Edward

                                           Good morning. This is how my day began:

I first met Edward (Teddy) - the enormous French lop of a rabbit pictured here - while walking through St. Andrews one day. He was being walked by his owner Claudia, a third-year student from London. I later discovered Edward had a Facebook account and I felt immediately that he was a bunny I could be friends with. I heard from Claudia shortly after she noticed that I was from New Hampshire. She's recently been accepted to teach at Derryfield School in Manchester, New Hampshire this summer. She'll be living in Warner, about twenty minutes from my home, and from there we began a long string of Facebook messages about all things New Hampshire. We met up this morning for coffee and she was kind enough to bring the adorable Edward along. We decided on Costa (The Great Britain version of Starbucks) as the staff there allow Edward to sit outside among the tables. When I arrived, Claudia was inside ordering her coffee and a Costa barista was holding Edward's leash which she handed to me upon arrival. Claudia and I discussed U.S. visas, Manchester, teaching, St. Andrews, and all things New Hampshire in the summer. As Edward tends to do, he attracted plenty of attention from people passing by who stopped to pat him or ask 'Is that a rabbit!?' Later, I ran off to a revising class after bidding a quick farewell to Claudia and Edward as an elderly woman approached to give him a few long pats. I'm looking forward to seeing Claudia this summer in New Hampshire and am so happy I met her and Edward. :) 

Ohh and Edward is about three times the size of all rabbits I've ever owned. 18 pounds of bunny.

The Revising has Begun

Hello again.
All is continuing to go so well here. The two-week revision period has begun and while prepping for exams is certainly a full-time job, I've found in both semesters spent here, I do prefer the more rigid U.K. examination schedule. I've never experienced a revision period (days without classes before the exams) in the U.S. besides the weekend before finals - certainly not two weeks! While the examinations here are weighty at 50% of the grade and occur in large lecture halls with ten million other students, I do prefer this system to the stress of projects, papers and exams occurring simultaneously with the end of the semester.

I submitted a few pieces of writing to a literary magazine earlier today for their May 1st deadline. I've found creative expression through writing to be so calming.

I visited the Botanical Gardens again this afternoon and fought some mighty wind on my way there. I had never before actually been physically moved by the wind...it was slightly frightening.

Once I entered this trail though on my way to the gardens, the wind died down.

The time spent in the gardens was a beautiful escape from technology, sound and people and a relaxing hour spent with some tropical plants. :)

In my remaining weeks here, I've found myself spending more time with friends, having deeper and longer conversations, and enjoying all I can of St. Andrews, Scotland, and the United Kingdom.
I'm trying to learn from everyday and live for every moment. I want to continue to better myself, and while this year has certainly challenged me and stretched me, it's taught me so much and forced me to grow and become who I want to be. I've also been listening to plenty of Dave Matthews and Bruce Springsteen lately and striving to be truly happy in myself. 

I wish to note too, while the elegant and classy fashions and attire of the British (and the students of St. Andrews in particular) have represented a wonderful culture of tradition and a part of life that I've enjoyed taking part in this year - I am SO READY to wear tee shirts and birkenstocks upon return to New England. Maybe even some tie dye. I also told a few kitchenmates last week as we simultaneously made our dinners that upon return to 'America' I was most looking forward to gazing upon large fields of sunshine and cows. I'm not exactly sure why I said that but I cannot deny the truth in it. :)

Ohh and one more thing. I was writing about this the other day, but I realized recently that while I feel extraordinarily fortunate to have spent a year at the University of St. Andrews - a British University consistently on par with or slightly below Oxbridge, I feel just as fortunate (if not more so) to be receiving my degree from Saint Michael's College, a small liberal arts college in the green mountains of Vermont, a place I have forever felt at home.

 

More Nature, A Ball, and the Isle of Skye, Part III

Hello!

