From "Set in Darkness"

"'I'm serious. We all come from darkness, you have to remember that, and we sleep during the night to escape the fact. I'll bet you have trouble sleeping at night, don't you?' He didn't say anything. Her face grew less animated. 'We'll all return to darkness one day, when the sun burns out.' A sudden smile lit her eyes. '"Though my soul may set in darkness, It will rise in perfect light."'
"'A poem?' he guessed.
"She nodded. 'I forget the rest.'"

-Ian Rankin, Set in Darkness


Next post will, I hope, be something special. Also, happy birthday to Aniue-san (J-Chan)! 

On Discovering an Interesting Blog and Charles Dickens

Not too long ago, I was skimming around the internet and happened upon a blog kept by a college acquaintance of mine. We worked on the same body-image awareness literary magazine, and she is a fellow English major. I admit that she is a good writer; her first piece for the magazine wasn’t that good, but she has improved, which is really the crowning achievement. However, I was interested in what she was writing. It’s uncanny how similar people’s childhoods can be, yet there are distinctive threads that we all have that make them marginally unique. That marginality is all that is required, really.

However, she imagined herself to be a writer, a poet, a child-prodigy who had her works published when she was ten. How often did I dream the same thing? How often did I think that The Tale of Lirru-um or The Maw of the Hawk would give rise to fame and stardom like J.K. Rowling? I still have faith in my Nessa project, even though I started it when I was eighteen as part of a creative writing class, and it lies mouldering in my black Moleskine notebook with the triskele on it. I’m twenty-one already – when did that happen? How long has it been this way? What am I going to do with the rest of my life? Probably figure out what I should be doing long after I should have figured it out, and then wish I could go back in time. I am a person who lives life backwards, out of sync. However, no, no, I must go forward and be happy with whatever I’m doing right now, and let the wide and wandering road take me whither it will. However, I must always keep in mind the fact that enough money to live on needs to be made and people need to be helped, which can best be done with time and/or money.

Anyway, enough digressions.

I have begun, for the very first time in my life, to read Charles Dickens. Why on earth has it taken me so long to read him? Why is he so brilliant? From the very first few pages of Hard Times, it is there, it is alive. Reality, truth, imagination, whatever you’re looking for.

'"Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them."'

'The Fairy palaces burst into illumination, before pale morning showed the monstrous serpents of smoke trailing themselves over Coketown. A clattering of clogs upon the pavement; a rapid ringing of bells; and all the melancholy mad elephants, polished and oiled up for the day’s monotony, were at their heavy exercise again.'

Post script because this needed to be published before it became irrelevant. (The first part was written about five days ago.)

I suppose my point in this post is to discuss how much literature can impact us, twinned with the idea that so many of our hopes and dreams are the same. However, there are those minute details that make experience unique, that make them mine or yours or hers. I don’t think I made that point very clear.

This One Has Pictures III

Just pictures for now:

Ghillie Dhu, where my program held a Thanksgiving dinner for all us exchange students on Wednesday.

Friends! Callie, Rebceca, Bethany, Sarah, Alexander 

Sisters! 

I look like a Parliamentary intern!

K in front of Holyrood Palace

I am Thistle.

Sunset from Arthur's Seat

...I look like K... but this is also Stirling Castle: Take III.

Castle Doune!!! Does it look familiar, anyone??? How about... 'Your muzzer was a hamster, and your fazzer smelt of elderberries!'

The bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond.

The Forth Road Bridge in the distance

What Daylight is Like in Scotland

The days here in Scotland have become shorter and shorter until there is hardly anything left of them. If I'm not careful, sunlight can pass right by me. The sun does not rise properly until about 8:30 am, and then it starts getting dark by 3:30 pm. Half the time, I feel like it is either far too early in the morning, or else it is far too late. There never seems to be a real noon anymore. Today, the sun set at 4:30 - set, as in fully set. There was complete, deep night-darkness already settled in by 4:40. It seems the night has permanent tenure here, like it will never be light or summer here again.

The sunset from Arthur's Seat, 3:15 pm, 26/11/10.

What I've Really Been Hearing in my Head All Day

Although I've had the other song on my mind, this is what I've really had playing in my head all day. I've never seen the music video before... why is there something so terribly, terribly poetic about walking through a wheat field with a guitar, a chair, and a vest on?!?

