Posts (page 2)
What books are on your nightstand?
I always have a pile of books on my bedside table (today) / floor by my bed (yesterday) / desk (sometimes) / all of the above (books everywhere).
- Bear for dipping into and giggling like a maniac.
- New Scientist
- Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish by Richard Flanagan for reading again
- Fondling Your Muse by John Walker because who can honestly resist a red hardbacked book?
- Time Travel in Einstein's Universe by J Richard Gott - crazy good read!
- The World Treasury of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics
edited by Timothy Ferris - a wonderful find at Hard to Find Books in
Devonport on Saturday. Great essays by all sorts of entertaining
brains and so so SO good!
- Otherland by Tad Williams - Jack has been telling me to read this book for ages. Again, another good find at Hard to Find - I haven't started this one yet but am looking forward to it.
What movie would you really recommend renting or seeing this weekend?
Thank You For Smoking - it was a surprising viewing as the movie I'd planned to see was sold out. This movie was light, and quick, and touching, and I enjoyed it verily.
What was (or is) your favorite subject in school?
Art!
I *loved* art - so much so that I spent as much time in the art room as possible. On our high school time table, each day we had an "option" where we could choose what subject we'd like to study outside the normal Maths, English, Science etc. Being a Catholic Girls' school, the options weren't that exciting: Home Economics, Sewing, um.. so exciting that now I forget the others. I'm not even sure that "art" was one of the options to be honest, but I went to the art room every time my timetable said Options.
Took me quite some time to work out I wasn't supposed to be doing that - I wondered why there were different classes in the art room when I went there. But it was great - I got to do Art every day anyway because it was one of my subjects (one of the dumb girls you see. Smart girls did Latin and Maths, dumb girls like me did Typing and Art) - so I got to have two hours of it every day!
What albums are in heavy rotation for you right now?
The Short History of Nearly Everything read by Bill Bryson. Yes, I've discovered audio books and they are wonderful company on the bus and cause less nausea (I am such a delicate flower).
But more of a question: do people actually listen to whole albums anymore? I sure don't. I'm a constant shuffle girl, myself. The only time I break free of the playlist shuffle mode is to repeat a track. So "heavy rotation" to me might mean putting I'm Not in Love by 10CC on repeat for 11 hours.
When was the last time you had to speak in front of a group? How did you feel?
Wednesday night at my Digital Photo Enhancement class. It was only a group of 9 people but that's a group, right? Teaching has helped my confidence speaking in front of groups, but hasn't made me better at it - just stopped the whole throwing-up-before-hand part of the process.
The last time I ended up speaking in front of a "proper" group was in April at my cousin's wedding. Had I known I was to speak, I might not have consumed quite so much 42Below vodka. By the time I realised I was standing in front of the wedding guests [thanks to the bride's brother and his fingers in my kidney until i moved into position] and they were expecting a speech, it was too late to decline the invitation. I thought I did all right considering* - the first half of my speech about meeting the groom for the first time seemed to go okay, but then I started talking about worms and it pretty well went downhill from there.
I think it's a lesson to me to always have a speech up my sleeve, just in case.
[back home in New Zealand they didn't hear that I had made a speech at my cousin's wedding but that I had made a drunken speech so - I think I'll remember it my way]
Hello World!
