CuppaTea

I have always loved libraries, and I have always loved my local library. As a child, the school library held wonders beyond imagining. It seemed the biggest room in the world (perhaps except for the school hall) and it was full of books! A few snug corners to curl up in, and friendly staff who always helped you borrow what you wanted. I have revisited that school library as an adult, and I must say, there was less magic there. Perhaps the magic lurked at my knee level, or hid under the bookshelves, only within reach of the smallest students. Invisible to adults. It seemed so much smaller! And yet, still filled with books! Still a wonderful place for many other children, just as it once was for me.

I wonder how many of you have ever learned another language. I have had the privilege and the pleasure to study a few by now (other than English). And the most fascinating and difficult part, once you get your mind and tongue around pronunciation) is dealing with idioms. Idioms are words or expressions which are more or less unique to a language and/or culture, making them difficult to understand and translate into or from another language. Three years ago, one of my housemates, who is from South America, asked me about an expression she had overheard: 'Speak of the devil!'

I want to backtrack a bit, and talk about what I did for the first two months of the year.   I was back where I had been studying, after spending Christmas with my family and friends at home. This time I was helping to teach the Summer School, in the Language Learning subject, one of the four Summer School subjects. Summer School is the minimum requirement for people in my organisation before they leave the country to work in another context. Language Learning as a subject prepares people to learn another language in a context where there may not be a language school, or a textbook, or indeed even anything written in the language at all! The method involves the learner planning the lessons, working with a native speaker as the expert in the language. The learner requests information in or about the language, and the Language Resource Person (LRP) responds. The class was divided into two groups, one to learn Indonesian and the other to learn Romanian, and I was tutoring...

A lot has happened in the months since I last wrote in this blog, and the end result has been my arrival in Spain for March to May this year. Some of the questions I have been asked a lot in the last week in Spain, as well as in previous months, is why Spain? Why did I decide to learn Spanish to begin with? So I thought I´d share the answers here with all of you, as I´m sure some of you are wondering the same thing.

It has been quite a while since I wrote a post - which was completely unintentional. Partly, I was so busy I didn't have time to write, and partly when I thought about writing, I didn't know what I should write! A huge thankyou to those who have been taking the opportunity to read some of my previous posts - as far as I can tell from the statistics, I have had nearly as many people reading this month even though I haven't written anything new!

So, apparently my laptop reads over my shoulder when I am writing. Or something like that! If not the day that I wrote Computer makeover , it was the day after that the next thing fell off. It turns out my computer had a screw loose, as when I packed it up a screw dropped onto the table! I checked - it didn't seem to have come from anywhere significant... so I didn't worry about it too much, just picked it up and packed it in the bag with the laptop. I figured I'd mention it to one of the guys when I saw them, and see if they could put it back. No rush. We happened to have a computing session for one of our classes this week, so at the end I did mention it to the IT guys. I was amused by their conversation over my laptop - especially when they realised it had probably not been tightened enough earlier in the year when they replaced the keyboard! So there you go - a tiny little screw was the next part to need attention. Is this the end of my laptop's dramatic atten...

I think my laptop developed a streak of vanity this year. Or plunged into a mid life crisis. Looking back, I can't even remember how it started - or when - but I suspect that it started when one of the guys studying here offered to do something which would speed my computer up for me. He had done the same thing for one of my housemates already, and she was thrilled with how fast her computer booted up and did normal things, so I agreed to leave it with him while I went back home for a weekend in May to see my baby nephew (and the rest of my family). All I know is that he definitely replaced the hard drive, and now Windows Media Player looks different, and my computer boots up in seconds (rather than more than a minute). It took hours to do whatever it was that he did, but he didn't mind, apparently! I think my computer liked the attention. I think my laptop now craves the attention of IT savvy people. I think this computer has sabotaged itself in order to force me to brin...

We are in the final term for the year! Still about eight weeks of study to go. Plenty of study and plenty assignments to do before then, but we are getting into some very interesting topics. It has been good to see all the other students again, but it has been hard to get back into the swing of studying. I think part of the problem is knowing that I'll be back home just for the weekend, flying there tomorrow morning, then flying back Monday morning. The wonderful reason is partly because I can, but mostly because I have three family events across Saturday and Sunday, including my nephew's birthday party! Unfortunately this means early morning flights in order to keep it as inexpensive as possible. Thankfully, I will have my Kindle with me, and I can continue reading Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. I am loving her writing - she manages to surprise me every time! And I'm looking forward to reading Heat Wave by Richard Castle next - the fictional author ...

