Just me

I think I am a very bizarre person. Someone who is very keen to learn and study I can sometimes put a different spin on things (or like we say in Icelandic, I certainly am good at making útúrsnúninga!). For todays terrifying lecture on excavation reports we had to log onto the Royal Comission of whatever for certain reports. Basically because we had no idea what we were doing there and no one told us how to actually use the very complicated website I gave up after a few minutes of trying to find the excavation reports. What did I do instead? I didn't want to say to the guy that I had only spent a few minutes there without finding anything out, so I started househunting instead. Yeah, I know there are not many like me in this world which is a sad thing for those that don't know me and a comfort for those that do. I found out that if you were lucky you could find images of the site and very often there were architectural plans or archaeology / architectural drawings of them as well, so if I can't actually buy it there is a chance I can have it built in Iceland in the coming future and when I have become immensely rich from my very lucrative research into Welsh and Irish medieval literature, 'ralh' (rolling about laughing hysterically).

On another note, I went on a field trip on Sunday. I went to Silverburn which is a new shopping center, I mean, why would I go anywhere except where I knew I would be able to shop. It is a new shopping centre and it is actually situated in Pollock so a bit out of the way. Both cab drivers asked me what I was doing so far away from the West End. Hmmm, could it be because I don't have my own car to ferry me there so that I can skip these questions. I would take the bus if I knew where I would end up or if I didn't have to walk half a mile to be able to catch the bus. So I let the taxi drivers chaufer me around. Bright people!

Oh, and another taxi story before I continue with Silverburn story. I took the cab to Uni today and oh boy, I mean you could probably excuse it back home in Iceland but here, I didn't think this was possible. The guy like so many others asked me what it was that I was studying at Uni and I told him Medieval Scottish History. He found that impressive and recognized that a person would have to specialise in an area of history as no one could know every history in the world, very enlightened of him. Then he told me he had been driving a girl from the history department around and asked me if I knew her, she was Canandian! That was the hint I got. I was like, in Glasgow there are 660 000 inhabitants + a few turists, in Glasgow University there are 17 000 teachers, students and staff + a few guests and turists. In the History Department, there are hundreds of people, more than a hundred in first year, more than a hundred in second year, quite possibly around hundres in third and also in the fourth year. Then we have the postgraduates, doing their masters and doctorates. And I was supposed to know a Canadian girl doing history! Why do I always get these strange questions!

Anyway, back to Silverburn. It is a very new shopping centre, only opened about a month ago, and there is definitely a lot left to do. Only half of the centre is about open and the other half that has shops has only filled every other space. It's only one level, but huge and very long, almost never ending. But you also get these huge department stores like Marks & Spencer and Debenhams which are on two levels and. Then next to this or sort of annexed to it, although you have to go out to get in is Tesco (of course, where isn't a Tesco in Britain). It is really huge. I spent more than an hour in there going from lane to lane to try to figure out what was not there and what I needed for lunch and dinner. (Comparing it to Hagkaup in Smáralind back home I would have to say this store is about twice or more the size of it, so that is saying something). But it only took me about three hours to go through the shopping centre and Tesco and back home. I didn't manage to find any other Christmas presents except maybe one for myself. And since I have yet to receive it (as in at Christmas) I can't tell you anything about it.

Today we were also invited to the annual Angus Matheson Memorial Lecture in the Celtic department. Anne joined us but was sick so had to leave after it, but we still managed to have fun before the lecture. Well sort of, I nearly finished her off with my Christmas present to her. She kind of dared me to it when we were coming back on the train to Glasgow last time we saw her, so I couldn't resist. I acquired a copy of Thomas the Tank Engine book and went online and nicked some departmental staff photos and started printing and cutting and putting it all together. I ended up with Thomas Clancy the Clever little Tank Engine along with his friends. I truly hope that he never finds out but it is hilarious, she loved it. The Lecture itself was fine but we couldn't help giggling a few times. Like when one of the speakers kept mispronouncing Robert O'Maolalaigh's name and when the guy in the row behind us when to sleep and actually snored on a couple of occasions. But there were good news there as well. They are starting a new iris or a journal of Gaelic literature and culture, published with articles in English, Irish and Gaelic and I am definitely going to subscribe, there were quite a few articles in there that I would like to read so as soon as it is published I will contact the department. There articles there by Dereck Thompson, Michel Byrne, Donald Meek and Kathrine Hollo, all very good scholars in their field and so it promises to be quite the worthwhile read.

