sit down son

I forgot to update for like, a million years.

Well, not so much FORGOT as just had no idea how to form everything into one entry because there was just SO MUCH over the course of one week that it just wasn't POSSIBLE to sit down and churn out a quick entry detailing a few days. Yeah. Halloween was fucking insaaaaane and awesome and awkward (occasionally) and hilarious and, well, rather intoxicated on the whole. And lasted more than just the one night for some reason.

Mom, I know you're reading this. Halloween definitely existed.

Okay, that aside! We're in what, like week 6 now? Considering there's only 9 in total that's sort of like. Crazy. I only have a few weeks left, then the exam week during which I get to write an essay on Yeats. I'm actually CURRENTLY doing an essay on Edgeworth but one can only research for so long before one's head explodes! So I'm taking my break and at least attempting to write a coherent blogly update.

*PSA*: if you don't read copperbadge but do read shoebox_project, note that it has been hacked. Do not click the link. Bad things supposedly happen. Keyloggers that can steal your password and erase your journal! Bad things. Go look at copperbadge and read comments for how to avoid these things. Hopefully it'll all be sorted soon enough.

So let's see! I've talked to a few people in IM about the soap-opera-ness of my life as of late so I don't think I'll rehash that, really. If you can catch me, you're welcome to ask and I might perhaps fill you in a bit. Depends on my mood! But all that seems to have calmed down and ceased to be an awkward mess of "what am I supposed to do" and has left me with some really great friends, being the butt of a good number of jokes from various other friends and just generally a grand time of things. It works, that's the important part.

And speaking of good friends! Me and a few of mine have worked out the perfect way to feed ourselves. Dinner rotation! We have four people (myself, Shannon, Oana and George) and we trade off nights of cooking a full meal. Someone who didn't cook does the dishes, we rotate between kitchens, etc. It works out really well because it means we get four GOOD meals a week (as we all can apparently cook!), three of which we don't do anything for and four nights of good company while we sit around cooking/eating/chatting. It's really great fun. The plan is to go to Belfast this weekend as well. We're renting a car and hitting the road! Time to explore the country! Excitement! We've been talking a bit about the possibility of using one of the real next term to go snowboarding. Possibly in Austria if we can work out the logistics, which I really hope we can! Shannon is also determined that we need to invade George's country and teach me to swim. Because apparently being in Crete will force me to actually learn. I call it an excuse, not that I'm complaining. Basically I have an awesome close-knit group of friends now. As opposed to just knowing everyone a little. Which I still do, of course, but hey. You get the idea.

Classes really are going pretty well, still. The prof that taught Edgeworth wasn't particularly interesting though, which made me sad. I genuinely like Edgeworth and she was making me want to fall asleep. Day two of it was better because we...didn't let her talk much. It got into a lot of discussion--much more entertaining. One of the classes was cancelled and we'll have it on Monday. Sort of amusing how they reschedule things at random times! Thing is, they know when all our classes are as we don't get to choose them, really. The set curriculum really can't be deviated from all that much except for picking which of the two options you want to take. I was saying in comments to ruriruri earlier that it DOES mean that I can't have 3597235 things set to be due at once, which is handy! I have this essay due Monday, then one Dec 12, then the option course essay on Jan 19 for this term. We get all of Christmas for the last one and all of exam week for the Yeats one! Not bad, I say! Similar going for Hillary term after Christmas. (This term is called Michaelmas, btw! We also have Trinity Term, which is a series of lectures, apparently? And meant for us to work on our dissertations.)

I've taken to watching House as of late in addition to my Grey's Anatomy and Bones. Of course, this means I actually had to catch up. I'm finished with all of season 1 and the first disc of season 2. The random episodes I caught on TV before make much more sense now in context of the storyline. Shannon with her enormous collection of DVDs has been my favorite thing ever in this venture!

I've sort of picked RPing a little as well. Not NEARLLLLY to the extent I was this summer, but I at least am sort of paying attention and commenting. Funny thing is that even though it feels like I've been here no time at all, as soon as I started typing IC again, I realized how much the speech patterns here have affected me. It wasn't all that obvious when I was just speaking or talking in my own voice, but trying to slide back into a voice I'd set and distinguished as a CHARACTER'S voice was really, really strange. I kept catching myself and thinking "This is not how I would have phrased this before!" So I think Dino's speech is turning a bit Irish. If you even notice it, forgive me! But I think it's just more of something that *I* notice. Quirks of speech and all. Bah.

Annnnnyhow. I've almost entirely stopped drinking soda except for on rare occasions. That actually started back in the first few weeks when it was just expensive and not readily available--which hasn't changed, honestly. But I still drank it because I needed the caffeine and wasn't getting it from anywhere else. It's a strange and terrible addiction, but one I've had for years and years and years. However! At this point, it has been replaced. With tea! Which...I hated before I got here. Have I mentioned how much I love Irish tea in here yet? Because I really, really do. Just the crappy cheap stuff (according to the tea connoisseurs in my acquaintance), also known as Barry's Gold Blend. But from this new obsession I have discovered a device that I never realized how much I needed. Because I'd never had one. This magical invention is the ELECTRIC TEA KETTLE. Boiling water in minutes! Beyond the use of MAKING TEA, it can also be used in cooking! A brilliant invention! No waiting for the burner on the stove to heat the pot to heat the water to boil! MINUTES! And the lovely sound of water as it heats and boils in MINUTES!

....You get the idea, I'm sure. Electric tea kettle. A+. $15 at Walmart. I looked. (CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT NOW.)

One of the things my sister (birdythenerdy) was most concerned about in regards to me Going Off On My Own was that I have a brilliant hair cut, but she feared that I would never actually style it. I have noticed something rather hilarious in this regard. My hair cut, as it should be styled, involves simply using a blow dryer and a round brush to curl it under. This country, as a general rule, has a lot of rain. However, MOST days I do NOT in fact get rained on for whatever stroke of luck. BUT. Any day on which I take the effort to DRY and curl my hair under, I inevitably get rained on. AS SUCH. I style my hair with a combination of bobby pins, hair spray and a bit of dexterity. Which everyone seems to think is difficult and fancy, but in reality only takes me about five minutes. Do disregard the bathrobe, it is warm and comfy and actually just thrown on over my sweater and jeans. I think it works well enough. It also keeps my hair out of my FACE with the giant gusts of wind. You can also see a few of my collection of books that litter the window sill and shelf behind my bed. They're everywhere, quite literally. Some are bought, some are from home, many are from the TCD Library where they have 4.5 Million books and at least one copy of basically anything published in these isles since about 1960 when they figured that they possibly should just expand the library as opposed to pawning off sacks of books at random people like hospitals and soldiers just because they lacked space. Rather defeats the purpose of being a copyright library and entitled to a copy of All Things Printed, don't you think?

....How off topic did THAT paragraph get! Perhaps I should stop. I'm in your interwebs, cloggin up your flist. >D