Heh, the things you end up doing when you're on holidays.
So, we got lost in Oamaru and accidently found ourselves in a little neighbourhood where all of the buildings are from the Victorian period and made of limestone.
Turns out there's a little Victoriana thing happening, with a bicycle museum dedicated to penny farthings and the like (I know, I get lost and find a bicycle museum - what are the odds, right?)
Also in this area is a shop dedicating to clothing from the 1890s through to the 1920s. I'm not kidding. They make a lot of the clothes on site for re-enacters and the vintage car people.
I just happened to find a pair of early 1910s style knickerbockers. They just happened to fit me very comfortably. This, in spite of the fact that they were made on site for a "random" size (which wasn't even on the pants) and I'm a girl with girl-shaped hips.
Yes, I know the pants are technically gender inappropriate (a phrase that can describe far too much of my wardrobe), but I don't care.
I've decided that it's high time mens fashions from before the Revolution* became perfectly acceptable women's clothing today. Everyone who's ever watched Firefly would agree that mens styles from the late 1800s look pretty good on women, and I think we should just bring steampunk into the mainstream with high waisted pants and braces for all.
I will admit that I still want a pair of bloomers (and a matching basque), but I know I'll also have to get the foundation garments to go with it. Quite frankly, the thought of wearing a corset (whale bone or otherwise) chemise, drawers and a dickie in the tropics is unappealing - especially when you're wearing the other clothes on top of all that**. Men's fashions from the period were much more flexible and allowed for more movement (hey, look! Nothing's changed!).
Join with me, all of you. Men and women alike. It's time we started mixing and matching the fashions of the last two hundred years. Empire line dresses with sneakers one day, knickerbockers and T-Shirts the next. What a bright and glorious future it will be***.
*Nothing too political folks (depending on your point of view). I'm talking about the sexual revolution in the Sixties - you know, the one were it started to become perfectly normal for a woman to wear jeans and a T-Shirt without having to explain to her father why she still dresses like a boy even though she's past 18 and should start wearing more pretty dresses if she wants to land a husband any time soon - thus paving the way for those horrendous power suits in the 1980s.
**I once had a strange desire to go around dressed in nothing but a chemise, corset, pair of drawers and multiple layers of petticoats (standard "foundation garments" from the mid-to-late Victorian period) and see if anyone noticed that a) I was walking around in public in nothing but my underwear, and b) I was still wearing more clothes than anyone else.
***Okay, I'm possibly not crazy enough to actually expect anyone to join me in this endeavour. I'm not even crazy enough to actually join myself in this endeavour - but largely because I know I'll have to sew my own clothes if I want to do this economically, and that's not something I'm likely to take up any time soon.
****Bonus footnote: Interestingly, women's fashions do shadow mens fashions from several decades ago more than you may think. I once bought women's vests from the 80s to dress a couple of actors who were playing men in the 20s, because the cut of mens vests in the era were closer to women's clothes from the 80s than mens clothes from today.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Wanaka - or "One Lane Bridge"
Two things I have discovered in the past three days:
1. New Zealanders don't think their bridges through when they build them
2. Wanaka is very pretty. And Puzzling World rocks. I would have put an exclamation mark after that point, but this keyboard won't let me. Thus there shall be no exclamations.
I don't know what it's like on the North Island of the Land of the Long White Cloud, but in the South Island, they have a fondness for single lane bridges. All well and good when it's a little bridge over a little creek in the backroutes and side-roads. When it's a) the major road, b) a major river and c) shared with a train line... well then it gets a bit ridiculous.
I've lost count of the number of bridges I've driven over in the last two days, but I can count on one hand the number which had more than one lane. Of the single lane bridges, some of them were long enough that you couldn't clearly see if there was a car at the other end. Some had "queues" that started around blind corners on winding road through steep mountains. It's not good, people. It's just not good.
Not only that, but there were some pretty serious bridges. We're talking cast-iron suspension bridges, cable-stayed bridges, and truss bridges. These costs some serious money and engineering. Roughly the same amount of money and engineering it would have cost them to make it a two lane bridge. Yes, two lanes cost more, but not as much as two seperate bridges. A single lane bridge is a false economy - ask any engineer worth his/her salt.
