Natural Candids

Welcome to some of the scenery I've been immersed in.

These are brought to you by my trusty phone. 

A Sunday walk to church in Glasgow.

A canopy of twinkle lights? Yes, please!

The view from my common room kitchen.

Oh, you know. More of the same.

A little stroll in Glasgow.

Nature in the middle of Glasgow.

A loch.

It's amazing what you can see on a bus.

Somewhere near Stirling.

Another loch.

A stream yo!

The waterfall that feeds that stream.

Can you guess what this is? Wrong. It's a lake. 

Two bridges, even though one is called the Forth bridge. The one on the left was built in 1964 and is being replaced. The one on the right was built in 1890 and is still standing strong.

A low view of the castle in the early morning.

Edinburgh in the sunlight.

The view outside of Costco.

Okay, correction, it's really the view outside of Ikea. But Ikea is right next to Costco.

Making Friends

Since I'm far away from home, I was a little nervous about being able to meet those that I might be able to truly bond with. I worried about finding those I might be able to really enjoy.

Not anymore.

I had the best experience of Scotland so far. I got to meet some highland coos!!!!!

As a little background. A highland coo, is just a cow. But they're awesome. They're big, have two coats of fur, and awesome horns. 

And without further ado, I present Katrina. 

Isn't she a beauty?

My roommate's boyfriend understood the importance of the moment and tried to join in as much as possible.

He was not able to embrace the proper amount of excitement as exhibited below.

  

Here are some notes of interest about these magnificent beasts.

1. They will scratch their necks on anything, be it pole fencing or barbed wire.

2. They let out a weird low moo that sounds more like a growl.

3. They are apparently unaware of the damage they are capable of.

The have been known to break jaws and knock out teeth with those awesome horns.

4. Their fur is not soft. It is wiry and coarse, but surprisingly clean.

5. They have huge faces.

6. And long tongues.

7. They have huge bodies and short little legs that make them hard to blow over cliffs. True story, yo.

8.Their spit is surprisingly not that gross on the ew scale. 

A mastiff is way worse.

I can only hope to rejoin her one day.

Educated Self-deprecation

Going back to school has opened up my eyes about a few things. Mostly, you know you're a linguistic nerd when...

1. You want to rewatch Star Wars to analyze Yoda's speech patterns.
2. You fangirl over professors because they know ALL THE GRAMMAR!
3. You also fangirl over The Hobbit's introduction page and most anything J.R.R. Tolkien.
4. You get a kick out of reverse-transcribing IPA texts.
5. You start to think in sample sentences. Especially ones with the verb kill. (Linguists are all quite homicidal it seems.)
6. You laugh over Old English jokes years later.
7. You get angry when your Phonology professor doesn't recognize your accent in transcriptions.
8. You have several instances a day where you practice your vowels and their locations. Ahhhhhhhh. Ooooh. Ehhhhhh.
9. You finally stop, well, almost stop giggling whenever your professor says PP for prepositional phrase. (Yes, I do have the humor of a 13-year-old boy.)
10. You over-analyze bad fake accents and identify the allophonic mistakes.
11. You want to inflict physical violence on the annoying undergrad that is attempting to argue phonetic spelling with the grammar professor when the student obviously doesn't know a diphthong when he sees one.

12. You have to resist going into detailed explanations of the history English whenever anyone complains about specific spelling or pronunciation instances they have problems with.

13. You want to defend your dialect rather than your country.

14. You are more annoyed with people that insist there is a "correct" way of saying things than those that have divergent speech patterns.
15. You have a preferred theory and approach to grammar. (Construction grammar for the win!)
16. Your professor offers you an early Christmas treat by explaining the historical development of ish.
17. You understand and chuckle over the comment, "One man's micro-construction is another man's schema."

Life as a Scottie

Here are some of the things I've picked up since I've been here.

-The ground floor is always the 0 floor; therefore, the 1st floor is what would be the 2nd floor in the US.

