Nathan Hakimi • Scotland
This morning I woke up in my flat, and the Edinburgh Marathon was running past my window.
Yesterday, I woke up at my flatmate Ali’s house ten minutes from Edinburgh. We then, with two friends, took a three-hour drive to the West coast of the Highlands, so we could climb the great Ben Nevis – the tallest mountain in the UK.
Twenty-six mornings ago, I woke up in my flat in Edinburgh and did not come back for twenty-three more. I went to meet up with a girl I hardly knew, and we took a four-hour train to London, so we could set off on a journey through ten mornings, four countries, and many strange and strangers:
The Hitchhike for Charity. Britain to Morocco.
Seven mornings later, I woke up in Estapona, on a chair in the sand on the narrow sea that separates Europe from Africa. I reached over to the next chair to wake up a girl I count among my closest friends. She and I took a two-hour ferry across that sea, to reach the object of our quest, the promised land itself…
Morocco. We made it. Group 584, Nathan Hakimi and Sas Rothstein-Longaretti, Hitchers for Charity Extraordinaire.
LCD Hitch 2010: Great. Success. Indeed.
Two mornings later, after a terrific but mournfully short time in Morocco, I woke up at 4 a.m. spooning my backpack on the ground outside Marrakech Menara Airport, and at that time expecting to soon wake up in Edinburgh once more.
Little did I know. The next day I awoke in a hotel in Madrid. I was there on account of Eyjafjallajökull – a smaller volcano in Iceland.
What luck, to be stuck! No classes left to return for, just exams with weeks to spare. Here I was with extra mornings, erupted from the Earth. My fate borne on ashes. The world at the whim of the wind.
So I woke up four times in Madrid. The Hotel Auditorium – in fact the largest in Europe – thanks to Easyjet. An apartment in Madrid, thanks to my friend Erica. Erica’s apartment in Madrid, thanks to my friend Erica. It was a great mini vacation. I woke to see the city, woke up to walk around, awoke for art museums, the market, the park, to carpe the diems I’d been stuck with. Life gives you extra mornings in cool foreign cities, you wake up and you use ‘em.
On the third morning, I awoke to find Eyja still erupting, my new flight also cancelled, the reschedule backlog by then very long, and no more flights to Edinburgh until April 28th. Ten more mornings.
Well well. Ten more. Diez diems to carpe. So much potential. So many places to wake up in.
And so on the fourth morning in Madrid, I got up and got a bus, six hours to Sevilla. There I woke up three times: twice in the Oasis Backpacker’s Hostel, and once in a 70-year old woman’s apartment – my Brandeis friend Becky’s semester abroad homestay. After third mornings in Sevilla, I took a bus to Granada. Beautiful, incredible Granada. Three mornings there. Back to Madrid. Another morning in Erica’s piso. Woke again early for a quick train to Toledo – no mornings there, just a great daytrip.
Ten extra mornings, four Spanish cities. Hot, narrow streets. Cathedrals, mosques, and synagogues. Histories and stories. Palaces and gardens. Woke up to walk around, woke up to use my time. Woke up tired after beautiful nights, a passionate flamenco trio, hopping tapas bars, revelrymaking at La Feria de Abril. Got up early to ski in Sierra Nevada, next to Granada, warm weather mountains, snow sports in shorts. Got up to beat the crowds to the majestic Alhambra. Up for the free walking tour. Up in time for free breakfast. Always up for anything. Up for an adventure. Up and up again against a gaining lack of sleep. Barely felt at all. Not when there’s something to get up for.
[Photos of Spain, Feria, Skiing, Gardens, Alhambra]
One morning I finally woke up in Madrid, at Erica’s apartment, and took a two-and-a-half hour flight back to Edinburgh. It had been thirteen mornings in Spain, more than doubling my total.
Twenty-seven days ago, I woke up in Edinburgh, and set off on a journey that spanned 3 weeks, 2 days, 4 countries, 2 flights, 1 volcano, 1 partner, 30 hitches, many strangers, several stories, and many, many mornings through which I woke up ever more…
[PHOTO ME AND SAS]
—
The Hitch itself: ten mornings in all. Seven on the road, two in Morocco. Ten mornings of waking up as hard as ever before. Waking up again and again, always with a purpose, sometimes with a plan. In empty fields, in foreign cities. Gas stations, pay stations, and onramps. Working people, couples, truckers. Camping in the tent, staying at a friend’s. Living off granola. Relying on Sas, my partner, my friend.
She and I met at an event of the Edinburgh Hitch Society, for people to find partners to go with. She is from London, a student at Edinburgh College of Art. We both do theatre, both like film, both, like every crazy thinky feely out-there type, like just about everything, and everyone, and most everyone likes us. Two big personalities, she even moreso than I. We were perfect for each other and grated on each other and got to know one another very, very well.
By the time we settled in for the night on the beach in Estapona we had gone through quite a lot.
[PHOTO BEACH]
The day prior, we’d awoken on our little air mattresses on the dirt in a quarry in Almeria, after scarcely a nap – we had only gotten there at 5:00 a.m., when Big Mike the Dutch Trucker, hauling a few thousand liters of apple juice, dropped us off. It was a ten-hour ride from Tarragona, with breaks, all the way down the Eastern cost of Spain. It was a long drive, but a beautiful one, through Valencia, through Murcia, through sunset. A comfortable drive with a large and happy man. “Big Mike” as he later signed my green Hitch T-Shirt.
[BIG MIKE]
Big Mike the Dutch Trucker was hauling apple juice to Almeria. Big Mike was very pleasant and gave us a bottle of delicious German cherry juice. Big Mike must have been lonely trucking all the time with no one to talk to, or else he was just talkative, because Big Mike talked to us, a lot. Big Mike told us, in hilariously accented but very decent English, all about himself, his family, and his work. He told us about his other job, which is running security for massive hardcore techno raves called Shadowlands. We listened to some hardcore industrial music in the cabin, and saw videos from the raves. He told us about his daughter, whose name is also Saskia, like my partner. Saskia is ten years old, and she considers it the highlight of her summer when she spends a month with her dad riding around and living in the truck. Big Mike told us all about his trucks, his engine, the most powerful in the company’s fleet, he showed us pictures of his old trucks.
He also told us about the time that three guys tried to rob him in his truck. He woke up one night in his cabin to see the face of a strange man with a black hat. Now, Mike is a large man, of Germanic origin, who runs security for hardcore warehouse techno raves, and who told us, “My cabin is my home. You do not come into my home”.
You should not mess with such a man. Mike proceeds to smash in said strange face with his fist, which is large, which I know, because he held it up to show us. He then gets out of the truck and finds the two others. One of them has a knife. Mike takes this knife away from him and doesn’t even use it as he takes them both down. “I know how to do security.” Once they are all three sufficiently immobile and inert, he calls the police, who tell him they will arrive in ten minutes. “Ten more minutes,” Mike says. “Time to go to work.” “When the police come, the first thing they do is call an ambulance.” Poor robbers, didn’t know who they were messing with. Big Dutch Mike.
[BIG MIKE PHOTO AGAIN]
It was extraordinarily lucky that we found Mike that evening, how 5:00 a.m. by morning we were nearly 846 km from Barcelona, where I’d woken up the previous morning, in my other friend’s flat. Like Erica, I met my host José on the tour to the Isle of Skye. A double stroke of good fortune. As Sas took care of the fundraising email on his laptop, he took me through the city on his little motorcycle. We were able to cover a lot more ground this way which was great because Barcelona is big and time was short. Among other things, we saw La Sagrada Familia, the famous building designed by the legendary Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí, and a couple of his other creations as well. There was also a parade for some reason. I bought a bar of 100% cocoa, which took getting used to but I have become quite fond of. With my motorcycle helmet on, my camera out, the sun shining, it felt like being in a movie.
[PICS BARCELONA]
However, as was always the problem, the more time you spend enjoying a city, the less time you then have to hitch out of it. There, as in all the cities we went through, we had to first take public transportation to the outskirts and find a good spot on the proper highway from which we wished to continue. Getting out of Barcelona was very slow going, so that almost by nightfall we had barely gotten anywhere, to nearby Tarragona, with the punk-rocker girl and dude who had a gas mask and rubber chicken in their trunk. In Tarragona there was nothing, a no-chance gas station, a futile onramp, we walked from spot to spot, walked kilometers in our heavy packs, it took forever. Eventually we got a ride just to a good gas station, a mini-lift, there were many, brief people, most of the signatures all over my Hitch Shirt. Offhand, only a few major rides and drivers stand out, but there were many in between.
[PICTURES OF RANDOM PEOPLE]
The morning before Barcelona, I’d woken up across the northern border, in France, in Toulouse, in the hostel La Petite Auberge De Compostelle, in a cozy room shared by me, Sas, and two young French musicians Sas later described most appropriately as “milky”. These pleasant pasty gentlemen had for four days been playing french horn and tuba, respectively, for the Toulouse Symphonic Orchestra. The previous night, we’d them in our room after a long day of hitching and a wild night of partying. Sas and I arrived in Toulouse in one of our most successful days the whole trip, Le Mans to Angers to La Roche-sur-Yon to Bordeaux to Toulouse. 700 km, 5 rides, notably including Jean-Pierre and Marie, the lovely old couple, XXX and YYY, the raucous Italians on French holiday, with whom we rocked out to 80s pop songs, as well as an encryption engineer for SmartCar and a celebrity hair stylist. Then, Toulouse. Ohhhh, Toulouse. We had ourselves a whirlwind night, bohemian bedlam, crowds and carousels, three Italians and a Spaniard, trippy playground objects, two tall adjacent trees, one dark river, one bicycle each for me and Sas courtesy of the city’s incredible public bike-rental system. The famous singing madman.
[TOULOUSE PICS]
Once we had thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, we returned to the hostel to find our milky friends enjoying camembert and ale, which we shared with them, along with a good chat, some good laughs, and a profound love of the film Moulin Rouge! and its music. Youtube-backed singing ensued.
That night, I told Sas I felt the spirit of “Moulin Rouge” alive there in Toulouse, moreso for sure than Paris. She asked why. It is hard to describe in words, but to her all I said was “oh my GOD”, as I held out my arms and spun around. She said she saw my point.
[MORE TOULOUSE]
My basis for comparison: we woke up three mornings prior not 200m from the original “Moulin Rouge” itself, a burlesque club indeed adorned by the iconic red windmill. There we were, on the floor, of Sas’ friend’s sister’s apartment, smack in the middle of Paris’ infamous Pigalle sex district.
[PHOTOS - MOULIN ROUGE, THE SEX SHOPS/SHOWS, THE BUILDING]
That morning I woke up still incredulous over our single night in Paris. Getting up and getting out was late and slow going, though. We’d been up through the wee hours. It wasn’t the sex district. It was more, it was magic. It was “Paris by Night”. It was courtesy of a most extraordinary chauffeur, guide, and friend, the very same who’d gotten us to Paris in the first place, an absolutely terrific man named Ibrahim.
Ibrahim – who can without exaggeration be described not only as “gentleman and scholar” but as proud Kurdish Turk, dedicated husband and father, brilliant linguist and teacher, published author, avid fan of Nietzsche and Pink Floyd, 32 year-old with young man’s heart and old man’s soul, and generally hopeless lover of life – had driven us that evening to Paris all the way down from Lille. 250 km. When we found him, he was headed back from Belgium, where he had gone to buy the only available replacement for a lost doll, without which his baby son just could not sleep. Over that three-hour drive, he told us this story – in quite adequate English, despite his shame at how limited and rusty it was, given that it was his fourth language – as well as many others. He told us the story of how he came to France from Turkey, how he became a professor, how he decided to stay in France for reasons involving the Turkish treatment of Kurdish as an academic subject. He told us the story of the novel he had written, which we could not have known otherwise even though he’d given us a copy, for it is written in Kurdish. He told us about the politics of the Kurdish people, and about his research in linguistics. He told us about life, philosophy, and passion.
Finally he told us that, if we were interested, he would be happy to meet up with us later that night, at Place D’Italie, and he would take us to “Sortir” (go out), through “Paris by Night”, from 10:30 p.m. until we were done. He told us it would be his pleasure to go out with us, because going out with his friends did not give him new eyes with which to see Paris. He told us that after rush hour, the streets of Paris were tranquil, and it would be very beautiful.
And so, a few hours later, Sas and I, as well as the two young women who hosted us in Pigalle, got to see “Paris by Night”, every gorgeous inch of it, courtesy Ibrahim the illustrious, Ibrahim the incredible.
[IBRAHIM, PARIS, PARIS BY NIGHT, SAS+IB]
Around the time Ibrahim must have been heading up to Belgium, Sas and I were waking up, in our tent, on a hill, by a field, in the outskirts of Lille, behind what was apparently some sort of factory, to which we’d been brought by Giovanni the Romanian trucker, who spoke no English but showed us Romanian music videos in the cabin.
[PHOTOS FACTORY, HILL, TREES, GIOVANNI]
That morning, we had to walk 15 minutes to the motorway, and there had to work our thing for 45 more until we got a ride from Alex, a graphic designer who makes album covers, just 15 minutes into Lille city centre, where we then had to go through a 6-hour ordeal of fantastic hitching failure. Car after car passing by, our signs illegible, our backpacks heavy, as we had to change spots again and again, had to cross through town, the time slipping by as we tried to escape, had to get to the highway on the other side, had to take all manner of confusing public transportation, had to use our nonexistent French.
[LILLE SUCKING]
Frustration. Lille, a terrible town. This, an awful waste of time. Frustration, making it seem like a terrible decision to take Alex’s ride to the city instead of waiting for someone going past it, a terrible decision to go with Giovanni to Lille yesterday, instead of taking that one trucker’s offer to skip right through with him to Valencia, making it seem like a terrible decision to have done this hitchhike at all, making me feel quite anxious about making it to Paris by night, never mind Morocco by our flights on the 15th.
Frustration, until, we got our spot, hit our stride, and shortly thereafter along came a gentle, intelligent, and beautiful soul from across the Belgian border.
Luck lucky, how that happened. Lucky how things always worked out eventually, whether it took a lot of waiting or walking or freaking out. Not like I am not exaggerating my anxiety, for I’m a pretty placid person, but still lucky, oh how lucky, that through it all I had Sas, my partner, in the truest (though no, in case you wondered, not that) sense of the word. Sas, to keep up our energy, an artist, an actress, a singer, an always-radiant madwoman, a female version of myself in certain aspects, an exaggeration of me, a blessing and a goddess in that crown of green and yellow flowers which she literally wore some 90% of the time.