Anyway, running out of time at this kiosk, so: Wanaka.
If you come to the South Island of New Zealand, you must come to Wanaka. You must go to Puzzling World, which is on the way into Wanaka (it's soooo much fun. Illusion rooms, a multi-level branch maze and a shop full of puzzles and games), and you must go for a walk along Wanaka Lake for some mighty fine scenery.
This cannot be avoided. If you go to the South Island and do not go to Wanaka, the good holiday fairies will hit you over the head and refuse to give you as much fun somewhere else.
That is all.
1. New Zealanders don't think their bridges through when they build them
2. Wanaka is very pretty. And Puzzling World rocks. I would have put an exclamation mark after that point, but this keyboard won't let me. Thus there shall be no exclamations.
I don't know what it's like on the North Island of the Land of the Long White Cloud, but in the South Island, they have a fondness for single lane bridges. All well and good when it's a little bridge over a little creek in the backroutes and side-roads. When it's a) the major road, b) a major river and c) shared with a train line... well then it gets a bit ridiculous.
I've lost count of the number of bridges I've driven over in the last two days, but I can count on one hand the number which had more than one lane. Of the single lane bridges, some of them were long enough that you couldn't clearly see if there was a car at the other end. Some had "queues" that started around blind corners on winding road through steep mountains. It's not good, people. It's just not good.
Not only that, but there were some pretty serious bridges. We're talking cast-iron suspension bridges, cable-stayed bridges, and truss bridges. These costs some serious money and engineering. Roughly the same amount of money and engineering it would have cost them to make it a two lane bridge. Yes, two lanes cost more, but not as much as two seperate bridges. A single lane bridge is a false economy - ask any engineer worth his/her salt.
Anyway, running out of time at this kiosk, so: Wanaka.
If you come to the South Island of New Zealand, you must come to Wanaka. You must go to Puzzling World, which is on the way into Wanaka (it's soooo much fun. Illusion rooms, a multi-level branch maze and a shop full of puzzles and games), and you must go for a walk along Wanaka Lake for some mighty fine scenery.
This cannot be avoided. If you go to the South Island and do not go to Wanaka, the good holiday fairies will hit you over the head and refuse to give you as much fun somewhere else.
That is all.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Away with me!
If anyone is interested in such things, I'm leaving town. And the country.
I may be hard to contact for a while.
Say, if anyone finds a body in the boot of an abandoned car in the car park outside the Fisheries building...
I didn't do it.
I may be hard to contact for a while.
Say, if anyone finds a body in the boot of an abandoned car in the car park outside the Fisheries building...
I didn't do it.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Strange Days - Or, Welcome to the Real World
I regularly communicate with a man named Colm (hi, Colm!).
Colm and I have never met. We've never been introduced. We've never even started a conversation with each other. In fact, this post marks the first time I have ever produced the words "hi, Colm" in my entire life.
I've never seen Colm or spoken to him. I've never written him a letter or an email - or sent him a text message. He's never written to me. I only know what he looks like thanks to one picture, which I saw for the first time some months after I started communicating with him. He did not send me the picture, just as I have never sent him a picture of myself - although he has seen one.
We've never been in the same country at the same time. We have walked some of the same streets, but months apart. Even if we had been walking down the same street at the same time, we probably would have walked passed each other without a flicker of recognition. We do not know any of the same people and, as far as I know, none of the people we know know each other.
We move in different circles on different sides of the world.
Yet, I know more about Colm than I do about many of the people who work my building. I know where he lives (not an exact address, but a rough ballpark). I know who he lives with. I know what he does for a living, where he works and when he got that job. I know where he was born (again, just a ballpark). I know what his highest educational qualification is. I know what he thinks about issues ranging from gay marriage to the use of English in the Eurovision Song Contest. I know English is his native language, but he doesn't particularly like it. I know he finds the last days of Autumn in Estonia miserable. I know he's thinking about buying a new computer, but he's hoping to avoid it for as long as possible. I know what he usually eats for breakfast.