It has been a while since I wrote about my study, and seeing that this is week three of semester two I thought you might like to know what I've been up to! So today I want to share a bit about my language learning.

While I am back for a few weeks, Mum has asked me (and my sisters) to work through all our stored items in her garage, as she would like to turn it into a playroom. She has even ordered a skip! Some things will also go to charitable organisations to be resold to people who may appreciate still useable items. Over the years I (and my sisters) have filled the garage with all the things we didn't need, but didn't want to get rid of...

I have four wonderful weeks of holidays ahead of me! And I have so much planned for those weeks, and yet not many specific, scheduled plans yet. My plans involve getting stuck into a new craft, catching up with a lot of friends I haven't seen in a few months, and spending lots and lots of time with my family. I now have two nephews and one niece to play with, and I plan to spend a lot of time doing just that before I head off interstate again. I also have a stack of books I've been waiting to read!

So, the semester has finished! I feel like I have learned so much, and yet there is still so much more to learn! Hopefully I never stop learning, and I hope you won't either, so to facilitate the learning, let's see what happened in 1578... Edinburgh Castle was rebuilt (David's Tower had been destroyed during a seige of the castle by English forces attempting to capture Mary Queen of Scots). The British defeat the Spanish Armada, signalling the beginning of the decline of Spain and the rise of Britain as world powers. (See this quiz site .) Elizabeth I apparently gave Johan Casimir £20,000 to aid Dutch rebellion, who then occupied Ghent with 500 horsemen. Sir Humphrey Gilbert received a patent from England to explore and colonise North America. (See here .) Back to Wikipedia for a few final tidbits of information. Martin Frobisher and the rest of his expedition were apparently the first Europeans to celebrate Thanksgiving in North America, in Newfoundland. The Eng...

So much has been going on over the last few weeks, but considering this is the last week of the semester I thought I should post something about what I've been learning before I am distracted by all the wonderful things involved in a four week break!

I recently read an article, 'Halt! Who goes there?' by Mem Fox for the subject I'm doing on Literacy. Which has made me reflect on my writing and reading habits, and why I think other people might read. I always want to write (usually fiction) when I'm supposed to be working on an assignment or preparing for an exam or other form of test. This has been true since I was in Year 11 studying for the semester 1 English exam! Which, thanks to my awesome English teacher, actually had a creative writing section as part of the exam. There are few other times when I am as creative in developing characters and plots! Anyway, back to the article. Mem Fox brings up four things in this article (written as a dialogue): Relationships, Reality in Writing, Rejoicing in choices, and the Return of the affective. She uses anecdotes in presenting these to the other participant in the dialogue, who gives some feedback. I really enjoyed her writing style - I generally have loved her childre...

As many of you know, I am a little bit obsessed with Spain and all things Spanish. This weekend I spent many hours wading through a sociolinguistic journal article about the dictionary of Mexican Spanish. Written in Spanish. I haven't read much in Spanish for a few years now. Reading in Spanish is hard! But fascinating. And at least it is for an essay I'm writing. But it made me reflect once more on why I like languages, why I like learning languages, and why I hope to learn and use a few more yet in my lifetime. So I thought I'd share some of these thoughts with you all.

I finished a book on Friday night, which also happened to be the last in the Hornblower series that I own (although not the end of the series, thankfully). So to continue reading the series, I will need to buy the next book - or the rest of the series. And yet, I think leaving it where it is may be a better idea for now! So I decided to not start another book straight away. In fact, I told myself I wasn't to start another book until I had worked on one of the assignments with looming deadlines.

When I am asked which is my favourite season, I usually say autumn or winter. If there is no reason for me to be outside very often, I really like winter. If there is a reason for me to be outside often, then I prefer autumn. I don't mind the cold and wet weather of winter as long as I don't need to get wet!

I thought it was about time I said something more about my study. Given I have just had a two week break, there isn't much to update, but I thought I'd talk about one assignment that I'm working on and one that I'm looking forward to.

So much has happened in the last three weeks that I have hardly mentioned my study! So here is a post about some of the things I am learning.

I have now had two days of my course, and I'm loving it so far! But first, an update on my journey over. I am not a huge fan of drinking water, although I try to make sure I have some on a long car trip like the trip I made on Sunday. However, I prefer to have some variety. This time I tried a new flavour of iced tea, which I had never seen or heard of before. I wonder if any of you have? I must say, I quite enjoyed my mango and pineapple Nestea iced tea, especially with a tuna mornay pie and a seat in the lovely park beind the bakery before I left my home state.