The Scamp Abroad

The Scamp and a Story

Posted on August 17, 2015 by erranteditor

On my last day as a language teacher I had a massive headache. I blame all the cider that I had the night before, but there was not a lot of options in terms of calling in sick, so after calling the boss to make sure that it was okay that I wasn’t operating on all cylinders, I limped to class and decided that I was not going to do any teaching. For the next few hours I had them make up stories and write them on the board. The second half of class we decided to play a game. We all wrote words or phrases on scraps of paper and put them into a tine. The first student picked a piece of paper out of the tin and started the story, and the second person pulled a piece of paper and continued the story working that word into the dialogue. We continued with the story until all of the papers had been used. The following is the story that came from that game. The words in bold are the ones that came from the tin.

The Fringe is a very popular festival in Edinburgh. There are a lot of cabaret performers, but one was better than all of the others. While she was performing, she slipped and fell on the stage. After she fell, a crazy man from the audience came rushing forward and pulled the woman off the stage. He went running off and the audience is too stunned to do anything to help the poor performer. While this is going on, there is a juggler across the street who is trying to put on a free show for the people walking by. While he is trying to gather a crowd, the crazy man goes back to the stage and starts yelling at the crowd about a trip he took in an African Safari Park. People were a bit frightened by it, so they moved across the street to watch the juggler. The juggler needed some volunteers from the audience because his next trip involved a jump rope. He found two kids, including one who was a teacher’s pet. The teacher’s pet wanted to make sure that the performance was perfect. The juggler did his juggling while he was jumping rope. Across the street, the crazy man was still talking about the safari park, and while he rants, he remembers a billboard that he saw once for a zoo in Spain that he had always wanted to go to. This makes him sad again, so he gathers up the cabaret performer and runs off to Portabello Beach. While at the beach, the two fall in love and decide to get married while watching a sunset.

A few years later the couple are walking through the village and they find an abandoned dog. The dog was very cute, but the village that the couple lived in did not allow dogs to live in the houses. The couple decided that they needed to find a home for the dog, and in an effort to make him look as cute as possible, they tied colourful balloons to his collar and took him to the next town over. While walking through the town, the couple found a house for sale that had a large heated swimming pool. The couple loved the house, and loved the little dog, so they decided to buy the house and sell their other one. Years pass and now they have a little boy. The little boy does not like other people, so he spends most of his time playing in the front yard with the magic wand that his uncle gave him. The dog tried to play with him, but the boy did not want it. One day, while the dad was looking through boxes, he found a magic key. He remembered that when he was in the Safari park that the key was part of a hidden treasure.

After a lot of searching, the dad locates the treasure map. The dog has died, and so the boy uses his magic wand to turn the dog into a monkey. The dad, the boy and the monkey set off to follow the map and find the treasure that the key unlocks. They finally get to a cave and as they go deeper and deeper into the cave, they worry that they will never find the treasure. They finally enter a room and see the giant box! When the dad puts the key into the lock, he cannot open the box. What no one notices is that a giant stone solider has now blocked the exit from the room. He is a Scottish solider, so he is wearing a kilt. He decides that the boy, the monkey, and the dad cannot leave the room until they answer a question. He asks them, ‘Do you think the haunted house on the island is actually haunted?’ The man starts to get crazy again because there is no way to answer that question. As he gets ready to fight with the solider, the monkey knows that he has to do something to calm everyone down so that the kid doesn’t come to any harm. The monkey starts to do monkey things, and the solider notices this. He throws a banana at the monkey to try and distract him. The monkey catches the banana and while the solider is surprised, the boy, the dad, and the monkey get the box and make their way out of the cave. On the way home, they find the real key to opening the box, and it is in binary code. When they get home, the mom comes out to greet them and announces that she has gotten them a horse. The dad and the boy ride the horse around, and it accidentally steps on the monkey. While the dad is burying the monkey, he remembers a friend of his who might be able to help solve the binary code and open the treasure. He calls his friend on the telephone. While the phone is ringing, his friend tries to get to it. He slips and falls, hurting his foot. While he is in the bathroom using his first aid kit to make his foot feel better, the phone rings again. This time it is a stripper, and she is calling because she can solve the code and open the box of treasure. She finds the dad, and solves the code. With the monkey, dog and horse now dead, the family decides to move back to the beach, and they open the box and live happily ever after with the treasure.

I think that right there is an award winner. They did a really good job of keeping the story going, and it took some very strange turns. I enjoyed it though, and it might be something that I try again with other classes if I make it back into the classroom one day.

The Substitute Scamp

Posted on August 12, 2015 by erranteditor

For the last several days I have been filling for a teacher at small English language school in Edinburgh. It is the first time I have taught in a strictly ESL instance, but the group I was in charge of for the week are all upper intermediate students with a strong command of the English language. Five of the students in the class are from Spain, while the last student is from South Korea. They are all very friendly and very excited about learning, and the rest of the teachers at the school are great (ok, so one is one of my best friends, and another is my landlord),and if this place was hiring teachers, I would definitely apply and be very happy working there.

I thought things were going great. The tasks they have to complete from the book are pretty easy, they are not shy about speaking to me and to each other, and they even liked my idea for a conversation cafe where they offered topics and had a lively debate on the merits of private schools. Today’s lesson was covering things that are annoying, and while sitting in gum and having a bad haircut are certainly things that one would complain about, The students didn’t really feel like those things needed to be discussed, so we talked about things that they would complain about, or be afraid to complain about. One of them mentioned that she would not complain to a person’s face that she could not understand what they are saying, but rather do so to her friends or at home. After a little bit of prodding, she told me that my accent is so hard to understand that she often doesn’t know what I am saying. I was crushed. I thought I was doing such a great job, the students are great, are were not shy about working, but now I know that they are just too polite to tell me they can’t understand me. Boooooooooo.

I grew up in California and always considered myself someone with a very flat accent that was easy to understand. I never thought that I would get to Scotland and be the one with the hard to understand accent. Looks like my career as an ESL teacher is going to end before it ever really has a chance to begin. I am not sure that I have ever been self-conscious about the way I speak, or how I sound to other people, but now, I think that might change.

A major part of my job is meeting with people and talking about my research and the plan I have for their programs. If people cannot understand me, how are they going to take my overhaul of their curriculum as a serious option?

The Scamp and the Gratitude Challenge: Week 31 and 32

Posted on August 5, 2015 by erranteditor

I am in Scotland. For good this time. I have been here for 4 whole days. I’ve managed to get almost everything I need in terms of housewares and food stuffs, I’ve got one of my boxes, and have made it to and from work twice without getting lost. That last one is a big one because I had to navigate the bus system, and figure out the closest stop to my work since the building is hidden in a slightly shady industrial area. I cannot begin to explain how good it feels to actually be sitting at my desk working (although it will be much better when I have internet at home and can work from there a few days a week). I have heaps of things to do, and although I am still not 100% sure I know what I am doing, I have a month to get things in order. I have a list of things of emails to send, meetings to attend, and a presentation to give. I’ve just been named the face of TESTA for the university.

You may now henceforth call me the queen of TESTA. I want a tiara….and minions. Lots of minions.

But, back to the gratitude challenge. Week 31 is all about my core values. The one core value that I would have to say that I am most proud of is my belief in adventure. My life is centred around adventure, whether it be my crazy wanderlust, or the risk that I am willing to take for my career (I mean, I did just pack up my life and move to Scotland for my chance at my dream career in higher education). That sense of adventure has provided me with some life changing experiences, and some pretty fantastic memories. That belief in the value of adventure is what keeps me going some days. Planning a new trip, encouraging people to travel, talking to people who are also adventurous, it makes me happy. I hope that when I am in my 80s I will still have that wanderlust.

This week, Week 32 is dedicated to a city that I have visited. I have been lucky enough to visit a lot of cities, but I think one that really stands out is Boston. The Boston trip was scheduled at a time when I thought I was going to need a break from the CSUF program, and it was the perfect opportunity to see one of my best friends while she was in the States for a week. By the time the trip actually came, it was a good break from being depressed about the expulsion, and it was during that trip that I interviewed for my current position. The city was under 8 feet of snow, but that did not diminish the fun that we had for three days. Sus and I saw a lot of fun things and ate some really great food, and both got jobs out of the experience. It was a turning point in the year for me. It changed the direction of my life. I want to go back to the city again one day and see the city when it is not buried under snow, but it will always hold a special place in my heart as the city that redirected my life toward something better.

