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.

I'm such a girl!

Guess what I did today. Bet you can't guess!
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Have you guessed yet?
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I bought 2, yes 2, hundred dollars on makeup.
My little sister's amazing Christmas present to me was to go to MAC and get some makeup done by one of the girls there and 40 dollars of makeup. And then I bought 200 dollars more. I justify this by the fact that I don't really own any makeup, only a little bit. But I have been wearing the little bit I own quite a lot lately. And it's all good quality stuff that will last me a long time and it's much cheaper to buy it here than decide I want to get it and have to buy it in England.
Then we went to lunch.

All in all, I'm feeling much better, having had a great day with delly then this with my sis.

Not much of a confidence hunter, but somehow I think it's creeping back up on me anyways. Thanks everyone. I really really hope to see those of you I haven't seen soon.

Wow. Self-doubt sucks. Confidence is indeed a fickle, fickle friend.

PAR-TEE, PAR-TEE, PAR-TEE...

Joy!

I'm sick of being sick. So today I went to the doctor and got me some drugs. I am now the proud owner of some antibiotics, cough syrup with codeine, and nasal spray. Yummy. I hope they work, since not only have I still been coughing, but I pulled a miscle in my chest so that every time I cough/sneeze/laugh/twist or reach or move in the wrong way I get a nice stabbing pain. So hopefully I will be disease free before the week is out.

At present I'm also a bit mad at myself. I can never seem to get off my ass and get applications for things in with time to spare. I always leave it to the last minute. Honestly, for this one I have been putting it off in hopes that I would get some inspirational thought of exactly what I wanted to do my Phd on, and I did think I had until early next term. But now I find that, OOPS, if I want any chance at funding the application has to be in by Friday. Shoot monkeys. I think It's do able, if I spend a bunch of money on overnight style shipping, but still. I could have done this while I was still there and saved myself some trauma.

On a nicer note, I feel Christmassy now that I've worked a reflections shift. I was at the front end bonfire. So it was a chilly, but not freezing cold night, with not many problems (apart from a continually drippy nose) and a lovely fire to watch. I'm looking forward to being in Ruthy next shift, but I do enjoy the bonfires because they are just so simple and calming.

But seriously. I haven't actually seen many of you yet. How is that possible? Again, maybe a problem with me getting off my ass.

home again home again

Ah i's good to be back to stab city.
Apart from the day spent in planes trains and automobiles, the incessant coughing (which made me feel like a social parhia on the plane), and the fact that in my head it's 4 o'clock in the morning, it's good to be back.

contact will follow. But not now.

last chance

All right folks, seeing as I leave on Wednesday, I figure I should make a last call for anything anyone really would like to see brought home from Cambridge. Anyone? Anything? Well, not anything, but anything within reason.

much love and I can't wait to see everyone again.

Cambridge.

A place where people study hard, but play harder. Apparently. It's pretty rampant, but I guess I'm just not used to college dormitory life. It's not really that bad but it's fairly constant.

Last night was the 'mingle' entitled 'Fear and Loathing in Las Minglas'. That means an Elvis impersonator and many an undergrad in stockings and hot pants. They turned all of the room in one of the buildings on campus into different places to dance with pretty impressive decor. I danced a lot, didn't drink, but am still tired this morning since I got up at 7 to attend a Founders day mass at the chapel followed by an ale breakfast. Interesting tradition. What's more interesting is the dinner that we are having tonight.
It's restricted to last year undergrads and first year grads (who didn't go the previous year, you can only go once) and is completely free. It includes a 7, yes a 7, course meal including a different type of wine with each course. And it's black tie of course. Wow. I'm sure that Henry VI would be so very proud of our gourmandizing.

speaking of proud...

Look what I managed to do! This is a colour reconstruction of the pediment sculpture that I've been writing on for my first essay that I managed to make. I did it by hand first, but the details didn't come out as clean as I wanted, so I thought I'd try and do it on computer though the program they have here is one I never used before. It took me awhile to figure out how to get things started, and took a long time to do once I figured it out... but I did it! Yay! Small victories.

