Twit twoo. Emphasis on the twit.

It's 1.21am and I am in the library. Oh yes. Thankfully, this university recognises the mad panic of students at the end of term and has extended it's hours to all hours. And I have every intention of watching the sunrise.
Fear not, I have slept. I've developed an owlish lifestyle and become somewhat nocturnal. Clearly I'm not the only one, as the library is currently surprisingly populated. I'm hoping that I will also develop some of the wisdom that comes with being an owl, especially since my wisdom teeth are being a pain in the, well, mouth. Ow. Owl. This library lark is a hoot.
Alas, I have procrastinated long enough.
Twoo.

Good morning, Carleton.

A very good morning indeed.

Eep. :)

Happy face.

In 20 days, my sister is getting on a plane and coming to Canada.
All is right with the world.

I am an idiot.

I know, I know; it's hardly a groundbreaking revelation.
However, for once my idiocy has worked in m favour, because apparently the 10-page Brit Lit paper that has been plaguing my academic conscience is, in fact, only a 5-page paper.
What on earth gave me the notion that it had to be 10 pages is beyond me. Presumably I confused it with my Aboriginal Lit paper which is most definitely 10 pages, but isn't due until next week so we can quietly ignore that.
But nevermind the reasons. The fact of the matter is that a paper that I thought was going to be hell on earth might not be so bad after all.
Joy.
Oh, and sundae sunday came a week early.
Double joy.

*yawn*

Hello, darlings.
Now, if you've ever found yourself thinking, "I wonder what a severely sleep-deprived 19-year-old wearing an awesome hat and holding a cuddly donkey called Hugo looks like" (and, let's face it, who hasn't?) then today is your lucky day...

Mind-blowing, I know. This week has not been kind to me. The past few days have involved a lot of essay writing, a lot of desperately trying to think of things to write about, a lot of stressing out at the keyboard on my laptop for being a pain, not a lot of sleep, and more coffee than anyone should drink in a lifetime. And do you know what? It's not over yet. While I can momentarily bask in the glory of submitting a pretty decent 6-page philosophy paper and a finished 5-page Ulysses paper in the space of two days, I will soon be hit square in the face by the 10-page Brit Lit paper that's due on Tuesday. And the 5-page Shakespeare and 10-page Aboriginal Lit essays that are due the week after. And the 5-page essay on the biggest and most ridiculous mindfuck known to man Finnegans Wake that's due the week after that. For those of you don't care to think in page numbers, that's just short of 4000 words that I've just submitted, and I have another 11,000ish to go. Yipee.
But hey, I shouldn't complain. I'm in Canada, and that's awesome. I'd just quite like it if I didn't have to write the word-count equivalent of two of my final year dissertations in the space of 2-3 weeks. But don't listen to me. My brain is addled.
In other, more exciting news, something snow-like appeared yesterday. :D
It didn't hang around long, but still, it was snow. I no longer feel like Canada is a lie. That does also mean that it's cold, but, as you can see, I am very well equipped with an amazing woolly hat. :)
Orchestra dived straight back into rehearsals yesterday after our wonderful concerts on the weekend. Next in line is a Pops concert, including a good ol' G&S overture, some waltzes, music from Narnia :D, suite from Oliver! (I've had As Long As He Needs Me stuck in my head all day) and "The Beatlecracker" - an emalgamation of the Beatles and The Nutcracker. I'm somewhat skeptical of that last one. No, in fact, I'm very skeptical. We shall see next week how that goes.
I don't think I have any other news. If I do, then my brain is too addled to comprehend it.

Junk food junkie.

