#Study in Scotland for International Students

[the-proeducator-blog]

How to Apply to Universities in Scotland as an International Student: A Step-by-Step Guide

Scotland, with its stunning landscapes, vibrant culture, and renowned educational institutions, is a popular destination for international students. From world-class universities to diverse academic programs, studying in Scotland is a dream for many. If you’re considering pursuing higher education here, this guide will walk you through the application process, visa requirements, and tips to help you secure a place at one of the best universities in Scotland for international students.

Why Choose Scotland for Higher Education?

Scotland is home to prestigious universities such as the University of Edinburgh, the University of Glasgow, and the University of St Andrews. These institutions offer exceptional academic programs, cutting-edge research opportunities, and a supportive environment for international students. Here are some reasons why Scotland stands out:

A rich history of academic excellence.

Welcoming and diverse student communities.

Opportunities to explore breathtaking natural landscapes.

Access to world-class facilities and career opportunities post-graduation.

Whether you’re interested in arts, science, business, or technology, Scotland offers something for everyone.

Step 1 – Research the Best Universities in Scotland

The first step is to research and shortlist the universities that align with your academic goals. Consider:

Courses and Programs: Ensure the universities offer programs that suit your interests.

Rankings and Reputation: Look at global rankings and student reviews.

Location: Choose a city or region in Scotland that aligns with your lifestyle preferences.

Tuition Fees and Scholarships: Compare costs and explore available scholarships for international students.

For a detailed overview of the top universities, check out this guide on best universities in Scotland for international students.

Step 2 – Understand Entry Requirements

Each university has specific entry requirements, so it’s essential to review them before applying. Common requirements include:

Academic Qualifications: Equivalent to the UK’s A-levels or undergraduate degree for postgraduate programs.

English Language Proficiency: Exams like IELTS, TOEFL, or PTE are widely accepted.

Personal Statement: Highlight your achievements, goals, and reasons for choosing the program.

References: Obtain letters of recommendation from professors or employers.

Tip: Review the specific requirements for your course on the university’s official website.

Step 3 – Submit Your Application

Undergraduate Applications

For undergraduate courses, most applications go through UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service). Here’s how:

Create a UCAS Account: Register on the UCAS website and fill out your profile.

Choose Your Courses: You can apply to up to five courses.

Upload Documents: Include your academic transcripts, personal statement, and references.

Pay the Application Fee: UCAS charges a small fee for processing applications.

Postgraduate Applications

For postgraduate programs, you’ll need to apply directly to the university.

Visit the university’s official website.

Complete the online application form.

Upload supporting documents, including your CV, statement of purpose, and academic records.

Tip: Submit your application early to increase your chances of acceptance.

Step 4 – Secure Your Visa

Once you’ve received an offer from a university, the next step is to apply for a Student Visa.

Tier 4 (General) Student Visa: For courses longer than six months.

Short-term Study Visa: For courses shorter than six months.

Required Documents for a Student Visa:

CAS (Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies) from your university.

Proof of financial support to cover tuition fees and living expenses.

Valid passport and recent photographs.

Proof of English language proficiency.

Apply for your visa through the official UK government website and prepare for a biometric appointment.

Step 5 – Plan for Accommodation

Finding suitable accommodation is a crucial step before moving to Scotland. Common options include:

University Accommodation: On-campus housing is convenient and allows you to socialize with fellow students.

Private Rentals: Flats or shared housing offer more independence.

Homestays: Live with a local family to experience Scottish culture firsthand.

Tip: Start your accommodation search early to secure the best options within your budget.

Step 6 – Adapt to Life in Scotland

Moving to a new country is exciting but can also be challenging. Here are some tips to help you adapt:

Learn About Scottish Culture: Embrace the local traditions, try Scottish cuisine, and explore the countryside.

Stay Connected: Join student societies and participate in events to build friendships.

Manage Your Finances: Open a local bank account and budget wisely.

Final Thoughts

Applying to study in Scotland is a rewarding journey that opens doors to endless opportunities. By following this step-by-step guide, you’ll be well-prepared to secure a place at one of the best universities in Scotland for international students and make the most of your academic experience.

Scotland’s world-class education, combined with its rich culture and breathtaking landscapes, promises an unforgettable journey for international students. Start your application process today and take the first step toward achieving your dreams!

[ef-1]

kate! this may be a weird question but how did you decide you wanted to do law and which law school to go to? im so confused with what i want to do and would appreciate any advice ❤️

nice try feds

[writerscupsoftea]

Good Morning, Edinburgh

About two years ago, my parents traveled to the UK, and although they spent a majority of their time in England, they did spend their first two days in Scotland. Edinburgh, to be more specific. And both nights when they called us, they told me how perfect this place was for me. So, naturally, I applied and got into univeristy, took out a student loan, said goodbye to all my friends and family,…

[lightofraye]

Deaf History

I mentioned in an earlier post that I am a part of the deaf community. Being labeled CODA (child of deaf adult(s)) is what a person like myself is called. I am hearing, I can hear, but both of my parents, two of my three brothers, and vast majority of my maternal relatives are deaf. I grew up in that community, I grew up feeling more at home in that community than I ever did in the hearing community.

There's a whole culture to being deaf. There's the language, reading body language to convey tone, there's a whole thing about being deaf that goes beyond just knowing Sign Language. This is why when learning Sign Language, being immersed in it is the best way to learn. (But then, this is true of any and all languages.)

In so many ways, ASL (American Sign Language) is my first language. I learned how to sign first before I learned how to speak with my voice. I frequently found myself wishing I could go to the deaf school instead of the public school because I was more comfortable around deaf people than I was hearing people. (And no, I would not have been allowed to attend deaf school; it's restricted for deaf students only.)

I grew up accustomed to watching television, movies, etc, with captioning or subtitles. In fact, it's weird for me to watch them without. My mother didn't believe me at first until she asked an interpreter who was also CODA. The interpreter said it was the same for her.

My parents met at Gallaudet, the country's first, and so far, only deaf university. In fact, it's the first in the world. The history of Gallaudet, of American Sign Language, was all because of one man.

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet's life was forever changed because of a deaf little girl named Alice.

Alice wasn't playing with other children and that drew his attention. Concerned as to why, Thomas found out that Alice was deaf and could not communicate at all. Determined to teach her, Thomas taught Alice what different objects were called by writing their names and drawing pictures of them with a stick in the dirt. Alice's father was impressed and hired Gallaudet to continue teaching Alice through the summer.

Alice's father, along with several businessmen and clergy, asked Gallaudet to travel to Europe to study methods for teaching deaf students. There was a family in Scotland that they wanted to work with, but that family refused for whatever reason. Plus, Gallaudet found their preference for oral communication extremely limited and did not produce desirable results.

While in Great Britain, Gallaudet met Abbé Sicard, head of the Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets à Paris, and two of its deaf faculty members, Laurent Clerc and Jean Massieu. Gallaudet was invited to Paris to study the school's method of teaching the deaf using manual communication. Gallaudet studied the teaching methodology under Sicard, learning sign language from Massieu and Clerc.

Gallaudet sailed back to America with Clerc. The two men toured the New England region and raised funds for a deaf school in Hartford, Connecticut. It later became known as the American School for the Deaf in 1817. Alice was one of the first seven students.

One of Gallaudet's children, his youngest, founded the first college for the deaf, in 1864.

It is due to Gallaudet that American Sign Language even exists. Despite many an indigenous tribe having their own form of sign language, none ever became the official form of sign language for the United States.

Almost each country have their own form of sign language. No, it is not the same, and language barriers exists for deaf people as well. There was even an invention of an International Sign Language that was used during the Deaf Olympics to help bridge communication issues.

I love sign language. It is the third most widely used language in the United States. First is English, second is Spanish, and third is Sign Language. No, deaf people are not dumb (I honestly hated that old saying and am happy to see it finally phasing out). They can read, write, live independently, work, drive, you name it--there are solutions to each of their problems. Accessible solutions.

Having visible celebrities such as Shoshannah Stern, Marlee Matlin, and so forth help bring attention to such existence. Switched At Birth, a television show, also spotlighted deaf characters. Recently, a movie called CODA, helped spotlight--and it won an award, too.

I continue to be proud of my heritage. I hope to continue to teach my son how to sign--and taught him the most important one.

The one that says "I love you".

[bluedalahorse]

do you have any headcanons/theories about any characters life before hillerska or their future? can be lighthearted or serious whatever

I sure do! This is an incomplete list, if that’s okay? I also linked some fanfics that explore some of the ideas. I figured I’d list the things at the forefront of my brain:

Before Hillerska headcanons, mostly Kristina focused:

When Kristina was born, a law was passed that allowed her to inherit the throne, because originally the throne was only supposed to go to male heirs. Carl Johan was Kristina’s backup.

Kristina and Carl Johan were, as Kristina says, very close in their teenage years. Kristina’s father the king had a mistress that Kristina hated, and Carl Johan (but never Kristina) was sometimes invited to lunch with her there? I guess I imagine like, Carl Johan probably needed some extra parenting so Kristina’s dad kind of stepped in to make sure he got attention but it was always Patriarchy Guys Club Attention. Anyway, Carl Johan would come home and talk shit about the mistress to cheer Kristina up.

One of Kristina’s close female friends at Hillerska was Iranian. Said friend’s family was in the inner circle of the shah and fled during the 1979 revolution.

Årnäs had horses when August was a little kid, and small August interacted with them a lot.

Simon and Sara slept in bunk beds as little kids. Here’s my fic about it.

After Hillerska headcanons:

Sara, Simon, and Linda move to Göteborg like they discussed doing at the end of season three. Simon and Ayub have regular video chats. Linda starts dating again around this time. I have a little anecdote about that time in this fic. Meanwhile, this fic focuses on Sara right before the move.

Simon does not become a pop star. He studies music history, theory, and composition and gets into more formal choral music, especially more experimental stuff like this one soundtrack piece in Portrait of a Lady on Fire. (Yes, Simon writes for women’s choruses a lot.) Simon’s master’s thesis is on music as a form of resistance during the Franco regime.

Sara goes to university and becomes part of a neurodivergent students self-advocacy group. She gets into disability advocacy as a line of work, first as an online content creator. Sara does spend some time working for a toxic non-profit that takes advantage of her passion before finally leaving.

