So the rapture was this weekend...

...or not. Or (my own personal theory) the rapture happened but no one was worthy of being saved.

Anyway, I'm glad that the world isn't ending cause I am starting a new job this week!  Say hello to Eliza, the research assistant.

Hope you are all doing well and enjoying better weather than we are having here in New Haven.

Love ya!

Almost Done!

Well, I only have one more exam until this year is done!  It has gone soooo fast!  I can't believe I am almost 1/4 of the way done with college, I mean, what!?  When did that happen?

Its been about 9 months since I started this blog and I have not posted very much and I am sorry for that but it has been a really great way for me to keep people in the loop (and sometimes to complain about things!)

I would just like to thank you all for your support through all this, especially mom, dad and Georgia, I could not wish for a better family and I love you guys so much.  But everyone who reads this, I couldn't have done it without you.  So thanks; !

But you didn't come here to hear me be mushy about how much I love you, you came to hear about my hilarious adventures in almost adulthood in the land of kilts and royals.  (Parenthetically, I think all the royal wedding stuff is hilarious, especially all the coverage in the states.  I was actually invited to an event in London this week but I was too scared of royal wedding tourists to go, apparently there is an international consortium of 20-something girls trying to seduce Harry after the wedding, which is funny and terrifying at the same time; either way, I don't really want to run into them.  Also, apropos of nothing, I want to steal Kate Middleton's hair, it is so shiny and nice!)

My funniest story while I was away actually happened on the Connecticut Limo on the way to JFK for my flight.  For those of you who are not familiar with the CT limo it is a service that drives from New Haven to various New York airports (also there are no limos, just smelly vans).

Anyway, I got on the limo to find three of my fellow passengers already deep in conversation about how they are all Canadian (though one of them was British, much to my confusion).  I eventually introduced myself and got to chatting with them and these are the facts about my fellow travellers.

There was a well respected classical violinist with a one eyed Chihuahua who was visiting her fiance in Cleveland who told us all about being in a classical quartet and how her fiance feels like he is marrying all four of them.

There was a 6' 7" English gentleman and his Canadian girlfriend (who was maybe 5" nothing)  who had both been neuroscientists until he had quit to become a massage therapist.  They were on their way to visit his family, who are apparently very stereotypically British and want them to get married, move to the UK and start having babies.  I found out that the girl was a coworker of a family friend of ours (academia is a small world).  When these folks found out that I studying psychology they pulled out their computers and started quizzing me on the functions of different parts on the brain and reading MRIs which was nice, if a little bizarre.

The Canadian scientist was explaining her work on taste and how people of different weights have different neurochemical reactions to food and scents when an older South American gentlemen turned around and mentioned casually that he and his mother both lacked a sense of smell which led to an interesting discussion on what that might be like which ended with my favorite quote from the day, "Well it might not be that bad, depending on how well your mother cooked"

Anyway, I hope this long post somewhat makes up for the fact that I haven't posted in ages.  I will be back in the states in a couple weeks and will be able to start my new job of teaching things to brain damaged mice and talking to heart attack patients...should be interesting.

See you all soon,
Love ya!

Long overdue flat photos

Just let me preface this by saying these were taken very hastily late at night (we were in a hurry because our landlord had to preform his evening prayers and the current tenants were there so things were a little awkward).

Here is our front door (we are on the top floor so you can't see our windows but that is the door):

 This is the stairwell, which is the first nicely lit stairway area I have seen in an old building since I got to Edinburgh:

 This is the first thing you see when you walk through the door (excuse the mess, it isn't ours) a large 70s chest of drawers type thing and then this hallway which is inexplicably covered in magazine pictures (which are going to be the first thing we get rid of, they are really ugly)  the second thing we are going to do is get some more lamps, the place is very dark and gloomy (hence the blurry photos). 

The kitchen, the door is on the right of the fridge (it is painted with blackboard paint which is really cool) and to the right of the door there is a sitting area with couches and armchairs of which there are no photos because the current tenants were sitting in it.

 The kitchen has the usual accouterments, stove, oven washing machine...

 ...scary looking hot water heater/broiler thing

 If you look at the hallway picture the doorway where Nikki is sitting is going to be Naomi's room and my room is just out of frame, I was really rushing at this point and didn't get too many pictures of the layout but here is what I have.  This is my desk and the built in bookshelves above it (they are the reason I chose this room) where I am standing taking the picture is directly underneath the skylight and the door is just out of frame on the left side of the picture.  Behind me is my bed which is a (queen sized) loft bed which I did not get any usable pictures of :(

 However, I did get a photo of this wardrobe which is under the bed (this thing is massive, as tall as I am and as wide as the bed)  you can see the bed's supports and the underside of the bed behind the wardrobe.  I am thinking about putting a comfy chair under the bed as well just to the left of this picture so that the room has a little more seating.