A lot has been going on here, this might be a fairly lengthy post, and will include the last of the Skye photos. :)

On Friday I didn't have classes and felt like getting out of St. Andrews. I brought along The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne's work about Puritan New England I've been reading for the last week or so and took the bus to Pittenweem, one of the fishing villages I hadn't yet been to. I found the Cocoa Tree - a café that came highly recommended from friends who had visited - and enjoyed onion soup, delicious bread and a hazelnut hot chocolate which was so, so good. It began to rain quite heavily outside, and it was so cozy reading in the café.

That evening I went along with my friend Sheen to support Miriam in a performance she was acting in. Afterwards, a group of Miriam's friends and us went to a pub for a drink. While there, someone ordered the haggis nachos....the same haggis nachos I've avoided each time friends have ordered them. When they finished the nachos - leaving quite a few left - and welcomed anyone else to eat them, I thought deeply if I should. It was a challenging decision. But it was time. Three weeks left in Scotland. When else? I probably ate the tiniest morsels of haggis possible, but I had enough to taste it, and it was pretty good! I usually don't eat ground beef, but I would describe haggis (as a side note, haggis is chooped sheep lungs, liver, stomach and oatmeal (???) stuffed into an intact sheep's stomach and baked) as ground beef with a sweet cinnamon flavor.

On Saturday I spent the morning at the Botanical Gardens. I took the same woods trail I enjoyed on Thursday, and once there, I sat in a greenhouse for three hours. There were plenty of visitors walking the grounds and through the large greenhouses. Each greenhouse had a sitting area, and out of the choices of 'cool temperate' 'warm temperate' and 'tropical', all were very warm, but I went for tropical, the absolute warmest. While I half-feared a giant spider would sneak up behind me, the greenhouse was the perfect temperature and created such a relaxing morning. I finished The Scarlet Letter there and did a bit of grocery shopping before heading back to my residence.

 

 

Last night was our residence hall's annual ball. I had been to a couple of balls before, and while I did have a few large groups of friends going, for some reason I set my standards for the ball pretty low. I was certainly excited, but had a few things on my mind that needed to get done, and I wondered how great the ball could actually be. Joseph, Kerry, Shaunna and myself met up sometime around 7pm for a free drink in the hall's common room. Everyone looked so nice and the champagne was good. Later, Joseph and I split a bottle of rose wine we had bought that afternoon and the four of us listened to and danced to bad music videos in our kitchen. And we took a few photos,

Shaunna. :)

myself and Shaunna.

myself, Joseph and Kerry.

This is what happens when we take pictures.

Joseph and I were on the same shuttle to the ball which was held at a hotel on the other side of town (as a side note, typing 'the other side of town' just caused me to begin singing Bob Dylan's Hurricane...) about a five minute drive from our hall. I think nearly everyone was already there and we joined Kerry and Shaunna in the free ice cream cone line. I think we all ended up having at least two scoops. My choices were raspberry ripple and cookie dough. :)

Kerry and I got this photo taken a few minutes later.

Shaunna and Joseph joined us for this one.

 

In between dancing and talking to friends, I was surprised to see my friend Marc at the ball. He doesn't live in our hall and I really didn't expect to see him at all. He introduced me to his friends and he met I think all of the kitchenmates plus a few more.

myself and Marc.

The rest of the evening was spent talking, drinking a bit more wine, dancing and laughing.

I was so pleased I chose to attend and it was such a nice evening. :)

 

Alright, back to Skye!

 

As we toured the island, much of it was so, so remote and barren. Beautiful, but isolated.

Crumbling stone structures were sprinkled here and there and the sea was never far from view.

