Scotland: Home of David Hume, Thorstein the Red and other Viking Chieftains

Absolutely beautiful second-to-last day in Scotland? Check.

2011-05-24T13:19:00.000-07:00

It's wonderful to roll out of bed, stumble down the stairs to breakfast, and feel the warm sun shining int the glass walls of Melville in the mornings.

The weather was a little cracked out yesterday (apocolyptic, one might even say) changing from bright blue sky to dark cloud cover with 45 mph winds and the infamous sideways rain, and back again. In the space of ten minutes.

Throughout the day. (Classic case of rinse and repeate weather.)

Here as we inch our way toward the midnight sun of the Northern latitudes (can you say that? Am I showing my geography ignorance?) it's 9:15 and the sun has just barely made its way below the horizon. (It's basically still broad daylight. It won't be completely pitch black till 11. Then light will start creeping back around 4am.)

It's nice, I have to admit.

My iPhoto Library album list is getting a little ridiculous...

2011-03-22T03:47:00.000-07:00

This album is a super-condensed version of photos around St Andrews that I've gathered over the past couple months.

Tourists of the Universe!

2011-03-20T03:35:00.000-07:00

Dublin for St. Patty's Day... one of the better ideas Annette and I have had. ;)

It MEANS No Worries!

2011-03-12T03:43:00.000-08:00

A romp in the sun on West Sands at St Andrews on a perfect Friday Afternoon.

Twenty Miles to Anstruther!

2011-03-11T03:26:00.000-08:00

..except we found out that actually it's only ten miles to Anstruther... and it took us five hours to walk five and a half miles... we'll tell people it was ten just to make ourselves feel better ;P

p.s. In case you were confused, Anstruther does NOT in fact have an "s" at the end. I know, shocking.

"If you're a Stumpian..."

2011-03-09T19:45:00.000-08:00

Our Colgate course is rapidly making us into a bit of a cult.
Now, I don't like to throw this word around as it is a bit pejorative (although Professor John Skorupski is leading our tutorial to question the intrinsic emotive value of words) but there are certain features of it that are quite applicable here.

We are follows of an exclusive system (academia!) that can be at times a bit extremist (80 pages of philosophy in one week??) I think it would not be a stretch to say we are "reasonably or unreasonably considered strange" (going to a tea house or pub and loudly discussing the problem of suffering and the soul) and we do in some ways "live outside of conventional society" (Scotland! University housing!) under the direction of a charismatic leader (our very own Professor Dudrick, of course.)

It's come to the point where students who aren't from Colgate and don't take this module are familiar with the problem of suffering as presented by Ms. Eleanore Stump in her book Wandering in Darkness.

We're slowing infiltrating the academic system. I suggest you all prepare yourselves for the coming onslaught of philosophical thought. The Gospel According to Stump!
(No but actually....the gospel.)

Here's a taste of the rhetorical genius that will lead us all into the glorious future.
"These empirical facts were true since the time that that thing that happened happened! ... That was a good one, huh. Write it down."

Bad reporting decisions

2011-03-07T06:41:00.000-08:00

I'm probably tempting fate here, but who cares.

For all of you who are not at the mercy of the whims of Scottish weather, I report to you that it has not rained in DAYS.

That's right, we're not calculating in minutes or hours here. I can't even remember where my rain boots are because it's been so long since I've needed to wear them.

How strange is that!!

By the way, Colgate was delayed today. (Of course the one weather related cancellation in YEARS would happen during our semester abroad.)

But no matter. I am basking in this unprecedented cooperation from Scottish weather gods. And enjoying the chance to wear one of the two other pairs of shoes I have besides galoshes.

"Are you confused by vegetables?"

2011-03-05T07:09:00.000-08:00

"DON'T PANIC."

Yes, this poster exists.
It's in each of the Melville kitchens, in fact.

Also, posted in all bathrooms: "MR. T PITTIES THE FOOL WHO DOESN'T TURN OFF THE LIGHTS. AND REALLY, NOBODY WANTS THAT."

Speaking of signage in Britain I find that they tend to be a bit less straightforward than in the States--still polite, but with an element of sass. For example, we're accustomed to something like "Employees must wash hands before returning to work."

That makes sense to us. It's a basic requirement stated impersonally, aimed at a group of people who are carrying out a service, and are therefore subject to certain regulations which, we might argue, apply to EVERYONE. But we we're not too likely to say that. Can't be too pushy, after all.

Here, though, the sign is more likely to read something like "Now wash your hands, please."
Now wash your hands...
That's quite direct. You! Yes, you layperson using the facilities! Wash your hands. Now.
.....Please.

I especially like the please thrown in at the end because it is both polite and a bit ironic. Sure, they're saying please. But it wasn't a request to begin with, it was a command!
Good British attitude right there.

In fact I'd say there was a nice conversational quality to most British signs.
The fire code tacked up in my room isn't labeled "FIRE SAFETY" or "IN CASE OF FIRE".
It says (rather calmly) "What to do when the fire alarm goes off."
When.
Because it will.
At quarter of seven.
And you'll be ANNOYED.

Further comments along the page:
"Do NOT just stand around chatting--stay in line."

Addendum:

The ensuing concversation between my father and I.

Dad: "What happens if you notice that sign when you first walk in the WC?"

Me: "Well it's posted on the inside of the stall. So...I don't think you're likely to be confused."

Dad: "I hope no one takes it too litterarly and dips their hands in the toilet."

What on earth are these British musicians up to?

2011-03-03T07:24:00.001-08:00

Well I finally got my life together and figured out that there is a student orchestra at St Andrews (huzzah!) and that I can play for it, despite the fact that being here for one semester probably makes me more of an inconvenience than anything else.

I haven't quite got the hang of the attitude surrounding it, though.
There is indeed a professional conductor, but nobody seems too concerned about where they're sitting, if they've got the music, who brought a pencil, or being on time.

But when said professional conductor (presumably the only enforcer of professional standards) missed his flight from London, everyone still came to orchestra, and two bright young musicians got up and actually conducted.

I certainly couldn't do that.
And do you think if the conductor got stuck somewhere, our orchestra at home would stick around and rehearse from 6:30 to 9:30? No way.

Also, while missing orchestra is obviously discouraged, you definitely do not incur the same sort of wrath.

There is one minor and somewhat hilarious difficulty; I'm having a massive amount of trouble understanding the musical terminology here. You'd think it would be just the same--after all that's the whole point of everyone learning the Italian stuff (allegro, concerto, subito, etc...) but every time someone says "let's start at the bit where you've got all the semi-quavers" I'm like "What? the WHAT? Are those trills, what is going on??"

So I've looked things up. Apparently they go like this.
Whole note: "semi breve" What, like the drink...?
Half notes: "minims"
Quarter notes: "crotchets" You must be joking.
Eighth notes: "quavers"
Sixteenth notes: "semi-quavers" Well at least there's some consistency here
Thirty-Second notes: "demi-semi quavers" ...Okay seriously?
Sixty-Fourth notes: "hemi-demi-semi quavers" Someone is clearly pulling my leg.

"Hollywood owes Descartes a LOT of royalties."

2011-03-02T18:02:00.000-08:00

"They got blockbusters out of his ideas!"

I think someone slipped the Colgate group a few loopy pills during class this Wednesday...
These class quotes will perhaps provide a window into the lives of your friends/children/whatever your relation is to us.

"That's your free and sort of idiotic choice."

"What if you just explode?!" "Yeah that happens alot." "It's just science!"

"It's not like Aquinas, Augustan and Maimonides didn't NOTICE all that. You and your Western Traditions professor didn't DISCOVER the controversies surrounding biblical texts."

"This isn't actually going to answer your question, but I'm going to say it anyway."

"It's like all the sudden we're at a Pentecostal meeting!"

"Is it going to show up on our eternal transcript??"

"I think I'm getting the oatmeal brain sickness."

On gaining sanctification: "Ellie, not during class, it's disruptive!"

And the eternal queston: Ke$ha or opera?

Fire door keep shut

2011-03-01T05:59:00.001-08:00

Imagine the scene:

You're very tired because you're living in a dormitory for the first time in three years and NOBODY does work, much less goes to bed at an appropriate hour and this is having an awful affect on your sleep schedule.

You've managed to get some reading done and climb happily into bed at 11pm, ready to greet the day with 8am breakfast, as per usual.

