Edinburgh Exchanges

I left my last blog on a train from Nanaimo to Victoria while travelling round Vancouver Island with my parents over the Easter weekend, so I’ll pick up from where I left off.

Nanaimo itself was less of an enchanting city compared to the delights of Victoria and I spent the majority of our first day there hiding in my hotel room trying to bash out 3000 words on the effects of warfare and political instability on conservation.  Interesting, you might think, until you’re sitting inside writing about it when it’s beautifully sunny outside!  Lucky for me the weather held out so once my paper was written, submitted and proof read by my very obliging parents we had a day to appreciate the fine weather.  Having walked along the sea front and around the rather small “downtown” area we took the ferry from Nanaimo to Protection Island to have lunch at a floating pub and then charmed the captain to take us to Newcastle Island.  The island is a provincial marine park with a human population of nil and a faunal population of lots of birds and a racoon (based on my observation from the afternoon). 

It was a lovely place to visit with numerous beaches, a lake and plenty of woodland to explore.  It was on the island that I had a stick related incident which I will share with you for your own amusement.  In British Columbia, there is a species of tree called the Arbutus tree which has beautiful orange bark.  On Newcastle Island there is an Arbutus tree which has beautiful twigs that have fallen off said tree and make ripe pickings for silly wandering tourists.  I, as one such tourist, picked up one of the aforementioned twigs which later in the day managed to make its way in to my eye causing the left part of my world to become rather blurry for the majority of the following week.  So yes, in summary, I did poke myself in the eye with a stick...... Not my proudest moment.

  Fortunately this all occurred after the racoon sighting who had apparently been for a swim in the sea before climbing in to his tree bemused by the staring tourists, one of whom was carrying a pretty twig.

The next morning we took the ferry back to Vancouver this time arriving at Horseshoe Bay.  It’s a pretty wonderful introduction to the city, with the islands, snow capped mountains and beaches all in clear view in the sunshine followed by a short bus ride that takes you across the Lions Gate Bridge from North Vancouver to downtown. 

Having pointed my parents in the direction of their hotel I made my way back to campus to start to think about the three finals I have over the next week.  I have mixed feelings about reaching the end of term.  Needless to say there is an immense amount of satisfaction in finishing a semester and starting my whopping five month summer holiday but at the same time, finishing at UBC means leaving Vancouver which I’m not quite ready to do.      

I know I said in my previous blog that I would be off the radar for a while blog-wise but I've got a bit of time on my hands for literally the first time in three weeks, so here I am!

It was fantastic, as always, to go home for Easter, although the weather was rubbish the entire week I was there! It's always a bit of a comfort for me to find that no matter how far away I go from home or how long I'm gone for, Edinburgh is still there and it's still essentially the same. I had fun revisiting places like Teviot and the Crags - it was all very nostalgic! Sophie came up to Edinburgh last Thursday so we could catch our plane to Bratislava on Friday and it was good to show her some of the more touristy spots of the city that I never feel like I can really visit because I live there!

As I said, we left Edinburgh on Friday afternoon, and by Saturday lunch time we were in Budapest - meaning we had set foot in four countries (five for Sophie since she started in England) in less than 24 hours - impressive stuff! Needless to say we didn't get more than a glimpse of Bratislava or Vienna before we jumped on a train to Hungary. I hadn't really known anything about Budapest before we arrived and was interested to discover that it was traditionally two cities - Buda and Pest - separated by the Danube which were then united. Buda is definitely the more picturesque of the two and has far more impressive buildings although Pest houses the parliament building which is absolutely gorgeous. Budapest is also 'the city of spas' (another fact I hadn't known before I arrived)as it sits on top of lots of thermal springs. The first day we were there we went along to some thermal baths in Buda, just next to St Gellert's hill which has a cave cut into the side of it which was turned into what has to be one of the most beautiful churches I've ever seen. The baths were just what we needed after a trek up the hill! The inside of building was beautiful with loads of mosaics and statues everywhere - it was obviously supposed to be a retreat for the wealthier citizens of the city, but because Hungary doesn't use the Euro it was so cheap that it was full of young tourists as well. I've decided that a spa holiday in Budapest is definitely on my to do list for future travels! While we were there we also did a boat trip on the Danube which had a stop off on on of the islands attached to the city which was really interesting and informative but also resulted in really awful sunburn! As always with these kinds of holidays - two days was just not enough time either to see everything we wanted to see or to truly get the feel of the city. It was also unfortunate that Budapest is in the middle of overhauling its entire transport system, including building new railway and tram lines so that the entire center of the city in both Buda and Pest resembled a massive construction site, which made getting good photos difficult! We went with it though and now have quite a few shots of ourselves posing in front of cranes and scaffolding!

When we got back to Vienna we were exhausted but I was also excited to see the city. I have to say that it has lived up to every expectation I could have had of it and I am more than a little bit jealous that Max gets to live here all the time! We've been filling our days with sightseeing and sunbathing and eating the best cake I have ever had in the most beautiful cafe's I have ever seen! Last week we went to the Volksoper, the smaller and less fancy of Vienna's opera houses, to see the Nutcracker. Although it was slightly unseasonal it was fantastic - I was completely mesmerised. We also got fantastic seats, only 4 rows from the front because they sell the students all the leftover tickets for ten euro just before the curtain goes up, which I think is a really inspired idea.

I'm starting to run out of time to write down everything we've been up to so I'll have to leave it until another time to tell you about everything we've done in Vienna and our trip to Prague which we got back from last night. I've loved this trip so much that I really think I'll have to do some proper backpacking after uni!

Suddenly I find myself caught up in a hundred and one things all at once, and with the end of my exchange in sight I am beginning to try to take advantage of everything far more than ever. The result of this is time flying by almost scarily.

I have been cooped up all weekend writing my final assignment for my Norwegian Academic Written course: we have to hand in two examples of our own writing, a bibliography (which sounds simple but having been taught the ins-and-outs of such things, really isn't at all, worryingly) and finally, an essay a few pages long about our development throughout the course. I know they're only trying to guage how we've really progressed language-wise, but writing such things bores me to tears! "I have learned to use the passive tense less often" and such sentences do not make for an exciting assignment! However, I am now finished with it and shall hand it in this week. Although only worth 5 ECTS credits, passing with a good mark would give me scope for picking my best points to apply to my Edinburgh transcript. Thinking about things like that is rare whilst on exchange, but now seem ever more important with term back in Edinburgh a not-too-distant thought!

Recently things have been great here: it's very much a case of only really beginning to know the value of a place and people and opportunities once the time nears for it to be left behind.  On Friday we took advantage of the good weather (sunshine until 9pm, glorious!) and went to an island just off Oslo, Bygdøy.  We barbecued and played more of that rather dangerous but entertaining game I mentioned in my last entry, Kubb, and afterwards headed by into town to a friend's flat for a few hours:

It was so lovely, but like I say, bitter sweet!  Anyway, if the weather remains how it has been recently, I see no reason why there shouldn't occur a few more days like this before we have to go anywhere.

I have majorly lost touch with new and films and the likes at home, but a big one out here at the moment is the Swedish 'Män som hatar kvinnor' (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvksrEhVvJ0), originally a novel by Stieg Larsson translated into English as 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.'  I saw it a few weeks ago with friends and can quite easily declare it to be the most scarring few hours of my love (and not just because my Norwegian brain was working in overdrive to keep up with the Swedish language.)  It is essentially a crime novel/film, but the presence of numerous murders and disappearances and Neo-Nazis and gothic hackers and rapes and attacks and any number of things made it perfect for the Scandinavian audience who seem to go crazy for this kind of things.  Whilst I was scarred, the 12 year old sitting behind me seemed quite happy most of the way through.  Maybe it's in their genes.

