Overbooking myself LIKE A BOSS.

I am taking on more things because if I have lots of things to do then more of them will get done more efficiently. Logic!

This week, I am finishing my chapter, come hell or high water, despite the fact that I spent the entirety of yesterday on a footnote, because I am the worst. To be fair, it was a very complicated footnote that provides lots of background information and sources, but still. A footnote. Jeez. But now that I've done that, I can move on from all of the contextual stuff I've been building and actually get to the things I'm trying to say.

It will be helpful if I can remember what those things are.

Other things on my plate: I've gotten a place on the DULTA program for Easter term, which is the university's learning and teaching award class. It's recognised nationally and will make me accredited to teach, which is pretty essential, as things go. It means I will be trekking across town every Friday, which I won't mind so long as this cold snap ceases before then. Grr. Coldest March in fifty years, apparently. GRR.

I'm also now giving a lecture...on Romanticism! The English department offers a Saturday in April for postgrads to lecture to the undergrads, so that the undergrads can use it for revision, and the postgrads get a chance to practice giving a full-length talk. There was no Victorian module this year, though, so I was restricted to proposing something either about the novels I teach or Romanticism, and for variety's sake (and the fact that all of my ideas for lectures on the novel were terrible) I chose the latter. So after I finish my chapter, I have to write a few thousand words on Prometheus and Shelley. Luckily, I have a friend who is an expert on Shelley, and the professor who teaches the module has offered to meet with me if I'm having trouble, so I have brains to pick at my disposal.

Also, marking has to happen sometime in there. Boo!

As for what happens after the end of the academic year--I've just marked up my calendar with weeks in which I will be doing concentrated editing of each of my chapters, with week breaks in between, and if I stick to it, I will have a completed draft by the end of September.

On the other hand, however, my calendar now looks angry and red.

...I don't know whether this has been a helpful exercise. I might have to counteract it with some comic books.

I am returned to the countryside

After much jaunting about, I am back in Bishop Auckland, and it is a very well-timed transition indeed, seeing as internet has still not been restored in my flat, and we may be forced to switch providers because man, the customer service has really not been great.

But I have internet here, so huzzah! For me, at least. My poor housemates remain deprived. Hopefully it'll be back online soon.

The inaugural NENC symposium was a great success! We had a good crowd, lots of good papers and questions to go with, and a lovely dinner afterwards. My advisor unexpectedly showed up for the afternoon, which completely frazzled me for a short while, but he seemed to have a good time as well, so I'm glad he was able to stop in. Now all that's left to do is mopping up loose ends and doing lots of reimbursement forms for people.

Other than that, I've now just been settling back into dog-walking and getting up early and trying to get my stupid chapter edits done. The progress at this point is moving at a glacial pace, but I'm determined to be done with everything at least before I start teaching. It may be a struggle. A struggle full of me wailing about how much I have yet to learn because I haven't gotten around to reading ALL THE THINGS, never mind that reading all the things when on a deadline is impossible.

I'm finding that academic writing is, for me, like the Kubler-Ross stages of dying, and right now I'm doing a cross between bargaining and depression--bargaining consists of saying 'If I manage to write 500 words today, I am allowed to relax for the evening' or something of the sort, and depression consists of the aforementioned 'I'M NEVER GOING TO BE ABLE TO KNOW ALL THE THINGS THAT I NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE THIS PERFECT, WHY GOD WHY'. At some point soon, I'm hoping to reach acceptance and then just plunge face first into finishing everything. So there you go, a glimpse into the ridiculousness.

I think that's about it, for now. I have teacher training on the 26th to go over my English department gig--hopefully they've kept the syllabus for Intro to the Novel similar enough that I won't have to buy many more books--and then it's back to the academic year. This summer has gone by monstrously fast!

Post of procrastination!

These are becoming tellingly common. Anyway. Random things have happened this past week and a half! Let me round them up.

