Edinburgh

How did no one ever think of this before

2006-12-15T19:53:39Z

http://www.amazon.com/Manga-Claus-Nathaniel-Marunas/dp/1595141340

Not. Even. Kidding.

Considerations for Next Term

2005-11-22T14:23:33Z

So, I thought I had my classes nicely selected for Winter term, but lo and behold the prof for Screenwriting 1 blitzed out (apparently he kept my name on the mailing list from last fall), and to let potentially interested students know that Screenwriting 1 is coming up in the Winter, and that applications are due on December 1st. Now, I was really, really excited about my courses (Rel 34, Rel 57, and Psych 1) for next term, but I also really, really want to take Screenwriting before I graduate.

If I take Screenwriting, I'll have to drop Religion 57 (History of Heaven), which I was thinking might inspire a thesis topic. If I don't take Screenwriting, I'll pass up a chance to try something I've always wanted to do, which (in my personal fantasy life) could potentially become a career, or will at least be really, really fun.

Does anyone have any advice? Has anyone taken Screenwriting before? Is the Prof good/nurturing/encouraging?

On Controversial Topics

2005-11-13T16:43:49Z

In my paper for Jewish Views of Jesus, I'm examining ways in which the interactions between Muhammad and the Jews of Medina resemble attempts Christian thinkers used to parse their out religion out from Judaism.

Should I be worried that it seems to require a short vignette establishing that I'm not actually trying to insult any major world religions?

On Motivation

2005-11-11T21:07:50Z

Arg. No part of my being wants to be writing papers right now.

And yet, I shall have to force myself to do it anyway.

Quote for the day

2005-11-07T21:34:56Z

From my Islam prof, during a particularly slow part of the discussion:

"Does anyone not from Dartmouth want to say anything?"

Score one for foreign study.

huck_in_hanover @ 2005-11-06T23:37:00

2005-11-06T23:39:27Z

Dear RESNET and University of Edinburgh Wireless:

Bite me.

No love for you.

In which there is sun

2005-10-30T15:23:25Z

Those of you who have been following along regularly know that the weather here in Edinburgh, at least in the fall, is rather unpredictable. There have been a great many days that have started out bright and sunny, only to wither away and die as the cold wind off the Firth of Forth blows in clouds and rain. Just this morning I was comtemplating heading out for an early morning cup of coffee when I glanced out the window and found that in the five minutes it had taken me to get dressed, it had started pouring buckets.

Every so often, though, it all works out in my favor. When I went out for lunch it was still drizzling, but since then the rain has moved on, and now the sky is beautiful and clear, and I have my window open to enjoy the setting sun. Yes, even though it's 3:00 here, thanks to the end of Daylight Savings Time and the northern latitudes, the sun is already low at 3:00. I'll be looking forward to December, when it will be dark for 16 hours straight.

Meanwhile, though, I'm still in a good mood, and so I write (my summary of London, that is).

Not much has happened here since I got back from London--I really nearly almost have the next few weeks planned out--but that doesn't really matter because London was really awesome. I left right after class last Thursday, and on the train down sat next to a Muslim woman who told me stories from the Qur'an until she changed trains in York, which was a lot of fun--honestly, studying religion doesn't encompass everything that goes along with living it. The train dropped me at King's Cross, and I finally got into Siren's apartment around 12:30. Friday we spent walking around looking at most of the big touristy landmarks in the city, and then we hung out with Susan and Caitlyn (new friends) in the evening. Saturday we trekked down to Picadilly and watched Serenity, which was excellent but scarier than it needed to be because of the theatre's good sense in playing the most disturbing trailers they could find before the movie.

