Ok I finally posted some random pictures of my fellow Marshall scholars

We Marshalls are actually pretty normal. Really... Yeah so here are some random pictures, mostly from our London Orientation last October. So now you can get an idea what my NEW friends are like, ha ha, ha. (Just kidding, they are my friends but I do still love you all dearly) Enjoy!


















































So here we are at Westminster waiting to get a talking to from members of the Marshall Commission.




















Some random pictures of London:































Ok I had to include these because British children are so dang cute in their little uniforms.





















And some pictures of the London Eye, which we all got to take a ride on as part of our orientation program:

All sorts of news from the chilly land of Scotland

Hey there ya'll:

SO.. not too much news for you this week, though a few little tidbits which I am eager to share. This last week I spent four days in Cardiff, Wales on the annual Marshall scholars class trip. Overall, despite the fact the Welsh Assembly treated it a bit like a diplomatic visit, with lots of talks about devolution and Welsh politics filling up most of the days, we enjoyed a fairly good time. The Assembly put us up in a very nice hotel, and we did get a chance to learn quite a bit about Welsh culture, history, language and politics.

Cardiff Castle:


















The new Wales Assembly Building:

















Two particular highlights were: A midieval banquet at the Cardiff Castle, including many courses of Welsh food and some very enthusiastic entertainers; and a chance to explore St. Fagans National History Museum, which is an open air folk museum complete with real life houses and buildings relocated from all over Wales. The museum was extremely cool, with buildings almost a thousand years old, ranging from churches to houses, shops, barns, functioning gardens and farmlands, a mill and even a tannery, all furnished (or being used) in a historically correct manner with period furniture, fixtures, etc. Also included was a historically accurate reproduction of a Celtic village (as people in the region lived 2,000 years ago. All the different buildings were open to go inside and see what it was like. Always interested in how it would have been to live in another age, I especially liked seeing all the old dwellings, most of which included dovecots or pigeon lofts! (for those of you who don't know, my family races pigeons, which has also apparently been a favorite sport for generations of Welsh for many hundredsof years).

Some Miner's cottages from 1805 at the National History Museum (pigeon lofts in the rear behind them):






One down point in the trip, was when a sinus infection I have been fighting (unsucesssfully) all winter came raging back, requiring me to make a visit to the out-of-hours doctor and causing me to miss a day's lectures. Thankfully I was able to get some antibiotics and other medicines and finally seem to be on the mend.

In other news, I am nearing the end of spring semester, just a few weeks before I turn in my term papers and get to work in earnest on my dissertation. So close I can taste it! Although, I have enjoyed my projects for this past few months, which have included: an analysis of the pros and cons of using NGOs as a conduit for democratisation in Africa, a study on the different models of development utilized in post-war Afghanistan reconstruction with a particular regard to gender, and a theoretical discussion of how transnational movements can and do influence the foreign policies of governments with an analysis of the historical example of the International Zionist Movement during WW I.

Other exciting news: Ms. Graisbery (for those who don't know, a former teacher of mine at FG high) is currently living just outside of Edinburgh. She has related to me that Mr and Mrs. Fitzgibbons (thats right, THE now retired FITZ from FG High) will be visiting next week and so we are going to arrange a dinner-reunion. Coincidentially, Amy Sample and Max Ward will be visiting that same week and so it is going to be a real FGHS reunion, in Scotland of all places! How random! I am really thrilled and can't wait!

Finally, due to being sick pretty much all winter, it looks like I am not going to be adequately prepared for the marathon come May. However I will be running shorter distances, as part of a relay team and also a half-marathon. Oh well, the way I see it, I have done a respectable job becoming 'a runner' and I will give it my best to be healthier next year so that I can go the whole distance next time around. For someone who just took up the sport last fall, I don't feel at all like a failure. 13 miles is a very respectable distance for a beginner!

ok then, I hope everyone is happy and healthy back in Oregon (or wherever else you are). We miss you all terribly and look forward to many visitors this summer!
Alletta

Happy St. Patricks Day!!

Hello everyone:
Though St. Paddy's is an Irish holiday there are plenty of those in our parts, and so yes it is going to be quite the night in Edinburgh this evening. A little too much maybe. We're going to a movie and steering clear of the bars!