First, I have to share a weird thing: so given that I was ill for most of the choir tour, I had an oddly limited range that was mostly ridiculously low or high and breathy--no normal, middle range at all. Well, now I'm feeling better, and miraculously I seem to have...discovered my head voice? I don't even know, but I feel like I've unlocked a level on a video game, and now all of a sudden I can reach high Fs and stuff. It's crazy! Not the prettiest sound yet, but in tune and not entirely offensive, and it doesn't feel like I'm forcing it or anything. I can't explain it. Hopefully it won't suddenly disappear again. I don't trust it yet.

I'm working on my Shelley chapter as diligently as I can, which is going okay, though I'm not sure whether it will be done on time. No doubt it will hinge upon my ability to just hunker down and ignore all other things until it's finished, which may or may not happen, we will see. There are lots more interesting connections cropping up between Promethean myth and Faustian myth, between Goethe and Shelley, so I'm fairly confident that at the very least I'm not making up connections and arguments where none actually exist. The problem, as usual, is articulating all of these things in a meaningful way, which can only be accomplished, so far as I can tell, by pecking at a sentence or two, staring off into space for an hour, rinse, repeat.

Occasionally there is tea somewhere in there too. And sandwiches.

Beyond that, I went to a workshop last week on how the publishing world is faring (here's a hint: not well) and how best to deal with it as an academic, and received the comforting news that while the market is terrible and the competition fierce, my style of research--aka, big and sprawling--is far more appealing to publishers than the narrower case studies which tend to be in vogue within thesis writing. So when I emerge, pale and blinking, from the bowels of my degree, I may actually stand a chance of getting an editor interested in my work. But of course, that is in the far distant future.

In the less distant future, I've been accepted at a four day summer school program on intellectual history run by UCL and Sussex, so I'll be taking a trip down to London for that in September, which is exciting. Hopefully I'll be able to get money from my department to pay for it, or if not, somewhere else. I'm also applying for a second teaching position out of the School for Combined Honours, which is basically a liberal arts degree some Durham students can apply for, rather than the usual UK specialisation scheme. Their one required course is the one I'd be teaching on, and basically is designed to foster critical thinking and self-reflection in first year students. If by some great good fortune I manage to get a position doing that as well as teaching within my department, I could actually pay for my rent through teaching alone! That would be nice.

In less businesslike news, I went to a friend's birthday party the other day and had excellent drinks and burgers with lots of fun and lovely people, and then had a very entertaining time getting back the next day because all of the trains south were delayed due to...wayward cows. Apparently the farmer had to be informed that exactly nineteen cows had gotten free and were loitering around the track, like you do. The droll announcement of this over the tannoy more than made up for the delay, in my opinion. Also, there was a very small child on the train who, unlike the rest of his family, who were dressed like normal weekenders, was done up in tweed and was earnestly asking various passengers, "Excuse me sir/madame, does this train go to Derby?" which was basically the most adorable, ridiculous and English thing I have ever seen in my life. So yes, train travel--it's a fun time. Far more fun than planes.

The rest of the week will no doubt be far less interesting than all this, because it is just writing, writing, writing, 'til this chapter is done. Fingers crossed that the words come easy.

Oh, and also...

For some reason my department has collectively decided that my name is Katie, and so now that's how I'm listed on DUO, the central online resource of the university.

Cute. Someone must have just made a typo or something.

OH WAIT, NO, IT IS NOT CUTE THAT'S NOT MY NAME HOW DID THIS HAPPEN.

A lot of singing, and a very boring desert island.

I had a pretty awesome though exhausting Sunday, which began and ended with choir, and was filled in the middle with cramming as much knowledge about Robinson Crusoe into my brain as possible so that I don't make a complete fool of myself in front of my students.

I accidentally forced myself into getting a fair amount of cardio because part of the way over to St. Chad's at nine in the morning I realized that I had forgotten my robes and had to go back and this was on a day when our director particularly wanted us all to be on time because another choir was visiting to sing with us. So I ran (in a skirt and heels, mind you) back to the house and then back into town and just managed to slide in before the proverbial bell, but was a damp mess due to both sweat and the light rain. But then the rehearsal and service were fine, and the visiting choir were very nice, and afterwards there were eclairs. Tea and cake, I'm telling you!

