown, Christchurch, have English names, but a lot of towns, rivers, lakes, mountains etc have Maori names, and really there are two ways to pronounce these - the Anglicised way or the proper way. You will have to master both. Example:

Waikouaiti is a small town. In Maori it should be pronounced something like this - Why-koh-why-tee. But most Pakeha would call it Wack-a-white.

Taupo, a lake and town, is generally pronounced Tow-poh (Tow as in Cow), but should be pronounced Toh-por.

Aaand Lake Te Anau is often pronounced Tee-ar-now but should be Teh-ar-noh.

There's not a whole lot of variation within New Zealand English because we're quite a small, young nation. But - as I mentioned before - southerners tend to use the non-prevocalic "r". And there's another important group that have a sort of dialect of their own - Maori and Pacific Island New Zealand English! This is used a lot more in the north than the south and is a very cool accent, I think. I won't go into it but I will point you to some great examples.

This is Maori comedian Billy T. James who used to have a TV show way back.

This is a trailer for NZ's equivalent of The Simpsons - Bro'Town. Be warned, it's funny but if you're not into toilet humour...

Otherwise, watch a movie like Whale Rider.

Finally, I'm going to give you some phrases to practice. Say these over and over, do some study on YouTube, and perhaps you will be able to fool someone one day. Still, apparently the NZ accent is one of the hardest to imitate. Sir Anthony Hopkins tried, in The World's Fastest Indian, and he did quite well, but there were moments when he just couldn't get it right. The problem is that it's not just the actual sounds but the way you structure your sentences - they have to have the right rhythm and intonation and twang, which is quite difficult.

G'day mate = Guday mate.

NZ = Enzed. (Very important - NOT enzee).

I'd like some chicken chips = Ud luk sim chucken chups. (Don't exaggerate the "u" in chucken chups too much - it's really somewhere between "chips" and "chups".)

Good on you, mate = Goodonya mate.

She'll be right = Shill be roight. (as in, everything will be okay)

Give us a squiz = Givz a squiz (as in, give us a look)

Pop round for a cup of tea = Pop round fora cuppa.

Or - just add an "eh" onto the end of every observation. Ie, "She's looking good, eh." "I'm pretty tired, eh." "Work's hard, eh?"

But really, the most important thing of all towards being accepted as a Kiwi is to understand that the Australian accent is sillier than ours.

ten of the mostest

Here is it; my random pick of ten of the mostest.

1) Most Inane Hymn Verse:

God holds the key of all unknown, and I am glad,
If other hands should hold the key,
Or if he trusted it to me,
I might be sad (I might be sad).
We sung this at church last night and really! What a pointless verse! What is it trying to say? Absolutely nothing! It seems to me that those elderly people who complain about modern church music lacking thoughtfulness have forgotten about the existence of hymns like this. Besides that, the rhyming is dreadful.

2) Most Beautiful Bride:

Grace Kelly wedding Prince Rainier of Monaco. I was flicking through a book about this couple today at the library, saw a couple of photos of their wedding, and decided that if I looked one sixteenth as good as Princess Grace looked on my wedding day, I would be ecstatic.

3) Most Ridiculous Place Name:

This is a New Zealand one (wait for it...):
Tetaumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateapokaiwhenuakitanatahu.
How's that for a tongue twister!
It means: "The hilltop where Tamatea, with big knees, conqueror of mountains, eater of land, traveller over land and sea, played his Koauau (Maori flute) to his beloved".

4) Most Liked Objects in my Bedroom (clockwise from top left):

- Palm tree coat hanger which my sister Viv gave me for Christmas. I have a very small room so I've never had space for my numerous bags (Allie's favourite accessories) except on the floor. Now, problem solved! I love it!
- Bookcase. There's nothing special about the actual bookcase, but it's tall and imposing, full to bursting of my favourite books, and has a pretty paper chain I made hanging down the side.
- My lantern, which my sister Rachel gave me for Christmas. This is made out of scrap metal and came with a collection of different coloured tealights to go inside.
- My U2 concert ticket from 2006, framed. :)
- A watercolour painting of Penang, from when I went to Malaysia last year. This time I went I decided I'd like to bring home something durable and attractive, instead of just pirated DVDs and fake label clothing. When I got home I framed it, and I love it!
- Posters. One is a photo of Edvard Grieg, my favourite composer - I found it at a second hand bookshop and intend to frame it eventually. The other is the front cover of my programme from a Jacques Loussier Trio concert, with their autographs.

