Aspiration: Work in Progress I

knitting blues

So after finished my rainbow scarf for CBC (I still have to block it this weekend-hopefully it's not too late), I finally started my skull socks for Jason (brother in law). So I picked up some black sock yarn and same weight white yarn from my favorite knitting store, Darlene's Yarns (oh, and I just found out that there are TWO knitting stores in PG, but thankfully the other one is not walking nor bus distance so it will have to be more rare visits which will help not kill my finances) Anyhoo, so I've got this yarn and I find some online knitting patterns that I want, very simple, I want to knit stockinette stitch because I came up with my own skull pattern (sooooo bloody cute) that I can do with fair isle. But when I look at the yarn for all the sock patterns, they are all worsted weight, and my sock yarn is super fine. Grumble grumble. So I find this algebraic sock pattern which looks fun. I knit up a swatch on size 2.75 needles and figure out I have 10 stitches per inch. So I fill in the x and start knitting on my dpn and mmm... it's coming out super lacey, which isn't too surprising because I have a really hard time knitting on dpn (double pointed needles, sorry, that's when you have a whole bunch of little needles that have a point on each end and you can knit in a circle, you can use four or five at a time) as well, I was doing a 3x3 ribbing (that's when you knit three, than purl three, which pulls the yarn together so it's tighter for the top of the sock to hold it on better) and because the stitches are so small and because the yarn is black I kept on messing up my stitches, so after three rows I decided to frog it (rip it all out). So this was all at school and when I got home that night after a boring seminar (which was a shame because I normally really enjoy that prof's seminars), I came home, got my smallest needles which were 2.25 (mm) and knit another swatch with 30 stitches but this time I carried the yarn along that back in order to knit techniqually in the round even though I wasn't, cause if you knit purl it's different than just knitting every row to get the stockinette stitch (which you do when you knit in the round), sorry this is completed and boring for none knitters, I understand if you have stopped reading by now, but there is a point here, my latest dilemma? My stitch count for my gauge on smaller needles is 8 stitchs per inch! What the heck? Does knitting a swatch in the round make that much of a difference? I was sooo confused last night. I mean, logic would dictate that if you knit with smaller needles using the same yarn, you should have a greater number of stitches per inch. For instance, if I used this yarn on 6mm needles, it would probably be like five stitches per inch, unless I have gone mad. Sometimes I think I have. I've been knitting seriously (kinda) for over a year now and I still do not understand how yarn works and stuff (like at Christmas, Jenn got me this beautiful hand dyed wool from Darlene for me and I tried to do all this elaborate lace work with it and now I know... you can't do that with that yarn, it just looks messy). So I am confused! So I'm going to go ahead with my new measurement and hopefully I won't finish the first sock and realize it's all messed. Sigh.

Evening update: turns out that the needles I may have used were larger than I thought because of a sorting issue. Anyhoo, Spike is literally trying to climb walls right now and window edging so I need to go. I've started the socks, here's hoping.

hard day, watching TV and blogging

So I've spend the last two days perfecting my presentation for senior seminar. I finished it on Friday, then as you know I spent the weekend working, taking care of a sick kitty(oh wait, I forgot about this... see Spike's blog), and going out, so yesterday I started perfecting it, putting in all the graphs and clip art and working out glitches, then I came home early yesterday because I needed a nap, and when I went to work on it again, I found out that remote desktop was done so I couldn't access it! Argh, so I still had my print outs from school so I made tonnes of changes to fix the flow and stuff and made all these notes and stuff. So this morning, I got up, got all pretty, got to school and worked on it for basically four hours (quick bit where I remembered I hadn't written my colliquium paper yet and spent about fifteen minutes writing that up... heh). So then I nearly panicked when for some reason the computer in the classroom wasn't letting me log onto my H drive, but I just had to switch the outlet I was using, but that made me a little meh at first. Overall, I got some really good feedback and I had no questions I couldn't asnwer and it just made the 30 min mark so I'm pretty happy about it. I had these big plans to come home and study for my bio lab quiz tomorrow, but I'm so beat. I'm going to watch American Idol and let you know all about my opinions, because I don't actually vote. Or care really, but it's fun.

Mandisa- mostly like her, she really is a valley girl. I like how her comments to Simon were uber religious and none of the clips about it are showing that part, on American Idol or any of the gossip shows. I think she sang really well, started off bad, but ended so freakin well. Does she have only one name?

Kelly P.-did she hit any of her notes? Really? I like her, I feel bad that's she so nervous and that she did the ugly cry on tv about her dad. I do agree that she's sweet and it's so funny that she admitted that she has no love life and then giggled. She will probably get a lot of perverted men votes.

