Holiday Laziness

The last three or so days, my activities have pretty much been reading The Bridge by Iain Banks, cooking, and then doing some writing. In the past three days, I've done quite a bit of writing. It's been wonderful. I've shoved most thoughts of searching for an internship right out of my head.

And the best part about writing it? Not feeling compelled to share it - until the time comes.

So I Went on a Field Trip...

... to the state liquor store on Tuesday. I've been trying to do more cooking recently, and we needed some of the contraband. For Christmas I received the cookbook that the gourmet cook in our community uses - you know the type, every community has one. I found two great recipes I'm going to try this week, one for chicken and one for a beef stew (since it is winter and all). Both of these recipes, however, call for an alcoholic beverage to be added to the cooking solution. Alcohol is a pretty contraband substance for Mormons. Instead of using regular cooking wine and sherry, as my mother is wont to do, we took the advice of our friend and decided to go for the real thing, though. That meant a trip to the State Liquor Store.

I was inordinately excited, because buying liquor is something I've never done before - despite living for a semester in Scotland. I was almost overwhelmed with the choice and selection; I was a babe in the woods. Here was a sign saying "GIN", another scribbled "South African" in handwritten letters. We needed some white wine and some red; because neither of us know what we we're doing, we buy cheap bottles.

I was with my mother, and she didn't get carded. Earlier today, I was making a stew which needed some beer. I got some from the local grocer's, but was a little gutted that the cashier didn't card me.

I should probably stop cooking food that requires alcohol, as I get too much of a kick out of it. Anyway, the food I made tasted alright. Not nearly as much fun as cooking it or buying the alcohol to cook it in.

Snow!

Mom coming over with a shovel to help clear neighbor's driveway.

Back to Regularly Scheduled Programming

As much as I loved living abroad, and learned so much about it, and as much as there were things that I didn’t like living abroad, it must end. I’m still reeling a little from the sudden shock of being back home. I want to go back. I was at an American mall earlier today, and I was weirded out by merely walking around. I didn’t want to be there; I didn’t want to be at home; I didn’t want to be anywhere. I feel like I’m losing so much already of what I have gained by living abroad in Scotland. I’m re-forging connections that had waned over the past few years. The magic of living abroad is fading away into the life I left back in the States.

Before my Spanish-Scottish adventure, this was my personal blog, and it will continue to be so (whee, which means you don’t have to find a different URL to follow my writings!). However, it needs a new theme, as I cannot write any longer about buying stamps in Spain or how uncannily Irn Bru complements white pudding from a chippy (or going au naturel). Blogs always seem to work better if they have a theme, instead of random, meandering thoughts. Although what washes up on the cold, pebbly shore of my consciousness amuses me, I would not want to inflict it upon other people, so that posting is going to be kept to a minimum. I’ve thought about a cooking blog (I got this for Christmas), but that’s already been done. No one wants to read my literary reviews. I’m too self-conscious to turn this into a full-fledged writing blog. My mind jumped pretty readily to making a closed and highly-regulated blog about my dating escapades, entitled “man-hunting” or something o’ the ilk, but as my dates are few and far between, and that could get awkward really quickly even with name changes, I decided to scrap that idea right up quick.

Which leaves me with no leads. Until I figure something out, I'm going to keep on... doing what I've been doing. Yes.

I used a lot of hyphenated words in this post.

I don't know if I've posted this before, but this is Edinburgh Castle. I am still mildly grieving for my separation from Scotland, if you can't tell.

I Saw Three Ships - Mormon Tabernacle Choir

How sweet it is to have returned home, to be back in the midst of family and old friends. Christmas is my favorite holiday; I'm so happy that I get to celebrate it with most of my immediate family and a portion of my extended family. Merry Christmas!

Archive

This was from last Saturday, the 18th of December.

After three weeks, the walk outside my block of flats has been mostly cleared of ice and snow. After that same amount of time, the rubbish that has been piling up in the bins for three weeks (120 rooms worth) was removed. Ah, British efficiency in the face of the elements.

This is It

This is the end. My last night in Edinburgh; I feel empty. The flat is silent, everyone has left - both from my block of flats and the friends I've made at uni. It feels like I'm gone, like I'm not here.

