I was walking to the Union today, when I started to hear trance music coming from somewhere behind the arts centre building. I went around the corner, and there was a DJ spinning on two turntables underneath a multicolored tent (it was raining). He had been there since midnight the night before (last night), doing a 24-hour, non-stop mix to raise money for the BBC Children in Need fund. Without a doubt the highlight of my day.
Get ready. One month from today, I'm heading home.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
In Flanders fields
So I went to England yesterday.
It was just for the day, and I went to see the small town of Hay-on-Wye, known for having the greatest number of books per square mile of any place in the world. My advisor at WU had recommended it to me when I told him I would be coming to Wales this fall, and it was definitely worth the trip.
I took the morning train from Aberystwyth to Shrewsbury, and then another train from Shrewsbury south to Hereford. While having lunch, I couldn’t help but overhear a conversation between two older men at the table next to mine, one of whom was saying that “they need to just get all the young people together and figure out the problems in this country.” I also noticed, even in my short time there, a significant difference in how people acted around each other. There was less of the genuine kindness that I’ve gotten used to in my time in Wales; people seemed to walk around with neutral, inquisitive expressions, as if to ask who you were and what you were doing there. I tried some of their famous brown sauce on my chips – not what I had hoped it would be.
From there, I caught a bus out to Hay-on-Wye, a remote village on the border of Wales and England, situated just above the River Wye, considered by many Britain’s most scenic river. On the way there, I wound up talking to two students from Biola (small conservative college in LA), and I mentioned to them that not only had my stepmom gone there, but my cousin (and his fiancée) were students there at the moment, as well. They were studying abroad too, one at Oxford and the other at Roehampton, in London.
I spent a few hours in the town, walking around to many of the bookstores and shops, one of which was inside an old castle, and had many books lined on metal shelves outside, some under tin roofs and others completely exposed to the weather. There was an “honesty policy” in place, where you were asked to pay for the books you wanted by placing money inside a metal receptacle. It was kind of an odd setup, but somehow it just made sense. Another bookstore was housed in what used to be a cinema. I found a first-edition copy of Scott Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and the Damned for only ten quid, and bought a couple postcards as well, mailing one of them to Prof. Ellis (sort of a “hey, I took your advice” kind of gesture).
On the way back, I met a lady from Tasmania (yes, that Tasmania) who lives in London. It was interesting meeting her – another one of those chance encounters between two people from entirely different corners of the globe, whose paths in any other era would probably have never crossed. I took the train from Hereford station back to Shrewsbury, and then back to Aber, sharing the car on the last leg of the journey with a large group of Welsh teenagers, obviously well into their Saturday-night celebration.
Today is Remembrance Day in Great Britain, the 89th anniversary of the ending of World War I, and the armistice that fell on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of that year. There was a short ceremony at the war memorial this morning, with a two-minute period of silence at eleven o’clock marked by the firing of two small fireworks shells into the November air. Two groups of people in uniforms – one made up of scouts, I assumed, and another of soldiers – stood around the base of the memorial, wearing red poppy emblems. A crowd of people gathered together for several minutes, and then dissolved, everyone falling back into their usual weekend routines.
The sun is setting once again over the bay, and seagulls are flying around my window. About ten minutes ago, three people strolled down the promenade below, one playing a Mexican tune on an accordion and another keeping the beat on a small drum. It’s weird to think that I've long since passed the halfway mark in my time here in Wales, and that I only have a little over a month left before I take the train back to London and fly out of Gatwick on the 16th. I can’t decide if the last month and a half-plus has gone by quickly, or if it seems like just yesterday I was stepping off the train on that Saturday afternoon in late September. Either way, I know that I still have a good amount of time left in this place, and as much as it sounds like a cliché, I really am going to make the most of it.
It was just for the day, and I went to see the small town of Hay-on-Wye, known for having the greatest number of books per square mile of any place in the world. My advisor at WU had recommended it to me when I told him I would be coming to Wales this fall, and it was definitely worth the trip.