Before I wrap up, I feel compelled to mention one more Scandinavian offering to the world (once again Swedish, for shame), but can safely assure everyone that no language skills are required to enjoy it to its fullest.  The video is a saucy clip from Sweden's version of Britain's Got Talent and will most probably leaving you wishing that the UK's version was quite as exciting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXRWvJjcdkk.  ENJOY.

Yesterday evening I experienced a very popular Finnish tradition with university students - a "sit sit". A sit sit is essentially a formal dinner where you end up drinking far more than you actually eat because there are so many rules about when to drink, and what to drink, and you have to sing songs constantly. And then drink. The dress code was formal wear meaning for the first time in months we all got dressed up and wore nice dresses. Apparently the rule is that your dress has to be knee lenght or longer, but as we were erasmus students we didn't know this and therefore a couple of people broke the dress code on the skirt length!

Upon arrival everyone had to find their set seat in the arrangment of about 150 people and then sit down at the table armed with a glass of wine and 2 vodka shots. This was at 7 o'clock in the evening and we were completely sober. So to start off we had to sing a song (in Finnish) to open the events and then there is a guy who is essentially a caller, who constantly bangs on his glass and shouts out "song number 38!" and then everyone has to stop eating, stand up, sing the song. And then once the song is over you then do a toast with the person on your left, drink, toast the person on your right, drink, and then the same with the person opposite you. There were 40 songs on the sheet and we got through all of them in a 3 hour period so you can imagine how often we were singing!

As this was an international sit sit organised by ESN there were also songs in English, French, Spanish, Italian and German to go with the Finnish and Swedish traditional ones. The one thing all of the songs had in common was that they were essentially 'odes to alcohol' and talked about drinking, favourite drinks and being drunk. The songs were all accompanied by lots of banging on the tables, screaming and general drunkness as we all got slowly drunker throughout the night. The finale was a song at the end by which they toasted to the students who started university in 2008 (there were also Finns here) and then these people had to get on their chairs and down their drinks by the end of the song, then we continued to 2007, and then to 2006 and so on. In the UK this would be a very short song given that an undergrad degree is only 4 years (or only 3 in England) and then postgrad is one more. But in Finland, people can study for as long as they want and there is only a recently introduced time frame of 15 years by which one has to finish their degree, meaning we were toasting right back until 1997 for people starting university.

The evening then ended with an after party which scarily turned into a school disco type thing from when we were around the age of 12 in secondary school. But by that point everyone was too drunk to care, so once the party finished down stairs we went back up to our rooms (convieniently, the resturant it took place in was in my basement) got out some vodka and carried on drinking until around 6am, and then some idiot Spaniards set off the fire alarm so we decided to go to bed and call it a day. Needless to say the hang overs were huge the next day!

Other than the sit sit, nothing of noteable happenings has occured here. We're in the last week of classes which is scary - I finish my couses tomrrow and then I have just got 2 essays to write next week and I am offically finished at Helsinki. We're not leaving until the end of May though so we've got loads planned for May, including trips to Sweden and potentially Riga.

The sun is shining in Helsinki, finally. It is still fairly mild in comparision to the rest of Europe, we're at around 4'c whereas everywhere else seems to be in the 20s. But that didn't stop a certain Scotsman getting sunburnt whilst playing football on Tuesday. Yes that is right, sunburn at 4'c is entirely possible when you've lived in sub zero temperatures for over 6 months!!

Almost every day the sun comes out here, and as far as I'm concerned the weather is perfection: sunshine, but never too strong (I'm that pale and pasty Scottish way for life with an almost allergic reaction to most UV interruptions) but never temperatures over 15°C (none of that stuffy, sweaty action here, thank you!)  On Friday my friends and I took our first venture into our back garden for a late afternoon barbeque, and C brought along Kubb.  For those unfamiliar with Kubb, the game originates in Sweden and comprises of hefty chunks of wood:

These chunks of wood are arranged and then basically lobbed about with enthusiastic throws:

(This diagram is hilarious, the figures appear to be doing all sorts of ambiguous things with the pieces)

I clearly have an unknown violent streak as my partner and I reigned supreme with unbeatable Kubb playing skills, and ever since my legs and buttocks have ached from the to-ing and fro-ing involved in chucking about the pieces.  Needless to say it was an educational and enjoyable experience, and one that I hope to repeat!  Topped off with hot dogs from the barbeque it was not a bad evening in the slightest.  A pleasant interruption to tedious reading and writing, nonetheless.

I have rather a big essay on the cards at the moment, which I have been working at for days already, but I gave it up last night for a party at my friend's.  It was a really good night, and weirdly enough interesting from a linguistic point of view.  As the only native English speaker I gave no hints to this and used Norwegian all night as is usual, however many of the Norwegians I met used English without any real reason (they had no knowledge of myself being Scottish and my friends being German before they began).  It really hit home to me the 'cool' factor behind using English, particularly American English.  It must be said that primarily males are the culprits, and they reserved English for their very worst stories, for example the tale of a bottle opener (in the shape of male genitalia, and almost life-size) acquired by one of them in the military, and the escapades that it had been involved in.  In itself not a pleasant tale, but the ones telling the story seemed to relish their Americanised curse words to the very utmost!  It was an odd experience.  It was only afterwards that they discovered that I am a native speaker of English after much debate: my accent was described as "a bit different" without being able to place me, but I was incredibly flattered to be told that "I knew that you weren't Norwegian, but you're very close."  Though I still doubt my own language skills, things like that make me realise that this year being almost over isn't necessarily negative, as I have clearly learned more than I realise.

The start of the week saw the last days of classes fly past in a bit of a blur as I tried to split my time between university, tour guiding and revising.  I suppose it goes without saying that the last of those has fallen by the wayside for now.   I think my family are enjoying getting to know where I’ve been living this year, spotting a few of the places they’ve seen on postcards and photographs and meeting some of the people I’ve been talking about. 
 
On Friday a couple of my friends and I took my sister to the Vancouver aquarium and thoroughly enjoyed watching the baby beluga whale trying to eat a seagull (unsuccessfully) and one of the sea otters indulging in rather an extended period of grooming (successfully).  That evening three of my friends were having birthday celebrations conveniently in the same club.  Once we managed to find it - I think there were at least 3 different groups of people, who, having got off the bus, headed in 3 completely different directions – it was a really fun evening singing and dancing along to the likes of James Brown, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell for the first half of the night and MGMT and Hot Chip for the second.  
 
Saturday morning was a rather painful, early start as I had to meet my parents at 8am to catch the ferry to Victoria for the first leg of our five day trip to Vancouver Island.  Sailing out of the rain and in to the sun provided some rather lovely scenery and once we got to downtown we were able to walk around in shorts and flip flops for most of the afternoon.  Victoria is labelled as the residence for the “newly wed, nearly dead and overfed” personally; I think it’d be a rather great place to live although it is rather small in comparison to Vancouver.  
 
As predicted, our visit to the Butchart gardens was rather popular with my Mum - they really are quite stunning even a non flower fan would be impressed!  Dinner with the Capsticks this week has been rather quieter as my sister has returned to the UK to get on with her work before she starts back at University next week.  However, we’ve still managed to eat copious amounts of good food, Willie’s Bakery, for anyone heading towards Victoria in the near future, is definitely worth a visit!   

 
As I write I’m sat on a train travelling between Victoria and Nanaimo - the view out of the window is rather worth my attention so I think it’s a good time to finish the blog writing for now!

Again a two week gap, I’ve just been so busy. I can’t even remember what I’ve been doing! I’m at home now though for the Easter holidays, or Spring Break or whatever it’s called, but I have so much work to do that I don’t think it’ll be much of a break!

