…Er, ncea level 3 latin students.
Level 1 and Level 2 are fine and dandy, but I would have appreciated finding the below online when I was doing Level 3. I’ve put this here in the chance that someone like me is nerdy enough to go online and try finding nifty info that’ll help them with their end-of-year exam; especially those doing it via the Correspondence School. I salute you.
advice in general
Which may or may not be completely obvious, but just in case…
- Make sure you know your verb tenses! This is basic, yeah, but don’t underestimate how confusing these little demons get.
- Get familiar with the translations you did for Virgil’s Aeneid. Don’t just straight off memorise translations, the marking schedule is wary of that. Just know what all the words mean, and where you should be wary of words dashing around where you wouldn’t usually expect them. Really, just the passages of The Aeneid frequently.
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- Do previous exam papers. They have a certain style, regardless of whatever writer it was taken from, which is worth getting used to before you do the exam.
- There is no word list in the exam for Level 3. I’m not kidding. The TKI site has it somewhere, and having battle through that site, there’s 1400 odd words, in total, I’m sorry.
1400 words!?
Just how does one learn that? There’s cue cards, and then there’s how I did it.
- First, get the list from the TKI website, and delete the words you definitely know. Words like ‘puella’ and the like, because they’re all on there, and hahah let’s not waste our time here!
- What I did next, was to make an HTML document, where you click a button and a random Latin word would display. I’d then check what the word meant in that big list.
It takes a lot less time than making cue cards, takes less paper, and it worked quite well for me but I wouldn’t recommend it for other languages where you need to know the words one way and then the other way around. BUT HEY, this is the page for Latin!
With the words you don’t know so well, you need to check out this page, a random word generator). This part’s tedious, and for anyone unfamiliar with HTML-related things: don’t panic, it’s quite simple and there are instructions there.
Of course, depending on the number of words you have to learn, you may like to divide the words you don’t know into a couple of documents like this. That way you can focus on one document for a session, then another the next… and ensure that each word has a greater chance of appearing.
Any problems, oh Latin people, email me.)
For the last five years of high school I learnt Latin – but now with the new stange of life called “university” looming, I can’t continue with it anymore. My last Latin exam, which is usually really fun and laidback, was therefore a little depressing. I’m nostalgic, and have noticed that even though I finished it all the way up to NCEA Level 3, I never really had any real reason to.
If we were to be completely honest, apart from the chance that you get sucked back in time to ancient Rome (not completely impossible, but still pretty minimal!), Latin’s not really a useful subject.
Why I learnt it
- Because it’s beautiful, and when you hear it spoken, and spoken correctly, it glides along quite nicely. None of this gutteral stuff.
- Seeing as words can be put in all sorts of different places, especially in poetry, it’s tricky. In comparison, Japanese is boring and predictable. So yes, it gets unbelievably frustrating, but then figuring it out it is like a delicious wee victory.
- And because it’s a part of history, right there in front of you… which you yourself are figuring out. Oh man, it’s a cool thing to think about.
- Being able to read Virgil in his own words? asdfkladfs;lakdsf and the things he wrote just as they were thousands of years ago? *faints*
- When you’re reading it you have to pay so much attention to the individual words, everything means a lot more. You pick up what they were really trying to get across, and further more, the techniques which they use in the Latin add a lot more depth. Any translation is suddenly very weak… with its “equivalents”, bah.
- For every time I’ve come across a Latin phrase, a motto, even an unfamiliar English word, all the grammar-related jargon I’ve learnt, reading it in my spare time… it’s been seriously a lot more useful than Chemistry – even from day to day.
So there you go. I lose a lot of respect for anyone who goes “LOL LATIN’S A STUPID USELESS LANGUAGE HAHAHAH”. Congratulations! You’re missing the point.
Before university ends and I have to become a boring normal person. This is especially depressing what with all my friends planning on becoming murderers and then relying on me to keep them out of jail, so I have decided that before then… some serious rebellion must happen.
DYE MY HAIR
I’ve never done that before. My mum’s always been like “if you want to dye your hair, you pay for it yourself”, which is fair enough, and since my hair’s pretty awesome the way it is (curly curly curly), its colour has never mattered to me. Now I’ve decided it should be a mixture of pink and black, even though right now I’m too scared and poor to get it done. IT’D CLASH WITH EVERYTHING Y/N?
SHAVE IT ALL OFF
Once it starts turning gross (the horrors of regrowth!), it’s all going. I want to see what happens when it grows back, and I’ll wear a variety of different wigs in the mean time. Don’t know why. This is something I’ve been wanting to do even longer than dye my hair – like, years before Britney Spears ever did it.
