Green Education in a Green Country

Graduation

2007-11-30T17:36:00.000-05:00

I'm officially done! I graduated on Tuesday, in a beautiful (okay, long and boring) ceremony. It was fun to dress up in silly robes and get bopped on the head with a piece of John Knox's trousers (I'm not kidding -- that is how they graduate you here). I graduated with distinction - basically the equivalet of "cum laude". Now I just need to find a job.

Here are some graduation day pictures:

The ceremony was held in the impressive McEwan hall.

Me with my program advisor.

And what's a graduation without a picture with the piper?

Debunking social stigmas...

2007-11-01T11:16:00.001-04:00

...against buses.

Types of public transportation vary in the way they are perceived. Subways and trains are viewed as being cosmopolitan, and ferries are just fun. But buses are perceived as fit only for the poor, the elderly, and schoolchildren. Oh, and crazy people. Not exactly a glamorous crowd.

However, my experience, at least here in Edinburgh, has been different. Sure, the people listed above ride the bus (and sorry if you're in that group and feel oh-so-unglamorous now), but so do bussiness-people and families. Blue collar and white collar alike. And now, officially, I can add celebrities to that list.

Yes, last weekend I had my first-ever up-close-and-personal celebrity sighting* -- on a bus. Emma Watson, the actress who played Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter movies, got on the bus Aaron and I were on last weekend, and we eavesdropped on her conversation for about 20 minutes (we have no shame). It was so cool!

Now, I concede that there may be a difference between the buses here and the buses in your town. Buses need to be clean, reliable, frequent, safe, and convenient in order for those who have other transportation options to ride them (double decker-ness doesn't hurt, either). Perhaps once your town introduces buses that embody all these properties the celebrities visiting your town will start riding them too.

And I have to say, there are probably few other ways in which you can really eavesdrop on a celebrity like when one sits down a few seats behind you on a bus. It's really the way to go in celebrity sighting. I know you are dying to know what exactly Emma Watson talked about for the 20 minutes we listened in on her. Well, that is between me and Emma. And the friend she was talking to. And the 15 or so other people seated around her.

So....go, ride a bus! Find your own celebrity to eavesdrop on.

*I have also seen Bill Pullman, Sandra Oh, and Will Ferrell in person, but from a bit of a distance -- certainly not close enough for eavesdropping.

What next?

2007-10-01T15:23:00.000-04:00

Some of you might be wondering what exactly I'm up to, since I've finished my degree but have failed to vacate the country. Well, that is a very good question. I started applying for jobs, and actually got an offer at a renewable energy consultancy in Glasgow, but turned it down. And at this point, to be honest, I don't exactly know what I want to do next. I have a couple ideas though.

Aaron and I have a new flat in Edinburgh, so I plan on staying in Scotland for at least a few more months. I'm working with my advisor on shaping my dissertation into a paper to try to get it published in a peer-reviewed journal -- which would be very cool. I'm going to try to take some time to do some of the travelling I meant to do this year but never got around to. For starters, my friend and I will be hiking the Great Glen Way, a 73 mile trail from Inverness to Fort William, starting tomorrow (I'm on a computer in the hostel we're staying at in Inverness right now). After that, I'd like to do some travelling in France, Italy, Northern Ireland, Wales...and maybe a couple more places. In between all the travelling I may try to do some temp jobs to keep the cash flowing.

Aaron and I are also toying with the idea of taking an extended trip to Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. That will require much more planning, obviously, and perhaps more serious saving of money beforehand. But its an idea, and doing this travelling now, before I get another full-time job is an opportunity I want to at least consider.

So that is what I'm doing and thinking now. Who knows; by next week I might have a totally different plan. But I figured I could update whoever out there in cyberspace cares on what I've been up to.

Wish me luck on my first 19.5 miles of hiking tomorrow!

Hyperindividualism, moving, and jerks

2007-09-03T08:35:00.000-04:00

After a stressful weekend of flat-hunting and hosteling, Aaron and I managed to sign the lease on a flat. It's a one-bedroom, a little further outside the city, but all in all not a bad place. Finding the flat, it turns out, was the easy part. Moving our stuff (from Aaron's cubicle at work) into the flat -- not so much. Moving tends to bring out the worst in me, and at some point during every move I manage to be reduced to tears. This time was no different.

Since we didn't have a place to live when we had to move out of our old flat, we simply packed everything up and stored it at Aaron's work. How to get it there? No problem -- we just called 2 cabs and loaded everything up. We patted ourselves on the back for not accumulating too much stuff in the past year -- we still have little more than the 2 suitcase-fulls of stuff each that came over on the plane with us last year. Easy-peasy.

So we were utterly unprepared for the nightmare that moving our stuff from Aaron's cubicle to our new apartment would turn out to be. We hoisted everything onto the sidewalk outside of Aaron's work and called for two cabs -- same as before. They turned up and promptly informed us that they "don't do removals". Huh? We didn't have that much stuff. They continued to refuse, and left. So we called back the cab company, and were told that they wouldn't move us with all our stuff -- it was too much -- even though they admitted that they did move all our stuff 3 days ago (a mistake apparently). So we grudgingly asked them to send 1 more cab to pick us up with a couple suitcases to get us through the night in our new place. Well, this cab showed up, took one look at our suitcases and refused! Again! Frustrated and wanting to just get home at this point, we asked how much stuff we could take. The cab driver wouldn't answer us, wouldn't look us in the eye -- just took off. We called back the cab company and were told that they would no longer dispatch cabs to us. After a few choice words we hung up and tried to figure out what to do next. We decided to lug a couple suitcases down the street to a bus stop and take the bus home. The bus pulls up, and -- you guessed it -- refuses to let us on. The bus was too crowded for us and our luggage. So we said goodbye to our pride and hailed a taxi, who was this time, apparently arbitrarily, willing to take us.

So most of our stuff is still stranded in Aaron's cubicle. We can't rent a van (no UK drivers licenses), cabs and buses obviously can't be counted on, and 3 miles is a long way to haul our stuff on foot. We can't get ahold of any movers.

What does all this have to do with hyperindividualism and jerks? Well, pretty much everyone we encountered in our pursuit of moving were jerks. Jerks mostly in the way they treated us, and in the way they did business. It was infuriating but also humiliating and degrading to be treated that way. We certainly didn't invite it. We did nothing wrong, and up until (almost) the very end were polite, courteous, professional.

Which got me to thinking -- why are so many people jerks? It might have just been bad luck this time, but I've been noticing it more and more, here and in Boston. People, especially people you are trying to get goods or services from, tend to be jerks. Not all these people, and not all the time, but a large percentage of them. My best guess is that it's a vicious cycle -- they have jerky customers which in turn makes them act jerky (I can understand how this happens -- I temporarily turned into a jerk myself after all this happened. Why should I be nice to people if they are all jerks? was my anger-adled thinking).

And maybe this is the root of some of our culture's hyperindividualism -- the desire to be as self-sufficient as possible, to never need anyone else. Maybe people want their own cars in large part to avoid interactions with other people/jerks. I would have easily avoided my moving nightmare by owning a car. I would never again have to rely on cab jerks or bus jerks. And it doesn't stop with cars. People stay glued to their TV's every night, maybe in part because they are avoiding going out into the real world where they would have to deal with jerks. And I can see why people buy new appliances/gadgets as soon as the slightest thing goes wrong with the ones they have: you can buy a new one online, without even speaking to another human. You try to call customer service (maybe the biggest jerks of all) to fix something on your laptop and let me know how your blood pressure/migraine situation is after that ordeal.

I don't have the answers to this problem. And maybe its not even really a problem for most people, since most of us strive for that hyperindividualism and so are somewhat insulated from jerks. But in any case, it helped me to write all this down and vent.

So, my advice? Go about your business and try to smile when you encounter a jerk, despite it all. And for heaven's sake, avoid Edinburgh cabs.

OLS - final week

2007-09-01T12:21:00.000-04:00

It's the last week of the Eat Local Challenge, and we did the best we could...considering we're now homeless. Yes, that is correct, we no longer have a place to live (Aaron's family: if you're reading this, please don't freak out). Our lease on our apartment ended yesterday, and to make a long story short we have been unable to find a new flat. So even though we are currently living in a hostel, with all our possessions piled in Aaron's cubicle at work, and we are frantically trying to find a new apartment, we decided to do a full day's worth of local meals today. Might as well end the Challenge with a bang.

For breakfast we sauntered down the street to the farmers market.

Aaron had mostly-local porridge (oatmeal) with almonds and pears, and a bottle of local apple-elderflower juice.

I muched on a brioche roll and had a bottle of fizzy local raspberry juice.

While we were at the farmers market we picked up some provisions for a picnic lunch.

