I Seek A Book...

... which I read and really liked as a child.

It was set in Britain near the White Horse of Uffington, there was a blind girl and lots of pagan references to things like mistletoe and the correct way to orient horseshoes so that the luck doesn't run out. I think there may have been a frog that was left to dry out in the sun because someone wanted to use the bones for something and I'm pretty sure the climax of the story involved the blind girl being left in the eye of the White Horse in the middle of the night. My sister thinks that it may have been called "The Moon Horse" but the name doesn't really ring a bell. Does anyone know for sure what the title was? The author would be a great help as well.

A Christmas Survey...

My older sister Alexandra is very organised. So organised, in fact, that she's already started planning for Christmas and, because I and my other sister are notoriously hard to shop for, she invented a questionnaire for us to fill out. It's quite cool, interesting me not just for its comprehensiveness but for its mad eclecticness. (I have no idea what question 10 is supposed to be for.)

The List

1) Choose one: Bronze/Silver
2) Choose two: Owl /Falcon /Cat /Lion /Griffon /Thistle /Spiral /Wolf /Boar /Celtic Dragon /Raven /Ram
3) Choose one: Circular/Straight
4) Choose one: Hair/Fabric
5) Choose one: Audio/Visual
6) Choose one: Real/Artificial
7) Choose one: Matching Set/Eclectic Mix
8) Choose two: Wool /Brocade /Cotton /Velvet /Silk /Leather /Other ___________
9) Choose one: Manufacture/Repair/Design
10) Choose one: Long /Short /Throwing /Wood /Protection /Shoot
11) Choose one: Belt /Bag /Pouch
12) Choose one: To LARP/Not to LARP
13) Choose three: Fantasy /Crime /Science Fiction /Murder Mystery /Comedy /Non-Fiction /Romance /Historical /Other _____________
14) Choose two: Dark Ages /Middle Ages/ Victorian/ Early 20th Century/ Present Day/ Near Future/ Distant Future/ Imaginary
15) Choose two: Pop/ Rap/ Classical/ Folk/ Country/ Rock/ Orchestral/ Musical/ Celtic/ R'n'B/ Other _______________

Vital Statistics:
Favourite Author(s):
Favourite Artist(s):
Favourite Musician(s):
Favourite Instrument(s):
Favourite Colour:
Favourite Poet(s):

Height:
Clothing Size:
Recommended Shops/Websites:
Current Wishlist:

Common Place Book

"Is there any such thing as a modern-English version of the Canterbury Tales? I have these guilts about never having read Chaucer but I was talked out of learning Early Anglo-Saxon/Middle English by a friend who had to take it for her Ph.D. They told her to write an essay in Early Anglo-Saxon on any-subject-of-her-own-choosing. 'Which is all very well,' she said bitterly, 'but the only essay subject you can find enough Early Anglo-Saxon words for is "How to Slaughter a Thousand Men in a Mead Hall."'"

--Helene Hanff, 84, Charing Cross Road

I'm Making Casserole

As opposed to my sister's recent excursion into the Ways of Liver, complete with greyish membranes, large mysterious holes and weird chewy texture, mine is a nice beef casserole with onions, broccoli and beef stock that doesn't scare my flatmates. Come to think of it, there's some bacon in the fridge which I could likely have added to some profit...

Gosh, it's amazing how much housework I can get done when I should be writing an essay. It doesn't help that the subject that it's on is not exactly enthralling me. 1100 words and counting. (Min limit 1500.) Back to work. Sigh.

Oh why not, I like this one too...

Jenny kiss'd me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss'd me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss'd me.
-- James Leigh Hunt

Shameless advertising...

My lovely sister Catherine has just succumbed to the internet journal addiction and has set up her own Blog. It's here: http://lagataencantada.blogspot.com/

Check it out. She's a very good poet and usually has interesting things to say.

Steph

It's All Good.

My Middle English course is producing a mystery play for October. It's called the Harrowing of Hell and I get to be Beelzebub.
Heh heh heh.
(Slinks off to work on Evil Laugh)

And Another Just Because...

My sister Catherine wrote this poem. It made me laugh a lot and I feel like sharing.