You're dreaming contentedly and all is going according to plan until

All of Andrew Melville is pulled abruptly from a pleasant slumber at QUARTER OF SEVEN for a fire drill because everybody is likely to be in the hall at this time (minus Mike Chamberlain, who was happily floundering around at water polo practice) and wouldn't you know it, here in the UK you can actually fail fire drills.

Now, you think to yourself alright, I'm up, I'm out of bed and the noise is intolerable but I'll just grab my jacket and shoes and peace out, and then they'll let us crawl back into bed.

You leave your bedroom, stumble down the stairs and are about to exit your block into the main hallway when a woman literally forces you to go back into into your block and out a different fire door. (If this were a real fire I think by now we'd be toast.)

This would all be just fine except that, upon reaching the appropriate fire door you discover that the darn thing is stuck shut, and no amount of pushing or human ingenuity will change that.

By now the whole alarm thing is getting really old. You and your comrades evaluate the futility of the situation and head back upstairs, only to be denied passage by the same woman.

Communication is no one's strong point before 7am, having been rudely awoken by a noise threatening to wake the dead. So you follow the mob (which has as this point grown from about five to thirty C block members) back down the stairs where a number of very large boys are assailing the door which continues to bar the way to a non-roasted future.

Now it's been a good ten or so minutes since the whole business started and everyone is quite ready to go back upstairs and, come hell or high water, leave the premises because by golly they're not going to take any more of this nonsense before breakfast!

At last the poor members of C block are permitted to flee through the front doors of Melville and congregate at a safe distance.

The checking in process takes another ten minutes (yes you've actually got to get your name marked off on a list) and AT LAST the warden makes an appearance, announcing that Melville has passed with flying colors (well hurrah for us) except for C block, whom he needs to have a chat with. *Insert intense frustration aimed indiscriminately at all of creation.*

Warden: "So who was it that tried to get the door open, exactly?"
C Block: "ALL OF US."
W: "Really? I mean, this is probably a dumb question but you pushed in the bar and all that?"
CB: "YES, obviously we did, we know how to open doors."
W: "Well that's odd because I just popped down there and pushed it open, no problem."
CB: *varying degrees of murderous looks*
W: "Uh...well....good thing we found out the door sticks then, eh?"

Good morning, world.

"When you become a knight, you have to swear an allegiance to the black pudding."

2011-03-01T01:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hE0KjY2688
"Like all sausages, it has to have a first class skin--in this case, it's ox intestine."

The sun alway shines for the Windsors, and the surprising usefulness of periscopes.

2011-02-27T23:32:00.000-08:00

Today St Andrews was graced with the royal presence of the future king and queen of England. Yes, our university is so important that monarchy pays us a personal visit.

...It also doesn't hurt that said monarchic figure happened to attend St Andrews.
And met his fiance here...

It was gorgeous weather (sun shining, light breezes, tolerable temperatures...even in Scotland...perhaps the Windsors are more powerful than we thought...)

Will and Kate (if you don't know who they are then good for you, their faces are literally stamped on cupcakes here. And it's Scotland! Scotland is supposed to be indifferent at best to this English occupation!) were to walk around, shake hands, hold babies...oh and I suppose there was a speech in there, too.

The downside of all this royal nonsense was that, in effect, there was no hope of maneuvering North street and reaching the library was entirely out of the question.

Knowing this would probably be the case I had no real intention of spending my Sunday in town but the weather was so beautiful that, like a kid following cheerios (or friends with alterior motives) I found myself first outside Melville talking to Thomas (an exchange student from Paris. First person I've heard give advice to visit the North of France) then strolling along past the green hills and ever numerous grazing bunnies, and finally, right smack in the middle of town activity. I didn't mean to attend, it just...happened.

Being a member of the vertically challened (as well as arithmatic challenged, spelling challenged, spatial awareness challenged...) I saw no reason to leap up and down for an hour to see the crown of people's heads rather than the small of their backs, so I faced away from the crowd toward the sun, happily chatting away and ignoring the royal proceedings. (Subsequently I discovered this wasn't a great idea, because when fighter jets flew overhead without any warning whatsoever, I thought I was going to die.) I realized, somewhere in the middle of the proceedings, that if I only had a periscope I could just stand there holding it above the crowd and would have seen everything just fine. Unfortunately the thought came a bit late for me to employ this genius tactic.

So there were some speeches and lovely choir music I wish I could have heard better. They didn't turn the sound up very much at all, which was quite surprising.

After that we got free Maltesers from a guy with a red nose (something about comic relief awareness? I think we were supposed to do something innovative and ridiculous with our candy but I was way too hungry after so much excitement.)

Speaking of excitement, Christie, being infinitely more patient than I (in many respects) has an entirely different version of these events to relate to you, and it should be forthcoming.

Cheers!

P.S.
Unfortunately this won't be as funny for those of you who are not stuck in Scott(haggis)land and will not recognize all landmarks. Nonetheless I think you will find some enjoyment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAlnM7RUDcA&feature=player_embedded

La la la Leah, and the perks of being an older sister.

2011-02-26T09:37:00.000-08:00

(This is Christie btw) - So, I'm sitting here, kind of thinking about starting to write a paper (but actually uploading pictures of Dublin and cursing Eleanore under my breath), and in my researching I stumbled across a retelling of Rachel and Leah that I wrote for my friend Sam last year that might be a little irreverent but I think sums it up pretty well. And I decided it might be nice to share with you all as you suffer (ha! ...sorry) through your own papers.

Unfortunately for my paper though I now have to actually write a legitimate retelling of this story that would be appropriate for an essay that's worth a large percent of my grade. DARN YOU ACADEMIA (*insert fist raised in defiance here*).

And now, for your reading pleasure, the classiest retelling of GENESIS 29 that has probably ever graced ze Interwebz:

Alright. Well, so this guy Jacob-the-Deceiver is the younger of two sons, and then his mom convinces him to trick his brother and dad and get his dad to give him the birthright and the blessing of the older son.

Granted, his brother Esau is not the brightest bulb and didn't really deserve the blessing, but still... messed up.

Then, Jacob's mom wants him to get a wife.

So he goes and works for this guy Laban and sees that his daughter Rachel is really hot, and her sister Leah is nice and all but Rachel is banging so he goes for her. (Pheromones and all that jazz.)

And he makes this deal with her dad, if Jacob works for Laban 7 years he can have Rachel as his wife. So he works the 7 yrs and is like give me Rachel my wife so I can sleep with her thanks.

And Laban says sure kid… but secretly actually gives Jacob Leah, and Jacob sleeps with her after the wedding (thinking it's Rachel… or maybe - *cough B.S.! cough* - not), and then wakes up in the morning and is like OH SH**.

Wtf Laban you deceived me.

And Laban is like, hey I know your moral code may be a little different and you think it's ok for the younger to get stuff before the older... but that's not the way we do things around here. So Leah had to be married off first.

Deal with it.

Spend the week with Leah and I'll give you Rachel too, and you'll have both my daughters. (yay polygamy!)

...and then you can work 7 more years for me! Hahaha!

(I imagine Laban sticking out his tongue here.)

And Jacob's like fine whatever. (seems reasonable)

And he puts up with Leah for a week, and then gets Rachel and is like thank God! And he loves her soooo much that he basically despises Leah, and God sees this and is like woah that is kind of messed up, it's not Leah's fault that she's not beautiful or that her dad made her marry this egotistical d*bag. I'll give her a son to bear to ease her suffering, so she can be loved and worthy while Rachel is barren. BOOM.

So Leah has Reuben,

and is like yay I have a son Jacob will love me now!...

...

And then God gives her another son, Simeon, and Leah's like God gave me another son, now my husband must love me!...

...

And then God gives her another son and for some reason she is still hoping that this will make her husband love her, and instead of thanking God for the blessings of her sons she is too preoccupied thinking THIS time, surely this time my husband will love me.

And then, number four.

God gives her yet another son, and finally she's like, Well at least God loves me and I have all these great sons. I give up on Jacob. But praise the Lord for the blessings he has given me!

And this son's name is Judah,

and he goes on to form the tribe of Judah ( --> Judah-ism --> Judaism ) and leads to the line of David, Jesus, etc.

THE END****

I mean, God blessed her and everything. I just pity her because of her desperate desire to be loved by her husband, even after it being proven to her over and over again that he doesn't and won't. And it also sucks because it seems like the only reason Jacob picked Rachel is because she's gorgeous, not because she's really better than Leah.

