The Year According to Shannon

A Brief Account (by Shannon standards) of Almost Everything..and in chronological order too!!!

JANUARY 2004

• Shannon Sticks to Her Strict 'No Candy & Lots of Gym Time' Regimne. This is in effort to reduce effects of living in Dublin for six months and travelling around countries laden with chocolate for 5 weeks. Successful results!!
• Shannon Embarks Upon an Adventure into the World of Research and Academia. That is to say, she (finally) starts working on her Honours paper, adhering to the idea that procrastination is the key to success and least amount of stress. Topic of research: Is it possible/desirable to develop eco-tourism on Prince Edward Island? (forseeing the future - Shannon will come to dislike the word 'eco-tourism immensely)
• Shannon Attempts to Find Fun Things to Do in Spare Time. Result: All-Shanadian Blog is Born! Unbenkownst to Shannon, web log will become rather addictive past-time, particularly over next few months when she is searching for ANY distraction from her research paper
• Shannon Goes to Trivia at Casey's. A monumental moment indicative of just how void PEI is of entertainment options. Luckily Shannon has an awesome trivia team, which completely makes up for the fact that average age of clientele at Casey's must be in the 40's.

FEBRUARY 2004

• White Juan hits the Maritimes and packs a brutal punch. Large doses of Cabin Fever are experienced. Storm after storm hits PEI and Shannon is reminded of what it really means to be Canadian as she sits at home on Friday night and watches T.V. and cancels yet another doctor's appointment.
• Shannon starts doing research for her Honours paper. The term 'starts doind' is used loosely and, in fact, it might be more accurate to say she considered starting to do research for the first half of the month and then actually got down to doing it in the second half.
• Shannon distracts herself from Research by becoming overly involved in her Web Course. Shannon makes assumption that rest of students are being driven crazy by her constant posting, but doesn't really care.

MARCH 2004

• Research Continues, Panic Sets In. Enough Said
• Shannon Chooses to Distract Herself from Panic Related to Research by Taking in Fun, Winter Activities, Celebrating St. Paddy's Day and Being Manic Gym Rat. She succeeds in having fun tubing down hills, drinking copious amouns of liquor on the 17th and losing more weight. She also succeeds in procrastinating.
• Jen Finally Comes on Board for Adventure to Scotland. Woohoo!!!!!!!!!!

APRIL 2004

• Much Chocolate is Eaten, No More Pounds are Lost. Shannon becomes rather obsessed with Allen Bunny and finally eats him - head first.
• Shannon Visits Sister Sahra for Easter Weekend . Spends copious amounts of time at Tim Horton's and preparing/eating food.
• Shannon Completes Research Paper and Does not Exceed Maximum Page Limit. Shannon used an editing trick ot cut her paper from 120 pages to 70 pages - she moved them to the Appendices!!!
• Shannon Completes Research Presentation, Faces Firing Squad and Survives - Just Barely. Evidently Shannon believed in her research findings and cared about her research topic or she would never have succeeded in standing up to intimidating academics who had smart questions to ask her.
• Shannon Passes Her Honours with Flying Numbers! She succeeds in missing her second graduation ceremony.

MAY 2004

• Shannon, Keri & Jen Take off for the ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME. May 12th marks the end and the beginning. It is an amazing place to be - on the cusp of finishing one's education and beginning one's exploration of the world.
• Shannon, Keri & Jen Find a Flat and Jobs to Go to in Edinburgh. Life is Good!!!!!!!!
• Shannon Finds Herself Unable to Rid Herself of Irish Blokes. This time at least the first one had an 'interesting' name, which provided much material for Keri & Jen

JUNE 2004

• Shannon Lands Her 2nd Job in Edinburgh as Glorified Data Entry Clerk. Little does she know she will remain at Scottish Equitable into the nest year (a bit of foreshadowing there).
• Shannon & Jen Discover and Proceed to Exploit Filthy McNasty's and Karaoke Nights to the nth degree. Much free liquor is consumed, many songs are 'sung', certain Irish bartenders/patrons become victims to Canadian girl charm. Ahem
• Girls' Flat Experiences Hot Water Shortage. Keri threatens to leave flat and go live in a cardboard box. Jen points out that is a good idea since the cardboard box would definitely have hot water.
• Shannon, Keri & Jen Start Accumulating Friends. Tops on the list are Kathleen, Brandon, Vanessa and Filthy's crew - they're more like drinking buddies though.

JULY 2004

• Canada Day Celebrations at the Globe. Canadian Karaoke, Hockey on TV, Red & White. Rock On. It's great to be Canadian!
• Girls Travel to Aberdeen for a Weekend. That turns out to be more than enough time in granite, oil city. Luckily there are fab gals from PEI there.
• Shannon, Keri & Jen Land 2nd Flat - Modern, Convenient, Nice and Well-Priced. Their luck just keeps on coming.....
• Shannon, Keri & Jen Take Road Trip Around Scotland. Shannon drives on the other side of the road, learns everything there is to know about Roundabouts and is entirely grateful to have Super-Navigator Jen in the passenger seat. Highlights of trip include: Carboot sale in Kinross, short stop in Perth, Inverness, the Loch Ness and Drumdrochit, castles and, after three hours on non-passable roads, an open highway between Glasgow and Edinburgh

AUGUST 2004

• Jen & Shannon Take On the Fringe Festival Full Force. Success stories of first weekend - Shannon gets heckled by comedian, Shannon accidentally volunteers to join an Improv group on stage, Shannon & Jen stur their stuff at the Karaoke show and *almost* succeed in becoming idols. Much fun is had by all
• Shannon & Keri 'Celebrate' Birthdays and Being One Year Closer to a Quarter Century. Copious amounts of cake are consumed.
• Brandon and Kathleen Leave. This is not a highlight, but significant loss to the Canadian Crew. Brandon's leaving, however, is entirely enjoyable - It turns out a Scottish Ceilidh is a thing of beauty, sweat and, possibly, blood.

SEPTEMBER 2004

• Shannon Returns to 'Do Dublin'. Weekend is most pleasant and Shannon enjoys the Irish capital much more as a visitor than she did as a resident.
• Jen's Parents Arrive from PEI - The First Bonafide Visitors From Canada!

OCTOBER 2004

• Shannon Finally Makes Her Way to London to See the Great City with her Sister Sahra. After frantic, airpot mishap the gals meet up and spend the week traipsing around London and do a day tour of Southern England. Highlights are too numerous to name.
• Sahra Comes to Edinburgh - Shannon's First Visitor!! All goes well
• Hallowe'en is celebrated with Costumes & Candy.

NOVEMBER 2004

• Shannon's LONG Run of Luck and Happiness Dips Dramatically. At the ripe old age of 24, Shannon finally discovers what it is to be heart-broken and the words to Sheryl Crow's 'Teh First Cut is the Deepest' finally make sense.
• The Gals Have a Christmas Potlatch and Say Farewell to Friends Until 2005. By this time, they have accumulated a whole new set of friends so there is plenty of food and fun to be had the the potlatch. Turkey and Mashed Potatoes remain in the fridge for one week

DECEMBER 2004

• Birthday Celebrations for Jen! Pirate Hats and the old alma mater of Filthy McNasty's make up most of the evening. Oh, plus a bunch of drunk Santas doing the Rose Street Pub Crawl.
• Home Sweet Home! And oh, how sweet it is to be home at last.