asher roth was right

I've successfully completed my first ever college level exam today! It was for my Intro to Politics and IR class, and it went pretty well (I know for sure that I at least passed... ) Saturday I have my International Law exam and then DadDad is arriving on Saturday afternoon, so the plan (i think) is to grab dinner with him, start studying for my Econ exam on sunday, Henry arrives on Monday evening, and he's here until Wednesday! It's gonna be a hectic week...

60 minutes

well Louise will be happy to know that I will never take an elevator ever again, thanks to the hour I spent trapped in between floors in the lift in my dorm last night. I had to miss out on getting drinks with Lydia and her aunt and uncle because, well, I was sitting on the most likely very very dirty floor of the lift instead! what a fantastic way to waste an hour of my life!

londontown thanksgiving

i've just returned from a weekend in London with Lydia and my uncle Ticker which was sooo nice, especially since Ticker organized a massive international thanksgiving feast, complete with smoked turkey and regular turkey as per the Shoemaker tradition. Lydia and spent most of the days wandering around the westside of London (Notting Hill, Portobello Market, and Kensington) and had a wonderful afternoon with her godfather Martin in Knightsbridge and Harrods.
As of today, lectures and tutorials are finished so I have a week+ to study before my mid-year exams. I've decided to drop Economics because its entirely too maths based for my preference at Edinburgh, and instead next semester I'll be picking up a modern European History course which should be well good help in my International Relations classes in the future.
the next big adventure on my schedule (besides exams, ....of course) is a visit from Mr. Henry Waldron, a good friend of mine from home who has been in Morocco for this semester.

RIP LENIN

the gold fish has passed.

rugby, lenin, and a fish bowl

so today I've decided to tackle one of the biggest problems I've encountered so far this year... understanding Rugby. seeing as most of my guy friends play for the uni team, I've recruited one of them to sit down and explain how it works because so far all I get is that men run around a bloated football, only picking it up occasionally and then brutally attacking each other... so hopefully that will go well.
in other news... mimi and i have added a goldfish to our room! his name is Lenin, in honor of the day the berlin wall fell, which is also mimi's birthday (I bought the goldfish as her birthday present) the only problem is that little Lenin's tail as fallen off.. but he seems to be handling it well, hes still a happy swimming fish, and still enjoys dancing to loud music late at night with us... the better the bass the more he swims, so maybe its like music therapy??

a long time coming...

sorry i know its been forever since i've updated this... I've just been really busy lately with having a roommate and... uh work? no actually i have been doing a lot of work, i went to the library for 3 hours tonight! go me.
the poster campaign that lydia and i thought of finally got finished and the posters went up last week, except, as any of you with facebook might know, the posters are a little racy, and all the ones of lydia have been stolen already.... for those of you without facebook, the posters feature a naked lydia (covered by sheets), a naked boy (again, covered by sheets) and a made bed with a teddy bear on it with the phrases: Was it fun? Forgot something? and Remember last night? (respectively) along with information about where to get free condoms, sti tests and birth control. lets go socialized health care!!!
but life in edinburgh is really really really growing on me. its a really great city and i'm finally at the point where i see someone i know just about everywhere i go, which is impressive for a school of 27,000 students...
the next big event on my calendar is thanksgiving weekend i guess... the plan so far is to head to London for a long weekend in Tim and Ned's flat, which they have generously offered me for the weekend while they are in the States. thanks again guys!
so i'll try and be better about keeping this fresh, henry i dont know how you do it..

at last

i have a roommate! her name is Mimi, i met her at the very beginning of the year because she's dating my good friend Charlie from London who lives in Lydia's dorm, and it turned out that she lived down the corridor from me. So we started hanging out more and more and it turned out that we get along quite well. So when the school emailed me last friday claiming that accorrding to my contract I needed to find a roommate by the end of the week or they would assign me someone random or force me to pay the extra 2,500 lbs to have a a "superior single" just because my room is bigger than most... so when I Mimi about my dilemma she came up with a brilliant idea. On my hall there were 5 of us, Laura and Nikki, Becca and Mimi and myself, and we all get on fantastically. So Laura who was in desperate want of a single room, got to keep a single, Mimi who hated bunk beds with Becca moved into my room yesterday, and then Nikki took Mimi's place in Becca's room. So it all worked out in the end and everyone is happy!! I'll post pictures of the new improved week soon, i promise!

stopping aids!

so its official! lyds and i are the newest members of the stopAIDS club here! we've gone to two meetings so far and have come up with the idea for a poster campaign targeted towards freshmen about having safe sex and getting tested for STIs and all that good stuff. we had the "photo shoot" for the posters tonight and the pictures looking incredible, so ill put the final posters up when they are all finished. Last night we went to the student union run nightclub with the whole stopaids society and got dressed in red and distributed free condoms out to all the kids in line to get into the club, it was an absolute blast. the kids in the society love lyds and me bc we are both soo much younger than everyone else and so enthusiastic about the club. its a really great time and im glad we decided to get involved!

