Catching Up, an Exercise for Myself

It's been more then a year since I last wrote. I felt like I should just start over and get a completely new blog, but I'm too lazy to go through the hastle so I'll just pick up where I left off.

What am I saying?? Pick up where I left off? Last time I wrote I was in the highlands studying abroad without a care in the world, and now I'm in Wooster Ohio about to graduate after having written 146 pages on the foundations of human rights. I've been through a lot since I got hit in the face with that cow. I could have written about my time in france sleeping in a garrage for 4 nights, my encounter on the train, visiting Hugues and cultural embarrasment, or my adventures and the people I meet in the little villages surrounding Edinburgh, or culross, and the boy with the hat and bounce. Cook out on Arthur's seat. Or the night my wallet got stolen, and I had to work in a volunteer cafe for food. More hill walking adventures. I wound up extending my stay after exams --I changed my flight so that i stayed 3 weeks later then schedualed before I even knew where I was going to stay, how I could still eat, and what to do for christmas. Not planning through on these small details opened the door for me to grab any oportunity for survival turning into a wonderful tale of a mega bus ride, a small english village, lots of tea, pudding, and christmas cake, fireworks, a flat, a mud puddle, and a boy.

Absolute caios greeted me back in Wooster. Thrown into a situation where I was forced to mingle and find a new place in the social scene was challenging. A new room mate, a break up, tears, a new relationship, an identity as a philosopher, and good times with the locals at Seatles, working on an index for Bell's book for summer. Oh what a summer. Random summer. Romance, taught Argentine Tango, smoking cigars and drinking whiskey, took the boat out, made a trail, hunted for lobsters, swam in the lakes, a trip to boston, a trampaline, rhode island, salsa, prepared for I.S.

Senior year started off great. Wearing yellow t-shirts for a week, no means no!,running a talent shows, carrying around balloons that could lift me off the ground, washing wooster bricks and making posters, shaving cream fight. It quickly turned into nights in the library and stressing over Independent Study. But the best part was getting to know Kruezman. I would spend at least 3 hours every week talking with him. Bonding with the philosophy department was the best. Housing sitting for professors, taking care of a kitten. My darling Noah. DRAMA. Traveled to washington DC with hippies (hah), reggae, parents split, wrecked home, mediation, seeing Winter, the fight for relationship, back to Wooster. Indiana ride and conference, meditiation, Anshuman and Jazz clubs. Winter break, city adventures, Winter's crazy driving, ping pong, romance, flew back to Edinburgh, frolicking more tea, wine, bongos, tapir, zoo, blew bubbles, indian food, dancing, pubbing, sing star 80s. Second semester, sketches, taught tango for 6 weeks, timmy tango and alegria, Bohemien Dance Hall, bringing dancers to campus, house sat, birthday party at Bell's, adventures with seatles, bonded with John, late night chats, guitar, more friends then a person could have, dinners with profs, mom visits, super bowl, lots of wine. International film festival, IS mach, Is nap and IS drinks, orals, and now its pure sunshine. Got money for my society, of me and me. Dance concert, chant, flowers. engagments, weddings. Coffee with Ben at the hungarian cafe, Becca and crew and the wonderful hall, Jame-O! and....

I biked with Professor Havholm today. Gorgeous. around 15 miles to Overton.

