LoTR

I can't go very long without reading my favorite book. I finished Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises yesterday afternoon and then realized I had read everything I brought with me on the trip. So I went to a used bookstore after work and bought my second copy of Lord of the Rings. Ahhhh....wonderfulness.

I don't get the big deal with Hemingway, anyway. If you want to understand the disillusionment of a generation, all you have to do is watch a few minutes of MTV's The Real World, or observe any number of platinum blondes with fake nails driving third-generation Hummers whilst drinking Venti Soy Non-fat Lite Raspberry Mochafrappacchinos and texting friends about how disappointed she is with the latest Gossip Girl plot twist and how annoyed she is about the BP oil spill, because, like, can't they get over it already?

Now *that's* disillusionment. And we didn't even have a World War to disillusion us--we did it all by ourselves. So take that, Ernie.

Although, in the end I liked the book okay. It made me want to go to Spain. That's how disillusioned I am-- that I read a book chronicling the subtle but poignant love affairs or denials, waning friendships and existential crises among a group of young expatriates, and I thought the best part was Hemingway's description of the Matador's shiny green pants. Oh well. I do love green pants. And shiny things.

Yesterday Guido and I wrote a book proposal and sent it to Cambridge University Press. We did it in one hour, which got Guido very exited. He thinks we broke some sort of book-proposal-writing record. Maybe CUP will give us a trophy. That'd be nice. Maybe it will be shiny. OR green.

Today I am working on proposals for grants again (and the peasants rejoiced?). But if I work hard, then I can go home and read more Tolkien! (and the geeks rejoiced!) But really, how can one help it? --here, surrounded by shires and sheeps and Lothians and...well, the mood is trés apropos. As it were. This weekend I will take a day trip out of Aberdeenshire to do some "tramping" of my own. It has been far too long...

American Populace Enthralled By Idea Of Getting Enthralled By World Cup

Oh how I love The Onion (from which I took above headline). It makes me miss the homeland.

I haven't written a real post in a long time. Part of that is because I'm working really, really, ridiculously hard and that diminishes the potential for boredom which diminishes the potential for adventures. I haven't even had my Obligatory Misadventure With Public Transport In A Foreign Country yet. Maybe something special awaits me in Hungary or Germany. I leave Scotland in exactly one week. ONE WEEK!

Also, I happened to have a very difficult weekend, and so haven't felt much like writing about anything uplifting because I've been feeling pretty rotten. In shambles, in fact. And being in shambles alone in a far distant country (no matter how green) is tough. Nay-- awful. So yeah. That's what's up. But you know, the sun is back today, for the first time in almost a week, and...what else. And I got to have a chocolate cookie at breakfast today, so there's that.

Though through these last few days I have had something of a revelation: when life gives you lemons, read The Onion. You can write that down.

Here's a smart-alecky little interactive feature from aforementioned news source, in line with the title of this post. I do enjoy how Americans are able to make fun of themselves. I think it's fairly unique, actually. At least I don't get that hearty sense of self-deprecation from any other nation. U. S. A. ! U. S. A. !

US 1, England 1

Okay, so the game wasn't entirely bad. We were far too often playing on the defensive, though. Not a strong showing in the latter half in particular. I ended up just watching the match in my room at Arkaig house because I was feeling introverted. I'd been too much of an extrovert Friday night-- a friend and I went out for dinner and dancing, and had a grand time but only left the club at 4 am, by which time the sun was already up. Weird.

But enough about that. Right now I'm killing time before the same friend (she is from France and is also visiting Guido this month) and I study downtown at a café *so* hip that it doesn't have a sign out front, and the door isn't marked. You have to "hear" about its location from other people. Hilarious! I will sneak in my camera and take pictures. I find it entirely amusing that there's a coffee joint-- not even a club or restaurant-- that is soooo cool that it can only be found by the most elite of all Aberdeen's hipsters. Ha! Needless to say I have huge expectations.

For now I just wanted to share a little story about Mark, my office mate, who told me where to find this hidden café, and who is fast becoming one of my favorite applied theologians ever. His wife Ellen, who I just met Friday afternoon, is also one of those people you only meet for a moment but you still sense their intrinsic fabulousness. They are both ordained preachers in the Church of Scotland--they met at Union Seminary in NYC, in fact.

Anyway, Mark is in the process of finishing up his dissertation, though he's already got a position as a lecturer at the Uni and also is a chaplin down in Edinburgh once a week, and other things. He rightly complains, "I'm an applied theologian. What's the point of writing an esoteric book when I could be out ministering?" True that. Alas, the powers of the academy being such as they are, he's been coming in to the office to get a certain number of words written on the diss each day. I can empathize with the humdrumness of slogging through certain chapters, boy howdy.

So there we were Friday afternoon; we'd both been quietly working at our respective desks for an hour or so uninterrupted--Mark type type typing and me, well, translating translating translating, and of course talking to myself now and again. After a while I hear Mark stop typing, sigh an enormous Scottish sigh, lean back in his leather office chair and say under his breath, with all composure,
"Ach... what would Jesus type?"