It's like this weird love square with God Leah Jacob Rachel.

... basically, a lot of the Old Testament is strange. But in the end the women get to carry the line to the savior of the world so WIN. Also God seems to have a thing for opening and closing wombs which is kinda uncomfortable to think about... I'm just not gonna comment further on that before I get struck by lightning.

That was your Bible lesson for the day. (*no pun intended*) ( http://xkcd.com/559/ - thanks Mike :P)

Now don't you feel educated?

****(DISCLAIMER: Just so you know, since writing this almost a year ago my feelings towards Jacob and Rachel have become a bit more forgiving, and I don't think that Jacob actually picked Rachel just because she was pretty. There's a very strong possibility that they actually loved each other and that God meant for them to be together. But still, circumstances as they were Jacob is an a-hole for treating Leah the way he did, and for generally being insensitive towards any human beings that weren't himself or Rachel. For some reason I'm bitter about this even though this story is thousands of years old and I have no actual connection to Leah aside from the fact that we're both the oldest sister in our families, which doesn't seem like a good enough reason to be incensed on her behalf... oh well. Still carrying the torch.)

****Also, for reference to the actual story - like, you know, in The Bible - follow this link: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+29&version=NIV

....OR if you want teh Ceilin Cat vershun, go heres:
http://www.lolcatbible.com/index.php?title=Genesis_29

Shakespeare doesn't have "more" death than Princess Di.

2011-02-25T08:34:00.000-08:00

Sorry, this entry is from the first week of classes and seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle...but here it is nonetheless.

Well it's Tuesday of our first real week and while I may be totally acclimated in theory I still haven't quite got the hang of remembering important things, and after a cheerful class on life and death, ("You've broken a record for highest numbers in an optional module!") I ran home (went the wrong way first, mind you) caught lunch, and nearly forgot completely to sign up for seminar times. (Seminars, for clarification, are the same as tutorials and are smaller discussion groups led by either the professor or some other facilitator.)

Life and Death (actually more cheerful than Colgate's class on suffering and the soul) has addressed a number of strange concepts including amounts of death, life as a deep sea oyster, and our own conceptions. (Yikes.)

I continue to be amazed that people are actually rather fascinated by Americans. Of course in theory it's just the same as us being excited to meet UKers BUT, the difference is that we meet so few of them whereas it's just flooded with Americans and American culture around here. There are new JSAs (junior study abroad) each semester and good number of full time North American students kicking about, so it's really baffling to me why anybody should be at all interested in us.

Here's the really exciting thing. For all the benefits given up by having such low tuition in the UK, there are a few really strange things that are provided. I came back from class earlier this week and discovered, to my great surprise, that they'd vacuumed, made the bed, straightened up, gathered and folded any stray pieces of clothing or socks (of which there were many) hung my towel over the radiator, figured out a less stupid place for my suitcase (blocking the sink since last Wednesday) and even washed the knife sitting on my bedside table.

Did I mention they come in and empty your trash every Monday Wednesday Friday?

With this unprecedented treatment though come some other stipulations. For example I've just discovered that "pyjamas" are not acceptable in the dining room, and footwear is a must. (Darn. Shoes are sometimes a problem for me.) All this wouldn't be so much to ask except for the fact that the dining room is INSIDE our hall. So at 8am when breakfast is about to commence and you're feeling nothing short of awful it's all too easy to roll out of bed and stumble downstairs without putting too much thought into your appearance.

Also for some inexplicable reason we have been informed that we need to bring our own mug to the dining room if we desire a hot drink during lunch or dinner.
But at breakfast time it's alright for us to use the provided mugs.

Does this make any sense to anyone??

The mugs are still there during subsequent meals each day.
In fact nothing's changed at all.
Is it that they just don't want to bother with the extra washing? Does it really make that much difference in the work load?
Does it really make any sense to have kids bring a cup for two out of three meals?

If you've already gone ahead and purchase the supplies why not just get the extra mile out of them?
These things (along with "Who's actually looking at my pajama pants, anyway) go through my head each day, but with no conclusive answers.

(Also to clarify, there are also teeny tiny water glasses open for use at each meal but ONLY for cold drinks, since apparently they will shatter under the stress of hot temperatures. This also makes very little sense to me as I'm sure the UK has access to any amount of tempered glass it would need for just this kind of situation.)

I must also express some rather cruel amusement over the fact that while all of us JSAs, as juniors, are taking 3 "honors level" courses that meet once a week for two hours (and one tutorial) the full time students here who are mostly first years in Andrew Melville Hall all take lower level modules that each meet three or four times a week. Poor souls.

Spangled With Suffering (aka Samson is actually just a combination of every story with a little bit of donkey jaw thrown in.)

2011-02-24T16:56:00.000-08:00

This is Annette speaking for a moment, offering a brief introduction to Christie's post.
Once I shut up and you're able to move past this entirely non-essential preamble, you will note how academic and erudite Christie has been in comparison to my entries, which have thus far revolved around food (acquisition of, frustration surrounding, etc...)

I would just like to make it totally clear that my conspicuous lack of intellectual subject matter is in no way a reflection of my attendance or attention in class. Please be assured that I do in fact attend to scholarly and philosophical matters, at least when I'm not eating/sleeping, people watching in Melville, or trying to track down times/dates of elusive orchestra rehearsals. (And before you suggest it, I most certainly did not write this for the benefit of Professor Dudrick, who may or may not be reading this. How could you imply such a thing.)
_______________________________________

So for Dudrick's class this week we were reading a section of Eleanore Stump's book about Samson, in which Eleanore (we're on a first name basis) attempts to reconcile Samson's suffering with God's goodness (oh wait, no, sorry that would be a theodicy of sorts. Right. Well then she attempts to show a possible world in which this reconciliation could be explained. There we go.), and in the process I realized not only that Samson really enjoyed schweffing on the wrong girls, but also that his character deftly combines themes from every classic story.

Allow me to demonstrate:

First we have the comparison that Eleanore makes herself - Oedipus/Milton. There's the blindness, first off, and the complete misery that befalls them at the end of their lives. They also both had terrible taste in choosing women. (Well, Milton was married happily, but he kind of looked like a woman, so that counts - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Milton and also http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/milton400/ ). And for some reason it didn't occur to Samson that maybe he shouldn't be fraternizing with the daughters of the people that God sent him on a mission to destroy? Never thought of that, really? And Oedipus… need I say more?

This brings us to - I knew you were all expecting this one - Romeo and Juliet. Or Tristan and Isolde, or Catherine and Heathcliff, whichever you prefer. This connection is a bit of a reach, but it demonstrates the general habit of characters to choose the one (or many, in Samson's case) woman who belongs to the group of people you are meant to hate and possibly even have a sworn vendetta against. People just never learn. (Ah, young love. I mean lust. I mean, Samson didn't love her strenuously anyway…) Seriously, Delilah must've been a real knock-out for Samson to keep coming back after multiple assassination attempts. Those Philistine women'll get ya' every time.

Next up is Achilles (another Greek)/Superman - here we have two cases of ridiculous superhuman power/strength that is a direct result of the gods. Either their warrior status was a gift - as is the case with Samson and Achilles - or they are essentially gods themselves because of their superhuman abilities. In any case Achilles and Samson both consider themselves on the level of the gods/God and for some reason women seem to be able to look past this serious personality flaw (cough*HUBRIS*cough) and only see their bulging biceps. The most interesting connection between Samson and Achilles though is they both have incredibly ridiculous and absurd weaknesses - Achille's heel, and Samson's hair. Really - two invincible warriors, god-like strength and feats like killing off a Philistine army with a single donkey jaw bone or defeating the Greek army at the Trojan beach almost single-handedly - and their weaknesses, their undoings, are both the most unexpected power-holders you could think of. (However, this in a way supports Eleanore Stump's reading that Samson didn't actually think that his hair did in fact hold the secret to his power and that his power was a gift from God and directly related to his relationship with God. Just wanted to throw that bit of learning in there.) Anyway, I personally wouldn't be surprised if there is a hero out there who is completely invincible except when you poke them in the belly button or something (...Elmo….?!).

(Another hero-comparison - similar, but in the vein of Eleanore Stump, more fitting - Hercules! (I know, so many Greeks!) See, Hercules also has god-given strength and is a warrior, but unlike Achilles he actually did some things for the good of other people and not just for himself, and in the end he is reunited with his god-family - as is Samson.)

