Day 46- A Year Later

Receiving an inordinately expensive piece of paper

A year ago today, I convocated at Western with a Bachelor’s degree in English literature. The next day, I submitted my SSHRC application—a 25-page document for a scholarship worth up to $105,000.

Today, I should be crossing the stage with the other members of my cohort to receive my Master of Arts Degree from Western. Instead, I’m sitting in a flat in Scotland, working towards my PhD at the University of St. Andrews, courtesy of a SSHRC scholarship and generous funding from the university.

It’s been a wild ride. I’ve read thousands of pages, written 45,000 words, cried at rejections and jumped with joy at the acceptances that meant everything. The Masters year wasn’t always fun. Nothing about it was easy. But it was so, so worth it.

To be corny and cliché, it was the people that made my Master’s experience enjoyable. I owe so much to everyone I interacted with that year: the family I lived with who were there for me through the string of rejections, the professors who helped me with proposals or wrote references or just listened when I needed to rant about the stresses of grad school, and, most of all, the wonderful MA and PhD students who made classes so enjoyable.

I might not miss the long nights struggling to finish marking, or the mornings waking up at five to read 90 pages of Freud before class, or the 12 hour days writing three papers in a week, but I definitely miss Wednesday evenings at the grad club and Friday mornings grumbling about the uselessness of bibliography class and afternoons in the “bunker” chatting about everything from the definition of “English” literature to the meaning of marriage to Victorian mummy unwrappings.

Final day with the MA cohort

I wish I could be there to convocate with everyone this morning. I’m so proud of everyone who made it through the year, as well as those who had the courage to drop out when they realized that the program wasn’t for them. I’m so thankful for the intellectual discussions and the Doctor Who evenings, for people who love both Shakespeare and David Tennant.

To everyone convocating today, I wish you all the best. Whether you’re heading on to a PhD or running away from academia as fast as you can, know that I’m thinking about you and praying for you.

Enjoy your thirty seconds on the stage this morning—I might be in Scotland, but I’ll definitely be there in spirit… and possibly lurking the video livestream… J

Day 263: Soakings

It appears that every tradition at St. Andrew’s involves getting cold and wet. Raisin Weekend, the May Dip (more about that in another post), Pier jumps, and now Soakings.

Soakings are a bizarre combination of celebration and revenge. After you finish your final exam of your final year (which, for me, was at 11:30 on Monday) your friends waylay you outside your examination venue and douse you with water (and occasionally glitter. Or champagne. Or flour. Or flowers. But technically it’s supposed to be just water). This serves as a wonderfully amusing way to celebrate the end of your undergrad degree.

A friend's soaking this afternoon, with an unconventional soaking implement.

I’ve been to a bunch of soakings, some by friends’ houses when they were writing take-home exams, other times in officially designated ‘soaking areas’ by the main exam venues. The ones at houses tend to be a little crazier, since they aren’t subject to the water-only regulation, but the ones at official venues are fun because there’re often multiple people getting soaked at the same time, like when the medics all finished their final exam on the same afternoon.

A friend's soaking in her backyard. Water was followed by several containers of glitter. :)

Being soaked is the oddest mix of feeling so hated and so loved at the same time. Although getting doused with water isn’t exactly pleasant (especially with Scotland’s temperatures, wind, and rain), you’re so elated to be done your degree and so pleased to see that all of your friends have come to celebrate with you, that you welcome the buckets of ice-cold water (although your nicer friends bring warm water to help you avoid hypothermia.)

Group photo after my soaking. Love these people! <3

My soaking is one of my favourite St. Andrew’s memories. Four years of intense study at four different universities, all culminating in a few minutes of dodging streams of water and giving friends big wet hugs. A huge thanks to all my friends who came to my soaking and helped make the ending of my undergraduate career really memorable! St. Andrew’s really was the perfect place to spend the last year of my undergrad.

Day 144-148: Theatre in London

London. I can never get enough of that city. The energy, the vibrancy, the diversity, the Britishness... Just stepping off the plane put a smile on my face.

