skeleton

they had a halloween party at work yesterday. so i wanted to be in costume but nothing that would be obnoxious to work in. went to a few costume-y shops as well as looked at random shops on the high street for motivation. and quite sadly, there was little motivation to be found. nothing jumped out. i wanted a wig, yet the wigs were expensive and nothing was 'the one.' it was super sad. i love halloween. i love creating costumes. if in the states, there'd be the box of art supplies and random costumes and accessories to make use of. but here, with no art supplies and not a lot of anything or money, it was all feeling completely barren of ideas. so while attempting to find something to make something at poundstretcher, i decided to buy the little glow in the dark skeleton. i figured if nothing else, my uniform is all black so i could rip apart the skeleton and become that.

so i did. it actually took a bit of effort to get the plastic bits apart too. i wasn't counting on that. but i persevered and attached my bones to myself and painted my face white. i thought i did alright. it turned out fine, but it's just not the degree of accomplishment. although i will continue to maintain that created and crafted costumes will win out over store bought packages in any contest. i mean one girl at work spent 50 quid on her jesse from toy story 3 costume. 50 quid? i didn't even make that much money working yesterday. can't afford that. so i'll take my homemade skeleton. take that - i was in uniform and in costume.

it's just a bit too lame for my love of halloween. i feel like i'm off my halloween game. too bad i don't know more people yet. i've got lots of other fun ideas for group costumes.

castle shot

the people's story

after a long queue at the council office which involved trying to figure out the queuing system, we got happy news that we can wait to pay once they've recalculated our tax with the student deduction.
there were about 5 different queues with lines and interview rooms and different numbering systems. but eventually we got helped.

so after that we went to the people's story museum . it's a neat museum. on my first trip here, i was only able to see the first floor, so it was nice to see the second and third floor. it's not a huge exhibit, but well done about the different jobs and lifestyles in edinburgh's past. lots of neat stuff about the different jobs and types of labor.
interestingly at one point there were 50 breweries in the city, to the 5 there now are. there was this great map of the city with them. it's too bad. also too bad that caledonian brewery (still functioning) does not do tours.
also a neat picture of the old public transportation. essentially a bus pulled by horses. and the text about the drivers vs conductors.
and about the council housing and kitchens/cooking during the war.
and the early start to the hotel business.

anyway, it was a good museum. a nice place to pop into. and there was a school group there with a teacher who had a fantastic scottish accent to listen to as she was helping her students fill out their worksheets. they were pretty much actually filling them out too - it reminded me of when FA and i took our students to the national museum of american indiansin DC and had created worksheets for our kids.

trash clang

we apparently have a gig to perform at. that's great. i'm hoping it's going to be motivation for us to finish the piece we've been working on. we've got about half of it done, and i fear it will just kind of hang out in unfinished limbo land. especially because really we only have 2 rehearsals before this 'gig.'

and again we took a chunk of time from rehearsal to sit at the student bar. (which is not a complaint at all, but we may need to finish the piece at some point.) plus we got a ride home which is an added bonus.

once again i'm a student

sure, you may question this statement; 'why amanda, isn't that what you've been doing?'
well, yes, yes, indeed it has been.
however, i've been a bit of a secret student.

26 october

alas no longer, i have enrolled at heriot-watt.

it took a lot of emails, meetings, and a few phone calls. plus multiple trips to multiple people's offices. but i'm pretty relieved to say, i am now enrolled at heriot watt.
and i'm trying to get over the fact that it happened 11 days after it was 'going to' which was about a month after it could have in the first place. but whatever, i was able to be working with adrian before, so now it's just official.

well official as it can be. i do have a new student id card (which is fantastic as my other one had a september expiry date). and they did fill out and stamp my council tax form, which is awesome because that adventure concluded with the office needing to reduce our tax and not bill us until december.

of course when adrian and i attempted to get me a key and log me on to the computers that didnt work. but my email/login now functions. and i'll hopefully get a key (which i'm really not concerned too much with) next week.

apparently even though i enrolled, somethings take more than 24 hours (what that pertains to you've got me because it seems odd but then again it's slow mind numbing bureaucracy ) so i couldn't pay them. maybe i won't have to pay them... that'd be awesome.

so anyway after my first attempt to register and, well technically my second attempt as well, i went for a walk around the forest-y area of heriot watt. what i was hoping would be my victory walk (it wasn't), but i'll post those pictures after i upload them from my camera.

anyway, yay for being a student - officially.

so on said walk, i went around behind the main building to the land area of campus. there's a lot of 'labelled' walks...only they're labelled well. at multiple points, i was apparently on the 'tree walk', 'art walk', 'history walk', and i want to say there was another. while following a path i came across an unexpected little cemetery. a private cemetery. then i came around the other side and randomly another student seemed to suddenly appear. i was alone in the woods and then suddenly wasn't. anyway it was a nice little walk through nature.

calton hill and cemetery

25 october

had to go to the bank yesterday to switch money into accounts in order to pay rent, so we decided to go a bit further and climb calton hill again







only on the way we stopped off to walk about one of the old cemeteries. david hume (and some other scottish people that i dont know but were famous enough to be on the 'located here' sign) were amongst the site. i also enjoy how a statue of lincoln was there to commemorate something. i just love how he pops up everywhere.


















did also cross the street and go around and up calton hill. it really is a nice view. speaking of views, there was a neat one of the train station from above via the cemetery. it was too late to go up in the monument so i'll have to go back; also there's an observatory, but no posted sign/information about whether they have any events - which would be nice.



















got pretty chilly on the way back and we decided to try one of the italian places on lothian by us. it was a good choice. super delicious. mmm pasta and tiramisu and it was really good. definitely fit the i want a real italian meal craving, so that was great. and it's super close by and they make their own ice cream and deserts and things.