I hope spring is treating you all very well. Here in Scotland we have been plugging away at the same old, same old, school and work. I am making good progress on my term papers, and look to getting them done early, so thats an improvement. A bit of exciting news lately. First of all, I finally got notification from the London School of Economics that I have been formally accepted into the Human Rights Msc, so I am now guaranteed a place in that program. yayyy! Also, (this is going to sound weird,) I have recieved an invitation to an evening reception with the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace at the end of the month. I just couldn't pass this up and so I ditched my class trip to Brussels (which is happening the same week) and bought a train ticket to London instead! I'll let you know how it goes. I know the Queen doesn't really DO anything but I'm still totally excited to meet her.

We have finally got on the ball with our cyling program, and are planning several small tours of southern Scotland. Then, once we conquer the lowlands on to the highlands and western isles! We are planning on camping, so please send us your good anti-midgie thoughts so that we will hopefully avoid any attacks. (Midgies are horrible biting insects that often wreak painful havoc on those who dare to camp in the scottish wilds. I understand they are kind of like noseeums, except much much worse. eek!)

Ok here is another factoid: did you know that foxes are urban 'pests' in the UK, like raccoons are in oregon? They rummage through trash, steal pet food, etc. but they are oh so cute!!

And one more: There is a colony of about 30 brown bunnies which lives next to the Castle in Edinburgh. They are amazingly adorable and all like to hang out grazing together on the slopes below the battlements. However, very few people know they exist because they only come out after 2am and very few people walk through that area at night. Still they are quite tame and pretty much ignore you if you walk up to them. After a night out on the town, a bit of bunny watching is one of my favorite activities! I am working on getting a picture of them.

And finally, here are some lovely photos of springtime in Edinburgh:

The Daffodils are blooming!!

Hey folks:

It is now March and all around town the Daffodils are just staring to show their little yellow and white faces. Nice to have some color around here after weeks of gray and rain. Things are going pretty good for us here. We have both had a lingering cough from colds we came down with weeks ago. Sadly this has caused my asthma to flare up pretty badly and I have been off running for a few weeks. Not good at all. At this rate I can't seem to stay healthy long enough to ever get on the training game long enough. Oh well. I am going to give it my best shot to get up to snuff in time and if I don't finish my first marathon then oh well I'll try again next year. My goal is to do my first one (sucessfully) by the time I am 25 so I have a few years to make it yet. It would help immensely to have a treadmill indoors though, all this nasty cold rain really puts you off no matter how you're feeling.

Ryan and I have both been quite busy. He's been working many hours at the shop and I have been working long and hard on schoolwork, which sadly is not going to let up until the end of April. Next month night racing will start and so he will begin working three twelve hour shifts a week- From nine in the morning to nine at night. He is not particularly pleased about the long hours but it will be very nice to have such long weekends. We plan to take full advantage of it by making lots of little weekend trips! Next month I am going to be off to Wales and then Brussels, while Ryan to Amsterdam. Then in April to Glasgow. In May we will be making trips to N. Ireland, Cambridge and some of the Western Isles. Yay! So far we have done very little traveling so it is going to be a thrill to get out of Edinburgh for a bit.

I finally started real work on my dissertation, last week. After making some final adjustments to my topic and research plan, I have finally settled on doing an analysis of the normative influence of feminism on US foreign policy rhetoric (and actual policies) from 1995 to 2005. This may sound a bit dry but I believe it is going to be incredibly interesting. Basically, I am going to be analyzing presidental speeches, foreign policy directives, and state department statements (etc.) over the course of a ten year period to see if there is any correlation between the content and languge employed in them and other political developments with regard to 'women's issues.' So, for example, I will be asking things like: did the issues and rhetoric raised by the 1995 world UN conference on women's rights in Bejing have any impact on the way the USA shaped and portrayed its foreign policy (particularly with regard to issues raised at the conference) in the years immediately following? Other interesting questions will be things like, was Clinton or Bush more likely to employ feminist rhetoric? And, when feminist rhetoric was used, did the actual content of the polices in question live up to the talk? I am rather eager to get started. Unfortunately I have several pressing term papers that will be sucking up all my time for the next couple of months.