5) Most Amazing Photo:

I did a course at university last year called "Resistance and Conformity in Nazi Germany". Our lecturer showed us this photo, a crowd of workers doing the Nazi salute. You may need to click on it to get a larger version, but there is one man in the crowd (circled) standing with his arms folded. For all we know he may just have been scratching his elbow or something, but it looks very much as if he was making a stand. Brave, brave person. I keep this photo stuck up on my wardrobe door because if there's one thing I learnt in this course, it would be very, very easy and likely for me to be everyone else in the photo, and I would much rather be that man.

6) Most Disliked Habits of Other People:

Pressing books on me to borrow that I don't want to read. Anecdote competitions, where someone has to one-up every other person on interesting anecdotes. When driving, indicating for corners far too early (- Dad). Eating too fast or too noisily. And so on. All of which I occasionally succumb to.

7) Most Enjoyed Recent Purchase:

As I have mentioned before, my friend Jane Doe is getting married this Saturday, and it has been decided that the bridesmaids will wear silver jewellery - of which I lack anything nice. So today I went shopping at a proper jeweller's instead of my usual cheapo not-quite-so-good-quality shops. The result was this necklace; only a silver chain and silver cross, but so nice, and I loved the atmosphere of the shop with the realness and expensiveness all around me. Mmm... I think I've been hooked...

8) Most Successfully Eccentric Song:

Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. I lurve this song.

9) Most Magical Place in New Zealand:

Mount Cook National Park. There's something about staring at the mountain over the crystal blue waters of Lake Pukaki. And then driving round the lake to the mountains; everything's so BIG, bewitching.

However, stiff competition is put up by the place pictured below, Bealey Valley (in Arthur's Pass National Park). Evenings like this one, in 2006, are not easily forgotten.

10) Most Wasteful Use of My Time:

Playing with photo software on my computer. This is supposed to be a charcoal version of me and Jane Doe. It's fun but really quite pointless.

This isn't precisely a meme as I made it up entirely by myself, but I tag anyone who wants to create their own random list of the mostest!

Next up: How To Speak Like Me (requested by Sarakastic and Jenkneebee).

"sensible" spelling

Enough is enough. I have read one too many silly letters to our local newspaper about how the world would be a better place if English was spelt "sensibly". Here is my rant, err, response - Why English Is Just Fine How It Is.

1) Having a worldwide standard written English is a BIG bonus, especially as English becomes more and more global. It is worth preserving. Second language learners, although they may not believe it, are benefited by this, not crippled by the idiosyncrasies of the language.

2) There is no such thing as a standard spoken English. There never has been and there never will be. We all speak dialects - even the Queen. :) So - if everyone decided English is silly the way it is and decided to create a new universal spelling, it's more than likely that spelling changes would be dominated by American or British dialects. So where does that leave me? I don't speak English the same way people in the States speak it. People from the south of England itself speak a totally different dialect to people from the north. In the end I'd still be spelling English in a way that is a little or a lot different to how I speak it - not so "sensible" an option, really, is it? The only other option is that every dialect group has their own standard English - and that is totally impractical in the global village. It's already annoying enough having the few spelling differences between American English and everyone else's.

3) Sensible spelling advocates trot out phonetic pronunciation as the ideal thing. What they don't realise is that their concept of spelling is so ingrained that even when they pretend to spell "sensibly" they hold onto non-phonetic techniques of spelling. For example - unless you're from Scotland or somewhere similar, you don't actually pronounce the "r" in hurt. But "sensible spellers" leave it in because they don't know how to write that sound phonetically; it would look strange to them if they tried.

