...But I still had 2,000 words left of my dissertation due at 2:00 that day....
Sorry for the cliffhanger. Back to the story.
So, due to the fact that I had been traveling for quite some time, as well as the fact that I was ridiculously sick, I decided that I simply didn't have the energy to stay up all night and finish my dissertation. I emailed my tutor (who is the nicest person in the world) and told her what happened, and begged for an extension through Wednesday morning, and collapsed into bed. I woke up early the next morning and went to the final meeting for the CCE (Certificate of Cultural Enrichment) which was all about how to deal with reverse transition shock, and it was kind of depressing because it was a painful reminder of how soon we have to go home and how much I'm going to miss Bath and England in general. Sadness. Afterwards, I started working on my paper again, but got an email from Claire saying that I could have until Thursday (which was actually extended until Friday in class that afternoon, because my tutorial partner was given an extension until then). So anyway-- went to class, went home, collapsed, was unproductive. Next day-- class, went home, collapsed, woke up again to work on my dissertation, went to Jane Austen Dancers, worked on the dissertation, went to bed. Next morning...
FINISHED MY DISSERTATION. ALL OF IT. WOOLF, JOYCE, ELIOT, BRILLIANCE... IT'S ALL THERE. BAZINGA.
So that was satisfying. I walked down to Nelson and handed the pile of 28 pages to Claire, and then walked home by way of the Christmas market, and bought some gifts for people. That night, I headed back out to this little artsy cafe/performance space thing that I didn't know existed for our programme's Write Night-- basically planned open-mic for people who had done stuff for creative writing classes over the semester and a few singers as well. I wore my new beret. Felt very bohemian. Anyway, it was really fun-- almost everyone was incredibly talented, both as writers and singers. Highlights: Ali's story (for which I was her muse, actually... and she announced this to everyone before she started reading, which was adorable), entitled "Possible Motives for Stealing a Pink Kitchen-Aid" (now do you see why I was the inspiration?), which was absolutely amazing; Sasha's story, much more serious, but incredibly good, Tom's singing (really good and also hilarious), and my philosophy tutor's guitar playing/singing of the songs he wrote himself (he's in a band!! who knew?!), including a protest song for WWI. He is a philosopher after all-- never said he was normal.
Friday morning, I had my very last class-- review for Patterns of Power (boring...). But I got my last paper back-- on an epic streak for the last papers... perfect A's on all of them, so hopefully this carries over to my dissertation.... yeah. After class, I just kind of killed time (I don't remember what I did) until 5pm, when we (Claire's students) took Claire out to dinner. I had been frustrated that none of my tutors took my classes out for drinks or anything, which many other tutors did, so I wanted to take Claire to dinner, since she is my tutorial tutor. So I told Ali about this (Ali has Claire for short fiction writing), and we decided to invite all of her students (she just teaches our two small classes) to do this dinner thing. So anyway, we took her out to dinner, and it was lovely. I even got to do my Marcel the Shell impression. Much fun was had by all.
Then I hung around in Flat 4 for an hour before going to the train station to pick up my Aunt Suzanne, who came to see me for the evening and most of Saturday. From the station we went to dinner... so yeah, I had two very big dinners in one evening. Kind of ridiculous. And also very wonderful. We basically closed the restaurant down (which is what happens when you don't sit down to eat until 9:30), and I took a cab home (because it was 11:30 on a Friday night), which took one minute, and was embarrassing, but whatever.
The next morning, Suzanne took a cab to my house, I showed her around, and then we walked through the park to the Jane Austen Center, which we then went through. Then we went into Mr. B's Bookshop (the greatest bookstore ever), then my kitchen store (the one with the pink kitchen-aid that I covet) and bought some cookbooks, then lunch at a French/English bistro, then a walk through the Christmas market, then tea (complete with a Bath Bun) before I took her back to the train. We had a lovely day, and she plans to come back to Bath for a few days and do the actual touristy things, so I consider this a great success. Bath seriously wins everybody over.
Sadly, my original plans for that evening, the Longbourn Ball, were canceled-- the little old lady who owns the manor didn't want to light the fires in the house in this cold weather because she thought the pipes would burst. Seriously. Ridiculous. Then the alternate plan-- having dinner, tea, dancing, and watching Persuasion--was canceled due to lack of interest. Gahhhhh.
So Rachel and Sasha and Kate and I were really sad. But we decided to do something together that night anyway, so I headed to Flat 4 for a sleepover. We had Indian food, I made beer bread, Sasha and Rachel and I tried on our Regency dresses, and we watched "The Holiday"-- which was lovely. The plan is to wear our dresses to the Pump Room for tea tomorrow afternoon, and to the Jane Austen Dancers' Christmas party on Wednesday, and to the programme's Final Tea on Friday. So the dresses will get some use, at least. Oh well.
Sunday, we got up late, made breakfast, and I headed home in the afternoon, where I sat around and thought about how much stuff I had to pack later. Ew. That evening, the commune (Ali and Clay and I) went out for our final Sunday dinner, as we simply didn't feel like cooking. We had a lovely dinner, and talked about all of the things we would miss about Bath, and the things we are looking forward to seeing at home, and such.... this is all getting very sad. I really don't want to leave. Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to see everyone at home again, and I would love to be able to drive and use my iPhone and have normal heating in the house and faucets that have a middle ground between freezing and scalding, but I am going to miss it here so very much. Sigh.
Sorry. Moving on. Today was the first of my finals-- Jane Austen. Not bad. And really low stress, which is nice. I have one final a day through Thursday, interspersed with the last of my gift shopping and going to the Pump Rooms, and Jane Austen Dancers, and trying to use up the food in the pantry, and packing.... it's going to be a busy week. But I'll try to tell you about things as they occur. I don't have much more to blog about!!! Ahhh! But this blog has had nearly 1,000 views, which is simultaneously fantastic, terrifying, and super gratifying, so thank you all! I've heard rumblings that I should keep blogging after I get home, but I'm not sure that my life is interesting enough to be worth blogging about or reading about... but if you feel differently, please speak up and let me know-- I'll consider the idea of starting a new blog, but only if enough of you tell me that I ought to. So yeah. Comment away.
Alrighty-- well, I'm going to go, uh, 'study'. I'll catch up with you again soon! In the meantime, please enjoy the greatest youtube video ever, which I quote incessantly and do a pretty darn good impression of, if I do say so myself. If you ask me the next time I see you, I just might do it for you. Cheers!
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