There and Back Again: a Retrospective Post

“I'm looking for someone to share in an adventure, and it's very difficult to find anyone.”

“I should think so, in these parts. We're plain, quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing, uncomfortable things, they make you late for dinner.”

Returning home after the trip was almost surreal. It took about a week for my life to settle down, but when it finally did and I had the opportunity to sit down with a friend and let my mind relax for awhile, we decided to have a three day run of the Lord of the Rings movies, which he had never seen. I had the chance to think through the events of the last couple months. If anything, I think the above quote from the Hobbit describes my life before the trip.

I grew up in a suburb, doing my fair share of city traveling, making trips around the States with my family, but starting college, I’d hoped for the opportunity to study abroad. I didn’t know where or when, but I’d looked at programs as a freshman, hoping that somehow I could fit one into my schedule. For the first two years of school, that seemed impossible. I was told about the Scotland trip almost by accident, and I started looking into it on a whim.

My parents weren’t particularly fond of my desire for international travel experience, but I eventually won them over. It took time, but it worked. Looking back now, I was nervous, but at the time I did my best to hide it. Telling my parents I was worried wasn’t going to get me anywhere.

I can say today, without a doubt, that it was one of the best decisions of my life. Not only did I come away from the trip with international travel experience and a better idea of where I would like my future career path to take me, but also with a sense of mental and physical strength. Life has its twists and turns, and I’ve made it through many of late that I doubt I would have had the mental fortitude to handle before the trip.

As far as career direction goes, though I’ve always wanted to do something that would have a positive impact on others, I don’t think as many of the options were apparent to me until this trip. Medical writing, though perhaps not the most entertaining work to many people, has always held an appeal to me. Work with a medical technology company would be interesting and almost certainly fulfilling.  There are so many companies these days that work with teams around the globe, and I’ve always hoped I would end up working with a project that has a global element. The idea of improving lives on a global scale appeals more than ever, and the trip is no small part of that change.

However, my experiences also opened my eyes to small-scale work and the impact it can have. There isn’t a need to work for a massive corporation in order to impact other people’s lives. Before, I wanted to have a global impact. I wanted to make a change in the world, but remained blind to a number of issues in my own life.

The trip made it obvious: if you want to make a change, you have to start with the problems at home.

By no means does that mean that I’m not interested in a career in global communication, merely that if you want to fix something, you have to start small. You have to understand the roots of the problems through communication with a number of people, the more perspectives the better. I began to realize that making a difference or impacting someone else’s life didn’t have to be done on a massive world-altering scale. Small things, such as the nurse who took the time to explain some of the complexities of the NHS while riding the train or the man I ran into on the waterfront that talked with me about American politics, can make all the difference. Spreading knowledge and information doesn’t have to be on a massive scale to impact the world.

And you know what? That means it’s time for another Tolkien quote: 

“Even the smallest person can change the course of history.”

Maybe in this case, it will be small actions that have a large impact. Only time will tell.

On a concluding note: I am eternally grateful to the people that encouraged me to go on the trip as well as the people that made it possible for me to go. Though it may not be apparent just yet and it may take some time for me to find my path, they have made all the difference in the world. It may not seem like much, but it was the chance of a lifetime.

Return and Reflection

Now that I have been back in the United States for a few days I feel I have had proper time to reflect on my return home, and my time in Scotland. My Final day in the UK has a hectic one, I traveled by train to London, navigated from Kings Cross to my hostel via the underground, visited as many of the tourist sites around London as I could, and made my way to Heathrow airport by train to catch an 11:00 AM flight to O'Hare. When listed all at once it seems crazy, but in the moment i did not feel rushed or stressed, the train and underground made my travels to London and around the city smooth and effortless. Once I was in the city I was thrilled to have the opportunity to see many of the sights I've been wanting to see for a long time. 

First we visited Abbey Road, crossed one of the most famous crosswalks in the world, and stand in the footsteps of The Beatles!

Me crossing Abbey Road

 Next we went to the center of London and got a look at Big Ben, the Thames river, Parliament, and the London Eye.