Always back to the beginning, it seems. And this is just another ending... endings must happen so that new beginnings can follow, right? Right?

So did Vizzini. When the job went wrong he went back to the beginning. Well, this is where we got the job, so it's the beginning. And I am staying to Vizzini come. -The Princess Bride 

This isn't Scotland or Spain, if you catch my drift.

Lizzle's Edition of "How Tae Speak Scots"

This post is mostly dedicated to Trope Girl, who will be coming to Scotland this spring semester! I feel like I'm leaving her a legacy. However, I do want to provide some useful information for anyone and everyone traveling to Scotland. There's only so much the Craig Ferguson show can do to help, Americaners out there, so let me help for a moment. This is pretty short and not comprehensive, but my hope is to be mildly entertaining.

Amalgamation of Scottish words

"cannae" or "canna" - I still have trouble pronouncing this one. It's Scots for "can't".

"dinnae" or "dinna" - Also can't pronounce this. It's Scots for "didn't", and there's a huge part of me that thinks it also means "don't". I

"ken" - know. Ken what I mean, yo?

"peeing" - Used in normal context, but also used in description of "peeing cats and dogs" when there's heavy rain out.

"radge" - crazy person. I'm not sure if it's derogatory or not, so be careful with this one.

"mingin'" - your olfactory senses are offended, i.e. something stinks

"off" - something not right, usually spoiled/stinks

"gutted" - really, really sad/disappointed - like "I was gutted I didnae maek ur parrty"

"chip" - what Americans would call French fries. basically everything you know is wrong in Scotland (cue Weird Al refrain)

"crisp" - what Americans would call a potato chip

"chippy" - a place to get some fried haddock (fish) and chips. Edinburgh version: salt, malt vinegar, and brown sauce. It's delicious.

"Weedjie" - someone from Glasgow, shortened form of "Glaswegian"

"pissed" - drunk, often describes Weedjies

"wee" - little, among other connotations

Pronunciation


This is my favorite part of trying tae spaek Scots. I get it wrong all the time, although I would mimic a few of my friends from the YSA all the time because it was fun. I hope they realize that it was me trying to fit in, while also having fun.

lit'le - just like good people from Utah and Idaho, swallow the T

no' - the American O in "no" is too soft and it fades, becoming an "ah" sound. Think short and sweet, like Noh drama - but without the breathy-ness of the H. Make an actual O with your mouth, dagnabit!


Phrases

"Hold the phone" - I have actually heard a Scotsman say this, and it's not something that Mike Meyers merely makes up when he does the voice for Shrek. Basically American "wait a second".

"I cannae be bothered" - It's not worth the effort. This is a beautiful phrase which sums up a lot of Scottish attitudes towards getting work done.

"I dinnae ken" - I don't know.

Scottish homonyms, i.e. "Confusion for Foreigners"

"Do you ken the Ken I ken? Because the Ken I ken dinnae ken you." Because I want to drop this into this blog, see the American: "Buffalo buffaloes buffalo Buffalo buffaloes."

Live from Linlithgow!

So, I had to do yet another video log post, as I took a video whilst at Linlithgow. I haven't looked at it whatsoever, so I don't know how good/bad it is. Completely spontaneous, on-the-spot, unedited version.

Raw Lizzle, here. Beware.

Linlithgow!

So, yesterday Emily, Anneke, Marie and I went to Linlithgow (lin-LITH-go)! Just say that name: it has a bit of magic to it. An odd type, to be sure, foreign and exotic, yet familiar, yet mystical. A friend had recommended the palace to me, and I have a few days to kill some time before heading back to the States, so this seemed like a good opportunity to go.

Emily, Anneke and I went to St Giles, though, first, because we'd been meaning to get some pictures inside the church before we left. You have to pay for a photography license (£2) but it was worth it.

St Giles Kirk from the outside

Looking inside through the arches

Stain glass window, circa 1880s

Stain glass celebrating Rabbie Burns, circa 1980s

Carving on ceiling before entering the Thistle Chapel

Looking down the nave of St Giles, towards the entrance

We met Marie at Waverley station and jumped on a train whose final destination was Glasgow. Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the Linlithgow station and were in Linlithgow town. It was pretty simple, only a few major streets, a few cafes. It was probably the size of St Andrews, I'd say. We grabbed lunch and had a little picnic outside (despite the absolutely freezing weather), and then headed over to the palace. The first impression that I had of the palace was that it was absolutely huge - a fact which was only reconfirmed the more we scrambled through it.