With Hillerska closing, Felice looks abroad for her next boarding school. She ends up at an all-girls school in Scotland and, in an effort to try something completely out of her comfort zone, signs up for the field hockey team. She and Sara remain in contact throughout this time.

After university, Felice does a lot of traveling. She studies African cooking traditions and African diaspora food, and uses it as inspiration for a future restaurant. Before Felice opens a restaurant, however, she opens a food truck. Her parents are a bit scandalized. For a time, Wilhelm helps out with Felice’s food truck.

Simon and August are eventually able to talk some stuff out and build a new kind of relationship, when at one point they have to band together to help Wilhelm. This is the scenario in which that happens.

Also from the scenario above, Wilhelm explores gender a bit and comes to the conclusion that he’s nonbinary. He discovers drag as a hobby and uses it to process a lot of his bigger emotions.

In one of my favorite fics, I sent Nils and then August off to Georgetown University in Washington DC. (My home, as it happens.) August interns with the House of Sweden. Given things happening IRL now, I wouldn’t want August and Nils to be at Georgetown this year. This fic is bittersweet for me for a lot of reasons, but I’m still very proud of the writing.

In the fic above, Nils gets an American-Icelandic boyfriend named Jonas who will eventually go back to Sweden with him. They will have a shared dog called Moxy.

August will also leave the line of succession someday. I don’t have a fic about that yet but I want to.

Vincent is one of the first Hillerska students of his year to get married and the first to get divorced. He has an obviously ADHD daughter called Juni and needs to learn to grapple with his own internalized ableism. Here’s a fic I wrote about that.

Stella and Fredrika date for a year, have a horrendously dramatic breakup, then come back together as best friends who still occasionally have sex with one another.

Fredrika intially studies art history in that “rich girl who doesn’t need a job so this is my cute hobby” way but over time learns to actually respect it as an academic discipline. Stella does a lot of introspection as an adult and ends up working in education and attempts to enact anti-bullying measures.

Fredrika discovers she’s aromantic, and that a lot of her romantic notions were based around the idea of like “of course this is what people do, right?” She also figures out that she rather likes domming in the bedroom. I have additional NSFW headcanons about this, which aren’t going to show up on my main page.

Perhaps relatedly, Stella discovers she has a humiliation kink. I have parts of this fic written, but really need to finish it.

If Hillerska re-opens, Henry and Walter and Alexander will all go back and be the new third years. They then have to figure out how to be the third year leaders and decide if they want to make the school a better place. I kind of envision this as a fic where Alexander’s… maybe become a bit of a bully in response to getting kicked around in other people’s power games? Like, as a bit of a trauma response. And he has to heal and unlearn that. I am not the person to write this fic but I hope someone does. I would like to read it.

I am not sure what happens to Maddie post-canon but I suspect she manages to magically transport herself to another dimension. I hope she’s safe there.

That’s all for now but hopefully it’s a good list!

[starboishifting]

⋆˙⟡♡ || better c/r info

my name is charlie lee (they/he), i'm 20 years old and am widely known for my content creation. my boyfriends are ethan (he/him) and andy (they/them), both of whom gained their initial popularity through tiktok for their marauders cosplays. i cosplay, too, though less actively than they do, and i join their streams on occasion, but more out of love for them than for an actual care for streaming.

⋆˙⟡♡ || school

i am an art major at paracosm academy, a school i created. the school has three major branches; one in manhattan, one in edinburgh, and one in seoul. it accepts students beginning at age 14 and extends into undergraduate programs up to master's degrees. i went to school in seoul until i turned 19, when i made the decision to move to edinburgh to be with my best friends. the school offers everything from bioengineering to philosophy, from psychology to art history, from gender studies to forensic sciences, from contemporary dance to comparative religion. there's something for everyone, and it's completely free; even the branch in the us. there is a unifrom up until age 18, or the end of senior year of high school, whichever comes first. that's not to say it's not difficult, because it most certainly is. however, there are a million opportunities for anyone coming out of the school, with thousands of intern/extern programs, apprenticeships, hiring opportunities, and more. i am double majoring in fashion design and traditional art; my final for both this year is a piece inspired by greek mythology, so i'm making both thanatos themed. of course, ethan and andy are helping.

⋆˙⟡♡ || family

my parents were both massive marketing moguls who ended up buying into major companies and then selling those stocks two decades later to end up richer than god. my brother, elliot, is now a world-famous chef based out of seoul, so i stayed with him while i was in seoul instead of living on campus. my parents live in greece, because they moved there from seoul a year before i was born because they were 45 and wanted an early retirement. they bought too much land and ended up 'loaning' it out to the residents of the island (the residents use the land for whatever they want and we make sure the government can't say shit or tax them unfairly). when i was growing up, my mum and dad, yuri and thomas, gave me all their time and attention, simply because they could and i was worth that. every summer, we'd go to a different country and spend the warm months there. my favorite was when i was 16 and we went to france, where i met ethan for the first time. we've been to russia, america, italy (to be fair we go to italy all the time but still), malta, india, vietnam, singpore (my second favorite, because goddamn the architecture is simply exquisite), canada, brazil, peru, chile, germany, turkey, france, thailand, china, japan, poland, slovakia, england, and many other countries over the years for so many things; i've never once flown coach.

⋆˙⟡♡ || friends

most of my friends don't live in edinburgh because i've spent so much of my life in seoul or traveling. but my favorite people all live in scotland; ethan and andy (obviously), @zipper-is-ranting, wanda, damien, taylor, ashlyn, etc. to be honest, if i didn't meet someone at school, i know them through ethan and andy, because i never leave the goddamn flat.

⋆˙⟡♡ || how i met ethan

when i was 16 years old, my parents decided to give me what i'd been asking for for years; a summer in france. on the third day of our stay, they'd sent me out of the hotel so they could "sleep", and i spent the morning walking through paris, nothing but adoration in my eyes. eventually, i grew hungry, and i found myself wandering into a little patisserie. I ordered far too much, my eyes much larger than my stomach. besides, i'd just bring some back for mama and papa. but as i'm walking out, carrying all these bags and boxes of pastries and breads and sweets, i bump into the prettiest boy i've ever seen in my life. i know the second my eyes meet his that i'll never move on. not only does he help me balance the bags and boxes, but when i offer him some of the food as thanks, he very promptly says, "fuck it," and leads me to a small park. we spend the entire day there, eating ourselves sick and laughing until long after the sun's set. he walks me back to my hotel, gives me his number, and we see each other every day for the rest of my trip. after i go back to school, we stay in touch, talking almost every day for years until i move to scotland.

⋆˙⟡♡ || how i met andy

i met andy after ethan did. them and ethan met over tiktok when they started stitching each other's videos (i, of course, watched this all occur from afar, giggling my ass off as i watched my best friend develop this absolutely debilitating crush), and when i went to visit ethan once, he introduced me to andy and the rest of his irl friends. andy and i instantly hit it off, and i (also) had a massive crush on this slovakian spitfire almost instantly. i spend a month in edinburgh, getting to know ethan's friends and spending a bit too much time with andy. by the time i go back to seoul, i'm vegan and head-over-heels in love with my two favorite people who are falling in love with each other.

⋆˙⟡♡ || the future~

the future? bright.

[scotianostra]

26th June 1824 saw the birth of William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, eminent physicist.

Most people remember William Thomson, or Lord Kelvin as he is universally known nowadays as the man who gave us the Kelvin scale of temperatures but as with most clever people there is a lot more to know about him besides.

Although born in Northern Ireland, William Thomson spent most of his life in Scotland after his father became Professor of Mathematics at Glasgow University. Kelvin attended university classes from the age of 10. He wrote his first scientific paper, under the pseudonym ‘PQR’, aged only 16.

In his teens he learned French well enough to read the work of eminent French mathematician Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier. Philip Kelland, Professor of Mathematics at Edinburgh University, had criticised Fourier’s work on the theory of heat. Kelvin boldly stated that Kelland was wrong – and later scientists agreed with him.

From 1841 to 1845 Kelvin attended Cambridge University. He was an excellent student – although he shocked his father by spending his allowance on a boat. After graduating, Kelvin worked in a Paris laboratory with physics professor Victor Regnault.

Kelvin was influenced by the mathematical ideas of George Green, a self-taught miller’s son from Nottingham. He later brought an essay of Green’s to the attention of fellow mathematicians and physicists by republishing it in a respected scientific journal. Until then the essay on mathematical analysis, electricity and magnetism had gone largely unnoticed.

In 1846, aged only 22, Kelvin returned to Glasgow to become Professor of Natural Philosophy. He remained in this post for an astonishing 53 years. Keen to see students involved in practical experiment, he established what became the first university physics laboratory. Kelvin continued to study the nature of heat. He realised that it would be useful to be able to define extremely low temperatures precisely. In 1848, he proposed an absolute temperature scale, now called ‘the Kelvin scale’.

After further research, Kelvin formulated the second law of thermodynamics. This states that heat will not flow from a colder to a hotter body.

His interest in the transmission of electricity prompted Kelvin’s appointment as Director of the Atlantic Telegraph Company in 1856. The company was to install a telegraph cable under the Atlantic Ocean. Atlantic Cable Expeditions in 1857, 1858 and 1865 failed, but communication by cable finally succeeded in 1866.

From 1870 onwards, Kelvin spent many summers on his yacht 'Lalla Rookh’, and invented several marine instruments to improve navigation and safety.

He introduced a mariner’s compass more accurate than any other in existence, and a machine to predict tide levels worldwide.

In 1884 Kelvin travelled to the United States to give a series of lectures. These were enthusiastically received, and were published in 1904 as the 'Baltimore Lectures’.

Kelvin became a Lord in 1892 and took the name Kelvin because of his Glasgow connections. By the time of his death in 1907, he was an international celebrity, widely respected and honoured.

The statue in the pics is in Kelvingrove Park, Glasgow.

