Too Long

So very, very much has happened. Now when I sit down to think about it, it's hard to remember all the little bits that I wanted to recall here... where did I leave off? Where's my cast of characters? What the hell has been happening to me?!?

Well, let's start off with the basic dramatis personae: the girls with whom I live. There are seven of us now, all beds are occupied and you couldn't fit another stick of celery in the fridge if you tried. Our latest resident, Naimee, arrived from Nigeria two weeks ago now, and she seems quite sweet. She always speaks in a husky sort of whisper, but always comes by my door and waits for me to acknowledge her greeting before moving on. Being from Nigeria, she's basically surrounded by her fellow countrymen-- I really don't think there's anybody left in Nigeria, they're all in Aberdeen. Most seem to be studying things having to do with oil and gas, and the rest of the girls aren't so much a fan. But we'll get to that later. Okay, so, there's Naimee, Josephine (from Uganda? I think), Loretta (from Ghana), Elena (half Nigerian, half English), Nicolina (from Oslo, Norway) and Christine (also from Norway). Josephine and Loretta are both in law of some kind, and Loretta looks like she just stepped out of a premiere London firm-- she's always immaculately dressed, hair perfect, face pristine. I have no idea how she does it, and her english is amazing. Elena is married with two small children, and she misses them dearly. She reminds me a bit of my mother when she was younger. Nicolina is probably the friendliest out of all of us, as she bounces from room to room, visiting, complaining with good humor and generally commiserating. She's so pleasantly plump with amazingly clear skin and very dark hair. Christine is in the room immediately next to mine, and she's perhaps my favorite. She's this tiny little slip of a girl, blonde hair and blue eyes like the quintessential Norwegian, but when she was young lived for a year in Teaside, so she honest to god sounds like she's from Newcastle-- it's about the most bizarre thing possible, watching the native English try to grasp the fact that she's actually Norwegian.

Apart from the girls who live with me, there's Arrlah, Dawn, Raj and Sabrina. Arrlah is on the same course as Christine, also from Norway, and also amazing. Here english isn't quite as good, but she's so funny that it doesn't matter. She's incredibly tall and thin and gorgeously Norwegian anyways, but a lightweight. Dawn is from the Lake District, has a car (!) and lives with Arrlah. She's a bit more abrasive than the rest of us, but a good pub chum nonetheless-- she's also in Geology and keeps sweeping us along on her department's post-grad pub crawls, which makes for a good time. Raj is this tiny little Indian girl on the course with Christine and Arrlah, originally from London but went to Uni in Liverpool. Sabrina is from Berlin, she's 27 with white-blonde hair and the softest voice ever. We all went out clubbing exactly ONCE and i think we scandalized the hell out of poor Sabrina. Now, Raj is dating Jerry, who is from Ireland (Cork, to be precise) who seems like a genuinely nice guy. Both he and Nicolina are studying International Relations, but he doesn't come out with us much as he is inevitably the only guy. Poor thing.

Kids in my class: there are only FOUR OF US. In the entire program. Nowhere did the University of Aberdeen admit to the MLitt being so small. I mean, there are about 30 people in total, if you combine the MLitt in Scottish and Irish Studies, MLitt in the Novel, MLitt in English Literature, Masters in Visual Culture, and we few MLitt in Comparative Literature and Philosophy. Of there four, there's Warren, who is the only boy. He went here for his undergrad as well, but took Hispanic Studies, so he's a little rough on the philosophy. Siobhan also went here for her undergrad, but she was in English and French. Lena makes four, and she's from Germany. I'm not exactly sure of the details, but she told me that she's not actually finished with her undergraduate degree back in Germany, but that she'll take the last year when she heads home after completing this program. *scratches head* But then how did she get in? Who knows.