Grabbing Life by the Horns

Highland Cows. Let me describe them. They look like your stuffed animal that has gotten more raggedy and shaggy over the years of loving and cuddling with…the more shaggy it looks the more cozy and comforting it is to be with because it just shows that this companion and you have gone through a lot together as you spent your nights or days in embrace. Anyway, take this feeling and look of your stuffed special something and blow it about about 100,000 times and you get a highland cow... oh yeah, and add a couple of horns. Wonderful to look at. These creatures are massive, but with all that hair hanging over there eyes, covered in shaggy brown hair, pink noses, and beautiful curved horns (I must say those things are pieces of artwork) you kinda just want to put your arms around them (if you could that is, and if they didn’t have dangerous horns on them). I got acquainted with these creatures for the first time when I went hill walking in the Arrochar Alps. They just stand there, chomping away at the hills…looking at you nonchalantly with those big brown eyes, and they stand there like lumps all day. I took a break from strenuous hiking and went right up to them with no problems just to stare them straight in the face with a most puzzling look…cause I just couldn’t believe they were cows. Man, so much different than the black and white cows at home. Totally different look and feel. When I traveled to Inverness 2 weeks ago I went deeper into the highlands. On the bus looking out of the window, we passed a handful of cows alongside the road. I couldn’t stay away from the highlands for long. So last weekend I took a 3 day trip out to those beautiful hills again.

Traveling throughout the highlands I bump into a lot of those cows. Well not literally of course, until I meet Hamish. We were all traveling back from the Isle of Skye. The most amazing trip, wonderful company, and fairy land sights. I wound up traveling with a bunch of Australians. Those guys were great. Relaxing at the pub, punch party at the hostel, and many stories..in fact loads of stories and laughs the whole trip. But you probably don’t want me to go into that right now. All you are wondering is…who is Hamish? The third day we stopped at a ‘rest stop,’ to take a break off the bus. When we got off the bus there was the biggest highland cow I had ever seen…everyone was going up to this cow and feeding it stuff. I was never into feeding animals cause it destroys the natural wildlife feel of nature for me. I don’t like to look at highland cows as pets and be all touristy. Plus I don’t want to deal with slobber. I can’t even stand dogs slobbering on me let alone a freakin highland cow. So I just headed inside. When I came back out I decided to check out the cow anyway. This thing was massive…not because of his body per se, but because of this things horns. Huge, Beautiful..how could it stand up with those things? Everyone was touching his nose and patting it. So I decided I should put a little effort into trying to touch it..just so I could say I did so. But all I wanted to do was touch those horns. All my intuition said not to. But I figured it must be safe since this is such a touristy spot. I mean, they wouldn’t have a cow so close if it were dangerous. But I looked for signs anyway. Looking around quickly I spotted no warning signs. So out went my hand and I brushed it against the hard, smooth, curved horn..on his left side. Hamish returned the favor…by whacking me in the jawbone and hurling me to the ground. With just a turn of the shaggy head his horn greeted my cheek bone with emphasis. Brilliant, thanks Hamish. A highland cow horn to the face is not a pretty picture. Especially when Aussies are laughing at you. As soon as I get back to my feet I was greeted with a sign. “Do Not Touch Horns," as I was holding my face.

I came back to Edinburgh with 2 scratches on my face. Even though I had a mark along my cheek, it was a good story to tell at least. “What happened on your trip?” I could choose my response knowing it was going to raise some eyebrows. “I got head butted by a highland cow.” Or “Oh that’s nothing..I just got bashed in the face with some horns in the highlands.” or "You see, there was this cow..." And that was no joke. Not too many people can say literally and pun-ishly that they “grabbed life by the horns.” I think that is enough of the highlands. Enough of dodgy cows. Bloody hell.

xxx

lil' Moments

Quote of the day: “i dont know how i would handle our difference in gastronomic preferences if i were dating you”-anonymous friend

Moment of the day: A friend and I got together for dinner. I had called him up wanting a change of scenery from the JMC (the cafeteria here) and in hopes of some good food. Turns out I get to his flat and he has a meal all prepared. Walked into the kitchen by a comforting cozy dinner. I could smell the curry right there…take out from a place called the Lunch Box. The Lunch Box is essentially a tiny kitchen in the back of a mosque where you can get a heap full of rice and curry selections for only 3 pounds, the close the kitchen during prayer time, this month is ramadan so I think it's closed for a while, oh well…then there is the Mecca Cola that you can buy which just makes me day. On the can it says “do not add alcohol to this beverage.” Harish asked the priest if I could attend services there, he responded that if there is hope for me (that I might convert) then yes. Well hey, there is always hope for me. Anyways, at the end of the meal Harish makes me go up to the sink to wash my hands and tells me I must do something Indian before I finished eating. I watch him as he mixes the curry in with the rice with his hands and eat from his fingers. Feeling your food through your own hands, lifting to your mouth, and swallowing brings a whole new demention to eating. More satisfaction. When the food goes down it’s very heart warming. The moment was special. It brought me back to the dirt and mud at the Abbey in CT. Cheers to a cozy dinner.