Anyway, hope you all enjoyed that little tour, sorry about the quality/quantity of the pictures, once we have fixed it up I will take you on a proper virtual tour of the place (and some roomie photos, I know you want to see them but I have to ask permission before I just go around photographing people).

Love ya!
(and for some of you I will see you soon!  I'm heading home on Tuesday...ack, gotta go pack! [hehehehe, that rhymed])
(also the spell check correction guesses for hehehehe are hilarious "Scheherazade" anybody? [also, nerd points to anyone, other than me, who knew who Scheherazade was without using google]  How about "vehemence" or perhaps "Bethlehem"?)

So my card reader is really and truly lost...

...but another one is winging its way to me from Amazon so the pictures should be up soon.
I have to go to class now but I will blog again soon and tell you all about how busy I have been (I promise there are some embarrassing stories to tell as well).  So I will talk to you soon.

Love ya!

Sorry...

...I won't be able to post my pictures today like I hoped to, I have lost my card reader.  I will get them up as soon as possible.

In the mean time, I am off to York and then Newcastle for the weekend.  I'll catch ya on the flip side to tell you all about it.

Love ya!

I offically have a place to live next year!!

After a rather upsetting few days of apartment hunting my new flatmates and I were feeling rather downtrodden.  Between the massively expensive place that was half an hour away from anywhere we would need to go and the cheaper place with a kitchen the size of a coat closet we approached our last viewing of the day with trepidation (especially since there were no pictures online).  We were happy to find that the flat was in a nice neighborhood, very residential and not heavily student-y.  On a funny side-note, we had walked by the street where our new flat is earlier and (not realizing that it was the street we were visiting later) I said "Hey, I'd like to live on that street!" and all my future flatmates agreed with me so we were pretty excited when we realized that that was where our next viewing was.  Despite this fortuitous coincidence we were still pretty nervous about this place, mostly because it was rented through a private landlord and not a letting service and also because of the lack of pictures online.  We also wondered about the place because it was significantly cheaper than all the other places we looked at so we thought it might be really awful inside (but the outside was really nice so we were cautiously optimistic).  Then our future landlord arrived, he was a lovely older Middle Eastern man with a long white beard who complemented us on our punctuality and pulled togetherness and lead us into the house...and it was lovely.

There was a nice well lit entryway (and we have seen some pretty creepy/dingy entryways in our search) with an almost spiraling stairway up to the flat we were looking at on the third floor, so far so good (in fact better than anywhere else we had looked) but we sill hadn't gotten inside yet.  And when we did, it was pretty great, the flat is old with massively high ceilings and impressively detailed moldings.  There were 5 bedrooms of varying size, from absolutely massive to rather small but they were all nice and the smaller bedrooms have lofted beds which are nice and make them feel much larger than they are.  There is a kitchen/lounge that needs some work but it is a lot larger than any of the other places we looked at so that is very nice.

We are signing our lease tonight and (with the permission of the current residents) I am planning on taking some pictures so stay tuned!

Love ya!

Time Flies When You're...what have I been doing...

Guess what guys! I think I have discovered the secret to time travel...'cause I am pretty sure it is still the third week of January but I have somehow ended up in the end of February...if only I knew how I did it, I think it has something to do with all the work I have had to do lately. 

This last couple months have been nuts, I have wrote a paper about a river in Edinburgh that used to power the city's paper industry, then rewrote half of it when I realized some of the stuff I had written was actually about a river by the same name in New Zealand.  Quick sidenote: I am typing in Firefox and it keeps trying to correct the Zealand part of New Zealand to Zululand or Zeal-and neither of which make any sense, first of all Zululand was a name for the kingdom of Zulu which hasn't been around since 1897 and is currently a city in South Africa now that is all well and good but New Zealand is a country, it seems like it should be recognized before cities and ancient kingdoms, but maybe that's just me.

Another adventure I had in the world of academia was an exciting and epic search for a book I needed to read before my midterm...I had to walk to three different libraries (all of which said that they had the book) and I still couldn't find the stupid book, eventually I had to camp in a bookstore and do my reading there, which was kind of a hasle.

I also have been readying myself for applications for summer internships and such which has not been very much fun...but on a lighter note, I have discovered what seems to me to be a strange and unholy combination of two slightly silly fads (one from the 80s and one from the 00s no less).  Behold the Sodukube the strange offspring of a rubix cube and soduku puzzles.  I am baffled by this product (which I spotted in my local Starbucks while on a tea run) can you only solve it once? what do you do with it after? has anyone ever solved it before they chuck it at the wall and decide to go solve a suduku and then a rubix cube for essentially the same experience?  also why did someone invent soduku toilet paper (one of the recommended products on the amazon page)? do you sit on the toilet and do the soduku every time you go? that seems like a colossal waste of time doesn't it?

Anyway I leave you to ponder those questions...I'll be back soon (and I mean it this time)
Love ya!