It’s been ages, I know. Can I claim busyness? So since I haven’t updated anything since before Christmas, perhaps let’s have a brief timeline of the last 2 and a half months of my life:
Christmas holiday – I had a really good time back home with friends and family. It was good to see everyone I could again, went to a couple of weddings, and did a lot of work on an essay I had due just after I arrived back in Edinburgh in January. Details of Christmas break, perhaps, aren’t important; most importantly, it was good.
My return to Edinburgh – It snowed again, the day after I arrived back. Ugh, I was so tired of the snow and annoyed that it took up another week of my life. It wouldn’t have been so bad except that shoveling snow doesn’t tend to happen in Edinburgh, and I don’t really enjoy traipsing through the snow on the sidewalks while I’m trying to get to Uni…tends to make the journey quite a bit longer. But the snow soon melted away, and I started my second and final semester of my Master’s degree. Courses include: Children, Childhood, and Children’s Rights: Law, Policy, and Practice; Listening to Children: Researching is Children and Young People; Philosophical Foundations of Educational Theory, Policy, and Practice; and I’m auditing a course called the Politics of Education and Educational Policy. Overall, it’s been quite interesting. Tons of reading with the option to do more reading than is physically possible, and random projects throughout the semester which aren’t marked and are really just for our edification. Wednesday, I have a presentation due: “Education’s Role in the Renewal of Society: Hannah Arendt.” Interesting, eh? Next steps: complete the last 2 weeks of the semester, write my final essay, and begin work on my dissertation.
Exploration: I’ve been fortunate enough to do a little bit of traveling in the UK this semester. David and I went to York and Scarborough a few weeks ago and had a great time. Both are lovely cities, and I would totally recommend both to anyone who wants to visit. We stayed at the Scarborough Grand Hotel, which was beautiful, right on the sea, and we had lovely walks around town. York was full of history, old buildings, and ancient city walls. Unfortunately, the castle is now longer there. Also, a beautiful place. Yorkminster: it’s amazing. And currently, I’m updating from London. It’s a magnificent city, but there’s no way to see everything in a mere couple of days. It definitely deserves a return visit. I have seen some pretty great things the last couple of days, though. David talk to a friend who works at Parliament about giving us a wee tour, so we got our personal guide around Parliament’s backstage. We even got to enter the House of Lords which was absolutely beautiful. We’ve had some nice walks along the River Thames, a brief stop by St. Peters Cathedral, a look at the Tower Bridge and London Tower, and we even saw “Wicked” in the West End last night. It was fabulous. It’s been a really good time, and I can’t wait until our next visit.
I’m not sure what else would be interesting to tell, so I suppose that’s me for now. Until next time, which will hopefully be sooner than May…
And I'll try to update my photos on Picasa as well: https://picasaweb.google.com/stephkruse
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