(no subject)

[persephone_kore]

Spanish is much improved. We have just been informed, somewhat to my amusement, that it's perfectly normal to spend the first semester of this school's Spanish course system in a state of confusion and then feel you're learning a lot in the second semester. Personally, I still think that what I would regard as a more organized approach would help with the confusion, and I was under the impression I had learned a reasonable amount the first semester. I just spent a certain amount of time tearing my hair out in exasperation.

That's the neat thing about introductory courses, actually, if you ask me. There's something fun about going in knowing so little about the subject as to be essentially nothing, and coming out (since you can hardly help it!) with a great deal more information, at least proportionately speaking, than you started with.

This teacher seems to have somewhat more interest in doing something fun on occasion than the previous one, which is nice. (Also, she brings in this funny little boombox to play the listening exercises, instead of wrestling with the in-room sound system, which is apparently very uncooperative sometimes. Of course, this is a different room, but....)

To rexlapinii: Blast you. ;) You know very well why.

(For everyone else, whether you care or not: He reactivated my Diane Duane craving! And he will probably greet this with smugness. *trails off into muttering about the Lone Power*)

And I bet anybody who's read them and knows my writing tendencies can guess my favorite among the first four.



To do, not remotely in order of priority....
Spanish homework
Bookstore visit?
List of people to feedback. Do so.
Laundry.
Make list of birthdays and so forth.
Look into Columbia, SC hotels.
Write stuff.
CBFFA plug post.

Comments

Hmmm...

[teldreaming.livejournal.com]

Sticking to the Young Wizard books and not the cat ones? Feline wizards kick arse...as do many of her other series. Although - I just read 'Stealing the Elf-King's roses', and was mildly interested, but quite aware of being bludgeoned with deist thinking. Plus, the cover is really stupid-looking.

Re: Hmmm...

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Oh, I like the feline wizards too, though I think I've only read one of them. But I'm watching an Ebay auction with Her Majesty's Wizarding Service and To Visit the Queen as well as the four Young Wizards books I actually have read, plus it's A Wizard's Dilemma Alan just piqued my curiosity about.

Re: Hmmm...

[ymfaery]

A Wizard's Dilemma is the latest hardback, yes?

Have you read her Door into... series? They don't seem to be as popular as her Young Wizards series.

Re: Hmmm...

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Actually, I haven't but I'd like to. As far as I've been able to tell they're less readily available (some of the earlier ones out of print) and more expensive than the others... and the Young Wizards were the ones in my high school library, which is where I first ran across her stuff.

[ymfaery]

I actually came across them in paperback in England 10+ years ago. I'm not too sure they're available in paperback in the US--you *are* in the US, right? ^_^; And they're probably less available because she hasn't finished writing the 4th book. Or at least I think she hasn't finished the 4th book. Hmmm.

/me toodles off to Amazon.com

...

O_O

There's *another* new hardback for the Young Wizards!? _O_

I hope that means A Wizard's Dilemma is/will soon be in paper...

Anyway, looks like the first two books were reprinted in one volume back in June. Title is Tale of the Five: The Sword and the Dragon , and looks like it's a trade paperback--list price $20, Amazon price $14.

[rexlapinii.livejournal.com]

Dilemma is indeed in paperback; that's the edition that started the whole thing. :)

And yeah, I've got that Tale of the Five collected as well; I hope it means that a. the next two books are collected in a similar fashion soon, and b. Duane finally writes the next book in the series, because dangit, that's a fascinating world even if the sexual culture is a bit too open-ended for my instincts.

Well, not so much that as . . . okay, I can understand, given the religious structure Duane sets up, why aggressive bisexuality (for lack of a better term) is a cultural norm. It just reads to me like she went "Hey, let's make this Bisexual World, how can I justify that?" The magic system and the dragons and the characters and the politics are all really neat, but that one bit just feels a little forced to me.

[ymfaery]

/me makes a note to visit Waldenbooks this weekend.

It'll be hard for the next two "Tale of the Five" books to be released in trade when there's only one more published book in the series. ^_- Unless you can point me to a place other than Amazon that mentions a publish(ed) date for Door into Starlight or, if there was a title change, whatever title it's under.

I'd ask what your problems were with the sexual culture, except I'm not sure I want to engage in such a discussion in the journal of someone who has yet to read the books. ^_-

[persephone-kore.livejournal.com]

Aside from one apparently rather confused source that seems to think it came out in 1978, all I can find are indications that Door into Starlight and Door into Sunset are supposed to come out in an omnibus in 2004. Well, aside from the places that say this was supposed to be in 2002....

[rexlapinii.livejournal.com]

Dur. See, it's been a while since I've read the third one, and for some reason I thought we've been waiting for the fifth. I am occasionally an idiot.

What annoys me about the sexual culture has little to do with the specifics of it and more the . . . artificiality. My suspension of disbelief has an easier time with the concept of dragons than it does with a completely homogenous, universally accepting culture in which casual sex regardless of gender is, y'know, just one of those things people do with their friends.

Maybe I'm too cynical.

[rexlapinii.livejournal.com]

I did rather react with smugness. Heehee.