Can't wait for my family to visit!!

Hello,
I have been writing papers pretty much nonstop since I last posted (though you will be glad to know I took a break yesterday to dissect a locust's head) and it is very hard to work up enough creative juices to write on the blog when I have already been writing all day (so, I am sorry I have been absent!)

But I am back now and I have big news...on Saturday I am going to have my first visitors!!  I can't wait to see my family again (and have some good food for a change!).  Another somewhat selfish reason I am glad to see them is that their apartment has an extra bedroom so I can sleep in a big bed for a couple of nights while they are here.
I am really excited to share this lovely city with my family, I just wish I didn't have classes all week!

I promise that I will get some more photos up soon (though things are kinda grey and dreary right now), but here are some old photos that I took when I was visiting last year!

A Highland Cow (I may have trespassed to get this photo, shhhh! don't tell)

What the sky looks like most of the time here

The part of town that my family will be staying in on an astonishingly clear day

Anyway guys, I hope you all have a lovely thanksgiving break (I am sooooo jealous, I could use a break right about now)

Love ya!

Some random thoughts I have had today...

So you know how gmail shows adds that are relevant to your email content (for about a month while I was waiting for my visa to come through they were trying to sell me a visa to Guam) well currently my gmail is advertising a school where one can learn to be a manicurist and I have no idea why, none of the emails I have sent or received have anything to do with manicuring...it is very strange.

Also, while the UK has technically made the switch to the metric system, you wouldn't really know it based on day to day life.  They still serve pints, people give their heights in feet and inches and they use stones as a measure of weight.  Brief side-note; stone is such a confusing measure especially when you consider the fact that no one seems to know how many pounds in a stone, in my rigorous and scientific survey of my friends absolutely no one knew how much weight a stone represented (for your edification dear blog readers; 1 stone=14 lbs).  The only place that seems to use the metric system is my gym (which is soooo confusing, you have no idea.  The first time I went to the gym here I grabbed a weight labeled 10 and tried to do bicep curls...I thought I had gone insane until I finally worked out the whole pound vs. kilogram thing.)

And lastly, all British brands bear a label with a little crest that says, "By Appointment to Her Majesty the Queen Manufacturers of..." (with whatever they make in place of the ellipses, for example, my dish soap says "... of Soap and Detergent").  I think it is really funny and I truly hope that somewhere in the palace there is someone whose job it is to decide what companies get to be appointed manufacturers of soap and crackers and things (I also dearly hope that that person is the queen, but I think that might be stretching it).

Anyway, gonna go sleep now that I have finally finished my biology paper,
Love ya!

Rain, rain, go away (and please take these essays I have to write with you)

I have been very busy lately (finally starting to feel like I am in school for real!)  and I have had my first real bout of homesickness...I miss knowing exactly what I had to do and having someone make me do it, but mostly I miss having good food on a regular basis (the cafeteria here is awful).

I am not sorry I moved here, it was the right decision, I needed the challenge, and I have no desire to go back to high school but now I understand why people wax nostalgic about their teenage years.

I have always been of the opinion that high school should not be the best time of your life in fact,  I may have said (in a sarcastic manner) "if I ever start referring to these as the best years of my life - remind me to kill myself"(a quote I borrowed from the seminal nineties flick about the seventies Dazed and Confused)  However, thought I do not under any circumstances wish to return to high school, I now understand why people feel that way.  High school is easy in a lot of ways (while of course being incredibly hard in others), you don't have to worry about things, your parents are always there for you and you can kind of shut down and go on autopilot (or at least I could).  Here is different, I have a whole host of concerns that I didn't have before and my autopilot is shot; however, I have come to the conclusion that this is a good thing, I needed to do this...but I do wish there was a little less rain to contend with...

I am very tired of rain...I wish that the weather was like this again

Again, thanks for bearing with me when I ramble
Love ya!