Hey y'all.
I've been feeling kind of depressed lately. Not sure why. The last five days or so has just been me missing home like crazy. I miss Northfield so much! Why did I decide to go so far away?
Oh yeah, because I'm a brave explorer. Or at least I try to be. I'm always so torn between the comfortable old and the enticing new, and I suppose that's a good thing, but it sure makes for a life of green grass on the other side.
No, really, I do like it here a lot. I would like to live here someday, but only if I could somehow transport all of the people I love here as well. And Blue Monday. That'd be cool.
So, the deal is that I have a paper due on Monday, and I can't seem to break myself out of this funk enough to do work. Snow Patrol and Coldplay are trying to help, but they seem to make me feel better while also steeping me lower in the hot water of my own mind.
I'm lonely.
No doubt things will perk up soon, but that doesn't really change the way I feel now. Mom will be here in about a week, and I know Lyss and I will have amazing times when she comes at the end of May, and I have nine weeks before I fly out over the Atlantic again. It's too much time and not enough. I hope I'll have learned what I came to learn by that time.
Lyrics for the night...
"Those who are dead are not dead,
They're just living in my head.
And since I fell for that spell
I've been living there as well.
Time is so short and I'm sure
There must be something more."
-42, by Coldplay
"I will race you to the waterside,
And from the edge of Ireland shout out loud,
So they could hear it in America:
'It's all for you.'"
-The Planets Bend Between Us, by Snow Patrol
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Church on Sundays
I JUST REALIZED I CAN LISTEN TO THE ST. JOHN'S SERVICE ON KYMN STREAMING ONLINE!!!!
THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT'S HAPPENED ALL WEEKEND!!
I miss home, but this makes things so much better. Getting to listen to the sermons and hear Pastor Mark doing readings and Pastor Crippen making the announcements, and hearing the congregation sing the hymns....
And I can tune in every Sunday and sing along! It's almost as good as being there.
This is so great. I love my church. :-)
Pastor Mark, I'm listening to you right now!! :-D
THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT'S HAPPENED ALL WEEKEND!!
I miss home, but this makes things so much better. Getting to listen to the sermons and hear Pastor Mark doing readings and Pastor Crippen making the announcements, and hearing the congregation sing the hymns....
And I can tune in every Sunday and sing along! It's almost as good as being there.
This is so great. I love my church. :-)
Pastor Mark, I'm listening to you right now!! :-D
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
McBackpackers and the Isle of Skye
Isn't that a GREAT title?!
So, last Friday I woke up at 5:30am, took a shower, and by 6:30 Erica, Sandy, Michelle and I were on the train to Edinburgh. We got on the McBackpackers bus at 8, and we were on our way to the Isle of Skye, which is part of the Western Isles of Scotland, with our AMAZINGLY cool guide, Neil. He was born a few miles away from Ewan McGreggor, and they have the exact same accent. He knew EVERYTHING about the old Scottish stories!
Anyway, here's our itinerary!
Stop 1 included The Hermitage, which is a national forest near Pitlochry. Next we stopped at Ruthven Barracks, which is an old English military fort. Stop 3 was the battlefield at Culloden, and I have to say that being in a historically important place really impresses you in a way facts and figures in books never could. Culloden was also the first place in the Highlands that we'd been where all signs were in English AND Gaelic, which was really exciting!! From here we went past Dalwhinnie and to Tomatin where we stopped at a whiskey brewery for a taste.
Next was the totally awesome Loch Ness. No sign of the beast, but hearing all the stories definitely made me a believer!
.jpg)
After Nessie we saw a set of castles in the Great Glen from Inverness down and West to Kyle of Lochalsh, the last stop on the Mainland before crossing the bridge over to Skye and the town of Kyleakin. We spent the first night in the McBackpackers hostel in Kyleakin, which was so nice! It was great to go to sleep after adventuring all day.
