Category: Uncategorized

So I promise, I’ll get to my trip soon, but I do need to talk about yesterday. It was a really busy day with a lot of really exciting firsts in it. Read on.

In the morning I went to this tantric yoga class upstairs in the Forest. I’d never taken a yoga class before (except when I attended one Betsy was taking when I was little), and for a first one this was quite intense. It lasted for 2.5 hours, and I was having great difficulty with a lot of the positions we were holding. There were about 11 people there. The instructor was this small Indian guy; he was really good. I stuck it out to the end, then collapsed downstairs in the Cafe.

After a little while just sitting on a sofa staring into space, I got up and went to get fabric for my Beltane costume. First I had to walk up to the Princes St. Mall to get cash out of the Barclay’s ATM (Bank of America doesn’t charge when we get money from Barclays). Then I went to Edinburgh Fabrics and got 2 meters of this light green fabric. I’m going to make trousers out of them, and presuming it’s warm enough, not wear anything but body paint over them.

At 5:10 I met up with my friend Sara from FolkSoc, who was going to lend me her flatmate’s bike for to ride in Critical Mass, which she helps organize. On the way to her flat, we tried having one of us sit in the seat of her bike while the other pedaled in front of them. Possible, but really difficult. We got the bike, and headed down to the Mound for the start of the ride. There were about 30-40 people, I’d say, all but a few under 30. We rode all over the city centre. We were going slower than I’d like, and we were really pissing off the drivers behind us. I was trying to get people to go faster, under the assumption that getting people angry with us doesn’t help anything, but a lot of people who do Critical Mass are interested in getting back at cars for the injustice that bikes have to deal with most of the time. It’s an understandable sentiment, but I think not a helpful for acceptable one for Critical Mass. But it’s not my city; not my bike ride, and I won’t be here for the next one, so I guess they can do what they want. Although, talking to Sara and her friend later, they agreed with me that such retaliatory actions weren’t a good thing.

I had dinner with Sara and her friend in Sara’s flat, and then walked back home. I was going to go to a Beltane-related party, but I was too exhausted.

Today I have lots of Beltane stuff. I’m hoping to make my costume at this green point meeting, and before that there’s a meeting where we pick up our passes to get on the hill. I’m still really sore. I gots to go now, though, so I’ll write you all more later. Hope things are looking peachy for you all.

Okay, my posts about my Europe trip will come. The first one or two will come soon, in fact, because I’ve already typed out all of my journal up to the Eurostar to Paris, and will do more. I’m going to give you all something very close to what’s actually in my journal, just a little more streamlined.

But today! I can’t believe these things happened. My goodness. I knew there would be social excitement, but…read on.

So I managed to wake up for breakfast this morning, and had it with Sarah and Emily and Emily’s friend (she has had SO many friends visit). Then I went to the computer lab for a bit, then to the Forest, just to hang out, and hopefully to work on updating my 2-week-behind journal. I got there and did that for a bit, then struck up a conversation with the person sitting next to me. Her name is Susie, or some such spelling. She was working on creating her Beltane costume. She was making “Thai fisherman trousers”, which are the cool ones that don’t have a solid pants leg but instead wrap around your legs individually like some sorts of aprons. I’ve admired such trousers before, and think I may try to make some for myself for Beltane too. They’re very easy to make, apparently.

So, we got to talking (background: she’s from Aberdeen, was studying Chinese stuff for a postgrad at Edinburgh, but just dropped out because she didn’t want to do it anymore), and she was mentioning how she had just come from a yoga class on the upstairs of the Forest. I mentioned that I had signed up for a yoga class for next semester, and was hoping to hear back about that all soon (turns out I find out on Monday or so). A friend of hers, Danny, came and sat down and chatted. He does that yoga class too, and it turns out both of them, though relatively new to yoga, are doing a yoga instructor training class by their yoga teacher. I think they do tantric yoga? Or something? I don’t know, but I was invited to come check it out, and I think I’m going to; it’s on my calendar for tomorrow morning. Oh, it’s free; that’s why I was so willing.

