McIntyre Drive

I love being at home. Especially when it's billowing snow outside and the temperature's a frigid 13F (for those of you who speak Celsius, a.k.a. the rest of the world, that's -10C). Taking a break from my final statistics project which considering my number-phobic, Math-hating days, is turning out to be miraculously quite fun. But that's another story... Anyways, Jude and I fought hard to get this place; not in the literal sense of swords and clubs, of course but we're talking placards and protests. If you were in Ann Arbor in the summer, you'd have know the huge housing fracas that besieged us. I don't want to belabor the issue but you can read about it here.

That was when I attended my first protest rally (like what grad school exprerience in America is complete without going to some sort of protest right?) and it was awesome. Mums & dads with their kids in strollers, people wearing t-shirts and carrying signs. it was hardly the rabid angry marches we're used to thinking of. I was really quite proud actually. I'd always thought of myself as slightly passive- people always say I'm too "nice" to do anything radical or aggressive, which is just a euphemism for saying I'm boringly placid...(Ok, so there's something I want to say right about here but I can only do that after tomorrow... you'll find out soon enough why...) Anyways, the protest was an extremely liberating experience and something I'll always remember doing I guess. No more boringly placid there...

So now we have a townhouse- more room than two people need actually but it's great coz Jude & I can study without getting into each other's way like we did in the little dinghy we used to call home. What I like most about it apart from the space is that we now have a huge sliding door that opens to a field behind. It gets a little noisy during the Spring to Fall months because of children playing, but in Winter (which of course in this blinking place is 5 months out of the year), it's really nice just watching the snow blanket the whole place. You get the occasional kid and parent sledding down the slope but it's snowing so hard half the time and the wind's blowing so loudly the other that you can't even hear them...

Speaking of winter, holiday movie recommendation: Love Actually. It's not that great a movie, but it has its moments. Two favorite scenes (without spoiling it for anyone): one involving eels, and another where no one is actually talking. Jude doesn't like it very much but I remember watching it in the summer and wishing it was Christmas there and then. It's one of those movies you watch kind of smiling wistfully to yourself and then go, "Yeah right, like that would happen." and then promptly watch it a second time. Good fun.