The next morning we got on the bus at 8 and headed out for a round about Skye. First stop was Sligachan, which is the river that flows between the Black Cuillin and the Red Cuillin hills. I think this might have been the highlight of the trip for me because we got to hear the story of Sgiath (pronounced "she-ath") who trained the great Irish warrior Cuchullin. As you can probably see, the Cuillin hills are named after Cuchullin himself, and the river is named for Sgiath because they all intersect at the place where Sgiath and Cuchullin fought each other for the first time before Cuchullin admitted defeat and asked to be trained. It's a great story with a great ending, because at the end Sgiath declares that whoever dips their face in the river for seven seconds will keep eternal youth and will always be able to remember the old stories. Needless to say, I totally did it, and the water was cold, sweet and salty all at the same time!
Stop 2 was the capitol of Skye, Portree. It's a tiny town, about the third of the size of Northfield, and I liked it a lot. Most people who live on Skye are either farmers or fishermen, so it's basically just a glorified fishing village. It was great. :-)
A hike up to the Old Man of Storr was next on the list, which was cool even though I only went halfway up because my cold was trying to kill me (and no, Dad, I didn't catch the cold from ducking my head in the river. I had it before I left :-]). Next, a stop at Kilt Rock, Cuith-Raing (where a bunch of Stardust was shot!!), Duntulm Castle, a village of THATCHED ROOF COTTAGES!!, a faery glen near Uig, and all the way back around to Kyleakin, where we spent the night again.
Day three was a nice, slow paced trip back to Edinburgh (or rather, Stirling, where we got dropped off). We saw the Five Sisters of Kintail, past Ben Nevis (which we couldn't see; it was too foggy), through Glencoe, and lastly, we met Hamish the Highland Cow just a few miles from home.
Photos, of course, are more interesting than my general summary of what we did, so check those out here! Go to page 3 of my photostream and you can go backwards, but in chronological order. I hate how Flickr always puts my stuff in backwards :-(. But we'll make the best of it!
In short, it was an amazing trip, and I'm so glad we did it! I learned so much, and it was great fun. I can't wait to go exploring again soon. :-)
So, last Friday I woke up at 5:30am, took a shower, and by 6:30 Erica, Sandy, Michelle and I were on the train to Edinburgh. We got on the McBackpackers bus at 8, and we were on our way to the Isle of Skye, which is part of the Western Isles of Scotland, with our AMAZINGLY cool guide, Neil. He was born a few miles away from Ewan McGreggor, and they have the exact same accent. He knew EVERYTHING about the old Scottish stories!
Anyway, here's our itinerary!
Stop 1 included The Hermitage, which is a national forest near Pitlochry. Next we stopped at Ruthven Barracks, which is an old English military fort. Stop 3 was the battlefield at Culloden, and I have to say that being in a historically important place really impresses you in a way facts and figures in books never could. Culloden was also the first place in the Highlands that we'd been where all signs were in English AND Gaelic, which was really exciting!! From here we went past Dalwhinnie and to Tomatin where we stopped at a whiskey brewery for a taste.
Next was the totally awesome Loch Ness. No sign of the beast, but hearing all the stories definitely made me a believer!
.jpg)
After Nessie we saw a set of castles in the Great Glen from Inverness down and West to Kyle of Lochalsh, the last stop on the Mainland before crossing the bridge over to Skye and the town of Kyleakin. We spent the first night in the McBackpackers hostel in Kyleakin, which was so nice! It was great to go to sleep after adventuring all day.
The next morning we got on the bus at 8 and headed out for a round about Skye. First stop was Sligachan, which is the river that flows between the Black Cuillin and the Red Cuillin hills. I think this might have been the highlight of the trip for me because we got to hear the story of Sgiath (pronounced "she-ath") who trained the great Irish warrior Cuchullin. As you can probably see, the Cuillin hills are named after Cuchullin himself, and the river is named for Sgiath because they all intersect at the place where Sgiath and Cuchullin fought each other for the first time before Cuchullin admitted defeat and asked to be trained. It's a great story with a great ending, because at the end Sgiath declares that whoever dips their face in the river for seven seconds will keep eternal youth and will always be able to remember the old stories. Needless to say, I totally did it, and the water was cold, sweet and salty all at the same time!
