The Final's Continue, but Today was a Day Off

Four of my finals are over now. Animal Behavior caught me off guard, but the essay topic played to my strengths so I had some interesting examples to talk about and I think took an angle the Professor won't have been expecting. Animal Cognition was two hours of writing about the evolution of an equation for quantifying learning. It was the definition of dry. The only bummer about that morning was waking up to no hot water.

The other afternoon I had one of the strangest experiences since I've had since coming to Wales. I was walking under North Road (there are tunnels so you don't have to cross all the lanes of traffic) heading back to my apartment from downtown after getting lunch when a street musician playing an accordion really lost his cool. The guy was actually playing really well, and I was about to drop some money in his case, when he threw his accordion to the ground, screamed "f**k" at the top of his lungs, and then started running up to random people in the tunnel and shouting "are you having a motherf**king good day?". I guess he was having a bad one, and I walked out of there pretty quickly. There were some security guards from campus and town hall that went past me heading down in to the tunnel, probably attracted by the noise.

Today I decided to treat myself to taking the whole day off. I slept in really late and had a slow breakfast before cleaning up and heading downtown to send some books home. I did a little bit of shopping before heading towards Bute Park to take some pictures of the stone animals sitting along its outer wall. In doing so I disturbed a group of picnickers, who turned out to be absolutely sloshed. They complimented my camera as they stumbled off, but repeated, with much forceful pointing in my general direction, that they'd take it if I took a picture of them. I still had the lens cap on.

Instead of taking the faster route home through the city I had a leisurely walk in the waning light through the park, enjoying the sights and sounds of students studying and professionals exercising or relaxing after work. I've been chained to my desk so much it was nice to just be outside in the sun and listen to the birds. The park also smelled great since the grass had just been cut the day before. It was nice to enjoy the city and some of my last few weeks in Wales while I had the chance.