I laughed so hard at this unexpected externalized monologuing that I spat out my coffee AND managed to snort, in that order. We both had a good laugh, because it's true in some sense that Mark does want to write what Jesus would write-- he's doing Christian theology after all. Not so much the same for me, as I'm working on translating a particularly dense, neo-Kantian philosophical treatise on quantum mechanics these days. [Caveat on this: it's fascinating. The essay was written by this woman Grete Hermann, who, because she wasn't in the right social circles in 1930s Germany and she wasn't a MAN-- didn't get very much attention. But now that I've been studying her philosophy of physics I can't believe that this particular thesis got lost until now! It's so good-- so amazingly deep. She GOT stuff, you know, about quantum physics, that many of her contemporaries debated for decades to come. And then she explained what she "got" in a philosophically careful and deep way, which many of the physicists themselves couldn't do-- and that includes Heisenbergy, Dirac, Pauli, and others--because they weren't trained in philosophy (KANTian philosophy, to boot) the way she was. It's both an exhilarating discovery and a tragic historical fact that this amazing woman, who's known (if at all) for work on a few mathematical theorems--was nevertheless ignored by the quantum physicists. Caveat over.]

When Mark left the office for the day ("At last! I've met my quota!" he cried, and then packed up his computer and papers faster than you can say "noggle that niggle"), he stopped over my desk, put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Just think Elise: what would Jesus translate."

A fair question, Mark. A fair question.

International March Madness

The World Cup starts tonight, and you can feel it in the air. And by feel it in the air, I mean hear it in the air, and by hear it in the air, I mean it's freakishly quiet around town-- even the seagulls, those pestilent winged rats--are sleeping in to prepare for the next few weeks of literal non-stop footballing madness.

My two picks are (one must vote for the home country!) U.S. and the Netherlands. But more about all that later.

This is just a quick post to say that I've been really busy. Workin' 9 to 7, as it were. Almost no time for adventures this year in Scotland. But over the weekend I do have some going-out-and-about plans, so we'll see if we can't shake things up a bit. And I may post more later today. We'll see...

Second, I want to wish a happy belated anniversary to Brettski and JulieJules (though they are themselves in Paris at the moment!) I love you both. I'm indescribably happy with my approximately-twin brother's falling in love with a most incredible woman, who loves the Skeeter even though he eats raw garlic cloves and sometimes forgets to put verbs in sentences. Heck, she loves him FOR it.

Here are some pictures from the day way back when, because I like them and because I haven't taken new pictures of Scotland yet. (I especially enjoy the one of Gramp and Gramps. What *were* you guys doing?).





At last, a sister of my very own


Most handsome guy ever. The Maestro, my dad.

Singing in der Regen

Most people say they love the smell after the rain. But let's face it, people: it usually smells like worms. Lots and lots of worms. And maybe a bit like grass.

The aroma during the rain in Scotland is marvelous, and has lifted my mood entirely. It is the smell of fresh herbs sliced for cooking plus new blossoms whose perfumes instead of being lost to the wide sky, gently hover at lower altitudes for the pleasure of mere mortals. It's also the smell of wild, tangly shrubs and a hint of far distant meadows and, ever so faintly, smoke from ancient stone chimneys.

Maybe it isn't gray skies alone, but gray skies and no rain that bring heaviness of heart. But when it's raining, there's a sense of freedom in everything--a sort of peaceful abandon in the weather-though that sounds contradictory- that justifies the feeling in us, too: As goes weather, so goes the heart.

But enough about the weather.

This morning, I overslept breakfast and so left Arkaig House for the University on an empty stomach and uncaffeinated mind. The unusualness of this state of affairs might grant me absolution regarding my first social attempt of the day: buying coffee. I stopped in at the faculty lounge for today's cuppa, and much to my delight found they offered an espresso version of my favorite Scottish food: sticky toffee pudding. I was so excited (and, recall, as yet uncaffeinated) that I may or may not have tried to buy said coffee with Swiss Francs (oh my, how did *those* coins get in there?). The barista was not as amused as I was.

Of course, as soon as I've drained that most delicious of drinks, I feel the energy sink into my bones... and immediately commence freaking out about the amount of work I must do in the next two weeks. Yes! Only TWO WEEKS already until I fly to Budapest. SO much research yet to do-- we've hardly begun! --Additionally I've somehow got to put together two talks on research I'm still very much in the midst of. Then there's the other non-Guido work to do: two papers to be revised for publication, which is a ridiculous amount of work as it requires indefatigable patience. And I don't even come within a furlong of patience. Oh, right: then there's the ever-present dissertation, which I actually miss. Like it is its own entity. A Frankenstein's monster, so to speak. Which makes me Frankenstein. I should give the thing a name... has anyone else named their dissertation? Seems reasonable. But, alas, my focus has had to be elsewhere since about mid-April, and I'm starting to forget its face.


Mulling over all the work I have to do has brought me to feeling right again, strange as that sounds. I love what I do. I love thinking about it, talking about it, dreaming about it (well, okay, not that last thing...having dreams in German is über disturbing). This morning while I was drinking the coffee (which I eventually paid the appropriate amount of British Pounds Sterling for) and feigning work, I watched various other faculty members come in and out of the cafe, all in the midst of intense discussion about their various issues, all behaving in idiosyncratic professorish ways (but with Scottish flare! And by flare I mean accents) and I thought, this is it. Instead of serving Sticky Toffee Espressos at a university cafe (which, admittedly, sometimes seems far preferable to the academic grind), I get to think about stuff and then write down the stuff and then travel places to talk to the people in the place about the stuff...

And so there it is. As the Brits would say, things are "right as rain again". And as the Germans would say, "ALLESACHENSINDWIEDERWIEDERREGENRECHT, JA!!!"