Public rant

As I start writing this, it is Thursday morning just before 8am. I am already dreading what’s going to happen ten hours from now. I am looking unforward* to New Scotland tonight. This is not a Good Thing. In fact, it is a Very Bad Thing.

The Curse that is the ghettoblaster has ended up in our flat. It will have to be at the Chaplaincy for 6.30 tonight. Also in our flat are two sets of SCD CD’s, the money box, the membership book, soon a lot of flyers about Freshers’ Week, and the keys to Lutton Place. They will have to be at Lutton Place no later than 6.15. Anyone familiar with the area will know that this is an impossibility.

It appears that no one is available to take the ghettoblaster off my hands (although I still have a slight hope that someone will volunteer), so I am going to have to make myself available, running from my office to the Chaplaincy, and then to Lutton Place. Just hoping there will be someone at the Chaplaincy (New Scotland or friendly servitor) to take the [expletive] thing off me.

I am in lectures/teaching until 5.30. I will have no time for food tonight.

I am also not very happy with the behaviour of some of the more experienced members in the society. I know they’re only trying to help, but still. The society elects a committee to run everything. The point of this, and the point of not standing for committee, is that people don’t have to organise everything themselves. This also means that they should be able to let committee organise things. Friendly advice is always welcome, of course, but certain things don’t need to be said, or can be said at a different time or in a different tone.

I do not appreciate being messengered in the early morning before I can even open Thunderbird to check my work e-mail, to be told that (including the enumeration) [1] we need to announce in notices that there is Country Dance Basics on Tuesdays, and [2] I need to include in next week’s classes e-mail that the new dem class teacher wants us to wear kilts or short skirts.

I have a brain. I can remember something the dem class teacher said less than twelve hours earlier. I can remember it until next Monday. I had even been thinking about the wording. I don’t need to be “reminded” of something so trivial and non-central to the running of the society when there isn’t even the slightest sign that I may have forgotten. (And even if I had forgotten, it wouldn’t have made a difference. People were told individually that they had to wear kilts or short skirts. We are all adults. Surely people can remember for themselves?)

I am also not in charge of notices. I remember very well that I did notices once somewhere in March and got scourged for them being too long and too sarcasting. I have been well and truly impeached from notices and I want nothing to do with them every again.

Also, as far as I understand it, Country Dance Basics is directed not at the people who actually stay at social (who are at least 75% experienced people). It is not really directed at the people who go to cèilidh class and can’t do Beginners’ on Thursday. It is for the people who go on Thursday and want to get better faster. That’s why it’s free: they’ve already paid on Thursday and are making an extra effort, hopefully to the benefit of the society (dem-wise). So anything to do with announcing Country Basics is best done in Beginners’, and the relevant person to ask about putting a notice in that class is the Beginners’ teacher.

Who then sneered at me at Dunedin yesterday, “So I hear I have to be psychic again about what’s happening in my class tomorrow?” Well, it appears that no psychic powers are necessary and he was already told that there was a request for a notice in his class. If he doesn’t want that notice, surely they can sort it out between themselves. Why this warrants a sarcastic comment thrown at me, is still beyond me.

Incidentally this also blurred the sacred distinction between Dunedin (where I can just turn up and enjoy dancing and socializing, no stress) and New Scotland (where I could do that for exactly four weeks before I was drafted onto committee). It did actually take the half-hour walk back home through the wind and drizzle to calm down again.

I hope I can become confident some time during the day that I might actually enjoy New Scotland tonight.


* I need the opposite of ‘looking forward’ but not as strong as ‘dreading’ (yet).

Space

If the people in charge of the space bookings system could allocate me a slightly less confusing one, that would be intensely appreciated.

Thank you.

More conspiracy

More signs that there is a worldwide conspiracy against New Scotland became obvious on Thursday. Not only was it pouring down with rain which may not have done very good things to the cd player (oops), but what exactly do you do when you arrive at McEwan Hall to ‘No you don’t have a ceilidh here tonight!’?

The servitors were great, JB’s skills to navigate the University buildings system came in very handy, Tim and Tom from EUSA were use- and helpful, committee and other NS members excelled, and the numerous freshers who were outside getting drenched until the hall finally opened helped out carrying several hundred chairs off the dance floor.

More NS drama when RW was rushed to hospital earlier that day, but she is fine now. And it turns out I was right all along – a W junior is on his or her way.

In the end we proved the McEwan Hall people wrong, and we did have a ceilidh there tonight. Considering the rain and the late start we actually had a great turnout, Andy was marvellous and his Orcadian probably even better than the one at Rukkus.

Friday morning was spent with JB sorting Thursday’s events out with EUSA, and that too seems to have worked fine. Friday afternoon was the workshop in Teviot with LG, which went really well too and we had five sets at some point. The last hour was a bit slower, we may want to consider that non-dancers (or not-yet-dancers *grin*) will have limited stamina on the last day of Freshers’ Week. Four people joined us in Teviot Middle Bar, which I think is a good score.

The Societies’ Fair will always be one of the middle levels of hell, but we survived. And exactly whose idea was it to put us next to the stuck-up Reelers Club? ‘So do you have free booze at your dances?’ No, we actually like to dance? We made friends with the Flamenco Society and above all with Choc Soc. (‘Join Choc Soc and get free chocolate!’ ‘Come to our ceilidh and dance it all off again!’) At some point AL was handing out Choc Soc flyers while the Choc Soc girl was rallying for our ceilidh.

We also made friends with the Officers Training Corps. They have pipers. AL, LG and me did a fling to the pipes in the Pentland Room. Let’s just say we got an audience...

Worst line of the week, when it was pouring down with rain on the Thursday: ‘You look very wet. We have an indoor event.’

We also seem to have succeeded in attracting Norwegians. There is a Norwegian girl anyway, which is a start.

It’s official!

They are out to get us. There is a world-wide conspiracy against New Scotland, jeopardizing both the running of the society and my personal sanity. It’s been going on for a while, the first signs was the news about when the booking at Pleasance was mysteriously not reaching New Scotland. The Church of Scotland are against us as well, deliberately planning youth Bible groups on Tuesday evenings. Teviot and EUSA aren’t so much against New Scotland in particular, they’re just against societies in general. The Council are being arses, as are the people that run youth hostels. Or those that run marathons.

On a positive note, the workshop that JW ran yesterday went quite well. We even had men. Well, two. But although they may not have been entirely serious about coming to the workshop, they did seem to enjoy it and they did take a flyer with them. Tomorrow and Thursday is the Societies’ Fair.

In other news, I saw a property that was being let by Alba, and on one side it had a sign “Sorry, it’s gone!”. On the other side it had “Przepraszam juz wynajty” (I think it was). So the Polish contingent in Edinburgh is now so significant that lets are being advertised in Polish. Maybe we should advertise our ceilidhs in Polish as well?

(I already discussed with JW the necessity of advertising in Norwegian.)

Late

You know that it’s late when you suggest that doing Brooms of Bon Accord is both funny, a good idea and doable.

And it all started with this photo of a variation on the Broad Swords. New Scotland do broad women, these Californians seem to be doing Broad Farming Equipment.