Big Ben

   

London Eye and the Thames

View down the Thames

After slowing down to take a look around London the Next 24 hours were a blur. The next thing I knew I was puling into my driveway after a 6 hour drive from O'Hare international airport. After a good night sleep i had some time to reflect on my trip as a whole and what i noticed coming back into the US. I had never been  totally immersed in a different culture like I was during this trip, It brought about a different perspective and got me to think outside of Purdue, Indiana, Ohio, and the US. If nothing else I got to discuss and learn about a different set of social, economic, and political problems. I also learned about how non engineering groups study engineering projects, which I feel is one of the coolest and most useful experiences i will take from my time in Scotland.

Arbroath

Arbroath is a town in Scotland. It is located at North Sea coastal line and has a beautiful harbor. So it is also a good place to visit because I am doing some research and want to know more about the fishing industry in United Kingdom.

It is very close to Dundee, the distance is just 15 minutes of train. After leaving the train station, you will find the instructing sigh pointing out the direction to the harbor and tourist center. But if you don’t, just walking down the hill and the smell of sea will lead you there. On the way to the harbor, you will see a few houses selling smokies, and you know you are on the right track.

The harbor is pretty, with many fishing boats there. There is also a huge seafood restaurant right beside the tourist center. The coolest thing is you can have a real sea tour there! For an adult, you need to pay 25 pounds for an hour tour. It should be fun! I didn’t go to the tour because I didn’t have that much of cash with me. But I went to a bar restaurant and had their famous Arbroath smokie there. It is a popular local dish and the fish is fresh and tasty. You could have either chips or potato on the side with salad, and it only costs you about 10 pounds. I think it definitely worth a try.

Another popular attraction there is the cliff. But I wasn’t able to make it. I went to the pound instead. It is so beautiful and they have many ducks and swans there. It is a nice place for a short walk and you can enjoy the sunshine there.

This place didn’t help me learn a lot on the fishing industry history. However, it is still quite good to visit a local fishing town and to get to know how there looks like. I strongly recommend people going there for a perfect afternoon.

Birds and Boats

I cannot believe it is my last week here in Scotland.  I am incredibly sad to be leaving Scotland so soon. Last Thursday, my class and I traveled to Anstruther on a coach bus and this bus was incredibly comfortable because there were many seats open with only eleven students occupying these seats. Once we arrived in Anstruther, the day was beginning to warm up and there were numerous people who were riding the boat from Anstruther to the Isle of May.  The boat ride was incredible because the ride itself was incredibly calm.  As we continued onto the Isle of May, I saw many birds flying around the island because the island is a preservation for many species.  I saw baby puffins trying to fly in the air only to lift off the ground for a few seconds and the birds then landed back on the ground.   Furthermore, I saw some dolphins swimming around and the boat was about 45 minutes altogether.

After we arrived at the Isle of May, the tour guides gave us a brief introduction about the island and then we had about two and a half hours to explore the island.   They informed us that the Isle has numerous puffins and that we need to stay on the path so we will not step on the eggs of puffins.   As I started my walk up the hill, I accidentally veered off the path and was rewarded by a puffin attacking my face. After this incident, I was able to continue climbing and got to see the birds flying around in their natural habitat.   I got to observe the behavior of these birds and I have never seen so many birds in my entire life.

Visibility

Scotland has moved from industrial to post-industrial state. One can see the evidences and characteristics throughout the place easily. The capability of being readily notice is the definition for visibility. I am interested in seeing the different aspects of development of Scotland especially about how Scotland is putting effort in being environmental friendly. Therefore, I have chose visibility as the theme for my study abroad program.

Post-industrial - taken from http://www.bloglet.com/understanding-the-values-of-a-post-industrial-society/

Since I have decided the topic that I want to focus on, I start to do the research. Then, I have found a surprising fact which is Scotland has been one of the leading roles in sustainable developing in Europe. I have never thought that Scotland would be a candidate for being so environmental friendly and then, I begin to wonder the reasons behind it. After some research, I have found various evidences from small to big or digital to physical objects.

