we were spoiled when it came to the weather we experienced our first two weeks here; it is no longer. where once was surprising sun and massive blue sky there are endless clouds and a perpetual mist.
the internationals took a trip to edinburgh a few weekends back. edinburgh is a tourist city at its heart. where glasgow is in all things a bustling metropolis of scottish life and scottish people, edinburgh is littered with kitsch shops and tourist pubs that are essentially off limits to any semblance of scottish reality. the castle is beautiful, as is the architecture, but after two days of the place I was ready to take the bus ‘home’ to glasgow, where I felt more a positive part of something truly foreign.
in the time since edinburgh, glasses have begun rolling up to full speed. I’ve filled my borrowed slr with thirty-six black and white pictures of glasgow’s urban landscape, which I will learn to develop tomorrow at the glasgow school of art. then, my first meeting of figurative sculpture. the jury is still out on whether or not we’ll be presented with a nude model the first class or the second. I’ve had my first private piping lesson, and am having a good time messing about on the practice chanter, learning scales and simple exercises to build my dexterity.
I miss home.
in describing the varying stages of culture shock I was told I’d be experiencing, this part would be called ‘homesickness.’ I am smack dab in the middle of a beautiful living city, but find myself spending long hours scraping facebook for small vestiges of home. it doesn’t help that I’ve not seen the sun for nine days.
surely it is only a matter of time until I recover from this indifference to my geographical location and start appreciating glasgow and scotland on a deeper level. if the first weeks here were constant shock and amusement at the differentness of things, then hopefully the next twelve are an exploration of the sameness of our cultures, or maybe, the uniqueness that the boisterous, scottish way of living applies itself to its location in the uk and in the world.
now let’s see if I can pull myself out of this.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
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