Once the internet is set up at home, I will get back to consistent posting about all of the great stuff that has been going on since I got back to Scotland.

The Scamp and the Gratitude Challenge: Week 29 and 30

Posted on July 30, 2015 by erranteditor

I am back to Scotland in three days.

Finally.

I have my visa, some money to put into my bank account, and on Friday, I will ship some more of my boxes to my new address. The last two weeks have been a flurry of worry and trying to get everything squared away, packed, and ready for my return. I haven’t written anything, have barely looked at the work I need to do, and have skipped an awful lot of yoga.

That is why it is important to get back to the gratitude challenge and keep myself in positive thoughts. That way, when I make it home, I will get back to doing yoga, not eating cheese, and making headway with both my job and my dissertation.

Week 29 is all about my favorite memory. I have a lot of memories that qualify as favorites, but I think one that I really enjoy is one of my first trips to the hospital….at least that I remember. I was 7 or 8 and my mom, brother, sister, and I were in Palm Springs visiting my grandparents. When my parents got divorced, mom took us and my dad took the money, so my grandparents used to have us come down and they would treat us to a weekend of swimming and eating out and movies. On this trip, after a day of swimming, my ear hurt really bad. After a few hours I couldn’t take the pain anymore, so we went to the ER to try and figure out how to make the pain stop. While we were waiting to be seen by a doctor, I was worried about what was going to happen to me when they called me back. My grandma assured me that everything would be fine. She said she would draw me a picture, and I was sure to love it. When she was done, she proudly held up the picture. It showed a very scared looking me bent over with my little butt in the air, and a doctor with a giant needle about to give me a shot. I cried when I saw it, and the first thing I asked the doctor when we went back was whether or not I was going to get a shot. The doctor did a lot of poking around in my ear, and after a little bit of digging, the doctor was able to get wax, and a lot of water out of my ear.

While this doesn’t seem like it should be a memory that I would love, it is one of the few that I can remember of my grandma. She was killed in a car crash a year later. It has been almost 20 years since that happened. I’ve spent more time without her than I did with her, so I hold dear any memory that involves her. When I tell that story to people who knew her, they always laugh and say “That sounds like Frannie alright. Always trying to make people laugh.”Although I wasn’t laughing then, I always laugh about it now. I know that if she was still alive, she would have drawn some possibly offensive pictures while I was getting expelled. It makes me smile to think about what she would have said during that time.

Week 30 is all about my favorite thing about my age. This is an easy one. I think 28 is a pretty great age. I’m old enough to be a proper adult, but young enough to still do crazy things like getting tattooed in Estonia and packing up and moving to Scotland to start my life as an official expat. I am really stoked about being 28 because it means I am that much closer to being 30. I’ve decided that by the time that I am 30 I am going to have my shit together. My best friend and I have a saying that I repeated over and over and over again in the last year: We just have to make it to 30.” My 30s are going to be the best years of my life, and I have still have two years to get everything in order and running smoothly. 28 is playing a big part in making that happen. I found out I got the job in Scotland on my 28th birthday, I jumped out of an airplane, had all kinds of adventures, and still have a lot of time left as a 28 year old. 28 will end with me being an aunt, so short of winning the lottery and being able to pay off all of my loans, I cannot see how it can get any better.

I know that it is technically almost the end of week 31, the week is not over so there is still time for me to stay up-to-date on the challenge. I’m also excited that I will finally be living up to the title of this blog and be writing abroad.

The Scamp Laments

Posted on July 24, 2015 by erranteditor

Today would have been my last day of coursework for the EdD program. I can’t help but notice all of the posts from the people that I stayed in touch with, and it still gives me a twinge. I could be one year away from being a doctor instead of three. I think about all of the money, time, effort, and tears that went into that program, and now instead of celebrating making it to the last year, I am looking at the pictures feeling jealous and sad.

