Groetjes uit Amsterdam

Hi Otherworlders,

For when I were back Sarah asked me to write something on the blog, some reflections on my time at Manchester, the Otherworlds course and what it's like being back home. The first two weeks I didn’t have time for that, I found out that you can be very busy with being back. After that I had to start my (something like a) dissertation, I had a lot to do immediately after I got back. But now I’m kind of settled again, and ready to write something about how it was for me being there where you are all now, and how it is back here, in my ‘old’ world again.

The most striking for me was that it felt like I had never left. That was already that way after a day or two. You just continue the things you did six months ago with the same people, like Manchester never happened. I almost started questioning the point of leaving, but luckily there are always the pictures, about 2000 of them. I was watching them last week and realised that I learnt a lot and met a lot of great people. This week I started thinking more and more about Manchester. Some people that I would like to meet up with, shops and cafes where I would like to go, and then you realise that that’s not possible at the moment. Finally I started to miss Manchester, even breakfasts at OP.

I really enjoyed my courses, inspiring teachers like Michael Bradford, Mark Jayne and off course Sara. Otherworlds was interesting, something different, but it also reminded me why I quit art school (did I really sleep with an unread book under my pillow?). It was also the only course where I met some other people than just international students. Being an international student it is very easy to get in contact with other international students, but it is more difficult to get in contact with you: the English student. No offence of course, but you’re not the most open society in the world, I actually can’t tell you if it is anything different in the Netherlands, maybe we’re the same. It was also a pity that the first semester ended so early, you don’t have a lot of time to meet people at the Uni, before you know it, the Chistmas break is there (in Holland that’s only 2 weeks) and that’s it for the lectures.

Manchester was great, loved the city centre, the shops, the Northern Quarter. Learned a lot at the university, also that deadlines can be real deadlines (that’s different in Amsterdam). Fallowfield started to feel like home in the end, although if I’m ever going live in Manchester again I think I would prefer another area. The sense of fashion of a large part of the female population I found ‘interesting’ (don’t you English people get cold? Tights and coats are a great invention!), but also a large part of you have a better sense of fashion than the Dutch people. And I think that interesting is also word I would use for your love of green peas, white beans, bacon and deep frying. What I miss over here is the music, there is a lot more good music in England. I also miss the whole atmosphere; I think I liked studying in Manchester as well because of the atmosphere, although it is hard to describe that atmosphere.

Being back is also great. When you live in a city for a short period, you don’t know that many different kind of people. It’s just international students and some English ones. And when you just start to know more nice people, you have to leave already. I like having a diverse group of people around me again, and bumping into people i know on the street, that doesn’t happen when you don’t know that many people, never realised how nice that is. And I like riding my bicycle again, not having to depend on the bus. Sometimes I still expect cars on the left side of the road, and I had to get use to the right escalator going up. Another nice thing is to speak in my own language again, it is still easier to express yourself in your mother tongue. I think my English wasn’t that bad, but even so there was always a kind of fog between me and the person I was talking to. Maybe I should just come back to improve my English more, wouldn’t mind that, l love Amsterdam, but Manchester has become a good runner-up.

Good luck to you all, xx Eva

(if you ever need a guide in Amsterdam,

you can always mail me:

vrouwe_eva@hotmail.com)

Drinking Geographies: Space, Place and Society

Alcohol amplifies or focuses our experience of particular spaces (Jayne et al., 2006)




We hope you all enjoyed our presentation/learning activity. For those of you who missed us the other week we set out to:

1. Explore the pub as a 3rd space
2. Examine some of the social issues surrounding alcohol consumption.
   

Whilst other academic disciplines have realised the importance of the linkages between place, society and alcohol consumption, we felt that geographers have barely scratched the surface. This formed the rationale for our topic and we chose to examine the public house and 'drinking space' in an alternative way; whilst looking at some other avenues of thought that we came across during our research, namely:

• The power of branding.
• The social relations of drinking and emotional geographies.
• Drinking as an exclusionary activity... Public house: Public space?
• How alcohol not only affects our own comportment, but can change our perceptions of place.
  

We then transformed the lecture theatre into a public house, asking you to reflect on your own experiences with alcohol and how it may have changed your own perceptions of space in the past. The primary purpose of the exercise was to create a relaxed, informal setting, not necessarily to highlight the contrasts to a formal environment (i.e. the original lecture theatre), but simply to show how our comportment is adjusted within these ‘third spaces’. Ideally we would have brought enough drink for everyone but didn't think a lecture theatre full of students drinking at 9am would go down very well.

We've had lots of feedback, and many of you have shown interest in the 'Diverger' learning method we used in our activity, so hopefully we'll see some more people using this method in their other studies (see Healy et al., 2005).

We've included some other useful references for those who have a 'thirst for knowledge' for the topic area, if anyone wants a copy of the notes/slides you can find us in the Friendship Inn most nights of the week.

