Day 112: Careful consideration

A few things have come together for me:

• Taking a break from my devices this past weekend was tremendously useful to me.  I'd almost forgotten how much I value that space.  I'd almost managed to forget how often I get sucked into a device for embarrassingly long periods of time, at the end of which I feel like I've achieved nothing - even if I have read more New York Times articles than you can shake a stick at.  But honestly, how many articles about the ongoing impeachment hearings do I need to read in one day?  Or even in a few days?
• Also of note: I have been working nearly every weekend this semester to stay on top of an overload of commitments.  (Also of note: I have psoriatic arthritis which isn't entirely under control, and I don't live my life as if that were true.)
• Yesterday, the humidity plummeted again (it was around 1% at the local airport, which is - get this - near the ocean, people, but still the air is so dry that it sucks the moisture out of every. single. thing), and I woke up with a headache that could only be described as an extinction level event.  I always hesitate to use the word "migraine" (I'm not really sure why), but it really can't be called anything else.  I got it under control, but between it and the Advil, I was walking the fine line between unmanageable pain and nausea.  It wasn't a fun day.  
• As a result of which, I didn't post here.  Which, interestingly, felt more like a relief than a regret.
• Last week, someone suggested that I try a mental practice, just to see what happens: instead of framing things as a question, I let a statement happen instead.  This basically has to do with my lifelong habit of overthinking and overanalyzing everything - I can think of 20 sides to a square.  It's nice to be able to see nuance, but it's not particularly useful for checking in with my gut.
• On my day away from digital devices, I also felt relief not to have to post here.  And it occurred to me to maybe think about rethinking my magpie year.  And I started thinking about commitments and what I said I'd do and meeting expectations and and and.  Lots of questions: should I make a new plan, with a different kind of commitment (I will post every other day/every Thursday/whatever)?  What will people think if I say, after 100ish days, that I'm not doing this anymore?  Is it actually in keeping with the lighthearted magpie spirit to allow my shiny-object-distraction soul to be distracted by other things?  Is it OK to say that I've learned some interesting stuff about myself and now I'm going to lighten up?  Should I/can I/ought I to?  And then I remembered: statements.
• And the statement is: I don't want to post every day right now.  Or, at least, I don't want to feel obliged to.
• Ah.  OK.  I can work with that.

So, there it is.  I'm not saying that I didn't go around a few more times.  I have a lot of trouble giving myself grace (we've talked about this), and so there's been quite a bit of: but you said!  However, the statement part of me knows this: I said it to myself.  No-one will die or be harmed if I now say to myself that gentleness and kindness means renegotiating the terms of my engagement with writing.  There are times when "I don't want to do it" doesn't cut it - but this isn't one of them.

The fun thing for me about having initiated this project is that I am writing again - not only here, but in my journal, and other scribblings that I hadn't been giving myself permission to try, and that I now am; I'm looking forward to having more time for that.  I'm spinning again.  And there's a small part of me that is thinking of trying a creative sweater-sized project again.  All of that, I think, came out of the project of committing myself to doing this one creative thing every day.  I'm good with letting that creative thing be wider than writing here.  So, I'll be here, and I may keep that day count because I'm finding it interesting, but it won't be every day.

Meanwhile, with my "blogging time" on Sunday and Wednesday, I wound up that yarn and cast on for a hat.  It's getting cold in Seattle, and Kiv needs to keep her head warm.

Day 106: Strange day

Woke up this morning to an announcement that campus was closed due to an electrical outage, which was, in turn, due to a blown transformer.  This means I’m going to have to grade this weekend, since I couldn't get into my office to pick up midterms (bad news). But, it did have an unexpected upside.

Some friends and I walk every week that we can.  Today was a walking day.  And then, because we’d all intended to work on campus and couldn’t, we came to my house and got work done.  It felt like college or something - all of us at the dining room table getting things done, occasional comments or stories.  It was the kind of thing that is totally unexpected, but wonderfully good. I wish life worked out like this more often.

Day 100: Cats!

They keep me company as I grade.  (It takes me about 20 minutes a paper for these first papers, and there are 40 of them.  I'm trying to take it in smaller pieces, both so that I don't get too stiff and uncomfortable - and, honestly, my fingers stop being able to type comments after a while - and so I don't get impatient and nasty in my comments.)

They think they're helping...

Day 99: TGIF

Mornings are crisp, there’s a chill in the air, evening comes earlier each day. It’s that time of year, when students’ hearts pitter-patter with the utter dread of looming midterms, and the realization that they should have come to office hours much sooner, and with much more frequency. 

And when, therefore, professors’ spare hours are spent in extra appointments, and in grading the assignments of panicked students. 

That means me, too. 

Day 98: That time of the semester

I really have nothing. The grading is piled deep, and there’s a conference paper to write, and even the magpie has to give way and dig in to work. Remind me again why I assigned all these things?

Day 54: Back at work

One of the interesting differences between summer and the semester, for me, isn't really the amount of work - I do work more during the school year, obviously, but I also work during the summer - it's being around people all the time again.  Often the same people (academic departments and colleges are like families - you're with the same people for decades - and, like families, they are more and less functional, depending on their composition at any given time).

Two quotes* that have kept running through my head last week and this week:

Hurt people hurt people. 
Buddha would love boundaries.

