AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

a new adventure?

I sent my request yesterday to Wellesley to see if I could get my official transcript. Now there might be some weird flag I don't know about in my record that says, "No, we will not take your six dollars and give you your two copies of an official transcript," in which case I will have to figure out what my alternatives are.

However, if they send me my official transcript, I am going to apply to UMass Boston to finish my degree. I might be able to graduate something like 10-12 years after I started if they accept me into their CS-IT program.

I won't be doing full time school, but instead taking classes after work and getting as much done as possible while I can. I already have 2 CS classes from UMass under my belt, though they were forever ago (and one of the classes was horrible. Probably the worst or second worst professor I've had including the doozy I had at Wellesley).

Of course, there is less time for knitting if I am educating myself, but I am OK with that. I would just like to earn my little piece of paper that says I'm not dumb as a box of rocks.

It's either that or I take up belly dancing, and really my belly is soft so everybody should want me to get my degree instead!

[10 Tuesday] college dreaming

I feel like a poster child writing this. This week's topic for 10 for Tuesday is 10 things you would tell a college freshman. I'm not sure I have 10, but because I never finished at Wellesley and can pinpoint things to my own stupidity and willful ignorance of things I didn't want to see or acknowledge I feel like the ones I have are really important.

Dear College Students,

I know it sounds like forever ago, but I was a college student in the early nineties. I could have done more with my time: tried new things, learned more interesting stuff and more diligently, and I could have taken more responsibility. For many of you, this might be your first truly unsupervised time away from home. I know it was for me.

When you are in school, this is a great time to invent yourself. Maybe you love how you were in high school or not, but there are at most colleges many more offerings, things to try and do. Maybe your school is like mine and only offered a one act play each year or only did Shakespeare, and at college you can try a huge assortment of theater offerings. Or maybe you wanted to be a scientist and need to get some extra lab time. Joining groups, making friends with both other students and your professors will help with many things. Just because you think you will be bad at it is no reason to just not do it. Maybe you will find your niche.

I know not everybody has a plan, but if you do have one you need to not be 100% tied to it. There might be something you are better suited for or something that is wonderfully interesting that you never would have gotten to try if you did nothing outside of your premed track. That said, use your summers wisely. While it might be easy to work as I did at the library job you had all year, a science job in the future works best if you do a science job now. The same can be said for those with political aspirations or computer science. Application of what you've learned makes you much more prepared than the people who take the easy way out. While I enjoyed my summers of working in the library and I did learn a lot, if I had wanted to continue with biochemistry they did nothing for my prospects. Take that risk and see what happens. It is better than playing the what if game forever.

Lastly, and this is the biggest of the big three, take responsibility. I know you already are, but you are the only one who is affected if you don't get your financial aid paperwork in on time. If you file your papers late, you may not get the funding you need. One or two weeks might not kill it, but the longer you wait and pretend it doesn't matter or exist the less likely you are to get anything. Lack of funds can kill college dreams faster than almost anything else. 

I know you are smart. Take the forms and when your parents have filled out their part, take the time to immediately fill out yours. If you don't understand the form, it is not your fault. They, like many a tax form, are very dense and obtuse in their language. There are people to help you on campus, often an entire department of them. If you call and are polite rather than panicky, then they can answer your questions. Once the forms are filled out and any supporting materials are collected, mail them that day. 

The one thing I've regretted more than any other at my time in college was the semester I realized that I didn't submit my financial aid forms in on time. Instead of biting the bullet and asking the financial aid department and sending them in late, I tried to pretend that everything was fine. The forms were just becoming later and later until it was simply too late. It was a stupid thing to do, and only now more than 10 years later am I ready to entertain going back to college.

Now pretty much all of this is useful even if you aren't going to college. If you look at the BCAE (Boston Center for Adult Education) and a class sounds interesting, then collect your dollars and try it. It might become the great love of your life. If you need to find a new job as so many people do, try to find something that will further your dreams and aspirations rather than leaving your life on hold. If you have a bill and you cannot pay it now, don't forget about it or think that it will go away. That way lies repossessions, mortgage woes, or smaller but no less irritating things like having your electric shut off. Figure out when you can pay it in full or if you can pay at least a part and do it right away. Even a partial payment is better for your future credit rating that pretending a bill doesn't exist.

Signed,
A Financial Aid Poster Child

(I didn't intend for this to sound depressing!)

things I've forgotten

When E and I were neighbors we were in each others apartments all the time. We would always help each other make something for dinner and more often than not share out the food. It is infinitely easier to cook usefully for 4 people than it is to cook for 2. Most recipes serve 4-8, and there is only so much you can do halving a recipe.

She and I did some cooking today. There was chopping, stirring and I didn't need to touch the chicken, because she did that part for me. There were amazing smells and while it might not be a restaurant quality meal, it is better. I know what is in the food, so I can answer questions. I know which things I can and cannot eat, and I got to share the kitchen who likes to cook as much as I.

And because I don't know when to quit, there will probably be leftovers.

Turpin's big hairy...

Judge Turpin's ball is so large!

I made a scarf for a guy in the show in the last week. I picked up the yarn, Cascade Magnum, a super bulky on sale at the Stitch House in Dorchester. All of the Cascade yarns in stock are 40% off for this month, which made the price I quoted him for a scarf pretty reasonable. 

Per normal, I wound my ball on the train into work. Normally my yarn balls are, well, normal size. I mean, a ball of sock yarn only gets so large if wound from a hank. This was enormous. I wonder what people thought as we were snapping a picture of the yarn.

