Sunday, October 28, 2007

And it's official!!!

I'm in second year!!! As an Honours student in English!!! I am so happy!!! Will obviously still be conditional until I get what I need- which, being a minimum of a compensated pass in the missing 4 credits I have, won't be that hard hehe!

I am so grateful! I was literally trying to restrain my beaming and grinning in the Dean's office last Friday. :D :D Life can sometimes be rosy too.

:D :D :D

How many smileys can I put in this blog without making it look dumb?

Today was a lovely day. I spent the afternoon deciding exactly what study-units I shall be taking and this process, though rather stressful and mind-boggling, just made me even happier, since it made the good news truly sink in.

And so that's it- no more rants about dreading teaching and detesting Educational Theory. No more trudging through a course I can't stand. Now I'm following the only course I ever really wanted to follow. I hope everything will turn out ok:)

Today I also rediscovered the joy of cycling. I hadn't riden for about 3 or 4 years and finally I mounted my brother's mountain bike (I've outgrown my Raleigh). At first I was very very wobbly, clumsy and shaky but then I started to really enjoy it. I revelled in the sensation of freedom and quiet solitude and rode to Bormla and back. I still have not figured out how to use the gears though and this gave me a few problems on a couple of slopes ( Yeah, Fgura is very hilly and green and all that). Besides, I also acquired my first sports 'injury'- may I be so pertinent as to reveal that my derriere still hurts? hehe, it does. I'm so proud of myself. I shall be named Sportswoman of the year for sure. I definitely plan on repeating this every weekend. Lance Armstrong need not worry too much though- I do not intend to dominate the Tour de France just yet. Oh wait, I think Mr. Armstrong has retired. Which makes that attempt at humour outdated. Sigh.

I have to sign off now, because the next few days are going to be rather hectic. Excuse the fragmented nature of this blog but I do not lie when I say that I am busy.

ps 1 Watch Atonement- powerful, beautifully photographed, scripted, acted, edited, directed, scored (??? what kinf of word is this???)- you get my drift- this film is seriously beautiful and I hope it shall be duly rewarded come awards time.

ps 2 My current theme song is 'I want to ride my bicycle' by Queen. :D :D :D... yes, more smileys.

ps 3 My brother's blog is very interesting for anyone interested in marketing, advertising, the works.

ps 4 My sister's blog has a nice poem in it.

ps 5 Go read them:)

Till next time,
take care
Liz
xxx

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Stormy night

More rain. And thunder. and lightning. I wish I could write a lot today- So much is passing through the corridors of my brain, yet I do not have much time. I still have to read a few pages for my German literature lecture tomorrow. We're starting the Romantik which, believe it or not, means Romanticism in English!!! Now I shall feel so smug and smart just because we already studied Romanticism in English, and I'll have this infantile urge to butt in whenever our lecturer asks us something, but I won't fall for this urge, because it's infantile, cringeworthy and stupid. The worst thing that can befall those who study ANYTHING is that they feel they know a lot, which they don't. With Literature the temptation is even bigger, since literature makes people feel cool and artistic, a cut above the rest. The thing that most people fail to notice is that it is not how many writers and film directors you can squeeze into your hi5 profile, it is not how knowledgeable you are, but how much you can truly distinguish quality from mediocrity, and how humbly you can ultimately admit to your own glaring limits that truly matters. I'm not saying I do not sometimes stumble into this trap, but i try to avoid it like the plague.

Dad just said that it shall rain a lot tomorrow, which means I'll wear my new boots. Yes, I managed to find even nicer ones than the aforementioned elusive pair! Peacocks is turning out to be rather awesome shoe-wise, I must say. However, in spite of the excitement about the gorgeous boots, I'd prefer sun any day. October sun is so kind.

In other, more important news, I finally have a definite date for the confirmation regarding my course (ref. earlier posts). Next Thursday Senate will decide. And yes, I am level-headed enough to know they're not meeting for my sake, but just because it happens that they're scheduled to meet. According to the Dean, I have a strong argument, since I almost have the 65% needed even with 4 ECTS missing, let alone with them. Yet I can only pray and hope for the best. If the worst comes to the worst, I'll be a part-time first year by next week, looking for a job and feeling useless and unemployed. Yes, because if I am relegated to first year, my workload will be three lectures a week, since I've done practically everything already. Aargh. We shall see. Please God please. I want this course. I truly do.