If you asked him, he could probably tell you he knows a similar range of facts about me. He's never particularly told me any of these things, just like I've never particularly told him most of the details he knows about my life. This information is a matter of public record - anyone in the world could find out these details. Heck, anyone in the world could read every word Colm and I have written to each other.
I know Colm because there are a couple of blogs which we both read and comment on. After reading each other's comments on these blogs for a while, we started reading and commenting on each other's blogs. Pretty much every word we've ever "said" to each other has been in relation to a blog post first produced for the world at large.
If you asked me to classify my "relationship" with Colm, I'd put us in the same bracket as people who eat lunch in the same staff-room and often participate in the same conversations. Friendly acquaintances, I guess. Friendly acquaintances who've never met and don't know any of the same people...
Except the men who write those two blogs. I know more about those guys than I should, as well - considering I've never met them, either. Heck, I've even seen pictures of their children.
Oh, and the reason why I read those blogs? My cousin got me onto them. A cousin I haven't spoken to in person for over ten years.
Crazy world.
Colm and I have never met. We've never been introduced. We've never even started a conversation with each other. In fact, this post marks the first time I have ever produced the words "hi, Colm" in my entire life.
I've never seen Colm or spoken to him. I've never written him a letter or an email - or sent him a text message. He's never written to me. I only know what he looks like thanks to one picture, which I saw for the first time some months after I started communicating with him. He did not send me the picture, just as I have never sent him a picture of myself - although he has seen one.
We've never been in the same country at the same time. We have walked some of the same streets, but months apart. Even if we had been walking down the same street at the same time, we probably would have walked passed each other without a flicker of recognition. We do not know any of the same people and, as far as I know, none of the people we know know each other.
We move in different circles on different sides of the world.
Yet, I know more about Colm than I do about many of the people who work my building. I know where he lives (not an exact address, but a rough ballpark). I know who he lives with. I know what he does for a living, where he works and when he got that job. I know where he was born (again, just a ballpark). I know what his highest educational qualification is. I know what he thinks about issues ranging from gay marriage to the use of English in the Eurovision Song Contest. I know English is his native language, but he doesn't particularly like it. I know he finds the last days of Autumn in Estonia miserable. I know he's thinking about buying a new computer, but he's hoping to avoid it for as long as possible. I know what he usually eats for breakfast.
If you asked him, he could probably tell you he knows a similar range of facts about me. He's never particularly told me any of these things, just like I've never particularly told him most of the details he knows about my life. This information is a matter of public record - anyone in the world could find out these details. Heck, anyone in the world could read every word Colm and I have written to each other.
I know Colm because there are a couple of blogs which we both read and comment on. After reading each other's comments on these blogs for a while, we started reading and commenting on each other's blogs. Pretty much every word we've ever "said" to each other has been in relation to a blog post first produced for the world at large.
If you asked me to classify my "relationship" with Colm, I'd put us in the same bracket as people who eat lunch in the same staff-room and often participate in the same conversations. Friendly acquaintances, I guess. Friendly acquaintances who've never met and don't know any of the same people...
Except the men who write those two blogs. I know more about those guys than I should, as well - considering I've never met them, either. Heck, I've even seen pictures of their children.
Oh, and the reason why I read those blogs? My cousin got me onto them. A cousin I haven't spoken to in person for over ten years.
Crazy world.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Cooking in a foreign language
I mentioned some time ago in another blog post that I was going to write a post about cooking in a foreign language. As I found myself starting to write a really long reply to this post by Colm which would touch on the same themes, I thought it was probably about time I just pulled what I was going to say over here and waste space on my own blog.
In the course of my Masters, I keep coming across a lot of great concepts that are intended for the consideration of language teachers within classroom contexts, but I find they are informing my self-instruction quite nicely. Amongst those concepts are:
Still, they don't have to agree with each other to be good ideas. I think there's probably something worth doing in each, and something that can be gained from each.