After window shopping in town with a couple of other choir people, I then parked myself in the library for the entirety of the afternoon to read nearly the entirety of Robinson Crusoe, because I have to teach it in the beginning of November, and promised to email guiding questions to my students by this Tuesday. Man, I'm sorry, I know I'm an English student, but this book is boring. Incredibly important, and often quite interesting from a developmental standpoint, but boring. There is a reason I have avoided most of the first half of the 18th century. I adored, on the other hand, the essay on it by Virginia Woolf. Here's an excerpt:

It is a masterpiece, and it is a masterpiece largely because Defoe has throughout kept consistently to his own sense of perspective. For this reason he thwarts us and flouts us at every turn...Before we open the book we have perhaps vaguely sketched out the kind of pleasure we expect it to give us. We read, and we are rudely contradicted on every page. There are no sunsets and no sunrises; there is no solitude and no soul. There is, on the contrary, staring us full in the face nothing but a large earthenware pot. (From The Second Common Reader, copyright, 1932, by Harcourt & Company and renewed 1960,  by Leonard Woolf, pp. 50-58.)

It's a brilliant essay, and accurately describes, I think, the average modern reader's reaction (it certainly did mine). The novel is very much an experiment in narrative, and while occasionally exciting--there are battles and wild animals and of course, a lot of shipwrecks--it is also told from the point of view of the lowest common denominator of what makes a sensible man. There is, as another critic pointed out, nothing to make Crusoe at all distinguishable from anyone else--he has a certain amount of intelligence and resourcefulness, but no particular taste or preference for anything beyond what is most useful to him, and his emotions are more akin to physical ailments than feelings.

And yet at the time of its publishing, it was galvanizing because it was fiction, but it achieved verisimilitude. It was not a true story, but the sheer fact of Crusoe's (and Defoe's) unimpressed, undramatic style of narrative made it ring more truthfully than was expected of a fictional tale. One would not expect Crusoe to lie or to exaggerate, because he, as a character, lacked the personality or creativity to do so. It's a strange but fascinating trick, and one which his contemporaries were enthralled by.

I was not enthralled, though I was interested from the historical point of view. Which I suppose is enough to be going on with. I have definitely enjoyed looking at the critical articles around it--getting the Norton edition was a good choice.

Getting back to Sunday, I emerged from the library ravenous roughly six hours later and wolfed down a sandwich before heading over to the cathedral, where we did another small performance which was mostly interesting not because of what we were doing, but what was going on around us: It was sort of like an open house for the university's Christian Council, so there was a massive candlelight procession up from the center of town into the cathedral, which we watched as we sat in the stalls with all of the lights off listening to booming organ music and looking around at just how creepy and cool the spires and carvings were by moonlight. Then someone gave the processors a tour of the cathedral by lighting up different parts of it in isolation to describe what order it was all constructed in. Then finally they turned most of the lights on, and we sang some pieces in front of a thousand-odd people who were all milling around and taking pictures and gawping. It was bizarre.

After that I got home around ten and pretty much collapsed into bed for the evening.

But yeah, singing in the cathedral is badass. I'll definitely be looking forward to doing it again. And in the meantime I have to get back into the rhythm of literary analysis, because I am clearly rusty after having spent all of my days doing historiography and stuff. Good times!

Why do I do this to myself.