They go together, right?



*Dudes, I'm an academic.  I have tried to get good attributions for these, but I can't!  I've always heard the first in the context of AA, and the second I have heard attributed to Pema Chodron.  My apologies to the originators of these sentiments, if it is someone other than these.

Day 47: Lacuna

Read:  I actually had a quick post I meant to get up here yesterday, and then the day totally got away from me, and when I got home after walking in the morning, working all day, and then having a riding lesson, I fell over on the couch and stopped thinking.  I need to work on that.  I'm back to work full-time this semester after three semesters of a 20% medical leave (as in, I was working 80% time)(as in, honestly, I was working nearly full-time, but funding my outrageous amounts of service work by using medical leave to teach one fewer class).  I don't think I've found my balance yet.

Day 46: First day of classes

I taught six hours today.  In the same classroom.  Which wasn't sufficiently air conditioned.

My classes are kicked off.  They are: English Grammar and Syntax; Introduction to Linguistics; Language and Gender.

My older daughter wants to audit my gender class.  I let her come today.  It is interesting to have one's child in one's class.  Not sure yet the balance between good interesting and awkward interesting.

I have survived.  That is all.

It's been how long?

I just looked at the last date I posted, and it's been nearly two weeks! I was asking myself where the time went, but then I realized that I know exactly where that time went: to the conference in New Orleans, and then family and Thanksgiving. I suppose that's enough right there to take up all of that time, not to mention work, and the usual other things that come with two kids and life in general.

New Orleans was absolutely wonderful. We got in late Thursday night (the week before Thanksgiving), and I was at an 8:00 am panel the next morning. But it was a fascinating panel, on languages in Louisiana, so that was worth the early morning; it certainly gave me some interesting ideas for changing one of my classes next semester. I actually ended up at 8 am panels all three mornings of the conference, but as they were all interesting, I decided that it was worth the pain of that alarm (remember, NO is two hours later than California, so it felt a lot earlier than it was). I survived my talk on Saturday evening; no-one laughed, people seemed interested, and there was a knitter in the audience, waving her knitting at me when I talked about knitting during meetings. This is the second year in a row that someone has come to a talk on knitting to knit in the audience, and I can't tell you how much it means. Both times, the person was gone before the Q&A period, so I didn't get to say thanks, but it's a friendly thing that makes the room feel warmer. I could tell when I started my talk that people were doing that thing that people do when knitting comes up, sort of crossing their arms and preparing to weather the next fifteen minutes until someone talks about a more interesting/important topic, but when I mentioned the 2700 respondents to my survey (thank you all!), there was a stirring in the room as people sat up, and when I talked about what happened with Tina at BMFA a few years back, there were gasps. I got some interested questions at the end, too, so all in all, I'm declaring it a success.

The conference also gave me some knitting time, and I finished my New Orleans socks; they're Gothic enough for the part, don't you think?
I even wore them on Sunday, at the second half of my panel. I think I'll wear these a lot; they fit beautifully, and they look nice.
These are really fun socks to knit; the lace at the top provides a bit of interest, but the rest is really simple to remember, so they're perfect for knitting at meetings, or other places that require some attention. I knitted the lace bit of the second sock on the flight out, so I was perfectly set up to finish them on Friday and Saturday.

On Sunday, I cast on for a pair of socks for Rick that I am working my way through right now.

But conference attending and knitting was not all I did in New Orleans, oh no! We listened to live music every single night we were there, even though it made those early-morning alarms harder to take - and it was absolutely wonderful. I adore live music, and I love jazz, and New Orleans has plenty of both and to spare. We also ate and ate, and I got to try every single thing I'd wanted to eat. On Friday, Rick met me outside the conference to grab some lunch, and we headed off to a place that came up on Yelp when he looked for lunch spots in New Orleans. We got there, and there was a group of conference attendees waiting, but I took one look at the menu and saw things like lovely little spring salads with blue cheese and took Rick aside and told him that I had one word for him: gumbo. Or po' boys. Jambalaya. We were in New Orleans, and there was no way I was eating food I can get in any big city! He is a good man, and promptly found K Paul's where I ate a shrimp remoulade and fried green tomato po' boy, with a cup of gumbo on the side. Now that's what I'm talking about!

And it only got better from there. We ate gumbo and jambalaya, po' boys and beignets (a word to the wise: do not eat beignets outside in the wind while wearing black jeans; ask me how I know), crawfish etouffee and grits with mustard greens, all washed down with good local beer and topped off with bread pudding and pecan pie. Man alive, it is impossible to eat badly in a city like that. We met a guy on the flight home who said he didn't like New Orleans because the food was no good and he didn't like the jazz. I about cried.

We also went on a post-Katrina tour, where I also about cried. We saw the places where the levees broke, and went into the Lower Ninth Ward. I am still coming to grips with the fact that, five years later, there are still houses standing empty and destroyed, with the spray-painted marks of rescue crews on the walls, cheek by jowl with the empty lots that were once the homes of New Orleanians. I wonder why it is that we have funds for reconstruction in other countries, but we have not yet finished the reconstruction of one of our own great cities and ports? I wonder if there's any reason anyone could give me that I would find compelling enough. I wish I had the right words to convey the sense of outrage and sorrow I feel, but I don't know that I do. I do know that I want to know more about what happened, and what's happening, and that I will find out.

