7 posts tagged “knitting”

I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing with my time these days. I mean I'm always procrastinating on school, obviously. But like... I don't feel like I'm doing any of my "leisure pursuits" either. I amn't reading... and I am totally slacking on knitting anything. I haven't put any time into getting through the backed-up stack of unlistened-to music I recently came into possession of... I haven't played majiang in like... 3 weeks? A month? I have been pretty slacky on vox, too.

What have I been up to! I guess it's just been a lot of small distractions adding up to the equivalent of doing something decent.

I had a long entry planned, but as I am apparently up to my navel in chemistry and calculus, I'll just keep it short so I can get everything down before I forgetttt:

- a part of our residence building flooded, resulting in
       a) refugees from that area now living in our part of the building
       b) a 3 am fire alarm, which didn't bother me because I had just come back from production night for the paper (I'm            staff now, hooray) and was thus still up - this fire drill was followed by a fire drill dance party in my room. so it            was okay.
- it's been snowmelt weather lately - fingers crossed
- I'm knitting myself a quiver - details to follow
- contemporary society is not conducive to competence (you could always fix... i don't know, a spinning wheel, but now the average denizen cannot fix a computer - neither can most techies) - hence, I am endeavouring to embrace as much DIY as possible, so I can recapture some control of my life and environment by being able to make and mend things - knitting has been a convenient first step
- fuck my scanner

My chain scarf is going well. I finally figured out how I was switching knit-purl on the wrong stitch, which was making one part of each "link" look funny. But now successive links are better.

My Bioethics assignment is only minimally happening.

Today's weather was terribly unpleasant. Really quite cold. And snow falling at about the rate and density of rain. Really small flakes.

Thinking about including that in this post led to this dialogue in the Common Room, featuring me, my neighbour, who I will designate with A, and my friend, let's say L.

Me: You know, I realized today that I am that boring person who always talks about the weather.
[I realized this long ago, but I brought it up like that]
L: Hah.
Me: I mean, with like Fung [the caf] staff, and with acquaintances, when they say "How are you?", I say "I'm good, it's cold," or "I'm okay, it's sunny out."
A: Yeah that's true.
L: I've never noticed that.
Me: Do you mean it's true about me or people in general?
A: I mean about you.
Me: That's because L is my friend, and you're my acquaintance.
A: Pff.
Me: I'm kidding.
[A leaves]
Me: I'm not kidding.
L: Haha.

I am an asshole in real life. "I.R.L." The acronym R.L. was used in this way in one of the university papers today, and I didn't really know what to think of that.

I called my old boss from the post office today. She's pregnant, 40, and a chain smoker. Good luck.

Last night was "Fireball", this big dance or whatever that my college does to commemorate our building burning down in 1890. What I'm sure used to be quite a nice event now seems (by descriptions by friends) to have turned into a night of vomit-wading. Charming. Needless to say, I did not attend. Really not my cup of tea.

Instead, I saw a screening of "Up the Yangtze"! Dad texted me Saturday morning recommending it to me, and I'm glad I went. A friend and I headed up to Cumberland (the only place it was playing) through the slushy night for the 10 pm showing. The director was there! We arrived just as he finished his introduction.

The movie was good. Sad. As any story about the human impact of the Three Gorges will tend to be... But it was well shot, and managed to document a lot of angles on the story, showing even a lot of stuff I'm sure the government wouldn't have authorized. If they had known...

It showed Chinese life well, and the contrasts between cultures were apparent. Mainland people just seem so much more... mature, sensible. Even optimistic. Here, most of us have minor hardships, yet tend to be quite negative (myself included and especially). There, despite quite large levels of hardship, especially in the peasant family the story followed, optimism persists. People recognized that although they were personally suffering, and in fact being rather mistreated, it was for the country's greater good. As one man said, roughly, "We must sacrifice the little family for the big family". Even the youths showed maturity far beyond what I would even come to expect from adults here. Speaking of a girl new to the boat they were employed on, a group of late-teens girls said things like, "She must learn to be more humble in the kitchen - she needs to learn to ask for help when she needs it." and "She will change with time". Let me translate what this would be like here: "Yu Shui is so ugly. Did you see that shirt she was wearing? I don't want her around me."

The white tourists in the film looked the worst. Their constant, inane questions, poor and cheesy attempts to take in "local culture", and just... everything careless and stuck-up they said... it was embarassing. If I ever go to China, my greatest fear will to be a tourist like that. I don't want to be a tourist! I should have been born there instead.

Oh well... my life is good!

On another note, moss stitch is not going well. For some reason, I just can't seem to wrap my head around the coordination involved in the knit-purl transition and vice-versa. Even when I think I figure it out and a couple stitches turn out fine, I screw up others and it's a mess. And I really like the look of the [proper] stitch, so... I need to keep working at it.

Wow earlier in the week I was thinking about how I was enjoying how slowly the days were passing (boo only 7/8 of my undergrad left...). And then the last 3 days went by like nothing!! I did get sick though, so I think that may explain it. I did nottthhhinnnng yesterday. I got half a reading done. Tsk tsk.

But I got a whole lot done today and it didn't feel like too much work. Sure it was 6+ hours of work, but I've discovered that bringing my knitting to the library and doing some between sections helps to keep me from getting bored. And fun yarn makes the library (a grey example of Brutalist architecture) a much more pleasant place.

People are commenting on how much happier I seem! That's good! I do feel so very happy lately. Life is good, if you notice it. Just the experiences of life are enough. The feel of a wall, the smell of plants (and I don't just mean flowers - not many of those this time of the year), the sound of music on the street, the low winter sun on a seemingly autumn day - i feel like I've been missing out. How could I?? Stop and smell the roses - really! Or in my case, Salvinia molesta, which we are working with in Bio lab. We're doing a 9 week eutrophication study, and it's really quite cool. I'm definitely going to take Limnology in 3rd year.

Another pleasure of life: friends. Some housemates went out for dinner tonight - the food was good but the company was the best.

Someone told me that I'm "a good friend, you know". That means a lot to me, because I've been really trying to be lately. To everyone. Even to people that aren't to me. Being mean is no way to be happy. And I'm glad I realize that.

So life is good!

I realized that resolving to "maintain a journal" conflicts with resolving to "get off the internet". This is a compromise - I haven't touched the computer in 3 days. And that is unusual for me.

Several things have happened in the last few days. Knitting continues. Purling is not coming easily to me, likely because I didn't know how to do it before, unlike garter which came back easily thanks to YouTube. But I'll get it, and I seem to be managing on garter although nothing amazing is happening. I did knit myself a nifty kerchief though!

Also, I finally came out to a friend of mine last night. Yes it was the first time. It was totally lame that it's taken me so long, and I didn't want it to be some event, but it was as much as it had to be. But it went totally well as I figured it would. Apparently this has happened to her several times. That taken into consideration, I was surprised that she hadn't been able to tell, but I guess people just don't assume. She said "I just thought you were insecure". Which I really am regardless.

Anyway so I'm pretty happy. In general I'm completely thrilled to be back at school. I really missed everyone, and just being back in the city is rather swell. My philosophy class was cancelled this morning, and it was lame because I didn't know until I got there and it's all the way across campus, but I feel free, and I want to make something of this morning. Go for a walk, catch up with friends....

Or do readings.

Whichever.

I've decided to take up knitting again. Why did I ever stop? It's relaxing. Well it's probably because I was never very good at it. But so far I've managed to recover my skill level up to creating those awkward loose rectangles that don't pass for anything useful. Really I'm quite horrid.

Practise makes perfect!