Sunday we checked out the Diamond exhibit at the Natural History Museum, which we almost skipped until Sunshine realized that there was a side entrance that didn't have an hour-long line. Fortunately, no one else knew this. Afterwards we went to the glass exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which had a video kiosk with videos of glassblowers at work. Very cool. We tried tea at Harrod's, the biggest department store in the world, but it was too expensive so we contented ourselves with wandering around the glorious poshness. Later that night we went out for a very yummy dinner at an Italian restaurant. Monday I waited through Siren's class in a Waterstones--I don't think it's wrong at all that I can kill two hours in a bookstore, thanks--and then visited the British Museum, which was very cool and very large. Monday night we went out dancing at a swing club, which was fun once I figured out eight-count music. I need to practice, so if you know any good swing songs you should blitz me so I can find them and count steps in my room. No, I'm not a loser.

Tuesday was an awkward train ride back, since I was sitting behind a woman who systematically neglected to watch her two-year old daughter and next to a woman who really, really did not want a kid bouncing on the seat in front of her. Tense. The weeks ahead hold visits to Museums, 1-pound matinees of Corpse Bride, Twelfth Night, and lots and lots of reading and research. But, since I've already bored everyone enough, I promise that my next post will be charmingly random. Thanks for reading ;)

Edit: Also, I would really like a comfy chair and a cat right now.

Arthur's Seat

2005-10-27T17:21:20Z

Is absolutely gorgeous when the sun sets on a clear evening.

Pictures to follow, once I get them uploaded.

Edit: Dang, uploading pictures that are on my computer is apparently really hard. I shall investigate snapfish tomorrow.

Oh, and I'll have an actual, honest-to-goodness update about stuff I actually did, too.

Edit2: Uploaded pictures to snapfish. Blitz me if you want the link.

On Cadbury

2005-10-16T19:17:36Z

Dear British Candy:

Why must you insist upon being so delicious? You know I can't resist you.

Love,

Me

Mr. Sun?

2005-10-15T14:51:22Z

When I woke up this morning, it looked as though it were going to be a bright and sunny morning. Blue sky, birds, white clouds--the whole nine idyllic yards.

Now, it has clouded over, and it looks as though it will again spend the next three days raining.

But, such is the Scottish life. Now, I must go out shopping, and while I will not have the warm sun on me, I am bringing money to browse through bookstores, and I intend to not return unless I can find socks. Ambitious, I know. But adventure awaits!

In which, yet again, I am amazed by children's literature

2005-10-13T18:19:20Z

Oh yes, you read that right....Vampirates. For just when you thought books couldn't get any more awesome.

I saw this while I was wandering around Blackwell's today, and naturally, I was curious about it. So I looked at the back of the book for the plot synopsis. Believe it or not, it gets even cooler.What's more cool than vampires who are pirates, you ask?

Vampire pirates.....in the year 2505!

Of course, this raises all kinds of metaphysical questions. Why are there still pirates in 2505? Why do we still need boats in so far in the future? Did the terrible cataclysm that destroyed civilization (and turned the lightning and the water red?) somehow spare all the 15th-century galleons in the world?

What's even more amusing is the fact that 'Vampirates' doesn't seem to be an isolated phenomenon. There are at least two other books about Vampirates (not by the same author, though), a webcomic, and at one point, a movie was apparently in the works--IMDB doesn't have any info about it, but in 1998 they were planning on casting Emelio Estevez (who else?) in whatever constituted the leading role.

Vampirates. All I can say is, "wow."

It's chilly, and I am writing about the minutiae of my life

2005-10-12T18:23:31Z

The rain has finally stopped, but it's still cold and damp and misty outside. Tonight, I'm not taking any chances--I'm spending all night in my room in a big warm wool sweater. With all the lights on.

Spent all day in various libraries--in the morning it was New College doing reading for New Age tomorrow, and in the afternoon it was the Main Library for Islam research. It's been productive, but by now I'm feeling a little fried and am looking forward to the chance to relax. Tomorrow is Yom Kippur, so there's now Jewish Views of Jesus class, which makes my busy Thursday significantly lighter (only New Age, from 2:00-5:00).

