"Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!"

In the past week, my morale has changed dramatically.  Hallie visited this weekend, which was great because Sarah was in Paris and I probably would have gone crazy without someone in the apartment.  We went to see Noah and The Whale in concert at Arches, drank lots of mochas and long island iced teas, and ate some deeee-licious curry at The Wee Curry Shop on Ashton Lane.

I left for London on Monday afternoon feeling slightly depressed.  Being abroad can feel a lot like a Beckett play.  What am I doing here?  Where am I going?  What am I seeing?  Is there a point to it all?  You feel bereft of any structure that would otherwise ground you in a new place, and therefore everything you're doing feels alien and aimless.  I just sat there in the lobby of the airport, waiting for my check-in time to arrive at Ryanair like it was flippin' Godot.  Even the plane ride felt weirdly existential.  Between the bright yellow seats, seedy flight attendants and techno music playing in the cabin, I felt like I was dreaming.

Seemed like I took 100 planes, trains, and automobiles from Glasgow Central to London Liverpool Street, but I finally made in at about 9:00.  Navigated the Underground by myself (APPLAUSE) to meet up with Genny, an old homefry, and nearly collapsed into a bowl of pasta from fatigue while catching up in her gorgeous apartment.  The next morning, we left for the tube together and she showed me how to get to Westminster to see Big Ben and all that before she went to work.  I felt so stressed about visiting all the hotspots in London in so little time, but I think I did pretty well for a foreigner who had only six hours to get to know the city.  Went on the London Eye, got some sweet pictures of Buckingham Palace, Parliament, Big Ben, and that bridge that Renee Zellweger walks across in "Bridget Jones's Diary".  I was so at peace just riding up in the sky on this ridiculous ferris wheel, looking at all the funny tourists with their loud families and feeling so proud that I wasn't one of them.  I think the best traveling is often done alone when you have no one to listen to but your own thoughts.  Also you're not so much of an easy target when you're traveling alone.  Now, if I had brought my fanny pack and visor...

Next stop was the Tower of London, which, although pretty to look at, was extremely crowded and ultimately not as great as I thought it would be.  Apparently I was traveling at a peak tourism time, as the last week of October is when everyone has their fall break.  I must have waited in line for a ticket for at least forty-five minutes, if not more.  I couldn't tell if I was moving towards the booth or if the booth was moving towards me.  It felt like I hadn't moved an inch.  Tour guide was funny, made some pretty good Anne Boelyn jokes.  I only walked through about half of the tour because we didn't seem to be going into any of the towers, which I had thought was the point of the Tower of London.  I broke away to go into the House of Jewels, saw the Queen's bling, but it wasn't that exciting.  Again, I was stuck in a huge line, shuffling through a maze of velvet ropes and feeling frustrated.  Even the towers themselves weren't that cool because the crowds just made it so hard just to read the captions next to the artifacts, and captions are what I live for.

After a somewhat disappointing visit to Tower Hill, I went back to Liverpool Street where I caught my train to Norwich to visit Sarah, a dear family friend.  Sarah was best friends with our German au pair back in the day when I was four-years old, so naturally we had a lot of catching up to do, especially because she had had a baby within the past year.  Seeing her was the best part of the trip, definitely.  She arranged to have the whole family meet for dinner at her mom's house out in the country, which couldn't have been more perfect since I haven't been in someone's house since early September.  I found myself surrounded by people I love and who love me, dimpled children, and cats!  Oh how I've missed cats!

Sarah hasn't changed a bit.  She is still the giggly, effervescent nineteen-year old I remember her being, and it's strange to think that she was younger than me when she started babysitting us.  We celebrated an early Guy Fawke's Day with fireworks in the back yard after dinner, and while all the kids were ooh-ing and ahh-ing at the rockets shrieking into the night sky, Sarah linked arms with me and said, "Isn't it strange to think of these kids as the next generation?"  She and I seemed to both harbor the same amusement in how quickly the years seem to pass.  Twenty is a strange age.  Tuesday night, I didn't know whether to prance around the lawn with the kiddies or sit back in the corner, shivering in my winter coat.  I'm in this generation limbo, and it was particularly difficult to sit around the fire afterwards with a glass of wine while Sarah and her sister talked about child labor, knowing just how close I am to possibly having a child of my own.  I'm sure when Sarah was nineteen and sunbathing on our lawn and doing collages with my sister and me she wasn't thinking of having a baby in twelve-years time, and I certainly wasn't thinking of a timeline like that when I babysat this summer, either.  But even twelve years passed within the blink of an eye.  Scary stuff...

