Shona McGarry | Blogger
Greetings once again from St Andrews. Danger medic is still with us, someone recently stole my tea-towel from the Kitchen of Hell, otherwise known as 4.4, and I have a new next-door neighbour who does not speak to me for reasons I do not yet fully understand. American Rave Man from the end of the corridor held the door open for me the other day, which I thought was a nice, subtle way of saying ‘I may listen to rave music twenty-four hours a day, but I respect you and your tea-towel, which I did not steal.’ Speechless medic has turned out to actually be a science student, and DM (danger medic) is still yelling at me about ‘stereotypes‘ whenever he gets the chance.
Things are so utterly exciting here that I am currently watching Fargo on my own and debating whether to turn the radiator off or not. The reason I haven’t been writing as often is due to the fact that I didn’t think ‘I went to the library’ or ‘The joke-cracking Classics girl in my class will never learn that there is no such thing as a play on the name Peisistratus’ were particularly column-worthy comments. Alas, the topic of 4.4 will always be the main event when it comes to writing about the glorious world of ABH (that’s Aggie B, the badland-located hall I live in. Hey, at least it’s not Andrew Melville, that place was used as a patient recovery centre in that well-known feel-good movie, Never Let Me Go.)
As it’s my last week here for this semester until exams, it’s also my last week in 4.4 for a while. I can’t say I’ll miss my sink-blocking, bread-borrowing, kettle-breaking chums – or, indeed, the resident flautist who keeps positioning himself inside the doorways of various charity shops and then springing ‘Danny Boy’ on unsuspecting passers-by – but I will miss my slightly-less-off-the-mark mates of 4.6.
Things are so utterly exciting here that I am currently watching Fargo on my own and debating whether to turn the radiator off or not
Last week we went over to Edinburgh again to my friend Cassandra’s house, which reminded me of everything I hate about ABH and everything I loved about living at home. This may not sound revolutionary, but to us, after two months in The Prison, it was. We got to watch a movie on a television (television!), while sitting on a thing called a ‘couch’ (feels like I haven’t sat on a couch since about 1993) have a bath, and sleep in a room that wasn’t luminous green.
Apart from missing my 4.6 pals and our weekend jaunts, I’ll also miss waking up to the sight of the sea and walking back home in the post-midnight frost of the countryside. Sure, Danger medic is dangerous, and the library is always, always packed; but being away from everything is certainly worthwhile, even if you do spend most of your time pestering your friend to let you go to her house again so you can have a bath and cuddle her cat Cocoa as if you’re some kind of lonely orphan.
That is what it feels like sometimes. You’re not an American, you’re not a first year, you don’t ‘go here,’ you’re sort of the only Irish person who decided to come from Trinity (‘You go to Trinity!’ one of my fellow Box Officers exclaimed the other day. ‘I am so jealous! Why did you come here?!’ ‘Um,’ I said. ‘The experience?’) and you’re a bit random. I don’t mind declining every event I’m invited to by Players and the Phil (STOP INVITING ME TO YOUR EVENTS, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD), and I don’t mind explaining to everyone what the hell I’m even doing here.
You’re not an American, you’re not a first year, you don’t ‘go here,’ you’re sort of the only Irish person who decided to come from Trinity
Life in this teeny, granite, three-street town is quiet, at most. That’s when I wonder – am I meant to be doing more with my Erasmus? More than just library, 4.6, Edinburgh? The pressure is on to do all you can on your Erasmus year but maybe I’m just too lazy or maybe I just enjoy spending most of my time despairing about my kitchen and playing Gondola Races on my laptop in 4.6 at one in the morning.
My Erasmus is like having another life, remarkably similar to your own, that you’re leading in another country, and that in itself is worth experiencing. That may make me a worse example than the next person, but at least I will have many anecdotes about Danger medic and his letters to 4.4 about ‘hitting the town’ to use at some time in the future.
My life here isn’t hugely exciting, but it’s another life, and an experience of another life is sort of thrilling. During the week I sell tickets for Mermaids’ shows, something that brings me back – but, thankfully, not all the way back – to directing dodgy plays at home, and sometimes we go to see films in the one-screen cinema, or sit outside Taste and mock the posh kids who compare modelling photos over coffee (this is an actual thing that happens, I promise). I always know, though, that I’m not always going to get to live in The Bubble, and that I am perfectly justified in going to North Point to buy scones and tea at least four times a week because hey, next year it’s back to K.C. Peaches for me, and living at home. I’d rather live beside DM any day.*
*statement may not be true and may just be for dramatic effect.
@shozzmcgozz
