An interesting lecture this morning (with a teacher in situ!) concluded thus:
“Read and think.”
***
And more news on our favourite Norwegian Colonel-in-Chief:
Nils Olav has been awarded a knighthood by His Majesty King Harald.
Please all rise for Sir Nils Olav, the world’s only knighted penguin!
(Picture and caption again nicked from Norway’s official site)
So, I’m back at university. It’s a most strange universe of its own. All (well, nearly) individuals are extremely friendly and helpful, but as an organization it is hostile and arrogant.
Monday morning I was sitting in class, with about 20 others, waiting for a professor who never turned up. Auntie Linda of course went to the office to inquire, only to have a nice admin person come in, check that the professor is indeed not there, say that he seems to be missing and disappear herself. After half an hour we gave up and left.
Monday afternoon I went to see my new Director of Studies (dear Trevor is away this semester), who had never heard of me. The Senior DOS only has appointments on one afternoon, when I’m supposed to be at work.
Tuesday morning I turned up to an empty lecture theatre at 9am with a few others. A concerned janitor rang the professor, who says the class will start at 10.
When the lecture did start, it turned out that this course will have another lecture every week. There was no mention of this anywhere in the online course information, based on which I made my timetable for work.
Later I went to work, where my (wonderfully flexible) boss asked why I’m not my usual happy self. Well duh, I’ve been trying to go to university.
Apart from informing me I need to do 40 more credits this year than I thought and that I will not be able to take two courses I wanted, the meeting with the Senior DOS cleared everything up and I finally know what I’m supposed to be doing. In the evening I found that my uni IT stuff had started working, and today all teachers showed up.
The title is a spam e-mail I have received twice this week. Appropriate.
Hot:
1 – Going somewhere, anywhere, in the LoveBus
2 – Football (his rules)
3 – Sheep
4 – The puddle that smells like shit from dead animals
Not hot:
1 – Being left alone
2 – Cats that come to our courtyard
3 – The hose
4 – Being told off for chasing sheep
***
I just realized that next week: University starts, with all the accompanying hassle. Work continues. I have four ghost tours. Agility. Whisky society starts. And I promised to help out in an Amnesty band night.
M my dearest, you’re cooking and walking the dog.
The 9/11 anniversary once again caused convulsions of annoyance. Everywhere were the (typically but not exclusively American) stories where people go through something horrible only to reveal how it was all worth it because it was all part of a grand plan /they learned so much / etc. Never mind the dead children, the survival of my precious butt was a meaningful miracle!
(Just to make this clear: I do not object to survivors of traumatic events making sense of the tragedy any way they can, and trying to save something worthwhile out of it. I do wish this process was not reduced to trite and condescending entertainment with storylines, heroes and uplifting endings.)
Except this once. An interesting but annoying documentary on survivors from a hotel right below the Twin Towers featured a lawyer who, very humbly, confessed to having learned something life-changing: “I now try to be nice to people.”
That is the wisest, most profound statement ever.
Go and be nice.
We’re back, very happy and very tired. I’m reminded why people have holidays.
More reporting (and sky/Skye puns) to follow, but let this sum it up for now:
Ankanpoikanen 