Check list of my life right now:

1. Finish editing intro chapter.
2. Finish editing Marx chapter.
3. Write and hand in my Annual Review, in which I attempt to convince my department that I haven't been wasting my time.
4. Re-read Marx chapter.
5. Decide the last section of said Marx chapter is completely irrelevant.
6. Scrap section entirely. Panic.
7. Decide that I simply don't have time to fix it right now, even though I know exactly how to, because it will involve lots of research I haven't done yet because it's material I wasn't planning on covering until my third year. Oops. 
8. Cope by writing a cover letter and applying for a second teaching position.
9. Panic again.
10. Fill out forms, and then go to meet people in finance so I can get paid for teaching.
11. Apply for conference funding.
12. Finish editing Carlyle chapter.
13. Celebrate! 
14. Hand everything in with profuse apologies to my advisor, including a) how long this has all taken, and b) how I am scrapping that section in the Marx chapter even though it's all shiny and new while c) promising that I'm going to totally fix that as soon as I'm back from vacation, really.
15. Photoshop therapy all weekend. Plus a manicure. And maybe a massage.
16. VACATION. COME HERE, I NEED YOU.

So far I'm on step 9. Yeah. Although the panic is probably being exacerbated by the three million cups of tea I had this morning.

Stupid step 7. I totally did come up with an awesome way of fixing my Marx chapter today, except that it requires analyzing two texts that are each 400 pages long and then lots of articles about them. Oh brain, why so slow to realize these things? We could have fixed it if you came up with this solution two weeks ago! As it is, that will be the next step in this madness, after I come back from Scotland. 

I suppose it's good that at least I have a next step. Still, I so wanted to be done with these chapters, but now they're just going to haunt me until Christmas or something. Bah.

Another post of procrastination, ack.

I have not updated in ages. And since I'm freaking out over all of the editing I still have to do because my work ethic has been horrendous these past few weeks, I'm going to use this as a coping mechanism. Huzzah, or something!

The summer has been relatively boring, although I've managed to see a lot of movies, and as a result I'm now really excited for The Avengers to come out next year.

I also went on an excursion out to Alnwick Castle, which was extremely beautiful, but it was far too rainy to stay for the gardens, so I'll have to go again some time. The building itself though was Parisian in its opulence, which was rather unexpected in a random Northumbrian estate, but very impressive nonetheless. Apparently the same family has kept it for something like 700 years, which is an awesome track record, honestly. And on a far more silly note, they also had an extra area designated for children and there was a giant dragon there, which obviously I had to fight:

Punching out dragons. Like you do.

As you can tell, I am totally a mature adult.

The rest of the month has been spent trying to edit, which has been sort of like pulling teeth because as usual I get distracted by big ideas and big possibilities when really I just need to suck it up and read more primary sources and then actually use them to expand and alter all of my arguments. Then again, though, I've been dipping my toes into the visual culture aspect of the Industrial Revolution, and as a result, I found this (edited to be linked instead of posted for language), which I really, really want to include in my thesis. It's totally relevant. I can make an awesome argument to include it. Also it makes me laugh.

And this is why I never get anything done.

Paris!

I am procrastinating over my thesis. Thus, a blog post.

Paris was lovely, as could only be expected. It was wonderful to see family as well! We had a fabulous time trundling around the city, and I was very happy to follow the lead of those who actually knew Paris and its windy ways. 

Notre Dame! And lots and lots of people.

Highlights were definitely wandering around Notre Dame, despite the touristy-ness, the Musée D'Orsay (the Manet exhibit is spectacular), and an absolutely amazing restaurant we went to on the first night I was there, which served French/everything else fusion food of a sort I have never encountered before. The combinations of flavors were so odd on paper, but SO GOOD IN APPLICATION. It was pretty fantastic.

Also later I tried escargot, because...well, because. It mostly tasted like butter and garlic, which I am a-okay with. I also generally gorged myself on bread and cheese and chorizo. 

The city is filled with motorcycles instead of Vespas now, it seems. It makes me want to learn how to ride bikes and be a badass. I am probably not cool enough to follow through with this, however. 

I got to see almost the entirety of the Louvre as well, due to having an entire extra day to myself before my flight. Which meant I got to hang out in Napoleon's apartments, and lust after his furniture.

