Melissa Vs the Weekend (Hint: Not a Happy Ending)

I am shamefully and woefully lacking in picture taking time these days.  I do hope to make up for it this weekend with a trip to an awesome (and totally secret for no reason other than that I want you to have something to look forward to) location.  I promise to take a ridiculous number of pictures therewith.

In the meantime, I can only offer an excuse.  It will be in narrative form, however, so that is somewhat redeeming, right?


Once upon a time, there was a Weekend.  It was a very sneaky sort of weekend and crept up on me unawares. When it arrived, I was surprised, but accepting.  Weekend was very cunning and promised me hours and hours in which to accomplish all of my tasks.  I thought: "I will be super productive!  I will get all the things done!"  Weekend nodded agreeably.  Yes, of course I would!  It may possibly have patted me on the head in a condescending manner.  Looking back, I should have known better than to trust such a friendly weekend.

First, exhaustion hit and I slept far too long on Saturday morning.  I frantically attempted to make up for lost time.  Weekend cackled maliciously at me from somewhere above.

I reviewed about a million Gaelic phrases, everything from "The yellow sheep is on the table" (Tha a' chaora bhuidhe aig a' bhord in case you want to use it later.  I'll even tell you how to pronounce it: "Ha ah [hacking sound]ora vweehu ayg ah vord."  There you go.  Go and use it wisely.) to "I am eating cake" (I definitely was not eating cake).

I translated more sentences from Pwyll, this time.  It was not nearly as fun because I don't have the text, so a lot of it is guesswork.  But the results are still rather similar to what you see in the previous post.

I began annotating my bibliography because that is what one does when one wants to feel organized and on top of things before one meets with one's supervisors.  I got through about four out of two dozen sources.  Clearly, it was a good use of my time.

At that point, I had promised to actually leave my flat for dinner with friends.  I packed up a bunch of cupcakes and headed out.  Weekend waved at me from the window in a distinctly unfriendly manner, as if to remind me of all the things that were not yet accomplished.

Oh, on a side note, I have actually baked twice since I've been here.  It's quite exciting.  Both times were chocolate cupcakes, and they turned out quite splendidly.  Observe:

And people liked them and everything!

Okay, so they're smiling before they took any bites, but they seemed decently happy afterwards, so I think the cupcakes turned out decently well.

Anyway, there was food (pasta with salmon!) and cupcakes and cake and ice cream and good company and a lovely time.

And then I scurried back to do more things!!!!  Weekend was grinning malevolently as its minion Saturday slowly came to an end.  It was well after midnight before I finally crashed.

Sunday started brilliantly with a wonderful church service, a great student lunch (more real food!) and a beautiful walk through the park back to my flat.  And then there was homework again.

By this point, Weekend wasn't even pretending to be my friend anymore.  It was war.  I worked, slaved, studied, and practiced.  By the end, though, I had to concede defeat.  Weekend won this time.

Monday came around and I awoke with fear and trepidation.  Monday meant Celtic Lit, followed by Gaelic, followed by meeting with the supervisors, followed by two hours of Welsh, followed by Bibliography and Study Methods, followed by five hours of online work.  Monday is much meaner than the weekends and doesn't ever try to pretend to be nice about it.

The one bright moment in my day, though, was the supervisor meeting.  I have two supervisors: Nerys and Abigail, and they are brilliant, energetic, and wonderfully encouraging.  They refused to allow me to believe that I am epically failing in my studies and got me all sorted out for the next few weeks of study.  I now have lists and lists of things to read and a much better sense of direction, which I desperately needed.

I am quite confident that one of the chief roles of professors is to keep students like me from self-destructing.  I am just blessed to have two supervisors who are so good at it.

Week Six and I are staring each other down and it is going to be an epic battle to achieve the weekend again.  But this time, I plan to beat Week and Weekend and triumph!


If that fails... how does one bribe a weekend?  What do I have to bake?