Moment 2 (at 1:30 am this morning): I lay in the dark on the floor parallel to a good friend of mine. As we lay sounds of strings fill the room, and a light glow from the lava lamp. We are both listening to Mahler's 4th symphony. The heart wrenching one, where the music swells in beautiful waves of strings that engulf your whole body. Both eyes closed, slow breathing, darkness, and mallher...can't get much better than that.

Went to Photo Soc today. Talked with some doctorate, and MA students, and a teacher about film and cameras and traveling. Everyone I meet here has traveled around the world! I’m so jealous. I crave to do that. I want to live somewhere cool like Africa, India, South America. Seeing all these beautiful pictures doesn’t help my yearning. I’ve decided I’m going to work in international schools. There that solves all my problems. I can travel and teach..teach whatever. Going to the dark room tomorrow to learn how to develop film, after that Swing Soc...then paper writting time.

Benedictus Domino, Deo Gratias, PAXizzle (hahahaha)

If A, then B.

Wednesday's are nice. I don't have any lectures the whole day. But the start of each Wednesday is always a little harsh. I signed up for a very early tutorial that takes place each Wed. morning at 9:00 so I could get it over with quickly and have the rest of the day free. Now a 9:00 class for me isn't considered deathly early, until you consider the fact that it takes me 25 min to walk to 22 Buccleah Place from Pollock Halls of residence, and for the other fact that I need to make sure I eat breakfast before I go (they don't serve lunch here so if I skip breakfast I'm not going to be able to eat until dinner...which could prove deadly--especially stomach rumbles in the middle of dead quiet lectures). So that means rise at 7:30 am for a 9:00am tutorial. Bollocks to that! In good old Woo, I would have gotten up at 8:40 and made it on time.

Yesterday I missed breakfast, I also didn't get up very well. I ran/skipped all the way to Buccleah Place, only to be greeted by about 4 flights of stars which threw me completely out of breath once I reached the destination at the top. So I plopped down tired, hungry, soar, and without breath--perfect mode to be in when one is about to talk about causation, logical forms of if-then clauses, not to mention a bit of Hume. I was the first one in thete (8:56am at this point). Most people were slowly making the treacherous climb. They all trickled in with baggy eyes, frowns, and very heavy breathing. We were all seated waiting for the tutor around the table in the dark. Staring blankly at the table. Unable to talk or move. The tutor comes bumbling in with a "Bloody Hell! I feel like I should all congratulate you! Damn." As he loudly squeezes past people, rustles about in getting settled. Lights come on. Pain occurs in eyes. Ready to talk.