We came home on Tuesday, met my aunt at the airport, and headed home, where my parents and the girls were waiting for us. They'd all had a wonderful time together; I'm surprised the girls were excited to see us at all, given how much my parents spoil them (their perogative, I think). We had 15 people here for Thanksgiving, all delightful company - it was a wonderful evening.

My parents and aunt left on Friday, and we've been slowly getting ourselves ready to face the week ahead. I avoided (as I always avoid) Black Friday shopping, except for one thing: my LYS was having a sale, so while the turkey stock was simmering, I headed over and got a few skeins of yarn and my coupon book for the year. I ended up with two skeins of Noro (I can't remember which kind), enough to make a hat and mitts for each of the girls, one skein of Noro Silk Garden for socks for me, and a skein of sock yarn to make socks for my dad. I started on a hat for younger daughter right away, and finished that and the first mitt this morning.
She could not keep her eyes open when the flash went, so it's either pictures with closed eyes, or bad color. I'm going for the good color, as you can see. It's completely unblocked, but I'm not sure I'm going to get it back to block it.
With luck, I'll finish the second mitt today, and she can wear them to school this week; it's been more than chilly enough for it around here!

And now I think I'm caught up, and with luck I'll be able to stay caught up as I make it through these last weeks of the semester; if only I could say the same about my grading...

The early bird

Sings at 3:30 am. Apparently.

We have a bird (this happens every year) who seems to think that 3:30 in the morning is an excellent time to exercise the vocal apparatus. Loudly. And with great vim and vigor. This bird has an endless supply of musical motifs; I don't think I've ever heard him repeat himself. He sings each motif precisely three times (although the last repetition often ends a note or two earlier than the prior two) before moving on to the next. (Can you tell I've spent a lot of time analyzing this bird's singing style? Have I mentioned that the time I spend thinking about this is time that I could spend being asleep?) It's a virtuoso performance.

And one that I would probably appreciate more if the sun were up.

Anyone know what kind of bird this might be? I haven't seen what he looks like. (Because, as I believe I have mentioned, it's DARK when he's singing.) It's probably just as well, because if I had a description, I'd be sorely tempted to hire a sniper. And I'm not a violent person. As things stand, we have informed the cats that our standing moratorium on the slaying and ingestion of birds might be lifted in this one instance. I know. I'm not a nice person when I'm sleep-deprived.

In other news, I have cast on for the second henley, and am now about 5-6 inches up the body. I'm knitting the body and sleeves in the round this time, so it's going more slowly, but when it's done, there will be only a minimum of seaming to do. The fabric that this yarn is making is absolutely stunning, and I'm just pleased as punch with it.

I have also decided that I need to buckle down and frog the Great Linen Tent Debacle of last summer. Remember this?
It has not gotten any more flattering with age (its age or mine, come to think of it). I took it to knit night last night, figuring that I would fortify myself with good company while frogging, only to realize that I've completely forgotten which way I knitted it, so I haven't the faintest clue where to begin frogging. I need to dig those notes up so I can get the job done. I have ideas for that yarn, which is really quite nice; I just need to get it from a knitted state back into little balls.

Meanwhile, classes are finished, and I am now entering the part of the semester that consists of grading, and of attending really painful meetings to address all of the things that should have been taken care of during the semester but were not, and which now must be dealt with before the summer begins. However, I also have two of my favorite classes to look forward to in the fall, and many of the students I loved this semester have signed up for the upper-division one, which is a nice way to end the semester, knowing that when I come back in the fall, it will be to a room full of friendly faces.

The other thing I've been trying to get done

Is happening today. I don't know if any of you have been tracking the series of events happening at college campuses across the nation today to remind people of the importance of publicly-funded higher education, but we're having a teach-in and rally here on my campus, and I've been part of the (very small but tremendously efficient) organizing committee. We talked about it and figured that we're teachers, and what we do best isn't carrying placards (although that has its place) or shouting slogans (although that, too, has its place) but rather teaching, so we have four faculty members on a panel talking about the California Master Plan, the politics of funding higher education, and the directions that our new models are taking us (a hint: they're not good). Then we'll be taking lots of questions.

The really cool (and terrifying) bit is that we're streaming this puppy live. Today, from 10:30-11:45. And we'll archive it, too. We're also going to be reading email questions to the panelists during the question and answer period. So, should you happen to see this, and should you happen to be interested, here's the url with the link to the teach-in (I checked, and my co-organizers said I could share):

http://www2.csusm.edu/cfa/

I don't usually advertise things like this, but this issue of publicly-funded higher education is an important one (I admit, I'm biased), and I think it's all too often swept under the rug or misunderstood. I hope with all of my heart that today's events -- not just here, but everywhere -- will change that just a little bit.

I'm wearing my new sweater for luck, and I'll be reading out those email questions, so let's hope I don't say something silly or misread something crucial. And once this is done, I'll be past my last big hurdle for a while.

It's Imbolc

And that means it's my birthday.

I have decided over the years that I far and away prefer associating my birthday with Imbolc than with Groundhog's Day (although they are not unconnected themselves, actually); this may have to do with memories of being made to crawl out from under my desk in grade school to see if I could see my shadow. I don't know where grade school teachers get ideas like that, nor why they think that such a thing would a) lead to positive memories and/or b) not lead to major teasing throughout my remaining school years, but the upshot is that my general feelings vis-a-vis Groundhog's day are not the most positive.

