Adventure 46 - Keeping Busy

Complications with the application and government clearance and all sorts of fun things have prevented me from starting my internship just yet, so I've been trying to find ways to keep myself entertained. Which is how I wound up knitting for four and a half hours when we lost power Saturday afternoon.

My stepdad's mom had taught me how to knit a few years ago, and I had a potholder-sized scarf knitted before I forgot how to finish it from lack of practice. Luckily, one of my college friends picked up knitting because of a girl she saw in her super-boring honors class who was also knitting. She retaught me how to knit, directed me to a few sites that helped her start, and I pretty much taught myself the rest.

I'm not exactly a classy knitter like she is. She started with the fancy, local-grown yarn and cute little wooden needles she bought at a store back at school. I started with the Walmart special yarn and ginormous needles. My splurge was a ball of Red Heart Soft yarn that was *le gasp!* two bucks more, or something stupid like that.

At any rate, I finished a scarf today. It's almost the length of my arm span, so I'm guessing just shy of 5 feet. I did a 3 knit, 3 purl pattern on 30 stitches, and I used red and black yarn (i.e. two strands), so it's a pretty thick and toasty scarf. Not something I wanted to be trying on in today's 75-degree weather, but it'll serve me well back at school (if it bothers to snow again...).

I had to hang it on my doorknob to get a good length picture.

Up-close shot of the stitching...

...and the stitching stretched out to show the ribbing.

So yeah, I could probably be doing better things with my time before I lose it to a full-time job (I reeeeeally need the money), but it's fun in the mean-time.

Next project: a modified fishtail. I say "modified" because this is the original pattern, and I didn't think I was going to have enough yarn in this batch to make 20 stitches across, so I did it with 15 instead. Pictures of that will come when I'm done (so whenever I run out of this yarn).

Adventure 45 - Back Home

I've been home for almost a week and I'm still not completely unpacked just yet. The important stuff is.

I still have a bit before I start my internship (and before you get excited, it has nothing to do with journalism, but I'm getting paid 12 bucks an hour full-time to be the office bitch and I really need the money), but in the mean time, I am extremely bored. I spent a good portion of the other night looking up knitting patterns. I made shortbread flowers for a friend who is in a show I'm seeing tomorrow night. I'm making dinner tonight. I might be going to the high school later for the softball senior night, and I went to their game on Monday (they won, which was the first time they had beaten that team in 7 years, and I got hugs from everyone, so it was a win-win).

I know I'll be kicking myself later for saying this, but I'm so bored!

Adventure 44 - Reflections

It's a little mindblowing that I'm done with my first year of college. It seemed like it went by so quickly, like graduation wasn't a year ago (well, almost). But my stuff is (mostly) packed and I'll be leaving to go home in the morning.

I feel like I accomplished a lot this year. For example:

• I started off with a core group of zero and now have quite a few friends from several different groups of people.
• I joined new groups, like VOX and sword team.
• And I got my orange belt. And I used a real katana to slice things.
• I took a variety of different classes, ranging from theater stuff and stop-motion animation to journalism and biology.
• I had two pretty consistent part-time jobs at one of the campus dining halls and at the children's science museum downtown.
• I learned to be pretty self-sufficient living on my own (though cooking and laundry were things I already knew how to do).
• I familiarized myself with the city enough so I know where basic things are (like grocery shopping).

And most importantly, I learned how to push my own boundaries by trying new things.

It's been fun. I look forward to more college adventures in the fall.

Adventure 43 - Packing Up

It doesn't officially start until tomorrow, but I had to give my fridge back to the fridge rental people so I started getting things together. I found a box of all the cards I've received the past two semesters from various family members (including my ex's mom, who is the most awesome ex-mother-in-sortof-law ever). The best cards in terms of sayings are as follows:

(front) I don't just think the world of you, I think the universe of you...
(inside) ...including Jupiter and little ex-planets like Pluto.
(Of course, they should've just said "I think the Solar System of you," but I doubt that would've had quite the same effect.)


(front) Chips without dip. Pretzels without beer. Macaroni without cheese. Bagel without cream cheese. Mashed potatoes without gravy. Me without you.
(inside) Not only do I miss you, but now I'm really hungry.

But my personal favorite is still this birthday card I saw in a grocery store once:
(front) I bet the Angels were smiling the day you were born.
(inside) They came back to beat Detroit 10-9 in the bottom of the ninth with a walk-off grand slam.
(horrible baseball joke but I thought it was great)

Adventure 42 - The Meaning of Life

You know I had to do that, though if I really wanted to be accurate, the post would've been titled "Adventure 42 - The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything."

Anyway, I have some video footage from the massive fucking thunderstorm that just hit that I would like to share.

Adventure 41 - Motivation

I'm finally done with my 20-pager, but I'm still running a little low on motivation. I came across this this morning and I'm going to share it, between its inspirationalness and my lack of motivation to post.