Then I remember that the people who run the program suck, the degree program would not get me a job in Scotland, I was miserable for two years, and ended up being expelled over my refusal to apologize for the color of my skin. It makes no sense to me that I would feel sad about it, and feel like I am missing out on something when I see those pictures and posts about moving on to their last year of the program. Don’t get me wrong, I am very excited and proud of the couple of people that I still talk to from the program, and look forward to reading some of their work when they finally complete their dissertations, but I am still not over what happened to me.

On the upside, today I finally got my passport back with my visa, and I have been cleared to go back to Scotland and get on with my life. I’ll be back in a little more than a week, and thanks to three weeks of California sunshine, I will return with a nice tan. I have made some good headway with my own work, and figured out how to get my artwork to my new flat.

The Scamp Sets a Watchman

Posted on July 21, 2015 by erranteditor

I just finished reading the new novel by Harper Lee. Well, not exactly new, as it is supposedly the first manuscript that eventually led to To Kill a Mockingbird. It took me all of a week to read it, and to be honest, I am not sure that I liked what I read.

I tried to like it, I really did. To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favorite books. I’ve read it numerous times, and always loved Scout, the pugnacious six-year-old who hated dresses, loved to read, and thought fighting was the best way to solve a problem. One of my favorite lines from the book was, and in a way, still is:

“Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing”.

I remember reading the book in high school and having numerous discussions about racism, moral compasses, and rape. I remember feeling like the discussions sounded much the same way a Sparknotes summary would read; kinda surface level, lacking of a deeper discussion, and very focused on how racism is bad, and how a good strong moral compass will always lead a person to the right answer (whether it is the popular choice or not). I remember reading the book a year or so ago, and feeling differently about the characters. While I still loved Scout, I found her somewhat naive, and in the process, found myself somewhat naive for missing a big piece of the story; Atticus Finch was always a racist. When Go Set a Watchman was first announced, people were outraged by Atticus being painted as a racist who attends Klan meetings, and despises the NAACP. At first, I was in that boat. How dare Atticus been shown as anything other than noble. Then I noticed he takes on the case of Tom Robinson stating that just because you already lost the game before it started, doesn’t mean you should play. He took the case because he was asked to by the judge, not necessarily because he thought Tom Robinson deserved justice. As the article Atticus Was Always a Racist: Why Go Set a Watchman Is No Surprise states:

Throughout Mockingbird, Atticus is engaged in the foundational moonlight-and-magnolias Southern delusion that so swayed Ashley Wilkes and Ellen O’Hara in Gone With the Wind. He fought with the genteel cruelty of the slaver, in service of the other American dream, which is the idea that a man can be the ultimate patriarch: the cultivated master of the lower orders, the head of a family that extends through his wife and children down through the slaves. Everyone but the patriarch, it’s assumed, is slowly developing out of moral infancy—and as such, the patriarch is charged with leading everyone in religion, work ethic and cleanliness. Atticus is the son of slave owners, and he’s acting the part of one when he argues that Tom Robinson is from a clean-living family, and the black servant Calpurnia can be trusted raising white kids—this is the race equivalent of chivalry, the imperiled pedestal.

At 16, there was no way I was clever enough to notice this. At 26, I did, but tried to pretend that was not what I was reading. There was no way that I was reading that one of my favorite literary characters was not actually a strong moral compass, but merely a man who had a strong sense of right and wrong, but was still deeply flawed when it came to racial equality. I had set my watchman in Atticus Finch, and there was no way that he was anything less than the strong moral compass I saw him as when I first encountered the book more than ten years ago. This is where Go Set a Watchman comes into play.

This book is also written from Scout’s point-of-view, but this time she is a 26-year-old living in New York. She has returned home to Alabama to visit her father. That is about the extent of what happens. While home, Scout gets in a fight with Atticus and is forced to shake off her naivete and see the world for what it really is, and her father is not the God-like idol that she has built him up to be. The title comes from Isaiah 21:6: “For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.” It alludes to Jean Louise Finch’s view of her father, Atticus Finch, as the moral compass (“watchman”) of Maycomb, and has a theme of disillusionment, as she realizes her bigotry.