Danny also got to talking about something else he’s doing, which is parcour. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, but it’s this form of “street-running”, which is best described (as far as I can tell) as the sort of running, jumping, swinging from things that children do for play, except evolved into an art form. If, perchance, you’ve seen either Casino Royale (the new James Bond movie) or District B-13 (a French action movie), there has been parcour featured strongly in a chase scene in each. It seems really cool, and Danny invited me to join he and his friends who do it. I said sure, and gave him my mobile number, and he’s going to call me sometime and we’ll figure stuff out.

So that was the afternoon.

At 7pm I went to a Beltane workshop that I had been advised to go to by the person who runs my group. It was mainly for the Stewards and Torchbearers, those people involved with Beltane whose job it is to keep the enormous crowds back from the performers. There was some useful information; I’m glad I went. At the end of that workshop, I saw a friend from my group (green point). We hung out briefly and watched some drummers involved with Beltane practicing, and the Red Men practicing next to them. This was all in the Meadows, this big grassy area near the center of the city. I borrowed a drum and drummed a little with these people, and then went and planned with my friend to meet back there in an hour. I brought my drum and a frisbee back with me. I drummed with the same folks (who are apparently “no point”, a group that wanders around Beltane mocking the performers and making mischief), and chatted with someone I’d met at the Equinox party. Then I threw a tennis ball for a dog for a little bit (which also involved a good deal of searching around the now-dark fields after the the two of us had jointly lost the ball). I was tossing my frisbee around for a bit, then my friends got there. We walked up to the Forest and sat there for a bit. We drank wine and I played with a candle that was there, getting a flame that was 6 inches high or so, just as a by-product of tossing flamable stuff into the candle. Oops. I had about 4 glasses of wine (oh, I’m 21 now, since Sunday, cool, eh?).

We left, and I parted ways with the two of them. I walked home, drunker than I’d ever been while out by myself before. I would have been stumbling if I hadn’t been paying close attention to walking straight. It was weird. Blurry senses, but not blurry vision like when I don’t have my contacts in. It was sort of like when you’re cooking soup, and it’s all bubbly and swirly, convection currents making it slosh around a little. It was a little like that. Tell the truth, I’m still getting over it. Ridiculous. I’m developing a slightly more favorable taste for various types of alcohol (beer and wine; haven’t had anything stronger yet), but I still really don’t like the feeling of being drunk. I like to have my wits about me, at all times, and being drunk is pretty explicitly not having your wits about you.

Okay, I have a really big day tomorrow, with Yoga, costuming, MY FIRST CRITICAL MASS, and a Beltane party. Oy vey. Don’t worry parents, I am looking at a big blank space on my calendar for next week during which I intend to do much studying.

Hope you all are well; I will tell you about my travels as soon as possible.

So, I just read on Treehugger (or Grist, but I think it was TH) about “navy showers”. Apparently this is how they take showers in the navy. It’s really simple: you turn on the water long enough to get yourself completely wet all over, then turn it off while you soap up. Once you’re done soapifying, you turn the water back on and rinse off. Saves a ton of water, and I actually found today that it reduced the amount of time my shower took up significantly as well. You do lose on the comfort of the water cascading over you in a gentle, massaging tumult, but really, how important is that to you compared to saving gallons and gallons of water?

Second, apparently my home state of Massachusetts has enacted immediate legislation to require all large building projects to estimate the energy usage of their project. The developers would then be required to make efforts to reduce that consumption. This means that all new big developments in the state will be more energy efficient than if they hadn’t been thinking of the environment at all. It’s an extremely worthy start, I think.

So I never wrote anything between the 11th and the 20th of March. A lot of stuff happened then. And there appears to be a somewhat blank space in my journal then. Therefore, I will write about the last weekend before my trip.

