Week 2

Mr. Buchanan,

After a very exciting and fun Fresher's week, On Monday it was time to settle down and get started with school. Monday is what's called enrollment day, in which you go to every one of your classes and (even those that you do not have on Mondays) and officially "enroll" in that class. In each class our instructors told us about expectations, how the class will work, rules, etc.
Basically how the system works is similiar to the one at the Summer Program. All three of my classes consist of lectures and tutorials. You have 3 lectures a week (except for music, which has 2), in a lecture hall packed with about 200 kids (again, except for music which has about 15 kids) and one tutorial a week. The tutorial is a group of about 5-10 students with a graduate student in which discussions and excercises take place. I prefer this system to the normal St. John's class style.
Here's a basic run down of what we learned this week

IR: That there are many ways to define IR and that there are many theories which you can use to go about studying IR, and many methods of to use in your analysis. Basically this: IR is complicated and not straight forward like many of the social sciences or natural sciences.

English: Intro to Literary Theory and Victorian Sonnets

Music: Basic Figured Bass and Counter Point, How the Organ Works.

Elements of Music is a pretty cool class because we have two lectures a week, one on theory and one on instruments. So basically each week we will learn the basic history and function of one or more instruments. But my teacher is kinda crazy so I'm still not quite sure totally how an organ works (I know the basic idea, but not the inner workings)

Anyway, as far as the sports activities that I talked about last week, this is how they panned out.

Swimming: My first day was horrible, but I pulled myself together for the try outs the next day. Basically what happened the first day was: I started things off well with a large dinner about an hour and a half prior to getting in the water. Not a good idea. Second: No goggles. Had to borrow someone's intense racing goggles that do not stay on if you dive in. Another mistake. Third: Getting in the Water Polo player's lane. They are waaayyyyy to fast and intense man-children. I could not keep up after warm up. Fourth: After running into a backstroker after getting in, I realized that not only do they drive on the wrong side of the rode in the UK, but they swim on the other side of the lane!! Needless to say, my turns still haven't adjusted. But the next at time trials I recovered and with my new pair of goggles (yes I was also amazed that they sell goggles in St. Andrews) I managed to make the team. So all is well in Tyler's swimming career at St. Andrews. Oh yea, i forgot to mention that one pool is a good 15-20 minute walk from my dorm (then again so is class), but the other we use is a good 45 minute walk. Ridiculous. Unfortunatlely the farther pool is also the better quality pool, so its a trade off.

Speaking of walking, Since my dorm is so far out of town I have to walk briskly to class pretty much every morning if i want a good seat. I take such long strides that it appears as if I am doing the Ryan Jewett speed waddle (if you've ever seen the man walk you will totally understand me, if you haven't then I'm sorry)

Anyway Riflery is going pretty well. I was set up with my jacket and sling on Wednsday. I have never shot with a jacket an sling put its pretty cool. It's pretty hard to explain, basically the jacket and sling support the weight of the rifle and help keep it steady. I've figured out that I need to start shooting with contacts as well. Glasses are not going to cut it.

On to the more social events of this week.
Monday I played again at Ma Belle's open mic.
Here's my setlist
Crush
Questioned Apocolypse
Cannon Ball
Grey Street
Elias

I'll be playing again tomorrow night. I hope to make this a regular thing.

Saturday Night was the big event of the week. The Kate Kennedy Club hosted the Charity Opening Ball. A formal Black Tie event, this took place behind the quad. And consisted of two main rooms, A dance floor with a DJ and a large Bar Room with a three piece dispatch-esque cover band (they didn't actually play any dispatch) called Black Sheep. They were pretty sweet. Outside there were carnival games and a tent set up by Le Rondezvous, the best pannini/sandwitch shop (yes, better than cherries, trust me). I, of course, rented a kilt outfit. I must say I looked quite dashing. The tartan was a Lindsey tartan. I was one the few people with a red based tartan (most were green based). Anyway, everyone had a great time, definitely worth the 120+ bucks I ended up spending on everything (Kilt hire, ticket, food, and beverage). And for those of you wondering, I did NOT wear my kilt the traditional scottish way (nothing underneath). As this was a hired kilt, I figured this would not be the best plan, hygenically speaking.

Anyway, Reading week is coming up in November and I need some input for travel ideas.
Right now I'm thinking in the 10 days that I have off I'll go to:
Paris
Prague
Vienna
and/or perhaps
Berlin
Amsterdam

Granted I only ten days so I will probably on go to 3 cities, so keep that in mind when making your input
Feel free to email me @ dtg2007@gmail.com


Anyway I to go read some for IR now, but I'll probably make another post next week or the week after


-Tyler


PS. In the picture above is my academic family, Jenna (sister), Ashley (mother), and Josh (father). hopefully you'll be able to recognize that dashing young man on the far right.


Currently Listening to
Red Hot Chili Peppers "Stadium Arcadium"