Last, but not least (wait for it………) - RAPUNZEL. I know. I just blew your mind. It might be because I watched Tangled the other day (no i didn't cry! maybe a little. maybe a lot. don't judge me!) and also a little to do with the fact that I'm obsessed with fairy tales and anything Disney… but, it's the hair. That's all I'm gonna say.

In addition to all this, Annette came away from her reading saying, "Wow, I never realized what a b**** Samson was. I mean, I used to feel bad for him… but I never knew he was so whiny and awful!" To which Mike Chamberlain replied, "No, Annette, b**** is the wrong word. I think 'd***' would be more appropriate." I'm sure Professor Dudrick would be so proud to hear of the astute and intellectually stimulating conversations we have outside of class. (No, really though, we do talk about real things. You just wouldn't want me to ramble on about it on this blog. Pick up a copy of Eleanore's book - you'll be the 21st or so person to read it, counting Eleanore and our class.) We also made it a goal for Mike to work the word "gluten" into the class discussion today in relation to the problem of suffering. He failed this task, but he did manage to worm in the phrase "Job was 'spangled with suffering'." We are so proud. (Five points for Griffindor!)

The immortal Samsung mobile, and other technologies of the Kingdom of Fife

2011-02-23T08:35:00.000-08:00

The very first thing that demanded my attention (after procuring towels and taking a shower) when we arrived on February 2 was to go out and get a mobile phone with Christie.

Not because I really needed to talk to someone IMMEDIATELY and it was essential I do it on a portable device.

It was because I knew with the unquestionable certainty of induction that even Hume found himself embracing (at least practically) that I needed to arm myself with whatever I could when the inevitable came to pass--myself getting hopelessly lost. Mind you, the town is barely over a kilometer from end to end, bursting at the seems with some 16,000 residents who will happily give you lengthy directions (even when you're quite late to class and need to wrap things up.) You can walk across the entire thing in twenty-five minutes, for god's sake!

That being said, not only are death and taxes assured in my life (doubly so, if I ever get around to living in a welfare state) but I must reluctantly admit a third certainty--getting lost.

At any rate I think I've made my point quite clear.
So I have this phone, which came into my hands on February 2. On the fourth, I charged it once in anticipation of staying a night in Edinburgh where there seemed no reason for me to bring my charger. It is now Wednesday the 23rd of this same month, nineteen days later and the thing is still merrily working away.

I don't know what is going on here, but I'm not complaining.

P.S. The phone is also indestructible. Fact.

I have this sort of obnoxious habit of leaping in the air whenever I see someone that I'm very happy to have run into, and more often than not the law of physics maintains its whole equal and opposite reaction thing and my phone pops out of my pocket, hits the ground and explodes into all three of it's main components.

It only takes a moment to reassemble (I can usually do it without breaking stride or conversation) and its back to its usual long lived, sub-par self.

Another thing which, in my opinion, is vastly superior here than in the good old US of A is vehicle size.
Species SUV is to this place like T-Rex trying to join the queen for tea. (No place to sit, would spoil the company, might make a mess of things, and how would you make enough tea for it without stressing the world tea leaf population? You get the picture.)

Also, the police vehicles are just wonderful. Not only do they make no particular effort to blend in, but seem to be without fail covered in bright blue/yellow/orange paint (or sometimes tape...?) Apparently stealth is not an asset enjoyed by the police force of the Kingdom of Fife.

I don't know if its a UK thing, or a St Andrews thing but there does seem to be a concerted effort to save energy. (At least here and there...actually the efforts are a bit sporadic.) Maybe its for financial purposes?
Either way, all the lights in the passageways of Melville are actually automatic motion sensitive which means they go out if nobody's around.

Well, that's just great for the environment (and Melville's pocket book) but when you are, for example, trying to get some reading done in one of the study rooms it's not the most convenient thing to have the light shut out on you every five minutes simply because reading is not the sort of activity that would set off the detectors.

Also, I find that the lights often don't turn on in the halls until I'm almost past them and it wouldn't matter anyway.
I'm not sure if this is a consequence of my being exceptionally short and it just hasn't SEEN me until I've gone by...

Edinburgh Part Three: THE CASTLE

2011-02-22T03:49:00.000-08:00

The last of the Edinburgh photos!! Worth the wait, I guarantee :)

Henry returns, in all his suctioning glory.

2011-02-20T03:48:00.000-08:00

Christie and I have to share this with you immediately.

We were looking through the traffic sources of the blog and under referring sites (as in sites that have referred a person to this wonderful waste of internet real estate) we discovered: http://henryvacuumcleaner.com/

There is a website dedicated to Henry Vacuum Cleaner. And family.
Yes folks, Numatic Henry is not alone but battles the formidable enemy of dirt alongside Charles, George, and Hetty. (She's pink.)
And let's not forget Henry Spray Mop, who appears to be a close cousin of Swiffer.

Henry, by the way, costs £110.00.
(Tell me you wouldn't be much keener to do housework with a vacuum that looks up encouragingly at you.)

All I talk about is food.

2011-02-19T09:36:00.000-08:00

This morning the lunch people messed up and gave me two apples in my packed lunch instead of one.
Today gets a check plus.

Also, if you've really got nothing better to do, go here for further clarification on the haggis beast. (Courtesy of Frederick.) It's worth your while.

Okay so I'm feeling a little guilty for not writing more. I promise to pick up the pace a little bit.

Edinburgh Part Two: Hume and Other Encounters

2011-02-17T16:56:00.000-08:00

More photos from Edinburgh!! Long overdue, sorry folks!

"St AnJews", the storm of cupcakes and yet more culinary eccentricities

2011-02-16T06:45:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, breakfast was served at the shocking hour of 9am. Who would have thought there would come a time when that would seem...well, late?

Somewhat dazed by the lateness of the hour, we wandered into the eating room (don't know what the proper name is) and sat with Youkang (pronounced Yukon), a Korean first year in Melville who grew up in the states and now lives in France.

Me: What's that?
Youkang: What's what?
Me: That there on your dish, the round thing.
YK: Oh, this...? Do you really want to know?
Me: Yep.
YK: You SURE?
Me: ...Well, yes. *puzzled*
YK: Look, don't get mad at me when I tell you.
Me: OKAY Youkang, what is it already
YK: "Well...it's made out of coagulated blood.

So, blood pudding. Apparently, despite some reservations about describing it to me, Youkang fears not the blood pudding, nor it's unusual origins.
Here's roughly what it looks like: a round but flat red/brown slightly chunky patty thing that lies on your dish and dares you to nudge it with your fork to check for liquidy bits.

I've yet to try it because though it is, as you may have gathered, a breakfast food, I'm just not brave enough first thing in the morning, and once you've gone through the food line you're really not supposed to go back a second time, as you risk facing the wrath of the cooking staff. (See Christie's entries for some particularly unfortunate examples of this.)

After an indulgently late (and surprisingly educational) breakfast experience I headed downtown and explored the cupcake shops. Yes, plural. Cupcakes have, according to a native St Andrews (-er? -ite?) taken the town by storm and by golly I'd say I have to agree. There are masses of them in all sorts of flavors with crazy colored frosting and just looking at all that sugar makes me a little jumpy.

Following this was the "Refreshers Fayre" (not to be confused with first semester's "freshers fayre") which was basically all of the student groups conveniently gathered in the student union so that we could educate ourselves about all of the wonderful possibilities at St Andrews (Fine Chocolate, Chaos, Harry Potter and Gin, etc...)

I managed to find the St AnJews (they have a fine sense of humor, as you can see) who were able to point me in the right direction to finding someone to speak Modern Hebrew with. (They've only got biblical Hebrew here, in all of St Andrews. Why, as ask you? Who are you going to speak that with? Goodness.)

Coffee Must Be Consumed "Outwith"

2011-02-15T16:55:00.000-08:00

Christie here,

I have this really bad habit of leaving my coffee mug places. And this usually results in my not being able to drink coffee, which is really unfortunate. The first week we were at St. Andrews, I went up to the coffee machine at dinner, grabbed a mug from a tray below the table, went to fill it - and BAM - interception. One of the ever-so-sweet St. Regs dining hall ladies sweeps in and promptly takes it away, saying, "You can't use the coffee mugs at dinner! Only at breakfast. You have to bring your own mug!" I was so shocked all I could do was apologize and stare longingly at the machine. To which she responded, "See, that's why the mugs are covered!" - as if the fact that the mugs were not only "covered" but very visible, easily accessible, clean, and underneath the fully functioning coffee machine was not supposed to beckon me to it with open arms.