What I've Been Hearing Internally All Day

Our tour guide today on the bus tour was fantastic, full of anecdotes, and overall a humourous Scotsman. However, when we were returning from Loch Lomond, he told us about this song and sang a few renditions of it. The story surrounding the song goes a little like this: back in the 1750s, there was a lot of unrest due to the Jacobite Rebellions (rebellions in favor of Bonnie Prince Charlie, who was an 'heir' to the Scottish throne). The English had captured two Scottish Jacobites, and the law at the time was that one out of every two Jacobites captured would be put to death. That meant that one of these friends would die. The jailer for the evening gave them the choice to see who would live and who would die. Neither of the friends said a word, but one of them sat down and wrote this song.

There is a bit of dire symbolism in this poem. The 'high road' was supposed to be the road of the living, and the 'low road' was the road of the dead. The spirits of the dead could travel more quickly than the living, and so the friend who agreed to die for his friend would see Scotland, his home, too.

Or so goes the story according to the tour guide.

I Tried Calling, but There Was No Answer...

A post in which I give up the anonymity of some of my friends.

Oof. My sister K has come to visit me here in the lovely city of Edinburgh. In preparation for her visit, I have been foolhardy enough to try and get ahead in my homework and prepare for exams, which I am quickly losing ground on. That is the clearest and concisest explanation I can give for leaving all 22 of you, my official followers, in the dark for so long. That, and the fact that the past few weeks have been a little bit of a roller coaster ride internally for me. I don't want to write and publish my less-than-ebullient internal monologues any more than you want to listen to them. However, all that aside, K and I have been having a wonderful time!

Thursday morning she arrived, and she went off to see Parliament while I went to class, and then we met up afterward in Parliament and watched the Themed Question and Answer session that happens every Thursday. This week's theme was primary and secondary education in Scotland, which was interesting, but they spoke quickly and still, some of their accents gave me a bit of trouble. Afterwards, we were right at Holyrood Palace, so we jaunted over there and had a jolly cold time looking through the palace, retracing Mary Queen of Scots' (where does the possessive go?! I can think of nowhere else to put it!) life.

Thursday evening, we high-tailed it to the New Town over to Rachel's flat, where Rachel and her flatmate were hosting dinner. (There were so many Thanksgiving feasts to attend - I had been invited to two others that evening, one hosted by my own flatmates. It was probably a bad of mine that I went over to the New Town instead of staying at my own flat, but Rachel had invited me a couple of weeks ago.) K and I brought an apple crumble, and together we made a party of about twelve people, all basking in the wonderful tradition of gratitude, feasting, and relationship-building that is Thanksgiving. I was sad to be away from a gigantic contingent of my family, but this was a very good substitute. I knew this before, but I'm experiencing how family be built by more than just blood ties.

Friday morning, I had to go to class again, so I was ready to go adventuring in the late morning. K and I went over to the airport where we had reserved a car. Shortly after getting in the car, we decided that we didn't want to deal with the hassle of driving on the left side of the road in a manual. So we turned in the car and hiked up Arthur's Seat instead. The day was clear but cold, which meant that our visibility was fantastic. For K, I think it was easily the highlight of her trip so far, and it was good for me to hike up the Seat again. After all, I haven't been back since my trip up there the first week of the semester. After dinner off of Princes Street, we walked to the German Christmas market in the street which just opened the day before, where I soon took my leave of K. Friday night was when there was a stake-wide ceilidh over at the Church, and K had been planning on going with me. It had been a long day, though, and she was still jet-lagged, so she retired early to catch up on sleep, and I went to the ceilidh by myself.

I love me a good ceilidh, and this one was good. Some of my Church friends were there, so I could hang out with them between dances and actually had partners that I knew this time. There is something very satisfying about dancing with a guy in a kilt. It's grand when the kilt flaps out behind the guy. I get a similar feeling when I'm twirling around in a long, flowy skirt. As we were at the ceilidh, it started snowing - first snow of the season. Absolutely magical. The dance ended around 11 pm on account of the inclement weather, but after everyone else had left, about seven or eight of us had a wee snowball fight in the parking lot. After that, we went to a chippy, and I stayed out way too late by watching Elf with the rest of our little Young Adult group. I shouldn't have, but it was totally worth it.

Wow, this is a discombobulated post. Sorry it's such a laundry-list. I'll try and do a few more pensive, image-based meditations on my experiences later when I'm not so tired and trying not to get all of these things out and onto the 'page' and recorded.

Today, I woke up comparatively early, and K and I went for a tour trip through the southern Highlands. Wow. It felt like the whole of Scotland was frosted over in spun sugar, like it was a Winter Wonderland. Today: Stirling Castle, Loch Lomond, and Ghost Tour to vaults beneath South Bridge.

