First Week of Classes!

This week heralded the beginning of classes, which for me includes Anthropology 1001, Creative Writing, and 18^th Century Romantic Literature. Two of these classes I had planned on taking, but one of them was an addition—the Romantic Literature module.

Three modules in Northern Ireland—as classes are called here—equal a full load of five classes back home. Each module is roughly an hour long, and includes a tutorial, which is run by either a student or a teacher with fewer qualifications than the professor, who guide us through the lecture material. The idea is that we will sit in a lecture hall for an hour, carefully soaking up every word our professor says like sponges, and then report to a tutorial to discuss with a small group of classmates the material. In America, these two concepts are blended—we listen to our professor, occasionally interjecting our own comments, and then disperse into small groups when our professor tells us to.

So far I think that I like my lectures, and my professors, but the tutorials will take some getting used to. As this was the first week, I did not have an Anthropology tutorial, and Creative Writing does not have a tutorial (probably because there are only eleven of us in that particular module), but I did have my Romantics tutorial this afternoon, in the School of English. Two of my classes take place in the School of English, which is basically one large building next to the official Queen’s campus. Outside, it doesn’t look like much, but the inside is a maze. It took me a long time to find my classroom.

This morning the skies were clear, but when I stepped outside after the Romantics tutorial there was an enormous gray cloud hanging low in the sky, just over the townhouses. Just as I passed the Student Union, the rain started to pour down.

How different from yesterday, I thought, remembering the cheerful mass of people that had been hanging around the Student Union, listening to music and accepting fliers from famous clubs. Yesterday had been the club fair at the Student Union, so all of Queen’s clubs had come to present their cases and vie for new members, pressing their causes on Hannah and I as we passed.

Hannah and I had emerged from the club fair onto the street laughing and weighted down with information, and as we did so, someone pressed another pamphlet upon Hannah which contained a condom—for Thursday night only, it read.

Thursday is to Northern Ireland what Friday is to America, which was probably why the condoms were flowing. Hannah stared at the package in horror, and I took it from her. “Is this what I think it is?” I asked.

“It’s exactly what you think it is.”

 We had put the condom where it belonged (the rubbish tin), and Hannah went to class. I went forth to see what else Belfast had to offer that day and ended up combing all of the bookstores in South Belfast for Ciaran Carson books. I hadn’t found any, but I did find Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn—perfect, I thought, for this rainy, dark weather.

Ciaran Carson. Even soaking wet, wandering through the now-abandoned streets like a drowning kitten, the thought of him made me smile.

“You’re smitten,” Hannah had said on Wednesday, as we got ready for the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead performance being hosted by the school drama club, and I babbled on and on to her about my Creative Writing professor. “If smitten is the right word.”

Smitten, I later looked up in the Oxford English Dictionary. Past participle of ‘smite,’ a verb meaning: 1. Strike with a firm blow; 2. Defeat or conquer; 3. Attack or affect severely; 4. Be smitten. Be strongly attracted to something. To Hannah, I simply said, “If you leave off the romantic notions attached to the word, then yes, I’m smitten.” Smitten kitten, as Chelsea, one of our Irish flatmates, would say.

Ciaran Carson had arrived to our Creative Writing class late. He was wearing a pinstripe jacket, with a handkerchief in the pocket—dressed to the nines, I think the expression goes. He wore large glasses, like the kind my grandfather used to wear, the ones that precursed Joe Jonas’ “nerd glasses,” large and square, covering the entire eye. In fact, he reminded me a great deal of my grandfather; their facial structure was the same, and he was quirky; he ‘contain(s) multitudes,’ as Walt Whitman would have said.

He told us that, as a child, he read 4-5 books each week, and said for our homework we must read a contemporary book. “It’s wonderful that you all like to read the classics,” he said, “but what’s the use if you don’t read the books being published today? What do you learn of style? The reading is as important as the writing, or more so. Literature is supposed to influence you. It’s supposed to change your mind.