4) English has a huge amount of vowel sounds compared to other languages. When doing Linguistics I was taught about fifteen basic vowel sounds that appear in English. But there are only five vowel letters, or symbols, in written English - so how can we simplify English spelling but still maintain these differences? As in the last point, the presence of the silent "r" in some words is really important, or we would read hurt as hut, or burn as bun. Even silent "e"s are important, or how else could we tell the difference between, for example, bate and bat? They seem to be a pet peeve of sensible spellers but actually perform an important function.

5) People who write in "sensible" spelling as an example of the better way to do it, like I saw in today's newspaper, think they've done it in the most obvious and reasonable way. In fact their writing is littered with inconsistencies in spelling. Every single person says things in a slightly different way, however tiny the difference, and it would be incredibly annoying to have to decipher everything you read according to someone else's dialectal oddities.

6) Every seemingly random thing about English spelling actually came about for a very good reason. For example: words like money and love are spelt with 'o' instead of 'u' because it was seen in the early modern period that with cursive writing, letters like m u n are difficult to read in a row. The English language has a fascinating and rich history; why should we drop that? I don't want a plastic committee-created language that has a "sensible" reason for everything. Besides, with so many borrowed words, it is incredibly useful when learning other languages like French or German to be able to easily recognise brother-words, or guess at their spelling.

7) It is actually a very practical and important thing in the modern world to have to spell things correctly and in one particular way. If you spell someone's email address wrong, or type in a URL incorrectly - you're not going to get to the right destination.

8) Finally - it just looks MESSY and is LAZY. I make spelling mistakes now and then and I'm certainly not going to scoff at genuine mistakes or typos, especially in a non-professional environment. Neither do I mind if English undergoes natural change; that's the mark of a healthy and living language. But! Laziness is not an adequate reason to change the entire language just to suit you. Because if you got exactly what you wanted, you can depend upon it that it wouldn't suit anyone else.

Okay. I've worn myself out. Sorry about all the quotation marks around the word "sensible". I'll be impressed if you've read all this. For a reward, I direct you to a slightly more funny response to the sensible spelling debate, which is here.

naughty me

We-ell, I have been so boring the last little while that I've had nothing whatsoever to write about on here (unless, of course, you're interested in hearing about my sleeping patterns or what I ate for lunch - please let me know). Instead, I have had a little bit extra spending money for various reasons, and have been utterly extravagant in a way I do not usually allow myself to be - I have bought books instead of getting them out of the public library first! Horrors. But quite satisfying. So, in lieu of an interesting blog post subject, here are the books I have bought:

The Masqueraders, by Georgette Heyer. A totally ridiculous book, as are most of Heyer's, about a sister and brother who come back to England disguised in opposite genders as they were involved in a rebellion in the late 18th century - ridiculous, yes, but very fun. I've read it before but wanted this one to add to the growing collection of Heyers in my bookcase.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, by Marina Lewycka. Maybe this appealed because I've heard so much about the Ukrainian Mafia - I don't know. But it sort of just leapt off the shelf at me and was the first one I read. Set in the UK, it's about a woman trying to rescue her 84-year-old émigré father from a 36-year-old woman from the Ukraine who wants to marry him for British residency and his pension. A very funny book, it's also at times quite serious, and goes into the family's past that brought them to the UK and the feuds they have to overcome to deal with this new threat. I loved it.



Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis. I have read this before several times but my copy is very second hand and has been falling to pieces for a while. Finally (hooray!) I have bought a pretty version. I think everyone should read this book.








Rosetta, by Barbara Ewing. I have only just started this book but so far it's going quite well. It's a historical novel, set around the time of the French Revolution, and as far as I can gather will be about a young woman who has always fantasised about visiting foreign places, especially the Rosetta of Egypt which she was named after. I'm always a bit cautious about buying historical novels because I often find them either tedious, inaccurate, or too fixated on sex - but so far this doesn't seem to be too much of any of those!


