The Weekend

Happy Sunday!

It's been a most prosperous and enjoyable weekend here. I was feeling super good after what turned out to be a two-day head cold late last week (foam fight/raisin weekend origins? Perhaps.)

I got ahead on work which is always a good feeling and did some serious reading.

While on another coastal walk Saturday morning, I wore my light blue windbreaker/light rain jacket. I wore it into the foam fight Monday (out of protection!) and hand washed it afterwards and ran it with the rest of my laundry later in the week, but I think it will eternally smell like men's shaving foam. That's okay though. It smells good/the scent of the memory will always be there. :)

This morning I attended The Free Church here in St. Andrews with my sweet Scottish friend Megan. I wrote about Megan previously as my Virginia Woolf counterpart, and I was so happy I attended the service with her. It's a small friendly group of people and the sermon was inspiring. It's in a simple wooden church, but was really beautiful. Megan volunteers to teach Sunday school so she left halfway through the service to meet the children, and I met a few of them afterwards. It was really sweet.

Remembrance Day is next Sunday here and is an enormous and solemn holiday. It's the same as our Veterans day, and falls on the same day, but is huge here. For the last three weeks most Englishmen, both students and older (as well as some women) wear red fabric poppies pinned to their left breast. You see dozens everyday and they're to honor those who died in wars and conflicts England has involved itself in. Set for the day World War I ended (like our Veteran Day) next Sunday at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, a two-minute silence will be observed all across the nation. It becomes a bit confusing though with the England/Scotland/Great Britain connection. Certainly Scotland observes Remembrance Day too, but it feels more English, yet the English describe it as all of 'Great Britain' which includes Scotland.

I checked out Jane Austen's Emma from the library here. I'd like to read Jane Austen while I'm here. I've tried to get into Pride and Prejudice before but it really was tough. I'm going to start with Emma and hope I can proceed from there.

I've focused the last several days too on really writing poetry for my Creative Writing course. I checked out a few poetry books from the library and enjoyed one, as well as my own tutor's published book. I'm working through Leaves of Grass too and have found I really love Whitman. When I began with the preface, I really loved Whitman's words about the American poet:

"...The endless gestation of new states - the convening of Congress every December, the members duly coming up from all climates and the uttermost parts ... the noble character of the young mechanics and of all free American workmen and workwomen ... the general ardor and friendliness and enterprise - the perfect equality of the female with the male ... the fluid movement of the population - the factories and mercantile life and laborsaving machinery - the southern plantation life - the character of the northeast and of the northwest and southwest - slavery and the tremulous spreading of hands to protect it, and the stern opposition to it which shall never cease till it ceases or the speaking of tongues and the moving of lips cease (Whitman, 1855).

My own poetry this week has focused on a few different pieces about forests, hitchhiking, trucks, farms, childhood memories of rural surroundings.

Today the Creative Writing society met at the Whey Pat Tavern here, a historical tavern in town and I brought along my poetry for some review. I got some great constructive comments and was happy I attended. The best part though, was as I glanced up at the television screen above me at one point to see BBC news on...in location....in Concord, NH! I had been following that President Obama/President Clinton would be speaking at the lovely NH state house, just a few miles from the home I grew up in, and was thinking to myself..."Wow...that's like the dream team!" But anyway, all politics aside, I was beyond PUMPED to see the transcript or subtitles of parts of the Presidents speech and seeing President Clinton, Governor Lynch, and Senator Shaheen in front of a NH state flad behind the President walking around such a recognizable place for me. I felt so proud of my hometown even from a small pub/tavern in rural Scotland. :)

As for the election, I could write volumes on it and my opinions, and I won't. I'll say that I don't see either candidate being too strong, and that it will be interesting to see. I think the base reason that I vote with the party I do is based on equality, social justice, education, and equal rights. And while I do believe that jobs and the economy DO need to take a front seat, I still vote primarily with equal rights for all Americans in mind because that's an issue I feel strongly about. However, both candidates have said and done very little on the topic.

As for election night here, my wonderful (and hilarious) American friend Marissa and I will be spending election night together. Marissa is from the New Jersey coast and unfortuantely her family has been out of power for the last week. :( We share similar beliefs in politics and are looking forward to an exciting night. It will be quite late, and I have a feeling I'll be falling asleep at some point somewhere, but we're both looking forward to seeing the results come in. :)

I received my exam dates for December here and am quite lucky. My one exam finishes on the afternoon of the first day of the 10-day exam stretch. I finish December 10th and then will be finding ways to fill time until my flight on the 22nd.

There has been a bit of sadness here this week unfortunately. A very dear friend/mentor from home is in her very last stages of a quick-moving cancer. Certainly this isn't the place to write or talk about it, but it has been a challenging year with death in many ways. A very sad year throughout. I think of my friend/mentor as completely sparking my interests in social justice and equal rights, she got me interested my senior year of high school in grant writing, and taught me to care about the well-being of everyone, to love and respect everyone you meet. It's tragic and hard to comprehend when people leave your life, but I think what they teach can always be carried with you. With a few different deaths this past fall occuring at home, with each one I usually feel homesick for a few hours and then it passes. Seeing Concord, New Hampshire on a television screen in a tavern in Scotland helps with all of that too. <3