The Attic

[Schadenfreude]

NAPLAN... Wasn't that the exam things they did every two years or something? 3, 5, 7 & 9? I think they had a different name when I did them :S

Yeah, it used to be the AIMs tests in Victoria, but they changed it when they nationalised the test. Every state used to have slightly different ones, but then NAPLAN was introduced, and all the states have to do them instead.

They changed it over the last year I had to do them.

[Pedro-ologist]

I did WALNA testing and then did NAPLAN in year 9. It is ridiculously easy. I got 100% in the maths. And there is no study! YAY!

I can legit be here now. I am having a rest night. All my pre-exam tests are over, and tomorrow I am starting exam prep....

[mota_chick_nat_01]

Did you get a precise score? NO FAIR. I always got those chart things with the dots *huffs*

Haha "legit"

Yeah, it used to be the AIMs tests in Victoria, but they changed it when they nationalised the test. Every state used to have slightly different ones, but then NAPLAN was introduced, and all the states have to do them instead.

They changed it over the last year I had to do them.

Oh, THAT'S RIGHT. I can't believe I forgot the name of them -_-' I know they changed it to NAPLAN when I was year 10... (just missed out) But I remember they spanned it out over a week or something, there was a writing one, a maths one and another one that I can't remember for the life of me. Is that what they do in NAPLAN?

Haha, level 1 latin is easy, then you get to level 2 latin and its like 

Because it's extracurricular, I only get 1 half an hour every week and for me, it's not enough because half the stuff i have to learn on my own and it's difficult.

Half an hour? Jeez! What kind of stuff do you have to learn on your own?

[Rocket]

All the vocab. All we get is basic word order and past tenses etc etc but I have 400 words to learn in 3 weeks...

[Pedro-ologist]

We got things with dots, but my dot was off the scale in the same place as the guy at my school who is no. 2 in the nation for Maths...And his maths teacher looked through his (out of intrest) and he got 100%.

400 in 3 weeks! That is insane. I could only do 100 new words in that time! Don't you get a dictionary?

[gypolord]

That's not nice Pedro. What did Mr Dawe ever do to you? Huh? He wrote some ok? poems. It's not his fault that you have to study him, now is it? not like Skyrznecki.

Also 400 words in 3 weeks in a dead langauge. . . that seems unnecessary. . .

[Rocket]

I get one of those sheet things that have all the words on them, but they're what I have to learn. And in that exam, they give you the most obvious words, like necro meaning dead or kill

And hahaha gypo yes xD

[Pedro-ologist]

Bruce Dawe is an Anti-Communist Left-Wing Environmentalist Catholic poet who is anti-war, anti-urbanisation and anti-abortion. And I might even go as far to say Sexist. Women never do any 'jobs' in any of his poems, other than housework...

Every single one of Dawe's poems reflects one of the above views. And they take these views to be absolute. There is no way it could be the opposite. He does not give the other side a chance. One of the reasons I hate him is because I disagree with some of his views, but it is more how he conveys them - his actual style of poetry.

Take Enter Without so Much as Knocking for example. It basically talks about how urbanisation is bad, but doesn't even go near ANY of the positives urbanisation has brought...

Another one which perfectly illustrates my point is The Wholly Innocent. So friggin one sided!

Although Dawe does write some good poems (the above two are actually decent poems, except for their themes that is)  most of them are actually quite bad. They often make no sense without context, which means that if they were written in the 70s, they often have no relevance today (unlike a good Blake for example. They are still relevant in todays world. Heck, even Sophocles's works make sense to a reader who doesn't know a thing about the context (like the Sophist movement in the case of Oedipus Rex) although, obviously, knowing context does improve one's reading of them).  Furthermore, some of the techniques he uses, are simply alliteration for the hell of it! Metaphors because he could, not so that they could go to show any sort of theme or something useful for a Lit student writing an essay! This means a lot of his poetry is boring...

As you can see, I have my reasons for hating Bruce Dawe, and they are not because I had to study him. I have had to study Blake, I love Blake! I actually enjoy poetry!

You may also be able to tell that I have mastered hyperlinks....

[gypolord]

Enter Without so Much as Knocking never really struck me as being about urbanisation so much as commercialism, the disconnect that it creates and the inevitability of loss in the midst of fake conversations and shallow personalities.

Never did The Wholly Innocent. Kind of liked Homecoming though.

[mota_chick_nat_01]

Jeebus, Pedro, sounds like you copied and pasted that straight from a Lit essay!
Have you guys studied anything from John Donne or Andrew Marvell?

All the vocab. All we get is basic word order and past tenses etc etc but I have 400 words to learn in 3 weeks...

  That's mental! You'd have to be practically glued to that little sheet of paper!

Also 400 words in 3 weeks in a dead langauge. . . that seems unnecessary. . .

A fascinating language, but.

[Pedro-ologist]

You are correct in relation to Enter Without So Much as Knocking, I was thinking of When First the Land Was Ours, which is anti-Urbanisation and environmentalism.

Still, I don't like Dawe...

[gypolord]

Fair enough. I hated him too. Though not nearly as much as Skrzynecki. I still loathe him and his poetry.

[MadCatta]

Jeebus, Pedro, sounds like you copied and pasted that straight from a Lit essay!
Have you guys studied anything from John Donne or Andrew Marvell?

I HAVE I HAVE OH I HAVE!
Well, from Marvell, yes. We do a whole unit on him and a few others, all about the pastoral. I do like The Garden but my favourite quotation from any of the poems I've studied is "Death, thou art a mower too." Makes me chuckle. 'Cause he's like, yeah, it's cool, I'm a mower and I mow - I'M DAMON THE MOWER I'LL SING ABOUT MOWING WITH MY MOWING SONG AND THEN RELATE MYSELF TO DEATH BECAUSE I CAUSE DEATH BUT IT'S FINE BECAUSE DEATH IS A PART OF LIFE. And he's just madly in love with a random woman he's never spoken to but may not exist. And he's like, pretty repressed and pretty arrogant at the same time. And his pain from this random woman makes his whole life, including the past, utterly awful. So he sings to some glow worms.

[Rocket]

All the vocab. All we get is basic word order and past tenses etc etc but I have 400 words to learn in 3 weeks...

  That's mental! You'd have to be practically glued to that little sheet of paper!

Is it bad that I haven't even picked the paper up yet...? xD

What is the poem about the woman who he is in love with? Sounds intriguing!

[MadCatta]

There's Damon the Mower, The Mower's Song, The Mower to the Glowworms...  think that's about it... She's called Juliana.  He's a bit odd.