Not the gold stuff, though. Because seriously, it was like the Doges Palace only French, and that is ridiculous. But look at this! I want this:

Sphinx embellishments! Contrasting wood tones! Black accent stripes! I want them. There's a matching settee too. Furniture shopping with dead emperors, that's how I roll.

This post is aptly demonstrating how I have completely lost all coherence due to a massive head cold that struck me down as soon as I returned to England. Gah. 

I'll just see myself out. And maybe buy some nyquil and tissues.

This is a post of procrastination.

If their radio silence is any indication (which according to the immigration people, it is), then the border agency has not even given my visa application to a caseworker yet. Their lack of efficiency is making me stabby.

I seriously should have just taken a six week vacation at home and done the damn thing from there. Le sigh. Swings and roundabouts.

Anyway.

Despite having a far better sense of what I'm doing with this chapter than I did before, I am completely avoiding finishing it in favor of doing laundry and vacuuming. And writing this post. Maybe if I write about the chapter, I will feel better about sitting down and actually doing it? Let's try that.

I think I've spent the last few months completely overthinking this whole project. As a result, my writing style has gone completely haywire, which is very frustrating since I used to think writing was one of my strengths. But I got caught up in writing lots of random research down without properly contextualizing it and everything became a mess, and so now I'm trying to sort it all out again. So far, it's going pretty well, in part because I'm going back into close analysis of specific texts, which is something I'm more comfortable with. On the other hand, at the moment I have the chapter split up like so:

1. Introduction
2. 'Signs of the Times' and diagnosing the Machine Age
3. Romantic Origins
4. Past and Present
5. Carlyle's influence on Dickens (shamelessly lifted from my MA dissertation)

Which is all well and good, but now I'm thinking that maybe 3 and 4, or 2 and 3 could be blended together into a discussion of origins and a primary text all at once, which might be clearer. I suspect I will have to print the whole 12,000+ words of the blasted thing out to tinker with it, traditional cut-and-paste style. I'm going to have to buy more printer credits.

To conclude, if I can actually make my brain actually behave itself, I'm going to try and sort this, so that I can finish the chapter by tomorrow, which will be really awesome.

In other news: I did not win anything at the northeast poster competition, which is a bit disappointing, but oh well. I still hung out with some cool people, and got a chance to print an edited version of my poster out on the university's dime, so meh. I got a complimentary pen for my efforts. I would have liked a hundred quid more, but what can you do.

Also interesting were the talks about public engagement that were included in the day's program, which got me thinking that I would like to get more involved in that aspect of academia. It's one that is meeting a lot of resistance in the upper echelons of universities, but it's importance is increasingly being recognized, so if I can find myself a niche somewhere in there, that'd be good. Hell, if it means I can combine my graphic design skills with my academic ones, that would be verging on a dream job.

And on a completely different note, I sprained my thumb while at Tynemouth by launching myself up onto a ledge and not bracing my hand properly. I didn't even notice it until it kept hurting a week or so later, but yes, definitely a sprain or a strain. It was a very stupid injury, and now I can't play the piano properly for another fortnight or so. Grar.

Okay, I suppose I should actually try and work now. I'm going to experiment with this split-screen capability Scrivener has to work out this editing/blending plan. This program's superiority to Microsoft Word continues to amaze in new and interesting ways!

I am living The Trial.

So my life has taken a turn for the Kafka-esque, which is to say that I nearly got deported because my visa was denied to me due to a paperwork oversight. Yes. Apparently this is my life.

Several heart attacks later, I am now making a new application which will once again take an absurd amount of time and paperwork to process. I am...annoyed, to say the least, particularly because I have plans to go to Paris, and I would really like for that to still happen. I deserve to be able to come and go from this country as I please! Christ on a cracker.

Anyway.

I obviously didn't get any work done this week because I was too busy chasing down letters and bank statements and other paraphernalia, but I'm hoping next week will be thoroughly productive. I'm taking the weekend off to see Newcastle's castle and aquarium, and then I'm meeting with my adviser on Monday to talk about work. I kind of also want to buy him a mug or something, because he wrote a really nice endorsement letter for my new visa application that was very supportive and complimentary and will hopefully butter up whoever processes my application at the home office.

