Oh whelp, I’ve really let the past few months get away from me. I’ll try to recap here, the end of my first term in Edinburgh!
What I had spent all semester learning began to culminate into a series of group projects and final essays. The social sciences utilize a very different style of writing and banks of knowledge than I’d previously grown accustomed to in my engineering undergrad so I spent the last two weeks of the semester hunkered down, trudging through these assignments but got there in the end! Some of the topics I covered in my final assignments were:
Vulnerability analysis of food security and nutrition
How infrastructure development relates to distributional justice and planning power
Instances of environmental injustice and the theories of power that contributed to it
Analyses of the slogan: End Climate Colonialism
The UK government's decision to cut international funding
Food waste in the global north
Soil degradation
As you can see, it's a pretty wide range of topics and almost all of them have been completely new to me.
a view of dunnottar castle; my travel pals walking towards the castle; a view of the sea along the walk
Some of the exploring I did around Scotland consisted of a short weekend trip to Aberdeen – the highlight for me was Dunnottar Castle. It’s perched rather precariously on a cliff and seems like it could slide off into the sea at any moment. The combination of lush greenery and the blue water made the walk out to the castle and the surrounding area feel idyllic.
Mid-November brought with it the lighting up of Edinburgh for the Holidays. The decorations in combination with the couple of days of snow we had meant it really did feel like Christmas. The Christmas market returned to the city this year and while it was nice…I think it may have been just a tad overhyped lol.
julia and i in front of the old college's christmas tree; a campus building - teviot lit up for the holidays; radical book fair sign; the hand turkeys i made everyone make during thanksgiving; a view of new town, edinburgh
It was strange going about my week as normal when Thanksgiving rolled around but the two thanksgiving dinners I got to be apart of more than made up for it. I hosted one at my flat with friends from school and then attended one with my church community. Both consisted of squeezing more people than would typically be comfortable into little flats and sharing some thanksgiving traditions. While I missed being with my family, I had such a lovely time celebrating and sharing meals with new friends.
Other random bits and bots about this month:
Attended the Rotary Christmas dinner with my host club where I tried my first mince pie and in a rather random twist, enjoyed the entertainment of a flamenco dinner
Attend Edinburgh’s Radical Book Fair where I had to hold myself back from buying every book in sight *sigh
Made a silly, goofy Christmas card with Lydia (my flat mate)
Enjoyed an evening around the fire with some German mulled wine and holiday biscuits
Wrapped up the first terms project with Six Degrees – being apart of this organization is both incredibly challenging and organizing but I’m so fortunate to work with the best team
Visited the Balerno farmers market to spend time with my hosting club and chat to them as they sold holiday goods for a fundraiser - as I was strolling around the town afterwards I stumbled upon the sweetest little walled garden
cozy backyard fire and mulled wine; an afternoon snow flurry; this years christmas card (can you spot first minister of scotland nicola sturgeon?); a peek of game night
With that, thank you for your support! I’ll try to be a more consistent post-er in the future ha.
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