Imbolc, though, that's another story. Here we are, at the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. The sun is truly starting to come back. It's no longer dark when the girls and I leave piano lessons at 5:30, and I'm beginning to have faith again that the day will come when it's no longer pitch black when I leave campus on Mondays at 8:15. That's a good thing to remember when there are still fewer hours of light in a day than there are hours of dark. The wheel is turning, and will continue to turn, so I'll enjoy the light as it comes and remember that next year, I will once again be eager at winter solstice for a time of dark in which to rest.

Meanwhile, today's a furlough day, which means I got to start my day with a lovely walk with a friend, followed by some quiet time spent knitting and reading (knitting on the project that I cannot share right now, alas, but good knitting nonetheless). Then Rick took me out to lunch at Q'ero, which I do believe I've mentioned (whilst drooling on the keyboard) in the past. Love that place. Love love love it. It's been a peaceful day, rare and wonderful, and especially nice after a late-working Monday.

(Fair warning: Some of you expressed interest in the field methods class. This may have been politeness on your part, which I very much appreciate. The reward for your civility is more information than you could possibly want about the class. I'm sorry. This is what happens when someone makes the mistake of showing any kind of interest in one of my passions. Please feel free to skip this bit.) Last night we had our second field methods class, which went really well. Two teams of students were in charge of the elicitations, and they'd met with me last week to plan them all out. This isn't easy, as they've never had to develop questions about the inner workings of a language before, let alone follow those questions up with an actual plan as to what they want to ask a speaker in order to investigate those questions. It's the scientific method in action, but not everyone is comfortable with the idea that one must be simultaneously rigorous and completely open to changing direction based on new evidence when necessary, often on the fly.

I suggested that they start with something simple, and try to figure out whether and how nouns are marked for singular and/or plural, and whether those markings change depending on the role of the noun in the sentence. To that end, the first group developed a set of sentences around intransitive verbs (e.g. The wind blows; The airplane flies; The cat sleeps), and then played with the number of the nouns in the subject (e.g. Airplanes fly; Some cats eat; Cats eat; etc)(those, by the way, are some of the actual sentences that they used). They also elicited subject pronouns (e.g. I sing, you (sg) sing, she/he/it sings, etc), and found (to my delight and their consternation) that second person subject pronouns (you and y'all) distinguish between the very casual (to people younger than oneself and those with whom one is very close), the "regular" (used when talking to people who are one's peers), and the formal (used with those older than oneself, strangers, social superiors). My friend, the speaker of Bengali for this class, is a fabulous consultant, and is very aware of some of these kinds of forms in her language, which means she's good at providing the information the students need; it's a real treat to work with someone like that, and after last night, I think the students really realized how it makes their job easier.

The second group looked at the same kinds of issues for noun phrases which are direct objects, in sentences like, The boy hugs the girl; Some girls hug some boys; Girls hug boys, etc. We're already getting all kinds of neat information (like, plurality is only marked once; if the word "some" is in the sentence, the noun doesn't get the -ra plural ending). By the end of class, the next two groups of students already had some sense of what questions came directly from these data, whose answers should be investigated next week (for example, prounouns for object noun phrases), and some ideas for new areas of investigation (kinship terminology). It's a pretty exciting thing, even if we're all just wiped out by the end. The part that makes it the most unpredictable of any class I teach is that there's no way to tell from week to week what we'll find, and therefore what we'll need to cover the next week. One week's results lead to the next week's questions, in a way that's very organic, and which requires a certain willingness to be comfortable with log-rolling -- always trying to keep up with the bit of log that's under one's feet from moment to moment.

Which is probably a useful lesson for life in general, right? With that, I think I'll go knit a little bit more before getting the girls from school. Soon I'll be swatching for my knitting olympics project, and there will be some knitting that I can actually show off. In the meantime, happy Imbolc.

Overshooting the mark

So, I do believe I've mentioned that I have a lot of deadlines. A lot of them. I have a list. Actually, I have a lot of lists. There are the lists that I write on each day's calendar entry, of the things that ought to get done that day (the ones that don't get done have to get rewritten on more realistic dates), and then there are the lists that I put on a little post-it note that I move from day to day because I know darned well they're not actually doing to get done when I think they will, and then there's the list of big ongoing projects about which I should be (and am) feeling a constant state of low-level panic all the time.

Am I the only one who does this?

When my week started, my daily lists had tons and tons of little things (go to this meeting, type up those minutes, prep for that class, etc); my move-as-necessary list had a smaller number of medium-sized projects (write a letter of recommendation and take to class to give to student; put together independent study contracts, get them signed by the department chair, and take to class to give to students; etc); and my big-project list had a number of items with associated drop-dead dates (write grant proposal by 2/2; peer review article by 2/15; write 8,000-word chapter by 2/15).

