For the last day of my three-day bus ticket, I travelled my old favourite route of Nottingham - Mansfield - Derby. It wasn't exactly a pretty day out, as it rained all morning and afternoon, but it was still worthwhile and a good way to celebrate the end of my university work for this academic year.
My goal over the next few years, before the academic year ends (doesn't end officially until the 9th), I want finish at least a couple of books I still have borrowed from the library and then I will return them all. While I could keep them over the summer and hand them back in October, I'd rather return them now so that I'm not worrying about them later.
Showing posts with label Reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reading. Show all posts
Monday, 29 May 2017
Tuesday, 3 January 2017
Post-break university re-opening 2017
Nottingham Trent University officially re-open today, after being closed since mid/late-December. This means that services such as the library are open again and the tutors have returned to the campus. Security, on the other hand, maintained an active presence, as there are students still on campus, such as myself.
One of my friends and classmates informed me of another book we have to read before the holidays finish and so I will find that book in the library once I've finished the current book I'm reading, which is The French Lieutenant's Woman, for my main English module.
One of my friends and classmates informed me of another book we have to read before the holidays finish and so I will find that book in the library once I've finished the current book I'm reading, which is The French Lieutenant's Woman, for my main English module.
Saturday, 6 August 2016
The lyrical reminder
In the early morning, I was listening to "Strong" by Robbie Williams. Now bear in mind I've listened to this song at least a couple dozen times; however, on this occasion, the following lyric stood out to me:
It reminded me of something someone said to me over nine years ago, which was "step away from the bridge" (I was interacting with a troll on the Internet). Back then, I thought the person was advising me to remove myself from a metaphorical helm, like on a ship; however, when listening to "Strong", I realised that the person was making a clever reference to Three Billy Goats Gruff - the fairy tale in which a troll living under a bridge is defeated by goats.
Either way, I was being asked to remove myself from the situation but the metaphor was more clever than I had initially realised. A shame it took me over nine years to work out - and with the help of a song I'd heard several times!
"And that's a good line to take it to the bridge"
It reminded me of something someone said to me over nine years ago, which was "step away from the bridge" (I was interacting with a troll on the Internet). Back then, I thought the person was advising me to remove myself from a metaphorical helm, like on a ship; however, when listening to "Strong", I realised that the person was making a clever reference to Three Billy Goats Gruff - the fairy tale in which a troll living under a bridge is defeated by goats.
Either way, I was being asked to remove myself from the situation but the metaphor was more clever than I had initially realised. A shame it took me over nine years to work out - and with the help of a song I'd heard several times!
Tuesday, 3 May 2016
More to learn about Harry Potter
I saw this article from the Heart radio network appear on my Facebook feed this evening:
We're still learning about Harry Potter, even after nine years since the final book was released. New books are on the way, of course, so we'll continue to learn more about the Potter universe for the foreseeable future.
We're still learning about Harry Potter, even after nine years since the final book was released. New books are on the way, of course, so we'll continue to learn more about the Potter universe for the foreseeable future.
Tuesday, 3 March 2015
"Of Mice and Men" control
This Friday, the control/exam for Of Mice and Men will take place. Essentially, in the control everyone in the class has to write a piece on how power - be it hierarchical or physical or seductive power - is presented in the novella. We have to cover at least two characters and link power in with said characters and the era in which the book is set.
Unless I somehow epically screw up, there is no doubt that the quality of my writing on the day will be excellent; I just need to ensure that I accurately write enough about power and put it into context for the era. I haven't worked as hard for this control as I should have done but I think I'll pull through; it's not as though I've done nothing!
After Of Mice and Men, it's Macbeth!
Unless I somehow epically screw up, there is no doubt that the quality of my writing on the day will be excellent; I just need to ensure that I accurately write enough about power and put it into context for the era. I haven't worked as hard for this control as I should have done but I think I'll pull through; it's not as though I've done nothing!
After Of Mice and Men, it's Macbeth!
Friday, 19 July 2013
On e-book readers
I used to be opposed to e-book readers, as I had fallen into the trap of thinking that e-readers "didn't provide the same experience as reading a real book" and that they were "insulting to real books". I didn't think I'd ever have a use for an e-reader and continued to oppose them when I received one for Christmas a couple of years ago.
In the past year, my stance slowly softened; then, a few months ago, my Dad starting using an e-reader and loved it: it gave him the opportunity to read books more frequently again (many of our actual books are still packed away). Mum liked Dad's e-reader and she received one for her birthday. This encouraged me to take a new look at my e-reader.
I haven't been using it long, but I have to say that I do love my e-reader: I, too, can read books more often again and I like how the device's screen doesn't tire my eyes. It's wonderful to be able to read books again, even if it's on an e-reader; thanks to its portability and storage, I can take hundreds of books with me whenever I travel (same with my Dad). I really do love it.
