The Discreet Charm of Societies, or [NP[Det][N'[AP][N'[N'][N'[PP][N']]]

As I was rereading my latest entry, I found myself horrified at what a sense of stress and overworkedness I had conjured up in the last couple of lines.

When I am done writing this, I have to start working on the first of the three assignments I have due in March, and yet I feel much cheerful now, when the first vibrations of spring have begun travelling through the earth, than I did during the autumn essay season, the dreariness of which had so obviously imprinted itself onto my previous entry. However, I owe a sizeable part of this newfound optimism to a week-long trip to the Isle of Skye a have only just returned from a few days ago. Just like last year’s Islay expedition, this was organised by the Highland Society to coincide with Innovative Learning Week, during which regular teaching is suspended.

If I were to choose the most truthful of the autumnal complaints voiced in my November entry, it would have to be the one concerning the low degree of focus on language itself on the Gaelic course. The heart of the problem is not my admittedly low interest in history – rather, I feel like after a mere one year of instruction, we are no longer treated like learners of a language, but almost like fluent speakers of it. Instead of practising sentence formation, we read flowery articles pondering the morality of bullfighting and learn about clan histories. (It needs to be said, however, that I have already asked my class representative to voice my frustration at a liaison meeting with the school, which takes place once every semester, and that I am very grateful such an institution exist.) At any rate, I only reiterate this rant in order to illustrate the reason why I found this outing so helpful: I feel my motivation to study Gaelic as a living language of international importance has been renewed.

This is because Skye, the second largest island of the Hebrides, is where Sabhal Mòr Ostaig – Scotland’s only Gaelic college – is based. Since its establishment in the 70’s, the institution has been on the forefront of the revival of Scotland’s oldest continually spoken language. Me and my society colleagues took a five-day course tailored to our needs specifically, the “advanced” students focusing on conversation and idiom. For the first time in a good while, I felt comfortable speaking and making mistakes, and as a result valiantly ventured into such uncharted conversational territories as the philosophy of Moravian pig sticking festivities and the differences between the Scottish and Czech versions of black pudding. My gratitude for the wonderfully open atmosphere of the lessons belongs wholly to our tutor, Ailig.

We also attended a song workshop led by Christine Primrose – a veritable authority in the world of Gaelic music – and a presentation on the Ainmean Àite na h-Alba project, which concerns itself with researching and recommending authentic and correct Gaelic place names for use in signage, maps and the like – a surprisingly complicated task! Throughout the campus, one is encouraged to use Gaelic as the primary language, and so our use of it was not limited to the classroom – we found ourselves ordering lunch and coffee through it and using it as much as possible in everyday situations. Anyone who has ever studied a foreign language will know how valuable such opportunities are.

After lunch, we would go on trips to places of interest throughout the island and even some of the mainland, with Alasdair (another member of SMO staff) as our witty and well-informed guide who always had an amusing story to tell. This gave us a chance to familiarise ourselves with the island’s character, from the rough coast (especially in comparison with Islay) and the flat, green and fertile land of the south-easterly Sleat peninsula where we were based, through the snowy Cuillins mountain range to Portree, the main settlement on the north-western coast. In the evening, we returned to our comfortable lodges, cooked dinner and wound down after a long day.

One evening, however, was dedicated to a student-run “cèilidh”. Only those who have spent some time in Scotland will know what this is, and even those, like most Scotsmen, will have a slightly imprecise concept of it. The word itself can be translated as “a visit”, and even though the term has come to denote a traditional Scottish dance event, the true meaning is closer to what one might call a “session”. Imagine a few families gathering around a fireplace, with their musical instruments, all playing and singing and dancing together; someone might throw in an amusing or interesting story for good measure – another will sing a song that the other’s had perhaps not heard before. And that’s how our evening went as well. The organisers asked our group to sing a song in our respective native languages, and some of us, including me, accepted this invitation after a glass or two of wine. I sang a sad, wistful number called Pri téj brodskéj bráně (By the Gates of Brod), which comes from my hometown and got an applause that indicated nothing about the quality of my performance; this is what I like the most about folk music in its purest form: the willingness to share a song and the story therein that is worth more than vocal talent.

Nevertheless, to conclude and fulfil the primary aim of this blog – i.e. to describe my life in British tertiary education – I wish to say the following: I have only just begun to appreciate the importance of being a member of a society that is tied into one’s degree. It will often give one a chance to participate in activities that, despite of their immense educational value, are difficult for schools to organise as part of regular tuition. And even if the given event were not to be educational in the slightest, it still means meeting and socialising with people who share one’s academic interests, and that’s anything but a waste of time. So mark my words, reader, and remember them at the start of Freshers’ Week: try to find a society that can become the salt of your academic life.

Image credits: Ordnance Survey, SMO, Lucie Rompteau, Jakub Musil


 

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Nenápadný půvab „societies“ aneb [NP[AP][NP[NP][NP]]]
Nenápadný půvab „societies“ aneb [NP[AP][NP[NP][NP]]]
Nenápadný půvab „societies“ aneb [NP[AP][NP[NP][NP]]]
Nenápadný půvab „societies“ aneb [NP[AP][NP[NP][NP]]]
Nenápadný půvab „societies“ aneb [NP[AP][NP[NP][NP]]]
Nenápadný půvab „societies“ aneb [NP[AP][NP[NP][NP]]]
Nenápadný půvab „societies“ aneb [NP[AP][NP[NP][NP]]]
Nenápadný půvab „societies“ aneb [NP[AP][NP[NP][NP]]]

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