November love

How absurd - the last day of November is here. October felt like it went on and on forever (albeit in a good way), but November just whizzed past. A quick look in my planner tells me I've had quite a few tests and presentations, more lectures than usual and several church related activities along with a couple of visits from friends this month. Over all, it's been a good one, although I haven't got nearly enough things done. (Then again, I feel like I'm always saying that... Not good at all.) Tomorrow, I'll be starting my December off with a bang by taking my final Italian test. Madonna mia... I feel like we need an inspirational, uplifting picture here:

(This one will do.)

November favourites:

Mint chocolate milkshakes. 
I'm getting into a habit of bringing my laptop to my favourite café in order to escape the distractions of my apartment. (So far, it seems to be working.) I usually get there too late in the afternoon to be able to order coffee (as it would keep me up all night if I did), and they happen to serve the most fantastic mint chocolate milkshakes on the planet. Plus drinking it makes me feel very 50's American. I quite like that feeling.

Painted nails. 
Just painted nails in general - nothing makes me feel so instantly polished (no pun intended) and put together as a good manicure, preferably in bright red, ink blue, lavender or burgundy. Right now I'm wearing my vampiest, most Marilyn Monroe-esque red, so that I'll at least have something nice to look at while I'm trying to conjugate irregular Italian verbs tomorrow...

Academia.
Aside from struggling with my language classes, I've been quite into the rest of my studies and the whole university thing this month. I've recieved surprising support regarding my work, I've done some research of my own, I've picked up a couple of lovely thesis related books, and I'm just generally feeling good about that part of my life right now.

Christmas card making
Er, yeah. Some people go out dancing on friday nights, I make christmas cards. Several november evenings have been spent with a friend who's just as much into arts and crafts as I am, covering my floor with paper, glitter, old magazines, sequins and everything you could possibly need to make christmas cards. I do feel slightly ridiculous looking at the giant pile of cards stacked on my desk, but we did have heaps of fun making them.

Not that exciting, huh? I'd love for a month to come when my favourites are things like "going for spontaneous roadtrips with the windows down", "skinny dipping at midnight with new friends", "getting a poem published in a super pretentious anthology about the power of nothingness" etc... But, alas - it's too cold for skinny dipping, I don't have a car, and my poems really aren't that good. (They are very pretentious though. Brownie points?)

The last red berries

  November comes
And November goes,
With the last red berries
And the first white snows

...and we're somewhere in the middle of those two stages right now. Winter is very late this year. My university town is looking very Tim Burton-esque: The river running trough the town reflects the starry evening sky, and all the naked old maples provide quite a haunting sight - it's very Sleepy Hollow, very Corpse Bride. Beautiful.

Even I, the most easily spooked person I know, cannot bring myself to be afraid of the dark in this town - it manages to look charming even on the darkest of November evenings. And they are getting dark alright - darkness falls at four in the afternoon now, and soon we'll be down to just a couple of hours of daylight every day. (I told you I live high up north...)

I do find it quite cosy. It's a great excuse to indulge in some way-too-early christmas decoration-crafting (I'm very much into making beaded metal-wire hearts and fabric flowers right now) while watching cozy movie of choice. Personally, I've never really fallen for Love, Actually, so I'm going with one of my favourite guilty pleasures: Dirty dancing 2. Yes, the "Havana Nights" one. It actually features a christmas celebration, so I think it's justified... But really, it's just such a sweet movie. And so visually beautiful.

We just wanna make the world dance

I got up unusually early today (I normally have fridays off and sleep in) for a meeting with my professor, but he cancelled - which means I now have a whole long lovely friday all to myself! Considering that I've been out of town for four weekends in a row it will be so, so nice to not go anywhere this weekend.

My Big Friday Plans:
-have an early lunch
-bring text books to café, study
-write overly pretentious poetry while people-watching in said café
-draw something colourful while watching inspiring movie of choice
-make birthday card for dear brother
-sing along to Price Tag, Pack Up and other happy tunes

(I really, really liked the original 90210. I kind of still do.)

This week has been slightly packed - since I got back on monday, I've been working non-stop with thesis stuff and an art presentation. My Italian and French classes also take up way too much time, but they're fun in equal measure, so it's been worth it. The problem is, I never seem to have the time to just sit down and read for fun, or even read thesis-related texts, as I'm so busy producing text myself or learning grammar. This is probably why I find myself getting all excited at the prospect of emerging myself in books on postmodern theory and narrative method... Which is exactly what I'll do today.

Whishing you all a lovely friday!

Oktober love

I had a surprisingly lovely weekend, going back home to attend a celebration with the whole clan. My relatives rarely gather, but when we do, there's singing. A lot of it. And it's kind of awesome.

Anyway, October is over. That month was a whirlwind of doing things and going places, and for most part, I loved every minute. Of course, if I could relive the past 30 days I'd enjoy them even more, because I wouldn't allow myself to worry so much about every task and every trip - but it's still been the best month in quite a while.

 

My October favourites list looks like this:

-Green tea. It's basically the only tea I drink these days. Once I got used to the green kind (that is, once it stopped tasting like hay!) black tea simply started tasting too bitter and sharp for my liking. I do love non-flavoured green tea, but my favourite flavours are vanilla, cranberry and orange blossom.

-cardigans from the men's section. I recently bought a dark green one, and I've been living in it ever since.

-stormy weather. Few things make me as happy as a really windy day! (I feel like I can say this, since where I live, we haven't yet had any storms of the dangerous kind.)

-blue-tinted nail polish. I normally prefer my nails non-sparkly, but recently I mixed together an old silver polish and an ink-coloured one that I had a dupe of, and ended up with a lovely dusty metallic blue. 

-Unexpected coffee-breaks. This one is quite obvious, but there's nothing like running into a friend on campus and deciding to head for a spontaneous coffee to brighten my day.

 

This picture describes my university town perfectly - over the course of a weekend, all the gorgeous leaves disappeared. Just like that. And thank goodness for daylight savings - my mornings were getting unbearably dark. 

Still, I'm embracing November - this month with its foggy dawns and early twilights brings a very specific kind of calm and tranquility, and I intend to fill my days with lots of studying, arts and crafts and painting. October was hectic but wonderful, and here's to an even better November for all of us!