Its been a while...

Okay, so Kristen has been getting on my case about updating this thing…. so here goes nothing! Since my last post a ton has happened (hence the lack of updates). Fasten your seat belts, this is a synopsis of our lives since August 7 (3 months)!

In the middle of August, mum came to visit us. Jordan was in orientation by this point, so mum and I had a few days together. Poor mum; she was such a trooper and helped me finish the house before my academic obligations began! With multiple trips to Ikea and Target, we finally got (and assembled) all the extra furniture we needed and finished buying and hanging curtains. Thankfully, her visit was not all work! We spent time walking around Bloomfield and Oakland, so that mum could see where we would be spending most of our time, we tried a bunch of new restaurants, and we found an outlet mall. I have since found one that I like better, but more on that later! We were so exhausted that we crashed every night, but it was so nice to have mum here!

Once mum left, the real work began! And by real work, I mean Jordan’s classes and my math boot camp (yes, math boot camp for political scientists). It sounds crazy, but I am actually thankful for math boot camp. Hear me out. Orientations are awkward: put a bunch of people (nine, in our case) in a room together, tell them a bunch of stuff that they are expected to (but largely will not) remember, and expect the people to meet each other in an artificial manner. Gross. With math boot camp, however, we (the first year cohort) were thrown into a situation where we had to get down to work and were in the situation with all of the second years, who already knew each other. Nothing unites like a common enemy. And math camp was our common enemy. Indeed, when we were thrown into the potentially awkward “meet each other” situations, we already knew each other (to some degree or another) and had at least something to talk about.

I am pleased to say that I have not met a person in the program that I dislike. There are people that I have more and less in common with, but I can more than merely “put up” with everyone I have met so far. As far as my cohort goes, there are three women who study the EU (myself, Yasemin and Andrea); the three of us clicked almost immediately. I suppose this is a good thing, since we will be spending the majority of our program together (between classes and talks). The fourth girl in our cohort, Cassie, has also become dear to us. We had a girl’s night about a month ago for the four of us, and what fun we had just sitting and chatting with wine, cookies and cupcakes! We decided that we should make an effort to do this more often, but that has proven impossible thus far given November work schedules! I digress.

Following boot camp, my real classes began. This semester, I am taking democratic Theory and Democratization, Comparative Politics, EU Politics, and Empirical Methods of Research. I have taken three of these classes before, and have been exposed to the material from all four, but it is so interesting to see how differently these courses are taught at Pittsburgh as opposed to Georgia Tech. Frankly, what I am taking away from my classes, as much as the material itself, is an idea of how I would (will) teach these classes when my turn arrives. This, to me, has been the value added of taking graduate coursework at two different schools: when I teach these classes, I hope to pull the strengths of each way of presenting the material. The challenge, however, will be avoiding a course that is ideologically, epistemologically, and methodologically incoherent; there has to be a way to do justice to these different perspectives without being incoherent… but this is a difficult balance to achieve. Perhaps the best example of this divergence is my Comparative Politics course. I have now had two such courses (at the graduate level, and one at the undergraduate level). Both (all three if we include undergraduate) of these courses were excellent courses. The core remained the same: the effects of institutions and history on domestic polities. However, where one started with the sociological bases of Comparative (Marx, Weber, and Durkheim), the other has given comparative methodology prime of place. All three components are important and, in my opinion, necessary… it simply escapes me (currently) as to how all three components can be given sufficient attention in one semester.

I got an excellent surprise that first week of class. A dear friend, Allison, with whom I worked as the European Union Center of Excellence at Georgia Tech, is a flight attendant. I got a random call Wednesday evening (September 2) asking: “What are you doing on Friday?” Sweet Allison took the first flight out of Atlanta on Friday morning and came to spend the day with me on her way to Hawaii! Actually, not really on the way to Hawaii, she flew from Atlanta to Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh to Atlanta, Atlanta to Los Angeles (where she spent the day with another friend), Los Angeles to Honolulu, and (I think) Honolulu to Kauai(?). What a fun day we had! It was a beautiful early fall day, so she got a great view of the city when we came over the bridge. We walked over to Walnut Street for lunch and a little shopping. We found a cute cupcake book, which Allison wanted to buy for me as a housewarming gift. We later made cupcakes (from the book), walked around Oakland, and went to Happy Hour with the department. We finished off the evening with dinner at an Italian in Bloomfield. Allison’s flight out was super early (like, 6 am). This less-than-24-hour-long-visit was such a sweet surprise!

Fast forward to late September (and fill in the space with “I read non-stop and took occasional breaks to watch Yellow Jacket football and go to happy hour with my friends”). For Jordan’s birthday I made rocky road cupcakes, we ordered in, and watched X-Men. For anyone who knows me, this is a BFD… I can hardly sit through a movie… never mind an action movie!

