Yes, this beautiful box was delivered to our door two days ago:
If you look closely, you can see the note written across the top, "To the American Girls." That's how we're known around here, I suppose! Ahh, doughnuts have never tasted so good. The people who went to get them drove six hours, bought 84 doughnuts, and payed 50 pounds, which currently equates to 80 U.S. dollars. Wow.
It came at just the right time, too. The first week of classes has been a bit depressing....
Reason 1:
While engineering and business majors seem to be twiddling their thumbs and laughing about how easy their classes are, the American English majors are absolutely dumbfounded at the amount of work expected of us each week. Literally, no exaggeration, I have been assigned over 500 pages of material to be read by the end of this weekend, some of which is written in Old Scots, which bears NO RESEMBLANCE to the language we now know as English. When I am not eating or sleeping over the next three days, I will be reading Edith Wharton, Robert Burns, John Locke, David Hume, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Francis Bacon, Gottfried Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, Voltaire, in addition to five different versions of Little Red Riding Hood.
My mind is currently an addled mush of characters and philosophical stances and bizzare Scottish phrases like this bit from Burns: "Till a their well-swall'd kytes belyve...then auld guidman maist like to rive Bethankit hums....Or olio that was staw a sow...Wi' perfect sconner?"
Did you get that? Because I sure didn't. Yesterday my professor was discussing a poet and said with a scholarly air, "Could we perhaps say that he was using this literary technique to cock a snook at convention?" Yes sir, perhaps we could say that if I knew what "cocking a snook" meant.
Reason 2:
I spent over 150 pounds on textbooks today, and I still have more to buy tomorrow. Considering that my professors are pretty much requiring a novel per week and I'm taking four literature classes.....well, you can imagine the hefty pile of books in my room right now. Expensive, full price books, which I cannot even keep, as they would weigh down my suitcases immensely. After having to buy these in pounds sterling, I will never again complain about buying textbooks in America.
HOWEVER--
Here's the good part of my day. COSTA COFFEE. This is a coffee store chain based out of the United Kingdom that is essentially the European equivalent to Starbucks (which is also quite popular here). Costa is actually bigger in the UK than Starbucks, and in my opinion, rather superior. I might be slightly prejudiced by my love for the little stenciled chocolate powder they sift onto your lattes and cappuchinos. Today, I sat in one of the many Costa's in Glasgow for over four hours, pouring over my many readings for this weekend and mostly drifting off into watching the busy city streets outside.
For a couple hours while I was there, an older man in a nice suit was sitting across from me, writing notes as he observed the bustle of the coffee shop. He noticed the multiple books strewn across my table and came over to ask me about what I was r
eading. We had a long, lovely chat about Scotland, America, and literature.....and then I came to find out from the shop's employees that he was the regional manager of the chain for Scotland, doing an assessment of the store. Crazy!
I feel much more inclined to support their business now, as is probably best evidenced by this second photo of my table a couple of hours later: one latte down, one double macchiatto left to go. Philosophy is always a bit more tolerable with espresso in your system.
If you look closely, you can see the note written across the top, "To the American Girls." That's how we're known around here, I suppose! Ahh, doughnuts have never tasted so good. The people who went to get them drove six hours, bought 84 doughnuts, and payed 50 pounds, which currently equates to 80 U.S. dollars. Wow.It came at just the right time, too. The first week of classes has been a bit depressing....
Reason 1:
While engineering and business majors seem to be twiddling their thumbs and laughing about how easy their classes are, the American English majors are absolutely dumbfounded at the amount of work expected of us each week. Literally, no exaggeration, I have been assigned over 500 pages of material to be read by the end of this weekend, some of which is written in Old Scots, which bears NO RESEMBLANCE to the language we now know as English. When I am not eating or sleeping over the next three days, I will be reading Edith Wharton, Robert Burns, John Locke, David Hume, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Francis Bacon, Gottfried Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, Voltaire, in addition to five different versions of Little Red Riding Hood.
My mind is currently an addled mush of characters and philosophical stances and bizzare Scottish phrases like this bit from Burns: "Till a their well-swall'd kytes belyve...then auld guidman maist like to rive Bethankit hums....Or olio that was staw a sow...Wi' perfect sconner?"
Did you get that? Because I sure didn't. Yesterday my professor was discussing a poet and said with a scholarly air, "Could we perhaps say that he was using this literary technique to cock a snook at convention?" Yes sir, perhaps we could say that if I knew what "cocking a snook" meant.
Reason 2:
I spent over 150 pounds on textbooks today, and I still have more to buy tomorrow. Considering that my professors are pretty much requiring a novel per week and I'm taking four literature classes.....well, you can imagine the hefty pile of books in my room right now. Expensive, full price books, which I cannot even keep, as they would weigh down my suitcases immensely. After having to buy these in pounds sterling, I will never again complain about buying textbooks in America.
HOWEVER--Here's the good part of my day. COSTA COFFEE. This is a coffee store chain based out of the United Kingdom that is essentially the European equivalent to Starbucks (which is also quite popular here). Costa is actually bigger in the UK than Starbucks, and in my opinion, rather superior. I might be slightly prejudiced by my love for the little stenciled chocolate powder they sift onto your lattes and cappuchinos. Today, I sat in one of the many Costa's in Glasgow for over four hours, pouring over my many readings for this weekend and mostly drifting off into watching the busy city streets outside.
For a couple hours while I was there, an older man in a nice suit was sitting across from me, writing notes as he observed the bustle of the coffee shop. He noticed the multiple books strewn across my table and came over to ask me about what I was r
eading. We had a long, lovely chat about Scotland, America, and literature.....and then I came to find out from the shop's employees that he was the regional manager of the chain for Scotland, doing an assessment of the store. Crazy!I feel much more inclined to support their business now, as is probably best evidenced by this second photo of my table a couple of hours later: one latte down, one double macchiatto left to go. Philosophy is always a bit more tolerable with espresso in your system.
