[Give the people what they want: Scottish West coast sunsets mmm ooooh]You know those weeks where you wake up on Friday and think, “Really? That was fast” -- and I don't mean that you are confused because it happened so quickly, but that you actually can't remember the last four days. Then you think "man, I hope I didn't blog anything stupid while I was blacked out" and you look and you didn't. Phew. This was one of those weeks for me.
The thing is, as I grow older and start doing things like "working" and "standing in line at the post office," the blog becomes harder to write. Life in Scotland is at times exotic and hilarious, but lately it's been frustrating and monotonous. Turns out working part time at a difficult job while being a full-time masters student is not the tiptoe through a rose garden I thought it would be. And I want to give you rose gardens! I want to make you laugh! Trouble is, a desk job and a pile of reference books won't cut it.
The truth is, I work all the time. When I'm not working I am reading, and when I'm not reading I am sleeping uncomfortably on public transit, and when all of that is finished I collapse into my Ikea bed and start all over again. Last year I had time to teach myself to play the banjo, curate a folk museum, throw dinner parties, travel to far-flung places, swim in the North Sea at 4 o'clock in the morning, and write (what I considered might be) humorous entries about my new life in an odd little country where the men wore skirts and the traditions were baffling. And it was fun! It was so much fun.
Bottom line: now, as I wade through the detritus of my postgraduate life, sometimes I just don't feel funny. Sometimes I feel anxious, or overwhelmed, or exhausted, or nostalgic, or homesick. And none of those things are amusing.
Here are a few posts I could have written this week:
Monday: Today I Said Goodbye To Scott
Mood: Gutted
Tuesday: Today I Worked
Mood: Anxious, Gutted
Wednesday: Today I Went To Class
Mood: Bored, and a little disenfranchised
Thursday: Today I Ate a Whole Bell Pepper
Mood: Cheerful; maybe it was the ranch dressing
The good news is that in the absence of spontaneous dinner parties and mysterious jet-setting I have managed to find a decent equilibrium. I am well rested, my clothes are washed and folded, and I'm getting ready to go see a movie with a group of good and rather hilarious people. I continue to love my life here despite its pitfalls and as my dad always said (though I think he pilfered it from Tom Hanks): "it's the hard that makes it great; if it was easy everyone would do it." So: onwards and upwards! And here's one more image... let's call it a nightcap:
