I handed in my first essay of the semester today and I'm fairly happy with it. I'm really enjoying classes--a biology module on ecosystems that's nice and fact-y, and a history module on the history of human interaction with the environment and environmental thought, which so far has some really cool stuff on the history of thought as its influenced by evolving concepts of technology and science as well as the changing place of religion. Then there's the review essay, obviously, but I really haven't started research on that in a significant way...that's to come next week, I think.
I am involved in way too much, as usual. I'm a production of Shakespeare's Caesar going up on the ides of March which is fast approaching, as well as playing Prospero in The Tempest and being essentially the narrator in Antigone (all of the soldier/messenger parts condensed...essentially, everything that happens offstage is told by me in horrendous monologues), both going up in On the Rocks, the theatre festival here. And auditions still aren't over! I'm also directing my devised piece, which is coming along quite well. It's had a really interesting contingent of artists and writers interested in getting involved in creating original work, and I hope to continue those relationships after the show, as it has evolved into a mini-community in a really cool way.
Socially I'm just sort of finding my feet this semester, have only really started going out and having fun this last week, but that's been nice. I'm feeling like this semester will be a lot of reconnection, and I have the impulse back to go meet new people and do new, fun things...I do tend to get into a rut, as it is very easy to let theatre dominate my life and not have to interact much outside of that. I think we have flat stuff more-or-less sorted out for next year, have applied to a few places at least. I'm really excited to live with the friend's I'll be with, it should be a very strange and interesting flat. And I will be the only one who can even semi-cook, which is a frightening prospect!
Plans for the next week include, I think, writing out more of my play and figuring out the structure (the sentence is based on is "this is the story of a small girl pursued by a strange wind", I've been thinking a lot about both the creative process as a journey and actual journeys--I want to have a look at the Odyssey and Dante's Inferno) and going for massive amounts of coffee with people. And starting this review essay.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Saturday, January 09, 2010
The Oddessy, Part 2
I am back in St Andrews
The flight left another hour after they said it would (already a 5 hour delay because of snow in London) because of slowness of LAX with baggage checking under increased security. Flight itself was good--watched Julie & Julia and slept for ages...then got to Heathrow. Oh boy. Flight to Edinburgh cancelled, they said 'go get your bag and we'll put you on a coach'--yes, drive up through the ice and snow! Waited for 4 hours for my bag, which is still in Heathrow somewhere, then ran when they said 'final call for coaches to Edinburgh!' The coach drove through the night, leaving at midnight, for 9 hours. Then, we turned off one exit before the actual airport exit accidentaly and got stuck in a snow drift. Joy! Dunno what the others ended up doing, may still be there, but I hiked in to the airport (through the morning mist and snow...nice sunrise, though!) and got a bus into central Edinburgh. Spent the afternoon at Zoe's, then got the bus back to St Andrews--at the bus transfer, realised that I couldn't find the ticket anywhere. The guy let me on anyways, since he'd seen me get off of the first bus.
So, everything that could go wrong did? Yep! But I live.
The flight left another hour after they said it would (already a 5 hour delay because of snow in London) because of slowness of LAX with baggage checking under increased security. Flight itself was good--watched Julie & Julia and slept for ages...then got to Heathrow. Oh boy. Flight to Edinburgh cancelled, they said 'go get your bag and we'll put you on a coach'--yes, drive up through the ice and snow! Waited for 4 hours for my bag, which is still in Heathrow somewhere, then ran when they said 'final call for coaches to Edinburgh!' The coach drove through the night, leaving at midnight, for 9 hours. Then, we turned off one exit before the actual airport exit accidentaly and got stuck in a snow drift. Joy! Dunno what the others ended up doing, may still be there, but I hiked in to the airport (through the morning mist and snow...nice sunrise, though!) and got a bus into central Edinburgh. Spent the afternoon at Zoe's, then got the bus back to St Andrews--at the bus transfer, realised that I couldn't find the ticket anywhere. The guy let me on anyways, since he'd seen me get off of the first bus.
So, everything that could go wrong did? Yep! But I live.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Definition I liked
"life experience" — i.e., "time spent in involuntary biological persistence"
This from blog "The War on Mediocrity" at http://colinmarshall.livejournal.com/.