Atonement, by Ian McEwan. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2001. Okay, so I went to see the movie, I loved the movie, and only then did I want to read the book. I thought the movie was incredibly interesting, the way it plays with reality and fiction, and thought it must be a very good book that inspired such a movie. (I was also for the first time in a long time rather impressed with Keira Knightley. What a surprise. And James McAvoy is slowly becoming higher up on my list of good actors.) Haven't started reading it yet because I anticipate it needing commitment - but as soon as I'm through all the light tempting Heyer-like reads, I'll get into it.



Daddy Long Legs, by Jean Webster. I used to love this book but haven't been able to read it for a while because my version is so threadbare (like Mere Christianity) that a significant number of pages are missing. Then I saw the 1955 film version of it, with Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron (which was fun, but not perfect) and decided I need to buy it. Can't find it anywhere - too old, not popular enough here - so it is currently under order at Whitcoull's. Can't wait till it arrives.



Now comes the really, really naughty part. Last year I saw on TV the latest miniseries version of Jane Eyre, with Toby Stephens as Rochester and Ruth Wilson as Jane. I LOVED it - have been waiting for a good version like this for ages - and have been waiting for it to come out on DVD ever since. Hasn't happened. So yesterday I swallowed, went on Amazon, and bought it - despite the extra price for postage to NZ and the possibility that a Region 1 DVD may not play on NZ players, although I'm pretty sure it will.
While I was on Amazon, I got even naughtier, and looked up Northanger Abbey, a TV version that was made last year and looked excellent, from the five minutes I saw on YouTube. I've always loved the book (which is, of course, by Jane Austen) and decided that since I was getting something else, I may as well make the most of postage costs and get this too. Then I got naughtier again and noticed that if you bought Northanger Abbey with a 2007 TV version of Persuasion (my favourite Austen novel and an adaptation I didn't get to see but is apparently very good, according to my friend Katie) they were both cheaper! Sooo... I am waiting for three 19th century novel DVDs which were not cheap given the exchange rate, are totally self-indulgent, and two thirds of which I have not seen before. I'm too excited about getting them to care much, though.

Edit as of February 1: This is only going to make me look more extravagant, but... there are two more books I forgot to mention!

Cloudstreet, by Tim Winton. Set in Perth, Western Australia, where I recently spent five months. A really, really fantastic novel about two families who live alongside each other in a huge old Perth home in the fifties or sixties. Beautifully written, it raises some important questions and doesn't cop out.

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. This is written from the perspective of Death, looking at a small German girl called Liesel during the war, a girl who saves books from book burnings and whose guardians hide a Jewish man in their cellar. Quite unique, it is also a heffalump of a book (though very readable), and this is one book I had to read before buying as it was a little more expensive given its size.

scanners are good

My dad has finally got a scanner, and I have been playing around all evening with family photos. I thought I'd share some - I love these, for me they capture all the romance and humour of another era. Enjoy!
My mum (right) and her two sisters at the beach in the fifties, with their first car.

Sigh... I wish I was a kid in the Victorian era... This is my great great grandfather, Ernest Schwass. Fortunate wee munchkin.
My great grandmother Nell. Her husband had a passion for photography. I love this. It's the sort of photo I can't do even with digital technology.

My great grandfather on his motorbike with Nell and daughter Betty (my gran's sister) in the sidecar. Styly.
My grandmother, Olive. She hates this photo and thinks it makes her look dowdy, but I think it's just so cute.
Gran (left) with her parents and Betty at the beach.
My gran's sister-in-law and her husband, Milly and Reg. This photo makes me wish I had met these people.
My mother (on right again) and her two sisters with Santa Claus. I think this is beautiful.

One of the coolest things tonight was finding out that somehow my great-great-great aunt on the female side looks almost exactly like me. Creepy!

I know Stacy decided against sharing family photos on her blog, but does anyone else have some cool ones that they could share without offending anyone?!

on being a girl

I've always felt glad that I'm a girl and not a boy (and no, I'm not sure at which point I'll be able to start calling myself a "woman"). But sometimes, girliness makes me feel a bit vulnerable. Here are several reasons why this week I felt glad I'm girly:

1) Four days this week I looked after two nephews aged 9 and 7 who are in the middle of school holidays. Besides making me respect even more the fortitude of full-time parents, this made me super happy I'm a girl. When my nephews got bored, we couldn't go running around kicking a ball etc because I'm still unable to walk, and so we had to think of other things to do. Lots and lots of board games, DVDs, books about technology, and Lego. Which is all very well, but I can't help feeling happy that when I was a kid I was able to do girly things like making pretty crafts or playing with paper dolls, things that are totally boring to my nephews, but SO MUCH FUN!

