We twa hae run about the braes...

Term 2 in Glasgow has been flying by. It's already almost February, which just feels astounding when the due date for my dissertation is August 11. Six months (and change) seems like a lot, but in reality, I don't think it's very much time at all. Especially when there's a giant question mark that follows it and the possibility of having to leave Glasgow. Which I don't want to do.

Today is a very special occasion indeed: the 250th anniversary of the birth of Robert Burns! There have been festivities going on here in Glasgow for the past two weeks, but tonight is the official night. I have an invite to my first ever Burns Supper, which (from what I gather) consists of haggis, neeps and tatties, lots of drinking, lots of recitation of Burns' works, lots more drinking, and well, more drinking. The Scots are quite big on their drinking. But whisky aside, I'm pretty excited. A more or less national holiday for a writer? Involving lots of food and drinking? This country's got it right, I tell you.

So I spent my day in the library yesterday doing research, and one of the books in the impossibly large pile on my study carrel was a collection of Zora Neale Hurston's letters. I was pretty psyched about tackling it, until I opened the book:



Tell me what's wrong with this picture.

I feel like this only happens in the Glasgow Uni library. I feel like soon I'm going to start opening books with all blank pages. For £9,000 a year in tuition, I feel like I should be entitled to some damn numerals. Is that too much to ask?

It is raining today. I finally did the math on it, and found that Glasgow average almost 80 inches of rain a year. Seattle only averages about 40 inches. That, my friends, is a lot of rain.