Full-Minded

Well, someone has a lot on her mind today.  I was going a little nuts this evening (& talking poor Justin's ear off), so I took some time to put together a virtual cork board for everything that's on my mind at the moment.  It's a different take on a "photo of the day," but it works for me right now.

I could go on about each image/idea for days, but here's a more succinct explanation (going clockwise, starting at the top left corner):

• Baby chicks!  (Photo from Cold Antler Farm!)  Because we eventually want backyard chickens!
• A black lab!  Because black labs are adorable and while we love Miss Sadie, one can never have enough cute dogs!  (Photo from here)
• Sherry from Young House Love painting trim in her living room!  Because we/I are/am currently obsessed with interior design & home DIY!  And because we've already painted two rooms in this house and we have more on the docket!
• A PhD from the University of Edinburgh!  Because I freaking love Edinburgh and always wanted to go back to live and I love history and I never said I wasn't going to go back for my PhD in it!
• A gorgeous, creative crib set-up (from here)!  Because part of my nesting kick involves tentative daydreams about furnishing a nursery and, you know, for-real-reals nesting!
• An APPLARO patio set from IKEA!  Because I've been dreaming about slapping a deck on this house for over a year now!

Hmmm - one might look at this inspiration board and say, "One of these things is not like the other."  And I get it, I do.  Everything but the doctoral degree from a Scottish university can happen right here in this house, in due time.  But because all of these things pull me in similar ways, they all combine & recombine in my head in logical, beautiful ways.  Off to Scotland for 3 years and a PhD, then home to build a homestead & care for small creatures.  Makes perfect sense, right?

Two Announcements

1. The field trip was fun! We had some funky weather - fog, sun, fog, sun - but it was a good experience all the same. I forgot my camera, but my friend took some great photos, so I'll see if I can post them once he sends them to me.
2. I don't normally pay much attention to the global financial market, but there's some scary stuff going on, people. I've lost a decent chunk from my retirement account since I switched it from a 401K to an IRA last year. This makes me sad. :(

Field Trip

Ah, remember field trips? The excitement of packing a lunch & spending the day away from the norm? Well, even though I'm well beyond elementary school, I'm going on a field trip tomorrow & I'm super excited!

I'm taking a fall course that studies the environmental history of commercial fisheries in the Northwest Atlantic & we have the opportunity to go out on one of State U's research vessels (above). We'll be out on the water for four hours tomorrow morning. I'm trying to figure out if I can bring my camera without looking like a total nerd. ;)

Singing in the Rain

OK, snow, but that's just a detail.

For some reason, I'm ebullient tonight. Actually, there are a number of reasons for it. Which I will now list. So there. (You guys don't come here expecting insightful social commentary or anything, do you?) ;)

• This weekend, I'm hosting a Leap Year party (at a bar, not my place) on Friday night & attending an Around the World party on Saturday. Who said you have to work hard in grad school? I kid, I kid.
  
• I ordered a new Red Sox sweatshirt for the '08 season & it came in the mail on Monday. I don't think I've spent a night home without it on & I wore to class on Tuesday.
  
• My nephews continue to be cute & wonderful & I love seeing them once a week.
  
• My dating life is too confusing to parse right now (plus, I only have nicknames for two of the five thus far), but it's generally good & I'm clearly doing something right this winter. ;)
  
• In my research seminar today, the professor chastised everyone for poor work on a recent essay. She then said the highest grade was an A-. Guess what I (and another friend) got? It was particularly great b/c I'm pretty intimidated by this professor & her notes said my writing was "excellent."
  
• It looks like I'll be spending spring break either relaxing & attending a few St. Patty's Day parties or . . . in Puerto Rico!
  