Becky- I've never understood her. How did she even get to hollywood? She's good really low, but she can't hit her notes or carry a tune. Oh yeah, and this whole her looks thing? She's pretty but she's no Angie. She had better be gone on Thursday. I mean, she sucked and the judges told her that she did better than they thought she would.

Ayla-I want to not like her (could she be any more perfect?), but I'll settle for a non-chalant meh. I mean, she redeemed herself in hollywood week by freaking out in the elevator, and her favorite movie is Mulan. I heart Mulan. Oh, unfortunate pants. She's a good singer. (Is that the right spelling? chalant? I dunno)

Paris- I HEART PARIS!!! I love her! She's so talented that I am sure she will release a CD whether or not she wins (I think she is too talented for the voters to get) and I am so going to buy her CD because I love her! She's so cute and sexy at the same time! Wheeeeeee! Paris Paris Paris!

Stevie- she's an odd cookie. She reminds me of me when I was still young(er) and melodramatic (er). Is it just me or does she kinda suck tonight? I thought she was a better singer than this. hm. Is she sick? She started off really good. Hm, I don't know if she'll make it to the next week though. Ew- did she just flirt with Ryan Seacrest? Oh, ick!

Brenna-I also like Brenna. Oh, oh no, is she playing the poor kid card? She doesn't have a softer side, she always looks like she is hatching some evil plan. She's not singing that well either right now. I don't really remember her so I don't really have a basis of comparison. Meh, I don't think she's that great really. And now she is just embarrasing.

Heather-crazy eyes... Okay, so I was on the phone with Mom for her performance but it seems like the judges aren't impressed. I don't think I missed anything. Besides, I would turn off Paris if Mom called. Oh, the flashback...right, she was not impressing.

Melissa-well, I like her love of sisterhood, that's nice. What is she singing? Do I know this song? Mh. She's fine. Her earrings are really distracting, really so. But her singing is quite good. I really want a glass of warm milk right now but I won't have enough for coffee tomorrow.

Lisa- I love Lisa's voice. I also like that on some angles you can see the girls on the balcony behind the singer and you can see Paris totally rocking out. And unless Lisa choses more popular songs instead of good songs, she won't make it either. Too talented and possible too good of a taste in music. Can someone make Paula just stop? Just stop Paula!

Kinnik-on the phone with Jenn. I don't understand the placing of the diamond on her dress but it seems like the judges liked her. Flashback-one really high note, good for her.

Katherine-I like her. I don't know if I like her voice. Oh good, I do! Is this a country song? I still like her. And we can see Paris rocking out again! And she is much hotter than Becky! So hot. ohmigoodnes, she just apologized to the people behind her that they had to stare at her butt! She rules! Oh, she kissed Seacretin. I still love her.

Wow, thank goodness this is over. I am soooo tired. I nearly fell asleep before Jenn called. I'm happy she called, I need to talk to her when I am less sleepy. I have much little sister angst to share and hear about her fun times is the big apple. Heh. big apple. Hi Jenn! Waves. Hi to the Bears and Jim too! Tralala.

I'm not seeing anyone next week

***warning: blogging under the influence***


So first things first, I am a social butterfly. And slightly drunk, but not drunk enough to press backspace as many times as it takes to spell the word butterfly (it took me four times the first time, and only two times the second time!). So back to the social butterfly (two times) thing, let's start with last Friday, in which it all started. So it would have been the... 10th? Methinks. Anyhoo, yeah, the tenth, I went over to my friends for dinner and we played this game on her game station and ate chinese food which gave me really messed dreams that I can't remember now. Then Saturday night I went over to my friend Kim's house and had a Angelina Jolie night while her boyfriend made us dinner(!). Than Tuesday night I had my friends Kel and Mandy over to play nitendo for four hours (heh) and then Thursday during the day Corlee Corlee came over and we had lunch and played nitendo and then on Friday morning my friend Kim came over and we chatted than went over my presentation that I am doing on Tuesday and then that same day my other friend Kim from before and her boyfriend came over and I made them dinner and we watched labyrinth and but i;m a cheerleader and tonight (being saturday) I went to my friend Lebeo's house for his birthday party and got to draw on his walls and tomorrow I am going to another friend's birthday party at the waddling duck. Social butterfly (3x) people. Especially if you know how much I am normally NOT a social butterfly (2x only!) Meh.