I can honestly say that I like e-readers now; does it really matter if we read a book on paper or on a screen? Provided that people are reading, whatever method they choose to read should be irrelevant. My only regret is that I wish I had used my e-reader much earlier.
In the past year, my stance slowly softened; then, a few months ago, my Dad starting using an e-reader and loved it: it gave him the opportunity to read books more frequently again (many of our actual books are still packed away). Mum liked Dad's e-reader and she received one for her birthday. This encouraged me to take a new look at my e-reader.
I haven't been using it long, but I have to say that I do love my e-reader: I, too, can read books more often again and I like how the device's screen doesn't tire my eyes. It's wonderful to be able to read books again, even if it's on an e-reader; thanks to its portability and storage, I can take hundreds of books with me whenever I travel (same with my Dad). I really do love it.
I can honestly say that I like e-readers now; does it really matter if we read a book on paper or on a screen? Provided that people are reading, whatever method they choose to read should be irrelevant. My only regret is that I wish I had used my e-reader much earlier.
Monday, 16 April 2012
Annoying misspellings
I can appreciate that people do often make typos: not everyone is a good writer/typist, and not everyone proof-reads what they write, especially if what they are writing is something relatively unimportant such as a comment on an Internet article. This being said, there are some strangely common misspellings that annoy me to no end.
1. Confusing "woman" and "women"
This is the most common bizarre misspelling I have observed. It is exceedingly frustrating when someone refers to a woman as "a women" and women as "woman": for example, typing that "Scarlett Johansson is a women" (woman), "Amelle Berrabah is a women" (woman), and "together they are woman" (women). I see this mistake frequently, and I find it hard to work out why this is so: when we speak normally we never say that a woman is "a women", and on the keyboard the "a" and "e" buttons are close, but not right next to each other in that it is easy to press both of them at once or hit one when intending to hit the other.
2. "Prolly" and "probably"
Mixing up woman and women may be the most common of the misspellings listed here, but by far the most annoying is "prolly" in the place of "probably". I have never heard anyone...either in the US or the UK, pronounce "probably" as "prolly" out loud, so I really do not see how anyone can misspell the word this way.
3. "Temporary" as "tempory"/ "temporarily" as "temporally"
I can understand "tempory" even if it is annoying: I have heard people pronounce temporary as "temp-ree", so I can see where the misspelling comes from. "Temporally" has somewhat of a resemblance to "temporarily", but enough of a difference in the pronunciation to easily differentiate between them; unlike the aforementioned "prolly" and "tempory", "temporally" is a real word.
1. Confusing "woman" and "women"
This is the most common bizarre misspelling I have observed. It is exceedingly frustrating when someone refers to a woman as "a women" and women as "woman": for example, typing that "Scarlett Johansson is a women" (woman), "Amelle Berrabah is a women" (woman), and "together they are woman" (women). I see this mistake frequently, and I find it hard to work out why this is so: when we speak normally we never say that a woman is "a women", and on the keyboard the "a" and "e" buttons are close, but not right next to each other in that it is easy to press both of them at once or hit one when intending to hit the other.
2. "Prolly" and "probably"
Mixing up woman and women may be the most common of the misspellings listed here, but by far the most annoying is "prolly" in the place of "probably". I have never heard anyone...either in the US or the UK, pronounce "probably" as "prolly" out loud, so I really do not see how anyone can misspell the word this way.
3. "Temporary" as "tempory"/ "temporarily" as "temporally"
I can understand "tempory" even if it is annoying: I have heard people pronounce temporary as "temp-ree", so I can see where the misspelling comes from. "Temporally" has somewhat of a resemblance to "temporarily", but enough of a difference in the pronunciation to easily differentiate between them; unlike the aforementioned "prolly" and "tempory", "temporally" is a real word.
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
Naming a United States Supreme Court case
A few weeks ago Dad read something about a significant portion of people not being able to name at least one United States Supreme court case (I have been trying to find the article, though I am not sure if he read it in an offline magazine). I thought about the subject again today, and I was able to think of four:
Plessy v. Ferguson (declared that black people and white people were "separate but equal" was constitutional)
Brown v. Board of Education (declared that separate schools/facilities for blacks and whites was unequal, and essentially overturned the aforementioned case)
Roe v. Wade (protected abortion rights for women)
Bush v. Gore (ended the dispute of the vote count in Florida in the 2000 presidential election; George W. Bush declared the winner)
I may be able to name a minimum of one, but four is still an incredibly low number, especially considering that there are hundreds of Supreme Court cases. Excluding these four (though please state if you could name them), how many cases can you name?
