~ ANNE! ~

The day of departure draws ever nearer.

I am not very happy about this.

This is stupid because I should be all excited about Christmas. I think the problem is that Christmas (for some reason) seems very far away and hard to visualise, while January job-hunting (for some reason) seems very immediate and scary and is overshadowing the good stuff. I think once I�m back in the homeland and into the Christmas stuff it will be all good, and then I can worry about reality after New Year.

This is the theory, anyway.

Cannot wait to see everyone, though. Very nearly the whole family is turning up for Christmas and it�s going to be great. I just hope I can squeeze a LOT of Christmas shopping into a very few days in Edmonton.

I took a day off on flex (and how I will miss flex-time!) on Tuesday. Did a little shopping and went to a New Pornographers gig that night. The opening bands were both good (especially the second one, very tight) and the New Pornographers rocked the house. Man, did I enjoy that gig. Once I am back to the land of cheap music I will stock up on some CDs (as I only ever heard their stuff from Remkes). As with every gig I�ve ever seen in Glasgow, there was much crowd participation in the form of Weegies shouting loudly at the stage. The lead singer was all into this and the inter-song banter turned into a sort of extended conversation with the loud Weegies. Good stuff.

I have to say that one of the best things about living here is that bands that are big(ish) at home are very obscure here. This means they play the smaller venues, which usually makes for a much better and more intimate show. Also, half the time the band comes out after for a drink. The Death Cab for Cutie show in Utrecht was an excellent example of this, as was the show on Tuesday. Got talking to the drummer after the show and almost went out with him and a bunch of random Canadian girls for a dodgy Glasgow kebab (but got sucked into going out to the pub instead). In fact, did not make it back through to Edinburgh until Wednesday morning on the early bus. May as well make use of my last few weeks in Scotland�

Just had the last lunch I will (likely) ever have in the Silvan House cafeteria, so I treated myself to dessert. Dessert was Banana Fritters, which are small chunks of banana covered in roughly three times their weight of batter, and fried. Very strange. I suppose that counts as a serving of fruits and vegetables, though. Even more if you count the vegetable oil.

Hey, I haven�t had a deep-fried Mars bar yet! May have to remedy that. Or not.

The medical report: the coughing continues apace, but I have discovered that Cough Nurse knocks me right out until the next morning. Blessed peace! I am bringing it along on the plane to stop my neighbors from lynching me, maddened by the incessant coughing. Might even get some sleep this way.

Or maybe not. Too much to do! Too little time! Too many people to see and have a pint with! Leading to (more than likely) too many pints! See you in Canada