I also love the suggestions for reading material that I've been finding in the literature: Children's books, comic books, magazines, popular novels, non-fiction books about mummies or mysteries...
Whether looking at Authentic Texts or Adapted Texts, the advice is to do at least one of two things - either "read light" (texts that are a quick, enjoyable, easy read) or "get hooked" (read texts in which the subject is so interesting that you're willing to ignore the language barrier to find out what happens next). If you can do both, that's even better.
My problem, at the moment, is that I don't have enough vocabulary to make the extended reading concepts work. Ideally, one should choose books that are only a little bit beyond your reading level - you'll know 95% of the words and be familiar enough with the grammar so that you can understand what is written. The rest you'll "acquire" as you go along. Well, I have to say that my vocabulary is pretty limited and rather odd. I would say I know enough words to read a few paragraphs of text with only minimal recourse to a glossary, but those paragraphs would have to be pretty darn weird and probably wouldn't occur in Authentic Texts.
At my level, the most useful book I have at my disposal is Estonian Textbook: Grammar Exercises Conversation (written by Juhan Tuldava and translated by Ain Haas). According to everything I've been reading lately, it's wrong. I should not be getting more out of this book than anything else. For one thing, it's completely pedagogical - and in the bad way. The book is written in the style of language text books that were used in language classrooms in the 40s and 50s - and they've been out of favour for at least 40 years, if not longer. Then there's all that grammar - which I should be finding irritating and boring. Oh, and all the texts are written specifically to fit with the vocabulary given in that lesson (and all the previous lessons), which is terribly out-dated and really not authentic.
Yet, it's giving me the basic vocabulary and grammatical grounding I need to try to tackle the other texts. If I could organise myself to give the dedicated time I keep meaning to give, I'd be a lot further through the book and have a lot more of a grounding.
Mind you, I've been gleaning bits and pieces from all sorts of sources, so I know more than what's in the book, but I know the book has a lot to give.
So, after all this, the title of the blog was "cooking in a foreign language", wasn't it? Well, there's a reason for that.
It seems that one of the best things you can do to help improve your reading fluency in a language is to read more (who would have thought?). This is something I've known for years - I didn't need the literature to tell me this. So, when I first set out to learn Estonian, I bought reading material. Mostly, I randomly selected children's books based on the covers. This gave me a wide range of books aimed at different levels of readers - but not a one of them has yet managed to fall into my reading ability. I've finally managed to get my hands on some comic books, which are better as I have the support of the images to carry the plot even when I can't really read the text (more on this later), but this is fairly new.
Up until this point, I've been struggling with children's books, early primary school text books... and cook books.
The cook books have been a godsend. The genre is something I'm completely familiar with. I know what sort of things the text should be telling me to do. I have a fair grasp of the vocabulary involved in the ingredients lists and the verbs are repeated so often from recipe to recipe that I've managed to "acquire" a few of them along the way.
Everything the literature tells me I'm supposed to be getting out of Extended Reading/Narrow Reading and Authentic Texts, I've been getting from cook books. I have a number of Estonian recipe books (some with side-by-side translations, but most in Estonian) and I've managed to pull off one or two recipes (had some trouble with deciphering measurements to begin with) and I'm getting better. It's not just reading the recipes, but also trying to cook them - without translating them into English first. I have the Estonian recipe in front of me, and that's what I try to cook.
It's interesting to me that I haven't encountered anything about this in the literature on Extensive/Narrow Reading. They mention non-fiction books and pictorial dictionaries, but not instructional texts like cook books and things-to-make-and-do type books. But, surely, these books should have their place. Reading and following instructions is a great way to interact with a language. I can see why people combine language courses with cooking courses.
Cooking in a foreign language. Fraught with peril, but highly recommended.
In the course of my Masters, I keep coming across a lot of great concepts that are intended for the consideration of language teachers within classroom contexts, but I find they are informing my self-instruction quite nicely. Amongst those concepts are:
- Extensive Reading: Read as much as you can in the target language, as long as you find it enjoyable and easy enough to concentrate on the message of the text rather than the language itself
- Narrow Reading: Just like Extensive Reading, only you focus on books/texts written about one particular topic, or by one particular author
- Repeated Reading: Read smaller passages of texts several times over - while listening to audio recordings for a couple of those times if you can - so that you can read those passages fluently.
