Cooking for one in Edinburgh

It’s been a week since I arrived in Edinburgh! Although “settled” is a vague term, I’ve more or less settled into a routine here, and it’s been wonderful and new. I finally recovered from jet lag, and can therefore (more or less) function as a normal human being, which helps quite a bit when it comes to making friends. I’m living in a flat with three other girls, and we’ve got a kitchen! What a thrilling thing for a lover of cooking! In my living situation, I have not only the ability to cook meals for myself, it’s necessity. The result, so far, has been some pretty unorthodox-yet-delicious dishes. I’ve never had so much say in what I eat, and it’s truly very powerful. Here’s a little peak at what I mean- I’m confident you’ll understand what I mean by unorthodox…

Butternut Squash, Carrot, and Chickpeas over Rice

Grate a cup of butternut squash and 1 large carrot, sauté in a few tablespoons of olive oil on medium heat 

When squash and carrots are nearly soft, add a cup of cooked chickpeas.

Add a generous pinch of salt, a few shakes of black pepper, and a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar.

Serve over rice!

You’ll have to trust me that it was positively delectable.  I can tell that the cooking experiences I’ll have this semester will hang with me all my life. On another note, here are some neat photos taken around my building and on my daily walk to campus:

The view from my window.

 

From a Third-Floor Flat in Scotland

Today was my first day abroad in Edinburgh, Scotland. Before this weary traveller goes to sleep, I thought I’d share a few thoughts as this long and magnificent day comes to an end.

This ‘day’ was actually a marathon of days, starting yesterday afternoon when I arrived at Newark airport and tearily bid farewell to my parents at the international terminal. One look at the inhabitants of Gate 80, however, showed me that I was far from being alone in my travels. Nearly every other seat was occupied by a bright-eyed and nervous-looking American college student, bound for the University of Edinburgh, just as I was. Some flipped frantically through travel documents, while others exchanged goodbyes with family members on their cell phones. I struggled at first to keep my backpack, coat, and fiddle in order, like an overburdened mother trying to keep track of her many children. (“Sit STILL, you three!”, the stress-laden college student screamed at her inanimate objects).

The flight was remarkably smooth. I was seated next to another student bound for Edinburgh, and next to him sat a young Scottish man who, to our delight, turned out to be a guide for one of Scotland’s most raved-about touring companies. He shared wisdom on sites not to be missed, beers not to be overlooked, and made us practice our pronunciation of the word Edinburgh (“Edin-BRAH! Edin-BRAH!”).

When the plane landed, the local time was 7:30 in the morning. The day was just beginning, yet I hadn’t slept a wink. (Needless to say, I’m thrilled at the imminent joy that is bedtime!) The day proceeded as I met my flatmates, navigated cobble sidewalks, and tried not to pass out at the sight of remarkable, centuries-old architecture. A truly emotional, exhausting, and inspiring start to a semester-shaped journey.

Auld Lang Syne? Totally Scottish.

Happy 2012!

Amidst the revel and celebration that marks the beginning of a new year, I’ve found myself  steeped in awe; in less than two weeks, I’ll be boarding a plane to Edinburgh, Scotland for a semester abroad at Edinburgh University. My winter vacation has been oddly reminiscent of the summer before starting college- I’ve been signing up for orientation events, choosing my housing situation, and (my Geology professors would approve) looking at countless Google Earth satellite images of the city to which I’m headed.

In the weeks to follow, I’ll try to give some insight on what it’s like to leave Bates for a semester. What will 5 months in Scotland be like? I know you’re on the very edge of your seat! Read on!

Now, if you’ll pardon me, I’ve got to get back to memorizing this list of common Scottish sayings.

A Case of Contra Nostalgia

For the second year in a row, Freewill Folk Society is organizing the Bates Community Folk Festival ! It’ll be a glorious February weekend of amazing folk music concerts, student performances, jams, and tons of contradancing. Though I’m sad that I won’t be on campus for the event (see here), I’m happy just to be a part of the planning.

Sitting here in my New Jersey kitchen, thinking about the festival and the incredible dances I attended this semester, however, brings about a horrible case of what I’d like to call “contra-nostalgia”. In order to understand contra-nostalgia, you’ve got to understand a little bit about the contradance scene in New England.

Contradances happen ALL the time in Maine. There are multiple dances a week, and if you went to all of them, you’d find yourself travelling to every corner of the state. At Bates, there’s a dance nearly every month.

