Pre posting

I'm on a crafting kick lately that involves very cute knits for very cute kids. All packages will be going in the mail this week, and all recipients read the blog fairly regularly, so I've written the posts up and scheduled them to go live, hopefully, after the packages arrive. That leaves me with nothing great to say right now, so don't despair, my lovely readers, there will be knitting soon....

The Universe always provides

Just a quick check-in. Today is much better than yesterday. I had an absolutely lovely lunch with another knitter who is also a physicist, so she's as cool as they come in my book. A leisurely lunch with great conversation was just so normal on a day like today that is was perfect. Well, almost normal, we did eat outside on the day before Thanksgiving. I will adapt to this weather eventually.

Top that off with some encouraging news from a granting agency, not an award just yet, but not a rejection either, and not the make you want to cry kind of reviews, but the kind of letter that says could you fix a few things for us, which in this game is encouraging. It's a biggy too, the kind that would get my Co-PI's tenure when they go up next year, and give me instant cache around here, so encouraging is really exciting news.

And, just this morning I finally broke through the wall on my next paper. There is still a lot of work to do, but I now have a vision/road map in my mind, rather than just a jumble of numbers, it's the turning point on any paper and the rest is hard work, but not the kind where you feel like you are banging your head against a wall. Sometimes science is a mystery to even scientists.


So the world stays in balance. The way I like it. :)

Displaced

This is the third time I've started this post. I can't seem to say what I want to say in a way that isn't rude. As a general rule I try not to be rude. I'm trying, to be more positive in my life and negativity just doesn't really have a place. I'm also trying to not make this blog a whine fest. But I'm so agitated and I feel like what I have to say is important, but I can't make it not sound like whining, or like I'm being rude.

Here's what I'm feeling: I HATE IT HERE! EVERYONE SUCKS. NO ONE IS NICE AND THEY MAKE EVERYTHING HARDER THAN IT HAS TO BE.

See, whining, rude and generalizing. All counter productive. To be fair, not everyone sucks. The knitters are nice. They're the only people I actually know, so maybe if I knew more people I would think that the balance of sucks to nice was tipped to the nice, or at least balanced. But everyone it sort of mean right off the bat, making it very hard to get to know more people, it's a circular problem.

I guess maybe what I can say is some general advice to humanity. When someone starts off a conversation with "I'm new to the area" we should all respond as the bestest nicest most helpful person we know how to be. We should take a moment and put ourselves in the shoes of someone who feels isolated, scared and alone all the time, and respond appropriately. Inappropriate phrases include: "You're in xxxx now", "why would you want to do that", and "I can't understand you're accent". Saying things of this nature do nothing to foster good feelings towards you as an individual, or your culture in general. It is not easy, for someone to move somewhere new, and find that even the simplest tasks, like making a Drs appointment*, are somehow beyond their capability. Let's all try to be a little sympathtic to our fellow humans and do our part to make the world a better place. It's the holiday's y'all, spread a little cheer, and remember YOU have an accent too.

Alright, so I can't say it without being Snarky. Oh well, in the end it's my blog, don't read it if you think I'm terrible.

* I did manage to make the appointment after spelling my name about 15 times. Apparently X-ray and Xylophone are not the best words to get across X in a New Englander's accent. Anybody else know one I could use? And Sam and Charlie are how you would get across S and C right? And why wouldn't it be normal to have my old medical records forwarded? What Dr. wouldn't want them? I am now consummed with fear of actual going...

Fall Begins

Ugh, why does the camera cord go missing everytime you want to upload pictures?

Anyways, I managed a crazy workaround so that I can show you what I was up to all of October. Knitting a sweater faster than I ever have before. I skipped NaNoSweMo this year because I did it a month early. It was one of those things that just consumed me and I did not knit anything else. I'm blaming the yarn, and the need to feel like fall was upon us even though the weather and the calendar were at odds with one another for this displaced New Englander. I'm calling is my Fall Begins sweater for a couple of reasons. First I cast on on October 10th, which is (in my old world) the beginning of fall, which I completely missed this year. Fall really invoked the homesick chez Science and Craft. Second, I finished on Halloween, which was very weird around here, since kids didn't have to wear jackets over their costumes, but there was a little chill in the air that made me feel like it might eventaully get below 70 here.

Here's the deal:
Pattern: Summer's End free on Ravelry from Overbrewed.
Yarn: Classic Elite Skye Tweed (Rav). color Dungeon (1275), just under 9 balls. Sadly this is the last of my stash of this discontinued yarn. I bought it at Webs 2 years ago with the intention of making a scarf. Why I bought a sweater's worth I don't know, but it was a happy accident in this case.
Needles: US size 7 and 5. I went down a size from the pattern based on my cobblestone swatches, it worked out ok.
Size: Small. This was not the size I initially choose based on my measurements, but when I thought about the number of stitches that I had just used for hub's sweater, and considering the ratio of him to me I went with the small. I compenstated in the chest area with some short rows.
Mods:

• The short rows obviously.
• I lengthed the sleeves to be full length (16" instead of the pattern designated 12").
• I added two rows of garter stitch more than the hems called for, same at the waistband. At the hems because I wanted them to match the button bands. At the waist because I thought it might provide a little more shaping, it didn't.
• 3 button holes instead of four. This was dictated by the buttons I had on hand. 4 would have been overkill.

Thoughts: Overall I'm pretty happy with it. In retrospect I would have added about another inch between the short rows and underarm. But it works ok on.

