A Year at St Andrews...

Another Friday the 13th went by! I love the years when you get two in a row like that.

If you're confused, I love Friday the 13th. I don't really know why, but instead of being unlucky, they're usually quite fun and lovely. I like wearing all black and putting on dark make-up and scare people by wishing them a "Happy Friday the 13th!" Yesterday was a good day though. I had to make a poster on Parthenogenesis for my Developmental Biology class with a partner. Yesterday we had to turn in the posters and we got interviewed on them individually. I was nervous before the interview, but it turned out to be quite alright and not so scary. But I guess the grades will tell in the end. We also had a wine reception for the whole class to view the posters at 4 pm.

Our developmental biology class has a meagre 13 students in it. It is the smallest class I have ever been a part of. Ever. We had a lab on Thursday that involved limb re-grafting using stage 21 (three day old) chick embryos. It was interesting and exciting, but also nerve racking and hard to do as the embryos are no bigger than a thumbnail. When I checked yesterday, my embryo was still alive :). At least I didn't kill it.

I went to the bop last night as well and I had fun dancing with friends. One of my friends had a random guy come up and ask to dance with her. She was fine with the dancing, but when he implied that he wanted more that night, she dropped him like a hot potato. I think it's so weird how some guys can go out with the intention of picking up a girl just for one night. Makes me doubt the human race a bit, but then I remember that are loads of nice guys out there as well.

The weather here is starting to get nicer, It's a warm 12 C (54 F), lovely sunny Saturday! It should be a nice weekend, after which I should start working on an essay I have due soon.

This is probably the longest I've gone without putting up a new entry. The main reason being that I was ill for a week with the worst cold I've ever had. It was not fun. All I could do basically was eat and sleep. My friends were really nice; they came up and saw me from time to time and brought me medicines and soup and videos to watch. It's nice having friends like that.

I'm completely better now, and second semester is starting to pick up very slightly. I've had two labs so far. For my Infection & Disease virology practical, we were working with strains of the flu virus. This was interesting and slightly scary, especially for me, seeing as I had just recovered from a cold and have no intention of being that ill again for a very long time. Thankfully, I didn't get the flu.

Also, there's another string of Birthdays now which means there's a party every weekend. I've decided that I can only handle going out one night a week and I'm sticking to that. Should be good for my health and my studies ;-).

My alarm rang at 7 and when I sleepily looked out the window, it seemed foggy.  The thought of snow crossed my mind, but I was not too hopeful since the last few times, either it was just sleeting, or it would snow but none of it would settle.
When I actually got up to look out the window half an hour later, I saw that it was actually snowing! Praying that it would settle, I went down to shower. When I came back up to my room again, I looked out the window and saw that everything had turned white. It was a lovely start to the day.
I went to breakfast singing with delight, my prayers for another snow in St Andrews had finally been answered.

It continued to snow till about 3 in the evening. Which was fantastic because there ended up being enough snow for people to make snowmen and snow angels and to have snow fights and slide down slopes and all the other fun stuff.
I actually got to build a snowman right from scratch this time. It made me very happy as well. We named the snowman "Handy".
Here's Handy:

We couldn't decide if Handy was a guy or a girl.

Also, notice my nice new red coat.

I had class all morning, so I it wasn't until after lunch that I actually got to play in the snow. I joined in a snowball fight on the Wardlaw lawn and then I helped a friend build Handy. After that we went sledging down the slopes. Here's a video of me doing that:

In other news, the new semester has started and classes seem alright. It has been a very busy week with quite a few friends having their Birthdays and Birthday Parties. Tomorrow (Friday) is the Hall Ball. It's 1920s themed and I just finished making myself a sequinned and feathered head band to match my dress.

More pictures from this week coming soon!

The first week of classes has come and gone.  It took me a while a find a couple  of my lecture rooms, but I found them in time and wasn't late to any of my classes. There are a lot of differences in the way things are taught over here. Not that I didn't expect things to be different, I did, it's just that now, I'm a bit worried that I might not be able to cope. We have major essays to write and actual researching to do. A small voice inside me keeps saying that I should have stayed in Davis where everything is familiar and therefore easier.

Our scheduling is quite interesting as well. They tell us our lab times after we've signed up for the classes and in some classes we have to sign up for the different lab times after that. The responsibility of making sure our lab times don't clash is on us.

All that being said, once I get a grip on the system, I really want to do well. My aim is to get on the Deans List, or well, to at least get First Class marks. I am taking all biology classes after all. I don't expect it to be easy, but I'm going to try my best.