The past two weeks I have literally just been doing my literature review, writing it, getting the French corrected, rewriting it, adding things, getting those checked, doing diagrams. I am just thankful that the ENSCL hasn’t been on strike; well I think some of the classes have been cancelled for the students but the labs are supported by a different group and so we have no need to strike. For some people it has been ridiculous, Shusaku didn’t have classes for about a month. The main reason is due to this new law they’re bringing in saying that anyone who wants to be a teacher now has to do a Masters degree, and that teachers have to do more work, there are a lot of things changing and people just aren’t happy with it. Above all the students.

We haven’t really done much since the fancy dress, just meeting up with people here and there and doing a lot of French homework, the classes are very good this time, my new teacher seems to like me a lot more than my old one but again my name is causing a problem- she calls me Alissia and I don’t know why, oh well, at least I guessed she was talking to me… The only problem with these classes is that now all three of us, Rachel, Andrew and I are in the same class; our teacher always wants us to split up and usually I would agree but I have now decided this does not work. The three of us work very well together, our spoken French is about the same level and we’re very willing to speak, I find with most other people, with a few exceptions, just sit and let us lead the group. This ends up with us three always having to speak and answer questions which we think isn’t fair. When we work together we all put in the same amount of effort and don’t mind talking out loud because we all take turns, but our teacher does not see it that way.

On a related topic we signed up for the DELF B2 exam last week, we had to go into town to do it so had to take the morning off of labs, it was 55 euros so I had better pass!

Last weekend I popped home for Easter, we only had the Monday off but it meant Saturday and Sunday at home, and a late train back Monday. The Eurostar is all back to normal now and as such the trains no longer get held up and so I found myself back in England before I knew it. I needed a weekend at home to relax, labs have been so busy, although I did end up with a cold which I still have so that was a bit annoying.

This week the French fishermen decided to ‘have a go’ and blocked all the ports, we got a bit worried when we heard the Eurostar people might join them in support but nothing came of it so that was a relief!

Anyway I think that’s about all I can think of, I’ve been so boring, we’ve not even been into town or anything. Next semester we’re going to Milan and London, maybe Brussels, so it should be a bit more exciting. Now I just want to knuckle down and finish this review and my last two assignments of the year so that when I go back to labs I just have my report to write. I just can’t believe it’s nearly over!
Until next time…

So! The Easter holidays finally came and have sadly ended! It was a hash to survive the last week of term, but the Easter break more than made up for it.

Mum and Dad had looked at coming to visit me in Easter, but then a couple of Edinburgh friends booked to come over and then Mum and Dad got a slight re-scheduling! Instead we're going to go somewhere in the May long weekend, which is only a couple of weeks away. Unlike Edinburgh, we get 8 days' Easter break, so there wasn't really as much time as I'd have liked. I still want to try to go up to the Basque Country at some point!

On the Thursday, caught the Renfe to Girona (yep, been there before... still love it though!) From there, we hired bikes and set off on our adventure! A 54km adventure that would take us from Girona to Olot, a town a bit further North in Catalunya.

Jings. The furthest I'd ever cycled until then was 20 miles from Aberdeen to Ellon, that was hard enough!! Here's a map of the recorregut. We stopped for lunch in a place called Anglés because apparently beer was necessary, had a wee wander round the gardens and stuff. Was bonny and totally not tourist land, which was good :-).

We cycled and cycled, mostly uphill, for like... a million hours! After cranking and cranking up the mountains we eventually got to the highest point, “Coll d'En Bas”. If you ever meet Bas, please tell him I like his Coll very much. After that, downhill all the way for like the last 20 minutes!

When we got to Olot, our final destination, we found the hostel and showered and everything. With sore hands, feet, hind quarters and knees, we set off in search of refreshments. Eventually found a good Catalan pizzeria. Actually... having cycled so much and being so knackered we were fairly happy with only half a bottle of wine! Uyy, these foreign lightweights coming in, buying a pizza and only half a bottle of wine. Then we went to a bar where it was just us, and a bunch of under-agers having sneaky cervezas. The Mallorcan barman taught us how to make “real” sangria. We're now experts.

Olot is a very pretty little town, it's just a shame we were too exhausted to really appreciate it. It's located in the middle of a bunch of old volcanoes, so... that would explain the hilly journey to get there. It was a bit infuriating to see all the cars zooming through a tunnel and probably arriving in Girona 20 minutes later!

The next day we were dreading the trip back remembering the suffering of the previous day, but obviously it was the other way round; the hard part was the short bit and the rest was wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Cycled back to Girona, and then got the train back to Barcelona where we did all sorts of stuff. Saw the sights, had a picnic in Parc Güell, ate many a tapa, went to the beach, partied lots. Partied lots and lots, and then slept in a big pile of clothes on my bedroom floor, haha! Had a really fun time though.

Here's a few pictures so you get the idea.

The plan was to do lots of work in the Easter break to get a wee bit of a head start for the next quadrimester, but obviously... plans like that never really come to fruition! These past few days I've been just back to the grind, I'm still finding this semester much better uni-wise. It's really hard work, but the stuff is generally interesting and I feel like I understand how the university system works and everything.

Plus now the weather has really improved. Actually it's a bit strange, but the weather got really good in March, then a bit dull and rubbish again for a few weeks, but then when we got back to Barcelona from Olot it became nice again.

Anyway I'll write soon!

Everyone on campus is currently shocked, the reason being a sexual assault on a Haverford student by an unknown assailant that happened a couple of days ago. For most students, the way that they learned about the assault was from unofficial sources – the Go!Boards (forums on the student section of the Haverford website) or the Anonymous Confession Boards (essentially a gossip forum online) – rather than the college itself. Whilst Haverford has an early-warning alert system, put in place after the Virginia Tech shootings, that informs students by text message of what’s happening, this wasn’t used in this case, which is causing some consternation.

Haverford is a very safe school. I have never felt unsafe in Edinburgh either, but whilst I’m quite happy walking around alone at night here, I would probably be more circumspect about it back home. Although Haverford’s campus is entirely open to the public, there have been very few criminal incidents, although within the past month there has also been a fight in which a knife was pulled, a robbery and a flasher as well as the most recent assault. However, aside from these incidents I can’t think of anything of a similar nature that has happened during my time here.

The recent sexual assault has caused the student body to question how Haverford should continue. Not only has there been widespread consternation at the slow response by the administration in informing everyone about what happened (it took three and a half hours), but students are asking whether the campus should be closed to the public, whether there should be CCTV cameras placed in the most isolated areas (a large portion of the campus is woodland), whether Safety & Security patrols should be increased, and whether there should be more emergency phones on campus. Meetings between students, staff and the administration are to be held later this week to discuss all of these issues. The main problem seems to be that many students want to continue not feeling afraid as they walk around campus, but also that they don’t want intrusions such as CCTV to become part of the norm.

To someone from a university slap-bang in the city, all of these debates can seem fairly naïve, but students here worry about how any new security measures will fit in with the Honour Code, and the lack of cynicism can seem genuinely refreshing. There is no presumption that bad things will happen to students whilst at uni, and common problems in Edinburgh such as drinks being spiked or bikes being stolen just don’t happen here. Haverford is very far removed from the “real world”, despite being only a fifteen-minute car journey from the city line (and therefore from the ghetto, as once you cross into Philadelphia proper, the ghetto begins), and when the real world intrudes it can feel like the haverbubble has been burst.

I think this blog might be quite a short one, but as I'm trying to write every week I'm sure I will find something to talk about!

I got back from my Easter break at home yesterday. It was great to see everybody and as always to be back in Edinburgh, I really love it there! We spent a large part of my time at home looking for a flat for next academic year. This is proving rather difficult since three out of the four of us are abroad this year and there really is only so much that you can do online. We've got one lead at the moment but there really seems to be fewer flats around this year than previous years and of course it is getting quite late to be looking. In first year we had a flat sorted and signed for by March. It's all a bit of a stress.

