So the knitting has been going slowly as of late, school is taking up pretty much all my time and when I'm not in class I've been reading textbooks/frantically trying to add units/freaking out about life in general/wishing it were next semester already. That last one is one of the hardest to deal with, as we're barely into this semester. Yeah. Um. I usually don't start my end-of-semester countdowns til we're at least halfway through, but this year I've started early. Only a little over 12 weeks to go! Slightly more than 3 months! Yeah...
Despite the almost-meltdown last week, things are going pretty well now. I just finished my first kitchen-dining room combo mop shift (yay!) with minimal pain and embarrassment (yay!!!) and had really tasty chicken for dinner haha. This past weekend, I went to SF to have lunch with Mom and afterwards had some absolutely incredible chocolate from Chocolate Heaven, some sort of milk chocolate marshmallow and a milk chocolate caramel marshmallow (seriously, so so good) and some milk chocolate fudge, just for good measure. It almost made everything better just from being so milk chocolate-y : )
[Here's the site, just in case you want to check it out! http://www.chocolateheaven.com/index.cfm]
And the peer counseling orientation yesterday was really fun, a very necessary reminder of everything that I do like about being here at school. I have my first office hour tomorrow (!) and I'm excited to see how that goes.
Sooo life generally is alright for the moment, hopefully it will continue to be so for at least a little while. I could definitely use a break from stressing out over every little thing. And tomorrow I begin something that could actually help a lot with everything that's been going, so things are definitely looking up!
Monday, September 14, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
So . . .
I guess I just need to get over it already, and let the not-so-fun moments here make me appreciate the good ones more. Right? Right.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Getting into the swing of things
I'm finally mostly settled here, classes are sorted out (with a preschool volunteer program for 2 units and SSPC for 1 unit to get up to the 13 required to be a full-time student) and I only have 3 real ones with outside work, I'm in my permanent room with my actual roommate and we seem to be getting along okay, and I have my permanent workshift schedule. Oy. It's actually not bad at all except for the hour and forty five minutes of mopping I get to do every Monday night...ugh. I might try and switch it with someone but I don't see that happening, no one will want it. Well! It's only 13 or 14 times, right?
It's sort of bizarre though, I've been thinking a lot about things that won't be happening for a very long time and it's hard not to wish that things were different right now. That's vague enough, no? There is specifically one thing that keeps coming to mind, but even aside from that with all the books I've been reading - stuff for my sociology class, all my knitting books, other blogs, anything - it's hard not to think about what I want the far-away future to be like.
Mostly the thoughts come from reading Knitting in America and The Second Shift. Knitting in America has the stories of a bunch of knitters all over America and how they got to be doing what they're doing, living on farms, designing knitwear in cities, running yarn shops, whatever they're up to, and I can't help thinking about what it would be like to do something similar. The Second Shift is for my sociology class and talks about how working parents of 2-job families (where both the mother and father work) deal with "the second shift" of caring for the house and child(ren). So I'm thinking about where I want to be living, what I want to be doing, and how I want to be living with the family I will hopefully be doing it all with, and it's all very different from the present...living in a co-op in Berkeley while I try to manage the two majors and squeeze in time to knit whenever I can. I guess it's just strange feeling priorities sort of shift or just be reconsidered at least and not exactly be completely in the moment anymore. The thing to do would be to try and accept that everything I'm thinking about will have to wait and just be where I am for now, but it's hard to stop once it's started.
Anyway hopefully I'll be able to show progress on the afghan soon, for now it's coming slowly. Very slowly. But I think I'm off to work on it now!
It's sort of bizarre though, I've been thinking a lot about things that won't be happening for a very long time and it's hard not to wish that things were different right now. That's vague enough, no? There is specifically one thing that keeps coming to mind, but even aside from that with all the books I've been reading - stuff for my sociology class, all my knitting books, other blogs, anything - it's hard not to think about what I want the far-away future to be like.
Mostly the thoughts come from reading Knitting in America and The Second Shift. Knitting in America has the stories of a bunch of knitters all over America and how they got to be doing what they're doing, living on farms, designing knitwear in cities, running yarn shops, whatever they're up to, and I can't help thinking about what it would be like to do something similar. The Second Shift is for my sociology class and talks about how working parents of 2-job families (where both the mother and father work) deal with "the second shift" of caring for the house and child(ren). So I'm thinking about where I want to be living, what I want to be doing, and how I want to be living with the family I will hopefully be doing it all with, and it's all very different from the present...living in a co-op in Berkeley while I try to manage the two majors and squeeze in time to knit whenever I can. I guess it's just strange feeling priorities sort of shift or just be reconsidered at least and not exactly be completely in the moment anymore. The thing to do would be to try and accept that everything I'm thinking about will have to wait and just be where I am for now, but it's hard to stop once it's started.
Anyway hopefully I'll be able to show progress on the afghan soon, for now it's coming slowly. Very slowly. But I think I'm off to work on it now!
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Ouch
I just finished the dish shift from hell...two and a half hours of scrubbing dishes and wiping counters and tabletops and I missed lunch and I'm exhausted. Gonna try a different shift next time. Let's hope cooking goes better than that just did!
Monday, August 24, 2009
Life in Berkeley
I moved back up here Thursday/Saturday (left to help move Logan into his dorm) and now am adjusting to life in the co-ops. So far things are going okay but I'm actually looking forward to school starting and having some structure to my days. Plus I'm excited about classes : ) Social psychology, personality psychology, sociology of the family and an education class - should be fun.
Today was the first really enjoyable day I've had here so far, I went to Starbucks and got a vanilla latte and pumpkin bread (so very good) and finished Knitting Lessons by Lela Nargi, then wandered around Half Price Books for a bit, bought Knitting for Good by Betsy Greer, met a friend at the movies and saw The Time Traveler's Wife, went to the speed-dating/roommate finding thing put on by the house and met more of the girls living here, went to the kitchen orientation (I am so unprepared to cook dinner for all 50 or so people on Wednesday...crap) and now I've spent wayyy too much time adding pictures of all the projects I've finished so far. It was a good day : )
Today was the first really enjoyable day I've had here so far, I went to Starbucks and got a vanilla latte and pumpkin bread (so very good) and finished Knitting Lessons by Lela Nargi, then wandered around Half Price Books for a bit, bought Knitting for Good by Betsy Greer, met a friend at the movies and saw The Time Traveler's Wife, went to the speed-dating/roommate finding thing put on by the house and met more of the girls living here, went to the kitchen orientation (I am so unprepared to cook dinner for all 50 or so people on Wednesday...crap) and now I've spent wayyy too much time adding pictures of all the projects I've finished so far. It was a good day : )
Dad's koala
This is the last thing I've finished so far, a toy for Dad.
This is an enlarged version of a pattern I found at http://knittedtoybox.blogspot.com/. I followed the pattern but used a much thicker yarn than suggested and size 8 needles. It looks very, very weird from the back (must learn how to seriously finish something like this, can't sew up things for the life of me) and is another odd, hopefully sort of charming toy to keep the penguin company.
Oh and the face! Haha I had to finish it in time for Dad's birthday so instead of sewing on eyes and a nose in black thread I just colored some fabric I had lying around with a Sharpie (I know, I'm sad) and then sewed that onto the head. Yeah...
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