Meanwhile, I have finished The Left Hand of Darkness, which means that over this term I've read three books for pleasure. Any ideas on the next one? In my room I have The Great Gatsby, Paradise Lost, and Beowulf, and it's entirely possible that I might be able to find or buy other books.

Tea is good

2005-10-11T22:03:04Z

The rain, on the other hand, is cold. Brrr....

Pros and Cons

2005-10-11T20:03:43Z

I am currently in the library watching the rain and wishing it would stop so that I can go home.

Fortunately, confining myself to the library (rather than my room) has made me more productive than I might have been otherwise. Unfortunately, it means a wet walk home. Luckily, tea and biscuits are waiting for me when I get there.

Additionally, I like adverbs.

Edit: The library has a bell which rings for a full minute at 9:30 and 9:45, evidently to tip us off that we're supposed to be leaving soon. Good for studying.

This time, it actually is a lazy sunday

2005-10-09T20:37:50Z

I have decided the secret to enjoying this FSP will be having exactly the right amount to do, all the time. I want to feel like whether I'm working or relaxing, I have a very good reason for doing whatever it is I'm doing at the moment. Which, incidentally, is probably a good formula for life.

Meanwhile, even if today has been relaxing (if not particularly productive), last night was good times. A bunch of us FSPeople went on the 'City of the Dead' tour, which is basically a long meandering walk with a guide that tells stories about the seedier elements of Edinburgh's history. The evening caps off with a visit to the 'Black Mausoleum,' which is supposedly haunted by the MacKenzie poltergeist, which has (if you believe what they say on the tour), has 'attacked' over 700 thrill-seekers in the last six years. This is actually fairly easy to believe when someone tells it to you late at night in the middle of a graveyard. Aside from being open to suggestion and generally nervous throughout the entire trip, I myself have apparently made it through the experience ghost-free (they say that sometimes signs of attacks, like bumps, cuts, scratches, and bruises, show up after the visit), but one girl in our group did feel chilled and nauseuous to the point that she had to step out of the tomb for a little while.

Afterwards the lot of us (seven in total), walked to Grassmarket, which is a small bar and restuarant nexus in the shadow of the Castle, and had a few drinks in a bar which would have been extremely nice if the crowding hadn't allowed a fortysomething guy to hit on several of the girls in our party. It was still a cool time (well, after he left), and it made me glad to be in a big group of people--I've been wanting to experience the pub culture in Edinburgh, and it's not the sort of thing I'd do on my own. We checked out another bar after that one, then had late-night pizza, then split up (angie, alli, and I headed back home, and the other four stayed out). We had nice conversation on the way home, and then when I got back, I sat down and chatted with a pair of people from my floor. Talking makes me feel social, which is a good thing--although I did realize last night that everyone on this FSP feels out of place and a little shy.

The rest of the night is likely homeworkish, with plenty of breaks for wasting time. No idea about what tomorrow brings, except that there's class at 4:00 and I have a fiendish craving for biscuits right now, which may mean a trip to Tesco. Penguins, here I come!

Also

2005-10-08T12:10:09Z

Howl's Moving Castle (saw it last night with Ben) is an amazing, amazing movie. Another DVD and soundtrack I need to own.

Movie theatres over here (or at least the one I went to) are very, very cool. It was much smaller than an American theater (about the size of the living room at Tau, I'd say), but the seats were large, padded all over, and very comfy. Aslo, the concession kiosk sells things like ice cream, and the theatre had an adjoining bar, so quite a few people brought in glasses of beer with them (I didn't, but Ben and I did have a conversation about the large number of movies which might be improved by glasses of beer). Cool stuff.

And for the flist: Should I watch Serenity over here, or will it be better if I wait to see it on DVD in the tube room with y'alls? Bear in mind that I have very little previous Firefly experience.

Quote of the Day

2005-10-08T11:59:45Z

From Alli, a girl from Penn who's also on study abroad at Edinburgh, upon opening a card from home:

"My grandma sent me five dollars!"