I've also been trying to sort out a summer job. I got the teaching job at the summer school in Edinburgh but as it is only for July, I really need to try and sort something else out for June and August. To be honest, it is becoming increasingly appealing to stay in Vienna until July - to soak up the sun and all things Viennese. However, I know that I would be here, spending lots of money and not actually earning any, so I'll stick to the plan to come back at the beginning of June. I never thought I'd be so keen to stay any longer here than I need to. I've fallen completely in love with Vienna lately (better late than never!) but it does mean that these last couple of months are marked by a certain sadness - I wish I could have felt like this before. I know that a lot of is to do with the weather, I've always been like this - I love sunshine and some of my best memories of Edinburgh definitely involve sunshine, the Meadows and good friends. I'll just have to make some of those memories while I'm here!

Speaking of which, on Friday Hannah and Sophie come to visit and I'm so excited! I can't wait to show them Vienna, it's so pretty in the Spring with blossom on the trees and every cafe and bar having a terrace outside. On Saturday, we're heading to Budapest for the weekend which is a city I've wanted to visit ever since I got here and discovered how close it is (about 3 hours on the train). We've bought bikinis to take advantage of 'the city of spas' and hopefully the weather will be nice to us! It'll also be nice to be somewhere a little cheaper than Vienna, not that it's that expensive when it comes to drinks and general cost of living, but being out of the euro zone will probably help my bank account - even if it is just for a couple of days!

School is still going really well. I feel really confident in my role there as a language assistant and since finding out that I'll be taking full classes during the summer and attempting to get children through their English exams at the end of the month I have been paying a lot more attention to the different teaching methods the teachers here use - especially the revision ones which are becoming increasingly important as exams are approaching, including 'the big M' (Matura) for the 8th formers. I find it really interesting seeing the different techniques and teaching styles each of them use. It reminds me of my own teachers at school and it's funny to see that a lot of the teachers are perfect matches for some of my own favourite language teachers from my school days. It makes me wonder what kind of teacher I'll be. Though I have had a taste of that, I think you only really come into your own when you have responsibility for your own classes and a real chance to build up a relationship with the pupils, which is more difficult for me as I'm with 26 different classes.

I'm really looking forward to my final months here in Vienna. We have lots of traveling planned for while Sophie and Hannah are here and it's a chance for me to rediscover Vienna and do many of the tourist things I haven't yet got round to, especially the ones which require decent weather like the wine-growing villages around Vienna, Vienna woods and Baden (a spa town which is really close by). I can't wait!

I’ve spend rather a large amount of time this week celebrating the end of things which seems a little pre-emptive given that I still have nearly a month left in Vancouver.  As term draws to close we’ve had the last choir rehearsal, the last ecology tutorial, the last Thunderbirds varsity party.  I’ve also welcomed the last lot of visitors which marks my family’s first visit to Vancouver and the first time I’ve seen them since August.

The night before they got here I had a bit of an epic night out with the rugby team at the Big Block after party.  My first formal event of the year and a good excuse to get out the glad rags!  Big Block is the official event to celebrate the players who have represented varsity sport at UBC for two years and an awards ceremony for those who have made significant contributions to their sports.  For the JV team, it’s a posh dinner, a lot of alcohol and a lot of dancing!   

Their timing of the arrival of the Capsticks was great; the first proper sunshine of spring and four hours before my choir’s end of year concert in the Chan centre.  I was really happy they were able to see one of the things I’ve been involved in over the last eight months and I have to admit it’s the easiest A grade I’ve ever got – if only all classes were marked on attendance!  Straight after the concert I did my tour guide bit and we took the bus to downtown Vancouver.  Aiming to take advantage of any potential jet lag they might have, we were booked on to the early bus to whistler.  We spent 3 days in the sun and snow, my Mum returning to skiing for the first time in six years – it had a high comedic value but I think she enjoyed herself!  My sister joined me in the snowboarding realm and it was nice to show her all my favourite runs and the magnificent views of the mountains.  Should my Dad have attempted skiing it would have surpassed even the best comedy sketch show, unfortunately he elected to remain on lower ground exploring the lakes and trails around the village, which was probably best for his and everyone else’s safety.

A visit from the family also inevitably means it’s a great time to try all those restaurants that have previously been rather out of my overdraft’s price range.  Why, I then decided to take them to Splitz grill on our first night in Whistler, I do not know.  Reputed to make the best burgers in the area and tagged “it’s not fast food, it’s good food fast” I’ve been there a few times before and most heartily agree.  My sister on the other hand, did not, announcing that MacDonald’s was better and my Dad (currently mid way through a two month trip across the states, soon headed for Russia, Japan and South Korea) decided it wasn’t “posh” enough for him.  I challenge him to find better food when on a train for a week across Russia.... The following night we went slightly more upmarket and had an amazing three course meal (the first of many and I now feel myself growing wider!)

On the bus back from Whistler I attempted to read a few journal articles in anticipation of the presentation I had to give on Tuesday afternoon which, with shiny PowerPoint to match, was a relatively straightforward 5% towards my conservation biology grade.  I now have to write the 3000 word essay to complement it which is proving slightly more of a struggle!  It’s so nice to have the family here but they are rather excellent at providing distractions from essay deadline and finals are rapidly approaching!      

If Oslo were a person, by this point in time I would have performed detailed surgery upon said person's major organs several times over, knowing them better than my own life story.  Over the past two weeks I have become an exhausted tourist for the very first time since moving to the city in August, mostly due to a deluge of visitors.  I am a big Oslo fan, but examining the city in touristy detail has added up and become a little too much for me, however here are a few pictures of the major attractions (myself certainly not included):

Not included in those pictures is the fact that half of Germany also descends in the Easter break.  That was Oslo in a nutshell, which I have experienced at least 3 times now.  I shall be glad to return to University tomorrow and back to reality, however mundane it often seems!  Anything beats living by museum opening hours (all over the place in Easter, which Norwegians take super seriously).

Speaking of University, I have more deadlines impending (do they never stop?) prior to my exams (also very soon, worryingly): my first and most important is my semester assignment for my Nordic Children and Young People's Literature course.  We set ourselves an assignment and write an essay to be approved before we are able to sit the final exam, which is an oral exam (slightly more stressful for me as a foreign student in a class full of Norwegian students, but I try not to dwell on the fact).  Whilst I had thought that simply submitting an assignment suggestion to be approved with a cursory word from our lecturer would be enough, I couldn't have been more wrong: each student was subsequently invited to a personal veiledning in Mr Bache-Wiig's office, where he took out his extensive notes on each student's suggested essay and sat with us for a while discussing our approach to the question and recommending a plethora of secondary literature pertinent to our ideas, off the top of his head no less.  The man is a mine of knowledge and highly respected in the field across Norway, which is something I've noticed a lot since coming here; whilst Edinburgh University is prestigious, it is not regarded as the most prestigious in the UK.  However, anyone who is anyone in Norway appears to have something to do with Oslo University, resources (human or otherwise) are within almost ridiculously easy reach, I shall struggle to adapt to missing that element of academic life.

I have submitted notice on my lovely little Oslo flat now, which felt a big step in the long drawn out process of saying goodbye to the city!  However, I have a very busy 2 months ahead, which I couldn't be more pleased about.  My language tutor from Edinburgh will be visiting soon, which will be lovely as the Scandinavian Department is a small one and we all know one another quite well.  Not to mention the fact that summer jobs are giving me a headache and creating all kinds of tension, but I'm sure that peace and harmony will reign at some point in time!

One of the things I've noticed over the time I've lived here is that they really like raising the national flag at any event. It has now become customary to wake up, open the curtains and see around 6 flags flapping around in the wind. It happens on average once every fortnight or so I'd say, so now we're always thinking wow, I wonder what has happened in Finland today?! It has got to the stage where I've got the offical days in Finland listing tabbed in my history file on the computer.

