Back in the Burgh!

Scottish Sunset!

The Moon!

I have had my first official week of classes. Eek. It will be rigorous and intense. I am taking a Literature course entitled, "Subjectivity, Modernity and the Novel." We spent the entire first two hours discussing philosophers and their ideas towards the novel. Loaded stuff. Plus, it's at 9 in the morning! I will be sleep-walking to that class. And apparently the professor who teaches it is a hard ass. He once told a kid in a lecture to "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" So hopefully I will stay clear of his wrath and keep up with the reading and be nothing but studious. The second class I am taking is American History 2. I thought it'd be awesome to get a different opinion...man, my tutor, a Scotsman, was all about his American history. When I opened my mouth to speak, he got all excited and asked me where I hailed from. I replied New York, and he was most impressed. Later during the class I was minding my own business (the assignment that I was unaware of, had been to read the Narrative of Frederick Douglas...gulp) when out of no where he went, "Alex, you're American, what's the fugitive slave act?!" And I wish I knew. I told him I had studied that in high school and said winningly, "something about runaway slaves?" Oh that's me all right, the authority of all American history. Later we'll have to do a presentation about a certain time period, I got the Civil Rights! Yeah, me, Malcolm & Martin will be real tight. That is going to be one intense course. Finally, I am in Creative Writing. Raj, my professor announced it was a beginner course and was not designed for American students who have previously studied creative writing (oops) We went around the room discussing why we wanted to write and there were the snobs who claimed, "I was writing stories before I could read." Uh, lies. If that was true, how'd you know what you were writing? Pretentious! But our weekly assignments are going to be only 500 words. Eek...

Semeli, Me, Sara, & Claire

So tonight I went to a ceilidh, a traditional Scottish dance. It was amazingly fun and excruciatingly tiring. There was a live band playing the fiddle, guitar, and drums. The number of kilted men was just a wondrous sight to behold. It brought together Edinburgh students with the locals. Every song would be a new dance, they'd go from fast hyper types to slower waltzes. And boy, did we sweat! I don't think I have worked that hard in a long long time. There was one dance that two couples got together in the middle and men had to lift the women and swing them. It was crazy. My feet lifted off the ground and I was just like "wahhh!" There were various dances all extremely fun. At our first attempt at the dance, Sara and I were completely puzzled until we figured it out! Semeli and Claire also had an amazing time. But by the end we were sweaty messes! The final dance took the cake as one of the most tiring yet so lovable part of the ceilidh. Mind you, there were 250 people there. There were four lines. Two split by two. Men on one side of the line and women on the other. Then at the head of the epic line, the first couple spun each other round and round eight times, and the proceeded to spin everyone of the opposite sex on the gigantic line. So if you were the male partner, you'd spin your partner then spin another female in the line, and spin your partner once again then the next female, and so forth. You get dizzy. I had been spun 8000000 times by the time Semeli and had to go through the line. EPIC. There were some cuties spinning me, a madman in a kilt who spun me so hard that I nearly fell over, and general awesomeness. By the time I nearly reached the end, I was ready to give up, as I stared I saw only three men left, YES! But fate was cruel and a forth was hiding. It was immensly fun but tiring. The Ceilidh is absolutely rip-roaringly hilarious and just oodles of fun. I will definitely be going again!