Birthday

It was my birthday yesterday, and some friends from the department decided to decorate the little area in the department library I like to call my second home. It was great. I walked into the library yesterday morning at 9 to find a big banner, chocolates and an assortment of my favourite classics books. Most of my friends had lots of work to do, so I spent most of the day reading fun books (I just finished Thomas Harris' Red Dragon and have started on Mary Roach's Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers). I went out for coffee twice and headed to my favourite pub for a pint.

At around 7, I went over to S's house for a party that some friends had planned. It was great. This is probably the first birthday party in about 5 years that I didn't have to plan myself. Back during my undergrad years, 2 of my close friends and I all had our birthdays within 5 days of each other, so we always had a big wine and cheese party but because I had the best house for parties, I always seemed to be the host. This year, I didn't have to do anything. I didn't even want to know what we were doing, I just showed up when they told me to. It was quite an assortment of people since there was the normal group of people I hang out with, plus friends from the department, and then also some people I live with. All in all good times had by all (at least I think so).

I'm heading back to Canada for Christmas and I think it's going to be weird. I've been here for three months and I'm now just going back to visit for a couple weeks before heading back here again. Strange. It will also be weird being back in a big city again. I've gotten so use to walking everywhere, it's going to be hard to have to drive everywhere. I'm looking forward to the break though, and it will be good to visit with people that I haven't seen in a while and just sit curled up in a comfy chair with some tea and read (and of course work on German, no vacation for the PhD student).