(Not sure what a contradance is? Click here and here )

Widespread though the dances may be, the New England contradance community is surprisingly tight-knit, and familiar faces abound after attending just a few dances. Not just familiar faces, but friendly, kind, warm faces.

The monthly dance in North Yarmouth, ME.

Add in foot-stompin’ live folk music to the mix, and you’ll begin to understand why it’s not unlikely for a contradancer to go to a dance every weekend.

The band Sassafras Stomp performing in N. Yarmouth.

The cure for contra-nostalgia? When there’s no dance for miles around, that’s a tough one, but writing about it sure is a step.

The November Blues

It’s no secret- I’ve been neglecting my blog lately! I’m not sure why, but it seems like November is the month in which my work ethic tends to tank. I think it’s a combination of things: my classes, while still unbelievably great, have lost their newness and with it has gone my initial excitement to dive head-first into readings and lab reports and projects. I can see the end of the semester, and that’s sort of a dangerous thing. My focus has shifted away from Bates and onto my semester in Scotland, which is approaching quickly! I realized this all over Thanksgiving break, and have actually returned with a renewed sense of excitement for the work that awaits in these next few weeks.

On another note, my Geology classes have once again provided some of the most beautiful photo-ops in Maine. Here are a few:

Sprague Marsh in Phippsburg, where my Hydrogeology class has been doing field work.

My classmates pull up an auger that was drilled into the marsh peat, sand, and silt. The data gathered from the auger helped to make a geologic cross-section of the marsh.

The moon rising over Schoodic Peninsula in Acadia National Park.

Watching the sun rise from the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. Cadillac is the first place you see the sun rise in the entire country!

The view as we climbed the "Beehive" in Acadia.

First-year seminar students gather on Sand Beach for a mini-lecture about the composition of the sand.

Don’t Fret: The Binder Was Just Hiding.

Last weekend, members of Northfield, Bates’ folk a cappella group, made a very important discovery. We had been searching since the beginning of the school year for our famous big blue binder. Ever since I joined Northfield my freshman year, I had admired this over-sized, overflowing gem of Bates folk music  history, which to date contains most of the songs that Northfield has sung for pleasure and for performances since the group formed over a decade ago.

Needless to say, as this year’s leader, I was terrified at the thought of the precious thing having been lost in the hustle-bustle of last year’s graduation! It was nowhere to be found, and we all but forgot about it.

That is, until last weekend. Sarah Davis, a Northfield alumna who graduated in 2010, paid us a visit to teach the group about “shapenote singing”, an interval-based form of reading music in which each note has a different shape according to its distance from the base note. Sounds complicated, no? Apparently it was developed to allow people with no musical background to be able to sight-read song music. Personally, I think it’d be much easier for these folks to learn to read music, but that’s not the point.

With Sarah coming, we had extra incentive to find our giant songbook, and find it we did, deep in the closet of another club’s office! To make a long story short, I’m totally transfixed by this collection of sheet music. It’s an incredibly powerful thing to hold that much history in your hands. Sarah’s arrival marked another happy transfer of knowledge through song from one Bates “generation” to the next, which is really what Northfield is all about. I’m excited to see what we’ll add to that famous binder this year.

At the end of the day, the kitchen.

I love food! I’m deeply interested in how food is grown, prepared, and talked about. How it shapes cultures, families, and traditions. How it’s distributed and how some people have better access to it than others. This past week has led me to consider food in both an academic setting and a kitchen setting.

I’m taking an Environmental Studies/Anthropology class called “Social Movements, NGOs, & the Environment”. We discuss how and why social movements and non-governmental organizations develop, and what role they play in what’s called ‘global civil society’. We’ve got a big paper due at the end of the semester (20 pages! woah) and this week we had to come up with a preliminary list of sources. My paper is about the connection between race and food, and is going to be a case study of an organization I worked a little bit with this summer called East New York Farms in Brooklyn. It was last night in the library at 11:30 that I realized how grateful I am to be writing about something that I find so fascinating! I stumbled upon article after article that I was positively thrilled to read the abstract of. (As a science major, I don’t often get to do this..)

All this talk of growing food makes me a little nostalgic for my summer...

So I’ve been thinking about food and food justice and environmentalism in class. But like everyone, food affects my life in a big way at least three times a day. Tonight was our weekly BEAM (Bates Energy Action Movement) meeting, and it was my turn to cook dinner! Armed with a great macaroni & cheese recipe and ingredients I picked up at Shaw’s earlier in the afternoon, my friend Clara and I became masters of the Frye Street Union kitchen.

