Merry Christmas, from the pugs!
25 December 2008
17 December 2008
Glasgow in (almost) winter
I have been sadly remiss in my duties of taking picture of Glasgow to post here. However, after everyone had done their presentations for Records & Evidence (the very last thing I had to do this semester), I did manage to get some nice pictures of Gilmorehill as I walked to the pub where all my classmates had gathered.
Here is the Sir Charles Wilson building, where we had our Description Cataloguing & Navigation lectures. (Inside, there is a completely state-of-the-art lecture theater, if you can believe it.)
This is just a random building near campus
This is part of the Main Building of the University, built in the 1870s
Another view toward the Main Building
The view from the lecture theater where we gave our presentations. The theme was 'Archives As ...' and we had a to think of an analogy for archives.
The University spire, from Kelvingrove Park
Some more random buildings near campus
I will try to take some more (better) pictures later. Hopefully the sun will shine at some point!
Here is the Sir Charles Wilson building, where we had our Description Cataloguing & Navigation lectures. (Inside, there is a completely state-of-the-art lecture theater, if you can believe it.)
This is just a random building near campus
This is part of the Main Building of the University, built in the 1870s
Another view toward the Main Building
The view from the lecture theater where we gave our presentations. The theme was 'Archives As ...' and we had a to think of an analogy for archives.
The University spire, from Kelvingrove Park
Some more random buildings near campus
I will try to take some more (better) pictures later. Hopefully the sun will shine at some point!
11 December 2008
It's Almost Christmas!
It's 3:30pm here and the sky is full of pink and orange from the setting sun. In ten days, I will be headed home for Christmas (yay!) where I will be so warm and eat so much dinner. :) Then, after I am nice and toasty, I will be heading back to this dark, cold country on January 10th, so if you're going to be around Sunnyvale during that time, you should look me up. I'll be in bed with my blankets and my footwarmers (I mean, dogs!), watching my Tivo.
In the meantime, I found a link from the University of Glasgow website with a lot of photos of the city and the campus. You can look at it here: Glasgow Photo Gallery.
In the meantime, I found a link from the University of Glasgow website with a lot of photos of the city and the campus. You can look at it here: Glasgow Photo Gallery.
03 December 2008
In Blue Hawaii ...
The weather in Scotland this past week has been horrible! Last weekend, St Andrews was freezing, by which I mean everything was covered in ice all day long and it was actually zero degrees Celsius. Look how huge those ice crystals are on the hedges in front of Paul's house!
I was hoping that it was just an east coast thing, since the east side is usually way colder but the ice followed me to Glasgow. On Monday morning, the botanic gardens looked like a winter wonderland (sorry, I forgot to take my camera with me!). Monday night, I went to do the dishes around midnight and I actually saw it snowing. I don't think I've ever seen it snow. My heart filled with fear and I told myself, don't worry, a lot of people love snow, it'll be fine.
The next morning, I realised that my fear was completely justified because I heard a weird noise outside the window before I got out of bed, which I eventually figured out was the sound of cars slipping around on the black ice outside. Then, when I was having breakfast, I looked out the window and saw a guy slipping around on the sidewalk. I thought that he must have those shoes with the wheels in the back and I was laughing at him for not being able to walk in them. But then I saw that all the sidewalks were completely iced over. Walking to school was terrifying, at certain points I just had slide forward and hope like hell that I kept going the right direction and that I didn't fall down. Most of the ice was melted near campus and I managed to make it home again before dark, but it was seriously scary. I hate ice and snow. Yuck.
This morning was much better, though still pretty icy. As I was walking to the botanic garden, my iPod started singing the Beach Boys, In Blue Hawaii, and I imagined for a moment that I was there, wearing short sleeves and sandals. Ahhhh.
I was hoping that it was just an east coast thing, since the east side is usually way colder but the ice followed me to Glasgow. On Monday morning, the botanic gardens looked like a winter wonderland (sorry, I forgot to take my camera with me!). Monday night, I went to do the dishes around midnight and I actually saw it snowing. I don't think I've ever seen it snow. My heart filled with fear and I told myself, don't worry, a lot of people love snow, it'll be fine.
