And so it begins

Well, classes have officially started (this would explain the paucity of posts lately). I had two today, and my last one meets for the first time on Monday evening. I so appreciated everyone's supportive comments on Monday (thanks, Willow, for reminding me that writing a syllabus is class prep for the first day!). Everything seemed to go fine today, all the students fit into the classrooms that I was assigned (you have no idea how bad it gets when they don't; I have to think of ways to be scary and mean so they'll drop, and I generally prefer not to scare them this soon into the semester. I save that for after the add/drop period)(you may imagine evil laughter here), and they appeared to be paying attention. At least, they mostly laughed at the right times, and not at the wrong ones (again, you'd be surprised how disconcerting it can be to have them laugh when I didn't intend to be funny).

Our new on-campus knitting circle also met for the first time yesterday. Only three of us came, but there are at least three more in the offing who got caught up in first-week insanity and couldn't make it. It's amazing how hard it is to find a place to meet on such a small campus; most public spaces are devoted to eating or studying, and there aren't a lot of them. Since the campus is relatively new, it's still growing out, and it's at moments like these that it shows. However, we took over a table in the study room over the campus Starbucks (sigh), and I'm hoping we didn't disturb the students there too much (every single one of them had taken at least one class with me; this is another thing that happens frequently on such a small campus).

I had also intended to go to the Palomar Weaving Guild meeting last night; it was their first evening meeting ever, and as I've been thinking of joining, but can't make their daytime meetings, it seemed like a good idea. However, I went out on Monday night to do yoga (ow ow ow; after not going to yoga for quite some time, I went Saturday and Monday -- ow ow ow), and yesterday afternoon involved great deals of running around to get Younger Daughter to and from her Irish dance class, and Older Daughter from chess club, and by the time I got home, I was not feeling up to driving to Escondido for a 7-9 meeting. The matter was clinched when I said something about it and both Older and Younger Daughter exclaimed, "But you were gone last night!!" If I'd been dying to go, I might have been able to resist their blandishments, but as it was, I caved.

We ate Chinese food, and then sat on the rug and played Life (I'd forgotten what a very odd game Life is), and I finished my knitting for the Loopy Swap, and started the zigzag mitts for me (in spite of Rick's very loud sighs; he's waiting for the paris-roubaix mitts for himself -- he'll just need to wait a tiny bit longer). I'm using the yarn I got from Fearless Fibers in the inspiration colorway (you should really check it out, it's gorgeous), and while I haven't gotten very far, I find myself charmed by the whole thing. I'm knitting a size small, and I'm a bit worried about whether they'll be big enough, but I'll finish one pattern repeat and then see where we are. I'm hoping that since the yarn is a bit thicker than specified, it'll work (I could always go up to size 3 needles, but I'd have to go find them...).
(And yes, that bag in the background is a Bea Binney original.)

So, that's about it. Nothing exciting, but I've gotten through my first classes, and I'm going to call it good.