twenty-one

Every year around this time I subconsciously do the same thing. I make an inventory of my life, decide that I’m unsatisfied with certain aspects of it, and set out to create change. It’s not like this is an active decision. In fact, I usually don’t even realize I’m doing it until I start noticing that uneasy feeling, that feeling of needing to do things differently, of looking at myself and not being happy. This isn’t self depreciating at all, but, I figured out today, a need for constant reevaluation and moving forward with life. It’s like my brain is sending me signals: you’re older, you should be wiser, should be better, should be doing something to make yourself better. So in that light, the belated birthday post that I really couldn’t have made until today, not understanding why I was in a funk.

Inevitably, this self evaluation comes up dissatisfactory, and I turn to changing the obvious – how I look (this is probably why last year I cut all my hair off to chin length). This year I spent hours and hours looking at clothes, looking at hair and makeup and thank God not doing anything about my obsession, because the bank can’t handle that right now. This European culture is so centered around appearance that it’s practically exhausting. Everyone, it seems, is constantly buying things. The girls wear so much makeup that you can’t tell what their faces ought to look like. At first it made me uneasy because I stood out so much, because I don’t spend an hour figuring out what to wear every day and doing my face unrecognizable to the world. Now it makes me sad because so no one needs to do that. Being so worried about how you look means you aren’t happy with how you are on the inside, and that’s not the kind of person I care to be.

The boy and I have been making a conscious effort to read the Bible together every day, and in addition to bringing us closer on several levels, I’m starting to see things in a different light. None of these things here matter – not clothes or how people see you or going and to be seen. There’s a great song by Lecrae, “Identity,” which says “I’m not the shoes I wear, I’m not the clothes I buy, I’m not the house I live in, I’m not the car I drive … nothing on this green earth, identity is found in Christ.” Proverbs 31 talks about the same thing: "Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." I want to be like that, not like these girls here – or at home, for that matter. Not just for when I get married, but for me. There’s a great website about this if anybody’s interested:  http://www.gci.org/bible/poetry/prov31.

This year I spent the birthday happily – just a quiet night at a café with some friends and live music and a sinfully delicious chocolate cake. There was no going out, no pressuring to drink or get drunk, and for that I was so grateful. I’ve found good friends here, the kind that accept you for who you are. And, although it sounds so painfully worn out and cliché, the fact is that people who want you to be someone you aren’t really aren’t people you want around you anyway.

We also went to Loch Ness on Saturday – and no, we did not capture the monster. But we had an incredible time. I’m anxious to go back to the Highlands in the spring, and hopefully get another few hours of glorious sunshine.

we had nothing, we had not much, we had very little, we had everything

last night was pancake night. and although ours looked nothing like the ones above, and more like little bitty baby pancakes all thin with crisp edges and wonderful doughy middles, and some more than slightly burned they were still very good with lots of maple syrup and whipped cream. my flat's kitchen is pretty small for twelve people all trying to cook different things at the same time, but we still managed by eating and cooking in shifts to make two batches of pancakes as well as scrambled eggs and hashbrowns. it was choatic and loud and messy and there were always dishes being washed and reused and washed again, and it was exactly like i've always imagined an italian kitchen to be - very fun and very exhausting, so that as soon as we'd finished eating we sat in a pancake stupor for about ten minutes before realizing that the kitchen was a disaster, and that we still needed to clean.

then we were told that pancake day isn't actually celebrated til march.
however, this is the first time that i've ever made pancakes from scratch and i am darn proud of them, and refuse to be upset about it.

the weekend in Glasgow was great; lots of shopping and wandering and discovering of little cafes with hot chocolate to die for. we saw the cathedral (the only church not damaged by the Reformation in the 1650s, which i now know entirely too much about due to Early Modern Class) and its necropolis, which was huge and grand and would have been entirely gloomy and gothic if the sun hadn't decided to (finally) make an appearance and illuninated the entire thing with glorious light and warmth.

claire and i at our favorite cafe (we literally spent hours there)

inside the church, at the tomb of St Mungo (harry potter reference)

there are more pictures on the facebook, which is a lot nicer about uploading pictures and doesn't take nearly as long.

oh, and i promise that i am actually doing work here too.

somewhat.

lately ...

i haven't been sleeping much.

life has been a measure of places visited, times with friends, and pictures taken.

i've eaten too much chocolate.

i haven't cared.

i've been happy.

i've been thinking about home and how this is starting to feel like it.

So apparently when you start having a life again, it means you have so much less time to do blog things. Oops.

Last weekend was my homestay, in this tiny little town called Kirkoswald (literally, the church of Oswald), population, like, 200. It was the best of everything British: lots of sheep, rainy mornings and rainier days, more tea than I've had in the last 20 years, breakfasts of toast and jam, saying "ta, love" instead of thank you, and talk of hunting as an elite sport. The town and area were so perfectly English that I almost kept expecting Mr Darcy to come striding up out of the mist, black cloak billowing behind (sadly, no such thing happened).

