Burn

It wore the disguise of long Sunday afternoons
Spent reading the paper together on the couch that sagged in the middle
Pulled together by the inevitability of gravity
Repelled by the undeniably of clipped silence
Cups of tea steaming by elbows scrapped with uncaring movements.

There was no space left between you and I
Words festered like wounds in the crevices of my tongue
Leaving me to choke and gag
On hardened vowels and rotted verbs.

Closeness easily becomes cloying in apartments
Devoid of space.
There was no room for hollow pronouncements
And yet we made them anyways.
Platitudes reaching up to crack the silence
Toppling our frames like houses.

I found myself watching your every move
Reality becomes clearer
When seen out of the corner of an eye

Your limbs had begun arguing with themselves
In the twisted movements you made
No longer the smooth gestures of unreal Thursday mornings
Now we move towards each other in starts and stops
Mechaniations slowly sinking into rust and decay.

I searched for the trip that would give voice to the lie
Held in the curve of your spine and the jut of your hips
Cradled between your lips.
A lie that twisted the veins in my arms every time your skin touched mine.

I knew it was held within you like an ember hidden within ash
Just waiting for something to set it alight.

And I was born to burn.

All of the Reading

So as I may have mentioned in a previous post, I spent the couple of weeks between getting back from Paris and the start of school watching tv shows and binge reading. So its time for another fun and entertaining book review post!

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins

Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol - a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.

Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

In Catching Fire, the second novel in the Hunger Games trilogy, Suzanne Collins continues the story of Katniss Everdeen, testing her more than ever before...and surprising readers at every turn.

I really enjoyed this book. Like the first book, I had already seen the movie before reading the book. However, after finishing the book I rewatched the movie, harassing Melissa by texting her all my observations. I was cataloguing things they had changed, and thinking about why they would have done so, which is just an interesting exercise in itself. Overall, they did stay very true to the books, and much of the dialogue is word for word. Though they did remove some of the more disturbing aspects, and changed other things to amp up the drama.

But this a book review not a movie review (the movie is really good though, much better than the first). The book was really good. Katniss is an enjoyable character to read, and while I think Collins' writing style tends towards the simplistic and cold, you get throughly swept up in her struggles that you are really too wrapped up to engage in any real criticism.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins

Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss's family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.

It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of the shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans--except Katniss.

The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss's willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay--no matter what the personal cost.

I think Mockingjay was probably my favourite book in this trilogy. I know a lot of people who were fans of the series consider this their least favourite. And I understand why. SPOILERS. After the trauma of going back into the arena, and being forced to kill and fight for her life again, Katniss demonstrates some serious PTSD, something that remains throughout the whole novel even as she tries to fight this war for her family and friends, resisting becoming just as much a pawn of the rebellion as she was for the capitol. It does result in quite a few slow periods, and a lot of Katniss kind of hiding in closets, but I appreciated the reality of it, and I think it makes you feel her pain so much more than having her being unrealistically strong in the face of adversity and not demonstrating the symptoms of PTSD that she does. There are some extremely disturbing parts of this book, of course, but I don't think Collins uses those unnecessarily or simply to shock. In all three books, I also really appreciated that Katniss doesn't know what is going on a lot of the time, and thus neither does the reader (something that has been changed in the movies, as the viewers are given scenes showing the decisions of people in power). But the books are entirely from Katniss' perspective, and I really like that we never know more than she does, and she often doesn't know nearly enough, as every faction attempts to exercise its control over her.

I really do recommend these books. They are really good and will seriously take you no time to read.

Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne's fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick's clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn't doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife's head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media--as well as Amy's fiercely doting parents--the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he's definitely bitter--but is he really a killer? 

As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister, Margo, at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn't do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?

