Actually the day, all told, wasn't that bad. Becky and I got up early for breakfast before the conference, and after walking her to McEwan Hall I decided to sneak in with her for the plenary talk. Marc Hauser from Harvard was speaking on the evolution of the faculty for language (The mental processes that it seems must be present as preconditions for the evolution of language) and it was great.
I expected it to be over my head, but it was quite accessible. The highlight was probably during the question and answer period at the end of the session, when someone got up and started trying to grill Hauser on iteration and recursion -- it had nothing to do with the talk Hauser had just given, the guy was airing some grievances about a previous paper that Hauser had published years ago.
The reason? One of the co-authors was Noam Chomsky, and as Becky said, wherever Chomsky goes in linguistics, strife is sure to follow. People love to hate that guy.
After the talk we headed to the Museum of Scotland, which was great
- and FREE, as we found out!
- and FREE, as we found out!
Manual 'computer' for weaving
Five floors of history, culture, technology, and art. I think we had as much fun in the kids' section as we did in the rest of the building. I can't imagine what the value of the relics in that museum are, it seemed like we saw hundreds of solid silver torcs and necklaces in the ancient peoples' hall alone.
Ford F1 car for Becky's Dad :)
Since our camera dock seemed to have broken entirely, we decided to go pick up the SD card reader after all. Netversal, the same place I got my (very nice) power adapter, had card readers as well, and we got an all-in-one USB reader for just 10 pounds. Afterwards we crossed the bridge into the New Town, the section dating from the 18th century, and walked Princes Street, the retail boutique section (Though Glasgow is more well known for this sort of shopping). Making our way to Charlotte Square, we got somewhat confused looking for the Georgian House, which I was quite sure was in the square.
Fortunately, the National Trust for Scotland building is also located in the square. Inside the receptionist chuckled and told her that people come in wondering if their building is the Georgian house all the time, and said it was directly opposite where we were in the square. I knew I was right! Turns out we had simply walked right past it earlier. Before we left, we decided to check the gallery upstairs in the Trust headquarters. Thank goodness we did! Not only did the room contain a number of Samuel Peploe's works, it also contained the reason for their collection: his NIECE! She and another woman were sitting in the room, and she pulled herself from the chair she was in to give us a personal tour of the gallery. She was the most wonderfully polite and entertaining woman you could imagine, everything you could expect from Scottish aristocracy, and told us about how her family had gifted the paintings to the Trust, walking us around and telling us about the cities where each had been painted. Of course she knew plenty about the paintings that were not by her uncle as well. She joked about the "five year loan" that the furniture in the room was on, saying that the wife of some Lord or another (Stirling?) had made a five-year loan of the furniture, and that that was seven years ago. I said that those were the best kinds of loans and she laughed heartily. Becky and I left, both in love with the little old Scottish Lady.
The Georgian House was interesting, particularly since we had visited Gladstone's Land previously and so could compare the Land in Old Town to the House in New Town.
Georgian House
After leaving, we headed down a different street, taking in more of the boutiques (From the outside) but mostly looking for a place to eat. Nothing presented itself, and finally we ducked into a little sandwich shop nearly all the way back at the University. It was a good call, as my ham-and-cheese baked potato was huge and delicious. They do potatoes right here. Even if they put the wrong things on them - tuna, baked beans, prawns, all sorts of garbage @_@
Becky headed back to look at poster presenters and catch a symposium on oral education and deaf children, which turned out mostly to be about home sign rather than speech, so she couldn't even fight with people about it! (Side note for all you deaf ed dorks, it was actually a bunch of people from Susan Goldin-Meadow's lab so it was familiar yet gave me some info on the new work they are doing.)
Despite a quick thunderstorm, the skies were clear when Becky got back to the dorm, and we decided that it was probably the best chance we were going to get to tackle Arthur's Seat.
That's when things got interesting...
2 comments:
"The highlight was probably during the question and answer period at the end of the session, when someone got up and started trying to grill Hauser on iteration and recursion -- it had nothing to do with the talk Hauser had just given, the guy was airing some grievances about a previous paper that Hauser had published years ago.
The reason? One of the co-authors was Noam Chomsky, and as Becky said, wherever Chomsky goes in linguistics, strife is sure to follow. People love to hate that guy."
That quote is kinda like a concentration of my entire college education. Especially my spring semester, Junior year (and, to a lesser extent, fall semester, Sophomore year).
And add me to the list of people that love to hate Chomsky.
So what the heck are the misadventures?
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