Category Scotland

The amount of time needed to write a decent tribute to halloween did not manage to show itself yet time moved on and there are new stories to tell. As Vonnegut would say, so it goes.
On a side note, the photo here is from the window coming out of my music lecture and every time I’m leaving the lecture it seems I want to photograph it all over again so this time I finally did.
Last night I went to my first poetry slam (just watching not reading) and it was beautiful. Being in a room full of people knowing they all appreciate the way words can somehow line up together to make something beautiful is on its own inspiring. Listening to others share their thoughts and words in forms that sound like how chocolate tastes is inspiration to a new level for me. I wanted to be up there, but I also was so delightfully happy to listen. I realized that I’ve had lines running through my head that needed to be written down for weeks if only I had the time and last night, after the end of the slam, after listening to a beautiful rant about vaginas that made me laugh, and think, and relate, I stood in the cold night air and wrote and I was happy. This was what came of it..

THIS IS FOR YOU
Your eyes look like starlight.
Don’t tell me I’m wrong. You tell me.
You tell me at two in the morning,
Lying in bed, struggling to remember your breath no one will love you for you. I do.
But maybe I’m no one to you.
Maybe I’m just a girl you pass on the street.
The person you meet
At a bar Friday night because you’d rather be there
Than alone with your thoughts where
sleep threatens nightmares.
So maybe I am no one, a stranger
But when the voices whisper
No one will love you
I’m here to say that’s not true
You make faeries come out to dance
And fire blaze bright in the night
Your smile could match that of a child
In Disneyland.
You are a miracle.
You can’t deny
That’s why
You’re parents named you that
And even when
The harsh words they send
Cut deeper than any knife to your skin
And the voices scream no one can love you
They’re wrong.
Because believe it or not I am not
No one
And I love you.

Scattered around, there are these seemingly random huge piles of leaves that the winds have swept together that can get up to maybe a foot deep. Of course, the best thing to do with these piles is to run through them, kick up all the leaves, and harness the five-year-old within.
I’ve found it amuses me to no end to watch peoples’ reactions after seeing a girl in overalls (dungarees) walking down the street, hair out of control blowing all around her head, clutching a large bag of spinach and a bag of sugarsnap peas, wearing the biggest grin you could imagine. This is my life and I am just fine with it.
As a side note on the picture, my shoes are down under those leaves somewhere…

On sunny Friday afternoons I can never deny the feeling of being blessed. Every Friday I have my English tutorial (like a small seminar we have once a week) from noon to 1 and my music tutorial from 2 to 3. They are about a block away from each other but both on the other side of town from my hall and lunch so instead of walking all the way back to get lunch then again to my music tutorial I get a packed lunch and have my own private picnic by the water. Every time I have been able to choose a different, beautiful spot with a view of the rolling waves and every time I can’t help but feel like the luckiest person in the world. I just get to sit (as I am now while I write this) and watch the ever crashing waves in complete peacefulness and I get to realize how lucky I’ve been to get to grow up on a coast and now how lucky I am to be able to walk to it. Although I know I have just read out the most terrible piece of criticism I’ve written about a book of literature and most likely made a fool of myself and will soon be lost for answers to questions about what music was played in the Baroque period or what key this melodic scale is in, in this present moment I am listening to waves some can only listen to through speakers and I’m finding it normal to sit and read in a place tourists come to take pictures of. Eventually I will have to worry about that essay due Wednesday or how to talk to people without overthinking, but in this present moment, everything is too beautiful to truly care.

With love,

Jo

I think the hardest part about riding a bike in the UK is going to be learning to drive in the US. Seriously, I was having issues with it before, now not only am I going to have to look out for cars, try and obey traffic rules now my instructor will also have to continuously be telling me “KEEP TO THE RIGHT.” I have found a new respect for people who bike huge distances, I have an even bigger respect for people trying to bike in San Francisco (either that or I’ve lost all respect I had because of how crazy an idea it is), and I have realized that even if you have a bike, if your class is across town you cannot leave your room five minutes before class starts and expect to get there on time. On the other hand, you can expect to be outrageously early every other time.
Some things I have found I want to do more often here are go on nature walks, watch the sunrise on the beach, go on recreational bike rides, and dance in the rain. I am missing my camera back home which I’m realizing did take nice pictures but I’m trying to make do with an Iphone (the picture here was taken by an Iphone and it was my favorite from my nature walk)
Lastly, I am constantly wondering if maybe if I ignore the school work for long enough it will go away but the metaphorical piano hanging over my head would probably say otherwise so I am steadily trying to work through it.

You could get kilt that way

I apologize for the terrible pun my Scottish friends. I like the idea of starting of with a pun though because as I take after my dad, I think puns are hilarious.

Starting up this blog, we’ll see how far I get but I figure it may be handy to keep people updated (who wants to retell a story 50 times? me!)

As a sum up of life so far across the pond I’d give it a solid 9.8 out of 10 – loosing .2 from the getting soaking wet walking in the rain but please Scotland, don’t pull a “stick-it” movie moment and have every day be rainy just yet.

From plane ride, to horrifying car trip, to dorm, to freshers week, to classes, to Wuthering Heights, to accapella, to rock climbing, to Great Expectations, to The wasteland, to poetry, to now I’d say I’ve had quite an adventure and it’s only 6 weeks in! I don’t think I could succeed to write in six weeks of description so, as the pessimist would say, probably shouldn’t try but as the weeks tick by on this increasingly less exotic feeling adventure I’ll to what I can to share what’s happening.