-You wind up taking the stairs a lot when you're embarrassed you got off the "lift" early.

-Pumping = farting.

-Cab drivers will yell at you if they think you took their right of way, but will still call you "madam" while yelling at you.

-Irradiated milk is awesome. I knew this from Spain, but it's come back to me.

-You can get cereal by the kilogram.

-It's kind of weird getting a flash of underwear from a guy in a kilt.

-Crumpets can make the world go round.

-Goldfish are known as Finz here.

-Electric kettles are the bees knees!! Especially when you have a cold.

-Yes, the chocolate is amazing.

-It's not bobbing for apples. It's dooking for apples.

-An assessment is a school assignment on which you get a mark not a grade.

-Cobblestones = death. Some may know about my "delicate" ankles. Otherwise known as I'll trip on any slightly uneven surfaces and sometimes completely flat surfaces because my ankles like to give out on me. Add to that my bad balance and my life is an adventure just walking. No imagine no concrete. Just cobblestones. Sure, some are big and square and mostly flat, but that doesn't mean they have grip when it rains or won't kill you if you attempt to wear heels. 

-I find it odd seeing all the muscle-men at the gym....who are ghostly white. Maybe It's just that I'm now the minority because I have a tan. But....wow. I didn't realize just how white you can be. 

-Fake tans are EVERYWHERE.

I love the interwebs....

Especially when it brings me treasures like this.

I know. For some this is blasphemy. But I laughed until I cried. And am still laughing some more.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Here are some of the things I've realized I already miss from the good ole' U. S. of A.

-Proper pillows. The Brits just don't understand real head and neck support.

-Bedding that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and isn't all synthetic. You never realize the beauty of cotton until you're in constant humidity.

-Half-sizes in shoes. Seriously. They hate me here. I can't find any shoe that's a 7 1/2 in US sizing that isn't over 30 pound. My bargain shopping heart has had to deal with a couple of heart attacks already.

-Ross.

-Target.

- Tumble dryers. Three words. Lint. Humidity. Baggy. I miss the shrinking effect on my pants.

-Carne Asada.

-Chairs that aren't so easy to tip over.

-Real plush furniture.

-Keyboards that have the @ symbol on the 2 key. I've typed way too many suzanna.kincaid"gmail.com already.

-Cuddles and princess tea parties.

-Booty shaking music at dances.
-Hugs. I'm a huggy person. I just need some lovin.
-Pets.
-My pantry. It's kind of annoying to have to completely start from scratch. I miss my spices. My staple cans of tomato sauce and black beans. Not to mention easy-access baking supplies.
-Other assorted mushy stuff like family and what-not.

Requiem for the Past

I know that there are some people who will say that I never had a real college experience because of my undergrad at BYU. 

And you know what? I'd agree with them.

The most experimentation I did was seeing how long into fall semester I could wear sandals.

Instead of embracing my feminism and shedding the shackles of male oppression, I simply didn't shave my legs in winter out of laziness and a love of tights.

My Friday nights consisted of sugar-induced highs and mood-altering movies.

I perfected my wiles and honed my seduction skills through baking.

My Monday hangover was from staying up too late trying to flirt with that one guy at ward prayer.

The embarrassing photos that found their way to facebook were a result of FHE and "ice breaker" activities.

So, yes. My college experience was quite different.  But boy oh boy am I being thrown into the so-called real college culture here.

Want to know my biggest complaint?

Of course you do.

It's not that everyone gets to know each other by going out for drinks. It's not trying to pick out accents with swear words as punctuation. And it's not having to duck, slide, and alter my course altogether to try and avoid second-hand smoke.

No.

It's the lack of social and cultural acceptance of public napping.

I long for the days of claiming the couches in the JFSB. I relish my memories of curling up under the display case in the Benson building. And I fondly reminisce over resourcefully creating a nest.

But alas, we can never go back...

(Yes, I slept, and probably drooled, in all those locations; and quite a few more.)