Flag of Scotland - taken from http://www.desktopc.com/2193/scotland-flag-wallpaper.html/scotland-flag-wallpaper-2

From my perspective, I think the tone that the Scottish government uses on its energy website encourages its citizen to participate in a series of activities of install renewable energy equipments. Thus, one can see solar panels install on the roof of the individual household. Another visibility example is the hand dryer in the restroom. In Scotland, most of the restrooms provide only hand dryers instead of paper towel. Replacing paper towel by hand dryer will save water, trees and reduces solid waste and the amount of resources depletion. There are numerous case studies conducted at schools to prove that the use of hand dryer is more environmental friendly than use of paper towel produced from recycled materials. The last example that I want to use to demonstrate visibility of being “Green” is the tram in Edinburgh. Tram only relies on electricity to power, so there is zero emission. It also decreases the usage of cars and transport significant number of people to Edinburgh airport.

GREEN Earth - taken from http://technology-green-energy.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/green-earth-technologies.html

After being in Scotland for one and half months, I really think other parts of the world should follow it as a paradigm to make Earth a better place to live on. This blue giant, Earth, has once been beautiful and clean. However, human activities have polluted and destroyed it. If we do not start working on restoring or at least improving the environment, human may extinct before we are capable of travelling and residing in another planet. Please cherish mother Earth!

Cruachen power station

Local Stranger

Night view of Dundee - by author

Port of Dundee( Marine Parade) - by author

Penguins in clothes at the side of church - by author

RRS Discovery Ship - by author

University of  Abertay Dundee - by author

Royal Mail: Sending Packages Internationally

revisionist histories in progress

How many of you have heard of Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh?

She and her sister were artists in Glasgow in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They attended the Glasgow School of Art and then formed their own independent art studio. You can see some of Margaret's work in the Hunterian Art Gallery's Mackintosh Online Catalogue, courtesy the University of Glasgow.

But hold on... whose photograph is that there in the banner at the top of the site?

This is the other Mackintosh, Charles, whose surname Margaret shares because they got married in 1900. Charles Rennie Mackintosh did some cool things too. A bit of cursory digging around in the same online art catalogue brought up over 500 artistic/design artifacts under Charles's name. In comparison, there are 122 under Margaret's.

Maybe Charles was generally and honestly the more prolific creative, or maybe this collection is skewed his way for some other set of reasons. I do not know.

When we visited the Glasgow School of Art last week, our tour guide Lili explained along the way that though we celebrate Charles and his influence much more thoroughly today, it was his wife Margaret who garnered more fame during their working lives. How do we know? Mackintosh himself called Margaret a genius, but so often the work they did was collaborative--not easy to divide satisfactorily into his and hers. Both exhibited work at the 1900 Vienna Secession, both worked on plenty of architectural and design projects around Glasgow, together. Without doing a lot more research, I can't say who was really more regarded then vs now, exactly. But simply the idea that Charles has come to overshadow the female artists he worked with brought to mind a headline I noticed weeks ago: 'We Have Always Fought': Challenging the 'Women, Cattle, and Slaves' Narrative, an article by Kameron Hurley. In turn, Hurley's writing led me to others' on similar themes: Your Default Narrative Settings are Not Apolitical by Foz Meadows, and then from there to Tansy R. Roberts's unravelings of so-called Historically Authentic Sexism. Admittedly, these are not the most academic or theoretical or 'official' sources or platforms to turn to--they are concerned primarily with fantasy settings and the market for fiction, but before I knew all those details, the Hurley piece came to mind. So I went back to find it, read it through and followed a few of its links, and now I am applying some of the points from these pieces to some of the history and story we've encountered in and around Scotland so far.


Like Hurley, I too have "been nurtured in the U.S. school system on a steady diet of the Great Men theory of history." The notion of women's history as a separate field altogether--a separate set of classes, a separate set of textbooks, a separate level of influence--almost feels normal to me. It makes sense... But separateness isn't the only problem here. As Hurley explains, "pretending there’s only one way a woman lives or has ever lived--in relation to the men that surround her--is not a single act of erasure, but a political erasure. Populating a world with men, with male heroes, male people, and their 'women cattle and slaves' is a political act. You are making a conscious choice to erase half the world."