After looking at another flat (that somebody else had put an offer on before we got there -- why does this keep happening to us?!) we wandered over to this nearby park to have our picnic.

The picnic consisted of soft pretzels and a garlic-herb soft cheese spread, a cucumber, goats cheese rolled in oats, and tiny plums and pears.

For dinner we have reservations at a restaurant called Urban Angel. Their motto is "local, organic, free-range, fair trade". They have amazing food and it's easy to get a mostly-local meal.

If we can eat locally for 3 meals a day while homeless it really can't be out of most people's reach. Think good thoughts for us while we try to find a place to live, and keep eating locally!

OLS - Week 9

2007-08-27T06:18:00.000-04:00

This week's local meal involved baked potatoes topped with sauteed zucchini, onions, and tomatoes, and some cheddar cheese. On the side: red cabbage stewed with local apple juice, onions, redcurrants, and some non-local white wine (unless you count France as local...)

In other news: I finished my dissertation, and now I'm just searching for a new flat in Edinburgh that allows dogs, and not having too much luck (which is bad, since we have to be out of our current flat by Friday). Also looking for a job still. And, you know, just trying to figure out what I'm doing next in life in general. Any suggestions?

Okay, off to look at a flat. Keep eating your summer veggies!

OLS - Week 8

2007-08-20T08:36:00.001-04:00

This week's local meal (courtesy of Aaron, who has really been doing more than his fair share of the cooking since I've been so busy with my dissertation) was fried egg sandwiches on homemade bread with homemade mayo, and a beet-cabbage-carrot slaw. Truly delicious!

Wish I could write more, but its back to the dissertation. On Friday, I'll be done with my Masters degree!

OLS - Weeks 6 & 7

2007-08-12T18:56:00.000-04:00

Oops, forgot about last week's OLS post! I'll do a brief recap of our local meal from last week: it was a lovely picnic consisting of hard boiled eggs, oven fries, and coleslaw.

Here is this week's meal (not the greatest picture, but the camera broke when Aaron took it to Israel a couple weeks ago, so this is about the best quality photo I'll be able to take until I get the camera fixed or get a new one):

Homemade pasta with zucchini

Ingredients:

Wholewheat pasta:
- Whole wheat and white flours
- Eggs

Sauce:
- Tomatoes
- Yellow squash
- Garlic
- Onions
- Carrots
- Canola oil
- Non-local: salt, pepper, oregano
- With some cheese sprinkled on top!

For dessert we had some local yogurt with local honey -- delicious!

Other than forgetting to blog about local dinners, I've been busy frantically trying to get my dissertation written. Its almost there -- just finishing writing the appendices, and then I just need to revise and format. Woohoo! I also had a job interview last week, for a renewable energy consulting position in Glasgow! I think the interview went well, and I'll keep you updated on what happens with that.

The Edinburgh festival is in full swing, and I've been catching a few shows here and there, and its been a lot of fun. The city is just completely overtaken by the festival. I'll try to get out there and take some pictures, because its just amazing how the city has been transformed...

Thats all for now. Have a good week!

OLS - Week 5

2007-07-29T18:03:00.000-04:00

Well, I didn't really get around to making a 100% local meal this week, and since Aaron is away this week (on a free trip to Israel. So jealous...) and took my camera, my post would have been boring anyway (what?! no pictures?!). I did make a semi-local meal that yielded leftovers for most of the week: non-local whole wheat pasta with local veggies (mushrooms, onions, zucchini, tomatoes) and local canola oil.

I've finally been really buckling down on my dissertation, and I think I'll actually get it done by the deadline! Some interesting stuff too...I can't wait to post some of my graphs...

And randomly, because I'm in a random mood:

10 Things I Loved About This Week
1) Being super-productive!
2) Having leftovers for more than one dinner in a row (yes, I guess that is counterintuitive)
3) Having the bed all to myself
4) Getting to hang out with my friend Andrea who was visiting for the weekend!
5) Fancy tea at the Balmoral Hotel
5a) Fancy hand lotion in the bathroom at the Balmoral Hotel
6) Eating at a couple of my favorite restaurants
7) Tea (again) with my friend Brighid
8) 3 Rain-free days in a row!
9) A clean apartment
10) The multi-pack of brightly colored socks Andrea surprised me with (I can't express how much I love these socks. Weird, I know)

The One Thing I Hated About This Week
1) Missing Aaron

OLS - Week 4

2007-07-22T19:03:00.000-04:00

For anyone with concerns about most of the OLS crew being female -- here is the truth. Aaron is the driving force behind most of our OLS and non-OLS meals. He spends way more time than me barefoot and in the kitchen. Not only does he do the majority of the cooking, but he also bakes most of the bread we eat. This week's OLS dinner was a great example of his culinary prowess: freshly baked hibernian brown bread, a spinach-mushroom frittata, and a zucchini saute. Let's hear it for the guys!

Ingredients:

Zucchini Saute
- Zucchini, tomatoes, onions, garlic
- Canola oil
- Non-local: salt, pepper

Spinach-Mushroom Frittata
- Eggs, mushrooms, spinach, cheese
- Canola oil
- Non-local: salt, pepper

Whole Wheat Hibernian Brown Bread
- Whole wheat flour, white flour, oats
- Egg, butter
- Semi-local: yogurt (from somewhere in southern England)
- Non-local: salt, baking soda

We also had some new finds at the farmers market this weekend. Red gooseberries (they taste and look like grapes), and apple-rhubarb juice. I am so spoiled by this farmers market... it is certainly making me have second thoughts about moving back to the States.

OLS - Week 3

2007-07-15T16:27:00.000-04:00

This week's dinner was the old standby Aaron and I make when we can't think of anything else to cook (which ends up happening a lot). The dish is called Colcannon, a traditional Irish dish consisting of mashed potatoes with some shredded cooked cabbage mixed in. Delicious, and it doesn't get much cheaper than potatoes and cabbage!

To round out the meal, we added fried eggs, and sauteed tomatoes.

Ingredients:

Colcannon:
- Organic potatoes
- Organic cabbage
- Organic onions
- Milk, butter, (non-local: salt & pepper)

Fried eggs:
- Free-range organic eggs, canola oil

Sauteed tomatoes:
- Tomatoes, garlic, canola oil, (non-local: salt & pepper)

That's all for this week. In other news, my dissertation is coming along nicely; I probably won't go into panic mode for another couple weeks. I'll try to post some of the findings from my research sometime soon -- its turning out to be pretty interesting!

Besides school, Aaron and I have started taking salsa dancing lessons, and we had a nice relaxing picnic on the beach today. Yes, there is a beach in Edinburgh -- a not half bad beach even. And they allow dogs! We'll have to bring Cassie next time. And the camera...

OLS - Week 2

2007-07-08T15:24:00.000-04:00

We decided to celebrate the 4th of July Scottish-style this year: American barbecue classics made with Scottish produce!

Burgers, deviled eggs, pickles, and potato salad.

And strawberry shortcake for dessert.

Ingredients:

Burgers:
- Hamburger rolls: whole wheat and white flours (did I mention they're locally grown AND milled?), free-range organic eggs, honey, (non-local: salt and yeast).
- Burgers: organic ground beef
- Organic onions
- Organic lettuce
- Tomatoes
- Homemade mayo: egg yolk, canola oil, (non-local: lemon juice)

Deviled eggs:
- Free-range eggs, homemade mayo, chives, (non-local cayenne pepper)

Pickles:
- Organic pickling cucumbers, organic garlic, semi-local blackcurrant vinegar, (non-local: dried dill, mustard seeds, salt)

Potato salad:
- Organic new potatoes
- Cucumber
- Vinaigrette: canola oil, semi-local blackcurrant vinegar, (non-local: salt and mustard seeds)

Strawberry shortcake:
- Shortcake: white flour, organic butter, cream, honey, eggs, (non-local: salt, baking powder)
- Strawberries
- Whipped cream: whipping cream, honey, (non-local: vanilla extract)

You might notice that the majority of the ingredients for my local meals are not organic. This is because buying local ingredients has always been a priority for me (outside of the challenge) over organic. I think organic is great, but not perfect. Locally-sourced foods do the most for the environment by reducing food miles. Incidentally, locally-sourced foods also inherently tend to come from smaller farms (meaning more money stays in the local economy, and you support "real" farmers. I'll try to post sometime about why people who manage mega-farms don't count as farmers in my book). Organic certification is always great for farmers' profits (organic tends to command a higher price), but certification is expensive and is often out of the reach of smaller farms. Also, some people argue that paying for organic certification supports the USDA (the certifying body) -- and some see that as a bad thing. Anyway, those are my reasons for the priorities that I have. But from a purely hedonist point of view, its hard to argue that anything is better than a very local strawberry eaten right in the field. If you've never had this experience...well, get thyself to a pick-your-own strawberry farm (or raspberry, blueberry, apple, etc).