I'm happy!

I have discovered that I have superhuman powers

For the past few days I have been "entertaining" myself with reading excavation reports in archaeology for Tuesday class and almost putting myself into a coma. Which means that most of the things that I read went in one ear (as they say, although it should more likely be an eye) and went out the other. But while my brain was so completely unoccupied I managed to have the weirdest conversations with myself and I came to the conclusion that I might have the power of making therapists retire early. Because no one could listen to the stuff that goes around my brain and stay sane, which explains a lot but gives not comfort.

When I started this blogentry I actually thought I would have something to ramble on about, and I don't. It's the end of week 9 at Uni and I think that is affecting me in some way. Like this weekend I am totally in denial that I have homework, spending my time in the shops (+ spending more than an hour to try to find a taxi to ferry me home) and watching television. I managed to finish my Latin translation on Thursday ... does it make sense ... no! So I will have to use some time to make it into readable and understandable english and not just word babble. Then I also have that stupid archaeology reading to do and I am just going to ignore it, can't be bothered with it at all, it is so flawed and in so many ways that it is driving me nuts.

I managed to bag another Christmas present today, which makes it a grand total of two. What will happen if I run out of ideas, huh? On the other hand it is not so easy to find presents today because the likelyhood of people actually owning the things that I think up for them is pretty good. Even Makini!!! Not that I would ever every buy one, but I thought it would be a great gab present for a friend, or at least a friend of a friend. Met him on MSN when I came home and told him that you could actually buy a Mankini (like the one Borat so famously wore in his film) and what do you think his reaction was. "I already have one of those!" Do I have weird friends or what? I gatered from him that he had actually bought one for HIMSELF! His poor girlfriend (my dear friend who will remain anonymous for this post), actually witnessed him trying it on. ... I wonder if there were any photos taken? Okay, really going down the wrong road here ... and you wonder why I am a basket case. Things like this don't help! Which makes my headache of finding presents seem like a month of migranes.

Tomorrow, marks three weeks until I go home to Iceland. I really can't wait. As much as I have been loving my time here, I am really wishing for some Icelandic company as well. I was so on my onesome yesterday that I texted a friend of mine here in Glasgow who is babysitting a cat that I was in the city center drinking mulled wine and already having had my first chocolate covered banana of the Christmas season! I miss you Árdís. It is strangely bizarre of not having you here, I can't shop. I need inspiration. Can't some of you guys come for a shopping trip for Christmas because I am failing here. Soon I will be a shopaholic without a job and the economy will suffer! Don't let that happen!

Okay, I have to go to my own little world now to talk to all those funny people in white coats. See you later, guys.

