done with hibernating

 i am officially homesick, but i am fairly certain it's 60% the sun going down at 1500 and 30% having been holed up studying all week. i plan on spending one more day studying today and then taking a break tomorrow to do fantastically touristy things. the view from my room has become even more amazing now that so many old chimneys are smoking, it is perfectly wintery and only occasionally looks as if it's on fire. in my attempts to get out more i've been taking some really nice walks along the river. it is unbelievably cold there, but it so damn beautiful it's hard to care. i have also knit myself numerous warm layers at this point which helps tremendously.

tea time.

i believe that the amazingness of this mug is not diminished by its being backwards and therefore shall continue to live my life by its wise words.

i am currently lacking in cake, but am oh so desperately trying to move on.

this is me, hibernating.

it's reading week, also known as an entire week with no reason to get out of bed. it's the week before midterms and there are no classes so that all the students in london can move into the library and go insane. i have made it my personal mission to not wear proper trousers for the entirety of this week (and yes i am still bitter about the use of the word trousers). i am also leaving my bed as little as possible and living out of what is in my fridge, which at this point is down to apples and sting cheese. this is as close to actually hibernating as i can get without risking illness. the weather is just dreadful and it gets dark about 1500, which makes me feel rather homesick. at least back in new york winter was beautiful and full of snow related activities. i miss having friends to curl up in bed with to do homework, and i miss hot toddies and cocoa. the british seem to deal with this crap weather by holing up in pubs and drinking constantly. i am no good at this. i have instead immersed myself in cell signaling pathways and compliment cascade. you are all jealous i am sure.

things from home

my lurvey baby pickles died earlier this week. she was spaztic and adorable till the end.

also my mum seems to have inadvertently adopted a very picky peacock who now lives in the backyard and demands to be fed twice a day. i find myself asking why in gods name did my parents have to move to the sort of place where this is even possible? she has named him Robert.

on holiday

Allison and i went to oxford for the weekend, which was about as beautiful as you imagine and far more rural. our trip consisted of site seeing, shopping, and drinking with the middle aged inhabitants of horspath.

our weekend in oxford... in pictures.

 we stayed in Horspath, which is a loverly town in bumfuck Britain. 

 it was beautiful and rural and full of cows.

we tried to feed the ducks by the river

but they were a bit too aggressive. 

 i fully appreciated the landscape

GORGEOUS. 

still gorgeous. 

 i found this really bizarre plastic piece under the sheets in my bed. very princess and the pea...

we saw lots of fantastically old and impressively large buildings 

there were enormous old trees at the natural history museum. i found this really really exciting.  

i pretended to be a big scary dinosaurs

allison did too

she then went on to demonstrate her maturity

we went on dates...

because dinosaurs make good boyfriends. 

allison mimicked birds of prey.

and i made some new friends.

we went to lovely old pubs

(the eagle and child)

and then we went home.

tea and biscuits yum yum yum

i am still having a ridiculously hard time with the language given that it's, erm.. english... i told the boy next to me in class yesterday that i really liked his pants. he just gave me this shocked and confused look for the whole 30 seconds it took me to remember that pants means underwear, and i actually meant to compliment his trousers. i'm sorry, i just can't take the word trousers seriously. 21 years of thinking trousers were what old men wore, tweed pants up to their chests that are just a wee bit too short, trousers. for the most part my friends have been understanding of my handicap, laughing only minimally and very rarely pointing.

boys are stupid.

but that's nothing new, and london is spectacular nonetheless.