My dear readers, I fear that when I return you will not recognise me, for I will have swollen to a size of epic proportions, and I was already a girl of sizable proportions when I left (all insincere "you're not fat" comments welcomely received). My life seems to be one big caffeine and sugar high these days, which is not good. Worry not, I'm still eating fruit and salad and other such nutritious things. But I'm also eating a lot of crap. Mostly ice cream. And chocolate. And beaver tails. And amazing Oreo milkshake thingys. And doughnuts. And Doritos. If you are what you eat, then I am soon to become candyland. A very large candyland, with a river of Tim's coffee through the middle of.
But never mind that.
The important news of the day is that it the birthday of a wonderfully wonderful and amazing and bestest-in-the-whole-wide-world person. Now, I know what you're thinking: "But Hannah, your birthday's not 'til July". And you would be correct. I am, in fact, talking about someone who shares a large amount of my DNA, and is therefore so close to perfection it hurts: my sister. Now, I know that it technically isn't her birthday anymore where she is, but it is here, so frankly that is both irrelevant and irrelephant, and punctuality never was my strong point anyway.
So a big Canadian HAPPY BIRTHDAY goes to the wonderful Rachel, who I love lotses and miss terribly :) <3
Now, I'm going to consume some more coffee and junk food and confine myself to the tv lounge sans internet in the hope of writing some form of philosophy essay. This is the question, for anyone who cares:

Imagine that a man arrives at your door, asking after the whereabouts of your roommate, who is indeed at home. You know, however, that the man at your door intends to do harm to your roommate, indeed to kill him. So you lie and tell the man your roommate is out of the house.  Unbeknownst to you, your roommate has overheard your exchange with the man at the door, whom he knows is after him. Your roommate has therefore snuck out the back door. After you turn away the murderer, he comes upon your roommate sneaking away in the alley, and kills him.

 Have you committed a moral wrong by lying to the murderer?

I like thought experiments, but maybe that's because I'm a bit of a geek. Or maybe I just like the confusion they can create in people's minds. One of the two.
Anyways, since I've managed to get from junk food to moral philosophy in one blog post, I think I should probably stop typing now. Bye, darlings. <3

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

No, I'm not talking about Christmas. It's only November for goodness' sake! No, I'm talking about concert season! Now, I'm aware that concert season occurs more often than once a year, but "It's the most wonderful time of the term" doesn't quite have the same ring to it, so humour me. Yes, yesterday the saw the beginning of what will be an unusually bare concert season for me. The first Divertimento orchestra concert was wonderful, with, as Michael put it, a certain air of going really well by some happy accident. The Sibelius went along with great gusto without falling apart (hurrah!) and, for me at least, the Faure was basically just 35/40 minutes of basking in the prettiness that is Gabriel Faure, occasionally playing the violin and swooning over the baritone soloist's voice. Happy days. And tonight I get to do it all again! There's also talk of post-concert pub, which makes me happy, because it's been far too long since I went to a pub with musicians.
Yesterday was also Remembrance Day, lest we forget, and being the good little Canadian that I am, I went and sang the national anthem with choir as part of the service. Naturally I hid at the back to disguise the fact that I needed to look at the music for the entire thing, especially the random french interlude. It was a lovely service, and I have a lot of respect for the man playing the bagpipes in a kilt in the freezing cold. I have less respect for the student representative whose skirt was so designed that the slits up the back of it put her arse on show. She could have at least worn tights.
Anyways, enough rambling from me. The rest of the week has been somewhat uneventful, as per usual. The sky was really pretty and pink the other day. I'd have taken a picture, but I didn't have my camera. It was really pretty, though. Really really pretty. Trust me.
I now need to find my black clothes and revel in the excitement of having hangers, so I can finally hang up my clothes :D Oh and I need to play with the pink digger that I got in my Kinder Surprise today, because it's amazing. <3

"I finally found the vagina!"

Have I mentioned lately just how awesome my Joyce professor is?

It's official.

I have the best friends in the world. Ever.

A few photos...

Just to prove that Canada and I really do exist:

 

The Canada hat, unfortunately, is not mine. It belongs to Kate, who refused to have her photo taken with the hat. Naturally, I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to be photographed wearing a maple leaf-shaped hat.

 If memory serves, we spent a lot of the game discussing the disastrous effects of terrorists causing the massive TV screens to fall. We were watching sport: we had to entertain ourselves somehow!

Enthusiastic about hockey much?

 Go Sens! Also a lovely picture of the amazing paint-job in my room...

 More than ready for the Canadian winter, even though it still hasn't snowed!!

 It was bonfire night. We couldn't not celebrate.