Linlithgow Palace is in ruins, but as such it's pretty cheap to get in (about £5.40), and they let you wander all over the place. There are about five floors which face onto an inner courtyard, and five really large staircases you can wander up. I think I took more pictures yesterday than I did from about October 20 - November 20. There was so much to see and explore. Were I a servant in the mid-sixteenth century, fresh-faced from the farm, I would be utterly lost in that place.

Entrance to Linlithgow Palace, no the Sauron-esque tower is not part of the actual palace

Interior courtyard - with snow!

It's pretty big - now imagine three more sides to this thing

Linlithgow Loch

Big fireplace

How the Great Hall looks today

How it might've looked five centuries ago

Wee Emily up there!

Wee Emily is still up there!

Linlithgow was really cool - literally. My fingers were about to fall off. There were few other tourists there, though, so we had the run of the place, essentially. There were so many rooms and chambers, and they all went back on one another like a maze, that it was almost difficult to get out of the palace. As all of the rooms were in ruin, as well, it was difficult to remember which rooms were Mary's, which were those used by the King and Queen, etc, etc. However, it was a very fertile place for the active imagination - can't you just see memory-ghosts of servants bustling around, of the Queen pacing through her chambers, of little Mary playing down by the Loch?

The above photo is of one of the insignias above the entrance - it's quite sumptuous, is it not? Now imagine the entire castle with ornaments and decorations as brightly painted as the one above. Rather spectacular, no?

All in all, a very, very good day.

Finished!

I'm all done with finals! Some of them went better than others (I have said in the past how I think I fail my finals - there's a part of me that thinks I really did fail my Greek History one), but they're done! In order to celebrate, I've been visiting a few new places, saying "goodbye" to my favorite haunts, and getting a little shopping done.

Wednesday night was my official last time at Institute (and my buddy James' incidental last time, because he missed his flight home), and a few members had been really, really nice and got us a wee little cake and two cards, one signed by everyone, the other a wee postcard showing a map of Scotland. On the back of the postcard was scrawled, "Just so you know where to find us when you visit next, and so you don't forget us." As if I could ever forget these people.

Just like life continues on, so do relationships, even if they are not continued in this life, per se.

Anyway, after Institute was over, we had a small ceilidh with about ten or so people, swinging around the cultural hall (very dangerous, by the way - we had a bit of a casualty), and then we watched Hairspray together afterwards.

Yesterday, I went with three other friends to Linlithgow and saw the Palace there, where Mary Queen of Scots was born. That deserves its own post(!) which I will put up later.

Wow, it's been such a whirlwind of a few days, as after getting back from Linlithgow, I headed over to Rachel's flat in New Town, where we had another unofficial last hang-out with Janine, Sarah, Kieren, and Christian. The latter three had to leave early, and I wanted to hang out a bit more. Janine was already staying over for the night, and Rachel has extra space, so I stayed over too. We got a chippy (one of my last! so sad), and we watched Definitely, Maybe.

Yay!

A farewell chippy meal. Fried squid, chips, and Irn Bru. All you need to be perfectly happy/Scottish.

My sadness looks more like willful distrust - if you understand that sentiment, then we should be best friends. Also, I failed at getting a picture in of the actual chippy food. And I look like a horror story. Only a few more days to go until I'm home. Here, it looks like I'm camping.

I've watched a good portion of movies this semester... the Scottish (or the ones I know) are quite similar to Americans (or at least the ones I know) in that regard.

And today, after making it up to the High Street, I met Beth again for one last hurrah in Scotland before I go home and she continues to stay here to work on her dissertation in St Andrews! It was a good day - Chocolate Soup Cafe, St Giles church, shopping, and German Christmas market. Now, on to packing and a few more goodbyes tonight before settling the very final things.

First Home, then Spain, then Scotland.... I'm getting tired of saying goodbye.