PS At the moment I'm reading 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' by James Joyce and it makes me want to weep. It's so good. so very good. One just knows this man's not bluffing and blabbering. Perceptive and focused. A true artist. Lucky him.

ps 2 I am rediscovering Travis' 'The Man Who'. Travis were the first real band I liked after thankfully recovering from my Westlife/ Backstreet Boys phase, and listening to them obviously comes with a lot of nostalgia. Yet, it is not merely nostalgia. They were really good in a very simple, genuine and earnest way, and they also had the much-yearned for dose of wistfulness. Exquisite. Here's a sweet taste: lovely lovely song called Driftwood

I truly wish I could have written a less hurried and fragmented post yet it's very late, and I have lectures till seven tomorrow so I need to get some sleep.

Is this my idea of a short, quick entry? I need a course in summarizing :D. I enjoy this blogging thing soo much- self-centred little brat that I am!

Really off now,

Take care,
Liz
xxxx

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Rain

I love watching the rain,
And the way it glistens on the window pane.

OMG OMG that actually rhymes!!! I can actually claim, with an irrepressible grin stretching from one side of my face to the other, like one of my nicer, more polite Italian students once did, that:

I IZ GENIUS IN ENGLISH!!!

Yes, notice the irony contained so neatly in the grammatical mistake shown above. Wish all my students were at least half as nice. Alas, they weren't.

PS do not worry, I know I iz not genius in English. I iz only genius in everything!

Just kidding:D

Till next time,
take care
Lizzy

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Sugar!

I had a bad day today. Six lectures one straight after the other, four of which were in the same room and all German, which made me harbour rather violent feelings towards the younger Elizabeth who insisted on loving the teutonic tongue so blindly. And my throat felt like two cavernous holes- it was so terribly swollen. I'm trying to blog with this song in the background so I might not be so fluent. Who said that women are great at multi-tasking? I have no idea how to do anything much with music on. Whenever I'm blogging or chatting with music on, I run a rather high risk of typing the words of the song rather than my own words of wisdom, which of course might lead to great rebellions by the reading throngs, who so want to read MY words. In fact the song finished now and I'm not playing any more. Don't want to risk the wrath of the mob. It's this brilliant cover Radiohead did of Carly Simon's 'Nobody Does it Better'. I know the two seem rather incongruent but RH pulled it off brilliantly as usual. Those guys are so good at what they do. They earnestly work hard and strive for excellence. Rare species. Yet they do seem to overthink things sometimes. They seem to have an existential crisis after every album they release. Or maybe they just take a long holiday in the sun and forget their Britishness after every album. Perhaps that's why they take so long.

Lately I have been blogging with less ardour because I do not find the energy to write good blogs which have a point anymore. I just write that I did this, and then that, and then that and then nothing else. Then again, that's what I always wrote. I shall sleep soon. I have to wake up and read read read tomorrow. But it doesn't matter because I'm so happy in this course. I'll be happier if they confirm though. They phoned from the Registry today to check which lectures I am attending. They know about me, they said. Sugar!( as Ms. Bagley likes to say) Ms. Bagley is my phonetics and phonology lecturer and she is one of the sweetest lecturers ever. She sends emails with such nice little messages attached to them: "I am afraid that I need to postpone today’s lecture in the afternoon as my respiratory system is under siege by alien bodies fondly known as ‘bugs’, and phonation is seriously compromised"

She has such joie de vivre :D, something her area of specialization seems to seriously lack.

I would also like to announce that Fry and Laurie have made their way into my dreams with the stellar "There ain't but one way". I actually dreamt about them and I could hear the song in the dream, with a country setting and all! woohoo! or should I say 'Sugar!' According to Desiree, I officially have psychological disturbances. Alas, genius will always be misunderstood ;p

I have to go now, moping and lamenting the loss of a heavenly pair of boots from Peacocks- they did not have my size- even my feet are common! I needed those boots so badly! Grrr!