Lovely days pass away so, so quickly.

Pictures to come soon.

It's Almost Time II

Okay, so Thanksgiving is approaching, I've been away from home since the 30th of May. That's a half year, and it's starting to take its toll. I've even started writing a few stories about home, and re-imagining a distant past in Utah. I have a few compelling reasons to be at home, not the least of which are my immediate family and extended relatives (love you, Grandma!), as well as needing to see two of my very closest friends. One is very sick and having to go through a lot of surgery, and the other I haven't seen at all this calendar year because she had to study abroad in Wales last semester.

I think it'd be great to be a missionary and all, and it's something that I want to do and I'm looking forward to in about a year and a half from now, but that's a year and a half from now. And it's not that the friends I've made here aren't wonderful - they're like a mini home-from-home - but I want to see my family; they are the absolute version of home.

Scheduling

I'm excited for next semester. I have to go through this finals schedule


Scottish Literature 2: Monday 6^th December – Friday 10^th December

Fiction in Edinburgh/Edinburgh in Fiction: Monday 6^th December - Monday 13^th December

Greece World 1a: Wednesday 15^th December 2.30 – 4.30 pm

in order to make it to this class schedule

Gothic Literature

Beginning Painting

American Lit Survey

Classical Mythology

Hatha Yoga

for next semester. I can do it!

It's Almost Time

Is it almost… time?

Thanksgiving is approaching, finals are approaching, and yet that's not what I am concerned with.

It is a Saturday night, yes I am spending it at the library, and I am writing an essay for Monday. (This is part of my academic writing process – I like to have my time and it's been a busy week- don’t judge.) I’m barely into what I feel is the meat of the argument, and as it is right now, I’m about 100 words away from the suggested word limit. I have so much more that I want to say! There is so much more that could be said in this essay! How can I bring myself to pare it all down and make it say what I want?

As it is right now,right in this moment, I feel like I am really getting ready for thesis. I'm almost getting excited to write it, though I still have no idea what it's going to be about. Being in Scotland and studying Scottish literature has given me a few good ideas and directions, but we'll see what this coming semester has. 

Come next Fall, bring on all 80+ pages of thesis.

Quick Week in Review

Thanks NPR, for a great title.

It has been a solid week since I last posted anything, so it's about time for an update. This week has been pretty uneventful but a mild roller coaster; I've spent it either working on an essay (which I'm quite proud of, if I do say so myself), or relaxing with some Lost in Austen, or trying to block out some mildly distressing news as well as how far away from home I am. I've spent a lot of time on the fourth floor of the library and in my head, which is why I particularly enjoyed the ward temple trip to Preston, England, last Saturday, and then ceilidh dancing on Thursday night. It cleared my head of a few things. My mood right now: pensive.

Preston, England LDS temple

From the morning drive through England.

There is a part of me that wants to talk about how brilliant a lot of these Scottish thinkers are - I've been wrestling with them for most of the day, so they're on my mind. I was reading the transcript of a lecture given by David Daiches, and I felt an enlightening, like my mind was being lifted higher and higher. I had first encountered Mr. Daiches while reading Two Worlds for one of my classes, where he discusses growing up Jewish in Edinburgh, Scotland; I liked what he had to say then, and I love him - and hate him - now. In his writing, I see the buds of a few of my own thoughts in his, fully formed. I feel smarter for having read him, as if I have caught a little bit of his brilliance and it has settled onto me, enlightening and expanding my own mind a little.

This is one of the reasons I'm really starting to love academics: I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of it. (About time, with thesis to think about next year.)

Homes I Have Made

I have found myself on the fourth floor of the library, again, looking out over the Meadows. The trees have turned yellow-green, if they haven’t turned or lost all their leaves yet. It is a cloudy day, but still the light shines forth through the clouds. It’s green, like everywhere is here, and gray, and steepled and housey and I could spend the rest of my life here. I don’t want to leave. Over and over again, my father has told me that the places that I have lived: “X is your home, Y is your home, Z and Q2 are your home, and now you can add Madrid and Edinburgh to that list. Now they’re part of you and your history.” It is the voice of my father, the ever-so-heavy, unsustainable voice of a parent whom you've come to realize is, although not infallible, right most of the time.