Erasure is a strong word. We couldn't really say that Margaret Macdonald has been erased, can we? And plenty of Scottish women haven't been fully erased by history--we can read about and visit a handful of memorials to women here in Dundee, if we like--and one even might argue that surely plenty of men's lives have been erased over time too. History can't make room for everyone, can it? Some people must be forgotten along the way, or nobody will feel very important. Some people just have to lose. Not everyone can have a plaque in the town square, right? Is any of this really a problem? Is it worth worrying about? I don't know.

Margaret Macdonald's wikipedia page is 1/3 the length of her husband's. Do we just happen to have more to say about him? Maybe.

I don't know.

Hurley writes, "Half the world is full of women, but it’s rare to hear a narrative that doesn’t speak of women as the people who have things done to them instead of the people who do things." In her conclusion, she acknowledges that "so what?" question, anticipating the "is this really worth worrying about?" objections, and widens the lens: "Stories tell us who we are. What we’re capable of. When we go out looking for stories we are, I think, in many ways going in search of ourselves, trying to find understanding of our lives, and the people around us. Stories and language tell us what’s important."

In German, the words story and history are the same word: Geschichte. I like to remember learning and being somewhat astonished by this idea. We consider the two from such varying perspectives most of the time, and sure, there are some differences between the things we call in English stories and the things we call histories... but not many. Neither is pre-determined and neither is ever unbiased.

While the analogy of cannibalistic llamas in Hurley's essay feels extreme to me, it is a successfully gripping introduction, at least. And the way Hurley uses the example, in some ways, brings me back to Andrew Feenberg (I wrote a little bit about his book last week) and Katie King (I wrote about her book last month) talking about black boxes. Hurley is seeing a single, lazy narrative concerning her example llamas and by analogy, concerning women. The shape of that story is so easy, so common, so normalized, that "our eyes glaze over, and we stop seeing [...] anything else." Once the differences get smoothed away, we can box up all the expected, traditional, standard things we "know" will be there--the elements and characterizations that seem to have worked so well for so long--into a shiny black square. We won't need to unpack any of it anymore--it works however it works and life goes on.

Nearer the end of Between Reason and Experience, Feenberg summarizes the black box concept again, specifically with respect to technology. He writes, "Standard ways of understanding and making devices are called 'black boxing' in constructivist studies of technology. Many of these standards reflect specific social demands shaping design" (178). Along with technological devices and gadgets, Feenberg mentions the market and bureaucratic systems as places where black boxing happens. I want to expand the idea even more; what if black boxes, as they make magical/invisible the design and standardization of devices, engines, markets, etc. also do the same to stories, as Hurley seems to see, and to groups of people and relationships in real life?

The women, cattle, slaves narrative is another instance of a black box. Women within that narrative become invisible bits and pieces--not because they aren't there, but because they fit a certain set of preconceptions which signal a certain level of insignificance, or at least lesser significance. Any kind of discriminatory prejudice could work the same way, not just the kinds based on gender. Sexism is complicated enough on its own, but it isn't on its own. It comes overlaid with plenty of other oversimplifying, reductive, unthinking prejudices. Our biased expectations of people based on any random characteristic, from hair color to gender to age--all of them take advantage of our tendency to put things in neat, tidy, little boxes.

Another word Feenberg uses for these sealed black boxes is "design codes." It has less of the great imagery of the black box metaphor, but it does gesture importantly to the non-tangible and more discursive manifestations of similar phenomena. Design codes. Official specs. Standard procedures. Traditional recipes. Ways Things Are Done. Sometimes such codes are incredibly useful, and they acknowledge important standards, guidelines, and functional patterns. But sometimes they need to change. Feenberg says so, too, admitting that "design codes are durable, but they can be revised" (178). Humans are good at revision. Change is a thing we've gotten pretty decent at. All the histories and stories, after all, yours and mine and the whole planet's, are still in progress. 

Walking in a Rocky Wonderland

In last week’s post, I discussed how a few places we have visited have created programs designed to teach certain audiences about their subject, be that the history of jute or the development of bridges. This week my focus is still on education, but in a more general sense: how can learning spaces outside the classroom affect what and how we learn?

