木头脑

风景：
最近新发现了一条去学校的路，有点绕远但景色很好，只需从宿舍侧面山坡下去沿着河边的草地走。河水湍急清澈，常常游着天鹅鸳鸯野鸭子，人也少，偶有一两个遛狗或遛孩子的。于是乐此不疲地绕了一个礼拜。今天一早有点赶时间，就走了老路，塞着耳机猛走时，一抬头侧面山坡上竟是满眼的黄水仙。耳机里正响到“开花在水中娇艳的水仙”，忍不住咧嘴笑。这些都是野生水仙，花苞打了很久，也不知趁我没看见哪天开的。明后天记得带相机。

习俗：
上周五晚上从同学家回来，算是领略了苏格兰人的饮酒传统。临近午夜，市中心大街上到处是三五成群的人，大都是副半醉半high的德行，另外到处是警车和穿反光衣的警察。有块区域还隔离了，警察示意路人绕行。绕行时看见圈子里有个人坐在地上，一动不动，不知在整什么幺蛾子。公共汽车不知何故提早收车，最后还是走回去的。尼日利亚的婕米非要等车，等了二十分钟我实在不耐烦，硬是催着她走了。一路上也没看见车。圣诞前公共汽车司机有次罢工，正好让德国室友娜汀赶上了，她们也不知道情况，当时天冷，大晚上等车等得差点冻死。最后回来还在发抖。

大雪：
英国今年年初的雪灾也造成了大面积断电（断电也就断了暖气）、停学，高速封路，穷人尤其是老人裹着毯子缩在家里，等着救济上门。各地市政撒盐化雪据说连食用盐都撒了（bbc说的，原话：路上撒的盐很可能就是你家饭桌上的那种盐）。但话说回来，这里的冬天并不算冷。刮风时另当别论。

多元：
一般来说，选课后坐在一个教室的并不一定来自同一个专业，但一门课即可算一个班（class）。常常一个班就像个小联合国。比如Global Security Issues这门课就是我们专业和MSc. Strategy Studies的选课交叉，课堂上西欧北美学生最多，东欧国家其次，非洲三人，亚洲俩（中国人就我一个），澳洲南美似乎没有。学战略那些人保不准以后是哪国智囊（已经知道有好几个是从英国军队、米国政府机构暂时离职上学，拿了学位回去升职的——高升是一回事，估计根本原因是国家需要）。另外感受较深的就是中国已经是西方各国未来战略核心内容了，虽然我们自己还不是非常自信，人均GDP也并不高，但一举一动已在西方各国的密切注意之下，尤其是军备。套用一句米国某智囊的话“中国的军备目前已经能大大影响美国战争效率和成本，等到可以和美国抗衡时再遏制那就太迟了”。在此俺不予评论。还有就是大家写论文视角各不相同，比如信奉穆斯林的非洲同学主张只要双方稍作让步，伊斯兰军事主义分子可以和西方世界共存共荣。花甲的教授讲这门课已有二十多年，非常博学，但论文只从技术角度指导，虽然自有他的观点（基本是西方主流观点，我个人认为他接近鹰派），思想算得上开放（至少表面是这样）。值此世事多变，人心不古之时，这门课尤其难学。有时候窗外阳光正好，就没来由地怀念从前那可以充分享受的阳光，就想叹气：谁知道今天的世界竟是这副模样，而我会在世界的这个角落？（叹气完毕，看书。）

I had a fruitless Saturday and felt somehow guilty. Now it's Sunday and I'm in the computer room doing the compulsory reading on International Relations. Those articles are interesting if you could really digest, and you could even have your own opinion formed after sufficient reading and thinking as well. 

The problem of me is that I'm toooooo easily distracted. Like now, I should be reading that article named 'The State of State' while I just saundered around online to see my favorite website and finally I arrived here to start this piece of blog.  Am I just hopeless? Now think about the overdraft charge (this has haunted me for days), the reason I'm thinking about it again is that a college classmate told me by leaving a message on my msn space that if I go to talk to the agent that helped me to open that account, I might be able to have the charge waived. Without this piece of information, I'd have forgotten about that at all. Well, since I need to go to the bank on Monday anyway, I'll see. Maybe I'll talk to someone or maybe not. Anyway, I've learned my lesson. NEVER TAKE EVEN THE TINIEST POSSIBLE ADVANTAGES FOR GRANTED. THOSE BUSINESS PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS OUTWIT YOU. And never try to take advantages out of other people either. For, in that case, YOU WILL DEFINATELY LOSE MUCH MORE THAN YOU GAIN. 

This morning one programme leader suggested to all the international students in the business school that we'd better write something in English each day to improve our writing skills, which would be very important for the dissertation by the end of the programme. I think it's a good piece of advice, and I'm going to take it seriously. 

So I got this today (you may call it a diary, or babbling):

Before I came here I heard that Scottish people are friendlier than people in England. I haven’t got any chance to compare yet, and people at Heathrow airport in London were also friendly anyway, therefore I guess I’m leaving this issue to my own eyes. Well, so far most people are friendly and helpful, and due to the variety of nationalities of students in the University of Aberdeen (up to 120, which also added an international tone to this city), people here are used to seeing foreigners and getting along as well. 

Aberdeen is a city with a long history. You could also see this from the ancient buildings scattered everywhere, from along streets in the city center, to the campus of our university. Most old buildings are still in use and have been protected well, at least still good with their functions. This is so different to the fate of most old buildings in China. But maybe different construction material and style which define the duration of buildings, along with different national status of big or not-so-big population hence different efficiency of land utilization, make the fate of the ancient buildings different after all. I guess that the social awareness of culture preservation also plays a role in it. This might turn out to be something hard to maintain for countries with too many disasters in the past hundred years. A pity that I felt for my country, but a pity is just a sigh to gone with the wind; there’s no need to cry over spilled milk. We’ll march on despite all that.

Different communities, the university itself, along with some companies such as local mobile service companies and food stores, came up with various ways to greet the new comers. Hence we got a fresher’s week bombarded with a lot of information. If you don’t want to miss a thing, you’d better keep your eyes open all the time for each single piece of information-loaded flyer or whatsoever. These dinners, tours, speeches and parties did pretty well in helping people to settle in, only that you don’t have to attend them all, which will be truly exhausting. Too much information would also be confusing, and I just missed the international advising yesterday for I simply didn’t see that page in the schedule sheets. Oh well. At least I didn’t miss the more important induction today, which revealed useful information on how to use the library, internet and online database, student support service and career service. I still need to go over the new information I got today. And I got my student ID card today, finally.

I’m good at recording boring events of the day to compose a diary. In case it gets really boring, I think I’d better call it a day.