It was hard to leave Sarah the next morning, but I just know I'm going to remember visiting her for the rest of my life.  I hope it won't be so long until we meet up again.

So despite the brevity of my trip, I think I made the most of it.  It's amazing how easy it is to navigate a new city if you just think two-dimensionally, as if you're just a little dot on a map.  I felt like as long as I had a map of the underground, I could do anything--it was so empowering.  Coming back to Scotland was also interesting, because for the first time, I thought of it as my home.  When you travel during your time abroad, you inevitably end up calling the place you're studying home, as it's the place you always return to.  Today Sarah (roommate Sarah) and I made hair cut appointments together and walked down Byres Road afterwards to get crêpes.  It felt so natural to me.  After feeling so lost for so long, I finally feel like I belong here, like there's structure, such as streets, and institutions, such as school, that I can mold my life around.  I'm drawing my own map of my life around what's already here, and I feel so much stronger for it.  I can't believe there's only a little more than 50 days until I leave!  I remember Michelle Obama sending out a mass email what seemed like three weeks ago, reminding us that the election was in fifty days, and here is it only five days away.  We'll see how I feel in six days: I'll either be drowning my sorrows or toasting my country.

Where The Sun Refuse To Shine

This is pretty accurately describes how my week is going.

It started out pretty well.  Bailey, my friend from Beloit who's studying in Dublin, came to visit me on Tuesday with two friends.  The stay was short but sweet, and Sarah and I proved that it is indeed possible to fit three other people on the floor of our room.  It was a little tight, but I think generally we worked it out.

Yesterday, I found out from ResLife that based on the numbers they had for the amount of current RAs that were going to remain on campus in the spring, they would not have any spaces for me as an RA next semester.  I dunno, man.  I knew I would be going abroad a year before it actually happened, as in, I had actually been accepted by Beloit to study abroad and was planning to go to Scotland a year before it actually happened, so I find it hard to believe that it took ResLife this long to get a solid estimate of who would be working in spring 2009, unless they thought all the current RAs would flunk out or take a vacation term at the last minute.

This news came as a huge disappointment, mostly because I have been looking forward to working as an RA since I was accepted last spring.  It seems impossible to get your foot in the door with these people unless you're accepted your sophomore year.  I smell corruption.

Today was really just the cherry on top of my shitcake of a week.  I had a presentation on Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg, which is probably one of my favorite books, so I really wasn't too worried about it, at least, not until I realized that my professor wanted my handout printed and ready for him to copy at the beginning of class as opposed to printing it out himself from the email I sent him with the handout attached.  Ran to the library in the apocalyptic wind and rain, where I found out that I had not, in fact, sent myself a copy, and of course my school email here doesn't have a "Sent" folder to retrieve the email I "sent" my professor.  Once again, sweaty and frustrated, I dashed out the door and then ran to my apartment to send it again.  And you know when you're in a rush to get something done that usually involves a lot of sending and printing and internet mumbo jumbo, you usually run into little bumps along the way that probably amalgamate into a stress tumor in your brain?  Each time I tried to leave the library, I had to walk behind the people who like to stop and smell the roses, and when I tried to exit the building, the metal detectors went off, clearly from the guy in front of me with the plastic bag probably full of knives, but, of course, I had to stop, turn around, and get screened again.  Eventually got to my apartment, wheezing up four flights of stairs, emailed the handout to myself, ran back to the library, printed the handout with minimal difficulty, and ran out of the building into the wind, which was picking up speed at this point, and while I was running down the asphalt hill towards my class, my paper soaked and plastered against my chest, I just laughed to myself, thinking "Wow, I hate it here."  It's like the day couldn't have been more of an exaggeration at that point, between my hair, soaked with sweat and rain, my paper flapping about in the wind, and me feeling like a total failure.