Consider my expedition to Siccar Point, arguably the most significant geological outcrop in the world. It was here, in 1788, where James Hutton found proof of his theories of the geologic unconformity (a gap in the geologic record) and his ideas about deep time. In the classroom, thousands of miles away in West Lafayette, I learned the facts about Siccar Point in the context of the history of geology, with a few interesting pictures to illustrate the point. I can remember thinking “that’s a nifty outcrop,” my professor (perhaps jokingly, perhaps not- it was sometimes hard to tell) say that geologists have a religious experience when they visit this site, and not much else. When the opportunity arose to actually visit this mecca of geology, I knew that it was important, but had almost no idea what I would actually learn from the experience.

Gaining access to the point was both more and less difficult than I expected. More, because I had misinterpreted the online directions I had obtained and ended up walking eight miles instead of one and a half, and less because there was a significant number of path markers and “you are here” type maps along the way. The Coastal Path walk itself was incredibly beautiful, with views from the cliff tops over the North Sea for most of the journey.

The map at the head of the Coastal Path. Photo by author.

The cliffs on part of the Coastal Path. Photo by author.

t the trailhead marking the location of Siccar Point, there was an interpretive sign explaining just why in the world this location is important, and why you should visit. It summarized Hutton’s findings, and described how those findings went on to affect the development of geology and of science in general. While this information wasn’t new to me, I felt that just by reading it in this setting, less than a kilometer from the point itself, made it more significant.

The first interpretive sign. Photo by author.

After a tense ten minute walk through a pasture in which I was forced to dodge innumerable piles of cow leavings, I found a second sign, this one specifically discussing the geology of Siccar Point. It described the order in which the geologic events occurred and how we know those events occurred. Again, I had already been exposed to this information in class, but now that I was just a few hundred feet from this historic site, it suddenly had more weight. What I was about to see was history, and it was personal. This was one of the reasons I applied for this study abroad in the first place, and the fact that I was actually there, at that moment, made the information I already knew become personal as well.

The second interpretive sign. Photo by author.

And then, finally, I climbed down the last hill and got my first view of Siccar Point. There is nothing quite like being somewhere you have seen in pictures, read about in textbooks, known that, although you might want to get there sometime during your life, it is probably out of your reach, and then suddenly you actually do get there, and realize that the pictures don’t do the place any justice and the textbook descriptions suddenly seem so clinical and meaningless. One of Hutton’s traveling companions remarked that “the mind seemed to grow giddy by looking so far back into the abyss of time” as he described the scene at the point. When I first heard this, I thought that while it probably did feel significant, to say that it caused giddiness was probably an exaggeration. I was wrong. I spun around, trying to take it all in at once. I hopped from rock to rock, knowing that this was exactly where Hutton had been and what he had seen, and even though that was 226 years in the past, it was less than a moment compared to the true age of this place. I touched the unconformity, just because I wanted to see what 55 million years felt like. And I took my one (and only) selfie for this six week trip with Siccar Point in the background. I did, in fact, become giddy.

Siccar Point from above. Photo by author.

Panorama of the area. Photo by author.

Some of the folding is visible here, as well as the more horizontal sandstone layers. Photo by author.

Hutton's Unconformity (55My). Photo by author.

Beds folded nearly vertical. Photo by author.

The view looking back towards land. photo by author.

The all-important selfie! Photo by devilishly hansom author.

Actually being there, seeing this with my own eyes and reading the signs along the way, allowed me to understand the idea of deep time in a way that I never had before. It was an idea, an abstract concept that I understood but didn’t really get. I get it now. Thinking about deep time still makes me dizzy, but now I understand it not as a sense of confusion, but one of vertigo as I stand at the top of a cliff with no base, looking down into a past so distant as to be unknowable except for the evidence that survived hundreds of millions of years so that I could stand there on the shore of the North Sea in Scotland with my mouth open, speechless.

Glasgow after T(ea)

This week I spent some time recovering from the T in the Park festival and preparing for a day in Glasgow. T in the park was so much more than I expected and I am more than happy to say that I attended another music festival in another country because of my passion for them in the U.S. I spent lots of time preparing for this festival since I had heard it was such a big deal all across the UK. During my time at T in the Park, I became obsessed over Twenty One Pilots after their early afternoon performance, and was a proud American once I learned they were from Ohio just a state over from me. I was ecstatic to have seen them as well as, currently popular Calvin Harris perform with an introduction from former Fresh Prince, Will Smith.