[gildcdmind]

about marlene.

if only the stars contained me. if only everything kept happening in such a way that the so-called world opposed the so-called flesh.

personal. name: marlene ai mckinnon age and birthday: twenty-four, march 30 gender: cis female sexuality: openly bisexual occupation: university student, studying care of magical creatures allegiance: the order of the stag family: father; douglas mckinnon - world war ii veteran, now dragonologist [deceased] | mother; meilin mckinnon (nee tcheng) - diplomatic envoy at french ministry of magic [deceased] | siblings; angus mckinnon [deceased], alastair mckinnon [deceased], rowan mckinnon [deceased] birthplace: killin, scotland residence: in childhood, killin, scotland & marseille, france; now london, england languages known: english, french

physical. faceclaim: natasha liu bordizzo style preference: very “effortless indie rock” mixed with "hippie lovechild", long skirts and doc martens, oversized denim jackets and daisy dukes, no makeup and unstyled hair tattoos: a small "a" on her wrist, a rising sun on her bicep scars/beauty marks: many, many scars ranging from quidditch practice when she was younger to much darker battles as part of the order

personality. zodiac: aries mbti: estp-t alignment: chaotic neutral enneagram: the challenger good: determined, strategic, loyal, adventurous, humorous bad: scathing, insulting, impulsive, emotionally-detached, envious neutral: daring, ambitious, intense, straight-forward, fearless fears: losing those close to her, never being good enough self-esteem: marlene projects confidence and is shamelessly herself, rough edges and all. insecurity settles in her blind spots in the form of jealousy and the feeling of never being enough. she struggles with dissecting her emotions and properly understanding them. to make up for this, she’s constantly on the defense, putting up a wall of fire to prevent anyone, including herself from reading too deeply into her.

personality, a deep dive. sharp tongue, sharper insight; marlene’s humor is quick and often scathing—her sharp tongue a weapon as dangerous as any spell. but beneath that biting sarcasm and bravado is a mind that picks up on everything. she’s perceptive, able to read between the lines and catch the things others try to hide. her sharpness doesn’t just come from her words; it’s also in her ability to see right through a person, to understand their motives, desires, and weaknesses without them ever saying a word. while she often uses this insight as a shield, marlene isn’t blind to her own contradictions. she knows when she’s pushing people away with her words, and she does it anyway, because allowing herself to be vulnerable feels like a weakness she can’t afford.

pride and shame: the unseen tug-of-war; marlene’s pride runs deep. she doesn’t ever want to admit she’s wrong or that she needs help. admitting vulnerability feels like admitting failure—a weakness that she cannot bear. this is a constant internal struggle for her, as the emotions she tries so desperately to ignore—shame, guilt, sadness—are always knocking at the door. her pride makes it hard for her to accept help, even when she’s drowning. but when she finally does, it’s not because she’s learned to ask for it—it’s because she’s been broken open. sometimes, the cracks she fights so hard to keep closed are the only things that allow her to grow.

unyielding love; despite her walls and her sharp edges, marlene’s heart is enormous. it’s raw, untamed, and it burns with a fierce desire to love, to protect, and to fight for what is right. she may not always show it, but marlene feels things deeply. she’s not one for soft words, but the care she shows is no less profound. when she chooses to let someone in, they get the whole of her. her affection may come in the form of a joke, an insult, or a challenge, but underneath it all, there’s a burning desire to give all of herself. for those she loves, marlene would set the world on fire just to see them smile.

magical. status: pureblood house: gryffindor wand: 10.5" cherry wood, phoenix tail feather, unyielding boggart: herself, struggling against invisible bonds, alone, screaming for help. one of her greatest fears is being abandoned by everyone she loves and left for dead. patronus: tiger. a very strong, independent patronus. they have a fierce personality to them that they show openly, and have no problem doing it. however, there is more to them than just an impression, they have parts of their past that are a bit dark, and that has caused them to grow a bit cynical. they don’t like to show their feelings to others, as they like to maintain the impression for themselves and for others that they are unbreakable. they are not fast to warm up to anyone, but once they do they will protect you with all that they have. amortentia: fresh dirt, campfires, her mother’s perfume best discipline: offensive magic / transfiguration / potions worst discipline: medi-magic / astronomy

backstory. (tw child death) chapter one: ignition

From the moment she was born, Marlene McKinnon was a spark, a restless flicker in the dark. she was the darling daughter her family was praying for. Her parents, so vastly different in nature, met in the blaze of war—her father, a war hero who fought alongside Muggles in WWII, and her mother, a French diplomat whose elegance and wit were admired throughout the nation.

Theirs was a love forged in the fires of war, a collision of steel and silk that burned brightly enough to defy the odds. When Marlene was born, she became the living embodiment of their passion—a tempestuous child whose spirit seemed to promise something greater. Her father, ever steadfast and visionary, looked at her and saw the fire that would one day carve her path. Her mother, though full of dreams for Marlene’s grace, elegance, and refinement, could only watch as her daughter’s spirit raged against those confines. She was a tempest in the making—always too much, always too wild.

“She’s a fierce one,” Her father had said the day Marlene first wrapped her tiny fingers around his thumb. His voice, weathered but warm, held a note of pride. “A spark, just like her mother.”

Her mother had smiled softly, her gaze never leaving Marlene. “She’s more than that, mon amour. She’s a flame—one that will burn brighter than either of us could dream.”

chapter two: kindling

As a child, Marlene was always surrounded by the warmth of family. She had two older brothers—Alastair and Rowan— who, though older, were her entire world. The trio were an unstoppable force, united in their defiance of authority and their endless curiosity. They ran wild through the countryside, their laughter echoing like embers crackling in a hearth. Yet, even in their mischief, there was a silent understanding: Marlene was the spark, and they were the sturdy kindling that fed her flames.

Then, when she was three, her youngest brother, Angus, was born. The soft, smiling boy with his innocent wonder seemed to calm her spirit. From the moment she held him, her heart swelled with fierce love, a vow imprinted on the back of her heart to protect him from the world's storms. But not even that could stave off the inevitable. She was twelve when Angus fell ill with dragon pox. When his chest fell for the last time, there began a smolder behind her ribcage with a kind of agony she'd never felt before.

chapter three: inferno

Her brother's death was a strike of lightning, sudden and shattering. The spark in Marlene that had once burned with youthful defiance now became an all-consuming inferno, churning with grief, guilt, and anger. Her parents, whose marriage had once been a testament to love’s endurance, crumbled under the weight of their loss. Her mother retreated, locking herself away in sorrow, and her father, the stalwart soldier, drowned his pain in silence. There was a chasm that opened between her and her brothers, keeping them all stranded lonely and yearning in their own circles of Hell.

By now, the world had known her—reckless, bold, and full of laughter that could shake the walls of Hogwarts. She made her name not just through her wit but through the sheer intensity of her spirit, always charging headfirst into life’s chaos. Her words were as fiery as her heart, and her temper could ignite a room, but beneath that wild energy was an unshakable loyalty to those she loved. But it all changed after the incident. Detentions and fights, where you found trouble, you found Marlene.

It wasn’t until the summer after her third year that the walls began to close in. Her parents received countless owls from the school, urging them to guide their daughter before she threw her life away. Marlene’s rebellion, once a source of pride, began to feel like a burden, a fire that consumed her and left nothing but ash behind.

chapter four: smolder

The weight of her future, and the worry it stirred, pulled the family from their collective grief, forcing them to confront the unraveling threads of their lives. Her father, despite his sorrows, took her to work with him caring for magical creatures—teaching her patience, discipline, and the importance of control. Her mother, whose love had always been fierce and tender, took her to her own motherland of France, where strong women with their own stories of defiance and rebellion breathed new life into her.

“Strength isn’t just about burning brightly,” Her mother had told her over tea one afternoon. “It’s about knowing when to smolder and when to ignite.”

In the chaos of it all, Marlene found her brothers once again, their bond solidified by shared loss, their laughter a reminder of the strength they still carried. For the first time in her life, Marlene understood that the fire within her didn’t need to burn everything to the ground—she learned that to live was to burn.

chapter five: ashes

It seemed that life had already dealt her so many blows, yet it was still unrelenting, still cruel in ways she couldn't have foreseen. Her parents and older brothers were taken by a curse—struck down in a brutal, merciless attack, their lives extinguished in an instant. She had been miles away, too far removed from the storm she had felt whispering in the air. Her heart had sensed it, a creeping dread that gnawed at her edges, but she had been too absorbed in her own business heed the warning. Marlene was left alone to carry their names and their legacy, the weight of their absence heavier than anything she could bear.

But she would not let their death be the end of her. Marlene had always been a flame—a bright, unpredictable, and sometimes dangerous force. Now, with the last embers of her family smoldering in her chest, she realized that her fire was no longer just her own. It was theirs too. And she would burn brighter, fiercer, for them.

Her loss had forged something different in her. It had tempered the rage she had once known into a quiet, determined fury. She no longer shouted at the world, demanding it bend to her will. She was more deliberate now. More strategic. But beneath it all, that same untamable fire still burned. It was quiet at times, subdued, but never fully extinguished.

Her body fell amidst the chaos, but her spirit—unyielding, unbroken—was carried on the winds of memory. Marlene's sacrifice, though a quiet one, was no less profound, a silent testament to the indomitable will of a soul that refused to bend beneath the weight of war. Her name became another whispered legend of the First Wizarding War, a story told not with fanfare, but with reverence, a reminder that some flames, no matter how fleeting, are destined to burn brighter in the hearts of those they leave behind.

chapter six: the phoenix

But fate, it seemed, was not done with her. Death itself had a different plan. The veil, already gossamer-thin, trembled at the call of the Hallows, and in that tremor, Marlene found herself drawn back. Not reborn in the way the living would understand, but resurrected—her body, once broken, now remade, her soul returned to a world she had left behind. In her eyes, the world had changed, yet it was she who had changed the most. Her heart beat still, but it beat in a silence broken only by the whispers of the dead, and the faintest, most haunting echo of a fire that could never burn as brightly again.