I suppose all's well that ends well because I think my presentation went better than I thought it would.  I was a little worried, just because my handout was really just a bunch of typed up notes that I thought were relevant.  I didn't do extra research or anything like the rest of the people presenting did, I guess because I trusted my own analysis of the book.  Generally, I like talking to people about books as if we're just sitting on couches in a warm library and feeling particularly cerebral, so I guess my "presentation" was more a talk or something without a whole lot of structure.  I hope my professor saw it as an attempt to connect with the class and get people pumped for Hogg's cynical commentary on Calvinism as opposed to something I threw together at the last minute (or during the twenty minutes in which I was having a heart attack trying to print it out).  Being in small classes has taught me to be so blase about oral presentations.  I don't think of them as lectures, but rather, a chance to get real with students. Not that I'm riding the "straighttalk express" or whatever absurd vernacular we're using these days.  I just try to avoid using the very high diction that professors sometimes throw at you and that overwhelming literary scrutiny: I just sort of talk about the things that strike me while I'm reading and the probing questions that led me to certain criticisms and conclusions.  If Beloit excels at anything, it's teaching its students how to connect.  I've noticed I haven't been able to practice this fundamental lesson until today.  

I miss my English classes at Beloit.  I miss John Rosenwald, randomly.  He was my first English professor at Beloit and really pushed me that first semester.  In retrospect, I was such a hubristic freshman full of amorphous musings that I always thought were worth sharing, but John never treated me as such.  I would always stop by his office after Voodoo Barbie rehearsal and we would just sit there and talk about books and China and his wife and kids for almost an hour.  I doubt I could ever connect like that with a professor here.

Well, hopefully things will start getting better, starting with Hallie's visit on Saturday.  Hallie is a friend from high school with one of the most buoyant personalities I know, so I'm thinking she will be able to lift my spirits.  Then on Tuesday I'm headed out to London.  I'm going to ride the ferris wheel and take pictures.  Wish me luck.

Petite Patriots

Tonight I went to a Jenny Lewis concert, alone.  I didn't mind going solo; in fact I think it was more enjoyable because I could dig the whole scene by myself and meditate with my own thoughts for an hour and a half.  The opening act was fantastic.  I don't know who the lead singer was, but he was some big guy with long gray hair, a bushy beard and dark sunglasses, and he sang real deep and blues-like, à la Jason Molina from Songs: Ohia.  He also had some funny commentary, and at one point said, "I mean, it's cool if the dudes here are getting down to these songs, but really, this show is for the ladies because ladies make the world go round."  Word.

Jenny Lewis was exactly as I pictured her: calculated and cute, a little bit theatrical, and a hell of a performer.  When she sang "Acid Tongue", it just about melted my heart.  The whole band put their instruments down except for Jenny, and they just stood there in a semi-circle around her, harmonizing next to her guitar.  Their sound reminded me so much of America that it was almost unbearable.  In fact, the whole time I was hearing, smelling, and feeling America all at once.  There was something about the booze and perfume that wafted through the air, the folksy guitar, and flannel uniforms of the band members that had me almost convinced that I was actually in a bar in Wisconsin.

Last night, a group of friends and I went out to dinner, and on the way back on the subway, some guy next to me gave us a hard time for sitting in the "handicapped seats."  For the record, these seats situated next to the train doors, although labeled as handicapped, are almost always occupied by the average commuter.  The man next to me was drunk, and clearly picking on us because we were American.  It made me so angry.  I looked up and down the aisles, looked at him directly in the eyes and said, "Well, when I see someone handicapped, I'll be sure to lend them my seat."  The rest of the ride back was uncomfortable.  We just sat there in silence, looking at the floor and holding our breath until we arrived at our stop.  The guy tried to make small talk, asking us whereabouts in America we were from.  Maybe he felt bad.

My professor said the other day that Glasgow was two-faced all over.  They're known for their camaraderie and their stabbings, beautiful autumn leaves and endless rainy days, the grungey East End and the posh West End.  It's like Jekyll-Hyde all over the place.  Some days I'm surrounded by friendly faces and sunshine, other days I'm confronted with rude subway commuters and taxi drivers who want to tell me what America is like for 10 minutes in front of my apartment while I anxiously rub coins between my fingers.

