Monday, October 01, 2007

It is very late and I should be in bed.

As per the title.

Had my first day of lectures...sort of. Mostly giving out ciriculums and the like. Woke up for breakfast for the second time ever (hooray!) and went out to lectures. I think I'm going to enjoy it...International Relations makes me feel like I'm in the US there are so many Americans taking it. Psychology the lecturer is just good fun. Philosophy we started with a question about two people switching minds and bodies. I think Art and William would be proud that I vehemently disagree that this can be done--that the sort of mind-body duality is complete rubbish and even if you transplanted a person's brain you are fundamentally CHANGING who that person is. So all great there.

Rushed back in time for lunch, then off to sign off for tutorials (basically seminars) and wander about, then back to read a little, drink a little, and go to the Mermaids Theater Society meeting, which sounds like it should be fun. There is a "fresher's play" which they are looking for actors and directors for, so I volunteered to direct. There are also a capella/play auditions through the week which I'll do. I'd also like to try shinty, which is a bit like Hockey, a bit like hitting things with sticks, a bit of drinking, and a lot of really funny posters at the sports day. I think theres a "give it a go" day on wednesday.

I'm getting a bit of the flavour (oooh fancy spelling!) of the British psyche. Lots of Christians. LOTS. I went down to the beach with a couple people from my hall and we were talking about what made us happy. It comes to one girl and she immediately said, "God." So we argued theology for about an hour, which was utterly exhausiting but I think good for me as a once-a-week/month/year binge thing, and then I went back to where the guys outside my dorm were discussing "posh people" and where people shop and where their accents are from and how bad their neighborhoods were (Glasgow does seem like it can get rough, but I have a hard time envisioning being scared of little white people with little knives).

This is such an experience. Things have settled down a bit and now the real learning should begin.

4 comments:

Artdroid said...

I would rethink that not being scared of "little white people with little knives". The underclass in Britan is mostly white - think skinheads - and every bit as vicious and violent as any underclass in the US. Try to stay away from their "little knives".

I AM proud of you standing up for non-mind-body-duality. Descartes has haunted Western Philosophy long enough!

As for the Christians? What can I say???....Hye thee to the nearest Wiccan Coven straight away!

swallace said...

I agree with Art on all points. Remember Clockwork Orange? Those thugs were little white people with knives... and they created plenty of mayhem!

I looked up shinty on Wikipedia and it looks like a truly Scottish experience! Especially the part about it being a winter game (it must be more interesting to play in the rain?).

All in all, sounds like a propitious beginning!

tsonia said...

Okay. I'm still trying to get my mind around you going out for "a sport." Even if it is Shinty! And do think you need to be alert for anyone of any colour (see, I can do it too!) with a little knife. But I know you will be. You're just baiting your parents with this post!

Second breakfast! Now I know why you were always starving when we fed you before we left!

Enjoy!

Anonymous said...

if little thugs have knives, what do big thugs have? the anarchist would say law and order, and the medium sized thug would say bigger knives, so it really depends... on the other hand, a true samurai never draws his sword, so go figure...
i am so happy you have taken up shinty - sticks and bones, no... that's something else...
as for the mind-body duality, all i can say is "OMG, thats sooooo 80s!" While it is true that we have to use language to converse, the foucaultian notion of slippage is noteworthy here, especially when the subject is duality without context.
one more thing, brydawg, stay away from girls who talk about God... trust me on this one.