retrospective Edinburgh

This is sort of a retro post from when I was on the train back to London from Edinburgh and while I was on the crags, which is why the tense doesn't work for my being in a place where I could actually post anything on the internet. And also why it happened about a week ago.
___

So I went out looking for a cafe to continue working on my peacebuilding paper in, but instead I ended up climbing Calton Hill, walking past the Holyroodhouse Palace, and now I'm climbing some moor or something. And I don't have water and a matpakke. I don't have my camera. I have my computer. Ridiculous.

I also don't have my coat along, and it's pretty chilly just sitting here. Ooo.

And I think someone just took a picture of me using my computer to take pictures.



Update:
I was climbing a crag. Salisbury Crags to be specific. I did it again today with Ashley, and we took lots of pictures of each other.* We had the super tourist day, taking pictures with stuff and things and locations. I finally bought some patches for my pop's backpack. Still need to get him the Norwegian patch, and maybe something for Denmark and Finland, seeing as I was there and interacted with the cities at least a little bit.** It was a good day and all, but climbing the crags, going up Royal Mile and ending up at the Castle for a bit more upness was a tiring day. Also, I don't recommend the castle unless one is really obsessed with war museums and crowns. It's an £9 or £11 entrance fee, so something about $20 to walk round an old military installation and look down on the city. And if you really want to climb something and look down on the city, I would recommend the comparatively cheap – because they are free – crags. As a side note/trip, there is a "museum" of weaving right by the entrance/exit to the castle which is one part informative to 4 parts "buy something Scottish!" Not that I disapprove of buying something Scottish. I bought scarves somewhere else, because it was a bit chilly and they were nice. But I rebelled from the absolutely touristy by buying a dreadful pink (looks nice, but it's rather vibrant) and a more neutrally toned number that is also not a "traditional" Scottish plaid.

Now I'm on the train back home, with three Scottish boys drinking Miller that one of them opened with his teeth. As an observation, I finally managed to open a bottle with a lighter the other day, but it was a pain in the ass. I am intrigued by the Scottish boys, because they are all wearing kilts right now, and some 'I'm so proud to be a Scotsman' t-shirts. Kilts and accents can make even slightly homely boys with unfortunate bottle-opening habits something like attractive. Of course, they are too young, but still. They have kilts on. Ah, bottle man seems to open everything with his teeth. Now he's opening their bag of sandwiches with his teeth.

*Ashley is a random hostel friend. Edinburgh was really good to me for random hostel friends, and while I would really like to go back to Edinburgh and see how they are doing there, they having been settling into the city for a few months of wage earning, I don't know if it will happen. Sadly, because I was very charmed by the city.
**My blue backpack is a loaner, because I haven't had a rucksack in years and while I knew I would need one to travel with, I didn't want to buy one when I prefer destroying my shoulder with a messenger bag for daily use. Patches was his request for letting me use it.

can't concentrate anymore

I seem to have an unorthodox method of paper writing. I don't write outlines or crazy bubble-flowcharts of whatever it is that I'm suppose to be writing about. Instead I spend a bit of time becoming generally aware of the topic through research and then I sit down with my articles and a cup of tea and I start writing the paper. This doesn't sound all that strange yet... OK, I sit down with my articles that I have not yet marked in anyway and many of which I have not yet read and I start to write my paper while reading the articles and getting inspired to write paragraphs on whatever my reaction to the article is based on my previous knowledge of the topic. It's more like journaling. I react to a collection of articles and continually edit those reactions as I continue to write. This may be why I ended up with what I believe is a very good sociology final paper after going through the paper and informally reverse outlining it in order to rearrange it into a more logical flow than the original version. I did this as a small concert at the King Club last spring. From what I understand, the concert was someone's final project for a class. Strange. My TA must have believed the paper was good too, as it earned me an A and was one of only two papers that he felt really deserved more original research on the thesis.*

The thing is, I've tried writing papers the way that teachers have tried to instruct me to write. Outlines. Writing up notes with references on index cards that can be rearranged at will. Flowcharts of one form or another. Flowcharts on paper and flowcharts on my computer. Outlines in notebooks and outlines on my laptop. I have to admit that while I really like the OmniOutliner program that came loaded on my macBook, when I tried using it to write my second peacebuilding paper I didn't feel like it did anything to effectively help me write my paper, certainly not more than my usual style of paper writing would have done. Truly, basic word processing programs are the best things that every happened for me. The ability to effortlessly rearrange whole paragraphs or pages is indeed awesome. The one place where I'm not sure of is if the electronic version or a piece of paper is preferable for the articles that I have to read.

*the purpose of the paper was to review printed literature on the subject, so original research was outside of the paper's parameters. Fortunately or unfortunately, original research is not outside the parameters of the thesis paper that I'm working on.

I would very much like to know

When did identity become such a central concept? Specifically, I would like to know when the word came into common usage in sociological texts, but also when it achieved popular usage as well. The text than I'm reading from the '60s doesn't make use of the word, but I'm not sure if that is because it wasn't used then, or if the author didn't see it as useful to his text. The more recent book I'm reading uses the term identity regularly. The other question would be, was there discussion of a markedly similar to that which we now call identity, or is the concept of identity relatively new? And which contemporary definition of identity does a possible identity-like term match?

a non-comprehensive guide to drink

It's not that I like to get tanked. If fact, this became a particularly poignant issue for me precisely because when I drink it is because I enjoy the taste of a beer, wine, or whatever. Norway just doesn't have good beers available, and when they import, they are pretty much just importing the common stuff. You can find Heineken here, I think I've seen Pilsner Urquell. But if one is not a particular fan of pilsner, Norway is not the country to spend extensive time in. The British, though, are good for an ale, so when I came this time it was a particular goal of mine to pick up some good beers. I managed to find an independent wine shop by accident while I was walking by Holyrood Park, and I would recommend visiting either to anyone who visits Edinburgh. I picked up some really good Scottish ales to bring back to Norway, and I shared one with a friend this afternoon while we were trying to get through an obnoxious bit of project work. We were drinking Cairngorm's Trade Winds, but my collection features more from William's Brothers Brewing including a Heather Ale, A Gooseberry Lager, and the seaweed beer Kelpie. I have only had the Heather and the Trade Winds so far, but I drank both of them at near to room temperature and they had excellent flavor. Drool...

I should be using my time much better than this at the moment but

I'm enjoying the wi-fi in my Edinburgh hostel a bit much. I should be out exploring the city, right? Or getting the paper that's due before my return to Bø written. All the research is done, so it shouldn't take too long and then I can enjoy the rest of my time without anxiety. But instead I've been taking a break to catch up on some e-mails, rest my ankle, that I over stressed a bit, and look at some randomness. They made a video of part of the Urørt concert* at Kroa a few weeks, and I have a brief cameo with a couple of my friends while we are all doing nothing at about minute 1:30. For some reason, they only came by to film things when we had nothing to do.


*NRK, the national broadcasting company has a program of unsigned artists on one of their radio channels, and they have a competition among the bands that submit to this every year. The winning bands then get to go on tour, and this show was one of their stops. At least, I think that is how it works and I'm too lazy to double check at the moment.