So, on Friday night the 16th, I got two couchsurfers, Muriel and Alex. They’re both studying in Aberdeen, and are from Rennes (in France) and Austria, respectively. They came down to go to the Climate Action Conference, which had been on my schedule for a long time too. It was all day Saturday in the Forest Cafe. I may have written about the Forest before, but anyways it’s this really hippyish community arts venue/cafe. I had originally been weirded out by all the piercings and dreadlocks, but I went to the conference for a little while anyways. I went to a demonstration about homemade wind turbines, which was really cool. That workshop partly inspired me to start thinking about engineering as a field to potentially go into. Then I went to a workshop on Combined Heat and Power, otherwise known as cogeneration, or when cooling is included, trigeneration. It’s a way of greatly increasing the efficiency of energy production by using the waste biproducts. Anyway, after that I watched some of The End of Suburbia in the main room, then went home for a little while. Muriel and Alex stayed at the conference. Before I left, I saw a friend from FolkSoc who reminded/informed me that one of our FolkSoc friends (Morag) was playing with her band (Black Cat) in the Forest that evening. Apparently there was to be lots of music. So, when I arrived back to my room and found Muriel and Alex there after dinner, I suggested we go back to the Forest (after they ate) and see the music. Holy cow, am I glad we went back.

I saw some more friends from the ISC, and made more friends through them, all very quickly and smoothly. Alex and Muriel went off to find some friends of theirs. I sat around with my new friends waiting for this band to start playing. It took a while, and by the time they actually started, some of my other friends from FolkSoc had shown up too. Then the band started playing, and they were AMAZING!! Really good, energetic Balkan music. I was dancing. Everyone was dancing. Then another band came on, with a turntable and rapper, and they were good too. I had had a little beer earlier in the night, which I enjoyed. After the second band, my friends (the one from FolkSoc who’d tipped me off to the music, Sara, and her friends) and I went upstairs, where there was more mellow stuff going on. A guy playing electronic music on a keyboard, and people having a drum circle syncing with that. We were just lying around for a while, then danced more. I danced well that night.

After that, things started to wind down (it was about 1 or 2am). Muriel and Alex decided to stay with their other friends. I started talking to the dumbek/tarbuka-player and clarinetist from Black Cat, Adam, and he was excited that we played the same instruments (he thought when I said I played clarinet in 4th grade that I meant I played it now). People were all really chill and nice.

The next day I went back to the Forest, and saw Adam there. I asked him about Beltane, and he said that a lot of people who hang out at the Forest are involved with it. Have I not mentioned Beltane here yet? There’s a big fire festival with lots of pageantry on Calton Hill here in Edinburgh on the night of May 30th, to celebrate the Celtic holiday of Beltane. I was really excited about it before I even came to Edinburgh. And Adam now said that I might be able to perform with them! That got me really excited. I then watched the movie Clue, which I’d seen before, and which they were showing in the main room where I was just then.

On Tuesday, I had been invited to this concert which Black Cat was doing at this club. I skipped FolkSoc and went to it. It was in this club called Octopus Diamond. Turns out, it was a big thing by all the Beltane folks for the equinox. So there were numerous bands, but really it was my opportunity to network toward the goal of getting involved with Beltane. I met a lot of people, and it was really really cool. The best was the processional drummers. It was so packed, and there was so much dancing. I think I’ve found a social group that I want to get involved with, but I lament the fact that it’s taken me until this late in the semester to do so! Oh well, I’ll just have to make up for lost time is all. But wow, that night was so amazing. I staggered home, and started packing for my trip. I finished packing and moving out of my room the next morning after my class. It was tight; I almost missed my train to London. What a hectic time. Soon to be followed by three more hectic weeks. But that’s for the next bunch of entries.

So I’m in Dublin! Not dead, just in Ireland. I’ll be back in Edinburgh in a few days, but unfortunately probably won’t be posting for another week or so after that, as I intend to travel around the UK a bit. We’ll see how that goes. But I have lots to tell you all; I’ve been having an incomparable time, and have been keeping a journal so that I don’t forget stuff. Hopefully I can get everything up to the blog (including the multitudinous pictures and video clips) before I get back to the US. I’m also probably going to have some interesting stuff going on when I get back to Edinburgh as well. Eek. And studying, and exams. It’s gonna be wild.

Can’t wait to see you all again, hope all is well.

It’s nice to see British political rivals Gordon Brown and David Cameron competing on the basis of environmental issues.