One Local Summer

2007-06-30T08:15:00.000-04:00

I'm back! Sorry for the lack of posts over the last few months...I've just been lazy. I'll have some posts coming up about the recent adventures I've had, but for now I'm going to concentrate on the "challenge" I've signed up for. Its called One Local Summer, and it involves making a local meal once a week throughout the summer, and blogging about it. For the purposes of this challenge, I'm trying to use only ingredients from within a hundred mile radius, but I'll also be flexible -- salt, dried spices, and the occassional other minor ingredient may fall outside the local boundary, but the vast majority of what I make will be with local ingredients.

And that brings me to the first meal of the challenge!

Taco night!

Soft tacos with zucchini/onion filling, cheese, lettuce, pico de gallo, and sour cream; and a gazpacho salad.

And a fresh strawberry tart for dessert!

Ingredients:

Tacos
- soft taco shells: whole wheat flour, canola oil (non-local: baking powder, salt)
- lettuce
- cheddar cheese
- pico de gallo: tomatoes, cilantro, garlic
- zucchini/onion filling: green and yellow zucchinis, canola oil, onions (non-local: salt, cumin, ground coriander, chilli powder, dried oregano)
- sour cream (semi-local; its from about 150 miles away in England)

Gazpacho Salad
- tomatoes
- cucumbers
- red onion
- basil and cilantro
- canola oil
- blackcurrant vinegar (only semi-local; I think the blackcurrants in it are local, but other ingredients included sugar and other vinegars that probably are not local)
- non-local salt

Strawberry Tart
- strawberries
- honey
- pie crust: whole-wheat flour, butter, (non-local: salt, baking soda, sugar (would have used honey, but this was leftover pie dough that wasn't made with the challenge in mind))

I also tried to put together a google maps thingy that shows where my local area is, and where each of the ingredients came from. Its a bit shoddy, but I'm not great with javascript. Check it out here.

I'll be posting weekly (at least) from now on with each of my weekly local meals. Feel free to join the challenge yourself; you don't have to take pictures or blog about it, but its a fun way to find local sources of food in your area.

Swiss cheese!

2007-04-13T08:37:00.000-04:00

Last week Aaron and I took another vacation, this time to Germany and Switzerland (yes, I am still doing schoolwork. I find time to squeeze it in between the travelling :)

We met up with my friend Crystan in Germany, who so graciously let us stay at her place, baked muffins and brownies for our trip, and took us grocery shopping for imported American stuff (yay for reasonably priced contact solution, microwave popcorn, and batteries!). Then all three of us hit the Autobahn in Crystan's very cute convertible Mini Cooper, and a few hours later we were in the Swiss Alps!

So, what did we do in Switzerland? Well, we.....hey....wait...what's that in the sky?

It's a bird!

It's a plane!

It's me hang-gliding! Yay! It was scarier than I thought it would be, but also just absolutely amazing. If you'd love to know what it feels like to fly...you should try it. I'll have more pictures soon from when I was in the sky; I just need to get them developed.

Other pictures of the breathtaking beauty of the alps:

(and some pictures of me and Crystan pretending to be angry abominable snowmen)

After Switzerland, we headed back to Germany and checked out the very cute city of Heidelberg.

There are more pictures from Heidelberg (the castle, the views) but I am getting tired of uploading pictures. And you're probably sick of looking at them. So that's all for now!

Spring flora in Edinburgh

2007-04-04T17:36:00.000-04:00

As promised, here are some flower pictures Aaron and I took in Edinburgh a couple of weeks ago:

A Highland Adventure

2007-04-04T17:04:00.000-04:00

With exams over (and hopefully successfully passed), Aaron and I decided to celebrate by taking a vacation in the Scottish highlands -- specifically in a little town called Aviemore, in the Cairngorms National Park.

We took a train there on Friday night, and marveled to ourselves that you can get anywhere in Scotland by train -- even to largely wild areas. On Saturday we bagged our first Munro, Cairn Gorm mountain:

This is the weather station at the top. Windy much?

The "view" from the top:

We then took a nice walk through the Rothiemurchus estate:
(see the sheep in the background?!)

On Sunday, we decided to walk to Boat of Garten, a town 5 miles away. The scenic walk included incongruous flower sculptures in the middle of the woods:

a long stretch of walking through the heather:

and a restored Victorian steam train transported us back to Aviemore -- very cool!

All in all -- about as perfect of a weekend as anyone could ask for.

Exams next week!!

2007-03-24T11:24:00.000-04:00

Luckily, my trusty dog has been helping me study.

Soon, though, the pressure got to be too much.

Even Aaron started to go crazy.

Wish me luck next week! Now, back to studying ecotourism, waste management, and international environmental protocols.

Another rant (but you're used to that by now, right?)

2007-03-14T09:25:00.000-04:00

Many people have asked what my plans are for next year. I'm not quite sure yet. It would be great to stay here and get some international work experience, and I love the city. But the US still feels more like home, and it would be nice to be closer to my family and friends. These have always been my thoughts on the matter, but lately there has been something else as well. As ridiculous as it sounds, I've started to feel a little, well, scared of moving back to the US. This mostly comes down to the fact that I just feel a lot safer here, a lot better taken care of. There is a safety net here.

I've known for a while now that European countries tended to have more universal health care and more comprehensive educational systems than in the US, but I think its different when you actually experience it, get used to it. I've had to go to the doctor here a few times, and it was always easy to get an appointment. They were always professional. And picking up your prescription? I recently had to pick up antibiotics for an eye infection. The woman at the counter seemed very concerned that I was going to have to pay for it out of my own pocket. "Are you sure you don't have some sort of eligibility for public funding since you're a student?" she asked me. Then I got concerned. "How much is this going to set me back?" It was $6. Granted, that was the most I've had to pay for a prescription since I've been here. My other prescriptions are free.

In the US, even when I paid over $1,000 a year for my health insurance, I never knew what would actually be covered. Got hit by a car -- paid over $100 for x-rays. Prescriptions were still expensive, and if my doctor wanted to see me for a follow-up visit? Well, there goes another $15. Not that any of that bankrupts you; usually its just annoying. But what happens if you, god forbid, get breast cancer? I've read more horror stories about this than I think I should have. They all go something like this: Jane Smith had a middle-class job and owned her own house before she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Despite the fact that she had health insurance, she was forced to sell her house to pay for treatment that her insurance wouldn't cover.

I want to have a kid one day. Here, in addition to all the free healthcare (having a baby in the US costs about $10,000 if you don't have insurance) you get statutory time off work for checkups and even for prenatal yoga classes! All your dental and prescription costs are taken care of. And you're entitled to 26 weeks paid maternity leave, as well as 26 additional weeks unpaid.

And though healthcare is a big deal, its not all I'm worried about. My classmates from the UK complain about how expensive this master's course was for them - at about $6,000 it was more expensive than just about any other university in the UK - most are free. I, of course, am here because I couldn't afford to get my master's in the US.

And the little things too. I like not having to own a car (which I could do in the US too; it was just more annoying). I don't feel like I am stuck in the city either. A cheap train ride gets me anywhere from the Scottish highlands to London (and for more money, and a few stops along the way, all the way to Cambodia!)

I guess what it comes down to is that it seems like the government here is concerned about the well-being of the citizens. Their policies reflect that. And it just feels nice -- it feels like you think it should feel. Looking back, in the US, the government seems to cater more to whoever has the most money -- the big corporations, or the rich people. If you didn't slave away at a power job and save up hundreds of thousands of dollars to help pay for your breast cancer treatment, well then it serves you right that you lost your house. I just don't like that subliminal pressure to feel ashamed if you're not pursuing the American dream of More For Me Now! Its okay to be just average here, and you'll be taken care of regardless of your financial situation. You don't have to be ashamed to be who you want to be.

All this is not to say that the UK is some shining beacon of societal perfection. The cost of living is undeniably high here - a large pizza is going to cost you over $20, and an average restaurant meal about $30. The libraries here completely suck. And I really miss microwave popcorn.

Aaron's Accidental Monet

2007-03-08T18:49:00.000-05:00

It's springtime in Edinburgh! Aaron took this picture a few weeks ago (before he figured out how to focus my camera) - and the floral displays popping up all over the city are even more magnificent now, with millions of daffodils coming into the mix. I promise to take more pictures (some even in focus!) and post them soon, but hopefully this will tide you over...

UK Gun Laws

2007-02-27T18:44:00.000-05:00

I have a lot of posts I've been putting off posting...and I will put them up soon...but for now I have another topic I feel needs to be written about.

