One Month Old

🎉 Guys, this website is officially just over a month old! 🎉

My first live entry on this website was Friday, 10 January, and here we are, Friday, 14 February—and I’m a little bit excited about this mini-milestone. Meter-stone? Foot-stone?

Anyway, I decided to do some stuff for it.

New Layout!

So, as some of you may have noticed, the layout and design of the website has changed. It’s been something that I’ve been teeter-tottering with for a while, but I finally made the decision to change the appearance, and I’m digging it. I’m glad I decided to take the leap, however small that leap seems to others! (Don’t worry; this won’t happen every month)

New Sections?!

I’m also working on some new sections for the website, which I think will be helpful to anyone considering living in Scotland, even just as a student. I know when I was making plans to study abroad, I felt like there were a lot of questions—and, of course, I had a few mishaps I had along the way—and I think I would’ve benefitted from some advice others had in certain topics, so I’m going to be working on building those up as well, with the focus mostly being on living/moving to Scotland.

Beyond this, I’m brainstorming other ideas to bring more of Scotland into this virtual space. When I first day-dreamed about making a website about Scotland, it wasn’t just to talk about my love of it and review what I’ve seen and done.

I want it to be a celebration of all things Scottish. I want people to see the awesomeness of Scotland as I see it. So I’m going to be trying to work on some other ways to broaden this and bring it to you guys.

New… Book?!

Well, sort of. I was going to publish this piece on both Kindle and iBooks, but I ran into complications with each, the biggest one being I wanted to make it available for free, but Kindle would not let me charge nothing for it.

So, I put digital publishing on-hold for a minute, so that I could make this more available at that free price I wanted to for website-viewers. Check out the new link up at the top of the page, the one called To Scotland—or click here—which will bring you to a new page of the website, where you can read this mini-book of mine!

The book is called To Scotland and it’s the story of my decision to study abroad, my falling-in-love with Scotland, and ultimately how losing Scotland hit me hard, left me depressed, and how I worked to overcome it—all woven together with different pieces of poetry and creative pieces about Scotland, including pictures I’ve taken over there.

It’s not too long, just over 8,000 word, and shares the story that up to this girl making her website, the Scottican. I wanted to put this bit of writing out into the world, but I really didn’t want to charge anyone just now, even if it was only $.99.

Reflection and Gratitude

Towards the end of 2019, I had the idea to start a website about all things Scotland and Scottish. I’d lived in Scotland for a year from 2012 to 2013, and in the years that had passed, my love of that wonderful, wee nation hadn’t changed.

Having spent so much time being depressed and frustrated about not being able to live in the country I’d grown to love so dearly, something finally switched in me. I didn’t want to continue living in frustration and discontent; I decided I wanted to make my love more positive and share it in a new medium.

What you’ve seen on this website is a lot of my own personality. I love sharing random Scotland facts, or giving people ideas of where to visit when they’re in Scotland, or helping out others who are considering studying abroad there. All of this is who I’ve been for the past few years—I’ve just decided to expand it.

And I’m really happy I did.

In my To Scotland book, I wrote that the things that we love—our passions, our ambitions, our genuine purposes in life—will completely and utterly destroy us, but they do that so that we can affirm our commitments to them.

No different than a writer who receives dozens of rejections, but still holds out hope for the acceptance. Or the dancer who falls over so many times, but still gets up and tries again. The football player who experiences injury after injury, but still finds their way back to the field for the love of the game.

I’ve come to realize that this is what all these years, still yearning for Scotland, has been for me: that knock-down so many times that looks me dead in the eye while I’m on the ground if I still want it.

Well, Scotland, I still love you as dearly as I did when I first met you, but it’s time to stop letting my desire to be there feel so negative and painful all the time, and use that love more positively.

(It’s purely coincidental that I’m posting this on Valentine’s Day; I swear this was unplanned!)

Thank you to anyone and everyone who’s just taken even a moment to look at my own little space on the internet! Thank you for the encouragement, and also for celebrating Scotland along with me; as much as I love being able to have this outlet to share my love, I love seeing others who have that some love for Scotland, or hearing from others who love another country as I love Scotland.

So, sincerely, thank you for your time and reading and positivity, and for the love you pour out into the world for whatever reason. May each of you find happiness, success, and love in however you define it in your lives heart 💖

Now, let’s get back to Scotland, shall we?