I made it out of the flat today! Seriously...that's a big achievement.

In an admission that is sure to shock and horrify my mother, I here declare that as of last night, I had not left my flat for approximately forty hours. Look, I know. It's not okay. But...you know how it goes...you wake up late, start reading back issues of GQ over breakfast, fiddle around a bit with paper citation methods, make some lunch, take a shower or three and watch The Flying Scotsman back to back with Anna Nicole: the Opera and suddenly the day has flown by and you are still in the pajamas you put back on after your last shower because apparently, actually, you never had any intention of going out in public in the first place.

Also, you read that right--Anna Nicole Smith has joined Violetta and Mimi in the opera pantheon of tragic dead women:

 I don't think I want to go into it right now.

Anyway, in a change of pace and clothing that is sure to please my mom, I went OUTSIDE today. Not just outside, but to that most wild of places, that mysterious and odoriferous mecca of vestigial homo habilus urges. I'm talking the ZOO, people!

The Edinburgh Zoo is quite nice...good selection of zoo heavies lions, tigers and penguins (penguins are the new bears). The biggest drawback is that it seems to have been cut, Incan-civilizationlike, out of the very hillside, meaning that by the time you make it to the lions at the very top of the zoo, your vision is blacking out from exertion and oxygen deprivation (chances that the Edinburgh Zoo is secretly a very well camouflaged weight-loss regimen: 50-50). Still, all in all a very nice way to spend the afternoon. Pictures below...as today seemed to be the unofficial "hang out right next to the fence" day, I got some pretty good ones.

I don't know what this is. I'm going to go with emu.

EGG!

This pool smelled to high heaven of the fish-shits.

Cocky bird.

EGG!

BABY WALLABY!--On a related note, can you imagine the pictures I would have gotten about, oh, a month ago? Well, STOP IMAGINING. I am trying to keep this thing classy. Geez.

Sun bear

Some kind of parrot. Look, what do you want from me? I can barely get shoes on these days, let alone remember my avian subspecies. Christ.

Tiger...napping.

These monkeys have the same response to rain as me...go hide under a rock. The little one is outside because the others wouldn't let him in. It gets better, little monkey! Unless you freeze to death.

Lions...grooming.

But as much fun as it was to see all the different animals/readapt to natural light, the best part of the day came (as per usual) in the cafeteria. CHECK THIS SHIT OUT:

LOLZ. We maaaaaaay have made spectacles of ourselves. Seriously, I NEED this chair. And thus ends (see what I did there?) my day at the zoo.

Checking in

Hello all. Not much to say this time around...I've been holed up in my room for the last few days, sweating my papers as the semester rapidly comes to an end. After this, I'll have no more classes, no structure of any kind all summer, just me and the looming dissertation deadline, playing a game of academic chicken. Gulp.

Actually, it shouldn't be that bad...after this semester's deeply unstaisfying experience, I am looking forward to directing my own work and reading, being able to formulate ideas, questions and connections without the imposition of that god-awful shock collar, the 3,000 word limit. I have never felt so stymied by a simple rule as I do by that one, which was especially disappointing this semester as I discovered a topic that really interested me and was prevented at every turn from adequately exploring all its nuances and implications. Sigh. Maybe I'll be able to treat it more fully in a real paper some day.

Still, frustrating limits aside, I'm feeling better about things than I was a week ago. Perhaps it's the rather ugly result of having nerdily completed all of my work extremely early, and a certain schadenfreude as I watch my classmates lose their minds in these last few days, but I seem to be rather calm. Alternatively, perhaps I've just given up. Yet another explanation, hidden behind door number three, might be that spring seems to have (knock wood) definitively sprung here in Caledonia. There are daffodils and tulips blooming everywhere, forsythia blossoming, rhododendrons starting to bud...overall, spring in Scotland looks very much like spring in Portland, which reminds me constantly of how much I'm looking forward to returning to Stumptown, in and for a few days.