The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square

This time, I went to London to spend the weekend with Hannah and her friend Molly. We stayed at Molly's great aunt's, and I'd say it was the nicest place I stayed at on my whole trip. We had a guest flat in a large, modern glass building, in Chelsea (the posh part of London) right overlooking the Thames. It was a tad inconvenient to get to the tube (the nearest station was half an hour walk away) but a helpful bus ran right by the flat and into central London. 

At the Canadian Embassy- One foot in Canada, the other in Britain! :)

The point of being in London, as I wrote about here, was to get tickets to Coriolanus and Richard II, starring Tom Hiddleston and David Tennant, respectively. As I mentioned, we were only half successful, but I enjoyed the theatre experience nonetheless.

The stage at the start of Richard II

Firstly, Richard II was fantastic. Tragic, funny (the scene where they keep throwing down the gauntlet was flippin' hilarious), well-acted and directed, with beautiful musical additions... It was everything I had hoped it would be. Even without David Tennant, I would have loved the show. With him, it was basically the best first live Shakespeare experience I could have hoped for (odd, isn't it, that I hadn't see Shakespeare live before? What kind of English Major am I?)

The stage at the end of Richard II

Since Hannah and Molly were disappointed about not seeing Coriolanus, they had scoured the West End to find another show for us to watch that evening. Eventually they bought tickets for Agatha Christie's 'The Mousetrap,' which is the world's longest running play, going for 62 years and 25,498 performances. I really enjoyed the show, it was dramatic and funny and clever, and watching it definitely took the sting off of not seeing Coriolanus. We were just a tad depressed when we walked out and noticed that the Donmar Warehouse was right across the road. So near, yet so far...

St. Martin's theatre, playing the Mousetrap

Sunday was supposed to be an exciting day: morning church service at Hillsong, afternoon tea at Molly's aunt's, and evening service at Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately, I managed to get dreadfully ill with a fever/flu/cold, so I spent the entire day lying in bed, too knackered to even watch TV. By the evening I was feeling a bit better (probably because Hannah made me take a pill, helped down by a spoonful of Nutella) so I called my family and talked to them for about three hours before my iPad decided to quit. 

These lovely ladies dressed up for The Mousetrap;
I was still in a hoody and messy makeup after queuing at 6:50 for Richard II! 

On Monday, I took the four o'clock train back up to St. Andrews. It's really convenient how they have a train service directly from London up to Aberdeen, running past St. Andrews, so it only took me 5.5 hours to get back.

The Albert Bridge in Chelsea, where I went for a walk Monday morning

And that concludes my adventures. Forty days, eleven cities, countless friends and relatives and acquaintances... It was quite a time. I'm never going to forget this Europe trip.

Day 130-133: Brussels

Brussels can be summed up by its traffic situation: a little chaotic and disorganized, slightly ornamental, but basically effective.

I spent a weekend in the south-east corner of Brussels staying with Maria, a friend of mine from the Gilbert and Sullivan Society in St. Andrews. Her family has both Greek and Spanish backgrounds, so it was fascinating to hear the blend of languages spoken in their house and enjoy a couple cultural dishes. Everyone was really friendly, going out of their way to make me feel at home and to help me on my journey (like driving me to the train station at 5am.)

On Thursday afternoon I took a bus down from Amsterdam (about three hours) and arrived in Brussels mid-afternoon. I then walked half an hour to the Museum of Natural Science (continuing my streak of dragging my poor suitcase ridiculous distances through every city I come to) where I met Maria. She showed me around the museum (paying special attention to the whales!) and when it closed we went out for crepes, which were served with several different types of sugar.

One thing Maria and I weren't very good at was getting to bed on time. Every night we stayed up late talking or watching Sherlock (can't believe the cliffhanger at the end of season 3!) or discussing stories or reading The Hobbit. It was all great fun, but it left me so tired during the day... I actually fell asleep while watching The Hobbit one evening!