The next day I dragged Annette along on my mug-finding mission - which for some reason took us a full hour or so. First they tell me to bring my own mug, and then there are none to buy. BUT I'm not complaining because our search gave us a nice tour of the cafes and little shops in town, and also found us the pudgy little red ceramic birds that Annette fell in love with. AND I found a mini-thermos to double as my lunch/dinner mug and my to-go mug. Take that dining hall lady!

Unfortunately, my relationship with the St. Regulus Dining Hall people has not improved. It seems that almost every day there is some new "wrong" thing that I do, and then get called out on. For the first few weeks, I would bring Annette or Sehee to lunch or dinner, if they happened to be around and didn't have time to walk back to their dorm before missing a meal. Never was this a problem, and I had also seen and heard of many other people doing this - until! One day, Sehee and I walked into lunch, set our stuff down and a table, and walked up to get a tray and SWOOP here comes the dining hall lady of death and doom - she's out to kill me I swear! She for some reason could just "tell" that Sehee wasn't a St. Regulus resident, and demanded she leave the premises immediately. She acted like I had just brought a recently escaped criminal in off the streets and invited him to not only eat a meal but take the dishes and silverware too, and then set the place on fire, and that I was the mastermind behind the heist. And I quote: "You've done this before, haven't you?! I've SEEN you do this with other girls!!" Woah now. Yes. The answer is yes. And would you like to know why? Because no one ever told me that it wasn't okay, although apparently you were watching me all those times and taking note of my criminal ways, unbeknown to me, gearing up for a fight. Now that's fair, don't you think?

Katherine and Melissa (my friend and roommate in the Annexe, top floor) have agreed to act as my bodyguards at all meal times. Other dining hall crimes: I got yelled at for taking a bag of tea to go, for taking too much ketchup (even though it was for multiple people), for taking two pieces of bread, for sitting in the wrong place, for not putting my tray away, for staying too long… and the list goes on. At this point I've given up trying to please them.

On the upside, the people in the Andrew Melville dining hall haven't complained about seeing me at breakfast! Seeing as I spend half my nights there in Annette's room I think I've earned a place as an honorary Melville member.

P.s. Does anyone even know what "outwith" means?

Don't like the weather? Just wait fifteen minutes.

2011-02-14T06:32:00.001-08:00

Usually that term is associated with my beloved yet unforgiving hometown, Ithaca NY but however much we complain, it is for the most part tongue and cheek.

Not here in bonny St Andrews. It drizzled on me as I went to class this morning. Two hours later on my way back to lunch is was much the same till about halfway there, when the sun came out with a vengeance. How is a person supposed to dress properly to go out for a day??

By the time I'd finished lunch it was overcast again, which was funny because I'd just written to Jess (English PhD student from New Jersey) that she should run outside IMMEDIATELY if she valued her vitamin D intake.
Trying to figure out if rain boots would be necessary for my trip back into town for an afternoon seminar, I looked out the window (haven't bothered with the weather report for a long time now. Why try to interpret something that says 40% chance precipitation when I can see perfectly well that it's already raining?) and low and behold the heavens had broken loose in an impressive downpour that was flooding street, lawn and pond alike. (The gods were clearly upset at me for alerting fellow man of any pleasant weather, however fleeting.) So I put my rain boots back on and gathered up my umbrella, and by the time I checked outside again two minutes later the sun was back out.

I think I'm going out of my mind.

So see, there IS sunshine here, on occasion. But for the most part, Scotland's settings seem to have gotten stuck in a sort of permanent spitting rain.

On that note, here's some more Gaelic for you. It comes from a nice website which apparently lists conversational phrases for the express purpose of "impressing, intimidating, and annoying your friends, family and pets." Well, have at it, everyone.

"Stoigh leam briosgaidean gu mòr!" (STUH LUH-oom BRISS-kaht-chun goo MAWR)

"I like cookies -- a lot!"

The Canongate Wall

2011-02-11T09:54:00.000-08:00

On our way to the Edinburgh Castle on the Royal Mile, we passed this wall full of quotes - which of course I was immediately fascinated by - but we were in a hurry and didn't have time to stop and absorb. As we rushed past it I tried to read a few out loud but only had time to read the first line or so of the ones that caught my eye. (Even just compiling these first few lines, I feel like you could put together a solid poem - each quote is truly magnificent!) After we left the castle we passed the wall again, but this time I was determined to capture its essence, at least in photos, so I could look back at the quotes later. So while everyone continued ahead I stopped to take pictures of as many quotes as I could and then had to run up the hill, backpack bouncing up and down, to catch up - dedicated photographer that I am. :P

It was definitely worth it.

(To read the quotes that go along with each photo, use the link to go to the Picassa web album.)

Definitive (god willing,) encounters with the fine institution of Cream Tea

2011-02-10T06:55:00.000-08:00

Not to belabor the point, but I'm really perplexed about this cream tea thing.
Englishmen and Scots alike have recommended it to me on multiple occasions. My parents have discussed the subject in detail (apparently they enjoyed it on a daily basis when they visited England) and frequently ask me to send some through skype. Even Frederick (who didn't make the slightest effort to hide his amusement at my ignorance) provided me with a visual aid. (Thank you, google images.)

But every time I bring it up in conversation (or go so far as to try to order the stuff,) it's like I've been dropped off on a foreign planet where the words cream and tea not only do not go together, but never have in any conceivable situation (and who would be so silly as to think they might, good golly, what a foolish thought.)

There's an adorable little cafe called "Bibi's Cafe" that's all pastel colors and cursive chalk menus and cute wooden flower decorations. I'd been specifically directed to Bibi's Cafe by three different people, all of whom explicitly used the words "cream tea." Here is the nearest approximation I can provide you of the conversation I had there when Christie and Molly and Hilary and I tried to pay them a visit.

Me: "Excuse me, we've been told you offer cream tea here?"
Guy behind counter: *blank look* "Oh, ehh... No sorry we don't have that...
...
Ac'shly I've no idea whot that is, to be honest.
Me: ?...Really?...Tea with scones and jam and devonshire cream?"
GBC: Oh that. Yes, we do do that. But only on weekends from eleven to two.

As I said, like being dropped off on a foreign planet where they seam to speak the same language except for about half the population who've never heard of the words water polo or ping-pong.

The thing we've got to accept here I think is that cream tea is an institution of the English, and though St Andrews is not the highlands by any means, we are still quite decisively in Scotland.
Cheers.

Special Topic in Philosophy: Why Professor Dudrick doesn't get invited to dinner parties

2011-02-09T23:00:00.000-08:00

Today was our first day of Colgate class--"Issues in Epistemology and Metaphysics: God, Suffering, and the Soul."

Cheerful, no? Our reading thus far has been all about the suffering aspect. Might as well get that bit out of the way, I suppose.

While we do enjoy the convenience of bringing along our fearless leader/professor and setting up shop here in this town blessed with stunning architecture, great scones and golf, there are some minor drawbacks--for example, the lack of a classroom.

We moved probably four times trying to find a space with a white board, enough chairs for everyone, and that wasn't about to be occupied by a real St Andrews module (course.)

Despite these difficulties we persevered, and discussed all sorts of things. Kant says animals have no experiences? Franciscan versus Dominican philosophy? Does a tree make a sound when it falls and there's nobody around? The answer to that one by the way is, it depends how you define sound. THIS is according to Professor Dudrick why he is not invited to dinner parties. He actually has the answer to these things. (Whether or not this is true, it hardly matters because his family is so cute we can safely assume he would be invited along with them to all sorts of gatherings.)

Today was Hansoo's birthday! We surprised him with cake. Unfortunately there are no group pictures of the Scotland expedition (yet) but here are about half of us.

(Top, right to left) Sam Myers, Mike Chamberlain, Hansoo Kim, Christie Flemming, Annette Shantur, Eric Testani
(Bottom right to left) Molly Emmet, Lisa Lee, Hilary Edmunds

"Well, it's not so bad here. In some places, if you disagree with the government you disappear and your organs mysteriously turn up on Ebay a few days later."

2011-02-08T22:54:00.000-08:00

Melville had an afternoon tea party! It was actually referred to as "tea and cakes" but as we've learned from my last experience involving the word tea, it's rather difficult to tell just what someone is really talking about.

