Free at last!

No more Spanish!!! I had my final exam this morning, and that’s it for the year! In fact, that’s it forever for Spanish – I seriously doubt I’ll ever decide to take another paper (I’ve enjoyed studying it, but the interesting part is the grammar, and I’ve got a handle on the bulk of that now, so if I did the 3rd-year papers it would only be to polish up the details, which doesn’t sound particularly interesting. I might watch the odd movie or read the odd book just to keep my hand in, but definitely no more formal study. Anyway, this distraction has gone on for too long now – next year I need to get back to taking papers that actually count towards my major!). So, no more vocab to learn, and no more study of any sort until February. I feel so free! (and a bit lost, to be honest – I always get like this after a final exam – it takes me a few days to get over feeling guilty about not studying, after it being the focus of my attention for so long).

After the exam was over, I decided I needed some “me time”, so I walked home via Trattorie, where I sat and read my book (or, rather, Kimi’s book! (And just to put her out of her misery while she waits for me to finish reading it and write a proper review: I’m enjoying it so far, and it’s definitely a good book to relax with.)) while eating a very nice lunch, and then went and sat under a tree in the park and read some more. A very pleasant way to unwind after the stress of the morning.

Backtracking a few days to Halloween, we actually got some trick or treaters this year. Luckily, because I’d arranged with the gwilks for them to bring mini-gwilk and a couple of his friends round to trick or treat us, we had plenty of lollies on hand, plus a pile of suitably Halloween-themed books. I think we had four or five groups knock on the door in total – that might not seem like much to North Americans, but here in NZ, where Halloween isn’t really celebrated, that’s a lot. They all seemed pretty pleased with their lollies and books, even the older kids (one teenage girl eagerly took a book home for her little sister).

Once it started to get late and it looked like we wouldn’t get any more knocks on the door, MrPloppy and I took the rest of the books down the road to the cemetery, and hung them from one of the trees in front. They were gone the next morning – possibly just cleaned up by council workers (or ghosts!), but I’m hoping it was a nice Halloween surprise for someone.

The books we handed out or released in the cemetery were:

• The Spell of the Black Stone by EL Flood
• Great Uncle Dracula and the Dirty Rat by Jayne Harvey
• The Haunted Mountain by Mollie Hunter
• Late for Halloween by Camilla Fegan
• The Ghost on Saturday Night by Sid Fleischman
• Hauntings: The Girl in Blue by Pauline Hunt
• The Spooks by Elizabeth Lindsay
• Ellie and the Hagwitch by Helen Cresswell
• The Vanishing Vampire by Marie Jacks
• The Ghost of Raven Hill by Emily Rodda
• The Time of the Witch by Mary Downing Hahn
• The Clock Tower Ghost by Gene Kemp

No catches yet, but with kids’ books I’m not that worried about getting catches – it’s more about just getting books to kids, so hopefully some of them discover the joys of reading.

I did however get a catch from the university the other day – a book I’d left in the English department was picked up by an anonymous finder, who re-released it in the Art Gallery on Wednesday, where it was almost immediately caught again, by someone who from the sounds of it is going to take it back to the UK with them!

Currently reading: Sentence of Marriage by SL Parkinson