Papers Hurt.

That being said, I have rewritten and edited 5/6 pieces for my portfolio due in less than a month. To celebrate, I did what any normal person would do. I paid an exorbitant amount of money for a tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream and ate it while looking at castle hotels. Then, I read until I fell asleep. On the book. Much earlier than I have in possibly weeks. It was pretty amazing.

I know I've been a bad correspondent. I've posted nothing about my trips to Italy and France. Horrible, I know. But the truth is, the minute I step back into Ireland, my mind goes directly to my work. I have kept travel journals for both trips and hope to post those at some point, but will say, as much fun as I have gallivanting around Europe, every time I get off the plane and realize I should have packed five more pairs of socks and ten more scarves for the bus ride back to Galway, I feel happy. Even if the later the bus ride, the worse the driver. Or, if I happen to get on the bus that stops every 5 minutes in random towns because it leaves earlier and gets in about the same time as the quicker bus. (That was a bad idea). ANYWAY, bottom line: in spite of the ridiculous, nasty, miserable weather (if you get up at 5 am you might enjoy an hour or two of sunshine before it turns to crap), I am going to be very sad when I leave here despite being very happy to return home. In fact, if I spend summers here, then I could skip the miserable heat and get all the benefits of the rest of the seasons at home. Must remember that when I take over the world.

I am avoiding college and working from home for a number of reasons. 1) Summer camp. Small children are loud and scary. 2) Study abroad. Americans are loud and scary. Actually, they're not scary, they're just loud. And annoying. Two girls in the LIBRARY (not in the lobby, in the actual quiet, students studying part) had a normal conversation in their normal voices and then decided to open a bag of chips. in the LIBRARY. then they ate the chips. in the LIBRARY. One girl got a call on her cell phone, so she decided to answer it. in the LIBRARY. and she put it on speakerphone. in the LIBRARY. as if that weren't enough and they couldn't tell that the reason I kept looking at them wasn't because they were sooooo cool it was because I wanted to physically harm them, their friend came over. Yes, they were going to a barbeque, and oh my gosh, it was going to be so much fun. I'm really happy for them, but seeing as no one else IN THE LIBRARY was invited, I couldn't care less. Because they were blatantly breaking all the rules of the LIBRARY. 3) My headphones are broken, so until I get new ones, I can't drown out the sounds of loud people in the library (though I doubt anything would have helped for those idiots).

On a more patriotic note, we did have a 4th of July celebration at my friend Orla's house and made hotdogs and mac & cheese and red and blue cupcakes and an American flag cheesecake! It was delicious and I was so full I couldn't move. We even have leftovers (I got a little overexcited while making the mac & cheese).

And that, my friends, is what I've been doing in between writing (or at least pretending to) and doing/laughing at Geribody yoga. And, reading all of Jane Austen's novels in order of publication date. I have 3 more to go. Is this good enough, Danielle? I'm off to go make stuff up.