Tuesday, February 22, 2005

screaming cries of the innocent...

I was just thinking this morning that one of my favorite sounds is birds chirping in early Spring, at 4 AM. Last year in the beginning of Spring, I kept waking up at 3 and 4 in the morning, and the it was still dark out, but I could hear birds like it was the afternoon. That might sound hackeyed, but I think the way I put it isn't too bad. I hope that I don't miss too much of this while I am away in Vancouver at the end of March. Considering Pittsburgh likes to drag Spring and Summer as far back as it can, I don't think I will. I'm just excited about the trip is all. Would it help if I said that one of my other favorite sounds is the screaming cries of the innocent in a dark pit over Hell?

Sunday, February 20, 2005

The Quintessential Tour-de-force: Call me Ishmael

The Quintessential Tour-de-force: Call me Ishmael

Tons of Funs fucking flapping my way, Bitches!

This is a showcase showdown of my month of March-

1. 4th-11th, Spring break, home probably, sleeping in and eating good food.

2. 12th, coming back to Oakland early so Stacy and I can be two college girls getting wasted downtown, in the middle of the night, wearing mini-skirts and tude tops, and carrying absolutly no tool of defense- which actually just means I took off work that day so we can go to the St. Pat's Day Parade and JEER CARLOW, THOSE IRISH CATHOLIC BASTARDS...which really means, we're just going to have a fun day.

3. 19th, I took off work this day as well because I have "Things for school." I am a big, fat liar. I am going shopping this day with Molly and Megan, shopping for our Vancouver trip. By shopping I mean, we're going to vintage clothing stores and thrift shops to get outfits for all the parties going on at the conference in Vancouver. There are parties every night, Molly, Crystal (Meg and I are rooming with them in Van), and Dr. D tell me, and the girls and I are planning to have an awesome time at said parties. We plan to have at least one famous, (and as far as I am concerned) good (and handsome) writer buy us a drink. I may go faux Angela spiffy-sophisticated and ask for lots of Cosmopolitans, *though, I would like to just be myself and buy myself four Yeunglings a night. ...

4. 24th-28th, Easter break, meaning no school and meaning home, probably. Sleep, food, TV, pets, card games, borrowing the car for a spin, going to Best Buy with the dad.

5. 29th-April 2nd, while Monday the 28th is the day I am supposed to come back to school, I am not. I am staying home because the next day, around 5 AM I have to be at the airport to catch a plane to Vancouver, Canada! Schwing- AWP Conference. This will be mighty fun. Molly and I are going to discuss the trip in detail this Wednesday, as we dress up and go to Kelly's for drink. Oh, how sophisticated that sounds. I think I am more excited to have an excuse to get dressed up and go out, especially with a new, fun, friend. We both share a (vain?) liking for personal fashion, and often compliment each other on our choice of dress. There's nothing wrong with enjoying the way you look when you catch yourself in the reflection of shop windows and bar mirrors if it makes you feel pretty, and being happy is a result of that. I think more people should take the time (really, only like a half hour) to not just throw on any clothes, not just throw your dirty hair in a pony tail and not wear green eyeshadow. I think some people would not be so tired and glum if they pepped themselves up a bit. Put on a pair of slacks and a tie on a Wednesday, people!

So, March will go fairly quickly, while usually it seems to drag on with its blassblass weather and 31 days of the same flavor. Flavour, flava. Flava-Flave. After March, April will fly by, May will end school, and I will be a senior in college, and then the world will explode.

...and more from the Shontazzle of Scotland

Hey everyone!

Yesterday was a fun day. We went up to the highlands to see Blair Castle, Pitlochry, and the Dewar Whisky Distillery. The drive up was pretty exciting, we finally saw cows (the Highland Coo' - as they like to call it)! They were really cute and furry. Cows, lots and lots of sheep, and this weird bird that I think was a phesant (peasant? pheasant? Whichever). Oh, and chickens. We saw chickens by the side of the road, just walking around as we pulled into Blair Castle, that was pretty funny.