Now we are all dumbly sitting there trying to discover what is meant when we talk about causality in terms of epistomology and metaphysics when a bee zooms right up to my nose. I duck for cover, wave a around a bit. By this time all attention is solely on me as people tell me where the bee is and how I can avoid it. All of a sudden it disappears. POOF. Like that. Now people are checking me out to make sure it didn't land on me. Righto. Surrounded by guys…little awkward. Anyways, Back to discussion. In a moments time the bee is back again in full force. ZOOM! down it comes again from making its buzzing noises stuck in the light above right to my face...this time I get up and move to the door. It moves on to the next person..Let’s just say that the heavy fog of slumber in the room is lifting...maybe due to that part of the brain that is in control of the flight or fight response I suppose. A guy starts grabbing his notebook to hit it. Flurry. Bee is dead. One notebook with bee guts on it. Tutor :Bloody hell! Then back to causation. Now there was a second bee, that escaped this made dash of flying notebooks, which, unbenownced to us, decided he would be safe hidden on a guys scalp underneath his hair. All of a sudden the expression on this unfortunate chap took the awfulist form, like he had tasted something sour, raised his hands above his head, and shouted "oh my god!" FUCK!" He said fuck with the combination of a variety of words as we stared at him in disbelief. "It's in my Fucking hair!".... FUCK!" No one moved. Tutor: "are you sure?" Did it sting you?" It had stung him, and he was in pain. The next thing I knew the tutor was banging full force on this student’s head with a load of books and papers...hit him about 10 times I suppose. Then there was a pause as we all leaned in for the verdict. Was the bee dead?...resting in peace curled up in this boy's hair? With a combing effort, he finally managed to get the bee out. Plopped on his notebook in a sorry dead state. Right. It was this guy's first tutorial, and he gets stung on the head by a bee, and slapped around by a textbook, while I got some good entertainment. I laughed to myself the rest of the discussion...as he was sitting right across from me holding his head. At least he would have a good pub story for his mates that night, even though he walked out with a swollen scalp. Talk about cause and effect. Beautiful example.

keep PAXing it.

A note before a weekend trip

Oh boy. I'm really tired. But before I go to bed, I just wanted to note what a great, relaxing evening I had after I have been a little stressed out over the past two days with Uni. Tonight I was invited to go out with a scottish lad whose dad was coming to town to film a big event tomorrow (he runs a TV program called Tartan TV...I found that they broad cast it in Akron, Ohio. I hope I see it one day.) The Scottish Parliament opens finally...after about 3 years over due, and 10 times the origional budget making the Scots here all grumble every time they walk by the new building still covered with scaffolding. There is a big parade where the queen will hand keys to some one (customs foriegn to me) and Sean Connery is going to be there...turns out that Robert's dad actually is going to interview him tomorrow! (gasp! Aww and Wonder!) Royal Mile is going to be a beautiful site and there will be festivals all day. Rob is helping his dad film tomorrow...haha..he has to get up early for it. So he invited me to go to a pub with his dad, and a woman named Annie (the producer.) Since everyone calls me Annie here, and his father is named Robert too, it was a nice pairing. Two Annies, two robs, 4 drinks...good times. This night was different then hanging out with partyers and people wanting to get drunk, or freshers looking out for crazy nights on edge hopping from pub to pub in random order. After his dad and annie scoped for all the nice spots where they wanted to film tomorrow morning on the Royal Mile, we stopped in at The World's End. A pub that was origionally at the end of the walls of edinburgh before the city expanded. So the origional walls of the city were still apart of the pub...really old..talking 100s and 100s of years going back to the middle ages. I had straight whisky. After that we wound up going to an Italian resturant and having a full out meal and wine. MMMM...finally good food! I've been living in Pollock Halls of Residence where Lowry is a feast compared to the cafeteria here. Although, they do have better vegitarean choices here. It was neat to talk to such scottish people. After haning out with mostly international students, it felt good to be among these aberdeen folk. Very down to earth, relaxed, and awesome accents. I picked up some more scottish-isms and free food and wine. Not a bad deal. Plus good company.

Tomorrow is a highland trip. And after that the stress of the Uni comes back in full force. More on that later...too tired to explain at the moment. It's hard to adjust to this system! I'm going to have to live at the library for awhile. Also, money has become a big issue. I shall continue later on. Anyway, off to the highlands I go!

pax

Latino America in Edinburgh

The Motercycle Dairies...I highly recommend. Lets see, can I translate that into spanish?? Dairios de Motercicleta. MMM...I don't know if thats quite it. Wonderful movie. It's probably been out in the states for awhile so I have no idea if it's still in the theaters or not. Dad, see this movie! I love the latino culture, and I can't even escape it even in Edinburgh where I haven't even meet one latino american...or even any one from espania. Weirrddd. I could only understand some spanish phrases in the movie...most of what I could understand was spanish curse words..Thank you Winter. I went to see it with the "united nations" group. I hang out with a bunch of different groups and people here, so I have recently decided to name them. The united nations is a big group of people. The are mostly post graduates that I have meet, and they stick together for the reason that they want to avoid people from their own country. I guess that's why we have kept in contact. Some of the people in this diverse group of friends went on the hike with me yesterday. Today more Italians in the mix, and Michael from Greece joined in the fray. I invited two girls from the states to join in as well. So when we all meet at the theater, 11 of us stood in a circle introducing our selves and where we come from. It was quite a funny picture.

