Travel Plans

Well as I promised in my last blog I am going to give you guys the details of the next few weeks of traveling in this post.

This Friday, as I have mentioned before, I am going to London to attend a Good Friday performance of Handel's Messiah at Royal Albert Hall in London's West End. I am really, really looking forward to attending the concert. I have attended performances of the Messiah before (even a sing along version in Edmonton) but I have never seen it on any holy day and I think that seeing it on Good Friday is going to lend it that something special, that is going to make it a once in a lifetime experience.

Then next week (the 5-9th of April) I am planning to fly up to Dublin for a few days to see the sights. But the continental portion of my travels begin on Saturday the 10th.

On the 10th I fly out of Stansted airport and fly to Bordeaux, France where I will spend 5 days with some friends who are from that city. It will be nice. We will travel around Bordeaux, and the surrounding countryside, and spend some time soaking the French culture (which I have been told can boil down to three things; good cheese, good bread, and excellent red wine....hopefully we'll see and experience more!).

From there I move on to Porto, Portugal on the 15th and I will spend just three days there. I have a hostel booked for the 'downtown' of Porto which is supposed to be amazing.

After that I fly to Madrid, Spain on the 17th of April. Here I will meet up with Wil Flanigan a friend from back at Creighton. I am staying at a hostel is a pretty trendy and popular part of Madrid that promises lots to do and see.

From Madrid I fly to Rome on the 22nd. I will spend 5 days in Rome taking in the history. I will probably do a day trip or two to a few cities in the surrounding areas, but none of that is planned yet and will probably be one of those last minute things.

Thats the overview of the travel plans for the last three weeks of April. I am not sure what my accessibility to the internet will be, so updates and pictures of my travels will be sporadic if existent. Chances are this will be my last update for the month of April. However, if that's the case the posts when I return will be substantial enough to compensate for the lack of immediacy!

Wish me luck.

Half-way Done

Well, to begin I should apologize for not having posted anything in the last two weeks but after I discuss it you'll understand.

Well I guess that I'll back up to where I left you guys last. After the weekend in London and Dover I had to hit the books hard. I had my first paper of the term due on the Monday following that trip, and of course I hadn't begun writing it yet when I got back to Colchester Saturday night! So Saturday night and all of Sunday was devoted to getting that paper done. It was for my class in Philosophy and Mind and I had to write on the following; "Explain and assess Daniel Dennett's account of intentionality. [In addressing this question, pay careful attention to Dennett's conception of a designed system.]" It was a fun paper to write, other than the fact I wasn't really asked to argue anything. Of course that didn't stop me from making a few arguments in favour of Dennett's account of intentionality!

So I finished that paper and then had to move straight on to another one that was due for the following Thrusday (the 18th) for my Contemporary Political Philosophy course. This paper was a great deal more enjoyable to write because I actually got to argue a point. The question asked that I chose to respond to was whether we "should aim for equality of welfare or equality of resources" in political theory. I argued that we should aim for equality of welfare because it gets closer to the heart of what we are aiming to do when we strive for equality in society.

So I handed that paper in on Thursday and probably should have begun working on my other two papers but I chose to take the day off. Well the day turned into two, and then three, and all of a sudden it was Monday and nothing had been done yet, oops. But I buckled down, headed to the library early in the morning and began researching for my next paper for my Joint Seminar in Philosophy and Law.

This paper was by far my favourite to write because I was actually able to incorporate some Kantian ethics, that I had studied last term back at Creighton, into the paper. The question for the paper was "Does the idea of role morality make sense?" I argued that it did, based on a Korsgaardian theory of practical identity. It was a blast to write, and I think probably my best paper of the four I wrote.

Well I began researching and finished writing that paper on Monday and was too burned out to begin on my final paper so I put that off until Tuesday. Tuesday came and after class I turned to work on my paper for my Ethics class, but I just didn't seem to be making any process in my reading and researching and thereby couldn't formulate any arguments for my paper, the topic of which was "Can we derive and justify specific duties by using the Categorical Imperative?"

So I benched it and chose to come back to it on Wednesday, in the hopes that my thinking would be clearer. It was, which was nice, and I was able to reread the material and write the whole of the paper in one day so that it would be ready to hand in on Thursday as well. So I handed in my last two papers on Thursday and was done for the term other than a presentation I had to give in my Contemporary Political Philosophy course on Friday.

The presentation was on Thomas Nagel's essay on positive discrimination (what is called affirmative action back in the States). It was a relatively short essay so the prep time was minimal and I think the presentation went well.

But back to last weekend. When I mentioned that one day turning into two and then three when I was putting of the paper, it wasn't just because I chose to fiddle with my thumbs over essay writing. I actually took a trip to Canterbury. Many of you might have heard of this city, it is a relatively small town in the southeast of England, but it holds enormous theological influence and has for centuries. It is the the home of the beautiful Canterbury Cathedral, St. Augustine's Abbey, and Saint Martin's Church, as well as being the home for the Archbishop of Canterbury (duh...) a position that a great deal of highly influential theologians and thinkers have wither held or been in direct correlation to over the past several hundred years. Thinkers such as Saint Augustine and Anselm of Canterbury have been it's Archbishop, and the history is hard to ignore when you walk the grounds of the Cathedral.

As you can now see, its been a crazy two weeks. But that's enough for now.

My next post will detail my travel plans for the break.

I hope all is well with all of you!

Another week gone...

Well It was another good week over here in the UK. The week itself was relatively uneventful except for the excitement of Derby Day on Wednesday. I spent the majority of the week working on preparing for papers and starting to write them. But you don't want to read about me writing papers so I'll move onto something a bit more interesting.