Nerds on the run

I am such a good friend, I am such a good friend that I actually woke up at seven in the morning on Saturday to take a trip with my friend to an Archaeology Conference! I was on time at the Queen Street Train Station and one by one they appeared. Catriona first and Anne (the reason for waking up) showed up just before eight. We grabbed our tickets and then our seats and sat chatting happily away all the way to Edinburgh Waverly Station. Then we had to find our way to the Royal Museum of Scotland, and finally I was where I belong ... in a museum! It was a beautiful building, not very interesting looking from outside, but once in, it is amazing, and sooooo big. The conference was just starting so we just managed to grab seats in the third row to the right in the conference room, but it wouldn't have mattered where we sat because the seats were crap. The architecht was clearly stupid, because he didn't figure it out in his little drawings of the place, that those that would be sitting in these seats would have legs! Let alone that anyone as tall as I am was ever going to enter the room. Front row seats is not my thing. So I basically occupied two seats, as in I sat sideways, fun fun fun for hours on end. Thankfully there were breaks at an hour or hour and a half interval so I was able to strech my legs between talks. The conference began at 9:30 and finished at 17:00, each lecture was about half an hour long.
The lectures themselves were really interesting. The first speaker was obviously from Scandinavia (either Norway (the most likely option), Denmark or Sweden) and he was sexy as well, who would have thought that of an archaeologist? His topic was on the late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic period of Southeast Scotland and he made it sound interesting! Then there was something on Elginhaugh, which apparently is a fort and that is interesting somehow. I kind of zoned out of the less interesting bits. The only thing I remember was when he was talking about a hoard of coins in the Roman fort. One of the coins was marked Borinianus. His emphasis was on the -anus part, hilarious. (Also, if you are Icelandic think of the first element of the name Bor- it makes it even more hysterically funnier. Then we had a break for snacks.
After break was over there was a talk on some archaeological work being done at Colstoun, which some people found interesting. The fourth lecture was on Edinburgh's Tron Kirk followed by a talk on the archaeology of the siege of Leith and other 16th century conflicts. And then it was time for lunch! That was great, I ordered a potatoe and they messed it up. How can you mess up a potatoe. I ordered baked potatoe with a chicken, tarragon and lemon mayonese filling and I got a pesto one. Really didn't want that so that the dinner lady was kind enough to make the filling especially for me ... and then when I finally got it it wasn't nice at all. I felt soo mean, but on the other hand I wasn't even that hungry, because I had eaten a sandwich in the tea break, because I hadn't eaten anything before we left Glasgow. So feel sorry for me, don't notice what a picky eater I am. It is better to be picky than eat everything in sight! Anne and Catriona were having fun watching me struggle with my potatoe disaster and Anne was starting to worry my Viking blood might rise to the occasion and I would start gnawing at her leg. It didn't happen, she still has all of her limbs intact (even though she made me get up very early)!
So after this very nice lunch, the girls and I, sort of unintentionally got our siesta break. The two lectures following the lunchbreak, really were coma inducing. They could have been interesting from the historical point of view, but when they started talking about this kind of flue and that kind of wall we just lost the will to live. The first one was a talk about a late 18th century distillery (and When is Whiskey boring? When you are not drinking it!) The second one was on the Caltongate Gasworks (I really was tempted to ask how they passed gas in the early 19th century but thought that would get me thrown out, so I refrained from asking. Then in the discussion session someone beat me to it but he worded it differently). And again we have a coffee break, the last of the day.
Instead of going for coffee we went shopping. This was of course at a museum and they are never without a gift shop, where you can buy things that have absolutely nothing to do with history or art, but are just enought to tempt shopaholics (like me) to depart with their money (like me).
The eighth lecture of the day, and the one we were most interested in was on the Lindisfarne Manuscript "Early Christian East Lothian, linking the communities of Columba and Cuthbert", we really perked up at this lecture, and would have gladly wanted it to last more than just half an hour. But that's us, we like that kind of things.
The last two lectures were kind of all right, but I was kind of wishing to be somewhere else at that point .. like in the shops. But we kind of had to stay, because the next lecture was on house conservation and things like that and this is what Anne is studying this year. So for her it was the reason to be there mainly. The last one was on how to do something about a historical site that is currently being neglected. This was also the lecture where the minority complex of archaeologist shone through the brightest. The girls and I have been laughing at the archaeological texts we have been sifting through this semester and they really do suffer from the paranoia of the Historians. It's almost like a phobia for them. I only have to reach across the table to grab the book I am currently reading to find this:

few historians saw the value of comparing their maps and documents agains what
could be seen in the field. Collaborations between historians, geographers
and archaeologists were still rare and restricted to a tiny number of
individuals who were widely scattered in different institutional guises with
little philosophical or methodological focus to their effort.

(Medieval Archaeology; Christopher Gerrard, p. 87)

Even thought the text is written in the past tense the archaeologists are still writing that this is how their work is looked at, secondary in nature to historical work.
I sort of feel sorry for them, but when people get excited about a wall, I kind of find myself at crossroads of whether to pity them or congratulate them. Their sense of style also leaves a lot for the imagination. Just because you are an archaeologist and you dig things up for fun, there is no reason to do that with clothes as well. They do have clothingstores readily awailable near you today, it's called progress. Aside from their pitiful nature I don't look down on them, they have their uses. I for one would never dream of getting down on all fours, just because someone got excited about Roman pottery ... or a wall!
But I have gone off topic. After the conference finished we headed into town and managed to take a quick look at Jenners at my behest and then headed towards Hard Rock Café, because I had sort of twisted and turned the arms of my fellow companions until they agreed to feed me. I had the classical Hickory-BBQ Smoked Pulled Pork Sandwich, boy this just seems to go on and on, and Anne had herself a sandwich and Catriona munched on some chips. Of course we ended the evening with a dessert, a sorbet and two fudge sundae's, but they were more like just sundae's with no fudge at all. But still we ware happy and nourished and when we could finally manage to stand up we made our way to the train station and caught the train back home to Glasgow just shortly before eight o'clock. Which meant that I had been in Edinburgh for something of ten hours and still going. We had all been threatening to fall asleep on the train but we still managed to entertain ourselves with our very nerdy wit and wisdom. In Glasgow we said our goodbyes on the subway and Great Western Road and I went home to fall asleep way before my usual time.
This was the best day in a long while. Thank you Anne for making me wake up very very very early on a Saturday.

