Scotland is five hours ahead of the East Coast. Five. A sporting event that starts at 6:25 eastern standard starts at 11:25 here. So, in consequence of watching the super bowl, if I watched the whole thing, I would get maybe four hours of sleep the night before my first day of classes at St. Andrews.
Totally worth it.
Living in Albany, which is way off at the end of the East Sands, meant that I sure as hell wasn't going to go looking for a pub that was showing the game at midnight in the rain. I watched it in a completely not illegal, totally legitimate way via livestream on my computer. Digestives and Guinness-in-a-can next to all my course books and orientation guides. Party central, let me tell you what. Football and car crashes are really the only two instances in my life when I curse like a sailor, and I was a bit worried about that, but none of my housemates have complained to me yet about hearing, "HIT the BASTARD! Hit him in the
FUCKING MOUTH!
FUCK!" repeatedly, at 2am, so I assume it's all good. In the second quarter, the NFL started shutting down the streams, and so I started cursing for an entirely different reason. I missed the onside kick, was able to catch one possession from a spanish-language channel, another from a British one, and it was kind of an experience to finally secure a reasonable quality source, that was in French no less, and on the next play, see Porter's pick six. I stayed up for a while after, watching coverage of the French quarter, not a little teary-eyed. I am very sad to be missing Lombardi Gras. Even
if when we win it again, it won't be special like this win is special.

Of course, in four hours I had plenty to distract me. School III is in a square, along with other suitably palatial buildings, next to the back of St. Sal's. In contrast to its remarkable exterior, however, is a lecture theater with quite cheap, and quite fuchsia, seats. There were maybe 70 kids inside. The Professor, or rather lecturer I should say as there is going to be multiple professors in addition to the tutors, came in about ten minutes late, and my other classes seem to confirm the trend of lectures starting even more on Wesleyan Time than Wesleyan. Monday was just enrollment, however, and the lecturer, a pleasing man named Angus with a pleasing English accent, just went over assessments and the lecture program and generally what to expect; which was great for me, personally, but was probably pretty boring for everyone else. There were certainly plenty of "yas," posh kids that take English before taking over daddy's company, who made their boredom known. Everyone in general seems to dress up for class way more than at home, and feel free to rustle and pack up before class is over, although I do understand that Wes is far more casual than the norm.

My other classes followed this trend of Monday not being a teaching day. I went up to the arts building for Latin and then the arts lecture theater, which is actually kind of a cheap convention room, for classics. The seminar room is on the third floor, with a absolutely beautiful view of the West Sands. Latin is taught alternately between two women, with a third one apparently coming in after the fourth week, and luckily enough for me, who remembers nothing, they're starting a little bit behind where I stopped last semester. The lecturer on Monday was a kind-faced American, who explained to me the differences in British way of teaching latin afterwards, and the lecturer on Tuesday, a lovely, very pregnant Englishwoman, explained participles in such a way that they finally became clear to me, so I'm optimistic about it overall, although I know it's going to eat up a lot of my study time. I'm pleased with the classics class, although it's looking much more grounded in secondary lit and favors archaeology over straight history, as I think it's going to complement my medieval history course - they're both about the Mediterranean, and the lecture on Tuesday, which I was nervous about because it dealt with pre-history and the geographical facts of the region and eww, science, was actually really interesting. I learned that archaeologically, sheeps and goats are very hard to tell apart. So, scholars actually use the term sheepgoats when they can't be sure, and I think that's hilarious.
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