Hi friends! Lots of things have been going on and most of them have been sort of logistical and therefore probably very boring to hear about. Here are some basic things that are kind of interesting in a list.
1. The education system here is so different - almost everyone else in the English department is native to Scotland, if not Glasgow. It seems that you generally go to university near where you grew up and then you keep going there for your Masters and ultimately your PhD. This means I am one of the only people to have traveled to go here, and I am on a supreme learning curve when it comes to the department, the university, and life in Scotland in general.
2. Time is a cultural construct. (I know, I'm sorry.) I'm still working out what counts as "early" in the morning! I am working on getting my stomach on a food schedule - Here we get lunch around 1 or 2, go to the pub around five or six, and then eat dinner around eight or nine. I don't know how to sustain that! We had a department party last night, which involved a meeting for all English postgrads and a second meeting with a few other departments we're friendly with, both of which featured wine. Then a group of us went to the pub afterwards. When do you eat dinner in that? You've just had lunch, so you're not hungry, but by the time you leave the pub you are STARVING. (Translation: I was embarrasingly drunk.)
3. I had to apply for a Glasgow University library card, which was easy enough. However, this currently means that I have 5 library cards: the library in my hometown, UNH, Harvard, Strathclyde and Glasgow University. Additionally I have access to a bunch of networked libraries on the same systems (UNH is linked to the Greater Boston library system, for instance.) I would estimate right now that I have access to over thirty libraries, which is really exciting!
4. I was given an office, too. AN OFFICE. Well, it is more like a desk in a room of postgraduates but an office nonetheless. It makes me feel really important to say I have an office. I also have a computer, which is an ancient brick running windows XP.
5. I am quickly learning that this is not a very tech-oriented place. (Hey UNH folks, remember blackboard? I MISS IT. you read that right. Our @strath.ac.uk email goes through Outlook, and in order to have full functionality in the module you have to use Internet Explorer. No, I am not kidding about this.)
yeah, our IT department at regents was a complete joke. britons dont really do the whole, computing thing. there is actually a british tv show that i got into earlier this year called "the IT crowd" about a little crew of IT computer geeks working in the basement of this company. their dialogue with people who called in always began with, "did you try turning it on and off?" lol
ReplyDeleteYes! IT Crowd!
ReplyDelete4. My work gave me a Mac. We could swap!?
You sound so busy.
I WOULD LOVE TO SWAP
ReplyDeletei can turn on my computer, log in, make a cup of tea, come back and it might be ready for me.
I'm trying to hook up my mac to the internet while I'm there so I can avoid using this goddamn PC, but apparently it is very complicated. I only got on the internet here in my flat by sheer miracle - something about proxies! (The IT people here are very much the IT crowd - this is not a very computery campus it seems. Wireless is a new thing here- not even the libraries have it!) Next week I will look into it in greater detail, when I have more things all set.
There's a surprising amount of things to do before I am completely set here! Hopefully by next week things will have settled down a bit more.