[SAS IN FLOWERS]
Lucky lucky, how Sas and I met at that Hitch Society meeting on February 1st, and somehow knew within 5 minutes of speaking to each other that, sure, I could hitchhike to Morocco with you, because, well, you seem alright. Because you’re also the type who could say, yes, sure, I trust you. Lucky that I had her, lucky because no way could I have ever done it alone. No way. The frustration, the walking, the waiting, the driving, sleeping talking, nothing, it would all be nothing, worse than nothing, without another soul to share it with. True, it could have been anyone, just someone. Still, lucky, her. Lucky Sas and none else, because even had I made it otherwise, it wouldn’t have been with Giovanni or Alex or Ibrahim, or the pasty young Frenchman, or Big Mike the Dutch Trucker (who also runs security for massive hardcore German techno raves). I’d have never slept in the home of Louis XIV, in the lime green tent on the hill in Lille, or in her friend’s sister’s flat in Pigalle, full of sex and lights and pastry. I’d never have come to know the song “1 kilometre en pie”, or the Catalan music of Pau Riba (who drove us to Barcelona). But experiences aside, which happen regardless, I would never have known, most of all, the things I came to know about myself through her, and about Sas herself, about personalities themselves, how they interact and change, how we grow as people, how we can and should be. Lucky for her, I am sure, that she met me as well.
Then again, as we once mused, perhaps you really do make your own luck.
The morning before we woke up in Lille, we awoke across the channel, in Dover, England, on the floor of the living room of the home of the family of one 21-year old Louis, or “King Louis XIV” as he signed my green Hitch T-shirt. We met him at the bus stop where we tried to hitch rides onto the ferry at night, after the ticket office was closed. He took us to a bar where everyone who swims the channel signs the wall, and talked to us about literature and film and music and life in the shit town of Dover, where no one comes except to go to France. Lucky you don’t live in Dover.
[PICTURES OF DOVER]
…and it was that very morning, I woke up in Edinburgh, took a train to London, and set off on a journey that spanned so many people, so many mornings, so many experiences throughout which I kept on waking up – gradually, and subtly, and to things I probably cannot name. But wake up a little bit I did, slowly and surely.
This was made possible in part by many awesome donors, who contributed to my awesome LCD Hitch Fund, which already has an awesome £800 going toward the awesome cause of developing school systems in Africa, but could always use more, and will remain active until June, and can be found at http://justgiving.com/nathan-hakimi.
—
This morning as I was waking up, in Edinburgh, in my own bed, in my own room, there was a brief moment where I did not quite recognize or understand where I was. My eyes barely open, my brain dimly aware, I experienced the blurry presence of the green tapestry on the wall, the flag on the ceiling, a room, these things… things that were dreamlike and seemingly foreign. It was a moment before I realized, and felt surprised.
In so many days I’d woken up in so many places, my own room now felt strange.
I looked out the window, and the Edinburgh marathon was running past my window.
—
This morning I woke up and spent the day writing. I should have been studying. In two days, I will wake up at 8:00 am, and head for my 1st of 5 final exams. Innovation and Enterprise for Scientists and Engineers. Tomorrow I will wake up and study for it all day (edit: nope).
That’s just the easy one. Four more, real hard. Everything I’ve worked on all semester. Everything I’ve written about here on my blog before, and thought about here in Edinburgh before. Before I left on the long strange journey. Having covered more material in my classes than miles in my travels, I will for the next couple weeks be waking up, every day, as early as reasonably possible, to study as diligently as reasonably possible, so that I will not fail any of them, which is otherwise entirely possible.
It is strange to return to this after what I’ve just done. The past few weeks were like a life unto itself, a lot of major experiences densely packed into a short time. It is odd to think that this was only a three week piece of the whole semester, which has been now four months. It is especially weird for how completely different it was from what I’ve been doing here.
Exams are waking me back up – most aggressively – to the world I’d started to forget.
Shifting from one life to another.
—
One day of the Hitch, I woke up in my blanket in my bag in our tent in a field by a rest stop on the highway by the city of Le Mans, France. It had been a very peaceful night following a very turbulent day. We’d arrived with a man named Michel, who was very kind and reminded Sas strongly of her father. He played an Anoushka Shankar CD in the car, and we listened to the ambient textural music as we drove through the sunset.
That day, Sas had been (essentially) pick-pocketed on a train outside Paris. Three guys came up to us waving what looked like petitions in colored folders; they were talking at us in what sounded like Italian. After half a minute, Sas and I protesting that we didn’t understand and couldn’t help, they abruptly walked away. Moments later, Sas cries out, “my bag!” – they grey bag that had just been in her lap, the bag with her all her cash, her credits cards, and her passport. It was gone. She searched around frantically. I looked around confused. The guys were standing by the door of the train and we were approaching the next stop. We approached them but they pushed us away, showed us their empty hands and coats, displayed offense at the very accusation. When the stop came, they got off. In a flash, I saw him, tucked something into his armpit. I followed after them. They started to run. Instinctively, I followed. Sas starts screaming to alert everyone else. They are sprinting down the platform, and I’m following at full speed, not yelling for help but focused on them, not knowing what I meant to do but that there was definitely nothing else I could. They threw their colored folders back at me. They turned a corner. Still I followed. I was gaining on them. We’re on a random little street now in a random little boondocks town, a far outskirt of Paris. I chased them for a full minute until they slowed, tired. “The bag,” I said, trying to communicate with my gestures, my tone, my need, the bag, the passport… “Take the cash. The bag–” … and so they did.
Luckily, they gave in, instead of two holding me back while the third ran away. Luckily we had back her cards, meaning she still has money, and her passport, without which we surely would have had to stop the journey right there. Nonetheless, we were pretty shaken up. She was particularly distressed about how it had all happened, so obvious in retrospect, they’d got on the train with us, sat right behind us, only come up to us the moment she took the bag off her shoulders, held the petitions over her lap with the bag, gotten so defensive immediately… she was upset by the money that had been money had been lost (around 300 euros), yet moreso relieved by what had been saved, and generally unsettled by the whole ordeal. It followed us over the next hour, as normal conversation slowly resumed. I told her, “We can’t just ‘get over it’, but slowly we will. It will start to fade, we’ll bring it up less and less, and eventually it will just be a story.”
And so it was. And so there we were, hours later, cruising with Michel at dusk, under the acoustic spell of Ravi Shankar’s daughter. He dropped us off at the rest stop. We ate. We laughed. We set up our tent around a corner, behind a row of tall thick bushes, a corridor of grass by a fenced-off field from which we heard the occasional moo. When it got dark, the stars came out – many, many starts. The most I’d seen since Israel, the Negev Desert. We lay down in the grass and silently looked up. I closed my eyes, and felt the pressure of my body against the earth. I saw myself in my mind’s eyes, lying atop the globe, floating in space, as if I were huge, visible from space, lying there on a ball in the black starry void. I saw and I felt myself Stuck to this Orb, so silly and strange, spinning round rapidly fast, yet stuck to the surface below… stuck to a ball in the void. Closing my eyes, I felt my back on the ground, felt the whole Earth beneath me, the Earth that we travel around to see, that we grow from and harvest, rely on and destroy, overcrowd and try to save. The Earth we all will leave some day, inevitably, some day. I felt very peaceful.
In the morning we woke up early, determined to cover lots of ground that day. For some reason it occurred to me to recite the Jewish prayer recited every morning, thanking God for returning one’s soul following sleep. Not only did I say it myself but I taught it to Sas:
Modeh Ani L’fanecha, Ruach (Melech) Chai V’kayam, Sh’hechezarta Bi Nishmati, B’Chemlah. Rabah Emunatecha.
I give thanks before you, living and eternal Spirit (King, traditionally), that you have mercifully returned in me my soul. Great is your faithfulness.
It implies that in sleep, one loses one’s soul, and only get it back each morning if God sees fit to grant you one more day. But I’m not one for traditional theology, so this idea, like others, rings truer for me on a not-as-literal interpretation. Sleep, you could say, is a submersion into the Universal Consciousness, which, if there is such a thing, is of course so different from our normal “consciousness” that it may as well be call the Universal Non-Consciousness – the “Nothingness”, “Void”, “Space-Time Fabric,” whatever you will. Whatever it is, sleep somehow brings us closer, deeper, into that metaphysical texture.
Reawakening into the world is an act of regaining the interface with the universe, the stream of information, the act of mutual creation. Waking up is more than waking up. Waking up is coming into touch with the world. Having experiences, meeting people, gaining perspective, breaking barriers, expanding thinking. To thank “God” for that is to embrace the cliché, seize the day, “wake up”, move forward with clarity and confidence and purpose. Connect to this world, because it’s the only one we have, even if you’re trying to wake up from it. Wake up in it, wake up with it. Wake up and enjoy it. I don’t care that it’s cliché, they’re clichés because they’re true. My point is that I’m trying to wake up, trying to see clearly, trying to get going and find something, to have something worth looking for.
Wake up… wake up. WAKE. UP.
You want to hear good stories. Or perhaps just good gist updates. This is only fair. Time is short to waste reading blogs. I will try to honor that, I will try to stick with the gist, but I apologize in advance that it has to be several gists, because there are just too many gists honestly. Happens when you procrastinate… sigh.
There is little general gist beyond “I do lots of homework and a lot of other stuff too”. I have a city around me with a whole lot to offer, and a limited amount of time to take hold of it. I mean limited time on a regular basis, not just that my residence in Edinburgh is temporary (and oh how very fleeting). My day-to-day, night by night, weekend for weekend enjoyment of the city’s treasures and pleasure are limited only by my initiative and organization. If I manage my time right, and actually make the effort, I can be having a doggone blast out here. And I do, I do. Such a blast! Surely I could be doing more… but the best part is, that would be true no matter what. And the true thing is, I’m getting more out of it than just getting stuff out of it.
Some if not most of what I could be getting out of it (the latter sense) is out North. It’s in the land, up north, the Highlands, the Scottish Wilderness you could say, the mountainous and bleak yet fertile region which I recently saw described as “one of the world’s last frontiers” – or something like that. It’s true, I believe it. There’s a whole gosh-gobbin world up there, under the global radar, a whole wide world of mountains and lakes and green and gray and bloodshed and castles and awesome. I know, I’ve seen the movies!
—
Actually, I did have the recent pleasure of seeing Braveheart for my first time – and, the very next day, of watching another quite similar film and equally informative though much less well-known film! Another film in the genre of historical-fiction-drama-epic, also with healthy doses of violence and romance redemption and revenge, also set in Old Scotland (albeit 17th century, 500 years past Mr. Gibson’s masterpiece), and finally, most curiously, also released in 1995! But whereas Braveheart took home bundles of cash, the Shiny Mantlepiece Prizes for old Mel, and the (pretty well-deserved) status of “classic”, the lesser-known though scarcely smaller-scale Rob Roy saw less far less attention. You can only have so much epic drama set in historic Scotland in one year. Nonetheless Rob Roy was also highly worthwhile, indeed they were both fantastic (I swear if Braveheart did not give rise to elements if not entireties of The Patriot, Passion of the Christ, Gladiator, Lord of the Rings and probably a dozen other films… I would be surprised). And they were both Scottish. Scottish films, which arguably didn’t teach me anything “real” about “Scotland”, but definitely exposed me to more gist. Furthermore you can’t deny that images from these films – which both shot on location in Scotland though it was particularly Rob Roy’s gorgeous cinematography from the Hills of the Highlands that got me – showed me what it looks like up there in the real Scottish landscape.
—
So, yes, there is a world up there, and it is really beautiful. I know, I saw Rob Roy. I know, I saw a shockingly gorgeous series of photos in the National Geographic January 2010 feature on the Scottish Isles, fortuitously published just as I was departing. I know, but I want to know firsthand, I want to feel and see it! I will, soon, but I admit I’m starting to get anxious about it. The closest I got was the Butler Program weekend trip to Argyll Forest Park/Loch Lommond, but that is actually pretty much just West, slightly North, definitely not “the North”. Incidentally that trip was where I saw Braveheart and Rob Roy. And where I did a little big of rock climbing, rappelling, night forest-crawling (literally), and general outdoorsy fun. It was great fun, actually. I just might tell you about it. There’s too much too tell about.
Anyway, my experience in the Highlands will play a huge part when I look back and assess the success of this semester abroad. Shame that I can’t go now while it’s still a pretty grey, and then go back when it gets nice. When it does get nice, and when I have like 3 weeks to study for exams (wow wait what?!), I hope to climb Ben Nevis, the UK’s highest peak, and potentially to visit the Orkney Islands wayy up North, and potentially just crawl around the whole of the Highlands by bus. There’s also an Appalachian-Trail-esque hiking route called the West Highland Way, but it takes more time than I’ll have, which is a real shame. If I had all summer to spend here I’d road trip with my new British friends up around the coast… and come back for the Fringe Festival… sigh…
Scotland is a Great Nation. She has her flaws and may not have quite the same glory as the major European civilizations, but you cannot help but love her for the humble and silly yet absurdly proud thing she is. Thanks to my dearest roommate Ali, I have actually picked up some of the lyrics to her National Anthem. I will recite as much as I can FROM MEMORY right now. This is is “Flower O Scotland”:
O Flow’rrr O Scottt laaand… When will we seee… your liiike agaaaaaiiinnnnnn…
That fouuuughhhhht and diiiieeedddd forrrrr…. your weeee bit hill and glen–
that stoood agaaiinnst him…. Proud E-ed-ward’s aa-arrmyyyyy…
and seennntt him hoomewarrd…. tae thinnk agaaiin.
O FLOW’R O SCOTTTLANNDD… LA DAA DA DAIII DEE DAIII DA DAII… (and some other stuff)…
Those dayyyss are past noww… and in the past they must remain… but something something (cheating: “but we can still rise now”)
and be the nation again…
[repeat: that stood against him, Proud Edward's Army, and sent him homeward, tae think again].
etc. etc.
Alright well that was lovely, yes thank you, but you should go ahead like I did and watch a video of it on Youtube. RIGHT NOW. Actually don’t worry about watching, just get that thing a-playin and listen while you read on. “O Flower of Scotland”. Go. PLEASE I WISH YOU TO DO IT BEFORE YOU READ ANY MORE. PLEASE HONOR MY WISHES. I WISH YOU TO LISTEN TO FLOWER O SCOTLAND NOW PLEASE THANK YOU.