It’s easy, especially at college, to forget the importance of cooking for oneself. But there’s incredible power in choosing ingredients and preparing your own food. It certainly gets you thinking about where your food is coming from, not to mention it relieves all that post-break stress!

Not Your Typical Classroom.

A little over a week ago, 15 first-year students were introduced to my favorite aspect of geology- the outdoor classroom! The students are taking “Exploring Maine Geology”, a first-year seminar taught by my adviser, Dyk Eusden. I also took this class as a freshman, and after that I was hooked. Now I’m working for the Geology department as a teaching assistant, which means I go on the field trips of this class and help to answer questions.

The first field trip of the class was to Cliff Island, a beautiful island in Casco Bay near Portland. The trip requires a scenic ride through the bay on a ferry, the island’s only means of transporting mainlanders.

Students learn a little about the bedrock geology of Maine and Casco Bay before leaving the ferry to start their field work.

Once on the island, some field methods were covered, like how to take “strike and dip” measurements with a compass, and how to take field notes.

Lauren, my fellow teaching assistant, leads a small lesson in "strike and dip" measurements.

Pointing North!

After circling the coast of the island, the students put together a bedrock map of the entire area by extrapolating upon the outcrops they were able to see.

I think it’s safe to say that I must have the best job on campus.

Sunshine on a Sunday is Overrated.

Rainy Sundays have got to be one of my favorite times to be at Bates. In the morning, Commons is wonderfully empty. Hot breakfast and coffee is appreciated more than usual. The general calm quality that rain possesses descends upon the campus, and everything seems to slow down a bit.  And as much as I love the outdoors and the sun, sometimes it’s nice to have a reason to stay inside. It’s a billion times easier to do homework when the alternatives are scant.

This morning, after a performance with Chase the Fiddlers was cancelled due to rain, I holed up in my room and had some fun with Garage Band (check it out! http://soundcloud.com/mpickoff), while trying not to wake my sure-to-be-sleeping neighbors.

When the inevitable arrived, I rode my bike to Carnegie and did a bit of Geology homework, but the setting was surprisingly peaceful. I was the only one in the building, save 2 or 3 others, and did my assignment on rock  joints and fractures as the rain fell and my music played.

My study space in Carnegie. Giant rock + tracing paper + colored pencils = One fun afternoon!

All in all, a lovely end to the weekend.

First Week Reflections

It’s incredible how one can adapt to a different setting so easily. A week ago, the room I sit in now as I type was an unfamiliar, empty, lonely place. In just seven days it’s been transformed into a haven and a home. So begins another year of such adaptations and transformations! This year, I’m living in Chase House, the Environmental Sustainability house on campus, with 18 other housemates. It’s a much different feel than living in 280 last year, and I’m loving it so far.

I had to double check my previous statement that I’ve only been here a week. It feels like much longer than that, in the best way possible. Generally, weeks in college move at lightning speed, but perhaps getting used to this place again makes every process a bit slower.

My course schedule is close to being set. I’m signed up for 5 classes right now: 3 Geology classes and 2 Environmental Studies classes. I may drop one of those three Geo classes, as sad as it will be, in order to retain my sanity this semester. If I were to look at my schedule this year as a freshman, I think I would have been a little disappointed in myself. My sarcastic inner dialogue would have sounded something like, “Well, Margaret. I see you’re really taking advantage of the wide variety of courses offered at this fine institution!”. You see, inner freshman voice, I’ve learned that at a liberal arts college, it’s sometimes easy to spread yourself too thin. Sometimes it’s nice to focus on one or two subjects for a while. I may feel differently by the end of this semester, but it never hurt to try.

I’ve missed Bates a lot, and I love to be on campus. I’ve realized in the past week, however, how much I’ve really pined for Maine and New England in general. The re-introduction into folk life here in Maine has been swift and wonderful. The day I rolled in, I quickly rushed off to the Belfast contra dance with two other students. Two days later, we headed down to Brattleboro, VT for the bi-annual Dawn Dance, an 11-HOUR contra dance (from 8 pm to 7am) with live music and hundreds of dancers. (Folk jam sessions and singing circles outside the dance hall prompted a possible change in my study abroad plans… more on that later!) Back on campus, we hosted the annual Freshman Lobster Bake Contra Dance, and last night Freewill Folk Society held its first dance of the year in Chase Hall. We had a great turnout, and started the dancing season off well.

I’m looking forward to a semester filled with Geology, riding my bike across campus, contra dancing, fiddling, and the beautiful Maine fall.