For as the returned, Marlene was no longer a woman of flesh and bone, but a tool of fate, her existence bound to the whims of those who controlled the boundary between life and death. And yet, within her, the ember of defiance remained, waiting. Because though death had its grip on her, she had never been one to surrender. Not then, not now. And perhaps, just perhaps, the fire that had once given her life could be used to take it back.

wanted connections. “the devil’s voice speaks in the language of the heart” ; a member of the erinyes drawing her in. i think marlene could find herself torn between her loyalty to the order of the stag and the allure of the erinyes and this individual sees the darkness in marlene—her pain, her rage—and subtly encourages her to embrace it. they might offer her a way to use her grief as power, challenging her to throw away the moral constraints of her family’s legacy. the temptation they represent is dangerous because they understand her struggles better than anyone else, and they offer a solution to her frustration with justice. this could be someone who fought alongside her in the original Order or as part of the resistance, but who has since embraced the darker side

“I will find a way, or I will make one" ; a fellow grief survivor. this person could relate to marlene’s grief on a profound level, and their bond is built on mutual understanding and shared pain. they don’t need to speak much to each other to communicate their inner turmoil, yet they find solace in each other’s presence. their shared grief could lead to an unhealthy co-dependence, where both of them rely too heavily on each other to cope with their losses, hindering their emotional healing. alternatively, this relationship could evolve into something of a redemption arc for marlene, where she helps the other person find peace, thus healing a part of herself in the process.

"we could be heroes, just for one day” ; rival order member. in my head, this is someone who is from a different era than her. this person might challenge marlene’s views and decision-making, often questioning her recklessness or her approach to leadership. They could be an ally on the surface, but with a strong rivalry underneath. an initial thought was marlene could unexpectedly left in charge during a crucial mission when senior members are incapacitated. perhaps her decisions spark tension with the current leaders of the order once they return. while marlene proves her ability to lead under pressure, the aftermath reveals deep-rooted frustrations and differing philosophies about the order’s direction.

“Some sins cannot be washed away, but I will keep trying" ; the death eater that killed her. this would have been the last face marlene saw before she died. this could be an interesting relationship to build out whether the death eater that killed her was part of the resurrection and chose to defect or stayed aligned with the wraiths OR an relationship to build out with a child of her killer.

“the stories we grow up with are only the shadows of the real things that lived" ; an ally in a future generation. this could be interesting to explore with a character who was born after marlene's death, perhaps the child of one of her friends from the order or a young member of the resistance who only knows marlene as a figure of myth and legend. this person might look to her for guidance, but also be hesitant about the idea of befriending someone who has been returned from the dead.

“I lost you once, and now you’ve returned—but not in the way I imagined ” ; a soulmate lost in the veil. this could be someone who shared a deep, profound connection with marlene before her death—someone who might or might not have been a romantic partner, but in general, someone whose bond with her transcended typical friendship or family.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

CNN 5/26/2025

A physician who advocates for the power of human touch over technology will deliver Harvard’s commencement speech

By Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN

Updated: 6:32 AM EDT, Mon May 26, 2025

Source: CNN

Doctors interact with patients, in many cases, when they are feeling their worst – so, how they talk to those patients during such a vulnerable time matters.

That’s the philosophy of Abraham Verghese, the bestselling author, Stanford professor, and infectious disease doctor who will address students at Harvard University’s 374th Commencement this week.

Harvard’s invitation to Verghese, comes at a time of significant uncertainty at the Ivy League school amid its ongoing clashes with the Trump administration over academic freedom, federal funding, campus oversight and most recently, a ban on the enrollment of international students.

Verghese will be the first physician to give Harvard’s commencement speech since 1996, according to the school’s student-run newspaper, The Harvard Crimson. That year, Harold E. Varmus, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist and former director of the National Institutes of Health, told graduates that supporting science was a shared human responsibility.

“He has pursued excellence across disciplines with an intensity surpassed only by his humanity, which shines brilliantly through his works of both fiction and nonfiction, as well as his work as a clinician and teacher,” said Harvard President Alan M. Garber about Verghese in the university’s commencement announcement.

In previous years, graduates have heard from many accomplished speakers: Nobel Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa, Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Academy Award-winning director Steven Spielberg and media mogul Oprah Winfrey.

While the 69-year-old may not be a household name, Verghese is a prominent physician. His journeyhas taken himacross the United States, healing patients through medicine and reaching people through literature, including his 2023 novel “The Covenant of Water.”

Verghese declined to be interviewed for this story, but wrote on social media he was “deeply honored” to have been invited to Harvard by Garber, who was previously one of his colleagues at the Stanford School of Medicine.

The power of a physical exam

For many years, Verghese has advocated for strengthening the physician-patient connection and bedside skills.

He joined the Stanford School of Medicine in 2007 as a professor and is currently, vice chair for the Theory & Practice of Medicine program. He also founded an interdisciplinary center at Stanford focused on the human experience in medicine and Stanford Medicine 25, an initiative designed to foster bedside exam skills for professionals.

For Verghese, the most important innovation in medicine is “the power of the human hand to touch, to comfort, to diagnose, and to bring about treatment,” according tohis 2011 TED Talk in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Technology is impacting the interactions between patients and doctors because hospital rounds often center around data and images on a computer, far away from the actual patient, Verghese said during the TED Talk.

“The ritual of one individual coming to another and telling them things that they would not tell their preacher or rabbi, and then, incredibly, on top of that, disrobing and allowing touch, I would submit to you that that is a ritual of exceeding importance,” Verghese said.

“And if you short change that ritual by not undressing the patient, by listening with your stethoscope on top of the nightgown, by not doing a complete exam, you have bypassed on the opportunity to seal the patient-physician relationship.”

Through Presence, an interdisciplinary center at Stanford, and Stanford Medicine 25, Verghese hopes to educate future medical professionals on bedside medicine, harnessing technology for the human experience as well as studying and advocating for the patient-physician relationship.

Pursuing medicine in 3 continents

Verghese has drawn from his personal experiences in three continents to fuel the type of educator and writer he has become today.

He was born in Ethiopia’s capital city of Addis Ababa to expatriate Indian parents, who were both educators, and grew up there as the country was ruled by Emperor Haile Selassie. He started medical school in Ethiopia but fled the country when Selassie was toppled by a violent military dictatorship in the 1970s, Verghese wrote in The Guardian.

Verghese reunited with his parents in New Jersey, where they had previously moved. There, he began working as a hospital orderly, which ultimately inspired him to return to his family’s homeland andbecome a physician.

“Looking back, that was the best medical education I could have had, because I saw what happened to the patient in the 23 hours and 58 minutes the doctors were not in the room,” Verghese shared in an interview with a medical journal about his time as an orderly.

Once he graduated from medical school in India, Verghese returned to the US and completed his residency at a hospital in Johnson City, Tennessee, followed by a fellowship in infectious diseases at the former Boston City Hospital in Massachusetts in the mid-1980s.

During his time in rural east Tennessee, Verghese had a front row seat to the frontlines of the AIDS epidemic. That experience “humbled” him and changed the way he saw his practice, he said in an interview with the American Society of Hematology’s magazine, ASH Clinical News.

“We learned what it meant to heal when we could not cure,” he told the magazine. “We realized how much our presence and caring mattered. A cure wasn’t within our reach, but we were making a profound difference by indicating to the patient that we would be there, that we were not running away.”

And despite being able to do so little for his patients, who battled a disease with no treatment, he focused on providing them comfort and doing so filled him with purpose.

From hospitals to literature

After witnessing so much loss and health care workers’ burnout during the AIDS epidemic, Verghese has said becoming a writer became “a matter of self-preservation.”

In 1990, the physician pressed pause on medicine to focus on his writing and attended the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, according to his website.

After earning his master’s degree in Iowa, Verghese moved to El Paso, Texas, where he was a professor of medicine and chief of the division of infectious diseases at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center for 11 years. During that time, he would spend his evenings writing, he told Palo Alto Online.

“Writing became my escape from the pressures of being an infectious disease clinician, ” he told ASH Clinical News.

“Other people might have played golf or something, but for me it was writing,” he added.

In his first novel “My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story,” Verghese pulled back the curtain on his own experiences and the meaningful, personal relationships he formed during the AIDS epidemic. The 1994 book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and listed as one of Time magazine’s best books of the year.

Verghese has written several other award-winning titles, including “The Tennis Partner,” “Cutting for Stone,” and most recently, “The Covenant of Water,” which is a New York Times bestseller, a Oprah’s Book Club pick and was named one of former president Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2023.

“In my work as a writer, I have always tried to convey the notion that medicine is a uniquely human, person-to-person endeavor,” Verghese has said about his writing. “In my view, it is a ministry with a calling.”

His family, notably his grandmothers, influenced “The Covenant of Water,” he said during a 2023 talk at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The novel is set in Kerala, south India, and follows three generations of a family looking for answers about a secret.

“Both my grandmothers were, in their own way, quietly heroic women,” he said during the talk. “They had real life tragedies that they somehow weathered and they went on because of their faith.”

Verghese has received many accolades for his work, including the 2014 Heinz Award – which highlights individuals making contributions to the arts, the economy and the environment – the 2015 National Humanities Medal, and the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2023.

“Dr. Verghese’s widely acclaimed writings touch the heart and inform the soul, giving people of all walks of life a true understanding of what it is to heal the whole person - not just physically, but emotionally,” Teresa Heinz, chair of the Heinz Family Foundation, said in a news release at the time.

While Harvard students will have to wait to hear his speech, Verghese previously addressed graduating students at the Stanford School of Medicine, where he implored them to let their innate intelligence guide them through the future.

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[holmesillustrations]

Vote for your favourite, the top 9 will proceed in the bracket. Since theyre all different shapes and sizes, make sure to click into the full views!

