just a note...

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Chaucer

Some of you may have heard me talk about the latest subject in my British Literature class: Chaucer. We began the class with Chaucer and we will be continuing with it until October 11, when our mid term is all Chaucer.

What is so interesting about this type of English is that it is very different from the English we speak now. Chaucer lived from 1340 - 1400. When I have told people how difficult Chaucer is, some have asked: "Is it like Shakespeare?"
No. Shakespeare's time was over 164 years AFTER Chaucer. Although Shakespeare may be hard to interpret at times, Chaucer's poems are written in a whole other language!

In order for you to get an idea, Here is a section of Chaucer's famous Canterbury Tales, the General Prologue (which is only an introduction to a huge work):
Whan that Aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially from every shires ende
Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.

(General Prologue: lines 1 - 18)

I tried to upload an audio clip of this passage, but it wouldn't work. If you are curious however, you can click on the link below and it will take you to an audio page where you can listen.

http://www.unc.edu/depts/chaucer/zatta/prol.html

My Nieces

Right now I'm supposed to be reading my text book for Sociology, so I thought I would procrastinate and write a quick blog about my nieces, Kacee and Taylor.

I went to London on Sunday to visit and go to the fair with my sister Amy and her daughter, Taylor who will be two on October 2nd. I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't be able to see Kacee as well, since my brother didn't have her this past weekend. But when we got to the fair, we ran into her and her mom!

It was great, I got to see both Kacee and Taylor! Kacee was SO happy to see us, and gave me a big hug right away. When we left, she was quite upset and cried a lot. It's hard to have to say goodbye to her after a short visit like that, she doesn't understand.

The fair was fun, but Taylor didn't want to have anything to do with it. On the way there she was excited to see the chickens (we were worried that there wouldn't even be any chickens there!) but when we got to the chickens, she didn't want to see them. In fact, she didn't want to see anything! Every time we asked her something, like: "Do you want to see the cows? Do you want to go on that ride?" she would get very angry and say: "NO!"

Of course, after we left the fair, she asked: "chickens?"

When I told her that she had already seen the chickens, she seemed disappointed, and asked to see them again.

The only thing she seemed to like was the chicks that we saw, I think because we expained to her that they were "baby chickens" and they were tiny tiny tiny. Also, her mom is going to have a baby, so she can somewhat identify with that.

However, I think she is going to be somewhat disappointed when Mommy has a human baby, and not a dinosaur, which would be Taylor's preference.

LEONS...

Well, Barry and I have been waiting for over a month for our back ordered dinette set from Leons to be delivered, and today it finally arrived.... in pieces. One table and eight chairs to assemble from basically nothing.

Based on our recent experiences with Leons, I would have to say that we are not highly recommending the store to our friends. When our bedroom set was delivered, the dresser was damaged, one of the nightstands was falling apart, and the bench had been the victim of a tragic fork lift accident. As can be expected, Leons replaced the furniture that was broken (after one month of waiting) and gave us a slight discount on the dresser.

I guess our motivation for shopping at Leons was the prices they offer. We figured it was cheaper, and that was good. But after hours of assembling questionable and often broken furniture, I think we have decided that spending the extra money is definately worth it!

My Life List

Over the past few years I have become quite an Ellen Degeneres fan, and I very rarely miss her show. This season, she has begun talking about "Life Lists" and encouraging her audience to submit theirs. I did! Here it is:

1. Finish University and become a teacher
2. Become a published children's author
3. Get involved with a charity
4. Play the clarinet in a band
5. Watch every Oscar nominated film BEFORE the Academy Awards just once!
6. Go to Europe
7. Get married and have a family
8. Organize a film festival
9. Throw an Oscar party
10. Be part of the red carpet crowd at the Oscars
11. Look great in a bikini
12. Become a photographer

(*I'll be adding more things to the list as I think of them, but that's it for now!*)

New items: September 14/06

13. Be a good listener
14. Be a good friend
15. Be a good girlfriend

New items: September 15/06

16. Learn how to use tools properly to build stuff (or at least assemble stuff better)
17. Create a work of art
18. Conquer my fear of bees/hornets/wasps
19. Keep in touch with old friends
20. Maintain an accurate budget all the time!

First blog - first day of school

Okay, it's not really my first day of school, but tomorrow is the first day of the fall term. I've been going to school full time since January, but I have not experienced the fall back to school rush since I was in college in 1998. It's a little scary, but really really exciting! I went to the bookstore on Saturday to get all my books for the term, and almost $600 later, I walked out with 10 books. As I was looking through some of them, I was wondering how hard this term is going to be.

First of all, I'm taking French (YIKES!) which I actually failed in Grade 10. But if I want to be enrolled as a Rhetoric and Professional Writing student, I need two language credits. But as I was looking through one of my English books, I found this:

"Oft him an-haga are gebided"

WTF?

Maybe I have more than one language to learn this term!