First days of classes

Our weekend ended by spending the evening with Mared and meeting her friends. We went out to the Vic and just hung out until about 11:30. We watched the pregame and national anthem at the Super Bowl, and Jack, Tobes, and Andy all started singing Loch Lomond. Very patriotic of them. Kate and I then went across the street to the Union and met with some of our JSA friends for a drink and to watch the start of the Super Bowl. We got about an hour into it, and then felt ourselves needing some serious sleep before starting lectures on Monday.

Monday morning was nice, because I did not have class until 3 in the afternoon, so I did some walking around town, but not much, since it was freezing and rainy. I found out that one of my friends, Dan, was in my Scottish History class, so it was nice to have someone I knew in the same class. The class we are taking is called Pirates and Privateers in Early Modern Scottish History. And no joke: when my professor walked in, he looked just like a pirate, complete with short blond hair, tan leathery skin, and an earring! I am definitely looking forward to some of the things we will discuss in the class, but I will admit it sounds pretty intimidating. The reading list for just a week is longer than one for an entire semester of class back at Gordon! The nice thing is that is won't be lecture style, but more discussion. I was very surprised to hear that most of the famous pirates were Scottish, and some of the most famous fictional pirates, like Captain Hook, came from the minds of Scots! I am so looking forward to getting into that mix of reality and fiction, and where the legends and stories' truths come from. After an overwhelming introduction (in which we were also told we would definitely be watching the Pirates trilogy!) Dan and I walked over to the library to check out the reading list. We were only able to find a few sources, so we sat down and started to read, but only got about a half hour through it before we gave up on reading. Something about the day and being in the silent catacomb of a library made us want to take a break (however short a time we'd been reading). The nice thing is that we have all come up with several times during the week to meet in common rooms around University to study for a couple of hours, which will definitely help to keep me accountable.

On Tuesday the sun came out!
That was definitely the best part of the day, so Kate and I met near the castle in the early afternoon after her class got out and just sat outside on a bench to feel the sunshine on our backs and enjoy looking out at the sea. I then went into my creative writing class in Kennedy Hall, which will probably be a nice class, because they will cater to our level of writing, so it won't be an intro class like I was wondering. However it will be different from other writing classes I've taken because we will also do a lot of delving into other books, newspapers, magazines, etc. and writing our take on what was said. We got our tutorial times, and I took a leisurely amount of time walking back to Uni Hall. I just have to mention that dessert at dinner that night was apple cinnamon something or other drenched in a vanilla bean sauce...so good!

Wednesday was even better than Tuesday! The sun was out again, with less wind and clouds, and Kate went on her first run today. I sat on the beach as she ran and got some writing in which was wonderful. I just wanted to capture the moment, so I could look back at that entry and remember exactly the sensation I felt as I sat there. We didn't have classes today, so it was a nice leisurely day, but we had our first study meeting in the Kennedy Hall common room, and got in a good amount of work. Feeling very accomplished, we walked back to the Tesco to get some snacks for the evening because NCIS was on! It was a good episode, and we enjoyed cheese and crackers, chocolate mints, pringles, and lemonade. It was a little disappointing finding out that the next episode isn't being aired until March though. However, we are now sitting here listening to our favorite Narnia radio theatres, and hopefully, the sun will shine again for us tomorrow! (but I think the forecast is for rain...)

Until next time...cheers.