April 8-15
Scotland was harsh on my feet. After waking up after sleeping as much as I could I tried to unpack, but couldn’t stand for long. Luckily I’d bought enough food to last me – if you count fruit and scones (lots of carbs too) as a meal. I took the R in the RICE method seriously and didn’t leave my flat. During that time I spent my time catching up on TV Shows, working on planning more trips, and ignoring the slowly approaching end of my exchange.
On April 10, my ankle was still coloured and painful to walk on, but the Iron throne was going to be at the mall and I wasn’t going to miss this cool photo op. I should also mention that it was free (always a plus side).
I met up with my friends at the mall and we got in line. It was a bit longer than we expected. We waited just over an hour for our turn. They had lots of cheap props for us to use. It wasn’t the greatest photo – they were zoomed in too much that none of the pictures looked as great as I would have liked. It was an ad for SkyAtlantic, so I suppose that was their focus. I did get a free chocolate dragon egg and one of the pictures printed out (I didn’t get to choose which one to print). They then took my email and sent me a day later a gif of the images. I then had to separate the images myself so I could take the pictures I liked. Also the gif is a bit unsettling.
Back to resting. My upcoming solo trip to Edinburgh was approaching and I was extremely worried I’d not be able to enjoy my time with an injured ankle. I was also feeling fairly sick (probably from only eating one meal a day as I scraped by with what little I had and what I’d picked up after the GOT photo op).
Tragedy struck during this time. I was trying to butter some bread while holding a plate and bread at the same time instead of doing what most people would, which would be using a counter to hold the plate. Basically, I lost my only plate. I didn’t have access to a vacuum cleaner so I swept as much of the broken bits with a blanket and then used the free airplane blanket I still had to cover the ground where the plate had fallen. That way I wouldn’t have to step on a forgotten piece. The moment brought me back to living on residence in my first year when I dropped one of my bowls in the bathroom. I dropped it in a similar fashion by forgetting that it was breakable and in my hand. Someone had walked in while I was cleaning and she was one of those weird people who walk in public washrooms barefoot so I warned her severely as I tried to clean it up. This is why you should not go barefoot – not just because of foot fungus, but because you never know if someone failed to clean up a broken dish.
Then, one April 14 I was unable to connect on any social media run by Facebook. Thankfully I was not planning on leaving my flat that day, but had I been out on one of my solo trips and something happened it would’ve been a complication. It was also out in the middle of the day for me too. I also experienced a few internet outages that were annoying. I’m not too mad about those as my internet has been extremely fast compared to back home.
I also got back all my marks for my assignments – all were around the 60% range with my seminar presentation (that I had the whole lost smart card situation before) was my highest at 66%. Getting a 70% would be like getting a 90% back home so I’m not too mad or upset. The UK has a harsher grading system that no one likes. English is also the only subject that I get my poorest grades in. Also, I didn’t really work that hard on those essays so it was fairly decent. The feedback though really frustrated me because it was mostly positives so I really couldn’t see why my marks were so far from 70. At least there were no grammar or citation errors.
The creative writing contest for UNB’s deadline was April 15, so I sent one of my pieces to Meaghan to submit for me. The piece was based on an almost entirely word-for-word about one of my experiences in Scotland. If it wins I’ll share it with you all.
Also, I figured I’d register for my courses for next year since I had some free time. That’s when I realized I’d missed the deadline to register for my psych honours. So I panicked and emailed the professor to explain my situation as I didn’t even know there was a deadline. Also, they never announced it anywhere so how was I supposed to know? She told me to send it then and she’ll see what she can do. It’s currently May 21 and I don’t know if I’m in or not. Well, at least I have my English honours. However, if I don’t get in I don’t know what I’m going to do as I need my psych honours to get into post-grad. There is room in the program for me and I only applied a couple of days late, so I’m hoping I’ll be fine. Also, I have a really good psych GPA.
Being in England and everything has opened me up to understanding more about myself and thinking about what I really want to do when I’m older. Becoming a psychologist has always been number one for me since it’s the highest paying career path I would enjoy following. However, there are a bunch of other things I would love to do with my English degree, but I’m not as set on. That’s why I am planning a gap year as I would like to continue exploring those options as I already know what it’s like for what I want to do with psychology. Since psychology is a huge commitment and requires a lot of focus and will take a few years to finish, it’s best to delay until I’m certain this is what I want.
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