BRIGHT PINK NAIL POLISH
Continuing with how much I like the colour pink, check out those nails. Miyavi has the best nails. I want nails like that, and what’s more, I want to wear them like that all the time. Wussy salmon pink isn’t good enough, either!
COUCH BURNING
This is one of the reasons I decided on going to the University of Otago – couch burning is supposedly such a big part of student culture that it has its own section on its Wikipedia page. Of course the rest of Dunedin hates it, what with charcoal frames of couches being abandoned in the streets and all, but I’ve decided that it must be done nonetheless. It’s just a pity that I’m such a wuss.
And as a disclaimer to any authorities or concerned citizens: Of course…. I am joking.
This is the single that terrified me. With their last album lacking the usual variety that I love, I prepared myself for another – and I know I wasn’t the only one. Then the single cover did nothing to dissuade me, either, and I’m still not fond of it. Woe.
Then you hear the songs.
DOZING GREEN
The intial reaction is asdlkjsfdljka, and then I drool from my ears. ‘Course that’s possible. What are you talking about.
It’s amazing. Nothing too distant from their most recent sounds – the guitars alone prove it, then you add in the occasional screaming. The latter didn’t overpower the song, either.. although I do think that it didn’t fit in quite right. There are also some parts during the chorus which are quite harsh to listen to, but these are just tiny little quirks about it. I still like it.
Kyo’s range is incredible: the way he darts from all extremes, I admire him so much for it! There’s even more contrast in the rest of the song, I think. From being somewhat gentle – maybe just in comparison with their other songs, haha, – yet really scary with all the screaming and the mad!guitars, then (what I think is a) sitar is nice! The ending just makes it perfect, in that it’s not sudden. It doesn’t try and shock you with the ending (bar the screaming), but … just trails off nicely.
Agitated Screams of Maggots (live)
The wailing in the beginning scares me more than Deity – and I know this because it freaks me out and the lights are on right now. When the song actually kicks in, therefore, it sounds energetic. Happy. Even faster than the original – or maybe that’s just me, and how relieved I am that the scary wailing’s over.
Hydra -666-
They took their old song Hydra… and turned it into a completely new one, except every so often you think, “Oh hey! That sort of sounds like Hydra… a bit.” And the only reason you think that is because of how it switches back between really really fast screaming and guitars, and then Kyo singing softly in the verses. I especially like those verses, hahah.
This is the closest I’ve ever gotten to wanting to thank a band for their music, so I feel absurdly lame. DOZING GREEN is way awesome though, and I can’t stop listening to it. Oh man. ♥ ♥
Something shocking has been brought to my attention. Right when I’m supposed to be off to university, my favourite colour… is the very essence of Barbie dolls.
It’s embarrasing.
The Phone
This is my phone. It’s a trusty wee thing (read the review!), and even though everyone has one nowadays – just remember that I was the one who bought it first (in NZ… or one of them, anyway). You people are just copying me. Shame on you.
It was the best phone at the time, regardless of colour, and even though other colours were coming in later, I bought it in pink because it was so funny. Me, and a phone? And what’s that? A PINK PHONE? How ridiculously out of character! But alas! Little did I know it was only the beginning.
The Drink
A ‘girls only’ drink – apparently “women require a different kind of energy”, even though we all know it’s just because they made it pink, because otherwise this super special energy is… caffeine? The taste isn’t really worth raving about though, but it’s a nice alternative to Coke sometimes since it’s not overly sweet and tastes vaguely of strawberries. I drink it because it tastes kinda strange.
The Wishlist
My laptop has recently decided that it likes to overheat and explode on me, and in protest I investigated Sony VAIOs. The one which I decided would be best for me came in a variety of colours. “Hmm, I like the look of the pink one.” Knowing I was heading down a dangerous path, I tried not to think that way! But… ah, I succumbed.
Next thing I know, I’m looking at an article about mp3 players. Instantly I decided that I had to have a pink Zune (yay Microsoft). It was so pretty, I didn’t care about the specs!
I also want to paint my nails bright pink… but that’s only because Meev has excellent style. Hahahahah.
Finally, The Camera
This is the latest addition to the epic collection of pink. Although to my credit I didn’t buy it because it was pink (it’s super fast with taking pictures, and no blur!), but I did adore that it came in the colour…
A few minutes after buying this it became official. I have an obsession with a stupid stupid colour. A little girl’s colour, woe. The sad thing about accepting something like this is that I have to indulge in it, and I have now decided that if anything comes in pink… I must have it in the pink. It’s awesome.
Why do I do this? Do I not want to be taken seriously anymore?