I took the morning train from Aberystwyth to Shrewsbury, and then another train from Shrewsbury south to Hereford. While having lunch, I couldn’t help but overhear a conversation between two older men at the table next to mine, one of whom was saying that “they need to just get all the young people together and figure out the problems in this country.” I also noticed, even in my short time there, a significant difference in how people acted around each other. There was less of the genuine kindness that I’ve gotten used to in my time in Wales; people seemed to walk around with neutral, inquisitive expressions, as if to ask who you were and what you were doing there. I tried some of their famous brown sauce on my chips – not what I had hoped it would be.
From there, I caught a bus out to Hay-on-Wye, a remote village on the border of Wales and England, situated just above the River Wye, considered by many Britain’s most scenic river. On the way there, I wound up talking to two students from Biola (small conservative college in LA), and I mentioned to them that not only had my stepmom gone there, but my cousin (and his fiancée) were students there at the moment, as well. They were studying abroad too, one at Oxford and the other at Roehampton, in London.
I spent a few hours in the town, walking around to many of the bookstores and shops, one of which was inside an old castle, and had many books lined on metal shelves outside, some under tin roofs and others completely exposed to the weather. There was an “honesty policy” in place, where you were asked to pay for the books you wanted by placing money inside a metal receptacle. It was kind of an odd setup, but somehow it just made sense. Another bookstore was housed in what used to be a cinema. I found a first-edition copy of Scott Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and the Damned for only ten quid, and bought a couple postcards as well, mailing one of them to Prof. Ellis (sort of a “hey, I took your advice” kind of gesture).
On the way back, I met a lady from Tasmania (yes, that Tasmania) who lives in London. It was interesting meeting her – another one of those chance encounters between two people from entirely different corners of the globe, whose paths in any other era would probably have never crossed. I took the train from Hereford station back to Shrewsbury, and then back to Aber, sharing the car on the last leg of the journey with a large group of Welsh teenagers, obviously well into their Saturday-night celebration.
Today is Remembrance Day in Great Britain, the 89th anniversary of the ending of World War I, and the armistice that fell on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of that year. There was a short ceremony at the war memorial this morning, with a two-minute period of silence at eleven o’clock marked by the firing of two small fireworks shells into the November air. Two groups of people in uniforms – one made up of scouts, I assumed, and another of soldiers – stood around the base of the memorial, wearing red poppy emblems. A crowd of people gathered together for several minutes, and then dissolved, everyone falling back into their usual weekend routines.
The sun is setting once again over the bay, and seagulls are flying around my window. About ten minutes ago, three people strolled down the promenade below, one playing a Mexican tune on an accordion and another keeping the beat on a small drum. It’s weird to think that I've long since passed the halfway mark in my time here in Wales, and that I only have a little over a month left before I take the train back to London and fly out of Gatwick on the 16th. I can’t decide if the last month and a half-plus has gone by quickly, or if it seems like just yesterday I was stepping off the train on that Saturday afternoon in late September. Either way, I know that I still have a good amount of time left in this place, and as much as it sounds like a cliché, I really am going to make the most of it.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Less words more pictures!
I've responded to your requests.
"Remember, remember the fifth of November ....."
Conwy Castle
Dublin
Trinity College
St. Stephen's Green
St. Patrick's Cathedral
Christ Church Cathedral
Guinness storehouse
Climbing Pen Dinas
Outside the town of Borth
Borth
St. David's Cathedral
Swansea
My dad and stepmom at the Dylan Thomas Festival
Harlech Castle
Saturday, November 3, 2007
"Nothing is worth more than this day."
"This side of the truth,
You may not see, my son,
King of your blue eyes
In the blinding country of youth,
That all is undone,
Under the unminding skies,
Of innocence and guilt
Before you move to make
One gesture of the heart or head,
Is gathered and spilt
Into the winding dark
Like the dust of the dead.
[...]
Like the sun's tears,
Like the moon's seed, rubbish
And fire, the flying rant
Of the sky, king of your six years.
And the wicked wish,
Down the beginning of plants
And animals and birds,
Water and Light, the earth and sky,
Is cast before you move,
And all your deeds and words,
Each truth, each lie,
Die in unjudging love."