Someone said yesterday that we only have 5 more weeks left of class.  I couldn't believe it.  I barely feel like I've moved in, and before I know it, I'll be packing again.  I think, altogether, I have about 9 more weeks left here, which means that I have about sixty-odd days to write twenty-five to thirty pages of work, visit four countries, and be that "changed person" people keep saying you turn into while abroad.

I also have roughly £180 of spending money to last me for the rest of the semester.  Oops.

I was so sure at the beginning of the semester that by the time I got around to the Jenny Lewis concert, I would feel all settled in, social, and buoyant.  I pictured myself in the front row, enjoying a pint and rocking out to some American music, but tonight I found myself in the back with all the middle-aged couples, awkwardly holding on to my coat and scarf and wishing I could reach out to the band and say, "ISN'T AMERICA AWESOME??"  and have them agree and whisk me away on their tour for the rest of the year.  That'll be the day.

It's not that I don't like it here; in fact, I think it suits me pretty well and I'm very pleased with how much it inspires me to create and be the writer I've always wanted to be.  Sometimes, though, the pang of loneliness and homesickness can be a little much.  They don't tell you about that when you study abroad.  And if you go to a small liberal arts college, they don't warn you about the scary world of bureaucracy, and the rampant red tape that entangles all European universities.  This week, I was informed that I had signed a year-long contract for university accommodation instead of a semester-long contract, and therefore I was responsible for paying accommodation fees until they could find a replacement for me in my apartment.  Nevermind the fact that I was only given a year-long contract while all the other students from Beloit received semester-long contracts.  Nevermind the fact that it says I am a semester-long student all over my application.  Had this situation cropped up at Beloit, I would have sent an email to someone explaining my situation, and the rest would be taken care of.

After I was told that I could be paying up to £2,000, i.e. $4,000 in accommodation fees, I didn't know what to do.  I had never been confronted with this kind of obstinacy.  I immediately contacted my parents, and, feeling like a little kid who just scraped her knee on the playground, explained what was going on.  My mom got in contact with the head of the international office at Beloit, and made sure that everything would get taken care of.  My mom isn't usually one of those helicopter moms who gets in your face if you're inconveniencing her child, but on the occasion that she sees me being mistreated or used, she can be a real wolverine mama, bearing her teeth at any predator threatening her pack.  This summer, an employee at the Apple Store sexually harrassed me and when I came home confused and scared, I could barely get the first sentence of my story out to my mom before she was pulling me out the door to complain to the manager.

It's the fighters of America that I miss, the rebels that embody true American spirit, like my mom, who I wanted so badly to be next to me when I was on the subway yesterday, or reasoning with the Accommodations Office this week.  The best I can do right now is remember the people that inspire the brave, rebellious American inside me.  My mantra for this semester started when I was in the security line at the airport in August, waving goodbye to my parents.  Be brave, I told myself.  If I'm not brave while I'm abroad, well then I might as well crawl into a hole and never come out.  So when I'm traveling by myself to London, Spain, Dublin, and France, when I'm bankrupt and alone, and when I'm telling it like it is to some ignorant native, I'll think of you, and you think of me.  That way I'll come back being the bolder Caitlin that I want to be.

 

Attempts to Feel Good Lost

Now when I said that Scotland was really into fire safety, I wasn't kidding.  We had a fire drill at 8:30 this morning.  

Eight.  Thirty.  

Granted, we were warned about this drill in advance, but I had forgotten about it until I went to bed last night, which made it considerably harder for me to sleep, as it usually is when I have an imminent wake-up call.

Maybe my American schooling has numbed me to the concept of fire drills.  I've been through so many "drills" in my life that the alarm never seems to phase me, and I think Sarah must have had a similar upbringing because both of us treated the drill this morning as a joke.  My brain clock woke me up a little before 8:45 and I just lay there in bed for a few minutes with the light streaming through my putrid yellow curtains, waiting for the shrill yodel of the alarm, covering my ears in anticipation.  Sure enough, the alarm rang at 8:45, and while everyone fled the building like a bat out of hell, Sarah and I took our time.  I sat up in bed, stretched, pulled on warmer pajama bottoms without a care in the world, and slipped my sneakers on while Sarah actually changed her clothes.  We both wandered listlessly down the stairs and out of the building where we were greeted by the fire marshal and everyone else in the building who obviously took the drill more seriously.  Since when do people actually rush out of the building when they hear a fire alarm?  What is this, some kind of drill?

