On September 9th, just two weeks ago, I celebrated a full year of living in Scotland! This past year has been one of the most challenging and beautiful seasons of my whole life. Moving to a new country was a little nerve-wracking, but I'm so glad I did. And I'd do it over and over again.
A lot of my favorite moments have been small ones:
The first day of class, I found three women who lived on the same road as me, and we all walked home together. Before we parted ways, we exchanged phone numbers and agreed to walk to and from class together every day - those women quickly became some of my best friends. I even live with two of them now!
One of the homework assignments we had to bring to the first day of Creative Narrative was a list of twenty story ideas. In class, we paired up and walked around outside for half an hour sharing our top five ideas with our partner. I remember walking through nearby neighborhoods with my friend Kat, both of us geeking out over Greek mythology and hyping each other up.
I've climbed Arthur's Seat three times now; with my parents, with my friend Karen, and with my brother and sister-in-law. I still maintain that it's the best view in the city, and I'll keep climbing up that mountain with anyone who wants to!
In the winter, Flat 17 hosted Love Island nights - every week, we'd gather to watch Love Island, a reality dating show. It was like most reality TV shows: a little trashy and a little ridiculous. But I got very invested very fast, and it was so fun to spend that time together every week.
For one of our YA Fiction classes, we had to team up and write a collaborative story. Kat and I wrote a contemporary romance based loosely on our Dungeons and Dragons characters, and we spent way more time doing a photoshoot to accompany the story than working on the story itself. We ordered a ton of sushi, and ate it on my bedroom floor while we worked.
One of our flat 17 quarantine activities was filming a Tik Tok. I myself don't have the app, but making a little video for it was really fun - we got dressed up and learned a dance, and filmed five-second clips of us throwing money at each other. It was a weird way to spend an afternoon, but we had a blast!
Once the lockdown lifted a bit, the flat 17 women went to an outdoor bar to celebrate being done with our degrees. Afterwards we walked to the Princes Street Gardens and laid in the grass, eating McDonalds and taking in the sunshine. We also went down to the fountain, where there's a great view of the Castle, and just sat and talked together. It was lovely to be outside.
And there are so many more wonderful memories here: I've loved every YA class, every walk along the canal, every cafe I've done work in, every visitor I've gotten to explore with, and every hangout in the Writers' Room.
Plus, there's only more to look forward to from here. At the end of the month, Sienna and Pim and I are renting a car and driving through Scotland to explore. We may not have gotten to travel through Europe like we wanted to, but we're going to see as much of Scotland as we can while we're still here.
I remain unemployed, so I'm trying to fill up my time with other things. I'm on the list to help with childcare on Sundays and Thursdays at church as soon as we're back in the physical building. I'm also expanding my corner of the internet with a YouTube channel - my friends ask me to sing for them a lot, so I'm recording covers of songs and posting one every week (although I did miss last week - sorry, Karen). Here's the link:
And, of course, I'm still writing. I got my grades back for my major project, and I'm pretty happy with them! I will officially graduate in October, but I've passed all my modules, so I am done with grad school - but I'm not done with my novel. There's still a long way to go, but I get a little closer to the finish line every day. And the feedback from my lecturers has given me a lot to think about and work on, which is good.
In other news, Scotland is giving us new restrictions for the next few weeks. We've been doing really well here - we had six COVID-related deaths in June, and the numbers stayed low enough for Lockdown to lift in August. Since then, we have had a spike in the number of cases (thanks, Glasgow), so we're not allowed to have other households in our homes for the time being. Stores and restaurants are still open for the sake of the economy, though.
I am also working out how to vote from abroad - so here's a reminder to register to vote if you haven't! Do your research, stay informed, and make sure your voice is heard in the 2020 election. This year has been a rough one for humanity, and I think at least a third of America might still be on fire. The future is in our hands. You can make a difference. Vote, vote, vote!
Book recommendation: The Missing of Clairedelune and The Memory of Babel by Christelle Dabos. The very first book I recommended to you back in my very first post was A Winter's Promise, the first in a series called 'The Mirror Visitor Quartet'. These two, Clairedelune and Babel are the second and third, respectively. This is one of my favorite series; it has a fresh take on magic and fascinating world-building, and the two main characters are quirky and interesting and not at all typical protagonists. The English translation (the books are written in French) of Babel was released earlier this month, and I read the whole thing in a day.