On Lessons

A wintry scene

The ground was covered in a thin layer of frost this morning. More than one student fell prey to it on the way to school, as evinced by the various shrieks I heard around me followed by loud thumps. I suspect that the girls who went around campus with ripped stockings might have been said victims of the pernicious frost.

I'm starting to familiarize myself with the long stretch of road which leads from Pollock Halls to the main central campus. It's about a 25 minute walk every day to class, which I must say is quite a workout for me. Pollock's dining hall feeds well, both in the mornings and evenings, but I find that all the walking coupled with the weather makes me extremely ravenous by noon.

In front of the EUSA building in Bristo Square



After much running around, I've finally settled my timetable! And I'm proud to say that I've gotten down most of my lecture timings and lesson venues pat!


Tuesday and Thursday mornings are set aside for Medieval European History. The entire lecture theatre scribbles as the professor goes on about the Christian crusades and the black plague. He uses yellowed OHP transparencies, the likes of which have not been seen since I was in secondary 3. It seems very traditional History with a capital H; there's been a lot of emphasis on dates, the names of various battles and bullet-pointed lists of causal factors. It's certainly different from NUS history but I suppose somewhat...romantically quaint in the way large leather-bound books evoke a wistful sense of old-worldliness. The professor himself is rather adorable in a slightly bookish, grey-haired kind of way. I shall quote a joke of his uttered during the end of lecture because I found it amusing:


Professor: What is the difference between the Middle Ages and yoghurt?


Audience: nonplussed


Professor: One's a live culture, and the other's a dead one!


Audience: feeble, sleepy laughter


Professor: *drily* Well I suppose that didn't go down too well did it. Anyway - *shuffles papers and resumes lecture*


In the evenings, on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, I go to David Hume Tower for my History of Art class which is proving extremely interesting. The lecture theatre is usually darkened so we can better view the images of medieval art which flash across the screen. It's a little bit like a Dan Brown novel, as we decipher the various symbols and icons appearing in each painting. But nothing controversial involving Jesus' lineage of course.



Finally, Monday, Tuesday and Thursday afternoons are spent on Scottish Literature. I have been blest/cursed with an immense booklist, covering about 20 texts. But thankfully we are not expected to finish them all (or so my tutor says). Thus far, we've only looked at Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach" and Thomson's City of Dreadful Night which is unabashedly depressing. Both texts are rather sober starts to the new semester.


One thing I should say here is that even though the lectures in Edinburgh are just 50 minutes long, several of the professors I've met (barring the yoghurt one) don't just lecture. They orate. Perhaps the limited time necessitates such carefully planned and compact lessons. Or maybe the professors I've encountered just have a natural charisma. But in any case, it's almost as if the lecture theatre is the pulpit from which they, literally, deliver a well-rehearsed speech complete with dramatic pauses, rhetorical questions and witty anecdotes. Indeed, some completely do away with visual aides, preferring to simply talk. And the lessons never end with some mundane announcement about where to buy textbooks or what to read for the following week's tutorial. Rather, they are rounded off nicely with a line from Tennyson or Wordsworth, followed by a deliberate pause for the quote to sink in and impress (as intended). Finally, a quiet but definite 'thank you' signals the end of lecture.


They aren't necessarily the best lectures in terms of content or organization, but I would credit them for being delivered with much finesse and aplomb. And packaged of course, in that crisp and clipped British accent which seems to imbue the entire performance with an additional polish. I'm tempted to clap at the end of some lectures.


So as you might have guessed, I'm enjoying lessons so far.


Off to do some reading now. Will update later!