I think I'm reading the most boring book on earth. It's the set book for the first half of my OU course on language, and is meant to explain how 'everyday' language-use is creative. My Facebook group for the course is coming up with some very creative uses for the book. I'm not into burning books, but I'll make an exception for this one.
One student thinks the book is wonderful, though. After comments of disbelief, she told us that it's cured the insomnia she's suffered from for three years. I am finding this part of the course boring. The second half looks at creativity in literature, so I'm hoping that'll be more interesting. I've decided that as long as I pass this course, I don't really mind what score I get - I just want it finished. It's made me realise how much I loved my Children's Literature course, which was hard work but fascinating. My next (and final) course will be, I have decided, 20th Century Literature. I want to end on a high, and that'll give me a BA in Humanities with Literature. It also gives me an excuse to buy lots of books. 'Yes, honestly dear, I need all of these for my course....' Actually, what drew me to that course was the fact that the reading list includes Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier. That was the first 'grown up' book I read, aged about 9. (I followed it with Stephen King's Carrie, and was more frightened by Mrs Danvers than by buckets of pigs' blood.)
The assignment that I should now be working on involves transcribing a clip from an episode of The Infinite Monkey Cage, which is apparently a science/comedy chat show. What good this will do me in future life, I really don't know. People who have started have said it's taken them over two hours to transcribe five minutes of chat. That means I really should get a move on, especially as we have to add 2000 words on how the transcription shows creative use of language. But it doesn't have to be in until December 5th, so I'll examine the creativity in some books first. People on Facebook can be very creative as well, so I'll peruse that site for a while. Purely for educational purposes, obviously.
Actually, I wasted too much time on Facebook this morning. Someone had posted this:
and I spent rather a long time reading all of the comments. 'To Kill a Mockingbird with a Chainsaw' was one of my favourites. A father had just finished reading to his child, so his result was 'The Cat in the Hat Comes Back with a Chainsaw.' I see an 18 certificate movie in that one.... Mine would have been 'Language and Creativity with a Chainsaw', which would make it a far more entertaining book.
What else? It's Children in Need time again, so I had to ask the class for fundraising suggestions. We always have a non-uniform day, but the question was: what theme were we going with? (Why do I always get asked to do these things while the teacher escapes??) Anyway, we had some inventive suggestions, some of which I liked very much, but were rather impractical. I loved the 'dress as your hobby' idea, and the 'dress as a member of staff' idea, although that may have been too much of an eye-opener. One year 6 suggested an animal theme, but went too far by saying we should then organise a safari on the school field, in which the juniors preyed on the infants. We have predictably gone with a pyjama day, or dressing in 'odd' clothes, which one of the children said I do anyway. Cheers.