We stopped in this tiny museum village and it was incredibly windy. As a group we walked about five minutes towards a nearby cemetery, and each step was met with so much wind. Everything we carried needed to be held so tightly. Running was nearly impossible against the wind. One student's camera was blown out of her pocket, but was later recovered. :)

At the cemetery, our guide Mirena pointed out a few graves of influential Scots, but the most well-known and visited was the grave of Lee Alexander McQueen. McQueen was a fashion designer who is most known for designing the wedding dress of Kate Middleton (although the design occurred after his death, and was truthfully designed by his brand) McQueen grew up and lived in London but his father was Scottish and Scotland itself has been influential in his work. Two of his collections, 'Highland Rape' and 'Widows of Culloden' brought attention and curiosity to Scotland. At the release of Widows of Culloden McQueen said, “Scotland for me is a harsh, cold and bitter place. It was even worse when my great, great grandfather used to live there. The reason I’m patriotic about Scotland is because I think it’s been dealt a really hard hand. It’s marketed the world over as haggis, bagpipes. But no one ever puts anything back into it.” McQueen's ashes were scattered off the coast of Skye and his tombstone seems to be a sort of memorial.

 

That evening we had a dinner of curry (as a side note, three of the four weekends I've spent on organized trips of some sort with other St. Andrews students have always included the two meals of baked or fried fish with potatoes and peas followed by a curry dish the next night).

The next morning we left Skye a little past nine and crossed this bridge to arrive back on the Scottish mainland in the western Highlands. Mid-morning we stopped at Eilean Donan castle, a beautiful and historic castle in the western Highlands.

 

Much of the rest of the day was spent on the bus. We travelled through Glencoe, a mountain range in western Scotland that is beautiful. We had also stopped in Glencoe in October, but it was wonderful to see it again.

Unfortunately, Glencoe is also a bit like another Scottish version of Gettysburg. The Massacre of Glencoe took place there in 1692 and surrounded a misunderstanding in which Clan MacDonald was thought to have not signed a loyalty oath to Britain's new King William and Queen Mary. Supposedly, the Clan was only lost in a blizzard as they set out from their home in Glencoe to sign the oath in Inverness. Unfortunately, government forces arrived in Glencoe to murder the men of the Clan and burn the Clan's settlement, allowing the women and children to die from exposure.

And I think that concludes everything. Skye was such a beautiful part of Scotland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 25th.

Greetings! (As a side note, I'm aware that I begin every post with one of three possible words. My favorite by far is 'greetings' ...I'm just unsure of how often I should use it and tend to mix it up from time to time.)

This afternoon.

I have a third Skye post with a few more pictures and such I'll post soon, I just wanted to interrupt the series for a St. Andrews post.

The academic quad yesterday afternoon.

Another church in the centre of town this morning.

It has been such a wonderful week. Today I finished my St. Andrews education. Just about. My two final exams are in three weeks on the 15th and 16th of May. But with the completion of my final class, it's hard to believe I'm saying goodbye to my tutors, professors and classmates, and of course the School of English which I've loved so much. My autonomous learning group of six other students and myself completed a presentation in our final class on the portrayal of Mary I (also known as Mary Tudor) by historians and in popular culture. Our consensus was that Mary is remembered pretty horrendously, and in some ways, justifiably so.

Last night Shaunna, myself and another American study abroad student attended a meeting for the Folk Singing society. There were seven of us and we all sat in a circle singing various folk songs for two hours that the members had brought with them. I really can't sing at all, but I love singing as part of a group and many of the songs were so beautiful. We sang a capella and my favorites were the American and Scottish songs. All of the songs were historic and the most challenging songs were the few we sang in Gaelic and Welsh. Reading and singing the Gaelic involved a large amout of memorization as the letters in the Gaelic alphabet (which is only eighteen letters!) have different pronunciations than the English alphabet allowing the words to sound completely different. Welsh was still challenging in pronunciation but much easier as it follows a similar alphabet. After singing, the group of us went to the Whey Pat tavern for a dinner of delicious homemade pub nachos.

After class today I did a bit of reading in the library before attempting to embark on some short story writing. I've spent much of the past few weeks (as classes have died down) writing poetry as I'm still trying to figure out what method/genre of Creative Writing (if any) best fits me. The poems are currently off being examined by every and any poet I happen to know (which is very few) to see if there is any worth in pursuing poetry further. In the meantime, I've taken a poetry hiatus and am trying to pursue longer pieces of writing. Later in the afternoon, I embarked on a long walk. Being in St. Andrews, I've found I've been fortunate having the option of walking in the centre of town, walking on the beach, the pier, through the Cathedral ruins, on the beautiful street parallel to the ocean, on the coastal path, or in the forest-like trail far from the sea. Spring in New England has been calling to me and I chose the forest trail I've walked along only once or twice. It was a perfect choice.