(Such was it like when I learned these lyrics, awoken at 3 am by my good friend Ali come home drunk and in a particularly nationalistic mood, and excitedly rousing me from sleep so I could join his Scottish song session. Good lad, good times.)
Alright, you got that anthem groovin? Oh and don’t you worry, I’m a-listenin now myself. Which version did you find? Mine is by “The Corries”. There are loads of versions. Each has a different character. You could listen to each and every one just to really get the gist of it. I wish you to listen to every single one of them please so you can get the gist now go please I wish you and save some gist for me please thanks.
Do you see? I am teaching you about Scotland. In whatever way I can. There is A LOT that I do not know about Scotland. In fact, I know almost nothing. I mean, I know almost nothing about anything, but this, I know nothing of whatever something I could ever hope to know. So, you have to get the gist from me, as I have it. Start by seeing Rob Roy if you haven’t. Also, OH WOW, you should totally watch The Corries version too. That’s the “O Flow’r O Scotland” version I’m watching I’m youtube right now remember?? You might be watching a different one, but you should watch this too seriously — it just transitioned into footage of the anthem being sung before a rugby game, with the WHOLE TEAM and the WHOLE CROWD singing… with bagpipes… and flags!! And then shots of the rugby math, with the ORIGINAL RECORDING playing over it again!! Brilliant video. And oh it is so beautiful. You must watch it.
Rugby is ridiculous. Rugby, seriously, ridiculous game. Imagine football players having to run around the field the whole time like soccer players, and they don’t have pads on. Athletic as hell and they’re still beating each other up, less forcefully but somehow more aggressively. Right – crazy. Not uniquely Scottish but definitely something Scottish about it. Or in it. And it still got nothing on Irish sports i.e. Hurling and Gaellic Football. Oh dear lord. But rugby is fun, the other day the boys in Flat 3/2 (Combsy, Tim, Max, Olli honorarily, Craig, etc., good lads, my best British friends) started up a rugby game in the Meadows and that was great fun. Which is also funny because a few weeks ago we played frisbee in the Meadows and I taught them the rules of Ultimate, now they were teaching me rugby, cross-collaboration.
Did you watch that video? Do you understand about rugby? I am trying to tell you about Scotland. That is what I’m here to do. Here, on my blog. Not necessarily here in Scotland though. The truth is I am not really here to learn about Scotland. Honestly – who go out trying to learn about Scotland? Not your priority I bet. Sure, might as well while you’re here, but is that what you cared about when you came? It wasn’t my first reason or even much of one at all that I came here. I’m not trying to say Scotland isn’t interesting! Au contraire, I am saying it is interesting, very interesting, and it’s interestingness gets underappreciated. By me as much as you. This country gets underappreciated (a tragedy for which we are entirely justified in blaming the English, mind you). But truly, Scotland is interesting, so much so that I am overwhelmed at the prospect of attempting to grasp whatever something I could. And even if you could, you wouldn’t. Probably most Scottish people arguably don’t know Scotland, unless they “have the Gaellic” slash are from the Highlands. Scotland is in the highlands. The cities are just cities, also historic, but cities like any other, cities like Dublin and Rome, cities with beauty and architecture and alleyways and vast amounts of literary, military, etc-ary history, but cities like any other, with shops and streets and lots and lots of people. People who speak English like you and use the internet too and are connected in the New Global Culture.
Therefore, a certain Scotland, and probably a certain bit of just about any country anywhere, is not in its capital city, nor in its biggest city. Thus in a way some if not most Scottish people will never really learn Scotland: hardly strong a claim, how many Americans really know America? It’s all just too much. There are too many places in the first place. It’s one thing I have learned, how good it is to know how much I never will.
But you can still get some gist. Scotland gist. Drink some whisky, that’s a start, and read on Wikipedia about how they make it; not as good as visiting a distillery (which I also have failed at), but it’s a start. Buy some single-malt scotch, and savor it. If you like smoky ones try Islay malts or blends. I bought one from a little shop called WoodWinters on a whim one wee morning, and I swear to you it is like drinking a campfire. Islay is an island in the region called the Hebrides; it is one of several primary Whisky Producing Regions in the Great Nation of Scotland.
Whisky Producing Regions of Scotland. See Islay on the SouthLeft
From what I’ve learned on Wikipedia and from the very cordial and generous owner of WoodWinters Wines and Whiskies, Islay Whisky has a particularly pungent flavour partly on account of the Islay water with which it is produced, this being rather swarthy water lending the whisky a “peaty”, even salty or seaweedy taste. Magnificent.
Macbeth is about Scotland. Did you know that? I did not even really realize it until long after I was in the darn play, and we called the darned thing by name of “The Scottish Play” because saying “Macbeth” in a theatre is bad luck. Well, now I really get it, and I suppose it was just sort of surprising because you associate Shakespeare with, I donno, the Mediterranean, like Greece and Italy, or Victorian England. Not Scotland. Who thinks of Scotland, ever? True story.
But Macbeth is set in Scotland, sure enough, and is not historically accurate though it is based on a compilation of histories written by a few folks in 1573, called Holinshed’s Chronicles (source: what do you think). Mr. Bill adapted and bent the tales for dramatic purposes, but kept the same events and some of the real characters: but as Tim O’Brien might say, “Sometimes story truth is truer than happening truth”. Gists! Not “facts”. Whatever those are. Shakespeare was a genius.
—
Yes, theatre people consider it bad luck to say Macbeth in a theatre, so instead one refers to it as “The Scottish Play” and if you do for some reason utter The Name you have to do perform the counter-curse. I’m not gonna bother telling you how the counter-curse is done, but if you do say it in a theatre, and I’m not there, better make sure to ask someone who knows. If you ask a theatre kid to show you, they’ll be super-happy to get to demonstrate their theatre kid status. And if you ask a real theatre kid, they’ll be super-serious about it because they will actually believe in it.
—
The Scottish Gist, the Scottish Story. They are defined in their struggle against the English (see National Anthem lyrics… and Braveheart…), and in their the beautiful accent, their beautiful language, their beautiful gorgeous Highlands which I haven’t seen yet but I will, and in the ancient battles they’ve fought on this ground, the wars have been fought from the very Castle that towers over this city! And the whisky, the drinking, and the fighting, the football and the rugby, and people out North who still only speak Gaellic, the Islands and the Highlands, the history, the wars, the tribes, the clans, the tartan kilts… what’s so interesting to me about it is that you don’t think of this country as “foreign”. Indeed they speak English. Indeed they are in the UK. Indeed throughout history they’ve been defined as by their inclusion generally against their will in the British Empire… just because they share the same Island. But there is a language and a culture and a history and a gist, and it’s just as inaccessible to me as to you as to some lowlander NED, and let me tell you it is surely foreign in a very distinct way. In fact it is foreign in a fairly special way, because hides beneath the curtain of Western modernity, of English-speaking, of relative obscurity as far as travel destinations go. Certainly this culture has percolated through to the public, to the Scottish kids I know, in myriad ways from subtle to glaringly obvious. It is in the Scotland I see around me. But it isn’t really here.
Still, you can try to just the gist of a place, and add to your total-life-knowledge/experience in a small but significant way. Even if it’s only a few days – a good thorough few days – you can really get a good gist going. A gestalt, if you will. Living exposure is important – humans are meant to learn from experience; firsthand lessons are the generally the most vital for our survival and therefore the ones best remembered. If they’re really vital they’re pre-encoded, but the rest get re-encoded as you grow. It’s a blurry line, we’re not sure, perhaps there’s a career there for me.
What a segue. My career. I’m sorry – can I talk about me? Shall I talk more about Scotland? Well, if you are interested, if you care, to be fair, this semester is not all about Scotland. It’s about “The School of Informatics”, whatever the heck that means – which, not gonna lie, is tough. Rough and tough. Tough as elephant meat. It’s the reason my activities are limited as I mentioned above. I could tell you all about my courses and my recent workload, which is truly very interesting, if you’re interested, but I won’t bother now. That’s not quite the gist I should really be getting at here. The short story is, courses are serious and challenging and have probably taught me more about how much I’ll never know than many of my other best learning experiences.
Tell you what. I’ll tell you a good story. It’s not all about Scotland. Or Informatics. It’s also about enjoying. And don’t you worry, I am enjoying. Last week I went to Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day.
I went to Dublin for St. Patrick’s Day. Wow wow wee wow. It was slam-bang terrific and I’ll be darned if I won’t – shouldn’t – remember particular parts of it for the rest of my whole long life. One part in particular. Ready? Long post, I know. Go if you need, do your thing, I’m finishing it through, might as well, only 3 a.m. by now I might as well pump through.
Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day
This is a pretty big deal as you can imagine; it is a well-known rite of travel for Americans Abroad Europe Spring. It is one of Europe’s Major Festivals in general. And it is also a big deal to the Irish, even if they might get tired or used to it after awhile. And even if I spent more time with Americans than Irish (ok, fine, the whole time), it was a great time, and I can say I think it did give me some Ireland gist. Which tastes by turns like Jameson and Guinness.
So, quick background before the big story. I got a flight in with my flatmate Adrian and my lovely jewfriend Sarah, on RyanAir, the budget airline. Cheap! Just awkwardly scheduled: 8 am from Edinburgh on Tuesday the 16th, the day before Paddy’s, and out on Thursday Morning at 6:25 am. Oh yes. Deliberately planned so that people could do just what we did – skip a hostel the second night, stay out for the party, and go straight to the airport.
As we arrived Dublin seemed at first like an unimpressive city. It wasn’t until we checked in and started walking around, and found our way down O’Connell street to the heart of downtown Dublin that we really uncovered the awesome. From St. Patrick’s Cathedral to the Guinness Storehouse tour to the store “Nirvana” which I will be mentioning later (presuming you haven’t fled by then, which I am sort of counting on) — we saw a lot and did a lot and had great fun. That night, went out, got drunk, had fun. Next day, woke up, Parade, had fun.
Ah. Yes, the parade. The good story.
Well, I’m gonna just give it you straight, now, the story in a nutshell, is that I climbed to the top of a the O’Connell monument, a probably some 40-ft. tall statue in the middle of O’Connell street, the wide main thoroughfare through Dublin, on which the big St. Patty’s Day Parade was held. I climbed up this statue, to the base where Daniel O’Connell is standing:
And the best part is, I did this while the parade was happening, in the middle of a crowd of probably some hundreds of thousands, with a Polish guy named Robert who’s even crazier than I am. Actually, I never would have done it, if it weren’t for his encouragement (and help).
But boy am I glad I did. I tell you, when we were up there – I swear I felt like a king. Basically, there were people all around the statue, like on those winged-things are you can see, and I had climbed to get a perch to view and photograph the parade to the point just above everyone else, the point where the circle of statue-people are standing. Holding their legs. Sitting next to Robert, who was funny and Polish and very friendly, he and I joking around and trying not to make each other fall off. When he said he wanted to climb up to the top, I didn’t think he was serious.
Twenty minutes later, “I’m going to do it.” “Seriously?!” “Yeah, I want to, look, it could do it!” “Dude… I mean, I guess you’re right.” “Yes climb up the people up and on there.” “Yeah… it could be done.” “–Would you do it??” “Ahaha! Me! Well… I mean…”
I looked up there and really thought it was crazy. Look at that photo above again: see the perspective against the people at the bottom. Thing is tall. I’m crazy but I’m not stupid. But he was right, it was feasible. So we did it together. Went up the circle of people, and I sat on one of their heads as I considered how to safely get up the top platform.
“Dude, I donno. This is a scary part.”
“Yes.”
“Look down, it’s high, we could die.”
“Yes.”
“Are you still gonna do it.”
“Yes.”
“Jesus. Do you need help, are you sure, what if – ”
Up he goes. Bada boom bada bing. One leg over, and the rest in turn. I’m amazed, still sitting on my statue-man, legs gripping his head like a vice. Nice and secure, only move if I’m sure. Once he offers his help me, I am sure. He’s up there already so he grabs hold of O’Connell with one hand and my hand with the other, and literally pulls me up. Strong guy. No worries. No problem.
Then, we were kings. We were the kings of Dublin, on St. Patrick’s Day. It took a few minutes for the sheer incredulity to set in, for the awesomeness to really dawn on me. We just sat up there, people everywhere, a parade happening right next to us, a massive city, a festival… and I climbed this statue, and there were so many people! There were people everywhere! Thousands and thousands! Looking at us! Pointing at us – pointing us out to their friends! Taking photos! Waving! It was ridiculous, absurd. Normally my risk-exploits are private pleasures. Equally often I am a performer and a ham. Generally I live off adrenaline and epic scale and in this moment it was only as it happened that it really overcame me, the confluence of these forces, the madness. It felt like I was high. Ha, yeah.
Everyone around us, the river, the parade, the people, they witnessed the triumph, saw our conquest, me and Robert the Polish dude, who’s even crazier than me. Me in my bright green festive windbreaker, me and Robert, kings of Dublin. Once I got comfortable with this, you know me, I was loving it. Waving, dancing, making poses for photos, and then by turns absolutely FREAKING OUT. Just, freaking out. The danger (yes of course danger but Mom I am telling you I knew my limits, if you could have SEEN my caution, honestly, if I could fill a box with my caution at that time you would not have enough money to make them check it for you at the airport on your way here to visit me) — the element of perceived danger, relative danger, whatever, my god, the adrenaline, the exertion, the height, and the centrality of it, the publicness, the river, the city, a Big City, and at its Peak no less. My adrenaline, my glee, my amazement. I was freaking out, openly and publicly, the parade just going on past, down below, me and Robert, and eventually I swear I got so overwhelmed I felt like I was tripping. Sometimes that happens, no drugs, just good old fashioned epicness, sheer awe at the scale.
When I came down, I was a little bit scared – Robert went first and completely forgot the plan we had, or I thought we had, for him to just go down the first bit, the scary bit, and then wait and help me, because he is much taller than me and I don’t think I could have even gotten to the top in the first place if not for his hand. At first I tried to call him back to help me get down safely, but there were already police swarming onto him, and he doesn’t understand English that well in the first place. Moreover, there was literally a crowd of hundreds watching me trying to come down. Just staring at me; the parade was over. I was the one who’d climbed the statue, and now I had to get the heck down. What now? Just do it. So I did. Turned out it wasn’t that bad… took it slow and steady and it was actually rather anti-climactic when I got down nice and safe. I am sure there were some in that crowd who would have hoped to see a nice fall… isn’t that why people care about such things at all?
