lonita

month

July 2002

12 posts

John Wayne films

We all know (or at least some of us do) that my movie-watching guilty pleasure are John Wayne films (particularly the westerns - the war ones are irritating - there’s one where he plays a fireman, which is good, and there’s always The Quiet Man co-starring Maureen O’Hara, which is terribly cute). Last weekend there was a John Wayne marathon on the telly, most of which I watched...

This morning we had one of those rare events when it pours rain while the sun still shines. I’m certain that if I’d gone outside I’d have seen a rainbow gracing the sky. I did not, and wish I had. Rainbows may not be rare, but it is rare enough that anyone sees them, and they are of the class of things that can still make even the most jaded still believe in something pretty,...

I’m particularly fond of Aussie slang.I think my favourites are: ankle-biter (infant), banana-bender (person from Queensland), berko (go berserk, mad), crumblies (elderly parents), God botherer (Religious fanatic - of the door-to-door variety), kark it (die), nut ducker (person who pretends not to see you in the street), (play) sillybuggers (to mess around waste time), wanker (idiot, very...

I go through packs of post-it notes, and highlighters, like nobody’s business. When I read through my books for class, along with highlighting text on the page itself, I make small notes and lists on a post-it note and affix it to the appropriate page. It makes it *much* easier to find things later on, since all I have to do is flip through the post-its to find the appropriate subject...

Che: Images of a Revolutionary

“Che: Images of a Revolutionary” Researched and compiled by Fernando D. Garcia and Oscar Sola Publisher: New International Publications, 2000 Unlike many photo books of its type, this pictorial journey through Che’s life is very expansive, covering his life from birth until his death, with only his teenage years being sparsely covered. The wealth of images is...

Home or Away a comparison between correspondence learning and formal classroom learning While the beauty of learning is that there is no set way to do it, two formally accepted ways of gaining educational accreditation are attending structured classes, or learning by correspondence. Which is more beneficial depends on the needs of each student, on their personality and personal situations. The...

Have a good time.

My grandmother always calls me up to tell me what she’s doing and where she’s going, and all that. Every Saturday evening she trots herself down to the local Catholic church to attend mass (she’s finally accepted that I’m an atheist, by the way - I finally got her to realise that my respecting her faith should equal respect in turn, whether or not she likes it). ...

If you were granted one wish exclusively for your...

If you were granted one wish exclusively for your personal use, what would that wish be? How would you satisfy your most self-indulgent cravings? What a loaded question that is. My first response to questions similar to this, is normally to wish for perfect vision - even for just a few minutes. I want to understand the world the way a person with 20/20 vision understands it. I want to be able to...

I’ve got the Eye Thing happening again. This hasn’t happened in months, now all of a sudden it’s been twice in one day and is hanging around like an ambulance chaser, just waiting to strike again. Let me explain the Eye Thing… It is, to some, called a silent migraine. This means there is no pain, no nausea, nothing recognisable in the headache or migraine category. What...

To fly one does not need wings, one needs a...

To fly one does not need wings, one needs a motorcycle. As Mr. Pirsig says in Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, on the back of a bike one is not choked off from one’s surroundings as one travels. In a car you are a watching, an observer, and cut off behind a sheet of glass - even opening a window is not enough. You are not a part of the road, the air, the land. When you are riding...

As bizarre as it may seem, the very strange sounding bird outside my window (which I believe to be either pigeon or owl) is hooting and cooing in such a tone and manner, that it fits smooth as a hot knife into butter with Pink Floyd’s Shine On You Crazy Diamond, which just came on the radio. And the other birds, the chirping ones greeting the dawn, they are a little subdued today - not in a...

“Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. (…) Show respect to all people and grovel to none.” TecumsehThere’s a lot to be said for being strong; for having courage; for standing up for (not against) something; for having the firmness of spirit to defend; the empathy of spirit to understand; the calmness of spirit to stand firm; the warmth of...