...

Don't you just love the useful gifts?

whew!

2005-10-06T18:06:31Z

So, classes here at Edinburgh are set up differently from the way they are at home. Dartmouth has created a very good scheduling system for their courses, which divides the week into a number to time blocks, each of which represents a time a course can meet. Any course that meets during a time period meets during all the times for that time period. If you want to take two particular courses, you know right away whether they conflict or not.

Here, things are different. Classes don't seem to be scheduled so much as they simply seem to meet at various times. They're also organized differently depending on the year during which you're supposed to take them. For example, a 1st year intro course might meet four days a week for an hour each time. A third year honors course might meet once per week for three hours. The upshot of this is that if you're taking mostly high-level courses, you'll have fewer days to actually be in class each week. Of course, it also makes it much more difficult to mix and match 2nd- and 3rd-year courses, since often one (just one!) meeting of a 1st- or 2nd- year class will conflict with one (just one!) hour of an honors class.

What this means for me is that I had quite a fun first few weeks trying to choose and schedule my courses, and finally wound up with the following schedule:
Monday: Islam 2a, 4:10-5:00
Tuesday Islam 2a, 3:10-5:00
Wednesday: OFF (homework, usually)
Thursday: Jewish Views of Jesus, 11:00-1:00
New Age Religions, 2:00-5:00
Friday: OFF (three day weekends are nice)

So yar. Now you all have a little slice of my life here in Edinburgh.

It also explains why I'm wiped right now. Mission for this weekend: sleep!

Not a post about Iona

2005-10-04T23:20:59Z

08's:

You guys all totally rock, and I really wish I could be there with you tonight. Good luck through delibs, but most of all, have a blast--you all deserve it.

Love,

Me

Computer issues

2005-10-03T10:16:01Z

Iona totally rocked, so a real (and probably lengthy) post will follow later today, after I've been to the library and to class. But for the moment, I thought I would ask ye, o mighty and all-knowing flist:

For the last few, well, ever, my computer (Dell laptop) has had serious issues turning on. The Power button worked fine for a little while, but later seemed to somehow become disconnected from the switch under it, because it gradually required more and more pressure to actually turn on my laptop. Now, I'm at the point where I basically have to jam the button into the computer to get it to turn on, and in addition to the fact that I don't think it's a great idea to have to lean on my laptop to turn it on, I'm also becoming concerned that every time I turn it off, I might not be able to get it back on the next time.

For those of you with computers know-how, is this fairly common, and does it have an easy fix? Because I'm lazy, I haven't gotten it looked into yet, and now I find myself in Scotland with a computer that feels like it wants to break, awash in hubris. Any thoughts?

Oh, and it also sometimes thinks it's plugged into a docking station--I have no idea what that means.

Thanks for listening to me complain again, by the way ;)

Hilarity!

2005-09-28T21:48:33Z

It might be a sad thing to admit, but when the fire alarm went off tonight, it was one of the most fun things that's happened in the last three days. My schedule for the week has by and large consisted of being in my room in the mornings (doing various degrees of homework), class in the afternoons, and in my room again in the evenings. Today I have no class, so I had planned to go to the library and do some reserve reading, and then I woke up sick (classic stuffy nose, in the way that only I get them), so I spent the entire day in my room again, with a mug of hot tea, some reading, the internet, biscuits, pita bread, peanut butter, and....

Yeah, okay. I'll shut up and stop whining now. It was actually pretty fun.

But even more fun was the fire alarm, which made everyone in the dorm leave, then mill awkwardly around the dorm (which is, by the way, a funny thing about fire alarms--no one ever seems to flee far enough from the building to actually, y'know, not die if it were a real fire). Most people said 'screw it,' and used it as an excuse to go drinking, while the other people promptly started smoking.

Okay, so maybe you had to be there.

