Hello again...

...sorry I've been away but with the holidays and air travel woes and having caught a nasty cold and getting back into the swing of things here in Edinburgh I haven't had much time to write.  Anyway, here are a short series of updates on my life since I went radio silent.

Before I left Edinburgh we had a  Christmas dinner at the dining hall complete with Christmas crackers and free whiskey (everyone was very jolly).  I learned about yet another word that has a different meaning here than it does at home (technically its several words, but you know what I mean) pigs in a blanket, which at home are mini hot dogs wrapped in puff pastry, here means sausages wrapped in bacon (the UK may be the only country that can compete with the US in terms of love of bacon).

I then had the pleasure of waking up at 5 am to make my flight (it was reeeeeeally early, I don't like 5 am very much) and then remaining awake for the next 22 hours (I was lots of fun to be around for a while there).  Thankfully, I got to spend most of those hours in the company of the lovely and sympathetic Hannah in fabulous New York City so that was lots of fun.  


Then I headed home for the holidays, it was absolutely fabulous to see everyone and get to hang out with my lovely family, even if we had to drive for ages through a Noreasterner to get there (there were moments where I was quite jealous of my friends who went to Dubai for their holidays).


Anyway, sorry its been forever since we talked, I missed you!
Love ya!

Please, someone, shovel some sidewalks!

It has been a week since it stopped snowing and the sidewalks are still covered in show but now it has turned into ice so it is SUPER slippery (as my skinned elbow and bruised buttock can attest)

Anyway, since you don't want to hear about how I would reform the Scottish snow removal services here are some pictures that I took earlier this week when the snow was pretty and I wasn't feeling resentful about it.

Anyway, hope you enjoyed those, I gotta go study for my exam tomorrow (an exam on Saturday o the injustice!)

But it isn't your fault!
Love ya!

Well I had my first Scottish final exam today...

...and it went fine, though I am really tired now (might have something to do with my OH SO lovely neighbor and the fact that he just broke up with his girlfriend and seems to be trying to make up for lost time BUT I digress)
Anyway, I just had a final and I spent a fairly significant amount of time trying to figure out whether I was spelling things right (drat those extra u's that they keep sticking in words over here!) but other than that it went rather well and I am starting to get excited about coming home soon.

Now that my final is done and I have a few days before I have another I need to do all the things I was putting off, like cleaning my room and doing my laundry (I would show you pictures but I am afraid you would never speak to me again).  The laundry situation is particularity dire because, you see, I have to go outside to do my laundry and walk through about 100 yards of this and its dark and cold outside:

(excuse the funny lighting, I don't really know what happened except that it is dark at 4 here)

It just seems like a lot of work for laundry, you know? (please understand, and please still be my friends after this rather embarrassing episode...)

Anyway, I'm off to do my laundry, wish me luck (I'll need it, how sad is that that I need luck to do my laundry)!

Your rather messy friend,
Eliza

Love ya!

So much snow...

...Sorry I have been MIA, things got a little crazy around here what with exams around the corner and the fact that we have been absolutely inundated with snow (and at one point my computer crashed but you don't need to hear about that story, it was too traumatizing to share)

Anyway, this is what the view out my window has looked like for about a week

 All snowy and foggy

And pretty

(Did I mention the fog?)

(Just for reference  the top picture here is what that view used to look like.)

Weather like this is especially crazy here because it isn't as common as it is at home and they are not as good at figuring out what to do with it.  At home the snow is gone from sidewalks the day after it snows, here I have been waiting a week and it is still there making my walk to classes more difficult.

Anyway, I gotta get back to studying, exams start in two days!  (wish me luck)

Love ya!

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!