Jordan and I flew home to Atlanta (thanks to dad!) to attend an engagement dinner for Craig (my brother) and Pam. What an excellent night! Both families were in full attendance. Mum and dad, Jordan and I, Craig and Pam, and Rachel (my sister) and Tyler (her boyfriend) on Craig’s side. On Pam’s side Bronda (her mum) and Mike (here dad) and Daniel (her brother) and Carmen (his then girlfriend, now fiancé). We had an awesome (as always) dinner at Grace, gave them gifts, and just hung out. Backing up a couple of days, we flew to Atlanta Thursday night, I had a hair appointment with Julie Friday morning, mum and I went to the outlets Friday afternoon, and dinner for Craig and Pam was Friday night. Saturday, we drove down town to watch the Yellow Jackets manhandle UNC. It was so nice to be back at Bobby Dodd Stadium and Historic Grant Field! After dinner, Jordan and I drove out to Covington and spent the evening with Jordan’s parents. We stayed in Covington that night and celebrated Jordan’s birthday with his mum and dad the next day.

October was mental. Primarily, Yasemin and I decided to take a short course (half the credits of a standard course) offered by the EUCE. I am so glad that I took this course, it was on the EU’s emerging global authority and we were exposed to Asian perceptions of the EU, ESDP missions, and sample research of US perceptions on the EU. Frankly, I did not have time to do the work for an extra course, but it was totally worth it. The course was taught by a visiting professor, Dr. Martin Holland, who is an EU scholar and Monnet Chair from Canterbury, New Zealand.

On top of the short course, Vicky and Henry (Jordan’s parents) planned a trip to see us to coincide with Vicky’s birthday and Jordan’s fall break (let’s be clear, by fall break I mean nothing was different… he still had his usual meetings, etc.) We had a brilliant time with Vicky and Henry. We had dinner in Bloomfield on Friday night. Saturday, we got a late start (slept in a little, had coffee, etc.). Vicky and I headed to the other outlet mall (told you I would get there!) in Washington, which was awesome, to get some Christmas shopping done – a very successful trip! Jordan and Henry stayed at home, had lunch, went to the bakery to get breakfast for the next day, and watch the Georgia game. When Vicky and I arrived home, we watched the Tech game and then headed to McCormick and Schmick’s (Vicky and Henry’s favorite restaurant) for dinner. Sunday, we tried a new church, showed Vicky and Henry around Oakland (primarily CMU) and had lunch on Walnut Street before whisking them off to the airport. A full-but-fun weekend!

And now here we are, November. The first weekend in November marked Auburn’s homecoming. My dad had bought club-seating tickets and rented a suite for himself and my mum, only to realize that he had business obligations in Arizona. Score one for me… in his place, dad flew me down to Atlanta, where mum picked me up, and we drove to Auburn with Bailey to see Rachel. The first night, we had dinner with Jan and Ailsa. This is a strange-but-true story. When Rachel was going through rush, we were all happy to hear that she liked (and kept getting invited back to) Pi Beta Phi. You see, several of Craig’s friends from high school are/were Pi Phi’s at Auburn, Craig had attended a couple of events with Pi Phi… basically, we felt that they were a “known quantity.” Bid day (families are invited to share this day with their daughter/sister), we were all told about this other Scottish girl in Pi Phi. This was exciting to us, but we didn’t get to meet this mystery girl that day. Fast forward to Pi Phi family weekend (March 2009) and we (mum, dad, and I) had the opportunity to meet this girl and her parents. Turns out they are from Inch (not too far from Aberdeen!) And there you have it, two Scottish girls the same age, with similar pasts (moved to the US about the same time for their dads’ businesses), end up in the same sorority in BFE (Auburn), Alabama. Needless to say, we got along well with Ailsa’s parents (two Scottish families and alcohol… go figure). Fast forward to this November, and you have five Scottish women having dinner together in Auburn.

Friday, mum and I went shopping in Auburn. Rachel was planning to come with us, but she was not feeling well and decided to sleep so that she could feel better for the game on Saturday. Craig and Pam drove down from Atlanta, came to dinner with us that evening, and stayed in the suite with us. They got up and left early Saturday morning so that Craig could attend the Georgia Tech-Wake Forrest game (which was too close for my liking). Mum and I started getting ready for the game and Rachel ultimately decided not to go. We felt so bad, but, after a visit to the Dr. on Monday, we found that she had bronchitis. Good call on not going to the game. Thankfully, but not surprisingly, Auburn won (and virtually doubled Furman’s score). Mum and I grabbed Bailey and ventured to Toomer’s Corner. I will post pictures later, but Google it: Auburn students, alumni, and fans toilet paper the trees on this corner after a win! What a cool experience! We then snuck Bailey up to the suite where Rachel and I watched the Tech game and took a nap.

So there you have it. Three months boiled down to a not-so-short blog post! All my pictures from these events are on Facebook, but my next plan is to post a handful here.

No promises, but I at least intend to be better about updating this thing!!

Love,

Sarah