Bits and Pieces

It's funny how even though I've been in school for most of my life, I still manage to forget how crazy things get during the major grading periods.  There are usually two: one towards the middle of the semester and one at the end.  It's slightly different here, because I had one set of essays for each class and then nothing until exams in December...but the past few weeks have been insanely work-heavy.  Needless to say, I'm enjoying the lull between study periods!
As busy as I've been, though, I don't have a ton of exciting information to share (although stay tuned for my First Grade Friends post about the Writers Museum!).  Mostly I go to class, dance, eat, and hang out with my friends.  To give you an idea of what I mean, here's my typical weekly schedule:
Monday
History, 10-11am
Studying in the library, 11-12pm
Gaelic, 12-1pm
Lunch over a textbook, 1-2pm
Psychology, 2-4pm
watching BBC with Ailsa and dinner, 4-7pm
Cardio Hip-Hop, 7:15-8:15

Tuesday
Gaelic, 12-1
Lunch/study break, 1-3
History, 3-4
Reading and dinner, 4-6
Dance, 7-9:30

Wednesday
Gaelic, 12-1
Errands, language study session, lunch, etc., 1-5
Kickboxing, 5:30-6:30

Thursday
Gaelic, 10-11
Library, 11-1
Lunch/home studying, 1-3
History, 3-4
Baking and Dinner, 4-6
Dance, 6:30-10
Post-dance social, 10-1am

Friday
Gaelic, 12-1
Lunch/studying, 1-2
Psychology, 2-4

Obviously, things come up and fill in the gaps, but basically that's how my life looks right now.  I absolutely love dance.  In fact, tonight I'm going to my first 'real' dance of the season! There will be people from groups from all over Scotland, and it's semi-formal.  There are also dance cards (although they're called something different), just like balls at home.  The dance is also a pot luck, so as soon as I finish this I'm going to dash out to the store and pick up supplies to make spanikopita.
Since nothing particularly exciting has happened, I figured the best way to fill you in was with pictures.  I don't have a ton, but I'll post more as I steal them from facebook...(disclaimer: these are not in any particular order)

 New Lanark, the mid-nineteenth century mill town where my dance retreat was.  Outside the mill-buildings-turned-hostel was a nature walk through the waterfalls the mill was powered by.  It was beautiful but really cold!

 This is a terrible picture of me, but I just wanted to show how into Rocky Horror we got, even though we just watched it in the kitchen.  This is my flatmate Leah.

 For the Bongo Club halloween party, I went as a princess and both of my flatmates went as zombies O.o They looked very scary, though!

 On Saturday night, I went to a friend's Star Wars themed birthday party.  There are very few Star Wars costumes easy enough to throw together to work at the last minute!  My friend Emma and I went shopping for supplies that morning.  She went as Leia and I went as Padme (from the prequels).  Those pellet guns were so much fun!

 On Sunday we went to see the Samhainn festivities, the traditional pagan holiday Halloween comes from.  It was freezing, so I wore my winter coat.  A lot of my friends joke that I look like Samantha from the American Girls series, which is where this came from:

 Turns out Samhainn is full of fire :)

 At the beginning of October my flatmates and I went to a residence event at the Indian restaurant on the ground floor of our building.  They had a henna artist, and my flatmate Jessie gave it a try!  Here our Leah and my finished hands, and Jessie doing Leah's flower.  The food wasn't as good as Curry Spot, our take-out place at SLC, but it was still delicious.

 More dance retreat! The Saturday night dance was a 'fancy dress', or costume, dance.  I hadn't really been able to find anything to fit the mythology theme, so I went as a forest nymph and wore a dress with flowers (which, by the way, I made this summer!).  My friend Melissa had a similar problem, and decided face paint was the way to go.  I twisted plastic flowers into her hair for added effect.  We looked pretty spiffy!

OK, I'm on a time crunch and need to run to the store.  As soon as my videos upload I'll post them!