Cakes and Ale! (And Poetry!)

Friends and family - what a few days it has been! As much of a baptism into the academic operation of The U of E as this past week has been, I have found my time outside the classroom equally illuminating.

Right: A view of the city - castle in background.

Thursday night I attended a 'poetry slam' - a thing I believe critic Harold Bloom once called 'the death of art.' I differ. Basically it's just a competition to see who can perform and present their original poetry the best, with rounds of elimination and a final winner. At F&M, any literary event is lucky to get a turn out of more than twenty students who are there of their own free will. This event - held in a pub, for starters - drew what I'd say had to be more than a hundred attendees, and seventeen competing poets.

These poets were not just idle scribblers, either. Cliche as it sounds, these people seemed to really be 'living their art,' and by that I mean that poetry is something going on for them 24/7. Most of the poems were about sex, love, violence, food, or anger (also one about haggis - another about the Minotaur), and after all, aren't those the things we're given to thinking about most of the time? The presentation of most of the poets was moving. Most had their works completely down by heart, which gave them the opportunity to really put action and emotion behind it, instead of reading off of a page. In a way, I'd say it really challenged my whole concept of what poetry is about - that being: more than words arranged nicely on a page in clear meter and rhyme, but also a kind of living, genuine thing that can be messy and still sensational.

So that was eye-opening.

On a more mundane note, I got my atm card in the mail, and went to the nearest Barclays to activate it (since they are partnered with Bank of America). However, the atm did not prompt me to activate it or anything - as if it already was. So either Papa Brown did the honors, or else activating my temporary card activated the official one, too. Regardless, the whole debacle resulted in my wading thirty minutes downtown to a soggy atm and back for no real reason. Of the scenery here is so stunning that no sixty minutes walking around without a purpose is really wasted.

And speaking of scenery! I went for a run again today, this time around the extinct volcano and its surroundings from a different approach. I remain blown away. I jogged up a low-grade, winding, paved pathway for about twenty solid minutes until BLAM! over a squat stone wall I catch sight of a magnificent bay stretching outwards onto a distant shore. So stunned was I that I left the path and climbed the wall, sitting on it a few good minutes as my ipod continued to blare into my ears. The water (the Firth of Forth) was amazing to see, especially after having been in a close-fitted city for 95% of my time in Scotland thus far. In fact, add that city-feeling to the feeling of running around in gloriously verdant hills for an hour, and the sudden appearance of a massive body of water becomes astounding.

I promise I will take a walk instead of a run sometime soon so I can take along my camera. Below: St. Giles Cathedral, Farther Below: An old, cool door to a campus building.

I've contacted both the rowing team (called the 'boat club' here) and the archery team about joining up potentially. I'm loath to pick up coxing again only because of the massive time-suck it became at F&M. I really enjoyed being on the team, but one or two practices every day, six or seven days a week was a bit much. And being the coxswain, there isn't a load of reciprocal gain you get out of spending all your time yelling at a bunch of guys who are all substantially larger than yourself. I hear that it is different, here, however, so I may once more don my uni and takes to the waterways of Scotland. Archery interests me more, however. As questionable as it may sound, I in fact recall being a pretty good shot in middle school phys ed. I even joined the after-school archery club and remember not being atrocious. So hopefully (for just 20 pounds!) I will soon be giving William Tell and Robin of Locksley a run for their money.

My circle of friends is ever-expanding, though the going be slow. I enjoy hanging around with Calum. Iain works weekends so I haven't seen him in a while. I made a few friends from my program's orientation that I've mostly been hanging around with, and they're fun people. Still, going from F&M - where I can say with confidence that I am well-situated socially - to Edinburgh - where I know virtually no one - has been a shock in some ways. Not a paralytic one, but certainly one of a disorienting nature.

This, in turn, lead to my reading an entire George Eliot novel on Friday - albeit it was Silas Marner, her shortest work. I've been doing a lot of reading, actually. Even though I've been told by many past-Edinburgh students not to work so hard as to sacrifice cultural or social opportunities (since my grades don't affect my GPA this semester), I still find that I genuinely want to do most of the reading for my classes. Also, with the limited social circle and slowly blossoming queue of extracurriculars I'm involved in, reading is a delightful alternative to...doing nothing!

I had dinner tonight with Rachel Gold, a girl from F&M doing an internship with Scotland's parliament, and met the six other ladies interning along with her. I'm impressed that after only two weeks here (less, actually) I am capable enough to explain the city and a lot of its cultural stuff to other American fresh off the plane.

And so I beat on, a boat against the current, borne ceaselessly over the cobbles of the city.