Summarizing Last Week

I should update this blog more often. 'Cos if I don't, I'll have to write these ridiculous summaries for the whole spring. I promise this will be the last one.

So what have I been up to for the past days? Mainly studying and socializing. Here's a brief account.


The Studies.

Most importantly (?), my studies. I am starting to get some sort of an idea which courses I'm going to take for credit. Onomastics is a bit dull but okay. I don't have any prior knowledge about the subject, nor can I see what relevance it bears with my career prospects, for example, but the lecturer has made me feel so welcome that I just don't have the heart to drop the course anymore. She is an elderly woman and judging by her overall appearance, onomastic research is her life. She almost trembles from trying to control herself when talking about such passionate and thought-provoking subjects as masculine or feminine elements in Anglo-Saxon personal names.

On Wednesday I attended the best lecture here so far, sociolinguistics. It was about the acquisition of linguistic variation in early childhood, and believe me, I was all ears the whole time. I learned, for example, that mothers try to teach their daughters to speak proper English even if their own dialect and accent were far from standard, like Glaswegian patter or Cockney. The girls imitate their moms' dialect, but get corrected. As for sons, moms don't really care, 'cos boys are boys, they'll speak terribly anyway no matter how much you teach them. But girls - they have to behave properly and make a good impression. That's weird. It's funny how the society has different expectations and different norms of acceptable behaviour depending on whether you're a boy or a girl. That's evident even in the way mothers teach their children to speak.

On Friday I had a sort of 'group presentation' about reading tasks in the EFL classroom, as part of the Culture and ELT course. You know that feeling you get when you realise you're far too qualified to do something, hell of a lot more qualified than the others in the group you're supposed to work with, so qualified that you'd be happy to call the shot so that you wouldn't have to feel ashamed in front of an audience, presenting some shit, the embarrassing fruits of your group brainstorming, actually a very ineffective method of producing fresh ideas. But you'll never get the chance to even point out that you'd be happy to help 'cos you're almost a fully-qualified teacher, 'cos there's this dickhead, bossing about, acting like she knew it all 'cos her mother is a teacher and 'she said we have to do this and that', telling other group members what to do, being incapable of taking critique, and eventually, saying what the others have scraped up isn't what she meant originally. Right. I'm glad there're only two more tasks to go, 'cos our cooperation clearly didn't work. I feel over-qualified to this course, but I'll take it anyway, 'cos I'll obtain the credits with minimal effort. It'd be foolish not to take it.

Two more courses are starting this week. The other is about Scottish post-war literature and the other about the history of Celtic Civilisation from 400 to 1100. Both sound interesting, but I'll have to drop either of them, 'cos otherwise I'd have too much work. Let's see, let's see.


The Gym.

On Thursday I went and joined the Glasgow University Sports Association, aka GUSA. Their facilities are excellent. Besides the same amenities offered by Yliopistoliikunta, there's a bonus called the swimming compartment. Here you can use the pool for free, while in Helsinki you'd have to pay 4€ for each dip in the water. The gym is also ok, despite the fact that it's not a large area full of appliances but all the equipment is scattered around the building in different rooms, e.g. the steppers are in the cardiovascular suite. This caused some bewilderment at first, as I'm not a gym-freak who knows all the correct terms. I just want to get rid of my love handles and spare tires.


The Tiredness.

I've been socializing again, at the cost that on Friday I was so tired I couldn't maintain my balance but felt all dizzy and wobbly. But there's too much to do, too many interesting things going on! On Monday I was in a pub, as I told you in the earlier post. Every Tuesday there's a movie night organized by the International Society, and after that people usually go to grab a coffee to nearby QMU (Queen Margaret Union) and to chat a bit. On Thursdays there's always an international pub night at The Primary, the best occasion to meet other exchange students and new people. As for the other days, there's always someone grabbing you somewhere. It's kinda fun, 'cos I haven't been this active since my teenage years. I even feel like a teenager at times, 'cos I don't want to miss a thing. I don't want to come back home regretting that I never took part in the fun, because that's how you meet new people and make friends here. And there's nothing wrong with that, I enjoy every moment :)



Now I've gotta get some sleep, but I'll update and edit this post tomorrow as I've got a lot to add, so check back here again, ok. I know this is not the typical way of writing a blog, but hey, my blog, my rules, my long blatherings ;) And my lost readership, ha ha...