Firbush Weekend and Class Updates

Hey everyone! I'm back from my most recent highland adventure! Currently I'm sitting in my room listening to Snow Patrol's "Hundred Million Suns" album with my door open so I can hear my flatmates moving about. We just got a vacuum cleaner from the porter, so we're all cleaning! Jack just finished his room, Carly's working on hers, Will's doing homework, and Antonio is helping Dave From Boston in the kitchen. Dave showed up last night and asked if he could crash with us for a few days, and in return is making us dinner! He went to Uni here last semester, and he was supposed to go back, but decided that he likes it here so much that he got a visa and is working now. He's been bumming places to stay off of his friends for the last few weeks, so it's about our turn to host him, and a gourmet dinner MORE than makes up for it!

Oy. What to say about this last weekend. I've told so many people about it that I'm getting sick of reviewing! In short, it was a GREAT time. We got to Firbush on Friday night and had a great three course dinner, then on Saturday we spent from sunrise until sunset hiking up a VERY large hill/small mountain. That night we had a Ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee), which is a Scottish folk gathering where everyone dances and recites poems and sings! It was really amazing. Sunday I learned how to kayak and I went off orienteering in the deep woods to learn how to navigate around the area with a map and a compass. Good food and good times were abundant! The area is BEAUTIFUL, and I think I want to live there someday, if only for a little while. The only downside to the weekend was that sometime on Saturday I managed to pull something in my right hip, and it's been really painful ever since. Of course, orienteering the next day, and dragging a bunch of groceries back to the flat today didn't help.

Anyway, that's enough about the weekend! If you want to see pictures, go here!

Speaking of pictures, Mom, I've run out of uploading space on Flickr for the month! I had to cut down my pictures from this trip CONSIDERABLY, because I've apparently hit the limit! They won't let me upload anything else until March unless I upgrade my account! Help!

And speaking of getting groceries today, I LOVE grocery shopping. I needed to get some food for the next week and a half or so, and I went over to Tesco (the supermarket here) between classes this afternoon and got ALL KINDS OF GOOD STUFF! I'm getting a lot better at planning meals and getting things that go well together. My new favorite food consists of Tesco brand mini pizzas in the fridge section. They're just really good crust, tomato sauce and cheese, and all you do is pop them in the oven for 7 minutes and open up a can of pineapple, and voila! A tiny, yummy lunch that only costs 1 pound fifty!

And speaking of tomatoes (wow, this is getting out of hand), I've heard three different pronunciations of the word today. Carly says "Toe-mah-toe," with a long ah sound, Jack says "toe-maa-toe" with a short a as in apple, and I say "Tuh-mae-toe." Go figure.

Ok. On to the class update.

For those of you that don't know, I'm taking three classes this semester, but the Uni system here is strange, and what this means is that although I'm only taking three classes (or modules, as they say here), I've got two or three periods of time allocated per week for each class. So it's like having six classes, or something. And to add to this confusion, classes are in different rooms almost every time we meet. And classes aren't at the same time, like 12 to 1 on Tuesday and Thursday. Oh no, that would be too simple. So, here's my class schedule!

Monday:
12 to 1 - Environmental History Lecture
2 to 3 - Environmental History Seminar
4 to 5 - Scottish Society Lecture

Tuesday:
9 to 11 - Scottish Society Seminar
12 to 1 - History: Renaissance to Revolution Lecture

Wednesday:
Nothing

Thursday:
9 t0 10 - History: Ren to Rev Lecture
4 to 5 - Scottish Society Lecture
5 to 6 - Environmental History Lecture

Friday:
11 to 12 - History: Ren to Rev Lecture

So far all my classes are going well, and are quite interesting. Environmental History is fascinating, and I can't wait for our fieldtrips! It really is a combination of science and history in that you're doing a scientific investigation about the land, temperature, rainfall, etc., but then you put that into the framework of history and all that we know from documents and reports in order to find out how man has affected the whole environment. I'm really digging this class.

Scottish Society hasn't really given me a good idea about how I'll like the class yet. It's looking interesting, but it has a lot to do with "what is society," and I feel like I've covered that whole debate previously in other classes.

My History: Ren to Rev class is AWESOME. We spent the first day looking at documentaries of Mary, Queen of Scots, and then on the second day we covered the reign of James V. I'm SO glad I started reading my giant Scottish history book before I got here. I feel like I have a good framework to start from.

Overall, classes here are much different than ones in the US. You aren't babied and read to like you're still in high school, which is nice. And they don't believe in busy work, which cuts down the amount of time you have to sit about filling in worksheets, which I appreciate SO much.
On the other hand, though, it takes a lot more brainpower to stay up to snuff on everything that's going on, and you have to make sure you're getting everything done because NO ONE is going to remind you of anything. Grades are all based on huge projects, for example (and this is pretty much the same in all of my classes), in my Environmental History class my grade is based on,
One 1500 word essay worth 25% of my final grade,
A practical report of another 1500 words worth another 25%,
and a two hour written exam at the end of the course worth 50%.

That means that after spending however many hours in class and outside writing essays, 50% of my grade will be based on a two hour span of time. *Shiver*

Thankfully, top grades are almost extinct here. A passing grade in the US means getting above a 60 percent, or something like that, and an A is 100 percent. Here you're congratulated and applauded if you get a 65 or 70 percent, and 100's just don't exist. And it's easy to understand why when you think of what that grade is based on.

Anyway, Dave From Boston says dinner is ready, so I'll stop rambling! I'll talk to you all soon, I hope!