I'm enrolled in three courses currently, two of them being combined with all the other MLitts and the lone Visual Culture guy. Two of them are basically worthless and alternate Wednesdays-- Research Methods and Scholarly Writing and Presentation. For the past few classes in Research Methods we've been learning all about citation-- medieval manuscripts, the short title catalogue, calendar of state papers, database of national biography, the whole nine yards. Now, I know that citation is crucially important, but two hours of it is mind-numbing. And it's so ridiculously nit picky that I can't bring myself to feel confident in it. Our very first graded assessment was over just this bullshit, and lord only knows what they'll deduct points for, as the directions were a tad less than clear. Regardless, it's done. Unfortunately, Scholarly Writing isn't much better-- last week we spent two hours in a computer lab learning how to use PowerPoint. Yes, that's right. PowerPoint. I was slightly less than enthused. I mean, if you don't know how to put together a few slides, you probably shouldn't be in grad school. And there's a tutorial built in to the program! The single saving grace of this entire class would have to be the lecturer, let's call him the Academic Aussie (A2 for further reference). He's brand-new to the UK and the University this Fall, and he got the class dumped in his lap when the faculty who was supposed to teach it withdrew for unknown reasons. He didn't write the syllabus, he didn't pick the grading criteria, and he has the common decency to accept that most of us could skate backwards blindfolded through it. His field of specialization is medieval Icelandic and viking poetry, which I think is awesome. He's just young and awkward enough to be endearing. We have to submit a PowerPoint of 10 slides to him, along with a 5-minute presentation next week on the scholarly topic of our choice. I e-mailed him, asking if he wanted us to submit our topics to him "so as to avoid subjecting you to 30 presentations on the existential tendencies of Emily Dickinson's poetry," to which he responded, "Ahhh, the existential tendencies of Emily Dickinson! I can hardly wait! If you're worried about it, feel free to ask me or come by my office. You could come by the office even if you're not worried." And THEN, during that interminable course on PowerPoint, he kept pulling ED as the example topic, and I'd grin compulsively each time. After offering up that frequently it's easier to read white text on a black background in low lighting, he announced that his "esteemed colleague in the back corner..." and then told them exactly what I'd told him. *blushes furiously* He then quasi-walked me to my next class, and I say quasi- because I didn't realize where he was bound for, but then saw him walking back precisely the way we'd come after opening the door for me. I think he's probably just a genuinely nice guy. I'll drop by his office hours on Tuesday and ask if there's ever going to be an opportunity for him to talk to the class about how to locate and submit to reputable journals, how to tell that they're reputable, and how to find the good conferences, considering that's what I was hoping the class would be about anyway.
My third and by FAR the best class I've got is called "Encounters: Literature and Modern Thought," and despite the hokey title, I love it. We started out reading a new defence of the Humanities which I think every administrator and professor back at LakeState should read like gospel. What made it even better is that the man who wrote it, Dr. Chris Fynsk, was the one leading the class! There's just the four of us in the class, and so discussion is more like conversation, and the whole setting is just to intimate, I love it. Dr. Fynsk is the Head of the School of English, and also the leading authority on Maurice Blanchot, who was next up on the reading list. I'm coming to realize that I have a natural affinity to post-war French philosophy. I was the only one of the four to have read Hegel, who was heavily quoted in the text we read, Blanchot's essay, Literature & the Right to Death, and I felt a little special. Next we moved on to a new reading and a new lecturer: Jonathan Israel's Radical Enlightenment and Dr. Nesbitt. I like Dr. Nesbitt, he has the same vocal quality as Dr. Gadzinski back at LSSU-- all whispery and slightly hoarse. He's also fresh off the boat from the University of Miami-Ohio, and he called me out on my accent almost immediately. His concentration has mostly been on the Haitian Revolution, and he just sent his manuscript off to the publishers after 5 years of work. Needless to say, he's been in a good mood since then. They also just asked him to edit some new translations of the key figure in the Haitian Revolution (proves how closely I was listening, I don't remember the guy's name-- Toussant L'Ouverture, perhaps? I don't remember) and he's been floating since then. Anyways, we just finished up with Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise, and I was left questioning how we never read him in any of Dr. Swedene's philosophy classes? He's a RADICAL thinker, and basically dismantles Cartesian dualism, Hobbes, Locke and all of the Bible in a coherent system which is still impossible to completely refute. He postulates necessary mutation ages before Darwin boarded the Beagle, claims God OR Nature in his argument before Nietzsche announced the death of God, presented a singular essence of substance and postulated that motion is inherent in matter, in direct opposition to Newton, and we never even read an excerpt! I don't get it. And next week we're on to Diderot. I'm looking forward to it. What a sensation-- I can't remember the last time I was actually stimulated by what I needed to read for class.
On other fronts, we've made friends with the gentlemen who live in the flat directly next to ours. I guess this is going to require a little more naming... There are only 5 in their flat, all studying law, I'm told: Allistair is an older guy, I'd put him at just over 40, maybe? Grey hair, he was in the royal military for years and years, and he's got some crazy stories. His wife is holding down the fort in Glasgow, and he frequently slips away for the weekends down to visit. Peter is from Warsaw and vaguely fish-faced, his english is rather brutal, and he loves the Pixies. What an odd mix. Then there's Jack, who is not JUST French, he's Parisian. Lord, he's so, so Parisian. He's in real estate law and kept on about how he's really a citizen of the world-- yeah, okay. Alessandro or Alex, he's from Athens and is working on the first year of his Ph.D., but he received both his undergraduate and his masters here as well. For the sake of reference and continuity in most parts of my life, let's refer to him as The Greek. I have yet to actually meet the other guy, Allistair says he's from Egypt or perhaps Saudi Arabia, he doesn't really know. What makes all of this quite fun is that their kitchen window forms a 90-degree angle to my bedroom window, and while they can only really see the corner of my room and the side of my wardrobe, I can always hear when they're about. I keep my window open because I like to keep my room nice and cool, but the shower is also right on the other side of the wall, and there's a faint smell of moisture and mildew when the room is shut up tight. Occasionally I'll actually sit beside the window as there is a chair there (as it was when I moved in) and it gets nice afternoon sunlight. Yes, CB, there is sunlight in Scotland, it's our best-kept secret. But when I do sit there, I look almost straight into their kitchen. Just the other day, Allistair leaned out the window and, seeing my light on, called to me. We then had a very pleasant chat whilst leaning out our respective windows. It's a little strange and occasionally a little invasive, but I like it.
