Category: x Blogging

Another couple of key ideas

To make LiveJournal into a more flexible, even more creative tool… I would love to hear from those of you who have mastered the insertion of visual images into LiveJournal. We could all benefit from this. Maybe if you have some simple, clear ideas here you could put them into the LiveJournal Tricks and Traps…

Start of the New Semester

Welcome all- back from weeks of indolence and ease! Just joking; I am sure you have all been working very hard either earning money or preparing for this semester. I am myself very much looking forward to this semester and to trying out some new teaching strategies….so be patient with me! I am working in…

My dog Molly

Mother and clutch of 3 children are doing fine thank you. All are blotched black and white with brown markings around the snout… none can see as yet but all are feeding with great gusto and excitement. Mother is doing fine, although she has made a bit of a mess on the livingroom carpet… and…

Sydney Writers’ Week 2005

Spent a fantastic Saturday at the Writers’ Week. What an expansion of horizons! Saw Australia’s Helen Garner interviewed by Novelist Roger MacDonald. A great conversation about how Garner’s writing, especially her non-fiction was a way of giving a voice to those people in our community who are not heard. Inspired me to read some of…

Sydney Writers' Week 2005

Spent a fantastic Saturday at the Writers’ Week. What an expansion of horizons! Saw Australia’s Helen Garner interviewed by Novelist Roger MacDonald. A great conversation about how Garner’s writing, especially her non-fiction was a way of giving a voice to those people in our community who are not heard. Inspired me to read some of…

Sydney Writers' Week 2005

Spent a fantastic Saturday at the Writers’ Week. What an expansion of horizons! Saw Australia’s Helen Garner interviewed by Novelist Roger MacDonald. A great conversation about how Garner’s writing, especially her non-fiction was a way of giving a voice to those people in our community who are not heard. Inspired me to read some of…

Third year Shakespeare performances

Thanks 3rd year for those inspired performances of the Holy Bard of Eng Lit! There were some wonderful innovations in your productions and a real discovery of the magic and versatility of Shakespeare’s flexible lingo… Power to Bottom and Falstaff! The one thing your collective efforts have convinced me of -again- is the value of…

Lear Continued

A few other memories of our discussion with the Director/ Actor Lear yesterday (David Ritche). He had this insight into the way the play reflected the much more structured hierarchy of Shakespeare’s times… how the play begins with all these formal exchanges in which people use the formal “you” as opposed to “thou” (have I…

King Lear at Bondi Pavilion Theatre

I took third year Shakespeare students to see King Lear at Bondi. Thank you Kelly for spotting the show AND for providing the parking: Go Kelly!! We had a relaxing 10 minutes in the Bondi Pub before the show… the beer was good… thank you Simone and Co.(too many important names to mention: Carl, Louwana,…

Thank you all for your LiveJournal entries… I have now finished marking the first batch and I must say (have said this somewhere else too) that overall I am not only impressed by what you are all doing with it, but feel that we have hit on a tool that has given us the space…

Captain Bree and Co

I took my daughter Helen to see Captain Bree in the Murray Hall this evening. What a knock out performance. So much energy and enthusiasm; I was thrilled to see so many of our trusted literature students (across all years) taking part, enjoying themselves so much and giving so much enjoyment. What a great way…

End of Week 3

Dawn breaks over the bush behind my house overlooking Kuring-gai Chase. A cloud bank on the horizon holds back the sun for another 20 minutes or so. The bush is filled with the sound of cavorting Wattle birds that any European would say sound like woodpeckers. In the distance families of kookaburras break into this…

End of week 2

Hello all! It is around 2am (I am in my insomniac mode!). With my 14 year old daughter we watched “Nicholas Nickelby” on DVD. This is a truly amazing film and I recommend it especially to my 19th Century students because it gives such a graphic depiction of the conditions of 19th Century England as…

First Week went smoothly

Hello all. I am quietly excited by how easily you have all taken to LiveJournal… like ducks to the water in fact (some slightly more nervously than others!). And already there is some creative stuff beginning to appear, both in the design of some pages and in the free-flowing content. I have enjoyed seeing you…

Welcome to All

ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS IN: “Intro to Lit ENGL103”, “Nineteenth ENGL200” & “Shakespeare ENGL200” Hello All: I am currently speaking to my students in “Introduction to Literature”, “Nineteenth Century Literature” and “The Age of Shakespeare”. I have great hopes for this on-line journal, both for you all and myself. It promises to provide a relaxed, informal…

Introduction to Literature ENGL103 I have just finished re-reading Hawthorne’s “The Birthmark”. What an amazing story about the way our thinking and our aspirations can lead us so far away from the obvious things in life. This is a story about the dangers of ambition, the dangers of believing in your own powers. The one…

Starting out

So this is where I plan to keep a regular running commentary on my responses to the reading I am doing in the three units I am teaching this semester: Introduction to Literature (ENGL103); Nineteenth Century Literature (ENGL200) and The Age of Shakespeare (ENGL210). I intend to structure the journal so that all my First…