I came home early though because i have to work tomorrow but I made pancakes and am drinking lots of water. I looooove pancakes.

religious note

So I just went blog surfing and I think I looked at maybe 20 blogs and 6 of them were all about the religion. Two muslim and four christian. Only one qualified as freaky as hell, the rest were fine, I just found that really interesting. What else was interesting was that the two muslim blogs had just started up this week. The freaky religious one was without a doubt insane. Shudder. One of the christian blogs was a young woman who was studying to be a priest and had decided to go home, she was cute because she talked about a very heated discussion she had with Jesus in the girls bathroom at her school and it came across as very funny and endearing, not scary. Another one that was interesting was a young woman who was very religious and had bible quotes in the sidebars but upon further reading and inspection I realized she had changed all the Hes to Shes, but still had a very right wing ultra conservative vibe. Well, I should go to bed now. I've had a meh day. I know I have said this before, and I sound like Emmet on PR talking about how he's a men's fashion designer every episode, but I am so burnt out with school. Forcing myself to work on my presentation and study for my biolab is torturous and I am procastinating so freaking bad. It just ruins your time because you aren't happy when you do study and you aren't happy when you aren't. I wish I was either a) brilliant so these things came to me effortlessly and I could finish and go on and do other things without worrying or b) didn't care so much about school and could blow off my work and enjoy my procastination instead of angst more. I know those people, I go to school with a lot of them. Sigh. Going to bed now so I won't sleep in till 10 tomorrow. Kisses!

Singleton's Valentine Day

So I was inspired this morning by reading a secret postcard and figured, meh, worth a shot. My valentine day consisted of

• eating kraft dinner and tuna (mixed together)
• knitting a whole bunch
• playing sims2
• being productive by doing dishes, cleaning the bathroom, and reading 11 journal articles
• going for a walk that wasn't so long that I got cold
• eating a bowl of snowpeas ( I heart snowpeas)
  
• talking to my mom (I heart mom)
  
• playing my music exceptionally loud
  
• playing mariokart with two good friends while eating popcorn and drinking hot chocolate with vodka

So actually, it was a pretty good day! Who knew? Well, since it is officially the fifteen now, I'm going to scoop the kitty litter. That will make the kitties day.

Grrr Arg

My pirate name is:

Mad Anne Bonney

Every pirate is a little bit crazy. You, though, are more than just a little bit. You can be a little bit unpredictable, but a pirate's life is far from full of certainties, so that fits in pretty well. Arr!

Get your own pirate name from fidius.org.

mwahaha!

I got 73% on my biology final! Woooohoooooo! I got 90% on the essay part! Mwahaha! MWAHAHA!

Hm, maybe this means I should actually do a half decent job on my paper (the one that I didn't complete last week but have not worked on since, yeah, that one). And my lab partner has missed both lectures this week. She had better show up for the lab, I don't want to be paired with a first year.

But Cohen is still true, hand knit baby blankets are more important than biology. Way.

make me care

about school. I don't care about school. And I don't care that I don't care about school. Oh well. So, I don't know if this makes me feel better or worse. I realized why my biology 102 class is so hard. It's because it's a first year science so they are weeding out people (thanks to Adrienne for drawing my attention to that). So in one way, I feel better because I'm like, okay, I'm not a total idiot for not being able to get a good mark in a first year course, but in another way, I want to go to my prof, Dr. Dandylonglegs, and say 'I'm taking this course to get into the education program, I swear, I will never take another biology course ever! Just stop making it so hard!'. I mean, if they have calculus for non majors, shouldn't they have biology for non majors? So all us slacker psychology students can get an average mark and not kill our gpa for taking this course? In other news, I'm making crazy progress on my baby blanket for a friend. She's due any day now so I've really gotta rush. It's this colour (bermuda satin, in case the page doesn't show). Okay, I'm going to go procrastinate some more before I go to school. I mean, well, I did do my write ups and my outline and everything so I'm still doing my schoolwork more or less. I just don't feel the love you know? Lacking the love. For my schoolwork. Meh.

Eat Me

So, I hate pop culture. I hate Friends, I hate Four Kings, and I hate Kristie Allie. Now, does that mean I will turn off the TV everytime Friends comes on? No -that show can be wicked funny. Anytime my sister or I need to laugh, one of us will scowl and say 'pivet!' and snorts abound. And I've barely seen Four Kings or Fat Actress but I've seen enough.

I would like to know why, that at 164 pounds, I feel so fat. I don't most of the time, but the time I feel the most like the incredible walking blob, is when I'm at my school's caferteria. Why do we as a society peg people into these simple categories? If she/he is fat, they eat like a pig. If she/he is eating healthy, then a) it's a rarity, b) they'll soon be thin. If she/he eats something unhealthy, well, they brought that weight on themselves. If people are big, then they have atrocious eating habits and brought it on themselves. Right.

TV has helped us along. Look at Monica for example: Whenever she is in her fat suit, you bet she's ordering a pizza, or eating a sandwich with mayonaise. Look at the promo for the Four Kings: once beloved Seth Green is bemoaning his fate to his friend. 'Your girlfriend is so much better than mine', and to prove his point, he holds up two pairs of panties. 'Your girlfriends' to the small, dainty little pair, and 'my girlfriend' holding up a pair of large grannies. Oh my goodness. Seth Green I spite thee! How dare you agree to say that? I mean, that is nearly as bad as it gets. Not only is the weight of girls now how you determine their self worth, let's not forget that if you aren't thin, you apparently can't be sexy either! Wear those grannies and wallow in your own filth! Bah!