Yeah, I really need to go to South America. Somehow I'll get there. I continue learning spanish so that I can speak it one day. Supposedly my family is moving to Panama, it would be helpful hablar-ing espanol. We are going to panamania town (ha) over Spring break hopefully...I can't wait. My real destination some day is Buenos Aires. Tango is the ultimate high yo.

Last night after my risky adventures in the Arrochar Alps, I decided to go out for a nice relaxing drink with Harish (the economic guy from India). We meet up with a bunch of Italians who changed their minds 5 times on what pub to go to. Before I knew it my quiet night out was turned into a salsa party at a cuban club. I was not in a good mood to be going out and partying after such an exhausting day. But when I heard that music, it was like I had enough life in me to dance all night. I watched the dance floor as I drank some white wine trying to spot the good dancers. I was not about to waste my night on beginners. ..even though I have never danced salsa before..hahahaha. I spotted, and targeted my prey. ..with skill I advanced. So I grabbed the two top guys on the dance floor and had a blast. The moves were easy for me...maybe that's thanks to Winter who blasts his latino beats into my room over the summer...and probably doing that as I speak...

Tango nights for me our wednesday, Swing on Thursday, and I guess I'll do some Salsa now. How can I not? It's actually impossible for me to do all this, but one can try. I miss the Wine tasting society tonight. I was busy looking up where to go on my fall break.

As for now,

aDiosCaiopAx

Medium... (slash) Hard

The hills in Arrochar Alps were absolutly IN SANE. The hill that my group went on was a Munro, basically a type mountain that is at least 3,000 ft. Munro's are the tallest catogory of hills there are in schotland. So when I say I cimbed a hill--please don't picture nice rolling, gassy hills and associate it with easy going walking. The hill was rolling alright, and grassy, but also rocky, step gradients, running streams of water pouring from the top, no paths, no foot steps, tall grass and ferns, everything was muddy. Now lets talk about the weather: Rain, to sunny, to Rain, to Windy and Rainy, to just cloudy, to sunny, to rainy, to windy....That's the weather I 'walked' in...typical scottish experience.

The Arrochar Alps were formed by the glaciers which covered Scotland during the Ice Age. You can see that by the big U shaped valleys and the rocky hill scraped tops. The Arrochar Alps are a picturesque and rugged range of mountains in the Southern Highlands, lying to the north and west of Arrochar (Argyll and Bute) and to the west of Loch Lomond. This range lies within the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park and includes four Munros (one of which I climbed), six Corbetts (smaller mountians 2500 to 3000ft ) and three other mountains. Here are routes to suit all abilities here, from half-day strolls among the hills to gruelling, multi-summit marathons, easy walks and stiff climbs to satisfy the search for adventure for those of us who aren't "rock athletes". --you can read about this on websites.

Well, when we divided into groups of easy hikes, medium hikes, and hard hikes I figured I would go on a medium level hike. I didn't wake up at 6 am in the morning to just do an easy stoll around the park right?? I failed to realize that what I had signed up for was a medium/hard walk. Slash hard?? Well I got more of the "slash hard" part then the Medium part.