The next morning, I realised that my fear was completely justified because I heard a weird noise outside the window before I got out of bed, which I eventually figured out was the sound of cars slipping around on the black ice outside. Then, when I was having breakfast, I looked out the window and saw a guy slipping around on the sidewalk. I thought that he must have those shoes with the wheels in the back and I was laughing at him for not being able to walk in them. But then I saw that all the sidewalks were completely iced over. Walking to school was terrifying, at certain points I just had slide forward and hope like hell that I kept going the right direction and that I didn't fall down. Most of the ice was melted near campus and I managed to make it home again before dark, but it was seriously scary. I hate ice and snow. Yuck.
This morning was much better, though still pretty icy. As I was walking to the botanic garden, my iPod started singing the Beach Boys, In Blue Hawaii, and I imagined for a moment that I was there, wearing short sleeves and sandals. Ahhhh.
27 November 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Thanksgiving, all my Americans! I wish I was with you today because I can't cook and it's making me sad! But I'm coming home in three and a half weeks, so someone had better make me a turkey!
Anyway, sorry I haven't updated for so long, but after my placement finished on the 14th, I came back to Glasgow only to suffer under the weight of my next essay, which nearly drove me mad ("Is text different when it's written on paper?" Well, DUH!). I did finally finish it though, and then it was on to the next project and so on. In the last 4 weeks of the course, there are 5 assignments due so things are going to be really hectic until I come home on Dec 21st.
I completely forgot to take pictures in Dundee! (Here is the website, they might have some pictures on there: Dundee Uni Archives ) The placement did turn out to be really cool though. I found a dead fly in the pages of an old ledger (I left it where it was, for the next person to find!) and there were lots of hilarious large old books in the archive, so that kept me very amused. The archive actually had a large collection of photographs by a man called Michael Peto, a Hungarian who hung around London in the 1960s taking pictures of famous people - including the Beatles! Here are some of his pictures: Peto Collection
This one is by far my favorite!
I don't think I need to explain why! :)
On Tuesday my class took a field trip to Edinburgh to visit the National Archives of Scotland, which was very interesting. I really enjoyed going to Edinburgh, especially since a bunch of us went out to a pub for dinner afterward. Although I do like living in Glasgow to a certain extent, it will never move me the way Edinburgh does. Glasgow is too Los Angeles for me (minus the vapidness). It's urban sprawl, and the centre city is just shopping and hipster nightclubs. Shopping keeps me contented for a while, but at some point I need something else too. Like a castle on a volcanic rock in the middle of the city. Seriously.
I am thinking about writing my dissertation on something to do with email, so one of my classmates suggested I open a GMail account. But in order for this to work, people need to email me there, so if you want, the email address is gwendolyn dot loomis at googlemail dot com.
I hope you all are having a delicious day and I can't wait to see you!
Anyway, sorry I haven't updated for so long, but after my placement finished on the 14th, I came back to Glasgow only to suffer under the weight of my next essay, which nearly drove me mad ("Is text different when it's written on paper?" Well, DUH!). I did finally finish it though, and then it was on to the next project and so on. In the last 4 weeks of the course, there are 5 assignments due so things are going to be really hectic until I come home on Dec 21st.
I completely forgot to take pictures in Dundee! (Here is the website, they might have some pictures on there: Dundee Uni Archives ) The placement did turn out to be really cool though. I found a dead fly in the pages of an old ledger (I left it where it was, for the next person to find!) and there were lots of hilarious large old books in the archive, so that kept me very amused. The archive actually had a large collection of photographs by a man called Michael Peto, a Hungarian who hung around London in the 1960s taking pictures of famous people - including the Beatles! Here are some of his pictures: Peto Collection
This one is by far my favorite!
I don't think I need to explain why! :)
On Tuesday my class took a field trip to Edinburgh to visit the National Archives of Scotland, which was very interesting. I really enjoyed going to Edinburgh, especially since a bunch of us went out to a pub for dinner afterward. Although I do like living in Glasgow to a certain extent, it will never move me the way Edinburgh does. Glasgow is too Los Angeles for me (minus the vapidness). It's urban sprawl, and the centre city is just shopping and hipster nightclubs. Shopping keeps me contented for a while, but at some point I need something else too. Like a castle on a volcanic rock in the middle of the city. Seriously.
