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.

Hurrah!

They’ve managed to find back the painting Skrik (The scream) by Edvard Munch, which was stolen from a museum in Oslo two years ago. It’s all okay. I came across something Munch-y just the other day, and I remember thinking what a pity it was that the painting was lost forever (as everyone assumed). I feel a weird sense of relief.

In other news, I managed to get through the entire Register of Testaments of Shetland (1611-1650) today. I’m pretty sure they haven’t recorded everything, unless either very few people died or there were very few people to begin with, neither of which I believe is true. I noted down 266 marriages; the next step is to code the names for Norse or Scottish and then I can try and say something sensible about exogamy (inter-ethnic marriage patterns).

Fun fun.

And the purpose is...

Wikipedia (though evil) is very useful. Although sometimes you wonder what the purpose is of the information it gives. For some odd reason that I really can’t remember anymore, I started looking into post codes earlier this evening. Riveting read. It doesn’t seem British post codes are actually used for sorting the mail anymore, because (a) the system isn’t very efficient, and (b) automated handwriting recognition isn’t either.

More to the point: there is an article on the postal areas of Edinburgh, and for some reason for the postal areas of Edinburgh city, it gives the supermarket that serves the area. Whoever wrote this article mustn’t consider Scotmid a supermarket, though. We don’t have a supermarket, says Wikipedia.

Oh well, I guess it’s only a small one. But it sells food and that’ll do.

So

Bleurgh.

Time flies...

(Ah, I’d used that title before.)

I’ve already been back for a week and a half, and I haven’t done a proper blog update for at least a month. In short, I was back home, was first baking for a week and a half, and then suddenly, when AL arrived, was drenched for a week and a half. It was fun though and I had never done a tour on a canal boat in Amsterdam before.

Back in Edinburgh, I made a start with editing the Postgrad Conference papers. This is a tedious job because... well, basically because Word is misbehaving. Also, the first-years’ inability to reference properly seems to be an epidemic that is spreading to postgrads. I guess they were never taught how to reference as first-years either.

I also spent time at the National Library again. Somewhere between two and two-and-a-half hours each day. It wasn’t as bad as previously; I guess that reading French is less offensive than reading German (from the time that Stalin was still a hero, so it’s German nonsense as well). I still need to spend lots more time at the NLS, because they have the books that Edinburgh University Library doesn’t have. Also I need about a truckload of Inter-Library Loan vouchers.

Now how did I end up reading stuff on historical demography?

In other news, my friends are slowly returning from various places which is a good cure against social isolation. I still haven’t managed to do any Fringe Festival thing, although I did go to the Book Festival and bought a book. If you take away the workshops which I have no intention of attending, and the meet-and-greets with authors who I don’t know and whose glory I am therefore not very likely to want to bask in*, the Book Festival is nothing more than a café and bookshop in a tent. That was slightly disappointing, although I don’t quite know how I would imagine a book festival other than that.

[* Now draw a Chomskyan tree for that! I wonder if it doesn’t violate a few constraints on pied piping...]

Freshers’ Week is coming scarily close, it’s only three weeks. I’m sure it’ll turn out fine in the end, but there are far too few ticks on the “Things to organize” sheet. It would also be very nice if we could find teachers for two of our classes, and venues for three of them. I have reasonable hope for the venues. Anyone feeling inclined to teach Beginners Country?

It is also amazing how quickly crap accumulates. It took half an hour to sort and put away all the bank statements, gas bills, book bills, New Scotland letters and other paperwork that had piled up on my desk. My folder with financial stuff is now officially full.

Tomorrow and Tuesday are American High School dems. They’re promising to be a hoot. Well, they’re usually okay and a better audience than the IALS ones, we don’t get haggis [that is a Bad Thing] but also we don’t get Mozambiquan dancing, Japanese singing or the so-manieth cross-dressing IALS staff contribution [that is a Very Good Thing]. It does involve silly monkey suits though, and I’m too polite to abuse the fact that BW really needs me to get rid of that uncomfortable pseudo-traditional garment.

Think that’s all for now.

Historical pedantry

I have a bone to pick with Dr. Jorge Cham. In a recent Piled Higher and Deeper comic [link], the character Prof. Smith is described as “recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Prize of the Federal Republic of the Netherlands”, among other things. This is total and utter nonsense. Of course I understand that the Ph.D. comic is a work of fiction, but it does at least suggest a real-life and contemporary setting – witness references to Stanford University and current events in the real world.

So just to educate the general populace that will not read this anyway...

Alexander von Humboldt (* Berlin 1769 – † Berlin 1859) was an explorer from [drum roll] Berlin, which was in Prussia. In other words, in Germany. In other words, not in the Netherlands. He did probably set foot on Dutch soil at some point during his travels, but the main foci of his work were Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Latin America. He did not write anything major about the Netherlands which makes a Dutch prize being named after him extremely unlikely in the first place.