There are apparently 19 offical days during the year by which the flag has to be flown. Plus any days when there are any form of parliamentary or local elections, along with any refurendums or EU elections. So we'll go with say, 20 a year. Which is an average of once every 18 days... so I actually was not too far off on my calculations of once every fortnight! There are going to be another 5 occassions where the flag is raised before I go home, and I go home in around 6 weeks time. We're raising it for various things including national war vetrans day (27th april), Vappu which is the day of Finnish labour and everyone apparently goes crazy (1st May), Mothers day, the death of a Statesman (12th May) and also the birthday of the marshal of Finland (4th june).

Yesterday it was to celebrate the Finnish language and the reason they had it on 9th April was because the man who invented the written Finnish language (Mikael Agricola) died on that day.

Flag days here are so interesting as I have certainly never seen this many union jacks, st georges or st andrews crosses when I've been in the UK. We don't have as many offical days as in Finland and probably more importantly, we don't raise as many flags when we do. At home they have one on my local parish church on offical days, but nothing to the extent that they do here. I can't walk up my street without every house and shop flying a flag and once you get into the main streets in the city I think they have flag poles every 10m or so as they're systematically all over the place, and flying from buildings too. I've just checked on wikipedia and there isn't even a page entitled 'UK flag days' or 'English/Scottish flag days'. Finland gets its entire own entry!!

One of the things I've noticed whilst I've been here is how proud the Finns are to be Finnish. They're a very proud nation and are very proud of their language, their culture and their country. Much more so than we are in the UK. For example on the Finnish Independence day in November all of the students do a massive parade around the streets and they all met in the central square for a talk by the president, and singing of the national anthem. That would never happen in the UK - we don't all go off into the streets on November 11th for example and thank our grand fathers for keeping our country indendent during the war. The independence day is from when Finland became seperate again from Russia. I don't know if it is because we as the UK have never been taken (other than the Channel Islands in WW2) and therefore we've never not been free, but here there is certainly such a sense of pride for being Finnish which I've never experienced at home. Its as though they are sandwiched between two "powers" of Sweden and Russia and everyone forgets about them, so they like being different. It's a similar thing to what I experienced in Mongolia, a sandwich between Russia and China. I don't even speak the language here and I can sense it. Finns don't expect you to speak their language as its almost their special thing which makes them different from foreigners, as its bloody hard to try and learn Finnish as its not like any other European language and they know that, which is why I think they're so proud of it. Another thing is that in Finland they have the only group of indigenous peoples in Europe - the Sami People, who live in the Suomi Lappi - so they're still keeping hold of all of their previous traditions through them.

I think its interesting that despite the fact I have very little to do with Finland or Finnish people I still see this emense pride and love of their country. In fact, I'd probably say that the Finns are some of the most patriotic out of all of the nationalities I've met on erasmus, probably followed by the Lithuanians (and Latvians and Estonians) who are all very very proud of their nations identity. British people just don't have that pride, we're ashamed to be British. Or, especially, ashamed to be English.

(Just another normal, fun week in Helsinki - although I haven't drunk alchol since sunday, which is certainly the longest I've gone without drinking since I arrived here, which is bad given its only 5 days!)

Although the weather is grim, grey and hesitantly rainy again, this weekend was absolutely beautiful – clear blue skies, sunshine, and…dare I say it…actual warmth. Thanks to my enthusiastic addiction to signing up for activities (as discussed in my previous blog post), I am currently a member of an intramural softball team, and we had games on both Saturday and Sunday.

“Softball” is a total misnomer, as the ball is not soft, it’s just bigger than a baseball. I have played softball before, but having mostly played in England, I had forgotten that it’s virtually against the law to have not been on a Little League (baseball for kids) team at some point. Consequently, everyone except the Brit can hit the ball nice and far. My mantra is “eye on the ball and swing through”, usually followed by a rapid-fire burst of swearing when the desired hit doesn’t materialise.

For our game on Saturday, we could barely muster enough players for a side, and the other team looked far more professional, some even sporting sunglasses and baseball caps, whilst most of our lot were dressed in jeans. We still managed to lose, despite being up 10-3 at one point, but not by much. Sunday was a different story – we had a full complement of players plus extras, the team we were playing only had seven guys, but they resoundingly thrashed us, although I had my own personal success as I managed to score a run.

If I hadn’t been playing softball, I would probably have been working indoors all day, but now I’m slightly less pale and sickly-looking, which can only be a good thing. I don’t know what it is about this week, but I seem to have a lot more work than normal: researching a twenty-page paper on terrorism in Pakistan and a fifteen-page paper on Indian missionaries, compiling a digital database of documents relating to revolution, and deciding whether I want to write about Mexican travel writing or the U.S role in the genocide in Guatemala during the 1980s. And along with all that, there’s the rest of my normal work – reading books, writing responses, and taking part in far too many extra-curriculars.

On Sunday night, the Reverend Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader and occasional Presidential candidate, spoke at Haverford and I covered his speech for the Bi-Co. I had been hoping for something revolutionary delivered in his trademark firebrand invective, but to my ears at least his diatribe sounded tired and rehearsed – he spent far too long talking about WMDs in Iraq whilst only briefly mentioning his support of gay marriage, a hot topic in the U.S. As the speech was on Sunday and finished at 9:30 p.m, I only had an hour to write a 700-word article, which certainly tested my abilities. Upon reading the Bi-Co yesterday, I found that my article had been pretty much left intact, which was really heartening.

Less heartening was the fact that I was assassinated on the second day of water-tag. My manager at Phonathon managed to squirt water on me as I was leaving work, and so my target has now transferred to her.

This weekend looks set to be exciting, with the exchange students and some of our friends hosting a huge party that we have named “Eurotrashed” (as who doesn’t love a good pun?). My cousin, Graham, is also coming down to visit, so there will be a lot happening that I will no doubt fill you in on next time.

My week has revolved around the University of British Columbia.  This may seem like a very obvious statement to make as a student at UBC but as you read on I hope this may make a lot more sense!

In my conservation class this week our three hour tutorial (usually a pretty painful Tuesday afternoon sat in a classroom fuelled only by cookies) was spent at the UBC Farm.  The farm is currently a controversial issue as it occupies land ripe for housing development which is clearly not a popular idea!  Unfortunately the trip didn’t quite live up to my expectations of cows, sheep and pigs to admire as the only inhabitants were a few chickens, some bees and a lot of plants.   Nevertheless it was preferable to being stuck in a room with no windows, especially given that it wasn’t raining!  From the conservation perspective it was also pretty interesting.  International exchange has certainly allowed me to learn about my subject from a localised point of view (as well as global!) many professors draw on examples and studies within North America and British Columbia in particular.  In Edinburgh, Scottish flora and fauna would come up a lot in lectures and I feel like this year has given me a chance to focus on a different area for a change!

Later on in the week I was spending my sunny afternoons sat in the UBC Thunderbird Football (not soccer, football!) Stadium watching the UBC men’s varsity rugby team play University of California, Berkley in the home leg of their annual “world cup.”  I feel like the naming of this event is rather misleading as it only ever involves two teams both from the same continent.  However!  It was quite possibly the most entertaining rugby match I’ve watched in a long time – the lead swapped three times in the last five minutes with UBC clinching victory 24-23 with a penalty in the 79^th minute!!

The women’s varsity and junior varsity games on Saturday and Sunday were slightly less exciting although watchable as ever given that I know all the girls in yellow, white and blue on the pitch! 

As well as rugby watching the rest of my week involved a bit of culture, an Irish jig and some more UBC varsity team supporting, this time at the Rowing.  On Thursday one of my friends was in the UBC Concert Winds performance in the Chan Centre which was a lovely way to spend an evening (well, some of the evening - the rest was spent awake until the wee small hours writing an essay!)   Friday night I ventured downtown with a fellow rugby-er and her visitors from the States to spend the evening skipping, dancing and drinking in the BEST Irish Pub called the Blarney Stone.  I can’t believe it’s taken me seven months to get there! 

