sarah the pooh and the blustery day

i just woke up from a wee nap, so am feeling fairly refreshed and removed from my day today, but it was pretty inordinately stressful. i had to give my presentation in my architectural history class, and was up all night save for three hours sifting through information and trying to make a good story out of it. which is fine and nothing new for me, but then silly little things began to go wrong all over the place. i had class from 9-11 and needed to continue writing up my report for the tutor and practice the whole thing during the three hours in between the two classes. once at the library for my final typing session, i realized i had grabbed a wrong folder and couldn't make a bibliography without returning home. and i had made myself notecards to speak from and on the way home from the library a bunch of them slipped out of my back pocket onto the ground. and after a few minutes of wrestling with the air to regain possession of them (lovely, embarassing), i realized about half of them were gone. i can imagine them gradually worming their way out of my pocket and popping out from underneath the back of my coat to fly off to freedom into today's incredible wind. that must have been a sight. so then i had about twenty minutes to rewrite the notecards and include a handwritten bibliography on all of my class handouts and eat lunch. then i left my wallet at home when i left for class and needed my student card to get into the building housing my class, so was stuck outside waiting for someone else to come through when i could've been cram-preparing.

but i caught my breath and realized that, big surprise, i was entirely overly prepared. we got a late start and everyone's presentations were over-long, so i ended up saying only half of the things i was planning anyway for lack of time. oh well, glad that's over and went pretty well. i went on to sit in the international student centre during my volunteer hour and do unsophistocated crosswords and wrapped up the day half-sleeping through my lecture. the amazing thing was that throughout the day the weather became angrier and angrier, and by the time of my final walk home the rain was rendering my glasses useless and the wind was physically directing my footsteps and causing my hair to defy gravity. we haven't had one of those here in awhile.

over the past two days the kitchen in our flat has been refurbished. most of the other flats in the building have nicer, larger kitchens than ours, so we are finally catching up somewhat. there's still a good bit of plaster and wall shreds everywhere, and it is unclear whether they've actually finished, but it's a big improvement. with the exception of a space left hollow in between the oven and a cabinet. we could put the trashcan there, but it's plastic and would be separated from the oven by only a thin layer of cheap-o pressed wood. this doesn't seem like the greatest planning to me, but whatever. i'm just glad the power tool noise is leaving my home.

i am going to have a large assignment or two for almost every remaining week of the semester, but for the moment the rest of this one will coast along with comparative smoothness. hopefully, no certainly i will now finally be able to start acting as a correspondent again. and presently i am wearing a big comfy sweater, i just discovered that some apple juice in the fridge that i thought belonged to someone else is actually mine, and tomorrow i will receive my long-awaited monthly paycheck and celebrate it by going to a vegetarian/indian restaurant for lunch with my friend jonathon. the lee side sure is a cozy place; i think i will try to stay.


p.s. i added four pictures of edinburgh and new college, home of my divinity school course, to my photo website, which explains why protestant reformer john knox is currently my desktop background.