My first week of class

Welcome back! It has already been an entire week since my last post, so let me fill you in on what I’ve been up to lately.

Lectures and Tutorials

As much as I wish I could be writing about all of the new castles and towns I explored this week, I did come here to study. Thankfully, I think that my classes — Doric, Gaelic Folklore, Gaelic Ireland, and Controversial Questions — will be interesting and contribute greatly to my academic and cultural experiences.

My first class this week was a lecture for my Intro to Doric class. While future lectures will be focused on learning the actual Doric language (by immersion!), this lecture was about the history of the Scots language in Scotland and why it’s primarily spoken in NE Scotland today. Here are some fun facts that I learned:

• There are three languages spoken in Scotland: English, Gaelic (pronounced “Gallic”) and Scots
• Doric is a dialect of Scots that is spoken primarily in Aberdeenshire
• Scots is a Germanic language, while Gaelic is a Celtic language… this means that they are NOTHING alike
• Gaelic (“Gallic”) in Scotland is not the same as Gaelic in Ireland; Irish Gaelic is a linguistic ancestor of Scottish Gaelic
• 1.5 million people understand or speak Doric in Scotland today
• 49% of people in Aberdeen can speak Doric

I’m so excited to learn a new language!!! Perhaps I will be able to write a blog post in Doric by the end of the semester…

The best part of my Doric lecture on Tuesday was that I made two new friends: Merit from Germany and Jasmin from Austria. We all ate lunch together after class and have been hanging out nearly every day since then!

My other classes were exciting, too. While I was waiting to go into my philosophy lecture hall, I talked with a girl named Sophie. She looked so familiar, but I just couldn’t figure out why. Turns out, she also goes to St. Olaf!!!!

Our philosophy lecture is definitely the biggest class I have ever had. There’s got to be at least 150 students in that lecture! Each week, we will study a different controversial question. This week’s question was “is it morally wrong to eat meat?”. We have two lectures per week that introduce the debate and then one tutorial where we discuss the topic in smaller groups.

I don’t have much to say about my Gaelic Folklore class yet because both the lecture and tutorial were introductions to the class. Jasmin is in the same lecture as me, though, which is fun! And we already know the essay questions for our papers… I think I’m going to write about supernatural creatures in Gaelic folklore such as kelpies, fairies, and the Loch Ness monster.

Gaelic Ireland is probably going to be my toughest class. I don’t know much about Irish history, so I had to do a quick wikipedia search to get a basic understanding of what happened between the 1500s and now. That was very helpful for understanding the 17th century bardic poetry I had to read this week 😅. Luckily, I’m not in this alone… Quamasia, another student from St. Olaf, is in this class too!

Wednesdays are for… spin class and cocktails

That’s right — I don’t have class on Wednesdays! Since I didn’t have much work to do this week, I was able to go to the 12:15 spin class again at the Aberdeen Sports Village. I’m hoping to go every Wednesday because it’s such a fun and intense workout! The instructor turns off all of the lights, except for some colorful LEDs, and plays upbeat music that matches the pace we are supposed to be cycling at. The first half of the workout is usually spent doing hill-climbs at a high resistance, while the second half consists of sprinting at a lower resistance. At the end of the cycling workout, we do an additional 15 minute ab workout. AMAZING.

On Wednesday night, the Erasmus Student Network (the society for international students) hosted an event at Jam Jar called “cocktails and conversations”. I thought that it was going to be a laid back event, but it turned into quite the party. I got to talk with some people from Norway, France, Canada, and Austria… and then all of a sudden the rugby and tennis societies showed up, and the DJ cranked the music up so loud that we couldn’t hear each other anymore! So, we took some shots of whiskey instead.

A quiet weekend

Unfortunately, I was forced to have a quiet weekend due to the “fresher’s flu”. I was sitting with Isabella and Alyssa in our kitchen on Friday night wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants going, “man, it is SO cold in here”. Our dorm is always boiling hot, so they knew something wasn’t right with me. I put on my hat and winter coat and stayed in my bed for the rest of the night. I slept for 12 hours and then took a nap immediately after breakfast on Saturday. By Saturday night I was feeling much better. Alyssa and I had made plans with Merit from Doric class earlier in the week, so we went out with her for a drink at a place downtown called The Wild Boar. It was nice to be able to do something fun this weekend! I spent all of today in the library reading Irish poetry, which was fun… but a different kind of fun 😊.

I have a trip planned for next weekend, so check back for a more exciting post with pictures!!!!

Until next time,

Clara