I know I mentioned Gone Girl the last time I did a book review post, but I finally finished, and can now provide a much better review of the novel. I was really drawn into this novel in the first half, stunned by the twist in the middle, and then in the second half found myself growing increasingly disinterested, before the ending made up for all of it. SPOILERS. In the first half you are lead to believe that Nick killed his wife (which the savvy reader is going to assume is false just because it is to obvious). However, he is just such a selfish and terrible person that you find yourself thinking he has done it anyways, just because you start disliking him so much. Then, in the middle, you find out that Amy is alive and framing Nick for her murder as punishment for being a douche and cheating on her. Which, at first, I was totally down with, as I had spent the previous half of the book discovering what a tool Nick was. However, by the end of the second part I came to dislike Amy just as much as Nick, so by the climax, when Amy murders an old friend of hers and lies to make it look like she was kidnapped by him, I honestly didn't know what I wanted to happen, because they were both such awful people that I didn't want either of them to remain unpunished, but having them both go to jail would be immensely unsatisfying (too neat) and either one of them going to jail alone would have been annoying. However, Flynn creates the perfect ending when Amy gets pregnant and their punishment becomes a lifetime with each other. I loved the ending. I spent the last ten pages of the novel just grinning - really makes up for the second half which I struggled with, as I really don't like reading books where everyone sucks. However, I do get why a lot of people don't like the ending, as it is very much a horror-esq ending, which a lot of people don't go for, but they are apparently rewriting it for the movie, which I do not approve of.

Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a "baby farmer," who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby’s household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves— (fingersmiths) —for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home.

One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives—Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud’s vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be disposed of—passed off as mad, and made to live out the rest of her days in a lunatic asylum.

With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways...But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals.

This was a book that had been on my to-read list for a long time, and was another book that I had seen (the BBC miniseries) before reading. I would recommend reading it before watching it, as the twist is so excellent. But it had been long enough since I watched the miniseries that I couldn't remember the details, and was drawn into Water's excellent novel with ease. The characters are great, the setting is wonderfully drawn, and the story is unexpected and compelling.

American Gods - Neil Gaiman

Days before his release from prison, Shadow's wife, Laura, dies in a mysterious car crash. Numbly, he makes his way back home. On the plane, he encounters the enigmatic Mr Wednesday, who claims to be a refugee from a distant war, a former god and the king of America.

Together they embark on a profoundly strange journey across the heart of the USA, whilst all around them a storm of preternatural and epic proportions threatens to break.

Scary, gripping and deeply unsettling, AMERICAN GODS takes a long, hard look into the soul of America. You'll be surprised by what and who it finds there...

The UK edition I bought was about 12,000 words longer than the original, and I cannot imagine it without a single one of them. I cannot recommend this book enough. It was so good. There is a particular scene (people who have read it will know exactly which one I'm talking about) that I remembered vividly from when I started reading the book about five years ago but never finished, and having now managed to finish the book, I doubt I will ever forget it.

Incredibly original and imaginative, with an ending that I totally did not see coming, American Gods operates on a huge field of characters who are strange and compelling, all revolving around Shadow, an ordinary human man who gets sucked into this huge cosmic mess, the battle between the old gods brought over to America by the immigrants, and the new gods, the gods of chrome and steel. This was one of those books that I kept looking at the pages left and thinking no, I don't want it to end! (which wasn't enough to stop me from reading the whole thing in about three days).

Zombie - Joyce Carol Oates

Meet Quentin P., the most believably terrifying sexual psychopath and killer ever brought to life in fiction. The author deftly puts you inside the mind of a serial killer--succeeding not in writing about madness, but in writing with the logic of madness.

Zombie was a (predictably) very disturbing book. I don't know that I would recommend it to anyone who wasn't into horror, but for all its grotesqueness, it is very well written and a blessedly short read (I started and finished it on the train between Bath and London).

I don't want to talk about it.

Looking for Alaska - John Green

Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. Then he heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

After. Nothing is ever the same

While I loved John Green's newest novel, The Fault in Our Stars (the movie trailer is now out and it looks like it will be just as heartbreaking as the novel. Awesome), I haven't really enjoyed his other books that much. Both An Abundance of Katherine's and Looking for Alaska involve a self-involved adolescent male narrator with terrible attitudes and relationships with women. Overall, this was a quick read, and a relatively amusing story, but it didn't elicit any feeling in me with more strength than it did annoyance. SPOILERS. Alaska is a complete MPDG - the kind of girl whose only "flaws" are those which make her mysterious and cool, and whose basic function is to exist for the narrator or protagonist to fall in love with it, and then, as Alaska does, die to catalyze a journey of self growth in our male protagonist. It was all terribly cliche and insulting and I did not like it.