Did you note that last one? That's the kicker. I've been putting it off. I got just about every single other thing on my list done, plus a few that weren't on the list (like cleaning out my desk trays and putting away all of my knitwear neatly on my closet shelves). I've been getting to the point where all that's left is to either floss the cat or write the dratted chapter. So I blocked out today, and the next two weeks' Thursdays and Fridays for it. In preparation for today, I put together all of my notes from the original presentation, which amounted to a scant 4,235 words (but who was counting), found all the articles I'd used as references when preparing the presentation, plus all of the other things I've written of relevance. I went swimming this morning, and then I sat down, bound and determined to have something that could reasonably be called a "draft" by the end of today, howsoever holey and drafty it might be.

I typed and I wrote and I contemplated and I said BLEH at the computer screen and I cut and I pasted and I sighed and I moaned. (Ask Rick.)

And now I have 9,300 words. Poop.

Rick cackled. I'm calling it a draft and making lists for the next stage, which is going to be quite involved, as I've not said what I need to say to make it clear why I'm saying all of the things that I did say. And it will take more words to do that, which means I need to make some of the words I already have go away. Do you think insect repellent might work?

In the meantime, an absolutely lovely box arrived for me the other day, just when I needed it most (I was still hip-deep in lists, instead of being chin-deep in one big project). It was from Chris, and while there were many things in it that I will be sharing over the next week or so, you have got to see this today.
That, my dears, is two skeins of the most absolutely gorgeous Grandma's Blessing you ever did see, given to me by my dear friend Chris, so that I can knit something along with her for the Knitting Olympics. I just can't get the colors right. That brown is more chocolatey than that.
That's not quite it, either. It's much less ashy than that, and much richer. I'll work on it. In the meantime, go see the yarn she sent Anne; they're variations on a theme, and quite stunning. I think there are a few more variants out there; maybe I can get some pictures to share. And if you're in the mood for luxury, Chris has some of the most gorgeous handpainted cashmere you ever did see. Man, mmm....

So that's where I am. Either too many words or too few, but the yarn? It's just right.

Sticking my head up

So, I've now taught one week of classes and survived. I'm glad to have gotten through the first Monday of the semester, as that's my long day. I get to campus around 8:00 in the morning, and don't leave again until about 8:30 at night. The big stretch is my two afternoon classes, when I basically teach straight through from 4:00 until 8:30. But it went well (although I was definitely hungry by the time I finished and got home!), and my field methods class was as much fun as I'd hoped it would be. It's always hard to tell how it'll go that first night. Basically, the point of the class is to get a person who speaks a language other than English (and preferably a language to which neither I nor my students have been exposed) to come every week to class so that the students can elicit linguistic data from her and then analyze it to learn how the language works.

This semester, a friend of mine who speaks Bengali is the consultant, and she's clearly going to be fabulous. The students are always completely terrified beforehand, because they just don't understand anything about what's going on, or what this kind of thing looks like, or how it feels to have to write down everything someone says and then analyze it. So the first week, I give them about twenty minutes to get basic course business done, and then I get the consultant into the classroom and we do our first elicitation, and the only one that I will run (after this, the students decide what to ask her, and they do the asking and the writing; my job is to help guide them in their planning ahead of time and their analysis afterwards). By the end of the class, half of them still looked scared (normal), and the other half was running high, talking about how much fun that was, and they'd had no idea that it would be so much fun, and they couldn't wait for their turn to do the elicitation. Heh. Gotcha.

All the prep for that, plus the many other things on my plate right now (I'm simultaneously longing for the end of February, and terrified by how quickly it's coming), means that I haven't been doing too much knitting. I took the girls with me up to Tehachapi on Sunday to do fieldwork; they played outside in the snow:
while I worked inside and knitted away on the Babushka (which is very good meeting knitting, it turns out). I'm making progress, but it looks exactly the same as it has for quite a while now (in that way that shawls have, midway through), so I won't share any pictures right now.

I did, however, finally get the second set of beads I've been waiting on for the Tibetan Clouds Stole, and I'm really glad I did, because I think we've got a winner. See what you think.
(I think you can click to embiggen.) I am leaning strongly towards the one on the left, which is a silver-lined amber bead, as opposed to the one on the right, which is a copper-lined clear bead. The darker one (on the left) seems subtler to me, while having what looks to me like a richer fire. Opinions? Thoughts? I'm dying to get started on this, but want to finish the Babushka first, as I have both Older Daughter's sweater and a secret project on the needles right now. I'd be feeling bad about the distraction of the secret project, but Younger Daughter will benefit from it (and heck, I wanted to knit it), so at least I'm making good on my promise to each of the girls to produce something for them in the near future.

Meanwhile, the clouds are back, and we're in for some more weather. I don't think it'll be as wild as it was last week, though, when we got so much hail that it actually sat on the lawn for several hours before finally disappearing.
It's just a little surreal, especially with all that green sitting incongruously in the background.
Weird, huh? I'm hoping it doesn't do that again tomorrow, as it's a swim morning for me, and swimming in the hail and sleet isn't as much fun as it sounds (yes, it is an outdoor pool, and yes, it is heated; I'm not even close to crazy enough to swim in an unheated pool)(although I am apparently crazy enough to swim in the sleet; I don't know what that says about me).

Whew!

Well, that's done. The short story:

Wednesday: Got up early. Flew all day. Ate really good Vietnamese food, went to bed late.

Thursday: Got up early. Presented paper. Was comforted by the presence of a knitter in the audience who knitted all the way through presentation. Wore Elektra. Was entertained by sudden looks of realization on people's faces afterward when people stopped and said, "Wait a minute. Did you knit that?" Yup.

