Friday was the deadline for the short stories for both of my writing classes, and I had a partner presentation the coming Monday in linguistics that I needed to get ready for. My activity outside schoolwork can best be summed up by the number of pictures I took. I can take 200 pictures a day easy. I can take 200 photos within the span of three hours, and the only thing stopping me from taking more is the memory space on my camera. This week I took four pictures. Not a day, for the whole week I had only four pictures taken. Yeah. Not going to be much visual illustration of my points this time.

I did get some interesting insights into the academic system though. The first was the grading system. It’s one thing to read in the syllabus that the percent that a student is expected to manage out of 100 is lower (from what I’ve gather up until now this is because 100% to them means perfect professional quality.) It’s another thing entirely to here “I’ve done this sort of presentation for this teacher before and I got a 62%, which is pretty good.” It took awhile before my brain could catch up and realize that 60-70% here is a B. unless I go above and beyond all expectations on all my course work, I think I’m going to have mini heart attacks when I first get grades back on things before my brain can make the conversion.

My partner for the linguistics presentation also believes in aliens. I really didn’t know what to do with that, especially since it followed a discussion of what he felt was the best TV show Britain produced (Only Fools and Horses.)

The other interesting academic point was how assignments are turned in. the system is set up so that your work is graded a objectively as possible. Work isn’t handed into the teacher but rather submitted in a room that has boxes for each of the years. You fill out a cover sheet with your student number and the course information, and your name is covered so that the person grading can’t see it. You then drop your work in whatever box the course corresponds to (year one, two, etc.) and then you go home. The end. It’s actually a really nice system.

And here’s a picture of a chocolate lamb that I bought to help me stay on track when I was writing. There’s nothing like the promise of chocolate to make things go faster.

The middle was interspersed with little air bubbles, which was nice since it prevented that coating of chocolate you sometimes get on your tongue. That’s always the point when I’m like “okay, I don’t think I want chocolate anymore.”

This week was Valentines day, and, in the days leading up to it, specifically because my mother was curious, I made a point of taking pictures of shop displays that were Valentine’s themed. Or, that I thought were Valentine’s themed. Valentine’s day, as far as I can tell is basically the same here, just a little more understated.

Granted there were shops like this, where you could practically drown in hearts and roses, but they tended to be places that rely on holidays like this to boost business, like florists.

But there were also shops like this. This isn’t a valentine’s themed display. This shop always looks like that. Though they might have added a few more hearts now that I look at it again.

I’d been meaning to go to Rose Street, the next street up from Princes Street, and go street by street seeing what sorts of things were around the area, and I finished this week still meaning to do that. The route I took to get there ended up being in the middle of a mass of construction – I think they’re installing rails in the streets, but it was hard to tell – so, rather than course correct like a normal person, I decided to follow the pedestrian route in front of me and go in the complete opposite direction. I ended up at Calton Hill and a bunch of other places in between that overall validated a decision that was basically fueled by stubbornness.

While this place’s existence doesn’t surprise me, it does make me happy. I both really want to go and am kind of wary of because it might not be as amazing as I think it should be.

The Old Calton Cemetery has a statue/monument commemorating the American emancipation act. I can’t tell you how long I spent trying to convince myself that, no, I was not looking at a statue of Abraham Lincoln, this is Scotland, before I actually read the plaque.

There isn’t really anything all that culturally relevant about this place, except it might have been in an ethnic neighborhood now that I think about it. I’m just including in because I’m pretty sure they only have one of their advertised services and this saddens me.

I had to pick up some house supply stuff (and jelly babies) at The Pond Stretcher, and noticed this on my way.

I suppose he’s more recognizable after the movie came out, but for those who don’t know, this is Tintin from the Belgian comic The Adventures of Tintin. Dressed up Scottish for some reason.

Something that’s really been throwing me off is the Post Offices here. If they didn’t have a sign saying “Post Office” I would think they were some sort of convenience-souvenir store hybrid thing. I’m so used to post offices being places that are for everything to do with mailing something, and everything to do with mailing something ONLY that I’m actually having a hard time believing this is where you go to mail stuff and “post office” doesn’t just mean something else here.

Why? Why would I want the person mailing my stuff to clean my clothes? I seriously need to find someone to ask about this.

