Day 240: Endings

To employ an overly bookish metaphor: a chapter of my life is coming to a close. However, instead of quickly moving on to a new chapter, I feel like the page is being curled over slowly, leaving me waiting half way between chapters.

I hadn’t realized how many half-endings there would be here. A year ago I completed my last classes and exams at King’s, which was certainly bitter sweet. This year, it’s my entire undergraduate career that’s over. Two weeks ago I dropped off my last essay. A week was my last official performance in St. Andrew’s. Last week was the last CU meeting. Yesterday was my last class. In three weeks it’s my last exam. In a month I leave St. Andrew’s.

The problem with all these endings is that they’re constantly negated by other events. After handing in my last essays, I still had another presentation. After the last CU meeting, we still had a ball and a BBQ. After my official last show, I’m still doing two more Gilbert and Sullivan performances. After my last exams, I’ll already be thinking about my MA. After leaving St. Andrew’s, I’ll be returning at least two or three times during the summer.

It’s hard to say goodbye when there are so many endings. There’s no definitive moment when I can hug everyone and cry and really let go of this town and my life as an undergraduate. Everything sort of flows together in an unending stream of last times. I’m never really sure when something really is the last time and when it’s just a sort of rehearsal for the real goodbye.

And that’s okay. If there was some sort of big moment when everything was done and I had to give up this year and switch into my life next year, that would only make things so much harder. It’s easier this way, to give things up slowly and to ease into all the exciting things happening next year.

Right now it’s looking like I might not fly back to Canada until September 1^st, the day before my MA orientation. Maybe it’s a stupid idea to start my time back ‘home’ with a bad case of jetlag (although apparently it’s not as bad going east to west as west to east) but I want to stay here as long as possible. Plus, there’s a sort of poetic justice in returning to Canada on September 1^st, since last fall I left on September 2^nd. It would be a lovely way to round out a year of travel.

I don’t want to leave this town, this country, this life. But, at the same time, I’m so very excited for next year. I’m excited to start my MA and work on a thesis. I’m excited to live with a family again. I’m excited to act in Marlow’s Doctor Faustus. I’m excited to see my country again, and to finally see my family. As much as I’m sad to leave this chapter of my life behind, I’m definitely looking forward to the next one. 

Day 197: Spring In (and out of) St. Andrew's

Spring has come to St. Andrew’s!

The sun is shining, daffodils are sprouting, the summer dresses are emerging from the backs of closets… and all I can think of is ‘April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs of the dead land…’ T. S. Eliot does have a way of dampening beautiful spring mornings.

Spring means long walks and campfires on the beach and walking around without my coat. It means doing readings on the shore rather than in the library, or meeting a friend for a picnic rather than in a coffee shop.

The most significant spring event in St. Andrew’s, however, is our two week Spring Break, beginning next week. You could say that I’m actually already on break, since my last class of the month was yesterday. Weird to think that I won’t be back in Castle House until April…

My friends’ plans for spring break vary, from simply going home and studying to visiting Rome or Marrakesh. I was considering a trip to Spain, Portugal, and Morocco with some other exchange students, but eventually ended up saying no because of the money. Since I’ll be staying in Europe all summer and not getting a job, I need to make my funds last.

Instead, I’m sticking around in the UK and visiting a number of friends. On Monday I head down to Southampton, on the very south coast of England, where I’ll stay with a postgrad friend for a week. Then I head up to Belfast, visiting a few more friends, before finally flying back to Scotland and staying in Kirkcaldy for a couple days.

In a way I’m jealous of my friends with more exotic travel plans. Who wouldn’t want a Mediterranean vacation in March? On the other hand, though, I’m completely content. I’m more interested in the UK than in the rest of Europe, and I’m thrilled to get the chance to see more of it over the break. All I need is a little perspective: if someone had told me last year I’d be spending Spring Break in England, Ireland, and Scotland, would I have complained?

Spring break should hopefully be a great mix of friends, travel, and relaxation. Hopefully I’ll take lots of photos and manage to blog a bit, so I’ll try to keep the updates coming… but don’t expect me to be any faster than I was with the January travel posts!

Day 31: One Month!

A month ago today, to the hour in fact (and I mean the hour that I’m writing this, not posting it, because, you know, editing takes time), I arrived in St. Andrew’s.

It’s been a whirlwind ride. Life is only now finally fitting itself into a routine, and, for better or for worse, that routine actually involves a lot of school work. The first few weeks were like a vacation, but now I spend most of my time in my room hunched over a book. Things should get better in a few weeks, though, once my two major essays are handed in and I’ve written the Old English Vocabulary test.

 

(Old English Word of the Day: anfloga means “solitary flyer” and its only recorded use is in an elegy known as “The Seafarer.” I’m not quite sure why I love this word so much, but I think it’s because its flowing sound captures both the sadness and beauty of being alone.)

I realized the other day that being here for one month means that I have already lived through a 9^th of my time in Scotland. Now, I know that a 9^th isn’t exactly a huge fraction, but it is a substantial chunk. I’m not a complete newbie anymore… and I don’t have unlimited time ahead of me.

 

I don’t think too much about how many days I have left, though, because I simply don’t have the time to mope about how my time here won’t last forever. Aside from school work, I’ve settled on these activities:

Christian meetings such as bible studies, worship nights, and prayer meetings happen nearly every day. The Christian community here has just been so welcoming and kind that I felt right at home from day one. Definitely an answer to prayer! The Christian Union also lets me get a little more involved in giving back to the town, by volunteering at Toastie bar (which sells 50p toasties and donates the proceeds to charity) or doing yard work for elderly neighbours.

 

Performing Arts are also a huge part of my life here. While I’ve had to drop my dance class due to a scheduling conflict (sadness…), I landed a lead-chorus role in the Gilbert and Sullivan Society’s Iolanthe, which rehearses twice a week until the show in mid-November. I’m also co-directing (and possibly teching) one of the Freshers Plays (plays put on entirely by Freshers), and auditions for that start next week. Finally, the St. Andrew’s choir, with over 150 members, is singing Handel’s Messiah this year, so I’m considering joining.

I’ve been trying to write a bit, by keeping this blog going and writing for the student newspapers of both St. Andrew’s and King’s back in Canada. The creative writing society, Inklight, frequently hosts workshops, which I attend whenever possible. A couple people I’ve met are also into writing, so we’re trying to encourage each other and might end up collaborating on a play, if we can get our act together (no pun intended).

Getting so involved in St. Andrews has made me realize just how silly it was of me not to be more active in student life back home. I may have had an excuse—the school workload was definitely heavier—but I missed out on so much by not auditioning for plays or going to writing workshops or volunteering or joining Campus for Christ. Academics were definitely a priority, but there was so much more I could have done at Western. And now I’ll never get the chance…

 

Well, then. No use moping over a couple partly wasted years. Time to stop blogging and head out to paint the elderly neighbour’s fence, then off to Iolanthe read-through, and then Bible study…

(NOTE: The random flower pictures are from an afternoon when Kayla (one of the other Canadian exchange students) and I visited the Botanical Gardens and I went a little crazy with the macro setting on my camera.)