{"id":501,"date":"2016-11-04T12:53:40","date_gmt":"2016-11-04T16:53:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/inside.gcschool.org\/gracegazette\/?p=501"},"modified":"2016-11-04T12:53:40","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T16:53:40","slug":"travel-study-scotland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/travel-study-scotland\/","title":{"rendered":"Travel and Study – Scotland"},"content":{"rendered":"

My summer 2016 was one I will not soon forget. I traveled to Scotland where I spent four weeks studying Sports Psychology and Terrorism (an odd pairing, I know) at the University of St Andrew\u2019s. Saint Andrews rests on the North Sea. When traveling to this part of the world, weather changes in an instant, meaning you must always wear layers. Wear a t-shirt, a sweater, and a raincoat with an umbrella in hand. As you walk through the streets there are two things you will notice away; its vibrant greenery and its historical feeling. Every building and stone on the street has a story; much of it complex and filled with great turmoil. In fact, down the road from the dormitory where I stayed, St. Salvator’s hall, was a road leading to castle ruins and an old cemetery, which which played an important role in the Reformation period, leaving a scar on the town\u2019s history. <\/span><\/p>\n

In the days leading up to my trip I was, without a doubt, the most excited I have ever been. My mom had just recently gotten me a new suitcase, and I packed about five days in advance. I was thrilled about the classes I was enrolled in and the new places I was going to be able to visit. It was a great jumble of emotions, mostly nervousness of the unknowns that lied ahead.<\/span><\/p>\n

Upon arrival there was an enormous sense of relief. I made it. I had raised the money for half of my trip and traveled to Europe on my own. I had an incredible feeling of accomplishment already, and I had just arrived. But then a rush of awkwardness hit me. Where did I sit on the bus? Who would I talk to? This quickly vanished when I realized how friendly everyone was. No one knew anyone else, therefore we all had to push through this clumsiness together and take strides towards being less uncomfortable. <\/span><\/p>\n

In no time at all, we were in the full swing of things and attending classes. I quickly realized that the group of students attending the program were largely girls, with only 14 boys and a whopping 58 girls. While intimidating at first, this group of people would become something like a family to me. After starting my classes, I decided that my photography teacher was too abstract for my taste as she made us walk around the beach with \u2018the perspective of a dog\u201d. I took a drastic leap and went into terrorism. I fell into the class, where we discussed education in refugee camps and how media normalization of smaller scale, terrorist attacks. We also looked at how terrorist groups work as businesses and recruitment techniques. What captivated me most was that there is always a way to help. The world is filled with the fear of the unknown and people trying to hurt others who go against what they believe. While ideals do not always align, we should each have a mutual respect for them. The idea of fighting terror, is simply making sure everyone has a space to express their ideals and morals. Since being in Scotland, I have been to conferences at the State Department in Washington DC and read about many different articles and books about the rise of ISIS and media’s role in terror. It was ironic that I had to go to Scotland to find one of my greatest interests and even greater friends.<\/span><\/p>\n

After our classes, we would play soccer or football on the field in front of St. Salvator’s Hall, also known affectionately as Sallies. Within the first week, I thoroughly embarrassed myself by breaking someone’s finger. There were many other embarrassing moments among us though. Someone was punched in the face, while we were on a ghost tour through the \u201chaunted town\u201d. Or running through the field and colliding with another person, ending up splayed on the grass. Then late at night, with two Domino\u2019s Pizzas, we would gather in dorm rooms and have dmc\u2019s (deep and meaningful conversations) until 12 am when we would be forced back into our own rooms where we would finish homework and get ready for a new day of classes. <\/span><\/p>\n

As the plane was approaching JFK, my stomach dropped. Something felt wrong. I wasn\u2019t coming home, I had just left home and it wasn\u2019t time to return to New York. When I arrived in Scotland, I was scared of homesickness, or missing something big at home and not being able to help. The fact is that traveling to an unknown place, with unknown people is intimidating. But what’s crazier is that if I hadn\u2019t gone on this trip I may not have discovered my interest in the war on terror, something I plan on continuing to study. Or never would have met some of the closest friends, who live as far away as Australia or South Africa, happily one as close as Connecticut. Or that after spending a month in a small Scottish town, that I had made friends with the people at Frasers (a local fruit stand) for the most perfect strawberries and found a place where I have never felt so comfortable to be myself. I found a space to be myself, even though it was new and far away from my normal comfort zone, with the unknown pushing me further.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My summer 2016 was one I will not soon forget. I traveled to Scotland where I spent four weeks studying Sports Psychology and Terrorism (an odd pairing, I know) at… Continue reading “Travel and Study – Scotland”<\/span> <\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"appful":[],"class_list":["post-501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9uEnr-85","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501"},{"taxonomy":"appful","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gracegazette.org\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/appful?post=501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}