I made an attempt at Arthur’s seat late in the week, but I didn’t set aside enough time to make any real progress and still be able to make it home before dark, and when I Google routes to the top, I didn’t pay enough attention to the directions and ended up going up a much steeper incline than I intended. So that remains on my To Do list.

That’s Calton Hill as seen from part way up the slope.

I decided to start the week off by cementing myself as a Strange Person in the mind of my linguistics classmates by taking pictures of the light fixtures and outlets because they looked like faces.

There were a bunch in the flat as well. Actually, there are precious few that don’t look like faces. At least they’re kinda cute and not the sorts of things that could keep you up at night because they’re watching you.

During the week, my free days were spent finishing earlier photo adventures that got cut short by my camera being cranky, which, oddly enough turned this into graveyard week. Yay?

First up was Greyfriars, where I got pegged as Canadian twice, the second time because I stayed on the trail when taking pictures rather than walking over the graves for a better angle. I’ve seen several people doing this and it always seems so disrespectful to me.  Is there any sort of standard graveyard procedure?

The place is known for Greyfrairs Bobby, the Skye Terrier who waited by his master’s grave until he died. I keep hearing stories of dogs doing things like this. It’s like they’re trying to break my heart.

After that was St. Cuthberts Church, which is where John Napier – the guy the university I’m going to here is named after and the one responsible for that chapter you had to do on logarithms in math – is buried. Apparently. Only about a third of the gravestones are legible, so I didn’t even bother trying to find him. Most of the headstones were either so old the words were worn away, or they’d been recently replaced with new stones where the words were white on a sort of pink-red-white marble that’s almost painful to try to read. It did have some cool headstones though, and made it onto my mom’s list of Things She Wants to See when she gets here.

Nana, nana, nana, BATSKULL!
Managed to get that stuck in my dad’s head for a day. I won’t say I’m proud of myself, but I am.

Having only really visited newer graveyards before now, it was really interesting to see the prevalence of imagery alluding rather bluntly to the fact that, yes, these people are in fact dead. Modern culture seems to ignore that fact as much as possible.

I got the chance to go to a pub called Bennet’s just down the street from my flat. I got fish and chips (because I adore it and I figure I should take advantage of it now while I’m some place that consistently does it right) but one of my flatmates ordered a steak pie and this is what she got:

You can see how it’s a pie, I guess – it has a pie crust at least – but it was just so not what you would think of as a pie in the states that we were all a little stunned.

The weekend I took the chance to go to the general section of the National Museum of Scotland since I’d only been in the Scotland focused part up until then. The general museum stuff – taxidermy, shiny rocks, a bunch of different typewriters – is in the older building and has a more traditional museum lay out of rooms with display cases in them. It was still really well laid out, but after the newer building, which I’m guessing was built with the intention of being a museum and is subsequently very impressive from a museum studies stand point, I was a little disappointed.

That aside, I think my favorite section was the taxidermy.

The majestic tiger. With perhaps the least dignified expression physically possible. I think I’ll call him Hobbes.

The most striking thing about the section – beyond the fact that, wow, my camera is a recalcitrant teenager that occasionally throws temper tantrums that consist of 20 blurry or out focus pictures in a row of the exact same thing – was that there was a display dedicated to the different methods animals use to fertilize their eggs.

I don’t think I could see this happening in the U.S. Not without someone making a huge deal out of it.

So, guess who thought she’d posted about week two but apparently didn’t and now subsequently has her posts out of order? At least I’m labeling the weeks in the titles, so hopefully ya’ll can figure it out.

Classes started on Monday. I find it a little odd that classes don’t start until the second week of the semester, but then again I’m American and I’ve only ever been to schools on the quarter system. I think the American part is probably more prevalent though.

My first class was liguistics, to which the professor did not show up. There were also only four of us waiting in the otherwise empty classroom, which was all around worrisome. My other two classes, Starting to Write, and Genre Writing, ended up both being taught by the same teacher who seems like she’ll be an excellent writing facilitator. She appears to be Indian, and has the accent, but has obviously been influenced by the Scottish way of speaking. It’s very interesting to hear how one accent is affected by another, though I do have to spend more time focused on what she’s saying than I can how. The classes themselves have a larger focus on literary theory that other writing classes I’ve taken, (in that there actually is a focus on literary theory) so that will be an interesting point of comparison.

