Lectures are over, and I'm in paper-writing mode. The due dates are December 8, 13, and 15. The skeleton of my December 8 paper is written and ready to be fleshed out as soon as the data is analyzed. Tomorrow's project is to assemble the literature I'm going to use for the December 15 paper, and have an outline done no later than the end of the day Tuesday so I can send it to the tutor for comments before he goes off the grid on Friday. The December 13 paper is really my lowest priority at the moment, because it's the shortest and worth the smallest percentage of my grade. I touched on this a few entries ago, but it bears repeating: My goal is to have everything done by the 11th or 12th, so I can go to Mull and Iona for a few days before flying back to the US on the 17th for Christmas.
I never thought I'd say this, but I really am ready to go home for a bit. It's so dark (sunset today: 3:49pm), and so cold here right now. The temperature has not actually gotten below freezing yet, but the cold here is very damp and cuts through everything. On top of that, it's been very windy for the last several days. It let up a bit today, but it's supposed to resume tomorrow and keep blowing until midweek at least.
And then there's the mice. Oh, things got very very bad earlier this week with the mice. I began the shittiest Thanksgiving of my young life in my Kazakh flatmate Madina's room, after sighting one under my wardrobe once again. She had just finished telling me how mouse-proof her room is when I saw one come under her door. We got it to leave again, but I didn't get a wink of sleep that night. That afternoon, we went to the property management office and made our displeasure known in no uncertain terms. I missed a pickup American football game with my classmates, helped Madina chase another mouse (or maybe it was the same one) out of her room with the hoover, and ultimately spent Thursday night in a hostel on the Royal Mile, because I could not bear the thought of going back to my flat. The pest control guys came on Friday, their third visit in as many weeks. They put down three different kinds of poison in every closet, under every cabinet, in the ceiling, and under some of the floorboards, and I'm daring to be hopeful. But I don't know if I'll be able to make it to March 8, when my lease runs out and I can move elsewhere. Another project for this week is getting some legal advice about that.
So on the whole, I'm pretty anxious for these three weeks to go by quickly, so I can spend some time in a place where there is sun and warmth and no mice.
Cheers, y'all.
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