More ridiculously... the Federal Republic of the Netherlands? My passport clearly says “Kingdom of the Netherlands” in twelve languages. Not Republic. Not Federal. We were a republic once, or rather, twice, in our history. From 1581 to 1795 we were the Republic of the (Seven) United Netherlands/Provinces, and then from 1795 to 1806 we were the Batavian Republic. (Those were the days.) Sure enough the United Provinces (not the Batavian Republic) were a federal republic but we were never called such.

Alexander von Humboldt’s first publication dates from 1790, so five years before the Netherlands ceased to be a federal republic. His major claim to fame, however, the five-year expotition to Latin America (1799 to 1804) came when the Netherlands were no longer federal and well on their way to becoming a Kingdom with a rabbit king.

In conclusion, a badly-named Alexander von Humboldt Prize of the Federal Republic of the Netherlands is not entirely beyond the realms of possibility, but the probability of a certain comic strip (anti-)hero graduating is doubtlessly infinitely greater.

Rant over.

(Only one more month before I can tell first-years that Wikipedia is evil!)

Pyramid tea bags

What they want you to think:

Pyramid tea bags are specifically designed by top-of-the-bill tea bag designers to improve hot water circulation through the tea bag, in order to perfect the brewing process as the tea leaves come into contact with the water. The design was inspired by the age-old knowledge that pyramids are a magical source of health, good luck and other invariably Good Things.

What really happened:
— Hey boss? There’s been a slight hitch in the tea bag sealing machine and they’re now asymetrically sealed.
— What? You [expletive deleted]!
— Yeah, sorry boss. But look, if you fiddle with it it kind of looks like a pyramid.
— “It kind of looks like a pyramid.” Now what good is that going to do?
— I s’pose not... But wait... What if we claim it was all on purpose? With the right ad campaign we can put 50 tea bags in a box instead of 80 and put 20% on the price as well. It’s a winner boss, we can’t lose I tell you!
— Yeah I guess those Britons are stupid enough to fall for it. Let’s give it a go.

Letter from the AHRC

I got a letter from the AHRC. I have funding for the remaining two years of the Ph.D.! That means (a) financially, that I don’t have to get so much money from my parents and (b) psychologically, the knowledge that other people have faith in me! Yay!

In the unimitable words of LG: *BoInG!*

Almost gone

I finished a first version of the taboo-language piece today and put it in an envelope for April together with the write-up from the Shetland conference. Gives her something to do while I’m away. That’s all I did in the office. My lovely Japanese office-mate claims this is “mild weather” and, although now at setting 4 rather than 8, still has the heating on.

The mystery of the droning noise is still unsolved. It can’t be my computer, as I can’t even hear it in the bathroom... Another mystery is now added to this block of flat: a missing package of XXL clothing for the lady in flat 1, which someone has signed for but which she’s never seen. Oddness.

Long walk

Today I went for a Long Walk. I went to Holyrood Park, then started following the signs to Craigmillar Castle. It looked like that would be a boring walk along a main road, so I deviated and took the «Innocent Cycle Path» which, as I learned at the end, used to be a railroad. That was nice. It spat me out onto a main road nonetheless, and I started following signs to Craigmillar Castle again. This is very well hidden behind a new development with, in good Edinburgh fashion, streetnames like «Craigmillar Castle Road North Lane West Crescent Circle Square». I had one pound, so didn’t go into the castle, but continued on the walking path, which ended at the Royal Infirmary. Yay?

Then I had to walk along a main road for forever, and ended up at Cameron Toll. Where I’d never been before so I tried that and almost got lost in Sainsbury’s where I bought malted milk biscuits and chocolate chip biscuits. They have too much choice. Then I walked up to Newington, through Grange, bought new cycling shorts at the Bicycle Coop and sat in the Meadows for an hour.

My sunscreen has glittery stuff in it which is really cool (and glittery) but now I have lots of other things with glittery stuff on it as well.

What I did

On Thursday I had my first year review meeting. It was positive, they had some concerns about the amount of historical research I had to do with very patchy secondary sources (which I share – I might decide to dump some case studies), and there was a comment that in the final dissertation it’s probably more relevant to the research questions to present the case studies thematically rather than geographically. This is probably also true.

I also made an apple pie for Heather, who is leaving to get paid more for less work at the Dick Vet. This went down well. The pie, that is. No one’s too happy about her leaving.

In the evening we had a dem/cèilidh for Davide’s language school kids. Italian teenagers: what the boys have too much in attitude, the girls lack in clothes. They were a bit apprehensive at first, but in the end we did get them up to dance. Got home late.

On Friday I finally managed to book a hall for trip practice on the 30th. I had earlier had an «Allo Allo» experience with the people from the German-speaking church (this also implies they don't speak English very fluently...), and a wild goose chase with Drumbrae Leisure Centre. But finally on Friday I got hold of a school that is available. The woman was obviously Dutch, judging from her accent, but I kept speaking English with her which was awkward.