The problem with this book is the dialogue is awful, the story is often boring, and Scout is such a snotty 20 something that you cannot wait for her to get her comeuppance. The fight she has with Atticus is actually resolved way too easily, and it in the end, Scout decides that she cannot beat the crowd, and she won’t join them, so she ops to just sit on the sidelines and pretend what they are doing is a-okay. Chance Lee wrote a very insightful piece on the books. While I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he said, there was one particular passage that really stood out for me:

The only interesting part of this book is the climax: the actual argument between Jean Louise and Atticus. However, the denouement ruins any impact this climactic battle may have had. In it, Jean Louise is slapped so violently by her uncle that her mouth bleeds. She learns that, as a young woman, she should respect the beliefs of elder white men. To not compromise with those who refuse to compromise, Jean Louise is a bigot. Her racist father, her racist aunt, are not bigots because they are right: whites are superior to Negroes.

This is a frustrating argument that still exists today, when religious fanatics who believe that their personal beliefs trump the human rights of others beg “tolerance.” Your hate is not to be tolerated. If any benefit comes from this book, it is to show us that we, as a society, have not evolved as much as we should have in the last fifty years.

The entire article can be found here: http://chancelee.com/2015/07/14/dont-set-a-watchman/ and is well worth the read.

I guess this is why I had trouble liking the story. One of the greatest literary characters of all time turned out to be a phony, and much the way Scout realizes her naivete, I now see that sometimes great men (real or literary) are not really all that great, and it is best to be your own watchman because at the end of the day, the only person who can really steer you down the right path is you.

The Scamp and the Gratitude Challenge: Week 27 and 28

Posted on July 14, 2015 by erranteditor

Greetings from California.

Yep. I’m currently sitting on my mom’s couch in California. I’ve been here for a few days. I was too embarrassed to admit it sooner. I got bent over a table by the UK visa process, and the only way to get the visa was to return to my country of birth and go through the application process….again.

The process should be well in hand now, but I cannot help but keep thinking that something else is going to go wrong, and my life is going to be further delayed by my bad luck. I’ve been working while I am here, but I feel like I am still in limbo, and I feel like there is a huge disconnect between me and my job right now.

Because of that, feelings of gratitude are hard to come by at this moment. I feel like I say that each time I write one of these posts. Week 27 is all about my favorite spot in the city. Right now, my favorite place is the pool at my parent’s house. I’ve been hiding out there during the day trying to get some sun and fresh air.

If I get to the pool at just the right time of the day then it is quiet and empty. I can get some good reading in, or swim a few laps and remind myself how badly out of shape I have gotten since I gave up my days as a swimmer. Even when I get to the pool at the wrong time and it is full of screaming kids, obnoxious teenagers, or other quite people, I still like to be there. We have lived here for a long long time. I have some great memories of this pool. We used to have all our friends over at the end of the year for swim parties, and when we still had our cat, Socks, he dug a hole under the fence and used to come into the pool area with us and sit under my mom’s lounge chair while we swam. After awhile, everyone who used the pool knew who he was.

At home, my favorite place is Victoria Street. It is a little street that connects Grassmarket, a ritzy tourist area with the Royal Mile. It was one of the first streets I was ever on in Scotland, and offered my connection to the city. It has great painted storefronts, and I bought a dress on there that remains one of my favorites. There is even a small pub called the Bow Bar that boasts over 100 different types of Scotch.

I am looking forward to getting back to Scotland and finally settling down in my new place, so I can pick a new favorite spot in the city. I’m excited to wander around and see what I can find living near the shore. All I need now is for the British government to recognize that I am no threat to their country, and I can get on with my new life.

This little detour will not dampen my spirits anymore than it already has.

The Scamp and the Gratitude Challenge: Week 25 and 26

Posted on July 4, 2015 by erranteditor

Week 25 is all about education.