So that's where I am...a little brain- and spirit-tired after the semester's last big push, a little disheartened yet again at how unfulfilling this program has turned out to be, a little homesick, a little confused. But only a little.

Rugger!

In a serendipitous turn of events, just as I was grumping around on Saturday, trying to come up with a fun way to spend the afternoon, a friend of mine messaged me--would I be interested in going to the Scotland-Italy rugby game? WOULD I?! I wasn't sure and proceeded to ask about seventeen billion questions about cost, travel time, if I knew anyone else who was going and if I would be miserable if I didn't get drunk and rowdy. With questions duly answered, I informed now seriously irritated friend (the thing is, he hasn't known me long enough) that yes, I would love to go to the game.

The game in question was, I believe, the second-to-last in the Six Nations series. Before you ask, I don't know anything about what that is or what it means or how it works. Google it. Jeez. Anyway, this was a part of that. Arriving at the stadium I was immediately confused by how all of the visiting Italy fans were wearing blue and white shirts and wigs the exact color of the Saltire (one of the two unofficial Scottish flags). At least the Scotland fans were easy to identify:

The kilt should flirt with the knees.

Still all worked up about those blue Italians, a friend and I had a discussion about how, if the color isn't in your flag, you DON'T GET TO USE IT. Hear that, you baby blue Italians? Stop making rugby even harder to understand.

Because it is hard to understand. As far as I could tell, this entire sport is built around different silly things to call physical assaults, with the occasional punt thrown (booted?) in. Part of the problem may have been that we were literally sitting a mile from the field:

The pipers before the national anthem. It turns out, I have no pictures of the actual game. Oops.

 As far as I could tell, the point of the game was to be handed the ball and then immediately fall over. Repeat until falling coincides with goal line. Cheer! Scotland fell over the line more times than Italy, so they won. Yay, Scotland!

This is honestly exactly what I understood from the entire game. Also, there was a twenty minute interval where I was eating some chips and cheese, so a jet plane could have landed in the middle of the field and used its wing to kick a field goal, and I wouldn't have noticed or questioned it.

Moral of the story: I love cheese fries.

I just...don't even know

So, there are some cultural traditions that are a little difficult to translate. On moving to Scotland, I thought I was going to run into difficulties regarding haggis, the accent and using the word "British" in front of the wrong person. So far none of those have presented much of a problem (here's a hint for the last one: just don't use the word "British" in Scotland), but I was surprised by how quickly the dual faucet in the public loo made my life an alternately scalded and frostbitten living hell.

Here's another thing I wasn't expecting to be confronted with: Red Nose Day.

Apparently today is Red Nose Day here in Great Brit--aaaah, Scotland, which, considering how much it's been whored up over the last few weeks, has passed with relatively little notice. As far as I can tell, on Red Nose Day people buy and wear red foam noses, a la Bozzo the Clown (terrifying) and...? Is there something else?

Oh, okay, apparently Red Nose Day is a fundraising effort that trades yucks for bucks or something like that. Please to watch this educational video.

So apparently, Red Nose Day is the one day of the year when otherwise serious and lawabiding BritissssssScots and other people act ridiculous for charity.

As opposed to the rest of the time, when they do it for free:

Goodnight, folks! Don't forget to tip your waitress!

Also, please give to charity.

A lesson in contrasts

I'm a little late on a post about my weekend because I spend most of my time sleeping and drinking my way through the despair of Scottish Winter Part II: the Wettening.

Ew. I grossed myself out just there.

Anyway, in retrospect this weekend had a little something for everyone, and by "everyone" I mean people who live in trailers and people who live in mansions. So, not most people. Friday night started with the laudible plan of finding some live music to listen/dance to. What could be more fun?!

Apparently, sitting in my bedroom listening to gansta rap and drinking massive amounts of vodka. Witness photographic evidence below:

The gin (well, vodka)

The juice

Sippin' on it

Throwin' down some mad gang signs

We went from this...