But the real big news this week is of course the agreement reached by members of the EU regarding action on climate change. At a meeting during this past week, they adopted two binding targets: CO2 emissions 20% below 1990 levels by 2020, and 20% more energy from renewable sources in the same time frame. Apparently, if other major polluters like the US, India, and China do something similar, the EU might boost its targets to 30%.

Very good start. Keep ’em coming.

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned. It has been two weeks since my last…posting. Some couchsurfing, some new friends, some home friends, an adventure or two, some Firefly. Some planning. No more schoolwork than usual. I’m sorry it’s been such a while. Read on for the full story.

So. I left off with my couchsurfers Martin and Ugne here, yes? And I was beginning to get sick. Well I continued to get sick. And Martin and Ugne continued to not be here much during the day, and we continued to not interact that much at night, for various reasons. They were tired, I was getting sick, their English was less than perfect, and they were living a totally different life from me. I did like them, but we didn’t seem to have a ridiculous amount in common.

Sunday night the 25th I saw The Queen. It was very good.

They left Tuesday morning the 27th, and that night I went to a concert. It was themed “Bellows and Bows” and featured three sets of fiddlers and accordionists from three different traditions. The main pair was Phil Cunningham and Aly Bain, who I came to see. Phil Cunningham was the accordion player for Silly Wizard, and recorded a song that I played at the beginning of my every radio show the first season. My god, though! Phil Cunningham’s accordion playing is ridiculous! If you’re familiar with the style of piano in New England traditional music, like you hear at a contradance, his left hand was playing something that sounded just like a good contra piano, while his right hand mirrored the fiddle’s melody or did some other fun stuff. Several times in the concert I practically looked around, trying to find the piano.

But the other two sets of musicians were just as enjoyable if not moreso. There was a pair from Sweden, who played lovely scandinavian stuff, including a waltz whose rhythm was more like an “oval” than the “circular” waltzes you hear in Scottish and Irish music. That means that the first beat takes up a lot longer than the other two. It was difficult to tap out. The other group was a Cajun group from Louisiana, three people, fiddle, accordion, and guitar. They were great, made me homesick a little, and made me appreciate Cajun music a lot more than I ever have before.

When all three groups were playing together, Phil and Aly told a story about how they were commissioned to play for this guy in London one time, and when they got there, the guy said to Phil “I can’t wait to hear some of these Cajun songs that you sing.” Phil and Aly conferred in the toilet, and decided what they would do. They would play “How much is that doggie in the window” in a Cajun style, and Phil would sing it, backwards, in a vaguely french accent. 40 thousand pounds. They played the result for us, and it was a hilarious pastiche of the Cajun music we’d just been hearing.

On Wednesday I was still sick, and that night I had two couchsurfers from Penn State. They were really nice, but some of the more awkward people I’ve met. She was teaching English in Marseilles, and he had come over with her, and wasn’t doing much. I talked to them a little bit, but was sick, and went to bed, and they left the next morning before I woke up.

Around this time, maybe a little before, I started facebook messaging a bunch with a friend from home. Very nice. In two maximum-length (10,000 characters; email-length, really) messages, I articulated better than ever before the most in-depth story of my family and relationship history I’ve ever told anyone in one sitting. Some real nice articulation catharsis there.

Around Thursday or so, I built up courage and went and sat with some new people at a meal, turns out I in fact did meet them at international student orientation. Emily is from Greenfield (near me), and goes to King’s/Dalhousie in Halifax. We have at least three mutual acquaintances, two from one place and one from the other. Erin goes to Mt. Holyoke, and knows a good number of my friends there. Gemma is from Melbourne, Australia, here for the year. Alex is from Durham, near Newcastle (in England). They’re very nice. I had meals with them all weekend while my other bunch of friends were mostly away. Now that my other friends are back, I have two groups that I can eat with, which is better than one.

I forgot about going to see FilmSoc’s showing of Borat until it was too late, which got me in a foul mood Sunday night (the 4th). I was pretty much over my cold by the end of the weekend, but I only judged myself basically normal a day or two ago.

I played a lot of my computer game Wesnoth, too.

