Golden Edges

In high school and at Saint Michael's I was usually the student that sat in the front of the room. Or, near the front. Or, just where I could make eye contact with the teacher/professor and think, "Yeah, they know I'm here, I'm listening, I'm involved." Before going into creative writing today, I imagined I'd be playing it cool and would sit towards the back, asking students around me, "Hey, this is Creative Writing, right?"

That didn't happen.

Upon arrival to the Kennedy Building where most English classes are held, a large mass of people waited outside the supposed classroom. We all were talking, and I recognized another American student I flew over with, a student from the Creative Writing club, and a few other familiar-looking students. Even our creative writing professor/my english advisor, Mr. Jacob Polley was among the loitering students. After a class filtered out of the room, the 20-25 of us all pushed our way into the room, all going for those front seats...I ended up towards the back, but first noticed that the room had gorgeously thick white crown molding all along the ceiling, and a large glass window that was split into two parts and connected by an iron latch. The window was opened widely and provided a light breeze and overlooked a lovely garden area. The classroom was unlike any I'd experienced before as it was so open to the outdoors and so lovely. Mr. Jacob Polley (I haven't heard professor used over here yet...) began by asking the class, "Who here has written a poem before?" "Has anyone ever written a story?" He was very reassuring and gentle in the introduction to the course, and I think made all of us feel like we were in the right place. It didn't feel to challenging, and just very natural. We were given time to write poetry and together suggested topics and subjects to write about. I was comfortable speaking and suggesting a few topics, and it felt like a very inclusive, enjoyable module. We were encouraged to read and write a variety everyday, and our first assignment will be a 2500 word creative non-fiction piece. I have a few ideas and hope to get some words down tonight. Something we all enjoyed was that Mr. Polley recommended having a nice notebook for creative writing, "preferably a Muppets notebook," he said, giving reasons ranging from not taking ourselves to seriously, to enjoying writing in the notebook. Towards the end of the course, Mr. Polley said, "If you have a journalism background, or a science background, this course might be challenging." Yikes. I think he remembers our advising session. However! I really am excited and feel ready. Journalism I developed slight skill with over time, but I don't know if that ever came completely natural to me, either. I feel as if I always craved a little bit more expression with it, and found each time I described a scene or something factual in news writing using several adjectives and senses, I either would cut it myself when editting or would wait for it to be cut by another editor or professor with hopes it could stay just this time. I have one other professor/tutor for the module named Meaghan Delahunt who is quite the novelist and currently is in her native Australia taking care of some business for a couple weeks. When she returns, both tutors will co-teach.

Speaking of journalism, the campus newspaper here is called The Saint, and has quite nice reviews and a large staff. My academic Mum Lizzie learned of my journalism background and submitted my name as (not an editor or writer, thankfully!) an American-politics-presidential-election-contributor/source for info during the race in November.

I met up with my Mum and Uncle and Dad for lunch today at my parents house (they're flatmates) and brought along some of my own homemade food and enjoyed a tasty lentil salad. It was nice seeing everyone and was really nice as my Uncle brought up much of the conflict in the Middle East and wanted to discuss it. Lizzie is an International Relations (likely the most popular concentration here) major and it was great hearing multiple viewpoints and really discussing it. While I don't know too much about the Middle East and the conflict, it was a wonderfully involved discussion and I found I knew a little bit more than I thought and was happy to engage in conversation about American and British interests there, and the future for the region, as well as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, (coming from Saint Michael's that was simple to discuss!) Algeria, and Al Qaeda controlled sections of Africa. It was informative too, hearing it from Henry's perspective (who's British) and both Lizzie and mine, as we both are Americans. Conversing with other students in the U.S. about world issues and foreign policy wasn't always possible. Certainly I had a group of friends at Saint Michael's that was very into it, but here it feels so easy and acceptable that everyone is eager to discuss anything and is aware of much of what is happening. One of the funniest moments of the lunch was when John (my Dad) went off to meet up with someone at another lunch location. I was telling a story about how I had been in there recently to buy a scone, and didn't like the scone too much. Instead, I mentioned the best scone I had ever had (!) at a cafe called Gorgeous in St. Andrews. Just as I mentioned the scone, Henry jumped in with, "The mother of all scones!" as he pulled out of a small white bag the same scone I had ate and was describing at that moment.