Well, when I got to the bottom, the police approached and confronted me very aggressively. Two of them, a man and a woman, and others scattered around. I wasn’t worried. Sort of tried to ham it up for the crowd, solicit applause, I actually had a ridiculous fantasy about being like Russell Crowe in Gladiator, you win the public, you win the authority… but they were not just happy with me and I am not so brash as to get uppity with law enforcement offficials. Honestly I’m not. So I stood and nodded and responded politely as they scolded me me. That’s literally all they did, they SCOLDED me for “could have died” etc. I mean, yeah… you could say that. You are probably right. But that is just such an inane argument in and of itself (and gives rise to a debate whose subtleties I know quite well, thanks to Mom, and of which I have consequently developed what I believe to be a quite advanced and mature understanding, thank you very much). They wanted to know if I was intoxicated — are you joking?! I’m not stupid. Later on I fantasized about openly arguing with them… challenging their small-mindedess… had I broken any laws? Had I not just made myself free? Are you going to arrest me, or just yell at me? Everyone, see, see what I have done, yes, I “risked my life”, yes I went up this statue, and look! Look at me! Am I not fine?! Am I not so much better than fine right now, and can’t you understand that this is so necessary?!
Well, not for everyone. Hopefully by dancing and loving and writing is not a brash misconception of what constitutes universal truth vs. personal pleasure. There may be a lesson here for you, or you may just vicariously enjoy it. You may be confused or angry about it. Mom is certainly upset. Was it really dangerous, or stupid, for me? No, I insist, no. I went up only after long consideration, came down slowly and carefully, took my time, took it seriously. To focus on the danger is to miss the point, the point is the boundary, the transcendance, the life-giving, it was real and it was thrilling and call it a problem but that is what I live for. That is why this trip to Dublin will go down as memorable in 10, 20, 60 years’ time. If I remember anything at all from now by then.
So, Robert, I owe you one. I may be crazy enough to have gone through with that, but you were crazy enough to think of it, go through with it, climb up there all by yourself and then help me up too. We went through a real bonding experience and I will not soon forget it. We were the kings of Dublin on St. Patrick’s Day. Thank you.
Me and Robert the Crazy Polish Dude. I nearly burst when I saw this photo once we'd left. It will be priceless to me for a long time.
—
Well, now it’s 3:20, and I’ve nothing left to do but ramble on some more. Perhaps I should just sleep. It is a shame I cannot show you all the photos from Dublin, and Argyll Forest Park, and Edinburgh, and everything, etc. Actually I can. Just not yet. I will – even sans facebook. I’ll put up an adults and potential-employers-friendly version right here. If this blog ever really was potential-employer-friendly in the first place.
Oh, but there is so much more to tell. I ate my first deep fried Mars Bar – the invention of some chips shop owner up North, turned by media attention in a national joke and tourist phenomenon. It was unbelievably good – crispy on the outside, warm and melty on the inside. Mmm!!!
If you want a good contrast to that statue story, I could tell you about my morning run to the docks at Leith. That was pretty much as magical-mystical, and involved neither audience nor heights.
The problem with procrastinating on the blog is you let stuff build up, and it becomes that vicious cycle of building the pile because it’s already too high… well, if I’m gonna tackle it now, I’m gonna tackle it right. Apologies for making this not really a bite-sizeable post. If nothing else you can think of it as two or three posts, just come back in the intervals at which it would be more reasonable for me to be writing, and for you to be checking in. Read this next part in a week, that is my wish please, thank you.
If you really must know, I have this evening been under the mild influence of a green herb whose name I shall not mention for silly technical reasons. Actually, at one point in Dublin I was under the influence of the very same, EXCEPT that as a matter of fact it was not the same herb at all. It was an entirely innocuous herb, wrapped into a little paper, and it just so happened to have also synthetic sprinklings of a certain chemical similarly occurring in other herbs. Well, I’ll tell you what it was: it was an “incense stick”. “Not for human consumption”. Sold and purchased at a store in the middle of Dublin, a lovely establishment called “Nirvana”. Sold for just 5 euro! And you thought Amsterdam is where the magic’s at. Think again.
I smoked synthetic weed in the middle of Dublin. There, I said it. I bought it from a head shop for 5 euro with my friend, and the store did nothing illegal because they did not intend it for my consumption, it was not an illegal drug inside, just a random herb with some random added chemicals, and anyway it was just an incense stick. An incense stick rolled into a beautiful cone-shape joint with a nice long crutch (filter) just like my friend (who would like the rest of you silly folks be rather upset if I named him) likes it.
Come on, this is funny and worth telling. Is it irresponsible of me? Does anyone really care? Certainly I hope that if it gets read by anyone in a position to judge me, they will do so with a reasonable perspective about it. I hope I have shown that I should not be judged with particular negativity on the basis that I smoked fake pot in a beautiful park in the middle of Dublin the day before St. Patrick’s Day, while Celtic Music played on the street nearby, as we lay by a pond, looking up at the outline of bare winter branches on the sky.
—
I hope I have shown that I am a responsible risk-taker, a curious experimenter, and all in all a pretty normal young person who’s just figuring out his way, his way. And that therefore I should likewise not be judged for what influenced me the night I went to The Caves, one of the “top 100 clubs in the world” (source: DJ MAG), for a concert by Bonobo, one of the “best DJs ever” (source: my Romanian friend Dan). Thank god for Dan who told me about it in the first place, and as a matter of fact got to interview Bonobo for the University radio station. Needless to say, this concert was absolutely incredible, with or without influences, the venue itself was as epic as I envisioned, a literal cavern, and not just one cavern but like 2 or 3, each with a balcony level, where you can look down in the huge caverns, with the beer you just bought at the bar on the other side of the cavern, in what used to be a vault [in the hillside of High Street [link], potentially used for anything from housing to black market dealing. The Cowgate, where I live, was once the very epicenter for Edinburgh’s seedy underground. How thrilling! And how appropriate that on this night, on Friday February 26th, I was subverting the authority by rocking out to music so good it should be illegal. On something likewise. Legal, yes, legal, also purchased at a shop down the street here. Of chemical similarity to MDMA. Go do your research. I do mine. Still judging? I’m not forcing it on you. I wish you to trust me and my decisions and if you cannot do that I wish you to leave me alone.
Sorry. Well, if you can imagine, particularly if you personally can imagine, that night was beautiful. First of all, the music, the dancing, the being with the group of friends around me, 3 people I love and cherish as much as any I’ve met here or anywhere, the cavern, the throng of people, so many people, dancing people, people loving this amazing music, all of us enjoying, dancing, freaking out. Almost everyone on a drug – some with alcohol, some with whatever else… and some with Methylone i.e. bk-MDMA. To each his own. Just don’t be dependent on drugs to have fun, that’s pathetic. Am I pathetic? Tell it to the rest, drinking and drinking and probably unable to dance otherwise. I wish you to leave me alone please unless you have something constructive to say please thank you.
When we left the club, it was snowing lightly. The cool air on my skin, the soft flakes… I cannot even tell you. Hopefully you have done that research, it will help you understand, at least in the distanced way – either way, I recommend Erowid, as an excellent general source about particular things. Anyway you might imagine that I felt absolutely great, merely walking down the street from the club to our flat was such a blissful activity that I scarcely wanted to return at all. I wanted to move my body, see things, explore. Sometimes I do this, not nearly often enough. A city at night, electric light, it’s quite alright!
Sorry. Well, as you might imagine, I did explore. After returning briefly the flat briefly I got an early start by walking my one of the friends back to his flat, maybe a 20-minute journey. Fantastic. We had a cup of tea at his place. Amazing. I then departed alone – ready for adventure. Most serendipitously, my flatmate then calls me, with a couple others, at our place, saying they were feeling an urge to go running. Fabulous. I tell them I’ll meet them outside somewhere.
Then, in a flash of intrinsic brilliance, an idea arrived for me: The Castle. High Street / The Royal Mile. The [link]long sloping street down from the Castle[link], all the way – one mile exactly – to Holyrood Palace. A major destination, wide, well-lit, and absolutely gorgeous chock-full of medieval architecture and modern oddity.
The perfect running lane.
One call, they’re in, we’re good. Meet at the top, by the Castle itself. I was actually there tonight again, and by dog it is so beautiful. It does help to think of its historical significance, whatever it is, that there is some. And that they have it lit so nicely, and especially with a good moon, which there was tonight.
On that night, I don’t remember if there was a moon, but I remember that there were influences, though it is necessary to point out that by this time my influences had all but entirely worn off. It must have been about 4am. So by that point buzzing only on my own excitement, which is really what drives the whole motor in the first place anyway. Point is: I was SO READY for this.
It was another statue-moment. I’m flying down The Royal Mile, two or three of my good buds alongside me, we are fleeing down a quite healthily down-angled street, enough that you have to keep the brakes on a bit… enough that if you jump, you can actually feel the hang time… especially if you’re fast and get a bit more distance out of it… and definitely, especially, if you are flapping your arms good and hard. Which I absolutely was. We were all flapping. And probably making noises of some kind. Wild things! Running through an ancient city! Abroad, and alive, so alive and so cool and so into our own aliveness that you could absolutely laugh at us, resent us, mock us with the derision we deserve. Why should having so much fun be allowed?!
Never mind written about!
Well, those lazy friends of mine decide to break off from the Royal Mile where it goes past our flat, which is about 25% of the way down. Never one to rob myself of a goal-fulfillment, I push onward all alone, all the way down, to Holyrood Palace, and then, all the way back up to the top, at the Castle! 1 mile each way. Uphill returning. Good. Effing. Times.
—
Uh huh uh huh uh huh what else can I say now that it’s quarter after 4 and I do still have that project due on Friday, though I have do all day tomorrow and it shouldn’t be too bad… semester project for “Innovation and Enterprise for Scientists and Engineers”. We have to write a business plan. This is actually my blowoff class, an elective for first-years in Engineering which is actually how I found out about it, my Scottish flatmate Ali who is a first-year in Civil Engineering, and a seriously good lad as well, was taking it, and I thought it would be interesting. We had fun times in that together actually. Oh I am speaking in past-tense ’cause lectures are all over. Yeah, what?! Over. Spring break for 3 weeks, then “revision period” (review) and exams – til the END OF MAY. That’s two months, basically free. WHAT?!
IESE, the worthwhile but blowoffable class on the principles and procedures of building a startup from scratch, is in part pretty cool because the lectures are all the way down in King’s Buildings, the Science and Engineering campus, probably 2 miles down, at least a few times as big as the main part of campus, because of all the science that goes on there. (Informatics is up at George Square with the rest of ‘em.) So, there is a shuttle that goes between campuses, and we take it down, but by the time the class ends at 6 pm there are no more shuttles back up! So we have to walk. When we go to lectures. 70% I’d say – mind you it is the only class I skip, out of 5 – we make this walk, Ali my flatmate and I, and I’ve quite enjoyed these long walks, it’s been a cool way to have good conversations and really get to know him. He’s a good lad. And, Ali I really enjoyed that pub dinner, and I’m sorry the Haggis was so small.
Right, well, it’s a decent class, and it is easy, which is Very Good, because the rest of my classes are Very Not Easy. They are demanding in workload and in thoughtload. In fact they have been pretty much taking big ol’ dumptrucks to my brain, lecture after lecture, just piling it on me, and I stand there just sort of reeling from it, taking it all in as fast as I can and just barely following along, all breathless about it. For the first time I’ve actually needed my ADD meds to go to class. For the first time I really pay attention in just about every class, instead of sleeping half the time. Ok, I sleep in Adaptive Learning Environments, but to be honest, that’s not material-heavy, mainly lots of gist. Very, very interesting gist. Potentially life-path-changing gist actually…. we’ll see. We’ll see what grade I get on the exam… it should be fine. I wish it didn’t matter much; usually study abroad grades don’t matter because American schools don’t include them in your GPA. This is why lots and lots of kids who study abroad basically take it like a vacation, or as an actually significant cultural experience (i.e. my cohorts here on the195 and I’m not just being polite when I say that), but not really as a hardcore academic experience. I am very confident saying that I am in a small minority who have to work very hard at school while they are abroad. I am, I do. My grades are not going into my GPA either but they’re going on my transcript, which is going to grad schools. Which matters. Moreover, I’m taking 5 classes, vs. the typical 3 here, and these classes are very important to me. They teach me about all the things I did not know I did not know.
I am learning always ever more about how much I don’t know. It is quite overwhelming – in a good way. The best way.
I am in a good way. The best way, you might say. I am not doing as much as I “could” but like I said that’d be true no matter what. I’m striking a comfortable balance between work and play, Scotland and Informatics, concerts and homework… oh yeah by the way there’ve been three more concerts – well 4 if you count Bonobo @ The Caves which I mentioned already… then there was Blood Red Shoes @ Electric Circus March 8th, Grizzly Bear @ Queen’s Hall March 9th, Youthmovies @ Sneaky Pete’s March 23rd (last night!) – and they were spectacular I tell you. So much rocking. No drugs, scarcely wee bits of alcohol. Yet oh how I have rocked out. Very awesome. Except, Grizzly Bear is overrated, and their show was boring, there I said it.
Sorry. Ok, so, yes, I am doing and feeling great. Lots of work and play and music and dancing and touring, not a ton of real landscape territory touring seeing yet, but its coming. The Hitchhike to Morocco is coming!! I have sent you an email about this. If I haven’t, well, you should give money, charity, me, Morocco, hitchhiking, fundraiser, etc, http://justgiving/com/nathan-hakimi. It is going to be incredible. I’m gonna to see the desert again!! Yes!!
See post “Miscies” for the explanation of these photos from a rally held in Edinburgh by Scotland United as a counter-demonstration against the Scottish Defense League. The SDL, I was later told, ended up in a pub with a police barricade to protect them from some 3,000 protesters violently decrying the SDL’s allegedly “Nazi” and “Fascist” attitudes and radical intolerance of foreign immigrants in the UK.
I am making some progress on figuring out slideshows/galleries, meantime excuse the inefficiency of this display, click for full resolution, and enjoy!
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The rally halts and quiets before the Edinburgh Central Mosque, out of respect and solidarity for the UK Muslim communuity
Protestation, in a corridor of gorgeous architecture, on a sunny day. What's not perfect?
