kirsty helen

Looking Back (1)

I haven't forgotten you.
Kraków (circa 2009).

Today I'm sharing my reading list for next semester to see if anyone has delved into the depths into dystopian literature (yes, that was intentional alliteration) and / or the film adaptations of the work of one William Shakespeare. Here's what's on my agenda for the next few months...

Paper 1:
Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
The Player of Games - Iain M Banks (have started this, but am finding it quite hard going...)
Erewhon - Samuel Butler
Do androids dream of electric sheep? - Philip K Dick*
Brave New World - Aldous Huxley*
The Dispossessed - Ursuala Le Guin
Utopia - Thomas More
The Republic - Plato*
Gulliver’s Travels - Jonathan Swift*

Paper 2:
Hamlet;*
Macbeth;*
Othello;*
Richard III; *
The Taming of the Shrew;

Films:
West Side Story (Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins 1961)
Kiss Me Kate (George Sindey 1953)
William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet (Baz Luhrmann 1996)*
10 Things I Hate About You (Gil Junger 1999)*
Hamlet (Michael Almereyda 2000)
Scotland PA (Billy Morrissette 2002)

(* = texts/films I've read/seen so far)

I'm looking forward to both of these papers - there's some interesting subject matter in the first, and it will be nice to reacquaint myself with Shakespeare in the second. It'll also be good to be back in a lecture theatre again after two self-directed assignments this semester (lonely much?!) Please feel free to leave your thoughts /reviews/ advice etc if you've read / seen any of these. In the absence of a book club (and with the hope of gaining a few insights prior to class starting) I'm keen to hear what you think!

Haiku Experiment

I. II. III.

Now all that is left See the fallen leaves My cold hands, outstretched

Is seasonal confetti Hear them crack and crumble Become ghostly in the fog

Strewn across my path Winter's breath has come Stolen by the grey

Image via

The Wordinary: Entry No. 5

moustachio

mou-sta-chi-o [muh-stash-ee-oh]
noun

1. The result of one getting pistachio crumbs in one's moustache.

For more about The Wordinary click here.

Hello Winter

I feel guilty about longing for summer when I'm greeted with beauty like this.

Say What? It's All About Grammar...

Alas, I don't have sufficient time to do a proper post today; the two concurrent 10,000 word assignments whisper my name as I type this (and when I say whisper I mean scream all manner of profanities at me in an attempt to get me back to work). So I thought I'd just do a little post to share these wonders of the world wide web with you. What follows are my favourite grammar related websites and articles that I have managed to stumble upon the past few months, leaving me in awe of other people's love of, commitment to, and maybe slightly unhealthy obsession with, the beautiful beast that is Grammar.*

Let the procrastination begin...

This site is solely dedicated to highlighting unnecessary quotation marks. "Brilliant".
http://www.unnecessaryquotes.com/

This person is slowly correcting grammatical errors the world over, one permanent marker stroke at a time.
http://thegrammarvandal.wordpress.com/

This person has done a delightful article on the misuse use of the comma (I now look at my paragraph above with a feeling of uneasiness...).
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/the-most-comma-mistakes/

Funny typos dot com. Enough said.
http://www.funnytypos.com/

The Grammar Nazi - "where typos go to die" & other such grammar related silliness
http://thegrammarnazi.tumblr.com/

Have fun kids!
* Disclaimer: this in no way suggests that I have attained grammatical perfection in my writing. This is an aspiration yet to be realised.

Remnants of Summer on a Winter Day

It's the first day of Winter here; one degree celcius outside. So I whittle away an hour looking back at summers passed and begin the slow creeping countdown until we meet again.

1. Wanaka
2. Aoraki
3. Raglan
4. Waipoua
5. Te Anau