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Status Updates posted by meganiwish
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Pop quiz being unexpected, yes, I can see that. Quiz in Britain is always questions for fun. Did you used to make those foldy paper things when you were a kid? The kids I taught did, as did we. They called them Colour changers. I think water hyacinth would be a better name. Maybe REM just had very weird childhoods. Wen used to get a lot of power cuts when i was little, and would play games where you remember a river with every letter of the alphabet, then a country, etc. Wondered if named by a poet was similar
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Thinking of the word 'quiz' (which I'm guessing means for you in this context the same as 'test' would for us), I wonder if you can help me. What does 'pop quiz' mean? When I was a girl there was a TV programme called Pop Quiz here, which involved answering questions on pop music. I guess that's not what it means to you. I ask because it's at the beginning of REM's Imitation of Life. Also, do you know what 'water hyacinth' and 'named by a poet' mean. Are they games that American children play? I wondered if water hyacinth is that folded paper thing children make that you can open and close with fingers and thumbs to reveal choices.
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No, I'm afraid I haven't read any Louise Erdrich, but I will look some out. Of course, when I talk about what young people should read, like anyone my age I mean what I think they should read, which equally means what I've read. One of my favourite modern authors is Joanne Harris (Chocolat, Blackberry Wine etc) but I also like John Grisham, who I think has a Harper Lee quality to his writing. And Audrey Niffeneger has such a way with making you love the characters and suspension of disbelief. It's quite magical. I'd love to be a writer like that, but I can't come close. I'm a better reader than I am writer, and no-one wants to know about that
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Yes Scout, that's right, real name Jean Louise. Doesn't Atticus leave you wondering where all the real gentlemen have gone. Can be a real man without being coarse or rough. I lasts read it last year, introducing my daughter to it. Modern British education doesn't make them read any of the books they should. I find people get too hung up on the trial and Alabama prejuidice. Of course, it has a big part, but there's no suggestion in the book that the people are anything but decent people, Bob Ewell excepted. I've always seen it as a book about the loss of childhood innocence, innocence being the mockingbird of the title. I think a key moment is when Mr Dolphus Raymond tells Dill he's right to cry about the injustice. 'Because you're children and you can understand it...Let him get a little older and he won't get sick and cry.' Lovely book.
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I suppose Southerners with pretensions of grandeur like to be known as hillwilliams lol. I've been to a few of those places: Lousiana, Texas, Kentucky, Tennesee, Arizona. I gave Alabama a miss. My boyfriend and I were both a bit hippy/goth lookingat the time and didn't think it would be wise on advice we were given. So I only know it form To Kill a Mockingbird. What a rip of. I read it, and never once did they explain how to kill one lol.
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Love your Essex girl joke. Yes, we do blond too. In the eighties, Essex girls were known for weaaring white stillettos. These days I think fake tan is their trademark. Years ago, I stood with a colleague watching my daughter and her best friend get into her best friend's dad's 1960s Ford Zephyr. My colleague, a girl from Essex, said, "I'd feel like a princess being driven in that car." I said, "You can take the girl out of Essex, but you can't take Essex out of the girl.". Is there anywhere in the states like that?