Weekends

Ok, so this one isn't over yet, but I don't anticipate it getting very exciting.

These are some notes I wrote to myself last weekend about what to write in my blog for y'all:

saturday thanksgiving ceilidh (strip the willow!)
sunday's trouncing rugby victory
sunday night sky, beautiful blue colors
saw the sun again today!

I've got a general sense of what they mean, here's what I make out in translation: Last Saturday I went to a Thanksgiving lunch/Ceilidh (pronounced "kay-lee") that was hosted by the UC Study Centre here. Basically, I got to catch up with all the other California students on EAP (who I met at orientation in September) and then got to do some Scottish dancing. The Ceilidh band was made up of a fiddler, accordionist, and drummer (with just a snare), and were very nice and called the steps for us (think like in square dancing). Anyway, my favorite dance that I learned is called Strip the Willow (Shetland Style) and basically is linking arms and spinning around with each person down a long line. You're so dizzy by the end you just almost have to fall over; it's the greatest.

Last Sunday we (finally) won one of our rugby matches against a club team, Melrose, and it was by a sizeable margin. I forget what that margin was, but they didn't score (although they scratched and stomped like they expected to). As I was walking home from the pitch, I was struck by the beauty of the colors in the sky: the sun was down in the west, but there was a line of clouds sitting above the houses, making half the sky turquoise and the other half a dark navy blue. Ok, so it was only about 4:15pm, but I swear it was gorgeous. Oh, and the sun came out earlier that day, before it started raining in the rugby match.

So that sums up last weekend, but these past few days have been filled by food, mostly. Thursday night was our rugby Christmas dinner, officially, and celebration for winning SUSA, unofficially. We had a fantastic time, with dinner, drink, presents, and general debauchery. Friday, I again had an epic meal, as it was late-Thanksgiving at my friend Katie's flat. A whole bunch of people turned up, including a whole mess of Americans, (doing what we do best), bearing food. Two turkeys, two heaps of mashed potatoes, two vats of stuffing, and two pumpkin pies were there when I arrived, to which I added two pans of cornbread and a whole mess of candied sweet potatoes. And I got there early. Suffice to say a Scotland-held-American-Thanksgiving still knows no meaning of the word "moderation," which makes me happy. I did have to walk across town to find a Mexican deli to buy the cornmeal to make the cornbread, but it was SO worth it. Good food, good friends, cheap wine (hey, give us a break, we're students) all made for an enjoyable evening, with most people buggering off by about 9 to go home and sleep it off.

Today, however, I've chosen to convalesce at home as my chest cold decided to make a particularly nasty resurgence. I think I've been only been awake a total of four or five hours today, and that was just to make some tea. Hopefully I will feel well enough to get out and/or study tomorrow; exams wait for no illness.

That's all, over and out.