Contradictio in Terminis

In Finnish: Hyvää Joulua! 

We just got back from Hanna's grandparents' place, where, in true grandparent style, we were plied with all sorts of delicious Finnish Christmas food (I took pictures of every dish - all will be up on DUTCH MY LIFE once I have access to my laptop again). We had rice porridge (delicous!) and fruit stew, pulla (little balls of sweetbread), jouluutorttu (flaky pastries filled with plum jam), taatelikakku (date cake) and rahkapulla (cream-filled sweetbread with lemon and raisins). I also learned how to say "thank you" - kiitos. 

Hanna's family was there: her siblings came with their children (adroable!). Her whole family is apparetly coming over to her house tonight, so I will get to meet even more Finnish people (and fail to communicate, due to the language barrier - but I have developed he general strategy of thanking everyone copiously and smiling all the time - seems to have worked so far...)

Can't really believe it's actually Christmas, though! I donät know where the time went! But last night, we decorated the Christmas tree, and today, we laid out the presents under it (literally a mountian of them - feels just like home!). I hope Hanna and her family like the gifts I brought- I'm thankful that the Gluhwein survived the trip here. 

Suffice to say, life is quite exciting at the moment, and I feel so lucky and blessed to be able to celebrate Christmas with Hanna and her family - not that I don't miss mine, but seriously, this is something special! :D 

HYVÄÄ JOULUA TO EVERYONE :D 

I sent my dad a text at seven am this morning saying Happy Father's Day! :D You're awesome!. This afternoon, we suntanned on the back porch together, reading magazines. The pork tenderloin I'm making for dinner is finishing in the oven as I type. Hopefully it will be tasty, and then I can declare this Father's Day a success. (Wish me luck: I also made rice balls for the first time, because we're having Grandma and Grandpa over for dinner, and I like to cement my Favourite Grandchild status whenever I can. The rice balls look ridiculous - and not in the good way - but I'm hoping the grandparental instincts of "My offspring's offspring are so talented!" will shine through and save the day.)

Completely unrelated, last night Chloe, her friend Melissa and I watched Brokeback Mutants X-Men: First Class again. Equally enjoyable the second time, and now I am going to read fic FOREVER! (Seriously, beautiful angsty, slashy goodness is beautiful.)

KAS;DLFKJ;ASDTJ;ATKJ :D :D :D :D :D

TODAY WAS A GOOD DAY! :D

I am so heppi rn. Love to everyone!

( and retroactive love, of course, to Leonardo da Vinci, who would be 559 today. Or a zombie. He may have been a genius, but for once, I'll take my end of the deal :D )

Well, I'm back in Kingston. Pleasantly surprised to find that the apartment is a) still standing, and b) relatively clean. Right now I'm just taking a minute to be slightly overwhelmed by the amount of work I've neglected over reading week: not merely readings, but also a lab report (I think I need to scrap what I have so far and start over again, because things are looking wonky, arrgh), a German assignment, and the part where I have until Friday to make a decision about going on exchange.

Thankfully, with the power of To-Do lists, I have Plans, which will hopefully allow me to take the stick out of my ass so I can pretend to be Normal. Also, coffee. There is nothing that cannot be conquered by the addition of More Caffeine. 

The weekend was totally worth the imminent stress, though. On Saturday, I slept in (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was glorious~), baked banana bread and hung out with Eden before having dinner with the grandparents. Later, Chloe came over and we skyped cherishedsaulie  and watched the vlogbrothers until two in the morning. I HAVE BEEN CONVERTED. Extremely belated though I am, ;alskdjf;asd I have oodles of love for them now. Today, we had the relatives over for Oma's birthday lunch. I do not think my waistline was helped by the entire table of chicken rice/chow mein/salmon OMG I devoured, but I'm reminding myself that university fare starts again on Monday, so it's completely justified.

OH AND BY THE WAY, WHITE COLLAR EP 2.14 IS THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER OH MY GOD IT IS LIKE FIC ON TELEVISION.

One last tidbit and I'm done: THE EAGLE - NOW IN LATIN

Well, I am once again back in Kingston. %UHHHHH. I want to say it wasn't as painful as last year, but I can't remember last year, so I won't. (Hey, kids. Chances are, if you're rating your feelings about going back to uni after a break as "painful", it's probably not the place for you. Too late now, though. Onwards and upwards!)

