It's freezing out today! Really didn't want to get out from under my nice and warm covers at...well, let's be honest, it was 11. My schedule here lets me get lots of sleep which I'm not going to complain about. Megan came to visit over the weekend and we had so much fun, she got here on thursday night and we got some take-out (a cheeseburger that we split) and just talked until 5:30 in the morning. Saturday we slept in and I made us some lunch (chicken and cheese toastie mmm). Took her into town to show her the marketplace, which was huge! It was great, there was a whole place with a ton of pastries, and a ton of different food options, and a toffee/candy section, lots of flowers, and wooden carved knick-knacks, etc. etc. Showed her the shambles which is this little windy road that doesn't allow cars to go down in but has a lot of cute shops, such as Mr. £andwich (all the sandwiches are a pound), the earl gray tea rooms, a few souvenir shops, and just other little places too. Since we got a late start we didn't have that much time downtown and we had to go to the grocery store on the way back to pick up a few things for dinner. That night Stephane and Leatitia +her boyfriend (the two students I've met who are from france...sweetest people ever) came over and we made pasta with tomato sauce and sausages, homeade garlic bread, and stephane brought over mini apple pies mmm. it was a really yummy meal, what was funny though was that the boys wouldn't come in the kitchen because they thought the women should do the cooking (?!) but they did the dishes afterwards so that was okay with me! then we headed off to campus and went to see the movie, which was a documentary called "This is England" which was very depressing but at the same time pulled me in so I just had to keep watching til the end. It was about this maybe 12 or 13 year old boy Sean who lost his father in the war, which apparently was the Falklands war (thanks imdb.com). He is bullied at school and on his way home one day he meets a group of skinheads who try to cheer him up and eventually befriend him so he joins in their "gang". This gang is essentially upset because the English have to work for lower wages/find it hard to find jobs due to the imigrant workers who work for almost no money/steal all their potential jobs, and they want to drive them out of the country to sort of preserve the English-ness of England. Their tactics for this really aren't good and the group is so small it's not making a difference, they just go into stores with Pakistani clerks and sort of terrorize them and steal from them, and write graffiti all over the walls. The film mostly focuses on the changes in Sean throughout the movie and how being in this gang opens his eyes to a lot of the bad parts of the world. It's a good movie to watch (if it's even available in America?) i'd highly reccomend it. After the movie Meg and I went to a pub with my housemates and hung out there for awhile with some of the students from union, until we got tired and decided to head back to have some cookies and go to sleep. On saturday we slept in again (of course) and went into town and walked some of the city walls which surround the city of york, we also went to see the York Minster, where there seemed to be a pretty official looking wedding! there was a huge crowd gathered so we stopped and took some photos and watched the bride walk out and everything, so neat! we just spent the day wandering about york until we had to head back for...fajitas! we had a union girls dinner basiclaly in one of my friends flats, they made the fajitas and we gave them some money haha. mmm, they were so yummy, and spicy, i think my mouth was on fire. that night we went to the student union bar where drinks were pound a pint (great deal!) and the rugby game between england and south africa had just ended and they had lost and a bunch of drunk college boys were singing Josh Grobans you raise me up, seriously a hilarious experience, i took some pictures of them just because it was so funny to see. then, we went to keystones where meg and I got vouchers for a free shot, all around a night filled with good deals! the union girls wanted to go to a club but megan and I said no thanks and headed back to my house and made some tea (and had more cookies, duh) and fell asleep. now...is where the real adventure begins. so we have plans to go get a sunday roast and then sort of chill out until they need to leave for their train but uh, meg checks her plane ticket, and she realizes she's bought one for monday night rather than sunday night which means....she's not going home today with everyone else. but, we try to figure out how to you know, change the ticket or buy a new one but no such luck, you can't do it on the day of online and the phones are closed on the weekends...so meg basically has to get to the airport as soon as possible to try to fix this. so after our sunday roast (of course we didn't miss that) we ran to the train and she caught the one that was leaving in 10 mins (impressive, really) and so then later on i get a phone call from her asking me what to do, it would be 200-250 pounds to fly back to ireland tonight, so i tell her going to class really isn't worth 400-500 dollars, and she says thanks i just needed someone else to tell me how ridiculous it was, so she hops on a train and comes back to york! in the meantime i've been at the library for awhile and was watching dirty dancing (for the first time) with leatitia and my housemates but had to leave before it was over to pick meg up, so i pick her up at like 10pm and we go to the student union bar to get a drink because, why not? haha. then we head back to my house and we cook up some of dads fried chicken mmm and mashed potatoes and have ourselves a nice meal at 12:30 and then do some reading and relaxing and head to be around 3 or so. On mondays I only have an hour of class so that was nice, Meg and I finished up the rest of the chicken and mashed potatoes and then headed into town to go to the post office to mail some of the post cards we had written out this weekend, and then I made her get a milkshake at the 150 flavors milkshake place yummm i tried the reese's peanut butter cups and she had toll house cookie, but, chocolate peanut butter is still definitely my favorite. so, meg gets back to the train station and then heads back to ireland on monday night and she's made it back safely now so, all is well. what a crazy weekend! but it was so much fun to have megan here and be able to show her all the things i've been doing here, i'll be going to visit her next weekend and staying from friday until wednesday in galway which should be a lot of fun!

one other crazy adventure was getting my class schedule all figured out, but, it's perfect now, and by perfect I mean I'm in all the classes I really wanted and I couldn't be happier about it! it took a bunch of effort because I guess some of my requests weren't processed correctly and they also didn't know my preference order for biology courses so they gave me my last pick without knowing it...it's kind of annoying to do this all overseas. anyways, so I'm taking organic chemistry, neural circuits and behavior, and general endocrinology, so I have class tues/thurs from 9am til 3:40 with a break for lunch, a 4 hour lab either wednesday or friday afternoon, and an hour of class on friday before lunch as well. can anyone say....4 day weekends? it's nice that with 3 science classes i only have one with a lab, and chris is in my endocrinology class so that will be nice too, we can study together :) so this is the first term I'll actually have all relevant classes not some random class that has nothing to do with what i want to learn. so exciting!! :) well ive got to head downtown and add some minutes to my phone and get some more shampoo so that i have it for when i run out (which might be kind of soon). i'd post pictures but I don't have my laptop with me at the moment, but i'll maybe be able to add some later. hope you're all having a nice day!