A Single Layer

Rounding out my year of dwelling in the Athens of the North, as Edinburgh was called during the Enlightenment, I have experienced the shortest night of my memory. Around eleven o'clock last night, I closed the curtains to a sky streaked with the dark blue of a finally setting sun. I fully intended to drop off to sleep immediately after, but as I usually do, found myself still putting around after two in the morning. Between the curtains, which I had not closed as well as I should have, I noticed something unusual. There was unnaturally natural light streaming through. I opened them wide only to find the sky streaked with the same blue they had been filled with but three hours before. Had there been any night at all? If so, I had closed my curtains to it, only to find morning rising just as sleep found me - morning in the middle of the night. Long live Scotland.

Not much has been happening, which is good for the dissertation, but bad for the blog. Yesterday, I went into Glasgow with Linsday and Jess in order to take the latter to a performance of some orchestral Russian stuff. Rachmaninov headlined with his second piano concerto, and it was good to hear it live. Almost as fun as being able to bust out my tweed heels, which replaced the tennies in a Burger King ten minutes before the performance. Short-lived posh, since the concert hall is literally right across the street from the bus stop. We didn't have far to go once the music had stopped. Other than that, the days have mostly consisted of scribbling notes down at the NLS only to come home again and type them all into my laptop. Next week will be organizing and preliminary writing - so much excitement! and perhaps I will plan myself some sort of Trip to break up the monotony.

The Stoic sage is willing to give some "preferred" thing, e.g., health, freedom, or life, because he sees it genuinely as without value since only the whole order of events which, as it happens, includes its negation or loss, is of value. The Christian martyr, in giving up health, freedom, or life, doesn't declare them to be of no value. On the contrary, the act would lose its sense if they were not of great worth. To say that greater love hath no man than this, that a man give up his life for his friends, implies that life is a great good. The sentence would lose its point in reference to someone who renounced life from a sense of detachment; it presupposes he's giving up something. Central to the Judaeo-Christian notion of martyrdom is that one gives up a good in order to follow God. What God is engaged in is the hallowing of life. God first called Israel to be a "holy nation" (Exodus 19.6). But the hallowing of life is not antithetical to its fulness. On...

When the fog hangs over the city like an opiate, it takes more strength of will than I possess to crawl out of my room and walk the fifty minute distance to the National Library of Scotland. I will do it, not by strength of will, but strength of shame: I have been talking about the NLS for the last week and a half, and have only been there once. Oh, the work not getting done all because of a little fog! (Strangely, it puts me in the mood for Narnia. Possibly because of the desire for escape coupled with a yearning for childhood tales round a warm hearth with a cup of tea.... Perhaps it's about time to visit Oxford.)

If you are a tourist in Edinburgh, the first thing to do when walking into the Elephant House is to go to the back and peer out the window. Perhaps it is the distant view of the castle between the buildings. Perhaps it is the depth of the street below, so out of synch with the street at the front - high and low. Whatever the reason, that is the rule. Or so I observed yesterday afternoon as I sat with my Ossian essays, fancy ink pen, and notebooks so full of quotations that they have ceased to be useful. I finished my latte and glass of water rather quickly in comparison with the three hours that I occupied the small table, and as it passed six o'clock, I couldn't help feeling remarkably in the way. Plenty of tourists were hoping for seats and unable to find them, and there I was without a bit of food or drink on the table. I took heart - the poet in the corner was still seated there with his laptops and Truman Capote, and he had been sitting there long before I arrived. Thought...

Two days back from Prague, and I am still not sure how to summarize the trip. A few exerpts from my journal, then, interspersed with explanations and such: (what you can't tell is that a vast and lovely night view of the city is stretched out behind us.) 18-05-07 the Amsterdam Airport, a layover I just finished an apple and almond tart which I shared with a beautiful sparrow - or some such bird - that seems to have made it his home in here. It did occur to me that it might not be wise to encourage dependent habits in the bird, but the thought came to me that it is my duty, or at least my role, as a daughter of Eve to give to those creatures of the wild as they have need. The bird was not unusually plump, and I did not give it more than two pinches of tart flakes. So I don't think it is any more spoiled from me than it would be from scavenging empty trays in the food court. When I arrived at the hostel, 'The Boathouse,' Courtney was waiting for me on the lawn next to the...