compliments of henry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caber_toss

bagpipes in the wind

so yesterday lydia and i decided to go find the oldest pub in scotland, which is about a mile and a half away from our dorms on the other side of that huge mountain (Arthur's Seat) that sits behind our dorm complex. It was probably one of the windiest days I have ever experienced, but we didnt really realize that until after we had started to walk... Anyway as we trekked towards this pub we were walking on a cliff of sorts and all of the sudden, someone down below us in a little tunnel/enclosure area started practicing the bagpipes. That definitely qualified as one of the most beautiful moments of my life.

where i live

rain rain go away

yesterday i experienced the first typical edinburgh rainy day... it was miserable. the whole day was foggy and damp, there was no real down pour, just a constant misting so absolutely everything gets damp and cold and... miserable. luckily lydia and i found this great organic diner with great lunch deals called "suzies whole foods diner". classes went well on monday and tuesday, today i have completely off, so I took the opportunity to sleep until 1.

library lovin

ah, its been quite the week! I unfortunately got sick... again. this time it was more of a hacking cough issue, and i lost my voice along the way. im finally gaining my voice back and thanks to nasty cherry cough syrup i've been keeping my lungs in my chest.
I'm in the library right now, I just finished my coursework for my first Intro to Politics and IR tutorial on monday morning. Tutorials are basically small group sessions where we get more assigned work (in addition to lecture readings) and talk about what happened in our lectures. One class just took me 2 hours to finish, so I have a feeling I will be spending LOTS of time in the library this year... but that's okay, I don't need a social life. and anyway, I've been staying in a lot recently just because of being sick and broke, but after this weekend hopefully I will be feeling 100% again!
I still haven't met that many people from my particular dorm yet, but I spend most of my free time in Lydia's dorm because thats where everyone I know lives, and they all think I live there so its fine... Lydia, Sophia and I taught the brits and scots and others how to play beruit/beer pong the other night, so now they all love it and always want to play. If anyone loves me enough to ship me some bags of solo cups I would greatly appreciate it, they don't sell them here and we resort to using taller, thinner, clear plastic pint cups... its just not the same. I promise I will put some pictures of my room up soon. how is everybody at home??

dont worry, its not swine

im sick! its called "Fresher's Flu" here, basically everyone gets it after the first week from not sleeping enough, but im glad i got it earlier, before classes start up. the picture by the way is from the top of the highest point in Edinburgh called Arthur's Seat. its this incredibly steep mountain ish thing that sits right behind my dorm complex, which me and a friend decided to climb at 6 30 yesterday morning (probably why I got sick later that day...) and it was absolutely breathtaking. I still don't have a roommate, classes start on Monday and she's missed all of the orientation and welcome events so I don't know what her deal is... other than being sick its been a lot of fun here so far. I spend most of my time with Lydia and her hallmate Sophia who is American but has lived in Russia and London all of her life, shes very nice and took care of me last night when I wasn't feeling well. I've also been hanging with a boy I met while waiting at my Director of Studies office named Charlie, hes from texas, we climbed the mountain together. I've been trying to meet people in my dorm more now, the girl and two boys that live right around my room are quite nice, i've yet to go out with them at night but i hope too soon!

STILL NO ROOMMATE

i think its day 3? day 4? im not sure, the jet lag/going out at night is very tiring and confusing but so far its been good fun. I got my course load sorted out today, i ONLY have classes on mondays and fridays so that will be really nice for getting a job and studying time etc. the way classes work here is you have two 50 minute lectures per week per class and then you have "tutorials" which you schedule at your own accord with smaller groups of students to ask and answer questions etc. I'm taking econ 1, intro to politics and IR, and international law and im quite excited for it to begin.
ive got my room all decorated, i had a party in it last night so its kind of a mess right now, i will try and post some pictures of it soon when i get things clean up a bit. or a wee bit as they say here. but the best part is they actually say it allll the time. everything is a "wee bit"

and so it begins

well i arrived safely! After landing in Edinburgh, I took the bus with a bunch of uni students to my dorm, where I fortunately ran into Lydia and her parents (for those of you who dont know, Lydia was my good friend from St. George's). With the help of a very cute boy from Seattle I found my room, which was, and still is, lacking in the roomate department. apparently some students move in later in the week, although "move in" is officially over. or she could be a no-show and in that case i will most likely be getting a different roommate then the one who is supposed to be here now. So because of this delay in roommate-ness, I have decided to fully unpack, and rearrange the room because living out of a suitcase for the past two days was not fun... I do however have my own bathroom and shower, which is verrrrry nice.
last night was the first official night of "freshers week" which is basically lots of organized drinking and clubbing... last night was a bittt overwhelming so Lydia and I opted out for tonight, she's asleep in my bed right now... I cant sleep though... so the first days were a bit hectic, but im sure things will settle down soon!

The final countdown...

4 days til departure and I'm already packed! this is a tester just to make sure people can read the blog... I will update it again once I arrive in Edinburgh!