I'm also surprised to say that many of the Scottish people I've met have had extremely clear accents (most of them coming from Edinburgh and the more Metropolitan surrounding areas) while the English people have been at times the one to give me the most trouble. You wouldn't believe how long it took me to figure out that what sounded like "taste" was actually "toast."

As it turns out, "tea" is a multifarious noun that manages to muddle even British conversations.
For example:
Scottish Michael: "Last time I was in hospital, they asked me if I wanted tea and I said no thanks, I don't like tea and the next thing I knew they'd brought the doctor in and he goes 'Why aren't you eating your dinner!!'"

So depending on where you are, the context, social class and probably other hidden factors, three little letters can mean a variety of things, including tea and scones, afternoon snack, dinner, and of course plain old plant matter steeped in hot water.

Wine, Women and Song (without the song, and no particular excess of women)

2011-02-07T13:16:00.000-08:00

They do seem to enjoy wine and cheese around here.
All of Andrew Melville had a little wine and cheese meeting arranged by the wardens (what is a warden exactly? I can't think of an American parallel.) where we all gathered in a tiny room (I'm sure we broke some sort of fire code) and fraternized, imbibed and made merry.

Then there was another wine event where all of the Junior Study Abroad (JSA) people got together with some professors representing each department which was great. Very helpful people.

The weather gods are not happy though and pelted us with rain (fewer but bigger, COLD droplets) and monsoon winds. Elinore, (half Scottish, grew up mostly in Qatar, went to high school in Texas) says it was actually the worst she's seen. I guess I'm supposed to take comfort in this? Actually the St. Andrews administrative people running the wine event blamed us for bringing the bad weather. (Ha! As if we could compete with Scottish atmospheric tendencies.)

It turns out that there is a sort of weather goddess called "Cailleach." Don't get excited though--she's no Aphrodite or Athena by any means. Cailleach is an old woman who someone, in a moment of exceptionally poor judgment, put in charge of the weather around here. In fact I would compare her to our favorite weather predicting rodent, Puxatony Phil, in that if she's planning on dragging out winter for as long as possible, she makes the first of February beautiful, ensuring that she can gather enough firewood to keep herself warm in the onslaught of nasty weather to follow.(Mortals can make their own arrangements, I guess.)

Now, I don't know about February 1 because we were traveling, but the second was really quite beautiful.
....Damn.

Christie and I have been considering investing in a couple of bikes. We do like bicycling and what better place than the green highlands of St Andrews? (What's that you say? Someplace with mildly predictable weather patterns?) Unfortunately there are no bikes to be found so far, even looking on the Glasgow and Edinburgh craigslists. Have you ever noticed that under "for sale" there's a section called "baby+kids"?
...Doesn't that seem like bad PR for craigslist?

Cream tea is NOT tea with cream in it, and other misconceptions

2011-02-06T21:08:00.000-08:00

Your intrepid writer and photographer headed out to Edinburgh for the weekend! Our whole class was quite excited for this little adventure, which was supposed to be simple--catch a short bus ride to Leukers, then the train to Edinburgh station.

I managed to make a complete mess of things on the bus trying to pay the driver ("No, I don't need your student pass...No, that ticket is for the train...You need to give me real money...It costs £2.50...That's only 20 pence there...") Thank goodness the driver was so indulgent. I'm probably not the first bumbling foreigner he's ever seen.

Anyway things went smoothly after that--the train ride would have been stunning if we'd sat near a window but alas the trains are really quite busy. I guess we'll just have to go back to Edinburgh. Hard life we lead here, huh.

It turns out Edinburgh is actually beautiful. Quite clean, with relatively attractive modern buildings mixed with awesome medieval architecture. Sometimes you'll be walking down a main street surrounded by bus stops and glass overpasses and suddenly peaking through the buildings are these little bucolic scenes of green hills with miniature castles perched on top, minding their own business like storybook paintings.

Our first stop was our hostel (because some people actually packed properly for overnight and had real luggage, unlike me living out of a shoulder bag) which was a funny place about 15 minutes walk from the train station. It took about three tries to get our swipe keys to open our doors, and when we finally did go in, it was not like any hostel I've ever stayed in. In fact it might have been almost as nice as a very cheap hotel. I actually could not believe how neat and new (though bare) the place was, with absolutely first rate washroom amenities.

Now, I'm not sure how hostels work in different countries, but my experiences have been...interesting, to say the least, so "Edinburgh Central" was not computing for me.
Only after I discovered that it was a five star hostel (five stars? I mean really?? Shouldn't we just go ahead at this point and drop the word hostel altogether?) did things start to make more sense.

A few of us went on a nice educational visit to Holyrood Palace, the sort of official residence of whatever royalty happened to be around Scotland. We got one of those walkie-talkie type things that play cute music and teach you about what you're looking at. (I can officially say that I know what happened to Marry Queen of Scots. Phew.)

We also made it to the Elephant Cafe, where a certain imaginative Brit penned the lives of three confused and (initially) awkward youngsters. Happily, though though the cafe is expensive it is still plastered with elephants and not witchcraft and wizardry.

Another place of note: "Chocolate Soup," a cafe that we didn't stumble on as much as magnetically pulled toward. Or maybe that was just Ellie Sher ('12) and I. Hard to tell when there's chocolate involved.

Also, if anybody was still calling Edinburgh "ED-in-burg" or even "ED-in-bur-oh", I think they've been cured of that now...

In the evening several of us enjoyed going out and buying large quantities of chocolate (I think we've already covered the intrinsic importance of chocolate) after which we went back to the hostel and chatted over glasses of wine. (Although I had a pot of tea because I'd been dying for one over the preceding six hours. It was probably the best tea I've ever had.)

I've been on the look out recently for this thing called "Cream Tea". Let me relieve you of the error you are probably about to make so that you can avoid being subject to British derision (a particularly harsh variety, as I can tell you from personal experience on this very subject.) Cream tea is not, as any sensible person would assume, tea with cream in it. Oh no.

It is, despite all evidence to the contrary, tea with milk, served with scones and/or an assortment of posh little food items, enjoyed with jams and clotted or devonshire cream.

That is cream tea. Now you won't mess it up.

My favorite incident of the trip was without doubt walking into a little tourist shop just outside the train station. After chatting with one of the employees for a bit, I mentioned that I was from "New York, not the city but the state."
"Ah, really. I didn't realize there was a state of New York."

I expressly stifled any giggling or remarks (though I admit it was a challenge.) I'm sure I've said something equally unfortunate about Scotland, or Britain, or perhaps the whole EU.

And now, a few photos courtesy of our talented photographer.

The thing I found so exciting about THIS particular image is that it captures two very important things. A man playing highland bagpipes (VERY EXCITING for me) and David Hume there in the background.

Not only is Hume just an awesome guy in general, but his toe actually imparts philosophical wisdom. Any of you philosophy majors back at Colgate might consider popping over to Edinburgh if you feel you need a bit of inspiration on your next paper.

The Gaelic predecessor of discos, and a narrow miss at haggis.

2011-02-04T23:00:00.000-08:00

Needless to say my exposure to Scottish culture thus far has been limited to accents and the occasional haggis wisecrack which I've come to ignore. (And the rain. Oh goodness, the rain.)

Knowing this would probably be the case for many of us, the university put together what it apparently thought would be the best introduction to Scottish culture--a "cèilidh." This, you may be surprised to learn, is pronounced "KAY-lee." (Not "SEE-lih-dah", or some other sensible guess.) Pretty straight forward, unless you have the misfortune of actually looking at the word.

This is probably a good opportunity for our second Gaelic language presentation.

The word comes from old Irish "céle", a literary event which, as Alexander Carmichael tells us, involved lots of poems and ballads, song singing and conundrum solving. (Doesn't that sound like fun?) Through some sort of complete subject shift which Wikipedia has failed to satisfactorily explain to me, cèilidhs arrived in the state which we see them today--folk dances (often with kilts) accompanied by a band not unlike contra dances. Unfortunately for those of us that like to do complicated partner and group dances with lots of rules in which some sense of rhythm is a prerequisite, the cèilidh has been greatly overshadowed (but far from completely stamped out) by discos and nightclubs.

Thankfully the particular band (we're told they're the best in Scotland) at our cèilidh was employed not only to provide music, but to shout directions at the hapless cèilidh attendees, most of us having no affiliation with Scotland and were in fact still learning to pronounce the event properly. The man doing the directing had a great sense of humor (not that that says much--we were pretty hilarious in our ineptitude) and I definitely caught him laughing at us during many of our more muddled attempts. (In contrast, the guy playing something that looked like a mandolin was perfectly deadpan throughout, his dire expression made even more pronounced by an impressive, downward pointing mustache. I don't know how he kept a straight face.)