Paget Eliminations // Other Artist Eliminations

Full captions and details for each illustration below the cut:

"As he watched it he saw it writhe along the ground." DH Friston, Study in Scarlet (Beeton’s Christmas Annual 1887) Characters: Jefferson Hope, John Ferrer

"The papers had been taken from the desk." WH Hyde, Naval Treaty (Harper’s Weekly) Characters: Percy Phelps

"The composure of despair." FD Steele, Dancing Men (Collier’s) Characters: Abe Slaney

"Gilchrist" FD Steele, Three Students (Collier’s) Characters: Gilchrist

"Now, my dear Hopkins, draw up and warm your toes." FD Steele, Golden Pince-nez (Collier’s) Characters: Hopkins, Watson, Holmes

"Very interesting, indeed!" said Holmes." Arthur Twidle, Wisteria Lodge (The Strand) Characters: Gregson, Baynes, Holmes, Watson

"By George! It's Black Gorgiano himself!" cried the american detective." HM Brock, Red Circle (The Strand) Characters: Holmes, Leverton, Black Gorgiano

"It was all he could do to keep himself from screaming out." Arthur Keller, Valley of Fear (1915 US Novel) Characters: Douglas/McMurdo, Scowrers

"He placed the slipper upon the blood-mark on the sill." Frank Wiles, Valley of Fear (The Strand) Characters: Holmes

"On the floor of Miss Dunbar's wardrobe they found the damning evidence." GP Nelson, Thor Bridge (Hearst’s International) Characters: Grace Dunbar

"A printing press — a counterfeiter's outfit," said Holmes." JR Flanagan, Three Garridebs (Collier’s) Characters: Holmes

"Stop! Where are you going?" "To Scotland Yard." HK Elcock, Three Gables (The Strand) Characters: Isadora Klein, Holmes, Watson

[the-proeducator-blog]

Affordable Universities in Scotland for International Students: Study in Budget-Friendly Institutions

Scotland has long been a favored destination for international students, offering a blend of academic excellence and cultural richness. But one common concern for students worldwide is affordability. In this guide, we’ll explore some of the most budget-friendly universities in Scotland and share tips on how to manage costs effectively. Whether you’re looking for tuition fee discounts, scholarships, or economical living options, Scotland has something for everyone.

For a complete guide on top universities in Scotland, check out this comprehensive resource: best universities in Scotland for international students.

Why Scotland is a Great Choice for Affordable Education

Scotland is not only home to some of the world’s most prestigious institutions, but it also offers various options for students seeking affordable education. Here’s why Scotland stands out:

Affordable Tuition Fees: Many Scottish universities are more budget-friendly compared to universities in England or other popular destinations like the USA.

Scholarships for International Students: A wide range of financial aid programs are available.

Part-Time Job Opportunities: Scotland allows students to work part-time while studying, helping them offset living expenses.

Top Affordable Universities in Scotland

Here’s a look at some of the most affordable universities in Scotland for international students.

1. University of the West of Scotland (UWS)

The University of the West of Scotland is known for offering quality education at relatively lower tuition fees. UWS provides several programs in business, engineering, and creative industries.

Average Annual Tuition Fees: £12,000–£15,000

Scholarships Available: UWS Global Scholarship

2. Abertay University

Abertay University in Dundee is another cost-effective option, especially for those interested in computer gaming, cybersecurity, and environmental science.

Average Annual Tuition Fees: £14,000–£16,000

Notable Programs: Game Design, Computer Science

3. Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU)

GCU combines affordability with a focus on sustainability and innovation. Known as "The University for the Common Good," it offers affordable programs in business, health, and technology.

Average Annual Tuition Fees: £13,000–£15,500

Scholarships: The GCU International Scholarship covers part of tuition fees.

4. Edinburgh Napier University

Located in Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh Napier University provides excellent courses with moderate tuition fees. It’s particularly popular among students seeking practical, career-focused education.

Average Annual Tuition Fees: £13,000–£16,000

Scholarships: Merit-based scholarships for international students.

5. University of Stirling

Known for its beautiful campus, the University of Stirling offers competitive tuition fees and a range of scholarships. It’s a great option for students pursuing psychology, media, and environmental studies.

Average Annual Tuition Fees: £13,650–£15,600

Scholarships: Commonwealth Shared Scholarships, International Undergraduate Scholarship

Tips to Manage Costs as an International Student

Studying in Scotland doesn’t have to break the bank. Here are some practical tips to help you stay within budget:

1. Apply for Scholarships and Grants

Most universities in Scotland offer scholarships exclusively for international students. Research and apply early to increase your chances of receiving financial aid.

2. Opt for Shared Accommodation

Instead of living alone, consider sharing accommodation with fellow students. Shared housing significantly reduces rental expenses.

3. Cook at Home

Dining out can add up quickly. Cooking your meals at home can save a significant amount of money.

4. Use Student Discounts

Scotland offers plenty of student discounts on public transport, restaurants, and entertainment. Always carry your student ID.

5. Take Advantage of Part-Time Jobs

Scotland allows international students to work up to 20 hours per week during the term and full-time during holidays. This is a great way to earn some extra cash.

Final Thoughts

Scotland is not only a land of academic excellence but also a destination where affordability meets quality. By choosing one of the affordable universities listed above and managing your expenses wisely, you can make your dream of studying in Scotland a reality.

For a broader perspective on the best universities in Scotland and what they have to offer, visit this resource: best universities in Scotland for international students.

With a little planning, you can enjoy the rich educational opportunities and cultural experiences Scotland has to offer without breaking the bank. Start your journey today!

[thetravelingbard]

A Weekly Aside

09/14/2024

“I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was. Likewise, I never imagined that home might be something I would miss.”

― Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

I have, historically, found new chapter’s rather terrifying. Don’t get me wrong, there is so much excitement in starting something new. There’s new people and experiences and places. However I believe that somewhere underneath it all, there is a fear of failure and the unknown. I don’t think this a unique experience or that this fear should stop you from reaching ‘onward and upward’ (as Meet the Robinsons so aptly says). In my experience, when you reach you eventually find something concrete to hold onto.

All that aside, we all know that life is an endless twisty road. A road that is littered with infinitely deep potholes, gold-standard food stalls, and a significant lack of signage. Never in a million years did I think that this path would have led me to Scotland, of all places. In case you missed the subtle change to my instagram bio or if we haven’t spoken in a while, I am just beginning a year-long Masters of Science program in International Relations at the University of Edinburgh. Tada! Major life update!

I did know, ahead of climbing onto the United Airlines flight from Newark to Edinburgh that this was a city that I loved. When I studied abroad from January to July of 2023, I had the absolute privilege to visit Edinburgh with my parents. Somewhere between the buildings that looked right out of a fantasy novel and the abundance of stunning green landscape, I knew I really loved the city. God, I had no concept of how true that could be. I have found myself living in student accommodation just north of a large park and a quick walk to campus. 

My room is rather small, but I have somehow managed to grab a room with 2 windows (which has been an absolute blessing). While I do not love the abundance of BEIGE on literally everything in this room, I have managed to brighten things up with my linens and some fake plants. Fun story (not), one of nicer days we’ve had I decided I wanted to leave the windows open to let some air in. I’m reading some emails when I see a WASP fly next to my head. So, obviously, I lost my mind and headed to the kitchen to try to find something to remove the wasp. I venture back, glass cup in hand, and carefully prop open my room. I kept trying to muster the courage to confront the horrid creature when it, luckily, flew right out the window. It was rather traumatizing. I haven’t opened my windows since. Speaking of accommodation, I have also managed to meet all of my flatmates. They are all so very nice and I am very optimistic about living together for the next year.

So, what all have I been up to this last week? Where do I even start? This week has been a crazy whirlwind of social events and introduction talks. Coming from ODU (Old Dominion University...where I studied for undergrad), I have never experienced a ‘Welcome Week’ quite like this. For a modicum of context, Old Dominion was a rather small campus with a significant percentage of the 24,000 student population studying online. In comparison, 49,065 students in total. The postgraduate student population alone (around 19,500) is about the size of my entire school. There are so many students and opportunities here. There is an entire app simply for events this week. There were, no joke, 4 or 5 events EVERY HOUR. I’m not going to lie, it was overwhelming at first. Once I got the swing of things I managed to get a handle on things. I think I’ve attended more social events this week than the entirety of my undergraduate degree.

Many of the information sessions I have attended have warned about the difficulty of the courses and dissertation I am about to undertake, but I am cautiously excited for everything. If anyone seems at all interested in my ramblings, I thought it might be nice to share what all has been going on not only in Scotland as a whole, but in my studies as well.

I wish for all of you to find tentative excitement in your new chapters as I have.

<3 Serena

[fluralbannach]

Art Course and Artist Research

All art courses are different, and various opportunities and knowledge are available. However, in this blog post, I’ll discuss the courses I am interested in. Most of these courses will be at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen, Scotland. 

Gray's School Of Art provides a student-centred curriculum in fine art and design to empower the next generation of creative graduates. The curriculum encourages collaboration, exhibitions, international field study trips, and entrepreneurial skills. Graduates often set up businesses or pursue further studies, fostering a supportive environment for innovative thinkers to express their uniqueness and make positive changes.

Course 1 - Foundation in Art and Design (BA (Hons))

The foundation curriculum offers a comprehensive first-year experience that explores subject areas through creative activities and opportunities. It encourages exploration, collaboration, and experimentation with ideas. The curriculum applies newfound knowledge to real-world situations, developing a deeper understanding of creativity, critical thinking, and sustainability. It helps students identify their motivations and interests, providing guidance on the most appropriate creative direction and subject areas for the second year.

This full-time, studio-based year will develop your creative and critical practice and challenge your understanding of the Art and design disciplines. These experiences will expand on your contextual and practical knowledge, introduce you to the Creative Industries, and inform your course options for Year 2.

This course offers a wide range of experience and specialisms, providing numerous employment opportunities. Through the "Creative Futures" module, students can identify and exploit their niche within the Creative and cultural industries while focusing on the relevant creative landscape after the first year.

The entry requirements for the Foundation course include one of the following: an SQA Higher, BCC in Art & Design, a GCE A Level in CC in Art & Design, a H3H3H4 Irish Leaving Certificate Higher in Art, and an IB Diploma in 24. All applicants with the required qualifications will be invited to attend a portfolio review/interview and participate in a selection process. Successful applicants will be offered a place after viewing their digital portfolios. If more information is needed, an interview will be scheduled. Applicants will also be invited to an Applicants Event to meet staff and students, experience the teaching environment, and ask questions. International students must meet direct entry requirements to gain additional points through Robert Gordon University's International College. English language requirements include an IELTS of 6.0 with no lower than 5.5 component.

Course 2 - Fine Art - Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Moving Image (BA (Hons))

The Fine Art course prepares students for their future careers as artists by enhancing their critical aptitude, creative skills, and professional understanding. The curriculum covers various disciplines like drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, photography, and moving images, utilising both analogue and digital methodologies. The course includes studio-based projects, public exhibitions, work experience, and international study options, culminating in an annual Degree Show.