Friday: Got up early (are we seeing a theme here?). Went to some panels before being rescued by Rachael, who came and got me, took me for a lovely walk through Philadelphia, then to coffee, and fabulous local yarn store (where I bought a small goodie, not yarn, which I'll show off once I dust the camera off and take pictures; I'll link to it then, too -- great place), and then to a wonderful Italian deli for lunch. Mmm... I had no camera, so I took no pictures, but it was a perfect outing, full of good yarn (not only was the yarn store full of many good things, but we both had to laugh when we realized that we're knitting socks out of the exact same colorway of Zauberball), good food, and excellent company. Thank you, Rachael!

Saturday: Got up marginally less early (hooray!). Went to more panels, then walked through the rain to the Liberty Bell ("It's cracked, you know", said Rick), sent cell phone pictures in a text message to the family ("You're right. Cracked."), walked back through the harder rain. Attended more panels. Went to a wonderful Thai lunch at the market there in the center of town. (Note to self: Inexpensive food is FAR better in Philly than expensive food.) Took train to airport through increasing rain. Took off in plane through serious snow.

And now I'm home, and so very very glad to be here. I knitted my way through the conference, and was not the only person to do so. As I ate dinner alone on Friday night (I knew I'd had enough of people when I started giving serious stink-eye to the person behind me at a business meeting who kept leaning on my chair and making me crazy; I realized that she was a big famous person just in time to keep from saying something snarky -- not like me, and clearly a sign that I'd been around too many people for too long), the woman next to me, also eating dinner alone, introduced herself as a knitter (I was wearing Elektra) and took me off to her room to show me her absolutely stunning double knitting. I'm inspired. I might have to try that trick my ownself. I had very little to show off reciprocally, as I'd only brought boring knitting, plus the unbloggable project for the plane. But I finished that, and I finished Rick's socks (I'll post pictures later; they turned out well), and I started the socks for my niece, so I did all right.

I came home to find the pattern for my next project waiting for me. I'll be knitting this, out of this yarn, in a robin's egg blue colorway that doesn't appear to be up on the site anymore (glad I got it when I did!), and I am absolutely, 100%, dying to cast on, but my swatch on size five needles last night was way off gauge, and I cannot, for the life of me, find my size fours. Poop. Looks like I'll need to go buy some today, because I feel an overwhelming need to cast on. This is the sweater, folks, that is going to fit the way it should. The first time. Hear me say it now. I have consulted with Anne on the size, and I am bound and determined that this sweater will not be too big. It will be curve-skimming if it kills me. (Which it may, and you have my permission to pre-laugh; we all know how well I do on this size thing...)

It's pouring outside right now, perfect weather to stay indoors and catch up on everything I've let slide over the past two weeks. (You may also pre-laugh about that now.) And if I am really fast, maybe I'll even get to knit a little.

It's what day of the week again?

Thursday? How did that happen?

The funny thing is that yesterday I was utterly convinced for a while that I'd already made it through both of my teaching days for the week; it was a sad moment when I realized that I hadn't. I probably came to that conclusion because I had a very full teaching day on Tuesday, and then a very full day yesterday, with union meetings and student meetings and meetings with fellow faculty members and and and... (I won't even go into the email conversations.) Why are meetings so exhausting, I wonder?

Maybe because sometimes the conversations that happen in those meetings are so weird. For example, one of my appointments yesterday was with a student from my English grammar and syntax class (all I can say here is that it's much more fun than you think it is; trust me on this). She came in, all perky and hip and cute, and sat down in a chair in my office and told me, very wide-eyed, that she didn't understand anything at all. Nothing. Nada zip zilch. In fact, she understood so little that she didn't know what to ask. So (I've learned strategies for dealing with this over the years; it happens more than you'd think) I asked her to analyze a sentence in front of me so I could see where she was hanging up. Turns out she really did know nothing. Nada zip zilch. After four weeks of classes, she didn't know the first thing to do with a sentence. So she said to me, "I'll just be really honest here. I come to class and I'm there, you know? And then you start talking, and my brain just turns off! I don't know why, it just does. I mean, I'm sitting towards the front, so I only text a few times in class, with my mother..."

Seriously? I mean, seriously?

So I looked at her, very straight-faced, and I said, "I'll make a deal with you. I won't text in class if you won't text in class. How about that for a deal?"

That seems like a good deal, doesn't it? It just doesn't get fairer than that.

I'm going to believe that knitting will make it all better. Tonight there are new episodes of Bones and Fringe, and I intend to work on the Urban Aran through both of them. I'm almost done with the back, and if all goes according to plan I'll be able to finish that and cast on for the front(s) tonight. Now if only I could decide whether I'm doing them both at once (steeks! eeks!) or separately.

Tilly says, "Let's go for a walk instead."
"What? We just had a walk? Oh, well, if you're sure."

Update, with pictures

Rick and his folks and the girls are all off to the farmer's market. What does this mean for me? A little window of knitting internet time. Heh.

