Via Crucis

“Write our great books to teach men who we are,
Sing our fine songs that tell in artful phrase
The secrets of our lives, and plead and pray
For alms of memory with the after time,
Those few swift seasons while the earth shall wear
Its leafy summers, ere its core grows cold”
-Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Poet at the Breakfast Table

Top 10 pictures of Cara's trip to the States!

Hello my dears! Happy October! The best month of them all (Hallowe'en AND my birthday?)!

Anyway, here is my top ten list: Top 10 pictures from my trip to the STATES. As if I wasn't feeling nostalgic enough...

10. This is the day we found a baby. NOM NOM NOM. What?

9. The cutest chairs ever, even if they were a little bit damp. Also possibly the only picture of me and Ashley where we're not pulling faces and/or sporting pizza tongues.

8. Emotional moneys were earned right here. Well, on the whole trip actually, but this sums it up quite well.

7. The ONLY statue of heroic ducks in the whole of North America! Can you believe it?! I'm determined to build one in my garden.

6. I just like this picture. And the Science Museum was so much fun! Musical staircase, yes please. Special exhibition about WHALES?! Double yes please.

5. Because the graduation party was fun, Chris is awesome and that cake was ridiculously good.

4. Continuing this brief theme of "people I met" let me introduce the WIP girls. This is actually what they look like all the time. Love for Waggs, Links and Flipper (pictured), Cricket, Bucket, Kiki, Kooks, Louie, Tex, Koral, McFly, Rocky and Smalls. I miss them and the summer I could have had. And I miss my overly Scottish alter-ego Scottie.

3. My last three pictures are all from the Red Sox game, because I couldn't choose between them and because it was brilliant. This captures the craziness of my blind walk from the station to Fenway, when I managed to keep my eyes shut THE WHOLE WAY. Oh, and I like all the confused people in the background, and Bailey's face (and Bailey in 20 years, standing behind her... time travel oooooh)

2. Papelbon. Me. Me and Papelbon. Do I have to explain?

1. This is my favourite picture from the trip, and I couldn't really figure out why, but now I think I know. I look entirely overwhelmed by the whole experience, which to be honest was the case most of the time I was there.

I LOVED IT AND MISS IT AND WANT TO GO BACK PLEASE. STA TRAVEL NEED TO STOP SENDING ME EMAILS ABOUT CHEAP FLIGHTS.

Oops. Caps lock.

And finally, the two worst and/or hilarious pictures from my trip:

LOOK AT THE FEAR! I was actually speaking about this picture tonight, and realised I was so scared because I thought that would be the moment when penguins decided to learn to fly. And then they would attack me. And peck my eyes out.

I couldn't not post this. IT IS HILARIOUS. I am terrifying...

As I have no classes and no excuse not to, I'm going to try to post weekly from now on. This has been most enjoyable! Ashley, I will see you on Skype soon! Roseanne, Aidan and Mhairi, I shall see you in Stirling on Tuesday! And Jenny, I'll see you in Fundee on Friday, where hopefully we will avoid all the penguin statues...

lovelove xxx

top ten moments of the summer, in no particular order really

10. That feeling when walking out of my final exam with a very sunburnt Aidan thinking "two weeks in Stirling of complete liberation. Bring it on."

9. Dian's party in North Roe, where I woke up in a room full of Christmas decorations and later found a video on my phone of Heather and me sucking helium from balloons singing songs from The Sound of Music.

8. Wandering around my home-village with Ceidiog, pushing an old shopping trolley full of old bike tyres, bamboo, an unmbrella and a portable television we found in a skip.

7. Working this summer with my dad, cutting grass and whelking and setting up antiques stalls in various parts of Shetland and going to his workplace and filiming a bunch of crazy, silly scientists. Infuriating, exhausting and incredible. I owe him a lot of thanks.

6. Coming second place in Young Film Critic of the year award. The real glory was not the money or even getting to shake Mark Kermode's hand (though that was pretty damn awesome), but the fact that afterwards my dad smiled and ruffled my hair. That's the ultimatum in I'm Proud of Yous from him.

5. When Jane was up with her boys, and we had a Spanish-That-Was-Actually-Kinda-Mexican Night, where the Mindtwin and me got a little drunk on Cococabana and concluded the night lying back on the driveway watching a spectacular meteor shower rain down from one of those starry Shetland skies.

4. The film festival in its entirety, but to name a few particular favourites: Homemade in Shetland/Maddrim night and not screwing up the speech, when Jason Isaacs invited us to eat chocolates with him in his dressing room, jammin' in the festival club, the Observer article, the footage we filmed for Stallionhead 3, and not forgetting our favourite honourary Maddrim members.

3. Kevin MacNeil's book launch, and seeing both Kevin and Alan Bisset (AKA Vaguely Famous Guy) again in general. Also finding out that Alan Bisset is a fellow AKD resident. 6.21W, Mr Bisset, all I'm sayin.

2. My last couple of hours of the last semester.

1. Sitting on a sunny hill in Lerwick with a collection of wonderful people - some of who were knitting at the time - and thinking: I must be the luckiest person alive.

Things we found in the fire

Because my life moves fast, and it's not just that my life is moving fast; my life is, in fact, moving.