- Authentic Texts: Read/listen to texts written in the target language for native speakers/readers of the target language - in other words, "real" texts, as opposed to things written specifically for pedagogical purposes
- Adapted Texts: Read/listen to texts which have been adapted, simplified or specifically written for your level of language learning...
Still, they don't have to agree with each other to be good ideas. I think there's probably something worth doing in each, and something that can be gained from each.
I also love the suggestions for reading material that I've been finding in the literature: Children's books, comic books, magazines, popular novels, non-fiction books about mummies or mysteries...
Whether looking at Authentic Texts or Adapted Texts, the advice is to do at least one of two things - either "read light" (texts that are a quick, enjoyable, easy read) or "get hooked" (read texts in which the subject is so interesting that you're willing to ignore the language barrier to find out what happens next). If you can do both, that's even better.
My problem, at the moment, is that I don't have enough vocabulary to make the extended reading concepts work. Ideally, one should choose books that are only a little bit beyond your reading level - you'll know 95% of the words and be familiar enough with the grammar so that you can understand what is written. The rest you'll "acquire" as you go along. Well, I have to say that my vocabulary is pretty limited and rather odd. I would say I know enough words to read a few paragraphs of text with only minimal recourse to a glossary, but those paragraphs would have to be pretty darn weird and probably wouldn't occur in Authentic Texts.
At my level, the most useful book I have at my disposal is Estonian Textbook: Grammar Exercises Conversation (written by Juhan Tuldava and translated by Ain Haas). According to everything I've been reading lately, it's wrong. I should not be getting more out of this book than anything else. For one thing, it's completely pedagogical - and in the bad way. The book is written in the style of language text books that were used in language classrooms in the 40s and 50s - and they've been out of favour for at least 40 years, if not longer. Then there's all that grammar - which I should be finding irritating and boring. Oh, and all the texts are written specifically to fit with the vocabulary given in that lesson (and all the previous lessons), which is terribly out-dated and really not authentic.
Yet, it's giving me the basic vocabulary and grammatical grounding I need to try to tackle the other texts. If I could organise myself to give the dedicated time I keep meaning to give, I'd be a lot further through the book and have a lot more of a grounding.
Mind you, I've been gleaning bits and pieces from all sorts of sources, so I know more than what's in the book, but I know the book has a lot to give.
So, after all this, the title of the blog was "cooking in a foreign language", wasn't it? Well, there's a reason for that.
It seems that one of the best things you can do to help improve your reading fluency in a language is to read more (who would have thought?). This is something I've known for years - I didn't need the literature to tell me this. So, when I first set out to learn Estonian, I bought reading material. Mostly, I randomly selected children's books based on the covers. This gave me a wide range of books aimed at different levels of readers - but not a one of them has yet managed to fall into my reading ability. I've finally managed to get my hands on some comic books, which are better as I have the support of the images to carry the plot even when I can't really read the text (more on this later), but this is fairly new.
Up until this point, I've been struggling with children's books, early primary school text books... and cook books.
The cook books have been a godsend. The genre is something I'm completely familiar with. I know what sort of things the text should be telling me to do. I have a fair grasp of the vocabulary involved in the ingredients lists and the verbs are repeated so often from recipe to recipe that I've managed to "acquire" a few of them along the way.
Everything the literature tells me I'm supposed to be getting out of Extended Reading/Narrow Reading and Authentic Texts, I've been getting from cook books. I have a number of Estonian recipe books (some with side-by-side translations, but most in Estonian) and I've managed to pull off one or two recipes (had some trouble with deciphering measurements to begin with) and I'm getting better. It's not just reading the recipes, but also trying to cook them - without translating them into English first. I have the Estonian recipe in front of me, and that's what I try to cook.
