Rambling and running

I managed to get out for a run today as the weather held up - I swear I even saw the sun a couple of times too! I was out for about an hour, so I may regret that tomorrow after not running for over a week. Either way, I'm glad I got out - I think I was getting cabin fever!
I can't believe I've only got 6 weeks left at uni (plus any reading time before the exams). I'm glad it's nearly over, but the finals have certainly crept up and I haven't even started revising yet. Oh well, going to enjoy the last couple of days off I've given myself before getting back to the books!

Five (bags) a day

Gareth did a home shop yesterday as neither of us fancied braving the snow to go shopping. It arrived this afternoon and much to my amusement I found four bags of bananas (24 bananas in total) and three bags of apples (18 apples in total). Instead of ordering individual items, he'd accidentally ordered multipacks! Baked apple anyone?

Spring in Aberdeen

Willow enjoying the best Aberdeen

can offer in Spring weather.

She doesn't mind the snow and can't see why everyone makes such a fuss about a little dusting - but then she does havea thick coat and an ancestry full of outdoor workers.

I dreamt last night that I transferred to Plymouth uni for the last 4 weeks of my degree; I think that perhaps I've had enough of Aberdeen's weather!

Piercing and ramblings

Thought I would show a photo of the piercing I got last month in my conch (the rounded bit in the middle of the ear). Conch piercing (middle piercing)

- still healing!

My favourite still has to be the scaffold - it took about a year to heal properly. Probably because when you have it done both bits are pierced at the same time and the scaffold is put in from day 1, so everytime you knock one bit it shunts through to the other part of the piercing.

Scaffold piercing (the bar at the top)!

On an unrelated note, not long after signing up for the 2008 Race for Life, it snows. It's spring! It makes motivation to go running very difficult - especially as I have Reynauld's disease, and when my toes go dead I can't tell if I'm standing on them with my other toes or not. Not the best running conditions! Grr. I guess it's the Tae Bo DVD for cardio training until it cheers up a bit.

Meet Broad Hill

I thought I would introduce you all to my nemesis, Broad Hill. It doesn't look like much, but when doing hill training and you have this bugger three quarters into your run, it's suddenly much steeper than it looks!

Willow gives some sense of scale (and smugness as she doesn't bat an eye when ascending).

The bottom of Broad Hill

Starting to look less appealing

'What's taking you so long?'

More results and the joy of Ebay

Unbelievably, the results for the bioscience exam are out. I got an 18, so I was happy with that. At least having the results back gives you a form of motivation - not knowing what level you're at doesn't help.
The wedding plans are going ok too. We pretty much have everything sorted except the flowers. I say 'we' but really we're directing from Aberdeen whilst our families are running around in Plymouth sorting it all out! Although I have discovered the art of buying nice but not extortionate (sp?) accessories through the power of Ebay!
Unfortunately we can't make it down over Easter to get the notice of marriage as we won't have all the documentation together by then (the disadvantage of not living in the city you're getting married in), so we will be making a spontaneous trip down once we have the relevant stuff.

Dogs. Again

Willow is still hoping Glyn will vanish as this picture of her hiding under the computer desk in the back-room reveals, despite the fact she enjoys playing with him!

Glyn by contrast takes everything in his stride - he's quite a laid back chap as this blurry picture of his cheeky grin shows:

Thread II

Environmental modelling sucks :S

Race for Life

I'm running this year's Race for Life on the 22nd of June, so if anyone would like to sponsor me you can do so using the widget opposite. Thanks!

I've just started thread II of my fourth year courses (the last two modules I'll be studying here, wohoo!). The bioethics looks like it'll be interesting - at least there is no spoonfeeding of information, so lots of discussions. I have the environmental modelling courses this afternoon, so I'm with-holding judgement on that one!
There has also been a slight change of plan, instead of my parents coming up and then we all travel back, we've decided to travel back for a week instead - it turns out my parents were primarily travelling up just to bring pets/stuff home in preparation for moving back! It's way too far just to come up for that, so we're visiting and getting wedding stuff sorted when we're in Plymouth. It also means I should have more time to revise for the exams in May.

Results

For some unknown reason, the rest of the results for last semester have been delayed. So I only just received the result for my review essay - about time! The next exam session is in May! Anyway, I got an 18 which I was pleased with; sorta makes up for my disappointment with my thesis mark! To be honest, I probably would have been disappointed regardless of my mark.
So, just waiting on my result for the exam/webpage/general essay course now (I know I got a 19 for the general essay, but that might not mean much if the rest of the course went bad)!

I'm sure Aberdeen knows when my parents are planning a visit; it's been snowing today

Not the best start to the week!

Willow has been somewhat out of sorts since she's gone cold-turkey after her thieving sugar-fest. She was a bit sick yesterday evening and we thought that was it finally out of her system. Then I woke up at 3:30am to the distinctive sound of a dog heaving it's stomach contents all over the last clean dog bed. So after sorting out the bed and finally finding something for her to sleep on I headed back to bed. Then began the sultry sound of Gareth snoring. Grr! I was not among the most awake this morning in the flat, and I had a small presentation to prepare with my group before the lecture this morning. I dutifully arrived, everyone sorted into their groups to head off to prepare, and I realised I was the only from my group there. It also became clear that the paper I had to present wasn't the easiest to follow. I managed to bung something together, and luckily the rest of the class were nice enough not to rip shreds out of the presentation - I didn't really understand the paper as it was heavily reliant on equations and modelling systems (there were a couple of equations there that were two lines long, with about 3/4 nested equations within...), but fortunately I could avoid talking directly about them!

Hopefully the rest of the week will pick up - roll on Easter break!