You may remember that the reason I am here is to walk the halls (or, in this case, cloisters) of learning.
And, oh yes, it's been good times. (Here we are at one of our reading parties in the anatomy museum.)
I still need to write over the summer in order to submit the final portfolio in August for completion of the MLitt in Creative Writing degree (which is the first-year Masters; the second year is for the MFA in Creative Writing)...
(notice my new little plant friends)
...but still, when I turned in my two final papers for the term this week, I definitely got that end-of-the-school-year feeling. Contributing to that feeling is the fact that it's been super nice and sunny recently.
(the nearby park and botanic garden)
And also, my friend Rachel visited, and we traveled up to a nearby island (and what says "summer vacation" more than a trip to an island?).
Ok, maybe it wasn't the lay-out-on-a-beach kind of trip to an island, but it was very nice, all the same. Here are a few of the sights (these are isles Mull & Iona):
Dunollio Castle, in the town of Oban, as seen from the ferry ride over to Mull.
Ruins of a nunnery on the Isle of Iona. (It's an island with some pretty historical significance; worth checking out on Wikipedia.)
We also got to see a lot of sheep, (altogether now, "Aww...."), which I really enjoyed just 'cause I thought they were cool-looking.
And I think they found us pretty interesting, as well.
Either that, or they were just annoyed by us.
Either way, it was a pretty amazing place to see.
Fun to see more of Scotland.
And, of course, always fun to have a visit from a friend.
Next up, my parents are visiting the last two weeks of May (woo-hoo!); I'm traveling up north next week to work on a sheep farm (spending a week doing WWOOFing, which is where you work a few hours a day on a farm in exchange for room and board - I'll let you know how it goes, but definitely should be an adventure 'cause it's way up in the Highlands); I've got some ultimate frisbee tournaments going on (this weekend a beach tournament in the northeast; another beach tournament in St. Andrews in a couple weeks); and I'm participating in a school project for my sweet little second-cousin, Amanda, in which I take pictures of this paper guy named Flat Stanley. Like so:
(This is a view from my school, looking down on the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery.)
So, yes, I think it's going to be a very good summer vacation, indeed. Stay tuned, but until then...Happy Easter!