Birthday!

It was very weird to celebrate my birthday yesterday without Derek, without Dee and without real friends generally... Made me a little bit sad. Derek did call me in the morning, and he was the very first person to congratulate me, which was very very nice. Meena and Andrew (her boyfriend) were really sweet to me also. We had dinner together and they even got me a wee prezzie and a victoria spunge with candle! So sweet. Then we went to the PostGrad club for a few drinks. Toby (a physics student I met a while ago) and Kirsten (who also does ScotLit) also came and bought me drinks. Lisa (a Californian girl that does ScotLit) was also there, but she was preoccupied with other people.

On Saturday I did have a small party. Fiona cooked me dinner, and Susan, Jemma and she gave me nice prezzies. We had lots of wine and went out to the Oran Mor (church place at the end or Byres Road). Had a really good time!

Derek is doing better and better and should be getting back to work tomorrow! Great. Glad he can finally go back and catch up. Also glad that means we can e-mail, chat and call again. He called me from his British mobile on Monday night and 15min cost about £15! AAH! Was good to finally talk though. Texting is so limited if you really want to convey some kind of message. He is also planning to come to Glasgow in the middle of November for a long weekend. I'm dying to see him again! Especially after his accident I realised how much I miss him.

Busy weeks ahead! First I'll fly to the Netherlands tomorrow for my graduation on Friday and to celebrate my birthday on Saturday. Fly home again on Sunday. On Friday the 15th me and Meena are throwing a party; combined house warming and birthday party for both of us. Will be nice to meet some of her friends and have her meet some of mine! Simone arrives on the 20th and willl stay for a week. Really looking forward to seeing her again. She leaves on the 26th and on the 3d of November Gerard arrives. Really looking forward to seeing him again as well. Can't believe last time I saw Simone was more than a year ago, in October 2003, and last time I saw Gerard was in early December of last year! Crazy! Gerard stays for a week and hopefully Derek then arrives on the 12th or something. I don't know when I will do the studying! Might have to use my Christmas break to do an awful lot of catching up... I can plan how and when I do the work anyway, so it should be ok.

Tonight I'm going out to dinner, to a Mongolian restaurant in the Merchant City. Meena and Andrew are taking me there. It sounds very different and exciting, so I'm really looking forward to that.

A last thought: I HATE (my) BANK(s)! I ordered like 30 books, course books that is, on Amazon, but half of the orders fell through because my bank claims my credit card details aren't correct (in half of the cases only, don't ask me why...). I changed my address to my parents, but I think something went wrong in their administration. This means I might have to do some, if not all of, the searching and ordering all over again... SIGH! ARGH! So annoying...

Anyway. Gotta go!

Love