Photos from Aberystwyth

Spring Time in Wales

February passed in a blur of new classes, good weather, and papers and I am well into my second semester. My current courses are very Wales focused, which is helping me prepare for my dissertation. In my State Through the Ages module, we are discussing different types of state formation. This is supporting my understanding of the origins of states in the modern international system as well as the creation of sub-states.
Regional Policy and Governance is a class in the geography department and in it we are looking at the rise of the significance of regional governance since the 1980s. Although in the United States we often think of regional, or state, governance I have learned that regional governance is both sub-national as well as supranational. There are regions both within states, like Wales or Catalonia, as well as at a supra-national level. The European Union, in an attempt to create more uniform infrastructure and trade has created regions around the Mediterranean Sea and around the Baltic sea, which include parts of countries both in and outside of the European Union. This has given me a lot of interesting ideas about a supra-national Kurdish region state, which is what I'm focusing on for my dissertation. 

The International Politics Department holds many events and speakers and I have frequented many of these this semester. I have been regularly going to the International Politics Research Seminars, which are held every Thursday afternoon as a showcase for the PhD students to discuss their projects. Students are doing very interesting research in the department including: food security in the middle east and understanding the longevity and instability of revolutionary terrorist cells in Europe. A particularly exciting speaker was Paul Silk, who heads the Silk Commission, a committee under the Welsh Assembly Government that has created a set of recommendations for the future of devolution in Wales, including minimal tax raising powers and more legislative powers for the assembly. This was especially interesting because I read the provisional report for my Devolution and the National Assembly for Wales module first semester and it was exciting to hear what Silk had to say about the report and the future of Devolution in the United Kingdom.

I am very excited because starting this week I will be beginning an internship with Plaid Cymru, the nationalist party in Wales, as a part of my Devolution at Work module. I will be working for the local office campaigning for Mike Parker (for the National Parliament) and Elin Jones (for the Welsh Assembly). I will be doing work researching party cues and policies that the party hopes to put through if elected. As the election is May 7, this is a very exciting time to be working with political parties. Ceredigion (the county were Aberystwyth is located) is a fairly contentious seat between the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru so our candidate has a very good chance of being elected. I will be working with them through the election.

Above: Mike Parker and Elin Jones

In other exciting news, I have finally started volunteering for Ysgol Penglais School! It took forever to get the criminal background check information put through (required for all individuals who want to work with children) and we had our first session last Friday. We're going to be discussing the upcoming election, everything from the party manifestos, funding of elections, and media coverage of elections through May. We'll be concluding with a debate before the actual election and the students seem very excited about it. They had a lot of great ideas and I'm looking forward to learning about their perspectives on the UK electoral system and elections.

I am gearing up for Spring Break with my mom in Barcelona! We're both very excited to speak Spanish and enjoy the sunshine. Until then, I'll finish my post with a few pictures of spring in Wales. The daffodils (Wales' national flower) have emerged as well as the lambs!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

I know it has been a long time since my last update but the end of the semester has been filled with parties, travel, holidays, and assignments galore. I turned in my last assignment of the semester on Wednesday because in the UK the semester doesn't end until after the New Year. Although it was nice to have extra time to finish my papers, I was disappointed to have work looming over my head while I was back in VT for the holidays. Oh well, as I always say: the work always gets done, and it has. 

Winter in Wales is... not exactly what I imagined. While we did see flurries a few days ago the weather hasn't really changed since the fall. It has been temperate (40-50 degree Fahrenheit) and, until January, I almost would have said it was sunny. It isn't typical I'm told, but I'll take the weather especially since I left the below 0 temperatures (again, Fahrenheit) at home. 

Another lovely winter surprise that I didn't expect was flowers! There are winter (though I'm sure all my friends from the North East would scoff at 40-50 degree weather as winter) flowers coming out all the time! I've been taking a mini photo diary of them.

The flowers certainly make it seem brighter and less rainy out. 

In November, my flat went to a 1940s Swing Dance night at the top of Constitution Hill (Consti as it's known to the locals)

 This is Constitution hill from the Promenade 

This was the view from on top that evening. There is a cable car style train that takes people up to the top we all had a blast. 

For Thanksgiving, even though I had a paper due, we had a pot luck dinner. It was the first time a lot of people in the flat had ever had Thanksgiving and it was awesome. One of my flat mates cooked a Turkey (since I certainly have no idea what to do with one) and I cooked cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes,  and salad. Very traditional as it should be since so many people had never been to Thanksgiving before. I invited my American friends here in Aber as well so we could all enjoy some of the flavours of home. Funny enough I had a paper due on that day. As I said to some people, never ever in my life have I ever had school on Thanksgiving, let alone a paper due. I guess thats culture shock for you.

A few days after Thanksgiving, one of my flat mates cooked us all a traditional British Christmas meal with all the accoutrements like poppers (they're actually called crackers but I think poppers sound better), crowns, and pin the nose on the reindeer.

After the Christmas meal people started  to leave for home and holidays classes ended on the 12 or so, I left on the 13 to go back to Vermont. In spite of classes being over, we all still had papers and work to do which we all bemoaned and struggled through together. I came back to Aber after the New Year and most people had returned to do the last bit of their work. I wrote one of my final papers on the fine line between spying on one's citizens and spying on one's enemies and how the two can converge. Very relevant with the Snowden leaks about the NSA. 

For the new semester, I have my dissertation proposal due on Jan 30 so since I finished my paper I've been working hard preparing for that in spite of the truly horrible weather since my return. It has rained nearly all day every day and while it hasn't been cold it has been VERY windy. The kind of wind that wakes you up  in the night. Fortunately no trees have come down where I walk and the sea isn't destroying the promenade like last year. 