Quotes From the Throes of Finals V

"Beings of a day!  What is anyone?  What is he not?  Man is a dream of a shadow." - Pindar, Pythian Victory Odes

A Little Catching Up

Here are photos!

I have realized a pattern (in the menai date, hee hee) in my posting habits: lots of text, followed by a post full of pictures. I know you all just stick around for the pictures.

Ice more than two inches thick

Entry into the secret tunnel

Claudia's 21st birthday

Rebecca's happy trails eve

High Street looking down towards the Firth

Edinburgh Castle from Princes Street

You'd Think This Were a Tumble Blog II

I am in the midst of writing an exam essay, and I thought about putting this as the concluding paragraph and remarks. However, I felt it had a bit more potential than to be consigned to the end of a paper and then lost to oblivion. So I tweaked it a little bit, turning it into more of a creative-writing piece. This is a significant moment for me; I have forged a link between criticism and creativity. I have proved to myself that such a feat can be done, even if not well. I will wrise again.

‘The power of the city lies in the fact that it disconcerts you. You can try to master it, and for a time, you might succeed. Although you should never, ever forget that it has the ultimate control. Its an ever-shifting, ever-moving buzz. Oh, laddie, it is not safe at all. The only safety it affords is the anonymity, of getting lost in the crowds. The city is the important thing, the powerful thing. And you are living in a postmodern city. Postmodernism means refuting Lyotard’s ‘grand narrative’ theory, it means disruption and change and being unanchored. Cutting yourself off. From agriculture, from family, from friends – even though we play with a superimposed structure on our friends via the city, these little closes and alleys running into each other, like a game of cat-and-mouse. Only, you don't know that you're not the cat, or even the mouse. It means confusion, it means Edinburgh.’

Quotes From the Throes of Finals IV

Alternatively titled ‘Irn Bru II: Scottishness in a Soft Drink’

While reading Jeffrey Karnicky’s essay ‘Irvine Welsh’s Novel Subjectivities’, I came across this quote:

Simon Frith, an English professor living in Scotland, writes that “whenever I discuss Scottishness with Scottish students the consensus is that the only good indicator of a Scot is a Scottish accent.”

This is not true. An additional indicator of Scottishness is whether or not you like Irn Bru. I have had Scottish friends aver that they have to like Irn Bru because they are Scottish. Because this sounds too much like a contract between a nation and a major franchise, I would suggest that liking the bubbly-gum, cough medicine-tasting drink is encoded into their genetic makeup.

Quotes From the Throes of Finals III

Why are these all from Trainspotting? I didn’t even like the book much. The second quote I posted was one of the few redeeming statements from the book. I enclosed this following paragraph because I think it is funny to see it in print; it’s like a scrawl from childhood. I disagree with the statements; drugs have the potential to give you a synthesized experience of life. We're meant to experience things a certain way - why let it be mediated? Certainly, there are proponents who say that such activities enhance the quality and experience of life, but as with many things in life, I reserve my judgment but also my skepticism.

‘Whin yir oan junk, aw ye worry aboot is scorin. Oaf the gear, ye worry aboot loads ay things. Nae money, cannae git pished. Goat money, drinkin too much. Cannae git a burd, ane chance ay a ride. Git a burd, too much hassle, cannae breathe without her gittin oan yir case. Either that, or ye blow it, and feel aw guilty. Ye worry aboot bills, food, bailiffs, these Jambo Nazi scum beatin us, aw the things that he couldnae gie a fuck aboot whin yuv goat a real junk habit. Uv just goat one thing tae worry aboot. The simplicity ay it aw. Ken whit ah mean?’ – Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting

Quotes From the Throes of Finals II

'That night, back at my flat, I heard the buzzer go. Assuming it to be Donna, who had been out, I opened the stair and house doors. A few minutes later, my auld man stood in the doorway with tears in his eyes. It was the first time he'd ever been to my flat. He moved over to me and held me in a crushing grip, sobbing, and repeating - Ma laddie. It felt a world or two better than: "Well, there's nothing tae say."

‘I cried loudly and unselfconsciously. As with Donna, so with my family. We have found an intimacy which may have otherwise elduded us. I wish I hadn’t waited so long to become a human being. Better late than never, though, believe you me.