It wasn’t too much of a drunken or late night as Saturday morning I was up at 7am to head down to the UBC Boathouse to support my friend and the rest of the varsity women in their race for the Brown Cup against the University of Victoria.  From what I understand it’s the one race they haven’t won and the one race they want to win so I was very happy to see them a whopping twenty-three seconds ahead of the U Vic team.  I was also rather pleased that I had successfully navigated myself and the bicycle I had borrowed safely along the course, and without accidental attempts to join the race in the water (it had been a minor concern as I left my house in my semi-awake state that morning.)

Later that evening I was back with the women’s rugby team to celebrate the end of the season with Kangaroo Court.  This is an annual event to say goodbye to those players that are graduating and to ridicule any members that may have some something stupid during the season.  Unfortunately it seems my declining a place on the varsity squad in order to go to Whistler on the weekend of my birthday was considered stupid and so the necessary jelly shots were taken....  There were far worse so I can’t complain really!  When I got home I was up waiting for the celebrating and intoxicated rower to return from her night out.  Once she got here I then spent the next hour laughing at her attempts to sober up and send an email.   It was such a fun evening I started to realise how much I’m going to miss everyone when I go home in May.

Sunday morning was another early one as we were up at 6.30am all in the name of rowing again (!) as we listened to the commentary of the Boat race.  As an Oxford girl, I was very happy with the result.  My companion was less impressed as a supporter of the Cambridge team but differences aside I think we’ll still manage to retain our friendship!!

See! Concerts, classes, rugby, rowing..... It’s like living in a little UBC bubble and I love it!!!  

Well I know I’m missing a week but I’m going to start with this week then go back because this week was so much more eventful! It started off fairly normally, work and literature review- of which I finished the first French draft so am now doing it in English and realising it needs a lot of work but it is now do-able!  I cannot speak French but I am now thinking about doing the DELF/DALF exams, French competency exams recognised throughout Europe. I want to do the DALF, C1 which is one level below fluency but I’m not sure I’m good enough to do that… So this is another thing to think about.

Also this week Steve Henderson from Edinburgh came to visit, Wednesday evening and Thursday morning which was so tiring and busy and a little stressful though he would sigh and shake his head at me for saying that! I was a tiring because I spoke a lot of French to Lydie which I haven’t really done before, or at least we usually only talk about Chemistry- a nice safe topic- Gabin and Christophe both came to dinner too and we went to Aux Moules, yummy moules… It was pretty good muddling through in French and English, however when I am happy I speak very fast, at least Gabin thought I was hilarious! I told him I wanted to talk more in labs so I think he has now taken it upon himself to involve me which cannot be a bad thing!

Steve came into labs on Thursday and we had a long chat about work and everything which I needed because I am always so worried, I now know I have enough info to write my report and I want to start thinking about it over Easter. It was still rather hectic, a whirlwind tour of the labs and a meeting about everything that has been happening; it was odd to see everything from another perspective. How my life here must appear to an outsider. I  guess it appears like I’m completely settled and completely happy but I wonder to what extent that is true because reading my blog it seems as if I always have something I’m worrying about, or that I’m not sure about.

But that’s labs; my social life is another story completely! Last night, Saturday the 4^th, we finally had our fancy dress. We took all day preparing, it took ages to curl all my hair, whilst Andrew had to straighten his and gel it down. I think we made a good Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers, Rachel’s crown looked awesome and she made a very good Aphrodite but we all feel a wee bit fragile today…

All in all the party was so much fun; everyone who came made a real effort to dress up, Shusaku wore a Yukata which is a taditional Japanese summer kimono with geta and a fan, he looked amazing and Mayu too, she wore a sweet dress with princess bear ears, Clara and her sister came dressed in an 80’s theme, so did Julia, Helen was someone from Greece, Rob was a… native American, possibly, Sarah was princess leia, Phil was a pirate… It was all very funny and resulted in much dancing and antics which went on until 3AM by which time I was dead! But now it is Sunday and I just can’t wait to spend Easter weekend at home with my family and boyfriend, I’ve been so stressed recently it will be nice to just relax for a time!

Anyway, sorry I missed last week, I don’t think I’ll bother putting it in it was fairly normal really although the strikes are continuing and the weather was awful. Rachel’s mum was over for the weekend so we went to the Flammekeuche place but other than that it was rather quiet, so until next week….

Finally, the Easter holidays arrive!  My friend C has been visiting for her first time in Norway, which was really nice company to have for a good few days!

With the holidays having officially begun I am taking advantage of all things Norwegian: they are really keen on the Easter break for a number of reasons.  For the most part, the weather is a huge factor.  I have mentioned here before just how very keen people here are on outdoor life, even coining the phrase friluftsliv, which can be loosely translated at “fresh air life”, to explain their joy in all things outdoor.  A major aspect of the year is any opportunity for cross-country skiing.  People head out for day trips on their cross-country skis covering miles of forest and track and taking with them the ever famous combination: Kvikk lunsj (a chocolate bar more than highly reminiscent of a Kit-Kat) and an orange.  I think it’s a bit odd too, but the fact that a culture has grown around a chocolate bar and a piece of fruit is really rather impressive when one thinks about it.  Anyway, I shall be leaving the skis at home but hopefully heading out for some walks in the sun and snow (perfect Easter combination!) during the holidays!  A thermos of hot coffee with me and I’m set for the day, I have become ridiculously addicted since living here, Scandinavians like their coffee strong and by the litre-load.

Another odd and uniquely Norwegian phenomenon associated with Easter is “påskekrim”, or “Easter crime.”  It originated in the 1920s when coincidence had it that crime or detective novels were published largely around Easter, and as a result it has become a nationwide thing to read crime at Easter.  It sounds like absolute nonsense, but it’s true!  Television stations change their programming to feature crime dramas (they’re big on their British exports as it happens, think Foyle’s War, Poirot, Lewis, etc) predominantly whilst the radio stations broadcast detective plays and the like, it’s madness!  Scandinavia is becoming known as the destination for crime writing, which only acts as fuel to this truly bizarre fire.

Today I handed in my vacation notice for my student accommodation, which was a major wake-up call!  Beginning to think about how to get all my STUFF (there really is no other word that can describe the things I have amassed since living here) moved back to home is a nightmare of a thought, and one that I still have not come upon a strategy for!  I am currently job hunting like mad for my return home, which is very difficult being so far away.  Equally as difficult is flat-hunting: whilst I have found two charming fellow residents with whom I look forward to moving in with come fourth year, finding ourselves a place to live is made difficult by us all living out in Scandinavia at the moment.  I am also looking into possible au pair positions in Norway to fill the few months between the end of my exchange and the beginning of term in Edinburgh whilst earning a little money and keeping up my language skills, and all of this is driving me slowly mad.

This is slightly earlier than normal, but given that my friend from home is coming to Helsinki tomorrow, and I actually have something to write about right now I thought I may as well go ahead.

On Monday, as I mentioned in my last post, I had an exam. It was my first 'real' exam here, as I don't count the one where I was given the questions in advance and was able to use my notes really that worthy of the title!

Anyway... I arrived at 12 to the room as instructed, and it turned out to be a normal lecture theatre (all of my classes are in small tutorial rooms) and we were expected to sit in the seats with a table in front of us. The only thing was, there was no way of getting out of the seats other than asking every single other person in the asile to get up, move out of the way and let you pass. So I decided that was slightly impratical (what if I needed the toilet???) and tried to sit near the end of the row. Then I noticed that everyone was going up to the front to get scraps of paper to write their answers on and subsequently lost the seat I'd previously claimed.