Related: Melissa, Alix, and my YouTube channel is still ongoing, though we have now changed the format to a single person review three times a week, which I think is going to work better. The reason I bring it up is because I did my video this week on Looking for Alaska and the phenomenon of the MPDG.

In conclusion, American Gods for all of the awards.

PARCEL!

After quite some anticipation (and worry that it may have been lost), on Wednesday I received my Christmas parcel from my Dad :) 

I laughed so much at the toothbrush - it is a traditional item in the Jones Christmas stocking (which is what the parcel was), and mum and I had had a conversation about why I had not given her a toothbrush (I didn't think it needed to take up space in my little international parcel when she could just get one at the local drugstore)... little did I know there was a Canadian toothbrush on its way to me!

Bunny on my card! (bunnies are a long running joke between my Dad and I... whether or not he had that in mind, what a cutie!).

The white blocks in the ziploc are some of the soap that Connie and Brad made in their soap making class. I admit, when I first saw it I was like, fudge! But then I poked and smelt it and was like, soap? Soap. When I emailed Dad to thank him I double checked, and he made sure to tell me not to eat it :P

Probably the highlight of the parcel (besides the liquorice, which I've eaten almost all of now - thanks B ;P) were these gorgeous earrings from a shop in Black Diamond. I got the parcel in the morning before I headed off to school for our first full day of the live project, and my first day of being a PM, so they worked very well with my "Hello, I am a responsible adult well equipped to be your project manager" outfit (skirt, boots, button up shirt) and I got quite a few complements on them (I also brought the gingersnaps I had made the weekend and gave my entire group cookies... I may be becoming "that" person).

I mean, I've always been "that" person, but still.

As you can see, the trip overseas was not kind to the box. I was kind of amazed it was still holding together (the one right under it was the box my Hanukah present came in... which fared much better).

en français maintenant!

One of my new years resolutions was to finally and definitively learn French. I had downloaded Duolingo in September, but had only used it one or two times. Duolingo is a language learning app which was voted Apple's App of the Year, and Google Play's Best of the Best. It really is quite an excellent app. It goes through level by level, learning things such as food, animals, adjectives, possessives, plurals, etc. There are bars below each completed level which shows its strength in your memory, and the app encourages you to go back and practice weak skills (the strength bars fade over time). However, it is also very good at working previous vocab and skills into the new lessons as you unlock them, and also incorporates new lessons into the 'weak skills levels' when you go back and do them. Within the levels themselves, you will read the french and translate it into english, translate the french into english by choosing from a list of words, and vice versa, translate from french to english without a list, and vice versa. You also will have french read to you and have to translate it, and be required to speak french into the microphone to check your pronunciation.

While I am obviously doing French, Duolingo also does Spanish, German, Italian, and Portuguese. It is a really good app, and I recommend it to anyone trying to learn a language. I use it for about ten minuets every day, which I've been doing consistently for about ten days now, and it is really exciting how much vocab is both coming back to me and how much I am remembering.

I was planning on asking some of my French friends if they would mind being speaking buddies with me, but my other friend Rachel beat me to it, and a group of us formed a French Club (called Omelette du Fromage). We have had two meetings on Wed night (though that will have to change, as Rachel and I are in doing our live project from 9-5, which is exhausting) in a cafe, and while the only persons to show up thus far have been myself, Rachel, Melissa, and Alix (with Alix thus bearing all the burden of the only native French speaker, and only real competent French speaker, though Rachel is much better than me, having lived in Paris for a year) it is really fun, and though I can't really keep up with Rachel, much less Alix, it is fun and helpful to hear it spoken. Plus we meet in a cafe and have coffee and cake so that's always a good time ;)

Look at that dapper little owl (I got enough points from levels to buy him that outfit - there's fun rewards like that for getting more levels).