On Friday morning I met my friend Thessa, my academic sister from St. Andrew's, and we wandered around Brussels together. Since Thessa doesn't have a great sense of direction, and since Brussels is very confusing, it wasn't a guided tour so much as an exploration. We saw a lot of big buildings, explored a few churches, and  tried Belgian waffles (only €1, and they were delicious!). It was lovely to see Thessa again and to explore her home city with her.

With Maria, I went to the museum of Art and History, which had a lot of interesting statues, ceramics, and mathematical instruments. On Saturday night, her family took me out to a fancy restaurant where I got to try escargot (snails- and they were delicious!).

On Sunday morning I went to church at a Scottish church that I found with Google's help. The pastor was from Glasgow and a lot of British ex-pats attended, so it was neat to talk to English-speakers about their experiences moving to Brussels. Then, in the afternoon, Maria and I went to a Gilbert and Sullivan singalong of the operetta Patience. I had never sung Patience before, but the atmosphere was relaxed and I had a lovely time. It was neat to see how far people had come just for the singalong- one man had driven down from Holland, and another one had flown in from Switzerland.

On Monday morning already it was time to go, and I had to catch a bus at around 5 am to make it to the airport in time for my flight. I was sad to leave Brussels, but Budapest was where the proper adventure would begin... 

Day 118-122: Newmarket, Cambridge, and Ely

After the Great Train Fiasco leaving Nottingham, I ended up at my friend's house in Newmarket without farther mishaps. My friend (Kirsty) has two older siblings and some family friends were over for the day, so the house was definitely busy compared to my great aunt and uncle's! That afternoon we took a walk up a bit of a hill (basically the only hill, as the whole area is very flat) where they exercise horses, since Newmarket is a racing town. It was bright and sunny and we had a beautiful view over the town.... but I forgot my camera, so I'm afraid I can't share it with you.

Aside from spending time with Kirsty in Newmarket, we also took day trips to Cambridge and Ely, which are both only around 20 minutes drive away. In Cambridge we got to park at one of the university's colleges because Kirsty's sister was an alumna. Kirsty and I walked around a bit, took photos by a row of four red telephone booths, went shopping, and visited another one of the colleges. Since the college wasn't open to tourists, we just pretended to be students and walked right on in. 

Ely was also a nice town, built on fenlands. We went to visit Oliver Cromwell's house, which was fascinating, since Milton (who I intend to write my MA thesis on) was a chief propagandist for him. Embarrassingly, our favourite part of the house was the children's fancy-dress bin, where we got to try on some period costumes. Afterwards, we attended evening prayers (we were hoping for evensong, but since it was New Year's Eve the choir boys were on holiday) at Ely Cathedral.

New Year's Eve was spent with friends of friends, which I think was a sort of perfect way to end/begin a year full of meeting new people. We played a bunch of games, lit fireworks at midnight, and sang Auld Lang Syng in proper Scottish style (despite being in England.)




The next day it was time to leave and catch the overnight bus from London to Amsterdam. As I wrote about here, the trip wasn't exactly a lot of fun, but it did get me safely to continental Europe, where the adventures truly began.

Day 100: Looking Forward

I’ve been in Scotland for 100 days.

By a ruined abbey in Dunfermline

Not technically, of course. About ten of those days were spent in England or Ireland, so I’ve really only been in Scotland for around 90 days. Still, it’s been 100 days since I left Canada to begin my British adventure.

The past 100 days have been some of the best of my life. I’ve met so many people, done so many things, learned so much, and been so many places… It’s really been a time of excess, a time where two plays, two essays, and two tourist trips can exist in the same month. It’s been everything I expected, and more.

I hope you all know what this is...

It’s only going to get better. Once exams are done (next Wednesday!) I’ll head down to Nottingham (stopping in York for the afternoon to explore) to stay with my great aunt and uncle over Christmas. After about a week I’ll move on to Cambridge, where I’ll stay with a friend of mine from St. Andrew’s. We plan to go into London together for New Year’s celebrations, and then I’ll catch a bus/plane that will take me to continental Europe and a whole new set of adventures for January. I don’t intend to get back to St. Andrew’s until January 27^th, after visiting at least seven new countries.