I am thinking about writing my dissertation on something to do with email, so one of my classmates suggested I open a GMail account. But in order for this to work, people need to email me there, so if you want, the email address is gwendolyn dot loomis at googlemail dot com.
I hope you all are having a delicious day and I can't wait to see you!
07 November 2008
Fundee!
Hurray, I finished my essay (now I have to get started on the next one, some malarky about 'What is Text?'). In the meantime, I am doing a mini-internship in Dundee, at the Dundee University Archives, for my course. It's been really interesting so far, a church in Brechin, Angus has donated a bunch of papers to the archive and I'm looking through them and organising them into series. Then next week, I will start cataloguing the papers and removing staples, paper clips and rubber bands. Which reminds me, DO NOT ever staple, paper clip or rubber band anything you want to keep for posterity. That stuff rusts and eats right through the paper! I don't know how you are supposed to keep your papers together without them though. It's been really interesting to see how the things we've been discussing in lectures play out in a real working archive. I'm very pleased that they set up these placements for us!
Anyway, it's coming up on winter here, the sun goes down about 5pm now. Here is a picture of what the botanic garden looks like now:
Anyway, it's coming up on winter here, the sun goes down about 5pm now. Here is a picture of what the botanic garden looks like now:
27 October 2008
23 October 2008
Gothic as you wanna be ...
I have an essay due soon, so I figured it's about time to post on the blog again! (Don't worry though, it's not due for more than a week and I've already written more than a quarter of it with the rest outlined.)
So, what have I been doing for the past 3 weeks? I can barely remember. A scroll through the My Pictures folder on my computer reminds me that I went to St Andrews to see my friend Chelsea who is now domiciled in Norway. Then the following weekend, Paul came to Glasgow and we went to see Glasgow Cathedral, which was very cool and gothic. The weather has really been going downhill recently, not that it was all that great to begin with. A fierce wind appeared this week and knocked all the leaves off the trees. Then a chill swept through the West End, and of course it was raining all the while. Oh, and it's only going to get worse. Delightful!
The weekend that Chelsea was in St Andrews was actually the weekend of the annual Pro-Am celebrity golf tournament called Dunhill Links Championship. I'm pretty sure Samuel L Jackson is in this picture somewhere
Chelsea was very lovely and took me to high tea at the Old Course Hotel, since she is making Norway Money now as a waitress (£12 an hour as a waitress!). Mmm, look at those cakes!
For the Doctor Who fans out there
This is a Glasgow tradition, usually directed at the Duke of Wellington statue at George Square
Here is Glasgow Cathedral, a Church of Scotland cathedral from the 13th century. It is one of the few Scottish cathedrals to have survived the Reformation intact (unlike the St Andrews cathedral)
The Cathedral is the home of the tomb of Glasgow's patron saint. St Kentigern's (aka Mungo) tomb is below the main floor of the church.
Glasgow's Necropolis is next to the cathedral, so we hiked up to the John Knox monument (the man has monuments all over Scotland!) for the view.
Fall is starting to speed up now, although there are hardly any leaves left after the mighty wind that has been whipping through town this week.
The West End is the posh part of Glasgow (apparently because the wind blows all the bad smells into the East End), all the houses and flats surrounding the dorm are gigantic and posh. Like this one, which is named Ravencliffe:
However, this is my dorm. It looks nice-ish on the outside, but the inside is fantastically dirty. The flat was obviously not cleaned after the previous tenants moved out. The absolute worst thing about it though are the paper-thin walls, floors and ceilings.
This is the view out of the kitchen window of the moon encased in clouds behind the blocks of flats nearby. Pretty cool. The more pictures I take, the more I like my new camera.
