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.
20 September 2008
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.
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