Blair Castle was different from all the other castles we've seen, in that it wasn't this stone place, it was more like a giant mansion, and it was quite pretty. They had it set up like normal, but there were also a number of general display rooms (because they like to keep EVERYTHING they come across - as one of the guards told us). One of the display rooms was 'The China Room' which was just this massive room of china dinnerware and doilies. And another room had all this random stuff in it, including locks of hair kept in display cases (it made me think of Angela's hair doll). So, Blair Castle was fun and interesting - and afterwards, we got to have tea and biscuits (shortbread cookies - yum). However, I think that I am now officially tired of seeing castles (who would've thought?).

After the castle, we went to Pitlochry, which is this little, touristy, Highland town. It was really cute, and I think that I am going to have to go back at some point. We went to a few of the shops and had lunch in this little cafe/restaurant/bar type place that made kick-ass sandwiches. We only stayed there for about an hour though, before moving on to the Whisky Distillery.

The Whisky Distillery was called, "Dewar's World of Whisky," which I thought was pretty funny. They gave us a tour of the distillery, where we learned all about how to make whisky. The fermentation room was crazy, it was like an instant buzz as soon as you walked in. And then, we watched a video where we learned all about the 12 year aging process of the whisky involving the "heavenly match of wood and whisky" (direct quote from the video, by the way. There was also a really funny line about how the angels have their share when some of the whisky evaporates). We also learned that the cows here are VERY happy - they get the leftover discarded stuff that isn't used in the final product. Happy cows and drunken angels... After the tour, there was an audio/visual thing that told all about John Dewar and his legacy and the history of the distillery, and there was a television that played every single advert created for Dewar Whisky. Most of them made no sense, and some were pretty funny. There was a Sean Connery one that was pretty funny. Finally, there was a smell/taste center, where you got to smell things in bottles (I have no idea what for) and sample either malt or blended whisky. Both were absolutely vile, but the malt was worse. Obviously, I am not a whisky person. The drive home was not too much fun, needless to say.

That was my day of sight-seeing yesterday. I enjoyed it, however the downside was having to wake up at the butt crack of dawn (6:30..on a Saturday, ugh), to catch the train to Edinburgh. Next weekend, we're going to try and go to the Scotland vs. Italy rugby game (part of the Seven Nations, which is a big deal..). Oh, also, as someone pointed out to me, I forgot to include, in my mailing address, that you have to put Scotland, UK. So, if you send me mail, you may want to add that, just to ensure that I get it. Well, so ends that. More later!

Shontae

Friday, February 11, 2005

Another email from Shontae in Scotland

Hello all!

Thanks for all the e-mails, I'll get back to them as soon as I possibly can, however, I don't have time at the moment (I have a bus to catch in a little bit). So, I'll make a quick update.
(Last) Wednesday was our last day in Edinburgh. We went to Hollyrood Palace (home of Mary Queen of Scots, and also where the queen currently does some of her entertaining), which was awesome. It was really pretty and huge. There was a portrait room that had every wall covered in hand painted portraits of all the kings of Scotland. It was really impressive. After that, we had some lunch, did some sight-seeing (where I saw another man in a kilt), and then we left for homestay.

Homestay was awesome. It was for about 2 1/2 - 3 days. They put two girls into every house (so we had a total of four families). I stayed with a couple named Mary and John, and their two dogs. I have to admit that I got a bit spoiled with homecooked breakfast and dinner, and packed lunch before moving onto campus to having cereal, yogurt and a sandwich every day (only because I'm too lazy to actually cook). During homestay, we did some sight-seeing. The families dropped us off and left us to fend on our own, and told us when to get back to their houses. That sounds a bit frightening, but I think that I liked it better that way.

The first day, we went to Stirling Castle and Argyl's Lodging. Stirling Castle was amazing; Argyl's Lodging on the otherhand was..not. Argyl's Lodging was just this old giant house that pretty much displayed how the wealthy aristocrats would have lived in that time. The house was absolutely gorgeous, but it wasn't that exciting.

They were also in the process of doing some restoration work to one of the buildings at Stirling Castle, so we also got to see people working on re-creating the upholstered wall decoration things. That was awesome. The one woman said that they do something like four inches per week or so, and it takes a number of months to finish the whole thing.