I started the scarf the morning of the Friday show, and was more than halfway done that day. I showed it to our Turpin and he loved it and wanted a bit more length, so I took out the cable I put in the end, and knit until I had only a few grams left (thank goodness for a digital scale), and added the cable and last bit of ribbing back in.

The finished scarf is about 4 inches or 5 inches wide and about 64 inches long.

The project was simple, a long ribbed scarf with a single reversible cable on each end about 3 or 4 inches from the end. It took a single skein of Magnum.

Now, in the last year or so there were a couple of super bulky cardigans using this yarn, which felt like they were completely out of my price range. If the sale is still going on, I still love the sweater (the one I'm thinking of is a cabled sweater from Vogue Knitting that used three skeins of this stuff). However, the yarn itself was pretty hairy, soft and squishy which is good, but had a tendency to leave little hairy yarn particles on my clothing as I was working it. I don't know if worked up and blocked it would be better, but it might be easier to take a bulky spun yarn (rather than a huge underwoven single) and double strand it for the same effect.

Some things are too painful

The only safe thing from Go Fug Yourself

I don't normally look at Go Fug Yourself. I don't follow much in the way of celebrities the same way I don't watch much television and only watch as many movies as I do through the power of Netflix. But if you hate life and don't like cats, I can imagine the hate filled expressions of cats dressed up as Egyptians, Na'vi and Edward would fill you with much dread.

At least the cake looks amazing.

hey, hey he's a monkey!

Hey Kat! It's the rally monkey!

My husband and I had tickets to see the Red Sox v. the Angels last night. I felt almost well enough to see the game by the time 5 p.m. rolled around, but I definitely should have taken more Dayquil. I am on day three of the "I was in this fun musical and all I got was this lousy cold." It's more meds and sleeping for me today.

But last night without the benefit of extra meds I went to the game, and my husband was completely decked out in Angels gear: t-shirt, hat, jersey and rally monkey. People were asking if we were from California, because the locals don't believe in going traitor for a team outside the state.

Mr. Rally Monkey didn't want to watch the game, which looked promising for the Angels near the beginning when they were at least getting hits. Mr. RM was a little smug about that, and then we had home runs. It was not a good day to be a rally monkey. It looked like they had a chance to score some points late in the game when Mr. RM turned around and was clapping for all he was worth, but the Sox doing some decent fielding and weren't willing to step it down just for the monkey.

Before the game I stopped by Windsor Button to buy more yarn. I had neglected to put an easy project in my bag and I go a bit stir crazy if I cannot do something with my hands, so two skeins of sock yarn later and more needles I had a sock to start. I'm about halfway through the leg, but here is a photo lovingly modeled by Mr. RM. 

I don't think he liked wearing his pointy fez, but at least he didn't complain about it.

The yarn is Happy Feet, and the color is mulberry with bits of darker purply-red in it. It's hard to get that color to show up with the red background of the seats.

Of course, Kat (from Ravelry) was in the next seats over and she noticed Mr. Rally Monkey. About 2 seconds later she noticed my knitting. Yup, knitters are everywhere. Even at ball games.

two more shows

I just got home from the Thursday night show. I'm exhausted, cranky and hardly thinking straight, which is the perfect time for a blog post, right?

I love doing shows, but I miss having my southbound compatriot. Even if we were taking the T home, which was admittedly not often as she is car-enabled, we were company almost all the way home. We could rant about the same things or if I was off base (or she was), we could cajole the other out of the foul mood. She was sensible and realized that a show was a bad idea even if she wanted to do it.

I was not.

At least I'm almost done with an entire knitting project. A scarf started on August 12th that will be completed on August 13th is a good anodyne to my grumpies. Now out with the contacts, put my bag away where Victor cannot discover its delicious, delicious contents, and to bed.

blessed!

I've been blessed by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Saturday I started the Pile-Able Pups from MochiMochi Land. I'm rejiggering the pattern for a completely different gauge, because I wanted to use a yarn that was wool-free, affordable (aka, found at the AC Moore I found myself at on Saturday) in an appropriately girly color. What I found was this Beehive Baby Sport yarn, which looked like a center pull ball.

It lied to me.

The center pull string was really somehow attached to the outside yet looped and twisted around the inside of the ball. Within minutes I had a stringy mess. Thankfully I was in a whimsical mood, and was mostly amused by my spaghetti nature.

I'm using this site to lazily recalculate all of the numbers for the pattern. Of course, I have a lot of knitting left to do and only today to get it done in. I always wish when I pull something last minute like this that I could knit faster or take time off from work, which is even sillier because I wouldn't necessarily get more done by staying home.

I have about 60 rows to finish before I can do the feet, tail and ears. I wonder how long it will take...

[10 Tuesday] -- from the vegetarians

Today's 10 for Tuesday is about loving bacon.

Now, I'm a card carrying (not literally) vegetarian since 1992, and my experiences with bacon are for the love of my husband and my friends. Other than that, bacon and I are distinctly not friends.

Instead, I'm revelling in having a couple of days off between shows to review my score, catch up on sleep, bond with Victor and enjoy not needing to touch bacon in either its cooked or uncooked state.

What about veggie bacon?

I'll admit that I have not tried veggie bacon, and I shouldn't disregard something without trying it. That said, visually veggie bacon is woefully unappealing, kind of flat and lacking the texture and color that makes bacon attractive at all. I've been told that veggie bacon also actually tastes like bacon, which makes it doubly bad for me. If I wanted something that tasted like bacon, I would have cashed in the vegetarian card years ago and just gone for it.

However, if you really must have bacon, I suggest you try this on for size.

blame my husband

I hadn't experience this before, but I have now and must share! It was good enough to keep me up past 1 a.m. (after getting home from the show).