Murders by firearm per capita are nearly 3 times higher in the US than in the UK. Why? Well, probably a collection of reasons, but an obvious one would be the difficulty of procuring firearms in the UK. It is uncommon for someone in the UK to own a firearm. People in the UK apparently view Americans as all owning guns. My American friend and I were chatting with one of our professors last week and he asked us if we both owned guns, which seemed really funny at the time.

Procedure for obtaining a firearm in the UK
- must demonstrate valid reason for owning gun (self-defense is not a valid reason)
- verification of identity
- two references
- approval of the application by the applicant's doctor
- inspection of the premises where the gun will be kept
- interview by a Firearms Enquiry Officer
- background check

Procedure for obtaining a firearm in US
(note: this varies by state, so I have arbitrarily chosen Ohio)
- 12 hours of handgun training
- background check

My mom's coworker was killed on Sunday. Her husband shot her 7 times before killing himself. Her 17 year old daughter was the one who found them.

Weekly grocery shopping

2007-02-03T06:50:00.000-05:00

Its cold and dark here in Edinburgh, but we're still bringing in a good haul from the farmers market every week. It doesn't get much below freezing here, but I still think its impressive the amount of food we are still able to get locally -- especially the veggies. We still supplement our farmers market food with stuff from the grocery store - mostly things like beans, pasta, milk, yogurt, fruit, and olives (I love my olives!). We also have started getting our olive oil and vinegar from a couple little boutique stores where you bring in your own bottle and they fill it for you from kegs of the stuff. Very fun, and it cuts down on waste (plus they have REALLY good olive oils and vinegars). I'm particularly fond of a very sweet strawberry vinegar (locally produced!) that we just got for the first time. I could drink the stuff straight. But then again I'm weird.

Here are our purchases from the farmer's market this morning:

A breakdown of what we bought:

- Whole wheat flour (locally milled AND grown!)
- Museli
- A pretzel and a cheese pretzel
- Breadcrumbs
- Chard
- Beets
- Strawberry jam
- Honeycomb (we're being adventurous this week)
- Porridge bars
- Multigrain bread
- Broccoli raab
- Dunlop cheese
- Farmhouse pickle (like a pickley chutney -- good on cheese sandwiches)
- Assorted salad greens
- Honey
- Carrots
- Kale
- Two kinds of potatoes
- Onions
- Clotted cream (Aaron is making scones this week)
- Butter
- Lettuce
- Leeks
- 1/2 head of red cabbage
- Eggs (some muddy eggs actually. Looks like the chickens played football with them)
- Yogurt smoothie drinks

Aaron is making some bread in the kitchen now, and I think I'm going to help myself to a pretzel. Thanks for stopping by!

State of the Union

2007-01-24T16:36:00.000-05:00

I didn't get to see the State of the Union, but I did get to read a transcript of it, and I am disappointed (but not really surprised) by the token section on the environment. It seems that Bush is most concerned with reducing US dependency on foreign oil -- a valid concern, but somewhat missing the point. Replacing foreign fuels with domestic fuels won't make a bit of a difference for climate change if 2 things don't happen: reducing our overall consumption and switching to sustainable, renewable energy sources.

On the bright side, Bush at least mentioned climate change in this State of the Union, a first for him. And diversifying our fuel sources is important, but his focus on ethanol is misguided. Problems with ethanol include the fact that it doesn't offset very much CO2 since fossil fuels are required in growing plants suitable for ethanol production; as well as estimates that 97% of the area of the US would need to be converted to the growing of plants to produce ethanol in order to fulfil our energy needs. Not a very promising solution, in my opinion.

Bush called for a 20% increase in fuel economy standards for cars in the next 10 years. This is a good step, but is just not enough. It also doesn't address the underlying problem of Americans being overly dependent on their cars. Perhaps a call for increased public transportation and the like would have been more on target.

His most egregious lip service to the environment comes when, in the midst of talking about reducing our demand for fuel, Bush states that we need to step up our domestic oil production. Not a surprise coming from a former oilman, but really, how do you sell that as good for the environment? He didn't even try. Not to mention that increasing our domestic oil production basically involves drilling in ANWR -- the rest of US production peaked in the 70s, and we currently produce only 30% of the oil we consume. Even if ANWR were opened it would produce anywhere from 30 days to a little over a year of oil for the US. The reality is that we don't have options for domestic oil production, period. Its just not there.

Bush says, "America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil. These technologies will help us become better stewards of the environment – and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change." We're not on the verge of technological breakthroughs -- there is no magic machine that will fix all this. We have technological advances that we should be implementing already -- wind and solar power, cogeneration, decentralized energy, passive solar architecture, efficient appliances and transportation -- but we're just not. Plus, it would be folly to depend on technology alone to fix climate change. We also need to come to grips with the fact that we need to consume less, and that technology can only go so far to cut our emissions before we need to make sacrifices in the things we expect out of life. We maybe need to not expect to have 3 cars and a giant house. Maybe we shouldn't expect to take international flights at discount rates. Americans can have a high quality of life without high levels of consumption -- but its not politically savvy to say so.

In any case, I don't expect American culture to change overnight, so blathering on about it probably doesn't help anything. At this point it would be a huge step forward just to push for more dramatic increases in fuel efficiency for cars, and to make a big push forward in renewables. Every little bit helps; lets just hope that that little bit isn't, um, too little.

Dissertation time

2007-01-11T12:11:00.000-05:00

Classes started this week, and I'm enjoying them so far. This semester I'm taking Participation, Policy & Planning; Rural Development; and Management of Environmental Sustainability. In addition to classes, I have to come up with a Dissertation proposal for my research project this summer. I have a couple ideas, and I want YOU to help me decide.

First Idea: Something to do with local food systems in Scotland and/or New England. This might be something along the lines of figuring out how much food is produced locally vs. how much is consumed locally, or how to increase demand for local food systems....something like that.

Second Idea: Writing a book targeted at people who want to do their part to reduce their contribution to climate change but have no idea where to start or who think recycling is a good way (hint: it's not). The book would be organized by how easy/difficult a change is to make (i.e. replacing light bulbs vs. buying a hybrid car), and each change would have a rating of how much of an impact it has. The research to figure out the effectiveness of common improvements/changes would probably make up the bulk of the actual dissertation. Also, a book exactly like this might already exist, so I'd have to rule that out first for this option to work.

Okay, now I'm counting on you to click on the little "Comments" link below this post and leave me a message saying which one you think I should do. Or let me know if there is some other idea you have. Thanks for weighing in! I should have the verdict in, uh, a month or so.

Surviving in the cold

2007-01-04T08:25:00.000-05:00

Another reason I am so enamored with Edinburgh: it's winter is much milder than Boston's. The usefulness of this became clear this week, as our boiler (which supplies our hot water and our heat) died on Sunday or Monday. We tried to fix it ourselves on Monday with no luck. On Tuesday we called the landlord and let her know. Wednesday, the maintenance guy tried to fix it, with no luck. This morning a boiler repair guy came out and decided he couldn't do anything until someone removed the cupboard around the boiler. So the maintenance guy came back shortly thereafter and removed the cupboard. Now I'm waiting for the boiler guy again. Its a good thing I don't have a job or classes this week, and that I can just sit here all day waiting for various people to try to fix this.

So, its been cold. But manageable. With a couple sweaters on and a double layer of socks, and a hat, and periodic huddles in bed under the extra-thick duvet, its been just fine. On Tuesday we tried to warm up the flat by baking. Lots of baking: apple pie, brussel sprouts, potatoes, roasted chestnuts. Which warmed up the flat for about an hour. Then it got cold again. This made us realize how drafty our windows were. So Aaron went and bought draft-proofing ('draught'-proofing in Scotland-ese) supplies: this foam tape that you apply to the seams of windows, and double glazing film. This was very easy and quick to install, and moreover it was cheap. And its pleasantly not-as-frigid in here anymore -- I was able to lose the hat, and I'm no longer hiding under the bedcovers.

Now, I feel a bit sheepish for not realizing how badly we needed draft-proofing earlier, and for avoiding it before because it seemed like a lot of work. Well, it made a big difference and was super-easy to install. If you feel so inclined to pay less in heating bills and have a warmer house (and help the environment to boot), do this simple test: put your hand, a tissue, or a candle up to the bottom of your windows; if the candle flame or the tissue move, or if it just feels cold and drafty to your hand, you could use some draft proofing. So pop over to your local DIY/Home Depot -type store, and pick up some super-cheap draft proofing supplies. Its a breeze (sorry, just couldn't help myself).

Meanwhile, its nice to know we could survive the winter here without heat...but all the same I really do hope they fix it soon. I'm running out of sweaters.

