Metamorphosis

Ladies and Gentleman, Boys and Girls! Welcome to one of the few wireless portals to my mind!

I've been up to quite a bit since my last post. Easter Break happened in April: I traveled around southern England a bit--stayed with Mary Cruse in Kent (basically the quintessential picture of what you imagine the English countryside to be) and with my friend Rachel in Dorset (the original palm tree-forested, beach surrounded San Diego, except with some wild horses and chalk mountains to boot (that's a terrific expression--really folksy--I think I might use it more often--and hyphens are wonderful too--take the place of other (like this one), more tiresome punctuation marks); then went to London with Rachel, where we had some pretty fantastic adventures. After that, Amie came to visit Edinburgh, which was a tubular time, of course. By then, classes had ended (they actually don't start up again after Easter Break, so in a way, your summer starts in March--but not in most ways (see how great the hyphens are--I was really stumped with what punctuation mark to put there (and there)) and exam period was well under way. Dun Dun Dun.

I had my first exam on April 27. On April 28, I, along with 3 friends (John, Ollie, and Jason (I still owe Jason money so don't let me forget about that)), stepped onto a plane bound for France. When we stepped off, we were in northern Slovakia.
No, I'm joking. We were in France. We spent a week there, camping and climbing in Fontainebleau forest, the bouldering Mecca of Western Europe. It was freaking amazing! No, honestly, I cannot describe how awesome it was in human words, and since I have never learned elvish or klingon (I even had to google the spelling of klingon) I won't say any more about it. I will say, however, that while I showed Fontainebleau the deepest love and respect, it, to me, was a rather abusive lover. We got back two weeks ago (6th of June) and my body is still broken--fingers still stiff and aching, arms still throbbing with a fairly excruciating pain when I climb (I've gotten back to it despite the pain--probably not healthy), and I've got a big toe that hurts whenever I move it in normal toe movement patterns (you know: up, down, up, down). All said, it was a good trip, only in small part due to my rediscovering a long-forgotten romance with French baguettes and fromage (I will never forget you, my sweet Camembert... nor you, my lovely Brie).

In the last two weeks, I took my last two exams, completing my formal education at the University of Edinburgh. With the end of school, the sun has risen, flowers blossomed, the birds are chirping (I still don't like them). A little sun and grass and there is revealed, not the dreary, dark city plagued with death and hopelessness which I have lately called my beloved home, but a magical kingdom where a thousand adventures await you and you no longer desire to stay home and watch Godfather 2 again (the first one is much better, anyway). Unfortunately, alongside the advent of this new dreamworld comes the departure of a great many good friends that I've made whilst (did you realize British people actually use that word in everyday conversation? seductive, I know) here. Such is life, I suppose: every white cloud has a dark lining, every baby born marks an old man dying; a wild turkey becomes a Thanksgiving dinner, and while we slurp the gravy a scorned coyote is crying.

(Whilst I researched the wild turkey's natural predators, one of whom is the coyote, I came across these fun facts: a turkey sees, in color, more than 10 times better than do people and they have a nearly 360 degree scope of vision, making them difficult to surprise; a young male turkey is called a jake and a young female turkey, a jenny; turkeys communicate with family and members of their flock by clucking, purring, "putt"-ing, and gobbling, each sound used in different situations (warning, mating, etc.). Pretty interesting stuff.)

I feel that I perhaps use hyphens and parentheses too much. They just are two of the rare things that one literally can't resist. A third is Sean Connery.