This semester I will (hopefully) be starting my Devolution at Work internship, which is a module that allows students to work in public service offices. I will be meeting with the professor who organises it today because I need to find a local place to do this. I will also be taking The State Through the Ages and Regional Policy and Governance. Both of which I hope will assist me in writing and understanding my dissertation topic. 

I will try and update more frequently this semester :)

The life of a master's student

I'm well into the semester now, just turned in my first assignment on Monday! The topic was "discuss how non-western international relations theories perpetuate the hegemonic nature of IR," talk about a doozy! I could have written about anything, and everything. Fortunately I was quite prepared the tackle the topic.

The life of a master's student is very autonomous and very busy. I only have about six contact hours a week, which is a big change from undergrad at the UofR. Mostly that just means I have a lot of work outside of class requiring all my time management skills to be put to work.

The Interpol department here is IR from a whole new angle than what I had previously been exposed to. The department is very theory based, which is giving me more normative and well rounded views of IR. My professors and my master's cohort are very international, which shows the prestige and reach of the department.

I'm taking classes completely outside of subjects I've looked at before: security studies, non-western studies, and Welsh Studies.

Security Studies: In this class we're exploring the many types of international events that could lead to violence, and thus security problems. From the the privitization of security (think Blackwater) and Warlords, to Environmental and Food Security. We have explored whether or not these problems should lead to national security or if these issues need a more cooperative, internatonal approach. Understanding what types of international events can lead to increased securitisation, usually in the form of military, is giving me a new perspective on peacekeeping.

Non-western IR: My friends, colleagues, and I often discuss the implications of globalisation in the western image. This can be elimination of languages, democratisation in places without an interest in democracy, and above all else the hegemony of western interests abroad. This class encapsulates all of those ideas and more. We don't real international relations texts, instead we read historical, anthropological, philosophical, and geographical texts, which provide new perspectives and ideas about how the world has become so westernised, which began with colonialism. This week we are reading, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History by Michel-Rolph Trouillot, which explores the hegemonic nature of history production. This is a major theme of the course: how does our narrative of history shield us from the bigger historical picture.

Devolution and the National Assembly For Wales: this class is the main module for my course, I'm the only student in the course who isn't Welsh speaking. Learning about Welsh politics from Welsh politics students is a very unique experience and is giving me great information for my dissertation. This week we are going to the National Assembly for Wales in Cardiff to meet with Assembly members and gain perspectives about what it's like to make policy in a devolved government from the individuals who are making the policy.

Onto the fun stuff!

I've been out and about exploring (when it isn't raining, which it is mostly). I walked up one of the lookout hills with one of my flatmates a few weeks ago and the view was gorgeous.

 Minus the grocery store at the bottom of the photo, this is a very iconic view of the Welsh countryside, windmills and all.

This is the view from the top of the lookout point. You could see most of the coast that day, all the way down to Pembrokeshire.

This week is the real ale festival and I've gone to my favourite pub, The Ship and Castle, to sample the craft brews, which were excellent.

New Country, New Town - Culture Shock

 (Above: the view from the Hill)

I've made it safely across the pond to Aberystwyth, Wales! Aber has so many great things to offer: a castle, incredible views of the ocean, more pubs per student than any other town in the UK, and Welsh cakes! I've done a fair bit of exploring so far and there are a few American comforts like KFC (although for those of you who know me I won't be eating any chicken, ever...), Subway, and Dominos. The toughest part is that all those things are at the bottom of a massive hill so by the end of the year I hope to be very fit from walking up and down.

                     
                                         

                                                 (Below: Aberystwyth Castle, the old University, and Constitution Hill)

In the week since I arrived, I've had a million tasks to do including but not limited to: registering for classes, getting a bank account, finding a sim card for my phone, getting to know my roommates, and exploring! Navigating the UK system has been quite challenging but they have kindly given us a whole week to sort everything out.

Although the UK is not as different from America as Russia, over the week I've had some interesting cultural realizations. I think one of the major ones is getting used to left side road traffic. From looking for cars when crossing the street to shuffling to one side of a busy sidewalk, I've got it backwards. I find myself looking checking for cars three, four, and five times before I cross the street. However, even on a one lane road as I look in the proper direction (UK proper) to cross, instinctively I check one time in the US direction before I cross. On a busy sidewalk, whereas in America we would shuffle right, the British shuffle left. The difficulty is that there are many internationals in Aber because it is a University town so determining the correct direction to shuffle can be quite a struggle.

                                                                                                 (Below: our kitchen and living area)

My flat is very nice! It was built only a few years ago so everything is quite new and high tech. Although I live with 10 other students, we each have our own shelf in the fridge, in the freezer, two cupboards and one drawer for our kitchen stuff. Unfortunately my cupboards are quite sparse since I could only bring the essentials with me.






In my flat there are 4 English, 2 Welsh, 1 German, 1 Norwegian, 1 Australian, and 1 American. So we've all had quite a bit of fun with our different cultures and different ways to say things. I said, "I don't really like eggplant," and one of my English flatmates said, "What's an eggplant?" Aubergine.

Classes begin on Monday and I am very excited. The modules (as they're called in the UK) that I am taking consist of: Critical Security Studies: Emerging issues, Devolution and the National Assembly, and Post-Western International Relations. More to come about those.






(Right: the International Politics building done in Welsh Slate)

(Below: Me at Aberystwyth Castle!)