In my encounters with endless troves of unfamiliar and yet entirely enticing characters since coming to Glasgow a year ago I have lived numerous different lives and manufactured enough masks to supply a small museum. Yet, if I had to summarise my time in one word I would say that it has been hell. I can only apologise to all my honourable Sisyphusians out there, however, if I have learnt one thing this year, it is that there is often very little beauty in the struggle. In fact, what I now know is that there is almost always quite a distinct ugliness in the struggle (in my case an uncharming and perpetual state of awkwardness coupled with an obnoxious, pungent, all consuming aura of gracelessness). Immediately upon arrival in Glasgow I found myself trapped in the midst of some tragic irony. As, while on one hand I was being ambushed by some swarm of Scots, who despite assurances that they were speaking the same language as me, were still completely unintelligible. On the other, the voice in my head (schizophrenia unincluded) decided it would render itself clearer than it had ever been before, a poet, speaking, nay, bestowing its innermost truths to me with an unprecedented eloquence. Whispering to me sweet nothings, some tender tune, singing to me its song, painting me a picture of my soul. Unfortunately for me, the pretty portrait it decided to present was one of isolation and self-doubt. What became blatantly apparent, thanks almost entirely to my mind's newly formed, and now frequently put to use, mouth, was that I was not like everyone else. As a mostly white male who spent the last of his educational years in London, such a realisation was one I had only ever previously encountered as a child living in Bangkok (a story that requires its own devoted time), and was certainly one that struck within me, or perhaps brought out of me, a pervasive insecurity and sense of self doubt. Fortunately however, what came with this new found feeling of incongruity was a need that flourished inversely and simultaneously to my fear of not fitting in. The need… the need for personal growth and character development, admittedly not quite as exciting as speed, yet ironically (as I had at least convinced myself) such a need to improve would have to be closely accompanied by a pestering sense of urgency. If I wanted to fit in, to be happy, to make my whole life up until my arrival worth it, I had to become my best self, and soon, otherwise it would be too late, and my only chance for joy on this mortal coil would be entirely squandered, and with it my fate eternally sealed. In my quest for purity and perfection I fashioned myself several new personalities, I have been a drunk, a friend, a lover, a poet, a boxer and, in my most recent endeavour which I am 100% sure will definitely be my final stage of evolution, a writer. My search for self-certainty however, did not come without a price, to grow and to learn I have suffered moments of wince-worthy social shame, bruising bouts of anxiety and (a few more than) several moments of self-reproach. Somehow, in the midst of my woesome lows and horrible highs that sailed idly under the gruesome guise of a clear crisis of identity, all of which was exacerbated by this foreign world I found myself in... I emerged, as you now see me, in all my glory, grace and linguistic expertise (google has autocorrected every third word of this little essay I have written). Though I may have failed to learn how to drink, or to box, or to write poetry, or really (as I am certain this has demonstrated) write at all, after having spent almost one planetary orbit in this fine city, and having met every crazy clown and obnoxious orangutang it has to offer, as well as myself, at (most) times existing as some ever swinging pendulum between crazy clown and obnoxious orangutang, I can with certainty say that I have not for one moment, nor now, felt certainty. In this I have accepted that I never will. My great lesson, my wisdom, that I now cast upon all two of you reading this (hi mum and dad), is that life is never black and white. It’s rather always somewhere in between, some other shade, some other funny area, not quite sure what shade that might be, or what they call it these days though.