I don't know how to start. In fact I don't know what I'm doing at all. My paper that is. I didn't get the best mark on my first paper, which is somewhat disheartening. It wasn't awful, it's definitely manageable, but it wasn't what I'd hoped. This next essay doesn't seem to be doing any better. I know I need to write something tonight, but I just cannot seem to get started because I don't really know what I want to say.

It doesn't help that I was sitting in the library all day trying to find articles to no avail. It's just not flowing together.

Robbie B-ing

A yes. Good ole Robert Burns. We thank thee for the poem-ing and the giving us a reason to be haggis-ing and ceilidh-ing. Where would we be without poems such as "To a Louse" and "To a Mouse" not to mention "Auld Lang Syne".
We were formal hall-ing in celebration of Scotland's National poet yesterday and though I was denied even my vegetarian haggis (apparently some meat eaters changed their minds about eating the king of the pudding race and sneakily took my food instead) it was indeed good fun.

(Geeze. It's actually harder than it looks to be verbing all these nouns, you really have to think... sorry to all you who don't read hypocriticaconfessions. Inside joke.)

In other news:
It snowed here. Really it did. I was going to put up pictures but I re-instled windows and haven't yet recieved the camera software that my mom sent me. So no pics, but it should be soon. But seriously, it took me a while to realise it had snowed because it only stuck in a few places like roof-tops and on grass. Most of it was melted by the time I even set foot out the door at 11:00. I was amused.

Also, I am very nervous about going to the faculty today. We get our marks back for our first essays. eep. It's kind of like christmas when you know you could be getting something really awful.

I'll let you know how it goes.

Yup. Magnolia was right.

The little roses didn't even give me a chance to kill them before they died. It's okay though. I never really felt a connection with them. They were too delicate and, though very pretty, also very sharp. They didn't feel like they needed love, they were already too pretty to care.

It doesn't look too bad in the photo, and really it wasn't all dead just yet, but it was crumpling and disintigrating and it had brought in a few little buggy things. So I got a different one. This one I am assured will be easy to care for and will produce some lovely flowers. I like it better already. Simple and easy going. Just what I like.

And the essays are going fine. A little bit of trouble considering about 75% of my necessary sources are in another language. You know that you're in trouble when you are happy to find one in french or italian let alone english. I've said it once, I'll say it again, and most likely I'll say it many more times in the near future... Stupid German. (Sorry Bonobo).

settling in

Ahhhh.

My books are beginning to pile.

My mess is beginning to accumulate.

My food is stocked.

My life is starting to get back to being solid.

Watch and in a little while I'll be bored with it, but it's a nice thought right now to have some sort of consistent space for a while. Plus now it's a space with a plant!

I really wanted to pick up something alive to cheer the place up a bit, something to share my glad time and my woes. If I can't have some sort of animal, a plant is the next best thing right? Better than talking to myself isn't it? Slightly less crazy? And it's a rose, so now I can stop and smell the roses almost any time I want!

Here's hoping I don't kill it immediately

I'm back, and I'm smelly

The "back" is pretty self explanitory, the "smelly" will be explained promptly.

So Crete was beautiful.
My new year's resolution to be better with photos has already fallen to the wayside because I am looking at the photos I took and thinking that a) there are not nearly enough and b) they aren't the best photos I could have taken. I missed a lot of stuff like the palace and the pack of dogs or the cats that called the villa their home. I also missed the "skating rink" that was set up in the nearby town. I just about laughed aloud at thes kids skating on a thin layer of ice on what I think was plexi glass. And I us skating here as a liberal term since they were more clomping around and falling all over the place than skating. But C'est la Vie. I will learn from it and try to improve.
But really, there wasn't a lot of sight seeing. I was there to learn about vase shapes and how to draw them and that's mostly what I did. I was staying in the Villa Ariadne which was set up by Arthur Evans himself back in the early 1900's when he was doing the original excavations of Knossos. This was very interesting for me because if you know anything about the founding fathers and places in archaeological history Evans figures very promimently. The rooms we were in had of course been renovated and whatnot, but still. The below photo is a view of Heraklion from where we were staying. Very hilly, very beautiful. Very peaceful this time of year because there aren't that many tourists at all so most things in Knossos are not open.

That's a small view of the villa we were staying in. It's got a garden which was nice and which in summer I'm sure would be beautiful.

And this is an example of some of the stuff I was learning to draw. This is a kylix sherd, kind of like a wine goblet and fairly simple. They get more complex and confusing that that one, trust me.

Crete was also cold. Well, colder than I expected. It's funny how 10C in my head is something completely different from the 10C that was Crete in winter. I mean I survived easily enough, but it was chilly, particularly sitting in a concrete box most of the day without access to the sun. And really, had I packed a bit smarter it would have been more than fine. But that's were the smelliness comes in. I had really only packed two medium sweaters and some long sleeved shirts and some tanks for underneath. When you wear 4-5 layers each day, and both sweaters, they become fairly smelly fairly quickly. Who knew?

So that's pretty much it.

Except you know when you find out something that you just haven't thought about? Did you know that they have hedghogs running around free over here? That they just show up in peoples' gardens nd what not? I hadn't really thought about where hedgehogs come from, in my mind they come from the pet shop. Weird.

back in the act

Well you'll all be very pleased to note that I have arrived safely with little to no fuss. I apparently stayed up way to late last night (10:00 Cambridge time), because I didn't wake up until a marvelous 1:00 pm (also cambridge time). I'm still telling myself that it's alright considering that's, what, around 6:00 in the morning edmonton time, so really I woke up early.
I'm not usually that jet lagged, but I should have gone to bed earlier. I was so knackered that it wouldn't have been hard.
So things I must do today now that I am out of bed:
Get some books
Get some fruit
Get an alarm clock (forgot mine... hmm maybe that's why I slept so late)
Get unpacked (from Edmonton)
Get packed (for Greece)

Sounds like a good day. And yet I still have this urge to go back to bed.

gingerbread and puppy dogs

The holidays were good. Very enjoyable indeed. Full of lots and lots and lots of food. Crafty Bean was right in saying that too many people worry about their weight between Christmas and New Year when we really should be worried about our weight between New Years and Christmas. I obviously wasn't worried enough to stop eating everything in sight anyways. But I had fun, and am pleased. (the above photo is a gingerbread house my sisters and I made from scratch. Most of the credit goes to my little sister for making all the gingerbread and the icing, but I helped decorate! very important...)

And that's my puppy. Because she's cute and I miss not having her around when I'm away. I like having someone (or rather something) to cuddle even if she is just a fuzzy version of the devil.

And, as you may have noticed with the photos, I did get a digital camera for Christmas, so I have resolved to try and take more photos of my world and things that excite me so that I can share them. I know you might not be excited by them yourselves, but still. I don't know for sure when I will be coming home, it could realistically be not until next Christmas (and September at the earliest at any rate). Considering I leave on Thursday, I have a feeling I won't be seeing everyone before I go. An unhappy case, but probably true, so keep blogging please. I like to know what's happening in your world.