(no subject)

I read the posts people make about bullying and then I think "Why can't I make a post like this?" The reason is simple: it's all too close to home. I can now talk about bullying in private. it might take a while before I can talk about it in public. It's been such a part of my life that I'm never sure it won't return.

Silence is not always consent. It can also be hurt.

PS Why did I finally say this? Because I noticed the silence of a few friends who have been and are in similar life-positions. Someone has to speak up for the silenced. It will hurt me less than it will hurt them, so I finally bit the bullet.

(no subject)

I worked my class very hard this morning: we covered everything from postcard poems to twisted fairy stories. I did messages on the way home and then went to bed for a bit. I have a mild virus that - when I rest in between things - leaves nothing but fatigue and a slight unease in its wake. You possibly don't want to know the symptoms when I don't rest or when I eat anything interesting. I certainly didn't want to know the symptoms. They're the reason last night was a wipeout after teaching.

I ought to leave the post there and leave behind me that sense of mild unease. Except that this would be mean, and I am nice. I keep telling my students so before I give them extra homework, so it's completely true. I'm very nice. Sometimes even charming.

In the spirit of niceness, let me inform you that Narrelle Harris has a Halloween competition, where the best false origin of Halloween wins the writer a cool book. My entry is a tad punny and can be read on Narrelle's Facebook page (under the discussion tab). I didn't want to enter, but Narrelle twisted my arm, so I wrote something influenced by that arm-twisting. That's my excuse for it, anyhow. Five minutes of my time very well spent. Or maybe ten. In a perfect world, Narrelle would be inundated with punny entries (I'm dropping hints very heavily, here, now) and she will never twist my arm again...

My Medieval self is turning courteous. So many people would be shocked at this thought.

I've been checking up proper courtesy in the Middle Ages and wondering if it can be translated into a modern novel without the reader being bored silly. The answer at this stage is, maybe not.

This is a pity, because Medieval greetings (my main source for this is Dupin's book and my own research of many years ago) are fancy and long and can be very subtle, which would open the door to infinite degrees of corresponding irony and sarcasm and downright rudeness. I'm just not sure that a three line greeting will meet the pacing needs of modern fiction.

Also, I wonder if the big formal greetings were everyday? It's possible, I guess, given different time senses. The trouble is that our sources are mainly literary. I'm pretty sure that your common garden person on the street didn't greet people in rhyming couplets.* If they didn't do that, then maybe ten words or even eight did for formal greetings, and a simple "Salut, ami" for saying "G'day, mate."**

I've put the subject on hold for a couple of days so that my backbrain can ponder it before I check Dupin and some primary sources again. I may well be missing the wood for the trees. This is quite entirely because of something Dupin said about greeting people - you can never greet too much or too often - that made me think of certain nineteenth century electorates.





*Though I now have 2 TV programs that claim to have used iambic pentameters for entire episodes - the first V and an episode of Moonlighting.
**I don't think I've ever said "G'day mate." This makes the point about literary forms quite nicely, doesn't it?

(no subject)

Did I tell you that today's word of the day was 'legend'? Then we had a request for 'dyslexia' and so we defined that as well. Being all kinds of Medieval right now, I instantly saw an historiated initial for the 'l' in legend and I told my students the story of William and the bandits. William is in my mind-picture of that historiated initial, defeating those bandits using the ripped-off hindleg of his beast of burden. He put the hindleg back, so he was cruel to animals but not nearly as cruel as he would have been without that saintly propensity to miracle.

'Dyslexia' doesn't lend itself as well to historiated initials, despite the fact that 'D' is an easier letter for them than 'L' is. If I were writing a novel for an illuminated manuscript, I might take more care concerning the words I used at the beginning of major sections.

You may have guessed from the above that I'm back from my meeting (which was a lot of fun - CSFG meetings always are, even without the added bonus of the film of Kaaron's story and her explanations of how the story to film process worked) and trying very hard to postpone doing any work. 'Work' is still a four letter word, after all, and my parents warned me that four letter words aren't nearly as interesting as the words I *could* use if I only tried.*




*This led to me calling my Grade Five teacher 'sesquipedalian' and also to me calling my classmates 'cucumbers.' 'Cucumbers' sounds positively evil in Hebrew. Also, if a teacher has to look a word up, he forgets to give detention. I don't know if this is a general rule, or if I was just lucky.