And it was absolutely beautiful.

It was completely the spring-walk-in-New-England I was craving.

Yet it was also everything of St. Andrews that I've loved.

And I thought a lot throughout. I wandered and thought about this idea and choice and journey I've embarked on this year. And how I'm leaving extraordinarily happy and proud of myself to have done it. Alone. I gained so much. Some days I think I could have done more at St. Andrews...I could have been involved in the same ways that I was involved at Saint Michael's, but in the end, it was right for me to be involved in what I was involved in. I took the spare time to enjoy every bit of living here. I know strongly that I'll never forget St. Andrews. Nearly every day since I arrived here in September (but more and more lately) I continue to think of any and every possible way I can make it back to St. Andrews someday. It's not my home in the sense that New Hampshire/Vermont/New England has become a part of me, but St. Andrews is an extraordinarily special place to me, and of course graduate work/future visits float around in my mind. Other students have asked me (actually beginning in September) if I would consider a fourth-year here by transferring. Part of me has always wanted that, but I know that Saint Michael's is my home too. I know some days next year (I think particularly in the fall and the cold days of the Vermont winter) will be very tough, but I'm going to return to the U.S. Saint Michael's made it possible for me to come here and is where everything truthfully began for me. I love the college I will graduate from just as much as I love St. Andrews, only in a different sense. 

 

When I reached the end of this gorgeous walk, I ran into Stuart, a friend from my Tudor course. We turned around and walked for an hour in the sunshine discussing American/British history and American/British politics before I headed to Tesco to buy salmon for my dinner. I know so much of my love for St. Andrews and my year here is solely invested in the friendships I've made and conversations had. For that, I am so grateful.

Isle of Skye, Part II

Hi again.

I've enjoyed a wonderful past few days here. I went for an hour-long walk on the beach this morning and it was so peaceful. Last week I had been feeling strangely ready to leave St. Andrews. Most of my friends were busy revising and studying, I had started to plan for the summer and fall, found my bank account was no longer where it once was, and I've just found everything has been winding down. I began to feel like I had gotten everything out of St. Andrews and studying abroad, but just as I accepted that I was leaving, the last few days have been incredible and so fun. I've laughed so much with friends and enjoyed every moment. Once again, I'm now struggling with leaving. While I still have three weeks in the Kingdom of Fife, tomorrow morning I'll complete my last class at St. Andrews. I'll save all of the reminiscing for a later post, but it's unbelievable how fast this year has passed.

So, Skye!

We arrived and enjoyed a dinner of baked fish, potatoes and vegetables and most of us walked around the coast of Broadford, the town where we stayed.

We stayed in a hostel and I shared a room with four other girls.

Later in the evening after a day of bus-riding, I brought a book, notebook and pen and walked down this path to sit near the sea.

 

The next morning we all headed to the ruins of a nearby castle.

The castle once belonged to a clan and fell to ruins when the clan broke apart.

 

The gardens and trees surrounding the castle were so unique and beautiful. While most plants were not in bloom, the grounds reminded me of summer in New Hampshire. 

 

I spent much of the weekend with my friend Shaunna. I didn't know Shaunna too well previously, she's been at St. Andrews for the semester and as I got to know her in Skye I found so many similarities between her and my friend Allison from last semester. Shaunna and I talked about so many different things, and it was wonderful getting to know her. We took the following photos on this giant log we found. Nobody was around so we set the timer for my camera but it was a bit confusing at times, as the pictures show. :)

 

 

We stopped for lunch later at a local co-op and embarked on a bus tour around the island.

 

We stopped at these beautiful cliffs, despite the extreme wind!

It was a struggle.

This waterfall too was gorgeous.

Much of the island was very rural. Most residents are farmers and sheep were everywhere.