 Anyone for a duel? Stupefy!

 Pretti :)

We even got some Canadians to help us celebrate gunpowder and treason :)

The only non-photographed highlight of a weekend was mine and Jessica's fail of a night out, which involved running around the Market for a while looking for a place that I'm pretty sure doesn't actually exist. My cider-addled brain was confused and giggly, so it was a highly entertaining experience. We eventually gave up and got back on the bus and came home.

Joyce class was, as ever, the higlight of last week. Between the filthy subject matter, Travis' cockney accent, a ridiculous southern American falsetto damsel in distress and a white hot chocolate with more whipped cream than you can imagine, I enjoyed it more than anyone should ever enjoy 3 hours of Joyce. Oh, and have I mentioned that the professor is wonderful? For those who care about my education (hello Mummy and Daddy <3), you'll be glad to know that my half-hearted Brit-Lit redraft got me from a C- to an A-. Given that the two essays aren't really that different, I'm not really sure how I managed that one.

Well that's about all the excitement I've got for you. Now, if you'll excuse me, there's a tub of Cookie Dough and a bag of Maltesers in the kitchen, and they've both got my name on them.

Ciao. <3

The little things make all the difference.

Yesterday was a blah day. Today, until 4pm, was a blah today. I was tired. I was grumpy. I woke up late on both days. Classes dragged on seemingly forever. I wasn't even that enthusiastic about choir yesterday (except the Lauridsen. Always enthusiastic about Lauridsen). For whatever reason, I wasn't a happy bunny. I blame hormones. I'm still a teenager, therefore I still can, or at least will, blame hormones for everything.
And then I got home today, and Skyped for a whole two hours with the wonderful person that is Gemma (go read her blog; it's awesome) who is currently living la vie francaise and that conversation cheered me right up.
Then I went to orchestra. I left early so that I could pick up some things in the shopping centre which is conveniently next to bus stop that I have to get off at. During my shopping ventures I encoutered a random 60-ish-year-old Canadian bloke with whom I had a good 20/30 minute conversation about Europe and how wonderful it is and how North America is rubbish and Europe is where it's at, even though the economy is falling apart. He looked at me with genuine concern and asked me, "You haven't moved here permanently, have you?!" He gave a great sigh of relief when I told him that I was only here for a year. He told me all about his travels in Europe and how he wants to retire and live in Spain. The conversation reminded me of when we go to Ireland and my mum has a conversation with someone in the street. Once the conversation was over, we'd ask "Mum, who was that?" and the answer would almost invariably be, "I've absolutely no idea". The conversation was completely random and completely lovely, and all stemmed from me buying a few cans of perry (imported from Bristol <3).
Orchestra undoubtedly added to my good mood, as Sibelius and Faure always do, and we finished early, so I ended up catching an earlier bus, and who should I see at the bus stop but my suitemate Nicole, whom I haven't seen in aaaaages, so we had a good catch-up.
And I know, my dear reader, that you probably don't really care about the boring details of my day, but it just goes to show that the littlest things have the ability to turn your day around. :)

Just chillin' in my Carleton hoody...

I never know how to pose in these photos. I should also stop taking photos of myself and putting them on my blog. You're all going to start thinking I just live in a bubble on my own in my room. I don't. Honest.
The hoody was reduced, and grey is one of the few colours that I don't have a hoody in, and it's zip-up, which is all kinds of win.

Who's got school spirit?

Hannah's got school spirit.

Teenie tiny KitKat!

November 1st = reduced price Halloween chocolate = WIN.
Yes, it's November. I've been here for almost two months. Madness. In another two months, I'll be revelling in the New Year in the beautiful place that is Exeter. This pleases me.
Tonight I went to see The Breakfast Club in an old-school independent cinema. The theatre was so pretty, and I'd forgotten just how much I adore that movie film. It's just wonderful. It's hilarious for all of the right reasons, and the teen angst is both laughably and chillingly intense. I love it. I feel I may need to reaquaint myself with other John Hughes films soon. But for now, I shall watch Glee and eat large quantities of tiny chocolate bars. :)