Everything's Changing

"There is nothing permanent except change."
-- Heraclitus

This is a little quote I sent along with a wee note to the students back in the US. The past ten days have been full of commotion and emotion. Eighty-three students taking finals, doing presentations, starting and finishing major research papers within the same 24 hour time period, cleaning and packing, crying and laughing, drinking to excess and staying up all night long in one house over a short period of time has been overwhelming to say the least.

We sent the students off, after a loud and dance-filled party the night before, on Friday morning. The party, once again at the Rugby club on the end of High Street, really got started when Eric Prydz “Call on Me” prompted a critical mass to flood the dance floor with the ‘rave dance craze’ that has infected the students. Many have certainly developed an appreciation for techno music. Outside of a wee bit of embarrassment from my kilt being hiked up for all on the dance floor to see—by the International Studies Admin visiting from Wisconsin, mind you!—I danced and celebrated right along with the students and had a fantastically emotional evening. Two pubs, a short walk and at least 25 sets of crying eyes later, we were back in the palace and the students would have their last night. They were off at 7:00am to catch their flight to Iceland, and ultimately to Minneapolis.

In the midst of all of this, a major election occurred. On 5/5/5, Tony Blair was re-elected as Labour took the majority of the seats in Parliament over the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Labour lost over 60 seats (and ended up with 356), the Tories gained 30 (for a total of 197) while the Lib Dem’s had their best showing since 1929, gaining 11 seats for a total of 62 seats. The big issues were Iraq, immigration and healthcare. Presumably, because the economy was doing as well as it is, Iraq lost Labour a boat load of seats but not enough to lose power. The parties were indistinguishable on the issue of immigration (both overtly racist and closed-minded, in my opinion). Couple those two issues alone, and surely one can see why the Lib Dem’s did do as well as they did. Healthcare is one of those complex issues with no quick solutions, so I think it was essentially a push for all parties involved on how to reduce waiting lists and improve quality. Four more years of Labour, but not four more years of Tony Blair, I think.

Jamie arrived yesterday. It’s his 30th birthday today, and he’s still in bed as I write this. The jet lag is surely keeping him asleep this long, but I’ll go rattle his cage a bit and get his butt up. He’s celebrating a birthday in Scotland for chrissake, we're getting pissed!