• My friend Kate made a mix CD a few years ago, called "Beautiful & Funny & Sad & True," after a line in The Girls' Guide to Hunting & Fishing. I've been listening to the last song, the love song medley from Moulin Rouge (the elephant scene), on repeat. As Kate points out in her liner notes, "this is love at its silliest, most dramatic, and most surreal." Yet, it makes me believe in love again. And considering my bad luck with it in the past, that's saying something. :)
  

Being a Productive Member of Society

My sleep schedule is all screwed up, you guys. I guess this is what comes of having class only two days a week & never before 2pm. I keep promising myself to get up at a reasonable hour, like 8 or 9. Then, I end up staying up late for whatever silly reason & sleeping in until noon!

Last night/this morning, I tried to get to bed by 1am. 9am - 1am = 8 hours of sleep. Perfect, right? However, I didn't actually crawl into bed until 1:45, then spent about 15 minutes using my phone's calculator to figure out my budget for the semester, then spent about an hour worrying about my dating life. Yup - finally fell asleep at 3am.

When my alarm went off at 9, I was not feeling rested at all. Fell back asleep & dragged myself up at 12:45. :( I walked down to the sandwich shop for lunch & felt even worse about getting up late. The temperature was a balmy 37, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and I felt like a lazy schlub. ;)

Here's hoping I'll have better luck tomorrow!

"we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet, for auld lang syne!"

What did you guys do on Friday night? Me, I made my grad school friends celebrate an old Scottish custom with me. ;)

Burns Night is a celebration of the Scottish poet Robert Burns. Scots and ex-pats host "Burns Suppers" during the week of January 25th to honor & remember the "Bard of Scotland." It's a fun holiday and one that I've always wanted to observe. So, this year, I remembered in time & invited friends to the Coat of Arms, a British pub in Portsmouth.

My GSBB & I started off with a supper of haggis (vegetarian was all the shop had, which completely defeats the purpose, but beggars can't be choosers), carrot & parsnip mash, and potatoes w/ bacon & cheese. The traditional Burns Supper is haggis, neeps (turnips), and tatties (potatoes), so we did a pretty decent imitation. Above is us enjoying our meal, and yes, that's the can for the veggie haggis balanced on my beer bottle. ;)

Then, we picked up some friends w/o cars from campus & brought them to my house for a dessert of cranachan. You might remember this as the traditional dessert that I made for Thanksgiving this year after enjoying on Skye in March.

Me enjoying my cranachan w/ raspberries

Some of the girls at the Coat

Cameron's popular w/ the ladies

See what I mean? ;)

Me & the GSBB's older brother

Once we hit the pub, I tried to keep up the Scottish theme. I brought a postcard shaped like a haggis, a book of Scottish folk songs, some Celtic temporary tattoos, a version of Peter Rabbit translated into Scots (which people got a huge kick out of), and some whisky-flavored condoms that were a present from my Scottish friend David years ago. I also shared a poem I wrote awhile ago about Edinburgh. Enjoy! ;)

Like maself, ye ken the Athens o' the north,
where green are the Meadows and blue is the Forth.
The lads are all braw there, or so I've been told.
Although when the wind blows, their wee men get cold.

Easily Pleased

It's true - I'm easy to please. I was back on campus today for the first time in a month & discovered something new. They opened a coffee bar in the library! It's like my wildest dreams have come true: coffee & books. :)

I. Am. Done.

Yup, you heard me right. I am finally done with my first semester of grad school. And nobody lost an eye. ;)

I emailed my last paper to my least-favorite professor last night at 10:30: twenty-one pages on the concept of Self vs. Other for early medieval Scottish saints. And yes, I know I'm odd; you don't have to say it. :)

Now let the relaxation & celebration begin!

Long Johns

OK, what I really should be (and sort of am) doing is working on my final final paper (no, that's not a typo - this is my last of the final papers). However, I had to share my current weirdness with you guys.

I was at the university library & now I'm home. Since I was chilly at the library & I'm now in my own office, I decided to wear whatever was most comfortable & kept me warm. Hence, I am stylishly outfitted in long johns & knee-high snowboarding socks.

No, I'm not kidding. ;) I look pretty goofy & will have to change when my landlord wakes up, but for now, I'm warm & streamlined!

Quick Note

(Photo by Chris Adzima)

to say I'm still alive & not buried under either books or the snow.

