trick question

Question:  How many lattes and chocolate digestives does Sarah have to consume to produce a respectable research project/essay?

Answer: Infinite



Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving and lots of turkey and sweet potatoes :)

Raisins

Last weekend was Raisin Weekend at St. Andrews.  It stems from very old traditions, with which I am unfamiliar, and today takes the form of parties, scavenger hunts and a foam fight.  The basis is for first years to be 'adopted' by academic parents.  Since I'm a postgrad, I was adopted, along with two other sisters, by two PhD students who were here last year. 

Festivities started Sunday with a scavenger hunt designed by my academic father to send us running all over town for silly photos and to find random things like green socks and beer mats.  Here we are getting back from the scavenger hunt:

My 'family' threw a Raisin Party for us on Sunday night.  Monday morning we were woken up rather too early, for breakfast and a foam fight.  To go to the foam fight, academic children have to dress up in a costume chosen by their mother and carry a raisin receipt chosen by their father.  That's why I as walking through town Monday morning dressed as a raspberry and carrying a trash bag of water.

But the foam fight was totally worth it:

In case you can't tell, I'm the tall one in the back middle :)

I'm gonna write you a letter, gonna write you a book...

It's Reading Week at St. Andrews right now, which means that the smarties stay in the library, catch up on work and write their essays, and I take off on holiday to Amsterdam!  My housemate, Molly (she's from Sudbury, how funny is that?), and I took off on Friday and arrived back in Scotland on Wednesday afternoon.  Four full days of canals, bikes, markets, museums and apple pie!!!  The city  was cold and blustery and lovely and looked like a fairy tale. 

I originally had all kinds of plans to go to Utrecht for a few days, maybe over to Bruge or the Hague.  In the end there was so much to do and see in Amsterdam that we stayed there the whole time, with one brief trip to Haarlem.  

I went to the Van Gogh Museum, saw the Anne Frank House, the Flower Market, the Photography Museum, strolled Vondelpark, ate fries with mayo and walked half the city with lots of breaks for coffee.  So much fun!

More photos will follow, probably on facebook.  And now it's back to work....

Hope you are well!

Hugs,

Sarah

Happy Halloween

As you can see, the Halloween house party was a success.  We had four foot tall speakers, disco lights, and quite the clean-up project, but it was really fun and completely worth it.  Everyone got very into the costumes: we had three priests, two santas, and one sumo wrestler, as well as assorted witches, zombies and drag queens.  (I was a ladybug, though you can't tell in the photos)  My house is already in planning for the next party.  woohoo!

Hope you had a great Halloween, complete with jack-o-lanterns and lots of sugar!