Now, for our willingness to show up at a place we'd never been with people we'd only just met to do something whose name we could hardly pronounce AND look like complete fools, (a healthy practice, I might add. No use taking yourself seriously, especially not here in the land of high tea and legitimate royalty) we'd been promised haggis.

I myself have had an important revelation regarding the substance, and it is as follows.

Haggis is NOT in fact a collection of whole (and thus uncomfortably recognizable) sheep innards stuffed into a stomach in the shape of a lumpy pillowcase. (Why did I think that? Did I not know about google images? That would have straightened me out immediately.)

Nope, haggis is absolutely nothing more exotic than an American sausage made of animal bits (ovine rather than bovine) all mushed up inside a synthetic casing (away with the stomachs!) and with some stray oats thrown in for good measure.
How bad could that be? (Potentially bad actually, considering how little meat I've eaten in the last couple years. But really pretty standard, for your average carnivore.)

Actually the food so far has been for the most part altogether standard-issue. I think in American we've got this idea of UK cuisine being quite idiosyncratic, with all sorts of unfortunate ingredient decisions on the chefs' part, but in reality it's all pretty inoffensive. (Tesco even offers sushi. Quality is yet to be determined but the fact is they have it.)

The upshot here is that I finally calmed down about the haggis thing (I hate picky people. Picky about health-related things, or quality is one thing, but pickiness about types of food strikes me as unadventurous at best, and outright spoiled at worst,) and would have happily tasted it except that there was no haggis after all!

Instead they gave us something whose name escapes me, but may basically be equated with corn beef hash. (I had the vegetarian version which was probably lot of oats.)

So your resident idiots abroad are still totally ignorant of the haggis beast.
Ah well, it's only the second week.

Mike and Tracey

Unfortunately I can't present you with any really representative photos of the cèilidh, but I do have this one of Mike Chamberlain '12 (left) and Tracey (right), an archeology JSA from William and Mary. I have no doubt you'll enjoy it as much as I do.

Shariah approved banking and the multi-purpose "pastie"

2011-02-03T22:00:00.000-08:00

Accents are still great fun for me (this is unlikely to wear off anytime soon) but it turns out that I'm really spectacularly inaccurate when trying to guess where people are from, and find it better to just ask rather than make a fool of myself. At breakfast I met someone from Liverpool who incidentally hates her accent which is too bad because to me it's perfectly nice.

Today I decided to do some more exploration on my own (in part because I couldn't find anyone, but also because nobody deserves to be subjected to my tragically poor sense of direction) and headed off in the direction of town.

This is in some ways easier said than done for a person endowed with my map reading capabilities (i.e. none.) Map reading has the potential to turn a very bad situation in your favor, but unlike great stamina and superhuman strength inspired by life threatening situations, map reading does not magically improve when the need arises.)

At any rate I did pick a direction (if somewhat arbitrarily) and the good news is that though the town is relatively deserted without students, you can usually find someone to harass if you're really desperate. The other nice thing about St Andrews is that you actually can't get THAT lost because, as all roads lead to Rome (if that's where you're headed,) all roads seem to lead to one of four parallel streets--South, Market, North, and the Scores, the last of which is right on the North Sea. (So when I asked a passerby which of two directions I should take, I was told that going down the first and taking a left would bring me to the same spot as just going down the second.)

By some wonderful coincidence I found the music center (my ability to not find what I'm looking for in earnest is out-shined only by my ability to stumble into what I would have looked for if I thought I had any chance of finding it) which was unfortunately unattended, but provided me with lots of reading materiel about the orchestra and other musical happenings. I believe there's a bagpipe concert on this Wednesday.

Around midday Christie and Hansoo Kim ('12) and I decided to attend to money matters. We'd been told that credit and debut cards without a special "chip" embedded in it were completely useless in the UK, which was both alarming and completely new information to us. (Later I discovered, talking to Scottish Michael in Andrew Melville, that the UK has been on the "chip and pin" system for ten years and this has in no way impeded American tourism in its useful course.)

I didn't get too much sorted out, but happily picked up a brochure on the "Islamic Account" offered by one small bank. They provide "Shariah approved banking to fit your lifestyle and beliefs." (To clarify for anyone not up on their Shariah study, usury is considered unlawful because it facilitates the diversion of resources from the poor to the rich. Collecting interest on your savings is therefore right up there with alcohol and BLTs. Allah probably isn't that into Wallstreet...)

Before I leave you, I'd like to voice my amusement at the omnipresence of pastry products. Now, Americans certainly like pastries. In fact, we like most everything (as long as we remain blissfully unaware of the finer details regarding ingredients and preparation) but here in Scotland there seems to be a real excess of flour and water because anywhere I go I'm presented with a plethora of pastry based food options in convenient single-serving sizes, known as "pasties." We've all heard of your average meat pie, and of course it's hardly a stretch to start making other varieties filled with potato, onion, gravy etc... But isn't a haggis or macaroni and cheese filling just a bit weird?

Also did you know there's such a thing as Cookipedia?

Magical Coincidences

2011-02-02T20:00:00.000-08:00

As Christie, your intrepid photographer, I offer you a selection of photos from our first week in the jolly old Kingdom of Fife!

Scotland 1

And now I'm off to read Elinor Stump into the wee hours of the morning...

Cheers!

"Don't worry, you just have to throw yourself into the North Sea"

2011-02-02T16:15:00.000-08:00

Well, today was just super.

Right up until breakfast being served between the hours of 8:15 and 8:45 pm.

THAT BEING SAID. Breakfast was great, not least because I DIDN'T HAVE TO MAKE IT. (First time in a year and a half of schooling. Wow, meal plans!)
There was a large bit of fish that we had the option of having. (Elinore: "It looks like a haddock with a liver problem.") I did not opt to take it because while I was, to phrase it one way, "up and at 'em", my hands were shaking in a somewhat alarming fashion and I decided that maybe unidentified fish product on the first morning was pushing my luck...

Also, the nice serving lady surreptitiously snuck me some defac coffee (which is surprisingly hard to find here...I guess everyone just likes being wired.)

Everyone's asking about the HAGGIS and for the last time NO I haven't had it and NO I will not have it unless courtesy demands.
Dad got a bit carried away talking about animal guts today and told me all about both haggis (made in these modern times in a casing rather than real sheep stomach) and the byproducts used in American hotdogs and such.
Charming.

(Let me digress for a moment and relate to you the legend of the haggis, as told to me by my friend Frederick who is very English and very much enjoys laughing at Americans. The haggis is said to be a fuzzy little creature not unlike a sheep that resides in mountainous areas. To this end, its legs are shorter on one side so that it can more easily navigate the terrain of its chosen habitat. One catches a haggis by creeping up behind it and giving it such a shock that it turns around and tumbles down the mountainside. Here ends the tale.)

After breakfast I walked from 9am till 3pm straight, getting lost, running errands, going on a walking tour, going on it again, getting groceries, getting lost again, and being caught in a rain storm.

Interestingly, peanut butter here in the UK is outrageously expensive. I mean it's just through the roof (although any number of quality jams without high fructose corn syrup can be gotten, often for under one quid) and on top of that people make fun of you for eating it! (No one here. Just British friends who feel the need to point out my Idiot American status on a regular basis.)

The tour of town was really quite interesting, if slightly hazardous (cars, high winds.) St Andrews, (not a possessive) was founded in 1140 by Bishop Robert (was there a Bishop Bob and Bishop Joe too?) and has an enormous amount of history and lore surrounding it. Lots of deaths and martyring (I've heard ONE story of rescue. Just one so far.) including that of Patrick Hamilton in 1528. Nobody seems to forget ANYTHING around here, even stuff from some 500 years ago which is why Patrick's story is still circulating vigorously. The poor fellow not only burned at the stake for the high crime of being Catholic, but took SIX HOURS to die because the damned wind and rain were so strong that the fire kept going out. (Now that is just depressing.)

As if that weren't enough, Mr. Hamilton then had to bear the humiliation of his soul bouncing smartly off the wall of St. Salvator college directly behind him, leaving a neat imprint of his face that stares down on the spot of his death (and me, this morning.) I know all this is true because I went on a tour today (twice) and then checked it on Wikipedia. (Good for haunted story confirmation AND government leaks.)

