I plan my topics ahead of time, but this seemed to come up at the perfect time to write about. When I was applying to St Andrews from my Glasgow state school, I was excited about the international aspect of the student population. This quickly changed to bewilderment and flipped to confusion when I realised that, in Scotland, I feel the odd one out.
Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly patriotic and I love sharing this culture with everyone, but it's hard to feel proud of a part of you that separates you so distinctly from the "cooler" or "smarter" people in your year. And, with the Tab controversy rising up on people's For You Pages, it feels prevalent to talk about the experience of feeling like the visitor in your own home.
St Andrews to me represents hope, new beginnings, the chance to heal past scars, but most importantly it represents home already. Walking through these streets I've never felt more in place; I never thought a town could feel so right for me. But the magic that was supposed to come so simply has ended up being hidden at the other end of a labyrinth of questions and words I don't understand.
Credit: Louise Millar.
I feel like, for the international students, being Scottish is heavily romanticised. For something that has been granted my entire childhood, hearing my own words repeated back to me in a strange twist of laughter and heavily rolled Rs never fails to make me take pause. Seeing the joy people find in cèilidhs and haggis and the countryside is amazing and I couldn't feel prouder of my tiny country - and at least I always feel prepared for the weather - but it's strange when the thing you love most doesn't feel more than a fiction with an incredibly passionate fanbase. Am I cosplaying the British student just like everyone else?
Moving into the abyss of unbelonging was the hardest two-hour journey I've taken. Not only am I Scottish, I'm from a relatively poor area of Scotland. I never felt like I fitted into the town I came from, which is why St Andrews called to me so suddenly and so strongly.
But my words sound so distinct from everyone else's and their looks of confusion speak more than their voices ever could – I speak strangely and people struggle to understand me, so I must be less intelligent. I've experienced this in England many times before, but I never thought I'd be made to feel less intelligent as a Scot in Scotland. Of course, there's the element of bias coming from a state school as well, which can be placed down to classism, but what irks me is the disdain I get purely because of my hometown from people who have never even visited.
留言