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On Being Back

6/16/2009

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Swish, Tap, Fwoop! The wand has been waved and the magic curtain has fallen over the stage. The Act (number of which I have not decided yet) is now over. I'm back in California again. Things aren't as great or as magical and nothing seems to have changed much. On the other hand, a lot seems to have happened while I was away, a lot that I hadn't heard about even through the highways and airways of modern technology, some good, some bad.

I am happy to be back, to see family and old friends again and see old sights,

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Half a week in Wales...

6/5/2009

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I'm back in London now and counting down the days till I'm back in California (I almost wrote "till I'm back in St Andrews", I miss it so much).

I spent the first half of this week visiting a friend in Wales. I hadn't seen her in over five years so it was great to meet her again. We had a really nice time. The first couple days were really warm and we went to Barry Island Beach on one of those days. The weather was perfect for it. There was a theme park there as well and


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What's a trip without an itinerary? An Adventure!

5/20/2009

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While I'm on revision break, I thought I'd let you know how my wee trip went.
I travelled with three of my friends around part of Scotland and we went to Stonehaven, Aberdeen and Inverness. We had sorted ourselves an itinerary, and had originally planned to visit approximately 6-7 castles. Well, Jane left the itinerary in her room and our adventures began from there!

We got to Stonehaven station properly, and then from there we had to walk to Dunnottar Castle which was on the coast about two miles away from the town. When we were almost at the end of our hike, it started to rain. Rain while walking on a windy cliff is not a good thing and its even worse when the rain is cold and feels like it's slapping you. That only lasted a few minutes, thankfully.  The castle ruins were nice and it was sunny while we walked around in there. We spent three hours there instead of our scheduled two (and that's not including the time it took to walk there).  We had lunch at a cute little restaurant by the beach and then set off for Aberdeen.
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Us with Dunnottar Castle in the background


The weather decided that it really didn't like us and it started to rain again. The train to Aberdeen was fairly quick and uneventful.

 When we got to Aberdeen, we decided to scrap visiting the two other castles that were scheduled for the day and just find our hostel before we had dinner. But since we had no itinerary we had to first figure out the address of the hostel. I ended up misreading address and maps and we got well acquainted with Aberdeen's Union Street. We ended up having dinner at a McDonald's on Union Street.  At half nine ish we found our hostel finally. It was too late do much so we just settled into bed. We made ourselves a cooked breakfast the next morning and set off for Inverness by bus.  We were intending to stop off on the way and see Huntly Castle, but we were too tired. After the 4 hour bus journey, we finally made it to Inverness.

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Inverness and the River Ness
Inverness, I have to say, is the most beautiful city I've seen so far. Maybe it's just because the weather was so good while we were there, but the scenery was breathtaking! One day, when I have enough money, I think I want to get myself a summer home in Inverness. We had our "lunch" on the castle grounds at half five. We sat on a bench overlooking the Rive Ness and shared our meal with a seagull. We named him "Alfredo". The Inverness castle is currently used as a courthouse and for some other government purposes, so we didn't get to see the inside. But the outside is lovely.

We spent the rest of the evening walking along the banks of the River and enjoyed the beauty of nature all around us. We ended the evening in a pub in town where there was live folk music playing.

The next day we set off for Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle on a tour bus and cruise. We got a 30 min cruise down the Loch and got off at Urquhart Castle. We walked around those ruins a while, saw a short film about its history at the visitor centre and went back to Inverness by the bus. It was beautiful. Loch Ness was so amazing, the scenery, the air, the freshness, all lovely. It made me really happy.
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Urquhart Castle with Loch Ness behind it

We had lunch at an all you can eat Chinese buffet restaurant where we stuffed ourselves and spent the rest of the afternoon in the Inverness castle museum and later sunning ourselves on the grassy slopes below the Castle itself.

Then it was time to pack up and take the train back. The trip was a great experience and I'm glad I did it. It was teh first time I'd ever been in hostels and the also the Scottish countryside is so pretty, especially in the spring. Plus the fact that the sun doesn’t set till ten is a huge bonus. So much more time to explore!
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May Dip, Valedictory Dinner and More...