Stop 2 was the capitol of Skye, Portree. It's a tiny town, about the third of the size of Northfield, and I liked it a lot. Most people who live on Skye are either farmers or fishermen, so it's basically just a glorified fishing village. It was great. :-)
A hike up to the Old Man of Storr was next on the list, which was cool even though I only went halfway up because my cold was trying to kill me (and no, Dad, I didn't catch the cold from ducking my head in the river. I had it before I left :-]). Next, a stop at Kilt Rock, Cuith-Raing (where a bunch of Stardust was shot!!), Duntulm Castle, a village of THATCHED ROOF COTTAGES!!, a faery glen near Uig, and all the way back around to Kyleakin, where we spent the night again.
Day three was a nice, slow paced trip back to Edinburgh (or rather, Stirling, where we got dropped off). We saw the Five Sisters of Kintail, past Ben Nevis (which we couldn't see; it was too foggy), through Glencoe, and lastly, we met Hamish the Highland Cow just a few miles from home.
Photos, of course, are more interesting than my general summary of what we did, so check those out here! Go to page 3 of my photostream and you can go backwards, but in chronological order. I hate how Flickr always puts my stuff in backwards :-(. But we'll make the best of it!
In short, it was an amazing trip, and I'm so glad we did it! I learned so much, and it was great fun. I can't wait to go exploring again soon. :-)
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
I Should Be Going To Sleep...
It's 1am, and I should go to bed so I'm not super tired for my Environmental practical tomorrow at 9, but, as Jack would say, "I just can't be bothered."
I'm rather awake. Tonight I hung out with Erica and Anna Gale and Will, and we sat around watching videos and looking hilarious things up in Will's book of slang terms. I miss people from home. I miss cuddling with my friends! There's no one here I feel close enough to cuddle with, and I miss touch. It's cool, though. I have a lot of cool people to hang out with!
Basically, life in Scotland is awesome. There are some times, though, when everything stops around you, and you close your eyes and remember that we each go through life alone at the end of the day. I don't mean devoid of whatever spiritual guidance that you happen to believe in, but in the sense of being apart from the rest of humanity while inside your own head. It's a strange and lonely place to be. But it can also be a pretty nice place to retreat to when you need to remember what's inside.
Anyway, I'm driveling. I'm a bit tired, but not tired enough to sleep. Just tired enough to ramble about consciousness.
And that I would love to work with animals someday. The more I'm around animals and see the way they live and interact, the more I want to be a part of it. I could be a vet, or I could foster baby animals, or I could work at a zoo, or a training clinic. There are a lot of options. The only thing that I don't like about the idea of spending the rest of my working life as a vet, or something like that, is that I wouldn't feel as if I was doing my part to affect the world in a positive way.
Right now I want to work for the adoption of sustainable agriculture in societies around the world. If you ask me what my major is, I'd say Anthropology with a focus in Agriculture, which is the closest I can get to explaining what I mean in the academic sense. I don't want to graduate from college and go farm; I want to change the world through a new way of relating to our food and the ground we get it from. I'm talking Discovery Channel and the Peace Corps.
But sometimes I think it'd be fun to give up on my grand ideas and just settle down as a veterinary assistant somewhere in Yorkshire, or maybe Scotland. :-)
I wonder where I'll be in ten years.
I wish I wasn't always looking so far ahead. I'm the kind of person who always wants to see what's over the next hill, and it tends to get me in trouble. I get so caught up in moving from one thing to the next, racing toward tomorrow, that I have a hard time settling down. I wonder if that's going to keep being a problem in the future. I hope not. I suppose I'd better try to do something about it. Dreams always feel like they're just out of reach.
Alright. End to the stream of thought.
Quote of the day:
"My heart was a pendulum between her and the road. I don't know with what strength I freed myself from her eyes."