A quick update before I go on my way . . . 1. After about eight months of ridiculous inconvenience, I have finally purchased a belt. I'm pretty sure this is the first belt I've ever bought in my life, though it's only the second or third that I've owned. I've been wearing it for a grand total of ten minutes, and already I feel better. Note to self: do not purchase brand new jeans immediately before making radical changes in physical lifestyle (i.e. walking alot). 2. I got my hair cut again by a lovely professional named Lisa. She's a senior stylist at Mosco, but since I booked with a junior stylist who fell ill, I got the better experience for half the price. It looks more or less like it did last November, so there's no need to upload fashion photos or anything. Besides, there will be pictures enough when I return from my trip to . . . 3. Prague! On my way there sometime tomorrow morning. It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision to go, but I'm glad ...

Here's a sampling of what I'm writing dissertation-wise: The clothing of socio-political concerns in a mythic narrative, or any narrative for that matter, is hardly the sole habit of the Enlightenment. Even Macpherson himself, in the dissertation with which he introduces the 1762 publication of Fingal , writes: ‘This is the true source of that divine inspiration, to which the poets of all ages pretended. When they found their themes inadequate to the warmth of their imaginations, they varnished them over with fables, supplied by their own fancy, or furnished by absurd traditions’ (xi). Whether Macpherson is subtly identifying Ossian’s own heroic tales as fables or accidentally giving us a hint towards his own manipulation of the epics might be too presumptuous to assume. Regardless of the specific applicability of the statement, the assertion remains – fables, myths, and all tales of more imaginative than realistic content serve the purpose of embodying those ideals which in p...

In case anyone wonders what I do every day here in Scotland, I swiped some photos from friends off of facebook to illustrate: Standing over the oven... Baking somewhat crazily... (the saucepan on the left serves as a mixing bowl, and yes, I am cracking the egg into a wine glass. you learn to be creative when resources are few.) Possibly one of the most attractive meals I've ever made, this could not have been completed without Courtney knowing just when the salmon and asparagus were done. And oooh, wasn't it tasty. That's a butter sauce with lemon, basil, red onions and garlic, topped with reduced balsamic vinegar and diced tomato. A variation on the scallops with kataifi served at our Greek dinner a year ago. I know, I know - that's a different outfit. And a different dessert, too. This strawberry shortcake (half a teaspoon more salt than there should have been, and not enough strawberries by half) was the featured dessert for my birthday, now weeks past. But since the...

Can someone please explain why my Quicktime isn't working? Anyone with prophetic awareness of my little Atlas, none so old but recently behaving so?

Yesterday we went to the Isle of May where dwell the puffins and enough lighthouses to satisfy even my eagerness for those beacons of safety, those harbingers of harbour. Here are some photos: View from the bus on the way there. These yellow fields are everywhere, filling the heart with the joy that only a field of yellow can give. The May Princess, our unweildy ferry. You'd think a ride in this thing would be enough to turn the stomach - but the worse for my insides was the work of award-winning fish and chips consumed on the rocky Stagecoach back to the city. Twenty-four hours later, I still have the bucket by my bed just in case. The Isle of May - one of the only semi-level photos I have of it from the view of the ferry. This photo was taken by flatmate Lindsay, who has offered her camera countless times to the service of my pictoral memory. I believe what you see in the distance is the south-end lighthouse perched atop the forbidden segment of island upon which the seabirds are...

The trees are blooming. And those that aren't display leaves of such tender green I want to eat them and touch them and eat them some more. (I am trying not to.) In order more fully to glory in the season, flatmate Courtney and I took the long trek to Edinburgh's Royal Botanic Garden this afternoon. Here's a link for the curious: http://www.rbge.org.uk/ It was one of the more beautiful gardens of my experience, vast and varied, full of endless delights. We strolled about the grounds and took as many pictures as we could in fairy-like poses, faces framed by drooping branches. After we had seen all that we could bear to see without wanting to pick all the flowers, swim in all the ponds, and build forts in every tree, we dropped down on a small grassy hill to rest. I know it is all a well-planted, well-landscaped, highly organized garden, but it does help one to understand the poets of seasons and flowers and such. Nature is restorative, Wordsworth. Or it can be. Here are some...

I am sitting here with my favorite cereal (Pecan and Maple Crunch, courtesy of Sainsbury's) thinking about the events of yesterday. After church, which I was actually on time for, I met some friends at my flat and we headed to Craigmillar Castle. This great ediface of history and tourism is apparently just down the street from where I live - a fact I was not aware of until a few days ago. Yes, yes, I know. I've been here nearly eight months and didn't know there was a castle down the road. In my defense, we had to wander through a lot of woodland (or a 'wood stand' as my agriculture-environment majoring flatmate calls it in her well-informed way) and some field before we finally saw it, cresting a hill, overlooking some cows. Here are a few photos, some of which were taken by me and some by friend Sarah: on our way to the castle - lots of green a fuzzy view of some edinburgh from the hill ascending to... the castle! ignore the cars, and you can almost sense what Mar...