In honour of Crafty Bean...

... I will finally post a few photosof my world

This is my college. Isn't it pretty? This was a while ago, it's not as blue or green anymore on the whole.

This is our dining hall. We get dinner every night, but it's usually cafeteria style. When I refer to formals this is what I mean. Its basically a sit down served dinner that's supposed to be fancier than normal. Sorry the photo is so dark, it doesn't really show what the hall looks like very well.

Here is a Cambridge cow. This is the one I think Bonobo should write about. (everyone I tell about your story idea loves it... so I won't tell anyone else because they might steal it. You better get on writing that Bonobo.)

That's it. Not too shabby, eh? And only a week before I'm home.

At this present moment, I am revelling in my dorkiness.
I get to go draw pot sherds today! Yay! Pot sherds! It's all very exciting for me. This is my first class that is leading towards the project that I am doing in leu of a third essay. I think i've already mentioned that I'm very pleased.

There really is not much else to say. I mean, my first essay is almost done, it's still getting cleaned up but is essentially finished. Which is good because I'll get a bit of time to try and clarify my second essay topic and my thesis proposal. And party. Mustn't forget to make time to party. Although that time seems to make itself regardless of whether you have it or not.

I have camera consistency envy of crafty bean. I always feel silly for not having the photos to back up my tales... somehow I feel you all need proof and an acurate visual of what I mean.
For example, can you all picture the clown band (complete with tuba) that was outside my building yesterday? I doubt it. You can try to imagine the colourful costumes and the oddly painted faces and the image of clowns playing random instruments, but the fact that I missed the photo denies you the joy of seeing exactly what I mean. Well, maybe it is better this way. I still haven't posted a pic of the tea shop, for example, since I really don't think it is all that interesting of a shop and I would hate to deny you the excitement of picturing me living above a cute little tea house type place.

It is only a week and a bit until I get home anyways. Kind of strange to think that soon I will be transported back to the land of cold and ice where, though away from my school and the work environment, I will have to try and maintain a good work ethic and actually get a lot of research finished. I feel confident that I'll be able to do it, but I do know how fast days can get away from you if you aren't careful.

Well, I am determined to get a (semi-) final draft done by the end of today so to the library I must adjurn.

yup. Motivation has completely left the building.
There really is a lot for me to get done before I leave but I feel as if it will be accomplished. I want to have my essay completely finished and ready to and ready to hand in on the 1st so that I can spend the few days after that getting my next essay topics in order. But I don't know if that is too optimistic in my present state of mind. Plus this next week has plenty of stuff going on such as:

1) heading into Oxford tomorrow for a reunion with the folk from my Lefkandi dig this summer
2) not one but two formal halls (possibly three)
3) plenty of semester end drinks in faculty, kings, and the hostel I'm living in
4) I hope to go see Troy: the musical! that is playing next weekend
5) There's an advent service I'll be attending at the chapel sunday night

so hopefully i'll be destracted enough to work on finishing my essay, if that makes any sense.

I hear it's downright cold in e-town right now. At least you can all whine about it with reason, people here complain and it's not even below zero. It's chilly, sure, but not what I'd call cold just yet. And we seem to be getting more than enough days of crisp sunshiney blue skies. Sorry, didn't mean to rub it in... I miss snow, really I do.

The sharp pangs of homesickness have poked me a little. Not that I don't think about being home a lot, it's just that this morning feels like a day where I would much rather be home than here. It's funny how it comes at you from out of the blue. I have no particular reason for being homesick today, it just decided to run up and ambush me from behind. But at least I'm mostly over my sick sickness (the cough refuses to vanish completely, but it has greatly diminished).

Oh well, it's just two more weeks or so until I'm flying home. Really, that's almost to soon considering what I need to do in that time. These upcoming weeks also have lots of things to look forward to including a couple of formal dinners and general end of term cheer, but I am looking forward to getting back and being surrounded by those I love and adore. (ah, cheesy, but true).

I better get going, ancient greek calls