Plessy v. Ferguson (declared that black people and white people were "separate but equal" was constitutional)
Brown v. Board of Education (declared that separate schools/facilities for blacks and whites was unequal, and essentially overturned the aforementioned case)
Roe v. Wade (protected abortion rights for women)
Bush v. Gore (ended the dispute of the vote count in Florida in the 2000 presidential election; George W. Bush declared the winner)
I may be able to name a minimum of one, but four is still an incredibly low number, especially considering that there are hundreds of Supreme Court cases. Excluding these four (though please state if you could name them), how many cases can you name?
Monday, 19 March 2012
The Swiss Colony
Out of sheer curiosity I decided to look up The Swiss Colony, and I was surprised to see that on June 1st, 2010, it had been renamed to Colony Brands.
The Swiss Colony, or Colony Brands now, is a company in Wisconsin specializing in foods such as cakes, sausages, cheeses, various candies, and box sets containing a wide selection of the aforementioned food items. They did sell other products too, such as clothing, furniture, decorations, and electronic items, but it was their foods that interested me the most.
We received a catalog from them every year we lived in the United States, and I even kept the last one we received there. I always loved looking through each catalog, wondering what the chocolate tortes, brownies, and petit fours tasted like. We did order some of it too, and we have several storage tins with "The Swiss Colony" on them (I will see if I can get a picture of one).
I have to admit that I do prefer the name "The Swiss Colony" to "Colony Brands", but it is still the same company anyhow. We will have to keep our tins labeled with "The Swiss Colony"!
The Swiss Colony, or Colony Brands now, is a company in Wisconsin specializing in foods such as cakes, sausages, cheeses, various candies, and box sets containing a wide selection of the aforementioned food items. They did sell other products too, such as clothing, furniture, decorations, and electronic items, but it was their foods that interested me the most.
We received a catalog from them every year we lived in the United States, and I even kept the last one we received there. I always loved looking through each catalog, wondering what the chocolate tortes, brownies, and petit fours tasted like. We did order some of it too, and we have several storage tins with "The Swiss Colony" on them (I will see if I can get a picture of one).
I have to admit that I do prefer the name "The Swiss Colony" to "Colony Brands", but it is still the same company anyhow. We will have to keep our tins labeled with "The Swiss Colony"!
Friday, 5 August 2011
Harry Potter books
We sorted out several boxes containing books this afternoon, and in one of them was our Harry Potter collection! Like most of our belongings, it has been a very long time since we have seen our Harry Potter books, and I did take a moment to read the first and last pages of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (the best book, in my opinion) before we put the books away.
Did you know that several countries have a unique cover for each of the Harry Potter books? We first found this out when my grandparents visited us in California in 2000, and my grandmother said she was look for some American copies to take back home. See the differences between the British covers:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU3xD2YMTJnU4wgpGge-J6N6UV5B8-4SNQU6xpZXiVEh6Y6IoF5rcMeZnOtnS9FJrZCFMfqy9OGdsfCBhaUVaU3stnXxt2udS-yw1xz1cr6C56rahPTuGLNn4cGlpUWg7oVub_msgGPG46/s1600/harry-potter-books.jpg
Compared to the American covers:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxuYYWsG51fLxS0RKO0DfZpAYU3oqCSlKtl0BiaEvtpJ7PwZzeXm8bzXMIA3fiPE6fXQQGiqVkfhOc4_gvIYc9RShKQ-i4f6u7XuW8IsQ9QHvCsUVvZGFH29A2t3orxwoFsX37YuvsVD8t/s1600/harry-potter-collection-21.jpg
Quite a big difference there! Typing "harry potter covers around the world" into Google Images will show a multitude of the varied Harry Potter covers from the world over. I find it fascinating to look at them all and compare them.
Note: neither of the images in the links above are mine; they are merely two images that I linked to from here.
Did you know that several countries have a unique cover for each of the Harry Potter books? We first found this out when my grandparents visited us in California in 2000, and my grandmother said she was look for some American copies to take back home. See the differences between the British covers:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU3xD2YMTJnU4wgpGge-J6N6UV5B8-4SNQU6xpZXiVEh6Y6IoF5rcMeZnOtnS9FJrZCFMfqy9OGdsfCBhaUVaU3stnXxt2udS-yw1xz1cr6C56rahPTuGLNn4cGlpUWg7oVub_msgGPG46/s1600/harry-potter-books.jpg
Compared to the American covers:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxuYYWsG51fLxS0RKO0DfZpAYU3oqCSlKtl0BiaEvtpJ7PwZzeXm8bzXMIA3fiPE6fXQQGiqVkfhOc4_gvIYc9RShKQ-i4f6u7XuW8IsQ9QHvCsUVvZGFH29A2t3orxwoFsX37YuvsVD8t/s1600/harry-potter-collection-21.jpg
Quite a big difference there! Typing "harry potter covers around the world" into Google Images will show a multitude of the varied Harry Potter covers from the world over. I find it fascinating to look at them all and compare them.
Note: neither of the images in the links above are mine; they are merely two images that I linked to from here.
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