Gone with the Wind

Hair dryers are the bane of my existence and soon to be developing pneumonia. They really should ban these blasted things from student halls, or at least my block. There are at least two persons here that just can not be trusted with these blasting windbags. I have lived here for four years, and never before have I had to be outside soooo often in just two months because someone can not grasp the concept of HEAT detectors in the room. Just now I was driven from my very comfortable and warm room out into the freezing cold because someone couldn't control her hair dryer and this is the same girl who forced me out last time. Both of these times, a girl was caught unaware in her shower and they had to run outside wet. The one tonight was only covered in a towel with a tiny jacket covering her wet hair. I don't think she will be thinking to warmly towards this girl in the near future. Maybe we should put a timetable for her to where we will know in advance that she is going to be fiddling with a machine she has no control over and just stay outside to save ourselves the trouble of having to hurry outside just to find out it was all for nothing.

Objectivity? ... huh, anyone?

This is an update on my nerd status. I am getting nerdier by the minute. I am reading my schoolbooks and enjoying it. Actually it goes beyond that. I was actually laughing histerically today over my "educational" reading. It is especially the case when reading a book by Alfred P. Smythe called "Warlords and Holy Men; Scotland 800 - 1000 Ad" and I don't think he wrote it to entertain me, which makes it even more funnier. He really likes to call the people barbarians, no matter who he is talking about, basically everthing that happened before the 1950s is probably in his mind rater primitive and some version of barbarism that was going on.
Today, I was especially focusing on a chapter he wrote about the Vikings (WHY-kings), prettily named as "Vikings: Warriors of the Western Sea". If I didn't know better, and I don't, I would almost think two people wrote the chapter, because the introduction and the conclusion of the chapter are so bizarre. The main argument has merit and is a quite interesting read but it is the intro and conclusion that set me off today. See the following statements taken from the chapter.

'The images of Adomnán reflect the gentleness of a cultivated Classical Christian
civilisation, while the cut-throats and beer-vomiting heroes of the skalds
belong to a world of brutal barbarism.'

He goes on;

'The burning of the monastic library on Iona for instance, might have dealt a
greater blow to western civilisation than the destruction of the entire town ot
Nantes ...'

And on he goes;

'The Vikings returned again and again to centers such as Iona, which in western
Christian eyes were sanctuaries where it was sacrilege to spoil, but which to
the Vikings were shop windows crammed with the loot of centuries'.

No wonder we like to come to Glasgow on shoppin trips. Who would have thought that history books would or could contain such entertaining phrases. Granted this book was published 25 years ago and a lot has happened in the past few years. Sadly that is termed progress which means we don't get gems like this printed as often as we would possibly like.
Although one of his ideas has merit and really ought to be researched further through literature. We know that before the Vikings came to Iceland as settlers there were a few monks sitting around twiddling their tumbs on a rock and then they disappeared from there. That's not the interesting part of it. The Irish monks liked to go rowing about finding an island here and there to use for their meditation and such and Smythe presents the idea that the route to Iceland was well known by the Irish monks and that it was by their help the Vikings found Iceland and settled it. The Irish were probably very happy to finally be rid of the Vikings so they advertised an island in the north. (My thoughts at least). But it could have happened like this and should be explored further. Although that is as far as I am going with my taking Smythe too seriously in this, because in his conclusion of the chapter he sort of states that it wouldn't surprise him the least if the Irish had actullay been the first to find America as well and told the Vikings all about that too.!!!
Well, it shouldn't surprise anyone. He spent the last thirty pages going on and on about how the heck barbarians like the Vikings even managed to put a letter to a page anyway so why shouldn't he wonder how they managed to get to Iceland or let alone America without the help of the 'Classical Christian civilisation'.
His chapter concludes with these words.

'The study of Old Icelandic records presents us with a long line of apparent
historical accidents which require an explanation.'

In a bizarre way I like this guy, he really made my day!