5/8/2009

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I last left you all with a promise to tell you about my experience of the May Dip. It was great. I stayed up most of the night with a friend. I managed to sleep for two hours from 11 to 1 and then we woke up walked to this fast food place called KFB (Yes, it's KFB, not KFC). We got ourselves some food and kept awake by watching TV shows on my computer. At around 4am we got ready to go outside. We reached Castle Sands a little before 5 when dawn was breaking. There was quite a crowd and the most difficult part was actually getting onto the beach through the steps cut out form the cliff, they were crowded, sandy and slippery. We finally got down to the beach an dthen made a mad dash for the frigid North Sea! Ran in, dipped under and came out. We loved it so much that we did it again! It was cold, but not as cold as I was expecting and it was very very salty. I'd forgotten how salty the sea can be. Another friend joined us later. She didn't dip, but she brought us towels which we wrapped ourselves in before we walked back to hall. It was fun. My legs felt like pins and needles for a while when we were in the water, but it was good fun.
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The next day, we had another high table. This one was and uber formal one, kind of similar to Christmas dinner and it was for the valedictorians (graduating seniors). At the end of the dinner, those who had served on the hall committee, this year or in the past, gave speeches. It was nice to hear how those who had been in St Andrews for all four years feel about their time here. I'd say it's sad to see them leave, but then I remember that I'm leaving too. There were funny speeches, crazy speeches, speeches that made people cry and ones that made everyone laugh and reminisce about life in Uni Hall. It was a great evening.

I went to this pub called the  Westport with a few friends for drinks afterwards. We went there in our  dresses/ suits and our red gowns. It was good.


The day after that, we had brunch. For brunch they serve us all the breakfast foods that we have over the entire three week rotation at a single meal, and they also throw in some extras like individually wrapped muffins. That afternoon, there was a garden party. The Garden Party is traditionally thrown by the newly elected senior students for the following year. We had had elections in hall a few weeks prior to this to elect next year's senior students, treasurer, secretary and computer rep. This new committee hosts the party.

I was tired from the antics of the previous night so I slept though most of it. When I went out, I saw people walking around in the deceiving sunshine, it was actually quite cold and windy. There was an inflatable pool filled with water  in the middle of the grassy quad and people were getting thrown into it intermittently. There were others walking around with water guns. There was a raffle going on and a BBQ as well. It was fun, but I had to leave soon because I was too cold in the dress I was wearing to stay for much longer. To end the day, there was a firework show for us at 10 pm. It was  fantastic.

A lot more has been happening. Classes are now over and it's revision week. Last night my academic dad took us out for drinks, which was nice. He's a fourth year as well, so I asked him about his experiences in hall and in St Andrews and what he feels about leaving. 

There so much more that I could talk about, but it's getting late now. And tomorrow, I'm off on a trip visiting castles in the north of Scotland for the next three days. Should be fun!

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The Begining of the End...

4/30/2009

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The semester is drawing to a close; this reminds me that my time in St Andrews is ending as well. And soon I shall have to return to California. This will be a bitter-sweet time, and when the time arrives I shall dwell on it more, but for now, I shall talk about what I have neglected to do so for a while.

I meant to write about these events as they happened, but for some reason I kept putting it off. Either due to lack of pictures, too much school work or just plain laziness.

The first of these is the Kate Kennedy procession. This is organized by the Kate Kennedy Club and old and esteemed males only university club. The procession is a celebration of the history of St Andrews and involves people dressed up as distinguished members that have had a connection to St Andrews. It has its roots in a procession in honour of Kate Kennedy, the niece of Bishop James Kennedy, who was welcomed into town and renowned for her beauty. Her arrival signalled the beginning of spring.

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This year,  the procession took place on Saturday the 18th of April. I went to watch it with one of my friends and it was a lovely sight to see all these people dressed up in old fashioned clothes parading through the streets. There were princes and dukes, ladies and knights and monks as well. Tradition states that "Kate" is played by a bejant (first year male student) from the Kate Kennedy Club who rides in on a horse drawn carriage at the end of the procession.  Among the characters was St Andrew (who lead the procession), Benjamin Franklin, who was awarded an honorary degree from the University, John Cleese, who served as rector and many many other characters who I didn't recognise. 


The other thing is more personal. This past Saturday, I went hiking along the Fife Coastal Path and did the Chain walk, which consists of climbing through the rocky cliffs at the edge of the sea. I went with two guys form the scouts and guides club. It was great banter and we had a really good time. It was certainly very refreshing. A nice way to break out of the bubble and get a closer look at some Scottish coastal towns (Anstruther, Elie, Lower Largo). The scenery was splendid and of course it was good exercise.

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I have actually had a large amount of work to do for my classes. I always wonder why I never learn and leave things till the last minute. I will hopefully be able to get everything done in time.

 Tonight, or rather, early tomorrow morning, is the May Dip. It's a St Andrews tradition where students take a dip in the North Sea at the crack of dawn. I've heard that there are usually bonfires on the beach and loads of students. The May Dip is essential if you've stepped on the PH (initials of the martyr Patrick Hamilton set in the cobblestones on North Street), or if you've committed academic incest. Doing either of these things mean that you will fail your degree. The May Dip is the only way to redeem yourself.

