Big news here with lots of events and things going on. Just as a warning, this might be my most passionate and harshest blog post yet - especially at the end. Nonetheless though, enjoy! And I hope it makes you think. :)
This is where I spent my weekend. We were near Perth, a small city in central Scotland.
I spent the weekend away on a Christian retreat which was truly quite nice. More importantly, it made me think and reflect quite deeply. There were 140 of us staying in a large, historic home called Lendrick Muir. The home is used solely for Christian retreats and while it felt a bit like an ordinary conference center, the intricate ceilings were some of the most beautiful I had ever seen.
I didn't realize until I was there, but the focus was certainly on Evangelicalism. As one with a Catholic background, it was a bit different for me. I felt like that always had to be mentioned when I introduced myself. Of course it didn't have to be, but much of my knowledge was very different and I think I fully realized and understood that Catholicism is right for me right now. A big focus was applied to reading the Bible, and truthfully, I brought a rosary to Scotland, not a Bible (and not for reasons of airline weight restrictions at all). I loved the reflective writing I could do though, and the constant singing throughout the weekend, and being in a room with 140 other college students singing songs of Jesus and love is beautiful and so classic. Overall, I found everyone was so open and friendly. While I believe I was the only Catholic person on the retreat, I didn't feel any judgment. I know it also is all a part of the abroad experience. Here, Evangelicalism and the Church of Scotland/England is huge, and that's what I experienced and educated myself about. Interestingly, I was also one of very few Americans. There were many many students from Northern Ireland, several from Scotland and England, a few from different European, African and Asian countries, and then a few Americans. Returning to St. Andrews Sunday evening and hearing American accents when skyping from friends and family from home truthfully sounded a bit strange after hearing so many different accents over the weekend! Besides meeting so many new people and forming friendships, other highlights of the weekend were certainly a talent show and a techno ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee) on Saturday night. It was such great fun and felt so distinctly Scottish and the perfect abroad experience. Beginning around 10:30 or 11pm on Saturday night, we all were quite tired from staying up late the evening before and being active and in seminars all day. 140 of us ventured to a concrete-like gym building attached to the large house we were staying in and found that the large gym was incredibly freezing. It was clearly nighttime in the middle of Scotland, and we huddled together in clumps before the ceilidh began. And then, it all came together. As the techno music began, we danced, laughed and screamed for two hours to traditional ceilidh dances (which I now know quite well as it was my fourth ceilidh!) as the large room grew warmer and warmer. It truly was such an incredibly fun experience. I couldn't help but wonder and marvel at how I came from Saint Michael's alone to St. Andrews, Scotland and then on to a weekend retreat alone - knowing nobody and trying to understand a religion that I don't quite consider my own - to meeting some of the kindest people and having such a fun time dancing in a concrete building in Scotland in the middle of the night surrounded by 140 other individuals.
Similarly, a woods walk that afternoon with friends was just as wonderful. We departed during some afternoon free time around 4 p.m. and found it quickly was growing dark. After taking a few photos of ourselves with one another and with sheep,
we set off onto a short woods trail. While I was slightly wary about venturing into the Scottish woods under nightfall and later slipped on a wet log, it was truly beautiful. The ferns and tree canopy just seemed to illuminate the woods somehow. I felt like such classic Scottish literature (not that I've read any...) perhaps in the same way that walking in the New England woods on a snowy evening may evoke feelings and images of Robert Frost's poetry. We actually were quite close to the region where Beatrix Potter vacationed in the summer and where the inspiration for Peter Rabbit originates. We stumbled across this pond which I thought was incredibly beautiful. It might be the most reflective pond I have ever seen.
I took the photo above holding my camera the correct way. The pond is reflective on the lower part of the image, with the trees in the upper half and the green grass clearly dividing the two. Now,
I took this image holding my camera upside-down. The pond is in the upper half with the actual trees in the lower half. I think they look about the same!
Returning to St. Andrews yesterday, I was able to put the finishing touches on my second Virginia Woolf essay and turned it in this morning.
This was what things naturally looked like last week when I finished my research for the essay.
