I Didn't Know What To Say!

C

Colin Phillips

At the Start
Joined
Dec 22, 2003
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I spent a couple of days up in Edinburgh at the end of last month and would you believe it I found myself in a bar!

Got chatting to the young lady behind the bar, she was Canadian and was over here studying music.

I asked her what instrument she speciailzed in and her reply was.............the I-POD!!!! :what:

I was rather taken aback, never having thought of an i-pod as a musical instrument and the only answer I could come up with was, "very modern".
 
A good start would have been, look love your really interesting to talk too but I havent got my leg over in ages....
 
Is she possibly doing postgrad research into how and when people listen to music?


A big branch of literary studies is how and what people read (as opposed to how and what people write) so perhaps musciology is doing something similar by looking at listeners. I honestly don't know how else the I-POD could be studied. Great ad for Apple though..
 
If you think that is strange.... I have recently begun postgraduate research on the topic of horse-riding with a particular focus on the benefits of riding for people with learning disabilities. Nothing strange about that you might say, except that I am actually a geographer! The first question I always get asked in the pub is 'how is that geography!!' My best buddy, also in the geography department is researching the phenomenon of binge drinking. Recent work published in geography includes stuff on the geographies of music and geographies of boredom. One thing that I am keen to achieve in my work is making it useful in real life however!!!
 
Epona I got asked the same question when I researched the economic impact of a racecourse on a town/village for my dissertation. After "how is that Geography?" the next question was normally "what's the capital of Tanzania?"
 
I guess 'geography' now is a far stretch from the studying of frequently-changing borders, main rivers and highest mountain ranges, Martin. There's geo-politics, geo-social impact (your dissertation), geo-health, geo-economics, geo-climate studies, in fact, 'geography' can be prefixed to almost any study you want! There's the geography of food, religion, social change/movement/progress, animal and bird migration, just about everything which affects life within certain land demarcations.

And, without Googling, anyone - what IS the capital of Tanzania? Is it Leeds? :suspect:
 
I would have thought todays degree in Geography is gained by demonstrating use of a tom-tom sat-nav device. Obviously not necessarily needing to arrive at the correct destination any more than 35% of the time as the method used is more important than the final answer.
 
In that case, I ought to have a Ph.D! No matter how punctilious the prep with atlas and instructions beforehand, I can unerringly end up heading to any point on the compass bar the one I need. It's a gift, really.
 
Darr Es Salaam spelt incredibly badly Kri.

There was no mountain ranges, sea levels etc on my course, lots of socialism, social exclusion, economics, feminst geography and housing though :)
 
Could someone please explain to me why and what point there is in people going to university for three + years, all that money being wasted on them for the duration whilst all they do is p*ss it up against the wall and find ways to cheat in exams before not actually making any use of the worthless piece of paper that says they have a 2:2 in doing f*ck all?

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem whatsoever with people taking degrees however I see it as utterly pointless, inane & a complete waste of money (as well as taking the p*ss in an enormous way) when so many people go to university merely for a three year (or longer!) jolly-up. Why should tax payers contribute anything (I do realise that nowadays the vast majority of students don't actually get a lot of financial handouts, however a chunk of tax-payers' money does head this way) to these wasters just because they are too damn lazy or immature to get a job? So many people get degrees yet never use them in future life as they decide to do something completely different - why??

Not to mention the dumbing down of degrees and the invention of tossy, useless degrees just to give the thick kids a chance to "go to uni" and have three years on the ***** as the more intelligent ones are doing it so why shouldn't they? What's that all about?? Surely the point of university is that the intelligent kids can go whereas those that aren't intelligent enough can't get in and do an apprenticeship or, shock-horror, get a job instead?
 
I read a travel book by Peter Moore recently. In the same way that people seem to think Sydney is the capital of Australia, they also believe that Dar Es Salaam is the capital of Tanzania. I cannot remember what he actually said it was though.
 
But in fairness, Dar WAS the capital until 1996, so folks who aren't regular Africa-watchers can be forgiven for not knowing that the capital was switched to Dodoma then. Right, for ten points, then, we (possibly) all know that the 'Tan' bit of Tanzania's name comes from its previous moniker, Tanganyika. (You didn't?) So - without Wikepeding or Lonely Planetting - what does the 'zania' derive from?
 
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