‘There’s some kids playing out in the back, the strip of grass laminated an electric green by the brilliant sunlight. The sky is a delicious clear blue. Life is beautiful. I’m going to enjoy it, and I’m going to have a long life. I’ll be what the medical staff call a long-term survivor. I just know that I will.’ – Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting

Quotes From the Throes of Finals I

‘Ah hate it the wey Mark’s intae hurtin animals… it’s wrong man. Ye cannae love yirsel if ye want tae hurt things like that… ah mean… what hope is thir. The squirrel’s likes lovely. He’s dain his ain thing. He’s free. That’s mibbe what Rents cannae stand. The squirrel’s free, man.’ –Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting

Reading the City as a Sign

Yes, it's exam time. Isn't this interesting, though?! It's from an article about academically reading the city. She doesn't quite talk about understanding a city or a location through the body, rather than simply 'knowing' it academically/spiritually, but she gets dang close.

Moving about the city is not a passive activity. On the contrary, it stimulates our capcity to perceive, which enables Karl Gottlob Schelle to consider this activity 'non comme un simple mouvement du corps mai bein comme une action dans laquelle quelque chose de l'esprit est engagee' (not as a simple motion of the body but rather as an action in which something spiritual is engaged). It creates awareness of way that motion continually builds and rebuilds the world around us. The action of walking changes or usual or habitual view of the world, opens it up and helps us to reconsider the everyday.

-- Genevieve Quebriac, 'The City: A Space for Event-Related Encounters'

Note to La: Sorry I didn't put in the accents; I don't have the motivation.

Americans in Edinburgh

Happy birthday to my friend Claudia! She turned 21 tonight, and she wanted to do the typical American rituals. A big group of us gathered at her flat, ate cake, made sure we were liquidated, and then set out for Koko, a shnazzy little bar-restaurant near George Square, where most of us students hang out. I'd never been there before, and it was nice being in a bit of a more upscale place than places like the Montague, the Library Bar, the Southsider, Newington Fish and Chips, or even Iman's and - heaven forbid - Globetrotters.

There were lots of shots around, and people drinking absinthe. I was content with my lemon and lime bitters :) We sat, we chatted, a group of us even played pool with a billiard set (because we didn't know how to play billiards).

It was a good night. Pictures to come later. Tomorrow, more writing exam essays and studying for exams. Onwards! Less than a week until I'm done with all my exams, and then a few more days and I'll be on my way home.

Home. I'm feeling ambivalent about it right now. Static. I'm going to miss this place, and the people I've met here, but it will be so, so good to be back home.

You Know You've Been Researching Too Long When...

You 1) can't find any secondary articles and criticism on the text you're evaluating, and 2) find secondary reading entitled 'American Heroes: On Frivolity and Horror in 2008's Summer Superhero Movies: "The Dark Knight, the Incredible Hulk, and Iron Man"'. The abstract reads

An analysis of 2008 Hollywood superhero blockbusters. Iron Mon and The Incredible Hulk are humorous and often light-hearted; but the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight, which reinvents The Joker in Heath Ledger's performance, is much more grim and morally complex—a dark entertainment for pessimistic times.

I'm torn when I see an article entitled thus. It means that popular culture is coming under scrutiny, which is good - but as I sit typing here it's only two years after these films came out. The article was published in the Spring of 2009. I think there needs to be a bit more time before we start examining our current culture. If we immediately start dissecting cultural indicators like films, then it takes away some of the creative potential for further movement and posits one reading of the meaning of said film. It's like Justin Bieber writing a memoir of his life when he's sixteen years old, or tweens updating their Twitter every half hour, or - heaven forbid - a twentysomething woman who just happens to blog about life abroad.

I am aware that finding alternative meanings is the work for subsequent critics, and that merely because all three of these films were major blockbusters they do not lack valid artistic and political statements and reflections of contemporary society. Indeed, 'The Dark Knight' was pretty incredible, and one o' my dear brothers said it was 'almost a perfect film.' But these movies still seem so fresh on the cultural stage. I remember watching 'The Dark Knight' and 'Iron Man' in theaters (I never saw 'The Incredible Hulk'), and perhaps my reaction against the article comes because I feel co-opted into criticism that tries to analyse and impose a reading on me, as a participant in the blockbustering films of that summer.