Derby Day was this past Wednesday, and was easily the highlight of the last few weeks. Now there is nothing similar enough to Derby (pronounced DAR-be) Day in the States for me to relate it to anything you might be familiar with so I will just explain it all out in detail.

I will start by saying that Essex University has a bitter cross county rival, the University of East Anglia. And when I say bitter I mean bitter, picture Nebraska v. Colorado but in closer physical relation. We have been bitter rivals for ages and complete in everything for bragging rights and Uni pride.

So Derby Day. It is a day in which Essex and UEA get together at one of the two universities (alternating every other year as to which university hosts the day) to compete in all sports. On this one day, in the matter of just a few hours, every single one of the two universities sports teams competes against the other universities team. The lacrosse teams compete, the futball (soccer) teams compete, the American football teams compete, rugby, climbing, boxing, cricket, fencing, dance, archery, badminton, and the list goes on...

Imagine CU and Nebraska completing in all university sports in one day...ya thats the environment, its nuts.

UEA brought their teams and a bunch of supporters but weren't enough and were easily handled by Essex as we beat them 30-15 with the largest winning margin in the history of the rivalry.

The American Football team played its part in adding to the score in favour of Essex. In the game UEA scored first in the first quarter, on a decent drive and a lucky run play. We responded on the following drive to level the score at 7 all. The rest of the half went without seeing another scoring drive although we controlled the game in nearly all facets but were unable to cross the goal line. We entered the second half feeling good about our opportunities and played well for a while. Then on a brilliant play UEA scored to go up 14-7 near the end of the third quarter. This put the pressure on us. We played hard for the next 15 minutes but were unable to cross the goal line. We got the ball back on our 10 with about 3 minutes left in the game. We drove it down the field well and then got stuck on their 10. It was 4th and 5 with 1:20 left to play, we ran a brilliantly executed 'B cross' pass play to score on what would have otherwise been the last play of the game, making it 13-14 still in favour of UEA. Now we were left with a choice, kick the extra point and go to over time or go for two and win it outright. We choose to go for two and went with an 'A Jet crack' where the Fullback (me) lead blocks for the A back who goes into motion swings behind the line to pick up the pitch and then run for the corner of the end zone. It was going as planned until a MLB blitzed and tackled the A back behind the line leaving the 2-point attempt no good. However, UEA's celebration was short-lived as there was a flag on the play against UEA giving us a second chance. So we lined up again, and went for it again, and this time converted the 2-point extra play to take the lead 15-14 with just a little over a minute left.

Our defense then went onto the field playing like men on fire, recording two tackles-for-losses and one sack ending any hope of a miracle play for UEA.

It was a great ending to a great game. We then went out, after showers that is, and supported our fellow students in other sports and had an all around great day.

On Friday, I went to London again to meet up with Wil Flanigan a classmate from back at Creighton who is studying in Milan this term. He, his girlfriend, and another friend of theirs from back home were in London for the weekend so I went down to spend the day with them. We bummed around London for the day and crashed at a hostel near St. Paul's Cathedral near the East End. In the morning I woke early and went to Saint Paul's for morning prayer, which was amazing to do in this beautiful cathedral.

I then hopped on the tube and met up with other students from IFSA Bulter for a group trip to Dover and Faversham. We stopped in Faversham first to visit and take a tour of Shepherd Neame the oldest Brewer in Britain. It was established in 1669 and has remained in the same spot ever since. We got a tour of the Brewer and were walked through all the different stages that go into making good ale. At the end of the tour we had a guided taste testing session in which we were taught how to properly taste test lagers and ales of different kinds. It was a great tour and the highlight of my day.

We then got in the bus and headed to Dover to see the Dover Castle and the famous White Cliffs of Dover. The castle is beautiful and rich in history which was great to experience, but not much can really be said about it since you kind of have to experience it for yourself to understand.

Its now Sunday evening and I am working on papers, and probably should return to doing so. I hope all is well back wherever you are.

The pictures are from Derby day (the football one), two from the brewer, and one of Dover Castle.

Hi

Well the last week and a half has flown by at an unprecedented speed. Last week (Feb. 22-28th) was the philosophy departments scheduled reading week which meant that I had no class all week long. Having no class was great and it gave me a chance to a) catch up on reading, b) sleep in, and c) begin to prep for term papers. I have papers due on March 15th, 18th, and 25th and once they are completed I will have concluded my first term over here and get to go on vacation for a month (be jealous it's ok, I will still love you even if you hate me).

So I will be spending the remainder of the week prepping for papers and beginning to write them. I guess I have an exciting weekend planned.

The American Football team travelled to South Hampton over the weekend to play a game there. The weather was much better than in preceding weeks which was really nice. I played fullback for the entire game and made several good plays, one good catch for a decent gain, and got lit up a few times. I did unfortunately re-injure my left knee (injured it swimming in High School) which took me out of the game near the end of the fourth quarter. I don't know what my final stats were, but I should have those soon, and when I get them I will post them as a comment to this post.

Climbing is going well. I'm getting stronger and smarter in my climbs. The club is planning a trip to Olympos, Turkey in June to spend 11 days off the Mediterranean Sea climbing, sunbathing, boating, deep water snorkeling, green turtle spotting, and all around having a good time. I am really looking forward to the trip.

I spent yesterday in London, bumming around the South Banks, Parliament Square, and other such places. I then went to the Egypt v. England at Wembley Stadium. Pictures are up on my facebook so feel free to check them out.

I would love to hear from you guys to see how you are doing, so leave me a comment, drop me a message on fb, or shoot me an email at 'nathanmueller@creighton.edu'

The pictures in this blog are me in front of Westminster Abbey, Parliament, and me climbing.