It's snowing.
This is odd because just 7 days ago, Edinburgh was graced with one of the warmest Marches on record -- day after day of 70 degree weather, sunshine, and the faintest wind-setting Scotland's weather machine knows. Now we have an arctic weather system wreaking havoc in the form of snow, hail, high winds, and temperatures dipping to -5C. It feels like it's December again. This weather is as fickle as I am.
I attended my last lecture of my MSc yesterday. I'm done with all classes for my masters degree, save the assessments. That feels pretty weird to say. I have two weeks to finish up four essays, which isn't going to be fun, but at least I've given myself much more breathing room than I did last semester.
My dissertation topic was approved by my advisor yesterday as well, which is very exciting. I've decided to write about the phenomenology of time and the cultural differences of historical-consciousness. This means basically that I'll be looking at how different cultures feel the passing of time and how they feel connected to history. There's still a lot of literature I need to read to generate ideas, but I think I'll try to focus on comparing two or three cases, possibly the Navajo Indian's concept of cyclical time, the European conception of historical consciousness pre-1400, and possibly an African oral tradition as well. I haven't yet nailed down what my argument will be, but I'm interested in exploring how materiality impacts our cosmology, how the things we surround ourselves with shapes how we feel the most basic and overlooked aspects of human consciousness. Europeans didn't have an idea of where they fit into historical time before the Gutenberg Press and widespread literacy emerged after 1436; it was common in the 12th century to believe the death of Jesus Christ may have taken place just a few years before one's birth. In the same vein, our modern material reminders of the past such as memorials, monuments, books, even natural preservations and national parks simultaneously freezes history in the present and draws our consciousness into the matrix of time. The old log house off of State Street in Boise gives us a timeline on how long people have lived in the area; the Roman Colosseum reminds us of past empires and cultural lineage; even the Palouse reminds us of geological time, formed by ice ages before mankind's migration into North America. All of these are particular ways that we impact our historical cosmology and force a consciousness of the past. Oral societies without these material reminders feel time and history very differently. That's the very rough beginning; it will no doubt go through many revisions before the finished product emerges. I have to write up a formal proposal within the next two weeks to get started.
I have a hefty load of work to do in the next few weeks, but that hasn't stopped me from having some fun. I participated in an NCAA March Madness bracket competition through blazersedge.com, a Portland Trail Blazer blog and I actually did really well. It was set up on Yahoo.com's bracket system, and I actually finished in second place out of 500 participants. I was shocked, not having watched an actual college basketball game in recent memory. I got pretty lucky, I had a perfect East division bracket and guessed 3 of the 4 finalists, and the NCAA champion. The guy that beat me had all four finalists correct. Darn, I just barely missed out on some first place reward. I also finished ranked in the top 10,000 out of all 3.5 million Yahoo brackets for this season. That's in the 99th percentile. Hey I guess that makes me a natural genius of bracketology. My bracket was titled Potato Fight and can be viewed here, the blazersedge.com competition rankings can be viewed here.
I've also been closely following the Portland Trail Blazers. I can stream their games online, though at 3am. My sleep schedule the past few months has been a little odd as a result. I'm not sure it's been worth it, because they're terrible. They've held off no-good rotten bad luck unreasonably well the past few years, but this season finally broke the camel's back. This is the season: Twenty-seven year old Superstar Brandon Roy retires out of the blue. Prolific big man Greg Oden, selected with the #1 lottery pick in 2007, cut from the team after yet another season ending injury. Exciting fan-favorite rookie Elliott Williams goes down with season ending shoulder injury. Raymond Felton, the younger, quicker, flashier point guard that replaced hardened veteran Andre Miller turns out to be an absolute disaster and is nicknamed "Total Feltdown" and "Ray Turnover." Head coach Nate McMillian, Mr. Sonic himself and one of the longest tenured head coaches in the NBA, fired after a horrible string of road losses. Marcus Camby and Gerald Wallace traded for nothing but a lottery pick and some cheap bench warmers after the front office decides to throw up their hands in defeat. The team now consists of an interim-GM, an interim-head coach, a decimated starting 5, and a sinking feeling of regret and confusion as to where it all went so wrong. Failure, however, brings with it the hope of starting over with a solid Felton-less core. With a deep draft coming this summer, it's not a bad time for the wheels to finally fall off.
Also, in food related news, I ate grilled halloumi for the first time yesterday. My eyes almost popped out of my head from the deliciousness. I've been lucky with food recently.
That's all for now. I'll leave you with my newfound study-bro, Chopin. He helps my essays write themselves.
Chopin's "Raindrops"
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