[[Side note: I manged to forget my camera in my flat, so all pictures are stolen from my friend's facebook.]]

The family that I stayed with was hosting another Butler girl from my program, also named Emily, so we were called "the two Emilys" all weekend, and although I'm pretty sure I haven't met her before, we clicked so well it wasn't even funny.

But the homestay was incredible, despite all the rain. Our family (Judith and Paul, their two daughters Libby and Ella, and black lab Midge) host students frequently and had this knack of making you feel like a part of their family instead of a house guest. We compared odd sayings and food habits (apparently they had never heard of peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches and thought they sounded gross. Our immediate response was "what kind of children are you???").

They kept us busy constantly, with rock climbing lessons Saturday morning (and yes, I conquered my fear of heights enough to do it too), then a trip to Carlisle for the youngest to go shopping and us to see Carlisle Castle:

although of course it was rainy when we saw it. That night we had a casino night fundraiser for the girl's cricket club, where Emily and I discovered that we should never gamble for real and they gave raffle prizes of wine to twelve year olds. Back at the house the kids went to bed and the adults (so weird, being an adult now) sat around with - you guessed it - tea and more food talking about the big things in life. The next morning we took the girls to cricket practice and then sat in a tiny little cafe with the best Italian hot chocolate and appetizers probably on the whole island, talking more and laughing until we couldn't breathe. It was very sad leaving them, but they invited us back and gave us all their contact information so we could get in touch if we had any questions about anything at all (like what "rocket" is - turns out to be arugala). I'd like to think that they weren't just being nice, because I liked them a LOT, and Penrith station is only two hours from Edinburgh by train. It was so nice eating home food and feeling like part of a family, even for a few days.

In other news, we discovered that the fantastic bakery we visited in St Andrews also has a store in Edinburgh, so five of us are venturing there tomorrow, and then the reunion dinner for the Butler students is tomorrow as well. Strange to think that we've been here for a month now, long enough to have a reunion. Life here is moving so fast, it seems. Then Friday I'm off to Glasgow for the weekend.

And I promise not to forget the camera this time.

London was amazing too.

Meesh and I in front of Buckingham

the "confusing scotland" post

Okay, so I think that, all things considered, I'm doing pretty good at adjusting.  Really, you should all be impressed. Like, the driving on the left side rather than the right is weird. I can deal though, as long as I don't have to do any driving. (I still check before crossing the street home-style, however). But there are a couple things ... It's not that there are all these huge differences between here and home; instead, a lot of really little things that you barely notice until that inopportune moment when you sit back and go "huh, that's weird." This is my mini list of those things.

Exhibit A: the money.

Why would you make your ten pence coins larger than the twenty pence? And why is the fifty pence coin twice the size of the one pound coin? And why IS there a one pound coin? It makes things awfully confusing when you're trying to pay for some last minute things at Tesco right before the store closes and there is a long line of angry Brits behind you, confused in turn as to why you can't seem to figure out their oh-so-simple coinage system.

Really, folks?

Exhibit B: the light fixture.

This is mine, which has been broken for three days now, making nights in the flat super dark but a little cozy without all the brutal flourescence. Mostly because, sad to say, I couldn't figure out how to fix the stupid thing. It should be simple to screw out a lightbulb and replace it, but it is not. Fortunately, it turns out the Accomodations Manager doesn't mind sending up a repairmen for the poor helpless American.

Exhibit C: THE SINKS.

Did you notice the caps? Good.

That's because this is the most aggravating of all.

These sinks are the most annoying thing in the entire world. It doesn't seem so difficult to put one spigot and two knobs, so that a person can recieve the required water temperature when washing dishes, or their hands, or their face. Nope. Because here in Britain, it is very important that you be decisive when it comes to water temperature. Do you want to be scalded or frozen? Seriously, make up your mind. It doesn't matter that it's early in the morning and you just left the comfort of your bed - no, the time has come to decide. Invariably, your hands will either be lobster red and steaming or too cold to turn the water off, so I've been alternating. Warm water, of course, requires moving your hands back and forth between the simultaneously running faucets.

Hello, Britain! Aren't you supposed to be ahead of the curve on eco-friendly things?

Apparently not.

But look! Everything is not completely bitter!

