I miss college.
I'm a non-degree student at UMass, which means in my case that I'm taking classes to keep my fingers in the methods and ways of learning while I try and pay off my old college enough to apply somewhere else. A bit convoluted, but it works for me.
In my second class at UMass (a much bigger institute than where I started - Wellesley), I am reminded that the intro classes are almost always some of the most attractive, fun classes that a department will offer. It is not solely because they are easier, though I'm sure that is part of it, but because they are designed to make the experience of learning this new thing (it was as true in my 111 biology class as it was in some of my art classes) as painless and as full of joy as possible. My first CS class was full of creation and art, making a program that drove you through the computer to make something concrete.
Now I am taking Data Structures. It even manages to sound drier. I've gone from the concrete to the theoretical, from making things that I can show off to anyone on the street to manipulating small pieces of information and hoping that my knowledge suffices to manipulate them in a way that doesn't change the data as much as it organizes and stores the data. A much less glamorous operation.
All of this makes me love the socks so much more. I don't have a picture right now, but imagine the ripple weave (last seen less than one full repeat into the cuff) sock with that awkward teenager look of a sock with a gusset. See the nifty garter edges and a gusset that has absolutely (or abso-smurph-alutely) no holes in that irritating spot near the join for the instep. Isn't it beautiful?
It is. And it is keeping me sane while the whirlwind summer of weddings moves into a frantic fall of weddings and homework is done in nooks and crannies of my day. The sock is likewise built in the brief interstices of my day, but it is beautiful and makes me happy.