Everyone who knows me knows that I put high stock in the value of an education. I’ve been in some form of school or another since I was 5 years old. Even when I wasn’t a student I was a teacher, and looking into PhD programs. Even when I got expelled it did nothing to taint my love for education. The thing is, I now understand the importance of the education that you cannot get in the classroom. The real world education I got from the program, from the people that I have met along the way, and from the massive amounts of therapy taught me as much, if not more than all of the classes I have sat in combined. I learned a lot about politics, about sticking up for what I believe in, and what it really means to be a citizen of the world. Week 24 of this challenge will also give some insight into the way that education has turned me into the sparkling gem that I am today, but what I am really grateful for is everything I learn about myself and others while I travel, research, and have the chance to interact with others.

Week 26 is an important one. Week 26 is a person that I have had the pleasure of meeting. There are a lot of people that I have been able to meet and interact with, but right now, the one I am most grateful for has not even been born yet.

That’s right. This Scamp is about to be an aunt! The wombmate is pregnant with her first child.

World, meet little Gizmo

That’s right, I have named my future niece or nephew (I’m hoping nephew) Gizmo, although the sister is strongly objecting to that, so I call him Gizzy. Now, while looking at the inside of my sister’s uterus is not what I would call a good day, being able to see this little guy (or girl) and the little tiny heart is truly one of the coolest things that I have ever seen. I cannot wait for February. Despite all the anger and stress of the visa issues, the research questions that still need to be written, and the ethics application that is in its second round of editing, I am excited that I will soon be able to impart my wisdom and sass on the next generation of Rodriguez children. I am already making a list of noisy toys that need to be purchased, of Scottish themed clothes and toys that need to make it to the States, and a playlist of the best songs of the last few generations to be played. While most of this education will have to be done through Skype, when the kids is old enough, I am going to start insisting that it spend the summers in Scotland with me. Lord knows that someone is going to have to teach the kid how to eat right, how to dress with some spunk, and how to think of a witty comeback on the spot. Plus, the kid needs to learn about the great wide world, and who better to show him (or her) that than the perpetual Scamp?

The Gratitude Challenge: Week 23 and 24

Posted on July 4, 2015 by erranteditor

Seeing as this is week 27 of the year 2015, I am a bit behind on the challenge. Part of that is the fact that I have been too tired to sit down and write, and part of it is that between the trip to Spain (which I still have yet to give proper time too), the move to Scotland, and my neverending visa issues, I do not have enough hours in the day to get everything done.

or, maybe I don’t want to.

Week 23 is dedicated to my favorite physical trait. A couple of years ago, I would have said my abs. Now, after all the stress of the program, the move, and all the change in my life, the abs are in hiding. To be honest, I would have to say that my smile is my favorite physical trait. Thanks to my mom and a really good orthodontist, I have nice straight teeth, and thanks to whitening toothpaste, they sparkle. I’m often told how great and white my teeth are, and on a flight from Germany to Estonia, a Russian man named Alexander asked me if I lasered my teeth. It took me awhile to figure out what he meant from that, but he was asking if I had my teeth professionally whitened. It made me laugh. The second thing that I like about my smile is that it brings out the dimple in my cheek. When I was a kid, that was one way that people could tell me from the wombmate, and now, I think it gives me a childlike quality that I love.

Week 24 is a book I learned from. Being that I am a nerd and have read hundreds, if not 1,000 books, it is hard to think of just one that I have learned from. From a personal standpoint, there are so many that I am not sure that I could just pick one, but from a teaching and learning point of view, there is one book that has guided not only much of the writing and research I have done, but also helped guide me towards the type of educator that I want to be. That books is The Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire. Here, a very talented author and scholar (a.k.a., me) sums up the book:

First published in Portuguese in 1968, Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed has become one of the most valuable texts in philosophy of education classes. The first English translation was published in 1970 and has seen several reprints and updated editions. Freire’s book is a scathing critique of the traditional top-down teaching methods where ‘instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize and repeat’ (72). This ‘banking model of education’ (Freire 2000: 70) is thus used as a tool of oppression where the teachers have all of the power, and students are nothing more than empty vessels waiting to be filled. Freire was deeply inspired by the philosophy and works of Karl Marx and Franz Fanon, and predicated his own work on the notion that revolutionary educators were needed in order to help students become functional human beings who think critically, question the world around them, and act on their own free will in order to fight oppression and injustice. For him, true liberation, then, comes from the ability to inquire about, reflect on, be conscious of, and most importantly, to act on the world around you in order to transform it (Freire 2000: 79). For Freire, ‘knowledge emerges only through the invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, and with each other’ (Freire 2000: 72). It is up to the educator to help their students become critical beings by first seeing them as capable of higher level thinking than as equals in the process of learning, and then the teacher must trust that the students will use the skills and power they gain from this learning environment.

