So I’ve completed my first week of lectures: four one-hour lectures and a two-hour Welsh language class. That class took place on Wednesday moring despite my timetable saying Wednesday afternoon. I got an email Monday night to tell me of the change which clashed with seminars of course! To my surprise, the magic computer sorted the clash quickly and I’m in a Welsh class of three students – great way to learn a language but nowhere to hide!
Two of the four lectures were in a room that was too small (six students had no seats), with a non-working projector. I trust this chaos is purely timetable teething problems but we will see next week when seminars start. It was an exhausting week!
It’s going to be hard getting in to the practice of note-taking and I’m terrified about finding and reading the interminable list of books. One module asked for 11 hours lectures, 11 semininars/workshops and 175 hours of reading. Multiply that by four, add the Welsh lesson homework and I obviously have to give up sleeping. So how do students find all this drinking time I keep hearing about?
I do want to join some social activities but as I always have to drive, my options are restricted due to most society activity involving alcohol. The Welsh Learners’ Society was a big disappointment as they are all complete beginners. I was hoping to fnd people at a similar, or more advanced level, for conversational practice.
I do plan to talk about what I’m actually learning in my blogs but this week at Bangor has been largely administration. My abiding memory will be the warnings about the dire consequences of plagiarism and the ability of the University to spot it at 50 paces. All essays must be submitted electronically and they are crunched through software called MaeBrawrMawrSpioChi.com (BigBrotherIsWatchingYou.com).
Dolbardarn Castle
However, the ‘Images of Wales’ module was great. One example was how Wales was seen up to about the 16th century as wild and untamed, so too its people were similarly portrayed as savages. Through contemporary art the lecturer showed how that image softened and matured. When Turner painted Dolbardarn Castle, Llanberis in 1802, the image was very dramatic. It’s a bit gentler now. The spot from which Turner painted his masterpiece is now a car-park and the background is now the terraces of Dinorwig quarry. Looking forward to next weeks’ Images of Wales lecture.
TV news has provided us all with defining, emotional moments in our lives. I recall five occasions I cried over a news item: the Jonestown massacre in Guyana in 1978 when 918 people died; the Bhopal disaster of 1984 where the initial death toll of 2,259 has risen to 15,000 today; the murders at a primary school in Dunblane in 1996 where a madman killed 16 children and a teacher; the 9/11 events of 2001 where 2,974 died.