And indeed, Edinburgh has become my home. But I don’t want to move anymore. I want one place to become my permanent home; I'm here now, and it will be hard to leave. I'm almost sure I want Edinburgh to be my permanent home. There is a melancholy here, something that pervades deep, deep into the bones. Perhaps it is still that oppressive sense of history, dragging the city downward. But despite all that, there is something else, something enchanting, buoyant, resilient in the city - whether it's how quickly you can get into the country, the lines of the architecture along all the streets, the ever-changing weather, how nice people are here... I cannot say. It is all of the above and more.

If you're out there reading this, you were right, Anne. You were right when you told me that blustery fall day in Seal Court over a year ago when I asked about your experience in Edinburgh. Everything is true, just like you said. You probably don't even remember telling me anything other than that Edinburgh is amazing and that I should go - which is all that really matters.

On Being a Mormon (Again)

I like being a Mormon. No matter where I go in the world, it seems, that there will be a place for me. There is a great many things that I like about the religion, and some thing that I don't like. However, I really like this willingness to be open and to accept people in general. I felt like I was reached out to both in Madrid and Edinburgh; I've realized that it's up to me to reach back, and even to make the initial move.


Practice, practice. Wow, this is becoming such a religious blog...

There is Bollywood Music...

...to describe every state and stage of life. It's been almost a year since I last referenced a Bollywood song, but Dhire Jalna from Paheli sums up all I have to say right now: "burn slowly, burn slowly on the flame of life".

Is it possible to slow time down? To catch and keep it and be able to examine every single moment of it, to enjoy it as thoroughly, as arduously, as tortuously, as wonderfully as possible? There is hyperbole in that statement, and it is not as wonderful as I make it to seem, but right here and now, it feels that wonderful.

Samhain in Scotland

Wow, Scotland continually amazes me. I finally feel like I'm settling in to my surroundings. I've found some good friends at Church and living in my block of apartments (yes, person who lives in 3/8 who will undoubtedly read this blog and for whom  haven't thought of a self-conscious nickname yet). It's been a while since I've laughed as heartily as I did this weekend, or even tonight at activities over at the ward building.

Last night, I took some time to go to the Fire Festival celebration on the Royal Mile by the Beltane Fire Society. I met up with two of my American friends, and we just watched as the dancers passed us by, costumed in deep-hued body paint, branches and brambles, bits of fur, crepe and animal costumes. It was a procession from pre-history; these were actors who reenacted how close humans once were to nature, having costumes of fire demons and winter demons. They burned incense, beat drums, held aloft lit torches. It was so much better than any other Hallowe'en I could have imagined for myself. Indeed, it wasn't even a Hallowe'en celebration but a Samhain (pronounced sow-wen, apparently) ritual.

It wasn't quite the drug-induced pagan-fest it appears to be in the pictures. I was shooting with the 'night mode' on my camera, but the 'auto mode' works much better.

There were dancing red devils that ran and shouted through the other procession members, solemn blue branch-wielders that kept the crowd back, a glowing-eyed raven attended by smaller crows, an elephant, a lion, all sorts of birds, and winter spirits with white fur, black eye makeup and spears. The winter spirits were probably my favorite for the reason that they were near us in the crowd as we watched.

The fact that we were standing in front of St. Giles' kirk did not escape me. The square where the procession performed was the site of the old Edinburgh Tolbooth, the prison. Who knows how many mobs have assembled there on a night like this one? A cold night, fires burning, crowds of people, not being entirely sure what was going on... However, unlike the mob nights where such a man like Porteous was taken from the Tolbooth and hung in the Grassmarket, like in Walter Scott's The Heart of Mid-lothian, tonight was much calmer. However, I would imagine that the crowd gathered for the Samhain festivities would have left a guinea in payment for any rope they had taken.

Ooch, bring yoor torch and pitchfork!

And, if everything uploads correctly, there's even a video to show you! Yay! I haven't watched it myself, so I don't know what you should expect.

In summary, a Scottish Halloween is better than an American one.

Also, a quick note on adding my sentiment to what a lot of my friends are thinking about: staying a whole year abroad. I haven't much thought about it; even though I love the city and am really starting to love the people I've met here, come mid-December I will be ready to return home. I have been away for a while, and I want to return to my native land. It's wearying being abroad, and I want to return to Scripps and prepare for my senior year and thesis. However, that does not mean I won't come back to Edinburgh. A lot of the people I've met from Church are here doing Master's programs, and I'm seriously considering coming back as a degree-seeking student in a few years' time.

So the natural proclivity to stay in Edinburgh is still in me, but in a more subdued/sleeper form.