- from Dylan Thomas' This Side of the Truth
A belated entry. As you can imagine, I've been a little busy lately. Last Tuesday my father and stepmother arrived in town, and on Wednesday we went down to Swansea for the day for the annual Dylan Thomas Festival. My father is somewhat of a Dylan Thomas fan, and it was interesting to see another part of the country. One noteworthy thing that happened while we were there: as we were having dinner, a woman approached my dad and told him that his voice was just like the announcer on the BBC’s radio broadcasts of the “Met,” the New York City Metropolitan Opera. You just never know.
Speaking of radio, last Tuesday was also the day that I went “on the air” for the first time with Aberystwyth’s student station, Bay Radio. The radio show that I mentioned here at an earlier point in time is now a reality, and my co-host Raj and I broadcast two days a week from the student union building. We’re calling it “Across the Pond,” and the show features the usual amount of music, news, trivia, etc., from a dual perspective (that of an American and a Brit). I thought it would be a good way of getting involved in student life on campus for the short amount of time I’m here, and I’m really enjoying it.
Last night I went out with a few friends, and ended up having a good conversation at one point with a classmate of mine from Poland. We talked about the future, which involved me reciting my usual “I want to work on political campaigns because they’re the greatest thing ever” speech, and her admitting (as is the case with so many of us) that she really doesn’t know what she wants to do after she graduates, but that her philosophy is to just take everything one day at a time, and not worry excessively about what is to come. It brought to mind the words of the German author Goethe, when he wrote that a person should live each day as if it were the only one they knew, and that “nothing is worth more than this day.” (relying on memory, here … those probably aren’t his exact words). I mentioned this to her, and she said she had heard the expression at one point, too. A brief moment of common understanding, shared by two people of entirely different backgrounds, whose paths eventually crossed and led to sitting together in a pub, pretending to be philosophers and talking about what life really means.
Today I made a trip up to Harlech Castle, located on the shores of Cardigan Bay to the north. It’s a beautiful place, situated high up on a cliff above endless fields and streams, and the ocean beyond. I spent a few hours there, at one point joining up with a group of senior citizens, one of whom had an information brochure and was pretending to be a tour guide. And that’s about the best way I can think of right now to bring this posting to a close. Vote yes on Measures 49 and 50!
You may not see, my son,
King of your blue eyes
In the blinding country of youth,
That all is undone,
Under the unminding skies,
Of innocence and guilt
Before you move to make
One gesture of the heart or head,
Is gathered and spilt
Into the winding dark
Like the dust of the dead.
[...]
Like the sun's tears,
Like the moon's seed, rubbish
And fire, the flying rant
Of the sky, king of your six years.
And the wicked wish,
Down the beginning of plants
And animals and birds,
Water and Light, the earth and sky,
Is cast before you move,
And all your deeds and words,
Each truth, each lie,
Die in unjudging love."
- from Dylan Thomas' This Side of the Truth
A belated entry. As you can imagine, I've been a little busy lately. Last Tuesday my father and stepmother arrived in town, and on Wednesday we went down to Swansea for the day for the annual Dylan Thomas Festival. My father is somewhat of a Dylan Thomas fan, and it was interesting to see another part of the country. One noteworthy thing that happened while we were there: as we were having dinner, a woman approached my dad and told him that his voice was just like the announcer on the BBC’s radio broadcasts of the “Met,” the New York City Metropolitan Opera. You just never know.
Speaking of radio, last Tuesday was also the day that I went “on the air” for the first time with Aberystwyth’s student station, Bay Radio. The radio show that I mentioned here at an earlier point in time is now a reality, and my co-host Raj and I broadcast two days a week from the student union building. We’re calling it “Across the Pond,” and the show features the usual amount of music, news, trivia, etc., from a dual perspective (that of an American and a Brit). I thought it would be a good way of getting involved in student life on campus for the short amount of time I’m here, and I’m really enjoying it.