To My Sister's Cat
For you have been radioactive in your day, and petulant when we shunned you.
For your blindness is very audible.
For your voice is distinctive and your appetite a Thing that waxeth, yea, and waneth in its own Time and Measure.
For you complain about this.
For you will sit and sit and sit
And sit and sit
And sit.
For your rest is peaceful,
And you are very stubborn.
For you will never brisk about life, but for one case:
For you will throw your heart and small body at the door and, lo!, it opens.
For you will never admit that it won't.
For you are as soft as the Sea bathing ancient bones and as stubborn as the Sea in your striving.
For you are happy to see me.
For you love my sister.
For you are happy.

--Catherine Pegg

(To people who read this who have never met my cat, she is getting old and blind. Several years she was treated with radioactive iodine for a health problem which meant that she couldn't sleep in my room for several weeks. My nights used to go like this: THUD, slide, patpatpat, THUD, slide, patpatpat, THUD, slide, patpatpat, THUD, slide, patpatpat, meow, THUD, slide, patpatpat and so forth ad insomniam. I had to barricade myself in because the catch on the door wouldn't keep her out by itself. After a couple of hours she'd change tactics and sit outside my window crying. It was a very long three weeks.)

Just Because...

My Sweet, Crushed Angel
You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to hold hands with the Beautiful One.

You have waltzed with great style,
My sweet, crushed angel,
To have ever neared God's heart at all.

Our Partner is notoriously difficult to follow,
And even His best musicians are not always easy
To hear.

So what if the music has stopped for a while.

So what
If the price of admission to the Divine
Is out of reach tonight.

So what, my dear,
If you do not have the ante to gamble for Real Love.

The mind and the body are famous
For holding the heart ransom,

But Hafiz knows the Beloved's eternal habits.

Have patience,

For He will not be able to resist your longing
For Long.

You have not danced so badly, my dear,
Trying to kiss the Beautiful One.

You have actually waltzed with tremendous style,
O my sweet,
O my sweet crushed angel.

-- Hafiz

Hooray!

My last exam is now done! I have writer's cramp and came the closest ever to filling my answer book. I also got to take lots of potshots at Pullman, which is always fun. And the fire alarm went off two minutes before the end of the exam. We all just stared at the invigilators in complete shock before being told to leave our scripts where they were and file out for 20 minutes. If it turns out that that was someone's idea of a good time for a fire drill I will be mightily pissed. But that's OK, I'd just finished my last essay and was starting to fill out the front cover, so it all turned out well for me. :-D

Another One Bites The Dust...

ENGL111 is done and dusted. I'm reasonably confident about it. I used all the time I had, not from needing to think but because I had things to say, so I'm not paranoid about all the people who left an hour early. Not paranoid at all. Really.

My first exam was really easy. La la la.

That's it. Nothing else to say.

Love to all,

Steph

I just got the nicest comments back from my tutor...

She finally coughed up with my essay (the first copy of which having met with an accident with a shredder), and along with its sequel it was full of really ego-flattering comments like "Splendid", "Marvellous", "Tremendous", one to two pages of typed commentary for both of them, some interesting points on what I had to say, a suggestion that I start reading up on post-colonialism (I'm not sure exactly what post-colonialism is but I think I really ought to check it out, somehow) and finished it all with:

"I hope you'll go on with English - you'll maybe want to do the Post-Colonial theory course - and I hope you'll consider post-graduate study in English? I want to read more of your work."

This is like, amazingly awesome. It's been 6 hours since I read it and I'm still grinning about it.

I just wrote a really long and interesting post about my birthday and then the internet connection failed and it was all lost...

So I'll leave everyone with the news that I had a good birthday.

Also these words from my Latin teacher:
felicem tibi
natalem diem!
felicem, O Steph,
natelem diem!

My Essay Got Shredded ...

... and my tutor still hasn't marked the replacement, despite having had it for a full week.

I like getting feedback. I like someone who knows more than me suggesting how I could have argued my point better, or mentioning other sources that I'd find interesting, or even just telling me what they liked. I'm presumably going to get it back next Wednesday which will make it a full month since I handed the damn thing in in the first place. Man, this is annoying. There's nothing worse than feeling like you're throwing finely crafted words out into empty air. Phooey.