2) Probably the thing I am most looking forward to about walking again is shopping. And if that's not girly I don't know what is.

3) You may remember my post about a month ago on being a bridesmaid. Well, today I met up with Jane Doe the bride, and two other bridesmaids, and Jane's friend who will be doing our makeup and hair. We ate hot cross buns and chips, and had our makeup done and our hair styled, and it was so fun! I feel PRETTY! My eyelashes are so stiff and long I feel like they could inflict a puncture wound on someone. Our hair is half tied back and the rest is a cascade of curls, while Jane Doe's blond hair is tied back in a very elegant low bun. I love doing girly stuff! Three weeks to the wedding... yay!

Sir Ed

Sir Edmund Hillary is dead and somehow we Kiwis all feel the loss. I'm not sure how it comes about that someone I've never met who came to fame climbing mountains embedded himself into the national psyche like this. But I think it is because of this:

Sir Ed was a Good Bloke. He almost set the standard for it.

He attacked whatever he set to do with cheerful perseverance.

Among a young country of people who have always had trouble identifying who we are, he set for us the standard of what it means to be Kiwi - whatever limits are set upon us by our size, our insignificance and our circumstances are meaningless. Kiwis must "knock the bastard off" in whatever our sphere of life, cheerfully and with a smile, without losing our humanity or understanding of what is truly important. Kiwis must respect the world we live in, and the people who inhabit it with us.

Sir Ed was the conscience of New Zealand. If Sir Ed took the trouble to say something, we all listened. A few years ago when Mark Inglis climbed Everest, the first double amputee to do so, but passed by a dying climber without stopping to keep him company in his last hours, all Sir Ed had to say was that in his time that would never have been done - and no more excuses would do.

Sir Ed was a man of action. The schools and hospitals he set up in Nepal speak for themselves.

Above all, Sir Ed impressed us with his love of life, his strength of character that was obvious right up until his death, and his refusal to let anything hold him back. His death will leave a real hole in our country's life.

a story that will be funny in two years

Okay, so you know how I was getting my cast off on Monday? Well, it's off! (And that's not the punchline.) Unfortunately there was no skipping around shopping for me - I found it even harder trying to learn to walk again, and I go even slower. Anyway that was all very depressing until Wednesday, when it got even worse.

I fell off a chair.

There is no dignified way to say it.

And landed on my right heel and ended up sitting on the kitchen floor going "Owwwwww! GET ME ICE!!!" and bursting into tears because I've only just got out of a cast and probably was going to have to get back into one.

So after I'd waited an hour and it hadn't got any less painful, Dad took me into the ED. Finally I got sent through to Orthopaedics and had an x-ray done. Phe-ew. It's not broken again. And I'm on painkillers. Happy happy. Still, it just shows - you can get all intellectual and think you're so smart, and then you fall off a chair, and suddenly you're incredibly stupid. The worst part was explaining to the hot-doctor-with-English-accent what happened.

I went to see a physio today, and she thinks it should be okay after 48 hours if I put ice on it regularly etc etc, and then I can try learning to walk again.

Part of me wishes that when people ask me "so, how was your summer?" and I say "crap" and they say "why?", I could say "I broke my heel twice." But the rest of me is so relieved I haven't done more lasting damage.

