Massive Flip-Floppery

Hey Everyone,
I have been spending a lot of mental energy (that not spent on reading and critiquing philosophy) trying to make a decision about next year and what that means for this year. At the moment I am trying to decide if I ought to apply to grad school now, for next year, or if I should take next year off (with respect to academia) and possibly apply next year. Now there are pluses and minuses to both sides, but I have recently been entertaining the idea of teaching high school, which if I "took next year off" I could explore. I am writing this here, well one because I am highly caffeinated, but more importantly because I need to organize these thoughts and possibly get feedback. On the other hand it is obviously a decision that I have to make on my own (as all decisions must be made). Anyway, if you have thoughts I would love to hear them, and if not that is the main thing in my life that is not the same as it has been. Though there are a few other exciting things.

First, I have been cooking new-ish things a lot. For the most part these things are only new because I have to cook with new measuring styles and temperatures, which makes all recipes new in a sense. So far, I made chili, without any spicing (as in hot) materials (silly Scots) though I finally acquired some tabasco so that has been much improved. Today I made macaroni (baked not Kraft) which was ok, though I don't quite have the right pan, it is ok. I also made some pasties the recipe for which came from the ny times. They came out ok, the filling was delicious, but the crust was a bit hard to make and press out, without a rolling pin (which I now have). Finally, I have made risotto a lot, oh my goodness do I love mushroom potato risotto. I also made some butternut squash risotto which was good but could be made better, possibly with the addition of brown butter. One thing i am reticent about is baking, because it is the thing which requires the most exacting measures and i am not sure I can cope with that easily. Needless to say I am excited for being able to cook when I come home for Christmas for my family with utensils to which I am accustomed.

The other thing for those who are philosophically inclined, and/or have read my comps, I think I have found a way that modern physics allows for dualism (sorta) and at the very least allows for some degree of "free will" according to that conception of the world, this isn't yet fully fleshed out, but it does make my view of how the mind works a bit more possible. If you are interested in this stuff check out Roger Penrose's book The Emperor's New Brain, and 200 years of philosophy about the mind focusing on Descartes and my comps.

Hope all is well with everyone, your Scottish correspondent, signing off.

QUICK AWESOME-NESS

Hey all,
Just wanted to thank everyone that has sent me a letter or package since I have been here, thanks so much, it really makes it all better. Expect that I will be sending postcards all your ways in the next couple days. Talk to you soon.
-Jake

An event filled week

Hello All,
This week has once again been filled with some excitement. As some of you know, (though I am pretty sure not all) I have been in a bit of a funk specifically with regards to future studies and work in philosophy. I have been reading a fair bit about philosophy grad school (Phd programs) and a fair amount of the information out there is...less than encouraging. Additionally, some of the information out there says that "taking a year off", which previously had been my plan, is not a great idea, unless the interceding year is spent doing something relevant to philosophy, which of course is difficult given the huge dearth of jobs in the field outside of academia. So I had a couple meetings this week with professors (and one next week) and talked to them about applying, they thought that I should be applying this year, but they thought my chances weren't as bad as I had initially thought, and further, if I don't get in this year they said I could transfer to the Masters of Philosophy (a title not a subject matter, at the end of that program I would have an M Phil in Philosophy) program, which is a year longer, assuming I had performed well up until that point in my current MSc program, and then I would have a reason to be taking an extra year, a higher degree, and still could apply to grad school next year with the additional bonus of likely being able to spend the year in the states and just having regular video conferences and 1-2 meetings in Scotland throughout the year (this is unconfirmed, but seemed like a good backup plan to me.) Further, when I talked to one of my professors he asked me why I wasn't currently applying here to work with him as a phd student, which I was pretty excited about, I should have mentioned that this is the professor that I am planning on asking to write recommendation letters for me. Apparently my research interests are similar to his and he has 2 Phd students currently pursuing degrees with research in this area. Like I said, this is all exciting to me, and making me feel like my chances of getting into grad school this year are much better than they were last year.

In other news, I tried out for a choir yesterday (boy was that weird). I did some sight-singing (it has been awhile) and did some range tests, sang a little bit of a solo and talked to them about the calendar of their group. They are called Cadenza, and are a local choir that performs every year during the Fringe Festival and a couple other concerts throughout the year. Anyway, I got an email today inviting me to join them. Exciting! This choir is 50 voices, and does a mix of music pretty similar to the choir of which I was a member in high school (symphonic mixed for those from Lakewood). It isn't a capella, but I am not convinced that Scotland really knows what that is and it is good to have some singing to do.