Then I started to get worried - I was doing the second sitting of my exam as I'd missed the first one when I went to Venice so there was probably only me from my class going to be there, and there were about 60 people in the room as it was a general faculty exam and all of the information was in Finnish. Then they started making annoucements in Finnish and I sat in my seat in the middle of the row panicking that I was in the wrong place as there weren't any signs saying 'these exams will take place today' or similar. So, it turns out, they just read out everyones name on a list, you went up to the front (disturbing everyone, obiously) and took a sheet of paper from them. This had your individual exam questions on for which ever one you'd registered for online. Then they spoke in Finnish some more and we eventually started. Finally after 2 hours (some people were on 4 hour exams) they simply annouced 'if you're doing a 2 hour exam, you need to gather up your papers and bring it to the front' but there was no timekeeper to ensure that you actually did this, so in all honesty I could have carried on until 4pm and no one would have known. Then once you were done you took it back to the front of the room and put it in a pile.

That was it - no ID cards, no seat numbers, no attendence checks, no cheating checks as you could sit right next to someone, and no checking inside the dictionaries etc to make sure there isn't any additional information in it. Finnish students don't break rules but these exams are just set out for the international students to bend the rules. I didn't but it would have been damn easy to do so! Another thing is that here we don't have a student number, everything is done by name. You just write your full name at the top of the bit of paper (literally lined paper pulled from an excercise book) before you begin and then you're away.

Another thing of notable academic interest this week was the return of the essays from one of my classes. My friend and I (he's a Brit too) were dreading them as ours were awful as we wrote them in a couple of hours before running off to Riga. However, they came back and we both got 4/5 which is the equivilant of a high 2:1 in the UK... despite the fact that my friend (I am sure he won't mind me saying this) had the comments 'this is all very confusing, I'm not sure I understand' written at the end of the essay. Our teacher for this class is American so it wasn't a language issue either! It ceases to amaze me here how awful work can be and you can still do well - if I'd given my essay in at Edinburgh I'd be lucky to get above 40%, let alone around 67%. They certainly go in for the art of trying here - it's like them saying ah well you tried, you came to the classes and clearly tried to get something right, even if you did slightly miss the point!

Ah well... I am moving to the library next year and dying a very slow and painful death via webct.

Is anyone going to Uppsala in Sweden as an Erasmus student next year?

After I got back from a weekend in Edinburgh, I only had three days in Dijon before my boyfriend arrived to visit. I had advised him to bring sunscreen as the weather had been so gorgeous before I left to go home, but, obviously, it has rained nearly every day since his arrival a week ago! We’ve had a few sunny ones though and we took advantage of them by going to the lake on Saturday, where some sort of medical convention was being held which was a bit strange, and to Beaune on Monday. I think I’ve written about Beaune here before as I always take visitors there – I’d never been to the main attraction of the town before this trip though – les Hospices, a 15th century charity hospital founded by the Chancellor of Burgundy as a hospital and refuge for the poor and people injured in the 100 years war. The actual charity still exists although now they have a modern hospital building, so the original hospital is now a museum. It’s built around a courtyard with all the various hospital room and kitchens and pharmacies around the square – the courtyard is absolutely gorgeous as all the roofs are tiled in colourful patterns. All of the important buildings from this time period in Burgundy have these patterned roofs but these were definitely the best ones I’ve ever seen.

We also went to the Edmund Fallot mustard factory while we were in Beaune which was great fun. We watched lots of short films about the history of the Fallot family and of the mustard making industry in general and got to have a go at making mustard ourselves – I had had no idea before this of how mustard was made (it’s just dry mustard seeds ground up with a stone wheel, salt and either vinegar or green grape juice). Our mustard was absolutely disgusting because I had got a bit too excited with the salt, but it was fun anyway! At the end of the tour we were given a whole load of different foods and four different flavours of mustard (gingerbread, blackcurrant, tarragon and standard Dijon mustard) to try them with. Yum! I was never actually a big fan of mustard before coming to Dijon but now I love it!

The main thing all the students are talking about here at the moment is the continuing strike action by the university staff. Last Thursday an Assemblée Générale voted to completely block every entrance to the university with chairs and desks to prevent any classes being held by those teachers not on strike. The students were given a vote as well and voted overwhelmingly in favour of it, although now there has been quite a big backlash among students who are concerned about having to repeat a year of uni because they have had no classes since Christmas. The way things stand at the moment it doesn’t really seem as though we’ll have any classes at all until the end of term, and probably no exams either. The same vote will be held every Thursday afternoon, so each week the students have the chance to vote against the blocage. I think quite a few of the staff and students are against the strike, but there is a real feeling of having to respect the rights of the other teachers to strike if they feel strongly enough about the issue to do so. No one wants to deprive them of this right and it’s seen as bad form to go against it. Before the official blocage, some of the teachers blocked off a few of the entrances to the uni, mostly just for show as everyone could still get in and out with no problems, but it did mean that a lot of the classrooms had no desks and chairs in them when the students arrived for classes. This happened in one of my classes and although the professor was willing to teach us, and we were willing to be taught, he refused to act against the striking teachers by either moving us to a classroom with desks or having us fetch a desk and chair each from the pile outside the classroom. It’s all very frustrating!

While speaking about the uni staff and the way things are run at l’UB, I would like to say that the way they have treated the British Erasmus students since Joey’s death two weeks ago has been incredible and all of us are extremely impressed by the level of concern and care shown by all the staff and the other students.

You probably won’t hear too much from me for the next month or so because things are going to be pretty hectic. I’m going home for the Easter holidays (I seem to have had an awful lot of contact with home lately, which has been amazing but also feels a bit like cheating…) and then straight from Edinburgh to Vienna for a long overdue visit to Maxine. It seems a bit strange to me that it is infinitely easier and cheaper to get to Vienna from the UK than from France, but it gives me a reason to go home and see my family, so that’s ok! While we’re in Vienna (my friend Sophie is coming as well) we’re also hoping to visit Prague and Budapest and possibly to visit my friend Jenni in Germany on the way back to France (well it’s not quite on the way, but near enough!) I haven’t done nearly as much travelling this semester as I would have liked so I’m really excited about this trip, as well as getting to spend two weeks with Max! Yay!
Till next time!

For the first time this semester, I missed class due to being ill. I’m not sure if I’m actually sick or if my incredibly hectic schedule has just made me really run-down, but being able to lounge around all day has been really nice and I feel more relaxed. My weeks are so busy because I’m a bit of a sign-up junkie and consequently, I will be playing intramural softball for the rest of the semester, and yesterday I found myself tutoring two inner-city kids (Marielis is seven and Tamia is ten) – an activity I had signed up for about two months ago.

The tutoring was a really interesting experience. After my accidental foray into the ghetto during Lizzie’s visit, I ended up in a different and worse ghetto yesterday. As we (Peter, Jenny and I) approached the school, a woman was screaming and shouting and cursing. Once we arrived at the thick metal security doors, we realised that she was there to pick up her child from school. The school official who came out to meet her had some issues about this, however, as she was quite obviously either high or drunk. This was my introduction to the tutoring program.

The school was unlike any I had ever been in before. Obviously, it is a difficult area, and so it’s probably a good thing that most of the teachers I saw looked like ex-wrestlers. Signs warned “Weapons are prohibited on school property”, and I wondered whether they were for the children or their parents. The two kids I tutor were nice, though, and Marielis told me that she doesn’t have any toys at home, which broke my heart a little. Although I do not in any way want to be a teacher, I enjoy being around kids, and seeing as I geekily love learning I always want to impart that enthusiasm to others. I don’t think Marielis likes me much (she kept asking when she could go back to class), but hopefully we’ll be able to work through that.