A Barcelonia Adventure

2006-12-27T06:33:00.000-05:00

Our trip to Barcelona for Christmas was interesting. It had its ups and downs, and in general was not quite what we were expecting. We mostly just walked around the city, as many of the museums were closed for the holidays. We did manage to get into the Gaudi museum, and La Sagrada Familia (Gaudi's unfinished church), both of which were fantastic. The weather was wonderful -- cool but warm enough to not need a jacket much of the time. One of the major perks in our view was that it was sunny. Properly sunny. Sunny where you don't have to squint your eyes from the sun never getting above the horizon. It was also really thrilling to try out our language skills, speaking Spanish for the first time to people who, um, actually expected you to. We didn't quite realize that Barcelona was one of those places where people don't just automatically speak English once they realize you're an American. Many of the people we came across didn't seem to know much English at all. This made it all the more rewarding when we were able to converse with them, and they apparently understood us! Aaron did most of the talking since I knew about 10 words in Spanish (I know more now -- maybe 20), but as my confidence grew I started ordering my own food, and asking for the check at the end of the meal. It really was quite a learning experience.

Now for the, um, rough spots of the vacation. So that you, too, may learn from our mistakes, here is a list of tips for visiting Barcelona:

1. Beware of pickpockets. Luckily we learned this lesson secondhand. We were on the train from the airport to the city center when the lady standing next to us started shrieking things in Spanish that we eventually interpreted to mean she had just been pickpocketed. We were paranoidly careful with our money and passports for the rest of the trip.

2. If something seems like it should be "complimentary" its probably not. The bread that is customarily served at the beginning of the meal kept showing up on the bill, despite us never having ordered it. The "complimentary" breakfast (you know, bad toast and cereal served buffet style) at the hotel ended up costing us 8 euros per person per day. We paid 8 euros to get into Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia, only to find out upon entering that it would cost another 2 euros to actually go upstairs in the church.

3. Don't order something on the menu if it doesn't have a price listed. At one restaurant I ended up getting charged about $7 for a diet coke.

4. La Sagrada Familia has 2 gift shops. So if you, say, make plans to split up and then meet back at the gift shop in 20 minutes, make sure you both know which gift shop you're talking about. Enough said.

5. Good food is expensive. We ate at middle-range restaurants, which typically cost about 15-20 euros per person for a meal. We tried to eat at the restaurants that were recommended in the guidebook. But in all honesty we were consistently disappointed. Our hunch is that really great food does exist in Barcelona...but that you need to be dining at the expensive places to find it -- or you need to just be lucky and find the random places with good food. Or maybe we were just there at the wrong time -- fresh produce seemed to be lacking, maybe because it was winter. Incidentally, some of the best food we had was at a fast-food vegetarian falafel place. That figures.

6. They don't speak Spanish in Barcelona. Yep, that's right. They speak Catalan, a kind of hybrid language between Spanish and French. They all also speak Castilian (normal Spanish), but the signs are all in Catalan, and by default people speak Catalan. Also good to know is that the Spanish you learned in school was most likely Latin-American Spanish, which is slightly different from Castilian Spanish.

Some pictures:

A marching band we inadvertently ran into while they were parading the streets playing Christmas music:

A huge and elaborate nativity display:

The entrance to Parc Guell (a Gaudi-designed park):

Aaron and I getting eaten by a shark outside the aquarium:

The Telefonica tower on Montjuic by the old Olympic stadium:

View of Barcelona from Montjuic:

La Sagrada Familia:

Our trip to London

2006-12-22T06:07:00.000-05:00

Last weekend Aaron and I took the train down to London and did some sightseeing. London really is a fabulous city -- beautiful, better weather than Edinburgh, and lots to do and see.

Aaron, somewhere near St. James Park:

Buckingham Palace:

Me, looking dorky in front of the Tower of London:

Westminster Abbey:

Big Ben, of course:

Trafalgar Square, I think:

Besides the places in the photos, we also went to the Tate Modern, where I decided I needed to learn how to draw (that is my new project for during Christmas break). We went to the National Gallery, the British Museum, and Portabello Market. Plus we got to meet up with my old co-worker who is now working in London, so that was nice as well.

And tomorrow: off to Barcelona for Christmas! Cassie just got picked up by the Pet Taxi to be taken to the kennel, and I just need to pack and, um, learn Spanish. Yeah.

Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah!

Happy Winter Solstice!

2006-12-21T07:39:00.000-05:00

....and what a nice day for a solstice it is here. Clear, mild, and not too windy (a welcome change from the month or so of daily wind and rain we've just had). So what is it like at the shortest day of the year in Edinburgh? Well, sunrise this morning was at 8:42, and sunset will be at 3:40 this afternoon. The sun only gets to 10 degrees in the sky, so the entire daylight hours have you squinting into the sunset/sunrise. To commemorate this shortest of days, I took a couple pictures at noon so you can get an idea of how strange it feels.

Long shadows:

The sun is behind the roof of this building:

Cassie, enjoying solstice :)

Also, Aaron and I went to his company's annual Christmas dinner last night, and we have a photo (albeit a fuzzy one) from that:

Thanksgiving!

2006-12-20T10:45:00.000-05:00

At long last, here are some pictures from Thanksgiving!

Aaron's lovely rolls:

Apple turkeys!

The group lining up to get food:

Everyone was so enthusiastic about this newly discovered holiday. Natalie came up with the idea of wearing feathers to represent the Native Americans.

Cassie was in the holiday spirit this weekend while she was being dogsit for by my friend Sierra.(Not a thanksgiving picture, but cute all the same).

Thanksgiving here was a great success. Despite having a small oven and refrigerator we managed to feed around 25 people (with the help of some of the other Americans). Since it was such an international group, we ended up having some international touches added to the festivities. Christina, who is from Greece, brought Spanikopita. Leo, from Spain, made a ridiculously large amount of sangria (which ended up rivaling the turkey for being the hit of the party). And we learned that in Spain turkeys say 'glu glu' instead of gobble gobble. It was wonderful to have such an enthusiastic, fun, and caring group of friends around for the holiday. I am very thankful for that.

First semester completed!

2006-12-13T09:18:00.000-05:00

Well, my first semester as a Master's student is officially over! I've handed in all my papers and taken all my exams. Exams, I might add, are much nicer in the US in my opinion. Here they are worth a full 50% of your grade, and they consist of 2 essay questions to be completed in 2 hours. Not my idea of fun. But its over now!! Hurray!

Here is some British exam terminology, if you're interested:
revising: studying
invigilator: proctor
external examiner: the person who actually grades your exam (yep, not the professor)
marks: grades
bollocks: the exclamation you make when you realize that only one of the many topics you "revised" for the exam is on the exam (yes, this did happen to me, but I winged it and I think I did pretty well considering)

So what else have I been up to since my last (distant) blog entry? Well, Thanksgiving of course, but that will be in a separate entry. Other than that, mostly just writing papers, avoiding writing papers, "revising" for exams, and avoiding "revising" for exams. I really do have procrastination down to an art.

But for now, I have to go run to meet Brighid at our local fair trade coffee shop for some serious reading of a very serious book (crime/mystery: Black and Blue by Ian Rankin. I would highly recommend his books if you like mysteries and you want a flavor of Edinburgh, as all his novels are set here (and the main character likes to hang out at the bar across the street from my flat)).

Upcoming blog entries:

Thanksgiving!
Where did the sun go?
What I plan to do with my 3 1/2 weeks of vacation besides sleep a lot :)

Samhain Fire Festival

2006-11-19T14:39:00.000-05:00

The Samhain Fire Festival takes place on Halloween evening. What is Samhain? It is the pagan holiday that Halloween derives its roots from. It celebrates the end of summer, the harvest, and the arrival of winter. The fire festival consisted of a parade of lots of scary and interesting characters, and then an elaborate performance by all of the characters acting out the symbolic demise of summer, the (graphic) celebration of fertility, and the connections between the living and the dead. The highlight was a battle between two men with large metal spheres (think beach ball size) that were on fire. This seemed unneccessarily dangerous, but was quite a spectacle nevertheless. The whole thing is put on by the Beltane Fire Society. We had a great time despite the freezing cold and the obstructed view (there was a huge crowd).

Pictures courtesy of Brighid.

Pictures!

2006-11-19T14:16:00.000-05:00

These pictures are courtesy of Brighid, my classmate and best friend here, who is the redhead in the center of this picture. This is a few of my classmates and me having coffee in Princes Street Gardens after a successful farmer's market excursion:

Some of my classmates at a dinner party celebrating Christina's birthday (Christina is in the center of the picture):

After I left the party, it apparently turned into a dance party. (Come on, this was too funny a picture not to post):

At the farmer's market (yes, that's the castle in the background)!

From left to right: Sierra, Rachel, me, and Sarah -- at my birthday dinner at Black Bo's, a fantastic vegetarian restaurant:

Me and Aaron at the Castle:

Thinking about food...