The rally proceeds through Edinburgh's historic city centre. This is a minute from my flat.
This sign expresses the general sentiment.
First a Small Rant: I have been trying and trying for a few days now to get the Slideshow function to work, so that I could include with this post a whole slew of photos, because I’ve been taking tons of them and sharing none. However, because Wordpress is being a big old WANKER, I’m just going to pop it up here without them, and hopefully figure it out later. I feel bad because it’s been awhile since a post. So here goes.
There are many things happening in Scotty Landy Scotland, and it has been difficult to keep up with everything happening, never mind keep up with documenting it! So, I have decided to compile a few short stories of recent happenings, and next week will have another post about Glasgow (last weekend) and Argyll Forest Park (this weekend). But now I bring you:
Many Mini Miscellany!
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The Homestay
Feb. 5-7
Immediately following the events depicted in [my last post], I had the opportunity to stay with a host family out in the countryside, as part of the IFSA-Butler study abroad programming. We bussed out to Penrith, where our respective host families picked us up in pairs and brought us to their homes. My friend Brian and I were very rural and VERY beautiful village of Mauldes Meaburn, for two nights, as organized by IFSA-Butler. Along with another Butler boy, I was hosted by an extremely nice mother of two daughters, an exuberant black retriever, and a very obvious infatuation with the history and beauty of her village. We were treated to walks around the village, and in the nearby Lake District National Park, as well a Bolton-Fulham football (that’s soccer, remember) match with her avid Bolton supporter next-door neighbor! Needless to say, it was a sublime experience, and because I can scarcely describe how gorgeous it was, I’ll let these photos speak for themselves (um false).
Since my photo slideshow is non-functioning at this time, I will simply toss a bunch of them in here… sigh. There’s also the photo up top.
View from the road on the way to Bolton for football match. A 6-shot panorama. Stunning.
There were so many sheep. I was amazed. This was barely 100m away from the host house. Sheep!!
Mauldes Meaburn in its glorious, muted February beauty.
A bridge across the stream in the village.
The Seat
I’ve kept saying I’d make it out to Arthur’s Seat one of these days. Well, I finally did. It was cool. Here are pictures:
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The Rally
Feb. 20
At some point last week the University sent word to the student body that the “Scottish Defence League” had announced their intent to rally in Edinburgh on Saturday. It appears that the SDL is an anti-immigrant, anti-Islam, white nationalist radical group. They are not popular. In reaction to this news, they told us, Scotland United, a coalition of political bodies, religious groups, humanitarian organizations, etc. had organized against them. Police were going to be out in full force preventing clashes.
You can imagine my excitement; especially after a warning from my friendly IFSA-Butler program staff encouraging us to “avoid the city centre on Saturday until such time as the demonstration has passed.”
I woke up 11 a.m. that Saturday to set off for the Ross Bandstand on Princes St. in New Town, where Scotland United gathered for rallying speeches before their big march through Edinburgh. Initially I imagined I’d start by looking for SDL, because I was a bit more curious about what they’d be up to – also because I am a radical white nationalist. However they were scarcely present, had publicized no gathering location, and are generally sketchy. So I decided to just go join the good fight. And take a ton of photos. Which I did indeed. But along the way I also learned a thing or two about politics and controversies in the UK!
The issues at hand largely centers around the large and growing population of Black, Arab, and Indo-Pakistani citizens (as well as illegal immigrants) in Scotland and England. Essentially, these people are being scapegoated for economic troubles. Sound familiar? Now, the “British National Party”, a small far-right party with a hardline stance against foreigner presence in Britain, more or less seeks the restoration of Britain to the days when it was “fundamentally British” – ethnically British. Until recently, it restricted membership to Caucasians. Whereas the BNP at least attempts to function as a viable political party, the EDL/SDL (English Defence League and its Scottish sister) openly and radically oppose the presence of foreigners in their country. The BNP tries to distance itself from the EDL, but they are lumped together in the eyes of the public… or at least in the eyes of the protesters against them. Passionate, passionate protesters.
Arriving at the rally, I knew none of this, but learned quickly, as I witnessed displays oral and written vigorously opposing the BNP and their ilk. Terms such as “Nazi” and “Fascist” were liberally peppered throughout speeches and signs. Speakers of every profession, age, race, and stripe spoke against Racism and in denial of the BNP’s assertions that immigrants harm the UK’s economy. They voiced themselves powerfully to say the least; indeed I was at first taken aback though soon admiring the extremely visceral tone of their demonstration; it was a no-nonsense, no-hesitance, no-bullshit stand AGAINST a movement they felt absolutely unacceptable. The march was tremendous. The SDL did not even appear to be out that day; I am told that there were 90 of them in a pub somewhere, sealed off (protected from the other side) by police. They later accused the Scottish police of muzzling their civil rights unfairly by turning EDL cohorts back at the train station http://www.englishdefenceleague.org/100220-sdl-scottish-defence-league-edinburgh-february-2010.html.
In the most significant moment of the day, the Scotland United marched passed the Edinburgh Central Mosque, where they paused walking and chanting for a minute in support and solidarity with the Muslim community.
I took many pictures. They’ll tell the rest: (hrmmm… well… one of these days).
“(To the tune of Camptown Races… gonna run all night, gonna run all day…): Smash the BNP / Smash the BNP / They are Nazis and they’re scum, Smash the BNP”
“The BNP is a Nazi Pahtyyy (Smash the SDL!)”
“Nazi Scum, Here we come / Nazi scum, off our streets”
“(To the tune of She’ll Be Coming Round the Mountain) There are many many more of us than you / we are black and white and Muslim and we’re Jews (and we’re gay!) / There are many many more, many many more, there are many many more of us than you!”
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The Labyrinth
Feb. 19
The day before said rally, I had a really serendipitous moment. In the middle of my day of class, I decided to leave my stuff in the Appleton Tower lounge and go for a little run around the Meadows. It was lovely. Upon return, I passed through George Square, where I discovered a hidden treasure: a labyrinth.
A labyrinth is a maze-like walking path designed for use as a meditative exercise. Walking the labyrinth takes you along a path, written on the floor with inlaid stones, that bends and winds its way around and into the center of a 30 ft. diameter circle. It isn’t a maze, but one path, which, at a slow and steady pace, takes 30 minutes to walk in and out.
I had never heard of such a thing, but it turns out that labyrinths like this exist all over the world, and have for many centuries. This one was built just 5 years ago, and is modelled after a 700-year old labyrinth laid in the floor of the Chartres Cathedral in France.
I did it. It was not unlike previous meditative/hypnotic experiences I’ve had in the past. Helpful and refreshing. With just enough time to get to my next class, I walked off with a calm and focused mind and went on with my day.
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The Glasgow
Feb. 27 – 28
Shame that the definite article theme doesn’t quite fit here. Oh well – so, this is the story of Glasgow; I was gonna save it for my next post, but as Hillel would say.
This past weekend, I had the pleasure of joining a celebratory romp in the Scotland’s real Big City, on account of my Scot Flatmate Ali’s 18th birthday! As you are aware, turning 18 in Scotland – er, most of the world – is akin to turning 21 in the states. True civil societies, these.
Ali decided that he wanted to celebrate his accomplishment by bringing a bunch of friends out to Glasgow, where the real party’s at. Edinburgh may be the capital, and is certainly good for a good time, no doubt. But Glasgow’s population is slightly larger and significantly less “posh”; being a largely industrial type of town, Glasgow has more true urban grit than this town of yuppy cosmopolitan types. They also have two football teams, the rival supporters of which are not uncommonly known to kill each other. Also they have Buckfast.
We set off on Saturday afternoon on the train from Waverley, and arrived in a short hour. There were, like, 10 of us – some Ali’s friends from work, some from his hometown Prestonpans, and a few other studentmates like me. I should note, at this time, that Alister Guiney is a good boy. He has a sanguine nature, a clever brain (1st year Civil Engineering), and looks just like my Brandeis friend Adam Patterson – who, not coincidentally, is of Scottish descent. By the way Adam I haven’t forgotten about the kilt. It will happen.
Well, anyway, the lot of them had booked different hotel rooms, sort of each-on-his-own. I myself utilized the excellent website Couchsurfing, and upon arrival was met by my venerable host Donald, a 20-year old student of Civil Engineering at Strathclyde University. That afternoon, there was a rugby game between England and Ireland. While the group watched in a pub near Central Station, I went back to drop my stuff at Donald’s flat, and watch the game there. Quite an exciting one it was. I watched with Donald and his 34-year old flatmate Damien, director of Marketing for the largest supplier of water coolers in the UK. He apparently had quite a lot of money riding on an England victory, despite being Irish himself – an inexcusable travesty in Donald’s eyes. Donald is a highly principled fellow; coming from wayy up north near Invergordon, he has the sensibilities of what we’d call a farmboy. In fact he is a farmboy. The next morning I had soup of mutton stock from his family’s own sheep.
In one other notable moment (I’d be moving on if it weren’t, don’t worry), Donald’s Irish rugby-betting-traitor 34-year old Marketing Director flatmate mate a comment about how the company he works for is owned by “Israeli Jews”. How he, as a matter of fact, had been to Tel Avi on business! He had no idea I was Jewish. I was all a tizzy with excitement to hear what he had to say… I scarcely care whether he had something disparaging, I truly wish I could hear people’s unfiltered comments out here.
Well, as it turned out, he did not have anything disparaging to say. Quite the contrary, he affirmed the stereotypes of Jews being clever businesspeople, and expressed admiration thereof! He liked that the owners of his company are “shrewd”, that they do what they have to do, that they make things run well and successfully. Soon thereafter he asked me of my faith – “Wait, are you Jewish??” – and was quite relieved that he had been positive about it. We had a little talk about Israel subsequently… which was fine… to get into it would be opening up a WHOLE notha box. Moving on.
Met back up with the group, Donald along. They’re at a pool hall playing games for pints. Ali and his friend Billy had been cleaning up. They were accordingly pished. We decided to move out, Donald decided to head to hang out with his friends, who were too skinned to join on a night out, and we parted ways until later when I met up with him and his friends… possibly the highlight of the night.
The group heads to Ali’s hotel room. I stop on the way at Tesco for a bit of tea (dinner), and a 5-quid half-bottle (35 cl, ~8 shots) of whisky. It would last me the night. A roughly 80% savings I reckon compared to pubclub drinking. Boorish? Maybe. Shrewd? Hell yes. Atta Jew. Making Damien proud.
Well, one hour or two hours later, we’re on our way. Not exactly knowing the Glasgow scene, we head toward Sauchiehall street, a known hotspot. Find our way into chinese-themed bar called Buddha Bar. Somewhat lame. Having passed this way earlier, between City Centre and Donald’s flat, I knew something of the area – and knew that down the street was the bar Nice N Sleazy, apparently a very hipsterly sort of place. Had to check it out. Did so. Met back up. Pretty hammered. Them too. Time to move. Get cabs. Off to clubs – “Social”? ”Carbon”? Who knows. Off we go.
At the club. With 6, 7 others. Lost Ali and whoever was with him… later discovered he got into the club next door to ours – inadvertently through the VIP line! Lucky wanker you. We dance, we have a good time… the best part of this place, actually, was that it was situated in a square (there are lots of Squares and Courts, everywhere, in Europe. It’s cool) around an art museum (more on art museums in a moment), and that this square was adorned rooftop to rooftop with rows of… hey, you know what? Found a picture. Speaks for itself:
Royal Exchange Square at night... one of the trip's highlights. Absolutely beautiful. Courtesy of glasgow-pictures.com
So, if you can imagine that ^^ except around three sides of a square (you’re looking out the right, it’s also straight “above you”, and to your left… and if you happen to be buzzing at the moment with night-out, new-place, holy shit I’m in Glasgow excitement, then you’ll know how I felt. Awesome.
Well, about two hours pass at the club, and I get bored of it. Adrian and I – who you’ll remember from a couple back as my American study abroad cohort flatmate – decide to depart. We phone up Donald my host, who gives us directions to the flat he’s hanging out at with his friends. It takes a good stroll, but it’s fantastic, a crackling night, completely alive with people. Nothing like it. We find him – he’s drunk, we’re drunk, he carries me on his back to the flat, it’s good times.
Had no idea what I was getting into until I walked through the door to these kid’s common area/kitchen. Absolute COLLEGE. Like I have never seen before. Walls covered – but covered – with titty photos. Boxes and bottles and shit strewn everywhere. Xbox on. Music on. Freshman boys doing their thing. In the room next door, somewhat more tame, some chilling, music, perhaps smoking (?) – don’t remember. All in all, bedlam. That night, there were frozen french fries made, discussions about American and UK cultural differences had, wrestling matches, and at the climax, and EPIC SESH OF ROCKING to the tune of Blink-182, System of a Down, Green Day, and Nostalgic Grade School Punk in General. Happy, happy times.
Departure, sleep, 3 or 4 a.m.? Not a bad night. Not a bad night at all.
The next day, Donald joined Adrian – whom he happily accepted into his abode as well – and I on a bit of touring. This was another trip highlight, including a visit to the Kelvingrove Museum of art and natural history, a tour through University of Glasgow, walks up and down the streets, and a bit of off-the-beaten-path experience. I have to say that the River Clyde, it’s many bridges, and the one spot where we walked under the bridge, was one of the more magical experiences I’ve had. Even moreso than the also-magical Glasgow City Centre. Sublime through and through. Shame I didn’t have an hour and a tripod. My photos suffice only to help me recall, hardly to convey, what it was like.
We depart at 4 p.m., and head back for the flat. I noted that the feeling of returning is “coming home”: when I was in Israel for a semester, just about 4 years ago exactly, I observed the same thing. Very cool.
Unfortunately, I had 2000-3000 words to write for Adaptive Learning Environments due the next day, so I slept intermittently and wrote a lot, which was… not super pleasant.
But all in all I’d had a great time, and was happy to finally see Glasgow, particularly on the momentous occasion of the illustrious Ali’s 18th, and especially under the hospitality and companionship of my Couchsurf host Donald. Good times with Scotsmen in Scotland.
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The HITCH!
Coming Spring Break
Most likely anyone reading my blog has already heard about this, but I will reiterate. It’s mad importante y’all so listen up.
I am Hitchhiking to Morocco for Charity.