In Year 2, students expand their understanding of theoretical principles through creative interaction and learning from tutors, technical experts, peers, and themselves. They develop critical writing and professional skills, deepening their awareness of the Creative Industries. In Year 3, students develop creative play, risk-taking, and critical thinking by exploring their chosen themes and workshop interests. They gain personal insight into professional ambitions through work experiences, placements, or international study. In Year 4, students have an extended period of supported independence to produce a fully realised body of work, answering critical questions and showcasing their talents.

Gray's School of Art’s curriculum allows students to customise their learning experience through optional study pathways. These include an intensive studio-based study, which focuses on developing a deeper understanding of their studio practice, and a combined work experience and studio pathway, which broadens students' awareness of the professional working environment. Students can also undertake a semester-long international study with partner institutions across Europe, Canada, and the US. 

The entry requirements for Year 2 students include relevant GCE A Levels, HNC/HND or Diploma in Foundation Studies, GCE A Level BCC, or IB Diploma 27. Advanced entry applicants with the appropriate qualifications will be invited to an advanced portfolio review/interview and participate in a selection process. Widening access applicants have minimum SQA Higher CCC entry requirements, including Art / Design and English. Applicants who may not hold standard qualifications are encouraged to apply if they can provide other relevant creative work, qualifications, and life experiences. A portfolio review/interview is still required for this candidate category. Successful applicants should submit a digital portfolio through a Flickr account, and if more information is needed, an interview will be invited. 

Course 3 - Art Therapy - Provided by Alison - Provider website

Art therapy is a psychotherapy method that uses art as a form of communication between therapist and patient to treat various mental health conditions. This course explores the concepts and practices of art therapy, providing skills to work confidently with clients of all artistic abilities in multiple settings. It covers the history, principles, key figures in its evolution, and the critical types of art therapy, including individual and group therapy. The course also explores the value of art therapy in personal and professional lives. Creativity is a powerful tool for improving mental health and well-being; art therapy offers a way to tap into this side. The course discusses creative therapy, mindfulness practices, and techniques for using art therapy with clients. It also focuses on drawing and its application in treating children with physical and mental impairments. The course also covers common mental illnesses art therapists encounter, recording techniques, supervision, boundaries, and therapeutic limitations. This course is designed for anyone interested in learning about art therapy and working with clients with physical and mental impairments.

You can email the provider for further details about entry requirements and certificates.

This course is online and completely free!

In conclusion, the varied range of courses offered by Aberdeen's Gray's School of Art are intended to empower and inspire graduates who are creative. A comprehensive first-year experience is offered by the Foundation in Art and Design course, which promotes creativity, critical thinking, and practical knowledge. Through studio projects, exhibitions, and possibilities for overseas study, the Fine Art programme prepares students for professional employment by allowing them to specialise in a variety of areas. The course on art therapy also covers the therapeutic use of art to mental health issues, with a focus on creativity and mindfulness. Taken as a whole, these courses provide students with extensive chances to investigate, refine, and utilise their creative abilities in a variety of professional settings.

Here's a little about what artists did to get where they are in their careers!

Kara walker

Walker attended the Atlanta College of Art, where she focused on race-specific issues and a double standard often levelled at minority art students. She later attended the Rhode Island School of Design, where her work expanded to include sexual and racial themes based on portrayals of African Americans in art, literature, and historical narratives. An expert researcher, Walker began to draw on diverse sources, from portraits to pornographic novels, that have continued to shape her work. Other artists who addressed racial stereotypes were also important role models for the emerging artist. While in graduate school, Walker alighted on an old form that would become the basis for her most vital early work: cut paper silhouettes, widespread in Victorian middle-class portraiture and illustration. These silhouettes possessed a streamlined elegance that simplified the frenzy she was working on, making them the basis for her strongest early work.

Gone: A Historical Romance of a Civil War by Bettye Walker (1994) was a critical success, leading to representation with Wooster Gardens. She later received the MacArthur Foundation Achievement Award in 1998. However, Walker faced opposition due to her use of racial stereotypes. Betye Saar, famous for her iconic use of racial stereotypes in 20th-century art, questioned Walker's use of racist images and spearheaded a campaign questioning the art world's betrayal of African Americans. Walker's series of watercolours, Negress Notes, was criticised for its brutal and sexually graphic content, while others defended her for exposing the ridiculousness of these stereotypes. Despite these criticisms, Walker's work continues to be a significant influence in American art.

Obviously Kara Walker is an African-American artist, the process and opportunities are slightly different than in the UK where we have apprenticeships, college, university and foundation courses.

Anish Kapoor

Kapoor, a young artist, initially enjoyed finishing his mother's paintings but had no intention of becoming an artist. At 17, he and his brother travelled to Israel to live and work at a kibbutz, embracing communal living and utopian ideas. Initially, he planned to study engineering but realised he wasn't good at mathematics. After hitchhiking across Europe, he settled in London to attend Hornsey College of Art in 1973. His mentor, British-Romanian sculptor Paul Neagu, encouraged him to pursue Performance art, which influenced his sculpture approach.

Kapoor, a postgraduate artist, quit Chelsea School of Art after a year and returned to India. He realised his art was about ritual and doing, leading to a three-year period of creativity and the creation of his first major works, ritualistic pigment sculptures. Initially mistaken for a female artist, Kapoor gained recognition within the international art community despite the confusion surrounding his material.

Nicholas Logsdail, owner of Lisson Gallery in London, invited Kapoor to join the New British Sculptors group in the early 1980s. Kapoor, known for his use of traditional earthy materials and spiritual expression, represented Britain at the 1990 Venice Biennale and won the Turner Prize in 1991. The group included Julian Opie, Antony Gormley, Richard Deacon, Tony Cragg, and Rachel Whiteread, providing a network for Kapoor to exhibit and share ideas.

Kapoor is a good example of studying abroad, and the opportunities are different but only for some.

Judith Tucker

Judith Tucker is an artist and academic who explores the intersection of social history, personal memory, and geography through drawing, painting, and writing. She holds a B.A. in Fine Art from the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford, an M.A. in Fine Art, and a PhD in Fine Art from the University of Leeds. She was invited to be an artist in Contemporary British Painting in 2013 and is currently vice-chair. Tucker writes academic essays and collaborates with radical landscape poet Harriet Tarlo. She has been a finalist in the Jackson’s Painting Prize, the Scenes of Everyday Life category prize, and shortlisted for the Westmorland Landscape Prize and New Light Prize. She has exhibited in various venues, including Arthouse1 and Collyer Bristow London, as well as in China. She also serves as a Senior Lecturer in the School of Design at the University of Leeds. However, Tucker died on 13 November 2023 in a tragic car accident, but her memory and work will live on in her students and artwork. 

In conclusion, Walker, Kapoor, and Tucker's varying career paths show the range of paths and difficulties artists encounter in various cultural situations. Despite backlash, Kara Walker's emphasis on racial themes and contentious usage of stereotypes have solidified her position in American art. The path taken by Anish Kapoor, who went from communal living in Israel to becoming a well-known sculptor, emphasises the value of cultural inquiry and mentoring. Despite her tragic passing, Judith Tucker's artistic and scholarly fusion of social history, firsthand recollections, and geographic location has left a lasting legacy. The varied experiences and possibilities that these artists had in their home nations shaped their individual contributions to the art world, as these artists' tales illustrate.

RESOURCES

Foundation course - Foundation in Art and Design Course with BA (Hons) Degree | RGU University – Aberdeen, Scotland, UK

Fine Arts course - Fine Art - Painting, Photography, Printmaking, Sculpture, Moving Image

Art Therapy course - Intro to Art Therapy & Provider Website 

Kara Walker - Why is Kara Walker so important? and Kara Walker Paintings, Bio and Ideas 

Anish Kapoor -  Anish Kapoor Art, Bio and Ideas and The Creative Life of Anish Kapoor

Judith Tucker - Judith Tucker and Judith Tucker - Contemporary British Painting 

[traumacatholic]

I've seen people renting out rooms on Craigslist for $450 a month, even here in California where rent is usually $2k a month or more.

You can definitely find affordable housing. Keep praying. It will happen for you. Finding a job will help a lot.

If you can, apply for FAFSA and college too. You can get a lot of grants, like 6-15k a year in grants that you don't have to pay back.

There are so many resources out there. Good luck!

Thank you! Unfortunately, I don't live in America so the resources here are a little different.

I have contemplated returning to university but the issue is that I have already done a Bachelor's Degree. In Scotland, when students go from highschool to university, their university course combines a Bachelor's with a Master's degree (so when they graduate, they graduate with a Masters). I did my Bachelor's degree in England, so I didn't graduate with a Masters. After I graduated, I returned to Scotland. Because my position is very much a minority case, the funding just isn't there. I can get some funding if I wanted to do a Masters but it a) wouldn't allow me to study in England (I'm not sure why this is the case) and b) it wouldn't cover my full tuition here let alone the extra costs of accommodation. We also don't have (to my knowledge) private loans, and scholarships are very much for international students or teens leaving care homes.

I have considered Spare Room (we do have Craigslist, but it's not really a big thing here). But even for a spare room in someone's house it's usually very expensive - all of the rooms I've seen are more expensive than actual properties for rent. And often it's lone men renting out a spare bedroom. Which even if I could afford their rent, I'm not sure I would feel particularly safe. I will have a look into other platforms, and see if perhaps they might be of better luck.

But other than that, I'm kind of just hoping for a miracle lol. If I can get a job, then I can use that to potentially get a flat from a private landlord. Or I can pray that the council or one of the social housing associations are able to find me a place soon - because I would be able to afford a place to stay with one of these houses even if I didn't have a job. Thank you for the suggestions though, I really do appreciate them!