I've had a crazy-busy weekend, marked by lots of Christmas stuff & snow on one side and lots of drinking & snow on the other. Snow, snow, snow. ;)

In related news, I've been doing some reflecting lately, thinking about my first semester of grad school & my first fall in Portsmouth. And I can honestly say that I'm living exactly where I want to be living & doing exactly what I want to be doing. I'm so glad I made the big scary decision to go to grad school & move to a new city alone. I'm really happy here. :)

Whine, Whimper, Moan

I know, I know. I've warned all the men in my life not to expect to talk to me until next Thursday at the earliest. I've whined to my mother, my landlord, anyone who will listen about the number & length of the papers. I've clearly been bitching & moaning too much about my final papers.

To my credit, though, it's awfully hard to go right back into academia after three years off. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it again soon, but this is only my first semester back. Luckily, this will all be just a memory one week from today.

In the meantime, I promise not to write any more whiny posts. Of course, that likely means you won't get any posts at all. ;)

My Head Hurts

Holy crap, I'm tired. I spent my longest day to date on campus today: I hopped on the bus at 9:22am & just shuffled off at 10:40pm.

For a girl who used to work from 9am until around 8:30 or 9pm, this shouldn't be that bad. However, there's a big difference between working casually on a company project & squinting at a computer screen all day, trying to determine why exactly Canadian confederation differs from American federalism & what the main schools of thought are on this topic. ;)

I am going to take some ibuprofen, put on my glasses, and crawl into bed with a snack & my seven books on Canadian history & politics. See you folks on the flip side.

Quick Update

As I mentioned to Susie in the comments of my last post, last night ended up far from relaxing. It's my fault for assuming it could be, I guess. ;)

I started off by meeting one section of the graduate school group at the Coat of Arms. That part was great: I love this pub & haven't been often, I had some good chats with some of the girls, I met some new people, etc.

Around 11:30, that group was heading home & my presence was requested at The Knot. Off I went & found a parking spot right in front of the bar! However, it was packed b/c the roommate of one of the guys in our group was playing that night. I actually had to wait outside for about 5-10 minutes before I could get in. In New Hampshire!!!

Anyway, once I got in, there were good & bad things. I met a few new people & had some fun. However, The Accountant, who said he wasn't going, was there. I'm not going to get into too many details, since I link the blog to my Facebook account & I know some of the people in this group are on Facebook. However, in a nutshell, I found out that the man who said he wasn't ready to date asked my friend to the movies. Grrr.

So. New resolution for the month of December: no dates & no drama. None. I'm going to ask The Bouncer if he minds giving me some space right now. For the next three weeks, my only activities will be writing my final papers, working at my part-time job, and doing all of my Christmas errands (shopping, card-sending, decorating, etc.).

Penultimate Day

Yeah, I used "penultimate" instead of second-to-last. What of it, sucka? ;)

Went out with kids from the history graduate department again tonight. This makes three nights this week I've grabbed a beer (or two) with other grad students. This is a good new habit of mine, I think. :) I like going out for a casual drink or two with friends who are just as poor as me.

For example, tonight my first beer was a $4 Unibroue Chambly Noire. It was lovely (malty & chocolatey & not too heavy, despite being a black ale), but my second & third beers were good ol' PBRs, $1 at the Barley Pub on Thursday nights.

Of course, I didn't pay for my second & third beers, so I guess that shoots down my theory a bit. However, it allows me to segue into who did pay for them, so whatevs. ;) At trivia the other night, there was a guy who was pretty cute, who knew some of my history grad buddies. However, we were on different teams for trivia & neither one of us paid much attention to the other.

Tonight, though, I did get to chat with him a fair amount & I think I am interested. :) Luckily, I think he is, too. He, another guy & I were the last ones to leave b/c we were talking so long, he bought me two beers, and he invited me to stop by the wine shop where he works for a wine tasting tomorrow afternoon. More to the point, my part-time job has public offerings of a certain kind and when I was telling him about them, he wanted to know which specific days I would be working them.