It snowed one night early in the week, which, according to one of our resident assistants, hasn’t happened in several years.

Because of the way my classes are set up, I have Tuesdays and Wednesdays free, so I decided to go on a photo adventure to the National Museum of Scotland.

This is just one side of the Museum. There’s another bit that’s older around the corner. The mix of architectural styles and time periods is persent just about everywhere you go.

I only managed to make it through a couple of sections before my camera decided it well and truly hated me and if I insisted on taking any more photos it was going to make sure every single one came out blurry. That was about when I left.

This is why I make a habit of looking up no matter where I go. There was a section of painted roof displayed on the ceiling and if I had spent my time only concerned with what was at eye level I would have missed it.

I also spent my days off visiting cafés that I’d noticed while walking various places. My Starting to Write class had an assignment to go to a café and observe three people, so I decided to use it as an excuse to try several places out. My favorite ended up being the first one I tried, which also happens to be the closest.

I did take a picture of the outside, but I think this is more interesting. One of the postcards/picture things proclaims buiscuits and potatoes to be friends, but I don’t remember the reasoning. Or if there was any reasoning. It could have been an unsubstantiated claim. Also, if there’s an emergency, we’re supposed to breakdance.

And then Friday was Burns Night. They don’t actually call it the Night of Burns. I wouldn’t recommend calling it that. I’m pretty sure they’ll think you’ve lost your mind. Some people might get what you mean, but really, why risk it?

My flatmates and I went to The Golf Tavern to celebrate because they had two for one haggis that night and they are literally right next door.

Haggis, (lightly) mashed potatoes, some gravy thing I didn’t try, and turnips. All really good, though haggis is a little spicy for my tastes. Also, my parents were super amused when I told them about “two for one haggis.” I have no idea why. I just thought I’d share that.

My linguistics teacher actually showed up to class, as did the rest of the students. Apparently, despite being a discipline that focuses on communication, the journalism department forgot to tell students with different majors the teacher wouldn’t be coming in until next week.

The class itself was fun since once we finished going over the syllabus (I’m not actually sure what they call it, it’s either a guide or a handbook) we split into groups with a worksheet and started working out the rules for both a standard Scottish accent and a less prestigious Scottish accent. I think I’ll really enjoy that class since we’ve got a decent range of UK accents, and, while I’m not the only international student, I am the only American in the class.

Wednesday I decided to go on another photo adventure in the National Museum of Scotland. Except there’s this cool looking church a little further down the street that I’d been meaning to take a picture of, and then there was a neat detail on the building a little past that. Half way down the block I gave up and decided to go on an outdoor photo adventure instead.

One of the things I ended up passing was St. Giles Cathedral. My creative writing teacher had mentioned the fact that the top of St. Giles was a crown just the day before and I was having trouble visualizing it. Then I walked down the street and with out anyone telling me that was the cathedral was like “oh THAT’S what she meant.”

I decided to go to the museum the next day, and it turned out it was a good thing I did. It was raining and kind of miserable, but I managed to make it all the way through the EARLY PEOPLES exhibit getting pictures of just about everything I wanted to, so I count it as a win.

The National Museum of Scotland continues to impress me with the way it displays its items. They had several of these metal statues/display cases that not only showed you the items of jewelry, but showed you where they would have been one the person wearing them. I’m not entirely sure how they compiled the ensembles for the statues, but it was cool to see regardless.

My next order of business was to make it down to Prince’s Street to explore the area around there. I’ve slowly been building a mental map using a combination of google and the EASY MAP my aunt sent me before I left. It’s actually been working really well and just about every time I go out the area of the city I feel comfortable navigating expands. This was another aimless photo adventure just to see what was there, so I ended up having to put several places on my mental list to explore later because my camera decided I was working it too hard and it wanted to go home and sleep.

This rather nicely sums up one of the differences that I wasn’t necessarily expecting. A lot more people here smoke a lot more often. It’s also perfectly fine to smoke in front of the entrance to a building. It’s overall an interesting study in the differences in cultural views of tobacco.
Also, streets and roads are often uneven because that’s just the way they are rather than because the city hasn’t properly maintained them. But my main point is the smoking thing.