The break was marvelous, though.( Read more... )

That's what I want to remember from the break. Fun times with friends and family, Oliver's head warm and heavy on my shoulder, the twins yelling at David and I to build the damn snowman already, Eden's loud and ridiculous proposal in the middle of the street, plotting Inception fic with Nav in Starbucks, being surrounded with so many amazing and brilliant people (I love you all ♥)... and just that winter break was awesome.

Merry Christmas! :-)

We are home from visiting the Relatives, stuffed with turkey and all manner of other delicious things. On Christmas Eve, Oma and I made Gluhwein (umlauts not included), which was a surprising success. Today, we exchanged gifts; Dad is very happy with his new scarf, and I am now the fortuitous owner of not one but 3 toothbrushes! ;) All in all, an excellent Christmas. ♥ and tomorrow, we leave for Collingwood, Land of No Internet. We'll be back in a week, but until then, wishing everyone a very merry Christmas and happy holidays!

HGNH.
( Cut for boring IRL bits )

AWESOME MISCELLANY (if by miscellany, you mean fanfic, and I do*): LET US SHARE ALL THE THINGS!
1. copperbadge  has written THIS aka Bankrobber aka the most epic White Collar story EVER. Peter/Elizabeth, R, VERY, VERY AWESOME, you should all check it out.
2. ALSO THIS VID. HOMG JANUARY PLEASE GET HERE ALREADY SO THAT I MAY CAPSLOCK AND FLAIL AND DIE OVER WHITE COLLAR SOME MORE, K?
3. FOR BBC!SHERLOCK PEEPS: blind_author  is THE SHIT and has started Semper Fidelis, which BLOWS MY MIND. Well, there's only one part so far, but ;LKjdf;lasdjf;laksdf;la GO NOW AND READ IT. GO. IT IS AMAZING. I MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE MADE ACTUAL KEENING NOISES AT THE SCREEN AS I READ.

*SHOEBOX, AS ALWAYS. Because there will never be a time when SBP does not OWN ALL THE THINGS.

EDIT OH MY GOD IN A HATBOX: CILLIAN MURPHY AND TOM HARDY DISCUSS DOING DRAG. "LET'S HAVE A DRAG-OFF!" ADSF;ALSDFKJAS;LDKJTALSJTA;LSDJFPASDFJ;ALSDJFALSDFJAJSDIOJ OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD THESE MENNNNNN WHAT EVENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDD BRB DYING OF JOY~

Guten Morgen!

I think I got eight hours of sleep last night, and it was brilliant! I also had dreams! Let me tell you about them.

So, first there was the one in which I was part of an elite spy/ninja team based on earth, and Cillian Murphy was an evil alien who lived on a distant planet and was trying to annihilate the world. I got sent up to his planet for a recon mission (he lived in a hotel, wtf), but somehow managed to get caught. (I don't think I minded too much. It was Cillian Murphy.) Then everything became all ~film noir-like, with the black and white tones, and the pinstriped, tailored, old Chicago gangster clothing. I think Cillian had a fedora. And tentacles. Anyway, after he caught he sneaking around his hotel, he asked me why I was there, and I told him I was trying to save Earth from his death ray (unfortunately, not a metaphor for his penis...). He took me to his telescope and showed me the Earth, and it was very small and very pale, but I was a bit too distracted by his gorgeousness to really comment much. Then, we did the tango, in order to distract him from blowing up my planet. It was very sultry and romantic, and I tried to seduce him at one point. I must have succeeded, at least in part, because we got to third base*. Things were getting interesting... And then I woke up and jizzed in my pants.

I fell back asleep soon after, and found myself in Toronto. I was doing my own thing, chilling somewhere, and then my parents called being like "Do you know where your brother is?". Naturally, I didn't, cause I don't stalk the kid, and I said so. Then my mom said "I'm coming to pick you up", and did so. She took me to my grandparents' house, where my brother was being arrested on drug charges WTF. My family was a mess, and my grandparents and Oma were freaking out, obviously, and David was on the fucking garage roof or some shit, and the police were trying to get him down - unsuccessfully - and in the middle of all that chaos, I woke up. Then I was all FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU subconscious, David would totes never do drugs, I would smack some sense into that boy myself.

Now I'm off to write a German exam in T-1.5 hours. BRB, studying/imbibing coffee FOREVER.

*WHICH I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT IS

I think the worst, most upsetting part is feeling like I don't know him anymore. This is a stranger; where did my brother go?