I’ve realized that my Europe trip is SUPER soon, so I’ve stepped up my planning. There’s only one more weekend before I go. I got my Eurail pass in the mail from home the other day (thanks “Mombets”!), and have been intimidated by the planning of connections and reservations since then. I need to get on all that very soon.

This past Wednesday I had another couchsurfer come, and she stayed for three nights. She was really cool; we got along wonderfully. Her name’s Sara, and she just graduated from Evergreen College in Washington State, in animation. She too is teaching English in southern France. We had a lot in common, and she was a fine conversationalist. We just sat around for the most part for the first two days. On Thursday we went to this place called Piemaker, that has great inexpensive food, and is a great people watching spot. On the way there, I met a girl while walking out of the dorms who recognized me from couchsurfing. Her name’s Maryla and I haven’t interacted with her since, but she seems nice enough. On Friday, Sara and I climbed Salisbury Crags, which I hadn’t done before. It was fun, though my nose was running like a marathon, and the approaching gray rain clouds scared me, as I had my laptop. We got down just before it started raining, and to avoid the wetness went into the Scottish Parliament building, another place I hadn’t been. We didn’t go on a tour, but went into the empty Debating Chamber. I love the modern design of the building. I also realized for the first time that the landscaping pools out in front are shaped like Scotland.

Starting on Wednesday, and almost every night since then, I’ve watched some episodes of Firefly with Jon, and Sara while she was here (she left on Saturday morning for France via Glasgow). Today we watched all the episodes on the last disc (along with Sarah, another friend from that same original group, they’re the two from it who I like the best), and tonight we watched the movie. We zipped through the whole canon! Less than a week. That’s quick, for actually carrying on something of a normal life as well.

Last night (Saturday) I went to see Salsa Celtica. They were more Salsa than Celtic, but I enjoyed it muchly. Lots of dancing. The only unhappy part was the middle-aged woman dancing wildly very close in front of me at one point, and I couldn’t move. But I eventually was able to move a little, and all was good. They played the one song of theirs I know (with loads of people invited on stage) in the middle of the encore, which was perfect.

Now I’m no longer playing Wesnoth, now Sea Dogs (pirate game arrr), and still looking for Silverthorn by Raymond E. Fiest. I may have to resort to buying it new at Blackwells or somewhere. I’m going to be reading my heart out on my train travels. I haven’t decided whether I’m going to bring my third large book. Three weeks, with multi-hour train rides almost every day? Dunno. And I also haven’t decided about my laptop. I’m leaning toward no, but I’m not sure.

I’m getting closer to my friends here, getting closer to travel time, getting closer to exams…it’s all rushing by so fast.

Oh, I figured out how I’m going to manage my academics, not having done a whole lot of work this semester. I have two weeks after I get back from Skye before my exams begin, so I’m going to read an article a day from each class in those two weeks, covering the major reading for each lecture. Then my exams are nice and spaced out so that I have 3 days before each one where I can focus exclusively on that.

I miss my friends and my home, and, though my appreciation of here has increased and doubtless will further, I expect that when I come home my happiness about returning will outweigh my sadness at leaving.

I’ve long been turned off, to say the least, by cigarette smoking. I would never smoke, and have long been subconsciously searching for a valid reason why other people shouldn’t smoke either. Today Treehugger has an article about the consequences to the environment of global smoking habits. They seem pretty severe. And Treehugger links to all of its sources, many of which seem to be highly reputable international organizations. Any environmentalist smokers in the audience? Your thoughts?

So, I came upon this list via Digg of the “Top 50 Things To Do To Stop Global Warming”. It’s actually a really good list; it covers most of the bases I’ve heard about. So for anyone who says they want to do something, but don’t know what to do: take a look. And most of these things can be done without any significant financial burden. A lot of them actually save you money.

So, on one side of the scale:
-being part of the environmental solution
-saving money

On the other side:
-resistance to change
-laziness/comfort

Take your pick.

Okay, I had an exciting day, finally! Highland Annual, basically, and also my couchsurfing friends.

First of all, Friday afternoon I hiked around Holyrood Park, to the summit of Arthur’s Seat, but also to St. Anthony’s Chapel (a nice little ruin-ed chapel) and the Radical Road, which goes around the base of Salisbury Crags, and which a Shooglenifty tune is named after. I took lots of pictures, which are all online, including one that’s really artsy and nice of the sunset and clouds over the Crags.

