Home away from Home

Whew, okay it's been ages since I last updated this blog. Upon arrival back in Glasgow I set straight to work finding a new place to live. This consumed the first few weeks back and now I am struggling to keep up with the work I had to put off to go look at flats, sign papers, etc. I basically got back into Glasgow and though I was happy to see Scotland again (while still being torn about missing Colorado) I was not excited to get back to my flat. It just never felt like I was actually living there. I called up a fellow PhD student who mentioned that he wouldn't mind moving out of his parent's house and into the West End and thankfully he was up for it straightaway! We set to work finding places to live, running all over town and constantly keeping an eye on websites. Finally we found a place at the top end of our price range (well, my price range) in a great location. It's just a little farther from where I was living and is in a residential area next to a primary school, a church and a playground. It feels like I'm properly living in Scotland now, in a real flat, not just bunking down in a glorified hostel.

This flat is modern, totally furnished and warm...thankfully! The flatmate situation is working out well so far. A few nights ago he came back to the flat and I was like "Hi! Um...you can join me, but I'm drinking tea, knitting and watching Frasier". I do not think he knew that he was moving in with a middle-aged spinster. He laughed about it though and did actually sit down to watch Frasier, so I think we will work out fine.

The holidays were great fun. I will not go into it too much because this blog is about living in Scotland. In relation to that though, I really do miss my life in Colorado. Things would be a little better if Scotland was just a little closer to Colorado, but it's not. Ah well, I do not have to decide between the two for another two years and in the meantime, I will cherish the time I spend with people in Colorado, knowing that I will return to my life as a PhD student here in Scotland. Part of that may also be due to the fact that that was my first proper holiday I had given myself in a long time. It is a bizarre trick to play on the mind, to have two completely disparate lives, that hardly interact with each other, no evidence given in either that the other exists. Both are solid and happy, but they do not overlap and are very different. Anyway, I am back in Scotland and that is what you are here to read about!

So yes, I have moved, which was one of my New Year's Resolutions. I also finally got a proper phone with a real phone plan. I also had to buy real insurance for the first time. Trying to be an adult without a disposable income is a bit difficult, but I seem to be making it work. These two years left will be a drop in the bucket for the income that will (hopefully) follow. Speaking of which, most of my time now is also consumed with writing funding proposals. These are ultra-competitive, but I think I am in a much better place now. I am currently working on two papers for publication, struggling with collaborators, but it is a step in the right direction. My research since I have been back has been at a standstill while I write these papers and apply for funding. I am also working on my first-year report, for which a draft of the introduction was due today. Time flies; I am already writing my first year report!

Socially, getting back has been a little slow, mostly because of the money and the move. I still had plenty of opportunities to get together with people. The first Friday back was such a blast. We went to the Common Rooms for our usual Friday night outing and since there were no undergraduates back, it was pretty quiet. As the time went on, the pub actually filled with a huge variety of scientists, each group I knew someone. There were astronomers, particle physicists, PhD students, chemists... I really spent the whole night table-hopping, catching up with tons of people. It was a great first night out. The next Saturday was a flat-warming for a friend and his girlfriend who just bought their first apartment. It was such a brilliant party; most of us did not leave until 5:30am. I bought this friend a copy of the game "Set" because you cannot find it in this country and we had talked about it before. He was so happy he almost cried when I gave it to him. We had a brilliant time playing it that night as well as drinking plenty of wine and playing trivia games.

I also have joined a knitting group to keep myself knitting. I finished my first hat the other day and am finishing up a present for one of my best friends that was supposed to be a Christmas present. I also have a super long-term project going that I do not want to give up on! This is a group of women who meet on Sundays at Starbucks in the city centre. I found them on a website that I frequent and I am really glad I did, though it does make me get dressed on a Sunday, which causes much mental distress.

The next week (last week) was the big move. The whole process really filled me with such warmth and a feeling of true friendship the way people came through for me. I had a gap between the girl who was taking my old room and my new flat becoming available. One of my friends immediately stepped up and let me stay at her and her boyfriend's flat in their spare bedroom. They were so generous and happy to have me stay. While I was there, I also watched a lot of Snooker and learned most of the rules and even have my own favourite snooker player now! It was really fun staying with them and I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did. Not only did I experience their generosity, but there were some legal issues with renting the new flat that had to do with me not being a citizen and not having a proper income, but one of my friends really helped me out with that. If I were in her position, I definitely would not have gone to the lengths that she did, so I am super grateful for that. I also had people, without question, help me move, which is always such a hassle. We got all my stuff into one car-load (can I just say, that it is very bizarre to have all of your possessions fit into a single car-load?) and took it up the road to my new place. All of this help was done without me having to really ask, though it definitely took effort for these people to go out of their way for me. It was a very encouraging process, especially coming back from Colorado.

On Friday night, sore and exhausted after the big move, I could not just collapse into my new bed in a warm flat and pass out, because I was off to a friend's ceilidh for her birthday. There is a place in the city centre that has public ceilidhs every Friday night. This is the girl that I basically replaced and she is now working a swanky bank job as a programmer. A bunch of her friends from the bank were there as well, so it was nice to meet some new people. It really was reminiscent of the public dances one sees on Masterpiece Theatre. There were quite a few large groups of people celebrating various occasions and there was a variety of outfits. Most of the men were dressed in kilts, though, even if it was just a tee-shirt on top. Ceilidhs are basically the Scottish form of a square dance, if you didn't read my blog before, and all the dances are called out and taught before the music starts. Most of them are pretty simple as long as you know basic dance moves and can keep a beat. The men are very well-trained when it comes to asking girls to dance and I only once sat out. There is lots of swinging, twirling, whooping, running into each other and the occasional fall. One of the dances we did was actual chaos. There are two sets of partners facing each other, we do a few simple dance moves, then we all go into the centre, the men put their arms around our waists and the girls who are across from each other put our arms over their shoulders. We're all facing in the middle (very closely) and hold on for dear life. The men have to lift us off the ground and spin in a circle, letting the angular momentum swing our legs off the ground. We had to do this about 10 times and it was just as terrifying for the girls as it was exhausting for the guys. It all resulted in good laughs though and it was definitely memorable. I definitely plan on going back, particularly if I have people visiting. It also turned out that one of the guys in the band, his daughter lives in Denver with her husband! It's such a small world sometimes.

On Saturday night, I went over to my friend's house because she was feeling a bit homesick and we had two bottles of wine, ordered good ol' Mr India's curry and watched 8 hours of Star Trek: The Original Series. It was a fantastic night in, not much else to say, that basically describes it. Each night, may I add, it was wonderful to come back to a nice, new, proper flat; not worried if the kitchen was going to be clean, or if the rubbish had been taken out, or if there was any toilet paper...finally a good home!

Sunday I got myself out of bed and down to the centre to knit my little heart out over a cup of tea. I came back, changed back into my pajamas and started properly unpacking, most of which still is not done because I have been working every night on this introduction that was due today. Two thousand one hundred and fifty words later, one LaTeX file properly compiling and my job is done!

Tonight, I am going to Heidi Talbot (she used to play with Cherish the Ladies) as part of the Celtic Connections festival going on right now, tomorrow I am going to see my office-mate's band play in the city, Friday I am going back to the city to meet a friend there to go to a metal club and Saturday we are having a LEGO-building party to build the 5-ft model of the Millennium Falcon so there should be plenty of updates for Sunday (after knitting, of course!)

Cheers for now!