So, finally, a non-special-edition blog post!

My first week back to Montpellier was one half the "relaxing/catching up on sleep/hanging out with my girls" part of my winter vacation and the other half the "classes are about to start/why is my schedule such a mess/how do I fill these requirements/what am I doing this summer/why is my brand-new violin broken" part. Needless to say, the former was somewhat more enjoyable than the latter, but everything is more or less worked out, now.

Highlights: Catching up with my friends who I hadn't seen for a month, meeting the 5 girls who are new to the program, discovering the wonders of Book and Bar, finally breaking down and buying kitchen utensils (including the infamous purple wok), having a really good interview for the summer internship outside of Paris that I'm hoping to get, going out for tea with Brian, and going to the first Irish jam session at FitzPatrick's in nearly 2 months!
Welcome to Fitzy's, and the Friday night jam! There's usually about that many of us taking over the corner, with one little table with 5 pints of Guinness on it... And one Apple Frost. Mm-mm.








That's me! (I'm usually the only girl there). Brian's in the green shirt next to me.
[Photos courtesy of the lovely Sealia with her awesome brand-spanking-new camera]








The not-so-highlights of the week contained my violin breaking (No one will understand this, but I'll tell the story anyways--So, there was something wrong with the nut that held the tailgut in place, so whenever the strings were tightened and I started playing, it would pop off and the strings would go everywhere and the bridge would fall off. So, this could have just been fixed with a bit of super glue, but the problem is that when there's no pressure on the bridge, there's less pressure on the soundpost, so then it fell over which is decidedly not easy to fix...) which ended in me taking it to a luthier which was aggravating seeing as I had had the violin for ONE WEEK. Argh. I was not pleased. Other than that, there was just a fair bit of stress concerning my class schedule and general unhappiness at the prospect of returning to UPV (I must say, as much as I love this city, this school is driving me crazy), but what'cha gonna do?