When I Was Young, I Thought It Was Spelled "S.A."

I finished my four thousand word essay (the night before the night before it was due, for once!) but I get the feeling that it is one of the worst things I have ever written. When you have only really gathered the necessary amount of material to turn out a half-decent two thousand worder, but you need to write an essay twice that length, what do you do? You pad it out. You make sure to take three paragraphs to say what would usually take only one paragraph, or maybe even half a paragraph. The result is a slow-paced, faux-intellectual meandering in the "discursive, discussive style" of my tutor for the paper in question. I can only hope that he will enjoy reading it. The decidedly dissatisfactory C mark that I "achieved" in my similarly hastily-produced foreign policy analysis essay -- and the comment that I received from the marker that my bibliography was "lite" -- doesn't bode well for how I'll do with my other sprawling piece. But I'm not too worried; I'm just glad it's out of the way.

I spent yesterday afternoon -- which I had free -- washing the orchard off my car, and throwing literally dozens of fetid rubber gloves out of the doors. I'd waited a long time to be able to do this -- it's been high season for assignments, despite the holidays, for a long time, and the fact that I was committing a substantial amount of time to my job didn't help the situation. The frequently-wet gravel driveway of the orchard had taken its toll on the entire body of Oculus. Inside, it seems indelibly tainted by the smell of feijoas -- a smell that I used to find alluring, but that now reminds me only of melancholy monotony -- and I can't even drive with the windows open to suck it all out because it would increase petrol consumption! I guess I only have myself to blame for repeatedly taking substantial crate- or chilly bin-loads of the fruit home. That said, I would like to put it down somewhat to there usually being feijoas all over the driveway, and that consequently they have splattered up into the bodywork.

On Sunday last week, I left my house at nine o' clock in the morning, bound for uni, in stunning conditions. I think it was probably the best day, in terms of weather, of the holidays. It was one of those occasions where the sun is at just the right position in the sky; everything has that soft, warm tinge to it visually -- enough to release your endorphins, but not so much that it gives you a headache. That put me in a good mood. At uni, I renewed an excessive (by my standards) quantity of books that I had gathered on a preliminary basis for my now-finished assignment, without the knowledge that I actually could have renewed them online; and also borrowed a few more relevant pieces of material. On the way to the Shore to see Alison, I paid a visit to the Sounds Megastore on Queen Street, as I had a twenty dollar voucher to spend that my grandma had given me for my birthday.

I used the voucher to help me buy Von, completing my collection of Sigur Rós albums. I had read mixed reviews about this 1997 album -- it seems that people either love it or they hate it. It sounded like the sort of thing I'd be into so I gave it a try, and I'm very impressed. It's hardly recognisable as the band that is known and loved today, not least because only two of the current members were in the band at the time that it was produced (those members being vocalist-guitarist Jonsi, and Georg on the bass), and because it takes a far less melodic approach in favour of spacey washes of ambient instrumental and sound effects. Nonetheless I really like it -- it is pleasingly reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine or pre-The Dark Side of the Moon Pink Floyd in many respects, I find.

The self-titled opening track is Von's second longest piece, bordering on ten minutes, and is characterised by blood-curdling screams weaving in and out of the foreboding rumbling sounds and thunderous, intermittent drums. It is quite disconcerting, but that's what's so great about this whole album -- the atmosphere. Hún jörð is a highlight for me, being the piece that reminds me the most of My Bloody Valentine. Jonsi's vocals on this album are a lot more feminine and choral in nature than on Sigur Rós's later releases and this is accentuated by the fact that he is often multi-tracked, giving the impression of a phalanx of eery singers. The song Von is a more straightforward, melody-oriented piece than most on the album, but is one of its strongest; it is an obvious link to the more hopeful, positive, melodic bent that Sigur Rós was to take on their second album Ágætis byrjun. Syndir Guðs (opinberun frelsarans) is, in my opinion, the standout piece on the album. It showcases the most superb bowed guitar work by Jonsi that is to be found anywhere on Von in an excellently-crafted example of space rock, carried by a droney bassline, and I would rank it up there with some of the material on ( ). Von is certainly Sigur Rós's least accessible album, and that really is saying something, so I wouldn't suggest it to anyone who isn't really familar with their music. Otherwise, you should give it a listen. I'd be interested to hear from anyone else who has heard this album and what you thought of it.

It's somewhat official that I'm doing Anthro 215 Human Sexuality next semester now -- I'm enrolled in it, anyway. The concern is that it adds an extra day to my weekly schedule (that makes four days), and it would be the only class that I came to uni for on a Tuesday -- and it would start at nine in the morning on that day. Basically, I'd thought too much about how significantly I was likely to dislike that media paper, to the point that I don't think I'd be able to face myself doing it now, so I just enrolled in Human Sexuality. Also, opinion I've heard expressed by others constantly reaffirms my general feelings that media is a bad subject and is making me seriously consider never taking a media paper again, in which case my minor would of course change to anthropology. We'll see.

I had written up a nice comment to put on Rodney's blog wishing him good luck for tonight and praising him generally as a person, but when I proceeded to do so I got an error message saying only registered members can comment on the blog. Well, go figure, if you want to be like that, then fine.