Posts by Sayana

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  • Up Front: Absence of Malice,

    But then I always had a choir to sing in

    Hi Stuart - Susan Mitchell here from the good old days of NZNYC.

    I always made sure I was back at school for choir and orchestra practices - that they would notice and follow up on. Kinda difficult to fade into the background when you play the Double Bass.

    Since Sep 2008 • 50 posts Report

  • Up Front: Absence of Malice,

    My 6th form year at Nelson College for Girls I took English, Maths, French, Latin, Music and Accounting. Latin and Music were both Correspondence courses and we had no real supervision, French was held up at Nelson College with the boys and had an appalling teacher who didn't believe that girls could do better than boys... Oh, and whenever the cricket was on, class was cancelled.

    So, there were twelve hours a week that I didn't feel a real need to be attending classes. The correspondence packs were easy enough to cram into a short frenzy just before due date, and despite the fact there were just 9 girls in the french class, we came 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 10th in class. Again, I was one of the bright lazy ones, so no-one took much notice when I wasn't there.

    Which we definitely called 'wagging'.

    Since Sep 2008 • 50 posts Report

  • Up Front: Hellfire's a Promise Away,

    My husband likes to tell people: "I met my wife when she was 7". Without, of course, explaining that he was 8 at the time...

    Since Sep 2008 • 50 posts Report

  • Up Front: The Classics Are Rubbish Too,

    DWJ is the best. A pity libraries and book shops can't agree whether to put her under J or W, or both, or in the case of whitcoulls for a long time, neither.

    Signed, Grateful reader.

    You could try here - the shop manager assure me there MAY be a few in the shop.

    http://www.artybees.co.nz/


    Their stock isn't online, but you could call them is you're really keen

    Since Sep 2008 • 50 posts Report

  • Up Front: The Classics Are Rubbish Too,

    Back to the classics, well, Victor Hugo gets way too much respect. What do you mean, the love of your life is the former neglected fosterling of the man who saved your father on the battle of Waterloo and her foster sister is her hopeless rival for your affections? Unlikely coincidence? Never. And about those hundred page diversions on the sewers, or slang, or Waterloo. It's like a soap-opera, but educational.

    Gaah. Back when I was a wanky pretentious teenager, I tried to read Les Miserables in french. What a tedious bunch of rubbish.

    Since Sep 2008 • 50 posts Report

  • Up Front: The Classics Are Rubbish Too,

    Aheheh. Aheheheheheheh.

    I don't do windows

    Since Sep 2008 • 50 posts Report

  • Up Front: The Classics Are Rubbish Too,

    I guess I need to join you in your shelter 'cause I liked The Little Friend too. I read it before I read The Secret History and enjoyed it enough to seek out the author's other work.

    I had been waiting for DT's second book for a long long time. There was much hype about the fact that it took her ten (or so) years to write. To me it felt that it had been "fine-tuned" to such a point that it had lost all 'flow'.

    Since Sep 2008 • 50 posts Report

  • Up Front: The Classics Are Rubbish Too,

    The advance warning on that one was one of the nicest things you've ever done for me.

    Anything for you dahling...

    Since Sep 2008 • 50 posts Report

  • Up Front: The Classics Are Rubbish Too,

    I loved "The Secret History". But then, I can remember being at a party with a group of friends and reaching the unanimous conclusion that yes, [character from TSH] was exactly like [dear friend who now works for the Ministry of (Redacted)]. So there may be mitigating circumstances there

    I loved Secret History for much the same reason that Emma stated (and possibly the same conversation). What I never forgave Donna Tartt for was her second book: The Little Friend

    I have never been so angry as when I got to the end of that one. That one I threw across the room.

    Since Sep 2008 • 50 posts Report

  • Up Front: Not Actually Blue at All,

    I had a year 10 student at the end of term 3 who had got a bit bored in Maths class, so she carved a heart in the back of her hand with her compass, then coloured it in with a ball point pen...

    After I pointed out to her that this was not perhaps the best idea that she had ever had (being at an exclusive private girls' college with VERY definite rules), she scrubbed it out, and it was beginning to heal last time I saw her. It apparently took over an hour to scrub all of the ink out of it.

    Since Sep 2008 • 50 posts Report

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