Last night I went out with a few friends, and ended up having a good conversation at one point with a classmate of mine from Poland. We talked about the future, which involved me reciting my usual “I want to work on political campaigns because they’re the greatest thing ever” speech, and her admitting (as is the case with so many of us) that she really doesn’t know what she wants to do after she graduates, but that her philosophy is to just take everything one day at a time, and not worry excessively about what is to come. It brought to mind the words of the German author Goethe, when he wrote that a person should live each day as if it were the only one they knew, and that “nothing is worth more than this day.” (relying on memory, here … those probably aren’t his exact words). I mentioned this to her, and she said she had heard the expression at one point, too. A brief moment of common understanding, shared by two people of entirely different backgrounds, whose paths eventually crossed and led to sitting together in a pub, pretending to be philosophers and talking about what life really means.
Today I made a trip up to Harlech Castle, located on the shores of Cardigan Bay to the north. It’s a beautiful place, situated high up on a cliff above endless fields and streams, and the ocean beyond. I spent a few hours there, at one point joining up with a group of senior citizens, one of whom had an information brochure and was pretending to be a tour guide. And that’s about the best way I can think of right now to bring this posting to a close. Vote yes on Measures 49 and 50!
Monday, October 29, 2007
Storms, natural gas leaks, and fallen students
Even in the midst of the calm, crime-free atmosphere of this small college town in rural Wales, there is occasionally some drama. Here on the seafront, we experienced a good amount of it last night.
A storm came in yesterday afternoon, with violent winds and driving rain. Waves were crashing against the seawall up and down the promenade, sending sprays of mist into the air and sometimes even cascading out onto the street. After dinner I walked outside and stood at the railing for a while (notice that I didn’t say on the railing), watching the scene unfold around me. “Things are definitely going to get interesting later on,” I said to myself as I headed back in.
Shortly afterwards I walked outside again and noticed a crowd gathered in front of one of the other houses owned by the university, a block or two down. Everyone had been called outside due to an alarm that had been set off indoors, and it was rumoured that there had been a leak in the natural gas heating system. I had taken my laundry down to the basement of this building a short time before, and since the doors were locked and I couldn’t get to it, I walked back to my flat again.
About half an hour later I returned, and again, there was a crowd outside the building, gathered on the promenade. This time, people were out there for a different reason. From what I could gather, shortly after they were given the go-ahead to head back inside – just after I had walked away, before – a guy had stood on top of the railing of the promenade and, losing his balance, fallen into the churning waters below. In the time I had been gone, the police and fire department had been called, and by this point an ambulance had arrived and everything. All of the wardens were out, wearing neon-yellow emergency vests and talking hurriedly among themselves, and a man bundled up in full body gear, wearing a helmet with a light attached to it, was making his way along the base of the seawall below, climbing over the rocks with a life preserver in hand while holding onto the wall for balance.
I stood there for a few minutes with everyone else, taking in everything around me, but once we all realized that there was no hope of rescuing the poor soul, I didn’t see much of a reason to stick around. The whole thing reminded me of a scene from the novel White Noise (Don Delillo), and I immediately began to feel guilty for being there, entertaining myself at the site of another man’s demise. So, I paid my silent respects to the fallen student, and headed back down to the basement to take care of my long-neglected laundry. An hour and thirty pages of British political history later, I opened the dryer and found that my clothes were still wet. The heat had been turned off in the building earlier, in response to the alarm, and I had just wasted a pound. I bundled my clothes back into my laundry hamper, hauled them back up the three flights of stairs to my flat, and hung them on doorknobs and bedposts in my room, reflecting on the events of another day.
A storm came in yesterday afternoon, with violent winds and driving rain. Waves were crashing against the seawall up and down the promenade, sending sprays of mist into the air and sometimes even cascading out onto the street. After dinner I walked outside and stood at the railing for a while (notice that I didn’t say on the railing), watching the scene unfold around me. “Things are definitely going to get interesting later on,” I said to myself as I headed back in.
Shortly afterwards I walked outside again and noticed a crowd gathered in front of one of the other houses owned by the university, a block or two down. Everyone had been called outside due to an alarm that had been set off indoors, and it was rumoured that there had been a leak in the natural gas heating system. I had taken my laundry down to the basement of this building a short time before, and since the doors were locked and I couldn’t get to it, I walked back to my flat again.