Saturday was Rufus Jones Day at Haverford, and it was also Holi, which is one of my favourite festivals. But before I describe just how paint-covered I got, I’m going to give you a rollicking ride through one of the best college-sanctioned events at Haverford so far this year.

Rufus Jones, after whom both Rufus Jones Day and one of the dorms are named, was a Haverford graduate and professor who wrote part of the Honour Code, founded the American Friends Service Committee, and won a Nobel Peace Prize. He is seen as the embodiment of Haverfordian values, and so a group of students and alums decided to celebrate him through a series of events on Saturday. Blueberry pancakes, discussion groups, a game of giant Twister (sadly curtailed by the weather), a panel discussion, and a faculty and senior students mixer were held. As I was covering the panel for the Bi-Co (my article: http://www.biconews.com/?p=16596), I had to go, and it was probably one of the most interesting events I have attended. The panel was made up of three alums – a political analyst for NPR and Fox, the head of the New York AIDS Institute, and the head of domestic operations for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. For two hours, students could ask any questions they wanted, and the responses were candid and informative, the debate lively and good-natured.

Later in the evening, I got to interview the two alums who helped to establish the event, and then even later in the evening I received a phone call to round up the exchange students to help finish the keg that was left after the mixer. Consequently, I found myself drinking beer with my previously intimidating Jihadi Movement professor, which was a slightly surreal but great experience.

Right after the panel, I dashed over to Lloyd Green where some of my friends had decided to hold a Holi celebration. Holi is the Hindu festival for spring, and involves throwing paint and water on people. I love it. I got absolutely covered in a variety of colours despite arriving a couple of hours late, and danced to Bollywood songs to ward off the cold. Unfortunately, as I stupidly left my camera in my friend’s room in China, I have no pictures of this, although I will try and find some. The blue paint (in which I was liberally doused) was especially hard to get off, and the palms of my hands were a blue-ish green for a couple of days.

Yesterday marked the beginning of water-tag. It used to be called “assassin”, but in the light of various school shootings, this name was deemed to be in bad taste. Basically, you sign up, you’re given the name of your target, and you have to hunt them down/stalk them/surprise them and then shoot them with a water pistol. Meanwhile, someone is hunting you. Once you have shot someone, you get their target’s name and you continue on until you’re shot. It’s going to be great fun, although I’m already paranoid that everyone I see is waiting to shoot me. I have survived the first day (many did not), and in the morning I’m off to the toyshop to buy myself a water gun.

Until next week.

After a week of happy library days attempting to get slightly ahead of the game I spent last weekend refining my tour guide skills as my Godparents came to visit.  The weather forecasts had been less than optimistic with rain predicted for all four days they were here.  Luckily the meteorologists were proved wrong (how unusual!) and we had two days of sunny blue skies which makes  a huge difference to the impression people get of Vancouver.  Grey skies and rain detract massively from the city’s appeal and there is a limited range of things you can do inside.  On a clear day the mountains, beaches, forests and parks are all at their finest and it’s very easy to see why Vancouver’s province, British Columbia, labels itself the “best place on earth.”  After a rainy tour of the UBC campus on the Friday (concrete, concrete and more concrete plus a few trees) our plans for Saturday involved taking a sea plane to Victoria, the capital of BC on Vancouver Island.  The views flying over downtown Vancouver, alongside the mountains and over the ocean were stunning.  When we landed in Victoria we were met by our chauffer and guide for the day - living the high life for the weekend definitely a nice change from the student days I am so accustomed to!

Victoria turned out to be quite different from Vancouver with a distinctly British feel to some of its architecture.   The Butchart Gardens, a short drive out of the city, were beautiful, even in the absence of spring which has yet to reach these parts.  I can just see my Mum (a big fan of all the growing green things) setting up camp when we go there in a couple of week’s time, getting her to leave may be a struggle!  At lunchtime we stopped in a restaurant by the beach and re-fuelled with fish and chips before continuing our tour of the area with a trip to millionaire’s row, the queen’s residence in BC and some random castle I don’t remember the name of.... 

Back in Vancouver, Sunday morning marked the end of my rugby season and my last game for UBC.  Unfortunately it was rather shorter than I would have liked as 15 minutes in I was on the received end of a double tackle which lead to one part of my leg moving while the other did not and my knee bending in ways it shouldn’t do in the middle.  According to the experts I’ve damaged the cartilage round my knee cap which is why it is now fat, bruised and refusing to do any running/stair climbing/long distance walking for a while.  In the afternoon I hobbled my way in to downtown to meet the visitors before heading out to the Capilano suspension bridge.  The bridge is one of Vancouver’s main tourist attractions – the whole thing is slightly disconcerting as you make the 136 metre crossing, wobbling, 70 metres above the river.  

With my Godparents having returned safely to the UK it’s not long until my parents and sister arrive in Vancouver which is really exciting as I haven’t seen them since August....

At the end of my last blog I predicted that life was about to return to its usual ‘manic pace’ which has turned out to be pretty accurate and is my primary excuse for posting two blogs at once..... The last couple of weeks have been (as my Canadian friends might say) ‘super busy’ memorable things I feel duty bound to report back to you include:

The use of hangman as a learning tool by our professor to stimulate a sleepy class of science students in to using the word prediction – we were clearly not on the ball that day.

Coming across three naked, cape wearing cyclists on the way to choir - I’m not quite sure of the who/what/why but it was amusing all the same.

Playing rugby in the snow.

Watching the Vancouver Canucks WIN (yes win - things are looking up in the world of ice hockey for these fans).

Turning twenty-two (I did indeed say memorable and can recount the entire evening and following day....)

The ‘rugby in the snow’ story is worthy of some elaboration: during the warm up it was raining – nothing unusual there Vancouver gets a lot of rain.  At kick off the rain became slightly colder and within a few minutes we were running around chasing an odd shaped ball in the snow.  Towards the end of the first half the pitch had a slightly Christmassy feel to it and many people’s fingers and toes started to lose feeling.  The second half began and things were starting to get a little crunchy underfoot as the ground started to freeze.  Twenty minutes later the ref called the game off for safety reasons as half the pitch was pretty much solid.  I can’t say I was too upset by the decision; whilst I was relatively warm compared to others we were losing significantly enough to say there would be no ‘surprise comebacks.’  Unfortunately the premature end of the game meant that the changing rooms were occupied by the men’s team so we were left to change out of our wet and slightly frozen clothes at the bus stop.  Classy ladies that we are.....

On the Saturday of that weekend I’d spent the day in Whistler where I was rather more appreciative of the snowfall.  During the course of the day I met some incredibly chatty people on chairlifts; a couple from Aberdeen, family from the states, random guy from London and a Para-Olympian.  I also had rather an extended lunch with some friends from UBC/Edinburgh in a bid to warm up before heading back out in to the snow. 

My birthday was on the Monday and I celebrated with a few quiet drinks the night before in one of the pubs on campus and it was really nice to see lots of the people I’ve met over the last seven months all gathered in one place.  The next day I decided to make the most of the snow and returned to Grouse Mountain.  The last time I was there it was to complete the gruelling trail of 2,830 stairs to the summit.  This time, the sky ride cable car transported my snowboard and I from the rainy city up in to the clouds.  Before sunset visibility was rather limited and I found myself guessing where slopes went semi-successfully – I did have a small hike back up a hill having found myself heading off in a very wrong direction.  Once it had got dark finding the trails became slightly easier and I played follow the floodlights down the mountain.  The snow conditions were incredible, at 9.30pm I was making fresh tracks down the mountain and each time I got to the top of the chairlift I resembled a snowman having been immobile for a matter of minutes.  I also narrowly avoided running over a couple of rabbits who decided that it was a good time to attempt to run across the slopes...  All in all a pretty good way to spend my birthday!

Unfortunately it was back to reality (and the library) on the Tuesday - Always a joy.