This from blog "The War on Mediocrity" at http://colinmarshall.livejournal.com/.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
Funny, Life
So I have rehearsal every night this week, occasionally two at once, and my assessment starts being due at the end of the week. Feel relatively good about my "All environmental issues are political: discuss". I waffle on about Foucault which is great fun, but I still need to get examples and for examples I need to do more research. I wrote a serviceable introduction today for the essay on why geographers should read Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, a book about the gentrification of Times Square/how the author likes to suck homeless people off in porn theatres. I really disliked the author and writing style, but it was certainly the most unusal book I've been assigned here. The third essay, on AIDS, I've yet to start. It just feels too broad: we have a few pages of obvious, non-related statistics, and using them and outside research are meant to link poverty, prostitution, education, and orphanhood in the context of AIDS to sustainable development in Nigeria.
Rehearsals have been going *okay*. I am feeling really disillusioned with acting, as if it was some sort of training or skill-building that was incredibly relevant for my high school life but whose importance lessens with every year that goes by. I don't know if I want to audition for stuff next semester, but have a fear that if I don't I will be casting about aimlessly with ways to fill my non-academic time.
This all sounds terribly mopey, but it isn't really. I am enjoying this time, learning and just thinking a lot. Have started thinking about the future a wee bit, weird as that is. Want to do more with Spanish, I suppose as its one of the few practical real-world 'skills' that 14 years of education has given me. I realise that I think a lot about/in terms of the summer between first and second year in Costa Rica because of language development and manual labour. I'm interested in exploring the WWOOF-ing network, which is sort of like couchsurfing but is specifically for farms. The idea is that you join the site for a small fee (for a year), and then travel around approved farms wherever you like, doing work in exchange for a bed and food. If I want to be back in Scotland for the Fringe, WWOOF-ing around England/Spain could be a cool way to spend a month of summer. All just thoughts though.
Rehearsals have been going *okay*. I am feeling really disillusioned with acting, as if it was some sort of training or skill-building that was incredibly relevant for my high school life but whose importance lessens with every year that goes by. I don't know if I want to audition for stuff next semester, but have a fear that if I don't I will be casting about aimlessly with ways to fill my non-academic time.
This all sounds terribly mopey, but it isn't really. I am enjoying this time, learning and just thinking a lot. Have started thinking about the future a wee bit, weird as that is. Want to do more with Spanish, I suppose as its one of the few practical real-world 'skills' that 14 years of education has given me. I realise that I think a lot about/in terms of the summer between first and second year in Costa Rica because of language development and manual labour. I'm interested in exploring the WWOOF-ing network, which is sort of like couchsurfing but is specifically for farms. The idea is that you join the site for a small fee (for a year), and then travel around approved farms wherever you like, doing work in exchange for a bed and food. If I want to be back in Scotland for the Fringe, WWOOF-ing around England/Spain could be a cool way to spend a month of summer. All just thoughts though.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Like, regular updates? OMG
Saved! Discovered I hadn't been looking at the first week of December when seeing what I need to do for essays, so I have a full week more than I thought I did! I can use this time to do stuff like actually doing research and writing credible academic essays rather than waffling soggily. So that's fun. I have actually regained a lot of my drive and am doing lots of reading, which is cool. I do think I have a chip on my shoulder in the stuff that St Andrews asks us to do, and it's this: we are asked to produce academic material.