I don't know if its just the vocab that I've done so far or what, but the sentences they have me working with have been quite morbid at times (at other times, they have me saying je suis un douphin).

Learning the verb seul (alone) was especially depressing (in response to me complaining that it kept telling me everything was alone, and questioning why the ant was alone, Alix responded "TOUT LE MONDE EST SEUL ET TRISTE" - EVERYONE IS SAD AND ALONE. Cheers Alix).

#adulthood

This week marked the first full day of our publishing in practice live project. While I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say about what we are producing yet... (I'll have to check with our marketing and rights departments!)... but it is already very exciting, if rather hectic (one of our project involves a lot of original content, with our final submission date for printing being May 7th, that does not leave our authors much time to get us the content, much less time for editing and prod to do their thing). So it is going to be pretty much full throttle from now until then but I am very excited for everything, and I think we have a really good team going forward!

Today I had my first class in my Interactive Media module. Given how hectic the live project is going to be, and that I am Project Manager on that particular course, I am more than ever glad that I decided to go with this module instead of the Magazine module (they also are doing a live project - two magazines). So those who chose Magazine that are in the general MSc Pub course are now doing two separate live projects... I predict quite a few melt downs from that group before the end of the semester. Personally, the live book project and the placement are more than enough excitement. Beyond any time concerns, though, I am genuinely excited for the interactive media module. We will be covering things such as social media, gaming, blogs, movies, books, interactive platforms... it should be very interesting, and will tie in quite well with some things I covered in my undergrad (my text and technology class, my religion and technology class). Another bonus: there are two projects for the course. First, to make a 'blog' on tumblr (for those of you not familiar with it, tumblr is sometimes called a microblogging platform... to be honest, I've never considered any of the tumblrs I have had to be real blogs. So it will be fairly low-maintenance - they only require 2-3 posts a week, no more than 500 words per week). Our lecturer did spend quite a while today talking about how tumblr and different blogging platforms work, and given that this is the second blogger blog I've had, in addition to two wordpress projects, and about six tumblrs, I was kind of zoning out at various points :P He was quite nice though and I think it is going to be really good. 

It was fun, when he asked who there would consider themselves gamers, it was all girls who raised their hands (breaking stereotypes, hell yeah!). This module is also outside of the publishing program, so while about half the class is publishing students, the other half is (somewhat randomly) scriptwriter students. I was expecting people who were doing some sort of technology-focused major, but it will be fun to get to know some new people! 

After that course, I attended the PPA Scotland's Digital Meeting which was held at Napier. There were speakers from White Light Media, DC Thomson, and Flipping Pages Media talking about digital media, online engagement, and how to build websites, if it is worth it to develop apps for magazines, etc. My program leader requested we either tweet about or blog about the event on the MSc Pub blog, so while those of us in attendance are planning on doing a group blog post, I was also actively tweeting throughout the meeting (Georgia commented afterwards that she was impressed by the speed of my tweeting... someone would say something, she would pull out her phone, then see I'd already tweeted it - clearly I can now put 'social media guru' on my business cards). 

(Maya and me - Maya is from the States)

So that was fun. We hung out after that for a bit, for the networking and wine, but most of the "adults" had left, so I didn't stay long, instead heading out to The Merlin for dinner with Jack, Becky, Eve, Candice, and Melissa (I really like it when we go there because it is about four min from my flat :P). They also do a two meals for £9.99 thing which is pretty awesome. 

Check out my awesome sauce stack #adulthood. 

I don't have any class tomorrow, so I don't really have a lot to do until Sunday, which is Alix's birthday party, unless something comes up with the live project, but hopefully none of the departments run into any issues with their first week :)

Burns Night

Saturday was Logan's birthday, but it was also the birthday of famous Scottish poet Robert Burns. Burns died in 1796, and the first Burns Night supper was held in 1802. It was held on January 29 because the first Burns Club got his date of birth wrong (x).

Burns is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the best known of the poets who have written in the Scots language, although much of his writing is also in English and a light Scots dialect, accessible to an audience beyond Scotland. He also wrote in standard English, and in these writings his political or civil commentary is often at its bluntest.

