Hocus Pocus
It is about the middle ages and the way witchcraft, prophesy, alchemy and all other classes of magic were viewed by the people and predominantly, the religions.
We have covered a lot. Different countries and cultures and, surprisingly, different religions.
The Christian thoughts on paganism and particularly, witchcraft, I think we are all fairly familiar with.
Witch trials and the Spanish Inquisition are not new subjects to us.
But, I have been intrigued by the Muslim take on it. They have a different outlook on 'magic'.
I didn't know much about Islam and I won't pretend to know a lot now, but I do know more and I do understand them more.
Amazing what a little education will do.
One of the lecturers is really sweet. He looks about twelve, but then I saw that he is a Doctor of something historical. Amazing.
I am sure he could get half fare on the bus.
I was a wee bit miffed this week though.
Apart from the usual lectures and tests, we had to do an essay.
I am always up for an essay. I pride myself on knocking together a bloody good essay.
It was on an Arthurian theme.
Brilliant.
We had required reading to do first. Ok...King Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere, Merlin ....that doesn't sound like much of a hardship.
Well, the required reading was pants.
It was a translation from a French romance about Lancelot and Guinevere.
Not a trace of Merlin. I thought, as this course is about all things 'magical', that he would be the star of the story.
It must have been his day off. In fact there was no magic in it at all.
The writing was heavy going and clunky, but I read it.
I then did the essay.........oh and it was such an essay. We were asked our views on Lancelot's behaviour and asked to give examples.
I spent a couple of hours just on the first draft.
I was really happy with it though. I knew I would go back and tweak it now and then before the submission deadline.
That evening, perchance (getting into the olde worlde lingo here) I looked at the discussion forums.
Good job I did.
There was a huge hoo haa going on because the essay appeared to require a certain number of words. I can't recall exactly but it was a couple thousand I think.
Everyone was up in arms as apparently it was a mistake and all they wanted was not an essay, as we know it, but just a couple of paragraphs.
I think they said no more than 1200 characters....not words....individual letters.
This worked out to be so tiny that no one could believe it.
They eventually got a member of the university staff to confirm. They wanted two short statements.
Bloody Nora........I had written loads.
I had gone into great detail and done about 20 times what was required. Not only was it too much but it would be marked down for being too much.
So, I had to back to it and chop out as much as I could. In the end it was rubbish.
I still could not cut it down enough and nothing made much sense any more.
I scrapped it and re wrote the poxy thing. I am not happy with it. I am not sure I covered all that was meant to be covered because I didn't have any words left.
Oh well, apart from that one hiccup it is being run really well.
Here they are enjoying the late sunshine of the evening. I love hearing them quack outside the window. We are lucky to have them.
We bought this fish for the Art Deco bathroom wall.
It is quite big, around 10 inches tall, possibly more, and I just love it. It was only about $15 (10 pounds).
I added the bubbles because I could.
posted by Sue Banks @ 1:56 PM
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