I plan to stay up all night for this. I'll let you know how it goes sometime after I get back!
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High Table

4/20/2009

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Last Thursday, I was invited to High Table. High Table is a St Andrews tradition where select students are invited to dine with the Warden, sub-Wardens and a special guest or two. In the Days gone by, High Table occurred at least once a week. Now a days it happens rarely, even less than once a month. There are other events where the residents get to meet the wardens, like the tea and biscuits receptions or the more formal wine and cheese receptions that take place throughout the year. These two are more common than high table.

For High Table, the selected students come dressed formally and in their red gowns. Before dinner there is a sherry reception where the students, guests and wardens get to mingle. The guest who was at high table this time was Miss Gemma Coughlan, an artist who created a new painting for University Hall.  All other students come to dinner as usual, but they are allowed to bring wine or beer with them if they wear their gowns. After the sherry reception, the wardens, guest(s) and selected students process into the dining hall while everybody else stands. The Warden says grace in Latin before everyone sits down. Then the meal is served to the students at High Table, by the Wardens, as a three course dinner. There is usually wine as well. Somehow even though we were eating most of the same things we've eaten at dinner before, it tasted a whole lot better at high table. After dinner, there is a wine reception for the High Table guests.

It's a lovely tradition, but it's held fewer times each year due to budget cuts and the need for all Halls to be the same. Older halls that have been around for longer tend to hold on to these traditions, but the newer ones usually don't have them. I guess I'm lucky to be in University Hall.

The weather rigth now is lovely. We've had warm sunshine for the past two days! But before that it was terrible and included fog, cold and wind.  I like that spring is here. It's so lovely to see eveyrthing bursting into life: flowers springing thought teh grass, trees with new leaves and longer days with beautiful sunsets! Too bad I can't just play oustside all the time.

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Friday the 13th, Labs and a Bop.

3/14/2009

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Another Friday the 13th went by! I love the years when you get two in a row like that.

If you're confused, I love Friday the 13th. I don't really know why, but instead of being unlucky, they're usually quite fun and lovely. I like wearing all black and putting on dark make-up and scare people by wishing them a "Happy Friday the 13th!" Yesterday was a good day though. I had to make a poster on Parthenogenesis for my Developmental Biology class with a partner. Yesterday we had to turn in the posters and we got interviewed on them individually. I was nervous before the interview, but it turned out to be quite alright and not so scary. But I guess the grades will tell in the end. We also had a wine reception for the whole class to view the posters at 4 pm.

Our developmental biology class has a meagre 13 students in it. It is the smallest class I have ever been a part of. Ever. We had a lab on Thursday that involved limb re-grafting using stage 21 (three day old) chick embryos. It was interesting and exciting, but also nerve racking and hard to do as the embryos are no bigger than a thumbnail. When I checked yesterday, my embryo was still alive :). At least I didn't kill it.

I went to the bop last night as well and I had fun dancing with friends. One of my friends had a random guy come up and ask to dance with her. She was fine with the dancing, but when he implied that he wanted more that night, she dropped him like a hot potato. I think it's so weird how some guys can go out with the intention of picking up a girl just for one night. Makes me doubt the human race a bit, but then I remember that are loads of nice guys out there as well.

The weather here is starting to get nicer, It's a warm 12 C (54 F), lovely sunny Saturday! It should be a nice weekend, after which I should start working on an essay I have due soon.

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Life goes on...

3/2/2009

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This is probably the longest I've gone without putting up a new entry. The main reason being that I was ill for a week with the worst cold I've ever had. It was not fun. All I could do basically was eat and sleep. My friends were really nice; they came up and saw me from time to time and brought me medicines and soup and videos to watch. It's nice having friends like that.

I'm completely better now, and second semester is starting to pick up very slightly. I've had two labs so far. For my Infection & Disease virology practical, we were working with strains of the flu virus. This was interesting and slightly scary, especially for me, seeing as I had just recovered from a cold and have no intention of being that ill again for a very long time. Thankfully, I didn't get the flu.

Also, there's another string of Birthdays now which means there's a party every weekend. I've decided that I can only handle going out one night a week and I'm sticking to that. Should be good for my health and my studies ;-).

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Robin Hood and Snow!

2/5/2009

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I spent the past week in Nottingham.

I went to visit a very dear childhood friend who goes to Uni there. She's a few years younger than me and we've known each other since we were babies in India. We used to run around and play make believe games and colour together when we were kids. The last time I saw her was when I was fifteen. Now we're both grown up and its amazing how much the same we still are and yet, how different we are from who we were as kids.

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I had the most amazing time with her. We went to see the Nottingham Castle last Thursday. It's a lovely place; we walked around it taking pictures with my (semi-broken) digital camera. We also took a tour of the caves. This was fun as the tour guide told us stories of what the caves were used for and how they came in handy during the English Civil War. They were quite pretty. We also saw the statue of Robin Hood (the statue doesn't make him out to be as handsome as the films and cartoons do).

