Are you winning?  That's my newest Scottish phrase; it's a greeting which essentially means "how are you?"

A few weeks ago I though I would start a daily diary for my update.  Here is the result.

Saturday, 9 Oct-
I had a lie-in till about 10 and then puttered around the flat for a few hours. Debbie was gone to Dublin for the weekend, so I had the flat to myself. Later I had a few errands to run and then planned a trip to Costco, primarily to get solution for my contacts.  I still hadn't managed to get my film from the highlands trip to the developers so I accomplished that and checked with the bank to get my new switch card (debit card) sent to my new address. Its about an hour trip to Costco by bus, when the connections work properly, but it took me a bit over that as I either missed a bus, or it never came. Either way I ended up sitting at the bus stop for 45 minute waiting for the next one. I couldn't get much at Costco because I had to carry everything home with me on the bus. Hopefully sometime soon, Deb and I will get out there together, and then I will get stuff like soup, as we will split the taxi fare home. As it was, I was worried that my bags were going to break before I got home. Thankfully, no such disaster occurred.

In the evening, I was invited to a Canadian thanksgiving dinner with my former flatmate, Liz, and her boyfriend Sam. It was a wonderful evening, but I got back a bit latter than I had hoped. On Friday I came down with a cold and I wanted to get a lot of sleep last weekend since I knew the week would be busy.

Sunday, 10 Oct-
Rather than going to church in the morning, I was going to an evening service with some friends later on, so I got to sleep in a bit. Once I was up, I cleaned the flat most of the morning. Monday we were having friends over for a thanksgiving dinner, and I knew I wouldn't have any time to clean on Sunday. There wasn't a lot to be done, but the kitchen needed cleaned, clothes needed put away (we don't have a dryer so clothes get hung all over the flat on racks by the radiators), and I wanted to get flowers for the lounge.

The Bells picked me up bout one o'clock and I had lunch with them and spent the afternoon chatting, walking through the park, and playing games. They have a new dog, and a chinchilla so I got quite a bit of animal time in, as well. In the evening we went to a gathering in Govan at a drop in centre where several of my friends form Glasgow Community Church are now attending. I found it quite amusing as the speaker was from the US and strongly favored the emphatic, rousing, gospel approach to preaching. It was a new experience for many of the Scottish folk, but they seemed to enjoy it, once their ears recovered.

Several weeks later (i.e. today!)-
Well, that didn't work well didn't it.  I managed two days before I left off my diary.  Sounds like I'm holding true to form.  I must have half a dozen diaries at home, each with one or two entries in them.  I have always wanted to keep up, but get distracted by life. Ah well, it never hurts to try.

I just got back from Glasgow's Gymnastics Grand Prix at the Kelvinhall Sports Arena near the University.   Even though Deb and I bought our tickets at the door, we had great seats.  I think we bought some of the last tickets available and they must have been reserved tickets that had been given up.  We were all of twenty feet away from the parallel bars and nearly as close to the high bar.  Today was Women's floor and beam and Men's vault, parallel bars, and high bar.  Many of the athletes were medalists from the Athens Olympics and had great routines.  We were so close, I got  chock dust in my eyes during the parallel bars.  Its incredible to be that close and able to see so well.

What else has been going on?  Well, last weekend we had a surprise birthday party for Kelly, who is an American who started with me, but is having to repeat a year.  As she is from Texas, we had dinner at the only Mexican restaurant on Glasgow.  This place was OK, but I must admit, I'm very spoiled when it comes to good Mexican food.  The next day I went to watch the local Glasgow Warriors rugby team take on Northampton.  The field is only a few blocks from my flat and I'm hoping to catch a few more games this year. Tuesday, quite a few of us got together to carve pumpkins for Halloween, drink hot cocoa, and play Operation.  Luckily for all my future patients, I am the Operation champion. Friday, the Christian Union got together for pizza and a movie.  As usual, we had a blast and I didn't get to bed till about 4am.  Let me tell you, that's much to late for me now that I'm out of practice.  Yesterday, once I managed to get up, I did some homework, watched a John Wayne movie on TV, and called home.

Being vice-president of the riding club is also keeping me busy.  Scheduling lessons for everyone is a major head ache so I've started a MSN group for the club where they can sign up online.  So far its helping, but pages keep sporadically vanishing and then reappearing.  In addition to the MSN group, I have also created a constitution for the club.  We are applying to be a recognized club with the Student Representative Counsel so we can use their mini busses for lesson and trips and they require a constitution.  Despite all the paper work, I am keeping up with my riding.  I have a lesson every week which is starting to concentrate more on jumping.  Did I tell you all that I made it on the riding team this year?  Our first competition is Nov 10 and I have been selected as one of the four competitors.  Its just a friendly with our rivals at the Edinburgh vet school, but they win every year and our trainer is determined to change that.  This year we are organizing the show and thankfully we are holding it at the yard where we train.  A little home field advantage to help us out.

On the animal side of things, I bought two dwarf hamsters a week ago.  We can't have pets in our flat, but I don't think hamsters are going to cause a problem.  Besides, they are relatively inexpensive to keep and don't need exercising during the day.  I have them on my desk so they can distract me whenever I am studying.  They are both girls and as they are Russian dwarfs, I have named them Anna and Stacia.  They are so small, they don't even weigh enough to stop their wheel when they stop running so they get thrown around and I hear this thumb, bump, thud all the time.  Also, Stacia is bigger than Anna so when they run together, Anna can't keep up and starts flopping around in the wheel.  I'm almost afraid their going to break a bone sometime.  Anna is definitely more adventurous and has already started coming over to my hand to get treats.  They don't yet like being held, but I'm working on it.  It was quite funny bringing them home on the bus and train.  Most hamsters probably don't use public transportation!

How about a funny story to finish this update off?  One of our anatomy professors, Dr. Purton is great and always tells us funny things to keep us awake.  One morning he was a bit late to class and told us he was having one of those days.  This is his story and I will tell it first person so you get a better effect.
"Did you know there are aliens hiding everywhere?  Some are invisible and others manifest themselves as seemingly common objects such as rugs and balls.  They may be able to hide from us, but thankfully our dogs are always on the alert.  One of my dogs is especially adept at finding them and will ferociously bark at them till she scares them away.  Those that manifest themselves as tennis balls are her favorite to attack!
This morning I took my dogs on their walk and stopped to talk to a friend on the way.  I was carrying a tennis ball for fun in the park and in the course of the conversation, I happened to point out directions to my friend using the hand holding the ball.  As I was pointing, I suddenly saw a huge gaping mouth flying though the air towards my hand.  My reflexes kicked in and I adroitly pulled my hand out of the path of danger.  However, I happened to stop my escaping hand with my nose.  The sudden burst of pain and blood caused me to stumble backwards.  Now, I had forgotten that my dogs always work in pairs and one was right behind me.  I tripped over him and went flying.  As I stretched out my hand to break my fall, I somehow managed to stick it right in the pile my dog had just left.   It was still quite warm, and despite numerous hand washings, I haven't yet gotten the smell off."  I think that qualifies as a bad morning don't you?  Good thing he has a great sense of humor.  I was laughing so hard during that story (he told it much better than I can) that I was crying.

Here's to hoping you're having a better day than that!  Cheers.

God bless,
Rebecca