Also! I'm doing a regional poster competition since I got awarded in the university one, so I get to edit my poster and reprint it, and then hang out at the town hall for a day again. It sounds like there are lots of interesting institutes and research groups from the northeast participating, so it should be fun. And there are cash prizes, which is definitely a plus.

And now, bonus material: Maggie has peer-pressured me into making a Tumblr. For those who may not know, Tumblr is a sort of microblogging site similar to Twitter, except with media content and no word limit. I like archiving pictures, videos and quotes that I like on it. So if you're interested, check out A Fine Anachronism. It is fun times, and has cool things in it!

I am in the Rachmaninov groove.

Well, after a very dysfunctional Christmas in which my visa came three days late, causing me to nearly give myself an ulcer, and then I caught my third case of the flu this season, things seem to be getting back to normal. I have one last thing to do with this frigging thesis chapter, and then I can print it and send my computer off to be rehabilitated. Oy.

And if that can happen by the end of tomorrow, then I won't have to worry about it when Maggie and her boyfriend and I all go up to Edinburgh for the ridiculous New Year's street fair. It's going to be fun times! I'm going to wear fifty sweaters.

In other news...guys, my Rachmaninov Etude-Tableaux are going to be so badass! The first one's nearly up to tempo, the second one's finished completely, and I've started learning the third one, which is turning out not as hard as I was expecting it to be. I mean, it's still hard, and he still expects me to have hands the size of small dinosaurs, but I'm totally going to finish these pieces by spring. They are fun. Fun and dark and very, very Russian. I approve!

I've noticed that good things are happening to my form too. I'm having a much easier time relaxing my hands and being fast without being tense. I'm playing a bit more the way Tom Sauer wanted me to, I think. In any case, it's definitely paying off in terms of retaining stamina through fast passages full of large intervals and such which is, you know, useful with Rachmaninov.

And after that, I will actually finish bringing Ravel's Sonatine back. I started to a while ago and then stopped halfway through. And then I shall have a nice working repertoire. Ooo, and also that Schubert sonata from forever ago! I found the sheet music to that on my hard drive for some reason and now I want to relearn that. So many good pieces! They are putting me in a good mood.

Okay, H.G. Wells. You and I have a date with Marx.

Life Update woooo

Hey, so it's been a while. I had a fabulous time with the fam while back in the States--a very welcome vacation, even though technically I wasn't (supposed to be) on one. Obviously, it was lovely to see everyone. And now that me (and my luggage, har har--stupid Boston only checking my bags through to Amsterdam...) are back in their place, I am mostly resettled into business as usual. I had a lovely dinner out with the flat at an Indian restaurant nearby in joint celebration of mine and Doris's birthdays. We also saw fireworks on Saturday and went to the pub for a bit. It was on Saturday, because I was so jetlagged on Friday that I basically slept for eighteen hours straight. It was actually the fastest I've adapted to a new time zone traveling east. So, wa-hey.

Unfortunately, however, major electronic things in my life have also decided to go on the fritz.

This means using my computer while its propped on the windowsill in my room, because there's a draft there and my poor Tybalt's fan is broken (yes, my computer's name is Tybalt...don't judge me). I'm going to take him to the Apple people in Newcastle at the end of this week and hopefully they will fix him up. And also give him a new battery, because I have been terrible at taking good care of this one, and now it can't hold a charge to save its life. Ugh.

Also my piano won't turn on. I suspect voltage issues, and since I asked a person in the music department who concurs, I'm getting a UK power supply and seeing if that works.

So with all of that in mind, here's my to-do list of things:

-Apply for the extension of my visa
-Finish up my essay outline, which will consist of reading more Marx and Morris and all those other silly people.
-Get Tybalt fixed.
-Get power supply, hopefully revive piano.
-Find an optometrist, renew contacts prescription and get new glasses (I was special and managed to squish mine in my mattress)
-Wait sadly for my laundry to dry outside, while the weather continues to schizophrenically switch between sunny and torrential rain. Yeah, that'll be a while.