We all remember these films, don't we?

On further reflection, with the rate that movies are churned out of Hollywood, 'The Dark Knight' does feel like it has come out long ago. When I compare it to other films, though, like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, 'The Dark Knight' seems to follow right on its heels. (I have to keep reminding myself that Lord of the Rings came out in 2001, 2002, and 2003). Maybe in cultural history, there is only 'the past,' which can be subdivided into 'the recent past' which includes things that happened in one's lifetime and then 'the distant past' which happened before one was born or memory formed. That is overly simplistic, and a cultural historian would probably go at me with one of Gimli's war axes.

Thank You, La-La

I'm slowly working through A Life of One's Own. I'm not sure, quite yet, what to make of it. I think there is some great advice there, and it's interesting to hear the psychology behind some of Woolf's work. But, as always, I want to have my cake and eat it too. I want to be the person who is making these discoveries for myself, experiencing Virginia Woolf's writing myself. I want to be the one writing about it and mediating other people's experiences of her, not being on the receiving end of such a process.

I feel I have a bit more growing up to do.

"If someone was once interesting to you but has since moved on, subdue your impulse to blame her for some total or damnable duplicity. I have to try to sit tight as I admit my former friends are complicated, that they range between interests, and that no interesting and lasting friend is utterly consistent."

-- Ilana Simons, A Life of One's Own

Examining

It's the midst of exams and being busy, which means that I will be posting a lot of quotations that I come across in my reading, researching, and studying. Putting quotes up is not unique to exam-time, but rather a lovely side effect. I'm not doing anything interesting to friends and family back home at the moment, but I thought I'd share a bit of what's going on inside my head.

'"From our inns," returned the gentleman, "a stranger might imagine that we were a nation of poets; machines at least containing poetry, which the notion of a journey emptied of their contents: is it from the vanity of being thought geniuses, or a mere mechanical imitation of the custom of others, that we are tempted to scrawl rhime upon such places?"'

--Henry Mackenzie, The Man of Feeling

We Have Found It....

...the secret tunnel. Through the mountains. To the Sheep's Heid Inn and Duddingston Loch.

Video Blogging, Take One

It worked, it worked! At least for me - I put the video settings on private, so you might have trouble viewing it via Youtube. And here comes the confession where I hate the sound of my voice - it sounds high-pitched, nasally, and annoying. Especially when I trail off and finish a sentence weakly. 

Anyway, I'm afraid of heights.

Featured in this video: Claudia, Lindsey, Chelsea, and Lauren!

The Top of a Ferris Wheel is a Bad Place to Remember You're Afraid of Heights

Do you know what this is? This is my 200th post! And what better way than to celebrate it than with a video on a ferris wheel? First up for the evening (Friday night, yesh) was the Christmas Market, in which I got a free sweet mince pie and a ride on the ferris wheel, and where I filmed this video:

Apparently the video refuses to upload properly, so here are a few pictures:

Fire Punch makes fire lasers launch from your eyes.

Lindsey in front of the Ferris Wheel.

Blurry view of the festivities.

Claudia and Lindsey being themselves.

You'll just have to take my word for it until the video loads properly that the top of a ferris wheel is a very bad place to remember suddenly that you're afraid of heights.

Afterwards, I went to the cinema with some friends and saw the best worst Christmas-horror film imaginable. It's called Rare Export. Let me take a minute, just sit right there, I'll tell you why it's better than 'Fresh Prince of Bel Air'. First of all, it was made in Finland. That earns this film points for being foreign, and the country is just  random enough without being obscure: Finland's status as one of the countries with the happiest overall population, good educational system, etc., means that they should know how to pull off a reasonably good film.

Secondly, it was about Santa being a gigantic horned demon, frozen and buried beneath a mountain. Of course, the wealthy Americans had to go and dig it up for prophet, and then the Finns must save the day by blowing up the thawing Santa-demon. The first half of the movie is quite jumpy, really, until halfway through the film when you begin to have armies of old, nude men ('elves') running through Finnish forests, the film evokes a whole new type of fear.

However, they do end up producing a line of Santas from the old men. What makes this gold is that they have an assembly line of Santas, perfecting their Santa-ness under Bolshevik-like surveillance. Take my word - hilarious.

