*waves*

Hey guys, I'm not dead! Just really very busy. Already. And this is only week four. Ah well, that's what grad school is supposed to be. So to fill you in on the last, oh, month and a half...

I got back with no trouble, even with the layover in Dublin. I stand by my earlier statement that Dublin is a nice airport; it's just a hell of a lot bigger than I remember it being the last time I was there. But I made the transfer with no problem, and even went through immigration there (I think) so I didn't have to do it in Edinburgh, making the queue there that much shorter. I then took a cab back to my flat because I was not awake enough to deal with my luggage on two buses and a train and then one of my friends had a bunch of us round for dinner, so I didn't even have to figure out dinner. I spent the rest of that week in a jet-lagged fog, so I'm not entirely certain what I was doing...oh well.

The next week, we spent nearly every day in the library, trying to get a jump on this semester. It was a bit boring, but it worked. I'm not nearly as overwhelmed as I was last semester. I still have an ungodly amount of reading, but I do actually like that, so I'm not going to complain. Much.

Classes are still pretty great- Latin is still mostly the PMS show, which is a fantastic way to learn the language. He's got us translating an apparently legit passage about a man who, whilst riding through a wheat field, was led by a little red man to a lady who ordered his brain removed from his head and then had him put back on his horse. I've no idea what happens next; we're not done translating it yet.

We've been doing library scavenger hunts in Domesday, which are...interesting I suppose. Would have been better, I think, if we'd done it last semester to get us used to the library when we were new, but whatever. We've got a huge new bibliography (well, it's new for me at any rate) of dictionaries and the like for quick look ups (and we got the ok to google stuff as well, so long as we double check. Shock waves ran through the room at this, let me tell you), so it wasn't a complete waste of time. Presentations start next week, and they're going more or less alphabetically so I've got a bit of time to tighten up what I'm going to say, which is nice. I have it outlined, but it could stand to be improved.

Tutorial this semester is also pretty fantastic. I'm with a different prof, and I'm sharing time with another MLitt (whose energy level is about a thousand times higher than mine at any given point in time), so it's an entirely different dynamic. Takes some getting used to, but I think it's going to be fun. Of course, we were supposed to meet today but he's out of town. And didn't tell us. My adviser told me yesterday when I picked up a paper, so I then told Meredith, who had been freaking out because she wasn't finished with her bit of work for today, so at least she got to sleep tonight. And I shall put my new free time to good use as well.

We've picked up a class this semester as well. Paleography (according to Wikipedia)is "the study of ancient handwriting and the practice of deciphering and reading historical manuscripts." And it's pretty fantastic. We've got an assignment to transcribe what I think might be a bit of the bible for the middle of May, and there are like four contractions that I couldn't work out on my own, so I'm going to spend my afternoon in the Library with one of the contraction dictionaries trying to get that done. Then I'll only have the actual research to do, and that shouldn't take me more than an afternoon at the very most, and then write it up and it's done. Easy.

On a slightly less boring note, I'm going to London on spring break. Not for all of it; I've got far too much reading to take that much time off, but at least I'm going. The student travel office here does a deal that's the train both ways and two nights in a hotel for eighty nine pounds (which is an amazing deal), so a friend and I are going and living it up for four days. I'm excited and so is she. It's going to be fantastic. I miss London...

And that's more or less all I've got going on. I promise I'll be better about posting, and I'll start taking pictures as soon as it stops raining and post them... somewhere. I'll link. TTFN!