Lastly, for those people that don't know, yesterday was Emily and my anniversary, we met/started dating 2 years ago (thanks Abi). Admittedly, talking on skype wasn't the ideal anniversary date, but I am so glad that she has been willing to put up with my year abroad and also excited that I (and anyone else around the Hilty house for christmas time) will see her in December! She is well and working hard on her own grad program in New Orleans at Tulane, in Latin American Studies. Currently she is trying to decide through a complex chain of later affecting decisions (something like writing a grant proposal, for summer research, which should inform her project, so she should know what that final project is? Hope I didn't screw that up) what her topic of her dissertation will be. So happy anniversary to her/you and I hope your weekend was good, and I promise I am doing my best to be in the same continent as you next year, and if things go well maybe even the same city!

Well, I think that is about all the news I have for the week-ish. Hope everyone else is well. I hear the weather back home is actually worse than it is here, and that Minnesota already has know, Scotland for the win. Love you all, will write again soon.

Birthday's and Crags and Nerdy-ness, Oh My!

Hello all,
I was informed by a certain family member that I need to be posting more on this blog, especially considering that a lot of stuff has happened in the intervening days since the last post, so I will bow to his/her wishes (note the ambiguity of gender meant to confound my readers).

First of all, I made it through my birthday, I am 23 now so to any family member that this makes feel old I apologize, though I am excited to edge ever closer to the elusive car rental age. My birthday started out a little lamely as I woke up at 7:30 or so, in an attempt to procure a bike. It seems that in Edinburgh the only way to get a used bike at all is to wait outside this place called the Bike Station (actually a pretty cool place: http://www.bikestation.org.uk) on Saturday morning. The Bike Station opens at 10:30 and has ~30 bikes each week for people to potentially buy. Now, just to give an example I got there at a bit before 8 and I was 16th in line. The person who was first got there at around 6:30. By 10:30 there are usually 80 people in line for the first 3-4 weeks of the school year and then it comes down to smaller numbers as the weather worsens and more people have bikes. So, if anyone is looking to start a business a used bike shop in Edinburgh with a steady supply from somewhere would be a good bet. Luckily, being where I was in line afforded me the opportunity to purchase a bike at a mostly reasonable price, and though it wasn't exactly what I wanted, it is good enough to get me to and from school which was the main objective.

So having spent the first 4 hours or so of my birthday embroiled in bike acquisition, I came home to find a few flatmates eager to hang out. So we talked a bit and decided the best bet for the day was to check out Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags (both of which are located in Holyrood park, which is ~30 minutes from my house and 15 minutes from the city center). This actually amounted to a pretty fun couple of hours. The end of the day was a fun little get together surrounding a cake made by one of my flatmates, who hasn't cooked much, but made a truly valiant effort, and really made my day feel a lot more like a birthday. Overall, a very fun day.

Onto the titular nerdy-ness described. This actually encapsulates 2 separate events both of which I found pretty exciting. First, I was hanging out with one of my North American Friends, (did I mention that >50% of my friends here are from NA. The few Scottish folks I have met outside of class will come into the story later.) a girl from Connecticut who is doing what must be one of the hardest masters programs at the school. Anyhow, we were talking about nerdy things that we do and I made a claim that I have made many times before, that I am probably the nerdiest person that you will ever meet. Turns out this girl has me beat, admittedly not on every level, but she speaks freaking elvish! We traded stuff back and forth and though I might have her on a few esoteric bits (tech theater, sheer volume of nerdy games played and depth of rules reading) she definitely comes out ahead with respect to nerdy-ness overall.

Secondly, and as promised, I met some Scottish folks, but you may be asking yourself, how outside of class would Jake manage to meet people actually from Scotland in Edinburgh (a surprisingly tough thing to do). Turns out, that Scottish people play magic, and so do I. That's right my obsession with small rectangles of cardboard is finally paying off. I went to a prerelease tournament (what that means is unimportant, just know that I was excited enough about it to research on the internet where to go) and started talking to a few guys about magic. They in turn invited me out to a pub to play more magic after and 5 hours later, a little drunkenly, I had a new set of magic playing friends. Small sidenote, Magic + Drinking = fun times. I have actually since hung out with these guys and gotten onto an email list of events, so hurray for friends outside of staving off culture shock and being in 3 classes together.

With respect to other news, I have finally had all my classes, 2 of the 3 seem really interesting and the 3rd could get there, but felt a little bit like stuff I had done before. I also have decided to audit a class on Algorithmic game theory and its applications just in case that paper I worked on last summer needs to get expanded for a journal, hurray for potentially getting published, though admittedly in a field which is not my main academic one. Meh.

Alright well there is another week of my life encapsulated pithily into blog form. Hope it was enjoyable, and if not (or even if so, but you want more info) tell me what you want to know about in the comments.