september 09, 2005
the eternal student
I'm in the exam and I have absolutely no idea how to answer anything, no idea whether I should respond to every question and the invigilator hasn't told us how long we have left to go.
My old maths teacher who is also a distant relative is there. The exam appears to be, rather waftily about Australia, or Famous Women. I have no understanding of the subject other than the feeling that Mrs Blood, as a maths teacher is probably not the best person to turn to for advice.
I seem to have to have provided answers, which, if correct would appear to only provide me with 10% of the overall mark. I realise that I've only attended about 3 of the classes and have done no study whatsoever for the subject.
I give some kind of primal scream, throw down the exam paper and huffily walk out of the exam only to discover that it was being held in the back room of a bar.
It's now over a year and half since I finished my final subjects at uni and it appears that I'm having some bizarre type of withdrawal symptom: A nightmare about not studying enough.
Every semester I'd have at least one bad dream in which I would realise that I'd been enrolled in a subject that I knew nothing about and which it was too late to withdraw from. I'd have about a week to get all the assignments in and study for the exam. And then I'd wake up and realise that it was time to start exam preparation for the subjects that I was actually enrolled in.
Considering that I've actually finished my degrees, I can only presume, nay, know, that I have an awful lot of French study to catch up on.
May I also add that I woke up at 7am from this dream? And that I've got the day off to go to the Royal Show? I think that this is the earliest that I've ever written a blog post.
pipstar @ 07:55 AM | link | Comments: **
september 06, 2005
Yesterday on my way to work I hurled abuse at a driver for the first time.
Yes, I was in a left turning lane, but as far as I could tell it also was a bike lane and if I'd been inside some car would I have been getting honked at? Previously, I've restricted myself to muttering under my breath , but when this woman alone inside some huge car started honking at me, I turned and yelled "Chill out and learn to ride a bike". Then I had a brief conversation with the cyclist to my right and we agreed that with petrol prices increasing the way they are, soon everyone will want to ride a bike and they'll be coming to us for advice.
Luckily CycleDog has written an introductory post about riding a bicycle: Cycling 101. If you happen to be afraid of two wheels he offers basic instruction for using Shank's Pony: Walking 101.
pipstar @ 01:46 PM | link | Comments: ***
september 06, 2005
planting seeds of imagination.
I've realised that I've been missing gardening: the planning, the digging, the dirt under fingernails, the satisfaction from ripping up weeds, the tiny miracles that are seeds and the absolute excitement I get when seeds that I've planted suddenly sprout.
There's a very short laneway which leads to our backyard, but I challenge anyone with a normal sized car to actually turn a car into the lane and to then back it out again. So I'm considering turning the earth into a little vegetable garden for the summer. There are old wooden pallets lying in the alley which could very easily be turned into edging for raised garden beds.
And I could plant:
* tomatoes
* eggplant
* sweetcorn
* purple podded peas
* basil
* zucchini
* pumpkin
* parsley
Even if the idea doesn't come to fruition I'm going to buy one of the new mini forms of lemons and pot it. Every house needs a lemon tree and this way I can take it with me.
© 2002 - 2007 Pippa Buchanan