Before I get to the knitting (and there are updates on two projects, but not the third; I keep forgetting to take pictures of those socks, drat it), a quick update on the work situation, under the heading of "adding insult to injury". I went in yesterday morning, knowing that it was a furlough day for administration and staff, but that classes were still being held. (As a side note, the administration was extremely cranky that faculty wouldn't just be good and take our furlough days every other Friday so that our schedules would match up with theirs -- an excellent example of an administration-centric view of things. Faculty pointed out, however, that some folks teach classes that meet once a week, on Fridays. Were they to take furlough on nine of those Fridays -- in a fifteen-week semester -- the integrity of the class might be compromised, no? The administration grudgingly admitted that this might be so.) I have not planned to take most of my furlough days on Fridays, thinking that since I have to be on campus for meetings two Fridays a month, it might make sense to have office hours every Friday. I'm going to have to rethink that plan.

I arrived to find my building locked down tight. I could get in, of course, but my students most definitely couldn't, unless I'm harboring a lock-picking master criminal in one of my classes. I was then informed by a maintenance worker that the ventilation was going to be off in the building for the day because (and I quote) "no-one is on campus today". Well, except for, oh say, students and faculty. Who, apparently, don't need air to work. I can only assume that the air was left on in the (hopefully unlocked) classroom buildings. But it's pretty clear that I'm not going to be able to work comfortably on admin/staff furlough days unless I and my fellow faculty members manage to convince someone that when we're on campus that means that there are, in fact, people on campus. One step at a time, right?

Meanwhile, I continue to knit. I got the replacement yarn for that light blue that was bothering me in the Elektra sweater, and I am happy happy happy. (See why I keep knitting? I'm so easy to please.) Here's what it looked like before:
Not awful, but not quite right. Here's what it looks like now:
Much better. The new yarn is a handpainted yarn, and the colors are like jewels. They tie everything together, imho, perfectly, and I get just a little bit giddy every time I knit a row. That's how I was feeling about all of the other colors, too, so I know that I've got the right one this time. (Also, I think it just makes that darker blue pop.)
I can now continue with this jacket, which is a good thing; since it's a garter stitch sort of thing, it's perfect for meetings and soccer games.

In other news, the other night I was looking at the Urban Aran cardigan (yup, that's what that lovely golden-greeny sweater is going to be when it grows up) in that admiring way that we sometimes do (you know I'm not the only one), only to discover that I'd miscrossed a cable. Three times. What's up with that? (There on the left. Don't pretend you can't see them to save my feelings; I know they're there.)
(Also, forgive the bad photos here. I finally found time to do this last night and knew that if I waited for better light conditions so I could photo-document the process more nicely, I'd never get this job done.)

So I knitted my way back to that panel, and dropped those ten stitches back down to the lowest of the miscrossed cables. This was the first time I've ever done this with cables; but I figured it couldn't be different in principle from doing it in non-cabled knitting, right?
The nice thing about doing this in wool is that the stitches didn't go running away far past the point that I wanted them to. They waited patiently for me to tease out each row and then sat nicely while I put them all on a needle. Tilly found the whole process fascinating.
(Rick's comment: "You're going to have a dog nose in that picture." Dude, do you think I missed that?)

After that, it was a matter of treating each ladder of yarn just like I would the working yarn in my knitting. I knitted up each ten-stitch row, one by one. (As an aside, this is one of those places where I find that being able to hold the yarn in my left hand -- I usually am a thrower of yarn rather than a picker -- is extremely useful. Somehow I can't seem to do this with the working yarn in my right hand.)
I do this with either dpns or circulars (circs in this case, as you can see; one size smaller than the ones I'm using to knit the piece, just so I have some wiggle room). Then I can work each row from the front side, and not have to worry about turning the work over and purling. With a pattern like this that's only worked on one side, that gives me a "resting" row of knit stitches to even out the tension a little bit as I work my way back up the piece, one ladder at a time. (I'm not sure how clear that is, as I'm trying not to blather on and on; I'm sort of assuming that you all know how to do all of this already and are thinking, yes, yes, get on with it already.)

At the end, I had this:
It needs a bit of finagling to make everything even and neat again, but blocking will take care of most of that, and I can always tease at the stitches a bit with a needle if necessary. (Actually, after I took that picture, I sort of pulled at it and poked it a bit, and the left side now mirrors the right almost exactly; blocking should take care of the rest easily.) The main point is that all of the cables are crossed in the right directions this time, and that I can now work on this again.

I need to start dividing up my knitting time more evenly between these projects, in fact, given when I'd like to be wearing each of them. My thought was that the aran might be nice for going to Ohio at the end of October, and that I'd like to have Elektra done by the end of November in case I end up going to present a paper at a conference that's happening then (the paper's been accepted; I just don't know if I can reasonably afford the trip right now). So I really ought to be working more on the Urban Aran than on Elektra.

So, that's the knitting update. In other news, it looks like today will be a beach day, and tomorrow is a get-together barbecue day, so our Labor Day weekend is starting to fill up. I hope you all get to enjoy yours, too!

D.O.N.E. with a cherry on top

Well. There you go. I've graded and graded. And I've added and added. And it looks to me like I'm done. All that's left to do is to officially file my grades, but I'm going to wait until Monday to do that (I post all the grades online for my students to look at; this way, if I've made any mistakes, they catch them before I officially file the grades -- changing grades after they've been filed is a pain). But the work is all done.

With a cherry on top.