2006-11-15T10:49:00.000-05:00

Next week is Thanksgiving, and here in Scotland a few of us expatriate Americans are getting together and celebrating...and inviting our whole class to join us. So far about 15 people have RSVP'ed. The themes of our Thanksgiving dinner are: authentic American (which seems to excite the students that have never experienced Thanksgiving before), and sustainable. Sustainable? How so? Well, for starters we've ordered a free-range turkey from a nearby farm. Factory farming of meat is bad for the environment and just plain cruel to animals. We're also going to be making side dishes with as many local and/or organic ingredients as we can find. Local food...in Scotland...in November? Yep. Even though North-to-South Edinburgh is about halfway between Boston and the Arctic Circle (we're about as far north as Labrador, Canada) it is warm enough to provide local food much of the year (more about that in a future post). Aaron and I do most of our food shopping every Saturday at the Edinburgh Farmers Market (pictures to come). Here's a list of the things we've bought recently from the market:

Vegetables:

celery
potatoes
sweet potatoes
mushrooms
tomatoes
cucumbers
carrots
onions
garlic
lettuce
radishes
kale
spinach
brussel sprouts
cauliflower
turnips
parsnips
beets
leeks

Fruits:

raspberries
strawberries
apples
jam

Dairy:

cream
butter
cheese (lots of cheese!)
eggs

Miscellaneous:

honey
oats
barley
bread, bagels, rolls, pretzels, etc.
porridge bars (the best damn granola bars ever. Of course they have 450 calories per bar...but its worth it.)

They also have lots of meats and beer, which we will be trying eventually...
I'm very passionate about the importance of eating locally. Why is it important? Among other reasons:

It reduces the amount of fossil fuels burned to transport your food (by a lot actually; food on average travels over 2000 miles to get to you!)
It is healthier (less processed food is good for you; so is fresher food)
It supports smaller local farmers (who really do need the support. 70% of the food you eat is produced by 7% of the farmers in America. Small farmers can't compete, and are leaving the farming business in droves -- sad but true)

Plus, I really do love going to the farmers market. Buying food from about 8 different farmers feels a bit like a shopping spree (though its no more expensive than shopping at the supermarket), the food is delicious, and you get to chat with the sellers (many of whom recognize us now -- its so nice!)

Want more ideas for eating better (better for you and better for the environment)? Check out this article.

And I'll report back on our Thanksgiving adventure next week! Gobble gobble.

No TV for a year?! Gasp!

2006-11-12T07:41:00.000-05:00

Before I moved to Scotland I watched an embarrassingly large amount of TV. I'm not proud of that...but its true. After a stressful day at work it was such a relief to plop down on the sofa and watch a sitcom or two. Except that it was hard to get up, and more than I like to admit, the TV would stay on until I went to bed.

With TV watching being such a large part of how I spent my freetime, I was secretly a bit nervous about what I was going to do in Edinburgh for a year without TV. But lets back up a minute -- why don't I have TV here? I could; its not like TV doesn't exist in Scotland. First of all, I would have to buy a TV set which I would then have to get rid of after a year. Since things are already twice as expensive here, that was the first deterrent. Secondly, in order to legally watch TV, you have to pay the television tax, which is about $250/year. That gets you basic broadcast channels. And then if you want anything beyond those couple BBC channels, you have to pay for cable. Add this all up and you might not be so eager to get TV either.

So what do I do without TV? Well, I get probably a lot more studying done than I otherwise would. I go to coffee shops, museums, bars. I read books for fun. I play card games. I go for walks with Aaron and/or my friends. I rent movies. I keep my apartment clean (my mom probably just fell out of her chair when she read that). Its nice! I didn't think it would be this easy...or liberating. I'm not a slave to my TV anymore!

This is all not to say that I don't miss watching TV. I miss Lost, Grey's Anatomy, The Office, The Daily Show, and I fully intend on catching up on them when I move back to the states. But for now, I am happy going without.

If you're interested in lowering your TV consumption without giving up your favorite shows, there is a good article here on how to do it. Good luck!

...and the last of the accumulated pictures

2006-11-08T12:31:00.000-05:00

St. Andrew's Castle ruins

The North Sea, as seen from the castle ruins

Aaron in front of St. Andrew's Cathedral ruins

St. Andrew's Cathedral

Come on, this is too funny.

....more pictures

2006-11-08T12:11:00.000-05:00

I might as well get them all up (and Blogger seems to not like me putting more than 6 pictures on one post).

Jack-o-lanterns! (funny sidebar: pumpkins about the size of the smaller ones in this picture are sold in bins in the supermarket labeled "Extra Large Pumpkins". I almost wet my pants laughing when I saw that)

A bit of the countryside right outside of Edinburgh (can you believe how green everything is? Its November!)

Rosslyn Chapel (featured in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code)

Cassie being regal and proper

More pictures

2006-11-08T11:43:00.000-05:00

Two blog entries in one day, oh my! I'll confess...I am procrastinating. I really really should be working on a paper for my Culture & Ethics class, but I have to admit I'm just not that interested in it. The topic is Peter Singer's utilitarian philosophy on animal ethics...and while I do find that a bit interesting, right now I'd rather focus on something that actually has something to do with sustainability. I'm so picky, I know :)

Anyhow, last week was basically a touristy week for me, as my friend Pat was in town for a visit. These are all pictures from that mini-vacation.

The inside of Edinburgh Castle

View of the city from up in the Scot Monument. Good view of Old Town and Holyrood Park.

View of the Balmoral Hotel and Calton Hill in the background (which I still haven't been to/up!)

Holyrood Palace

Holyrood Abbey

Pat in Holyrood Abbey

Some pictures....finally

2006-11-08T11:15:00.000-05:00

Here are some embarrassingly belated pictures from the field trip I took back in September (up to the Highlands...very very beautiful countryside, of which I took a grand total of zero pictures. You'll just have to come visit).

Here are some very cool looking stripey cows.

If you squint, you can kind of see the reindeer. It was an absolute downpour at this point, so I only took this one picture, and it didn't really come out. We got to feed the reindeer out of our hands...I can't even describe how cool that was.

The Findhorn eco-village:

The wastewater treatment plant at Findhorn. The simplicity, lack of anything gross (there was no smell at all, besides maybe some of the better smelling plants and flowers), and unassuming nature of this little greenhouse system were all quite a surprise. All of the sewage from the village goes through this system, and clean water comes out at the end. No industrial chemicals, not a lot of energy input. Pretty amazing.

One interesting cluster of houses at the eco-village. These houses were built inside old barrels from a whiskey distillery.

Little Things

2006-10-17T12:24:00.000-04:00

The average UK citizen has an environmental footprint half that of the average American. That's roughly half as much pollution emitted, half as many resources consumed, half as much environmental degradation wrought, etc. Why is this? Here are some of my ideas, just from my own observations. (Note: this is not scientific in the least)

1. The culture, and the government. There are signs everywhere about recycling. People actually know what environmental sustainability means ("enviro-what?"). Its rare to find a house/apartment with a washer and a dryer. More likely it has an energy-efficient washer and people hang their clothes up to dry (that's what I am doing here, and its no more or less difficult than the dryer that I was used to). The wall outlets all have switches next to them so its easy to turn off power to an appliance (no more energy drain when appliances aren't in use -- this accounts for around 5% of residential energy use in the US! You pay 5% of your electricity bill for appliances you weren't using. Annoying, right?)

2. Things are smaller! Refrigerators are smaller, ovens are smaller, houses are smaller, cars are smaller. Those small reductions in size can save big on energy!

3. Transportation. At least in Edinburgh, the city is compact enough that its easy to walk anywhere you need to go for the most part. For somewhere really on the other side of the city (or outside the city) people rely on the bus system (because it works! (ahem-Bostonsdoesnt)). I love that within a 5 minute walk of my flat there is a huge park/mountain thing that puts Central Park to shame, a grocery store, a bank, a post office, several dozen bars and restaurants, ethnic and specialty food shops, several movie rental places, cafes, a library, bookstores, a gym, several museums and a theater, pharmacies, clothes stores, another park, a candy store (very important), and more things that I'm sure I'm missing. I never think to myself, "it would be really nice if I had a car."

All this is not to say that the UK has it all figured out. Quite to the contrary; if everyone on Earth lived the way people in the UK do, it would still take roughly 3.1 planet Earths to sustain that level of consumption.

Anyway, those are my Deep Thoughts of the day. Yeah, maybe I should go put my Deep Thoughts to use in something like my sustainability paper that's due on Friday. Until then, keep smiling, and unplug your DVD player when you're not using it.

Not to be the bearer of bad news

2006-10-03T16:29:00.000-04:00

...but I just learned something alarming in class today. We're studying biodiversity currently, and my professor told us that it is generally expected that we are going to lose half of all the species on the earth in the next 100 years. Its estimated that we've already lost 5-20% of species already.