-Che Guevara
I'm rather awake. Tonight I hung out with Erica and Anna Gale and Will, and we sat around watching videos and looking hilarious things up in Will's book of slang terms. I miss people from home. I miss cuddling with my friends! There's no one here I feel close enough to cuddle with, and I miss touch. It's cool, though. I have a lot of cool people to hang out with!
Basically, life in Scotland is awesome. There are some times, though, when everything stops around you, and you close your eyes and remember that we each go through life alone at the end of the day. I don't mean devoid of whatever spiritual guidance that you happen to believe in, but in the sense of being apart from the rest of humanity while inside your own head. It's a strange and lonely place to be. But it can also be a pretty nice place to retreat to when you need to remember what's inside.
Anyway, I'm driveling. I'm a bit tired, but not tired enough to sleep. Just tired enough to ramble about consciousness.
And that I would love to work with animals someday. The more I'm around animals and see the way they live and interact, the more I want to be a part of it. I could be a vet, or I could foster baby animals, or I could work at a zoo, or a training clinic. There are a lot of options. The only thing that I don't like about the idea of spending the rest of my working life as a vet, or something like that, is that I wouldn't feel as if I was doing my part to affect the world in a positive way.
Right now I want to work for the adoption of sustainable agriculture in societies around the world. If you ask me what my major is, I'd say Anthropology with a focus in Agriculture, which is the closest I can get to explaining what I mean in the academic sense. I don't want to graduate from college and go farm; I want to change the world through a new way of relating to our food and the ground we get it from. I'm talking Discovery Channel and the Peace Corps.
But sometimes I think it'd be fun to give up on my grand ideas and just settle down as a veterinary assistant somewhere in Yorkshire, or maybe Scotland. :-)
I wonder where I'll be in ten years.
I wish I wasn't always looking so far ahead. I'm the kind of person who always wants to see what's over the next hill, and it tends to get me in trouble. I get so caught up in moving from one thing to the next, racing toward tomorrow, that I have a hard time settling down. I wonder if that's going to keep being a problem in the future. I hope not. I suppose I'd better try to do something about it. Dreams always feel like they're just out of reach.
Alright. End to the stream of thought.
Quote of the day:
"My heart was a pendulum between her and the road. I don't know with what strength I freed myself from her eyes."
-Che Guevara
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Pretty Sunset Outside
Wow, talk about procrastination! I thought I'd have gotten in a whole afternoon of homework by this time, at least, but no.
Yesterday I went to the Scotland v. Italy rugby game, and it was AWESOME! I took a train to Edinburgh around noon, then followed the MASSIVE crowds of people to Murray Stadium. I didn't have to look at the map once! Just follow the crazy people in kilts toting bagpipes! Such national pride; I was pretty envious. I think part of it has to do with the fact that Europeans play sports against other countries, and they don't do the dumb teem name thing. Your team isn't "the Jazz" or "the Packers" or "the Bulls." You're just SCOTLAND!! and you play other countries (or in Scotland's case, nation-states)! It was great, sitting in the stadium which isn't even as big as the Metrodome, and hearing all the Italians singing their anthem, and then hearing the crazy mass of people sing Scotland's anthem as loud as they could! Crys of "I-TAL-IA!" and "SCOT-LAND, SCOT-LAND" were ringing from everywhere, and I was up the nosebleed seats! I can't imagine how loud it must have been down near the field.
Anyway, it was great fun, and I ate really greasy and overpriced fish and chips, just for the experience of the thing, throughout the first half.
There will be more pictures of the match on Flickr, for those of you that want to see, as well as some other pictures of previous events that I can now put up thanks to Dad's donation to my account! :-)
So, I got back last night, wrapped my cold self up in a blanket with a cup of tea, and finished watching "Long Way Round," which reminded me how lucky I am to be traveling, and to be able to visit all of these great places and meet such nice people, especially since there was a time when I wondered if I'd ever really be able to live away from home. Life is good.