And Kristie, oh Kristie. I mean, from what I have read it sounds like her show Fat Actress was one long running fat joke anyways, but what I can critize is what I have seen, and that is her commercial. Telling your viewing audience that they are fat and need to diet? I mean, what is this? Nasty! You are Nasty!

So, what brought on this rant you may ask? What happened besides my desire to not write up an outline for my presentation? The fact that me, like many other bigger people, eat healthy. Not because we desire to be thin, but because it's good for our bodies, we've done it for a long time, and we like to. I love vegtables. I do. Blanched broccoli, raw cauliflower, peppers any colour but green I could eat like apples. I know so many people who eat healthy and are any size, and I know so many people who eat crap, and are any size. This all came to a boiling point when I was at the cafeteria and was stocking up on the salad section. I love this section because it's determined by the weight of your plate, not by what veggies you have. This means that I can eat all the red peppers and cauliflower I want and barely pay anything! It's a gold mine! So I get my plate of peppers, cucumber slices, cauliflower, and carrots and I pay for it and join my friends. I sit down, and a well-meaning but... sigh... not-thought-about comment from a friend is 'oh, why isn't that healthy'. Like, oh, look, the fat girl is eating veggies. Let's pet her on the head. And then, somebody says 'oh, are you on a diet?'.



Seriously, eat me. I am fine. My eating is fine. I will admit I need to get out more because I don't exercise enough, but that's because I know the risks of a sedentary lifestyle. I like my heart. I would like to keep it happy. I am happy.

School.... meh

Heh. It's been a fun week. First, let me lay out my Monday to you....

Wake up: hm, throats a little dry. Oh well, PG is a dry place. Lalala.
Get to school: Feeling a little scratchy in my throat, craving hot tea. Not good.
Go to class: Throat is sore, got that snot thing where you can't blow your nose but you can feel it in the absolute back of your nose, dripping into your throat. Become very bitchy and miserable.
Lunchtime: Mope. Have a hard time swallowing food. Noticing that I am growing tired, blame drinking of tea instead of coffee.
Studying at 1pm in the library: Mope and scowl. Having a hard time focusing on studies. Constant dry throat, no matter how much tea or water I drink. Refuse to acknowledge growing illness as I had dedicated myself to four hours at school researching my biology paper due at 3pm on Wednesday.
Home at 3pm: Fall asleep while studying, throat is burning, same with sinuses. Have gone home three hours ahead of schedule. Very, very bitchy.
4pm: After drinking that lemon-medicine drink and flipping channels for an hour, try to sleep but can't because I can't breathe out my nose and keep on choking.
630pm: get up from lying in bed for two and a half hours to watch Project Runway. Jenn has gone to work out so nobody can hear my whinings. Whine anyways.
7pm: Project Runway. I am so happy that Santio got bitch slapped! Woohoo!
Nighttime: Jenn finds me sinustab and I lie down for a horrid, horrid sleep... or lack of it. I think I slept from 12 to 1 and 4 to 6.

So... note the whole lack of study or research happening? Right. Tuesday I won't lay out for you because it was mostly sleeping, sneezing, coughing, taking hot baths because my whole body hurt, writing one crappy paper that was due that night (I emailed it) and one hour of looking at my paper for biology. Oh yeah, then I went to the walk in clinic and got a prescription for a throat infection. Which, in case you were wondering, I had to stop my doctor from leaving the room to ask 'what did you prescribe me?' and 'what do you think I have?' cause he wasn't going to take the time to tell me if I hadn't. Anyhoo...

Wednesday! Today! My painkillers have helped with the whole body ache but I'm sneezing (the bad sneezes, where if I don't have a kleenex there is snot everywhere!) and coughing and it's funny because nobody sat next to me on the bus which was nice. I skipped my first two classes in order to write my paper for biology. Which the writing wasn't that hard, but the tables took so much time, and then I started on the graphs but I forgot how to do them, and the graph program on excel isn't really all that user friendly, so I flip to my lab manuel and realize that I need to put my standard deviations in the table, so I had to go back and do that, then I only had half an hour to do my graphs, finally figured them out, had time to do one of three before realizing I had to go. It was horrid, realizing I had to hand in a paper that was incomplete, missing two graphs. So I go, with my snotty nose, froggy voice, and mope infront of my lab class. Then I realize something. Nobody else has a paper with them.

That's right people.

The bloody paper is due next week.



Me and my kleenex are going to watch TV and mope.