"there's a moment--there's always a moment, 'i can do this, i can give in to this, or i can resist it.' i don't know when your moment was...

...but i bet you there was one." -closer

Everything has gotten colder--every morning I wake up to frost, if not snow, and the pond outside my apartment is frozen over.

My parents came over for Thanksgiving, and I cooked for them, my flatmates, and Mr D. I think it may have been my favorite Thanksgiving yet--there was wine and nothing felt stressful or upsetting.

I've been working hard and then playing hard. Saturday night I went down to Edinburgh and went dancing with a group from St Andrews. We went to a Céilidh, which is like Scottish folk dancing--a live band calling out the dance moves, switching partners and clapping.

The working hard is good, too, when I can actually make myself sit down and do it. My [history] writing is getting better (even I can tell the different between what I wrote two months ago and what I'm writing now).

I'm trying very hard not to think about going away. It's not that I don't want to go home, but that I've found another home. That moment, when I fell in love with Scotland, I think I know when it was. The first time I was in Edinburgh, I met a group of Aussie guys who took me under their wings for a few days. One of the those days, we climbed to the top of Arthur's Seat, which is just on the edge of town, a small mountain. I'd been sick for so long, I never thought I would make it to the top. It started raining just as we sat down to look at the view. Joel, the one who listened to all the same indie-folk that I did and made me laugh, lit me a victory cigarette and we all sat there in the drizzle, looking out into a bunch of clouds.