There have been 5 major extinctions in the entire history of life on earth, the last one being the extinction of the dinosaurs. We are currently living through the 6th major extinction on earth.

For more information, take a look at the 4th issue of: www.esa.org/science/Issues

This stuff can be pretty depressing, and I'm usually pretty good at staying optimistic...but its hard to see the hope/silver lining in this one...

Toilet gripe

2006-09-27T09:00:00.000-04:00

Scotland may be more socially advanced than America (arguably, anyway), but when it comes to public "toilets", America has the right idea (or maybe Scotland just has the wrong idea).

Things that are wrong with Scottish toilets:
1. Inevitably the stall door opens in such a way that you have to either a) step into the toilet itself, or b) be a gymnast, in order to get into the stall.
2. Weak flushing mechanism. As a general rule, the toilet will half-heartedly flush, disposing of about half of your waste. You then have the options of leaving it like that and having the next person think you're disgusting; or waiting approximately 2 minutes for the toilet to regain its ability to flush, and try again.

Gripes about my bathroom in particular:
1. My flat has a huge bathtub. You could swim in it. It is for this reason that I do not understand why they felt the need to put the shower curtain narrowly surrounding the shower head, so that you are pressed up against it while you shower.
2. All the sinks in my flat have separate cold and hot water faucets. You are not allowed to have warm water, apparently. Besides which, my hot water faucet only spits out cold water anyway.

Okay, enough griping. I just felt the need to get that out of my system (pardon the bathroom pun).

Some pictures

2006-09-24T11:49:00.000-04:00

Arthur's Seat (Holyrood Park...right in my backyard!)

The view from halfway up Arthur's Seat:

Sunset over Edinburgh:

The castle:

To the South of the castle:

A bit of Scottish cheese...

A statue by the Water of Leith:

Dean Village:

More pictures to come...specifically ones from my field trip. But for now I have to get back to studying!

Matriculation

2006-09-12T09:43:00.000-04:00

I'm a real student now! Hurray! My tuition is paid, and I have a student ID. I guess that makes it official. I met all of the 23 other students in my program yesterday. About half of them are from outwith the UK/Ireland, including 3 other Americans. There is only one Scot in my program. Everybody is very friendly, and I think we're all going to have a good time.

I also met the Program Director, who was also very friendly. He helped me pick out which classes to take: Introduction to Environmental Sustainability (required course), Ecological Economics, and Culture Ethics and the Environment. Classes start next Tuesday...and tomorrow we are going on a 3 day field trip around Scotland! I'll blog more about that later.

Cheers!

I've arrived...

2006-09-06T12:31:00.000-04:00

...and I'm a bit overwhelmed. I think I managed to avoid jet lag, but it really is hard being alone in a new city. To start with, the airline lost half my luggage (and ripped the shoulder strap off my 63 lb enormous duffel bag of clothes...that made lugging it up 3 flights of stairs fun), but to be fair they found it and delivered it this morning. Its going to take a minimum of 3 weeks to get a bank account set up (as I was informed at the bank this morning), and I really couldn't understand what the guy was saying when I called the phone company to get a phone line activated. So who know what will happen there. I haven't even started to try to get internet hooked up.

But besides my bewildered ignorance when it comes to all the mundane details of living in the UK, things are going well. The flat, at least, is nice -- as is the landlord. The city is beautiful so far (though I haven't really gotten out and explored yet). And the tap water tastes better than most bottled waters!

Now I'm off to buy a stapler...so that I can attach a form to my bank account application...so that I can wait 3 weeks.

I'll try to do some exploring in the next couple of days, and then I'll be posting pictures! (well, probably once I have internet. So, maybe in 6-8 weeks).

Cheers!

Bar Harbor to Boston (or: Me and Bikey)

2006-09-01T09:51:00.000-04:00

Well, its been an exciting past couple of weeks. To start it off, I spent a week in Bar Harbor, ME with my family. We went kayaking, bike riding, hiking, and rock climbing...all of which turned into adventures. The rock climbing was a guided climb, but we were sort of in over our heads. They took us on a 250 ft multi-pitch climb, which was lots of fun for the first 200 ft, but then my arms turned to spaghetti and I basically thought I'd be stranded on the side of a cliff forever. Ah well, I guess I need more practice (and more bicep curls). The kayaking trip on the other hand, started in beautiful, clear weather, but quickly turned to nasty stormy weather. You can kind of see the storm approaching in this picture of Aaron:

Anyhow, after the vacation in Bar Harbor, I rode my bike home to Newton, MA. That took 8 days (a total of just over 400 miles), and was relatively unexciting, but definitely challenging and good for me. I learned to trust myself a little more...like when, on the 3rd day of the trip, my chain snapped. This was a particularly rainy day, and it was a longer leg of my trip (70 miles)...so of course, 20 miles in, and in the middle of nowhere (there were some cows nearby, but that was about it) my chain went. Of course, my first instinct was to panic. But then I looked at my map and figured that I was only a mile or so outside of a tiny little town. So I walked my bike there to find that the town center consisted of a church, a post office, and a hardware store. Well, I went into the hardware store and lo and behold...they had a single bike chain, and a single bike chain tool. Almost creepy. So after a couple hours of my dad (on the phone) trying to help me figure out how to change my chain, and with the help of some friendly neighbors, we got the new chain on. Yay! And then I got a flat tire. And it never stopped raining. That was sort of the low point of the trip...but I got through it.

Otherwise the trip was pretty uneventful. I stayed in campsites every night. They ranged from "rustic" to really nice. (Rustic = pit toilets and no other amenities). I did get a little sick of showing up to a nice looking campsite, paying an outrageous $30 to stay on a tiny piece of land, and then having to pay for the crappy showers. Argh. If I owned a campsite...

I didn't take a ton of pictures (okay, I took 5 on the whole trip), but here are a couple of my favorites, both from the last day.

After the bike trip, I went into cleaning/moving mode. We moved out of our apartment, managing to keep a very minimal amount of stuff. I think I've whittled down the things I'm bringing with me to Scotland to the airline baggage allowance (yay!). We took a U-Haul of our stuff to Salvation Army...they seemed a bit overwhelmed. It feels so good to not have all that stuff now though! Now I'm crashing at the new house of my very generous friends, Josh and Lara. Just need to make sure I take care of a few little things before I leave...on Monday!

Next blog entry will be from Scotland! (Unless I get bored before then...)

I Quit...again...

2006-07-25T23:19:00.000-04:00

Well, the overly-ambitious 2 week thru-hike of the Adirondacks turned out to be a bust. I made it, uh, 2 days. Was it the blisters? The angry flesh-hungry bears? Crazy backwoods folk with machetes? No. Bugs. And I'd like to think that I'm not a total wuss when it comes to bugs (heck, my apartment is crawling with them). These were not normal bugs. These were vicious kamikaze flies that made blackfly season in the White Mountains look like a party (a fun party). Sigh...it just wasn't fun. At all. Hard to justify 2 weeks of no fun when you don't have to.

I'm a wuss.

So what have I been doing with my time instead? Nothing. Nothing productive. Doing some bike riding (getting ready for overly-ambitious Summer Adventure #2). Cooking some lovely vegetarian dinners. Reading some environmental textbooks in preparation for school. But mostly, nothing.

In any case, here are the couple pictures I managed to take on the short-lived Adirondacks adventure. (The pictures might not be great, but each one of them involved bloodshed, as the photographer's hands were briefly indisposed and could not continue the business of killing the tiny enemies. I hate nature).

Starting off. So optimistic and naive.

I just like taking pictures of Aaron bending over.

The Sacandaga river.

Me sitting in said river. Don't I look thrilled? Stupid bugs.

A big lake, blah blah, nature is overrated.

I Quit!

2006-06-30T17:33:00.000-04:00

I quit my job today. I was incredibly nervous, but all for nothing. My boss was uncharacteristically generous, though understandably stunned. My project lead (and ex-mentor) was a bit more upset... but my boss stood up for me. I will be working the full 2 weeks, and they are trying to talk me into staying longer. My whole group, including my boss, went out for lunch, had a couple beers and some good laughs. This is the way it should be when you quit a job. Not at all what I expected, but definitely a welcome development.

Now I'm going to go out and celebrate. Break out the champagne, baby!

Thanks to everyone who supported and encouraged me through this whole quitting process. It definitely helped!

A new laptop

2006-06-26T22:17:00.000-04:00

I've had my laptop for 4 years, and while its served me well, I think its time for a fresh start. Here's the issue: should I get a laptop in the UK, or one here in the states?