Honestly, I feel like the last week and a half is the most emotional of my life. I've probably burst into tears at least once a day. Mostly because I've read a sad book or something but I'm not usually this high-strung... I think.

right now

Being a cripple over the last couple of months has meant I've needed ways to entertain myself. And these are some of them:

Kate Miller-Heidke's album Little Eve. I bought this just before I left Australia (she's an Aussie chick) but only really started listening to it a few weeks ago and was very pleasantly surprised. This woman was trained as an opera singer and it comes through in her musicality, expressiveness and the way she tells her songs, yet they are really contemporary, quirky songs. She reminds me a bit of Regina Spektor but she never goes too far with the quirky factor. Almost every song is a winner, but my very favourites are "Make It Last", "Space They Cannot Touch", "Don't Let Go" and "Bored With Me". I especially love that in "Don't Let Go" she sings about friendship rather than romance - a neglected topic I think. I would recommend this album very highly and I give it five stars!

Flight of the Conchords. The first season played in NZ while I was away, so someone lent me the DVD when I got back and I have been thoroughly enjoying them. With typical lack of foresight or taste, TV NZ decided this group wouldn't take off, so they went to the States, and now have taken NZ by storm. I have been enjoying them so much, as have my sisters and brothers who literally roll around in hysterics when they hear songs like Business Time. Other favourites of mine are I'm Not Crying, Sally I Love You, and anyone who did high school French will love Foux de Fa Fa.

Mister Pip, by Lloyd Jones. This novel won the Commonwealth Writer's Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize but even before then I have been wanting to read it but for some reason never got around to it. It is set in Bougainville, Papua New Guinea in the early nineties, when there was a violent conflict I had never heard of before. The story is about how the only white man in the village takes over the school when the violence starts, and reads the children Dickens' Great Expectations. It's a wonderful novel about the power of a story, narrated by a child, and is a moving and challenging read. I am very happy with my purchase, and equally happy that the author is a Kiwi. Hooray!

I have been wanting to see the German movie Sophie Scholl - The Final Days for ages now and finally watched it yesterday. It is inspired by a real person, one of the few heroines of Nazi Germany and one of my role models - a 21-year-old student who dared to speak out against the Nazi regime and the war. It is beautifully made. Sophie Scholl is played by Julia Jentsch, who is superb, and the rest of the cast is also very strong. Overall, though, it is a movie about a real event, and the real event is so compelling that that is the overwhelming strength of the film. A few years ago a film was made about the final days of Adolf Hitler. I'm not sure if it was intended, but this film about the final days of a brave and true heroine contrasts so emphatically with Hitler in his final days that I can't help but be moved.


Op Shop's album Second Hand Planet. This is a Kiwi band who have been quite popular here for a while now. The first single off this album "Maybe" was one of those songs that was played over and over on the radio so that I hated it. After the initial craze was over, though, I actually started to quite like it, especially when another single came out which is called "One Day". They are a little bit in the same style as Coldplay or Keane or U2, vaguely. I particularly like the songs off the album called "Noah" and "Nothing to Hide" but I have to admit that the rest of the songs are a bit of a disappointment. There's not much variation from the "Maybe" model except for the two single slowish songs ("Nothing to Hide" and "One Day"). So - an okay album. But not great.


Anne of Green Gables - The Sequel. I got this out on DVD on a whim, remembering how I'd enjoyed the Anne of Green Gables movies and books when I was younger, and found myself loving it all over again. I know everyone says this but I love Gilbert Blythe. And Anne is so cool. Now I'm going to have to read all the books again! In a way it's so nice to be able to have time to fill with things like this that are there for pure enjoyment.

So - what has everyone else been getting into lately?

so...

I got my cast off today. There'll be no immediate wandering for me, I have to wean myself off crutches for the next two weeks.

Firstly, I'm a little suspicious of the doctor I saw today at the hospital. He said I didn't need to see a physiotherapist unless I had major stiffness after a few weeks. Every other doctor I've seen has said this injury will definitely require physiotherapy and hard work. So I'm going to visit a GP asap for a referral.

Secondly, when I asked the doctor how long I should expect the pain to last, he said it could be permanent - broken heels don't fix as easily as other fractures. As a surgeon in Perth told me that with physiotherapy I should make a 95% recovery, I am half suspicious and half freaking out. I've never been a big sportsy person but the idea that this could restrict me from going on long walks in the country or things that up until now have seemed so natural is frightening and upsetting. But I have no idea what "permanent" in this case means - I really hate how doctors tell you just enough to scare you and then forget to tell you the details.

