You know what's fun? When towns get founded by the stolen remains of a martyred Christian

Right, so, time flies when you are reading 18th century newspaper articles at a rate of four hundred a day. Doesn't it? Please tell me the time will start to fly.

So...that's what I've been doing for the last few days. My dissertation has taken the form of a survey of newspaper and public reaction surrounding a set of treason trials in 1794 and blah blah blah social sphere blah blah Habermas bladiblah incipient bourgeois consciousness. Basically, I am reading scans of two hundred year old newspapers for four or five hours a day.

Yeah.

But I was able to have some fun before entering the seventh circle of research hell! (Also, true confession: I don't actually mind the research. That's how you can tell you are a total dork). Over the weekend a friend and I took a daytrip to St. Andrews, lately of Wills and Kate fame (they met at the university there) but also the home of the remains of the eponymous saint, as well as several very nice ruins. I took a LOT of pictures, and I will spare you the majority of those. Even though no one will spare me the newspapers. On the plus side, I no longer have any problems with that s that looks like an f. Fluent!

Not even a problem. But, really, of all the words to throw together...

So yeah, St. Andrews was a fun town. I cannot imagine living there for four years.

When we got back to Edinburgh, it was just in time to head over to Beltane, the world's longest running pagan fire festival! That sounded fun and everything, but then I thought to myself, I have lived in Portland, Oregon for the last six years. I dated a fire-eater. There is nothing going on there that I haven't already seen. Had I realized that Saturday was to be my last day of joy/non-newspaper reading, I might have reconsidered.

That's it for the time being...I wish I had more interesting things to update about, but since the last few nights have seen me passed out in bed with my eyeballs soaking in a glass of alkaseltzer, I find myself coming up a bit short.

OH, but Scottish Cinco de Mayo is in a couple days! I don't really know how we are planning to safely combine those two things, but as long as we're not talking whiskey margaritas I should still be here on Friday to recap. Olé!