The fire marshal, obviously surprised to see us emerge so long after sounding the alarm, asked, "Could you hear the alarm from your room?  Was it clear?"

"Crystal," I said, with eyes half open, giving him the thumbs up.

No more drills, he warned us, next time you hear an alarm, it will be the real thing.

A real fire?  How exciting!

Watched "Half Nelson" last night, and loved it.  Ryan Gosling was curiously talented at playing a crack-addled teacher, but I thought the girl who played his student was the best, and it baffles me that she never received any recognition for it during the Oscar season.  After the movie, I listened to "You Forgot It in People" for about an hour, as most of that album provided the soundtrack for the film.  It seems to me that when we are at our most depressed or homesick, we cling to these fantasies and daydreams that help us escape.  I am under the impression, especially after watching that movie, that everything in this world is a drug, and getting addicted to something is easy, no matter what it is.  I could listen to Broken Social Scene, or think about Ryan Gosling's baby blue eyes forever.  I could look through photo albums on Facebook and pretend I am in Beloit, or watch iconic cult-web phenomena from my freshman year but it's not like I'm actually living in the present while doing so.  Better options, at this point, would be to explore Glasgow, write stories, read novels--anything that doesn't involve a screen.

In fact, I wrote a short story the other day about a neglected wife sitting in her living room who eventually thrusts her hands into the fireplace in a desperate phoenix-like attempt to feel alive.  Not sure what that says about my state of mind, but I guess I might find out when the story gets work-shopped on Saturday in class.

I don't know how to aptly describe what it is like being in another country; it's hard to think of Glasgow as just another city to live in and call home.  I think one can call any place home given some time, but I don't think I've hit that marker just yet.  The only moments when I feel like I actually live here are when I go out at night, but then, after a few visits to the rustic pubs that remind me of the good ol' boys from home or the warm bars on cold Wisconsin nights, I return to my apartment, besot with my memories of a previous life.

I suppose I'll eventually emerge from this funk like some sort of phoenix, though hopefully it won't require any kind of literal fire, like in my apartment building.  If I decide to listen to Broken Social Scene all day and dream about hunky movie stars until then, so be it.

Whore-o-ween

I've been on a quest to find an awesome Halloween costume.  I found a pretty sweet space suit in Edinburgh for £25, but resisted buying it because, as Sarah reminded me, that actually means I'd be spending $50 on a costume.  I love shopping, but am forced to temper my consumerist urges when I shop with Sarah, as she usually is quick to remind me what the 

actual price is in dollars.  Our conversations might sound something like this: I'll say, "Look at this gold lamé space suit!  It's only twenty-five pounds!"

"Fifty bucks?"

"No, twenty-five pounds.  I mean, sh*t."

In retrospect, I probably should have bought the costume because I ended up obsessing over it for days afterwards.  I looked for it online, but to no avail.  I did, however, come across some of the most sexist, misogynistic costumes I've ever seen, deemed "sexy" (read: "for women only"). Here are the winners, in order of grotesqueness:

1.  http://www.frightcatalog.com/Halloween-Costumes/Sexy+Straight+Jacket+Costume-1109128/

Does this come with a gag too?  Can't have a slave to man without something to shut dem bitches up, am I RIGHT? And while you're at it, give McCain a ring.  Something tells me he'd be into it.

2.http://www.buycostumes.com/Doll-Box-Adult-Costume/31701/ProductDetail.aspx

Oh, I'm sorry: is that a person?  Not that it matters, but you might want to punch some holes in the box, just in case the thing inside happens to be a living and breathing human.  You never know!

3.  http://www.brandsonsale.com/ca-012616.html

$39.99 for a hot wife??  WHAT A BARGAIN!  Hope she comes with wheels!

4.  http://www.yandy.com/Tina-Taxi-Cab-Driver.php

This one may be bumped up to the top, simply because it is so hideous.