About half an hour later I returned, and again, there was a crowd outside the building, gathered on the promenade. This time, people were out there for a different reason. From what I could gather, shortly after they were given the go-ahead to head back inside – just after I had walked away, before – a guy had stood on top of the railing of the promenade and, losing his balance, fallen into the churning waters below. In the time I had been gone, the police and fire department had been called, and by this point an ambulance had arrived and everything. All of the wardens were out, wearing neon-yellow emergency vests and talking hurriedly among themselves, and a man bundled up in full body gear, wearing a helmet with a light attached to it, was making his way along the base of the seawall below, climbing over the rocks with a life preserver in hand while holding onto the wall for balance.
I stood there for a few minutes with everyone else, taking in everything around me, but once we all realized that there was no hope of rescuing the poor soul, I didn’t see much of a reason to stick around. The whole thing reminded me of a scene from the novel White Noise (Don Delillo), and I immediately began to feel guilty for being there, entertaining myself at the site of another man’s demise. So, I paid my silent respects to the fallen student, and headed back down to the basement to take care of my long-neglected laundry. An hour and thirty pages of British political history later, I opened the dryer and found that my clothes were still wet. The heat had been turned off in the building earlier, in response to the alarm, and I had just wasted a pound. I bundled my clothes back into my laundry hamper, hauled them back up the three flights of stairs to my flat, and hung them on doorknobs and bedposts in my room, reflecting on the events of another day.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Highlights
Some highlights from the last day or two:
- Listening to a band play Jimi Hendrix in a wine bar (they were insanely good)
- Helping a guy in a wheelchair play Trivial Pursuit (long story)
- Hearing my favorite song from 4th grade in a convenience store at 2 AM
- Spending the better part of a day traveling to and from a little-known cathedral (St. David's) on the southwestern-most point of Wales
- Getting directions from an elderly man who looked strangely like a former pastor from my home church
- Seeing someone call one of my housemates "Jesus" (another long story)
- Realizing that my time in Wales is going by a lot quicker than I thought it would
Monday, October 22, 2007
One month later
It's the end of another day. One month ago tonight, I was moving into my flat and meeting my housemates, and finding my way around Aber for the first time. What a difference such a relatively short period of time can make.
Today I had lectures in two of my classes, and seminars in two others. I presented my paper on the concept of a “ruling class” in Great Britain and the United States, and the professor was generally impressed, which is saying something considering he (William D. Rubinstein) has written a lot on the topic as part of his research. Small victories in the end, as they say.
Life goes on, around town. Last Saturday night the English rugby team played in the Rugby World Cup final, but lost to South Africa, their former colonial subjects. I was in a pub called The Scholars during the match, and the atmosphere among the fans who were watching it there was everything I imagined it would be, with a large group of England fans singing songs all throughout the second half of the game for the benefit of the standing-room-only crowd. Most of the students who attend university here are from England (if you don't know specifically where someone is from, I've learned, it's always a good guess to say they're from the Midlands), but a few of my friends who were there that night are Welsh, which meant that they were, of course, rooting against the English. When the national anthem played at the beginning, though, nearly everyone around us joined in “God Save the Queen,” and there were tears in the eyes of some of the players on screen. The Welsh may never fully forgive the English for letting the Normans conquer their land, but in the end, at least they have something in common.
Today I had lectures in two of my classes, and seminars in two others. I presented my paper on the concept of a “ruling class” in Great Britain and the United States, and the professor was generally impressed, which is saying something considering he (William D. Rubinstein) has written a lot on the topic as part of his research. Small victories in the end, as they say.
Life goes on, around town. Last Saturday night the English rugby team played in the Rugby World Cup final, but lost to South Africa, their former colonial subjects. I was in a pub called The Scholars during the match, and the atmosphere among the fans who were watching it there was everything I imagined it would be, with a large group of England fans singing songs all throughout the second half of the game for the benefit of the standing-room-only crowd. Most of the students who attend university here are from England (if you don't know specifically where someone is from, I've learned, it's always a good guess to say they're from the Midlands), but a few of my friends who were there that night are Welsh, which meant that they were, of course, rooting against the English. When the national anthem played at the beginning, though, nearly everyone around us joined in “God Save the Queen,” and there were tears in the eyes of some of the players on screen. The Welsh may never fully forgive the English for letting the Normans conquer their land, but in the end, at least they have something in common.
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