Now, his initials have been spelled out in the cobblestones just at the place where the face stares, and if you step on it it's bad luck and you fail your exams.

Needless to say I managed to step on it immediately.
I wouldn't have even noticed if Hilary Edmunds ('12) didn't point it out to me.

There's an easy fix though--I just have to throw myself into the North Sea at sunrise during the May Dip, along with thousands of other students at varying levels of intoxication.

Super.

I'm hoping that my unofficial matriculation status gets me off the hook with this Patrick character.

On the walking tour I also learned that the most recent St Andrews president, unhappy with the former presidential housing, moved right into one of the art history buildings on the North Sea. By building I do mean castle, and I do me right on the water front.
There are definitely perks to being head of one of the oldest academic establishments in the world.

On the other hand, the more modern architecture (say, after the 16th century) doesn't quite do it's predecessors justice--for example, the library. (This is a rather optimistic rendering.) The architects of the '60s, in the words of our tour guide, have A LOT to answer for. Even more worrying than the the building's aesthetic problems is the fact that it's sliding off of it's perch into the North Sea as we speak due to the fact that nobody thought to factor in the weight of the BOOKS. (Shocking, really, that they'd need to put books in a library. No wonder no one thought of it.)

Grahm the Porter, Henry the Vacuum Cleaner, and Cheeky Airport Security

2011-02-01T12:00:00.000-08:00

Your resident idiots abroad have returned to report back!

Everything went shockingly according to plan (despite my aunt's minor altercations with the GPS--"Ah good, see it's already come to its senses and is telling us to go the proper way") and after being made fun of by various people in the airport, ("Oh sure you just slide right through security here. Not like in YOUR country." "Colgate, huh? That's a toothpaste here.") we made it to our respective dorms.

There isn't anyone to be found in my block, but I was met with Henry the vacuum cleaner, who is a small round thing with a face and a long pipe for a nose (aptly attached to the suction bit) labeled Henry.

My room is quite cute really (although cute is, as with other adjectives, in the eye of the beholder. I happen to like weirdly shaped squared off bare-ish rooms with impossible-to-get-to sinks...) although I spent a solid quarter of an hour trying to figure out why the little light on my computer charger wasn't lighting up even after plugging it into the adapter (which was in turn firmly in the wall) before I noticed the discreet little "on" switch next to the socket.

....sigh.

Only after I figured this part out did I meet a couple wonderful staff members, Beatrice from "close by", and Tina from Belfast.
They were kind enough to go and get me towels. Not only are towels not provided for students, but their distribution seems to be controlled by a dragon lady of sorts. First Tina thought about just discreetly helping herself to a few, but is apparently the sort of person who is inevitably caught in renegade behavior. Eventually she settled on just asking the powers that be, and was to everyone's surprise quite successful. Beatrice couldn't hardly believe Tina when she said I'd be allowed to KEEP the towels. I guess I've been made a generous offer.

Grahm the porter (I'm going to let my inner dumb American come through a second and say YES A REAL PORTER!! Like in SHAKESPEARE) is a lovely gentlemen who carried my luggage up the stairs. (Room 140 is not on the first floor. Not even on the second. Explain THAT.) Rough accent though. It's really presenting me with some difficulty, actually... Which is not good because he is something like the concierge of the area, and it will be a severe disadvantage if I can't understand HIM, of all people.

Everything's really quite straight forward about the water systems, but not for me apparently. After locating the WC, I spent a good deal of time standing at the entrance, first reading the sign to please save energy and turn the light out (yes but WHERE is the light...Oh I see it's OUTSIDE the actual bathroom) then trying to deal with the lock (why is there a bolt preventing the door from closing that has no controlling lever attached OH just shove the door closed) and proving my American ineptitude in a variety of other ways. (How do you flush this toilet. AH HA, the handle is about 18 inches above my head. OH I SEE, I have to pull on it with all my strength to make it actually function.)

As Pini (Israeli in London and aspiring chef) said, "They conquered Israel, India, invented the telephone, they have an amazing underground train, great football and a queen...but they couldn't put the hot and the cold through the same bloody tap??" I mean how is it helpful to have two? There are no situations that I can think of (that do not include consumption) that I would need the cold and the hot separated. None whatsoever.

I find myself identifying all the sudden with Pini. We are both in the UK where we do not belong, have overbearing opinions about hummus, speak louder than everyone else and last but not least have a considerably larger nose than most of the genetic pool here.

Having done battle with (and triumphed over, I might add) the various water facilities in Andrew Melville (aptly described as "two ships crashing into each other) I must be off to find my brothers in arms in front of McIntosh Hall. (Andy of Mel does not even make an appearance on the map I'm using....Feel free to wish me luck.)

Further speculations as we await takeoff: Gaelic, ducks, and the amalgamated pronoun.

2011-01-27T11:01:00.000-08:00

Christie and I were thinking that since we know no Gaelic (and odds are, neither do you,) we'd try to offer a word or phrase every now and then.

Now, without actually having ever BEEN to Scotland, it's a bit hard to know exactly what sorts of things are likely to come in handy. After all, most people speak English, right? In fact, what percentage of people, if any, speak only Gaelic?

We find it hard to believe that your average passersby wouldn't understand things like "Help!!!" or "Excuse me but I seem to have misplaced my cellular, could you direct me to the nearest phone booth?" With this in mind, we've decided to present to you the "amalgamated pronoun" (it seemed to be as good a place to start as any) in a context which may prove useful in a less metropolitan setting.

"Tha tunnag agaibh."
Pronounced (Ha TOONuk AHKiv.)
Literally, "A duck is at you." (plural and polite you)
Or,"You have a duck."

If you find yourself on this line of conversation, you may wish to draw upon the following variations:

Tha caora againn. (Ha CUURuh AHkeen.) We have sheep.
Tha muc agaibh. (Ha mook AHKiv.) You (plural and polite) have a pig.

That's all for now folks. A great deal of packing, and wrestling with the "online matriculation" process is at us and demands our fullest attention. (Procrastination is a sly opponent.)
See you on the other side.

Three cheers for the Scottish Enlightenment!

2011-01-03T10:25:00.000-08:00

And, apparently, the invention of radar...

So in reality, we don't actually board the airplane for another month... I guess they don't really believe in getting a head start over there (no disrespect to the UK's fine institutions of higher learning) because classes don't even begin until the second week of February.

But I can speculate about the coming semester that we 15 or so Colgate students will embark upon. As the time draws nearer I'm beginning to notice that, for all intents and purposes Colgate is just sort of packing us off to ye old St. Andrews with hardly a map or guidebook, perhaps because the language is English (ish...), the town is small and the people are friendly.
What sort of trouble could we possibly get ourselves into...?

Bad question....

At any rate, I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to cast my eye over some of the more readily available materiel on Scotland, Wikipedia (yeah you saw that coming) and see what our most trusted online source has to say.
The law and criminal justice systems apparently derive both from Roman law (Corpus Juris Civilus, from Justinian I) and some other medieval sources. I'm not sure what this means exactly, but in the event of legal trouble I think we'll be fine, as parliament was established in the 13th century, and arrived at it's current state in '98 (Is that really better?)

It seems that the national plant is the thistle.
...
I'm not really sure what exactly to conclude here.
The rugged and resilient are highly regarded?
Scottish temperament is low-growing and prickly?
Thistles are just ALL OVER THE PLACE?

As for the rest of the flora and fauna, I'll be looking out for the ptarmigan, mountain hare and stoat (but not the walrus, as those have been hunted to extinction).
Apparently Scotland's "substantial bryophyte flora is of global importance." (Basically mosses and other carpety looking things.)
...Who knew.

In terms of demography, it seems that, post WWII there was a fair amount of SOUTH ASIAN IMMIGRATION, most heavily to Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee.
Super.
As we know of peoples with relatively low exposure to Asians, they have some...difficultly differentiating between the many varieties. Odds are SOMEONE'S going to think I'm from Sri Lanka or Tibet...
I guess I shouldn't be too worried. Scotland is 97.99% white.
WOW. I mean that is really homogeneous.

So maybe this was not so fruitful a search...
But I do know that I'm dead set on learning bagpipes (minus the little boots and kilt and other paraphernalia). As Vladamir, director of the chamber music festival in Mexico this past summer, told us, they are the only instrument that keeps playing after they've been dropped.