I'm not even blaming American culture, as it no longer seems relevant; the war against women is universal.  I go to the gym every day and am forced to watch half-naked, nearly gaseous models groping men in suits on television--women literally stripping on screen.  Women all over the world are being dehumanized, and it gets worse every day.  In the past year, I've become increasingly interested in igniting what I perceive as the second Women's Liberation Movement.  No more "It's Okay to Be Slutty Days" like Halloween, no more scantily clad women in the media that encourage men to see us as merely hollow fleshpots, and finally, no more random hookups and one-night stands that make men think it's okay to abuse the most sacred of our anatomy.

I'm going to be an astronaut for Halloween--Sally Ride, to be specific.  Sarah is dressing as Amelia Earheart.  Women in flight, y'all: we takin' over.

This semi-political message approved by Sally Ride.

Edinburgh: Yes, Here's A Spot

Yesterday, Sarah and I took our trip to Edinburgh to see Macbeth at the Royal Lyceum Theatre.  Funnery alumnae will be happy to know that I remembered almost the entire play from my days at Shakespeare camp.  The theatre was gorgeous, with ornate red and gold detailing on all the walls, plush seats, and a brilliant chandelier hanging from the ceiling.  Somehow, Sarah and I scored seats in one of the boxes on the balcony.  I only wish I had a monocle to fit the part.

We also paid a visit to Armstrongs, a well known vintage shop that seemed to mostly have costumey-type things, perhaps because of the time of year.  Sarah put on a black wig there and, while I was distractedly looking at some scarves, came up to me and pretended that she was a costumer, hastily trying to push her way past me.  I didn't notice it was her until I realized that she kept moving in my direction every time I tried to get out of her way, saying "Excuse me, excuse me, you're in my way."

We were going to eat at The Elephant Room, where J.K. Rowling in her starving artist days wrote Harry Potter, but instead opted for a horrible "American" diner that only served about 4 dishes, all of which had ham and/or mayonnaise in them.  Imagine my surprise when I ordered a chicken caesar salad and instead received a mayonnaise and ham salad with iceberg lettuce.  Guhhh.  Luckily, Sarah was kind enough to let me mooch off of her fish and chips.

Dinner was decidedly more successful.  We went to an Italian restaurant with plenty of ambiance, as well as one of the most delicious pizzas I've ever had.  The killer gelato sealed the deal.

In general, I was more impressed with Edinburgh on my first visit than I was with Glasgow.  Edinburgh seems like a more amplified version of where I am now: taller, older buildings, more cobblestone streets and generally more neighborhoods that seem frozen in time.  Even though it was horribly rainy, windy, and cold, I was completely charmed.

But now I'm back in the West End of Glasgow, back to the surly men in newspaper boy hats arguing outside of pubs, back to the smell of yeast in the streets, back to a dialect that I can barely understand.  I can't believe it has been a month since I arrived here.  I don't think I've gone through any sort of transformation, per se, although maybe I'm a little wiser as is anyone who moves to a new place, and perhaps a little better at mastering the whole traveling thing.  In a way, I feel like I can do anything here.  For instance, I found out about the Lyceum Theatre about a month ago, bought tickets to Macbeth, organized my trip to Edinburgh, and there I was yesterday, mouth agape at the choice seat I was in, enjoying one of my favorite Shakespeare plays.  Next stop is London later this month, and I hope I have just as much luck.

The past couple of weeks have been sort of difficult for me: my dog died about two weeks ago, which was pretty rough, and I've been paining for family dinners and the flat plains of Wisconsin, but taking that trip to Edinburgh was probably the best thing I could have done for myself.  On my bus ride home yesterday evening, I thought about how silly it was to long for Beloit, a place that I would inevitably return to and probably tire of in about a month (trust me, the novelty of "flat plains" doesn't last very long), whereas now I'm in a place where my return within the next few years is uncertain at best.  I have to absorb all the sights there are to see before I find myself flying home in December with nothing but a heart full of regrets.  That's not to say I have to get out all the time.  In fact, I hope I am able to balance my travels in Europe with the simple pleasures in Scotland: people-watching in the underground, cooking spinach in my dingy kitchen, and listening to Chet Baker with a cup of coffee in hand, enjoying the view from the tippy top of my apartment.

I hope everything is going well for everyone back home.  Love you all!

Caitlin