Craig, Rob, Tom and Grant xxx

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mP8-zYsUK0

References:

Chatterton, P. and Hollands, R. (2003) Urban Nightscapes: Youth Cultures, Pleasure Spaces and Corporate Power. Routledge: London.

Davidson, J. and Bondi, L. (2004) 'Spatialising Affect; Affecting Space: An Introduction', Gender, Place and Culture,11 (3), 373-374

Healey, M., Kneale, P., Bradbeer, J. (2005) ‘Learning Styles Among Geography Undergraduates: An International Comparison’, Area 37 (1), 30–42.

Jayne, M., Holloway, S. and Valentine, G. (2006) ‘Drunk and Disorderly: Alcohol, Urban Life and Public Space’, Progress in Human Geography, 2006; 30: 451-468

Linking religion...

Another off-shoot blog has appeared. Please follow the link and get your minds working...

http://geographyofreligion.blogspot.com/

The good the bad the confused memory...?

The latest group is having difficulty posting, so here is a link to their new spin-off blog. Who would have thought it - a baby blog already!

http://thegoodthebadthememory.blogspot.com/

Last orders please!: colour madness?

So Van Gogh saw the café as a place where "one can ruin oneself, go mad, or commit a crime". I'm beginning to wonder whether Otherworlds might be a similar place. We've travelled through dreamspace, soundscapes and a blue haze to find ourselves at the red pub tucked away in the corner of what used to be a very ordinary and mundane lecture theatre.

I want to congratulate you all on pushing the boundaries of geographical knowledge over the last few weeks and making great (if sometimes somewhat tenuous!) links between your passions and the theories of social science. As Arthur Koestler said: "The glory of science is not in a truth more absolute than the truth of Bach or Tolstoy, but in the act of creation itself."

I hope you are enjoying these creations as much as I am!!

A report on reports

Questions are starting to flood in about the second part of the assessment - 'the report'. I posted details on the shared files for this last semester, but to remind you all again:

Individually you must also produce a 'report' of the learning activity you organised. This should be reflective, showing evidence of how the activity has enhanced you as a geographer, and be supported by relevant reading. I use the term 'report' loosely - it might be an essay, a report, a reflective exploration...

Your individual written piece should be between 2000-3000 words and based on some aspect of the class activity. You may choose to cover the entire session (but don't just regurgitate what we saw on overheads!), or you may focus in on the theories of learning and how successful you felt they were, or you may choose to explore the substantive or theoretical issues you covered in a more traditional style 'essay'.

Whatever and however you do it - you must ground it in the literature, and you should be reflective. What have you learnt from this?

Hope that helps! :)

What's a chicken worth?

Thank you once more for two excellent experiences. I'm sure you will all go to bed hoping to dream of chickens tonight. Certainly Bernard Matthews must've had that dream at some stage in the past because the humble bird brought him potential and wealth beyond most people's wildest dreams... and devalued the chicken for the British dinner table.

As someone pointed out, chickens are perhaps not so culturally valued in today's society, so what might a new dream symbol for potential and wealth be? What should Bernard Matthews hope to be dreaming of tonight? Certainly not the turkey...

So if dreams are a construction of our individual space, we also saw that music can construct the space of nightmares for some. Who would have thought Frank Sinatra could drive down crime levels in shopping malls? This could be developed into a whole new strategy to combat global environmental problems: for example - fix every car to automatically play only the music the driver hates - at full volume- as soon as the ignition key is turned. We would soon get people out of their cars and onto trains.

And then they could daydream their commute away safe in the knowledge that they were doing their bit to reduce their carbon footprint...

Tranquillity

Sit back, think of your tranquil place and remind yourself of our learning experience.

Aims
- to look at people’s perceptions of a tranquil place
- to develop an understanding of tranquillity
- to consider how tranquil environments are related to health issues
- to look at tranquillity within the urban area

Outcomes
- use and apply a range of learning styles to explore perceptions of tranquillity
- consider research into health and therapeutic environments

Here's a brief overview of what was covered during the learning experience.


At the end of the 4th Century and the early 3rd Century BC, the Greek teacher Epicurus converted disciples to his philosophy of happiness through tranquillity. He believed that people couldn’t achieve peace of mind and ultimately tranquillity if they had ‘mental uncertainty’.




Therapeutic landscapes are changing places, situations, locales, settings and milieus that encompass both the physical and psychological environments associated with treatment. These environments allow people to relax and escape the strain of today's high stress society.

Tranquil environments within the urban area are planned and may not neccessarily be considered a therapeutic place due to the high volume of people who use them. In the right situation places such as inner city parks may be used as a place of solitude.

Some reminders of your beautiful artwork...














Further reading can be found on the handout from the lecture and on the therapeutic landscapes reading list.

We hope you all enjoyed your learning experience and took away some of the ideas we introduced. Remember to enjoy your tranquil places and for those who were lucky enough to win a plant ... don't forget to water it!!!

Katie, Ben and James