We walked around Nottingham City on the next day, and did a bit of shopping. I finally got myself a pair of skinny jeans and some nice boots to go with it!
We went into Beeston which is right next to my friend's halls of residence. It used to be a place where they kept bees. Hence the name. There were some cool shops over there as well.

On Sunday evening, it started to snow and when we woke up on Monday everything was white! It was so pretty to see so much snow. It kept snowing all throughout Monday as well. There was enough snow for people to make plenty of snowmen all around the University Campus.  That evening we went sledging on the slopes on campus and we had a snowball fight with three random guys who dared to challenge us. I'd like to say we "won", but really, I don't even know how that would be determined.

While we were sledging a bit later on, one of the girls twisted her ankle and she had to be taken to A&E (Accident and Emergency) at the hospital. It took us quite a while to get there, but she was glad when they told her it wasn't broken after they X-rayed it.

I, sadly, didn't get to build a snowman because of that. We vowed to get up early the next day and build one. We were up at seven the next morning, but when we went outside to build our snowman, we saw that all the snow had turned to ice. Which went crunch, crunch underneath our feet as we walked in it. It was such a surprise because it still looked like snow form afar, but instead of being soft and fluffy, it was hard and crunchy.

I attended a few of my friend's lectures at Nottingham Uni. She studies psychology, so most of them were quite interesting.

We went out partying on one of the nights and that was fun as well.

I got back to St Andrews this afternoon. My train from Nottingham left at 7:23 in the morning and it was snowing again when we woke up at five. The taxi had a bit of trouble getting to the train station, but in the end it got there on time and I was able to catch my train.
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Train in the Snow at Doncaster

The train moved along quite slowly, because of the snow on the tracks, I suppose.  It was a little late getting to my connecting station and I realised I had missed the connection. I was about to try and figure out were the Information desk was when I hear another guy ask some people about the next train to Doncaster, which was where I had to be as well. So I went with him to Information, and they told us to just take the next train that goes there and it shouldn't be a problem because of the weather. We did that. At Doncaster, I saw him again and it turned out that we had to catch the same next train as well. This train was delayed by 20 minutes, so we stood on the cold snowy platform and ended up waiting for ages. They kept pushing the time the train was expected at, back by a few minutes every so often.
Tired of waiting, we both got something to eat and decided to take the next train going in the direction we needed to go.  Which is what we did. We got the train, and managed to get to his station, where the train terminated. He helped me to find the correct platform to catch the next train to Edinburgh and helped me with my  bags, which I had one too many of. We enjoyed talking about the snowy weather and attempting to do the crossword puzzle in the newspaper while we were on the train.
I don't suppose I'll see him again, but he was nice.

At Edinburgh, I got out and did a little window shopping and then caught the next train to Leuchars. I reached St Andrews in the late afternoon and was so happy to be back in my room. I had missed it a lot.
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Freeeeeeeeeeedom!

1/18/2009

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Whew! My exams are over!

Except for the um... screwup in the first one, they went well, and I've come out  learning a few lessons.

One, stress makes me study better. However, excess stress makes me worry too much. Too much worry can take you to scary places and can make you screw up. A calm mind really is important when writing an exam.
Two, it's okay to not know everything for an exam and exam grades are not the be all and end all. (Although I have a harder time accepting that)
Three, it would be nice if I could find a nice balance between stress and apathy when it comes to exams. It would also help if I had a better work ethic. (If wishes were horses....) I tend to swing to the extremes, although before this set of exams I usually swung toward the not-a-care-in-the-world side before my exams.

Hmm... there'll be a new semester that will start in three weeks, lets see if I can put into practice what I've learned. Till then though... freeeeeedom! Three weeks of it. There are things that I really need to do though, like clean my room :( it's a pig sty right now.  I also would like to read a novel during this time. The option of travelling is open, and I might visit a friend or two down in England and eventually, I want to see more of Scotland. Maybe that can happen another time. We'll see.
 Right now, what I really want to do, is relax.

In other news, I found a stone in my potatoes today. We have roasted or boiled new potatoes as sides for our meals. I don't know what kind of weird method they use to cook new potatoes out here, but I don't know if I even want to know how the stone got there. It was on my plate just sitting there and I thought it was a mushroom or a charred potato, until I tried cutting it with a knife. It was round-ish and would fill a teaspoon. I'm sure it was just a one time thing and it doesn't really happen often, but it really was the weirdest thing. A stone, good heavens what next? Cardboard in the bread box??

I am having a ncie time out here though, and the food isn't as bad as it could be. I'm sure some of you might have some stories about stuff you've found in your food that wasn't supposed to be there. Care to share?

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    Clarissa D

    I'm a college student from UC Davis. I spent my junior year   studying abroad at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. These are my adventures.




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