Shalyn Takes on Scotland!: Week 1 and 2!

Hi Everyone!!

So, I have finished Week 1 and started Week 2! Classes started Wednesday but my first class was on Thursday. Most professors wait until Week 2 to start lessons. During the first week, I continued to have orientation meetings and learned a lot more about the school. I went to the club and sports fair and signed up for too many things! The emails keep pouring in so we will see what I take the time to do!

I got a chance to explore the city – I met some people downtown and went to a study abroad meet and greet event. Later, I ended up taking the bus in all by myself and explored all of the small shops, restaurants, and the mall. (As a side note, I don’t like shopping that much in America and European fashions make shopping more … enjoyable!) The only issue with going downtown is that everything closes ridiculously early!! The only night places stay open late is on Thursdays (until 8pm). (Quite a bit different from Worcester.) I’ve also been out to a few clubs/bars with my new friends and everything is really neat – a lot of local pride here in Stirling.

My flat mates are fantastic and we spend most nights together. We were talking about something fun to do for my birthday and it looks like we may be taking the bus in to Edinburgh and spending the afternoon and night there. I’ll let you know about the final plans!

The library here is fantastic! The amount of money that they put into it over the summer is crazy – almost everything (journals, essays, abstracts, etc.) can be electronically downloaded so there is no need to go to the library and hunt for it and all of the current journals that are as recent as last month are also available to download online. If a book is required for class and you don’t feel like purchasing it, there are at least 2 copies in the short loan section which you can take out 24 hours at a time. You can renew everything online and there are self checkout stations all over the library. Everything is brand new and clean, bookshelves are full and you can turn a wheelie thing and the bookshelf will move across the floor giving you as much space as you need to look it up (I might just have to take a picture because I think it’s really impressive!) The library hours aren’t that extensive (since nothing is open late!) At Clark the library is open until midnight every night (except Friday). The latest it is open here is 10pm…I guess I’ll be getting my work done before then!

Here is what my final schedule looks like:

Monday – History Seminar (Wallace and Bruce) 9am-11am
Linguistics Lecture 1pm-2pm

Tuesday – Spanish Oral Seminar 9am-10am
Spanish Written Seminar 11am-12pm
Linguistics Lecture 4pm-5pm

Wednesday – Linguistics Seminar 10am-11am

Thursday – Spanish Culture Lecture 11am-12pm

Friday – Spanish Culture Seminar 10am-11am

Also, if you want to find a better way to stay in touch, I posted my address on this blog but here are some other ways:

Email – scarey@clarku.edu OR shc00028@students.stir.ac.uk
Skype – shalyn.carey
Facebook – Shalyn Carey (to see more pictures as well)
AIM – shakay104

I am going on a hike Saturday morning to climb the mountain, Dumyat, which is located right near Uni and when at the top, will overlook Stirling. (Here is a link to check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumyat

I had my first History seminar – the course is about William Wallace and Robert the Bruce focusing on the Scottish Wars of Independence. The module (what they call courses here) is almost entirely an independent study. Each week, we have a seminar topic with 1 or 2 pages of readings (some books, some journals) and we can decide what we want to read and how much. We are required to pick one topic to do a 10 minute oral presentation on throughout the semester and there are 2 essays that we need to write (which will be 80% of our grade, the other 20% is based on oral participation). The professor is very knowledgeable and does a ton of work in this area of study and has a light Scottish accent! The course topics are quite interesting and I seem to have a good group of people in my seminar. He also told us that if for some reason we couldn’t make it to our particular seminar, we could attend one of the other two as long as it is for that given week (this works since I plan on taking some time to travel) For this course, I will definitely be spending a great deal of time in the library.

I also started my linguistics course (technically titled Language and Society) – it is focusing on how there are many different ways that language can be interpreted through accents, vocabulary, how one arranges a sentence, etc. I think it is going to be a really neat course especially since we have a ton of students speaking English from all parts of the world (our first class looked a lot at the differences between Scottish, British, and American English). There will be two papers in this class worth all of my grade(!) and a decent amount of reading. I have a friend who is in this class which will make things more exciting.

And today began Spanish…the professor walked in and started talking! Ahh! I haven’t taken Spanish in two years so it was a little rough but I think she liked me because I volunteered a bit and talked to her about flamenco (although she may really just be laughing at my awful grammar and vocabulary…) The oral and written sections will be taught only in Spanish and they each last an hour. It’s great practice but it kind of makes your head spin when you just woke up and try to speak a new language. I am really excited to be taking it because I wanted to get back into it.

THE BEST NEWS – I don’t have any sit down finals and my last paper is due on December 6th which means that I get to spend the last 2 weeks I am here on vacation!!! I am so excited!

Some fun facts:

A fresher has been playing his vuvuzela for the last week and will honk it at very random hours of the night and then use it to sing along with songs passer-bys are humming.

Instead of saying twelve thirty, people say half twelve.

Almost all of the toilet paper dispensers are filled with tissue squares…a roll is uncommon on campus.

None of the windows here have screens and they open all the way which means crazy kids and large spiders…

And…

You’ll never guess what I am doing tomorrow (Wednesday) so I will tell you – I am learning how to play polo (on a real horse and everything!) There is sure to be an entertaining story from that especially since I have never ridden a horse without it attempting to get rid of me.

I think that’s it for now! I’m off to enjoy the foggy Scottish day we are having! Enjoy the pictures of my flat!

Love, Sha =]

Hallway (looking towards bathroom and front door)