To DC.

So here is one top ten list. I have two.
Top Ten Things I Found While Packing to Move to DC

10. Memorabilia. Cruise memorabilia, in particular. A magnet of a frog wearing swim trunks that say "Bermuda" across the crotch, lying on a lily pad, and sipping a beer.

9. My S Club 7 CDs. Both store-bought and self-mixed.
8. My book of ticket stubs. I have seen a lot of movies and gone to a lot of concerts. Some highlights included Lifehouse, Hanson, and The Village.

7. The amethysts and peridots I bought at Cambridge Beadworks for Mom and Bay.
6. A photograph of my old best friends before they started dating each other, Liam fast asleep on Courtney's shoulder, on the eighth grade trip.

5. The cropped gray sweater I was wearing the night I thought I was falling love. It was buried on my mom's work table. How it landed there I am not entirely sure, but it sort of brought some strange stuff flooding back.

4. The photocopied letter that JK Rowling sends to everyone who writes her fanmail. I got it in middle school and it felt joyous.
3. The lock of my hair that I insisted on saving after I shaved my head for the first time after the very silly boy told me he liked my hair.

2. A stale copy of Parade magazine with Jonathan Rhys Myers on the cover. I think this was shortly after I saw I'll Sleep When I'm Dead and was going through my Varied Brits phase. (Clive, Ewan, Chewi, Jonathan... etc)

1. This photo:



Top Ten Josh Ritter Lyrics For When You Become A RealDeal Adult (With a Job and Not Living With Your Parents Anymore)

10. Out in the desert now and feeling lost.
9. Saturday night in a town like this, I forget all my songs about trains. Bar with a juke box, you on my arm -- Heaven and Earth are pretty much the same.
8. Below me are the sailors; they're on this journey, too. And each of us must make our unknown way upon the blue.
7. Tell me I got here at the right time and if I did, it's probably the first time.
6. I'll hold it high for you cause I know you got, I'll hold it high for you, your own valley to walk. I'll hold it high for you, though it's dark as death, I'll hold it high for you, it gets darker yet. I'll hold it high for you though your path is blocked, I'll hold it high for you through the thieves and the rocks. I'll hold it high for you, keep you safe from harm; I'll hold it high for you until your back in my arms.
5. My wings are made of hay and corn husks, so I can't leave this world behind.
4. Out at sea for seven years, I got your letter in Tangiers. I thought that I'd been on a boat, until that single word you wrote. That single word it landlocked me.
3. Time is like this fast freight train; you gotta ride, you can't remain behind. And all your friends are on separate tracks and some of them, they won't look back to find the one place that we all have known, the one place we can call a home, the place where each of us began. Sure as that day rolls around, when the road back home is finally found, I know our paths will cross again.
2. Lying on your backs, sun going down, you know it's perfect cause you gotta leave.
1. It's only a change of time.

My friends, I give you the MIT hackers...

Yes, my best friend is one of these hackers. No, she was sadly not a part of this particular hack. (She was busy spending her summer working on a nuclear reactor in Paris, how dull.)

Anyway...

This is what they did... I just thought my Scotch and Sox girls would want to know.

Inspired by Roseanne: a challenge

Hey everyone, have we forgotten each other? I guess you guys all get to see each other at least once in a while (meanwhile I only get to daydream of the time when Cara was in America, sigh).

But Roseanne inspired.

I'm challenging you all to make a top-ten list. About anything. Music, movies, reasons Barack Obama is totally doable. It can be funny or serious or mean-spirited. It can be anything. And I'm going to say by.... eh, September 7th. That should give each of us plenty-o-time.

I'm also going to post a blog alllll about Cara. Because I love her, that's why.

the top ten reasons I am a nerd

First of all, congratulations to Ashley's bruv, that is wonderful news! :)

Secondly, I've been watching lots of vlogbrothers' videos lately in preparation for GOING TO SEE JOHN GREEN ON SUNDAY LIKE ZOMG.

In homage to nerdfightaria, here are the top ten reasons I am a nerd:

• I downloaded flashcard software to help me remember Shakespeare quotes. "We are but stuff that dreams are made on, and our little life, is rounded with a sleep."

• I got a daily deviation on dA. In the literature category. Y'know, the least popular category. And it was awesome.

• I wouldn't vote Saxon.

• I fail to understand how people can get bored when books exist.

• I think I'd be a Ravenclaw. Why Ravenclaw? Well, I think I'd be unable to handle the bitchiness of Slytherin. That fear of conflict isolates me from the Gryffindor option, since you need to be brave (and often dumb as hell - though I could do that no prob) and as for Hufflepuff... I'm rubbish at finding things! In fact, I do the opposite, I lose things all the time! Also, Luna Lovegood is my Potterverse self.

• My favourite film in the entire world is Singin' in the Rain. There is nothing quite like tap-dance, Gene Kelly and happy songs to make my life better.

• I wrote stories for fun when I was little. I write stories for fun now.

• My rare moments of wit tend to involve Pokémon references.

• I never forget to be awesome.

• My life ambition, aside from turning my life into a musical, is to meet Stephen Fry. Because he is my favourite person of all time.

Tell me your reasons for being awesome :)

Mischeif managed x