Hard to believe, it's time for the last update. My last weeks at St. Andrews were a juxtaposition (good scrabble word!) of beautiful weather and my own little personal raincloud of revising. A lot of stress was involved, but through studying hard and a bit of luck, all of my exams went just fine. St. Andrews has a tradition of soaking you after you take your last exam ever there, and I was no exception. The water was fortunately not too cold, and it was actually a lot of fun. Bidding farewell to my friends on the last day was a bit heartbreaking, and I hope to get to see them again. My original flight from Edinburgh to London was canceled, but I got one for the previous day with no problem, and after spending a night there, flew back home. Crossing the Atlantic was uneventful, except for an eerie series of random meetings. First I met a grad student from Virginia Beach who was going to school in Richmond who was on the same flight, then I met another girl from the same flight who was from Richmond who went to St. Andrews full time, in the line to get on the plane I spotted a girl in a W&M t-shirt, and talked to her, and finally my neighbor on the plane was a girl who lived 20 minutes away from me. When I got home, I really had forgotten how hot Maryland was, it's going to take some getting used to. I'm also working on sounding American again (trash can, not rubbish bin).
I know I haven't been the best at updating this blog, but if you're still reading it, thank you, I had a fantastic time.
Over and out.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
Monday, May 17, 2010
I suppose this will be my penultimate blog post...only a couple more weeks left here, as scary as that is. It was my first week without classes this week, and I've been spending time revising for my exams; the first, Scottish history, was today, and I think I did all right on it. On Monday I talked some friends into going to the union quiz. While not a fantastic quiz, we did win it, and won a bottle of vodka. None of us really wanted it, so we asked for the receipt, returned it, and spent the money on some food for a barbecue, which we had on the beach tonight. Burgers, sausages, and kebabs, it was absolutely fantastic. I finally made it out for a game of golf, and snapped the standard iconic picture:
On Saturday, a friend had gotten some paintball vouchers, and invited me along, which was good fun, I still have the bruises (I won't show you the pictures of those). And now I've got two remaining finals, one on Thursday and one on Monday, and then a few days of freedom here!
Monday, May 10, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
So, I guess we're down to monthly blog posts. I won't, however, be one of those people who only updates his blog to apologize for not updating, so, moving on!
Life here settled into a pretty good routine my last few weeks here: classes during the week, going out Friday or Saturday or both. I did finally make it out to a whisky society meeting, it was an Indian man presenting Indian whiskys, and although he droned on a little, the drinks were quite good. I've also taken to visiting a pub called The Whey Pat on Tuesday evenings, when local people meet to play folk music, and it's wonderful to hear that music played in the setting it was intended for. And one other thing that I've been meaning to do which I've finally done is karaoke. My friend Kieth and I belted out "Livin' on a Prayer," doing fairly well (except for the high notes, which of course the guy running it cut the volume down for). I also tried an appletini, which is essentially drinking a Scrubs reference.
The evening of April 30th, we stayed up all night, followed by the May dip on the morning of the 1st. It wasn't very cold, it wasn't extremely cold. It was alarmingly cold, but totally worth it. That Sunday night, May 2nd, was the Castle Ceilidh, which was just phenomenal. It had rained all day, but by the time we had our dance, the weather was just picturesque (see Facebook for pictures).
The next week was filled with the last work of the semester to catch up on, with a couple people's birthdays scattered in to keep me from working too hard. I did finally get all my work done for the last day of classes on Friday, and planned to go out Friday night to celebrate. Knowing I'd be tired all night, if I didn't, I took a nap at 9:00 pm. I woke up at 9:00 am. Whoops. I did, however, make it to the Waltz on the West Sands on Saturday night, which was the alternative to the May Ball that did not cost 45 pounds. Bagpipes, bonfires, and good friends on the beach are a good combination. I did even end up doing some waltzing (I know how now, thank you Celtic society). Yesterday was a fairly lazy day, capped off with seeing Iron Man 2, which I liked even better than the first. Only a few weeks now until I leave, it's a bittersweet feeling. I guess I'll just have to make the most of the time I have here.
Life here settled into a pretty good routine my last few weeks here: classes during the week, going out Friday or Saturday or both. I did finally make it out to a whisky society meeting, it was an Indian man presenting Indian whiskys, and although he droned on a little, the drinks were quite good. I've also taken to visiting a pub called The Whey Pat on Tuesday evenings, when local people meet to play folk music, and it's wonderful to hear that music played in the setting it was intended for. And one other thing that I've been meaning to do which I've finally done is karaoke. My friend Kieth and I belted out "Livin' on a Prayer," doing fairly well (except for the high notes, which of course the guy running it cut the volume down for). I also tried an appletini, which is essentially drinking a Scrubs reference.
The evening of April 30th, we stayed up all night, followed by the May dip on the morning of the 1st. It wasn't very cold, it wasn't extremely cold. It was alarmingly cold, but totally worth it. That Sunday night, May 2nd, was the Castle Ceilidh, which was just phenomenal. It had rained all day, but by the time we had our dance, the weather was just picturesque (see Facebook for pictures).
The next week was filled with the last work of the semester to catch up on, with a couple people's birthdays scattered in to keep me from working too hard. I did finally get all my work done for the last day of classes on Friday, and planned to go out Friday night to celebrate. Knowing I'd be tired all night, if I didn't, I took a nap at 9:00 pm. I woke up at 9:00 am. Whoops. I did, however, make it to the Waltz on the West Sands on Saturday night, which was the alternative to the May Ball that did not cost 45 pounds. Bagpipes, bonfires, and good friends on the beach are a good combination. I did even end up doing some waltzing (I know how now, thank you Celtic society). Yesterday was a fairly lazy day, capped off with seeing Iron Man 2, which I liked even better than the first. Only a few weeks now until I leave, it's a bittersweet feeling. I guess I'll just have to make the most of the time I have here.
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