It had stopped raining when we got out of the van. yay! I knew the weather would come around. In scotland if it starts raining in the morning, it could actually be a beautiful day in the afternoon. The weather is so fickle here. It could be sunny one moment, and then the next you are running for shelter from the harsh winds and rain. I was hopeing that yesterday wouldn't be like that, and the sky would just clear up after awhile. The beginning part was great. Very muddy and wet since it had been raining. But being covered head to toe in what supposedly was all waterproof clothing (more on that later) I was nice and cozy. Sloshing my way up the rolling bottom part of the hill, I spent all my energy trying to figure out where to put my feet, how to stay caught up with everyone else, and trying to aviod big mudholes and slippery rocks. But as soon as I was able to look up, flocks of sheep greated my eyes. These white fuzzy dots just covered the hills. While climbing up (trying not to slide backwards), and whenever we paused I could see a sheep poking its white tail or black head around a cliff, or jut of rocks. Then the cows. I was face to face with this big, brown, fuzzy...fuzzy?? cow with huge horns jutting out from either side of his head. I've never seen such lazy looking fuzzy animals in my whole life. They just stood there. eating away at the hills. But as we got higher, no more cows did I see. There were still sheep, but there was no way I could look up at them, because if I didn't pay attention to my feet and the ground I was a gonner. I had to learn how to wind up the hill in a zig zag patter, placing my feet solidly to make sure the mud wasn't going to give way, or that the grassy lumps weren't just covering up a big hole. The slops were so hard for me. And then there were those streams that we had to leap accross. It's the same feeling of walking on some kind of skinny bridge that is at some magnificent hight--the trick being don't look down, or you'll lose your balance from fright. That's how hill climbing was, except the trick was not to look up. If I looked up at the slope that I was climbing, it was all over. Just one step at a time, one step, then the next...then some how in a miracle you'll find your self at the top.

In every pause I got my enthusaim levels recharged as I looked at the land scape. No matter how difficlut it was...it was worth it. When the clouds moved so that the sun could come out, it would light one whole side of the mountain up..sending flashes of white flames every once and awhile from a sheeps back who were dotting the landscape. I got excellent view of Loch Lomond and the valleys below. But once we started moving again...I was beginning to think I wasn't going to make it. We had only gone an hour by this point. That meant five more hours to go. All of a sudden it started to rain again. No big deal, I was used to the sprinkle showers and put my coat back on. But this time it was pouring, then the wind picked up and was knocking us all around. We all huddled together to try to decide what to do. I was reminded of movies of people stranded in the desert, or stuck up in cold mountains. I kinda got that feeling..and let me tell you...it's not a good feeling. Our guide was trying to figure out how to get back pulling out that map. Some adventurous people wanted to continue up to the top, but the rest of us headed back, making our way through the valleys. The ascent down was tough and slow, but much more relaxed then trying to battle winds on our way up, and I felt better actually seeing a road in the distance. At least I knew we weren't going to get lost. We meandered down the grassy slops, bumped into more sheep, and eventually made it low enough to see some more fuzzy cows on our way down. The sheep and cows were not wild, but belonged to some farmer below the Hills. The sheep are only hearded though once a year in the spring time...a group of 4 people and some dogs round them up from all over the hills. The whole of winter and the rest of the year they roam freely all over, where ever they want. I slipped so many times going down the grassy, muddy steep edges. I was jealous of my friends, the Italian girl Emma, Norwiegan friend Christian, and German friend Neils. They were so sure of every step and always a head of me. While me and the other american girl took the back, along with a French girl.

All in all. A beautiful trip. The best part was face to face with those cows and eating lunch with great views of the hilly, rocky, mountain sides. But I don't think I will take a medium/hard trail again. OOPPS. Did I say trail? There was no trail. When I came down into the pub at the bottom of the hill at last, I was drenched. I got a warm Tottie (whisky, honey, lemon, sugar...that's all heated up), and chatted to the group of hickers until it was time to go--italians, germans, norwiegans, scottish, and americans--pretty good mix. The hike lasted for 4 and a half hours, instead of the grueling 6 hours. The group of us were glad that we came down "early" as we looked out the window to find that it was raining again. As we left I got some last glimpses of the alps. Looking up I couldn't believe I had actually climbed up to certain summits. They Alps waved goodbye to me with a 180 rainbow that stretched across the Hills.

Cheers to a good but challenging day