Taken from the top floor of the English building last week. It feels like medieval St. Andrews to me. :)
After returning from the retreat, I spent a few too many hours on skype with friends from Saint Michael's and found it so refreshing to talk to them about everything. I skyped my friends Katie and Maeve, and the high point was certainly seeing Maeve hug Katie's laptop and me hugging my own. Katie's on Saint Michael's rugby team and this weekend the team won the (division II) northeast championship! I can say I was very proud of her and her team! The two girls were headed to Mass soon and we were all laughing about ways to somehow skype me in so I could attend electronically. :)
Later, I skyped with my friend Kirsten who is studying abroad in Uganda! We skyped for two hours, ending at 4 a.m. her time, 1 a.m. my time. Kirsten and I met through our involvent in volunteering and activism on campus and she is such a wonderful friend. She's studying post-conflict resolution in northern Uganda and is travelling around central Africa spending a considerable amount of time in Rwanda and studing the effects of the 1994 genocide there. We spoke about her studies and everything we've both been up to and it was so refreshing to be back in that service/activism/college student-saving the world-but-who-knows-if-that-will-ever-happen(?) mindset. What stuck with me most was what we discussed about the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kirsten and I were both involved in a campaign at Saint Michael's on bringing awareness to the conflict, and we both have dropped off a bit. For me, for reasons of skepticism and perhaps believing we really can't change things completely. For her, being in the region and meeting refugees and seeing the conflict (sort-of) up-close. Yesterday, rebel leaders closed in on the city of Goma in Eastern Congo, and it appears today they have or will overtake the city. Kirsten informed me of this and it really is a hugely catastrophic development in the ongoing war there. An action that we could never even consider happening in the States or anywhere in the developed world as we have a strong government and military to protect us. Kirsten and I discussed the similarities of the conflict in the Congo to the ongoing conflict in Syria, and just how it seems like there is no end in sight and how we both don't fully understand it or know what could happen and how it appears the situation continues to worsen. Similar to what I've written here about the Middle East, it feels like these conflicts especially in the Middle East and central Africa will never end in our lifetime. The situation in Congo is interesting though, and important. I credit Saint Michael's completely for teaching me about it, it really is a story of war, of land, of resources. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the largest territory on Earth without a functioning government. It's an enormous land mass containing the second-largest rainforest on earth and has incredibly huge deposits of diamonds, gold, coltan (used in all cell phones) tin, copper, zinc and magnesium among other minerals. The nation, founded only 125 years ago has gone through three nearly equal periods of enslavement, colonialism and dictatorship as neighboring nations and rebel groups have built mines to strip the minerals from the country - a multi-billion dollar industry - which later become cell phones and jewellery. It got me thinking about the advancement of nations like the Congo and those in the Middle East. Ancient history proves that the land that now makes up Iraq and Iran was where the first written word and alphabet was created, and the land that is now a part of the Congo is where the first arithmatic was found to have been performed. Yet why is it that these nations are among the poorest and least educated in the world with some of the highest illiteracy rates? It all is so fascinating and terribly sad.
While I've so loved studying such concentrated English literature and writing here, speaking with Kirsten made me miss sociology, history and anthropology. I truthfully just wanted to read a history textbook after speaking with her.
Further, I think one of the highlights of skyping with Kirsten was when she described sitting under a mosquito net and alerted me each time she heard (presumably wild, we determined) dogs howling in the distance, and roosters crowing in the early hours of the morning as I heard simply my heaters and doors closing in the hallway.
Now, after my poetry and reading is finished, I think I just need to learn about and understand the current conflict in Gaza. Perhaps that will be mentioned in a future blog post.
I think overall, I've become quite passionate about human rights conflicts and I'm not sure what will come of that interest in the future. I credit my college choice completely for ingraining into my mind such a global view and awareness about conflict and human rights violations.
Further, it made me incredibly sad this week to hear about the hundreds of thousands (?!) of Americans in 36 (?!) states petitioning to withdraw from the Union because of the re-election of President Obama, when (literally) billions around the world continue to live without clean water, sanitation, food, and vaccinations, as millions more die prevantable deaths to disease and conflict each year especially in the Middle East and central Africa. Politics is fascinating and can be easy to wrap yourself into, but if these hundreds of thousands of Americans (again, ?!) turned their attention to global conflicts and appreciated the safety, peace, security, comforts and basic living essentials we have in the developed world, perhaps the world conflicts we ignore could slowly be put to an end...even in our lifetime.
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