All of this is good, yes? Not that I particularly need another man to be thinking about - we're up to four now, by the way. However, I drove home grinning from ear to ear about this one. We'll see how things go . . .

PEM Recap

( Clipper Dreadnought, ca. 1853 (detail). James Edward
Buttersworth (1817-1894). New York, N. Y.. Oil on canvas.)

Good trip to Peabody Essex today. I had initially intended to write a review of their "Sketched at Sea" exhibit. However, when I walked in, their first floor "Maritime Art" gallery was closer, so it's there that I went. (Side note: This turned out to be a good thing. When I went to look for the "Sketched at Sea" exhibit later, I couldn't find it. I'm not kidding, you guys. I'm a smart person with experience in museums, but despite following the signs carefully, that particular exhibit never appeared. Weird.)

Now, I'll admit that I'm a flat-out sucker for anything that has anything to do with the sea. I mentioned this before, when I first moved to Portsmouth. I think it's mostly from spending all of my childhood summers on Prince Edward Island, but growing up in New England certainly didn't hurt, either. You could take a completely boring item & plop a sailing ship or a lighthouse or a mussel shell on it and I will absolutely buy it from you. ;) My personal checks have maritime scenes on them, for goodness sake!

Despite my appallingly low standards for satisfaction, the Maritime Art exhibit still went above & beyond my expectations. Think of those words: "maritime art." You're probably picturing lots & lots of grand portraits of schooners & clipper ships & brigs, right? Well, they had that in spades, but more that I wasn't expecting. Portraits of Salem sea captains & merchants, intricate scrimshaw, advertising posters for the Cunard line & its ilk, carved figureheads, a huge model of the original Queen Elizabeth, and even a recreation of the interior of a yacht.

If you happen to be in the Salem area, it's definitely worth paying PEM a visit. They have amazing collections of Asian & American art, as well, but the maritime art exhibit alone was worth my $9. :)

Much-Belated Update

OK, I'm back. Sorry for going away. :)

This past week has been busy and fun and a little stressful. Since Wednesday, I've only spent two nights in my own bed in Portsmouth! I've also:

• worked two busy days at my new job (the one I got through my current position)
• had a beer with a couple of girls from my graduate program/part-time job
• freaked out & cried when my car decided not to start - twice!
  
• canceled my very first plans in Portsmouth to visit my two best friends in Boston (one of them came home from NYC unexpectedly for Rosh Hashanah)
• imbibed more than a few drinks with the girls & their boyfriends
• watched a lot of Red Sox - some good, some bad, some ugly (Friday night broke my heart!)
• babysat for my nephew
• found out that my sister's second child will be a boy! I'm going to have two nephews, you guys. (insert big auntie grin here)
• tutored two students in MA on the way home from my sister's
• done a ton of reading for class
• made plans for a regular Monday lunch with two of my classmates/new friends
  

Whew! I hope you all have a good week & I promise to update more regularly this week. ;)

Thursday Randomness

So because my bedroom looks like this:
you're getting bullet points & promises instead of a proper post. ;)

• My room is a mess. However, since I have neither class nor work tomorrow (haha - I love not working full-time anymore! Also, I just said I have no class! Get it?), I will be spending most of the hot, sticky day inside unpacking & organizing. I think that with our forces combined, me 'n the four Red Hook ESBs in the fridge can get it done!
• I went to the Sox game last night with one of my best friends, my bro-in-law, and a friend of his. Sucks that we lost, but I took a few silly pictures & had a few funny occurrences. Will post them soon.
• I got a new job! Well, kind of. It's through the same place I've worked since May, but it's additional hours in a different department. It also involves food service (in which I have a decade of experience), so you know that that means, right? Free food!
• And for the other days of the week, when I'm a poor starving grad student, I made a nice discovery during my virgin visit to the local Hannaford's. They have . . . dry goods in bulk! That's right - when money runs low, I can walk on over to the store & buy $1 worth of couscous or granola to keep me alive. ;)
• You guys, I have a problem. My age meter is on the fritz. Walking around campus, I'm having a hard time telling the little baby freshmen (no way!) from the grad students & young professors (acceptable for dating). I once made the mistake of dating a guy significantly younger than me (4 years) & never heard the end of it from both friends & family. Even my mom called me Mrs. Robinson! I don't want to make the same mistake again. What do I do??? ;)
  