Then we had a picknick lunch with the English Language and Linguistics postgrads in the Meadows in honour of Heather leaving. I had made date and nut pie which went down even better than the apple one.

The evening was not a quiet evening in as intended, but a late evening out because we were celebrating the fact that ylla got a new job as secretary at the Physics department. (As I write this she has yet to mention this on her own blog.)

Today (Saturday) I sat in the Meadows and got slightly sunburnt. Then I decided it was getting too hot and I went for a walk through Grange and Holyrood Park. Had tea, then read something in the grass outside our flat (for some reason I don’t refer to it as «our garden» even though I guess it is) and then went for another walk approaching Blackford Hill but not climbing it because it was already getting later.

Homophony

Someone on the radio was talking about this street with all sorts of nice ‘eetstandjes’. I wondered what was so nice about ‘aidstentjes’ before she went on about food.

More loop

I am home alone, as MG has had to go back to the US. It’s quiet.

The stuff I had to write for the first year review meeting is now finished, although I have of course spotted some errors already. I am now in the process of putting the entire thing in LaTeX, as Word threatened to die on me on Friday, which is typically one of those things that would happen minutes before the due date. (And this was before putting the pictures in...) The whole coding thing is done now (I managed to automate much of it, at least all the accented characters) and I’m just having to put the references in and cure some BibTeX bugs. Having authors with nice exotic names in your reference list is cool, but a problem for automation... Will ask Cassie or Peter for help.

I am still not going on the trip. I have maintained this position since February, and I do not think I can be held responsible in any way, shape or form for some important event in the realm of marketing classical music taking place at the same time as the Ludwigstein trip.

Message for tigger_boing: Tesco has mugs with Tigger on for £3.97. If you go to the Tesco’s on Nicolson Street (this message goes for everyone) and it seems like you’re getting the slightly large, smiling Indian woman, pretend that you’ve forgotten something and leave the queue. Her “speed” makes a heavily sedated turtle look like an Olympic sprint champion, and she has a habit of putting about two items in a bag before deciding it’s full.

I brought the cheque for Lutton Place to the Docwras on Friday. It wasn’t a very long walk and as I had been wide awake since 6am anyway, it was a nice thing to do before going to the office. They live at number 10b of their street. As I was approaching, I could see number 8 – a massive posh house. Number 10 – a massive posh house. Number 12 – a massive posh house. But where was number 10b? Upon closer inspection there turned out to be a tiny cute little archway next to number 10, with 10b on it. Now I’m curious as to the Docwras’ house...

I also received the cheque for Nic’s costume proposal. It was addressed to me, ‘Esq.’! I looked it up but Esq. really doesn’t mean anything. But it looks cool.

Unfair

It is unfair that the England and the Netherlands are having gorgeous weather with sunshine and real summer and all, while we're stuck with [looks out window] oh look, it seems to be temporarily dry at the moment. Can't complain then.

It is also unfair that loads of people are running experiments at the moment for which they need participants. They dish out money for this, if you participate you often get £5 or £10, or at least chocolate. All the experiments require native speakers of English. Grunt. The one or two experiments that require L2-speakers of English want people whose first language is Chinese or Japanese.

It's unfair!

Loop

The past two weeks have seen...

• two apple pies, one for SB’s party (see below) and one to see if HO would eat fruit. He took his piece home with him so we still don’t know. The other people in the office were well impressed though.
  
• moving KH into her new flat at Polwarth. Nice flat!
  
• a party at SB’s where we watched The Full Monty which CB was afraid to watch so she left (probably for the best), talked and at surprisingly little chocolate
• a trip practice that is coming along quite nicely, and will look very performable as soon as people learn to listen to the music and phrase the figures accordingly.
  
• CB’s farewell party with lots of chocolate cake and a surprisingly fun game which was a mixture between Articulate and charades.
• a new ringtone for my phone.
  
• the Japanese kiddies’ dem where YS talked too much and the kids took about half an hour to learn the Circassian circle.
• attempts to do the swords mirror image, as SB and I decided at CB’s leaving party that it would probably make a nice dem. Later LG and RW agreed and suggested doing it on either side of the Broad Swords for a really impressive dem. Strathspey bit is okay to do mirrored, I’m having a bit more problems with the fast bit.
• finding out why Laurits Rendboe was wrong with his assumption about George Low’s word list and the taboo language of the Shetland fishermen.
  
• bulk veggie curry making.
• trying to learn LaTeX with varying results.
• watching the football World Cup with varying results and varying but crucially dire refereeing capabilities.
  
• finding out train ticket details so that AL can get to Ludwigstein (still to be organised).
• no progress meeting for the Ph.D.
• not enough blog updates.
  

Distraction

It's quite hard to concentrate when there's a full pipe marching band, with pipes, drums, and a whole collection of people with swords and a guy shouting at them, practicing off the bowling green downstairs from the office. They were playing one of the Highland tunes that I can never tell apart. It wasn't the silly sailor dance tune.