'Come, my blossoming tree, this evening we'll turn out the light and I'll lay your spectacles to rest on two swelling buds that promise to bring forth leaves. You'll score the celestial vault with the tips of your branches, and shake your invisible trunk as it props up the moon. New dreams will fall back down like warm snow at our feet. You'll plant your high-heeled roots firmly in the earth. Let me climb over your bamboo heart, I want to sleep by your side.'

- Mathias Malzieu, The Boy With the Cuckoo-Clock Heart


I don't understand this book, other than it is a static exploration of young love. The images here are lovely, they just don't make sense to me. Perhaps I have to draw my own conclusions (parataxis).

Pair o' taxis.

From "Set in Darkness"

"'I'm serious. We all come from darkness, you have to remember that, and we sleep during the night to escape the fact. I'll bet you have trouble sleeping at night, don't you?' He didn't say anything. Her face grew less animated. 'We'll all return to darkness one day, when the sun burns out.' A sudden smile lit her eyes. '"Though my soul may set in darkness, It will rise in perfect light."'
"'A poem?' he guessed.
"She nodded. 'I forget the rest.'"

-Ian Rankin, Set in Darkness


Next post will, I hope, be something special. Also, happy birthday to Aniue-san (J-Chan)! 

On Discovering an Interesting Blog and Charles Dickens

Not too long ago, I was skimming around the internet and happened upon a blog kept by a college acquaintance of mine. We worked on the same body-image awareness literary magazine, and she is a fellow English major. I admit that she is a good writer; her first piece for the magazine wasn’t that good, but she has improved, which is really the crowning achievement. However, I was interested in what she was writing. It’s uncanny how similar people’s childhoods can be, yet there are distinctive threads that we all have that make them marginally unique. That marginality is all that is required, really.

However, she imagined herself to be a writer, a poet, a child-prodigy who had her works published when she was ten. How often did I dream the same thing? How often did I think that The Tale of Lirru-um or The Maw of the Hawk would give rise to fame and stardom like J.K. Rowling? I still have faith in my Nessa project, even though I started it when I was eighteen as part of a creative writing class, and it lies mouldering in my black Moleskine notebook with the triskele on it. I’m twenty-one already – when did that happen? How long has it been this way? What am I going to do with the rest of my life? Probably figure out what I should be doing long after I should have figured it out, and then wish I could go back in time. I am a person who lives life backwards, out of sync. However, no, no, I must go forward and be happy with whatever I’m doing right now, and let the wide and wandering road take me whither it will. However, I must always keep in mind the fact that enough money to live on needs to be made and people need to be helped, which can best be done with time and/or money.

Anyway, enough digressions.

I have begun, for the very first time in my life, to read Charles Dickens. Why on earth has it taken me so long to read him? Why is he so brilliant? From the very first few pages of Hard Times, it is there, it is alive. Reality, truth, imagination, whatever you’re looking for.

'"Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them."'

'The Fairy palaces burst into illumination, before pale morning showed the monstrous serpents of smoke trailing themselves over Coketown. A clattering of clogs upon the pavement; a rapid ringing of bells; and all the melancholy mad elephants, polished and oiled up for the day’s monotony, were at their heavy exercise again.'

Post script because this needed to be published before it became irrelevant. (The first part was written about five days ago.)

I suppose my point in this post is to discuss how much literature can impact us, twinned with the idea that so many of our hopes and dreams are the same. However, there are those minute details that make experience unique, that make them mine or yours or hers. I don’t think I made that point very clear.

This One Has Pictures III

Just pictures for now:

Ghillie Dhu, where my program held a Thanksgiving dinner for all us exchange students on Wednesday.

Friends! Callie, Rebceca, Bethany, Sarah, Alexander 

Sisters! 

I look like a Parliamentary intern!

K in front of Holyrood Palace

I am Thistle.

Sunset from Arthur's Seat

...I look like K... but this is also Stirling Castle: Take III.

Castle Doune!!! Does it look familiar, anyone??? How about... 'Your muzzer was a hamster, and your fazzer smelt of elderberries!'

The bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.

The Forth Road Bridge in the distance