• Last, but not least: I finally bought "The Places in Between." I first read about Rory Stewart this past spring while in my dentist's waiting room. He's a well-educated Scotsman in his early thirties who has served as a British diplomat for a number of years. Most interestingly, though, in 2002, he walked across Afghanistan by himself. The book is an account of his experiences in that country. I'll let you know how it is when I finish it, ok?
  

In the meantime, since it's nearly midnight, I think I'll toddle off to bed with my Scotsman. Enjoy your evening, kiddos!

I've Touched Down

Finally & sort of. ;)

After my final day of work on Friday (during which I got to pick out my own going-away cake at Russo's!), a few co-workers & I went out for dinner at Watch City. Then, a Mediterranean chicken salad & Titan Ale heavier, I headed up 95 with two plants, a mattress, a betta fish, and miscellaneous other household goods.

Arrived around 9:45, had some help unloading, had a glass of wine with my housemate & some of his friends, and crashed around midnight. Worked all day Saturday, then headed up to the lake house.

After all the hubbub of the last few weeks, I was really looking forward to relaxing with my family on Saturday night. Instead, within thirty minutes of my arrival, I had both locked my keys (& purse & phone & Red Sox tickets) in the car & gotten two splinters deeply embedded into my foot. Sigh.

Once these issues were sorted out, though, it was a lovely weekend. Coffee on the deck in the mornings & swimming at the beach in the afternoons. Nice way to set me up for my first week of classes. I'll update more later, as I get more things unpacked & meet with more classes!

Calling Dr. Clarity

Busy day today. Took the day off work to head up to NH & get some things accomplished. I got my student ID, bought my parking permit, met some faculty & other new grad students at the orientation lunch, met with my adviser to discuss fall classes, took the second-to-last load to the Portsmouth apartment, and tutored a student on the way home. And boy - are my arms tired!

Anyway, while I was out & about, I passed a doctor's office - the small kind of practice that you usually see in what looks like someone's house. The sign out front said, "Dr. Clarity - Podiatrist." For some reason, I got a real kick out of this. Shouldn't someone named Dr. Clarity be an optometrist, or maybe even a psychiatrist? ;)

Things to look forward to in Portsmouth

Wow - what a lot of people found my blog through Universal Hub on Thursday! It always shocks me a little when Adam picks up something I've written & throws it up there. My normal traffic is between 25 and 35 hits per day. Last week, when he posted my story about the creep in Concord center, I got 224. The Boston post got 166!

Anyway, I spent both days this weekend up in Portsmouth, both working & moving. My college friend (whose wedding I was in last fall) & my parents helped me with the big stuff - bed, dresser, wardrobe - yesterday. Luckily, driving a 17" U-Haul isn't as hard as I thought it might be!

Without further ado, here is the start of my list of good things about Portsmouth. I know I'll be adding to it as I get to know the city better, but we'll start with this:

• the ocean! Nearby! All the time! I'm really excited about this one, you guys. I love being near the ocean & hearing seagulls as I wander around continues to endear me to this little port city.

• According to Google Maps, there are nine - count 'em, nine - bars within a mile of my new place. ;)

• Ceres Bakery on Penhallow St. I've been coming in here for lunch for a few months now. The sandwiches are great & the counter help is always friendly & pleasant. Plus, the bakery often displays the work of local artists. What more can you ask for?

• Free wi-fi in Market Square. Gotta love a city who recognizes the burning need of its citizens to loaf around the square, drink coffee, and surf the web.
  

• The Friendly Toast. 1950's kitsch, hipsters, and great breakfast food. Enough said.

• Prescott Park Arts Festival. Every time I've been in Portsmouth this summer, there's been something fun going on in the park.

• Did I mention being near the ocean? ;)