The Little Things

Sometimes, I get used to being here, and I have to stop and remind myself....I'm in Scotland!!! This week was a perfect example of this. I had a macroeconomics test on Wednesday and a French test on Thursday. Then for the weekend, I had no plans except working on my sociology paper. I spent the first half of the week stressing out about the macroeconomics test, and then the test itself was an hour of freaking out a bit. I felt like I had studied far too much, but when it came time to take the test, I felt I didn't know nearly enough. And the way grades are done here, that test will be 50% of my final grade. So, just a little stressful. But, even though it's a stressful economics test, it's a stressful economic test in Scotland. Somehow just being in Scotland makes everything that much better!

It was so foggy on Saturday night that when I tried to get a
picture of AK Davidson, all that turned out was the water
droplets reflected in the light of the camera's flash.

Then the weekend came. Most of the FYSAE students went on the Arcadia Borders trip, but I got the impression that the Borders trip was just going to see a bunch of churches throughout Scotland, and I wasn't particularly intrigued. It sounds like it was a pretty good trip, but I'm glad that I had the day to concentrate on the sociology paper. That night, I went into the kitchen to find that Megan, Mike, and Ian were back from the Borders trip. They told me about the trip, we laughed at the sounds of people partying in their kitchens, and then we decided that since it was incredibly foggy out, we would go for a walk around the loch. It seemed like a brilliant idea--walking around the loch at one in the morning in the rather creepy fog.

We set off around the loch. Between the fog and how dark it was already, there were a few points where we couldn't see more than twenty feet in front of us. At one point, Mike and Ian took off, and Megan and I knew that they were going to somehow try to scare us. But we couldn't see anything, and it only took a few seconds for them to disappear too. A minute later, they doubled back to sneak up behind us. Next, we came to a fork in the path. Ian went off on the one path, and Megan, Mike, and I continued around the loch. We realized that Ian, on the path on the hill, was silhouetted by the street lights behind him. It was a really cool effect, and Mike joined Ian and I got some pretty cool shots.

This was my favorite picture of Mike and Ian making
silhouettes against the street lights. And it kind of reminds
me of the fight scene from the third Star Wars movie!

We made it the rest of the way around the loch without incident--until we came to the swans. Ian had brought a bag of cheese puffs, and we knew they weren't the healthiest option for the swans, but we wanted to feed them, so we tossed a few puffs out. Sure enough, the swans were interested. They swam out of the loch and waddled up onto the land. As we sprinkled cheese puffs, two of the swans followed us all the way up to the path. Ian named one Frank, and when the second swan came onto the path to, I name it Natalie Portman (thinking of the movie, Black Swan). Natalie abandoned Ian and I pretty quickly, but Frank kept following us, hoping for more cheese puffs. Ian and I managed to coax Frank halfway to AK Davidson (the residence hall we live in). Then, and I'm not proud of this, but in my defense it was nearly two in the morning, Ian and I figured out how to heard Frank. One of us walked behind him, and the other of us walked to his side. Doing this, we managed to herd Frank down to our friend Brianna's window. (She lives at on the ground floor, so we basically had a swan right outside her room at this point.) At that point, we realized just how stupid it was to herd a swan across campus.

Lots and lots of swans were pretty eager to get their beaks on some cheese puffs! Hopefully the cheese puffs don't have an adverse effect on the swans, because apparently they're the property of the Queen, and I would not want to mess with the Queen's swans. Although I do wonder if that would be considered a crime against the Queen, since they're her property...

It's the little things like this--tests, writing papers, and going for walks with friends--that make me appreciate being in Scotland even more. I've realized that I don't need to have some amazing adventure every weekend to experience the country. It's the little things that make me feel like I'm really part of the country; the little things that map me fully appreciate the opportunity I have in being here.

A tout a l'heure!