Yes, you head it right. Hitchhiking. Through Scotland, England, France, and Spain, into Morocco. On behalf of a charity called Link Community Development, and in conjunction with over 1500 other UK students who are doing so during Easter Holiday, either to Morocco or Prague. With a partner or two. Under the umbrella of guidance and support from LCD (who’ve run this with no major incidents for 18 years)… for the purpose of raising money for their organization!
Come Easter, I will be setting off from Edinburgh with my partner Sas, a student at the Edinburgh College of Art, to hitchhike all the way down, with only a rough plan, our wits, and some snacks. Should be an adventure.
Every participant pledges to raise £350. I have already topped £500! With still over a month left to go, I have made it my new personal goal to reach £1,000. Every penny goes to LCD International, a non-profit organization which works to improve the quality of education in Sub-Saharan Africa. They do so in a unique way and, I believe, are achieving extraordinary things.
Please take a minute to get more information about the case and see how you can contribute at my fundraising page:
http://www.justgiving.com/nathan-hakimi
Cheers all!
Occurred: 02/03/10
First Written: 02/04/10
Edited, then Posted: 02/07/10
It’s 1:00 a.m., Thursday Feb. 4, and I am in my room at my desk at my laptop. Writing. About how, not more than twenty minutes ago, I was in a cave in a bar in a hillside. Rocking.
I should have started my Cognitive Modelling assignment. I should be doing it now. [And now, four days later to the minute, 15 hrs to deadline, but instead I'm editing and posting this.]
Instead, I rocked in a cave, and now, I write on my blog. Life is better this way.
Flashback: two hours ago. It’s 10:30 p.m., Wednesday the 3rd. I come back from the gym to find my flatmate Adrian, and two other friends. They are chilling in the kitchen/living-room. They debate the timeless question: what we gonna do tonight? Adrian wants to hit The Hive, where there’s a white-T & highlighter party. Sean is feeling more live band than DJ, hence, The Jazz Bar (very sweet place by the way). Frantisek the Czech would rather veg and watch a film, and I should just be starting my Cognitive Modelling project already! It’s due on Monday, and I’ll be gone this weekend on homestay.
But hey, if there’s a night to be had, what can you do?
After much highly civilized discussion, Sean and Frantisek decide forget it, and go back to their flats. This leaves me with Adrian, who convinces me to shirk my work and come see what it’s like at The Hive.
Glad I did, though The Hive I did not. Homework is hard. Rocking is awesome.
Yalla. Scarf dinner, change clothes, fill flask (yup), out door, at Hive, 10 minutes. 3 in transit. How sweet it is to live on Cowgate.
So, “The Hive” is basically an Edinburgh student standby club, always around for a good indie-kidpunk-electro vibe, cheap drinks, and a good turnout by other buzzing bumblebees. And though for all these reasons I suppose it’s lost its luster, I do have to say that it’s got a great atmosphere, largely due to its distinct physical features. It is built like an actual Hive, which is to say, it isn’t “built” at all. There is no structure, no walls. It consists of a chain of caves tunneling into the hillside of High Street.
(For now just skip this) TANGENT: Hillside of High Street, Geography, etc.
The city of Edinburgh city owes its prominence to The Castle, a beautiful and truly formidable fortress built atop a 260-ft tall extinct volcano in the middle of the city, virtually impregnable from all sides but one. As you can imagine, this has been of great strategic importance historically. Indeed Edinburgh’s traditional Gaellic name, “Dùn Èideann”, translates to “fort on a hill slope”.
Today, The Castle no longer serves a military purpose (unless you count tourism) (?). Yet even now, its unique physical nature makes it an important fixture in the Edinburgh landscape. I mean, you have this massive ex-volcano in the middle of downtown, sheer cliff face all around, except for the long skinny path that emerges from its East side, trailing away like a very big ramp.
Edinburgh’s Dragon Tail serves it well. Once, it allowed access by Scottish defenders to their fortress at the top of the hill; today it allows access by many many tourists to the very same fortress, and to one zillion merchants of cashmere and whisky, all along the way up. It is literally a street-hill, chock full of restaurants and stores. It is called High Street, but has attained tourism status as The Royal Mile – appropriately so, being exactly one mile of street, from Castle Rock to Holyrood Palace, where the long slope meets the ground. Legend has it there’s an underground tunnel from Castle to Palace. Better start looking!
Extra-tangentially: you might be interested to learn as I did from our first city tour that such formations, came about during the Ice Age, when glacial flow would meet a volcano but fail to completely raze it, and thus leave a trail in the wake of the hill. This is called a “Dragon’s Tail”. Parallel to the long slope is a long valley, also carved by ice. These features constitute the essential layout of Edinburgh: the valley, sort of an area unto its own, including Waverley Station and this one club with a jacuzzi inside it; Old Town, south of the valley, with The Castle, the slope of High Street extending out of it, all sorts of cobbled medieval windiness, and also my flat; and New Town, north of the valley, designed with modern urban planning (circa 1765!), with grids and sewage and everything, where George St. and Princes St. run East-West, in parallel to each other, to the valley, and to High St., and where all the best places to spend money can today be found.
Anyway, the thing about all this glacial rampaging is that it left lots of slopey hillside all around. Thus, there remained lots of space to carve out chunks into the hillsides; thus you have the vaults, which were used as dungeons and other ghastly whatnot and today are the destination for Edinburgh’s popular ghost tours. Beyond that, there was also plenty of space for people to carve out businesses and residences; such space, literally buried into hillside, is very convenient for, say, venues in which it would be helpful to, say, insulate the sounds of loud techno…
/TANGENT
And so, we’re at The Hive, embedded in the hill by South Street Bridge, a few caves, full of alcohol and music: dank in both senses. Under different circumstances, I’d be all for jumping in. But at this moment, standing outside the door with Adrian, on a particularly nippy night, I just am not that interested. There is in fact a highlighter party on tonight… but there aren’t many people in line… got this homework… wasn’t really that enthused to begin with… and tonight it’s a £5 cover, which white-t included or not is more than I will gamble on a party at such times. So, I say to Adrian, I’m gonna pass. He’s got friends inside and still wants it, so we part ways.
I strike back alone for Kincaid’s Court. Food, warmth, and internet: home sweet home.
Resigned indifference. Little did I know.
On the way home, I go past Bannerman’s, this grungy pub down the street I found way back (oh how long it already seems) on Day 2. I’d usually be uninterested, except that at this moment, Bannerman’s walls are throbbing, with the muted but unmistakable sound of rocking.
The cave! The cave – like The Hive, also under South Bridge – in the back, with the little stage, and the pool table that students play for free. I’d only ever seen that stage empty or with drunken Karaoke. Curiosity picks-me-up. I roll into the pub. Inside the main barroom, adorned with flags all over, I distinctly hear the music from the back. Under the stone arch, down the narrow hall, to a black door, tightly closed, scarcely containing the beast within. I wrench it open. Immediately, the sound pummels my body harder than descriptive ability can manage against it.
I look to see the source of aural onslaught. Forty feet away, four possessed men, besieging the stage with fucking violent devil-punk. If you know what I mean, you know what I mean (so join the tautology club). It’s hardcore. Not so much music as sonic rage. And LOUD. Very loud. It’s certainly not my usual cup of tea. But I’m open-minded. I walk forward a little bit.
Shock dissipates. And I listen.
This music was ruthless, vengefully trashing the walls and the air. It had escaped musicians and attained life of its own, a red-eyed demon reindeer snarling off across the sky, careening breakneck poison perspiration, would-be Santas skitching perilously. Along the way, it feeds – feasting on feelings of all in its path who have within them pieces of itself – all those who are able to see the beast as it passes, taken hostage to the sleigh. They nourish and propel it.
Rapture. Abduction, monstrous and blissful. Injected with venomsweat, trait rape drug, coaxing the seed. Straight to the head. Then knees. Arms. Chest. Lids shut, ragdoll rhythm puppet possessed. Grinning mad.
Snap out, self-aware. Look around. The rest of the small crowd, pretty inanimate. All few also seized, but they’re up in the front. Standing by myself behind a crowd I don’t fit in, not dressed in the threads of the perpetually grim. Social inhibition sucks out my oxygen. Reduced to a bounce. Hrm.
This band, though! I don’t usually go for punk or hard rock, but when it happens right, it is good! They are absolutely kicking it. Drummer, powerful and rhythmic, guitar and bassline furious but clean, the man with the mic scr-SCREAMING exuberantly. They have riotous energy; they blast it forth like a Birmingham firehose.
Song ends. Yes want more please now k. Drop jacket, run to toilet for my TP ‘plugs (every club and concert, babes) and bounce right back. They’ve revved up again. Hit me. This time, squeeze past the passive patties, joining comrades on the frontline. Slay my inhibition. “Take off that silly-ass hat” (of sort in #4 here). Assume rockout stance. Close eyes. Start moving. Full torso brandish, arm jabs melodica, no one knows me. Who even cares. A fool either way, might as well dance — been developing this attitude, with Joe P as model (in this and other respects).
ROCK. Lead man is off the stage, bouncing about in a semi-circle, screaming his cords out. Guitarist, long-haired skinny-jeans cool kid who can’t be much older than me, absolutely rips through a solo, carrying the whole song’s melody and energy; I’m jealous and in love. I’m in the zone.
ROCKING OUT. Urban Dictionary, definition #2: “to listen to or play music to such an extent that the mind begins to lose consiousness and a new, more insane alter ego takes control”.
ROCKING OUT IS AWESOME. It’s hurling bricks at hillsides, “fight club” with god (like Jacob), infinite centrifugal force, spinspinspinning, fleeing zombies, hands and fingers gripping fast on dislocated pullup bars, ten thousand feet high, over raging battlegrounds, over the cesspool city jungle.
I have been striving toward two possibly opposite things. You could call them Complete Peace and Sheer Thrill. On one end, perfect calm, balance, serene. The other, more chaos, more madness, sheer abandon, such as is the only sensible way to internalize the peril and hilarity of inevitable death, achieving ecstasy to the point of lunacy. Fleeing from and towards. Rocking out is for the second one. I guess chillout grooves are for the other, or maybe Classical, though any complex/intricate music is maybe for a third, which would be advanced intellect/understanding. Many goals. Hard to categorize. But Rocking Out is for Thrill, is for Chaos Music. Rock Music is for Chaosing Out. For feeling awesome and embodying that feeling, letting it move you, hard.
At the last song, a mosh pit forms. I join without hesitation. Moshing is the culmination. Not just embodying more fully, but adding the dimension of other bodies. The pressure of people, pushing, sharing, collecting it forward, bodily enactment of blissful rage. Now, I’m not into violence and I ain’t tryin to get a rib cracked. Apparently neither are these guys, ’cause this pit is a bit on the gentle end (but better on the safe side, eh mom?). Anyway, it is still sick, we are rocking out, the band, me, and the rest, a girl too, not just for dudes, and the music blares and my body flails and finally they come to a ridiculous, impetuous crescendo, and then boom, done.
After the show, I talk to the band. They’re from Oakland, CA. Their name is Static Thought. They are super-nice, for unleashing some kinda beast. And they’re giving away free posters. Brilliant. Compliments and gratitude exchanged, I take my leave.
That was 3 hours ago. Now, I’m at the desk in my room, and yet again have used the time from 1 to 3 am composing a post for my blog. It’s when I do my best work. Not long ago, Adrian came back saying how awesome the highlighter party was. Shoulda stayed? Not in hindsight. He acknowledges the equal awesomeness of my spontaneous experience.
Rocking, then writing. Emotion into creativity. Motion into electricity. Expending energy. Increasing drive. “Keep moving, stay in motion!” I’d been on my way home to hang out and do homework. Instead, I found myself in Bannerman’s stage cave, rocking out hard. Lucky thing. Without this, nothing else can be real; things that seem productive are the real distractions, are completely squandered time. Without cleansing the self by sweat and sex, how can the self gravitate toward what is best and true?
Maybe that is what “the Scots are onto” (though turns out some have got the wrong idea). Anyway, “that feeling” isn’t local to anyplace at all. It happens in Israel, Argentina, and China. All 195. It needn’t be music at all. To feel, feel something, a beat, or words, or motions – embodied emotions, to feel in brain and bones – bringing it all together – is satisfying. On a deep level. Mustn’t grow out of or forget it.
How lucky to be in a place where my soul can be set loose! That I should I have many more moments like these. Thank you Static Thought, thank you Bannerman’s, thank you Edinburgh. Thank you hashem/reality/existence, thank you loving-family for all of this. Thank you new class schedule that doesn’t start til 3 on Thursdays. Thank you whoever took time out of their life to read this post. I need to do this, I need to send it out around me. I need to feel you bumping back. Tell me, tell me how you feel, about anything I’ve said before, about anything you feel, tell me truthfully, let it pour from you. I feed on it.
Good night!
Prologue
Regarding the photo above. Last Sunday, I went on a ghost tour with Mercat Tours! It was very cool. Our tour guide took us around Edinburgh and taught us all about the ghastly tales of murders and executions from its unsavory history. Then, in order to deomnstrate the kind of treatment prisoners were given, she grabbed two prisoners and reenacted! Johnny Wilkinson and David Beckham, thieves and scoundrels both. We suffered all manner of perverse tortures. First, twenty lashings. Then, ear pinned to the wall. Second ear cut off. First ear ripped from wall. Tongue cut out. Something else involving burning and/or stabbing. Unsure of the rest; began losing consciousness. Eventually released, publicly mutilated and humiliated. Got off pretty easy; many others suffered worse much in the name of bloodthirsty justice during Edinburgh’s Dark Past. Felt right as rain by the time we got to go down to the underground vaults, the real highlight of the tour. Built deep in the hillside of High Street (see forthcoming post), and said by paranormal types to have some of the strongest ghost presence in the world. I didn’t see or feel any ghosts, but it sure was large, dark, and creepy. And fun. Especially getting whipped by our lovely guide. If you have facebook, you can see more photos, courtesy of my friend Bonnie, here.
Prologue 2
Quick note about what’s been on my mind lately and how this post came to be. One month in, I’ve started to feel that being in Edinburgh, while amazing, isn’t quite the life-threateningly extreme abroad experience I’d fantasized about. It’s unique, exciting, and gorgeous, but still is a contemporary, developed, English-speaking city. So it just won’t be like, say, somewhere actually foreign. Again, definitely different and special coming from Chicago and Boston, but it ain’t the wilderness or the third world.