Other than that, we have been watching lots of movies lately. If you haven't seen them yet, we highly recommend: A Guide to Recognizing your Saints, Babel, Stranger Than Fiction, and Hot Fuzz. We also have been spending a fair bit of time in pubs. The lastest lowdown; Sandy Bells on Forest Road has the best traditional music in Edinburgh, live every night of the week with no cover; and the Balmoral hotel bar makes the best White Russian in town (everywhere else is bound to be extremely lousy as apparently the Scottish do not share Americans' love of coffee cocktails). On the whisky intel: if you can get a hold of it, try Auchentoshan single malt lowland whisky. It is made nearby just outside Glasgow and is amazing. Light, sweet and very mild with a very full flavour and good lingering aftertaste. ten stars.

ok then, Hope all is well in Oregon (and everywhere else)
we love you all!
Alletta (and Ryan)

Happy Valentine's day!

FIrst off, Happy Valentine's Day! I know we didn't send you all cards and chocolates from Scotland but we really do love you. Really. Its been a while, since my last post hasn't it? Once again I am behind on my weekly postings because a) I keep getting distracted by comic books, and b) I have been trotting the globe lately. As many of you know, my grandmother passed away last month, and so due to the generousity of the Marshall Commission, which bought me a ticket home, I went home to Oregon for a week. Though the reason for my trip was a sad one, it was very good to see my family, especially my sister Tea who I hadn't seen since the wedding. After the memorial service we had a very nice family dinner and I was able to catch up with relatives I hadn't seen in like 10 years. While I was home, I also had the opportunity to get a haircut, spend some quality time hunting for bike parts with my dad, and visiting with my other grandmother, who is sharp as a pin and a whole lot of fun to boot. Unfortunately I did not have time to meet up with any friends while home. Sadly, one week is way to short to try and catch up with everyone. Oh well, that's why you all need to come see ME! Another upside of the trip was that I could haul back with me loads of stuff we had left behind, including bike parts, camping gear, clothing and even some of Ryan's framed photographs for the walls of our flat. I know that material things don't make a home, but it sure is starting to feel more like one now that we have more of our stuff here. I think it is because each item carries with it memories of people and places far away, making them feel a little closer each time I see or use it.

School is plugging along just fine. I have started work on my term papers, of which I need to write three, 4,000 words each, this semester. Since I am going to be gone for two weeks next month, to Wales and Brussels, I figure I need to get an early start to avoid getting pressed come April. For the time being I have not begun to work yet, so I figure I need to take advantage of all my free time. Still, after being home for a week it is really hard to get back in the mood to study. Ryan and I both definately miss Portland.

The marathon training is going ok, though a bit behind schedule. This week we are up to 10 miles, which is five behind our goal but oh well. We are going to intensify things a lot during March and April to make up distance. On May 7th we will be running 10 mile relays at the Belfast Marathon, and then on the 27th we will be running the Edinburgh Marathon here at home. Wish us luck as we continue to train. So far no serious injuries or problems and we hope to keep it that way!

Finally, here are some pictures of our latest exploits..

Here is a wee haggis from Robbie Burns night:
















Our friends Hamza and Darek posing with the haggis:













And here's a little close up for ya:












Ok here are some pictures from up at Arhur's Seat (extinct volcano in midde of Edinburgh) where Ryan and I like to go running:












And some crazy brambles on the path up to the top:












And finally, some goofy monuments up at Calton Hill. The first here is a monument to Lord Nelson (for some reason I can't seem to make the picture post vertically, but you get the idea):













And here is a tribute to Edinburgh's 19th century obsession with itself as the 'athens of the north':

Bad News! Good News!

SO as usual, I am way behind on the posting. Which is nothing to say for Ryan, who posts, like, once every two months, but anyway. I am back in school and doing a-ok. This semester I am taking: Gender and Development, Social and Political Movements, and Africa in International Politics. So far (i've only had a couple lectures so far) I think that I will enjoy this term, though a couple of my classes are not as challenging as I would like. In the UK they do not have Gender Studies programs at the universities and so the cirriculum offered in that area is much less sophisticated and the average student has had less exposure to women's/gender studies in general. I like Edinburgh well enough but I am going to be glad to move on next year to LSE. I believe that the offerings there will be much more up to my expectations for what graduate level work should be.

