Thursday

Another eventful day in St. Andrews has passed. It feels like the end of the week as my classes have finished and an eventful weekend lies ahead. Leaving the 2+ hour Virginia Woolf lecture with friends this evening, we all noticed it had grown considerably colder. Tonight feels like the coldest I've felt it in St. Andrews. The temperature around 5:15 when leaving the School of English heading for my residence was in the low 40s with wind, tonight should dip below freezing. I have two wonderful heaters in my room, and currently my bed is pushed up against one and I just enjoyed a dark chocolate treat. It definitely feels like winter!

Today really tested me, and I know in a good way. Each week in Virginia Woolf the group of five students that I'm apart of presents on a topic assigned to us. This week we were assigned to choose our own topics and present. Three of the students were never heard from again and weren't seen today in class. I chose a topic and my sweet friend Megan, a Scottish student chose her own topic and we each presented. Megan and I presented in many ways for the five of us and filled the time necessary. It was challenging at times, but we felt like we really did it well. I chose to look at the role of women in the Victorian era in Woolf's novel To the Lighthouse and had done research the last few hours before class Still though as I began to speak I absolutely felt the 15 other pairs of eyes on me and I stayed focused on the tutor. But it really went well. I had imagined the tutor was a Virginia Woolf genius but found that he really is just like the rest of us and happens to be teaching the class as he writes and studies. Our actual professor (who is the Virginia Woolf genius) has only been around once, but is equally as kind and friendly. I didn't think Megan and I would teach our tutor anything through each of our analysi (plural to analysis? I hope!), but we did. He engaged us back and forth, and was surprised to hear of my research on Woolf, and was interested in the topics we spoke of. We each left feeling accomplished and like we had just defined Virginia Woolf...well, maybe not completely, or at all, but it was a good class. :)

Before Virginia Woolf today, I nearly got lost to a storm! I was looking for a nice outside destination to eat the lunch I packed of lentils and hummus and veggies when it started to get VERY cloudy VERY quickly. I was by the sea, and a few days ago, extremely thick fog rolled in from somewhere off the coast (who knows where) so I've begun to treat the ocean as a bit of a weather threat. The farther away, the safer...but I was eating my lunch, and it started to grow DARK. Not dark enough to be tornado-dark, but CLOUDY-dark. I packed up my remaining lunch and headed for the nearby School of English to eat my lunch somewhere. Once I stood up though, it became windy. Not WINDY, just windy. I began to walk fast when the wind started to actually make noise, I know its common to hear and feel the wind, but the previous wind I could just feel, now I could HEAR and FEEL the wind. The wind delayed the rain just long enough that I had arrived at my destination as the rain just began. The next few days though should be quite cold. My friend Allison and I were hoping to explore some fishing villages tomorrow but we'll have to weigh the weather situation.

I'm off now to discuss poetry with a Creative Writing classmate, Nick, at a local pub, it's time I shape up my poetry skills:)