Tomorrow is my Grand Class Day (in which I have five hours of classes), and then early Friday morning, we (being the Dartmouth Religion FSP) leave for Iona, an itty-bitty island off the west coast of another island off the west coast of Scotland. We'll be there all weekend, but apparently there will be shops and restaurants, so we shouldn't be bored, even though our advisor keeps telling us to 'bring lots of novels to read and exchange.' Adventuring! Huzzah!

Also....

2005-09-27T20:38:44Z

I have decided I need icons. Can someone explain image hosting to me?

In which I win at shopping

2005-09-27T20:38:02Z

Okay, Tesco is officially my hero.

I went off for some light shopping tonight, and came home with the following:

Dr. Pepper
Peanut Butter
Pita Bread
80 Tea bags
a mug
Dried Papaya
Rich Tea Biscuits
Bourbon Cream Biscuits
Shortcake Biscuits

And all this bounty for 6.06! I am the winner, and my prize shall be wonderful tea.

Clothing

2005-09-27T11:52:28Z

Is not meant to be left on top of the dryer when it is only half-dry, folks. Especially when that means you had to open the dryer, take out my wet clothes, and put your own clothes in. Grrrrr....

In other news, the dryers in my dorm take only dryer tokens (1 pound each), and only dry for 30 minutes, which leaves my clothes tantalizingly close to dry, but not quite. I think this week I will acquire a drying rack from Edinburgh Bargain Stores. They are my saviors!

Also, since I'm sure many of you are wondering, I am in Edinburgh this term. I also owe everyone a big 'how I got here, what it's like' post, but I'll probably get to that in pieces over the next few days. If I think of it as a massive post I have to do, I'll never get started (and seeing how much trouble I have getting started in the first place, I should probably make things easy on myself).

Feel free to ask questions if there's anything specific you want to know ;)

Lazy Sundays

2005-07-10T14:49:10Z

but not for me...I've been up since 8:30, being productive! (note: in order for this statement to be true you must consider doing laundry and updating the LJ I haven't touched in a month 'work') Anyway....... It's been a busy last few weeks. The family reunion went over fine (meaning that I survived), and having the parents up to Dartmouth was also fine (meaning that I survived, but just barely, since I spent most of the week trying to figure out what classes I'm going to take this summer). Now, things are beginning to stabilize, and to coalesce into, dare I say it, a steady pattern:

Monday: 8:45--Shakespeare, 10:00--Research (?), 11:30--lunch, 12:00--work, 5:00--relax, 6:00--dinner, 7:00--homework
Tuesday: 8:30--wake up and run, 10:00--homework/postering, 1:00--lunch, 2:00--Crusaders class, 4:00--postering/homework/dinner/evening
Wednesday: 8:45--Shakespeare, 10:00--Research (?), 11:30--lunch, 12:00--work, 5:00--relax, 6:00--dinner, 7:00--homework, 10:00--run house meetings
Thursday: 8:30--wake up and run, 10:00--homework/postering, 1:00--meetings with Professor Ackerman, 2:00--Crusaders class, 4:00--postering/homework/dinner/evening, 10:00--TNT
Friday: 8:45--Shakespeare, 10:00--Research (?), 11:30--lunch, 12:00--work, 5:00--relax, 6:00--dinner/3play, 10:00--flix

And the weekends are punctuated by postering, drafting, and working at the Hop monitor's desk, which is a six-hour investment of my time, but is also stress-free, easy, and high-paying.

So, in other words, I'm making it.

In other news, I would like to give a trussed-up Thanksgiving turkey to DOC construction for hiring cavemen who insist on ignoring what we (and, in theory, their bosses) tell them about not parking in our lot or driveway. Oh, and the whole KNOCKING A HOLE IN THE STREET so we can't get out of the parking lot, and not bothering to let us know beforehand that we would have no egress from our house for three days.

But it's Sunday, and it's bright and sunny, and my laundry is (finally!) getting clean, so I can't be too upset. This afternoon will be drafting, then reading Richard III before I go to bed.