I don't know if the fact that I sit here in a Guinness t-shirt eating nutella means I'm adapting or just a hopeless poser. The four plaids on my bed frustrate the situation -- but it was an accident, I swear. I am eating the generic nutella with pita bread, have Less Than Jake stuck in my head, and still say 'dude' all the time, so I don't think I've lost my identity completely. I kind of meant to, I think, but yeah, there will be none of that. The tabula rasa theory is totally bunk.

Unfortunately, the experience of studying abroad is being hindered slightly by a living situation that could easily be rivalled with a tent. Fife Park is a very pretty name, but there's a reason (or several dozen) that it's being demolished next year, and, historic though it may be, I'm not sure I want to stick around for it's last glorious year of prickly carpets and peeling paint and consistently broken water heaters (showerlessness) and the smell of stale mattress. And the wardrobe attacks me. And there are bugs. One of my California nerd-in-arms has a room in a residence hall that is used as a three star hotel during the summer. She has a double bed and someone empties her trash and washes her sheets. I want to transfer there. But I would settle for the huge concrete boat or an apartment or anything with real carpet and a neutral odor.

This all sounds so petty, and it really shouldn't matter, being in Scotland, what the inside of any building looks like. However, aside from the fact that I am such a homebody, it does matter a bit whether the springs in one's bed attack you in the night. Sorry I keep griping, but it's very present in my mind, and since I have decided that blogging about people is a generally less than tactful practice, and my (glorious) classes haven't started, that's what you get. Refer to the photos which are soon to come for the glorys of Scotland. Perhaps after Saturday's tour of the Highlands I'll have more excitin' stories to tell ya.

So GOWNS. Adademic gowns are the coolest things since recorded music, and the four of us wearing them all the way to the Lower Parliament Hall (where the Scottish Parliament used to convene) where we attended a formal debate that would best most stand-up comedy for entertainment was downright incredible. We have to take the gowns off before going into pubs, due to the old 'Towns and Gowns' customs (gowns were originally required attire for students -- they're bright red, and are thus supposed to make it easier to keep students out of bars and brothels), but that just means you get to fling them around your shoulders again when you leave. It's delightful and makes one feel ever so important and a part of something. Since we are third years, we have to wear our gowns off one shoulder, which makes it seven thousand times cooler. I'll leave you to imagine until I bring mine home and you can try for yourself. The four of us (there are seven students from the UCs here, but because of proximity and priorities, four of us -- Michelle, Aaron, Kae and I -- have become rather core-groupish) are all joining the Union Debating Society, founded in 1794, which will train us for inter'varsity competition, allow us to attend a debate argued by MPs (and have dinner with them afterward) and let me judge/coach Jr. High kids in competition while wearing my gown (this also includes free dinner). Very exciting prospect, top notch people, excellent experience.

I'll muse about fields and philosophy and beautiful buildings and dancing and the like later, but it's three o'clock in the morning and time I stop avoiding my bed, no matter how unfriendly it insists on being.

Slainte mhath!