This book is something that I have read over and over and over again. I did not really understand what it was saying the first time I read it, but now I feel like I am an expert in liberatory teaching practices. I also feel like I have a better understanding of what it means to be a fair and just educator from having read this book. When I was in the midst of Cal State Fullerton, I had a choice to make. I could have played the game, pretended to be racist, and let the awful people in the program “fix” me, or I could stand up for what I believe in, and discuss the obvious injustice of the race that the program viewed race. This book has taught me a lot about how I can recognize those that need a voice, and how I can use my position of privilege to help those in need. As I get ready to embark on my final degree, and then a career of curriculum development, I know that this book will have a place of honor on my shelf. I’m going to use his words to change the face of higher education one program at a time.

The Scamp Scales the Monument

Posted on June 27, 2015 by erranteditor

I’m still having visa issues, and still not settled in Scotland, so I decided that today I would be a little bit of a tourist and visit some of my favorite places in Scotland. One of the things that I always wanted to do was climb to the top of the Sir Walter Scott Monument.

According to the Scott Monument website:

Walter Scott was born in Edinburgh on the 15th August 1771, in a tenement flat at the head of College Wynd in the Old Town. He was the ninth of twelve children, of whom the first six died in infancy. His father was a ‘Writer to the Signet’ (solicitor) and a sober and strict Calvinist. His mother Anne Rutherford was the daughter of a professor of Medicine at Edinburgh University. Both parents were from old Borders families, whose histories inspired Scott’s later literary work.

He developed polio as an infant, and was sent to his grandparents’ farm at Sandyknowe in the Borders to recuperate. The farm is situated beside Smailholm Tower, an inspiring medieval fortified house on a dramatic rocky knoll. Various remedies were attempted to cure his infirmity, including a year in Bath ‘taking the waters’ to no avail – he had a limp and periods of illness throughout the rest of his life.

In 1779 he went to the Royal High School of Edinburgh and became a good Latin scholar. He retained an interest in languages and taught himself Italian, Spanish and French while at University from 1783, and later translated ballad’s and play’s of Burger and Goethe from German. He studied law and was called to the Bar as an Advocate (Barrister) in 1792.

From his early days Walter Scott was popular and at ease in society. He met Robert Burns ‘the boast of Scotland’ when he was fifteen years old, and later became friends with many famous people.

He was highly regarded by fellow poets James Hogg and William Wordsworth, and artists like William Allan and Henry Raeburn painted portraits of him. Scott met the Duke of Wellington in France while researching ‘Life of Napoleon’, which Goethe praised highly, and he was also respected and equally friendly with his servants, such as Tom Purdie.

The monument was built in 1840, stands 200 feet 6 inches high, and with no lift, takes 287 steps to get to the top. It was quite crowded today, but I decided that I could use some good views of the city, so I made the trek to the top.

Unfortunately, by the time I made it to the top, there were so many people on the platform that I was too afraid to take my camera out and take pictures. I was also too afraid to take chicken out as well. I’m really glad I climbed all the way up though because the views reminded me of why I love the city so much, and why I packed up my life in California to come here. I know all of the visa work will settle itself, but it has been a constant stress, and a jumble of incorrect information.

I’m glad the weather held, and since the next month is going to be spent writing research questions, drafting ethics proposals, and getting my calendar set for my research, I may not get to see the outside again for awhile. After the conference in Birmingham, I have a lot of notes and info to sort through, and a lot connections to make. I surprised myself b how social I was, and how many really important connections that I made. There may just be a future for me in the field of Assessment Development.