Almost all done!

I'm one step closer to being all the way done with my thesis. Today I picked up two beautifully bound copies of my thesis. My thesis is now available in a hardback edition! It's got a navy blue faux leather cover and metallic gold print. Sounds tacky, but it does look pretty nice. Of course this was to the tune of nearly 70euro. Criminy!

The buses in Dublin are an adventure. To my surprise, the bus fare went up while I was gone. Some grumpy driver barked at me that it's one euro, five cents now. My bad! Used to be 1.40 from home to town and now it's 1.50. That, I don't really mind. But 1.05? That's annoying. Five cent pieces are the same color and nearly the same size as two cent coins and pennies. It's really a pain to dig them out of your coin purse. I'm thoroughly annoyed.

The bus adventure doesn't end there. What's the deal with headphones? Almost every time you ride the bus, you have the pleasure of music. It's not provided by the bus, but usually some moron in the back of the bus who has his iPod on full blast. I worry that my ears may be damaged from wearing headphones so often and I don't even wear them every day and I certainly don't listen to it loud enough that anyone else knows what I'm listening to! I think we should start investing in hearing aid companies.


Another thing is that cars do stupid things around busses. Just yesterday a bus started to pull away from a stop light and some idiot who was to the right of the bus made a left turn in front of the bus. As if the giant double decker bus full of people wasn't going to go on green or something. Of course the driver slammed on his breaks which sent some poor unsuspecting lady flying. Looking in the window I could see people jump out of their seats to help her and she was holding her nose. The bus driver tried running down the street after the car, but any jackass who pulls a left hand turn in front of a moving bus isn't going to stop and see if any harm was caused by his negligence.

Usually I would walk into town, but today the wind was so strong I had to stop on the way down the sidewalk just to get my balance. Didn't seem like walking for 30 minutes in wind like that was going to be much fun. If I can barely walk in the wind, heck if I'm going to try to bike! So there I was...digging through my change for an extra five cents.

On a happy note, I did a little charity shopping yesterday and got a giant bag of wool! No, I didn't need it, but amongst other beautiful yarns there's enough natural cotton/flax to make a sweater. I have to measure a skein first so I can estimate how much is there. I think I even have a good pattern to use! Very exciting!