Updates from Snowy Edinburgh

Before I can get to them though, I need to a bunch of stuff to be allowed to progress into Honours, one of which is write a personal statement, very similar to the one I wrote for my university application in the first place. This gives me some level of anxiety as I have no problem writing academic texts, but when it comes to self-reflection and ‘selling myself’ to convince someone that I am worth a shot, I do tend to struggle a little. Either way, it has to be done and I guess you’ll find out how it went in my next blog post.

Another thing that Social Work students have to do in order to progress into Honours Years is volunteer in the social care for the duration of Semester 2. This experience is also directly linked to one of my courses this semester, Working and Relating: Developing Your People Skills, which prompts you to think about your own experiences in an educated way and aims to develop your emotional intelligence. I started volunteering for a local community project, which, among other things, runs a variety of weekly workshops and classes for people who find themselves isolated for any reason whatsoever. We have adults with mental health issues and learning disabilities, people with physical disabilities but also people with previous criminal convictions, who come to our workshops.

I, personally, attend drama classes every Thursday evening, which the Grassmarket Community Project organises in collaboration with another non-profit organisation Raised Voices, who focus mainly on homeless people in Edinburgh. I was nervous going into it, since I knew I was going to enter an already established collective. I have to say though that even though I am the only foreign person in our group and there is a notable age difference between me and the other members, I do feel welcomed and accepted and I am loving my experience so far. We are coming up with a play from scratch and although we still are in early stages of the process, we plan on performing the final product during the annual Fringe Festival, which is a big cultural festival that’s happening in Edinburgh every summer.

Speaking of summer, it feels very far away right now as it’s snowing in Edinburgh and Scotland is clearly not used to snow and temperature below 0°C, so the university had to close down due to severe weather warning. I’ve hardly been to any classes this week because most lectures are striking with the University and College Union (UCU) against planned changes to their pension scheme. The strike is supposed to last four weeks, so even though I fully support the strike, I am not entirely sure how many contact hours I will get this month. Nonetheless, it’s essay season so I definitely do not complain about extra free time to get stuff done.