NorthDownMuse

Imitation Game

With Benedict Cumberbatch. Wonderful film but very sad as well. I tried to figure out if he would have done any better in the U.S. military, however the U.S. military brass is so homophobic I doubt he would have had a chance to serve. His work solving the

Fall

The colors here aren't as brilliant as in the U.S. but I'm enjoying the mixture of yellows greens and browns. I'm also enjoying that it isn't very cold here, while I hear things have already gotten chilly in the U.S.

Stripping (wallpaper)

David has been removing wallpaper from the house like nobody's business. He's also taken out built-in bookcases in two rooms. He's reading a book about the minimalists, a movement in the U.S. to have no more stuff than you absolutely need. Removing many

Hilary

We bought our house from Hilary, who has moved into a bungalow in Bangor. I spent many hours at Cherryvalley having tea with her, especially after she broke her kneecap and was laid up. I went to visit her today in Bangor and found her as gracious and cheerful as

Andrei Sakharov

...is the inspiration for the Sakharov Prize awarded by the European Parliament each year to a human rights activist. In my "Human Rights: Concepts and Institutions" class, one of the group activities was for each group to argue in favor of one of four nominees. My group was

More Lanyon

Yesterday I showed one leg of the U-shaped Lanyon Building. This is the other side of that leg. After this afternoon's class, I attended a lecture by the attorney general on the stability and validity of the Northern Ireland Constitution. Not far in I realized his audience was

Crunch time

I had two essays due today and I met the deadlines. I was a nervous wreck all morning because you have to upload them with a cover sheet to different parts of the Queen's website (each course has its own area with an assignments link with "choose&

Late start

My other new home, the McClay Library, doesn't open until noon on Sundays, which I have some difficulty remembering. David and I got there around 10:30, thinking it opened at 10, so we went to the Ulster Museum nearby to see the Royal Ulster Academy's

A lovely pint of Guinness

During orientation week, I took a tour of the campus led by a young man from the south of Ireland. He walked us by The Botanic Inn, a historic pub in the center of the Queen's campus, and informed us they drew a lovely pint of Guinness. He

East meets west

The main road up to the Queen's campus splits, with Stranmillis going to the east and Malone to the west. One of the things I love about Belfast is that it is surrounded by hills. If I look west from Malone, I can see the West Belfast mountain

Midterms

In class on Tuesday, Colm from Cork, one of my fellow students, and Sally Wheeler, the head of the law school who was taking my class that day, started quizzing me about the midterms. At first I thought they meant exams. Then I realised they were talking about the elections.

House work

Five different men came through the house today. The exterminator, two electricians, the general contractor, and a kitchen designer. Needless to say, we have a lot of work to do. The good news is that under the rugs there are wood floors that we plan to refinish, which saves us

Essaying mightily

Funny how essay is a verb and the most dreaded noun in a college student's vocabulary. Here is what I've spent the better part of the past four days working on: Please write a maximum of 1250 words on this title: “To what extent is the

Cave Hill

I mentioned that a week ago yesterday David and Maysie hiked Cave Hill. I hereby upload photos from that hike: Belfast Castle View of west Belfast. 11-3

Homeless no more!!

We closed on our house Friday, the seller moved out yesterday, and today we went for a walk around. I have photos from our visit but the camera is at home while I'm here at the library (still working on the same stupid essay for the second day)

Panic time

I've had to switch from reading assignments to writing assignments (two essays due Nov. 10). I'm learning that, at the master's level, you don't just regurgitate what you've read. You share your ideas and sprinkle in a few footnotes from

Lost in translation

Today's class was led by a woman whose first language was French and whose thought processes were a bit lost on the class. She seemed to have ADD issues. Sometimes she would say nothing and I pictured insurrection in the class. Since the rest of my professors have

Video games

I'm in an all-day class tomorrow on Transformation and Conflict Resolution. The readings are really interesting. One was about a group of video game developers who worked on America's Army 3, an army recruitment and training tool. Long story short, they worked for a subcontractor to

Colt out of the blue

In May 2013, we cycled the Inishowen peninsula at the top of Ireland. This photo is from that trip. I spent some of my library time today in the C.S. Lewis reading room. It's such an awesome space. It did not, alas (Aslan?) inspire any great writing.

Dr. Ciaran O'Kelly

Himself is the head of my programme of study. I met with him today to tell him I'm struggling to keep up with the volume of readings. One reading this week was a 100-page decision from an English court in the 1980s (single spaced, small type). That was

Really?

The pain of reading turgid, academic, bullet-proof prose continues: "Thus, the view taken by List and Pettit is non-mysterious – it does not postulate any sui generis collective ‘forces’ – while also being anti-eliminativist in holding that propositions referring to group agents need not be metaphorical and are not readily reducible

Harvest festival

Today was harvest festival at church--the church was decorated with veggies and greenery and we sang songs to celebrate the harvest. Then I spent the day in the library, just like yesterday. David took Maysie on a hike yesterday up Cave Hill, one of the tall hills/short mountains surrounding

Belfast Festival

I've commented before that Belfast is festival mad--not realizing that the big daddy of them all was yet to come. The Belfast Festival is on now and the 84-page guide of concerts, plays, exhibits is breath-taking in its scope. This weekend we didn't go to Sharon

Paramilitaries and paraplegics

I went to the most amazing panel discussion today on Remembering, Forgetting, and Forgiving. The morning sessions were led by a woman from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a Danish man who is a student of the Holocaust, and man whose 12-year-old son was killed in a

9X10

For the second time, David and I attended 9X10 last night, an event which invites nine people to get up and tell a story lasting no longer than 10 minutes. Last night's theme was Sorry. The range of stories was expansive. One woman told of her husband'