old english, st. patty's and too much fun.

Well, first things first: If you're wondering how the test went... What a painful experience! My brain wasn't right for hours after taking it; I was just so exhausted by the physical act of a two-hour translation, not to mention how ridiculously difficult it was in comparison with anything we'd done in class to that point!

So, as we sat at lunch, discussing how we footnoted various grammatical oddities, and why on earth our professor chose a poem about a wall covered in hoar-frost (and what the heck hoar-frost is), and kennings are the worst ever, we came to the conclusion that Old English is not for us. And thank goodness, we don't have to think about it at least until our grades come out in another few weeks.

But, because it was such a horrific experience, I felt totally justified to skive off to Glasgow in the middle of the week BECAUSE...

...my friend (and sorority sister. Shout out to ΦΜ's ΓΑ chapter!) Katie was in town! She'd been in the UK on business (after working with Bedouin women in Israel for the last 6 months. Because she's a bad. ass.) and once her contract was over, she took off to come hang out in Scotland for a little while. Glasgow wasn't originally on the books for her trip, but because I have a boyfriend there whose couch she could crash on, she made it happen. Which gave me a really excellent reason to wander around Glasgow, have tea in a classy tearoom, do some girly shopping and catch up with my long lost friend!

Plus, she came back to St. Andrews to visit our now-mutual friend (they met when he came for a visit last January), and the three of us went out for St. Patrick's day with my medieval crew. What a group!

Unfortunately, there was no group shot (apart from one sweaty-looking one in the bop after we'd danced our faces off; more on this later), but this one's pretty great, right?

So that was a SUPER FUN night, which, of course, ended with the bop. Nevermind that we're postgrads and we're supposed to be to old for it. I guess since the only dancing alternative is a sketchy underground dancefloor full of locals (the Lizard), we somehow always end up there.

Exhibit A: last week, same place, same friends.


But, as result of my too-fun weekend, here I am, still in my pj's, surrounded by books and papers, trying desperately to get back on my academic game. It's kind of rough, but I think there's something in me that firmly believes that if I put everything I need to read in my immediate vision, I'll get so overwhelmed that I'll actually read it. Lest you get the wrong impression of how thrilling my life is, I think this process is how I spend at least 80% of my time lately. It looks like this:


And with that, I really had better get back to the grindstone.