wissenschaftsfeindlichkeit

I woke up at 7 this morning so I could get breakfast and head to the library since I discovered last night that one of my readings for my tutorial this morning is not online or in my course anthology. I quickly discovered that the poem is not only over 2,000 lines long, but also written in Scots. And not just one dialect of Scots, but different dialects from all over the country. And some words MacDairmid made up. It was a nice surprise/good morning/wakeup call. Allow me to share a line from the poem:

Were you a vision o' mysel'

transmuted by the mellow liquir?

Neist time 'guise you in a glass

I'se warrant I'll mak 'siccar

That was one of the more decipherable lines. The poem is called 'A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle.' It's about a drunk man who is coming home from a pub one night, falls into a ditch, looks up and sees a thistle and the moon, and then contemplates love, life, tradition, and literature from Holland, Belgium, and Greece. Plausible, right?

Here are some awesome words and accompanying annotations I came across:

wissenschaftsfeindlichkeit: hostility to scientific knowledge

youcky: itchy, disgusting, and sexually aroused (is it just me, or is that all quite contradictory?)

I had to read that poem for my Scottish Lit. class, which has been quite amusing lately. Last week we learned about a magazine called 'The Captain,' which was a magazine for young boys. Stories such as Prester John were published in it to inspire young boys to go on adventures to South Africa and help the British in their imperialist efforts. It was edited by the Old Fag.  Even the lecturer admitted that his name would not be very well received nowadays. 

I also just realized that I have been here for EIGHT weeks. Time is going by too fast. However, I still have over 12 weeks until I go home, so I guess it's not all that bad. And some of my most exciting trips/events are coming up, mainly this month!