 As Thursday approached, I was excited to visit Glasgow since it has been referenced in an array of songs I have listened to throughout the last couple of years. The group, Of Monsters and Men have mentioned love in the streets of Glasgow several times in their songs and I found the city to be very musically adapted. A significant architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh has huge impact on the designs and emotion throughout some of the buildings throughout Glasgow as well as stories shared by our tour guide about the women architects and their hardships pf becoming more than a simple housewife or mother. You will find both his design layouts and a building dedicated to women artists of Glasgow in the photo slideshow.

 

        Following the Glasgow School of Art tour, a visit to the Riverside Museum of Transport and Travel was lined up for the late afternoon where I found one of the most amazing vehicles on display. A hippie caravan stood at the back side of the building, far out of the way of the many more big name and post-industrial motors throughout the building which all stood up front and in the middle. I wandered about the building to make sure I didn’t miss anything interesting and found myself standing and staring at a hippie van which held home to a bed, tiny dresser and peace era posters communicating the fight against war on Iraq as well as many others. I could hear a man in the speaker located next to the van speaking of his time spent living ina caravan community while he drew a beard for cold winters and tried to find as much sleep as possible living among trees and few other humans around him in other caravans. You will also find these photos in the slideshow provided. 

City of Lights

Some of the pictures or photos are taken from:

http://youtu.be/Ks39sbw5th4

http://www.planetware.com/versailles/chateau-de-versailles-f-p-cv.htm

http://theitlawyer.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/it-law-in-action-claiming-eurostar.html

https://www.flickr.com/photos/24271543@N03/7170432340/

http://rap.genius.com/Atis-x-sinto-70cl-paris-city-lyrics#note-2290646

http://childwallvalleyneighbourhoodnursery.co.uk/french/

http://www.urbansplatter.com/history-pictures-paris-france/

http://www.itespresso.fr

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Louvre

http://www.lifesessions.com/gallery/paris_france/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Archdiocese_of_Paris

Some of the photos are from the author. 

The beginning of the end has now made its relevance to the trip I will never forget. As I stand beside those I am grateful to have shared such an adventure with I am taking in every bit of the last few days available for my advantage. While I am sad that the trip is coming to an end, there is still plenty to be done in the next two weeks that I am incredibly excited for.

                This Saturday might be the highlight of my trip being that it consists of one of my absolute favorite things to do: Music festivals in the summer! T in the Park is a Scottish music festival holding tradition since 1994. With music artists such as Calvin Harris, Artic Monkeys, Paolo Nutini and Ellie Goulding, T in the Park attracts over 85,000 people per day in the three days that its held. Since I haven’t attended the even yet, though, I won’t ruin the details with what I know before the experience and will simply promise to report the “epic-ness” for next week’s blog.

       This week included an 8 mile walk in total to and from the Falkirk wheel and the Kelpies. Games were played along the long walk as well as a much needed break under the shade of the Kelpies head. At first, it took me a minute to find the purpose in the Kelpies themselves and why they were so far out for people to have to either ride or walk to since they seemed so simple. Once I sat and people-watched for a few minutes, I questioned the relationship of this to something in the U.S. and found that it has a connection to the purpose of The Bean in downtown Chicago. Tourists from all around the world visit Chicago and manage to get pictures in front of the bean that sits in the middle of Millennium Park. After taking in the sun and breeze, it was time to carry on from the long day and move to getting ready for the day to come.

                I think the most that I got out of this week was my appreciation for the opportunity of the trip itself, especially finding that the group I’ve traveled with is one in a million. We have helped each other out through the tough times as well as the great. We have shared laughs, new games and bus rides with each other every single day. We walk together and travel together. We cook together and sing together to the sounds of whatever happens to play on the laptop in the kitchen. We use sarcasm as a way of bonding and manage to stick together when the time is needed. It is more than I expected and I can't wait for the remainder of the trip.