She put on another sweater, and then spontaneously combusted

...It could happen.  It happened to a guy in England once, and I breathed a sigh of relief then because at least I didn't live in a place that ever got so cold that I needed 10 wool sweaters at a time.  Heh.  But just so everyone's clear (I'm sure this is going to shock you all),

It's cold here.

Yesterday a long-predicted cold front came in, and for the first night and morning it snowed.  The pictures I tried to take didn't turn out, but the coolest thing I've seen for a long time was a brief snow sunshower on Saturday.  But then the snow turned to sleet, and the sleet is supposedly going to stick around for a week, so my world is currently icy, slushy, and damp.  And cold.  The combination of a busy few weeks of classes with darkness and bad weather is not something I'm looking forward to, and these will be 3 BUSY weeks of classes.

All my big projects have managed to converge onto Wednesday, Dec. 8.  I'll have two group projects and two homework assignments due that day, and a formal lab report and computer simulation project not far behind.  That's the second-to-last week of school, so at least the last week will be easy, I guess?  But I'm definitely beginning to feel the stress from it.

However, I'm also starting to feel real anticipation for Christmas--I went Christmas shopping on Saturday and wrapped all my gifts this morning.  I love wrapping Christmas presents.  Always have.  I need to come up with a  few more, but my Mom just gave me an idea for one, and hey, this means I get to go Christmas shopping again.  And some interesting things have been happening in the "What are you going to do after this?" department.  I had a talk with one of my professors about PhD projects available in his group, and one of them really caught my interest.  I'm going to be talking more with him about it, and talking to other professors in the department about their research, just trying to get an idea of whether staying is something I'd be interested in.  If I do want to apply for a PhD, I would need to make that decision soon, since the funding applications are mostly due by the end of January, so I'm starting to think and pray a lot about what I want to do, considering not only the research and the resources but (the big question), do I really want to stay in Scotland for 3 more years?  And I'm not a hundred percent sure that I do.  So, that's me for the past few (and next few) weeks.  But after that, it'll be Christmas!

Re-gifting Dessert

And I don't mean last year's fruitcake, or the can of salmon the FPC youth passed around at the White Elephant Parties.  Anyways.  Last night A. made a traditional Cypriot cake, only the recipe she was using had her put in 7 tsp of baking powder.  We were all skeptical (A. included), but she went with it, and needless to say, the cake came out rather bowl-shaped and bitter.  You actually don't taste the bitter baking powder until the after-taste, and the cake itself has a really nice flavor.  The traditional version is made with rose extract, which A. couldn't find here, but if the vanilla version tastes so nice, I'm curious about the real version.  But on to the re-gifting part.  Tonight I'm making the remaining half or so into bread pudding to see whether or not a mound of chocolate, sugar and cinnamon can obliterate the baking powder.  Based on the taste I just had (it's not quite set yet, as I now know), it's working.  Cadbury Drinking Chocolate covers a multitude of sins.

S, J, E: yes.  Cadbury Drinking Chocolate.  Don't worry.  You're getting some.

Hey Matt, who are you?

No offense intended at all, but this blog has a follower named Matt with no picture, and I know more than one.  Which one are you?  Just wondering!  Thanks!

About Those Pictures

Well.  You may notice that this post used to contain two links to awful, disorganized Photobucket albums that I hate.  So today I noticed a little note at the bottom of one of my Facebook albums saying "Share this album with anyone by using this link!"  Meaning you don't have to be a FB user to look at the album if I provide the right link to access it.  I didn't know I could do that.  (Jen and Sarah are smacking their foreheads right now, going, "Why doesn't she ask us these things?")  So here they are.  All the pictures I've taken since I arrived.  Organized.  Captioned.  In order.  In cute little albums.  Enjoy!

Plus, this means I never have to go on Photobucket again!  Hooraaaaaaayy!


The Somewhat-Less-Than-Epic Voyage
Walkthrough Part 1
Walkthrough Part 2
Highlands Trip
Thanksgiving

Midterms

I can't think of anything more depressing than walking out of lab at 5:30 into pitch darkness and rain.  Actually, I take that back.  It would have been more depressing if it had been raining harder.  But on the other hand, I went to Christmas Choir tonight and discovered that the classical piece I thought was dead boring when I listened to it on YouTube is actually broodingly, hauntingly beautiful, and now that I'm home, I'm going to download the rest of my pictures, stretch, shower, and then, it's hot chocolate time.

Life is good.