Long Overdue

But, in my defense, I've been busy. Let's recap, shall we?

So, I failed my first go at my first year review boards, and after about a week of feeling terrible about myself and trying to figure out what other skills I possess that could be used to make a living (of which there are precious few, by the way), I got my act in gear, reworked my proposal, and passed my second go at the review boards on 16 June. So I am no officially a second year PhD student! Also, at the beginning of June, my friend Kaz's younger brother, Tom, moved up to Edinburgh to live and work for the summer (because he was living in Newcastle, which is a terrible place), and as he and I seem to get on as if we've known each other for years, we celebrated for a few days (turns out Tom is really good at pool, whilst I am not as good as I used to be).

During the proposal reworking phase, I also got a couple jobs from National Geographic (I now know more about LSD than anyone you know, I bet), and over the past several weeks I have had more work from them (I'm also now an expert on Josef Mengele, Gender Identity and the end of the world); the down side to this is that all that transcribing makes me not want to type in my blog, while the up side is that I make a boat load of money and have paid for my trip to Seattle and then some. This also means that I won't have the 'Uh, guys, I don't have any American money, can you cover me?' excuse that I employed so readily over Christmas, but that's okay. Woo!

Let's see...oh! My old drama teacher found me on Facebook, so that was cool, and my senior English teacher got my email from my family, so it's been wonderful catching up with them. And on Tuesday (it being Sunday right now) I'll be flying back to California for a few weeks (though I wasn't able to rebook my ticket to spend a few days in the Bay Area...but oh well). So hopefully I'll have the chance to catch up with all my American mates (well, at least the ones in Crescent City and Seattle...sorry, Utahns).

**Cut to 24 Hours later**

So, I didn't finish this yesterday. I ended up doing a lot more transcribing than I thought, and then went to dinner at a friend's flat and out dancing to celebrate my passing my review boards and her finishing her undergrad degree. It was a good night; severe leg stiffness/pain is a small price to pay for a good night of dancing.

Anyway, I've just finished my last transcription job, my laundry will be done very shortly, and then I'll pack, return books to the library, check out one other book perhaps, and tidy up my room a bit. Gotta figure out what DVDs I'm taking home, too...decisions, decisions....

I've also been to the castle finally, and have loads of pictures, which I haven't updated yet but will soon, probably during the many days of my being awake at strange hours on the West Coast as I deal with jet-lag.

-stephen