Buying a laptop in the UK
Pros:

Already configured for UK standards (not that this is so hard to do on any laptop...it would just be nice)
Won't have to worry about power conversion
Won't have to lug it there with me and the other 150 lbs of luggage I'll be bringing
Won't have to worry about bringing a brand new computer through customs (supposedly that sort of thing can lead to the customs people giving you problems. Seems a little silly though)

Cons:

$300 more expensive than computer bought in the US
What will I do with it in a year?
Might be computer-less for a couple weeks in the UK, while waiting for it to be shipped

Another question that I can't seem to find an answer to: if I have a computer configured to American standards, would I just need to buy a UK power supply and be able to plug it into my computer? i.e. is the power input on all PCs the exact same, and the only difference is the power supply? I'm confused. Help!

Scottish: An Accent or A Language?

2006-06-25T18:07:00.000-04:00

I spoke on the phone with my landlord in Scotland for the first time today, to ask what the exact address of my apartment would be. We talked for about 5 minutes total, or I should say, she talked for 5 minutes and I periodically said "uh huh" or "excuse me?". I probably only understood 20% of what she said, and for a minute or so in the middle, I think she might have been speaking a whole other language. I'm not kidding even a little. She must have thought that I was retarded, because just to get the address correct (the only reason I called), I had to have her repeat it 3 times. I was so embarrassed by the end of the conversation that I started just saying "uh huh" to everything. I might have been agreeing to pay double rent, or telling her that, yes, in fact I have been convicted of a felony. Who knows what she was asking.

Now I'm fairly concerned that even though I speak English, I don't speak Scottish, or whatever it was that she was speaking. I had always assumed that it would be the exact same language except with a sexy accent and cute little terms for things (jumpers, knickers, neeps and tatties), but now I'm starting to think I was wrong. Am I going to a country where I won't understand 80% of what people say to me? I'm going to need ESL classes when I get there...

Making some progress

2006-06-15T21:15:00.000-04:00

After a couple months of occasional searching for cheap airfare, I finally found a flight to Edinburgh. Not exactly cheap -- $350 for a one-way ticket -- but it could be worse. I found it on airfare.com, through sidestep.com, both of which I would recommend. I was a little uneasy about booking the ticket since it wouldn't tell me ahead of time what airline it was through. It just said "Major Carrier". Well, that's not that specific, and I didn't want to end up flying Bootleg Airlines International or something. So after a little Google-sleuthing, I figured out that it was through Continental. Reassured, I booked the ticket. (The exact same flight on Continental's website was listed as $950, and it had a "low fare guaranteed" icon next to it. Such lies!)

I've started the whole visa process, and that is going well so far. I renewed my driver's license (something I've been avoiding for years now. How can they get away with charging $90 for an out-of-state license conversion??). I visited the doctor, eye doctor, and dentist, before my insurance runs out. I got a clean bill of health on all accounts, and stocked up on contact lenses and prescriptions.

I also stocked up on passport photos. I read somewhere (I can't remember where) that you should get a whole bunch -- more than you would think -- before you leave. So I got, uh, 20. It took forever for them all to print out, and the Kinkos employee who was printing them kept looking at me like I was crazy. In hindsight, I may have gone a little overboard. In my defense though, I already know that I need 2 for the visa, 2 for police registration, and at least one for a student ID. There will probably be more...though perhaps not 15 more. Ah well...I can hand them out to my new friends to remember me by...or something...

And I revised my hiking adventure plans for the summer. I decided I needed something a little more flab-friendly...no steep grades or huge mountains...no ridiculous daily mileage. I still wanted something that would be in the middle of nowhere (as I have this overwhelming desire to escape from civilization temporarily), and that would be beautiful. I think I've found it: The Northville-Placid Trail in the Adirondacks. It should take about 15 days to complete (its about 120 miles from end to end). Hurray!

2 weeks until I quit my job. I'm getting nervous...

Memorial Day Weekend Camping Trip

2006-06-01T19:28:00.000-04:00

We went camping this past weekend in the White Mountains, and had a really great time. Our friends Jason and Mairead (and their friends, Kate and Adam) introduced us to the wonderful (and difficult!) world of backpacking...and I rethought my ambition of taking a 3 week backpacking trip through New Hampshire this summer...I'm just not that buff.

Anyway, here are some pictures.
Franco discovered dog paradise: the peanut butter tree.

View from Roger's Ledge:

Unknown Pond, where we camped both nights. In the background is The Horn, which we hiked to on Sunday.

What a pampered pup (and what a sucker of a doggie-daddy)

The rest of the gang:

Cassie was a real trooper. She hiked all 14 miles without complaining (well, as far as we know. We don't actually speak Dog)

View from The Horn:

Cassie seeking refuge in Kate's armpit:

A roof over my head

2006-05-22T20:22:00.000-04:00

We (Aaron and I) found an apartment (or, in UK-speak, a flat). It was slightly over our price range, but in the end I think it was worth it. It has 2 bedrooms (1 will be a guitar/study/guest room), is in THE ideal location (in between the 2 groups of U of E's buildings, and also sandwiched between 2 large parks), and is fully furnished...from beds to wine glasses. It allows dogs, and the landlord has been nothing but helpful. Really, what more could you ask for (okay, besides a lower price)?

Here is the kitchen (notice the
washing machine!):

And here is the living room:

One of the bedrooms:

And of course, the loo.

Just the deposit to pay and the lease to sign. Very exciting!

So many choices

2006-05-20T10:30:00.000-04:00

"If a deer shits in the forest, no one looks at the pile of droppings and thinks bad deer. But if you come across a pile of beer bottles in the forest, you think asshole."
-Bill McKibben

Between reading that quote during jury duty this week (and then having an hour or so with nothing to do but reflect on it), and the goings-on at work, I've been doing some thinking about choices. Life, as human beings, involves a lot of choices. We can't just sit back and do whatever we want with no accountability, precisely because we have the burden of being able to make decisions. And it really can be a burden sometimes. Figuring out what to have for dinner, let alone what to do with the rest of your life can be daunting, to say the least.

What kinds of lives do we want to live? I was told this week (lectured at, really) that I don't put in enough hours at work. I generally get to work around 9:00 - 9:15, and leave at 5:30. I eat a fairly quick lunch at my desk so that I can help people out if they need it. And now I'm being told that I should be working at least 10-12 hours per day. Well, again, this comes down to choices. I really don't want to put in extra hours, especially at a job that is so unfulfilling. And even if it was fulfilling, we all need to make choices about what comes first in our lives. Is work more important than time with your family? Are money and status really the answer to all life's problems? What makes us happy? I don't have the answers, but I know enough to know that if I were actually sticking around for more than 27 more work days (yes, I'm counting down) I'd be fighting this. In my next job, I hope that I do want to work 12 hours a day. I hope that after 9 hours or so, I'm tearing myself away, so that I can go work out, hang out with my dog and my boyfriend, relax, spend some time outdoors, cook, knit, blog, whatever. I never want to be told that 40 hours of dedicated work is not good enough. Go shove it.

Blowing my savings on grad school is my choice. Quitting my job early so that I can go on a hiking and biking adventure is my choice. Spending a year in Scotland is my choice. Dedicating my career to the environment is my choice.

And if everyone chose to bike to work instead of drive, or swapped their air conditioner for a fan, or bought their produce from farmers markets instead of from another country...we might be able to use our ability to choose, to make things quite a bit better.

The adventure begins...

2006-04-13T20:57:00.000-04:00

Well, its official. I'm going to Scotland for a year to get my postgraduate (master's) degree. I'll be studying Environmental Sustainability at the University of Edinburgh. Why there, and why that program? I decided to change careers completely about a year and a half ago after getting suddenly intersted in environmental issues. Suddenly is really an understatement. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I can pretty definitively say that everything changed for me after reading The Future of Life by E.O. Wilson. After doing lots of research on my own, and starting to volunteer at a nearby community farm, and taking an introductory class on environmental sustainability online, I decided that this wasn't just going to be a hobby or a side interest...this was going to be my life. The logical first step seemed to be to get a degree in the subject. I applied to The University of Michigan, Tufts University, Slippery Rock University, Blekinge Institute of Technology (Sweden), and the University of Edinburgh. I got into all of them (except BIT -- I still haven't heard from them yet!), and really kind of fell in love with the University of Michigan...but just couldn't justify the cost. Edinburgh was my second choice -- half the cost of the other schools, a prestigious university, and hey, I get to spend a year abroad!

So I've spoken with the head of the department, and I've sent in my acceptance letter. The adventure is underway. What now? Now the logistics need to be figured out: a place to live (and really, if anyone has any suggestions for finding an apartment in another country, please let me know), what to do with all the crap I somehow managed to accumulate, quitting my job, getting my finances in order...and much much more.

I started this blog so that my family and friends can see what I've been up to as I pursue this little adventure of mine. Thanks for checking in!