[nathanielaaron]

German Media Realise Their Health Minister is an International Laughingstock

The Covid Inquiry is Insulting the Victims of Lockdown

Boris Johnson is Still in Denial About Lockdowns

Bristol University Axes the National Anthem from Graduation Ceremonies Amid Students’ Claims it is “Old-Fashioned” and “Offensive to Some”

Labour Parliamentarians Back Kemi Badenoch on Stopping Children Changing Gender at School

U.K. Government’s Veto of Scotland’s Gender Reforms Ruled Lawful by Top Court

News Round-Up

German Media Realise Their Health Minister is an International Laughingstock

By Eugyppius

I know that some of you are impatient with my posts about German politics, and particularly my repeated pieces on our retarded Health Minister. I get that this can seem like inside baseball, and that all of you suffer under the very similar idiocies of your own Covid politicians. But, I just can’t help myself. Lauterbach is a special case, a truly monumental idiot who in his boundless incompetence and stupidity vastly exceeds his peers. It is my aim to make him the international symbol of pandemic derangement. I want pictures of this human incarnation of everything that is wrong with masking children and force-vaccinating millions printed next to future dictionary entries on Covidianism. We have seen the enemy, and it is this sad, stupid, Smeagol-looking loser, who thinks Eric Feigl-Ding is an authority and that clip-on bowties are fashionable.

You must understand that Lauterbach is not only the dumbest federal politician Germany has ever had. He also ranks among the least competent, most bafflingly idiotic people ever to have attained prominence of any kind. He is a drunken tweeter who as Cabinet Minister once declared war on Russia. He is a dim salt-phobic eccentric whose own ex-wife declared him unfit for the responsibilities of a Cabinet position. He is a tireless advocate of mask mandates who in May 2021 was photographed totally maskless on a train to Hamburg.

He has written one of the saddest, most derivative and pointless Ph.D. dissertations I have ever read. He poses as an epidemiologist while routinely misinterpreting even the simplest scientific studies. His most memorable science fail was a tweet citing a “new American Mega [sic!] Study” showing that mask efficacy is “very great and uncontested”. His link led to a bizarre pre-print that was so bad, some concluded it had to be a hoax. When a serology study emerged showing that 95% of Germans had Covid antibodies, he denied the results meant the pandemic was over, inadvertently questioning the entire premise of mass vaccination. He spent much of early 2022 demanding that ever more people get fourth doses and even said he himself was quadruple vaccinated. Three months later he announced he had tested positive for Covid, declared his symptoms to be substantial, and then violated Berlin quarantine rules to attend a press conference, where he was stupid enough to flash his digital vaccine pass to the cameras. The QR code revealed that he had only ever received three jabs. His Ministry insisted he’d merely failed to register his second booster with the CoronaWarn app, but the next year he doubled down on his stupidity, allowing the press to photograph his physical vaccine records, showing only three doses were registered there as well.

At one point he proposed to exempt the recently vaccinated from indoor mask rules, saying that he hoped this would encourage further vaccine uptake. After polls showed that disturbingly large numbers of Germans were willing to accept quarterly vaccination for the privilege of mask exemptions, he said he’d withdraw the incentive if too many people took advantage of it. This summer, with the political relevance of Covid fading, he opened a new front against summer weather, announcing an initiative to call old people and remind them to drink water whenever temperatures get too high.

There has been such an unrelenting tidal wave of Lauterbachian moronicity that it has proven impossible to keep track of it all. He is an endless source of comedic content, a political lolcow who stumbles from embarrassing gaffe to embarrassing gaffe without ever seeming to notice. Last year, he appeared on national television and ranted bizarrely about the Stanford epidemiologist John Ioannidis and the Great Barrington Declaration. He seemed to be drunk, or perhaps under the influence of some medication, as he mashed his words about “certain scientists who are shared exponentially on social media”:

So there is exponential growth in viruses, and there is also an exponential growth in false information. You only need a few scientists for this… In the case of Corona, for example, there was a scientists who used to do very good work but has now drifted off course. A Stanford scientist, Ioannidis, made a declaration, the Great Barrington Declaration, which basically said that the virus is not that dangerous, that it’s not killing people, that flu can be more dangerous and so on, a lot of things that just aren’t right. And this has been quoted incredibly often by these people, who are out there, and there are just far too many of them, who would like to hear the relieving message, “it’s not really that bad, we don’t have to do anything”.

The rant escaped notice at the time, but was recently unearthed by my Twitter friend @tomdabassman, who uploaded the clip with English subtitles. He tagged Stanford medical professor and Great Barrington Declaration co-author Jay Bhattacharya, who could hardly believe his eyes. Almost everything in Lauterbach’s rant was wrong, and he said so in a tweet that has now been viewed almost a million times:

Now, for better or worse, Germany looks up to America and prizes American academic culture. When a Stanford professor criticises the German Health Minister, the German press take notice.

First was a modest article in the Berlinzer Zeitung – ‘Harsh criticism from abroad: “Lauterbach seems not have any inkling”‘

Stanford Professor Jay Bhattacharya doesn’t see [Lauterbach’s statements] as a laughing matter. He wrote on Monday that he’s sorry the Germans had such an unqualified health minister during the Covid pandemic.

He countered Lauterbach’s statements with four points: firstly, Professor John Ioannidis is far from being an outmoded scholar and is one of the most frequently published and cited scientists on the subject of Covid. Secondly, he neither wrote nor signed the Great Barrington Declaration. Thirdly, even this declaration did not declare the virus to be harmless …. Fourthly, Bhattacharya says that “Lauterbach seems to have no idea of the damage his lockdown policy has done to the poor, children and the working class. Germany has worse Covid results than neighboring Sweden”.

The original tweet with the Lauterbach video has already been viewed 500,000 times; the tweeting Health Minister has not yet responded publicly to the Stanford professor’s message.

Then came Bild, the largest-circulation newspaper in Germany, with the headline ‘Stanford Professor has harsh criticism for Lauterbach‘:

In his Covid policy, Karl Lauterbach repeatedly talks about science, arguing with studies and articles. But, of all people, a renowned Covid scientist is now sharply criticising the German Health Minister!

Stanford Professor Jayanta Bhattacharya (50), an expert in health economics, has accused Lauterbach on X of being “incredibly misinformed about Covid science”.

The reason for the outrage: an RBB interview with Lauterbach from March 12th 2022.

In an interview excerpt shared by Bhattacharya, Lauterbach complained about an “exponential growth not only in viruses, but also in false reports. … In the case of Corona, for example, there was a scientists who used to do very good work but has now drifted off course: a Stanford scientist, Ioannidis,” Lauterbach says. He is referring to John Ioannidis (58), Professor of Medicine and Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health at Stanford University.

Statements that Bhattacharya won’t let stand!

“Professor John Ioannidis is not ‘worn out’ and is one of the most published/cited scientists on Covid,” he says… Furthermore, Ioannidis neither wrote nor signed the ‘Great Barrington Declaration’. And the Stanford professor clarifies in his counterattack on Lauterbach that the ‘Great Barrington Declaration’ never claimed that the virus was “not dangerous.” … “Lauterbach seems to not have any inkling of the damage his lockdown policies did to the poor, to children, and to the working class,” says Bhattacharya. AND: The Stanford professor even calls Lauterbach “unqualified”.

Major blogs and online magazines like Reitschuster and Tichys Einblick have picked up the story, with headlines about how badly informed Bhattacharya finds Lauterbach to be. News.de calls Bhattacharya’s “public reprimand” a “bitter slap in the face” for the Health Minister; Der Westen says much the same, as does the television broadcaster ProSieben.

We desperately need more of this. I call upon Jay Bhattacharya to continue his attacks on the German Health Minister. He is a moronic pseudointellectual fraud and a menace, and the German people need to hear this from Stanford professors like him. Perhaps the other authors of the Great Barrington Declaration could add their voices too. Surely John Ioannidis would also like to weigh in.

This piece originally appeared on Eugyppius’s Substack newsletter. You can subscribe here.

COMMENTS

The Covid Inquiry is Insulting the Victims of Lockdown

By Will Jones

What gives the relatives of Covid victims the sole right to the moral high ground, asks Allison Pearson in the Telegraph. Lockdowns were devastating, and their victims were often far younger than those of Covid. Yet the Covid Inquiry puts the spotlight on the former while largely ignoring the latter. Here’s an excerpt.

I really must stop watching the Covid Inquiry, it’s bad for the blood pressure. Even the element of drama is lacking because we all know how this story ends: Lady Hallett, shaggy blonde bob shaking sorrowfully, will find that chaotic, ‘shopping-trolley’ Boris locked down too late (even though notably un-chaotic Germany only locked down two days earlier than us). Bad Boris also raised commonsense objections to lockdown and refused to keep the population masked and social distancing in perpetuity, as recommended by Susan ‘Stalin’s Nanny’ Michie of the SAGE scientific advisory group. 

Given the choice between Boris’s hale-fellow magnanimity and Michie’s joyless authoritarianism, I know which I would choose, but that is very much not the preference of this appalling establishment sham. 

Relatives of those who died from Covid are allowed to be present (holding up laminated photos of the deceased) which gives proceedings the feel of a tribunal in Revolutionary France hellbent on personal revenge rather than what they should be; a rational and honest assessment of whether shutting down the country was justified. 

After the former Prime Minister apologised on Wednesday – “I understand the feelings of these victims and their families, and I am deeply sorry for the pain and the loss and the suffering,” said Boris – four protesters stood up, holding signs which said: “The dead can’t hear your apologies.” 

What gives those people the right to sole occupancy of the moral high ground? Of course their losses are terribly sad, but the median age of death from Covid (about 83 years) was not that different to the normal life expectancy for men and women before the pandemic. What about younger people killed or traumatised by lockdown? 

Where are the photos of the formerly happy girl who developed anorexia in 2020 and tragically took her own life (as recounted by the girl’s mother to a rightly upset Julia Hartley-Brewer on her Talk TV show)? How about the one million youngsters currently on a waiting list for mental-health services, a shocking queue that would stretch from London to Manchester? 

Any portraits perchance at the Inquiry of the bereaved at funerals who were not allowed to console each other, not even when they lived in the same house for goodness sake? Or the pregnant women who went through miscarriages alone because, apparently, having the father with them was too much of a Covid risk? 

How about the distraught, self-isolating spouses of confused and lonely care home residents who could not visit while staff trooped in gaily with their Tesco carrier bags? What about the grown men and women who still cry into their pillow at night fretting that their darling mum or dad died thinking they had abandoned them? 

Worth reading in full.

COMMENTS

Boris Johnson is Still in Denial About Lockdowns

By Will Jones

When he appeared at the Covid Inquiry this week, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson had a golden opportunity to get to the heart of the issue and denounce lockdown as unnecessary and harmful. But he blew it, says Dr. Jay Bhattacharya in UnHerd. Here’s an excerpt.