We first met them during a fire drill when some of the freshers in the flat below us decided that garlic bread would be AMAZING, but then proceeded to pass out without pulling it out of the oven... stupid drunk 18 year old boys. Anyways, Christine took the initiative and invited them over for drinks one Friday night, but they never showed! Well, at least not until we'd polished off all the wine and opened the door to head out to the clubs. Allistair then came over and begged forgiveness later the following week, explaining that Christine had talked to Peter, whose english isn't quite up to par, and he didn't tell them about the invite until an hour or so after she'd knocked. Well, no hard feelings, we'd try again. I decided to make some bruschetta and truffles, serve some hummus with celery and tomatoes and we'd all drink wine like proper adults. Allistair, Peter and the Greek all made it this time, and a lovely time SEVERAL bottles of wine were had. Somebody suggested heading out to the clubs, it was only 1 in the morning-- sure, why not? (Allistair later claimed that it was my idea, but I KNOW that it was not, Christine thinks it was the Greek, and I'm apt to agree.) We'd also picked up a girl named Bruna who is here doing her semester abroad from Brazil-- she's petite, charming and has an unusual lip piercing, in addition to being friendly with Jack. Well, the rest of the girls hung back because we'd made plans to head out to Braemar the next morning for a small weekender, but what the hell, I'd go. Then I found myself in a cab with people I'd known for about 3 hours-- Peter, Jack, Bruna and the Greek. We went out, danced, Jack and the Greek kept buying me drinks, all was well. Then the bars closed down and we headed home. The Greek slipped a small glass marble in my jacket pocket and left his arm around my waist-- Allistair had mentioned something about his having a girlfriend earlier in the evening when the Greek stepped out to answer a cell phone call, but I decided to ignore it. A nice thing to do? Certainly not, but it's what I did. We eventually caught a taxi and scavenged through their apartment and mine of cans of assorted beers and 1 1/2 bottles of white wine, and then headed out to the woods behind the housing so as not to disturb sleeping roommies. Jack brought his new Polaroid camera and took several pictures of trees in the dark, claiming he would put them in a frame and their juxtaposition would create beautiful meaning. Like I said, he's uber-Parisian. The rest of them gradually drifted away, and the long and short of this is that I wound up fooling around with the Greek while sitting on an old downed tree in the woods behind the residence. He's a talker, and just prior to kissing me told me that he and his girlfriend, Frederica, have been together for a year but he doesn't love her anymore, but it's so familiar and comfortable that he doesn't know how to leave her, and that it was she who had kept stalker-calling him earlier because she didn't want him in another girl's flat. With good reason, I suppose, in hindsight.
The thing is, the Greek reminds me a LOT of Luther. They have the same basic build and coloring, though Luther was a bit more pale. They shrug the same way. Their hands are startlingly similar... and I don't know what that means. I was also quite drunk, so try not to judge too harshly. He walked me to my door, kissed me goodnight, asked me to keep all this under my hat, and walked to his own door.
I woke up the next morning to go to Braemar, still drunk, leaves in my hair, and giggly as all hell. Christine took one look at me and squealed.
Braemar was beautiful. Dawn drove, and I must say that the Highlands are everything people say. I'm in love with this place. We walked around the village, saw highland cows, pronounced 'hey-lin coo', traversed shallow rivers, and basically had a smashing time.
Since then, life's been pretty quiet. My iPod, my baby, is sick-- she shivers and grinds and won't play, and I can't quite figure out how to remedy the situation. I finally got into town and found out the technical support number for Apple here in the UK because the website helped me not at all, so hopefully I can send the baby off and they'll fix her up right. My speakers also died, and I'm not so happy about that. I finally got my excess aid check, but it's going to take another 3 weeks to open a checking account so I can cash it. NOT HAPPY. *le sigh* It's just that it's taking so long. I also still don't have a cell phone, or a mobile as they call them here. Everyone is completely confounded by this-- how do I survive?? My loan officer called it "barbaric." I just shake my head-- it's not like I'm living on raw meat at the back of a cave, I just lack the ability to text-message. I think I'll finally break down and get one of the little pay as you go jobbies from T-Mobile, they seem to have the cheapest phones that will do everything I want. I have no desire to pay what will translate to $100 for a damn phone. Lord. I wince at paying $20 for groceries.
Speaking of groceries, I'm living on celery, cherry tomatoes and hummus. No joke. And I think that, in combination with all the walks up and down hills to school and back, is vastly helping my figure. I'm a fan of this. I also live on the third floor of my building, and that can't hurt.
I watched L'Auberg Espangole yesterday by myself, and both winced and laughed. I first saw it with Luther on his recommendation, and bought myself a copy a while later, but that was nearly 3 years ago. I hadn't seen it since then, and to watch it now, I realize that I'm living in my own spanish apartment. I don't know how it's going to turn out, but I'm okay with that,
Regarding my next bold move, I went to a wine and cheese reception with the College of Arts and Letters and had a very interesting exchange with Dr. Fynsk. He introduced me to the heads of the schools of Law and Business as one of the "excellent students" which I take to be quite the compliment. Dr. Fynsk is the one responsible for the creation of the Center of Modern Thought, which is on the cutting edge of interdisciplinary exchange here, and I think it's absolutely brilliant. There's no doing anything about the really big, important issues if you stay pigeon-holed in philosophy and refuse to talk to the earth science people, who in turn scoff at the economists, who discount the sociologists-- we've all got to talk together, and that's what the Center is all about. There's a big meeting on Energy here in the Spring, and I'm outrageously excited about it, but more on that in a different post. Anyways, Dr. Fynsk asked where I was from and I murmured something about it being a little, no name university in Michigan. He said, "What, like the University of...?" No, I didn't go to the University of Michigan. Bitch, please, they wouldn't let me in. He went on to say that I seemed most excellently prepared for the kind of discourse he wanted to foster and had I considered staying on for my Ph.D.? It seemed to him that someone like me could really flourish here at the University of Aberdeen.