I climbed Arthur's Seat yesterday, walking past a loch full of swans wanting bread from little children, which, fortunately, there was plenty of, and the ruins of a tower overlooking the loch. It was kind of neat to see the whole city and the sea to the east once I got to the top. Next time I'm going to make a point of wearing suitable climbing clothes (NOT a skirt) and proper headgear. It was bloody windy up there.

i like to be beside the sea / the tide comes in once more / but i'm safe on higher ground

116 pictures +

2 cups of tea +

1 tower climbed +

1 long busride +

2 skype conversations +

4 new books +

1 set of aching legs later

it has been a wonderful day.

honestly, the best day I've had since being here.

st andrews is the most gorgeous place in the world and I never wanted to leave.

also the yule ball was loads of fun and burns night is tuesday already so there's lots going on and even more pictures to upload but here's a few to start.

on top of the Rule Tower at St Andrew's -

all of us, at the beach -

molly and I being ridiculous, as usual, sitting in the monk's seats of the old cathedral -

Ora et Labora, in the St Andrew's gift shop (look how legit we are!) -

lauren and I, Yule Ballin' it up -



sweet dreams everyone :)

i lost my way long ago

angus and julia stone, "yellow brick road"

If.I.Wake.Up.Tomorrow.Will.You.Still .Be.Here?

Seriously, yesterday was the most gorgeous day possible. Cold, but sunny. I'm not going to post all the pictures on here (I probably took 50, and the wireless in the library is too slow for that), so check the facebook for the rest of them. But here are a few of my favorites:

These are all from the top of Calton Hill, the same place my pictures were from the first day. I can't wait to see it in the spring. It's a very tourist-y place (I'm already acquiring a dislike for them) but at the same time it's one of my favorite places I've been so far. Nature in the city and all that. It's not so hard to find, as it turns out.

I made friends with a bunch of weird Indian tourist guys who asked me to take a picture of all 4 of them, and then with them ... apparently they thought I was a local. I also tried Indian food with Claire last night for the first - and last - time at a really sketchy place on Nicholson Square. I'm still a bit reluctant to buy food from an ethnic store though.

I've been asked for directions several times now - and been able to give them (a great feeling).

The only thing I'm worried about is lectures and the individual reading and not really knowing what's expected of us. Hopefully once tutorials start someone will tell us exactly what is going on academically here, which would be great. I feel like everything else has come together, except for that tiny detail. 

And as I'm sitting in the library waiting for my History of Art lecture to being, there is a girl wearing sneakers with individual toes. Scotland is starting to grow on me again.

just so you know ....

I promise I'm still alive. I haven't been mugged or given in to homesickness, or anything else. And obviously, I didn't jump on a plane home either.

In fact, things are most definitely looking up. It's sunny today! How's that for a change? I've made a few good friends and we're planning a trip to London in two weeks, as well as St. Andrews on the coast next weekend. I don't want to jinx anything but if all goes as planned I'll be in Paris and Italy for spring break with another lovely Sigma, which would make me so happy. 

Really, it's amazing what a day of retail therapy will do for a person. It's Sunday and sunny so I'm going to go climb some hills and have some relaxing time, and with any luck I'll have some great pictures to post soon. It's hard to take good shots when it's constantly raining.

Thank you all for helping me keep my spirits up :) 

"Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new each morning; great is your faithfulness." _Lamentations 3: 21 - 23

homesick.

Homesickness (n)
definition: the distress or impairment caused by an actual or anticipated separation from a specific home environment or attachment objects.

It turns out that even though I didn't recognize it at first I am very, very much homesick and people-from-home sick. I'm not sure that things would be better if people I knew were here, I just want to go home. Actually, I've been mentally combing through the ways I could go home and be at UC instead this semester, which would work on many levels since classes don't start til Monday of next week. For a night I actually had myself convinced I was going to do it but I don't think that the money would transfer back to UC, so of course there goes that.

On another note though, classes are good. I have Celtic Civilisation (spelled the British way, of course), Early Modern Scottish History, and History of Art. The first two sound redundant but aren't, and at the very least I'm hoping they'll cover some of the same things, so when exam time rolls around I can pretend to know what I'm doing. History of Art is a lecture by this woman who sounds like she ought to be narrating a PBS documentary, it's more than a little funny.

The flat mates all seem lovely, I can't remember half their names but at least they're all girls, and the rumor about a French boy moving in has turned out to be entirely false, thank goodness. First year girls are funny.  Being 20, I'm like an antique to them.

So far as long as I keep myself busy things have been good, it's the nights in when everyone else is out drinking as much as possible that I don't have much to do. I've flown through the seventh Harry Potter in 2 nights, so clearly I'm going to need many more books so I'm not crying over Skype constantly to anyone who will listen, which has been the pattern the last few nights.   

I've managed to meet one really sweet girl that I've hit it off with very nicely. Unfortunately her boyfriend is coming to stay over spring break so she's entirely not helpful there, but I'm sure by then I'll have figured something out. There isn't much else to do but "keep calm and carry on" as they say over here (or "keep calm and carry a wand," from A Very Potter Musical) and June 1st will be here before I realise.

That's the plan anyway.