It's interesting to me that I haven't encountered anything about this in the literature on Extensive/Narrow Reading. They mention non-fiction books and pictorial dictionaries, but not instructional texts like cook books and things-to-make-and-do type books. But, surely, these books should have their place. Reading and following instructions is a great way to interact with a language. I can see why people combine language courses with cooking courses.
Cooking in a foreign language. Fraught with peril, but highly recommended.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
She Waits
Another sonnet from the dead of night.
I was up way past my bedtime and my mind was wandering all over the place. Eventually I got on to thinking about old maids, and ended up writing this thing.
I don't know why I start thinking in iambic pentameter when I'm overtired. I just do.
It's not quite a true sonnet, though, as there is no change in direction with the sextet.
I was up way past my bedtime and my mind was wandering all over the place. Eventually I got on to thinking about old maids, and ended up writing this thing.
I don't know why I start thinking in iambic pentameter when I'm overtired. I just do.
It's not quite a true sonnet, though, as there is no change in direction with the sextet.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Trumpet
It's time to face facts. I'm never going to be able to play the trumpet. Or the cornet, or any other similarly sized brass instrument.
I've always been half convinced that I could probably do anything I wanted to, as long as I was willing to put in the hard work. This means whenever I say I "can't" do something, at the back of my mind I always tack on the word "yet". I might never put in enough work to be able to do it, but I still think the potential is there.
Heck, even math related things fall into this category. I suck at anything that requires something more elaborate than adding two digit numbers, and I truly hate maths. However, I believe I could probably improve if I stopped chanting "I hate this, I hate this" and put in a bit of effort.
When my brass instructor had me switch from cornet to baritone because he felt it would be a better fit, I held to the belief that, while the baritone was easier to play, I would still be able to play the smaller instruments if I just tried hard enough. I realise now that I was wrong.
It actually is about fit, not effort - and I mean this in the literal sense: fit as size, rather than fit as feel. I can't play a trumpet anymore than I can fit into a pair of size six stilettos. I cannot physically make my mouth fit into the space needed to hit any note higher than an E above High C - and I really struggle to hit that.
It's a bit sad, really, especially since I own both a trumpet and a cornet. The trumpet is a cheap tin pocket trumpet that looks a lot better than it plays, and the cornet is a third-hand ex-Salvation Army thing that I bought from a second-hand store for $50 and an accordion years ago. Now I have to figure out what to do with them, since I know I won't be able to sell them for anything near what I paid for them...
Anyone want a pocket trumpet or a cornet? I'm happy to give the cornet away, but I'd probably be looking to sell the trumpet for about $200 (I bought it two years ago for $400).
*sigh*.
I've always been half convinced that I could probably do anything I wanted to, as long as I was willing to put in the hard work. This means whenever I say I "can't" do something, at the back of my mind I always tack on the word "yet". I might never put in enough work to be able to do it, but I still think the potential is there.
Heck, even math related things fall into this category. I suck at anything that requires something more elaborate than adding two digit numbers, and I truly hate maths. However, I believe I could probably improve if I stopped chanting "I hate this, I hate this" and put in a bit of effort.
When my brass instructor had me switch from cornet to baritone because he felt it would be a better fit, I held to the belief that, while the baritone was easier to play, I would still be able to play the smaller instruments if I just tried hard enough. I realise now that I was wrong.
It actually is about fit, not effort - and I mean this in the literal sense: fit as size, rather than fit as feel. I can't play a trumpet anymore than I can fit into a pair of size six stilettos. I cannot physically make my mouth fit into the space needed to hit any note higher than an E above High C - and I really struggle to hit that.
It's a bit sad, really, especially since I own both a trumpet and a cornet. The trumpet is a cheap tin pocket trumpet that looks a lot better than it plays, and the cornet is a third-hand ex-Salvation Army thing that I bought from a second-hand store for $50 and an accordion years ago. Now I have to figure out what to do with them, since I know I won't be able to sell them for anything near what I paid for them...
Anyone want a pocket trumpet or a cornet? I'm happy to give the cornet away, but I'd probably be looking to sell the trumpet for about $200 (I bought it two years ago for $400).
*sigh*.
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