Once I get back, second semester should be as much fun as the first. My module lineup (Scottish Literature and T. S. Eliot) looks like it should be fun, and I’ll have a better idea of the academic system now that I’ve already been through one semester.

Then there’s theatre. The Gilbert and Sullivan Society is doing The Sorcerer (a Midsummer Night’s Dream-esque show about people drinking a potion and falling in love) and I’ll be choreographer, which should be an exciting challenge. I’ve also been cast in a student-written piece called ‘This Breathing World,’ which is a futuristic adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III. Finally, I might do tech for a few more productions, since I really enjoyed doing it last time.

Iolanthe faries <3

More travel awaits next semester. I haven’t seen much of the Scottish Highlands (though I have been down south a few times) so a trip up towards Inverness and Loch Ness definitely has to happen at some point. We have two weeks break in March, and the current plan is to head down to Spain, Portugal, and Morocco, where it’ll (hopefully!) be warmish. There’s also the possibility of weekend trips to cities like Paris, France, and Oslo, Norway. And after classes are done, I might get to head down to Greece and Croatia for an early summer holiday.

My 'mum' and me at CU houseparty

But most of all, I’m looking forward to starting next semester with my lovely group of friends here. When I look around and see how close I’ve gotten with so many of the people here, how many wonderful people I can truly call “good friends,” I can’t help but look forward to another semester of spending time with them and getting to know them even better. The academics and the theatre and the travel may all be exciting and fascinating, but it’s the people that have truly made my time here amazing.

To all my St. Andrew’s friends: thanks for a wonderful 100 days.

Day 49: Life is (possibly) Under Control

Apparently I haven't blogged in over two weeks. Whoops.... I have a good excuse (two essays and the bothersome vocab test) but I still should have updated a little more frequently.

To that end, I think I'll start allowing myself to write some shorter posts from time to time. Often enough there are little topics I want to mention but they're really not important enough to expand into a five hundred word blog post, so they don't get written about at all. Also, when I force myself to write a lengthy post each time, I end up not blogging whenever I get busy... So, all that to say that you may get shorter posts more frequently. :)

At the moment I'm down in south-west Scotland, visiting Hannah again. We haven't done a whole lot, but tonight Hannah's hosting a fancy dress party (that's British for 'costume party') where everyone comes as one of their favourite fictional characters. It's also going to be a murder mystery... I'm going as Eowyn, despite the fact that I look nothing like her. She's just such an awesome character that I wasn't going to let my short dark hair stop me...

In other news, as the title of this post suggests, my busiest time of term has ended. I handed in my essays last Monday and wrote the vocab test on Thursday. I can't really relax, because other deadlines are coming up all too quickly, but I can ease out of panic mode.

If there's one thing the past few weeks have taught me, it's the importance of time management. I hadn't realized how much time I wasted every day just puttering around the house or on my computer. I'd get back home from rehearsal at 9pm and then spend the rest of the evening on facebook without even noticing. However, when crunch time came, I realized that the hour before bed could be used for doing half of my readings for the week, leaving the next morning much freer.

I want to start making time for people. Yes, I've been going to plenty of events, but whenever someone asked me to hang out I'd tell them I was too busy. I want to be able to get my school work done on time so I can actually invest in people's lives. Procrastination hasn't just been hurting me-- it's been ruining my ability to be a friend.

My half term goal, then, is to be more efficient in my work so that I can focus on relationships. I don't want to look back on this year and see all the times I pressed the snooze button rather than heading off to early morning prayer meeting, or the hours I scrolled through instagram rather than going for a walk with friends. I want this to be a year where I make connections, with friends, with professors, with God...  and I'm going to start by taking back my wasted time.

Day 25: Escape from the Bubble

This post may be titled Day 25, but I’m actually going to talk about days 18 through 21, when I escaped from the Bubble of St. Andrew's and traveled across Scotland to visit my wonderfully crazy friend Hannah, who’s from Canada but has been working in the south of Scotland since February.