I finished and burned a copy of a mix that I made for a friend at Conn, but which I think I’m going to use as my standard “make me a mix/I’ll make you a mix” mix. It’s awesome. All A+ songs, arranged nicely, and tailored around the edges to make them flow nicely.

So, the Highland Annual. It’s a big annual ceilidh (=traditional dance party), which this year one of my FolkSoc friends did most of the planning for. It happened in the Teviot Student Union building, and there were several different locations with different things happening. There was a jam session in the Middle Bar, where I played with the FolkSoc crowd for a little while; good fun. Then in the Debating Hall upstairs, there was the ceilidh, where all the dancing was happening. Downstairs in another room was a concert area. So, basically, it was like a mini-NEFFA, except all Scottish. And with the usual amount of alcohol for any Scottish event. I didn’t like the dancing as much as contra, partly because I know contra, partly because one of the dances was excessively repetitive, and partly because the band was rather oom-pah (yes, that’s an adjective, and you know exactly what I mean). Aside from it not being contra, the dancing was fun. The most interesting thing about that part of the night, though, was a guy who was next to me in one of the dances. He was wearing a kilt (as I was, coincidentally) and a white laced shirt. He had long blond hair in a ponytail (“He looked like Fabio” -my friend Sarah), and apparently had killer, massive calves. To paraphrase Sarah, “He was a Man”. I think he may have been the most authentically Scottish person I’ve seen so far.

I unfortunately had to leave at 11, for I had to meet my couchsurfers at the Couchsurfing meet. Let me explain: it just so happens that the same night that I had these people staying with me, there was a gathering of Edinburgh people on the Couchsurfing network. So, we had arranged that I would meet them there at 11. I did. We went into the back room of this pub, where the event was. It was really crowded, and a live band was playing. It was pretty cool. I met the guy who had organized this meet, who also happens to be my “friend” on Last.FM, this social music website. That’s because he listens to the same kind of music that I do. Anyways, after a short while, Martin, Ugne, and I (they’re my couchsurfers) left.

Martin is 22, from Malaga in Spain, a computer guy, a juggler, tall, a smoker, wears Bono-esque glasses, and has long, slightly-dreaded dark hair. I’m not the best judge in the world, but I’d say he’s pretty darn attractive. I think the phrase “smoking hot” might apply, too. Ugne is 27, from Vilnus in Lithuania. She has a masters in marketing, and met Martin when she was traveling in Spain a few years ago. She’s rather gorgeous too, in a slightly Slavic way. They both love to travel, and each other. They’ve been living in Galway, Ireland, for a year, saving up for a long trip to South America. They’re moving to Malaga shortly to earn more money, because they’re both tired of the weather in Ireland. They’re both really nice, and both of them, while having noticeable accents, have decent English. Ugne’s is better, but not by that much. They’re staying until Tuesday evening, so I’d best like them. Tonight they’re coming to see The Queen with me, then tomorrow we’re climbing Arthur’s Seat. Ooh, actually, I’m sick, so I might not. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow. I passed up going out to the museum with them today, for that reason. I also didn’t sleep too well last night. It’s still uncomfortable having near-strangers sleeping in my room, even if they are nice. Oh well, all my most important valuables AKA my passport are secreted away safely.

Oh, so I looked at the calendar yesterday and realized there are only 3 weeks left of classes, until Spring Break. That’s scary. It also means that if I’m going to write one of these optional formative essays for my classes, I’d better get on it pretty soon. I also need to get on buying a Eurail pass NOW. Their website didn’t like my computer, or vice versa, so I’m going to try on the computer lab computers, but if that doesn’t work, I may have to ask my lovely parents to buy it, because I hear it might ship to the US before coming here anyway. The reason for that is the Eurail pass is just for non-EU citizens; there’s a different pass, the InterRail, for Europeans.

Okay, that’s it for now. Hope everyone’s doing peachily. I miss you all, and will hopefully see you again reasonably soon.
-Alex