And here is some pretty in pink sunset sky
So, what have I been doing for the past 3 weeks? I can barely remember. A scroll through the My Pictures folder on my computer reminds me that I went to St Andrews to see my friend Chelsea who is now domiciled in Norway. Then the following weekend, Paul came to Glasgow and we went to see Glasgow Cathedral, which was very cool and gothic. The weather has really been going downhill recently, not that it was all that great to begin with. A fierce wind appeared this week and knocked all the leaves off the trees. Then a chill swept through the West End, and of course it was raining all the while. Oh, and it's only going to get worse. Delightful!
The weekend that Chelsea was in St Andrews was actually the weekend of the annual Pro-Am celebrity golf tournament called Dunhill Links Championship. I'm pretty sure Samuel L Jackson is in this picture somewhere
Chelsea was very lovely and took me to high tea at the Old Course Hotel, since she is making Norway Money now as a waitress (£12 an hour as a waitress!). Mmm, look at those cakes!
For the Doctor Who fans out there
This is a Glasgow tradition, usually directed at the Duke of Wellington statue at George Square
Here is Glasgow Cathedral, a Church of Scotland cathedral from the 13th century. It is one of the few Scottish cathedrals to have survived the Reformation intact (unlike the St Andrews cathedral)
The Cathedral is the home of the tomb of Glasgow's patron saint. St Kentigern's (aka Mungo) tomb is below the main floor of the church.
Glasgow's Necropolis is next to the cathedral, so we hiked up to the John Knox monument (the man has monuments all over Scotland!) for the view.
Fall is starting to speed up now, although there are hardly any leaves left after the mighty wind that has been whipping through town this week.
The West End is the posh part of Glasgow (apparently because the wind blows all the bad smells into the East End), all the houses and flats surrounding the dorm are gigantic and posh. Like this one, which is named Ravencliffe:
However, this is my dorm. It looks nice-ish on the outside, but the inside is fantastically dirty. The flat was obviously not cleaned after the previous tenants moved out. The absolute worst thing about it though are the paper-thin walls, floors and ceilings.
This is the view out of the kitchen window of the moon encased in clouds behind the blocks of flats nearby. Pretty cool. The more pictures I take, the more I like my new camera.
And here is some pretty in pink sunset sky
02 October 2008
West End of Glasgow
Classes have been going pretty well so far, we're starting off slow and doing a lot of group work at the moment. I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to write the 3000 word essay on archives that is due in a few weeks, but I'm sure it will come together somehow.
I really haven't taken very many pictures of Glasgow yet! Usually the weather is so bad that the pictures will come out too dark, or the weather is nice and I forgot my camera. Or the weather is nice but I'm late for class and can't stop for a quick pic. I have taken a few though, and I will go ahead and share those with you. (Hopefully more will follow shortly!)
Pink sunset clouds through the window of my dorm room
The beginnings of autumn in the West End
I take a shortcut through the Botanic Gardens on my way to the university everyday
Here is the glasshouse in the Botanic Gardens. The dogs would probably love it, it's called Kibble Palace!
Last weekend I took the bus to St Andrews, here is the sunset from Kirkcaldy bus station. (Pronounced "kir-coddy" for the uninitiated!)
And finally, the famous university spire. People always tell me that if you get lost you should just walk toward the spire. That would probably be good advice if there weren't so many churches in this area!
I really haven't taken very many pictures of Glasgow yet! Usually the weather is so bad that the pictures will come out too dark, or the weather is nice and I forgot my camera. Or the weather is nice but I'm late for class and can't stop for a quick pic. I have taken a few though, and I will go ahead and share those with you. (Hopefully more will follow shortly!)
Pink sunset clouds through the window of my dorm room
The beginnings of autumn in the West End
I take a shortcut through the Botanic Gardens on my way to the university everyday
Here is the glasshouse in the Botanic Gardens. The dogs would probably love it, it's called Kibble Palace!
Last weekend I took the bus to St Andrews, here is the sunset from Kirkcaldy bus station. (Pronounced "kir-coddy" for the uninitiated!)
And finally, the famous university spire. People always tell me that if you get lost you should just walk toward the spire. That would probably be good advice if there weren't so many churches in this area!
20 September 2008
Freshers Week successfully avoided!