Today I woke up, tramped over to the Logie Kirk on the outside of the campus towards the East, and (for lack of a better or faster route, since church was starting) climbed and dropped over a six foot stone wall, landing squarely in the mud. So, I was a bit muddy when I walked in, but they handed me a hymn book and a bulletin and a room full of smiles when I got there! Such nice people, and such a funny minister! But it made me miss St. John's a lot, and all the people there. Pastor Mark, if you happen to be reading this, since I know I gave you the address, be excited, because I'm saving all of the bulletins from all the churches I visit to give you when I get back!
So, back from church, washed my muddy self and my muddy laundry, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned my room, made some lunch, and I've been doing ALL SORTS of work! But, no homework yet. I did, however do something that Will suggested (he's been doing it to remember all of his important dates) which is to write down all of your deadlines for classes in order, and put them up on your wall. That way you see them all the time, and you can work on them as they're coming up, and you just keep crossing them off the list. This system is working a lot better than the planner system I use at school in the states, because here there may not be anything due in a class for weeks at a time, so you stop looking at your planner. The wall list is much better.
Here's my list!
As for this week, there's not much coming up. I'll be working on my history reports, and that's about it, I think. There IS a plan in the works to go to the Isle of Skye either this coming weekend or the next, but nothing's set in stone yet. I'll let y'all know when I do!
Yesterday I went to the Scotland v. Italy rugby game, and it was AWESOME! I took a train to Edinburgh around noon, then followed the MASSIVE crowds of people to Murray Stadium. I didn't have to look at the map once! Just follow the crazy people in kilts toting bagpipes! Such national pride; I was pretty envious. I think part of it has to do with the fact that Europeans play sports against other countries, and they don't do the dumb teem name thing. Your team isn't "the Jazz" or "the Packers" or "the Bulls." You're just SCOTLAND!! and you play other countries (or in Scotland's case, nation-states)! It was great, sitting in the stadium which isn't even as big as the Metrodome, and hearing all the Italians singing their anthem, and then hearing the crazy mass of people sing Scotland's anthem as loud as they could! Crys of "I-TAL-IA!" and "SCOT-LAND, SCOT-LAND" were ringing from everywhere, and I was up the nosebleed seats! I can't imagine how loud it must have been down near the field.
Anyway, it was great fun, and I ate really greasy and overpriced fish and chips, just for the experience of the thing, throughout the first half.
There will be more pictures of the match on Flickr, for those of you that want to see, as well as some other pictures of previous events that I can now put up thanks to Dad's donation to my account! :-)
So, I got back last night, wrapped my cold self up in a blanket with a cup of tea, and finished watching "Long Way Round," which reminded me how lucky I am to be traveling, and to be able to visit all of these great places and meet such nice people, especially since there was a time when I wondered if I'd ever really be able to live away from home. Life is good.
Today I woke up, tramped over to the Logie Kirk on the outside of the campus towards the East, and (for lack of a better or faster route, since church was starting) climbed and dropped over a six foot stone wall, landing squarely in the mud. So, I was a bit muddy when I walked in, but they handed me a hymn book and a bulletin and a room full of smiles when I got there! Such nice people, and such a funny minister! But it made me miss St. John's a lot, and all the people there. Pastor Mark, if you happen to be reading this, since I know I gave you the address, be excited, because I'm saving all of the bulletins from all the churches I visit to give you when I get back!
So, back from church, washed my muddy self and my muddy laundry, cleaned the kitchen, cleaned my room, made some lunch, and I've been doing ALL SORTS of work! But, no homework yet. I did, however do something that Will suggested (he's been doing it to remember all of his important dates) which is to write down all of your deadlines for classes in order, and put them up on your wall. That way you see them all the time, and you can work on them as they're coming up, and you just keep crossing them off the list. This system is working a lot better than the planner system I use at school in the states, because here there may not be anything due in a class for weeks at a time, so you stop looking at your planner. The wall list is much better.
Here's my list!
As for this week, there's not much coming up. I'll be working on my history reports, and that's about it, I think. There IS a plan in the works to go to the Isle of Skye either this coming weekend or the next, but nothing's set in stone yet. I'll let y'all know when I do!
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