That's all. Now, Brian, you say, this is great! This is what you should be doing in university! Universities in the US would kill to have every sentence properly cited and referenced, this is why British universities seem competitive for students, the standard of work that they put out is often academically better because of research and reproduction. Here's the problem with this model: it is just reproduction. A focus on brevity is fantastic, a focus on correct research is great. But put the two together and you end up producing a lot of well-cited parroting of everything that has come before. Even this is not a bad thing, except for the fact that it encourages students to read and unquestioningly accept arguments--or, if they don't accept them, to argue them *in the terms* already laid out for them. US institutions maybe focus too much on the touchy-feely "how does this relate to you and make you feel" of their subjects (I wouldn't know), but here I am beginning to feel that the lack of discussion in classrooms is partly from a lack of critical engagement with the material, 'engagement' and not 'critical' being the operative word. Only in Urban Cultural Geography do people really speak up in lectures, and that's because the professor makes words his statements in incendiary ways so that students *have* to react, saying things like 'women come to university to find eligible mates' and 'walking down the street with a child is a heteronormative sexual act'. I guess what I'm saying is that I think this is kind of cool. I want to have opinions and take stances, whether they appear in academic publications or not. I was thinking about this when reading an article on the preference for formal science over 'local knowledge' or 'experience' or 'wisdom' or whatever you want to call it and the problems that this can create. It led me to think, "all of us have local knowledge, being inhabitants of the world, and this ought to count for something". I hear about people doing literature reviews for their dissertations and it makes me really sad--it's not productive or active, it's reactive. Though maybe that is all of academia. And it's probably not a bad thing, per se. I say this all without having done my research, of course--I'd appreciate thoughts and feedback.
The rest of life, yennow, goes on. I have been focused mainly on academics and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though still thinking about my devised piece, the second rehearsal for which is this coming Wednesday. I am feeling the end of the semester coming on and the idea that there is not enough time to do ANYTHING, let alone everything. I think I need to start picking my battles, but it's hard when you just want to fight everyone.
That's all. Now, Brian, you say, this is great! This is what you should be doing in university! Universities in the US would kill to have every sentence properly cited and referenced, this is why British universities seem competitive for students, the standard of work that they put out is often academically better because of research and reproduction. Here's the problem with this model: it is just reproduction. A focus on brevity is fantastic, a focus on correct research is great. But put the two together and you end up producing a lot of well-cited parroting of everything that has come before. Even this is not a bad thing, except for the fact that it encourages students to read and unquestioningly accept arguments--or, if they don't accept them, to argue them *in the terms* already laid out for them. US institutions maybe focus too much on the touchy-feely "how does this relate to you and make you feel" of their subjects (I wouldn't know), but here I am beginning to feel that the lack of discussion in classrooms is partly from a lack of critical engagement with the material, 'engagement' and not 'critical' being the operative word. Only in Urban Cultural Geography do people really speak up in lectures, and that's because the professor makes words his statements in incendiary ways so that students *have* to react, saying things like 'women come to university to find eligible mates' and 'walking down the street with a child is a heteronormative sexual act'. I guess what I'm saying is that I think this is kind of cool. I want to have opinions and take stances, whether they appear in academic publications or not. I was thinking about this when reading an article on the preference for formal science over 'local knowledge' or 'experience' or 'wisdom' or whatever you want to call it and the problems that this can create. It led me to think, "all of us have local knowledge, being inhabitants of the world, and this ought to count for something". I hear about people doing literature reviews for their dissertations and it makes me really sad--it's not productive or active, it's reactive. Though maybe that is all of academia. And it's probably not a bad thing, per se. I say this all without having done my research, of course--I'd appreciate thoughts and feedback.
The rest of life, yennow, goes on. I have been focused mainly on academics and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, though still thinking about my devised piece, the second rehearsal for which is this coming Wednesday. I am feeling the end of the semester coming on and the idea that there is not enough time to do ANYTHING, let alone everything. I think I need to start picking my battles, but it's hard when you just want to fight everyone.
Friday, November 27, 2009
A blog? Oh dear, what's this?
Hmmm. So it's been a while. I was out of a bloggy stage. I may be back into it...though probably not, let's be honest. For today, at least, I am.
Working with mixed success (mixed meaning, 'mixed with watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer') on 3 projects: A statistical analysis of AIDS vs education vs opinion in Africa as it relates to sustainability (yes, whatever that may mean), a fairly staightforward-if-a-bit-broad essay for Political Ecology: "All environmental issues are political issues--discuss", and an academic book review of a book about porn theatres in Times Square. Because why not!
I've cast my new show, a devised piece we will workshop into existence from the sentence, "this is the story of a small girl pursued by a strange wind", with one of the best casts I've had so far, all girls, half with dancing or acrobatic training and at least half hardcore intellectuals. It's kinda intimidating, but I am very much looking forward to it. We have our first rehearsal tonight.