On the second day of homestay, we went to the Wallace Monument. We actually climbed it (it's like this huge deal that there are 246 stairs to climb to the top or something, I think the conditions of the stairs is a bigger deal than the fact that there are 246 of them). The walk up the path to get to the actual monument was nothing in comparison to actually climbing the monument. It also had William Wallace's sword inside, and the sword was MASSIVE. It was bigger than I am (he was apparently somewhere around 6'6" - 6'8"). The stairs inside the monument were terrifying. The staircase was stone, circular, and tiny (i.e. if everyone was walking in one direction, single-file...no problem!). And there were cut-outs in the walls for windows, so it was incredibly windy as well (because it was so high up). Going up wasn't too bad, but coming down was not fun. My legs trembled from the time I started walking down the stairs until I got to the bottom of the path from the monument. But the view from the top was amazing, I think that we could see all of Stirling (we also figured out that ethey took all the aerial photos of the University campus from the monument).

An interesting thing that we've been seeing in all of the gift shops we've been to has been canned haggis. I've seen actual haggis (it's small, round and black), and that barely looks edible, so haggis in a can has to be even more disgusting. And when you turn the can, it feels like a stomach digesting something. It's really gross. Oh, they also have haggis flavored potato chips, which is kind of scary. So, in case you were wondering - no, I have not tried the haggis.

After we left the monument, we came to the campus (because it's really close...like right down the hill from the monument, less than a 10 minute walk), and decided to give ourselves a mini-tour. This campus isn't that big, but it's big enough to get pretty lost in. But, it's quite pretty. There are ducks, swans, geese, seagulls, and some weird black and white bird EVERYWHERE. Swans are definitely a lot bigger than I thought. I much rather prefer to look at them from a distance, they're kind of scary. And the ducks here aren't afraid of people - in fact, they very regularly walk up to people, quack, and then walk away. Oh, and I saw duck sex which was a bit traumatizing.

We moved into campus on Saturday. I have four flatmates named Rebecca, Pauline, Paula and Paula. The two Paulas are from Scotland and are hardly ever in the flat. Rebecca and Pauline are both English, Pauline is from Manchester, and Rebecca is from some place I've never heard of...Black something or another. They're all really nice, and Rebecca, Pauline and I enjoy watching really bad tv shows and making fun of them.

Classes started yesterday. They're not too bad, and it looks like I might actually not have to buy any books (thank god) as they're all avaible for long-term loan in the library, and Pauline actually took the English class that I'm taking, so I get to borrow her books from that class (yay!).

Also, I don't know if you guys have heard yet, but HUGE in the news over here is the Prince Charles/Camilla Parker Bowles wedding (to happen in April), it's a bit obnoxious. It was literally on the news all day yesterday. Also, we watched The Brits last night (like The Grammy's, but 10 times better). That was fun.

This is a lot longer than I expected it would be (oops), but there you go...everything that's happened here in the past week. Hope everyone's doing well!

Shontae

Sunday, February 06, 2005

BE ONE OF US

Yes. Be one of us. Join Stacy and Angela's new message board, and be one of us.

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

An email from Shontae in Scotland!!!

Hi everybody!

I'll try and keep this short...I'm on day two in Scotland. It's been fun so far, today we did some sight-seeing and such. I don't actually get to campus (or even Stirling for that matter) until Saturday, and we don't start classes until next Thursday. Also, the weather here has been AMAZING. It's been so sunny and warm, like spring...but it's supposed to get really crappy this weekend, so we'll see.

There are eight girls in my group, and they all seem really cool. We went out to dinner together, tonight to this really funny Mexican restaurant that played a lot of Elvis music and some mariachi music. The waiters liked to pick on us as well. We're going to a pub next, so that should be fun too.

Today, we went to the Castle of Edinburgh and the Museum of Scotland. Both were really nice. The museum was HUGE and we didn't get to see all of it, so I'll have to go back at some point. Oh, I also saw three random guys wearing kilts today - one at the museum, one walking down the street as we were going to the castle, and one as we were leaving the castle. I managed to quickly take a picture of one.

I got my school address today, so if anyone wants that, be sure to let me know. Mail is always welcome (hint, hint). I start homestay tomorrow for like two or three days.

That's about it so far... I'll keep in touch.

Talk to you all later.

Shontae