Aside from all that, I have been strategizing on ways to earn extra income. So far the options have been 1) get part-time job doing something, likely cashiering at a store or whatever 2) become a paid tutor, 3) start my own fashion line and sell my clothes at a local shop, 4) get signed up with a temp service and get some intermittent work as a fill-in secretary, receptionist, etc. For now I am letting all of these options slide and just working on immediate school, etc. though I think this spring I will both a) begin tutoring, and b) once I finish classes definately get onto the temp work. I actually got an offer from a local shop on the clothing deal but right now I don't have my own sewing machine and honestly its a lot of work for not too much gain. Ryan has been promoted at work to assistant manager and so with both a pay raise and more hours we are finally getting on the road to financial stability. We had a bunch of bills come due this month that were insanely high and unexpected and so that has put us back a bit, but on the bright side we at least had enough to be solvent. Also, due to a clerical error (mixed with a good dose of inefficient British beauracratic BS) we are getting taxed to high heavens right now which really hurts. Hoping to get this resolved soon and get a refund from Her Magistry's Customs... Though who knows how long that will take.

Other than that... I am working on slicing up and honing down a draft of my undergraduate thesis to submit to a writing contest in the US. It is currently almost two hundred pages long and needs to be shaved down to eighty so much work to do in the next week. If I win, I will both get my hands on some cold hard cash and get it published in an annual review. Wish me luck. On that note, I am FINALLY getting paid for the article I wrote last August as a contribution to a new Bedford St. Martin's text book The Academic Writer. Its been so long that I forgot they owed me! Its always fun when you have money coming your way that you had forgotten about.

My hard drive died in a horrible and dramatic way last week, which put me in a panic for a few days. I had tried to wake it up and since it seemed frozen I tried to restart it. Instead of loading up the OS it gave me this gray screen with a flashing question mark. No matter how many times I tried to reset it it just kept giving me the question mark and making this clicking noise, as if to say "Hard drive? What Hard Drive? I don't have a hard drive!?!" After about a day of trying everything I could concieve of do-it-yourself fixes it was apparent to me that the failure was definately a hardware one and so I had to take it in. The only place in Edinburgh that is a certified apple service provider was this place that isn't even in the city but way out in the middle of nowhere beyond the farthest reaches of the local bus service. It took me over two hours to get there, touring some of the worst thatcher-era slums I have ever seen in the process, before I finally found the place, but I arrived safe and sound and delivered my broken baby. Still waiting to hear back whether they have been able to rescue anything at all of my data. Thankfully most of the important stuff was backed up. Just in case I lose all my media, I have been frantically getting music from my friend Sean (who is a music critic and whose collection is boundless). The real bummer is that I had just started work on my dissertation and now it is all (probably) lost. Hope to get my machine back next week sometime. At least it is under warranty so that I don't have a big bill to worry about.

Other than all that, things are going pretty well here in Scotland. The weather is ok, not too desperately wet but pretty cold. For a moment we had snow the other night, though I was sleeping and missed it. After several weeks of illness and lethargy I am finally back up and running again and feeling pretty good. My asthma seems to be under control again and I have more energy these days. Ryan and I ran 8 miles the other night, which is slightly behind schedule but ok. We are going to end up running the Edinburgh marathon on the 27th of May instead of the Belfast (on the 7th) so we have a few more weeks to prepare now. In between we are going to sign up for a half marathon along the Firth of Forth (along the ocean at the edge of Edinburgh, in a part of town called Leith). We seem to have plenty of company because all over town any time of day or night they are scores of runners prancing all over the place. I am sure we will see them all together come May. It is nice taking up the sport in a place with a real vibrant running culture; it is all very encouraging. Come the end of spring though, when the marathon season is over, we are planning on continuing to go on occassional runs but want to spend more of our time cycling. That way we hope to explore more areas outside of the city and actually see the Scottish scenery at bit.

Well then, that's probably enough for one post. I hope everyone is happy and well back home (or wherever else in the world you are).
Much Love,
Alletta (and Ryan)

More moustache than we knew what to do with...

SO after many months of making snide comments about hosting our own counter-party to the infamous moustache bash our friends had back in Eugene one week after we left, Ryan and I finally got to have our own here in Edinburgh this last weekend. Since I wasn't at the Eugene party I can't really say how the two compared, but I can say we all looked pretty dang good with all that hair.

Captions from top: Chris;
Two different Ryans;
Cornelius wants you to grow a moustache!;
Kate with a double decker moustache;
Ryan, the sophisticate;
Alletta sporting 'the brigadier';
Sean with a postmodern 'stache;
A group shot with Hope, Chris and Kate all looking quite demure.