The kitchen situation is working out very nicely. I share with three guys who are sophomore medical students here (while St. Andrews does have a medical program for three years which students can enter beginning at 16 or 17, students must finish medical school in a location where a teaching hospital is present. The majority leave for Manchester, England, while other choose Edinburgh or Aberdeen). While one of my friends teased me that I would be the woman baking in our kitchen for the men, that has not and likely will not happen. :) Sometimes we eat meals together, and we all get along which is nice. One is from north of London, while the other two are from Hong Kong. When each of us has had people over too, we just respect that and usually don't stay in the kitchen or hang around much. Cheese and dairy are both very affordable here as both are quite local, while vegetables and fruit are about the same as the U.S. for prices and quality, but currently are quite affordable as it is the end of summer. I've found I've been eating a lot of sugar snap peas, brocolli and red and orange peppers here for vegetables. All have been delicious! Breads are easy to buy and are baked everywhere. Meat is quite expensive, I haven't bought any, but I've seen the prices, and believe it could be that Britain might have a little less factory-farming for meat than the U.S. does, and a bit less space for it.

I was with my friend Zoe last night, she comes from Yorkshire, and is very into tea and biscuits. Biscuits here are served for free all over the place at university events and are just sweet butter cookies, thin cookies, or sweet crackers. Ocasionally, chocolate chip or thick chocolate cookies fall under the 'biscuit' classification. The first several times I would hear "biscuits and tea over there!" shouted to loud groups of students my mind automatically belived that southern biscuits and gravy were being given away. When arriving to find cookies, I always had the urge to assert some terrible American values and yell, "Those are cookies!"

Thankfully, this never happened. Anyway. Back to Zoe. She was offering me a biscuit, and I was trying to explain to her in between our laughter about American biscuits. Searching google images for images of biscuits with Zoe, I had a feeling that google.co.uk (google in the U.K.) would prove Zoe correct and myself wrong for images of biscuits, but I tried anyway. Searching 'biscuits' in the U.K. brought dozens upon dozens of images of chocolate chip cookies, thin wafer cookies, sugar cokies, etc. We somehow then got on a discussion about pumpkin as lately I've been dreaming of my Aunt Lori's pumpkin whoopie pies and the pumpkin whoopie pies at my summer job, Cafe Indigo. Zoe could not believe that Americans ate pumpkin. In speaking with my academic Mum earlier today, she told me that she snuck a few cans of pumpkin from the U.S. in her suitcase for a homemade pumpkin pie to be made for her Thanksgiving party and assured me that pumpkin can be found on this island, likely in London.

I was talking to my lovely roommate from Saint Mchael's, Katie earlier today and she brought me back to thinking of my 'Ballroom Bunnies' calendar that was hung in our room this past spring semester. It was a funny Christmas gift from my Dad and I had forgotten until today that I brought it over here with me. When I arrived at St. Andrews, I was expecting a roommate for a few days and worried that hanging my Ballroom Bunnies calendar might creep out said roommate, and I would wait and see if she was the type of person who would be cool with it hanging in all it's bunny glory. As I soon learned I do not have a roommate, the Ballroom Bunnies sat forgotten in an empty suitcase in my closet. But today, that changed! The bunnies are happily dancing on my wall.

Speaking of rabbits, I found a field of them earlier. :)

Andrew Melville Hall is a residence near mine. It was built in the 1960's and praised as an architectual wonder of it's time depicting two ships passing in the night. Today, it's described as two sinking or crashing ships...

Every time I see these tall trees I feel like I go to college in Africa. I'm not sure why...

Irn-Bru is the most popular soda in Scotland. It's filled with far more chemicals than any other soda and is supposedly banned in the U.S. It looks quite a bit like orange soda, and I've heard it tastes like cotton candy....Unless I can take a single sip, I think I'll avoid it.