Well, Now I Know How It Feels To Be In The Middle Of A Car Crash...

The word 'middle' used advisedly. My brother and I were in the second car at a red light when someone piled into the back of us. I have a headache and had a sore neck. (Turns out my side got the biggest dent.) The latter got me a visit from an ambulance and a fire engine. I think the fire engine was marginally closer or something, but they both figured that if I was wondering around non-disorientated after 20 minutes the odds of me being concussed or having a broken neck were slight. So they asked me some more questions, poked at my neck a bit and offered me a ride in the ambulance if I wanted to have an x-ray. 3 hour queue. To be honest, my headache isn't that bad. It probably helped that I was cracking jokes and asking for a lolly pop. That was the entertaining part.

The non entertaining part was hanging around a closed petrol station for another hour waiting for the police to turn up. When we eventually re-called them, it turned out that the ambulance had said that there was no emergency and they'd taken us off their visit list. Without telling us about it. Bastards. Presumably someone else gets to deal with the abandoned car of the driver who started it all and which, when we left, was blocking the petrol truck from leaving.

Man, I'm tired. And I didn't even have a book to read.

And She Is Now Back!

I got woken at 5am by a very loud and gravelly pur.

Phew! She has no broken limbs, is very hungry but hasn't had time to lose weight, and is purring fit to burst. I have no idea where she's been or why she turned up now, but I've never been happier about broken sleep in my life.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Bast, St Francis and any other deity or saint or helped in this. And a big cheers to the SPCA who weren't able help to me in particular but save many pets in general and were friendly and helpful in advice. Also three cheers to the National Pet Database at http://www.petsonthenet.co.nz/.

Steph

...And She Is Now Missing.

She seemed pretty happy to be home, but around 1am I realised that the reason she was so restive was an inability to get out of the house owing to my flatmate locking the catdoor. So I put her outside and realised an hour later that the catdoor was locked from the inside as well so she hadn't been able to get back in. But now no cat, her breakfast is untouched and the neighbours who are home haven't seen her. My new flatmate, Mark, thinks he heard the catdoor flap and the sound of feet earlier today, but that could have been the neighbour's cat.

This is extremely uncharacteristic behaviour and I am worried. She's not really the type to storm off because of a snit. The only good sign so far is no corpses on the road.

*%$&^%$

Stephanie

I Sprang My Cat From Quod Today...

And boy did she create hell about being in the car again. She's now purring lots and obsessively patrolling the house, which I choose to interpret as being glad to be home.

Steph

I'm Looking For Some Research Help

Hi all,

I have a favour to ask. In my (absolutely splendiferously awesome) course on Children's Fantasy mentioned in my previous post, we have started studying the Chronicles of Earthsea. It turns out that my attitude to this particular course is to encourage my lecturers to run in fear from my opinions, basically because I know the set texts pretty well so I'm trying to wring the last drop of meaning out of them. So far my lecturers seem to know the books even better than I do, so I probably won't win, but I'm going to have fun trying. ;-)
Anyway, on to the favour. The Earthsea books are absolutely reeking with plant references, particularly in the wood that the wizards' staffs are made of. For some of them (yew, rowan, oak etc) I'm passably familiar with the pagan symbolism associated with them, but, while I have some reference texts, they're buried at the bottom of seven boxes of books. Can anyone out there suggest some good internet resources and books that the public and university libraries are likely to have?
Thanks,
Steph

*********************************
What I can pull out of memory so far (I'm treating this as a scratchpad, sorry for any errors):
Yew: Ged, the second Master Summoner, planted in graveyards, used for bows, protection from the dead, immortality
Rowan: Lebannen, protection from magic, the berries make a pentagram and I know there's heaps more
Oak: Ogion
Olive: Master Healer
Aspen: the evil wizard in Tehanu
Alder: Tenar
Hazel: Therru
The Immanent Grove is comprised of oaks, willows, chestnuts, ashes and tall evergreens, (Dragonfly, p237) plus the Tree of the Grove which is a bit like an oak and a bit like a chestnut and only grows there.