...to this...

...and, inevitably, ended with this.

So, that was...a night.

In an effort to regain a sense of classiness, Saturday night took me to the ballet, where the Russian State company was performing (of course) "Swan Lake." My pictures are all terrible, so please enjoy these ones I stole from the interwebs:

The Playhouse...I appreciated its red-velvetiness.

Nothing says artistic expression like dancing en masse in straight lines.

Love means...risking avian flu?

Anyway, the performance was good, though it seemed like the dancers couldn't hear the orchestra; one solo was so off-tempo that I thought the conductor might have been exercising a personal grudge against the poor dancer. That's UNPROFESSIONAL. Mostly it was nice to get dressed up/out of my pajamas and feel like a viable person again. And if nothing else, watching one of the classic story ballets is a really good way to feel immediately better about your life choices. I mean, yes I am living in squalor, pursuing a pointless and antiquated future, but I COULD be a suicidal were-swan.

It's about perspective.

I'm actually beginning to be frightened by my own pysche

So, this post was supposed to go like this:

"Big news, dear readers! I'm a little nervous to even say it, and so doing might result in the coming of a second Ice Age, and I take full responsibility if that does, in fact, occur, but...spring seems to have arrived in Edinburgh!"

Then I was going to post these pictures:

And then I was going to talk about people playing footie and rugger (I swear, that's how they say it here) in the park, and all the robins hopping about eating worms, and sitting in the sun so that my blood gradually warms up into a human percolation of sweet springtimey goodness. It was going to be all optimistic and shit up in here.

Like I said, that was the plan. I was thinking about it, mulling things over in my mind.

AND THEN I WOKE UP AND THIS HAD FUCKING HAPPENED:

Obviously, it was because I was getting sassy with the universe. Mother frickin' Nature was all, "So getting stranded three different times due to inclement weather this winter wasn't enough for you? You really still think you have any clue about my seasonal cycle? Do you? Yeah? WELL STICK THIS IN YOUR CRAW."

So okay, Mother Nature/God/the Universe, I get it: I am a powerless pawn in your giant hand. I give up on hope. I have no say. But I do want you to consider that when my friends and family want to kill me because I've been sitting on the couch in my sweatpants for three months moaning about how it isn't my fault that I can't find a job/wash my hair because I'm a pawn, they are going to blame you. And that is going to hurt your feelings.

So THERE.

Starbow

My experience in Scotland thus far has been dominated by two things. No, not whiskey and haggis, not kilts and bagpipes, not even wool and plaid. Behold, the omnipresent joy and salvation of my life:

Starbucks and Strongbow. Or, as they would be termed if they were the two halves of a celebrity couple, Starbow. This name also makes me picture one of those 1980s cartoon superheroes, a la He-Man or Jem.

Apparently Starbow is actually Green Arrow. My everlasting love for all things tights and quivers now makes so much sense.

For those of you not in the know/Scotland, Strongbow is a hard cider and invariably the most reliable thing on tap in a country that believes beer should be served thick, warm and flat. It's also usually the cheapest--Strongbow for the win!

Starbucks is the secret leader of the free world and the unacknowledged father of both Stephen Hawking and Madonna. Who are twins.

Anyway, while reviewing my finances in an attempt to whittle my spending down even closer to the poverty line, I became aware of the rather inordinate amount of money I was spending on Starbow. It seems to constitute roughly 15% of my monthly expenditures--fifeteen percent. On lattes and fermented juice. This is extreme, I think. After doing the math, I confronted my soul and realized that I have developed a usage pattern in which I need the Starbucks to get up and stay up during the day and the Strongbow to come back down. This, my friends, is called an addiction cycle and makes me wonder if "Starbow" is, in fact, the street name for the student drug of choice, a vicious caffeine and ethanol speedball that is the true culprit behind the walk of shame.

On a related note, can you tell my papers are due at the end of the month?