A210: Approaching Literature
Monday, December 01, 2008
December 1 already and I’ve managed to not post a single entry for the month of November! An entirely unplanned break - it just sort of happened. In fact I’ve barely spent anytime online that hasn’t been Open University related.
So what have I being doing with my time? Reading for the most part- the books above are a selection of my leisure reading for the past month. I guess it’s the time of year. It’s dark by 5pm these days, and cold, a perfect time for curling up in front of the fire and escaping with a good book.
Read on..
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Our coldest October day in sixteen years and tonight I will do my drawing curled up in front of the fire. The month has flown by and I can hardly believe that I have only 4 days left to complete my Big Draw challenge.
My new OU course is flying by, all too quickly! The first 8 weeks focus on the realist novel and in particular Pride and Prejudice, Frankenstein, Great Expectations and Fathers and Sons. This week is Great Expectations. I’m not a Dickens fan but I find the background reading interesting all the same. I have completed one assignment so far, a close analysis of a passage from Pride and Prejudice. Next assignment in due mid-November, in which I have to discuss how the novel guides a reader to make moral judgements about a character while allowing sympathetic involvement in their experiences.
This made me smile.
Music: ‘The Dream of Trees’, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - Complete Recordings
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Today is the official start date of my latest Open University course. My third course so far and the first literature module on my degree path.
Above: some of my course materials for Approaching Literature.
Read on..>>
Music: ‘Lille’, Lisa Hannigan
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Above: The gorgeous Mr Darcy with Elizabeth Bennett in the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Still counts as studying! Honest!
Well I did something today that I really thought I wouldn’t. I decided to deliberately NOT to do an assignment for my current OU course. It’s all the assessment calculator’s fault (a doodah on my course website which allows me to work out my overall likely grade). Having had a play around with it yesterday I worked out that as long as I get a pass 2 mark in my exam, i.e. 70% or higher I will get a Pass 2 grade for the entire course whereas if my exam grade falls below 70% I’ll end up with a grade 3 mark for the overall course regardless of how well I do in my final two TMAS.
Read on!
Music: Right now I’m a little obsessed with this song.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
I first heard this poem on a BBC TV show called The Bookworm. Presented by Gryff Rhys Jones, it ran at tea time on Sunday afternoons on BBC1, from 1995 to 1997. This poem was featured on an edition filmed in Dublin. If memory serves, it was displayed on the electronic display at Dublin’s main train station much to the bemusement of the commuters. It remains a favourite.
Felicity in Turin
We met in the Valentino in Turin
And travelled down through Italy by train,
Sleeping together,
I do not mean having sex.
I mean sleeping together.
Of which sexuality is,
And is not, a part.
It is this sleeping together
That is sacred to me.
This yawning together.
You can have sex with anyone
But with whom can you sleep?
I hate you
Because having slept with me
You left me.
By Paul Durcan
From A Snail in My Prime: New and Selected Poems
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