And here's one more thing, I had another ball of the yarn leftover and I just wasn't done working with it: So I made a little hat. Following this pattern, minus the pom poms and ribbing. I'll never wear the two together, that violates all kinds of fashion and knitting rules, but we did combine the photo shoots :)

Fortunately, it did get a little chilly here over the weekend and I got to wear the hat for all of 10 minutes at a shuttle stop. The sweater made the trip to Utah with me a couple of weeks ago and it saw snow, so I don't yet feel that I have to completely abandon my love for wool!

ready made blog post

I've been feeling guilty about not posting lately. I have completed knitting, but no pictures yet. I can't think of any good products to talk about because Renee has cornered that in her "product of the week" segment. (I'm the mysterious friend btw). I have some book reviews that I want to write, but not the time to do it justice. I have some academic anecdotes, but well, they're only pseudo-bloggable. But I don't want to leave you all hanging. So when I saw this on Erika's blog I thought, what the hell. I'll check in quickly and give you all something to mull over.

Here you go my blog says I'm:

ISTP - The Mechanics

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts. The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.



Other than that policeman and firefighter thing, the personality is not entirely off. I'd like to think that I'm a little more complicated than that, but it does make sense given that I've discuss science and engineering more than once on the blog. I've never taken (to my knowledge) the real test, so I don't have basis for comparison. I did take the children's version once in grad school, my roommate was a school pysch major and I was a test subject. Taking the test that is written for a child when you are in your early 20's doesn't exactly give accurate results so, no real comparison there either.

I also found this interesting:


Do I talk alot about habits? I would have liked to think that I use more of my brain that that neat-o graphic shows...

A reason to change my name?

Did you? If not go. The internet will be here when you get back. This was the first time voting in the new state. We got up a little early and walked to our polling place not really knowing what to expect. There has been a lot of talk about long lines and that we should have early voted, neither of which were ever problems or options that I knew of in the old state. I've been feeling a bit fish out of water like down here in the South over the past few days, so I have to admit for the first time in my life I had a little trepidation about going to the polls.

So we wore comfy shoes and walked to the polls. When we arrived there was one very long line coming out the door. A women in front of us left saying she would come back, I cringed a little bit thinking that she might not come back and not voting is a crime in my book. Then there was some confusion. Turns out there were actually three lines, not one, and they were labeled only by district number nothing else distinguishing, and even that was a bit fuzzy on which line was which. How do you know your district number? It's on your registration card. I promptly pulled my card out of my purse located the number and we were in the right line. Which, was unfortunate because it was a much longer line. Folks around us realized the didn't have their cards, there's a number to call. Cell phones appeared from everywhere as people started dialing the registrar of voters line, which was busy. Then there was a lot of calling home to husbands/wives/mothers/roommates. There was another call of how do I find my number and I pulled out our cards again to show the women in front of us where the district number was. This time I pulled out hubby's card. Whoops. We're in the wrong line. No wait. We are in two different districts? What!? We live in the same house! We're married. Hubby went off to see what was up while I held our place in line, which early reports were saying took 1.5 hours, which was a bit odd because it was 7:25 and the polls opened at 6.

Turns out we're not in different districts in the sense we are used to using the term. We have the same reps and the same polling location and what not. District A is people with last names begining with A-K and District B is people with last names L-Z. Since I never changed my name we straddle that line, and officially belong to different districts, which really just means different lines when you vote. Hubby's line took 25 minutes less than mine, although he kindly waited in the school's lobby so we could walk home together.

Anyways, in the end we voted, as did everyone else there. Which is what really matters. I would have liked to see the process go a little more smoothly, but our voices were heard on the big matters today. Sadly, however, we didn't get the "I voted" stickers like we did back home. I missed the stickers, so I'm giving myself one on the blog. (I stole it from some other random blog so hopefully it's not copyrighted or anything).


On another, related note. Paul's post about campaigning gave me a warm fuzzy feeling as I remembered a moment from my youth. I, as Paul did, once stood on a street corner waving a sign and chanting a slogan of some sort, and cheering when someone beeped at us. My whole family did. All four of us, with hand painted signs and matching T-shirts. It wasn't for a presidential campaign, or even a state election, or an election at all. But a referedum on the school budget. One that wanted to cut art, music and foreign language from the cirriculum (or something equally abhorrent) and one we severely opposed. Or at least my parents did, so as a pre-teen I did too. Looking back as a free thinking adult, I'd stand on the corner again today.*

We have a family picture of us that day up somewhere in our house admist vaction photos, graduation photos, awards and the general trappings of a family life, there we are in those "Teacher's make a difference" T-shirts that only came in grown up size. My sister didn't have braces yet and I didn't have contacts and my mom would probably say "well that was the style" about her haircut. I can only imagine we won because the picture was put in a frame and has stuck around all these years. But either way, I know I was part of something that day. Part of something bigger than me. We all have that opportunity today, to be part of something bigger than ourselves. To be part of something that makes this country great. I didn't campaign for my candidate, I didn't even put up a lawn sign. Maybe I should have, maybe next time I will. Or maybe I won't find the time. It's easy to let things go by in favor of the other busy moments of our life, and there is nothing wrong with that. But at the very least we can all take the time to cast our votes. So go, now. The blog will be here when you get back. I promise.

* it's quite possible that it was the version of the budget that finally supported the arts and we were for it, it was almost 20 years ago so the details are a bit fuzzy...either way the feeling of the memory stands.