Since I'm sure you all are on pins and needles waiting to hear how my presentation went, I will fill you in! It was amazing. I made a lovely Power Point about one of my favorite things ever: San Francisco! I gave a bit of history and showed some great pictures of the city's more notable features (Lombard Street!), and ended it all with a plea to not visit Los Angeles. There was so much more I could have talked about (Emperor Norton) but I decided to focus on what was most important: convincing people to visit.
I actually really enjoyed everyone else's presentations as well! I'd been so focused on getting my own done that I hadn't even considered what everyone else would speak about. Some topics included SuperLambBanana , epilepsy, what life is like in Malawi, the mid-autumn festival in Singapore, a local band with 17 members called The Secondhand Marching Band, the hardcore punk scene in the Pacific Northwest during the 1980s, the ukulele, Doctor Who, Wimbledon Football Club and so much more ... all great stuff! I was (well, I still am) worrying about the work load for the courses and especially the dissertation, but with such an interesting and friendly group of people I'm confident that this year will turn out great!
Classes start on Monday, so I definitely have some reading to do before then, but in the meantime I might pop over to Kelvingrove Museum.
I actually really enjoyed everyone else's presentations as well! I'd been so focused on getting my own done that I hadn't even considered what everyone else would speak about. Some topics included SuperLambBanana , epilepsy, what life is like in Malawi, the mid-autumn festival in Singapore, a local band with 17 members called The Secondhand Marching Band, the hardcore punk scene in the Pacific Northwest during the 1980s, the ukulele, Doctor Who, Wimbledon Football Club and so much more ... all great stuff! I was (well, I still am) worrying about the work load for the courses and especially the dissertation, but with such an interesting and friendly group of people I'm confident that this year will turn out great!
Classes start on Monday, so I definitely have some reading to do before then, but in the meantime I might pop over to Kelvingrove Museum.
17 September 2008
Triumphantly Returned
Yes, I made it! I returned to Scotland.
Paul was waiting for me at Edinburgh Airport, which was all very lovely. I spent a few days in St Andrews, seeing all the old sights. I even walked back out to Andrew Melville - to see a huge pile of dirt from some construction right outside what was my window two years ago. But other than that (and a few changed shop fronts) it's almost like I never left. Everyone who was here when I left is still here and we all went down to the pub quiz at Aikmans as usual on Thursday. The second night I was back, we went down to a pub now called The Rule, used to be called The Gin House though it doesn't matter since it looks exactly the same inside, and watched Scotland almost lose to Iceland. It's all good fun.
I made my way to Glasgow on Saturday, and as I expected it was raining quite a lot. In fact, it's rained quite a lot every day I've been here. Yesterday, for instance, it rained ALL DAY LONG without stopping. And not sprinkled or drizzled, it was a steady rain that started before I woke up and must have stopped after I went to bed. For that reason, I haven't managed to take any pictures yet. You probably don't want to see pictures of clouds and gray-ity and rain.
My department has orientation stuff going on every day, which is nice, because almost everyone in the program is new to the university. Fewer Americans than I had expected (mostly East Coasters), more people who've been out of school for a while. The professors are really trying to throw us into the whole school thing, we have to do a ten minute presentation on something on Friday. Fortunately it's not graded, and actually I should probably be working on that and not this!
Being in Scotland again has been quite comfortable (except for the rain!). I was dreading being confronted with the Glaswegian accent, notoriously the most difficult Scots accent for outsiders to understand, but I haven't had any problems understanding people so far. Of course, I've jinxed it now.
Anyhow, I did manage to take some pictures in St Andrews, so I will leave you with those:
The back of Queens Gardens, from Watson Avenue
Scotland has the best clouds ever, don't let anyone tell you different
A picture quite like this enticed me to St Andys in the first place
It's just so damn medieval!
Oh yeah, last Friday I went down to Edinburgh. I went up Calton Hill, which I had somehow neglected to do when I was here last time, and then walked down the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace. (Shhh, don't tell the Glaswegians: Edinburgh is still my favorite!)