BTW I put up a link to my brother's blog. It's not about his personal life in the shadow of his mighty sister Liz, but it's about advertising, and it's a joint venture with a friend of his, Janice. Check it out!

Am off now, because my sister is whining insufferably about losing her Revlon lipliner, and because I am looking forward to my first long sleep in what feels like centuries. No uni tomorrow. I'll read read read, so maybe one day I'll shove something into this little mind :D

Till next time,
take care

Lizzy
xxx

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Should be off to sleep

I have just been eating the most heavenly tiny tub of strawberry yoghurt ever. I now know what I shall say if I ever become famous for something and they ask me one of those silly questions like "What do you want your last meal on Earth to be?". I want it to be standing in the kitchen at midnight eating unassuming, simple, wholesome ice cold strawberry yoghurt WITHOUT actual pieces of strawberry.

I'm happy these days. Sometimes restless, sometimes scared, sometimes longing stupidly and impossibly for impossible things, yet I'm happy. Today Dr. Callus saw me in the corridor and asked me how I was doing, and told me to go talk to him in his office tomorrow, just to keep him updated with my situation. It was very kind of him. I hope everything shall be okay. I'm really really happy in B.A. English. It's just worth the hard work. I hope they'll let me stay in second year, even though I seem to have acquired a calmness that is astounding me and I've quit worrying about the whole thing.

I shall sign off now, not a particularly remarkable blog, but I just felt like writing something down. And this song reminds me of when I was around fourteen and used to dream of having perfect days and walks in the parks with some great guy I was madly in love with. Dear me, I think I still dream that. Don't know what's with this video though. Lots of shoes.

Till next time
Take care
Lizzy

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Pardon the restless girl.

I obviously did not manage to write a short blog. I read a lot of blogs. Yes, I know, I need a life! But blogs are interesting. They say a lot about what people want to be. We all want to be as interesting and well-written as our blogs. We write them in English, like the books we have grown up reading, so that our life seems like a book, reads like an interesting little story, with characters, events and ideas worth mentioning. But real life can be dull. It is usually lived in short, snappy sentences rather than long pretty ones. I was so restless tonight. I signed off MSN quite a while ago, saying I'll be off to sleep, but I just can't. I'm so restless, excitable. I'm still not 100% sure as regards whether I'm first or second year. When all seemed lost, and I was ready to repeat everything, I talked to Dr.Callus and he took me to the Dean, who turned out to be very very helpful! Apparently my grades are good enough to get me into Honours as a sort of conditional student. All I need is a compensated pass in the 4 ects I did not do, since they weren't part of the Education course, and I'll have enough. Hopefully I'll get more than a compensated pass though:). The Dean is sure that Mr.Registrar will let me, as long as I do the German general programme, just in case I fail those 4 ects. In the meantime, I am attending both the English Honours lectures and the German General ones, as well as the first year lectures that I missed, and thankfully I'm managing without too many clashes. Hope for the best. Dear me, writing about uni procedures is the most boring past-time that ever existed this side of planet Ganzwiliomsa. At least, I got that cleared. Doesn't it give you a warm glow that your blog readers know the ambivalence in which your university affairs lie? Especially knowing that if they are not Arts students, they probably still have no idea what you're mumbling on and on about.

Ehh. I started writing this blog tonight because writing is probably the only thing in the world that calms me down, that makes me reconcile my daily day-dreams with everyday reality. I love it so much. Yet I seem to be able to get nothing out of it other than endless journals. Whenever I try to write a story, there's always this big clumsy obstacle in the middle, and that's me. There's just too much Elizabeth in whatever Elizabeth writes. Yes, you might think it impossible that there's such a thing as too much of something as awesome as Elizabeth, but yes there is;p.

Oh Dear I've ended up questioning the motives of this blog. Why do I write this? I've ended up blogging about blogging.

'Tis sad.

Btw My brother is soon debuting in the blogosphere. His blog is going to be a funkeh, high-tech affair for sure. I'll link to it as soon as I have the URL.

Keane were named after a Tennyson poem, 'The Lotus-Eaters', before they changed to Keane. How sweet is that?

Till next time,
Lizzy

A little present cos of crappy post : Dido again

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Random blog

I've dared myself to write a short blog, just like those blogs belonging to people who have a life