so i looked around and i noticed there wasn't a chair

yesterday marked the 6 weeks remaining point for my life here in edinburgh, and i am pleased to say that i am keeping my days very full - working and thinking and erranding and going to the symphony and to swanky pubs where i feel sort of disengaged and to homemade dinners and to coffee and to second-hand stores, et al - because i must. the picture at right is of a park in the city called the bruntsfield links, which i walked through on the way to a big lasagne dinner prepared by andrew and friends. walking through the parks (this one and the meadows) is always really beautiful and refreshing, but also pretty comical, as there are loads of hippie-like people in edinburgh who sit on the grass with bongos or throw flame sticks just for kicks or play croquet in long flowing skirts. this one group was literally just sitting in a clump on the grass talking and being together, but listening to some of the most intense house techno on a little boombox next to them. do we all really need drum and bass to feel at home in the outdoors?! it made me laugh.

going to this dinner was a little more of the self-injury i've been tending toward lately, as i had an exam at 9:30am the next morning, but i can do it all and never sleep, i swear it. and yesterday was jam-packed. i took the aforementioned exam, writing three essays in two hours and hoping for the best, and i think it went pretty alright actually (which is how i feel about my essay from friday as well). it doesn't help that i have no idea what this professor expects from us, because our earlier essays were never handed back - the professorial strike for higher wages persists in its yet unresolved cause, which is making a lot of students a lot of anxious.
after my exam, i turned an offer for a cup of tea from a guy in my atheism class down to go return a library book and try to pay my replacement keys fee (no luck, michelle is pretty flaky) before i went to a professor's office hours. he is my much-admired modernism professor of last semester, and he had agreed to discuss my nascent research ideas for my graduate school application in june. he was wonderfully helpful - he sort of wrestled the full idea out of me, and then immediately went to the national library of congress catalogue to find books for me to get started on, which is exactly what i needed. and on my way home, i stopped in a used book store and found inexpensively all three(!) of the novels he suggested i start with (the siege of krishnapur by j.g. farrell, the jewel in the crown by paul scott - both of those booker prize winners, mm mm - and kim by rudyard kipling). there is much work to be done, and i hope i stay keenly excited.

afterwards i came home and put my clown feet into my clunky, little-used trainers (tennis shoes in amerispeak) and went for a run of about 4km. i used to run regularly last summer, but upon coming to edinburgh and feeling out the hilly cobblestone streets in combination with the fairly constant possibility for wind and rain and relative cold i decided that i would rather just walk everywhere and not worry about paying exorbitant fees for a gym or busting up my knees in the conditions outdoors. but i've been feeling like there is more fitness to be had in my life lately, and so i picked a path out that goes down by the bluffs and arthur's seat (it was gooorgeous to run by). it was windy but good and surprisingly not too difficult for my droopy lungs and muscles. and i like making my face turn beet-red from exertion; i think i will try to do it with some regularity. i did the stretching and showering and water-drinking thing, then met my spanish friend rosalia (visiting from barcelona, who returned there after one semester abroad here) for coffee. we talked for about 2 1/2 hours and it was splendid; i had forgotten how great and complex she is. she wants very much for me to visit barcelona before i go, which i think i would really love, especially so now after the 6 years that have transpired since i last visited, but it is pretty hindered by money and time restraints. alas.

to top off my day, andrew and i went to the cinema to see "the squid and the whale," which was excellent. seriously, it was great and hilarious and heartwrenching and perfect in its attitude towards itself - please see it if it's around, it's only about 85 minutes long. today i am feeling some ease, in that i am not again accountable for an academic things here until may 8th, and the whole affair is all half completed anyway. but there is much business and personal housekeeping to be done, so don't you worry that i won't be kept up and at 'em. tomorrow meredith and i are continuing our wednesday matinee theatre tradition to see some play of an adapted french episotlary novel about dangerous love affairs (i mean, it is called 'les liasones dangereuses'), this weekend there are some going away parties and there is also the edinburgh-famous beltane fire festival celebrating the summer solstice - i expect hippies and primal drumming and garlands and torches and bonfires. there is more of this in my life than usual, no? i don't complain, i am entertained.

time to cleanse and confront the sunny mid-day! hope everyone is keeping good-busy in a similar fashion. spring is a great time for satisfying productivity. hasta prontito mi queridos-