(Upon reading this, a friend said that if I want life-threatening, I should check out Glasgow at night. Sounds like a plan!)
Partly because it’s partly truth, and partly to rationalize my dissonance over semi-disappointment at the normalcy, I start telling myself that the real reason I came was for the academics. More Study than Abroad. In all fairness, I did already decide awhile ago that I will commit more seriously to academics here than I have yet at Brandeis. That fact is that I’m having a truly rich and interesting experience course-wise! So, I get all excited about this, and start writing a super-long double-post about academics, one delving into what I’m learning in one particularly interesting class, Cognitive Modelling, and another long one about each class one by one… I wrote and re-wrote for about a week. For real. Eventually, though, I started to feel like what I had written did not deserve to be posted; it was getting long-winded for one thing, and most of all, boring! Because, hey, we’re all at school… I don’t keep a blog at Brandeis. I’m in a unique place now and want to tell you about unique things. If I can incorporate discussion of my major, my courses, and my intellectual progress with audience-worthy descriptions and stories about the space, events, and ideas regarding Uni of / Edinburgh / Scotland, then perfect.
Which brings me to this entry! I am going to report on a specific subset of my home for the semester. Indeed, it is arguably my real home for the semester, as it is in fact the reason I chose to come here in the first place. It is:
The School of Informatics
“Informatics” is an odd word and a fascinating concept, so if you’re curious, let’s dive into it. Simplistically speaking, Informatics is Computer Science; here at Edinburgh it is the umbrella department for all programs related to Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence, Software Engineering, and so on. But it isn’t The School of Computer Science… it’s The School of Informatics. While you do have courses in databases and algorithms and software and security, there are also several with names like Computational Linguistics, Cognitive Psychology, Genetics, and Theory of Mind. Alongside degree programmes in CS, AI, etc., there are diplomas to be earned in “Mind and Language”, “Linguistics and Artificial Intelligence”, and, yes, “Cognitive Science”.
What do all these disciplines have in common? What is the essence of these strains inquiry, the reason they are lumped together, and under the peculiar name of “Informatics”? What is informatics actually about?
Well, it ain’t hard to guess. “Informatics” is the Science(s) of Information. Information! Simple enough word. We know what it means… at least, we think we do. Try to really grasp and define it, though, and it gets slippery. What is information? Data, facts, knowledge. Information is properties: complex patterns of data that give rise to systems, the rules that govern them, the relations within and between them, abstractness and meta-properties. Information has processes: creation, storage, access, usage. Computers do it. Brains do it. Organizations do it. We, as a world in the Information Age, are all about it. The rapid, effective, increasingly automated transfer of information. Communication: Verbal Language does it, as do Mathematical Language, and Formal Logic; as do, by some peculiar fusion of perhaps all three, Electronic Circuitry and Binary Code.
These concepts guide The School of Informatics into a basic dichotomy of purpose, one theoretical/research-oriented, the other applied. The applied end pretty much dominates the field at both University and Career levels, because the fact is whereas research is research, fields like Artificial Intelligence, Knowledge Management and Engineering, and Information Technology are HUGE business. They are not just businesses in themselves, but enable pretty much every other business. Together they represent the basic task of our society at large in the Computer Age: systematizing and automating the flow of information, in a “smart” way. Information is the ultimate asset. It is bought and sold, worth billions, jealously protected, cunningly obtained. Thus we try to deal with it in ever more advanced ways, in ever more tremendous quantities, in order to make the systems we depend on run ever more smoothly. Not just for capital gain, but for daily living, and even for humanitarian improvement. Our airplanes, our courts, our groceries, our families. Efficiency in management of food, resources, power, structure, education. Information, wielded properly, is prosperity.
On the other end, “Informatics” is a tool for and a type of understanding in fields like Neuroscience, Linguistics, Psychology, and so forth. Why? Because the brain is an information-processing system. In fact it is the best such system anyone knows of, and we scarcely understand it. Indeed, the reason CS/AI-types tend toward Neuroscience is because if there’s any model out there for what we want computers to accomplish, it’s the very thing we use to figure out how to make it happen.
Finally, as far as I’m concerned, there is a “super deep” philosophical idea behind this idea, I’ll admit that I’m stretching with this and not exactly representing the goals or ideals of the Edinburgh School of Informatics. It’s a metaphysical claim, it’s probably been made before, by someone much smarter than me, and it’s probably deeply flawed, as someone smart could tell me, but until someone does I hold the following belief:
Philosophical B.S.
Our Worlds – each person’s inner world, and the universal outer world – are Information. Literally everything is literally made of literally information. There is nothing else. Then again, “information” is just nice placeholder language, a metaphysical descriptor, to talk about what actually exists beyond the perceivable world.
The World is Information: A Theoretical Idea. Or, All Things Are Concepts: A Concept. As some might say, the world at its purest is nothing but numbers. There are particles, infinitely small, forming bigger ones, “atoms” and “molecules”, forming structures, undergoing reactions, forming objects; objects and reactions; there are rules, logic, reasons starting back with atoms, with numbers; abstract properties, from numbers up, intangible, conceptual, “odd” and “even”, “prime” and “square”; upward, objects, properties and relations, relations between objects, “within” and “without”, “connected” and “apart; more abstract, more complex, relations between relations, concepts of concepts, “sincere” and “sarcastic”, “bizarre” and “banal”, “you” and “me”, “abstract” and “complex”. Bottom to top. Top to bottom. Everything representations, symbols, patterns. Information. Everything. Everything felt, perceived, imagined, spoken, changed; made of, enabled by, generated and regenerated, from nothing but Information. Nothing but information, and its properties and processes, themselves metainformation; everything an abstraction on abstractions; everything a concept.
[Richly Ridiculous Ramblings] Of course, reality is more than what we see. Each person, says Kabbalah, is a “mustard seed in the middle of the sphere of the moon” – itself a seed within the next sphere, and also a moon around the next seed, and so on infinitely up, and so on infinitely down; and all of that a seed, “in further expanses”, to infinity, and outside of that infinity, “further expanses”, and so on outward, and outward. Infinity to infinite powers of itself. Recursive infinity. Might as well stop there, after that none of anything makes sense, but… but… well… ok. So, of everything there, everything real, some of that (which is some of some of etc.) we take in. Limited by 5 senses and whatever higher faculties. A brain-body-organism. We take it in, churn up, and put it out: and what we get is, what we took in. A world. So how does what we generate relate to what we generate it from? Conscious experience, a projection, an illusion, a re-creation of “reality”… but does it mirror true-reality? Not only that, but does the conscious mechanism itself itself mirror true-reality. Why not? Three parallel worlds: true-reality (god’s reality), the mind-reality (what we see), and the system/s that connect the two together. At the locus of the interaction, mind and brain, there are the tangles and the web. The actual neuronal patterns. Is that the secret, the reason for the manifestation of the world, by the world, within the world? The brain manifests itself within its own reality? The secret to itself displayed as itself in itself? It all wraps around! Are patterns of the brain, of the mind, and of the things around us in our mind’s reality, spirals and fractals and genes and galaxies and crystals and bosons and phi, a reflection of greater reality?? Of course, everything we see must still be part of what really is, because it’s all a part of everything. Nothing can be outside everything. Or maybe not: perhaps containers can contain themselves. Mustards and moons. Data, webs, relations, abstractions, so on, so forth. Information. Words and nonsense.
Back to Informatics.
Bottom line: “Informatics”, if you really really think about it, is very powerful, and kinda scary. I only hope the thinking, not my rambling about it, is what frightens you. Though I couldn’t blame you.
The School of Informatics itself is not scary at all! Their facilities are beautiful, their faculty are incredible, and the community is just pretty cool in general. Appleton Tower, where many of my classes are, has amazing classrooms, computer labs, and offices for real-life consulting work by university research groups; it is also accessible 24/7 to Informatics students, booya! Then there is the Informatics Forum, another massive building containing all faculty offices, most research space, and conference space. At this very moment they are hosting a conference on NeuroInformatics. Connected to the forum is another amazing facility, called Inspace: a fascinating experiment in creating technologically rich gallery space, so as to “study the interaction of people with each other, with spaces, with artifacts and with machines”, through (quote) Networking, Robotics, and Multimodal Interaction. Last Friday my flatmate and I attended an event there called “Freshly Prepared”, part of the “Dialogues 5″ series, featuring a two groups of electronic musicians, including a group of Edinburgh PhD students, and a fantastic American DJ/Trumpet duo, whom performed experimental pieces incorporating electronic distortion of live sounds (e.g. the duo’s trumpet, or one PhD’s random mouth noises) with other electronically generated noises. It was by turns bizarre and inspired, and overall very cool.
The School of Informatics, moreover, is contributing to my Scottish cultural experience! Last week, they hosted a Burns Supper which I attended and in fact photographed for them. It was superb. I had my very first Haggis, which was actually pretty good (the neeps and tatties really make it). What’s more, I witnessed and participated in the traditional proceedings of a Burns Night, arguably the Scottish national holiday – the whole nine yards. This included seeing The Haggis properly piped in – literally, marched in with bagpipes – and heralded with The “Address to a Haggis”, by Robbie himself, enacted most enthrallingly by Informatics’ own Mr. Steve Ewing. Much to my delight someone caught it on video just so you can see it too. (Along with a glimpse of me photographering!)
In short, The School of Informatics, as much as the city of Edinburgh or the country of Scotland, is for the next few months my home. Three of my five courses are in the department. Only one of them, Cognitive Modeling, most directly addresses my “primary interest” i.e. how the brain works, through the practice of building and testing simulations of cognitive processes against real-life experimental data. The other two are in applied AI – Adaptive Learning Environments, about computer tutoring systems, and INF2D: Reasoning and Agents, about the fundamentals of AI programming: programs with the ability to parse complex data and take goal-based, rational actions in probablistic domains (situations involving uncertainty a.k.a. real life).
At present, not one, not two, but all three of them threaten me with looming project deadlines. Stressful! Yet despite the, you know, effort involved, I am thoroughly enjoying my studies; I’m thinking a lot, learning a lot, and exploring a different side of things than I could have anywhere else. The material I’m learning forces me to think at a metacognitive level – learning about how people learn, about making implicit knowledge explicit/”formal”, about the way the pieces of information fit together, making new information, and so on. The web, the mustard, the moon. It’s all there. Now, I’m hardly smart or disciplined enough to do the homework properly never mind achieve the stated “learning objectives” never mind actually attain the level of super-understanding I’m trying to talk about now but… hey, I’m trying. And if I can figure out how to balance living/playing in Edinburgh/Scotland with studying hard in Uni/Informatics… I’ll be just golden.
Another Note
Since my course schedule has changed drastically since I listed it a few weeks ago, and in lieu of my long-multi-post on each of, I’ll just quickly update on it. This is the final roster including department and year normally taken:
Cognitive Modelling, INF Year 4
Adaptive Learning Environments, INF Year 4
Informatics 2D: Reasoning and Agents, INF Year 2
Psychology of Thinking and Language, PPL (Psychology, Philosophy, and Linguistics) Year 3
Innovation and Enterprise for Scientits and Engineers, School of Management (School of Engineering) Year 1
I’ll tell you more about each of them in time.
Epilogue
This past Saturday I finally got a chance to hike out to Holyrood Park, though I still haven’t climbed Arthur’s Seat. It was a beautiful day. I took a long walk around the city in general and through the park, and later in the day played ultimate frisbee with some of my new regular-student friends, and took lots of pictures which I will post soon (along with others of grub, pubs, n clubs)! It was a beautiful day.
So, yeah. It may not be the Edge of the World, but aye, can’t lie, Edinbra is quite alright.
Happy February.
It is 1 a.m. on Tuesday night, and I am half-asleep when, from the street outside my second-story flat, simple but passionate sounds drift up and start my tired brain. It is – undoubtedly – the cry of an entire people’s collective consciousness. Like a single bubble rising to the surface of a boiling pot, expressing on its own the state of the whole container, the feelings that burst forth into the night pour not only from the heart of one young woman, but from that of all her comrades. They pierce the cold air and the thin glass pane between us, shaky but unmistakable strains of one very singular song:
“She’s JuST a SMallltowNN girlll…… liviiiiinn in a LOONNNELLYY WORLLD…”
Quickly roused, I scrabble for my spectacles and draw myself up to the window to see.
“She toohna middniight traiiiin gooin.. AnnYYYwHERREE”
Lo and behold, the vessel for this plaintive expression of communal emotion, the prophet herself, none other than: some random girl, plastered as all hell, stumbling down the sidewalk on the Cowgate, probably on her way from one club to another, clutching her friend’s arm and struggling to maintain her upright stance never mind her dignity.
Skipping all the words that no one really knows anyway, she emits the inevitable cry:
“Dooon’t STOP! beliieEVEVIVNg! hold… on TO that FEEEELINGG…!!”
And at this, stirred by the familiar tune and the obvious significance of this moment, I quickly unlatch the window and join in:
“Streeetlightss… peeeeopllllle!!”
Hearing this, she stops. She turns and looks back, and pauses in whatever vague recognition her swimming brain can muster before once again, even more strongly now, she shouts:
“Dooon’t stop… belieeeving…”
And in a moment we are together, repeating the refrain, sharing that kind of ineffable moment you can’t try to create, and then there is another group of lads approaching, and they join in too, and before long there is an entire throng, many people, masses of people, buoyed to ecstasy by music and alcohol, hundreds of them, robed in skinny jeans and spandex, sequins and feathers, blacks and brights and sunglasses in the dark and whatever the hell they feel like because they know they look cool and they don’t give a fuck. There are thousands of them, heeding the call, drinking and dancing, rubbing on each other, telling the world to piss off, telling their schoolwork to go, I dunno, just go fucking wait awhile, go somewhere else. They flood the street, countless millions now, reaching critical mass, initiating nuclear reactions, forming gravitational fields, sucking in each other and all matter around them, imploding on themselves, bending and cracking the concrete beneath them and bursting into flames at the Earth’s hot core.
Or something like that. That, or, the song stops, the moment dies, and the hammered girl lumbers merrily along. She probably forgets about our moment, forgets the entire night by morning, forgets that there may be more to life than clubbing and forgets, if she knew it in the first place, that her liver wishes she would take it easy already. But hey, you’re only young once.
I smile and lower back into bed. I wonder to myself whether this girl, this lovely girl who just couldn’t stop believing, really had something to believe in – something to not stop believing in, that is.