I shouldn’t really complain about the trip, since it only took five hours to cross from the north(ish) east side of Scotland to the south west side, but still… five hours is a long time to be sitting on busses. I also had to transfer twice, in Glasgow and Dumfries, meaning that the whole trip actually took closer to seven hours (from 7am to 2pm). I did manage to buy a lovely pair of slippers in Glasgow, though, so I didn’t mind that stopover.

One lovely thing about bus travel is that I got the opportunity to see more of the country. It’s not like a plane, where I just see the tops of clouds, or driving, where I spend most of my time staring at the road. On a bus I can sit back and do whatever I jolly well please, which usually involves taking pictures of the countryside. Thankfully, my camera takes pictures really quickly, so I actually got some decent shots while barrelling down the motorway.

Another thing I like about travelling solo is how it gives me the opportunity to meet new people. When I first arrived in Scotland, somewhat overwhelmed and with nearly a hundred pounds of luggage to carry, I had so many people willing to lend a helping hand. This past weekend luggage wasn’t an issue, but since Hannah lives in the middle of nowhere I was literally dropped by the side of the road in the middle of a field. A wonderful older lady I met on the bus made sure I got off at the right stop and a girl around my age actually walked with me all the way up to the camp where Hannah works. Without those people I would have been so lost, and I’m so thankful they took time out of their days to help me out.

Anyways, my weekend with Hannah was lovely. While I haven’t been homesick yet, it still was really nice to see an old friend, someone I have a bit of history with. It was weird to realize that since I arrived in St. Andrew’s I’ve been hanging out almost exclusively with people I’ve met in the past three weeks. So, I really enjoyed seeing Hannah again, going for walks, watching films, and meeting her co-workers. I definitely plan to go visit her again, and have more crazy shenanigans.

It was also a lot of fun to visit somewhere that’s really the middle of nowhere. St. Andrew’s might be small, but it’s still quite a bustling town. Down where Hannah lives, the nearest town has maybe fifty houses. It’s much more stereotypically Scotland, with the rugged hills and winding roads and sheep in pasture. Also, this was the first time I had ever properly visited the Scottish countryside, since when I’m here I tend to stay in the actual town of St. Andrew’s. Hannah and I went for a couple semi-successful rambles, once in the mist/rain and once right after sunset, and I really enjoyed being out in the open air again.

To sign off, here are a number of photos from my trip. 

CAUTION: May contain excessive amounts of Scottish grass. Also sheep.

Sunrise over the fields (as viewed from the bus)

Slightly farther along on the trip-- not quite sure what town that is, but it's close to St. Andrew's

Glasgow is known for its architecture. This art display is right inside the Enoch mall

Typical Glasgow

This is what a Glasgow street looks like

Gallery of Modern Art. Apparently it's free, so I'm definitely planning a trip here at some point.

I feel like this photo accurately captures the spirit of Glasgow

Imposing facade of the art museum

Random art on a building near the bus station

Rolling hills between Glasgow and Dumfries

SHEEP. EVERYWHERE. SHEEP.

A river. Cattle. Hills. Trees. SCOTLAND.

There're actually quite a few windmills around the countryside. And clouds. There are quite a few of those.

They say a man's home is his castle... Or, in this case, his B&B.
(BTW, for all you nerds, this 'castle' was in a lovely little town known as Moffat...)

This is what a Scottish bus stop looks like...

I admit this pic is more heavily edited than usual, but THE CLOUDS.

Bridge in Dumfries

The whole bridge. There are several bridges, and the river is quite peaceful.

Had to walk along this narrow road to get to the camp where Hannah works

And over the adorable little bridge...

Along the narrow laneway...

Until we find Hannah! <3

The view from Hannah's work at sunset

Evil Scottish cows

Going for a ramble

More sunset....

A stream (that runs under the little bridge previously shown)

Sheep at sunset. (which are way cooler than sheep at any other time of day, because they're now pink)

Cows on the road. NBD. 

So, we were trying to reach that monument thing, but Hannah forgot where the path was....

Hills at dusk