So anyway, I'm not taking this doctor's word as final and I am definitely going to get me a physiotherapist. I'm not sure if I merit healing as this injury was basically caused by my own stupidity, but I'd really appreciate it if anyone could spare a prayer for me.

the joy of womanhood

Last night two of my sisters and I went out for coffee. One is pregnant for the first time and the other has three children and before I knew it they had launched into an intimate womanly chat involving each of my elder sister's labours in quite some detail. I had never heard how horrible labour can be before and I do not want to hear it again. I don't think I will ever make the mistake again of thinking of childbirth as some precious, non-traumatic experience, every moment of which a mother treasures forever. And I think I will have to forget a lot of what was said if I am ever to consider having children again. (I really think that if they sent a whole lot of women who had had difficult labours in to speak at Sex Ed classes, the numbers of unplanned teenage pregnancies would drastically drop.)

The funniest moment, however, was when some unsuspecting male sat down along the cafe couch from us with a newspaper in hand - my pregnant sister had just launched into a description of the stretching exercises and tools a pregnant coworker of hers uses to prepare her nether regions for labour. It took maybe half a minute for the penny to drop and then, slowly, our eavesdropper turned carefully away and slid further down the couch while we grinned with satisfaction and continued our discussion. That alone, I think, made womanhood seem worthwhile again.

The photo: I went to the zoo today, accompanied by five children, sister, her hubby and my dad, aaaand my new camera, which arrived about twenty minutes before we left. Hurrah! I love it. 12x optical zoom. Yummy.

I'm a wreck

Today has felt like an emotional rollercoaster. This afternoon we saw off my sister Janet, hubby John and baby Ruby from Christchurch Airport. Back to Perth they go. I lived in Perth with them for five months last year and needless to say I have got very attached to that little girl. They came back to NZ for Christmas soon after I arrived back but now they're gone again, and I probably won't see them for at least a year, by which time Ruby will be in her terrible twos and she will have a little sibling and she probably won't remember me.

I am a sucker for airport scenes. I just can't handle them. It's very embarrassing and I always end up with a pounding headache.

my resolutions (of sorts)

It is just under a week until I can finally get my cast off (broken heel, see November '07 posts) and although the preceding five weeks actually went pretty fast, this week is about the slowest of my life. I am getting so frustrated! So, I am going to be make an effort to be positive on here. Instead of new year's resolutions, I am making a list of what I am going to do on Monday when I can walk again.

1. Wander. I will go into town and just walk, around the botanic gardens, the museum, the art gallery, the arts centre, by the river, and so on. Wherever I feel like, without having to think everything through beforehand or getting dropped off at the most convenient location.

2. I am going to get a souvlaki at Dimitri's on Colombo St, the best souvlaki place in town.

3. I am going to go for a looooong drive, with nobody else. Maybe up the hill or to the beach. Maybe convince Dad to let me borrow the car and go away for a night somewhere. (I really need to buy my own car.)

4. I am going to go to Alice in Videoland and get out a DVD - Sophie Scholl - which I've been wanting to see for ages. (Alice's is a really big video store with a whole heap of arty/foreign/classic/alternative/etc films as well as the normal range. It's slightly inconvenient to get to and I'd have to return this, a new release, the next day, so I haven't managed to get it out before.)

5. I am going to go swimming.

6. SHOPPING! Clothes, birthday present for a few people, wedding present for a friend, anything that takes my fancy within reason.

7. I am going to play the piano and use my right foot to pedal. I have been using my uninjured left foot for the last few weeks, which feels a bit strange.

8. I am going to take my (new) camera and go for a long walk and take lots and lots of beautiful photos.

Of course, the nature of my injury and its treatment means I may not be able to walk properly for a while. I will have lost basically all my muscle strength in my right foot and lower leg. I don't know if I'll be able to drive straightaway and apparently I'll need a lot of physiotherapy. Bummer. But at the moment I am trying to look at Monday as my date of release from prison, or I will just find it too depressing.