He is regarded as a pioneer of the Romantic movement, and after his death he became a great source of inspiration to the founders of both liberalism and socialism, and a cultural icon in Scotland and among the Scottish Diaspora around the world. Celebration of his life and work became almost a national charismatic cult during the 19th and 20th centuries, and his influence has long been strong on Scottish literature. In 2009 he was chosen as the greatest Scot by the Scottish public in a vote run by Scottish television channel STV.

As well as making original compositions, Burns also collected folk songs from across Scotland, often revising or adapting them. His poem (and song) "Auld Lang Syne" is often sung at Hogmanay (the last day of the year), and "Scots Wha Hae" served for a long time as an unofficial national anthem of the country. Other poems and songs of Burns that remain well known across the world today include "A Red, Red Rose"; "A Man's a Man for A' That"; "To a Louse"; "To a Mouse"; "The Battle of Sherramuir"; "Tam o' Shanter"; and "Ae Fond Kiss" (x).

A Burns supper is a supper held in Burns' honour - Burns suppers are most common in Scotland and Northern Ireland however there has been a surge in Burns' Night celebrations in the UK events industry seeing the evening being celebrated outside their traditional confines of Burns Clubs, Scottish Societies, expatriate Scots, or aficionados of Burns' poetry (x).

While there was talking of us MSc students attending a Burns' night céilidh (a traditional Gaelic social gathering, which usually involves playing Gaelic folk music and dancing) we aren't exactly A+ at organization, and Friday we were still trying to organize something, while also discovering that a majority of the Burns Night céilidhs were sold out (x). I thus decided to have a very informal Burns Night potluck at my flat Saturday night. There were about 12 people in attendance, and a *lot* of good food (I am still eating the leftovers) and an entire huge trash bag of bottles were also left in my possession to haul down four flights of stairs and down the street (as I told David, the next time I have a party, the rule is going to be you drink out of a can or you don't drink at all). Eve "made" haggis, and I learned that the traditional way of preparing haggis in many Scottish households is to boil it. Which was slightly disillusioning. But Ali read "Address to a Haggis" by Burns, in Scots, so it was still all very Scottish.

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin'-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye worthy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o need,
While thro your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see rustic Labour dight,
An cut you up wi ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright,
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!

Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive:
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
The auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
'Bethankit' hums.

Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi perfect scunner,
Looks down wi sneering, scornfu view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll make it whissle;
An legs an arms, an heads will sned,
Like taps o thrissle.

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies:
But, if ye wish her gratefu prayer,
Gie her a Haggis (x)

I neglected to take any pictures, but it was a great night spent with friends, laughing a *lot* and eating some delicious food.

Real Life (Update)

So last Thursday marked the end of a lovely, if unproductive, two weeks of watching a lot of movies, reading a lot of books, and hanging out with friends (some highlights include the day I did not see a single other human being, the day Melissa and Alix and I had a movie night - watching The Cabin in the Woods, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Bon Cop, Bad, Cop - going to the National Museum of Scotland with Eve, Becky, Melissa, and Alix before going back to Melissa's place for pancakes, where Leanne joined us...

Becky's penguin was enjoying the catapult game

And Alix was giving me sass

... and Melissa, Alix and I getting Starbucks, going shopping, and then having a girls night, complete with wine, facemasks, and painting our nails).

Alix and I split a pair of cool earrings from H&M (my necklace is also from H&M)

Nails! (and wine!)

Face masks ;P

I also had to scrape out the freezer, which was starting to resemble more a glacier than a freezer. David walked into the kitchen when I was scraping ice out onto a towel with a spoon and he just looked at me and asked if I really missed Canada that much.

*just like home*

Thursday was just a quick meeting in which we learned which live publishing projects we would be working on this year. We were divided into two groups, one of which will be coming in all day Tuesday and one of which will be coming in all day Wednesday (my group). I volunteered to be co-Project Manager of my group, so, along with Camille, I will be in charge of managing all of the departments and signing off on any major decisions. While I am kind of nervous, I am also rather excited.