SAY WHAT.

I'm in the process of scheduling a suggested meeting with him to talk about precisely this. The thing is, I hadn't thought to stay here for another degree-- you're supposed to go to a bunch of different schools, maximizing the number of people you know in academia and therefore vreating as large a network as possible. However, as the Greek put it, if you're happy here and they've got the best department around, why would you leave and go to a lesser institution? Why, indeed. It would depend on funding, honestly, as I can't really afford to say here for another three years, but the idea has more and more appeal the longer I think about it.
Speaking of the Greek, he was supposed to come over for another round of drinks with his flatmates just this past Friday, but I guess they just found out about a huge presentation they all need to work on and so bailed out. Unfortunatley, none of them thought to tell us... like Allistair says, their concept of punctuality is fluid. Time is irrelevant. We're still experiencing some gaps in culture, but I'm getting more and more used to it. The Norwegians are getting more and more frustrated by it, though-- their classes are dominantly populated by Nigerians who don't so much adhere to western ideas of courtesy or respect. I don't know about any of this personally, as I'm not in class with any of them, but their stories are pretty wild.
I'm getting used to my united nations spanish apartment. Starting at about 5 in the evening, people open their doors, there's a rotation of people in the kitchen, talking about your day, asking about lectures, relaxed visiting... I like it. There are still some shocks to be had-- Naimee apparently brought several whole dried fish with her from Nigeria, and she made one up the other night. They're all wrapped in newspaper, but she dunked it in a tupperware bowl full of water and popped it in the microwave. The fish, eyes, guts and all, reinflated and then popped, at which point she knew it was done. The smell of fish in the apartment was overwhelming... and she casually picked the meat off the bones. I was a little startled, but to each their own. Christine attacked the kitchen with a can of air freshner as soon as Naimee was back in her room, and all I could do was laugh. Also, I still hate the smell of fish.
Ohh, there's so much more to tell-- a disasterous tapas dinner with Dawn and her friend, Bosh, my first encounter with chips and cheese, mysterious bagpipes and drums on a Saturday morning, my new brown shoes, a box from home that made me cry-- but this post is too long already, and when you live at the speed of light, by the time you slow down to talk about everything, it seems so long ago that it can't be interesting. It was all just last week, but I'm already a different person than I was then.

I'll try to update this more often, I think that will help.