Now, when last we left me in my exciting adventure I was telling you about how I was experiencing a little writer's block. You'll be glad to know that I got my writing exercise done and turned in. You might also remember that I said a little something about the lawn and how it deserved a post of its own. Well, here it is.
Well, I've been having a lot of fun trying to keep our lawn nice and neat. It was about a week ago when this all started. I walked into the kitchen and encountered a foul smell. Now, the flat is pretty small so if one part of the flat starts smelling funny the rest will shortly follow suit. I shortly discovered that it was this yellow liquid at the bottom of the trash can. Quickly I went to work taking the trash out the the outdoor bin and cleaning up the mess on the floor that it left. As I took out the trash I noticed that the lawn was in serious need of some TLC. So, since it wasn't raining (a real treat for Aberdeen) I decided to pull out the lawn mower and give it the love it needed. That's when I realised that I had no idea where the socket was the plug in the lawn mower. What does a renter do when they don't know something about the house? Call the landlord!
Of course, our landlord isn't here but we do have a factor. So I called him and asked. He said that we just had to string it through one of the back windows. Thinking about how silly that would look but not how long the cord was, I started stringing the lawn mower cord through my bedroom window. I started mowing the lawn and realised...I didn't know which part of the back or front lawn was ours. Well, I figured I would just mow all the lawn and give a nice present to our upstairs neighbours and then ask my landlady through email. I got about halfway through the lawn when the mower stopped working. I was confused for a little, until I realised that the plug had been pulled from the wall.
So I had to leave it for a day, half mowed, before I got an extension cord. The next day I got the extension cord and started to mow the bit that was still all long and unseemly. Unfortunately the extension cord was about two feet too short! So, there is two feet of lawn still uncut. I don't want to spend anymore money on a really long extension cord, but I'm feeling I might have to. It's starting to look a little weird.
On a side note; the call to my factor also reminded me to tell him about my wardrobe that had collapsed my first day back here. He says he can fix it, but he hasn't been back here to fix it yet. I hope it'll be fixed soon.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Writing Exercises and Procrastination
Well, today my first writing exercise of the year is due. Like last year this is just a short critical analysis that won't count toward my final grade. It is marked, but it's really so that your tutor can see where your writing skill level are and how best to help you get a better mark on the first essay (which is due in four weeks). What I don't think the course lecturers, tutors, and course coordinator realise is that if they make something worth absolutely nothing for your final grade then the chances are most students won't give a care to actually do their best. I am a guilty party in this as are most of my friends. I wrote my short critical analysis on the excerpt from Ben Jonson's "Volpone." I don't know if any of you have read or seen "Volpone" but it is one of the most boring comedies I have ever read...ok, I didn't read the last two acts, but my point remains. Why, then, did I write my analysis on "Volpone"?
The answer is very simple. I don't care about "Volpone" and seeing as this doesn't count towards my final grade I didn't want to waste one of the Shakespeare plays on it. Also, it was only suppose to be 550 words (no longer). Now, 550 words may seem like a lot, but its really not. If you think that your introduction and conclusion are suppose to be about 10% of your essay each then you realise that with 550 words each the introduction and the conclusion are really only suppose to be 55 words in length. Not enough to write a coherent introduction. Luckily, the instructions said to not write an intro or a conclusion and just get into the analysis. Still, 550 words with as vague a question you can get is hard because fancy sentences go out the window and you're forced to get straight to the point. But at the same time it's easy because you don't have to worry about being the most eloquent possible, you just have to state the facts.
Having said all this, this assignment was, for some reason, very hard for me to complete. It's not that I didn't understand what was going on in "Volpone" or that I was being lazy and just not doing it. I sat down Wednesday morning and only got 150 horrible words out by Wednesday evening. This is something that should only take me three hours (tops) to write. I think I spent an hour starring at the computer screen without writing a single word at a point.
After realising that no matter what I wrote it was still going to come out as a horrible paper, I started procrastinating. Yesterday we I got home from lectures I decided to mow the lawn (which is a funny story all by itself and deserves its own post) instead of finishing up my analysis. I even decided to do Spanish homework (which also deserves its own post) instead of writing. I put a mental block on the darn thing and it took all my focus and attention and Buffy the Vampire breaks during girls night last night to finish. But it is finished and I hope that it's alright.
All I can say is that I'm glad that Sims3 Pets didn't come out until today or I never would have finished it.
The answer is very simple. I don't care about "Volpone" and seeing as this doesn't count towards my final grade I didn't want to waste one of the Shakespeare plays on it. Also, it was only suppose to be 550 words (no longer). Now, 550 words may seem like a lot, but its really not. If you think that your introduction and conclusion are suppose to be about 10% of your essay each then you realise that with 550 words each the introduction and the conclusion are really only suppose to be 55 words in length. Not enough to write a coherent introduction. Luckily, the instructions said to not write an intro or a conclusion and just get into the analysis. Still, 550 words with as vague a question you can get is hard because fancy sentences go out the window and you're forced to get straight to the point. But at the same time it's easy because you don't have to worry about being the most eloquent possible, you just have to state the facts.
Having said all this, this assignment was, for some reason, very hard for me to complete. It's not that I didn't understand what was going on in "Volpone" or that I was being lazy and just not doing it. I sat down Wednesday morning and only got 150 horrible words out by Wednesday evening. This is something that should only take me three hours (tops) to write. I think I spent an hour starring at the computer screen without writing a single word at a point.
