Reunited again and miscellany
I learned last night that my suitcase and I will be reunited today, Jan 4. Less than a week since we were separated. I'm very excited that my suitcase isn't lost and I'm anxious to see if there is anything missing.
Since I've been back, I've been asked a number of times about high points in my trip and that's been really hard to answer. I have the low point--getting lost in the rain while trying to find my hotel. Not the worst low point one could have and not a really big deal. The fact is that I had great weather, I got to chat with a lot of really nice people, and I saw some spectacular countryside.
Several of my colleagues asked me if I met any hot men. I met three charming men at the College of Piping in Glasgow with whom I laughed and talked about learning how to play the bagpipes. "Ah lassie, if this dafty boy can learn to play, anyone can." I talked with a university student in Glasgow when he admired my journal and asked where I got it. We talked a few minutes about writing. I chatted with a couple of men--one totally hot--at Jocks in Kinross who were dressed in full formal kilt kits. I did not ask The Question, but was suitably impressed if they were true Scotsman on a night when the temp was below freezing. One looked like an American football fullback and the other like a more typical UK soccer player. He was the hot one, by the way, and I liked that his shirt was the kind that had the leather lacing at the neck. I talked with several folks at pubs. As I mentioned in one entry, opening my map was an invitation for people to talk to me, but many weren't shy about asking where I hailed from when they heard my funny accent.
In the pubs it was quite clear that soccer is The Sport, though rugby comes in at second. Cricket is not the sport of the working class and many of the pub folks were derisive about cricket. I'd watched a bit of cricket over the Christmas weekend and was totally baffled by the sport that can take days to play.
I think I may have mentioned that it's quite evident there is no FCC in the UK. I wasn't shocked by language I heard on TV or radio, but I was surprised because we simply aren't accustomed to hearing such words except on satellite or cable. No one worries about getting bleeped and no one worries about the digital fuzzing if anything intimate is showing.
I wasn't surprised when I saw that most of the kids, regardless of the part of the country, with earbuds. I thought it funny to see groups of kids walking together, each with earbuds and wondered if they were all listening to the same thing or different stuff, and wondering if they ever talked to each other.
There were a couple of stories about "yobbish" behavior and the police establishing respect zones. Apparently there are a lot of kids running around throwing bricks or rocks through car windows and stealing stuff, or just being generally destructive. I thought it interesting that they would try to establish zones of respect: You have entered the Respect Zone. You must be respectful at all times while in this zone. You can behave like an animal otherwise?
There were also some stories in the newspapers about concerns about plagiarism because kids were making use of technology, but also concerns about teaching to the tests. Fascinating to read about those kinds of educational issues as though they are just surfacing. But because the educational system is so different in the UK and because some of the parts of Scotland I visited are clearly not very wired, it's entirely possible that the kinds of concerns we've been confronting for a while are just beginning to surface there. I just thought it interesting to juxtapose some of the educational issues with the respect zone stories; there's something intriguing about that, but maybe just to me.
A few more notes about UK TV. I'd always thought the BBC was this incredible bastion of reporting. Perhaps it is and I just didn't see the real deal. BBC Breakfast on BBC1 was interesting because the male co-anchor always wore a suit and tie while the female co-anchor was considerably more stylishly dressed, but doing a bit more than being eye candy. Not much more though. But if there was a 30-minute news show--and, by the way, shows didn't start on the hour and half-hour as they usually do in the US. One show started at something like 7:38. Anyway, if there was a news show of some length, they zip through the news with short sound bites--maybe 60 or 90 seconds, scoot through the weather (It'll be windy and frosty in the Highlands again this morning), and then to Sports, the real news. Then again, there are several Scottish daily and several UK dailies, so maybe that's an indicator that more people in the UK still read their news in a paper rather than watch it on TV.
Well, at least we speak the same language. Sort of.
Cheers.
Since I've been back, I've been asked a number of times about high points in my trip and that's been really hard to answer. I have the low point--getting lost in the rain while trying to find my hotel. Not the worst low point one could have and not a really big deal. The fact is that I had great weather, I got to chat with a lot of really nice people, and I saw some spectacular countryside.
Several of my colleagues asked me if I met any hot men. I met three charming men at the College of Piping in Glasgow with whom I laughed and talked about learning how to play the bagpipes. "Ah lassie, if this dafty boy can learn to play, anyone can." I talked with a university student in Glasgow when he admired my journal and asked where I got it. We talked a few minutes about writing. I chatted with a couple of men--one totally hot--at Jocks in Kinross who were dressed in full formal kilt kits. I did not ask The Question, but was suitably impressed if they were true Scotsman on a night when the temp was below freezing. One looked like an American football fullback and the other like a more typical UK soccer player. He was the hot one, by the way, and I liked that his shirt was the kind that had the leather lacing at the neck. I talked with several folks at pubs. As I mentioned in one entry, opening my map was an invitation for people to talk to me, but many weren't shy about asking where I hailed from when they heard my funny accent.
In the pubs it was quite clear that soccer is The Sport, though rugby comes in at second. Cricket is not the sport of the working class and many of the pub folks were derisive about cricket. I'd watched a bit of cricket over the Christmas weekend and was totally baffled by the sport that can take days to play.
I think I may have mentioned that it's quite evident there is no FCC in the UK. I wasn't shocked by language I heard on TV or radio, but I was surprised because we simply aren't accustomed to hearing such words except on satellite or cable. No one worries about getting bleeped and no one worries about the digital fuzzing if anything intimate is showing.
I wasn't surprised when I saw that most of the kids, regardless of the part of the country, with earbuds. I thought it funny to see groups of kids walking together, each with earbuds and wondered if they were all listening to the same thing or different stuff, and wondering if they ever talked to each other.
There were a couple of stories about "yobbish" behavior and the police establishing respect zones. Apparently there are a lot of kids running around throwing bricks or rocks through car windows and stealing stuff, or just being generally destructive. I thought it interesting that they would try to establish zones of respect: You have entered the Respect Zone. You must be respectful at all times while in this zone. You can behave like an animal otherwise?
There were also some stories in the newspapers about concerns about plagiarism because kids were making use of technology, but also concerns about teaching to the tests. Fascinating to read about those kinds of educational issues as though they are just surfacing. But because the educational system is so different in the UK and because some of the parts of Scotland I visited are clearly not very wired, it's entirely possible that the kinds of concerns we've been confronting for a while are just beginning to surface there. I just thought it interesting to juxtapose some of the educational issues with the respect zone stories; there's something intriguing about that, but maybe just to me.
A few more notes about UK TV. I'd always thought the BBC was this incredible bastion of reporting. Perhaps it is and I just didn't see the real deal. BBC Breakfast on BBC1 was interesting because the male co-anchor always wore a suit and tie while the female co-anchor was considerably more stylishly dressed, but doing a bit more than being eye candy. Not much more though. But if there was a 30-minute news show--and, by the way, shows didn't start on the hour and half-hour as they usually do in the US. One show started at something like 7:38. Anyway, if there was a news show of some length, they zip through the news with short sound bites--maybe 60 or 90 seconds, scoot through the weather (It'll be windy and frosty in the Highlands again this morning), and then to Sports, the real news. Then again, there are several Scottish daily and several UK dailies, so maybe that's an indicator that more people in the UK still read their news in a paper rather than watch it on TV.
Well, at least we speak the same language. Sort of.
Cheers.
posted by ejroberts | 4:14 AM
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