“There are these people I meet, who say that they hate to read, because it influences their style. But what style do you have if you don’t know what styles are out there? So it’s good to read the old books, but you must read the books of today, to know where literature is going.”

Then he set us to our assignment, telling us to write, just write, and that he would be back later to tell us what to do next. “I’m not going to tell you what to write. But don’t think I don’t know what you’re feeling. Even now, as a published author, I still sit down at a blank page, and I have no idea what to write. I have no idea where to begin. What I will be teaching you is the terror of the blank page, and you are afraid, that it will be nonsense. And, you know what? It probably is. But you have to learn the cope, with the embarrassment of your writing.”

He left the room then, to let us work on our assignment, and I stared at the space where he had been. The embarrassment of your own writing. No one had ever explained it quite so accurately before, that feeling when you look up and realize you’ve been writing for hours and hours, and it’s all---shyte, as the Irish would say. It’s all shyte, and you know it, and I know it; but you have to cope. You must keep calm and carry on.

I wrote, but with a troubled conscience. I knew the terror of the blank page, but I felt even more keenly the terror of handing in shyte to Ciaran Carson. It was as if I had just met God, and the scales had fallen from my eyes; as if I had run into Anne Lamott quite by accident at the mall. How on Earth could I possibly hope to impress Ciaran Carson? He certainly wouldn’t let me get away with drivel, as so many other teachers back home have done.

 Thankfully,  Professor Carson didn’t make us read when he came back in, and I was spared that particular torture, but he did play the tin whistle for us, which was amazing.  

“He’s a bit of an eccentric, isn’t he?” Ann Marie whispered to me as we left the School of English. I nodded, but held my tongue. It’s odd how often genius and eccentrics walk hand in hand, and how often the two are confused.

Since that first class on Tuesday, I’ve googled him, and made the trek to the public library, where it took two librarians until I could find any of his books. I’m reading one of them, The Pen Friend, right now, and I have a book of his collected poems on my bedside table. I’ve learned that he is a renowned poet, the winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize, and that his first language was Irish, and besides being a prolific writer, he is an accomplished musician, translator, art critic, and amazing human being. I am counting down the days until Tuesday afternoon, just to see what he’ll do next.

I made it to the Spar store by Elms, and I bought milk for my hot chocolate, some bread, and a bar of chocolate to indulge myself.  

The rain had stopped when I left the store. I slopped my way back to the dorms, my shoes making and alarming squishing sound. I was thinking of Ciaran Carson, and my anthropology lecture; of how everyone in Michigan was just waking up as I was returning home after a long day of classes.

I was thinking that it was nice to be in Belfast, even in the rain and cold.

Timeline of Events

Monday:

11.00-12.00: Anthropology lecture

12.00-1.00: Lunch with Hannah in the McClay library.

1.00-3.00:18^th Century Romantics lecture (cancelled)

3.00-late: Read “Vertue Rewarded” for Romantics class.

Tuesday:

Sleep until late. Laze around.

3.00-5.00: Creative Writing class with Ciaran Carson.

Wednesday:

11.00-1.00: Walk to Public library. Locate Ciaran Carson books. Walk back.

1.00-2.30: Walk to Tesco with Victoria and Hannah.

2.30-6.45-Read Ciaran Carson.

6.45-9.00: Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead.

9.00-10.00: Try and explain plot to Mel.

Thursday:

11.00-12.00: Tour clubs.

12.00-1.00: Free lunch at Fisherwick Presbyterian church.

1.00-3.00: Wander around bookstores.

3.00-5.00: Hang out in Hannah’s room.

5.00-7.00: Cook hamburgers and chips for Hannah and Victoria. First real meal cooked by myself for other people.

7.00-11.30: Hang out with people. End up singing pop songs in the common room with Hannah, Mel, Fiona, and Drilla.

Friday:

11.00-12.00: Anthropology Lecture

12.00-1.00: Anthropology Tutorial (cancelled for first week)

1.00-2.00: Romantics tutorial

6.00-8.00: Weekenders Club meeting with pizza