After realising that no matter what I wrote it was still going to come out as a horrible paper, I started procrastinating. Yesterday we I got home from lectures I decided to mow the lawn (which is a funny story all by itself and deserves its own post) instead of finishing up my analysis. I even decided to do Spanish homework (which also deserves its own post) instead of writing. I put a mental block on the darn thing and it took all my focus and attention and Buffy the Vampire breaks during girls night last night to finish. But it is finished and I hope that it's alright.
All I can say is that I'm glad that Sims3 Pets didn't come out until today or I never would have finished it.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
A Visitor
Our flat doesn't allow pets which does make me sad a little. But, I know that getting a pet right now when I'm out of the house a lot wouldn't be good for me or the pet...unless it was a fish.
Even though our flat doesn't allow pets some of the flats around us do have pets. Next door there are two dogs that greet me whenever I walk into the backyard. They're quite friendly. I was told by my flatmate that there was a one-eyed cat wandering around our neighbourhood. I hadn't met him until a few days ago, but when I did meet him I fell in love with him. I call him "One-Eye Jack".
The other day I was hanging laundry outside and "One-Eye Jack" came over to me and started playing with me and rubbing up against me and being a real cat. So what did I do? Of course I sat and played with him for about an hour. I was a happy Erin.
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| One-Eye Jack standing in our doorway yawning. |
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| One-Eye Jack begging to come in. |
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Ultimate Geek-out
Well, today I proudly go from slight geek to full geek. Why, what am I going to do today? I am doing a 10 hour Vampire of the Masquerade roleplaying session. I feel like that one scene from "Sydney White".
My Name is Erin
I think taking a whole day to roleplay is fun.
I'm a geek!
Pictures to come...
My Name is Erin
I think taking a whole day to roleplay is fun.
I'm a geek!
Pictures to come...
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
This Semester's Classes
It's been a while since I last posted, but I assure you that's because I've been busy and not because I'm dead.
Last week was the first week of classes. It was a little bit of stress week of Erin because of my degree switch. Oh yes, I am now officially a Psychology student instead of an English student. I did have a little trouble in making that transition because I've always seen myself majoring in English. So, it was like a little piece of my childhood died. But, at least I am still able to take the English courses this year and I might be able to lecture crash next year which should be a lot of fun.
It was also a little bit stressful because the school of Psychology wanted me to add another course or two for the two first level Psychology courses they were exempting me from. So I thought that I would choose a language and since I might possibly live in California after my degree I decided on Spanish.
Now, my mother is fluent in Spanish and even taught it at university level for many years. Right now she is teaching it at a High School. I also took two university level semesters of Spanish my junior year of high school and received A's both semesters. And I briefly lived in Costa Rica when I was young which means pronunciation is easier for me than some other people. With all of this, I thought it would be a good idea for me to go into Spanish 1 because I hadn't been in a Spanish class for two years. I was wrong. Yesterday was my first Spanish lecture and I spent the majority of it trying not to bang my head on the desk in agony. Needless to say I'm going to try and get into a higher level Spanish so I don't have to hear "La is the article used for feminine words and El is the article for masculine words when saying "the" except with plural nouns. But we won't get into plural nouns just now because that might be a little difficult." There was a point yesterday when I thought, "just kill me now".
Now, I am full into the second week of classes and I'm not complaining (except when it comes to Spanish). I'm really enjoying Psychology this semester as it's all about childhood development. I've always found that an interesting subject. And this semester's English course is all about Shakespeare. So, fun times (except for Spanish).
Peace,
Erin
Last week was the first week of classes. It was a little bit of stress week of Erin because of my degree switch. Oh yes, I am now officially a Psychology student instead of an English student. I did have a little trouble in making that transition because I've always seen myself majoring in English. So, it was like a little piece of my childhood died. But, at least I am still able to take the English courses this year and I might be able to lecture crash next year which should be a lot of fun.
It was also a little bit stressful because the school of Psychology wanted me to add another course or two for the two first level Psychology courses they were exempting me from. So I thought that I would choose a language and since I might possibly live in California after my degree I decided on Spanish.
Now, my mother is fluent in Spanish and even taught it at university level for many years. Right now she is teaching it at a High School. I also took two university level semesters of Spanish my junior year of high school and received A's both semesters. And I briefly lived in Costa Rica when I was young which means pronunciation is easier for me than some other people. With all of this, I thought it would be a good idea for me to go into Spanish 1 because I hadn't been in a Spanish class for two years. I was wrong. Yesterday was my first Spanish lecture and I spent the majority of it trying not to bang my head on the desk in agony. Needless to say I'm going to try and get into a higher level Spanish so I don't have to hear "La is the article used for feminine words and El is the article for masculine words when saying "the" except with plural nouns. But we won't get into plural nouns just now because that might be a little difficult." There was a point yesterday when I thought, "just kill me now".
Now, I am full into the second week of classes and I'm not complaining (except when it comes to Spanish). I'm really enjoying Psychology this semester as it's all about childhood development. I've always found that an interesting subject. And this semester's English course is all about Shakespeare. So, fun times (except for Spanish).
Peace,
Erin
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