Courses

Today marks the second week of classes, so I figured I should probably write about them.


Last Monday, I only had one lecture--Scotland: Society and Politics. I went to met my friend Matt in the lecture hall in Appleton Hall, but the teacher never arrived. One student stood up and said the class would start on Thursday. We believed and decided to enjoy our day off, but it turned out he was referring to a different course entirely. I would later find out that the International Students Office had different information than the rest of the university.


The next day, I woke up very ill. Nevertheless, I dragged myself to my morning seminar. I had the Politics of British Public Services, a fourth years honours course. I was having trouble focusing during the lecture, but the material was very interesting. The idea is to differentiate between public and private spheres and how different political parties have approached public services and government spending in the United Kingdom, including England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.


I managed to eat some lunch even though I was hungry, but I was really happy to drink a huge bottle of water before I headed to my next class, Contemporary Feminist Debates. At this point in the day, I was feeling horrible. I barely got through the 3 hour lecture, which included pop culture videos on feminism. There was some cultural confusion on my part when the teacher kept referring to Ali G as black, because was wearing bling and trackies. 


After class, I got a hot drink and waited in line for an hour and a half with Matt and Liz. We got tickets from the International Student Center to go to Loch Lomond, the largest fresh body of water in Great Britain (there will be another post about this!).


Finally, we walked home and I was in my room by seven. I had the chills at this point so I covered myself in socks, boot liners, four layers of clothing, a hat, a scarf, and mittens. I woke up burning but still cold and took my temperature, which was over 100F! Everyone else in my dorm had been sick, but no one had a fever. I took a fever reducer and crawled back in to bed and put my hat on again, hoping the fever would break. I slept all of the next day (Wednesday) and felt significantly better by Wednesday evening.


Thursday, Matt and I went to the correct lecture hall for our Scotland class. The lecturer was great! We learned about Scottish political history and were really looking forward to the course. Unfortunately, the lecturer today was not up to par and spent 50 minutes defining nation, state, and society. But I'll definitely come away from this semester knowing a lot about Scottish and British politics (and the difference between the two)!