This means that I can go home and knit, right? I'm convinced I'm missing something, and someone's going to jump out from behind a bush somewhere with a whole pile of grading I've forgotten, shouting, "BOO!"

I have to give up my computer before I leave work today. They need to upgrade the system, and then they have to give me an external hard drive to back it up regularly, because it turns out that they can't persuade our servers to back up the Macintosh computers on campus. ?? I don't understand it, but as long as I'm backed up somewhere, I guess I'm happy (as an aside, this may fix my little problem with iPhoto, in which my photos keep randomly getting eaten). So, my access will be sporadic this weekend, but with luck I can pick my laptop up on Monday and it will be all fixed up for me to leave on sabbatical.

So, really. This means I can go home and knit. Right?

It's Monday

And how I wish it were still the weekend. Ah, well. Only three more weeks left of classes, and then we're into finals, and then I can start catching up on everything that I wasn't able to get to this semester (research? I'm supposed to do research? oops...).

We had a peaceful weekend, which I really needed. Yesterday, we took the dogs for a nice long hike at Calavera, which was exactly what the doctor ordered. I think we wore Kia out.
Even Tilly slowed down for a little while, although she was happy to help out when Rick and the girls washed the cars.

I got caught up on some grading, which was a relief, and got a little bit of knitting done (I'll show you when I have a picture). I also ordered some bobbins and a niddy-noddy on eBay. I figured that only having one bobbin was going to be annoying at some point, and that plying might be more successful if done from two bobbins rather than from both ends of a center-pull ball (these are the things I tell myself to feel better when I compare my spinning to "real" yarn).

I got the niddy-noddy not only to make skeins of spun yarn, but also because of a thought I'd had about knitting Aberlady (yup, that's still floating around in my head). Remember this?
This is the lovely yarn that my friend Jill brought me all the way from Iceland for my birthday. It's laceweight, and I've been admiring it and petting it and carefully considering what I might knit with it. And then, as I was contemplating Aberlady, and thinking indignantly to myself that 9 sts/in is, if you really think about it, laceweight, for goodness' sake, it occurred to me that I have laceweight. Lovely laceweight in a color I adore.

But I don't know how much I have. And it occurred to me that if I had a niddy-noddy, I could wind off a certain number of yards, and, if I had a good scale, I could weigh those yards, then weigh all the yarn, and then do some basic arithmetic (I think I'm good for it), and then I'd know whether I had enough to make a sweater. Of course, I could also go with the ol' eyeball method ("this certainly looks like enough yarn for a sweater!"), which brings a certain je ne sais quoi to the knitting process, a frisson, if you will. But I'm thinking that for this one, maybe I'll go with the surefire method. What do you think?

(P.S. Marilyn -- Those mitts that you asked about are Anne Hanson's ZigZag mitts; you can get to them from the pattern store link on her blog. They were a great pattern, and I had a blast making them; I used Fearless Fibers merino for them, and they turned out beautifully.)

Peace and quiet

Well, it's cooled down a bit, and should stay that way for the next few days. There was actually a marine layer this morning, and I wished for a light jacket while walking the dogs this morning. What a change from the past few days. All of this is making me think that maybe it's our year for solar panels and air conditioning, but there's a part of me that balks. I live eight miles from the ocean for goodness' sake. I shouldn't need air conditioning -- that's what the Pacific is for! However, it would appear that the climate, she is a-changin'.

I was very amused by the enthusiasm that everyone showed for watching me knit a sweater at 9 sts/in. I note that almost no-one else is willing to jump on that bandwagon with me, but watching me do it seems like a very good idea. (Ellen, you're off the hook on this one!) Of course, I'm a fine one to talk, as I'm all for enabling people to go out there and do the things that I'm not quite willing to take on myself (like dyeing, for example). I'm really leaning towards Aberlady in spite of the gauge. I just love the subtlety of the textures in that sweater. I figure I can always do Cromarty as a next sweater, right? The one thing that's giving me pause is the fact that Aberlady is a pullover with a relatively high neck. I'm not a fitted-sweater person, usually; I always feel constricted somehow, like I can't move freely. So I need to consider whether I'll wear it, and if I think I won't, whether there's some way to turn it into a cardigan, or whether that would ruin the lines.

Meanwhile, I've also got to find the right yarn. I think this must mean that I have to visit my LYS, right? Darn. We all know how horrible it is to have to go yarn shopping. (Not.)

Today is looking to be a quiet day. Yesterday I got the word that our faculty meeting was cancelled. I know that it is unbecoming to a professional to cheer when getting such news, but I will confess here that that is just what I did. I then promptly cancelled all other obligations for the day (I even said that I wasn't going to my knitting group, which should be some indication of how desperately I need time all by myself), packed up the huge pile of grading that needs to be done (it's about eight inches high; that may not sound like much, but think of all the paper in those eight inches), and said I'd be at home today if anyone needs me. A whole day, alone in my house. Wow.

So I've taken the dogs for a walk, and I've had my cup of coffee, and I'm about to start on the first assignment. I figure if I reward myself with a couple of rows of lace for every assignment graded, that should keep me motivated, right? Not to mention the joy of knowing that the grading will no longer be waiting for me on my desk, a little smirk on its crumpled up pages, taunting me with its undoneness. I am the boss of my grading. (Why do I hear little bitty titters coming from my bookbag?)