The projects which we are doing were chosen out of all the publishing projects that were proposed (mine was a reprint of The Turn of the Screw, which was not chosen) the board of Merchiston Publishing chose four to go ahead with, though not all four will necessarily end up being published, depending of course on budget and time. Both the groups and the books for each group were assigned, and then we decided on roles. First we choice the project manager, two for each group. Then people choose which department they wanted to be in (they could be in multiple departments but had to also pick their primary department that would take their priority). Camille and I also had to join depts so I joined production (which will include design and digital). The departments were: editorial, production, marketing, finance, and rights. Then people volunteered to be department heads, and we ended up having to vote on the dept heads for editorial and prod.

View of the courtyard (finally no scaffolding in way of the view)

Friday we received our grades for two of our final three assessments from last term (passed both, whoo!). We then attended a rather mind-numbing orientations for both our dissertation and placement modules. I am quite excited for both modules, though our dissertations don't actually start until next trimester, I tentatively am thinking of writing on censorship in YA literature through parents, schools, and publishers (this will need to be better thought out, obviously, and I need to pick a country to focus on).

Friday night I ended up making gingersnaps at like midnight, which was fine, because I also FaceTimed with Logan, Connie, and Brad for three hours. It was Logan's birthday Saturday (happy 21st bro!) so Connie and Brad had gone down for the weekend - Logan and Dad had been skiing that day, so I chatted with them while dinner was cooking, all the way through to dessert (and my final batch of cookies).

Yup. He's an adult.

Gingersnaps (this recipe comes to me from Connie, who got it from Brenda).

3/4 c. of butter
2 c. sugar

Cream together

2 well beaten eggs
1/2 c. molasses
2 tsp. vinegar

Stir in

3 3/4 c. all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
2-3 tsp. ginger (I go for the full three but I'm a big fan of spicy gingersnaps)
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. cloves

Sift and add

Mix ingredients until blended. Form dough into 3/4" balls. Roll in sugar. Bake on a greased cookie sheet (or on parchment paper) about 12 min.

In the UK, they don't typical measure using cups, tsp, tbsp, etc. Instead, they measure everything by weight. While there is a scale that came with my kitchen, I wasn't really thrilled with the idea of converting all my cookie recipes into weight, so I went and bought myself a set of cups and tsp/tbsp measuring spoons. However, when I opened the butter, instead of markers indicating a cup, there were ticks for 50g. *sigh* So I guessed. They also call baking soda bicarbonate of soda and you can't get it at a lot of the smaller grocery stories, which, considering that those are mainly were I shop, caused me to think that you just couldn't get baking soda in the UK. I still complain about it a lot.

Saturday I was supposed to go to the Writers Museum with Kate, but it was raining, so we decided to postpone. I had a lot of people over for Burns Night that night - more on that on my next post.

Yesterday was my first official day of classes, which involved a class for Publishing in Practice (the module in which we are publishing the real live books) which was mostly talking about finances, followed by the Placement module tutorial, in which we just answered any questions we had left about our placements. So Monday I have PIP from 2-3 every fortnight, and then Placement and Dissertation modules from 3-5, on a rotating schedule (so next week on Monday, we will not have PIP, but will then have the Dissertation tutorial). Tuesday I do not have classes, then Wednesday we are in from 9-5, with a board meeting at 10, working on our publishing project. Thursday I have my optional module, Interactive Media, from 10-1. And no classes Friday. So a pretty awesome chill schedule. I have decided not to try for a part time job this semester however, both because it is better to have a more flexible schedule for the placement, and also because I am a Project Manager which will involve more time and responsibility.

So for our placement module, our placement is about ten days, though it can be more or less, and involves self-assessment, making learning goals, and an assessment by our supervisor wherever we go for placement, which we get to choose off a list on the MSc Pub page if you want to check it out. I'm not quite sure what we will be covering for the class on the placement, nor the one for the dissertation, and I haven't had my Interactive Media class yet, so I will keep you updated on all of that!

My hair is getting longer and longer! Also £1 necklace FTW