The University Times

Shona McGarry | Blogger

So last month I came back to Dublin after my first semester in Scotland. Having just moved rooms – goodbye danger kitchen, hello party corridor – and having just finished my first-ever (and last-ever) round of Christmas exams, I was looking forward to getting home and having an actual living room, a bath, and seeing everyone I hadn’t seen in months.

As you find me, I am one month in, and I have not had a bath, or seen, well, anyone. Granted, I am currently utilising the living room that I will have for another two weeks, but as far as my social life goes, I am pretending I am still on Erasmus. It’s cold, so therefore there is no need for me to leave the house. (Similar logic to last summer – hot, therefore no need to leave house.) I don’t have a television in Scotland, so therefore television must be watched, and often. I’m starting to have a weird issue with having to go and socialise with people, even those I have known well for a long time. I think I’m getting reclusive in my at-home state. Did Dorothy have attachment issues when she returned from Oz? That question isn’t to say that I’m wandering around St Andrews trying to find a way home, but now that I’m at home, I just don’t feel like leaving the house. So much so that I think I need to go back, and soon, just to make sure I remember how to say hello, goodbye, and other vaguely social things that people say to each other.

ADVERTISEMENT

Maybe if I was in Chile or some other foreign outpost I’d have intriguing stories about that time I was on a bus for ten hours, or maybe I would have witty anecdotes detailing culture shocks, but Scotland is hardly the Galapagos Islands

I do get out when I need to, though. I’ve been to a party or two, and have found myself squarely placed in kitchens, rambling on about how weird it is being here and how no-one really ‘understands’. It’s all a cover – after all, what is there to understand? Not much, and even I know that. I think the reason I rant is because I have nothing else to talk about. What can I say to them that isn’t all about me? Maybe if I was in Chile or some other foreign outpost I’d have intriguing stories about that time I was on a bus for ten hours, or maybe I would have witty anecdotes detailing culture shocks, but Scotland is hardly the Galapagos Islands, and no-one really finds much to entertain themselves in the story of that time we went to Edinburgh and I spent ages looking for my eyebrow pencil in the car.

Maybe sometimes I feel like I would get more out of a day watching The Killing than hanging out and trying to get with the program all over again. I’ve decided to leave that for when I’m actually back, even though I am back. So why am I finding it such a bind to actually get back to Dublin in my head?

This problem is, gladly, all mine. Nobody else is to blame, and here is the proof.

1. I am the one who has forgotten faces. The other day I was waiting at the bus stop and I saw someone trying to catch my attention. I looked up, looked at him, and looked around me. Did he mean me? My face gave it away – I had, in that moment, absolutely no idea who he was. He gave a shrug and walked on. Of course, minutes later, I placed him. By then it was too late. I had already given him that warm, fuzzy feeling of I have no idea who you are, unmemorable stranger. To him – sorry. And – I remember now. And – sorry.

2. I am the one who doesn’t want to talk to you. Earlier that day I had seen a friend from class on the bus and the first thing that flashed into my mind was don’t sit beside me DON’T SIT BESIDE ME! Of course, she sat beside me. Of course, I panicked and abruptly embarked on some kind of story about a non-existent hiking club, like I had retained about 4% of already poor social skills from last year. To her, I sincerely apologise. I am actually (usually) kind of OK, I just don’t have any stories and I don’t speak English well anymore.

3. I am the one who has forgotten where you live. Two days before that I had turned up outside a house I had spent about three-quarters of my time in last year, only to end up ringing the occupant asking if I had the right door number.

4. I am the one who’s just being weird. Every time I go near Trinity and see tourists I think, I’m like you, before actually slapping myself in the face and trying to get into the library, for which I have no student card. I don’t know why I’m trying to get in there. Maybe to sit next to the Classics section and silently weep into last year’s loathed collection of Terence’s plays. Then I remember that the Classics library is up on the sixth floor and I stare at myself in the much-missed Arts Block toilets and wonder why I feel like I have been away for twelve years on a space mission instead of for four months on the closest Erasmus you could possibly do.

It could be that I am just too attached to being in my own bed after being out of it for so long

It could be that I am just too attached to being in my own bed after being out of it for so long. Or that I actually like hanging out with my parents now, which is a weird and, frankly, unsettling concept, even to someone as naturally reclusive as me. When I met some year-ago acquaintances in a nightclub the other week, I curled up into a nervous shell like a sea creature, afraid that they were going to eat me. I managed to get away with saying ‘hi’ at Barbie-ballerina level and then high-tailing it out to the smoking area.

To sum up: during my awkward inter-erasmus, I have become a pariah. Ensure, for your own safety, that you don’t bump into me. Finally, it can be concluded that yes, it is better for me to be in bed watching Danish people kill each other. Candlemas term cannot come quickly enough for me or everyone (anyone) I know.