On the social side, last week was Raisin weekend, and as a third year this year I had academic kids and threw a fuck-off party for them, which is the first big party-party I've had or really gone all-out for this year. Last night was more pleasant, if anything--I went to a friend's thanksgiving bash, which a very calm and insanely delicious dinner-party sort of thing, with the freedom of movement and size of a party-party.
I have been in an odd place this week and so haven't been productive in any way or particularly in any area, but with the realisation of my 3 deadlines fast approaching I am starting to crack down and get to work. Or I would be if I wasn't blogging!
Thoughts are taken up by a range of things. My Urban Cultural Geography class is fantastic, and reading Foucoult and thinking about poststructuralism is giving me a good overlay of academic thought about life etc, thinking about systems, agency and power in everyday life. I've been spending a lot of time and having good chats with Ben...and realizing, I think, the categories of 'best friends' that I need. This is just occurring to me, so bear with me. I need the quasi-intellectual, the person who analyses and intellectualizes every situation (though usually without a formal academic framework) and with whom I can trade impressions of people and behaviour. Then I need a theatre/art friend (or a few) to bounce ideas off of and to magnify creative thought. Next, I need a 'fun' friend, someone that I just *like* and have fun spending time with, regardless of context or content. Finally, I need a 'confidant' friend, whose definition is pretty self-explanatory. I think this is roughly the structure of friendship I had in high school, and it is starting to repeat here, though of course in a somewhat different form--multiple people for one role, a single for others.
I have been horribly disconnected from the outside world at large, both news and friends and family. Part of this has been inconsistent computer/internet access, though most has just been me. I feel the need to have a few hermit days where I just read followed by re-connecting with the outside world with fresh eyes coming on.
Working with mixed success (mixed meaning, 'mixed with watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer') on 3 projects: A statistical analysis of AIDS vs education vs opinion in Africa as it relates to sustainability (yes, whatever that may mean), a fairly staightforward-if-a-bit-broad essay for Political Ecology: "All environmental issues are political issues--discuss", and an academic book review of a book about porn theatres in Times Square. Because why not!
I've cast my new show, a devised piece we will workshop into existence from the sentence, "this is the story of a small girl pursued by a strange wind", with one of the best casts I've had so far, all girls, half with dancing or acrobatic training and at least half hardcore intellectuals. It's kinda intimidating, but I am very much looking forward to it. We have our first rehearsal tonight.
On the social side, last week was Raisin weekend, and as a third year this year I had academic kids and threw a fuck-off party for them, which is the first big party-party I've had or really gone all-out for this year. Last night was more pleasant, if anything--I went to a friend's thanksgiving bash, which a very calm and insanely delicious dinner-party sort of thing, with the freedom of movement and size of a party-party.
I have been in an odd place this week and so haven't been productive in any way or particularly in any area, but with the realisation of my 3 deadlines fast approaching I am starting to crack down and get to work. Or I would be if I wasn't blogging!
Thoughts are taken up by a range of things. My Urban Cultural Geography class is fantastic, and reading Foucoult and thinking about poststructuralism is giving me a good overlay of academic thought about life etc, thinking about systems, agency and power in everyday life. I've been spending a lot of time and having good chats with Ben...and realizing, I think, the categories of 'best friends' that I need. This is just occurring to me, so bear with me. I need the quasi-intellectual, the person who analyses and intellectualizes every situation (though usually without a formal academic framework) and with whom I can trade impressions of people and behaviour. Then I need a theatre/art friend (or a few) to bounce ideas off of and to magnify creative thought. Next, I need a 'fun' friend, someone that I just *like* and have fun spending time with, regardless of context or content. Finally, I need a 'confidant' friend, whose definition is pretty self-explanatory. I think this is roughly the structure of friendship I had in high school, and it is starting to repeat here, though of course in a somewhat different form--multiple people for one role, a single for others.
I have been horribly disconnected from the outside world at large, both news and friends and family. Part of this has been inconsistent computer/internet access, though most has just been me. I feel the need to have a few hermit days where I just read followed by re-connecting with the outside world with fresh eyes coming on.
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