School work is so different here - virtually every course has 2-3 assignments during the semester and that's IT. Meaning, no participation or attendance grade (which is nice when you take impromptu trips to Amsterdam during the school week) yet, when you do have work it's SO CONSUMING. What I'm trying to say here is that I had two assignments due today, both of which were about 30% of their respective courses and I sure am TIRED. I don't think I've ever been so stressed handing in an assignment before. That's probably not true - some past ones have definitely been over-traumatic and repressed from my memory.
Anyway - on to the good stuff!
About a week ago Arcadia sponsored a tour of the Scottish Parliament building. The tour was interesting despite my lack of interest in politics and government, because everything about the building was so bizarre! Literally, in a city filled with preserved structures from hundreds of years ago, I do not know what they were thinking when they built this campus/building site (I think it was in 2004?). Previously, Scotland never had their own Parliament separate from England, although Scottish Parliament is still ultimately under the Queen of England. Regardless, the structure itself is so interesting - literally almost every design both inside and outside, as well as resources used to create it are all Scottish or otherwise have some form of Scottish culture emulated through them. Here are a few bird's eye pictures I snagged from Google:
Weird, right? I am sure there is plenty of info online about all of the individual structures involved, along with their meanings. It's actually really sad that the original artist died before he could see it completed. Such a shame!
(Those are my feet)
Apparently over the five or so year process that it was built, there was huge controversy. Initially the cost of the project was projected to be between 10 and 40 million pounds, but when finished in 2004 the total was something like 430 million pounds. Tax payers clearly were not happy. It's funny because situations such as that one pretty much consist of the only type of divided controversy in Scottish politics. For instance, right now, mentioning the possible Edinburgh tram construction to a Scot is like bringing a bottle of vodka to an AA meeting. They go CRAZY (most people are against it). It's actually kind of refreshing - no argument about health care: it's nationalized; no argument about abortion: it's legal; no argument about religion: everyone here hates it anyway; no argument over gay marriage: if you're gay, you're gay, an equal citizen with equal rights! It really doesn't need to be that hard...
I'm going to start adding songs to the bottom of my blog posts, it'll be interesting to look back and see what I was listening to while writing.
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Gerard Butler - Galway Girl
The Pogues - Love You 'Til The End
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