Paul was waiting for me at Edinburgh Airport, which was all very lovely. I spent a few days in St Andrews, seeing all the old sights. I even walked back out to Andrew Melville - to see a huge pile of dirt from some construction right outside what was my window two years ago. But other than that (and a few changed shop fronts) it's almost like I never left. Everyone who was here when I left is still here and we all went down to the pub quiz at Aikmans as usual on Thursday. The second night I was back, we went down to a pub now called The Rule, used to be called The Gin House though it doesn't matter since it looks exactly the same inside, and watched Scotland almost lose to Iceland. It's all good fun.
I made my way to Glasgow on Saturday, and as I expected it was raining quite a lot. In fact, it's rained quite a lot every day I've been here. Yesterday, for instance, it rained ALL DAY LONG without stopping. And not sprinkled or drizzled, it was a steady rain that started before I woke up and must have stopped after I went to bed. For that reason, I haven't managed to take any pictures yet. You probably don't want to see pictures of clouds and gray-ity and rain.
My department has orientation stuff going on every day, which is nice, because almost everyone in the program is new to the university. Fewer Americans than I had expected (mostly East Coasters), more people who've been out of school for a while. The professors are really trying to throw us into the whole school thing, we have to do a ten minute presentation on something on Friday. Fortunately it's not graded, and actually I should probably be working on that and not this!
Being in Scotland again has been quite comfortable (except for the rain!). I was dreading being confronted with the Glaswegian accent, notoriously the most difficult Scots accent for outsiders to understand, but I haven't had any problems understanding people so far. Of course, I've jinxed it now.
Anyhow, I did manage to take some pictures in St Andrews, so I will leave you with those:
The back of Queens Gardens, from Watson Avenue
Scotland has the best clouds ever, don't let anyone tell you different
A picture quite like this enticed me to St Andys in the first place
It's just so damn medieval!
Oh yeah, last Friday I went down to Edinburgh. I went up Calton Hill, which I had somehow neglected to do when I was here last time, and then walked down the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace. (Shhh, don't tell the Glaswegians: Edinburgh is still my favorite!)
02 September 2008
San Francisco
This past weekend, I went up to SF with my good friends Meaghan, Jessica and Jess's mom Pam. We had tons of fun sightseeing, walking around Fisherman's Wharf and going to Golden Gate Park. We ate so so much food and did lots of shopping, but mostly it was just really good to hang out and laugh!
I took a lot of pictures, which I promptly loaded onto Facebook: San Francisco Weekend
We had a really good time and I'm so glad that we all went! Now they just have to come visit me in Scotland! (And now I also want to bring all the Brits here too!)
I'll be getting on the plane one week from today. I'm really excited, but at the moment I'm mostly just stressed about packing. I have way too much stuff, you guys. It's crazy, I don't know what I'm going to do it all. Ugh.
I took a lot of pictures, which I promptly loaded onto Facebook: San Francisco Weekend
We had a really good time and I'm so glad that we all went! Now they just have to come visit me in Scotland! (And now I also want to bring all the Brits here too!)
I'll be getting on the plane one week from today. I'm really excited, but at the moment I'm mostly just stressed about packing. I have way too much stuff, you guys. It's crazy, I don't know what I'm going to do it all. Ugh.
15 August 2008
Pug Sunday!
Pug Sunday is a spectacle that occurs on the first Sunday of every month in San Francisco. Pug owners from all over the Bay Area bring their squash-nosed pups to Alta Plaza Park to sniff each others' butts and beg for treats. We (my family) took Buddy up there a few years ago (five?) and had a lot of fun. Some of the dogs wear costumes, I remember one had purple sparkly fairy wings! We always talked about going back, but we are people that are slow to action when it comes to actually leaving the house. Anyhow, we finally made it!! Pugs in hand, we made our way to the park where I took well over 100 pictures and nearly 20 videos! Pugs are hilarious, anyone who thinks differently hasn't spent much time with one! The park is cool because it's on a hill (like everything else in the city) and it slopes down with a great view of the bay.
Here are some choice shots of pugs being their usual charming selves!
And finally a video of a pug laying the smack down a french bulldog!
Here are some choice shots of pugs being their usual charming selves!
And finally a video of a pug laying the smack down a french bulldog!
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