Holdin' Out for Spring Break

Hello, friends! I know it's been awhile.... again. Nothing too interesting has happened, really, but I will tell you how my last weeks before spring break have gone.

Let's see, after the Cork trip, I just had a lot of school work to do, and that's pretty much it. We still had our weekly Nest, which was great. Ally was pretty busy these past few weeks, so my room has become the new Nest locale. I keep the masses of duvets at the foot of my bed. It's quite a comforting sight, really. :)

I started getting sick with what felt-like a head cold last Tuesday. It turned out to basically be the plague. I exaggerate, of course, but it has lasted forever. In fact, I'm still not fully better. I've been to the pharmacy three times, first for throat lozenges, then for a decongestant, then in search of some sort of Zycam-type medicine to help kick the cold faster (which they have nothing remotely close to here - all they have is stuff to help with the symptoms). I've had so many people tell me different remedies. Last Wednesday night Nicolas, my Belgian friend, said that the trick is to drink hot milk with honey in it before going to bed and then sleep with a scarf around the neck. (It was so funny! He was instructing me on how to fold the scarf up first and then lay it across my neck, rather than wrapping it around, which could cause strangling in the night. HAHAHA!) I did this. No luck. Other people told me tea with honey. I've had various alcohols suggested several times by several people.

The cold was still going pretty strong on Tuesday of this week when friends of Jen and me - Nathan and Chris, local guys we've met through the International Friends Association, who put on our welcome weekend and the Carrickfergus castle trip and the Ceilidh, etc. - came over to cook for us. I asked them what remedies they had. Nathan said he once had a cold for about a month. He'd tried everything to get rid of it and finally went to his doctor, begging for some sort of insight. He swears his doctor told him the way to get rid of a pesky cold like that is to freeze it out. So, Nathan says that every time he has a cold now, he makes sure to walk around outside without a coat and stuff, bearing the chill, and BAM! Cold gone in three days. Every time. Or so he claims. Haha! I thought I'd give it a try, but the weather has been so abnormally pleasant the past few days - sunshine and all!!! - that I haven't had a chance. Thankfully, though, I don't think I'll need to now, as it is finally showing signs of abating. Sigh. Hooray. Goodbye Cold, oh bane of my existence! ;)

Tuesday night after dinner, I got together with Clarissa - German girl - and Nicolas to exchange some music. I have so much new music, now. It's great! There's this one song in particular about this girl whose stuffed animals come alive to cheer her up when she's down. It's so me!! Haha!

After that we were supposed to meet up with everybody else to go to this club called the Limelight. Apparently, we were really late or something because no one was there. We ran into a couple of other people on Mt. Charles, tho, so we decided to do our own thing and go to this pub called the Empire that was having live jazz music. It was so relaxing and great! I'm really glad because I wasn't really in a "club mood" (not that I ever am, really, but I wanted to hang out with my friends since we'll all be off on our vacations for three weeks after this). Then we came back to my room in an attempt to watch Mary Poppins. It took too long to load from the internet, tho, so we rescheduled for some other time.

Wednesday I actually went to the science library (one of the most depressing buildings I've ever been in, btw) to do some more research on my big math project that is due today. I was there for a few hours before coming back to Mt Charles for a scheduled bbq with everyone. I found out, tho, that people decided to wait for another time for the bbq and we went to this Mexican restaurant called Boojum instead. It's basically Belfast's version of Chipotle. Seriously, it's almost exactly the same!

After that, the original Nesters came to my room for one last meeting of the Nest before we all left for Easter vacation. We ended up just watching episodes of Friends for a few hours. It was so chill and great! An excellent Nest for the road, to tide us over until we're all back again!

Oh! We have a new house mate. His name is Hannes; he is from Germany. His room is the one right above mine. Melissa actually knew he was coming because she received his email address from the head of their department (they're both studying in the mechanical engineering field... ish), so she and he have been emailing back and forth for a while now. Benni, another German friend, has been also, and he went up to say hi during our Nest. Hannes is very nice and friendly! And now we are no longer an all-girls house, but that is alright. :)

Wednesday night Jen was preparing for a huge presentation the next day, so I said I'd stay up with her and work on my math project. I only made it until 4 am before I finally conked out and went to bed. She stayed up all night and didn't come back for a nap until sometime in the evening. She said it went really, though. I know she's relieved to have it over and done with, and I know she did a phenomenal job, so I'm glad for her! She came into to my room to see me and ended up napping in my bed while I hacked away at my math project some more. (Oh, I slept until 12:15, went to the free student lunch at Fisherwick church, then came back and worked all afternoon until I finally finished around 6 or so).

At nine, I was downstairs in the kitchen with my housemate Rosie. I wanted to celebrate my being done with my last project for that math class, so we decided to have a girls night in, eating popcorn and chocolate, drinking diet coke, and watching a chick flick. :D We went down to the convenient store to purchase the goods for the evening and ran into Daniela, the Italian girl, who agreed to join us - hooray! I'm glad there were others who wanted a chill night like me. Most of the other international students were planning some huge evening, one last hoorah with everyone. I believe the main focus of the night was to drink as much as possible, so I passed. I'm not a huge fan of drunk people. What can I say? We had a really good night, tho! Later, Siqi, Nicolas, and Laurent joined us. It was good fun and community! :D

Today I had my last Number Theory class before break at 9. Now all I have left to do is print out my Investigations report to hand in before 3, and I'm DONEEE!!!! Well, for now, anyway. Then I've got some work to do over break, but that's no big. :D I'm meeting up with several people at 1 today to go to another free student lunch at a different church - St. Thomas Parish. I believe tonight is our planned rain check of watching Mary Poppins. I guess there's some concert in the SU that people are going to first, but after that they'll come back to watch the beloved film! :D

It is such a relief to be on a break! I am SOOO ready for it! Sigh. A week from next Monday is when Jen, Melissa, Sydney, and I leave for Brussels and the rest of our European excursion. YAY!!!!!!!! :D :D :D

Alright, I think I'm gonna go take a shower now, seeing as how I didn't get to it yesterday, what with all the report writing. ;)

Happy Friday everyone! =)