Also, I heard it snowed in New York the other day? Well, it hailed here last night. Harrumph. This is not one-upsmanship that I appreciate.

To conclude, things are a bit annoying but under control, so long as from this point onwards, everything just obeys my will and submits to the various troubleshooting actions I've taken on its behalf. This is me, shaking my fist at the sky very dramatically!

ARGH.

So that whole thing about being registered by today? FAIL.

Apparently (and I'm not the only one with this problem, so...) departments are giving people matriculation concessions like the one I have when that actually doesn't help with getting me registered on time, because my visa isn't under the right institution. I have to be able to get a proper visa from Durham to actually get my ID and such. So the immigration advisors have to call the English department and be all, "WTF?" and then the English department, I guess, has to take a leap of faith and give me an unconditional offer if I'm going to enroll for this term. In conclusion, ARGH.

Like the dude at immigration said, I'm glad I'm not the only one in this situation, but seriously, dammit.

This is what happens when academic departments don't communicate with administration.

So with any luck the English department likes me enough to trust in my ability to not fail my MA and properly deserve my admission to their PhD program. Because if they don't...well, I'm sort of screwed. And/or I'm back to starting in January, or having to leave, or begging Leeds to just get my effing paperwork done faster before I'm, I don't know, rejected from life.

I'm not actually freaking out as much as this post portrays, though perhaps I should be. But dammit, I'm proud of my dissertation even as I begin to find more and more flaws in it, so Leeds should give me my degree, and Durham should man up and give me a proper offer. Or something.

In any case, this leaves me without an ID card, which leaves me unable to access the library. So I'll be mooching off of my flatmates until further notice. Because I really do need to read, like, twenty books this weekend. Yes.

Adventures in International Travel!

I am returned!

The trip was split down the center awesome and then grueling. I had no security fails, for once (i.e. leaving forgotten corkscrews or Swiss army knives and other sketchy paraphernalia in my carry-on bags), and then there was free WiFi in Logan, so I was able to amuse myself without spending money on perfume or something. Then, to top it off, the flight was extremely under-booked, so I and a number of other passengers had two seats to ourselves. Consider it the one positive thing to come out of terrorism scares. I could actually nap in a semi-horizontal position, and I had twice the number of blankets and pillows to cocoon myself in. It was practically luxurious.

The fog over London was quite dramatic, by the by--pea soup all the way up to 1000 meters. It looked as though we were descending into an alien world; specifically, one made of glowing marshmallows. Quite fun to watch.

Then, second half of the trip was just really, really cold. Firstly though, I knew it was going to be a problem that they didn't properly check my visa at Leeds Bradford in September! I go up to the customs desk and the guy is like, "So wait, you're a first time student at Leeds?" And I have to clarify that technically yes, but I've already been studying there since September, and this is a return trip to finish, and then he gets extremely confused because apparently I was supposed to get my first entry stamped as well as all my returns. So now, every time I re-enter the country I have to bring my visa letter from Leeds with me, because otherwise customs will be all, "Rar! Where is your first stamp??" And I will be all, "It's not my fault don't kick me out of your country!" So yeah, fail, Leeds Bradford Airport. Big fail.

But anyway, after that it was really cold. Not in the New England sense of below freezing, but just that I had to stay in the bus station for a couple of hours because despite visa difficulties I severely overestimated the time it would take me to get through customs, and then the bus I took from London to Leeds did not have adequate heating at all. So I basically was sitting in freezing weather for five or six hours. It wasn't even like there were any hitches in travel plans or anything, it was just really cold for an extended period of time. Oh well.

So now I am off to grab supplies from the convenience store, and then I'm going to settle in with a giant pot of tea and not move until my body temperature has officially returned to its correct degree. Woo travel adventures.