As a vocal Covid dissident and lockdown opponent throughout the pandemic, watching the U.K. Covid Inquiry these past few weeks has been a depressing experience. One gets the sense that both the people leading the inquiry and the vast majority of those questioned — the architects of the U.K.’s disastrously failed Covid policy — have learnt nothing. 

At one point on Wednesday, Boris Johnson had a golden opportunity to get to the heart of the problem. The lead inquiry lawyer, Hugo Keith KC, asked the former Prime Minister whether the late March 2020 order to lock down the country was “absolutely necessary”. This was Johnson’s golden opportunity to confess the cardinal error of the U.K.’s pandemic strategy: that it imposed lockdown in the first place.

Instead, he averred that the U.K. had “no other tool” than lockdown available. Under questioning about his involvement in pandemic decision-making in January and February 2020, the ex-PM’s mea culpa centred on his regret that he had not “twigged” the seriousness of the Covid threat earlier.

One major problem with this reasoning is that by the time February 2020 rolled around, Covid was almost certainly more widespread than anyone realised because it had arrived earlier than anyone realised. In 2019, Chinese authorities delayed reporting the existence of the virus to the world. Studies of antibodies in stored blood and stored wastewater from across the globe — including Italy, the U.S., Brazil and elsewhere — found traces of Covid’s presence in autumn 2019, long before the world knew about it. Even a January 2020 lockdown would have been too late: our fate was sealed once the virus was abroad in the world.

“The inquiry has been marked by a studied lack of curiosity about the great control group of the pandemic: Sweden,” Dr. Bhattacharya continues. “But Sweden did better than nearly every other country on earth in protecting human life. It has among the world’s lowest cumulative age-adjusted all-cause excess deaths since the start of the pandemic. And it accomplished this feat without lockdown.”

Worth reading in full.

For the full story on early Covid spread, see here and here.

COMMENTS

Bristol University Axes the National Anthem from Graduation Ceremonies Amid Students’ Claims it is “Old-Fashioned” and “Offensive to Some”

By Will Jones

Bristol University has axed the National Anthem from its graduation ceremonies with some students claiming it is “old-fashioned” and “offensive to some”. The Mail has the story.

The anthem has not been played since last year’s ceremony with the university saying it regularly updates its graduation ceremonies. 

God Save The King will now only be played when a member of the Royal Family is present. 

Some students at the 147-year-old university have suggested the National Anthem was culled because it is “irrelevant”, “old-fashioned” or might even be “offensive to some”.

It comes just weeks after the university vowed to remove slave trader Edward Colston’s emblem from its logo, after his statue was toppled during a Black Lives Matter protest in the city in June 2020.

Layla Daynes, 21, told the Sun: “The monarchy isn’t really relevant to my generation, so it wouldn’t be missed.”

Free Speech Union director Toby Young asked: “Why are Britain’s most prestigious universities openly contemptuous of the country’s history and heritage?”

Worth reading in full.

If the point of multiculturalism – which many of the university bosses who make these decisions would swear by – is that we are supposed to be united as a nation despite sometimes massive differences in cultural outlook, how is axing the National Anthem – a prominent symbol of our nation as one people that transcends our differences – supposed to help with that? The suspicion must be that decisions like this are motivated primarily by hatred of country and its history than any honourable motive. Sidelining the National Anthem makes little sense even for the adherents of the multicultural creed – unless the point is just to do Britain down for its supposed ‘systemic racism’ and historic ‘colonialism’.

COMMENTS

Labour Parliamentarians Back Kemi Badenoch on Stopping Children Changing Gender at School

By Will Jones

Tony Blair’s former Education Secretary Estelle Morris, who now sits in the Lords as a Labour peer, has backed Kemi Badenoch on trans rights by saying children should not be encouraged to change gender. The Telegraph has more.

Estelle Morris said pupils should be taught in biology lessons that there are only two sexes.

Speaking in a debate in the House of Lords, she warned that if teachers allowed children to “socially transition”, by referring to them by a different pronoun or name, it could cause them “psychological damage”.

She added that parents should always be informed if a child was struggling with their gender identity.

The comments go much further than the official Labour position, which so far has simply called on the Government to publish advice to schools on gender issues.

A group representing lesbian members of the Labour Party backed Equalities Minister Mrs Badenoch after she warned of an “epidemic” of gay children being told they were transgender.

The Lesbian Labour Group said: “How come a Tory minister can be right and Labour is so wrong?”

The Government has still not published long-awaited guidance for schools on how to deal with children who say they want to change gender, such as whether they should be allowed to take part in sports with children from the opposite biological sex.

I shudder to think what a Starmer-led Government will allow in our schools – it’s been bad enough under the Tories, whose ‘war on woke’ has often felt like little more than empty words from an administration powerless against the Blob.

Worth reading in full.

COMMENTS

U.K. Government’s Veto of Scotland’s Gender Reforms Ruled Lawful by Top Court

By Will Jones

Scotland’s highest court has ruled the U.K. Government acted lawfully by vetoing Nicola Sturgeon’s self-ID gender laws in a humiliating defeat for First Minister Humza Yousaf. The Telegraph has more.

The 

[theprophesiedprincess]

The Prophesied Princess - Ch 2 part 1

Hogwarts Legacy fic!: Female OC, takes place in sixth year after the events of the game. Fantasy/ destiny plot with a lot of romance later on &lt;3 feedback is welcome!

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Chapter two: Seraenya

Ser Jamis Evermore was a lean but muscled man. He had a receding hairline and wrinkles around the outer corners of his eyes, which Seraenya thought gave a kind look to him, as if he had smiled many times over his thirty-nine years. Despite this, the man looked strong and something about his demeanor portrayed that he was an experienced warrior. "I have heard much and more of your talents, princess. Syrio has spoken of you with only the utmost pride. I remember hearing that same tone when people spoke of your father and his before him. It will be an honor to mentor you through your sixth year at Hogwarts."

"Thank you, Ser. Your words are very kind." Seraenya had not known that she had any friends left to her from her home country of Astaria. After the war, support for her family was considered treason, she was sure. Ser Jamis had a genuine way in his words, despite the way his wand was tucked into his belt along with a blade. "Syrio told me you will be filling Professor Fig's position as professor of Magical Theory. You have a specialty in this area?"

Ser Jamis and Seraenya were traveling by an enchanted carriage, flying high above the Scottish greenery. This was the second, and much shorter carriage ride of their trip. There was no floo portal between Vossgaria and Scotland; a matter of international security – and travel by apparation was unwise for such a long distance. "Ay, mainly home-taught, I'm afraid. I took a special interest in the subject when I was a lad. I was a student Hogwarts, myself. Once I returned home to Old Cricket, there weren't many tutors or schools to formally pursue the subject. But I am an avid reader if you can believe it. Even during the war, I kept my books close by me when I wasn't on active duty."

Seraenya smiled, "I am sure you will do the students justice.". She looked out the window to an orange-specked sky of sunset.

"Princess. I know several of the faculty at Hogwarts from my time there as a boy. A good lot, most of them… Still, I would warn you to be cautious of each of them. Syrio has secured allies for you; those that will protect your identity from anyone who would wish to harm you. And yet, I'm afraid that alliance will only go as far as their own comfort isn't tested."

Seraenya sensed truth in his words, as much as she wished to trust the professors that she had grown fond of over the last year. "Professor Weasley. She is aware of my identity; I am sure of it. She protected my secret from Headmaster Black, and she came to my aid when I was in battle with Ranrok. I believe she may be a true friend to me. And Professor Sharp. He came to my aid as well, although I don't believe he knows my true name."

"Weasley, yes. I recall her and her brother from my youth. A good pair, and trustworthy I would wager. I can't say I know Professor Sharp more than just by name. He seems the right sort, but I would be wary nonetheless.", Ser Jamis warned.

"Hogwarts and its surrounding burrows are part of no kingdom territory and are a neutral ground. Even if the usurper discovered me and meant to harm me, doing so there would be in violation of Astaria's pact with the Ministry of Magic", Seraenya said. She knew this pact well. The reminder of it was one of the only things to calm her when she woke at night from nightmares of the usurper's men stalking her.

"You know your histories well, princess. You have been studying on your summer holiday, I presume. Ay, the pact is law, and the consequences of breaking it would be severe. Still, even bonds by blood have been known to be broken if the legends tell it true. Your strange powers have made you conspicuous to even the unsuspecting, I fear. We will walk with caution this year."

As the enchanted carriage descended in the sky, Seraenya looked out the window with a gasp. The sun had set, and the sky had become a dark sea of blinking stars. The Black Lake surrounding the Hogwarts castle was lit up with candles floating in the subtle wind-moved currents. This was a Hogwarts tradition, she knew. Every year, the new first-year students would cross the lake to the Hogwarts castle by paddleboat; an experience that Seraeyna never had, she thought sadly. She had attended classes as a "fifth-year" at the school for the first time the year prior. Despite a subtle feeling of loss for what could have been if she had been admitted to the school at age eleven as most had, Seraeyna knew she ought to be grateful that she could attend the school at all. With her secret ancestry and a target on her back that she had lived with her entire life, the experience of being a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry would have never been possible if not for the deliberate maneuvers of Magister Syrio Tamassis. Seraenya knew that the Magister had much to gain by this arrangement. Becoming educated by one of the finest magical schools in the world would make Seraenya more appealing for potential suitors for her hand, and any marriage alliance made for her would come at a great monetary incentive for Syrio. Besides that, there was potential for Seraenya to make great friends at Hogwarts, some of whom may go on to be quite powerful in their adulthood. This was something Syrio himself could use to his advantage later. Syrio was a smart man; he made his friends happy knowing they would make him happy in return later. Seraenya did not fault him this, she was just weary of it. Still, she was grateful for his help in securing her attendance at Hogwarts.

"Thank you for being my travel companion, Ser Jamis. I hope you settle in as a new professor nicely," Seraenya said as her and the new professor exited the carriage.

"You as well, princess. I will send you an owl with a meeting time soon. Enjoy the sorting ceremony".

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Read full story here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14301267/2/The-Prophesied-Princess