She sang, I say, on behalf of her people – of Edinburgh, of Scotland, of the whole UK (Wikipedia notes that this song was exceptionally popular in the UK and particularly in Ireland, where it remains one of the top ten downloaded songs to this day), on behalf of her young peers, on behalf of drunken people everywhere. Hold on to that feeling.
But again: What feeling? Drunkenness? Good luck with that. (It’s called alcoholism, kids, and that’s bad, mmkay?) Happiness? What happiness is there in cavorting about like a moron, pathetic, giving in, not affirming something? Our girl is willingly blinding herself, and the rest of her people are too, ignoring, not embracing, Life’s Awefulness as a hedonist herd, pretending it’s passion.
…Or maybe there’s something to it. Maybe there is something substantial and redemptive about the inebriated ballad. Maybe there is as much beauty in it as pity. There is… something. Something grand – in this girl, on these streets, in the pubs and clubs, in the shots and pints, the Ceilidhs and Hogmanays, in the reckless-ish abandon with which the Scottish People, as far as I have seen, approach life. Maybe her song, silly, obnoxious, fueled by loose juice, arguably fake… is also very real.
To the Scottish people, as far as I can tell, it isn’t that to drink is to forget. Sure, there’s alcoholism here like anywhere else, but I don’t think the country has a drinking “problem”. Yeah, they drink a lot. They drink because they love life, love fun, love friends, and will be damned if they get so caught up with studies and jobs and waiting for the next thing that they stop enjoying the ride. They drink because it just feels good and it isn’t wrong or dirty; it’s built into tradition.
And anyway, it isn’t just about drinking, that isn’t what I’m trying to get at. It isn’t what they’re trying to get at. It’s… well, I’m not quite sure what it is. It’s an attitude. A feeling. This people, the youth for one, the country as well, just feels different, in a subtle but undeniable way, and it has become my project to put my finger on how and what that difference is.
Whatever it is, I admire it. It’s something… something simple. Honest. Straightforward. Neither self-flagellating nor self-aggrandizing. Not pretending that there is something where there’s nothing. Not jumping through elaborate hoops to construct meaning, and only ending up distracting from it, from what meaning there might have been if you had shut up and looked at what’s essential. Simple, not stupid, and whoever would equate them is themselves the latter.
It’s in the way strangers interact, the way students do school, the way girls are with boys, and boys with girls, and adults are with young people; in the way that people young and old go to pubs for any purpose, to have meetings, to go on dates, to have relaxed nights with friends, to have a pint and a good conversation. Within the world of the young and the cool, there’s less of a feeling that people are flaunting than that they are just trying to be themselves and to take pleasure in looking good and being fun. Simply, from what I have experienced, people are good-natured. They are warm, welcoming, and non-judgmental. Tolerant. They exhibit similar “progressive”, urban attitudes as do those of Chicago or Boston, and in fact seem to have more true optimism and earnestness behind them. A genuine for of tolerance, not one that is overtly self-imposed, like hyper-self-aware liberal America, and certainly not like the god-awful corporate culture of “diversity” and “tolerance”, compassion commoditized. It’s like the no-BS of NYC with the caring of SanFran. Keepin it riilll. Dig?
It’s… I donno, it’s in the air, man. It must get passed on through the generations. Or, like, something they put into the food or whatnot. Happy haggis. Who knows. Maybe I’m being super-idealistic. Have rose-colored glasses on in the first place. Maybe it’s not The People at large, just some nice folks around me who’ve positively impacted my perceptions. But as it seems, well, it’s out there. All over. So, you know, take what I say with a grain of salt, cause it has only been… well, a week! One week today. Huh.
All I can say is, I think there’s something happening here. Just what it is may yet elude me, but by God I think these Scots are onto something. If it were more complex, it might be easier to deconstruct…
Anyway, whatever lessons I am to learn out here, I’d probably absorb best by quietly observing, and trying to follow along.
So, for now, it’s just me and the Sloppy Siren, as she stumbles away into the darkness. Just a small town girl, livin’ in a lonely world. Strangers waiting, up and down the boulevard, their shadows searching in the night. Streetlight people, living just to find emotion, hiding somewhere in the night.
I close my window, mull over what just happened – I mean, what with the throng and the fission and the imploding and whatnot, that was like, pretty sweet, dude – and sit down to write this. Outside, the party people rage on. Then, I go back to sleep. It is, after all, a Tuesday night, and I for one have the misfortune of 9 a.m. class.
I’ll go ahead and join them on the weekend.
On the Last Episode of Nathan’s Blog:
So I’ve “tripped before” – to Israel… and otherwise. More on that will almost inevitably come – the otherwise, that is. Probably also the Israel. But now I’m tripping to Scotland! Go figure…
But I’m not about to get into all that now. Saving it for Part 2. The “short version” is that I chose University of Edinburgh because it fits my major – Cognitive Science. The bonus is that it’s gonna be a sick-nasty city. (And you know the dirtier the slang, the higher the praise.)
*Theme Music*
*Title Sequence*
Episode 2: “The Long Version”
It all starts with Cognitive Science. I love it. I love it so much that I don’t even get tired of saying it every time someone asks, “So, Nathan, what are you majoring in?” Cognitive Science. Cognitive Science! I love it. Let me tell you about it.
Being relatively new and unusual, “Cognitive Science” may sound odd, even to my fellow Brandeis students. That’s because it isn’t actually a major at our fine institution. I am doing it as an IIM, Independent Interdisciplinary Major. Last year, I went through the process of creating and defending it myself: chose Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Computer Science as my three primary departments, worked with an advisor from each, picked out courses from all three and others, wrote a proposal about the purpose of the major, and compared it to similar programs at other schools. Indeed there is just such a program at our 195-sister-school Northwestern, and a small but growing number of other schools.
So, you ask, “Well, what is the purpose? What is this ‘Cognitive Science’ anyway?”
Why, I am glad you asked. Here’s the elevator pitch:
The question at the core of Cognitive Science is, “What is the nature of consciousness?” Unlike Neuroscience, which tries to understand HOW the actual brain works, through hard sciences like biology and chemistry, CogScientists try to understand WHY a system such as the brain allows us to be conscious and intelligent at all. They view the brain simply as an information processing system, made of patterns and procedures, with underpinnings in logic and calculation. Thus they try to understand it through computational principles – not “computers” exactly because the computers we know don’t actually act anything like the brain at all. Cognitive Science is multi-disciplinary, relating to and drawing from psychology, neuroscience, physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, philosophy, computer science, linguistics, anthropology, education, engineering, etc. And indeed, though it isn’t exactly Neuroscience, the findings from that arena are integral to the ultimate understanding that both seek. CogSci is like a top-down approach, trying to meet the Neuro guys coming from bottom-up. In other words, we have to understand the brain at both macro and micro levels, zooming deep into individual neuron function as well as looking at large patterns of activity, to solve the fundamental mystery:
How, how in the world does a few pounds of mushy flesh give rise to our entire reality?
Aside from being of deep intellectual interest, it is at the cutting edge of scientific research that will influence our future: perhaps if we can understand how our brains enable Intelligence, we can recreate it ourselves. Hence, AI. And if we can define the processes that underlie, say, memory, learning, and abstract thought, we can implement new technologies to improve those functions in our own brains: Neuropharmacology and Neuroengineering. (If you’re digging it, check out Ray Kurzweil, “Singularity”, the Blue Brain Project, “Functionalism”… or hit me up to chat because I could go on all day about this stuff.)
So I am majoring in Cognitive Science at Brandeis, though we don’t have an actual department for it. Cue opportunity.
As my professor informed me that fateful day last year, University of Edinburgh is an epicenter (cuz it ain’t just any center, it’s an epic center! Ohhh!) for research and teaching in Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science. Who knew that out in Scotland they were building robots, developing programs, writing textbooks, and all that good stuff? I didn’t. But I do now, and I’m about to know even better. As soon as he told me that I jumped on the idea, and it’s all history from there. The courses I’m taking will apply toward my major, and all sound very cool. This is, as they say in Beantown, “wicked sweet”. The courses I’m taking are:
Computational Foundations for Cognitive Science
Informatics 2D: Reasoning and Agents
Knowledge Modeling and Management
Cognitive Modeling (tentatively)
And/Or Something Else (tentatively)
These are all focused on applying “Computation” as a specific method and a general principle toward understanding, and recreating, phenomena that we observe in natural intelligence. I am very excited about it, though I’m also worried that it’s going to kick my butt – partly because I suspect that whereas I’m mostly interested in the theory behind brain-as-computational system, I may not actually be all that into actually-attempting-to-model-cognition-by-programming, which is what these courses are all about. But I shall see. And if you care to, you shall find out. (Comments! I love them. Give ‘em to me. Top right box.)
The other Big Goal I have as far as CogSci is to use the experience of being immersed in this epic center to help figure out how/whether I want to stick with the field in the future. Look outward, look inward, check for match. Easier said than done. I’ll give it a shot.
And it does also appear that Edinburgh is by many accounts (surely mine too, soon) an amazing, beautiful, and indeed sick-nasty city. Which is why, when you put it all together, it’s a pretty awesome opportunity. I feel incredibly lucky to have it. Just gonna try to make the most of it in all possible ways.
If you wanna check out more about the program:
Visit the Edinburgh Informatics Website,
Or see This Sweet Brochure.
Ah, Study Abroad. That time honored rite of privileged students everywhere. It is truly a beautiful thing. I have studied abroad before. When I went in my junior year of high school to live on a kibbutz near Jerusalem for 4 months, studying and traveling, I had an amazing time. I could go on and on. Suffice it to say, it was incredible, and not just for destination-specific reasons: leaving America for an extended period of time was cool. It lived up to every promise made by your friendly local Study Abroad Office, and affirmed all the quips by the merry Stuff White People Like jokester (see link above). So I feel confident saying that going abroad is “all that”. And more.
Oh, Study Abroad! Your offerings are many and great. There will be novel spaces. There will be bubbles popped, presumptions dropped. Worldviews shifted. There will be people – amazing, pitiful, and strange. There will be more worth telling than ever could be time to recount it in a blog. There will, in fact, be blood. There will be sex! There will be listening to new music, tasting of new foods. There will be discovery of all sorts of things you just can’t find in America, and there will be lamentations about said fact upon return. There will be epiphanies, original and old, and even the old worn ones will be new and beautiful because we will know them ourselves for the very first time. And there will be moments of isolation. And fear. And times of feeling lost… lost in a foreign place… lost in our emotions… lost in the progress of our lives, which we will be living more furiously than ever before.
There will be stories. To quote the all-too-epic film Australia (where some of us are now): “In the end, the only thing you really own is… is your story. Just tryin’ to live a good one.”
Stuff White People Like (link link click it clickk itttt) may make fun of the kind of experience I’m talking about. Whatever, it’s funny. That whole site is brilliant, is hilarious; they have today’s middle-class college-educated hyper-aware mindset and lifestyle down to a T. They have ME down to a T, and I’m not even white. So me talking about Study Abroad like this is playing right into the joke, but it doesn’t matter… it’s still awesome. Like everything else on the site.
Live a good story. Make. Each. Moment. Count. Sure, it’s cliché – and it’s definitely easier said than done. But clearly it is valuable, and so it is definitely worth reaching for. There’s nothing to be ashamed of about living life to the fullest. I for one am off to live my story, to write a new chapter and make it a damn good one – off to let the river take me… or at the very least learn to let go of the floor.
Yes, I’ve “tripped before” – to Israel, and otherwise. More on that will almost inevitably come (that is, the otherwise, though possibly also the Israel). And now I’m tripping to Scotland. Go figure. I really didn’t plan to end up there. I knew I wanted to study abroad, but had no clear idea where until I found out about University of Edinburgh’s program in Artificial Intelligence in Cognitive Science. Greatest gratitude to my advisor Jerry Samet, for the, um, advice.
It’s really a perfect program for me. But I’m not about to get into all that now. Saving it for Part 2. The short version is that I chose University of Edinburgh as opposed to any other school because of its AI/CogSci program, which fits my major. Incidentally I think it’s going to be a sick-nasty city. (And you know the dirtier the slang, the higher the praise.)
What I’m saying is that more important than where, or what, is that. That I’m going. Away. Getting Out. Out of my comfort zone, out of my life, out of my mind. I’m gonna burn pounds (currency), go for broke (literally). Plunder possibilities. Add to the story, add to my life. Fly! Oh, fly… (you guessed it) like an eagle. Alright, well, like a passenger. On Virgin Airlines, January 5th, ORD->JFK->LHR->EDI. And from the moment I set foot in the Land of Kilts and Whisky, I will take pictures, meet people, explore places, get edumacated, get shwasted, keep my mind open, think prolifically, write prolifically, live prolifically. I will gorge myself on this world with all its sugar and poison, and come back with scars and stories.
Stories…
I want has them.
One day these words popped into mind:
Love Art Logic
They bounced around my brain a bit. I let them sift and settle. And I thought about their meaning. I finally resolved what I had pretty much just known, that these words fairly well encapsulate just “what I am about” – an elusive thing to be sure. Hmm! Love, Art, and Logic! Nice ring. Evocative. Vision and thought. Ideals and Reals. The world in all best aspects. Vital. True.
It’s about a fundamental dichotomy: Creativity and Rationality. Feeling and Thinking. Dreams and Reality. Two peaks of one sphere, interchangeable, opposed. Two crucial tools to penetrate the mystery. Without either piece, I’m incomplete. Love Art and Logic are the facets of my being. I strive to reach serenity, objectivity, and balance –- and also always to feel passion, chaos, risk. I seek the calm and clarity of an enlightened one, the absolute insanity of an evil genius. Compassionate and careless. Harmonious and heartless. Easy and obtuse. Given a choice, I want both things, all things, now. It’s me at my best and my worst all at once.
But I don’t get stressed. It’s a vast and magical world. I’m here, I’m aware, I’m alive. I’ve got L.A.L., words to live by, to live for. It’s all too crazy, baby, the ball’s just rolling ever faster, ain’t no way to stop it.
Hi, I’m Nathan! I’m 20 years old, and from Chicago, IL. Currently I’m doing my B.A. in Cognitive Science at Brandeis University, but this semester, I’m in Edinburgh, Scotland, diving headlong into culture, science, life, and lochs. I will resurface with gems aplenty. Come ’round The 195 and check ‘em out. Mad shiny, yo.
